Posts by Sacha
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tell you to slow down
Please do - especially if it's a party. Practice on Friday?
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At last, some proper bloody questioning - go John Campbell. From the same wonderful AKT blog (yay for transport bloggers), Hide in Wonderland: Super-Secret Transport Agency “Increases Transparency!" about Hide's surreal Campbell Live appearance last night. Here's AKT transcribing the Minister:
There’s no transparency and accountability, and that’s why transport isn’t working in Auckland. What the government is saying is we’re going to fix this. We’re going to have an elected council. We’re going to have elected local boards. They’re going to set the strategy. They’re going to set the direction for Auckland.
On top of that, we’re going to have CCOs like we have but we’re going to rationalise them. They’re going to be following the direction and the policy and vision that the Auckland council sets, and the transport agency and the other CCOs are going to be held to account for service and delivery. That’s what the people of Auckland want.
Uh huh - so local boards will set strategy then? Transport has been hamstrung not by lack of central-government-controlled funding but by lack of local accountability? Hide even denies that 8 of the 9 transport agencies to be merged into the new Transport CCO currently hold their meetings in public (because they're Councils). What a muppet.
the Water CCO will effectively be the boss of the Auckland Council for some time after the council is elected, into 2012 -- it will even be able to dictate bylaws. And they can all run up debts in the name of ratepayers.
..and sell assets or enter into binding long-term private contracts - with the maximum term for water contracts coincidentally increasing to 35 years.
Sure, the Council can fire the board members (after it finds out what they've done), but would no doubt face standard commercial compensation for breaking any contracts. Most would baulk at 35 years worth of break fees.
The 3rd bill also proposes that the Water CCO is only bound by normal local body official information obligations until mid 2012 (coincidentally when restrictions on privatisation, etc, are lifted). Leaves a tasty window for some underhandedness before the next local elections in 2013. And Aucklanders are not allowed to use any voting system but FPP at those.
None of this is accidental, though there are no doubt drafting errors elsewhere because of the obscene haste which the Royal Commission warned against in light of overseas experience. But then that would constitute evidence-based policy..
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Sounds great, and serious about following up further in a more low key way. Wonder why I don't recall, given that forgetting is usually my challenge? Pain levels must have been higher than I thought - 'twere a right stormy night.
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Give it a break, Robbie. You do not know anything more than you've read in the paper and your repetition is getting tiresome.
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One of Arnie's first acts in office was to pardon the Enron fraudsters who had gamed California's energy system for billions. His campaign contributors certainly got their money's worth.
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You laid out your master plan for the next 30 years
Heck, I wish someone had recorded that - if only to stop me doing it again :)
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I still don't remember what we discussed that night
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'Interview' starts from about 6 mins into clip from CloseUp.
Rodney Hide claims that CCO board members will be appointed "by Cabinet" and "in consultation with Auckland" - and that the new Council can sack them right away if they like. Shame that's not what his 3rd Bill says.
Many have tried to reason with Hide but after many months the deluded little fool is still talking about Councils purely as providers of services for a price, not also centres of local democratic engagement.
The rest of New Zealand is next.
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ENTJ? shudder
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Click on any of the 16 MBTI types in the table on the right to go to its in-depth topic. Trying to remember what I was last time..