Posts by Sacha
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Speaker: It's called "planning" for a reason, in reply to tussock,
Also, all those dairy cows? Totally just shitting everywhere out in the open like a bunch of animals. If the farmers didn't concentrate it in ponds that flood into local streams now and then it wouldn't hurt either.
And I think you're under-rating the increasing concentration of pooing cattle as commercial imperatives drive farms to over-stock and fertilise beyond their local environment's ability to cope. Dead rivers don't lie.
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Speaker: It's called "planning" for a reason, in reply to tussock,
But we can't have public toilets out in the tourist spots, because local kids get drunk and vandalise them in the winter.
True in many places, sadly.
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Speaker: It's called "planning" for a reason, in reply to tussock,
Poo is quite a useful natural product.
Two wrinkles: used loopaper festooning the bush near any place a van can pull over, and giardia. Thanks, visitors.
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a touching faith in the Ministry of Tourism
Actually I'm somewhat cynical that you could get the Minister in question to move beyond smug relaxation about it. But that's what's needed - leadership rather than snivelling. Action. Ambition. Decency.
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Speaker: It's called "planning" for a reason, in reply to Islander,
Minister of Tourism would want that situation fixed, surely? Surcharge on the rental companies, nationally-funded toilet facilities all around the country or just ban the vans altogether.
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Speaker: It's called "planning" for a reason, in reply to Joshua Arbury,
Funding future demand rather than current patterns is a big shift for some
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Speaker: It's called "planning" for a reason, in reply to Islander,
the whacking great tourist hordes who come through here and who, in a most literal way, dont even clean up their own shit.
Yes, I'd be putting a lot of pressure on your elected councillors to sort out the 'freedom' campers, the dirty bastards.
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Roads, drains and resource management would chew up a fair bit of the Coast's council spending, along with the regional economic development, tourism promotion and so on that councils also share.
DHB funding for ambulance and local hospital services would be quite stretched by the low population density too. But the natural spendour, kaimoana and community might provide some compensation..
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Ben, the mall is only half the size it will be and with no mitigation of the extra induced traffic. I'm glad you got in there easily today but it doesn't really say much about the proposed expansion.
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Speaker: It's called "planning" for a reason, in reply to Kyle Matthews,
The "auckland reasoning" seems to imply that the rest of the country is lucky to get government welfare for its projects, whereas in Auckland it's deserved. The language needs to change.
I'm not sure what you are reading - examples welcome. I've always heard Aucklanders acknowledge the rest of the country as worthy of investment. Many of us travel, work and have relatives and friends all over this fine land so we'd be silly not to.
Sure, there has been a clear trend for at least the last 6 years to identify Auckland as the only place in this country that will ever have the scale to be compete for business and people on the world stage with other city-regions. That's a worldwide trend in economic development thinking and I haven't seen the reasoning seriously disputed though there is bound to be some grumbling (just like in places like Adelaide and Brighton). It doesn't change the strengths of other centres in particular industries like software, electronics, farming services, biotechnology, film and food production, etc. But it does mean the proposed national convention centre is not going to be anywhere else, for instance.
Maybe some of the 'language' is in response to knowing that the Auckland region has been under-invested in by successive governments and public agencies for decades even on a population basis, let alone potential cost-benefit? Current examples include promoting the Puhoi holiday highway to Northland above the Auckland central rail loop designed to future-proof the region's whole rail network for massive population increases over the next half century (and with more than three times the economic benefits per dollar spent). Another classic from the same sector would be Wellington's new trains being mostly paid for by all New Zealanders, but Auckland's ones to be paid for by.. you guessed it, Aucklanders.
That type of behaviour holds back the region from achieving some of those global scale multipliers that only large enough places in each country can have. The whole of New Zealand could do with the extra income, skilled people, opportunities and attention it can bring us. Large projects anywhere will always require some government investment or at least approval. It needs to count.