Posts by Sacha
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Hard News: The Politics of Absence, in reply to Ian Dalziel,
and all other Financial woes and mismanagement are still Labour's fault!
while media faithfully report Key denying all responsibility, exactly as intended
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Hard News: The Politics of Absence, in reply to Ian Dalziel,
petulant schoolkids
That childish eye-rolling clip yesterday should be repeated rather a lot.
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Hard News: The Politics of Absence, in reply to DexterX,
National were blindsided by the credit rating down grade
That's the claim..
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Hard News: Angry and thrilled about Arie, in reply to Just thinking,
We know there were looters - I linked to that Portobello story myself. The allegation that any were emergency services is new.
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Joel Cayford notes a prime reason for the opening night chaos.
Planning is everything when it comes to managing crowds at events.
200,000 people plus attend Christmas events and others of similar size on the Domain. They come from far and wide. But they come. Those events last a good long time. Some might have a fireworks display but it's just a part of a several hours of entertainment, and people come gradually, throughout the evening, and some go before the big bang. Still had a good time.
Those in charge of Rugby World Cup festivities in Auckland made the mistake of emphasising one specific event which required people to be at the waterfront at a very specific time. This was the fireworks display. 15 minutes. And it was heavily promoted. It was a beautiful night. Everyone came. They demanded transport. Demand exceeded peak. Gridlock. Q.E.D.
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A repeat performance is almost guaranteed if the powers that be decide there will be a fireworks display at the end of the RWC tournament that you can only see from the Waterfront, and that you see best from the VIP platform at the end of Queens Wharf.
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A constrast in messaging and styles, and some sly porkies: the earlier-mentioned Labour and National candidates for Auckland Central talk about the economy in the latest of their regular paired Herald columns (titled with geriatric humour).
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Hard News: The Politics of Absence, in reply to Sacha,
And is Key's face - or voice - a branding element for National?
snap, rhinocrates
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Hard News: The Politics of Absence, in reply to Idiot Savant,
the Electoral Act says its an election advertisement if it "may reasonably be regarded" as encouraging support. The Broadcasting Act says its an election programme if it encourages support. That seems to be a tighter test, so politicians may in fact be free to advertise themselves on TV or radio, provided they never explicitly ask for votes
Someone on Dimpost or Te Standard wondered how billboards without explicit 'vote' elements would be treated. Imagine if half the Greens' ones had no wording, just the picture.
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Hard News: The Politics of Absence, in reply to Paul Williams,
It was considered by the Royal Commission, but I don't remember the details. The subsequent Americanisation of our political landscape and ongoing influence of lobbyists and donors might cast a different light today.
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The review report commissioned by Auckland Transport seems to have been a bit of a wet bus ticket. Transport bloggers Joshua Arbury and AKT discuss it.
However the politics have paid off handsomely for the government, with 75% of respondents in a recent poll blaming the Council, not the government who decreed a stately party central and had a strong presence at the planning table throughout.
That PR success has further emboldened McCully. As predicted by many, he is rewriting history to take credit for the smooth running since opening night (though subsequent crowds were never going to be the same size), and twisting the knife after last night's stoushy Auckland Council meeting over approving more funding.
He was pleased the council had decided to "do more" to provide for the public during the tournament.
"We are, though, two-thirds of the way through the tournament and the fact that Auckland Council is at this stage voting on the casting vote of the mayor to put some more resource into the public entertainment space just reinforces the need for the Government to have acted speedily and with certainty at the beginning of the tournament, which is what we did," he said.
There had been "a fair bit of activity in the news media" after the opening night of the tournament on September 9. Stories emerged about overloaded trains, cancelled ferries and people trapped in the waterfront crowds.
"Some shortcomings were identified and people asked who was going to take responsibility to fix them and I said that the Government would and that the Government would pay to fix those short-comings. That is what we did," McCully said.
"Having been there on each of the last few weekends, not to have closed Quay St each of those weekends would have been to invite exactly the same sort of problems that we saw reported on opening night.
"I'm absolutely adamant we've done the right thing there."