Posts by Sacha
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Hard News: What Now?, in reply to Matthew Poole,
someone needs to do a very loud, very public denunciation
You'd expect someone in a leadership role to do that, yes. The responsible Minister, perhaps. Please feel free to contact her about it.
Here's Tariana Turia's media release celebrating Waitangi Day ceremonies being delivered in all three languages.
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Have they found out yet who ordered that church in Sydenham demolished?
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Hard News: What Now?, in reply to Scott A,
I sympathise with our commissar. (Gags a little)
Heh
if it comes down to it, and the call has to be made between 'heritage' and 'safe,' I know where I'm going to lend my support.
It's a false dichotomy. As others have pointed out, the CTV and PGC buildings that account for most of the deaths are hardly heritage ones.
What's big Gerry going to do, bowl anything he doesn't like the look of? This from a bloke who prefers his conservation areas to be open-cast.
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Hard News: What Now?, in reply to Matthew Poole,
And if it turns out to have been a generally-expressed objection, then a very public "You're disgusting" from the HDC is in order.
The Office of the Health and Disability Commissioner has no jurisdiction over services beyond the traditionally-defined health or disability sectors (which don't include CDEM, other local government or police).
They can also only address the quality of services provided, not any refused or absent. This was raised at their last couple of regular legislative reviews, but goverments chose not to do anything about it.
The Human Rights Commission could accept a case about discrimination I guess, but the current ones about sleepovers and family carers should give some idea both of how much sustained effort such processes take and how governments respond to them.
Am looking forward to hearing more about this story myself.
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Hard News: What Now?, in reply to Matthew Poole,
Tall != unsafe.
True. I'm thinking about rejigging the population density.
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Hard News: What Now?, in reply to Matthew Poole,
a spread-out city that has designed satellite BDs that're connected with rapid transit networks
I like the idea that existing business and retail concentrations outside the CBD could be beefed up, with integrated transport as you say and fast fibre networks.
I'd add nearby low-rise apartments to intensify populations within walking distance (especially as peak oil bites, making driving a luxury). Many residents of marginal suburbs would have to move in that direction or displace those who do. Future population growth would be around hubs, not sprawling out into the countryside alongside Joyce's big roads.
The gaps in the current cbd could be filled by safe, low-rise buildings containing high-value small businesses (including recreation) and apartments. Together with the surviving current buildings, it would still form one of the city's business centres. Public parks and resurrected wetlands could fill the diciest land both there and further afield. Neighbourhood gardens and orchards everywhere would add resilience, connected to local schools. The balance of the centre's function would shift more towards living and playing than working.
But this would have to make sense to locals. Flipping the city inside-out would take a fair bit of boldness, even if it's feasible. Just the zoning and rating changes would be huge. I for one want to see the current huge sacrifice our friends are making produce a better city for them and their children. But I can also understand the human desire simply to restore what has been there before. And the huge investment in what remains.
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A follow-up about a sideline dear to my heart. Paul Holmes writes about the highly-visible presence of NZ Sign Language interpreters during #eqnz media briefings.
The amount he admits not knowing despite his long-time involvement with the Paralympics just shows the silo-ing that's common in disability circles - and the crying need for investment in widespread public awareness.
By the way, the community of people who share a culture and use Sign Language are Deaf with a capital D. Small d deaf means anyone with impaired hearing, most of whom aren't Deaf. Oh, and Sign Language gets capitals like any other language such as English, Samoan or Korean. Now you know more than most editors. :)
But the person I cannot take my eyes off this week is Jeremy Borland, the sign language interpreter at the Christchurch news briefings.
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If you are deaf and you are arrested you can demand a sign language interpreter in court but that really is the only place officialdom in normal life goes out of its way to recognise our third official language, which it became in late 2005. I had no idea until this week that signing was our third official language.
It seems shameful that only now, five years on, do we suddenly see a sign language interpreter at important emergency briefings. I understand that after the recent Queensland hurricane and the Christchurch emergency, the New Zealand deaf community stood up. They'd seen the service the deaf and hearing impaired got during the Australian crisis.
My understanding is that the media here objected to the presence of a sign language interpreter. Shame on us. They didn't want a signer in the shots. The deaf community went all the way up to the Prime Minister's office and the directive came down.
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I always imagined signing would have a fairly limited range. Why I always thought that, I've no idea. I wonder whether there shouldn't be a signer at Prime Ministerial press conferences. Why shouldn't there be?
Perhaps in Parliament itself, during Question Time? Probably not. A signer can probably only interpret someone speaking sense.
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Commissar gagging to flatten heritage buildings.
The Minister, Gerry Brownlee, told a media briefing this afternoon that if he has his way, most of Christchurch's heritage buildings would be bowled tomorrow.
He says the old buildings have killed people when they toppled during the earthquake and they can not remain.
Mr Brownlee says he would like to see resources go into re-building the Christchurch Cathedral, the Catholic Basilica, the Provincial Chambers and the Arts Centre - "but that's it."
Let's see how reasonable and evidence-based the decison process about this will be, shall we.
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Official reports show concern about the stability of the ground under the CTV and PGC buildings, despite both being found OK after the September quake.
The two buildings that claimed the greatest number of lives in the earthquake were built on soft soil prone to a "large increase in shaking" and with high susceptibility to liquefaction.
The risks are outlined in Quotable Value property-hazard reports which reveal common features of concern for the sites of the Canterbury Television and Pyne Gould Corporation buildings, in which more than 100 people were killed.
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Mr Key said yesterday that a third of the buildings in central Christchurch might have to be demolished.
Before they could be replaced, geotechnical work would have to be done on the land, and deep piles could be needed to reach solid ground.
"We are talking two years before you see much," he told NewstalkZB. "In five years you will see quite a bit, in 10 years you will see a lot."
Rebuilding Christchurch would be "a 15-year job".
And an implication from Key about shaping the city:
He suggested that because of the number of central-city buildings under threat of demolition, Christchurch might develop as a city with large satellite business districts.
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Hard News: What Now?, in reply to Matthew Poole,
If "you" means me specifically
Really not my day. By 'you' I meant me. And I'm acknowledging the difference between mine and prevailing public knowledge. Yours too.
Interesting you tangled with ATA though. Imagine we'll be seeing the impact of their work for some time - worth considering for those trying to pin decisions on the new Council still constrained by those big previous decisions and assumptions. Not that I'm saying you made any.