I think it’s pretty clear that these people don’t give a shit what they say.

They seem to think that Trump's success allows them to review what is morally acceptable.

So it is all Labour's fault? Bennett's office is involved in a clear attempted smear and you try and blame Labour? And homelessness is an absolute crisis but Labour did wrong in trying to highlight how bad it was?

I agree with Patrick Reynolds that National's expectation of success because of the last election result is misplaced. First of all it has to deal with the C&R/Future Auckland diffulties. Then it has to deal with the intense parochialism in the south and especially in the west. And it ignores the reality that Labour + Green is in many cases stronger than National.

An example is my home suburb of Titirangi with its cafes and decile 10 ranking and obvious middle class nature. But the Labour + Green Party vote last time was higher than the National vote.

And, dare I say it, but I agree with Nick Kearney. Much of the Council and Local Board business requires practical responses and competence rather than ideology is rewarded. People want to know what elected representatives think. But they want to be sure that if a problem is presented for solving then their elected representative can do this.

That is why local government is different to national politics. And why it is so much more unpredictable.

I was a member of the FLBR which allowed Baise Moi to be viewed. It was a strange case. An utterly crap film that was only going to be seen once by a Film Festival audience had a commercial run throughout the country. Although it was horrendous I thought that the general population was able to determine this without censorship help.

This current banning of an award winning book seems excessive. And my perhaps tainted view as a West Auckland lawyer dealing daily with the sort of behaviour that the book describes is that it should not be hidden but discussed.

I had no idea this could even happen.

You can blame the Wellington Public Service lifestyle!

How is this for a Wellington Central Oriental Bay Pohutukawa?

Ahem, LOCAL boards ...

Good post BTW.