Posts by Paul Campbell
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JLM - I agree with your picks for the central ward - except for Paul Hudson who is NOT part of the Greater Dunedin slate and is in fact one of the architects of our current debt crisis
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One thing to note - getting elected is expensive - even here in little old Dunedin - $200 deposit - $4-500 each if you want to appear in the advertorial in the 2 free local weeklies (they publish actual candidates statements after voting starts but if you want presence in the daily paper you're going to spend 1000s - our mayor just bought a 3 page full colour advertisment in one of the free papers - that has to be worth $5k or more. I'd love to know what his fount of money is - someone must be desperate to get him reelected - I guess we'll find out who bought him after the election is done.
In Dunedin we've switched from 3 city wards to 1 big one - it means that to get elected you need name recognition - it's a great boon for the incumbents (who naturally voted for it of course) but means that newer candidates have to spend big money to get elected - you can't stand on the street corner in the shopping district in the middle of your ward and shake hands to get people's votes any more
It seems to have pushed people into more print advertising and fewer neighbourhood signs and the like. I couldn't even get a sign from the candidate of my choice, even after asking nicely twice - and it's actually illegal to make your own (read the Local Body Electoral act) without written permission - the city has careful places set out for public signs - most of them are in Middlemarch or out on the Taieri plains - only 3 in the city, none at all in the central city, I have to go out of my way to see anything - downtown though seems full of clandestine anti-incumbent stuff without which we'd hardly know there's an election on - I was driving thru Auckland a couple of days ago - it seems there really is an election going on there.
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yeah a bunch of candidates here in Dunedin were to me quite unelectable - they didn't offer anything but themselves - no plans, no policy, no idea of where they stand on the issues (will you continue to shovel buckets of public debt into the stadium white elephant so that the rugby boys will keep inviting you to their parties?) - and in an election where we have to elect 11 candidates for a giant central ward by ranking from 40 odd candidates it's easy to just look at someone and say "I know nothing about you, you are the weakest link goodbye!"
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Kyle said:
Dunedin is largely having an election about the stadium, with rates rises and debt tagged along behind.
So very true - it's a bit late but finally we get a say - don;t rank the bastards who voted for it.
Major mayoral candidates are existing mayor Chin, and opponents Dave Cull and Lee Vandervis - both from the council. There's going to be some strong voting along pro/anti- stadium lines. The anti people are very vocal and active, I'm not sure if their votes will be enough to knock off Chin when he's got two substantial candidates opposing him to split the votes.
Strictly speaking Vandervis isn't currently a councilor (though has been in the past). It's STV, not FPP so if you want to vote Chin out simply vote for Cull or Vanderviss, whichever you prefer and rank the other #2 - that way anti-Chin people's votes will combine to vote him out
We're also STV voting for city council, which makes it quite a bit of work. My large ward has 11 seats, but 39 candidates so you can put up to 39 numbers. I gave up at 16 or 17... after that they were either unelectable or I didn't have enough information to differentiate between them.
Yeah it's insane - unlike FPP in STV you have just one vote and it can theoretically find its way down past your 11th vote so choosing as many as you can is the best you can do - I think I made 18 or so - basically the best strategy seems to be to choose all the people you think could be councilors and you can stomach, rank them and leave the rest blank.
I have so far seen one election ad on TV this season ... from Len Brown ...
Finally my good friend Geraldine Tait is running for council in the Waikouaiti/Waitati/Port Chalmers/Ravensbourne ward she's a feisty independent local activist and I hope she wins
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Ah the undulating road - it's so very true - I was living in Berkeley when the Loma Prieta earthquake hit - we were driving (but stopped) - we heard about it on the radio (speed of light and all that) and then could see the ripples coming up the road
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The run on currency lasted about a month before dropping back to normal levels. What is strange, however, is that it has not returned into the system subsequently.
note to prospective burglars - always check the mattress
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Garrett's problem is now news in Australia too.
And it's being talked about just about anywhere - there's even a thread on /. - we in general are looking a bit stupid right now
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I lived in California when they pass term limits - it's been a disaster - the result is a senate and house that has no institutional memory, no one knows how anything works except for the bureaucrats and the lobbyists who stay around longer - what you're really enabling is "Yes Minister!"
It's also highly anti-democratic - you're telling someone that they arbitrarily can't vote for the elected representative of their choice because they've gotten too good at representing them - that's just wrong
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some of them are in parliament now .... as party leaders ...
I've been talking to people I've been working with in Taiwan recently - they explain the english name thing as basically they're given a list of english names with 'meanings' on the first day of english class and get to choose one.
They also use these these names at work - not just when speaking english - I hear them using their english names mixed in with mandarin and english technical words.
Mandarin names have meanings that may seem strange to us so just translating them doesn't really work
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checking the shelves you appeared to already have 90% of our bog-roll ... perhaps you could scrounge from Wellington in the next round ....
Strangely you also seem to have taken all our cold beer, but none of the warm stuff - bastards!