What’s so bad about Wellington? Pressure on to see the advice to the minister
After a week of tough talk, Local Government Minister Simeon Brown finally pulled the trigger on Tuesday – confirming a Crown observer was bound for Wellington City Council.
But what’s so bad about Wellington?
The minister is now under pressure from the Opposition to show his working and release the advice he received about Wellington City Council.
Let’s be honest about why Wellington Council has an Observer.
Let’s be honest about why this is suddenly happening…
..why is this all necessary?
Because Tory Whanau is a young Māori woman, that’s why!
This racist, climate denying, Public Service slashing, anti-worker, beneficiary bashing, disabled abusing hard right Government has embarked upon an appalling austerity programme that has seen 5000 public servants sacked from Wellington which has crashed the local economy.
To then have the audacity to blame Wellington council for that economic wreckage and appoint an Observer is insult to injury!
We have underfunded local council of desperately needed infrastructure and then when the problems become glaring, we blame Tory Whanau!
I say all this as a strident critic of Whanau, her interviews are train wrecks and her left wing politics are nothing more than an aesthetic and she imbues all the misplaced confidence of Darleen Tana – but to blame her for decades of underfunding and appoint an Observer so the Government can turn the nations hatred towards Māori women into a target to hide their own culpability in Wellington’s dysfunction is a cruel spiteful politics which should be challenged with the contempt it deserves.
Show us the reasons why an Observer was necessary to appoint in the first place!
This is virtue signalling political theatre to distract from the roots of Wellington’s troubles which was this Government sacking 5000 public servants and chronic underfunding!
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So if an old white man called his colleagues “ riff raff “ and “immature” it would be ok then? If an older white politician was sozzled in public places it would be ok then ? Hmm.
Perhaps you missed the news this week of Andrew Bayly’s behaviour and Luxon’s dismissal of the seriousness of it.
So yes, apparently it is just fine for an elderly white male politician of the right to get trashed and abuse others.
Hahaha go Rangi!!! On point! Take that anyone who wants to say otherwise, and that dickhead Andrew was ALot more offensive out and about …town….no what wait, he was …on the job.??? Wow, soooo much worse.
Just look at BAYLY the drunk abusive white minister who is clearly allowed by the PM to tell someone to fuckoff
Mmmmmmmmm, I rather think that it’s a case where some very nice, well-meaning people got their hands on the levers of power and had no idea how to pull them to achieve any useful outcome.
Of an infinite number of monkeys with typewriters, only one will reproduce the works of Keri Hulme.
Which if you re read it, is pretty bad.
On second thoughts, I might just accept a bit of race baiting if it puts the costly, ill-thought out, massively disruptive, and business- destroying Golden Mile Project on the back burner. Yep.
So you want to keep living with poor infrastructure and pay nothing towards funding your city which has been under funded for 50 years .If council has to borrow more money rate payers will still be paying more in rates ,what makes Brown think otherwise /WHO DO YOU THINK WILL PAY FOR THAT EXTRA BORROWING .?oH THE GRANDKIDS .
Might be time you and the business whingers grew up .There are 2 million drivers and 4 million cars .Why the fuck does every driver need two cars .I would be making that area a low volume car area and focusing on public transport and pedestrian/cyclist freindly .Time for you relics to throw the keys away get some exercise and get healthy .
Oh well, you are a dickhead. Racist to boot. Wanker, you ain’t got no morals. Any means.to the end and all that.
This wanker government cans three waters and has no alternative. They are idiots. As for their motivations, this could just as easily be another distraction to take the focus off multiple train wrecks. Inflation is largely declining because of the tradeable elements, not the coalition’s actions. Their singular achievement is higher unemployment. Well done. Bunch of Andrew Baylys.
Wheel The wankers might be the profligate WCC counsellors trying to pedestrianise Wellington because they know that everyone will have to sell their cars to pay their rates bills.
So you want to keep living with poor infrastructure and pay nothing towards funding your city which has been under funded for 50 years .If council has to borrow more money rate payers will still be paying more in rates ,what makes Brown think otherwise /WHO DO YOU THINK WILL PAY FOR THAT EXTRA BORROWING .?oH THE GRANDKIDS .
Have you noticed how lots of councils want to band together to fund and implement water programs .I think its called 3 waters but they call it some thing else .I also note the government has snuck through a law overnight to prevent Otago council from doing its water plan even though they say they want locals to take charge because locals know what is needed .
Don’t forget Wheel they have ‘water that works’ it’s just not working in Wellington at the moment, only Auckland. Actually, there policy is crap as someone still has to pay and their policies are so bad all their lies are on coming to the fore. And some of the COC are so arrogant they don’t fucken care, just look at Bayley the old coot has showed his true colours and he ain’t nice.
Martyn your comments on the Wellington Mayor observably true but Kiwis like a bit of color in boring local politics. Tim Shadbolt was reelected with his foot in his mouth for generations.
The trigger was pulled when the council decided not give away its airport asset and not pay high bank interest on its infrastructure. Seems economically rational not to give away an airport toll bridge monopoly.
I would really like to know if the money earnt from Key’s sale of SOAs is still in commission or like all one off payments has been wasted?
Good on the members of the council for standing strong and not selling the airport.
If it’s good enough for the government to give Landlords freebies surely this government can put investment into a city they are happy to put thousands more immigrants into each month and thus a strain on infrastructure?
Two reasons for this government to intervene
She is Maori from the green party
They caned 3 waters and now want to blame her because their plan is a fuck up like all of their policy .
Let’s look at a different angle.
Luxie has stated he’s all into ‘ localism ‘.
After all it’s a democracy and the Council is elected by locals who then still have input into their community’s needs.
But the CoC’s plans of dictating who CAN’T be represented, the canning of the likes of 3 Waters and austerity plans for Councils is seen as a failure now by the public. The CoC’s empty promises and chaotic plans are now highly visible.
So here we are across the country still with the likes of infrastructure failing, housing shortages, jobs lost in tens of thousands affecting communities across the board, water insecurity… so back to deflect and blame, anything to hide the mess.
So we now see the rollouts of defunding, canning agencies, commissioners, observers, crony appointments to fast track et al….. aka Schutzstaffel to ensure dictatorship thrives.
LOCALISM my arse !
Ignore Whanau’s inept current tenure, her public drinking incident, her changed stories and awful interviews, WCC’s inability to balance a budget. The real reason for the observer is because Whanau’s a Māori woman. Yeh right. Of course I accept that leftists only voted for her because she is a Māori woman.
The reason that central government is cracking down on the Wellington Council is that it has made decisions which go against the government’s predilection for privatisation of assets. It is evidence of the government’s contempt for democracy and their willingness to clamp down on any local government which steps out of line. Sure, Wellington Council could manage its affairs better. So could central government. Central government should mind its own business and remember that it is not meant to be running a totalitarian state.
The only reason there is an observer is to show that Simeon brown actually has a pair of big boy trousers and because she’s a brown girl he had to show who was boss, and as for nicola Willis she’s only jealous because Tori actually won a mayoral seat and Willis is so distasteful that she’s only a list mp no seat
Don’t forget Wheel they have ‘water that works’ it’s just not working in Wellington at the moment, only Auckland. Actually, there policy is crap as someone still has to pay and their policies are so bad all their lies are on coming to the fore. And some of the COC are so arrogant they don’t fucken care, just look at Bayley the old coot has showed his true colours and he ain’t nice.
I was in Wellington recently I was disappointed it used to be an interesting cultural haven for people who were pleasantly different. Now water runs in just about every street paths are uneven and there are shops with closed notices everywhere.
It can’t be the fault of the current mayor although she appears to be a train wreck this is an accumulated mess over many years.
The Govt knows that they can abuse her and accuse her of incompetence – and have a large portion of the population just automatically agree with them because she is a Maori woman.
But that’s a mere convenience – something that makes their real agenda easier. And their real agenda was to put Councils in a nasty fiscal squeeze by canning 3 Waters and leaving Councils only with borrowing, rates rises and asset sales to fund water infrastructure upgrades. Then make disapproving noises about the first two options in order to force asset sales. Their friends are lined up ready to buy – and just like Key’s electricity gentailer sales, this is essentially an opportunity for the wealthy who can afford shares to extract monopoly rents from the poor who can’t afford shares, but who have no option other to use an essential service like electricity or an airport.
I also sense that Nat-ACT also don’t actually mind some fairly hefty rates rises – especially if it forces the precariously retired with low incomes to either sell their houses or seek minimum wage part-time jobs. The first frees up houses for purchase by the landlord class (further concentrating house ownership in fewer hands) and the second exerts downward pressure on wages (thus providing a windfall to business).
The Nat-ACT mantra is always to create options for their social class to extract more and more wealth from others.
The right wing morons “don’t care at all” about the welfare of others. This is very true. But more than that they do not care if the crashed the economy as a whole.
Mostly because they can not see this inevitable consequence of their 60 odd demented monkeys with typewriters (and sound bites) approach to running the country. They may hit upon a convincing narrative but that will not salvage the nation they have no interest in.
Next time we have an election the only way forward and out is to gag the most stupid and gulliable of right wing supporters and maniple them to the steering wheels of their luxury utes for the entire election period.
And do so as a nation because the Left needs to be put on notice too. though one would hope they paid attention when their disastrously under-utilised electoral mandate evsporated last time largely because they abused it by doing next to nothing about the real problems faced by Nezeslanders.
Totalatarian, eh! totalatarian, what, ehy totalatarian.
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