Members of the Christchurch Progressive Network will attend todays Christchurch City Council Meeting from 8.30am to protest the proposal to spend an extra $220 million on a rugby stadium ahead of rebuilding council rental housing destroyed in the earthquakes.
The extra $220 million would come from the $300 million allocated by the government for Christchurch priorities. This despite the housing crisis for low-income tenants and families exacerbated by the council’s failure to rebuild over 400 council rental units destroyed in the earthquakes.
It is a travesty of democracy when the Christchurch City Council refuses to allow public consultation on the spending of this $300 million after the Prime Minister told Christchurch voters during the election campaign “You and your city know exactly what your priorities are and that is why you will decide how that $300m is spent. It’s over to you.”
The mayor refused to answer earlier questions about the need for public consultation and then out of the blue has sprung this proposal on the city with just a few days’ notice. It’s a cynical attempt to override public opinion.
Christchurch residents have repeatedly said the stadium is a low priority compared to roads, footpaths and rebuilding council rental units but the Mayor and vested interests tell us the priority is a covered rugby stadium at a cost of $473 million.
This proposal is undemocratic, unprincipled and uncompassionate.
CPN supporters will be gathering at the council meeting from 8.30am, City Council Building, 53 Hereford Street.
Go well John;
This is terrible!!!!!
Selling the assets built up by the long taxpayer, for private rorting.
Labour is ‘National lite’ for sure!!!!
Labour under Jacinda is just business as usual again under ‘Roger Douglas round two’.
Good that you keep up the fight, John.
Sadly, councils in NZ are rotten to the core and the most of the policies are concerned with futile attempts to sustain the unsustainable via squandering of fossil fuels and other resources; meanwhile, individuals and companies siphon public money into their bank accounts.
And, of course, there is no accountability, or opportunity for proper public input into council processes. It’s all a rigged game which does not even comply with NZ statutes.
With no mechanisms for holding anyone to account, the architects of the ongoing disasters that council orchestrate are free to continue to promote dysfunction….until they completely cripple the communities they pretend to serve.
Peak Oil.
Abrupt Climate Change.
Unravelling of Ponzi finance.
We can conjecture which will bring down this corrupt and unsustainable system, run by corporations and opportunists for the short-term benefit of corporations and opportunists.
Good work @ John Minto.
lianne dalziel, antony gough and mark munro up a tree… k.i.s.s.i.n.g.
I’d a been amazed if this kind of thing hadn’t happened under the steerage of yet another neo liberal traitor skelleton rattling in the closet.
yes agree with your John although I live in Wgtn selling of our assets needs to stop now we will have nothing to fall on in hard times.
Chch also needs to start building more social housing now we have a new government.
So you agree with Winston, no more refugees until New Zealanders are housed ….
Well done John
While a new stadium will be a good thing for Christchurch in the long run, it should not receive priority status by the Council ahead of the real priorities identified by John. I query whether the Government intended $220 million out of its $300 million allocation to Christchurch be spent on the stadium.
Has the Council forgotten or just decided to contemptuously ride rough-shod over the low income tenants and families and those who are still struggling after the earthquakes to appease those behind the new stadium? I think the latter. The decent hard-working low-income families (of which most of us fit, unlike the 6000 Fonterra employees receiving over $100K per annum!!!) the young trying to get into their first house and the many who are still battling a corrupt EQC and insurance system in desperate attempts to re-build their lives are, yet again, being side-lined in favour of a new stadium. Go figure.
I wish they’d sell the fucking mayor, useless sell-out…
Now you understand. Rugby can just get fucked
Well done John – thanks for bringing this out.
While a new stadium might be a good thing for Christchurch I query whether the Government intended that $220 million (66%) of its $300 million allocation to Christchurch for priorities be spent on a new stadium ahead of what it was really meant for. The low-income tenants and families – most of us, unlike the nearly 6000 Fonterra employees who receive over $100K salary per annum even when it is posting a big loss – and those struggling to get into their first homes as well as those many Christchurch residents who are still struggling against the system (read EQC and insurance companies) yet again have to suffer the ignominy of being sidelined by a council callously misusing the funds that were intended to assist them. Go figure!!!
It’s so shocking. If they are so keen on Rugby stadium get the corporates to sponsor and pay for it! I’m sure there are a lot more important things to spend the money on post earthquake!
And the only one at the meeting with any spine as usual was Yani Johanson. The only one to vote against spending all this dosh on a bloody stadium! You had the usual business lobby doing their bit to see that it goes ahead, and dicky stuff said about how the business groups have done their best and now it is time for the council to step up. Stadiums are traditionally loss makers but who cares the ratepayers shall pay and some of these are ratepayers who could never ever afford to go to an Ed Sheeran concert or whoever else was performing.
Go with ‘User Pays’ for the stadium, that’s professional rugby players, game ticket buyers and television companies. Rugby is a professional business no need for the ratepayers to donate their capital.
Council meetings are held by mostly career bureaucrats, who get the technical and legal advice needed to use all the loopholes in the law, and thus decide about non consulted matters, over-ruling public interest and concerns, to push through what they and their behind the scenes vested interest holding supporters and ‘funders’ want.
I learned this through the so called ‘Independent Hearing Panel’ hearings of the Proposed Auckland Unitary Plan, short PAUP, years ago.
They do not give a shit about the residents and citizens, they are all about looking important, and feathering their own nests and facilitating great business for vested interest parties, who they dare not to ever upset.
That is also why fewer and fewer bother voting in local body elections, as it is a shambolic situation in most local authorities, and democracy does no longer exist, it is a mockery of democracy that exists.
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