Across Christchurch last night many bottles of champagne would have been uncorked by business leaders, rugby bosses and right-wing councillors celebrating the city council decision by 13 to 3 to go ahead and build a budget-blown $683 million “multi-use arena” (aka rugby stadium)
The so-called “frugal five” councillors (Phil Mauger, James Gough, Aaron Keown, Sam MacDonald and Catherine Chu) have led the charge for the biggest spend in Christchurch city’s history despite no plan for how to pay for the extra $150 million they approved Thursday night.
It’s important to emphasise this. When the council voted yesterday there was NO PLAN for how to pay for the extra $150 million. That is to be left to the incoming council and “this is the way it should be” says the outgoing mayor Lianne Dalziel.
Borrowing this money will push the city close to its debt ceiling with no room to move in the case of unforeseen problems which are a natural part of any city’s contingency planning.
Needless to say the frugal five have argued (surprise, surprise) for the selling of city assets to pay the blown-out cost.
The decision has laid bare the deep socio-economic divisions in the city as well as exposing the hypocrisy of councillors who continually argue for rates to be capped, budgets to be slashed, community facilities put on the back burner, but fall over themselves in demanding spending to benefit private businesses.
The same mayor and councillors have refused to spend a cent of ratepayer money to rebuild the council rental housing destroyed in the earthquakes (they have made miserly loans at commercial rates to the Ōtautahi Community Housing Trust to do this) have feverishly supported the blown-out stadium.
Congratulations to the three councillors (Melanie Coker, Sara Templeton and Celeste Donovan) who, for principled reasons, voted against the stadium.
As Sara Templeton says “It’s a clear case of privatising the profits, and socialising the costs”
$600 million?
Simple!
Jacinda can just phone up the RB and get more printed.
Or Luxon could sell one of his houses.
One of Luxon’s houses wouldn’t cover the stadium’s operating losses for a year. Fortunately the ratepayers pockets are bottomless.
I feel for the Christchurch ratepayers on this one…what happened to the insurance pay out for Jade Stadium?, and why was it not used to pay for the new stadium?
Who gives a fuck what you ‘think’ nate. Don’t confuse your nagging, simplistic little brain farts with thinking.
BTW? How’s the Middle East working out for you? Walked past any Israeli military slaughtered bloated, fly blown, Palestinian children lately? I’m heading back in late autumn. Perhaps we could meet up for a nice cup of tea?
settle down countryboy
CB needs help asap
So does Ben
What about Ernie?
Or the Eurasian blue tit?
Your OTT hysterical hatred exposes your sickness, cb. It’s called antisemitism.
Cry more, babykiller.
Good old Gaby – has to fly your seagull over and deposit on everyone trying to hold a meet for the public good.
and yours is called pathological lying gaby..
anything on my fictional palestine posts yet?
no
and there won’t be….will there.
just admit you confused me with another poster, because I will keep calling you out on your lie.
Fact is ever since Lancaster Park got bowled and the Addington stadium used in it’s place, barely a game has ever sold out no matter the weather.
At a time of such hardship and uncertainty, committing the city to such a luxury item as this stadium is tantamount to fiddling while Rome burns
Nicely put
Not so much fiddling, more just keeping the circuses running so people don’t notice that Rome is burning. Don’t worry about the money either, there’s plenty in the tax/rate payers pockets for corporate welfare & private profits. Like much of the Christchurch rebuild, it’s just another scheme to line the pockets of the connected, from the public purse. Good old Brownlee & Co a gift that just keeps on giving.
exactly RS
And on the opposite side, you could be positive and see it as a good thing for Christchurch such as the majority of councilors have.
Looking forward to XXX(meh) standing for council.
Back in yer box Bert
That’s all yer got to cancel me XXX ( meh)
Time will tell, most likely it will be a white elephant, a debt burden for decades/generations to come, a case of massive lost opportunity costs. It was always a 20th century venue for a 19th century game, wasted in a 21st century that has moved on from this outdated style of mass entertainment.
The e game sector will be a big money spinner I am told and it is the first in NZ to be set up to take full,advantage of this sector
Richard S well put and Trevor good point. We should take note of these.
Have a look at this, look at the numbers attending, then consider the populations of the cities & countries where these tournaments were held. The remember Christchurch has a population of approximately 500000 and is at the arse end of the world. eSports isn’t going to make the Christchurch Stadium profitable. Horncastle Arena would be a more suitable venue anyway, because it is actually indoors & eSports definitely don’t need a grass pitch.
https://www.redbull.com/in-en/the-biggest-and-best-esports-stadiums-in-the-world
Really?
Three rugby tests Ireland versus All Blacks all sold out.
You should have stopped at “time will tell” Richard, more credibility then.
The filthy rat John Key deliberately refused to help the Local Government Insurance Corporation, owned by a bunch of councils around NZ, in its (entirely justified) legal fight to get the rats at R V Versicherung and AMI NZ who they were paying for reinsurance to pay up. Dalziel never called them out on this, nor has the Ardern government done anything to make things right.
I’m withdrawing my AMI insurance – they have closed their office in Nelson. It’s all a step away from overseas landlords owning NZ and running down the place while at the same time squeezing as much money out of all their ‘investments’ as they can.
If you want to see how far this thinking could go past The Truman Show, watch Cold Lazarus by Dennis Potter. The bigwigs got hold of this guy’s head while his brain was still alive and have found a way to tap his memories and working of his brain. onto screen for a fascinated audience. However he is still aware of his life and it becomes torture to him. It’s an analogy showing us a possible future.
We are clever monkeys, so let’s get started now not when it’s too late or
bit by bit by bit our lives and humanity will be peeled away from us in various ways and by various devices.
This is a bit from Cold Lazarus, the cryogenic? head is thinking and his thoughts are shown in colour – this has German text.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JfEgdCu5RSM
Cold Lazarus – Drinking my own thoughts
Good question Nathan. I have to break my vow not to write this week as I have been looking askance at Christchurch and indeed all overly expensive infrastructure being planned in this country. It is a burden on a poor country advanced by some people who feel rich but are like cream pastries, crisp on the outside, and soft and squishy underneath.
I’m in Nelson but I get the Press two days a week as a Stuff package and also get my frozens wrapped in it at the supermarket and have a look. The letters to the Editor have some thoughtful ideas. One is that Dunedin can’t always fill its stadium that is covered, so why not have a lesser unroofed stadium in Christchurch and travel to Dunedin for some events, and vice versa. Form an economic plan for the End of the South, and build relationships between the two cities instead of competing and each struggling?
They spent a mint on their Forsyth Barr Stadium and Dunedin needs to keep up its attractions, struggles without its universities, Christchurch needs lots of spending to return itself to a new normal but it’s a bit like winter in Narnia under the present administration and Council. The Council threatened the closing of an old swimming pool regularly used, to save money; it was uneconomic to mend. But hey the extravagant stadium – the boys with heft at the top want it and they should have it. Unfortunately the proud city has the ‘smell’ from Bromley reminiscent of the Big Stink in London’s past centuries that forced urgent work on sewage pipes there.
A lot of complacent NZs haven’t had a new thought since 1969 when the spirit left them, as in Hotel California. That music comes from a past century, but its still a great work of art, sounds good and doesn’t smell. After CTV, false engineering, hiring private contractors presumably on the cheap to work on their wastewater and set it on fire, boy racers, hospital difficulties,failure to show willing to green up the red zone, get a modern new cathedral built, get the inner city vibrant again, with rising sea and storm surges, also liquefaction, they have plenty of expenditure to look forward to, yet they build a sometime stadium, sometime empty amphitheatre and is it a not-for-profit meeting its costs which they calculate over perhaps 50 years when the world is failing and expected to reach a peak in 20 years! Roll on the election and if there are enough canny people in Christchurch we will see Meates for Mayor.
The canny people in Dunedin sucked on a lemon as they built their edifice because they were invested mentally in their past Park, so support them and go down to Dunedin and enjoy it with them, and encourage them to come to Christchurch events. Hold events as part of a
‘Southern Zing’ (or similar name) program in each city with a special welcome for the visiting city and arrange affordable transport between the cities Get an economic multiplier going in the South, a boost and an engine purring along to keep the region as a whole driving, not declining under the sticky, magnetic effect of brash, hectic, dysfunctional Auckland.
Very interesting Greywarbler…thank you
The insurers said it could be fixed for $50m and the council didn’t agree.
They should have had it underwritten by the insurers and had it fixed.
U2 and Dire Straits played at the park and I can remember hearing them at my house in Beckenham.
The Jade stadium payout was only around $143 million that has been put towards the new stadium.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/319916/too-expensive-to-repair-christchurch-stadium-mayor
Oh only around $143 mill – thats only 143 houses, but some people can’t afford one tenth of a tenth of that. Oh well the poor are always with us – sigh. Get them off the streets as they look messy. Give an overhang on the back surrounding wall of the stadium out of sight and that can be where they congregate.
All the little ants need a place to go to wave their antenna. No disrespect to actual ants intended.
The ‘stadium’ is a money laundering scam. Are there still homeless people living rough in Ch Ch ? If the answer’s yes then that’s where the money needs to go. And besides, the ‘stadium’s’ ugly as fuck.
It looks like a robot birds robot nest. A cray fish pot has more style.
Lets be honest. The only thing that, that ugly as fuck thing will be good for is in lining someone’s pockets and those pockets, I guarantee, will already be well lined.
We must all remember that after 38 years of unrelenting and unchanging neoliberalism the new way of doing financial things with public money is to grab as much public money as you can and fuck the public. Greed is Good after all, as paraphrased by Really Big Mike ‘The Squeak’ Hoskings. The oily hair and cod mouth screams a kind of low budget, mail order mafioso no other mafia member would want to be seen dead or alive with.
Christchurch is in the grips of the greedy and the tacky. In the early 1980’s, when I saw beautiful building after beautiful building demolished to be replaced by tacky, nasty, ugly Miami Vice plasti-crap, I knew we’re were on our merry way to being fucked.
Huge budgets allocated to create pointless public ammenities are designed to dip into public money and it’s a money laundering scam.
I asked lianne dalziel far too many years ago ” So? We have a country bigger in land area than the UK, our farmers can feed forty million people ( And I believe that’s a conservative figure.) yet we’re broke as fuck so where’s the money then? ” She peered down at her shoes and mumbled ” I dunno.”
Well Lianne. I think I now know thanks to Malcolm Evans.
Remember The Wine Box Inquiry? The Panama Papers?
Here’s your answer.
The Spider’s Web: Britain’s Second Empire
“Michael Oswald’s film The Spider’s Web reveals how at the demise of empire, City of London financial interests created a web of secrecy jurisdictions that captured wealth from across the globe and hid it in a web of offshore islands. Today, up to half of global offshore wealth is hidden in British jurisdictions and Britain and its dependencies are the largest global players in the world of international finance. ”
https://youtu.be/np_ylvc8Zj8
A must watch
Very disappointed Yani Johanson voted for a stadium that few want and no one needs. He should hang his head in shame as too should all the other who voted for it.
So the plebs and peasants (rate payers) will be stuck with paying for a stadium they few will probably be able to afford to even visit for an event.
At a time of such financial uncertainty, guaranteed price blow-outs and on-going supply issues this stadium represents a scandalous kick in the face for the average Chch punter delivered with a smirk for the elite who knew they would always get their way no matter what.
scumbags.
The guarantee will include a substantial contingency included in the charge. The contractor is not silly.( For the sake of the Christchurch rate payers I hope so. )
Back in yer box XXX
All the little ants need a place to go to wave their antenna. No disrespect to actual ants intended.
The ‘stadium’ is a money laundering scam. Are there still homeless people living rough in Ch Ch ? If the answer’s yes then that’s where the money needs to go. And besides, the ‘stadium’s’ ugly as fuck.
It looks like a robot birds robot nest. A cray fish pot has more style.
Lets be honest. The only thing that, that ugly as fuck thing will be good for is in lining someone’s pockets and those pockets, I guarantee, will already be well lined.
We must all remember that after 38 years of unrelenting and unchanging neoliberalism the new way of doing financial things with public money is to grab as much public money as you can and fuck the public. Greed is Good after all, as paraphrased by Really Big Mike ‘The Squeak’ Hoskings. The oily hair and cod mouth screams a kind of low budget, mail order mafioso no other mafia member would want to be seen dead or alive with.
Christchurch is in the grips of the greedy and the tacky. In the early 1980’s, when I saw beautiful building after beautiful building demolished to be replaced by tacky, nasty, ugly Miami Vice plasti-crap, I knew we’re were on our merry way to being fucked.
Huge budgets allocated to create pointless public ammenities are designed to dip into public money and it’s a money laundering scam.
I asked lianne dalziel far too many years ago ” So? We have a country bigger in land area than the UK, our farmers can feed forty million people ( And I believe that’s a conservative figure.) yet we’re broke as fuck so where’s the money then? ” She peered down at her shoes and mumbled ” I dunno.”
Well Lianne. I think I now know thanks to Malcolm Evans.
Remember The Wine Box Inquiry? The Panama Papers?
Here’s your answer.
The Spider’s Web: Britain’s Second Empire
“Michael Oswald’s film The Spider’s Web reveals how at the demise of empire, City of London financial interests created a web of secrecy jurisdictions that captured wealth from across the globe and hid it in a web of offshore islands. Today, up to half of global offshore wealth is hidden in British jurisdictions and Britain and its dependencies are the largest global players in the world of international finance. ”
https://youtu.be/np_ylvc8Zj8
How come you get two goes cb 11 mins apart? Can you get one withdrawn as it spoils the thinking as one works down the line of comments? Also great points feisty as usual and some sources and links sprinkled on top. Looks tasty!
I wouldn’t be surprised if the projected cost will eventually blow out to close to double what’s been agreed to.
This nation loses all sense of proportion when considering spending on sport.
That last sentence has the air of an unarguable truth – and it is Richard C
” This nation loses all sense of proportion when considering spending on sport ”
No only rugby with the corporate boxes included !
NZ Elitist rugby has already had its meeting with the council and supplied the right kind of pressure.
Meanwhile CHCH is still flooding , covered in graffiti , drains and roads ignored , rubbish litters many area’s including the coast line and is never collected , derelict slums that are hidden from view and the infamous stench from the fire ravaged trickling towers at the waste water plant where the many good people of the East are subjected to the vomit inducing smell daily and you can rest assured it does not affect the hill suburbs only the poorest ones as it should be in our little South Pacific paradise.
The council and councillors make sure they are looked after with their new vehicle fleet and salaries and plush offices and expense accounts.
The current mayor has given up before her term is complete and abdicated responsibility over to her predecessor but she is still being paid and collecting the benefits safely ensconced in her up market luxury apartment.
The council seized on the poll results that the majority of the submissions pointed to support to go ahead and build the Corporate Crusader’s venue without knowing how much the CCC will extort through higher rates the enormous one hundred and fifty million blowout in the cost.
I doubt being a ratepayer in Christchurch will mean a discounted price when visiting their own asset they have already paid for.
Correction , handed responsibility to her successor.
Yes 3 waters also.
Incorrect again.
springfield monorail
costs will escalate
council can’t cover them
developer will threaten to walk away
solution private equity capital
stadium owned by private interests largely paid for with tax dollars
it’s an old story from across the US in mis sized cities…stadia, conference centres and other vanity projects exist to raid the public purse, that is their function and the reason for their existence.
the tragedy here is chch fell for the scam…’I’m a nigerian price and have I got a deal for you-wanna buy a bridge?
In Naples I think, from when I was in Italy in my young days, I stayed at an out of town camping ground which had a motorway access to it. No vehicle was on it. I heard that it was built by the mafia as an earner for them to serve a stadium nearby which was hardly used. Vanity projects, scam projects.
The eager beaver money-accumulators and people out to make their name and gather lots of money somehow – they don’t care what it gets called as they’ll have a good story to tell to back the project. Sit in a circle kiddies, while grandpa wolf tells you a nice story and then will Eat You Up!
Springfield town meeting and democracy – working on the town budget. Watch and learn. What happens when a smooth-tongued fella comes along.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=taJ4MFCxiuo 4.22 mins
John points to right wing councillors and business and rugby bosses celebrating the stadium decision. Does that mean only right wing rate payers want the stadium built whatever the cost. I don’t think so. Just as many left wing rate payers want that stadium I’m picking and John will know that, but why spoil a good right wing kicking.
Yeh I didn’t agree with his right wing dig
Back in yer box XXX
I have understood for a long time that Lianne Dalziel was an adherent to neoliberal economics over consideration for people’s satisfactory living conditions. And this piece from John Minto is so drearily common one could cry. But after that you have to rise up and come out fighting with verve. Can these councillors be legally questioned for taking the city to an unfinancial state? When is it regarded as imprudent at the least? Have the prudent people no power here – it is almost fraud?
The so-called “frugal five” councillors (Phil Mauger, James Gough, Aaron Keown, Sam MacDonald and Catherine Chu) have led the charge for the biggest spend in Christchurch city’s history despite no plan for how to pay for the extra $150 million they approved Thursday night.
It’s important to emphasise this. When the council voted yesterday there was NO PLAN for how to pay for the extra $150 million. That is to be left to the incoming council and “this is the way it should be” says the outgoing mayor Lianne Dalziel.
Borrowing this money will push the city close to its debt ceiling with no room to move in the case of unforeseen problems which are a natural part of any city’s contingency planning.
Needless to say the frugal five have argued (surprise, surprise) for the selling of city assets to pay the blown-out cost.
Is there no standard to be measures against by central government? There is a right given to local bodies under neo liberalism which they didn’t have earlier, called General Competence.
Here is some info from google for those who can find time to get informed on detail.
Meeting the financing needs of New Zealand councils
https://www.lgfa.co.nz › sites › default › files › L…PDF
The New Zealand Local Government Funding Agency Ltd (LGFA) specialises in funding the New Zealand local government sector, the primary purpose being to …
ADAPTING TO NEW POWERS OF GENERAL COMPETENCE
http://www.mdl.co.nz › mckinley › files › resources PDF
“The Government considers that the present Local Government Act is too prescriptive in nature, and that local councils should have broader powers in.
Will it get built though? Look at the Cathedral, it’s still MIA.
Cathedral is ticking along nicely actually, go check it out
A stupid decision by Chch leaders that its people will be paying for over decades.
Having said that I’d lay off the “Right-Wing” kicking a bit because it’s a fan thing and there are few more rabid fan bases in NZ than the Cantab community.
John Oliver did an interesting episode a few years ago now on the public ripoff that huge sports stadiums are in the USA, where owners of teams will blow smoke about how all the benefits of a city gaining a team justify tax breaks and public bond funding where the public never see a dime in return. A city losing a team is the other side of that coin threat. The problem, as Oliver laid out, was that the fans themselves, whether “right wing” or “left wing” didn’t care about this even when it was explained to them. Tough to beat that.
I heard a USA comedian do his stuff and he joked about USA sports fans who are glued to their tvs during the sports season of their favourite teams and wouldn’t have a clue what else happened in the world over those months. Following sport is an excuse to get out of mowing the lawn, taking part in life, I think! While the wife goes to church, he has to watch the Big Hitter or whatever.
Christchurch people were given the chance to have their say and 70 plus percent were for going ahead but because the result was not to John Minto and the 3 who voted against the stadium liking the vote was counted as a fraud. Ironically this puts them in Donald Trumps camp and his fight against the voting that booted him out.
In every arguement there are 2 sides and many arguements both for and against. I am not into sport or concerts so doubt if I will use the stadium but I do not swim either and I buy my own books so do not use libraries but I accept them being provided for the good of all. Chch is the biggest city in the South Island and to me it is only right to have a stadium to service all of the South Island. z Nelson is a long way from Dunedin.
I would point out the insurance money and government funds could not be spent on social housing even if the council wanted too. Social housing which is ungently needed should be funded by the government through taxes not locals through rates
Trevor – you pay for the stadium then. Perhaps there can be a special price for founders when using it – to pay double or triple and you get a seat named after you, you generous fellow.
Don’t be ridiculous Trevor 70% of what wanted it. A piddling number. How many people put submissions in in the poor area. The places where it got the votes was Cashmere, Fendalton and Halswell.
Lots of people didn’t even know about it, they were too busy making a crust. The Dunedin stadium is a huge cost on the city. And many of its citizens could never ever afford to go there.
This is totally incorrect.
I would point out the insurance money and government funds could not be spent on social housing even if the council wanted to.
The council had insurance on these and they got the dosh and spent it on other things. They are still 200 short of what they had before the earthquakes. Christchurch had the biggest number of council houses in the country.
The council was offered $50m by the insurance mob to fix Lancaster park they had their engineers saying it could be done for this. The Council said it couldn’t. The Council, who ultimately backed down from the amount the insurers owed by a considerable amount, should have got the insurers to underwrite it and have it fixed and we wouldn’t be in this fix.
Of course we need sports fields and everything like that but we are about to get a big muilti-use stadium as well.
Sport rules in Aotearoa!
To say people had the opportunity to have their say and 70% of the people supported it, and that gives some kind if mandate. If they wanted a true mandate, they could have waited until after the local body elections, candidates could have campaigned on the issue and ratepayers could have voted accordingly. If you wanted to use the council submissions as an indicator of support, divide the number of supporting submissions by the number of registered voters in the city, to get a true percentage of support. Based on 24000 pro stadium submission from an eligible voting population of over 200000, that’s less than 10% support, with the rest opposed or not caring. Given many pro rugby organizations strongly encouraged their members to submit, the numbers aren’t surprising, but then neither was the outcome. In NZ, corporate rugby is always the winner on the day.
Plus 1 to your comment.
I’m with you Trevor and the numbers don’t lie despite the arguments.
23000 pro stadium submissions from a total population of 500000, and that’s your numbers (note that’s not subtracting the submissions from those who weren’t Christchurch residents, no pay, no say). Looking at it that way, it appears almost no one supported it.
Numbers are often used to support lies and that’s why they didn’t take the issue to an election, the outcome would have by no means been certain, especially not in the current economic climate.
So are using the numbers in a way to support your point of view?
No, just pointing out the conclusions some people seem to be pushing is drawing a very long bow. Or just plain pushing misinformation to justify their theft from the public purse.
But shouldn’t others be able to draw conclusions like yourself Richard?
A big lie repeated often enough and with sufficient conviction will fool many people into believing it is the truth, think “Rockstar economy”.
Just don’t lie to yourself Richard, you may end up fooling yourself.
I am the truth and the light and the way 😉
Exactly the same story here in Taranaki. Both the grandstands at Rugby Park condemned as earthquake risks but no one held accountable and no insurance. Regional council for some reason owns this facility and has just announced a rebuild budget blow out from $50m to $70m. Not a single blush, embarrassed face or apology. Forty percent of my regional council rates for the next 30 years will now go to support the few hundred people who will turn up 6 times a year to watch second division rugby.
Opposite coastline but same dumbness.. Gisborne Council had a list of 10 high priority sports projects. Tops were waka ama, field hockey and basketball- all super popular with young and brown & all historically ignored. Labour Govt & Shane Jones comes to town with $6mil. Guess what? new roof for rugby stadium so 100 people can stay dry watching 4x 3rd Div home games a year. Sickening cronyism.
Decision day was live-streamed. It was an utter cringe-fest, bordering on comedy.
But I half expected David Brent to walk in …. it was that style of awkward flippant cringe-inducing comedy.
The singing of “Imagine” by John Lennon to mutated lyrics of desperation.
The grandiose comparison to the Colosseum and how ChCh will become like Rome (what the actual f@ck???).
The financial officer unable to pronounce “transitory” and her mystical “she’ll be right” projections.
The promises of no assets sales, no unaffordable rates hikes, BUT with NO CLUE of how the debt will be handled by NOT doing either of these things?
Pure comedy gold. Well done ChCh. I thank you. Looking forward to more entertainment as the consequences of this decision begin to bite the new self-described “Entertainment Capital of New Zealand”. You’ve already started delivering on that! Hahahahahaha…
Na this stadium is popular with the majority of the citizens and this city has suffered enough and deserves a stadium, everyone who lives here has to go to Dunedin or Auckland to see a concert or a proper test match.
Christchurch is a city of nearly half million people and deserves a major venue.
Rich and poor alike will be able to go to rugby games in the heart of the city. Delaying the stadium means half the CBD will continue to be an ugly dead zone of empty land waiting for the stadium to be built.
Delaying it further would mean it would cost even more in future.
I’m shit poor and am stoked about this moved.
It’s time the city had something that allowed them to have a little bit of fun.
The lack of the ability to hold major events has been a bummer for my generation and if you want young people to stay in Christchurch you need to have the kind of infrastructure a major city has…
It’s expensive but it should been built years ago and would have been cheaper… delaying it would make it more expensive.
Let working class people go see a rugby game or a concert. Jeez.
I’ll agree the corporate boxes and things are lame and they should have to contribute to the cost if they are going to have corporate boxes…. But I’m just happy this damn thing is gonna be built.
Doesn’t mean I don’t want more stadiums, state houses, council houses and affordable housing but I also want a stadium.
Let people have fun.
if chch wants a venue let concert promoters and nz rugby build one it’s their BUSINESSES we’re subsidising.
Well said
bread and circus’s bro bread and circus’s
70% of chch wants it to go ahead so they can have concerts and sports events in their town.
Delaying it would have meant it cost more.
Also you’ll be hard pressed to find any millennials and gen z who don’t want this stadium to be built so they can attend concerts. The people who will be paying it off in future, want it.
Again let people have fun.
Rugby and concerts aren’t just for the rich. Golly.
Corey H That’s silly. The days of materialism are over. The days of pretence and style and mode are in – people rush around pretending they have all they could want and if they keep going quickly, talking quickly, then they don’t give room for doubt or unfashionable thought to creep in.
HOWEVER decent people can only ignore the plight of others struggling for a certain time. And climate change …. and the collapse of world economies overloaded with debt that is printed on rags but strangely debt must be repaid even if people have to donate human blood. That’s a pretty picture. No you and comfortably off or indeed uncomfortable, sports or arts fans can’t have anything they want, when the money to buy their perquisites comes from withholding necessities of life from poor people, denying them respect, support and opportunity! That way came The French Revolution.
Do you hear the people sing. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1q82twrdr0U
Attend to The Castle in the Cloud dreams before dreamy extravagances like stadiums. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IT-UxMalodk
Empty Chairs at Empty Tables https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BM-Q3BDrkw
70% of people who 1. knew about and 2. responded to the councils online questionnaire
Most folk in chch didn’t even know about the option to submit their views online, it was barely advertised
then the rugger buggers canvassed all their club members/supporters to lodge submissions thus we got the 70%
Yes including out of town rugby nuts.
Don’t bring reasons logic into it Corey , you’ll cluster fuck a few here.
Saying 70% support the stadium isn’t correct, so there is no logical basis for that statement. Realistically in all of New Zealand, less than 24000 people supported it, if you are going to use the submission process as an indicator of support. That is logic & reason for you.
Out of our team of 5 million, less than 0.5% cared enough about the stadium to post their support for it. Whereas 1.4 million people said “yes” to legalizing cannabis by actually voting in a referendum and that was considered a minority that could be completely ignored. That’s numbers & reason for you.
I should also note that I have no interest in either using or selling drugs, that was just an example in “democracy” at work.
70% of christchurch want the stadium
WRONG WRONG WRONG
I don’t know how you can make this ridiculous statement, no body knows how many people want the stadium because there was no referendum.
70% of a tiny number of submissions.
Again let people have fun. Rugby and concerts aren’t just for the rich. Golly.
That’s so Corey. And why would do you need to say that? The stadium IS being built, this post is about borrowing more money still to make it as waterproof as the one in Dunedin already is. And the question is raised as to why they can’t have the only covered stadium in the lower South Island, as there won’t be enough business for two to be profitable or even to cover costs.
So don’t make the poor people go without, let them, support them, to put on their own concerts and fun, then everyone has a time of pleasure. I understand there is unused land in the red zone. If that is not being used what a wasted opportunity. Let the City Council take that notional $150 million and let out funds for those who want to organise a participatory concert for the hard-up. Two a year say with $500,000 allocated for each to be paid out of current funds, not in debt that is loaded onto the future. That would give 150 years of concerts. Now wouldn’t that be good for your children’s children.
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well if we’re going to subsidise hobbies there some model kits and materials I fancy, so get yer hands in your pockets..
as a side bar how many state houses could be built in chch with this spendthrift extravagance
My idea could be adapted gagarin. If some streets of state house design were developed curled around park-lets , the funds could be used to host street parties, bringing people together and offering prizes for the kids taking part in a small band or singing contest so encouraging the arts. Music tames the beast in us all and probably helps with growing lads and lasses teenage direction.
I’ve seen Maiden twice in the Horncastle Arena. A larger stadium is not neccessary, it’s not like it’ll drive ticket prices down substantially
I asked the other day about whether the reason the rates i Grey District were hiked astronomically was that Grey District had caved to Christchurch City’s demand that other districts chip in as well. I yet to receive a reply
We know Minto prefers to spend his time outside the stadium fighting the police rather than watching the game. However in this case I agree with him. Christchurch will soon consist of a stadium, a conference center and lots of car parks.
Christchurch ratepayers are now saddled with more debt to fund this vanity project with a massive lifetime carbon footprint, at a time when the economic and human impacts of climate disruption are becoming ever more serious. Not convinced? Ask the global science community, central banks, investors, the insurance industry, even NATO and the Pentagon. We are running into serious trouble. Much of Europe is experiencing massive wildfires as I write this. Sydney has flooded 4 times in the last 18 months… I could go on, but clearly rugby fans, the tourism industry and a bunch of short-sighted councillors prioritise entertainment above their kids’ future.
This I’m exaggerating? The USA’s Directorate of National Intelligence recently released the report “Global Trends 2040”. Looking to the 2030s and 2040s, it sees a world ravaged by climate change, which will disrupt food supplies, result in the hoarding of food and a global famine that will result in widespread civil unrest and propel mass migration.
p. 118 et seq: “A wave of unrest spreads across the globe, protesting governments’ inability to meet basic human needs and bringing down leaders and regimes.”
https://www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/assessments/NIE_Climate_Change_and_National_Security.pdf
https://www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/assessments/GlobalTrends_2040.pdf
Maybe being a community investment they could build, and incorporate some onsite Social Housing for folks to live there and work there on game day if given the opportunity!
They wouldn’t be short of workers and they wouldn’t have any transport problems too.
If it’s Christchurch’s real place of worship, the sports stadium not the cathedral, perhaps it could be like the old cathedrals where the poor could huddle in hovels around the walls. The walls of the stadium could incorporate hooks, posts and struts which could be covered with weatherproof material for a place to huddle overnight out of the rain, and keep the cold out. And of course, inside, there is empty land and it could be grassed for a pastoral park in the City where people could live the simple rural life, until the running and kicking season. The ideas are boundless!
What about holding Friday night raves in the stadium like this, at the expense of the sports fans who have loaded the cost of their wants onto the shoulders of all men and women ratepayers around Christchurch? Let’s face it the sports fans are just another version of self-centred boy racers, so why should everybody give to them and get little in return.
The Blue Man Group are/were brilliant
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8vBKI3ya-l0
Good for business eh. But business hasn’t paid for the stadium, which should be a public entity anyway, so perhaps they could pay in bonds, but I think would rather pay tax accountants millions than pay their duly calculated tax.
Yup and don’t think anyone believes that there is such a thing as a “fixed price”. For the councillors to vote to progress the stadium but kick the can down the road for the next council to figure out how to pay for it is shameful. And only now is the council approaching neighbouring councils to assist with funding this stadium. Why should they? They didn’t vote to progress the stadium build. It’s not their responsibility and has nothing to do with them!
I hope voters realise that this stadium will cost every man, woman and child in Christchurch more than $1500 each and vote to hold the council responsible for this.
Sure, Christchurch needs a stadium to be taken seriously as a major New Zealand city, but why does a stadium in one of the driest parts of New Zealand need a roof? The mind boggles.
Correct, as usual, John Minto! I made a submission opposing the stadium for several reasons. First and foremost is the cost. This will have to be paid in some way. How? Rates increases? As a homeowner, I can think of many, many more important things we could use this money for, things for which I’d be happy to support. And, of course, by debt, which we all will wind up paying for. I ask: why don’t those who are wealthy who want a stadium — either because of their devotion to rugby and/or other mass events, their desire to build civic pride (whatever the heck that means), or because they think it will bring money into the city in the long run — step up and offer to pay a large chunk of the cost of building the stadium they so want? I am very disappointed in the so-called “left leaning” councilors who voted for the extra funding and also disappointed that those who claim to be interested in saving the city money by reducing costs did so as well. Disappointed, but not particularly surprised. And don’t get me started on the idiotic location chosen for it!
John, money-where-mouth, why don’t you stand in the upcoming elections on a policy to reverse the decision? As several have correctly commented, the 70% figure is based on a small and likely unrepresentative sample, so you might be surprised how well you’d do.
Debt! Worldwide in financially astute countries and ….Christchurch NZ!!
https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2022/07/18/another-warning-from-the-financial-times/
DEBT!
Debt
Deb
De
D – poof.
It doesn’t usually diminish so simply and quietly.
Listen tonight – money and politics to Bernard Hickey, Damien Grant, Thomas Coughlan and all.
https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2022/07/18/live-7-30pm-tonight-the-working-group-weekly-political-podcast-with-bernard-hickey-thomas-coughlan-damien-grant/
Stadiums never make money, even in major metropolises. Neither do libraries or art galleries or museums; they’re cultural assets. Whether you think they’re worth the spending is a matter of your priorities.
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