Posts by Matthew Poole
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Hard News: Competing for Auckland, in reply to BenWilson,
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Property is by far the biggest amount of capital in this country
I was doing a bit of research into the proposal to change the Fire Service Levy from an insurance charge to a local rates charge, and came across the staggering figure that the aggregate value of residential property in NZ (a couple of years ago, too, IIRC) was around $650 billion. That's just residential property, never mind property that supports the revenue-generating economy.
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Hard News: Competing for Auckland, in reply to Ian Dalziel,
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If he and Steven Joyce left the country who would be left to run anything?
Paula Rebstock is still here isn't she? Dame Margaret Bazely is still above ground, too.
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Hard News: Competing for Auckland, in reply to Sacha,
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Cullen held up rail network investment last time Labour were in govt, for instance
But once he got the religion, he got it fully. Everything that's happening to the Auckland rail network currently is courtesy of Cullen (with grudging thanks to the Minister for Everything and the Minister for Pies for having not cancelled any of it).
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Hard News: Competing for Auckland, in reply to Eric Dutton,
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none of the alternatives explored in the CCFAS turned out to be viable.
You don't find it odd that none of the options to a problem were financially viable? Don't think that maybe there's something seriously broken about the models used? There were some really out-there choices considered for the initial scoping, including personal transport pods, so you can't accuse the CCFAS of being too narrow or flawed in its considerations.
The models are dud, it's that simple. NZTA itself has said that the models tend to overstate the benefits of road projects while understating the benefits of public transport projects. That's made perfectly clear when the best-scoring option for resolving a clear problem cannot doesn't even break even with conventional modelling.
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Hard News: Competing for Auckland, in reply to Konrad Kurta,
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Milford is also pretty close to the busway, too; regular bus services that linked to it would make it easy to get to the city and back.
That’ll be happening as part of the reorganisation of bus routes that’s slated to be carried out over the next three years. The aim will be to reduce significantly the number of buses that travel through the ’burbs to get to town, instead turning them into feeder services for the Rapid Transit Network of the Northern Bus Way and the rail network. Will change public transport in Auckland beyond all recognition once it’s completed.
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Hard News: Competing for Auckland, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
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Would anyone like to liberate the meat of the story from behind the NBR paywall?
The meat is thus:
Brown owns a 406sqm house on a 6,970sqm bush block on Tiffany Close, that he and his wife bought (undeveloped) for $180k in 1995. He even *gasp* has a swimming pool! And his property is just outside the current MUL; but is inside the proposed RUB, though NBR doesn’t mention that wee fact.Ergo he is a prize hypocrite for preaching density while not having traded in a property that he’s owned for nearly 20 years in order to live in an apartment.
The Dick quacked: "Len Brown lives on a country estate in a McMansion and wants the rest of us to live in rabbit hutches."
The article quotes Brash talking about how land inside the MUL works out at $8m/ha (based on a 500sqm section going for $400k) while “prime dairy land” is $50k/ha just across the border outside the MUL. Exploration of the value of dairy land inside the MUL wasn’t part of the article, of course.
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OnPoint: MSD's Leaky Servers, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
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That error means that either the sites SSL certificate is invalid, or someone is man-in-the-middling your SSL traffic.
Or it means that the browser doesn't recognise the certificate authority that signed the cert, which is entirely possible. That it works with your browser doesn't mean anything if you aren't replicating Ian's exact CA chain.
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OnPoint: MSD's Leaky Servers, in reply to Steve Barnes,
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Surely if the agreement is collective all you should have to do is change the value of a pay-scale code? surely?
If not then the system will never work.Depends what else the collective agreement contains, and when it comes into effect. Also, what if a teacher is on parental or medical leave when the agreement comes into force but they don't get the increased pay until they return to teaching duties? Or they're a reliever who is working for different rates at different schools?
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Hard News: You can Roughan but you just…, in reply to Scott Chris,
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My guess is that in 20 years time, cars will all be talking to eachother under the central control of artificial intelligence
You’re optimistic. We’ve been promised something like that for at least the last 20 years. It’ll be probably another decade before we start to even see such cars appearing on NZ roads (based on the current state of testing of true smart cars), and with our average vehicle age approaching 13 years it’s more like 30 years after first arrival before we see such technology in widespread use.
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Hard News: You can Roughan but you just…, in reply to BenWilson,
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Angus can speak for himself, but I presumed he actually meant west-south
Sayeth Angus: Sans-CRL there could be trains going West-East for much less investment than buying a tunnel. There could be trains running West-South today if the funds were cleared to do so.
So, no, he very definitely meant west-east in addition to west-south. He's dead right about west-south and I think it needs to be explored as a near-term measure - once we have transfer fares sorted and there's no penalty to change trains at Newmarket - to address the congestion at Britomart. West-east, though, is not a matter of spending money - no spending is needed to enable west-east switching at the Parnell yards - as both you and I have observed.