John Key’s u-turn on Auckland City Rail is all smoke, mirrors and sleight of hand stealth of the common good. Phil Twyford and the Auckland Transport Blog are skeptical. Funding? Roads over public transport? Asset sales?
The leaderless uprising in Brazil exposes unbearable inequalities in a dysfunctional post-growth world. Extravagant sports events and expensive stadium contrast with anti-public service austerity measures. Home building lags in Christchurch, while Key looks to asset sales to fund a stadium.
As widely anticipated, Lianne Dalziel has confirmed that she will stand for Mayor of Christchurch.
The NZ Transport Agency’s “Drive Social” programme looks like one gigantic waste of money, and the Greens are hammering it. Key’s response? “They just want everyone to cycle everywhere.” Is he looking a little tired to anyone else?
Water is becoming a precious resource, under threat from pollution, over use, population growth, & commercial profiteering. The Green & Labour Parties are very critical of Key’s government weakening the RMA in favour of commercial gains, while over-riding local government plans.
John Armstrong follows Lusk’s plan in attacking The Green Party’s democratic change to Conference remit procedures. Isaac Davison gives a more balanced account& points to preparation for a Labour-Green government. How much bottom-up democracy can there be in a top-down parliamentary system?
Housing Minister Nick Smith had ominous words for Auckland. Hands up all you Aucklanders who are keen to sacrifice quality housing?
Yesterday in Question Time, Green MP Holly Walker challenged to government’s anti-democratic rush to enable the government to over-ride local councils on housing. Today Russel Norman challenges the Key government’s anti-democratic processes. This weekend there is a democratic Green Party conference.
Today – by 5pm – is the last day to submit on the draft of Auckland’s Unitary Plan. Generation Zero have made it easy for you with a quick submission form.
“The Auckland that never was” in my view is the most interesting chapter in Chris Trotter’s “NO LEFT TURN”. It details the Ministry of Works’ post-war plan outlined in a document The Shape of Things to Come that was scrapped by the Sid Holland National party. Now we see history repeating itself. In what Labour accurately describes as a “War on Auckland” Key, Joyce and Brownlie are following in the footsteps of the much unloved Sid Holland.
The draft unitary plan, while not perfect, is a key part of making Auckland the most livable city. The plan is a progressive […]
Nick Smith has a long history of slippery dealings. He apologises but accepts no blame, then is resurrected: contempt of court, a defamation case, the Pullar-ACC “conflict of interest”, bad faith negotiations with Auckland Council, the Denniston Plateau deal. Yesterday on RNZ, Smith exposed the government’s agenda on mining conservation land.
Yesterday’s budget is a sop to affordable housing & aims to privatise state housing. Penny Hulse says the government’s related “housing accord” Bill is at odds with the agreement her council has not yet ratified. It overrides local democracy & endangers the AKL “agreement”. [Update] Waitakere News analysis
A reader sent us a comment from another blog by someone who was polled a couple of weeks back. The questions are very interesting, especially once you realise that it’s clearly being done for National and the Right in Auckland (one of the questions gives it away). Have a read, then I’ll tell you why I reckon the Nats are going to fund the City Rail Link in the Budget.
KiwiBuild has already been a success, scaring the Nats in to producing, in conjunction with Len Brown’s Auckland, a more significant housing policy. The “Unitary Plan” is woefully short on detail, but it concedes that KiwiBuild’s target of 10,000 new homes a year is easily achievable (I guess it’s only impossible when Labour propose it).
Today’s NZ Herald editorial on Auckland’s up-coming mayoral election campaign, says Brown has vision, but Minto and Williamson lack it. What sort of vision should the left provide in the up-coming local authority elections around NZ, and in NZ’s parliamentary elections in 2014?
To the Herald the Fourth Estate must be a greenfield development on the outer margins of Auckland: a Dickensian space, hiding the poor from the upper middle-classes. The Herald lacks critical balance & equal weighting for diverse views: it scaremongers about the Akl Unitary Plan & undermines public transport.
The draft Auckland Unitary Plan is massive and complex. The Auckland Transport Blog helps in untangling issues around intensification vs sprawl. The government & some right wing councillors want sprawl & to delay implementation. The Akl Council website has some cool videos visualising the planned developments. And social housing?
Hard to believe, but despite having a Green Party mayor the Wellington City Council is about to outsource work currently done by council […]
The Draft Auckland Unitary Plan has much to commend it. It focuses on resource management, responds to the reality of climate change & aims for a more dense but ‘liveable’ city. It has weaknesses, embraces destructive “growth” and raises questions: e.g. about affordable housing & environmental management.
King Brownlee can do pretty much what he likes in Christchurch. And what he wants to do is fuck all. When I was in Christchurch recently, I was deeply disturbed by the lack of rebuild, and the vibe. People feel it. People get angry. When people get angry, Brownlee looks for someone else to blame. Now, he’s doubling down by interfering in the coming local elections.
Phil Twyford is the Labour MP for Te Atatu, and Labour’s spokesperson on Housing and Auckland Issues. He is also asking the same questions that many Aucklanders keep asking as they watch a succession of government ministers trying to valiantly advance backwards into Auckland’s past with no obvious purpose.
Nick Smith, of the forked tongue, is challenging Auckland council’s plan for affordable compact housing. It will do nothing for housing affordability, transport, the environment. It is undemocratic, over-rides the council, and will enrich developers.
No Right Turn with the latest on National’s ongoing annexation of Canterbury.
I/S at No Right Turn on the Nats’ contempt for democracy in Canterbury. Elections remain on hold so that the commissioners’ agenda can be completed without unwelcome input from urban representation.
It’s 9 months until polls close in the 2013 local body elections. Len Brown has just been rated the 7th best mayor in the world. So, who’s going to stand up from the Right? 9 months is no time to get the brand recognition needed to take the most powerful political job in the country outside Cabinet’s top 5. Does no rightie want to run because they’re sure to lose?
The House went into recess yesterday. Today there is a rush of stories that are bad news for the government. Collins and the Binnie report, unsuccessful boot camps, and counter-productive anti-union and anti-worker policies. What else?
The Key government’s sham and failed ideology of freedom and democracy can be seen in two Bills that were before the House this week. This government is increasingly autocratic and anti-democratic, while enabling the powerful to exploit and control the powerless, including children.
No Right Turn on the Nats’ contemplating yet another way to trample on democracy in Christchurch.
Like many other well-paid people in their 30’s. Lyn is getting depressed watching a toehold Auckland property disappear out of her grasp. Of course the well rounded gits in Wellington will get ‘worried’ about this and want to make property available 50kms away. But spending an hour or two of your life driving each day is hardly useful to anyone apart from the land bankers, property developers and used car sales who seem to be of such importance to the National party.
NActUF use a lot of finely-honed, diversionary and distorting spin. However, when debating 2 Private Members’ Bills yesterday, government MPs couldn’t even be bothered trying too hard; the hypocrisy was glaring and the spin clumsy – showing clearly the differences between left & right wing principles.
Darien Fenton’s “Keep Public Libraries Free” Bill will soon be getting its first reading in parliament. Public libraries are an important community resource. Keeping their resources and services free contributes to social inclusion and participatory democracy.
No Right Turn on the overthrow of local democracy in Canterbury…
John Key is wrong, John Banks has broken the law. He just did not get prosecuted. The return of donations he signed and submitted in 2010 is false, as the Police have stated. He should now correct it, or he is still in breach of the law.
The Police Report into the Banks.com affair, which Labour has distributed to the media, is a gold mine. Banks is shown to be a liar and completely unethical. He insisted that Dotcom’s donation be anonymised. He used the donations, which he had told media he didn’t remember, as an excuse not to help Dotcom while a minister. Banks is lying low now. Key has to sack him.
My OIA request for the Police file of their investigation into Banks’ anonymous donations arrived today. John Key had said the law would be changed if “they could find the time.” Today David Carter found the time to say the law will be tightened before the 2013 elections.It will be very important that all the lessons from this sorry affair can be properly considered at select committee.
