one city - many voices

AUCKLAND HERITAGE CRONYISM AND THE DEAL?

2011-02-16T11:23:00.006+13:00

I have been struggling with Auckland's propensity to reduce its past to rubble for more than thirty years.

Is it something in the city's gene pool that drives it to plan with the bulldozer and the wrecking ball?

Something must explain this scary consistency of destruction and arrogant disrespect of history.

A walk along either Nelson Street or Quay Street is a sad lesson in how incapable this city is of planning.

What other city would give its central waterfront over to car park buildings and strip malls. What city port owned by its citizens would crowd the central city waterfront with unripe bananas, second hand Japanese cars and ten story high stacks of empty containers and a cement plant.

As for Nelson street what other developed city would cram its CBD fringe with tower blocks of apartments only slightly larger than a family car.

It would be nice to think that this is some past aberration - that we had grown out of planners who never left their offices and read their city on sheets of "artists" renderings produced by architects trained to hate the vernacular.

But we have not.

In the short life of this brand new forward looking super city with a mayor pledged to urban design values and protecting heritage, heritage buildings continue to fall, and the city is contemplating a one story mall of freehold shops hardly larger than a fish ball stall in its main street. Barely a block along our last great heritage theatre rots behind a 1960s facade that was ugly before its first sheet of fibrolite was lifted off a truck and is uglier now.

Heritage, we should note, did not score even a mention on the Mayor's triumphant list of the 100 things he had done in his first 100 days.

Now 8 buildings deemed worthy of protection in the Wynyard Quarter, including two owned by Auckland Council, are facing demolition as the result of a deal done between the old Auckland City and the developers who own the land.

A deal so secret that a part of it was an agreement by both parties not to admit that there was a deal at all.

If the city did a deal it could only being doing that deal for the benefit of us all. Then what did we get from it.

What was the citizens benefit.

Under what scrutiny was this deal made and to whom were the deal makers on the city side accountable.

Unless this is revealed it is difficult not to presume that we the citizens get nothing save eight piles of rubble.

It is hard not believe that in assessing heritage the only tools the guardians of our heritage use are cronyism and the deal.

It is time for this to stop.

Enough wailing and waving of hands Mayor Len Brown.

Order a truly transparent and independent review of how your city does this stuff and order it now.

I WILL NEVER FORGET THE DAY I WROTE THIS LIST

2011-02-04T11:57:00.009+13:00

Elected to High Office

I took a brand new pen

And tore a sheet of paper from my pad.

I did not have to ponder the 100 things to do.

That would make those who put their trust in me

Feel justified and glad.

First thing that I wrote

Was: Make a list.

Then: Set up a committee,

To make sure that nothing’s missed.

Those were two quite simple things to do.

Missions easily accomplished.

Must not let my attention wander

So again I wrote.

Check the list.

That’s three.

This job is easy.

And to the end I went and added.

Read the list.

Four done and only ninety six to go.

So I set up ten committees.

Counting each one twice.

(The times that they would meet)

My list has now reached twenty three.

That’s really rather neat

Then: give councillors a job.

That’s one for each committee chair

And my list is looking pretty.

At thirty three I’m one third there.

How easy can this be?

Of course committees all have members.

Five each

Another fifty folk made happy.

My list is now at eighty plus

The things I’m going to do are looking pretty snappy.

Then: Check my desk

Another one

So easily done

And count the ten things on it.

And put my name up on the door

Its now up to ninety five, nearly to the magic ton.

Well ninety six if I count the reading note.

Clean teeth

Brush Hair

Go to the loo

The things I do are now nearly at one hundred - Whoo!

The last must be something memorable

To make it certain I’m recalled.

Something to confirm my date with History’s Great.

My name in golden letters upon the Honour Wall.

Acknowledging the plans I laid

The struggles and the visions planned.

The smiles, the photo ops the handshakes never missed.

Divinely guided without a pause I penned:

Never forget the day you wrote this list.

ST HELIERS VILLAGE: JUST ANOTHER CHAPTER IN THE NEVER ENDING AUCKLAND STORY

2011-01-29T16:21:00.007+13:00

The Dodo might puzzle you.

Well it once was fabulous and now is extinct. A poster bird for Auckland's Heritage.

To the simple minded, "who cares it was only a bird".

In 2006 Auckland City published a pamphlet, one of a series, St Heliers Village HERITAGE WALK with the now ironic sub heading A saunter through St Heliers Past.

You can saunter there no more.

St Heliers' past is mostly gone.

Of the nineteen historic attractions listed there, ten were buildings or groups of buildings.

Of the ten, six have been demolished, one is obscured and one is altered almost beyond recognition. There are numerous others which give this place its character and charm that are under threat.

This is a truly appalling record.

Six out of ten heritage structures or precincts demolished.

Surely the citizens of St Heliers and the citizens of greater Auckland deserve an explanation.

Part of the contract we enter in to as citizens is that we accept and respect governance and in return those who govern afford us security and protection.

All of us.

Not just those who own property.

Not just the two development companies that have over the past few years managed to buy up most of the prime sites in an historic village.

All of us.

The latest on the St Heliers list to fall, the three Turua Street houses, will not be the last. The whole street is under threat.

But the residents have known this for a very long time.

Over a 100 of them took the opportunity to tell the council how they felt at a notified resource consent hearing for the demolition.

Did the council listen.

No.

Instead the council staff connived with the developer in a piece of planning sleight of hand to grant a consent in another non-notified hearing. The council provided then or at any other time no reasonably satisfactory heritage assessment. They did not make one.

Here is the issue.

How did that happen?

How did the council staff scare its political bosses to impotence?

Are they impotent and if so why have they chosen to stay that way?

This is not just a left wing right wing issue - councils and councilors of both stripes have heritage crimes to their name.

Remember Coolangatta and His Majesty's Theatre.

The new mayor and council cannot just wring their hands and run around like a Tui billboard promising that it will never happen again.

Why did it happen this time.

That is the question that must be asked and must be asked now.

There will be a next time and a next time and another next time after that until what is broken about Auckland's heritage protection is fixed.

There are two underlying issues beyond this particular piece of jiggery-pokery that the council just does not get - sadly many of our citizens seem not to get it either.

Heritage is not just buildings with some long and impressive CV.

It is sometimes that of course, but it is mostly the character of a place added to by the sum total of its parts.

Citizens who feel that about their city and respond to the enrichment it adds their lives and who strive to protect it, are not just busy bodies impeding development and getting in the way of architects who know better.

They have a right and a duty to defend what is valuable in their lives.

And we have a right and a duty to insist that those who govern do so in the interests of us all.

A TOXIC ENVIRONMENT FOR HERITAGE

2011-01-27T10:52:00.006+13:00

It has always troubled and puzzled me that Auckland is such a toxic environment for Heritage. Not only do heritage buildings stand here in constant danger of obliteration, but there sometimes seems to be an active conspiracy to demolish them without debate.

A conspiracy abetted or at least egged on, by a council of inert, misinformed or just plain stupid local body politicians.

The list of the disappeared is horrifying.

Among them irreplaceable buildings like His Majesty's Theatre, Jean Batten Building The Salvation Army Citadel and Coolangatta with The Saint James and The Mercury on death row. Almost all the fine old corner pubs from the 19th Century have gone.

Of other defining buildings in the CBD only a facade remains.

Had the council had its way we would have lost 23 heritage buildings in Britomart, the Logan Campbell kindergarten and the Rob Roy Hotel.

In architectural terms the "Spanish Mission" villas on Turua Street are not in the same league, but they do have heritage values and they do define the character of a neighborhood.

More to the point they are a surviving group of houses which are a fine example of the work of a leading villa designer of the early 20th century, William Henry Jaine. A architect who also has the exterior of the Takapuna Grammar School to his credit.

It is no surprise that a member of the public and not the council offered that significant piece of information. Council staff descriptions were of derelict villas beyond repair.

Today the fate of the Turua St houses will be sealed or prolonged in the Environment Court.

But the question remains: why did this dispute end up there and why didn't the new, self-proclaimed heritage friendly Auckland Council and its mayor Len Brown effectively intervene long before.

The answer is simple.

Like every limp-wristed Auckland council before them they were panicked by their staff in believing they couldn't and that it would cost them millions to do so.

At the same time they had the wool pulled over their eyes about how non-notified resource consent was granted after an earlier notified application which had attracted a 100 or so objections had been withdrawn.

To me that piece of planning sleight of hand seems dodgy in the extreme.

We should press the Mayor and the Council to explain and explain now.

AN UNSEEMLY AND UNNECESSARY ROW

2011-01-19T08:34:00.006+13:00

Auckland City has just invested $70 million in upgrading its art gallery.

One major approach to new building is through the narrow gutted Khartoum Place - never a cheerful piece of urban design and one made less cheerful by a water feature that attracts more rubbish than inspired passers-by.

The whole is dominated by a tiled mural commemorating the centenary of women's suffrage in New Zealand.

The work is not great. It is barely adequate for the great cause it commemorates. Its aesthetic can best been described as 1980's cut and paste graphic design. But it has its powerful supporters who have taken to describing it in terms of some sacred and inviable monument. Successive mayors have latched on to their defense as an easy and popular cause.

The current mayor, Len Brown, has joined their ranks adding its protection to his list of 100 things he is going to achieve. (It seems odd to claim credit for something that will require no thought and nil effort on his part.)

While the mural remains in its current site, a grand urban design opportunity is lost.

To open up the stairway and remove the water feature will radically improve the whole area both physically and visually.

Defenders of the mural say it cannot be moved.

Expert opinion says it can.

After all if Transit New Zealand can move an entire heritage hotel, the Rob Roy, without disturbing a brick, it should not be beyond the wit or skill of Auckland City to move a few hundred ceramic tiles.

There is a simple resolution.

Khartoum Place commemorates the lifting of a siege in Sudan in 1885. A British Imperial adventure which not only had nothing at all to do with us, but when invited to contribute troops, we staunchly refused to do so.

Rename the place Kate Sheppard Place or Suffrage Place.

Rebuild the stairs to open up the entrance to the gallery.

Re-site the mural.

Commission a major sculpture by a woman sculpture, and we have more than a few up to that job, which will commemorate Suffrage and the brave women who fought for it in a way the greatness of what they did deserves.

Surely this would be a win for the Suffrage Movement, Urban Design, the rate and tax payers who have contributed $70 million on a grand new gallery, and public art.

This would seem to be just the kind of inclusive resolution we were promised by the mayor when he campaigned for his job and the mandate the population gave him.

Just doing nothing is a wimpish way to add to a list of 100 achievements.

Talk around Mayor Brown and do something major for this blighted part of town.

AN ASSEMBLY OF AIRHEADS

2010-12-29T11:12:00.003+13:00

December 1st is a date we dread at our house. The Franklin Road Christmas lights turn on that night. They are a drag to put up and a greater drag to get the timers right. Then there is three weeks of struggling with a suburban footpath with the foot traffic of a shopping mall. A nightmare of fighting off huskers and amplified bands and this year PlayStation who see the generosity of the householders as a marketing device and the families who see the fences put up to protect the grass verges as a jungle gym or a VIP enclosure for their benefit.

We grumble.

We mend.

We pay the bills.

We see the bands off and demand to see the hucksters vending license.

We wonder why we do it.

But the first time we hear a child squeal with delight or watch them in their PJs carried down the road on Dad's shoulders we know why we do it. The lights are a beautiful gift and we are all proud to give it.

We know why we chase off the hucksters and turn away sponsorships.

We know why we refuse competitions and why we discourage charity collectors however worthy their cause and why we don't think badly played pop covers have anything to do with Christmas and choirs do.

This is a free gift freely given.

And we will go on giving it every year.

NO WELLINGTON YOU CANNOT HAVE ANOTHER PIECE OF OUR CAKE

2010-12-01T14:17:00.006+13:00

The idea being floated by the chair and board members of Te Papa that they should spend $100 million of our money to build a new National Art Gallery, next door to the one that they already spent $300 million on and got wrong, would be a grand joke if it were not outrageous. The Dominion Post floats the argument that since they [Te Papa] have struggled to make their museum fit the "role of a national art gallery" they have had to stick the art the attic and should now be allowed to build a real national art gallery.

This is breathtakingly wrong.

Te Papa was to be built as the national museum and the national art gallery.

The board and the government got it wrong.

They were told they were going to get it wrong.

They went ahead any way.

The original concept of the Museum of New New Zealand was for a family of four museums sharing some common facilities but each with its own separate museum function.

One of those was the national art gallery.

That idea was dumped in favour of some all-purpose, iconic building in which the art had to find a place in the attic because nobody had thought better where it might go.

Nobody made the Te Papa board do that.

It did it to itself.

It did not listen to any criticism or accept any professional input.

In fact it sacked from its staff and from its board anyone who said the idea would fail.

Te Papa has failed the nation's art.

And we are now asked to cough up $100 million to solve the problems Te Papa built.

No.

Think again.

There are much better ways of delivering the nation's art collections to the nation that owns them than building yet another monument to the Wellington brand.

For $100 million we could build fine exhibition halls in Auckland and Christchurch and show the nation's art to most of the country's population.

We should build around those exhibition halls a genuinely national museum service which could show works from those collections every where else galleries exist - which is in almost ever population centre.

The wretched thing about all this is that Te Papa has not only failed as an art museum it has failed as a museum per se.

It is a mall not a museum.

New Zealanders deserves more than that.

SOME THINGS NEVER CHANGE

2010-11-14T12:35:00.004+13:00

I have been re-reading D'Arcy Cresswell's Present Without Leave with the notion in mind that I might write something on what we have become. There was an enormous amount of speculation about New Zealand's future from the late 'thirties to the mid-fifties and I thought I might revisit all that and see how wildly wrong or savagely right they were. Cresswell seems so much on the button that he is worth quoting - what a contemporary ring has his commentary on how and why we pass laws and what we then think of them:

" ... their notion of what is wrong and what is merely unlawful is determined by the number of those who may be concerned, and whether they break the law openly, as the many may safe;y do, or secretly, as the few are compelled. In this their feeble condition is made plain, that in appearing to love freedom they love only lawlessness, and have no objection to laws being passed which they don't mean to keep. No doubt their manner of settlement first divided the theory from the practice of law, and allowed both the few to make laws and the many to break them. For in the backwoods a law indicated a state of emergency, and so it was agreed on; of which the officials and cranks took every advantage; and in this way laws are passed which men agree to in theory but not at first in practice as touching themselves. So a law that was passed in an emergency, or unnoticed, becomes in the end a fixed item of government, to be disregarded and laughed at if against the many, but held to be binding if against the few. And of this favourable state of affairs those take advantage who are forever scheming to introduce their peculiar views. For it is the characteristic of prudish and sectarian law-givers that they had rather their laws were passed than obeyed, dreaded than revered. Yet the making of true laws belongs alone to the highest statesmanship; ..."

It is a chilling thought to put those ideas from 1936 against the climate of our present law making whether it be earthquakes or Hobbits, copyright or blood alcohol levels.

WHERE IT ALL BEGAN

2010-11-05T12:42:00.002+13:00

I have often wondered - in private thought and on the record - where and why our committee culture began. When did we deliver ourselves up to agenda and issues and going forward and setting the date for the next meeting. When did meeting become a substitute for doing and the minutes of the last meeting replace reflective thought?

Thumbing through the opening paragraphs of D'Arcy Cresswell's Present Without Leave published by Cassell in 1939, but serialized in the Christchurch Press three years before, there it was - the answer.

"Their chief industry is farming, which they pursue with attention, and send their produce so far, a great many are needed to deal with shipping, accounting, land-dealing and money matters to handle so vast an outpouring of goods. From this necessity their cities arose, which are mainly governed by clerks, who so throve on this trade they soon had the whole country under their control, and administered everything, and multiplied every office, until now nothing and no one is free from their interference. There is no other land in the World, it is said, so burdened and plagued, nor clerks and officials so overbear ing and saucy."

Beautifully put. This book is well worth another read and a great ponder. Cresswell's writing so upset his fellow citizens, that when he came to sail away to English exile, the waterside workers at Lyttelton refused to load his bags on the boat and he had to carry them aboard himself. I suppose they had a meeting about it. I would have thought they would be glad to see him go.

A MONTH TO BE ASHAMED OF

2010-11-03T07:25:00.004+13:00

Sam Neill draws a bead on an incoming Orc

Last month was one in which I was truly ashamed to be a New Zealander.

After half a century of watching creative Kiwis with commitment, guts, ingenuity and passion build a film culture out of nothing it was chilling to watch it driven into an orgy of mendacity, manipulation, vilification and injustice - and driven there by nothing more edifying than greed.

Over those fifty years I have had the good fortune to have been on the fringes of New Zealand film. By chance I designed the titles and credits for John O'Shea's Runaway. I wrote scripts for Pukemanu, Section Seven and Crawford's Matlock Police. As chair of the Arts Council I persuaded the council to fund Sleeping Dogs and a wild extravaganza by Geoff Murphy called Chicken Man. I doctored scripts for the early Film Commission. Best of all I sat in Hollywood's Kodak Theatre with tears of pride streaming down my chubby cheeks while my wife collected an Oscar for costume design for The Return of the King having also been nominated for Last Samurai. And we were aware that The Piano, Jane Campion and Anna Paquin had been there before

The rabid, unnecessary and ugly row around The Hobbit made me ashamed.

Sir Peter Jackson and Weta Workshops are not the New Zealand film industry. They are a significant part of it and have achieved marvelous things. But even in turnover they represent only about 10% of a nation wide industry worth $2.5 billion.

But it is more than money.

The film industry world wide is rich with talented New Zealanders - Directors, Producers, Cinematographers, Production Designers, Art Directors, Costume Designers and Actors. Warner Brothers major 2011 production Green Lantern had no less than eight New Zealanders, from the Director down, in creative roles - and it featured two New Zealand actors.

In last years Academy Awards, five out of the ten nominations for best film had some New Zealand creative input and, yes, two of those involved Weta and Sir Peter Jackson.

At home Taika Waititi's Boy broke the box office records set by The Worlds Fastest Indian and Whale Rider.

These are the achievements I wish the government had acknowledged long before last week when it got sucked into an unseemly and murky scourging of the shires.

THREE STRIKES AND THEY SHOULD BE OUT

2009-12-09T13:00:00.003+13:00

Nobody can be in any doubt that governance at the Auckland Museum has collapsed.

In the latest episode the Director and the Board of Trustees are lawyering up for a stand off. They should not be allowed to go any further. If this was a DHB or a School there would be a suspension of both, the appointment of a commissioner and a totally transparent enquiry into to how matters have got to this point.

The Board can't blame the Director and the Director can't point her finger at the Board. In all of the major incidents in the past eighteen months the board must accept compliance with what Ms Vitali was doing. The latest scandal the resignation of the deputy-director Tim Walker after only six months on the job and his gagging with a confidentiality agreement was done and could only have been done with the full knowledge of the Board.

This is not the board or the director's museum.

It is ours.

We pay for it.

It is our treasures and our cultural memory in its care.

Perhaps their should be two commissioners appointed since the museum has important science collections as well as cultural and if there is any continuing fault preceding the current crisis it has been a failure to balance those competing functions.

The brief for the inquiry is simple:

The composition of the board and its competence.

What due diligence was done in appointing the current director.

Was the original restructuring justified in professional terms.

Was there any peer or professional review of the changes proposed and on what were they based.

The relationship between the Director and staff and in particular the resignation of the deputy-director after only six months.

Current and on-going financial management.

A review of the causes and management of the various breakdowns between the museum and its public during the term of the current director.

None of this is brain surgery. There is no need to import any foreign consultants. We have plenty of independent professional who know how to run museums.

I am one of them and I would be happy to put my hand up.

But whatever is done it must be done before the present ugly situation turns into an expensive and damaging legal war.

Expensive for us and damaging for the museum.

And a word for the mayors - do not pick sides and stay out of this.

NOW WE HAVE THE MAORI FLAG SORTED ITS TIME TO SORT THE NEW ZEALAND ONE

2009-11-25T06:49:00.006+13:00

The Tino Rangitaratanga flag is the right choice for the Maori flag. In fact what other choice could there have been. It was the only contender that represented Maori alone. The Red Ensign despite the fact that Queen Victoria handed it out to tribes who had taken the colonial side in the Land Wars was always a nutty contender.

The 1835 original New Zealand flag - aka the flag of the United Tribes - was also a non starter. It is THE New Zealand flag and not just a part of New Zealand flag. It is the flag that originally represented us all - a sovereign and independent nation in nobody's thrall.

And it should be again.

The two flags that grace the Auckland Harbour bridge on Waitangi Day should be those two flags.

Dump the Jack and retrieve the identity we started out with as a proud, independent and sovereign state.

HOW MANY BIRDS WILL THIS STONE KILL

2009-11-16T08:19:00.003+13:00

Auckland has some glaring deficiencies in the live theatre department.

Mercury Theatre is for sale.

Any aspiring Auckland Super City mayors able to join up these dots.

Or will the vibrant city chitter chatter turn out to be hot air after all.

Or worse will the picky theatre crew feel shy about being on K'Road and miss the chance of our lifetime.

Mercury is where it all began.

It could be where it all kick starts accessible live theatre again.

Or will Auckland's propensity for ditz and fluff aim another shot at its cultural foot.

Grab this chance people

LA SONG

2009-11-13T08:34:00.004+13:00

Squirrels slither

Humming birds dash

Hawks hunt pigeons and bums want cash

LA crows sing blah blah blah

And for the walking man everywhere is far too far

NOW FOR THE BIG QUESTION WHAT DO WE ACTUALLY WANT AND NEED ON QUEENS WHARF

2009-11-06T06:43:00.002+13:00

Now the nonsense has been dumped will enlightenment follow on Queens Wharf.

What do we actually need there.

Lets stop this iconic building bullshit.

First things first.

Buildings become great building when they are superbly designed for their purpose but the purpose comes first and the more clearly that is defined the more chance there will be of the building built to serve it being great.

Have the vision and the visionary building will follow - well we hope.

Auckland needs to have a big and realistic think.

The Ports of Auckland want a cruise ship terminal.

They can build that on their own land not on land they cunningly sold to the city.

Mayor John Banks has pointed to Bledislow Wharf as an appropriate site for a cruise ship terminal and a convention/exhibition centre - he is spot on.

Now is the time for a wide ranging discussion and debate on what will be built on Queens Wharf. An elegant plan that will lift the city's dreary record on urban design out of the pit successive councils and their bureaucrats buried it in.

Most of all it must be something for the city and its citizens not a political or architectural folly.

Time to think and time to take the time to think.

WOULD CRUISE SHIPS BE ANY BETTER FOR THE CITIZENS OF AUCKLAND THAN USED CARS AND UNRIPE BANANAS

2009-11-05T10:29:00.002+13:00

If Queens Wharf becomes a cruise terminal then it will be waterfront space once again lost to the Auckland citizens who own it. Customs, Immigration and Tourist busses will just as effectively cut off the public access to the water as the Red Fence has done for a century. I suspect that cruise ships are a part of the Ports Of Auckland business so why should they make a profit from it (if they do) after selling it to us - who already owned it - for $40 million. None of this makes any sense and nor did the sham architectural competition.

WHAT AUCKLAND AND ITS POLITICIANS SHOULD LEARN FROM TE PAPA

2009-11-04T10:38:00.005+13:00

When the idea that New Zealand should have a new national museum and national gallery on the Wellington waterfront became a reality the first words on every thinking citizens lips were "architectural competition" and an architectural competition there was. Te Papa was the result. How did that happen? Simple really. The competition was to choose an architect and ended up - through bureaucratic and other kinds of well meaning buffoonery - choosing a building instead. The result was a war between museum and building which the building won.

The years spent working on a brief for a national art gallery and museum which would fit the nation and its collections was a waste of time. The nation ended with a building that fitted neither.

The Queens Wharf debacle is another version of the same mindless process.

What the city should have taken advice on was what didi it actually want and need on Queens Wharf.

Architects are not the right profession to make that decision and nor are politicians starry eyed about a one off sporting event.

That lesson learnt lets start again.

Make party central a spectacular but temporary thing.

Let Mayor Banks and anyone else who aspires to lead the super city put together a group of genuinely wise heads and thoughtful citizens to figure out just what it is we want on the waterfront.

Write a brief then let the competition begin.

Everything so far has been arse about face - a recipe for another Te Papa and we do not want and cannot afford another clunker like that.

Define the purpose and then design a buildings or buildngs fit for it.

AN EMPTY QUEENS WHARF FILLED WITH FESTIVAL STRUCTURES

2009-11-04T07:45:00.003+13:00

Now where have we heard that before. I'll put my hand up if nobody else does. (July 20 to be exact)Lets get used to using the waterfront we have been shut out of for a century before burying it under some mediocre fantasy or faux Maori folly. The competition was a dumb idea and while good on those who gave it a shot it was doomed to come up with the vague proposals it did. None of them filled any real need other than reifying political fantasy. Have party central in a tent or a festival of spiegeltents and then use Queens Wharf for farmer's markets for a couple of years. Just have fun there of any kind and see what happens next.

MAYOR BANKS HAS A ROAD TO DAMASCUS MOMENT

2009-10-12T10:48:00.004+13:00

FROM PETROL HEAD TO TRAIN SPOTTER
According to the New Testament Paul - no friend to Christians but later to become St Paul - had a vision on his way to Damascus, fell down blind and converted to Christianity.

On his way to the Super City Auckland's Mayor John Banks has done much the same thing. Once an ardent proponent of the monstrous Eastern Motorway and who once famously described Britomart Station as a "train barn" has come round to trains in the end.

He is proposing an underground train loop in the CBD with Britomart as a through station to unlock the city's public transport cock up. It is not his idea but he has embraced it and it is the right idea and he has got there in the end.

Let us not waste valuable time on triumphalism and U turns and all that other crap that politicians who change their minds get treated and applaud the man for finally getting it right. Better than that, lets encourage him to go to Wellington and share his new found vision with Stephen Joyce.

Right now would be good.

AN ALPHABET SOUPER CITY

2009-10-04T08:43:00.004+13:00

Listening to Todd Niall's Insight on Auckland's economic failures on Radio New Zealand this gloomy morning was like watching a whale stranded in an alphabet soup. At least the first eight minutes of the program was a swamp of acronyms fringed with a mudflat of reports allegedly set up to alleviate the problem. It was clear they were certainly one of its causes.

Will the super city turn out to be nothing more than another version of the same sorry thing?

It is hard to avoid the conclusion that it will.

As Rod Oram pointed out Auckland is a city of shopkeepers. Its economic future will hardly be built on anything much more than silt if it goes on producing and providing only for itself.

Two successes of an alternative plan were clearly seen.

The film industry.

The marine industry built around super yachts. (Oddly enough ignored in favour of a clearly struggling with competence Australian ship building industry when it comes to re-equipping our small scale Navy.)

Neither got a look in when the discussion of the City's future got discussed by the same people who have so clearly been in charge of its less than successful economic past.

The notion of a major national convention and exhibition centre as a small economic driver got a once over lightly with another acronym to produce yet another report.

All the government in the form of the Minster for Economic Development Gerry Brownlee had on offer were:

More Roads.

Eden Park

Queens Wharf

As Rod Oram sadly noted.- the first might make us faster for a nano second but none of them will make us smarter, richer or more competitive.

Final gloomy note - London was held up as an example.

Does anyone think that the smart and the clever in the City of London drive to work in their Aston Martins along motorways.

Does anyone really think that London will pull itself up by Rugby Bootstraps.

What did the first super Mayor of London do as his first priority?

He got its public transport right -and his second call was to introduce a congestion charge to make it work.

Rodney Hide has just been talking to his successor Boris Johnson - I hope they talked about how public transport makes a city faster and smarter but I wont hold my breath

Wheels are already invented people - just put them on the wagon and let it roll.

WEIRDNESS IN TSUNAMI WAKE

2009-10-02T08:11:00.004+13:00

Will New Zealand get a tsunami warning system that works before we have a tsunami or will we do the usual New Zealand thing and have the tsunami first then have a meeting of bureaucrats on a hill to address the issues going forward?

Deputy Prime Minister, Bill English put his finger right on the problem "There was .. a bit of confusion which can happen when an unexpected event happens very fast.". Right then. We would have been okay if a slow tsunami had happened and it had let us know in advance that it was going to happen and had happened between 9 am and 5 pm. A convenient tsunami we could have managed - no problems.

Former Labour Minister of Civil Defence, Rick Barker, was even more to the point. He knew exactly what we needed to prepare ourselves for a fast tsunami with no manners. What he failed to mention is why we did not have it and why when he was in charge of these things his finger was as far up his bum as his former Department's seemed to be on Wednesday.

Well I have a plan.

Locate our bureaucrats on a beach and when the inconveniently timed tsunami comes along they and the stupid citizens who rushed down to the beach to have a look can be washed away together much to the increase of the country's IQ.

I WAS NEVER GOOD AT MATH BUT EVEN TO ME THIS SEEMS WEIRD

2009-09-16T08:05:00.003+12:00

Ports of Auckland, owned by the people of Auckland and managed on their behalf by Auckland Regional Holdings Company which is owned by the Auckland Regional Council which is elected by and represents the people of Auckland, made a net profit of $5.4 million profit last year. It sold Queens Wharf to the people of Auckland for $40 million who paid $20 million as taxpayers and $20 million as ratepayers for it to use as party central for the Rugby World Cup, the profits from which go to the New Zealand Rugby Union, owned by the New Zealand Rugby Union, which is heavily subsidized by the taxpayers and the ratepayers to run and host the Rugby World Cup from which they will make a handsome profit which they will spend on the New Zealand Rugby Union.

With me so far?

Now the Ports of Auckland has a bank loan of $105 million which it must repay by December of which the Auckland Regional Holdings Company will stump up $60 million out of $120 million cash reserves which it keeps to help out the Ports of Auckland and which came from $522 million worth of cash and land the Ports of Auckland claims it transferred to the Auckland Regional Holding Company and the Ports of Auckland is currently reporting capital debt of $500 million.

Can anybody see where this is going?

To Tauranga I hope.

Then Auckland will get its waterfront back from an organization which seems to have all the financial stability and benefits of a sub prime loan.

SOME MORE THINGS PHIL GOFF MIGHT HAVE APOLOGIZED FOR

2009-09-14T10:45:00.003+12:00

Knowing that Te Papa was wrong for the National Collections and never doing anything to get it right

Commissioning a review of cultural infrastructure and ignoring it.

Letting the cultural bureaucracy grow in size in direct proportion to losing any national relevance.

Pretending that the Labour led government was arts friendly.

Trying to introduce a totally ineffective resale royalty on works of art while ignoring more immediate and effective ways of rewarding artists for the public use of their work.

Trying to insert the draconian S92a of the copyright act which judged guilt and punished on complaint.

Letting the cultural spend grow out of proportion to a massive imbalance of $130 per head in Wellington to $7.50 per head for the rest of the country

Not sure I will be holding my breath.

TE MAORI PUTTING THE RECORD STRAIGHT

2009-09-10T09:11:00.002+12:00

Today is the 25th anniversary of the opening of Te Maori at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art. It is a date worth celebrating. It is also a time to put the record straight. From mid 1980 the exhibition was managed - very professionally - by a team headed by Kara Puketapu and Piri Sciascia. But the breakthrough issues - the rights to ownership of the works and to say if the could be shown or not being vested in the iwi, hapu or whanau from who they came and that they should be kept warm in New York and other venues by descendants - were decided long before that at a meeting in New York in December 1979. That was led by the then QEII Arts Council and it was a critical moment. Credit for that should not be taken away.

We’re A Sporting Nation and We Won’t Get Fat

2009-09-09T08:56:00.002+12:00

Goblin Nation you’re a beaut

Land of hairy kiwi fruit

Land of butter lamb and cheese

Bringing our belly to our knees.

But we’re a Sporting Nation and we won’t get fat

Sometimes we beat the world at this and sometimes win at that.

We’ve held up the lofty silver cup brimming with champagne

But when it s overflowed and flown

We don’t mention it again.

And if we find the going hard while scrabbling in the scrum

We can always turn the game around with a finger up the bum.

It never matters how we win

If we wear the winners hat.

Coz we’re a sporting nation and we wont get fat.

We will razz the rotten umpire if he doesn’t raise his finger.

We’ve got no time for losers and won’t let buggers linger.

Our jerseys are bulging

And we can’t see our feet

But in a sporting nation it doesn’t matter what we eat.

And if we’re disappointed by the foolish boys in flannel

A push of the button and we’re on a winning channel

We love the great outdoors

And we keep our Tuis in a tin

Cos we’re a sporting nation where everybody’s thin

Kamate Kamate

Aue Aue

Another day at the office on the fields of glory

The hairy man hides in the kumara pit

You can eat what you like in the land of fit.

THE GREAT TRAIN ROBBERY

2009-09-03T10:28:00.004+12:00

Auckland's new train fleet being assembled in Wellington

The government is chipping in to buy 96 electric rail cars for Wellington at a cost of $235 million. The second time it has replaced Wellington's fleet in 50 years.

Meanwhile it has delayed once again the buying of new electric trains for Auckland's rail network until 2014 and halved the number from 147 to 75.

Auckland's aging and tiny fleet currently runs on climate unfriendly diesel.

Is this the great train robbery or not.

Is Auckland transport plan designed by morons or Wellington or an unhappy combination of both.

GREAT NEWS TURKEY CAME LAST

2009-09-03T10:00:00.004+12:00

Turkey gets a well deserved telling off

What an appalling exercise in pessimistic spin. New Zealand media are just busting themselves to make us feel bad about our treatment of children. Instead of concentrating their outrage that Turkey came thirtieth out of thirty OECD countries rankings for treatment of children and seeking international sanctions against this outlaw regime -they complain that New Zealand came twenty-ninth. Get real people. New Zealand was not the worst - it was only the second worst and after nine years of a centre left government!

No we should be ashamed.

Forget the bloody spin and explanation and the mealy mouth crap about where this figure or that figure comes from.

New Zealand is Not a good place to bring up children.

Our OECD world ranking is 29 out of 30

Mind you it is a good place to be a CEO

No hiding from that.

BE BLOODY ASHAMED

WHILE WE ARE TARTING UP THE CITY FOR THE RUGBY CUP COULD WE PUT THIS BACK PLEASE

2009-09-01T07:59:00.002+12:00

image: Sophie Ganley

Somewhere around Queens Wharf in the water would be just fine. Stupid really to leave this elegant gift in its case any longer. Finding a home for it should have been part of the project competition. Clearly too simple a task to be left to the complicated and complicating minds of Auckland City's Advisory Panel on Public Art - who by the way get paid $300 a meeting for doing what exactly?

WAITING FOR AN ANSWER ASKING A QUESTION?

2009-08-28T17:46:00.001+12:00

ANOTHER MARCH OF FOLLY

2009-08-25T08:02:00.003+12:00

In 1984 the American historian in her book, The March of Folly from Troy to Vietnam, published the chilling thesis that governments when confronted with choices almost invariably made the one that was not in their own best interest and which led to catastrophe.

In is hard to avoid thinking that the Cabinet's decision on Maori seats is one of those.

It goes so much against the grain of political reality.

New Zealand's brand of parliamentary democracy has since 1867 recognized that the country's Maori citizens needed a particular democratic structure and set aside for that population four seats in the Parliament elected from a Maori electoral role.

By the end of the last century enrollment on that or the general roll was a matter of individual choice. Some of the thinking behind that was that the Maori roll in time would fade away. It has not and in 2008 there were seven Maori seats - for which, by the way, anyone however much Maori by descent or not was eligible to stand or enrol.

Each Maori seat represented app 60,ooo citizens compared with the tally of app 58,000 for North Island general seats and slightly less in the South.

Auckland takes in one Maori electorate and much of another.

If the parliamentary pattern were imposed on the Super City there would be two Super City Maori seats.

What is so hard to grasp about that?

What defies the notion of "one person one vote" in that?

Well spin, ignorance, racism and fudge has made a simple and just democratic electoral concept seem as far away as Mars.

Rodney Hide's repeating the one vote one person mantra has made it seem as if Maori voters would get more than one vote.

The Maori mantra of mana whenua has made Maori seats seem some invested privilege.

The truth is that there are going to be some 120,000 Auckland citizens who have chosen to exercise their democratic rights in a way guaranteed by law who will be denied that right in local government.

There has been no attempt to explain why a system of parliamentary government which works perfectly well for 4 million citizens - and which with the Party Maori as a significant element of government now works better than it ever has - should fail when applied to the next largest unit of government New Zealand will have?

The failure of both sides of the debate to make this simple argument - that we do it for parliament why are we not doing it for local government- is the first serious ding in what could have been a great step forward for Auckland.

Worse there will now be some special Maori committee by way of compromise which will simply be a fringe activity frustrating genuine representation and contribution.

That compromise will likely be just another factional trough representing only some Maori and not anything like all.

There are 30 iwi represented in Auckland's Maori population not two - the largest of them being neither Tainui or Ngati Whatua.

Well more power to Pita Sharples' arm as he tries to reverse the cabinet decision in Parliament.

If we had any sense and wanted to make this thing work we would all be on his side.

We should insist that the representation aspects of the bill be a conscience vote and accept whatever is a truly democratic outcome and not accept either 1% bullying or factional special pleading.

There are 150 years of practical politics and 120,000 reasons why there should be Maori seats and it would truly be a folly that will come back to bite the political bum if those simple truths are ignored.

HOW DID THE SPORTING $ GET TO BE WORTH SO MUCH MORE THAN THE CREATIVE $

2009-08-24T09:31:00.002+12:00

Get ready Auckland the 2011 Rugby World Cup is going to have a regional spend of $267 million. Wow!

Last year the Auckland Screen Production Industry had a regional spend of $878 million. Is Auckland getting ready for that?

Is it even noticing.

We built a stadium for the rugby at our expense (whether we wanted it or not) maybe on the same economic logic we should have built a handful of sound stages for attracting more film companies. They clearly make us more dosh.

Or am I missing a point here.

HOW MANY WHIFFS TO MAKE A STENCH

2009-08-23T11:23:00.005+12:00

What is going on?

Five notables quit the Peace Foundation worried about what exactly?

Kelston Boys get months of suspensions after brawl. Grammar Boys get days. Was it really a good idea to have a Grammar Parent on the punishing panel.

Bashed kids cost the country $2 billion says Infometrics report and 88% of those who voted in the smacking referendum thought a little bit of bashing is a good idea.

One of the organizing groups for that referendum Focus on the Family receives some $200,000 annually from a right wing US religious group who believe a "little pain goes a long way" when raising kids - what were they funding here and why?

Half the charitable donations raised by the stars in TVNZ's Dancing With the Stars did not get to the charities they were raised for and so far TVNZ, who potted TV3 for the stingy record of its Telethon charity Kids Can while saying they would do the same if one of their charitable ventures were similarly found wanting, have said nothing.

We are still waiting to hear the real oil on how much really goes from Kids Can to kids who cant.

And why are we still watching that space for some genuine action on political perkery and will Sir Roger refund his $40,000 holiday air fare.

Need to throw a personal equine fart here too - government spends $7.50 a head on cultural stuff nation-wide and $130 a head in Wellington.

Somebody care to join the dots and ask how alive and well is the nation's sense of probity

WHAT IS IT WITH US AND KIDS

2009-08-16T09:31:00.002+12:00

Record statistics for child abuse.

"Charities" creaming off 50% and more on money raised to buy kids health, raincoats, shoes and food.

40,000 + kids needing raincoats shoes and food.

Massive funding for a campaign to stop parents shaking their babies to death.

Adults agitating to have a license to bash their kids and planning a hotel party starring a Family Commissioner to celebrate their victory over decency before the votes are cast.

Please STOP it NOW.

And if all that were not enough to make us feel thoroughly ashamed Auckland Grammar and Kelston Boys High show what a role model Rugby is not.

What century are we living in

WOULDN'T THIS MAKE US A MUCH HAPPIER PLACE

2009-08-14T13:08:00.003+12:00

Image by New York Street artist Aakash Nihalani

DOES THIS SUM UP AUCKLAND CITY ASPIRATIONS IN ART AND URBAN DESIGN OR NOT

2009-08-13T11:10:00.005+12:00

http://www.blog.vivace.co.nz/?p=108

KEEP THE WALL GREY & THE MIND WILL FOLLOW

Could we shake this off for Queens Wharf at least. We have champions for urban design and public art in the bowels of the beast they need to do better or if they cant they should pack their bags and leave.

Thanks Vinnie Vivace for this great image - in fact it works both ways round

A GOOD IDEA GETS POLITICAL WINGS WITH A SURPRISE PILOT

2009-08-11T08:28:00.002+12:00

Contender for Super City Mayor John Banks has made no bones about where he want an Auckland Convention Centre and cruise ship terminal - Bledisloe Wharf - chewing one more large chunk off Ports of Auckland. But wait there is more. Banks also wants Ports of Auckland to merge with Ports of Tauranga and Northland Port and move non Auckland freight - a large slab if not a majority of it - out of our waterfront. Daring, Radical and John Banks - well if he is right what does it matter if he is Right. The Ports of Auckland must go to let us have our waterfront back to develop a truly marvelous city, with all the things a marvelous city needs - convention centre, theatres and places for people to walk by the water.

ARL chair Mike Lee is having none of it. "Silly and Scatty" says Lee. Auckland has a "maritime heritage he claims - well it might be - but his bit of it is a desert of cranes, containers, dodgy Japanese cars and trucks we less and less need - the real maritime heritage is at the other end of the waterfront. A large proportion of what POL cranes across its ever expanding fiefdom stays nowhere near this city. Tourism Auckland has pointed the income tourism earns - $3 billion - and predicts how that would grow with an people orientated waterfront. Mayor Banks is buying that. So far Ports of Auckland have produced no similar figures that benefit Auckland and from any they do, you would have to deduct the continuing cost of congested urban infrastructure and its continuing expansion for Port generated needs alone - the net figure would be grim. Lee also mentioned that we had to "crowbar" Queens Wharf out of the Port - he doesn't explain why we had to crowbar and pay for an asset we already own.

Go for it John Banks - this issue will get you a lot of friends who, to be frank, my be surorised by that.

THE CHARGE OF THE POLITICAL BLIGHT BRIGADE

2009-08-05T09:33:00.003+12:00

Rorts to the Right of them,

Rorts to the Left of them,

Rorting behind them,

Onward they blundered,

Stormed at by taxpayer and blog,

Concealed by verbal fog,

Defending Trust and Fund

Benefit slashing and pensioner bashing

Flying to London

THIS MIGHT BE A GOOD IDEA

2009-07-31T21:38:00.002+12:00

Seems to me that there is no real way to vote in the upcoming $9 million waste of demockcracy so this might be a good idea. Less rage and more good humour though.

WATCH THIS SPACE

2009-07-28T13:40:00.002+12:00

The world of the Auckland bicyclist is going to seem very different on 12 September

40KPH ON PONSONBY ROAD A SMALL STEP FOR PEDESTRIANS

2009-07-26T09:44:00.003+12:00

After nearly a decade of public agitation Auckland City is about to impose a 40kph speed limit on Ponsonby Road. In that time there have been 41 crashes involving pedestrians and causing death, serous injury or minor injury. There have been two major petitions signed by just under 2000 citizens and now a public consultation by the City, where of 3000 mail outs there was a strike rate of just under 1000 returns with 79% supporting a reduced speed limit and 18% opposed.
A minority of the opposition was from folk who clearly should not have a driving license in the first place and who regarded pedestrians as a stupid sub species and the proposal as an assault on their personal right to get anywhere they wanted to go as fast as they could drive, but a satisfyingly larger proportion objected because they did not believe the reduced speed limit would make the road safer and wanted engineering solutions.
They had common ground with most of the supporters who believe the road needs more and it does.
In particular it needs controlled pedestrian crossings.
The current refuges do not work.
Two of the most serious injuries happened to pedestrians using the refuges.
According to the council cost is the inhibitor here and one councillor claimed the refuges had cost $100,000 each which might suggest the city is being seriously ripped off by its contractors.
The 40kph limit is a start but it will not protect Ponsonby pedestrians and cyclists - that brave bunch - from motorised morons.
The pressure must be kept up on the city to re-engineer the road for its community and not just its commuters.
Pedestrians should take the lead by improving their behavior and as inconvenient as it might be by sticking to the marked refuges and light controlled crossings and by suggesting to jay walkers that they are not only putting themselves at risk

QUOTE FROM THE GUARDIAN

2009-07-22T14:03:00.001+12:00

"Nicholas Penny, the director of the National Gallery in London, has already entertainingly denounced the pedestrianised north section of Trafalgar Square as "bloody awful", and expressed nostalgia for the days when it was a permanent traffic jam, and thus reasonably free from the disrupting influences of the hoi polloi. Now, asked what he makes of Antony Gormley's One and Other project for the square's fourth plinth, he said, somewhat icily: "As a historian of sculpture it seems to me to have more to do with theatre than with sculpture. Therefore," he added, as so often elegantly ducking a direct question, "I leave it to theatre critics to decide. I have seen only one or two of the performances. Or non-performances." It seems safe to conclude that, unlike National Portrait Gallery director Sandy Nairne, who filled in a slot when there was a no-show, we won't see Penny ascending the plinth any time soon."

Nothing here I could disagree with

We love museums - do museums love us back?

2009-07-21T15:13:00.001+12:00

Lessons to be learned here - compulsory I would have thought

A STOUSH THAT HAD NO NEED TO HAPPEN

2009-07-21T07:47:00.004+12:00

Now it has been resolved it is difficult to see why the 18 month stoush between the Hillary family and the Auckland Museum should ever have happened. There is absolutely nothing in the published details of of the agreement between the two parties that could not have been resolved over a civilized cup of coffee and a deep breath or two.

Sir Edmund left his papers and other personal materials to the museum with the proviso that his two children could have some control over access to them and publishing rights for twenty years. Absolutely nothing unusual or life threatening there. I have been involved with museums and galleries in various ways for half a century and there is nothing in the published facts of this matter which is any more than a run of the mill set of bequest conditions.

Why did the board and the museums director feel they had to dig in - if the conditions were intolerable or could not be met they could have refused the bequest. Instead they have unnecessarily damaged the reputation of the museum and left a bad taste in the public mouth - no apology yet for the Museum publicist describing public concern as the "screaming public".

The one question that remains unanswered is where was the museum experience on the board - any museum trustee worth their salt should have seen this coming.

Enjoy the YouTube museum lecture above. I am sure there are some clues here.

WHY DONT WE JUST WAIT BEFORE MAKING RASH DECISIONS ABOUT QUEENS WHARF

2009-07-20T12:13:00.003+12:00

Just let us get used to relating with the water. Do something temporary with the sheds for the Rugby World Cup party central and for a year or two just let the wharf be a market every weekend. Define Queens wharf as a people place before we clog it up with ill conceived buildings.

We have waited a hundred years to get it back - we can wait a bit longer and just enjoy it as an open space.

The CBD needs a market

Here is the place

I am sure the Paris City Council would give us free advice on how to handle shifting outdoor markets

I believe some of them know our waterfront quite well!

A SHAMEFUL CENTENARY SO TYPICAL OF AUCKLAND CITY'S NEGLECT OF GIFTS AND HERITAGE

2009-07-19T09:57:00.006+12:00

image Christopher Johnstone

A century ago this year Sir John Logan Campbell gave the citizens of Freemans Bay a kindergarten. Then it stood on the waters edge and generations of young Aucklanders profited from Campbell's generosity. Then the kindy moved and the building became a sports shed and was messed up with some insensitive painting.

Then the jocks moved out and in the careful and caring hands of Auckland City this is what it has become - smelly, tumbling down wreck.

Be ashamed Auckland City - this is a heritage building and a gift. Could you please learn to treat both kind of things in your care with genuine respect.

A city founder gave your kids a marvellous gift and you are letting it fall down.

Various institutions have given you art and your arts advisors pull them down and pack them away.

Be really ashamed and think of what an example you are not setting for your role in some Super City

A MUCH BETTER PERFORMANCE FROM THE AB'S AND THEY PLAYED WELL TOO

2009-07-19T09:50:00.004+12:00

Big Little City image

The Wallabies sang the Vegemite Song with their usual patriotic fervour and the All Blacks, for a surprising change gave Goblin Nation slightly more than the botox mutter. This clearly took the camera operator on the crane by surprise who - no doubt expecting the usual frozen faces - chose to pan along the line of their wiggling bottoms and only caught up with the unexpected sing song for the Te reo Pakeha version.

SHOW US WHAT YOU HAVE FOR THE TUNNELTRANSIT

2009-07-16T10:26:00.003+12:00

Because we dont want any more of this Wellington bureaucrat designed crap or any of your ordinary brutalism on the boundary to Victoria Park.

Perhaps the Auckland Public Art Advisory Panel could take some time off from removing works of art and and pay attention to what is going on here.

Better still the Auckland City Urban Design panel which has a more honorable record could take an interest.

WE HAVE HEARD ABOUT THE COST NOW LETS HEAR ABOUT THE URBAN VALUES

2009-07-14T13:49:00.011+12:00

Victoria Park Tunnel entrance the Richard Reid version
Transits proposal for the Victoria Park Tunnel entrance is positively brutal. Shift the Birdcage Hotel up the hill and front it with - yes you guessed - a tarmac car park - these people are car obsessed.

We are told that the project will come in under budget. If that is the case bring it in on budget and spend the difference on the Richard Reid proposal. Tunnel ten metres further back and entrance covered with an urban parklet with the Birdcage moved back down the hill.

Transit are not showing us any detail of what their entrance will be like and I bet I know why.

Not a great image but you get the general idea. Much more civilised than a car park a concrete wall and an exposed sewer pipe

GOOD NEW ABOUT VICTORIA PARK TUNNEL BUT LOOK OUT FOR THE BAD NEWS TO COME

2009-07-13T11:13:00.002+12:00

The tunnel under Victoria Park has finally got the green light. Great news for the motorist on the Shore but watch out Ponsonby residents - courtesy of Transit New Zealand - who gave us the ghastly pohutakawa sculpture on Nelson Street and the wedding cake icing swags aka Rangitoto- the city entrance is going to be an urban design nightmare complete with exposed sewer pipe. As soon as I have some images I will post them. Watch this space

THE AUCKLAND PUBLIC ART ADVISORY PANEL FORGOT TO MENTION THAT THEY HAVE SCRAPPED THIS TOO

2009-07-11T11:01:00.003+12:00

Selwyn Muru Gate Aotea Square also off to a packing case or the tip. Something Trish Clark chair of the Auckland Advisory Panel on Public Art forgot to mention in her Listener letter explaining how much her panel is adding to the city's vibrant public art

BREAKING NEWS: GORMLEY PLINTH KICKED OVER BY GIANT ELEPHANT FROM EAST LONDON

2009-07-10T20:59:00.004+12:00

If only

THIS WEEKS LISTENER CURMUDGEON

2009-07-10T12:18:00.003+12:00

Terry Stringer's Fountain now without a home along with Michio

Ihara's Wind Tree and Selwyn Muru's Gate

I have a shot at the wharf sheds and in the letters section the Art Bureaucrats at Auckland City have a pop at me.

They don't mention that have also removed Selwyn Muru's piece from Aotea Square and that it has joined the Auckland public art list of the permanently missing.

They do mention they have some "exciting" art initiatives in the pipeline - I was on that committee briefly and if the initiatives were the ones their arts manager was promoting then they will be as generally exciting as David Bain's jersey.

MAORI SEATS IN THE SUPER CITY SHOULD BE FOR ALL MAORI NOT SOME MAORI

2009-07-10T08:42:00.004+12:00

ourspace.tepapa.com

The reported joint submission of Tainui and Ngati Whatua to the Auckland Select Committee hearings at the Te Puea Marae is outrageous. They are proposing that only their iwi should be represented on the new Super City and then not by direct vote, but by appointment by some electoral college itself voted into existence by only Tainui and Ngati Whatua on the two Maori Electorate rolls.

That was not what the hikoi was about.

Tainui chairman Tuku Morgan also argued that his iwi's economic input - they plan to build an airport hotel - should justify their seat at the table (Will we have a Taiwanese seat on the same basis?)

Representation is about people, Tuku, not about economic inputs - remember - tangata, tangata, tangata

These two are not the only iwi living in Auckland nor are they the only iwi with historic claims to the region. Worse - nor do they represent the iwi disposessed who live here in great numbers and were so much the reason for the brave and effective efforts to establish urban marae.

Back to the streets people.

THE GORMLEY PLINTH

2009-07-09T14:43:00.005+12:00

very ordinary and sometimes grotesquely sad so far

you can view it live (sort of) at http://www.oneandother.co.uk/

AUCKLAND SELECT COMMITTEE WAS A POSITIVE EXPERIENCE

2009-07-09T08:16:00.002+12:00

There seem a general cross party effort at the select committee to listen to submissions, ask to the point questions and get this thing right.

Apart from the question of Maori seats there seemed to be no prepared or fiercely defended positions. No Maori seats on the Auckland Unitary Authority will be a hard position to sustain in any case given that two Maori electorates cover the area and why should citizens who have chosen that roll be disenfranchised. To say nothing of the Maori Party's calm and persuasive advocacy. The government clearly finds them a more comfortable partner than Act. My guess would be that there will be two Maori seats in the final mix - it would be hard to argue for more - whatever other justifications there might be.

I must confess to being impressed by the committee's staunchness - they are going to hear an awful lot of repetition driven more by partisan rhetoric than reality. (Pleased that Phil Twyford mentioned my blog.)

I remain optimistic that there is a genuine intention to listen and respond and I did not sense any kind of dogmatic defense of the government model. The committee's questioning was to the point and I must say stimulating.

Jury must be genuinely out on the result.

But then I am a glass half full kind of guy.

WE GOT OURSELVES A SIX VOTE PACK

2009-07-08T08:58:00.003+12:00

Is Labour MP and aspiring Member for Auckland Central, Phil Twyford really serious about his suggestion that kids should give their parents a vote by proxy? Or is he just the merry prankster we need to take our minds of the daunting issues of the day. Or is he Labour's Melissa Lee. Which parent gets the votes. How much consultation should there be? Should nightly readings from Hansard be a part of good parenting? This puts an entirely new spin on political baby kissing. Where should this weird idea stop. Should we in turn give kids a vote for their dead parents who obviously are denied participation in the democratic process because they are dead. Go for it Phil you have obviously just begun to scratch the surface of nutty political thinking.

Actually here is a better idea - you get to cast a vote for every hit you score on Google.

Phil Twyford 6210

Melissa Lee 34,200

Whoops

SHAPE OF THE "SUPER" CITY

2009-07-06T10:48:00.002+12:00

In the Auckland Herald this morning a graphic which shows in a comprehensible way the shape of the city the Government is proposing. Big ups for that, but why didn't they show this four weeks ago?

Sharp and to the point comment from Brian Rudman on how referenda have become the life raft de jour of the unimaginative.

SUBMISSION TIME FIVE MINUTES OF FAME

2009-07-05T09:41:00.005+12:00

www.nzhistory.net.nz/

Next Wednesday at app. 1510 it will be time for the barbeque pitch. Given five golden minutes to make my case I will be speaking to the submission which, with the help of 85 of you out there, I am putting to the Select Committee on the Local Government (Auckland) Bill. That should sharpen my mind. Guess I will straight out appeal to clarity and commonsense - why set up a complicated system to elect a council of some 23 seats when we have a perfectly good and comprehensible political framework already in place - twenty General electorates and two Maori. Point two: government only works if it is made by consent from top to bottom and it can only be effective if it is comprehensible. Since 1865 when the capital shifted to Wellington, Auckland has been a powerless entity exiling its best political talents to Mount Albert by the Sea where they promptly forgot where they came from, why they went there and who sent them. This is a rich and once only chance not to have them screw us again.

TREASURY GOT ITS SUMS WRONG SO SOME THINGS STAY THE SAME

2009-07-03T11:10:00.006+12:00

whitecoatrants.wordpress.com/

The left and the right or the centre left and the centre right spent about the same on travel in the same period of time but Treasury got its sums wrong and set off an orgy of envy. Why are we such a mean spirited lot. I for one don't want the country's PM regardless of political colour travelling down the back of the plane. I want our leader to arrive refreshed. alert, ready to go and looking like the leader of a real country and not a bemused, jet lagged, half suffocated, cramped poor sucker on a once in a lifetime's holiday which is the only reason I could think of to put up with what we ordinary folk have to put up with flying across the world on our national carrier.

Get over yourself people.

We did not elect a PM to be tortured.

FOR $7500 A WEEK THE AB'S COULD SING AND DANCE AND WEAR TUTUS AND PLAY A BETTER GAME OF RUGBY

2009-07-01T09:34:00.006+12:00

THESE GUYS PLAY AND SING www.csufresno.edu/folklore/drinkingsongs/
I dont often disagree with Brian Rudman but he is wrong about the pre match line up of dead faced lip muttering All Blacks mangling both versions of the National Anthem. Sure its a mournful dirge but it is our mournful dirge and there is simply no excuse for making it more mournful. Contrast the ABs with the Italians - most of them not even Italians - who sang away like a line of Sesame Street glove puppets. No guys, on your pay you can squeeze out a better performance than that - and while you are at it - play better too - in a Recession no nation needs fresh disappointments delivered on a regular basis from its "icons". Cheers us up. Play with verve. Sing with style. The Hokitika under nines can do better on both counts.

QUEENS WHARF SHEDS ON A RAINY DAY ARE SO NOT INSPIRING

2009-06-28T19:26:00.003+12:00

Kiwi blokes love their sheds but dear God let them love these only for a moment. But we could love them for what they once were, a place for people

LETS START A NEW CRUSADE

2009-06-28T10:36:00.007+12:00

WHERE DO ALL THE PEOPLE GO?
A simple solution to the waterfront mess: sell the Ports of Auckland to Tauranga before they fill the harbour with concrete and blow the bottom out of Rangitoto channel.

No need for the volume of containers that come through POA to come here at all.

Most of the freight that goes through Auckland can just as efficiently be landed at Tauranga and the port there is ALREADY as big as POA will be AFTER its expansion.

The profits of POA are spent on expanding the POA and not much finds its way anywhere else.

This is truly stupid,

Shift the Port of Auckland to Tauranga

Maintain the modest port that Auckland's cargo volumes actually need.

Then we can have a citizens waterfront like Wellington, like Sydney and like most civilised cities given the gift of the sea.

And then when the city gets a vision it can build all the iconic buildings to go with it, but a simple walk around the waterfront would be a great start.

So far they hardly have the imagination to get the city "planners" heads around something as simple as that

A FRENCH FORWARD AFTER A STROLL DOWN COURTNEY PLACE AND AN ENCOUNTER WITH FURNITURE

2009-06-26T21:45:00.004+12:00

DAMN THOSE FRENCH THUGBY PLAYERS

2009-06-26T17:58:00.003+12:00

LOOK HOW DANGEROUS TABLES CAN BE

They have now ruined our international reputation for non threatening hotel furniture placement. We and Wellington will NEVER EVER recover from this slur on its former Absolutely Positively Harmless Hotel Furniture Placing. Mayor Kerry is absolutely positively pissed off and demands an apology.

SUBMISSION GONE

2009-06-26T17:56:00.000+12:00

Heart thanks to those who supported it. Still up to read if you want.

TWELVE NOON FRIDAY

2009-06-25T17:18:00.002+12:00

12 noon I will push the button and the eighty of you who have signed so far and I will have at least exercised our democratic right to have a say - will we be listened to - who knows - but we will have had our say and it wasn't just stuffing our heads up our bums and mumbling No

LET THE WHITE ANTING BEGIN

2009-06-25T14:16:00.003+12:00

No sooner is there the slightest whiff that something civilised might be a part of the Queens Wharf development than the white anting begins. In the Aucklander Edward Rooney expresses deep alarm that soon Auckland might have more theatres than stadiums (sic). Well it would be a bloody fine town if that were so. Fact is that Auckland has knocked down more theatres than Mr Rooney has had hot dinners to the point where there are virtually no venues of any useful size. Q Theatre after seventeen years of fund raising has finally got the dosh together for a 300 400 seat venue in Queen Street and on the Queens Wharf site Auckland Community Theatre see the possibility of the next size up at 600 to 700 seats. Then, Mr Rooney Auckland professional theatre will have two usable spaces instead of none. Get a grip!

CELEBRATE THE DR SEUSS REFERENDUM

2009-06-23T11:54:00.004+12:00

Image Holocaustandhumanity

Well spotted John Key

When Yes is No

And No is Yes

$9million dollars has bought a mess

When No is Yes

And Yes is No

This silly question will have to go

Have a street party and burn your ballot

CAN WE MAKE THESE SHEDS MAGICAL?

2009-06-22T11:09:00.004+12:00

Collection Auckland Art Gallery

If anybody can Gordon Moller can - providing he is left alone to be inventive. Come to think of it restored old sheds are probably a better option than some city bureaucrat's notion of iconic. One of the best NZ architectural books was David Mitchell and Gil Chaplin's The Elegant Shed. Certainly the shed and the sea side batch is a rich resource of invention. So go for it Gordon and make these old dungers magical spaces airy and open and light.

IF YOU THOUGHT THE QUESTION STUPID YOU SHOULD HEAR LARRY BALDOCK'S EXPLANATION

2009-06-21T10:31:00.005+12:00

SPORT THE WHOLE FAMILY CAN ENJOY

On Chris Laidlaw Nat Rad this morning Larry Baldock, Beth Wood and Sue Bradford debated the merits of the kiddie bashing referendum. We have heard the arguments over and over but what we haven't heard is the curious self defeating argument of its major proponent. Beth Wood and Sue Bradford argued that there was less child abuse because of changing attitudes. Baldock argued that the change was because parents were fearful of the new law. Right on Larry. Thats why we have it.

As well as having laws to punish people who transgress them we also have laws to make clear what civilized behaviour might be.

National Radio: Sunday Morning - Chris Laidlaw
National Radio, Sunday Morning with Chris Laidlaw is here. The discussion as an MP3, is here .

EAT ME. DRINK ME. BITE ME

2009-06-19T07:52:00.007+12:00

The Auckland Regional Authority and the Government are each kicking in $20 million to buy Queens Wharf from Ports of Auckland. Auckland Holdings Ltd own Ports of Auckland. The Auckland Regional Authority owns Auckland Regional Holdings. The citizens of Auckland own the Auckland Regional Authority.

What is wrong with this picture?

Something straight from Alice in Wonderland.

But wait. There is More. Auckland City Council are going to chip in a further $84 million to make the existing century old sheds "Magical" so the players, WAGS and barmy armies can party up for the Rugby World Cup.

Now here is a better plan.

Sell the Ports of Auckland to Tauranga - which is already bigger than the Ports of Auckland will be if it fills in the entire water it controls - and shift most of its port operations out of the CBD and with it shift most of the cargo it unloads closer to where it is going anyway.

Then we will have most of the port to party in and the money to make something better happen than magical sheds. We could also have an Exhibition Centre, Te Papa North and a theatre or two

Ports of Auckland claims it needs the dosh it earns to expand Ports of Auckland.

Why?

Queens wharf has been closed to the public for almost ever to ripen bananas and store second hand Japanese cars which produce emissions to the point where they are illegal to drive in Japan.

Eat Me Drink Me Bite Me

ASK A STUPID QUESTION

2009-06-17T09:54:00.002+12:00

"Should a smack as part of good parental correction be a criminal offence in New Zealand?"

You could run a month of seminars on a question as ambiguous and anchored in no reality I can plug into and still reckon it is just not worth the asking let alone the answering. And we are paying $9 million for the fun!

Just write "Stupid Question" on the paper and send it back

AND I SHOULD HAVE SAID

2009-06-16T14:39:00.001+12:00

That Simon Wilson's story does come to terms with what is offered and does take issue with some places where it is clearly a bad fit and - best of all - suggests some alternatives.

STRANGE FRIENDS

2009-06-16T14:12:00.003+12:00

In Simon Wilson's much maligned (by some bloggers at least) I Love Super City story in Metro he quotes the arch bogeyman Rodney Hide "This is governance" says the man in the Yellow Jacket "its the way democracy works that we're talking about here. It's important to have the proper process."

Right on Rodney.

But are we talking about process at all - not many - I am trying to, but people, it is like pushing the proverbial lump of pooh uphill.

Saying no is atavistic in Auckland.

We do it in our sleep.

But this is no time for saying Not it is a time for saying What.

It is going to happen.

We have just over a week to say what could happen.

Click on the right and see my version.

Join in if you agree or write your own version of a rational and democratic Auckland.

But don't stand around scratching your bum and saying No.

CONSPIRACY OR WHAT

2009-06-12T16:12:00.002+12:00

Conspiracy theorists should be having a field day about this flurry of suppressed evidence in the David Bain trial. Fair minded folk might think what is the point of it. The trial is over. The not guilty verdicts delivered. Skeptics might think actually it is not over yet. Should David Bain seek compensation - and one might think he should - his case will be subject to a scrutiny of a different kind with a different threshold. Could all this stuff be intended to muddy those waters or is it just this dismal day?

A CHALLENGE TO THE BLOGPOTS AND PISSBLOGS OF THE BLOGARCHY

2009-06-10T21:23:00.007+12:00

It is two weeks until submissions close on the shape of the new Auckland City and what are the Public Adressers, the Kiwi Bloggers the Whale Oilers and the No Right Turners and the Pundits adding to the debate - nothing - they coast along with their self satisfied political pandering and the sniggering at the evil deeds of the politically worthless while the chance to inform their readers about what is proposed what might be proposed and what should be proposed for the governance of one third of the country slips by. Is our blogosphere so truly contemptible and off message?

SUBMISSION AT http://www.simplesupercity.co.nz

2009-06-10T16:39:00.004+12:00

Simple Super City - the submission
If you want to join the submission head on over to my brand new submission site and get involved - click here

http://www.simplesupercity.co.nz/

IS CORE BUSINESS JUST THE NANNY STATE IN A YELLOW JACKET

2009-06-10T07:20:00.004+12:00

Defining the core business of local government to leave out the very things that give cities and communties their edge - that make them places worth living in - is just the concept of that "Nanny knows best" in its crudest form. Beats barmy light bulbs any day. Communities might do weird things - take W(h)anganui for example and Invercargill owning Lotto shops - but that is what makes communities communities rather than a collection of tarmac and pipes full of pooh. Just wind Auckland back a century and apply that formula and what a mean city it would be - it struggles to be civilised now - but under the Hide plan there would be no Civic Theatre, no Central Library and no City Gallery no Town Hall auditorium and a concrete line of wharves from Mission to St Mary's Bay. We have those things and we will keep them and the grumpy troll in the yellow jacket under the bridge is a wake up call of sorts. Neighbourhood government is about the quality of neighbourhood life not just about some tight arsed balance sheet.

NOW FOR SOMETHING ENTIRELY NEW

2009-06-09T20:00:00.002+12:00

On the opening day of the Auckland Food Show 30 July I am doing a roast show with Simon Wright of the French Cafe. We want to bring back the family roast - rib of beef, slow cooked leg and shoulder of lamb and rolled loin of pork - pork that ran free of course. My childhood was punctuated with the Sunday roast - not alway a miracle of cooking - but always something our week revolved around. Simon and I are going to explore ways to bring the succulent crunch back to Sunday lunch.

HOW MANY POLITICIANS ARE ENOUGH

2009-06-09T09:54:00.003+12:00

On Nat Rad's panel yesterday Chris Trotter was concerned about how many local politicians are enough for a population of 1,300,000. He made comparisons with UK and some European cities and some of those of equivalent size. They ranged from memory from 1 to a couple of thousand to 1 to seven thousand plus. Paris for example was 1 - 7500

He took one Government's council number of 20 members and came to one politician to 65,000 which is clearly too high.

But if you take the two tier system of council and 22 wards I am proposing the total number of politicians excluding the mayor is 176 which gives a ratio of one politician to 7386 citizens which is less than Trotter's gives for Paris and about half that of Glasgow which is one to 16,400.

RODNEY HIDE'S ENDANGERED SPECIES LIST

2009-06-09T08:17:00.002+12:00

A NEW LOOK AT THE SUPER CITY WHERE RODNEY AND THE PHILISTINES WILL ROAM
As part of their support arrangements, no doubt, the Government have authorized Rodney Hide to review local government finance. It will be says Rodney transparent and simple and all about "core business" - in other words about water, cars and pooh. In that simple view libraries, galleries, museums, zoos and any kind of decent civilized life join an endangered species lists. Who will look after them - Creative New Zealand, the Ministry of Arts Culture and Heritage? Won't that be fun - Auckland Art Gallery, Central Library, Auckland Museum all funded out of the $7.50 per head they put aside for funding those things compared with the $133 they spend in Wellington.

Well don't worry folk its is just a wee biscuit given to a greedy boy to stop him bashing his high chair.

Given the current debate really bad timing though and another annoying red herring.

GET A GRIP PEOPLE

2009-06-08T11:13:00.003+12:00

John Key endorsed John Banks for Super City Mayor and deeply wounded the usual suspects. Get over yourself people - Key just made a cute introduction to Banks who was at a meeting Key was about to address. Just the usual pollie flattering another pollie by calling him a Super Mayor

The Mayors of the North Shore and Rodney, Andrew Williams and Penny Webster, would be far better off giving their citizens some idea of alternative structures that would work. The Big City IS coming. Put a bit of energy into getting it right, fair and democratic.

This meaningless whining is exactly why Auckland the way it is now doesn't work and never will.

WHICH THIRTY IS TOO MANY

2009-06-08T11:08:00.002+12:00

Amongst the criticisms be flung about on the subject of the "Super" City is that thirty wards were too many - they are, we only need twenty-two corresponding to the Auckland electorates including the two Maori electorates, but the folk making this criticism are the same folk who think the present system is fine for representing communities. Odd that since across the region we have thirty Community Boards!

Francis Upritchard Venice Biennale exhibition

2009-06-06T11:31:00.001+12:00

Credit
Francis Upritchard Venice Biennale exhibition virtual tour, presented by her co-curator Heather Galbraith. Video supplied by Creative New Zealand, Filmed by BlueBach Productions.
Source- Big Idea

NZ at Venice
Creative New Zealand has a site on the Venice Biennale , and a blog, here

Judy Millar virtual Venice Biennale exhibition tour

2009-06-06T11:30:00.000+12:00

Judy Millar virtual Venice Biennale exhibition tour.
Video: Creative New Zealand supplied. Filmed by BlueBach Productions
Source- Big Idea

NZ at Venice
Creative New Zealand has a site on the Venice Biennale , and a blog, here

A BRITISH LESSON TO BE LEARNED WILL ANY ONE LEARN IT?

2009-06-06T10:31:00.003+12:00

The near wipe out of British New Labour at the UK local body elections is a good indicator of what could happen here post a ward/electorate based local body structure. Auckland would be a weather vane for our national pollies - shape up or you will be shipped out next year. Are they up to it do you think?

Another advantage of what I propose - the top polling ward councillor becomes the ward's city councillor - would be a fine proving ground for aspirant city councillors - they would have to convince the ward first - no slipping into a seat at a the top table with a nudge and a wink and on the back of a ticket with long pockets. Do the work on the ground first. Now what could be wrong with that?

SUBMISSION DONE

2009-06-05T15:10:00.001+12:00

So watch this space for link should be Tuesday and there are differences - subtle but major - from the original plan posted here

MORE DAMN NOISE

2009-06-05T15:05:00.003+12:00

Another day going by without any serious debate. Tiny turn out Grey Lynn according to StopSupercity tweeter who seems happy to go on chickenlittleing. Could somebody please start some serious debate before the inevitable turns out to be just another cock up. King Canute was trying to make a point but the misunderstanding his metaphor provoked seems very much the point here.

ANOTHER AUCKLAND ARTWORK FOR THE PACKING CASE

2009-06-05T11:59:00.003+12:00

During the renovation of Aotea Square Auckland Council bureaucrats endlessly reassured everyone, who they thought would care, that the art works - the Terry Stringer Mountain Fountain and the Selwyn Muru Gate - were safe and would return. More crap apparently. They are planning to "re-locate" the Stringer and remove the Muru. Like Michio Ohara's Wind Tree - which has languished in a packing case for years they have no idea where they would "re-locate" the Stringer and have offered to "drive around town" with the artist looking for a site. All of these works were gifts to the City - would anyone give them public art now? These decisions are made by a non-elected committee headed by art dealer/consultant Trish Clark and managed by a Swedish import Pontus Kyander. They are supposed to increase the city's public art not reduce it. The council committee responsible is headed by Greg Moyle and it has already overturned one of their decisions it should overturn this one and think again about the whole mess. I lasted two meetings with this lot and resigned when I got the message that they had an agenda public art did not need.

RODNEY HIDE COMMENT

2009-06-05T08:03:00.002+12:00

On Nat Rad news at 8am sounds like Rodney Hide is moving in the right direction. He is right that the Royal Commission plan for six under councils was unwieldy and just another dose of the same dysfunctional mess we already have. Twenty two electorates twenty two ward councils and twenty two city councillors - way to go Rodney

31% NOT YET CONVINCED

2009-06-05T07:49:00.003+12:00

The Business Council for Sustainable Development has surveyed views on the Super City with some interesting results. Overall 31% surveyed opposed the plan and 27% supported it, but significantly another 31% were "neutral". That could be taken as "don't care" but a more positive reading could be "not yet convinced". That certainly is the response I am getting on the street and since I have been dropping fliers around Ponsonby I am hearing feedback along those lines. THERE IS STILL NO REAL DISCUSSION IN THE MEDIA ABOUT THE SHAPE OF THE CITY. The only hint I have seen of a Rodney Hide reason for councillors being voted at large is to allow a "political"element in the mix. Well he is right about the intention - Brisbane works because the process is politicised - political parties are political parties and not coy euphemisms like Citizens and Ratepayers and City Vision - but he is wrong about the means. At large will simply provide for capture by faction. The electorate model will do what he wants but do it more effectively and more democratically. A better debate about the electoral process might have an impact on that critical 31%.

FAQ

2009-06-04T19:57:00.002+12:00

No I am not standing for mayor or anything else. We are going to get this beast so let's make it the best beast we can get.

My submission is being test driven and as soon as I can get it posted I will

MY SUBMISSION WILL BE POSTED NEXT WEEK

2009-06-03T09:58:00.002+12:00

It will be on a separate web page where you can join it if you want.

If you want to make your own you can do it by email AGL@parliament.govt.nz or on paper by snailmail.

Don't do both.

If you are sending paper send two copies to:

Committee Secretariat

Auckland Governance Legislation

Parliament Buildings

WELLINGTON

It is too late to shout so submit a better plan

LOCAL GOVERNMENT (Auckland Council) BILL

2009-06-03T09:49:00.003+12:00

Is the correct style.

The closing date for submissions is Friday 26 June 2009. No extensions to this deadline will be granted.

The bill provides for the governance structure of the Auckland Council, including the high level framework (structure, functions, powers, duties and membership), and the powers and functions for the Local Government Commission to determine the names and boundaries of the wards and local boards, the number of local boards and number of members, and to develop a reorganisation scheme for the division of the Franklin District, and its council, between the Auckland Council and the Waikato District Council. It also proposes amendments to two local government Acts to allow remuneration, allowances and expenses payable to be determined by the Remuneration Authority, and for the Auckland Transition Agency to approve a process for, and oversee, the planning and management of the integration of Auckland's water supply and wastewater services by Watercare Services Limited.

The bill is available for download from the `Related documents´ panel. Print copies can be ordered online from Bennetts Government Bookshops.

SUBMISSIONS NOW CALLED FOR

2009-06-02T10:04:00.003+12:00

The Select Committee has now called for submissions on the Unitary Authority (Super City) for Auckland. THIS IS THE ONLY CHANCE WE WILL HAVE TO GET THIS RIGHT I will be linking to a submission base on those proposed under CALL TO ACTION When that is done the link will be here and I will invite you to add your names to the submission. Look out for it next week. Submissions close 26 June.

There will be some minor changes to the plan here and I would like to hear any suggestions you have ASAP

KEEPING THE LOCAL SPEND LOCAL

2009-06-02T08:02:00.004+12:00

Good piece by Todd Niall this morning on Nat Rad's Morning Report about the estimated $100 million local spend by existing councils and the impacts on jobs and small business if that goes to a some central purchasing department of the Super City. It is not argument against the Super City but it at least needs to be thought through. Curious lack of compassion from Manukau mayor Len Brown who parroted some "business approved" model instead. Not I think what small business wants to hear Len.

No audio available on Nat Rad this morning.

CONGRATULATIONS DAME JENNY GIBBS

2009-06-01T10:57:00.001+12:00

An honour richly deserved and apallingly overdue

2009-05-31T09:45:00.001+12:00

TIME FOR A HERALD CRUSADE

2009-05-31T09:30:00.006+12:00

In the past few years The New Zealand Herald has reminded its readers what old fashioned crusading journalism is about. You may, or may not agree with the substance but their campaign against the Electoral Finance was a blinder and so is the paper's current War on P.

But Auckland faces the biggest challenge and biggest choice in its history - how will the Super City rationally be put together, who will it represent - all of us or only some of us - and how will we elect it.

Time for the Herald to start a crusade to get this right. It is not just a matter of political points of view - the debate has to shake itself free of that - it is our future - all of our futures. We must have a super city that works, free of the dysfunctional argey bargey and ego that has crippled it for all of its history.

Come on our paper.

Gird up and gallop out.

Show us how to get it right

See The Opportunity, Read The Plan

2009-05-30T09:55:00.002+12:00