When John Banks ran for Mayor, every Aucklander with an inch of sophistication, diversity or progress rallied to vote against him.
This sanctimonious, hate mongering, racist clown who during the last election went on record to say, and I fucking quote, “If we continue the bankrupt response of just paying young Polynesian, young Maori men in south Auckland the dole to sit in front of TV, smoke marijuana, watch pornography and plan more drug offending and more burglaries, then we’re going to have them coming through our windows”, could not be the Mayor of cosmopolitan Auckland in the 21st Century.
How this cretin can be Associate Minister of Education after actively propagating vilification of Maori and Polynesian New Zealanders is itself an example of how void of ethics National’s principles really are.
If Banks is the Associate Minister of Education, Education just became a hate crime.
Banks just couldn’t be our Mayor, we Aucklanders would be the laughing stock of the nation, we like to think of ourselves as a bit more liberal, a bit more progressive than the rest of the country, while Banks is to a sophisticated city what Fonterra is to milk. Add his contemptuous comments to the fact that the National Government had just rammed through the legislation of the Super City minus consultation and that they wanted their boy Banks in the top seat to help speed the sale of the City’s assets up, and there was just no way Banks could be the Mayor.
So we all rallied around Len Brown and blocked Banks, and what a good decision that proved to be. Since the Mayoralty, Banks went on to take anonymous cash and helicopter rides he couldn’t remember from Kim Dotcom, took ‘anonymous’ cash donations from SkyCity – even though the envelope they were given in was marked ‘SkyCity’ and most contemptuously Banks has voted for the GCSB mass surveillance Bill even though ACT, the Party he is supposed to represent, is philosophically opposed to big Government probing into the lives of individuals.
Hilariously Banks has managed to find a new soapbox as the voice for animal rights in the latest absurd protests against party pills being tested on animals. I say absurd not because any Remuera matron who is going to conflate the POSSIBLE testing on rats and mice to include their precious Beagle (but won’t march to stop the Government spying on them), I say absurd because Banks of course infamously owned, ran and built his current wealth upon the back of Tony’s Steak House. To listen to Banks whine about animal rights after slaughtering tens of thousands of cows and sheep to feed his restaurants is an absurdity.
Can you hear the lambs screaming Mr Banks? Quid pro quo Agent Starling.
What has any of this got to do with Len Brown’s chances in the 2013 Auckland Mayoralty? A lot. Len doesn’t have a unifying villain to run against. John Palino is a pretty decent bloke, he was at the LifeWise sleeping rough event to raise money for the homeless. He isn’t the caricature of demented evil that Banks is so there isn’t the rallying effect.
Len’s so called triumphs to date have done little to endear him to the same voting block who rushed to support him last time.
The damage Len did to himself for letting the Port Workers swing in the noose hasn’t helped, and it turns out that his current public transport ‘triumph’ with the rail link, won’t actually do ANYTHING to stop gridlock and things will in fact be worse by 2030 and don’t even start me on affordable housing.
National’s desire to start South Auckland in Hamilton with urban sprawl and their latest announcement on first time home buyers is a case in point. Only on Planet Key can lifting deposits beyond reach of the poor to offset speculation by the rich get called a ‘housing affordability’ policy.
Auckland needs radical solutions, Len doesn’t do radical solutions.
But it gets worse for Len. With the sudden inclusion of Rev Uesifili Unasa, the South Auckland base that gave Len his landslide are so proud and excited that a member of their own cultural community is running that they will vote regardless of how inept he answers questions or fails in the mainstream media interviews. That sort of devotion went Len’s way, it won’t go his way this time.
Len’s margin will be terribly cut and without a villain candidate, the race is open enough for apathy and low voter turn out to do the rest.
These things should keep Kate Sutton and the rest of Len’s strategists up late into the night. What Len’s people need to do now is reach out to the left and the Unions. The right seem to have lost focus for local body elections, their hubris at their side holding Government has produced a lackluster set of candidates. A well co-ordinated strategy of unity by the left could produce an incredible result that would give Auckland a left wing platform to push for those radical solutions.
Kate Sutton better have Matt McCarten’s home phone number.
Auckland needs John Minto. At the very least, he will open people’s eyes to a world of different possibilities. John has never worried about what’s popular or realistic. When he sees a problem, he sets out to fix it.
I think I might just vote for Minto. If for no other reason, he’s the only one with policies – the rest are just offering slogans.
Nice article Mr Bradbury. MINTO FOR MAYOR! Hes definitely the one! I think that is exactly what Auckland needs. I am upset about the failings of “Banksie”, and Len Brown lacks luster. New Zealand need a kick in the arse, maybe Auckland could lead the way on this one?
Have sympathy with a lot (not all) of what Minto has to say. But Len has done a good job given the circumstances and deserves another go. Also, there’s no way Minto has the popular support to become Mayor. Due to Auckland’s undemocratic FPP voting system for mayoral elections, a vote for Minto is a wasted vote.
Also, while Palino may be “a decent bloke”, he’s actually pretty out of touch and his policies are quite unworkable. His statements are often factually incorrect as well. Definitely playing to the uninformed, wealthy bigots (who sadly seem to have dominated Auckland’s local government for most of the last 50 years).
Len will win no matter what. He is so much part of the “establishment”, the influential lobby groups and of the system that actually control and run Auckland City, they will make sure he gets the publicity, funds and support to make it.
Len is also so much to the “right”, that even the more conservative, white and migrant middle class voters on the North Shore and in the Eastern Suburbs can comfortably live with him, and some will vote for him, as there is only Palino to the right, who lacks clout and political competence for becoming mayor.
I like some of Minto’s ideas and plans, and I also can sympathise with the large Pasifica and some migrant voters in the South and West, who may vote for Unasa. Yet to be honest, neither has a real chance, as they will not get the numbers needed to beat Len.
The various contenders represent some of the very diversity, but in some ways also divisions within Greater Auckland, standing for the centre in Len Brown, the left in Minto, the liberal right of centre in Palino, and the “new Aucklanders”, being young and old Pasifica, with some more recent other migrants, as a colorful mix of ethnic and cultural minorities, maybe a bit to the left, but also including the more conservative, religious, Christian minded.
Next local body elections I would expect a Chinese migrant to perhaps stand also, as the ethnic minorities have grown, and want to be represented more. They will not all feel at home under a vote for Unasa.
Maybe it is a bit of a worry, when local body elections for a mayor start to become competitions between various ethnic and cultural groups, instead of the past left and right competitors, or more recently between those representing rate payers and business lobbies on one hand, and those not belonging to those two groups on the other.
Some major changes are taking place, that is for sure, but Len will be safe. He was only the lesser evil to me last time, and this time, I may vote for one who will not make it anyway.
JAFA thinking – Banks couldn’t be Auckland’s mayor but he was good enough to be an MP there. The rest of NZ IS laughing.
Comments are closed.