Posts by Russell Brown
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
Be interesting to see how that vote would have turned out had it been run under STV. Someone run out and interview a dozen Sweeny supporters and see if they would have ranked Hubbard or Banks higher.
In this morning's post I've advanced the view that under STV Banks wouldn't have won.
-
The SST said it didn't believe that this was a symbolic swing to the Right and this wasn't some portent of National Doom to come...
Is it a swing to the bigots though?
I think a swing usually implies votes swinging from one side to the other, and the numbers above clearly show that hasn't happened.
I think the most useful lesson for Labour might be that a low turnout won't be good for them.
-
He was on the Rock as well. Something about a whole new paradigm, and not coughing up for Eden park, cause the govt volunteered for the RWC, so Auckland ratepayers shouldn't have to foot the bill.
And then he said on Morning Report, in response to a question, that he might reconsider if the city got some equity in the park, which is actually quite a different position.
I strongly suspect that the discussions so far have already covered the idea of such a quid pro quo for both local and national governments, but Banks hasn't bothered to find out before sounding off.
-
Bruce Ferguson, one of the team of New Zealanders who helped construct the giant rugby ball at the foot of the Eiffel Tower, discusses the project, and what happened the night the All Blacks lost.
This isn't the last you'll see of the ball: it's on a world tour for the next four years, which will wind up in Auckland in 2011.
There are video clips of the job here, including this one of the big night:
-
I bet there are other people in Air NZ unhappy with the way they have to treat customers, but the price of protest is incredibly high. John Ralston Saul calls it the "tyranny of the employment contract."
I was thinking "the tyranny of accountability", but yup. Welcome aboard, Susan: that's a hell of a debut post.
-
Okay, back at home now with a few minutes to look things up.
Here's the skinny: Banks' landslide win has been achieved with almost exactly the same number of votes he attracted in his landslide loss three years ago.
Hubbard, who polled 62,000 votes last time, has lost abut 27,000 votes to other candidates -- five of whom polled more than 5000 votes (compared to three in 2004) -- and to a return to the tradtional low turnout.
Only three candidates attracted more than 1000 votes in 2004: eight did so this year. Banks held his vote, Hubbard didn't, but nearly twice as many didn't vote for Banks as did.
It looks like a test case case for STV, frankly.
-
Quite true, and if Mark Burton wants to promote the necessary legislative changes so Mayors have to secure an absolute majority of registered voters the electorate (which would require compulsory voting, I guess, and perhaps even run-offs)... then the best of British to him.
But I do think that's really missing the point.
Well, sort of. But when Banks claims, as he did last time (with a slightly higher proportion of both votes cast and registered voters) that he has been endorsed by "the overwhelming majority of Auckland voters", forgive me when I barf. And even if he manages not to say it, he will certainly behave that way.
Hubbard won last time by getting voters out, but it looks like turnout this time has sagged back to its usual level. C'mon Craig, you were so underwhelmed you didn't even vote on the Shore this time, and there's something deeply underwhelming about all this.
Furthermore, one of the few councillors with any imagination, Richard Simpson, has been tipped out now that the Tories of Hobson don't have an eastern motorway to fret about.
And bloody England won. The phrase "triumph of mediocrity" has been much in mind this morning ...
-
Worst election ever.
Well, Banks is the clear winner, with a 10,000 vote margin.
But by my very rough guess, he's won it with a bit over a third of the votes cast, which is about 12% of Auckland's registered voters.
Arrrgggh.
-
I'm not really that interested in heart medicine or BZP, but I do wish my local 4 Square would start selling heroin.
One thing people who claim the US War on Drugs is working reliably ignore is the massive shift to prescription drug abuse there: you can't get codeine in anything, but you can probably find someone who'll prescribe you Vicodin or Oxycontin, which are both very effective and, especially in the case of Oxycontin, extremely addictve.
I was going to expand that observation into a thoughtful treatise on related issues, but it's Friday night and I ran out of steam ...
-
Works fine for me on an iBook running Safari on 10.4. Maybe you need to update RealPlayer (or use Safari if you're using Firefox)?
BTW: when will the BBC finally give up on bloody RealPlayer? I'd actually rather they used Windows Media streaming.
Last ←Newer Page 1 … 2056 2057 2058 2059 2060 … 2279 Older→ First