Posts by Joshua Arbury
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Well, couldn't Twyford take a call in the general debate and do that?
That would only achieve the first purpose though. And this is a more obvious way to point out Act's hypocrisy.
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I must say I'm generally not a particularly big fan of referendums - they tend to be a bit backward looking.
I think Twyford's bill has a couple of purposes. The first is to point out the hypocrisy of Rodney Hide's general support of referendums while not wanting one to verify the Super City (or generally for anything he thinks the result won't be to his liking). The second is a more practical purpose of making sure that if any council assets were to be sold, there would have to be a damn good justification for it.
For example, if we had a $1.5 billion council asset sitting around (the Port comes to mind) and its sale was mooted, and justified on the grounds that every single dollar of that sale would go into building the CBD rail loop - then perhaps it would be worth it, or perhaps the people of Auckland could agree on selling an asset to fund such a crucial piece of infrastructure. Without the referendum clause it might be far easier for the money from an asset sale just to end up in a slush fund.
It would also certainly put council off selling assets - nobody wants to be defeated in a referendum of course - which 99% of the time is a good thing.
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Has anybody actually MET John Duthie? Why is this man in charge of City Development?
I haven't, and as he may one day be my boss I don't want to bad-mouth him too much, but let's just say this:
"He has been in charge of city development since 1989".Nuff said.
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I agree Russell, the city has plenty of buildings. What we need is some open space, preferably grassed with a nice fountain or two and a great sculpture right down the end.
I'm curious to see what the banana sheds are like on the inside actually..... though i suspect the one further towards the end of the wharf is actually just going to be annoying and get in the way of a decent open space.
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We should demand a "this is a stupid question" option.
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Interesting to hear some stuff about Vancouver - a very nice city from my experience of it. One of the best things about it is the ability to walk along the harbour edge throughout almost the entire inner-city. This should be a long-term goal for Auckland in my opinion.
Interesting idea Logan. How would a lagoon work on a wharf though? Could be some tricky engineering there.
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Should income tax be reduced by 10% and public spending increased as part of a prudent and responsible economic policy?
That sounds awfully similar to United Future's economic policies!
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This will be an interesting question in parliament today:
JOHN BOSCAWEN to the Prime Minister: Does he stand by his statement that the wording of the referendum “Should a smack as part of good parental correction be a criminal offence in New Zealand?” is “a bit ambiguous”; if so, why?
Good to see a fight between Act and National on the cards.
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Not to mention diverting public transport funding into building more highways.
Geez don't get me started on the stupidity of that move.
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Dinah, John Banks will do his best to wriggle out of spending much money on this. He's already wriggled out of contributing to the purchase cost.
And no, the infrastructure problems haven't been sorted, although vehicle numbers are down on the roads, public transport ridership is booming and the government took away our regional fuel tax as a way to improve public transport.
I'm still waiting for word on when Steven Joyce will let us know when we're getting the electric trains the ARC would have ordered by now.