Posts by Russell Brown
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Hard News: Competing for Auckland, in reply to Alec Morgan,
Brown should go down.
No offence, but if the major motivation is to exact vengeance on Brown for perceived ideological backsliding, it's not doing it for me. It seems like everything that's wrong with "The Left".
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Hard News: Competing for Auckland, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
I think he’s got more of a chance than the right and soft left think. RAM got into six figures in ARC elections a few years ago, and they’re pretty left wing (being more or less an SWP front).
Partly because no one knew who they were in 2007, I think. They dissolved after coming second-to-last (with 465 votes) in the 2008 General Election.
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Hard News: Competing for Auckland, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
And if you’re one of those tiresome old fucks who can’t drive – or afford to run a car – and still requires reasonable access to medical services? This isn’t just ignorant beyond belief, but downright callous.
The weird thing is that apartment living -- low-maintenance, secure, close to services -- has a lot to offer older Aucklanders.
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Hard News: Competing for Auckland, in reply to Sacha,
Taking the argument to new lows, Canute is alive and well in Warkworth. Prime example of imagining the future being the same as today except for the thing you don’t like. In his case, more people. Solutions include banning refugees and making people move into retirement villages in other parts of NZ away from their families.
Also:
The fees at Auckland learning institutes should be increased and those elsewhere removed or reduced significantly.
And:
Without so many Kiwis emigrating to Australia over the last decade, Auckland's congestion would have been far worse. A carrot in the form of cheap airfares to Australia should be looked at to continue this emigration.
And:
As so much of the population increase is likely to come from an increase in births, a decrease is urgent. Incentives need to be provided such as free contraception, especially to those under 20 years of age. The provision of family benefits regardless of whether you have two or 10 children should be looked at.
Because we don't want any young people in our city?
That column is completely mad.
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Hard News: Competing for Auckland, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
Bad construction and ill-conceived design has no more intrinsic merit in a house than an apartment block.
Quite. And the Unitary Plan actually offers some more control over bad development.
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So Bernard Orsman has gone full nimby, because of course the proper way of assessing the merits of a 30-year plan is to point fingers at where current city councillors live. (Spoiler: in houses.)
It's a fatuous and petty argument. Would the Plan suddenly be visionary if the councillors moved into apartments? What the hell has happened to Orsman?
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Hard News: Friday Music: No longer…, in reply to Grant McDougall,
Apart from these acts, there’s also several other very, very good young bands around Dunedin at present; I reckon the local scene is the best it’s been several years’ primarily due to these bands and their associated bands.
See, back in the day, some half-mad manager would have booked three or four of them as a roadshow and taken it to the nation. But no one drives any more.
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Hard News: Spread the Noise, in reply to Paul Millar,
I experienced the shallow-breathing you mention when I looked at the latest archive we’ve just finished prepared to go into the CEISMIC earthquake archive. It is every edition of The Press between 4 Sept 2010 and 22 Feb 2012 and some of it is very poignant. The 11/12 sept ‘Tribute Edition’ will have you smiling and crying.
Congratulations! You'll recall that Media3 was at the function where Andrew Holden announced the gift of the Press archive, so I'm delighted to see it delivered. Looks great. I'll see if we can squeeze it in the show this week.
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Hard News: Spread the Noise, in reply to Jeremy Andrew,
Could you then be ensanguinated if you were more optimistic because you were covered in someone else’s blood?
"Hey -- at least this isn't my blood I'm covered in!"
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Hard News: Competing for Auckland, in reply to Glenn Pearce,
Sorry to highjack the mayoralty thread with Unitary Plan.
Not at all. It's clearly going to be a key issue.
I guess that in my hood -- The Chev -- it's easier to envisage. Four-storey developments along the south side of Great North Road, overlooking the motorway, will be a good use of the existing land. I get that it's not so straightforward on the other side of the main road -- and there are already issues about school capacity -- but it seems to make sense in principle.
I think that when the Waterview Connection is completed and it's not possible to get on the motorway at Carrington, it'll be very efficient to shuttle people to the Mt Albert railway station too,