Posts by Sacha
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Hard News: The Minister's Brain Has Exploded, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
To be quite blunt about it, Sacha, that goes both ways
No, it doesn't. When someone pays you to provide a service, they tend to have the upper hand in the relationship - whether that's fair or not. $35m is not chump change. Veolia aren't a charity and they're free to resign the contract if they can't meet its terms.
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Hard News: The Minister's Brain Has Exploded, in reply to Joshua Arbury,
Another interesting thing Doug McKay seemed to be saying was that McCully's announcements don't really change anything.
From a TV3 report of the meeting, compare Council CEO Doug McKay (not a 'councillor', guys):
“The headlines in the newspapers about the Government seizing control of the water front is just not a reality”
...“We do not need the Rugby World Cup legislation to make street closures. We do this every day of the week"
with McCully from that story:
“It’s quite clear that Auckland city is in charge of Auckland city - but as far as the waterfront precinct is concerned we need to make some urgent arrangements to ensure public safety and ensure amenities for this weekend”
and from another story
“Powers have been given to me under the legislation and I'm exercising those powers - the buck stops with me."
Like I say, small wharf syndrome.
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Hard News: The Minister's Brain Has Exploded, in reply to Gareth Ward,
"Party Central Wharf only able to hold 12,000 people"
Minister's wharf too small..
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Joshua Arbury reports in his usual comprehensive fashion after attending the committee meeting.
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Stories from today's RadioNZ Checkpoint show:
About the govt's behaviour yesterday, from parliamentary question time (3 mins, listening options).
From today's committee meeting, including about crowd number forecasts (3 mins, listening options).
Committee chair Richard Northey, including about compensation (6 mins, listening options).
Independent inquiry launched (5 mins, listening options) - letter with terms of reference is appended to Auckland Transport's report to the Council committee.
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Hard News: The Minister's Brain Has Exploded, in reply to nzlemming,
Key on Radio NZ named one of MED's Deputy Secretaries as the person in question. Presumably the one dedicated to the Cloud/RWC project.
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Hard News: The Minister's Brain Has Exploded, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
I doubt you can call the funder commissioning another independent report by a lawyer or demanding to station their own staff in Veolia's control room a vote of confidence.
The first page of Auckland Transport's report to the Council committee notes:
Assurances were given by Veolia that measures would be put in place to address customer concerns following the Bledisloe Cup match in August 2011. Despite these assurances, it is clear these measures were not implemented.
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Forecasting of waterfront crowd numbers seems to have been incompetent from what's been reported of today's committee meeting.
ATEED's report also confirms that television marketing considerations and the perceived importance of 'Party Central' drove placement and overruled options like opening more dispersed fanzones or extending provision inland. Downplaying the success of their own pre-event marketing must have been hard to swallow.
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Hard News: The Minister's Brain Has Exploded, in reply to John Holley,
Page 6 in ATEED's report says that the number of assaults and hospitalisations were reported as no more than a standard Friday night. Have I missed a statement about usual pedestrian numbers?
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Hard News: The Minister's Brain Has Exploded, in reply to recordari,
I'm up to half time
No live tv coverage (beyond Sky I presume)? boo