Posts by Russell Brown
-
Hard News: SpinCity, in reply to Graeme Edgeler,
Maybe 230 is the level at which you get a good bulk purchasing discount? Or that will fit in a certain area of casino floor that will be made available?
Joyce has now confirmed in interviews that the 230 is a negotiated figure, not a logistical one. Even claimed credit for talking it down to that entirely coincidental number.
-
Legal Beagle: $420,259.33, in reply to BenWilson,
He’s allowed to write about whatever interests him, and today, this is that subject. Keeping politicians honest is a perfectly noble journalistic cause, and if the target is Labour, it is worth noting that they’re hardly some poor starving beneficiary family who don’t deserve attention. From time to time, they run the entire country. They’re worth keeping honest, for everyone’s good.
Indeed.
-
Hard News: SpinCity, in reply to Eediot,
Does anyone know exactly where this will be located? I read conjecture about the TVNZ site being required and TVNZ knowing nothing about it but this seems unlikely surely.
It seems unlikely. But TVNZ's building was on the table long before the TVNZ board read about it in the paper.
-
Hard News: SpinCity, in reply to Bart Janssen,
Which was a good thing. It would have been better if they had acted to force the authority to delay the decision until it could be reconsidered by government, but they didn’t.
Because they couldn't. The CCA is a quasi-judicial body that acts under statute. Ministers can't just tell it what to do.
-
Hard News: SpinCity, in reply to Graeme Edgeler,
Maybe 230 is the level at which you get a good bulk purchasing discount? Or that will fit in a certain area of casino floor that will be made available?
I think my explanation is considerably more likely.
-
Hard News: SpinCity, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
It’s also weirdly beside the point if you believe, as a non-trivial number of people do, that any pokie machines are a very bad thing on almost any imaginable grounds no matter how, or when, or even where, they arrived.
I hate the bloody things – and I’ve had one friend become addicted to them. It’s a disturbing thing to witness.
But one government legislated to reduce the number of machines and prevent dispensations like the 2001 one (you could argue they should have done so sooner, but they presented a bill within six months of the CCA decision, and much of that was the summer recess) – and another government is preparing to legislate to increase the number of machines. I honestly don’t think it’s viable to imply that Labour did the same thing as National is doing.
-
Hard News: Friday Music: A lovely…, in reply to Geoff Lealand,
Good to see you and Jose in the Waikato yesterday,
Good to see you, too, Geoff. Shame we couldn't stay longer -- although we did manage to see Richard O'Brien as we drove through the CBD!
-
Hard News: Friday Music: A lovely…, in reply to Ian Dalziel,
The Bats were great last night, full house of appreciative fans, the support act The Salad Boys were a revelation too…
Such a great bill!
-
Hard News: Competing for Auckland, in reply to Kumara Republic,
Was it the same local body election where the Left vote in Eden-Albert ended up getting cannibalised?
Can't remember -- but that was a debacle of The Left. Thanks for linking to my review of the Birch Report. I do enjoy re-reading the old radio stuff. It was lively prose.
-
Hard News: Competing for Auckland, in reply to Alec Morgan,
The lesser of two evils Cits and Rats, or Lenslide holds no water with me if they are endorsing the ACT SuperCity to the letter.
What would be the practical effect of not "endorsing" the municipal position to which he's seeking election? What could he actually change?