National’s Northern Regional Conference
National had it’s Northern Regional Conference at the weekend. The Northern Region is the current powerhouse of the National Party. A few years ago there was only a handful of Auckland MPs, and few were seen as heavyweights.
Today no less than 12 Ministers come from the Northern Region, plus the Speaker (who had people non stop congratulating him on having made Question Time more meaningful – which is interesting as it is National Ministers he is forcing to answer questions). It has probably been a long time since Auckland was so forcefully represented in a National Government
As expected people were in good spirits, being the first conference in Government since 1999. The Richard Worth scandal wasn’t distracting people from the business, even though it was a source of considerable black humour from some people.
The main speech was of course from John Key. No big revelations in it, but there were two things I found significant. He talked about hard drugs, and especially P, quite passionately and said that it was arguably the most corrosive thing in NZ. I think there is going to be a very significant all of Government focus on P, led by him.
The other item of significance was he basically said that community bards in the Super City will be bulk funded and have their own budgets to spend. Also John Carter said that their powers will not be left to the new Auckland Council but be defined in statute, so it sounds like they are going to be quite souped up.
John got a lot of laughs when he revealed he had paid $20 for a raffle ticket with the prize being lunch with Bill English. He said that if he won, he would give Bill a season pass for the new cycleway.
John and Bill have a very effective double act, where rather than pretend there has not been a disagreement between them at some stage, they openly acknowledge they were saying different things, and then joke about it at every opportunity. It is a very very effective way of taking the sting out of it, and also sending a strong message that while they may disagree at times, they have a strong personal rapport and are comfortable hassling each other in a very Kiwi sense of humour way.
June 7th, 2009 at 12:32 pm
The relationship between Prime Minister and Minister of Finance must involve some tension if the Minister of Finance is a person of any substance. Indeed the relationship has worked best when there is this “creative” tension. The Prime Minister has a wider brief and tends to focus on politics. The Minister of Finance must focus on the “books”. And in our case bending the arc of debt downwards. It seems John Key and Bill English understand this relationship and can ease any tension through a warm joke or two.
June 7th, 2009 at 12:39 pm
Joking about each other is a sign of how well they get on, like and respect each other. If they didn’t have a good relationship they’d always be serious and polite for fear a joke would misfire or be taken seriously.
June 7th, 2009 at 12:50 pm
Great, finally something gets done about P. The corollary to P of course is the fact that to deal with that, he has to also take out the organised criminals which include not only the locals but the recent imports as well.
Great.
Let’s hope it happens very soon indeed, with extreme prejudice.
P.S. I’m not at all surprised the Speaker is getting congratulations from those colleagues that are subject to his rulings. What I’m also not surprised about is the complete silence from the MSM about the stark stark stark contrast between him and the previous two Speakers.
June 7th, 2009 at 12:54 pm
Agree with REID.
Was Melissa there? Is she in front yet?
June 7th, 2009 at 12:59 pm
The other item of significance was he basically said that community bards in the Super City will be bulk funded …
How do I apply for one of these positions? Do I need to be a published bard, or can anyone apply? What does Rodney think of the idea?
June 7th, 2009 at 1:02 pm
He talked about hard drugs, and especially P, quite passionately and said that it was arguably the most corrosive thing in NZ.
More corrosive than alcohol, which fuels many more crimes?
More corrosive than tobacco, which kills many more people?
If this government,if any government is to have a serious drug policy it would be based on harm minimisation, not knee jerk, not follow the leader US style, not flavour of the month. Sound, solid research based harm minimisation.
June 7th, 2009 at 1:07 pm
Now that Hulun has left.
Hat-tip to billy for giving me the idea. Thanks billy.
June 7th, 2009 at 1:25 pm
John got a lot of laughs when he revealed he had paid $20 for a raffle ticket with the prize being lunch with Bill English.
Let me guess: Was second prize lunch AND dinner with Bill English?
June 7th, 2009 at 1:41 pm
“Was second prize lunch AND dinner with Bill English?’
still beats a breakfast with Richard Worth
June 7th, 2009 at 2:00 pm
P is definitely the worst drug in NZ.
Simon Bridges has had a lot of experience on the problems caused by P through his days as public prosecutor, and has spoken quite passionately locally on how severe the repercussions are from P.
I agree – call in the military if necessary to disband the gangs who make and peddle the drugs.
June 7th, 2009 at 2:08 pm
“He talked about hard drugs, and especially P, quite passionately and said that it was arguably the most corrosive thing in NZ.”
Rubbish…its the socialist dogma of welfare and general bludging (the sort National sadly also appears to endorse) coupled with big Government busybodyness that is the most corrosive and detremental factor in NZ…and has been for decades.
P is only a “problem” because well meaning but factually illiterate moral majority types made it one by introducing prohibition and starting a chain reaction thanks to the law of cause and effect.
The war on drugs is an immoral war on human rights and liberty….it needs stopping and fast or the results will be devestating.
“I agree – call in the military if necessary to disband the gangs who make and peddle the drugs.”
I disagree…call in the military to round up and shoot all anti drug fascists who are a threat to our liberties and our childrens safety.
June 7th, 2009 at 2:13 pm
“call in the military if necessary to disband the gangs”
Yep. What I’d do Don, is to form a task-force between the military, police, intelligence and customs.
Pass a law in closed session that comes into effect at midnight then at 1 minute past, go into every single identified gang location across the entire country, arrest everyone there then bulldoze them all into the ground.
Highly irregular. Civil rights people would have a fit. Don’t care.
Any other way will not work and is just operating at the margins.
June 7th, 2009 at 2:22 pm
Set up a Narcotics special forces agency and tackle all Class A drugs with brut force!
June 7th, 2009 at 3:01 pm
P as a deinhibitor, hence the reference to ‘Brut’ force, is quite common in the commercial sex industry, and will be used even more readily if simply legalised.
June 7th, 2009 at 3:10 pm
I’m not sure Lockwood Smith really has changed Question Time. He has reverted to letting Ministers get away with non-answers in the last few weeks because actually requiring answers to specific questions gets any Speaker into lots of trouble with both sides. Oppositions can make hay with points of order and the government can bite the Speaker in other ways, and he is certainly no less partisan than any other Speaker. Perhaps he should be careful about praising himself too much in case it bites him in the rear later…
June 7th, 2009 at 3:13 pm
Even if it was possible to shut down the drug (doubtful based on US attempts to ban P thus far) another will replace it. P is just the latest hysteria. In the past it was heroin and crack. And arguably cannabis and alcohol harm is more widespread and insidious anyway. As James says, the mentality of entitlement and subsequent state-funding of self-destructive life styles
is of far greater concern. That is what National needs to focus on. No sign of it happening.
June 7th, 2009 at 3:19 pm
kiwirights, Clearly you have spent very little time over the last twenty years listening to question time under the control of Wilson and Hunt.
Your throw away line ‘he is no less partisan than any other Speaker’ deserves the rotten egg prize for inanity. Give that fellow a double yolker!
In case you hadn’t noticed – and the fact you hadn’t is obvious- I think you will find that Speaker Lockwood-Smith’s ruling on answers to questions applied only to primary questions, not to supplementaries, and then only to those questions which asked for definitive or quantitative answers.
June 7th, 2009 at 3:24 pm
Many supplementaries are not really questions at all but some sort of political remark dressed up as a question. Those sorts of questions barely merit a response. Speaker Smith understands that.
June 7th, 2009 at 3:30 pm
“Community bards in the Super City will be bulk funded”
Which will lead to many more lute players in all of our streets!
June 7th, 2009 at 4:01 pm
Many years ago a Cato Institute study showed that the only cost-effective solution to drug problems is treating addicts and ending the “War on Drugs” lunacy.
Slowly, very slowly the world is waking up to reality:
http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13237193
http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1893946,00.html
http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13251312
http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=10068
… and many other articles on that website.
I hope Key has the brains and guts to take effective actions as opposed to totally ineffective posturing and enforcement.
Sure, the Singapore approach – execute all addicts – works, but anything short of that doesn’t and it won’t fly in a democracy.
June 7th, 2009 at 4:27 pm
As i said,right at the start, harm minimisation is the way to go. But already one of the “hang the bastards” loonies has given Alan the TD. Anything to avoid engaging the topic seems to be the kiwiblog mantra on drugs
June 7th, 2009 at 4:43 pm
The way to rescue the Government from all this political fall-out from the Super City is in fact to turn it into an exercise in de-amalgamation where we end up with a focused Regional Council to manage the regional services and about twenty fully functional councils of about 50,000 – 70,000 (the most efficient size) to run local matters, and provide diversity of “boroughs” to match our diverse places and diverse people.
It’s not too late – and we do seem to be inching towards this new Bethlehem.
June 7th, 2009 at 4:47 pm
I would love to think that might happen, Owen, but I fear the lemmings are determined to jump over the cliff.
June 7th, 2009 at 4:55 pm
Harm minimisation makes a lot of sense…. though only the Green Party seem to have any interest at overhauling drug laws to this more sensible approach.
June 7th, 2009 at 4:57 pm
Owen, what’s your proposed rewording to section 13 of the Local Government (Auckland Council) Bill to make it work better?
June 7th, 2009 at 5:01 pm
The right approach to drugs is:
(a) eliminate organised crime organisations
(b) eliminate the ability to profit from drugs.
In that order, or simultaneously.
But don’t do (b) before doing (a).
If you leave those guys around, then once you take away their main profit-maker, they’ll just start doing something else, like kidnapping.
June 7th, 2009 at 5:06 pm
reid, you can’t eliminate the suppliers whilst the demand continues. Eliminating the demand will eliminate the suppliers.
Yes, they’ll try other things but these are harder and less profitable or they would already be doing them.
Most will fail to adapt and go out of “business”. Might even have to get a job. Also many of the addicts graduate to becoming suppliers. Eliminating that recruitment channel will also reduce organised crime.
June 7th, 2009 at 5:07 pm
Has it occurred to the many vociferous commenters here that Rodney Hide and John Key between them just might be smarter than the lot of you put together?
June 7th, 2009 at 5:11 pm
You might be too, Adolf, but in all cases we await evidence.
June 7th, 2009 at 5:11 pm
“Rodney Hide and John Key between them just might be smarter than the lot of you put together?”
Only if you shut you avoid ever listening to them or reading anything they write!
June 7th, 2009 at 5:20 pm
here’s an example, you can buy 1kg of cocaine produced at the source for the same price as 1kg of sugar, the cocaine by the way is far more pure than anything you would by in country after it has gone through so many hands, think about it …
.. or we can continue to watch people snort Lithium batterys or Ajax up their nose and go on a homicidal sprees.
June 7th, 2009 at 5:21 pm
Still waiting for a logical non ad hominem argument from Adolf. I fear he will be in his grave before he comes up with one.
June 7th, 2009 at 5:22 pm
Well it’s interesting to note the antique media and the Kiwiblog chatterati have completely ignored the remarkable news from the Gnats Auckland conference that the new super city will (a) bulk fund its local boards (or whatever they are called) and these boards’ powers will be enshrined in statute. When you consider that the lame duck anti supercity protesters have based their whole raison d’etre on their contention that somehow the boards will have no decision making power and all influence will reside with the select few at the centre, don’t you think that might rate some attention? Just one teensy weensy little bit of attention from our brain dead sensation obsessed media?
No. They are interested only in the Bain verdict; the fact that an MP’s son has touched up some sheila against her wishes and that John Key reckons JOhn Banks might be the new super mayor.
Sonic and AW, Key and Hide are many steps ahead of you and your ilk. You got the evidence today but you are just too plain dumb to see it.
June 7th, 2009 at 5:26 pm
“reid, you can’t eliminate the suppliers whilst the demand continues.”
Yes you can, Alan. If you have the will to do it.
Read my 2:13.
Extreme prejudice.
Notice also I’m advocating a dual approach, to also eliminate demand, by decriminalizing where sensible: i.e. in most cases. Not sure about P – it’s a psychotic drug, unlike most.
June 7th, 2009 at 5:44 pm
Adolf, I’ve seen Board’s powers enshrined in statutes before and all it means is more bureaucracy and less adaptability.
I was also involved in the previous amalgamation exercise in Auckland and I know a lot more about that than either Key or Hide, however smart they are. Owen is also very well informed.
So far nothing I’ve seen from Key and Hide suggest they’re heading for anything but an expensive disaster. As I’ve said before the costs will be immense, real and immediate. The benefits are a mirage.
June 7th, 2009 at 5:44 pm
Sounds like good news. Now we just need to ensure all councillors are elected from wards and we might be some way towards making good from this whole Super-City process.
June 7th, 2009 at 6:05 pm
Alan W, so nothing to say about the substance, I see. Just ‘I know best’?
June 7th, 2009 at 6:12 pm
Owen I am surprised you advocate a return to a plethora of Councils in Auckland; sounds like the Borough Councils of old; I have memory of unbalanced Council representation (all businesmen), low level corruption, over staffing, and indifferent performance. I recall that if you wanted a building consent at Newmarket Borough you would go in and they would figuratively just stamp the back of your hand. In one area of the city you could build 6 units on half an acre and only two units on the half acre next door – different Boroughs. Mind you it could turn out like Woolongong where you get a consent if you bonk the planning officer; that may make your day.
I am all in favour of the Super City Council providing all services that are city wide – we have the data collection capability, and communication facility to easily achieve this. And we have say 20 Boards that are bulk funded for locally focused expenditure. In this way we get rid of the nonsense spending by Councils as they pursue private agendas at the ratepayer’s expense. It would also eliminate Council’s competing with each other in the provision of duplicate public facilities. But it must be clear at the outset that Boards are constrained; otherwise we get another set of empire builders. (as would happen with your reincarnated Borough Councils. Bureacracy never dies ; it mimics the hydra.)
June 7th, 2009 at 6:50 pm
Ok, Adolf (& Trout), even the RC estimates integration costs at up to $240M. It will be a world first if an estimate like this is not exceeded – possibly even by simply the IT project required to integrate 8 different large computer systems as Computerworld reported last week.
How will we know if the Supercity is a success or a failure? What are the objective criteria that we can measure the project against to determine this?
I suggest there are no such identifiable criteria and that in itself shows the plan is misconceived and will almost certainly fail. No competent commercial organisation would tolerate such foolishness.
June 7th, 2009 at 7:02 pm
Alan W, you are dragging up last year’s arguments. The game’s over old chap. Get used to it.
June 7th, 2009 at 7:05 pm
No, Adolf, the game is just starting. It will be running for the next 5-10 years.
June 7th, 2009 at 7:09 pm
In fact this can be likened to a Commercial business merger; it a common activity in a system that endeavours to continually transform itself for the better. The fact that a Super City is proposed was not a brainstorm; it came of serious frustration with inefficiencies and waste. The Councils I visit seem to be bereft of enterprise and expertise; all the good staff leave and contract back – at enormous cost to the ratepayers. I can see we are now entering into a phase in the debate where Council staff feel threatened (as they probably should be) by the merger and are mounting an anti campaign (shades of Diagnostic Medlab). One talk back caller was against the merger because her rates were too high and jobs would be lost. What irony.
June 7th, 2009 at 7:36 pm
But, trout, a commercial business merger has straightforward financial goals and if they are not met there will be blood on the floor. (And very, very often they are not met, with disastrous even fatal results for the business.)
But government reorganisations have no such clear goals or consequences for failure. They are interminable, distractions from real performance goals and vastly costly. Often the main result is a loss of the most competent staff who leave in disgust.
Yes, incompetent staff will also feel threatened but sadly many will wind up in major positions in the reorganised structure.
June 7th, 2009 at 7:55 pm
Having community boards as constituted in section 13 of the Local Government (Auckland) means that we would better off not having them at all. Having an officially elected local lobby group is bound to cause problems. Of course this pre empting the Select Committee but it sounds like the feedback the PM is getting about this section is already one way. last weeks Super City poll showed that.
June 7th, 2009 at 8:08 pm
bchapman, was that the poll conducted by Labour’s gang of sustainable stooges, by any chance? The one that asked a zillion people outside Auckland what they thought about it?
June 7th, 2009 at 8:12 pm
Sounds as if Key & Hide are making up SupaCity as they go along.
Got excited for a second reading that Bards would be bulk funded. Poets running the SupaCity – Yes -
Bending the mold to fit public opinion. Bulk funded boards – yawn – been done & failed.
They should stick to the model – one authority i/c all infrastructure
As many local Councils as now – more maybe – i/c recreaton/arts/culture bla bla – Paris has over 1000, Tokyo 250. Banks as Mayor? Better to give him a knighthood on the terms he doesn’t stand. That could shore up his neediness for recognition.
Key on drugs is a cringe. Destroy the gangs. How dumb can he be unless of course like Taksin Shinawat in Thailand he has some of his mates ready to take over the trade, ‘cos while there big money to be made someone will fill any vacancy made by gang busting. Legalisation, loke alcohol & tobacco is the only way to free drugs from criminality.
But great to hear Bill & John can share a joke – if the couldn’t they’d be missing a big one!
June 7th, 2009 at 9:00 pm
Adolf,
I agree, you can take what you like out a poll and it depends upon how you ask the questions. But I don’t think anyone living in those parts of Auckland outside Auckland City would agree this has been a PR winner for the govt.
As an Aucklander I don’t really care about how outsiders are viewing this but I am sure the govt will care.
coolas- I’m sure Banks will settle for a guaranteed of a weekly photo in the Rachel’s Sunday Herald “Spy’ section.
June 7th, 2009 at 9:16 pm
“Alan W, you are dragging up last year’s arguments.”
Nice to know we will not be hearing any more from you about Phillip Field or Winston Peters!
Not the sharpest knife in the box our Adolf, good for a laugh of course, but thats about it!
June 7th, 2009 at 9:28 pm
“# Patrick Starr (2506) Vote: Add rating 19 Subtract rating 1 Says:
June 7th, 2009 at 1:41 pm
“Was second prize lunch AND dinner with Bill English?’
still beats a breakfast with Richard Worth”
And better still than breakfast IN bed with Richard Worth.
June 8th, 2009 at 12:00 am
RIGHT= time for some truths people.
War on drugs ,ie,war on P get real.
If you want to play by the rules this WILL fail, nothing will be achieved.
The only way is to throw out the rule book and do what has to be done,and I shall repeat for those who dont know.
1.Any person found guilty of manufacture of the drug,any person found guilty of selling the drug should be executed imediately after sentence.
2All persons found guilty of providing the ingredients for the drug should be executed.
3.All assets should be sold ,profits going to the state for drug enforcement.
Any thing less than this will not work.
Me personally I would love to see all A -class drug users and providers with this treatment.
Short ,sharp and effective.
You push this poison into our kids for money then you derserve all you get.
So you got the stomarch for it, or are you all full of shit!!!!!!!!!!!!!
June 8th, 2009 at 7:05 am
John Banks should not be The Grand Vizier of Orcland,
Johnkey should work a wee bit harder as our Minister of Tourism’
I gotta get outa here and wash wash wash
my friends have noticed this rank stale cigarette smell whenever I’ve been busted
keyboardabating over here at kiwislobs
ban me for my own sake please
June 8th, 2009 at 7:15 am
I am fascinated that in a blog that celebrates National’s large number of MPs in the Auckland area that there is little evidence of worry by those MPs as to the way the Supercity implementation is going. Rodney’s arrogance and his ignoring of the Commission’s more balanced concept will mean major problems in quite a few Auckland electorates.
June 8th, 2009 at 9:00 am
For what it’s worth the Commissions report was much worse than what is now being proposed.
I am not normally a nervous nellie but we need to understand that while there have been a few Super Cities formed by forced amalgamation over the last decade (mostly in Canada) there were not total amalgamations as has been posed for Auckland.
So the Auckland Super City is a unique first in the world experiment and I do wonder if this is a good time to indulge in such massive social engineering. The pattern of regional councils or counties or metros which deal with region wide issues while very local councils (in large cities these can number in the hundreds) deal with local issues has been developed over hundreds or even thousands of years.
IT seems risky to be going towards a massive centralised structure at a time of recession and at a time when decentralisation is winning over centralisation in virtually every other field of human activity. When I wrote my essays on Tribal Marketing I was arguing that during a time of globalisation at one level we are seeing people becoming more “tribal” at another – in other words people are becoming more not less anchored to their own neighbourhood. In my presentation to Quest in Florida I pointed out that I used to be a vaguely British New Zealander – now I am more conscious of being of Celtic descent and living in a tiny village on the West Coast.
Similarly, a researcher from New York said that she was no longer a New Yorker – she identified much more with Greenwich Village than with New York, but she was of course a citizen of the world.
June 8th, 2009 at 9:03 am
Jarbury, I would not like to suggest specific word changes because I am not a law draftsman.
I would just recommend that the legal functional, and financial framework for the Boards should be the same as for existing councils.
BUT and this is an important BUT, the LGA should be reformed so that Councils are not given so much room to spend on nonsense and not believe they are master planners and rulers of the universe.
And we must drip financial contributions and MULs and mover to deregulate land use and to move to long term financing of infrastructure.
June 8th, 2009 at 9:12 am
So basically a return to the pre-1989 reforms Owen?
June 8th, 2009 at 9:59 am
Owen, your comment on how people view their locational identity in this world is valid. Communications and easy transport have certainly ‘shrunk’ the globe conceptually. I can live in Auckland but be a citizen of Queenstown if I feel like it. But this does not negate the need for an Auckland Supercity, and the need for more comprehensive planning. And you are already requesting limitations on the role of sub-Councils – take away any more powers and they become Boards. The real issue is; what should Councils be responsible for? Over the last 30 years Councils have been granted freedom to get involved in activities that are far beyond their level of competence and what residents expect. Enormous debts are being racked up that are going to burden ratepayers for years. I guess it is the new age problem; more and more people getting off on spending other peoples money. Rates are not a payment for specified services; they are a land tax and should be so called; raked in to fund the necessary and the ‘worthy’ (but not necessarily worthwhile).
June 8th, 2009 at 11:00 am
“But this does not negate the need for an Auckland Supercity, and the need for more comprehensive planning.”
Show me anything produced by “more comprehensive planning” and ticked off by government bureaucracies that is beautiful, lifts the human spirit and will be preserved and treasured for generations.
And if you find something, I will find you a thousand counter examples of crass, ugly, disfunctional and overbearing insults to the human psyche that are stamped out without having to think of anything other than butt protection and rule following by people who do not understand subtlety, art or individuality.
June 8th, 2009 at 12:39 pm
jarbury.
Not quite.
Newmarket was a minnow compared to other cities emerging in Manukau etc and so on so I would expect a more even distribution of size etc.
But otherwise yes. The fact it that amalgamation is the least effective means of reforming of local government. It never delivers its promises and imposes massive costs.
However, there is a case for stronger regional government and that is best affected by a clear understanding of their different functions and a minimum of overlap.
The problem we need to solve in Auckland is that the ARC has been given so much power to interfere in the legitimate territory of local councils and the result is endless court battles in which the rate payers pay for both parties.
When the Environment Court awarded $700,000 costs against the Canterbury Regional Council for its action against Christchurch city the regional council simply levied the ratepayers of Christchurch to pay for it.
I really fear for the legal power of a Super City with budgets and assets of billions. How can a citizen hope to win in court when the COuncil can just keep spending and spending and spending until you run out of funds and time and energy. At present when I threaten to appeal to the EC my small council almost always negotiates immediately.
CAn you imagine a Super City doing this when I am simply wanting to build a flat for my sick granny or similar?
June 8th, 2009 at 12:43 pm
I don’t disagree with you Alan; but if we are to be lumbered with Local Government lets rationalize their functions and limit their powers so they get the few things right that we will allow them to do. In that way we may avoid the obscenities you refer to. ‘Comprehensive Planning’ in the sense I used the term refers only to properly designed and co-ordinated infrastructure and services, not social engineering.
June 8th, 2009 at 1:22 pm
trout, there are very few things that need to be regionally co-ordinated and would be even less if we allowed private enterprise to compete with less interference from planners, bureaucrats and the law.
Prior to the 1989 local government reorganization the NZ Treasury did a literature survey and concluded there is no evidence that size of local authorities has any correlation with financial efficiency. They opposed the reorganization. Its actual outcome was increased debt, greatly increased rates relative to inflation over the next decade as well as a large immediate transition cost financed by altering the financial year so as to bring forward rate payments by three months.
There was also a large decline in voter participation in local government elections.
The financial impact of large authorities is simply that they are able to deploy (and waste) large sums of money on undeserving “needs”. A typical example is right here in Russell where the Far North District Council after 1989 managed to waste somewhere between $14-20M (the exact amount is indeterminable because of grossly incompetent financial management and reporting) on a sewage scheme to service some 600 properties.
A small local authority would simply be unable to raise such a sum of money in order to waste it on anything so comprehensively stupid.
June 8th, 2009 at 3:44 pm
Unfortunately you are not correct. The Thames District Council (a small local authority) is $20,000,000 in the hole after spending megabucks on building 3 sewerage schemes to Rolls Royce standard that serve very few people. And they still want to borrow more and spend on projects of doubtful value. There seems to be a disconnection between the right to tax and accountability for expenditure. Elected councillors in small Councils seem to be easily manipulated by small pressure groups and easily influenced by their own bureacracy. They just find it so easy to be congratulated in the local bar for providing some local facility (like a boat ramp) than reject the proposition as being unaffordable and be a kiljoy (and lose the vote of a minority group). At least the Far North Council now has Wayne Brown looking over their collective shoulders.
June 8th, 2009 at 4:05 pm
trout, I think you will find that current Councils are being held to ransom by relatively new and completely ridiculous requirements on water treatment and disposal from central Government bureaucracies that are inappropriate and untenable for small rural settlements.
Unless Wayne Brown can roll the Wellington bureaucrats with the support of the new Government there will be little even he can do about it. The Russell debacle occurred long before these new requirements were foistered on us by the previous unlamented Government.