Posts by nzlemming
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Hard News: When the fast track seems a…, in reply to BenWilson,
The only way to be sure is to nuke Grey Lynn from space.
Been saying this for a long time. Sovereign remedy.
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Hard News: Masters of Reality, in reply to Deborah,
It’s a little hard to know what underlay the comments from voters about the Greens being scary
It's not hard at all. That's exactly the narrative that National has been selling in the media and through it's puppets for the last 6 years. The only way around it would be to openly accept the Greens and campaign jointly as a government in waiting.
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Hard News: When the fast track seems a…, in reply to Sacha,
does that really say “Miniature shooting gallery’?
I presume Weta extras were in season...
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As to the main post, my experience was with the Kapiti Expressway BoI, which was pretty much a show trial, in hindsight. The Board of Inquiry refused to enquire at all certain facts from NZTA, despite being asked to by several submitters, saying they would make the judgement on the evidence presented. This neatly (for them) overlooked our claims that NZTA were hiding stuff from us. They went on to accept *every* piece of NZTA evidence and none from any of the submitters. On the subject of "independent expert witnesses" which the Act specifies, they accepted all NZTA's witnesses at face value, despite the fact that these "witnesses" were all (bar 2) employees of the companies involved in the Alliance or of NZTA, and were commenting on work their colleagues had done or even they themselves had done. The report castigated our expert witnesses (who were all top of their fields and cost us a fortune) for a) not doing their homework or b) straying out of their area of expertise. One of ours was criticised for the latter, and then, two pages later, slated for not being cognisant of the evidence of another of our witnesses in a totally unrelated field! Had the Board's statements not had the protection of coming from a quasi-legal authority, I believe they would have been actionable for defamation.
What it comes down to is that the government picks the members of these boards that will give them the decision that they want. The Basin Board had more integrity than the government anticipated.
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Hard News: When the fast track seems a…, in reply to Lucy Telfar Barnard,
Or at the ferry terminal, where you can even put your car on a ferry and carry on on SH1 on the other side…
Again, I seem to recall (when NZ actually still owned the ferry service) that it did exactly that. I mean, what idiot would put a state highway through a capital city? But I can't find a reference for it.
In the South Island, certainly, it starts/ends at the ferry terminal/railway station in Picton.
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Hard News: When the fast track seems a…, in reply to Lucy Telfar Barnard,
My favourite plan for traffic in the area, invented entirely by myself with no regard whatsoever to such paltry concerns as cost, is to lift up the whole Basin Reserve cricket ground, stands and all, and put the traffic underneath.
You're not the first to think of that...
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Hard News: Masters of Reality, in reply to Steve Barnes,
Do the Greens think they could get control of the treasury benches without Labour?.
No, they don't. But they don't pretend to either, whereas Labour still thinks it's the big dog it once was, instead of the lost puppy it has become. Does Labour seriously think they could get control of the treasury benches without the Greens?
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Hard News: Masters of Reality, in reply to Sacha,
He has more to gain politically by criticising from outside the committee, unbound by its strict confidentiality.
Spot on.
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Hard News: Masters of Reality, in reply to Russell Brown,
and the hate site (because it was just horrible, and really off-topic).
Sorry.
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Hard News: Masters of Reality, in reply to Steve Barnes,
Now that is a real low down hate attack site if ever I saw one, nasty.
Sure is. But Lauda Finem have gone to some trouble to be as anonymous as they can - it almost invites this sort of rejoinder. LF doesn't appear to keen on Slater most of the time, either.
