The Nation review: Auckland Mayoralty – yawn – give it to Goff already

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The Nation ran a Auckland Mayoralty special and it was as dull as you can imagine.

No one really knows what the bloody Council does, they pick up trash, do some artsy stuff and does a crap job at following up on any complaints. Most residents have zero idea what Council does because it’s dull as hell.

Remember Fraggle Rock?

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Remember the Dozers who endlessly built the infrastructure around the Fraggle’s, that the Fraggle’s never bothered acknowledging?

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That’s Council. They are the Dozers, no one knows what they do and they care less so the Unitary Plan has all the thrill to it that EU trade negotiations do. It’s like root canal surgery with extra anaesthetic.

I’m falling asleep having to try and arouse any interest in a battle for privilege between the haves and the want mores.

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So the Auckland Mayoralty is about as dry as an oven on high.

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The four top candidates were on and it’s all a bit of a waste really. Victoria Crone sounds like she’s selling insurance, Mark Thomas sounds like he’s trying to sell time share apartments, Palino sounds like he’s selling second hand cars and Phil Goff sounds like he’s measuring the Mayor’s Office already.

Here’s the simple brutal truth about the Auckland Mayoralty – it requires deep relationships in Wellington. You can’t get anything done in Auckland without forcing Wellington to pay for it. Auckland’s growth is restricted by Wellington not paying for the infrastructure and that’s why Len Brown has failed. After Palino, Slater and Cook destroyed his political reputation, Brown was a lame duck Mayor and was seen as a powerless joke and Auckland has suffered.

The only person amongst the four candidates who has any power in Wellington is Goff, the other candidates have none of the contacts he does. If Auckland wants to force Wellington to cough up, the only person who can do that is Goff.

Just give him the bloody job already.

8 COMMENTS

  1. The purpose of councils [in NZ] is :

    1. to implement the agendas of banks, corporations and opportunists (increased debt levels, uncontested contracts, rorts etc.).

    2. to ensure that rapidly depleting resources (especially oil-related substances) are consumed as quickly as possible.

    3. to ensure that the planetary meltdown that is underway accelerates (via the generation of inordinate quantities of CO2).

    https://www.co2.earth/co2-acceleration

    4. to generate and promote delusional narratives based on limitless resources, limitless population growth and limitless capacity of the Earth to absorb and process pollution.

    5. to ensure that the fundamental factors that are already affecting the populace (and which will affect the populace catastrophically in the near future) are never addressed or even discussed.

    In fulfilling the above agendas local authorities regularly (if not continuously) breach NZ Statutes.

    The purpose of the mainstream media is:

    1. to ensure that none of the fundamental issues are ever publicly mentioned.

    2. to promote business-as-usual and promote uninformed fools or lackeys of the system into positions of high office.

    3. to make short-term profits from business-as-usual and the meltdown of the planet.

    Under such circumstances we cannot expect anything other than the drivel you have described. Martyn. And for everything that matters to be made rapidly worse by central government and local government.

    Implosion around 2020? Limits to growth is on schedule.

    http://energyskeptic.com/2016/limits-to-growth-is-on-schedule-collapse-likely-around-2020/

    (I’m not keen of the Americanised use of ‘already’. American already has too much influence in NZ.)

    • 1000% Martyn and Afewknowthetruth,

      Yes Goff is the only choice here.

      I found this ‘Nation’ display insulting to our intelligence as a deep mid north Island provincial resident.

      Is Auckland really the centre of our universe?

      I was born there almost 72yrs ago and live outside the region since a 5yr old and survived, after living elsewhere around the globe for 20yrs on and off, so really I lost the interest really as it cant hold my interest like a good 5th estate show with b the awesome Martyn Bradbury that we watched four times again since last night red hot show, that was awesome Thanks Martyn from an avid 5th estate watcher family.

  2. Well not if Wellington “coughing up” means less money for the rest of NZ. No one, and I mean NO ONE, is making anyone live in fucking Auckland. I honestly don’t see why the rest of the country should be made to “cough up” for those that CHOOSE to do so. Auckland seems to be filled with self-important narcissists that demand everyone else pay for their own largess and city council failure.

    • Yep, and you are still at least two thirds to four quarters of the population, who in large numbers have a dim view of what goes on in Auckland.

  3. “That’s Council. They are the Dozers, no one knows what they do and they care less so the Unitary Plan has all the thrill to it that EU trade negotiations do. It’s like root canal surgery with extra anaesthetic.

    I’m falling asleep having to try and arouse any interest in a battle for privilege between the haves and the want mores.”

    Well, that Unitary Plan again, the following is worth a mention also:

    More stuff to worry about re the Proposed Auckland Unitary Plan, presently being voted in by the Governing Body of Auckland Council, step by step, recommendation by recommendation, amendment by amendment by Council planners:
    http://www.stuff.co.nz/auckland/82950123/little-protection-for-aucklands-future-notable-trees

    So much for “leafy suburbs”, they may become a thing of the past, not just due to more intensification, also in some of them.

    I have also been following this live-stream:
    http://councillive.aucklandcouncil.govt.nz/

    It seems the Councillors are mostly blindly relying on their planning staff and management, who did together with the vested interest holding business and developer parties, and some central government agencies, dominate the whole “independent” hearing process. There were also many behind door consultations that happened, which few in the public know about.

    Individual and community group submitters had only little or no significant, detectable input, certainly not those concerned with heritage and the environment, and with sustainability issues.

    So in the Governing Body committee meetings this week any recommendation by the Panel that the Councillors agreed with got votes for in favour and waved through, and those where some amendments were sought by Council’s planners, they then mostly supported that also.

    Not many questions were asked, not many details checked, I bet most of our representatives hardly read many of the various submissions on the Plan and evidence presented during the hearings themselves, and they rather rely on what is presented to them, and then claim, it was all “democratic” and went through the “scrutiny” or a long hearing process, which is BS.

    Only 34 to 35 percent of Aucklanders bothered voting last election, and hence here we have Councillors claim they act in the name of Aucklanders, bringing in loose, liberal rules that will only favour developers, building companies, other businesses and also Council, all keen on “growing” the city for growth’s sake, to earn ever more money, in profits, rates and whatever they can dream of.

    Who cares about sustainability, who cares about costs for infrastructure, who cares about limited water supplies, who cares about the environment?

    Auckland should rather shrink in area, intensify smartly and carefully with a sound, firm planning framework, rather than nearly doubling the population which will cause endless future issues nobody likes to think or talk about.

    We have as recommended by the IHP no minimum dwelling sizes (anything goes again, based on the Building Act and Code from the 1940s), there is no requirement for a minimum dwelling mix of units in larger developments, no real limits on heights, garage doors, windows, ceiling heights, there is NO provision for ensuring affordable homes get built, and it is a Plan that would a developer member of the ACT Party enjoy endless “wet dreams” in excitement.

    How the hell did they get to this outcome, Councillors are facing an extremely difficult task now to decide on the recommendations and to vote on it. They will in some suburbs and areas face a ratepayers revolt, I fear, and protests from those who want to keep heritage areas protected.

    So short before the local body election, it could not have been a more controversial and explosive topic delivered to the Council to decide on.

    And it will most certainly not be delivered, the high capacity of housing, as we will not have the manpower and materials to get it done. It will lead to Key and his government getting Chinese or other overseas corporations and staff into New Zealand, and build endless apartment and kitset townhouses, some of which may be the slums of tomorrow.

    As for those candidates, Goff will do more of the same as Len the Man did, and it will be a maintaining of the status quo, with some further tweaks here and there.

    Yes, the media have already picked Goff as the winner for mayor, so the many sheeples that bother voting will in their majority vote for him. He said on the Nation he wants to plant a million trees, I wonder where, when more of the city will have been covered by housing and roads and so forth.

    I am considering a “Brexit” type protest vote this time, and with that to vote for Penny Bright. NONE of the main candidates has my trust, not one of them.

  4. Goff is only interested in looking after himself & will promise the world to get what he wants. He is one of the most 2 faced bludgers in parliament & while the choice of candidates for the Auckland mayoralty may be poor I would hope you can find someone better. My views are distorted a bit by his failure to fairly treat the Bain case when he was in government, the dopey TV item from many years ago when he rode around on a Triumph motor cycle trying to be relevant & his neolib part in destroying the Labour party.

  5. Yeh ! ! give it to Goff, the U.N. lover of the N.W.O. and watch the plans and strategies continue to unfold right here in NZ – called Agenda 2030.
    Oh – he is very quiet and secret about his connections but they are there.
    He and Helen ( and David Shearer ) etc. . . . the team from hell.

    Sad days for N.Z. when we have such pathetic politicians who have their hands in many pies and – fill the public with lies and propaganda to keep the balls rolling.

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