You're right, I remember giving a literature seminar on it in the 80s – I just forgot how old I am :(.

“Vector, we supply electricity unless it is a bit windy or there is a spot of rain about”

Incompetent rtrds, the minister of energy needs to re-nationalise them.

Try 40 years! I clearly remember answering University exam question sea level rise and increased stormyness in the late 1970s

and The Muppets capture the hunt aspects:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gpin2AUAdk

At least the reporter was savvy enough to work this simple fact out: "If Labour manages to wrest the seat off National, it'll gain a seat in Parliament and National will lose one." – unlike the reporting on 'Labour's…

Based on the state of our local corner shop right now, they'll hit any old thing. Someone managed to swerve around a slight jink in the road, ignoring the four-way compulsory stop, and somehow swing through 180 degrees and…

To put it bluntly: generally something with a much more defined and narrow impact. Car vs pole affects dozens of people at a minimum, but it can be hundreds or even thousands.
Car vs house affects a family,…

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11977418

Regarding the failures of successive local governments to address this and the other issues mentioned, you would have to accept some of the blame can be laid at the voters who put these people in power. If we weren't all collectively greedy, narrow minded and…

I agree, with respect to the risk from weather. Although I'd note that climate change and its effect on extreme weather events was well known 20 years ago – it was however loudly denied.

But that doesn't alter the discussion with…

WTF. It's been known for decades that undergrounding protects the lines and reduces maintenance costs and reduces road accidents.

It's not hindsight, it's an utter failure of management.

And yes it will cost $3 billion to underground now.

But that cost only exists because of mismanagement for the last two decades.

People have to make choices and sometimes they’ll get it wrong because the future is complex.

But the desire to blame individuals is strong…

I'm not even slightly kidding when I say that one of the big attractions of Aotearoa for me is the broadband. Here in Sydney our "transition to the NBN" will involve keeping out cable…

[Vector CEO Simon Mackenzie] says undergrounding costs from four to 10 times as much as running the cables above ground. Vector's rough estimate is that to put all remaining cables underground, just within the urban limits, never mind about the west coast,…

Our trees were being battered from the west side in that storm. The leaves are noticeably more stripped on the west side of the trees. Cannot believe they are still standing tbh.

Also, despite…

Exactly.

Although some big-assed trees came down last Tuesday. The gum tree by the supermarket in Richmond Road, for instance, was apparently healthy. I wonder if the way the most extreme winds were very localised might also…

Welli's most likely trees would have already fallen down in your normal breezes.

This led Vector management to blame Aucklanders for having trees that could blow over onto the lines that Vector should have been putting underground for the last two decades.

The process of ordering and getting approvals however, that’s a whole different story.

Dammit, that…

But not until Saturday, it seems. Or, at least, not perturbed enough to justify being briefed by AEM until Saturday.

As an aside, were any of the local MPs visible throughout this? One thing I find odd is that often the parties with list MPs are near invisible. That needs to change.

That last bit is crucial. A declaration of a state of emergency is, by law, a political decision; the only people who are empowered to declare a state of emergency are specific local-body politicians…

This is from the Auckland Emergency Management action plan presented on Saturday. I think the way to read it is that the new upwards flow of information to the political layer (the minister and MPs) was prompted by some "please explain" questions, because it's not…

Which is good, because I'd been feeling like the Herald was kind of missing an important story.

(I kid, sea level rise…

We (or at least, our media) are more interested in assessing Auckland superficially, through meaningless international surveys ("5th most…

So what side of the bridge is he talking about? Also, I think a drinking game involving every time a National MP says "hard working" wouldn't last very long until everyone was drop dead drunk.

The hard-working people of Northcote are not a piggy bank for Phil Goff, Jacinda Ardern and Winston Peters to raid to pay for pet projects on…

And you're right.

But it isn't as straightforward as saying it wasn't…