Posts by Sacha
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/waves hands magically
Look, a pony!That's a jolly good answer
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if significant savings wasn't the point of super sizing the city, what was?
See, that's the funny thing. Most city/regions would be happy to regularly rate in the top ten places to live in the whole world.
We've heard about problems with coordination in transport and long term planning - which were being addressed already through regional initiatives like the Auckland Sustainability Framework and the Regional Growth Strategy. Increasing ARC's power within a reasonably tight scope would have fixed most remaining issues there, quickly and cheaply. Instead we get another flavour of built-in fragmentation with CCO silos in most of the relevant functions.
The Royal Commission identified problems with lack of civic engagement - which Hide/Key/Joyce and co addressed by replacing six strong second-tier local councils with their emasculated local boards. Uh huh.
We know that similar amalgamations overseas have not saved any money, so that can't be it. Even Hide has stopped claiming that and as Russell says, wait until the 9 figure bills start rolling in after the election in October.
The group of people who complained loudest about the need for a more coordinated and 'efficient' approach? Property and infrastructure developers who faced multiple district plans and interpretations of consents, poor dears. Of course they expect the ratepayers to shoulder the bill for those "improvements" in line with the usual socialising loss, privatising profit model that props up their lack of ambition and competence.
Government has similarly dictated that Auckland will pay the bill for this change, despite deliberate removal of our standard right of a referendum about it under the Local Government Act.
So that long awaited public pool for Otahuhu, those pothole repairs in Devonport, that after-school programme in New Lynn - all secretly pissed into the pockets of big consultants like PriceWaterhouse instead.
The head of the Infrstructure Council has a revealing turn of phrase in yesterdays' Herald as he defended proposed CCOs:
The reason Auckland was in the current mess, Mr Selwood said, was because local politicians had failed to deliver the results expected of them.
Mess? Expected by whom?
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That's the thing - just address the problem behaviour directly rather than making all sorts of stereotypical assumptions about whole groups of people who might exhibit it. Rudeness is pretty universal.
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Thanks for the tip. I'm sure Hide managed to contradict reality as usual. Have been working this eve and missed what sounded like interesting Campbell Live too.
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Just swap the before and after shots, she'll be right
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I sense an opportunity for redemption, Giovanni - perhaps some illustrations of what mining might actually look like in our conservation estate.
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What is the problem with studying a "wide variety of different cultures?"
Nice try sunshine - not me who seems to have an issue with culture being plural
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Somehow the quaint colonial mindset that "art" requires a functioning capitalist market for oils and busts along with universities full of nonces just like the homeland seems to have survived exposure to our local Auckland University art history department - here's what they say about themselves:
ART HISTORY explores visual culture and offers ways to learn about images and how to understand them.
We study art from many different periods and places, giving insight into a wide variety of different cultures, ranging from antiquity to the contemporary, from Europe and America, to New Zealand and the Pacific.
variety of cultures?, antiquity?, Pacific?
gasp, splutter -
... nor how much income will accrue to New Zealand.
From t'other thread, I/S noted a relevant regional economic impact paper (PDF 1.9MB), which ex-Conservation Minister Chris Carter has raised on Red Alert.
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See, philosophy is just a plot to make Avatar seem more appealing