If John Tamihere wins the Auckland Mayoralty – this is why

By
Martyn Bradbury
-
31
1588

Okay, so let’s first acknowledge the response from the Simon Wilson’s of this world on twitter if John Tamihere wins the election…

…we will need a suicide watch at The Spinoff.

So if John wins, why would that happen?

I’ve lived in Auckland for 40 years, 25 of those years in central Auckland, and I can say without a shadow of a doubt it’s never been a shittier time to live here.

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The gridlock, the fucking gridlock, just kills me. I don’t even own a car, never have! I do what I’m supposed to do, I walk, I catch public transport or I ride share, and yet every day, every single fucking day I am stuck in gridlock.

While I’m stuck in gridlock, I see more and more friends and family who can’t afford to live in the city that they were born into.

Local Government doesn’t set the immigration levels, central Government does, yet central Government does sweet fuck all in actually funding the infrastructure needs of the city coping with that influx.

Phil can tell us all that he’s managed to wrestle $9b in infrastructure, but none of us are benefitting from that, we are just stuck in the fucking gridlock. It’s like Simon Wilson bitching about cycle lanes, or Russel Brown bitching about cycle lanes or David Slack bitching about cycle lanes. At some point you just don’t care about fucking cycle lanes, you just want to get to your fucking destination across town in less than 4 hours!

By the way, let’s just comment quickly on the joy of ‘Enhancing K Rd’

We all have to say how wonderful it is that K Rd is being dug up for some bullshit cycle lane thing, and how great it is to have K Rd dug up and what a joy it is to have K Rd dug up because if anyone DARE criticise it an enraged Russel Brown will declare a militant cycle Fatwa on you and demand you are cancelled by the woke.

So. Yay, my favourite street is shit.

2.7million tourists pour into Auckland via the airport every year, gridlocking the roads around the airport. Immigration draws in tens of thousands every year, gridlocking the city and those floating swine palaces, the cruise ships, block off the waterfront whenever they visit.

Do any of us think for one second that JT can save us from the gridlock, no, they don’t. But you know what they do know, they do know that the dirty filthy Wellington bureaucrat who engineers this gridlock will have to deal with John bloody Tamihere if he wins, and the anguish JT will bring to their lives makes my pain in gridlock a lot more easy to accept.

Vote Goff, get the same gridlock and the Wellington bureaucrats will get a cuddle, vote JT and get the same gridlock but know those Wellington bureaucrats will suffer every hour of his Mayoralty.

And that is why JT might become Auckland’s first Māori Mayor of Auckland. Rage at being stuck in gridlock every single fucking day. I think Phil’s team have horrifically miscalculated the anger of the average Aucklander dealing with the lack of infrastructure.

Trump and Brexit won by tapping into a deep resentment within the electorate, that resentment exists within Auckland and if JT wins, it will be because he understands that.

Here’s the Pub Politics debate from last night…

31 COMMENTS

  1. Yep, Auckland is getting worse, as they spend the petrol taxes and ratepayer money on airport transport links not for the locals but to get more people from overseas into Auckland.

    Congestions and pollution will not get better, the only small mercy is that as the officials are spreading their ideological migrant Ponzi out of Auckland, their stupidity is making other NZ cities dysfunctional, including Wellington and Hawkes Bay, so they can get a tiny taste of their own medicine going forward.

    However with Twyford and Lees-Galloway on the job, I guess the penny never ain’t gonna drop. (Maybe just in their bank accounts with bribes and donations and a nice board position later, Natz style).

  2. Got no sound today Martyn on this video.

    Anyway, I lived n Toronto on and off for three decades and they got their shit together years ago from the first time I as an expat Kiwi went there in 1968 so they had a tube rail, an over land rail (CN) and electric trolley buses and rail street trams services, all interconnecting with transfer ticketing. so Mayor Goff needs to send a month in Toronto how to truly build a real transport system.

    Don’t rely on building more roads as that is increasing pollution, noise, and miserly for all.

  3. yes i can understand people born in Auckland cant afford to live there us Maori we cant afford to live in NZ and we have foreigners pouring in to fill the so called employment gaps at the same time we have time workers rights being crapped on for example our Wellington/Hutt Valley bus drivers now they are bringing in phiilipinoes driver this is wrong and need to stop now.

    • Tamihere’s elling off our waste water, is worse.

      Pity because I prefer Tamihere, but once the council’s sell the water we’ll never get it back and water rates will rise – thats what the COO structure is for, to help sell off Auckland’s assets which they are facilitating the sell offs by taking on debt and risks with bad construction projects.

      • “Tamihere’s elling off our waste water, is worse.”

        Something which everyone seems to have forgotten

        Nvermind traffic congestion, if Tamihere gets in and Auckland Water is privatised, even half privatised, where does that leave low income familoies whose water bill will increse? Up shit creek I suggest

        Remember what happened to electricity when fucking Bradford turned it into a commercial model? Anyone had their power prices drop since the late 90s?

        Be careful whay you wish for comrades

  5. Now we know why Goff’s first act as new Mayor was to get rid of Mike Lee and Christine Fletcher, so that nothing meaningful can happen on his watch, f**king Tory….

  6. Maybe people shouldnt be so eager to live in Auckland

    I’d rather cut a finger off (preferably with anaesthetic) than live in that sprawling mess

    • Auckland issues will be coming to a city near you… unaffordable housing, unstable infrastructure like water pipes breaking constantly, and either no work done on roads or constant work on roads, zero public transport, the net result being congestion, more council rate rises and assets sell offs, business setting up a water bottling plant next to you or a giant Chicken factory which the RMA allows to stink out towns… or the business leaves and shuts down or makes people redundant… but still they say it was because they can’t get anyone…

  7. I completely agree with Goff on the cause. Uncontrolled immigration from National! The solution: I have no f@%^#! idea.Theres was no thought forward for National whatsoever.

  9. Chapel Bar:
    Patchworks – no strategy.

    I was a bit surprised by the level of personal aggression demonstrated by both candidates, Goff being subtler, Tamihere more directly angered.

    Ideologically they do stand rather close to each other, the differences appear minimal.

    None of the two showed ample foresight on future cause-effect relationships of “urban growth” in the centre and the surrounding rural areas, landscape and seascape, and how these dependencies and impacts should be addressed in an integrated manner.

    None of the two showed the practical knowledge, strategic orientation and vision to lead Auckland into the necessary changes required for climate change adaptation and mitigation.

    This was a discussion of urban traffic planners in the 70’s of last century.

    • NO future with either of the two, who else stands, I may not bother voting first time ever, I had enough of BS local and national politics in this shit country that could be one of the best.

  11. Cycle lanes are not the problem, just a convenient scapegoat. The problem is hundreds of new cars coming onto Auckland’s roads every week. If you don’t give people better public transport and cycling, then everybody is obliged to use their cars and add to the gridlock.

  13. Auckland is truly screwed, and I have lived here since 1982, with some interruptions where I went overseas. It is a failed project, no matter whether you vote for Goff and his nice placards of some urban future paradise, or JT, who wants to build on the past, neither of them have the answers.

    This city will collapse, that is the order and functioning, as soon as the petrol price hits $3.50 or $4 a litre, and if that won’t do it, the level of population growth here, mostly through immigration, it will ensure that this place will become ungovernable, some time soon.

    If you can, get the hell out of Auckland, and move somewhere else, where things are more easy to manage, and where there may still be a sense of community in emergencies.

    If you cannot, at least move to the suburbs, as there you may be spared the worst of the consequences of a breakdown, as some living there may soon realise, we better learn to get to know each other again, and work together, to manage the disaster.

    Also, I prefer living in the suburbs, that is the not too far out ones, as there you can possibly still enjoy a bit of a plot of earth, to grow your own veges, even as a tenant (you can negotiate with your landlord, some may be happy with that).

    We will all face a total collapse of economic and social order eventually, as the whole world is heading there.

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