Posts by Sacha
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Just in case anyone missed it, from the Herald story about the supercity transition board, another crucial deviation from the carefully recommended transition process:
One of the first jobs for the agency will be appointing a chief executive, but it will also appoint an interim chief executive for the Auckland Council up to the middle of 2012.
The interim chief executive has been given wide powers before he or she is politically accountable to the Auckland Council. These include the ability to hand-pick his or her executive team, enter into contracts and leases and other agreements "to enable the council to operate efficiently and effectively" from November 2010.
The royal commission recommended the transition agency should have an independent chairman and an interim chief executive until the Auckland Council was in a position to appoint a full-time chief executive.
The only people the chief executive will be accountable to are the members of the transition agency, who in turn, will report to Mr Hide. The agency must obtain the approval of Mr Hide and Finance Minister Bill English for spending.
So Hide has direct control of what is done in the transition, constrained only by English.
It's a trifecta of neutralising opposition to Waterview and any similar local matters - no RMA leverage, no Council leverage, no national political leverage. Gone. Capping rates rises and removing social wellbeing from the Local Government Act yet to come.
Anyone who thinks this won't be repeated around the country is kidding themselves. National voters should pay close attention to what they have wrought and start asking some questions about why Act is getting so much for their tiny share of the vote, and whether this is really the kind of New Zealand they want for themselves and their families.
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Strictly-disciplined families do not have enough people speaking out for them.
You're right, it is redundant. -
This is begining to sound like the copywrong thread.
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For those of us who haven't read the full report, can you shed any light, Joshua, on what the "central interchange connectivity" options mentioned in that table amount to?
Presumably it's to do with how it connects to the Northwestern motorway (although the word "South" is confusing me)?
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Kim, you win the enthusiastic punctuation award.
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I don't think her personal life ought to be a factor in her suitability for public offices.
In general, I agree, Paul. In this case though I believe Rankin's marital status compared with her pronouncements over the past few years about the good old nucular family are fair game. TV news had some footage of her stridently slagging Helen Clark for not having had children, so she's obviously not averse to dishing it out.
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No issue - we seem to be converging.
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Some call it research..
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Sofie, I kind of alluded to that earlier.
Discussion about Waterview costing on frogblog.
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Rather than just stating it as if it is obviously some kind of solution when Matthew has repeatedly given clear reasons why it would make little to no difference.
It's the corrosive effect that idiots like Mr Dexter have on what is acceptable argument style. Along those lines, Paul Buchanan has a somewhat intellectual take on misuse of terms like socialist and fascist.
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