I have now heard that of the 30 losers that were at the protest yesterday outside the select committee meeting in Auckland were “Gary” Twyford, of course, “My Little Pony” Ardern, 4 old nanas including Judith Tizard and a few other loonies. So in an urban area of more than 1.4 million people only 30 people and two of those were carpet-baggers anyway thought it important enough to protest. Even the Maoris got off their arse enough to get several thousand even of “Five Chins” Jones and “BK” Horomia stopped off halfway for Burger King.

You have to start thinking that like Radion NZ the amount of people who care enough to protest is actually statistically irrelevant. For the Auckland Radio NZ protest there were 150 people at best, that is almost invisible at 0.010714285714286% of the Greater Auckland population. For the Super City Protest it is a paltry 0.002142857142857%. As I said statistically irrelavent.

More people attend a mugging in South Auckland than turned up for the Super City protest.

However there are more important issues, constitutionally important issues.

The main instigator of the protest is perpetual loser “Gary” Twyford. Now “Gary” is also sitting on the select committee for the Super City. He was supposed to be listening impartially to the evidence being supplied to the Select Committee by citizens who took time out of their busy day, more than actually fronted for the statistically irrelevant protest.

Instead of listening to evidence before the Select Committee he was outside organising a protest before the select committee. This is simply outrageous that a member of an important parliamentary committee is far too busy organising aprotest to actually listen to evidence. Protests outside the hearings are well and good but those protesters saw fit to make their voice known outside of the political protest, which fine, but it counts for nought. Labour showed us that by ignoring the thousands of protesters against the Electoral Finance Act.

Speaking of the Electoral Finance Act, “Gary” Twyford is making much of the 9-1 against presenters before the Select Committee. This is almost always the case. Those in support need not say anything, they are happy. Those against need to present so their opinion is at least registered, whether by email, letter or personal attendance. The Electoral Finance Act would have probably had the same ratio if not worse. Actually it is worse at 19-1 Opposing or amending EFB. The government of the day decided thousands marching in multiple locations and a 19-1 opposed ratio of submission so “Gary” Twyford either needs to work harder or just STFU.

Popularity: unranked [?]

I really feel sorry for Phil “Gary” Twyford. unwanted by Labour anywhere, he is a lost soul, he doesn’t even have a seat on the taxpayer funded tax bus. He has been organising protests about the super city for Auckland and today was the big, a protest outside of select committee hearing in Auckland.

It has been hyped by Labour, spread by the lap-bloggers….

…and 30 people turned up.

It made such and impact that not a single new agency carries any news of it. My appearance in court has generated more news lines.

The sad problem for “Gary” is that Aucklanders don’t actually care and the only attendees at the protest would have been assorted nutbar and ne’er-do-wells associated with mad Penny Bright who sees the hand of the VRWC in every motion put by Auckland City. Various other rent-a-mob professional protesters would have been there but the best that “Gary” and Rent-a-demo could muster was 30 drop-kicks.

Pathetic. I bet if Phil Twyford tried to commit suicide he’d even fuck that up.

Popularity: unranked [?]

Richard Northey the thief who was caught red-handed stealing from an MPs office has had a brain fart and rush of shit to the brains.

Clearly he has decided to speak from personal experience about a sensitive subject he knows a lot about.

As usual Cathy Casey’s screeching rant is largely fact free as well. She blames C&R for using a caucus, she also says;

“The one thing that bothers me most is that C&R candidates have to agree not to vote against the decisions of their caucus. It has been evident over this term in office that C&R councillors block vote, following the lead of Deputy Mayor David Hay. The recent decision to evict Monte Cecilia School was a prime example of this. Whatever happened to independence of thought?! I was elected to serve the ratepayers, not any political master.”

Independence of thought eh? That’d be why she resigned her Green Party membership and membership of ShittyVision……oh wait!

Thankfully we have less than a year to put up with her.

Popularity: unranked [?]

I’ve been meaning to blog about the Auckland harbour crossing ideas for a couple of days but Andrew Williams needed slaying and two detectives have been taking up a little bit of my time.

However since it has been announced that the Government is going to spend 2.2 billion on building a faster way to get to Levin, I can now talk about the Noveau Think Big projects of this government and compare and contrast.

Auckland desperately needs a sensible harbour crossing. The current rubbish bridge is in disrepair and bucking under the strain, trucks are now not allowed to travel on the Nippon Clipons for fears they will snap off. There are various options mooted but by far and away the most sensible would be to build an iconic and massive bridge across the harbour. For a start it would be $1-$2 billion cheaper than the Mad Mayor of North Shore’s favoured crossing idea of a tunnel. It could also be future proofed far more cost effectively than a hole in the ground. In general, bridges are at less risk than tunnels of being closed to traffic as a result of vehicle accidents, fire, flooding, or failure of mechanical systems. All manner of rescue equipment can be deployed for a bridge accident but only specialised and expensive equipment could, for example, contain, fight and clear a fire inside a tunnel, not to mention complex ventilation systems to vent toxic fumes.

Bridges are cheaper and faster to build than tunnels. Witness the impressive speed with which the new Newmarket Viaduct is being constructed and the additional Mangere Bridge. Who knows how the Victoria Park tunnel is going except there are hold ups and road work for no apparent reason.

Auckland is rapidly expanding with mere suburbs containing the entire population of Wellington City. Auckland generates massive amounts of our actual productive GDP and if you draw a line across the North Island at Taupo more than half the population lives above that line and all the towns and cities therein are contributing perhaps 75% of our GDP.

Sydney has its iconic bridge which makes our existing harbour bridge look silly and it also has the ANZAC bridge. Just on the basic of the duality of the ANZAC name and spirit we too should have an ANZAC bridge and dedicate the bridge the same as the Australians to our fallen warriors.

Now compare and contrast the rational of building Transmission Gully. Who the hell wants to get to Levin faster? Anyone? And who wants to get into Wellington faster? Nope no-one there either. Wellington is a cancer on our countries GDP, there is little if any real productive sector industry located in or near to Wellington. In fact with all those bureaucrats writing endless reports that no-one reads you could say that it is in fact the most destructive industry in New Zealand. The only people benefiting from Wellington are paper manufacturers and Bob Jones.

Pinko Warmist Farrar may wax lyrical about Transmission Gully but his car sat in the carpark of his apartment complex for three years unregistered and unwarranted. The only time he has driven out of Wellington was when I drove the Blogmobile out away from the miserable stinking place.

This is nothing more than a sop to old Muldoonists reminiscing about Think Big. The reasons that Transmission Gully has never been built so far are numerous. There is no positive cost benefit ration to justify it. It’s to be built on a fricken fault line, and no-one wants to get to Levin faster let alone Palmerston North. In fact if you asked people if they would like to get to Palmerston North faster or have a new hospital the hospital would win hands down.

One last thing, Steven Joyce has said that the toll will be no more than $3 for Transmission Gully. Where is the outrage? Where is the demands that the Minister be pulled into line? Maurice Williamson was pilloried by his own party and the media for suggesting exactly the same thing.

National leader John Key says comments by his transport spokesman that motorists could face tolls of $3 a trip on roads built under a National government are “premature”.

In August National’s transport spokesman Maurice Williamson got into trouble for saying people would be happy to pay $5 each way on a toll road — which equated to $50 a working week.

At the time Mr Key described the MP as “excitable” and said tolls were more likely to be around $2.

On Radio Live today, Mr Williamson added a dollar.

“Of course the answer to that is it depends on which road,” he said.

“If it is quite a short distance road of a few kilometres, somewhere in the city-type link, you’d only be talking of $1 or $2. If it’s a very long haul road you may be talking of $3.

“Those are the sorts of numbers.”

But Mr Key again shot down Mr Williamson’s figures.

“I haven’t really seen the context of his comments, but there is no point in us making comment about what price a toll road will be because we haven’t even identified what road would be tolled so it is far too premature to be talking about numbers.”

Personally I don’t care a fig about how much the toll is, but could we please have some consistency. Maurice Williamson lost his Transport portfolio allegedly because of this supposed “gaffe” and now Steven Joyce has directly contradicted his own leader who said before the election that tolls as high as $3 were very premature. I won’t hold my breath waiting for Steven Joyce to be similarly ticked off.

There are clear benefits for fast tracking a new iconic bridge for Auckland and there is no reason other than creating Noveau Think Big projects for building a four lane highway via Transmission Gully to Levin.

Popularity: unranked [?]

Auckland needs a new harbour bridge. Some clever folk have designed one. Now all we need to do is figure out how to pay for it – at $2.5 billion it’s cheaper than the estimated $3.7-$4.1 billion for tunnels under the harbour, but still a big ask for a country with ongoing fiscal deficits. Luckily the clever folk who designed and backed the new bridge (who, let’s be honest, are the ones who gain the most from its construction) have also had a feasibility study written, which proposes using a Public-Private Partnership (PPP).

Now you’ll hear some lefties moan that PPPs will force the Government to accept the risk of the project while the private sector profits from it. I say suck it up: Auckland needs a new harbour crossing. In tight fiscal and economic circumstances, the choice is not between a PPP or Government funding (where the state would have to accept all the risk anyway), it’s between having the infrastructure built or not. Private concerns are going to profit from the bridge’s construction in any case – why not let them invest and benefit from the infrastructure directly, by enabling the bridge to be built sooner?

Popularity: unranked [?]

Debate has opened on the requirement for a new harbour crossing for Auckland and boy does it show the true colours of some people including teh Clown of Campbells Bay, the Mad Mayor of North Shore. Thankfully there is less than one year left in his tenure now.

His explanation for building a tunnel instead of a bridge despite the extra cost of $2 billion is….wait for it…because it is a super idea for super city. The man is an unmitigated fuckwit.

Clearly something needs to be done but it is the devils choice. Some will want a tunnel and some a bridge, personally I don’t a flying rat’s arse which but one thing is for certain, that we will have a super sized rates bill to go with it.

Len Brown isn’t much better in his enthusiasm for bridge with rail. You have to ask yourself has he ever been to the North Shore and used the existing train system? Well has he? Conor Roberts is probably just now whispering in his ear that there are as many train lines on the North Shore as there are in Howick i.e. Precisely none. So Len’s great vision will take people over the bridge in trains to nowhere. Then in order for that to be useful he would need to bowl a whole heap of houses (that’ll be popular) to put in a train line that no one will ever bloody use.

One wonders how he will pay for the bridge plus all the bribes projects that he will need as a sop to the left. Increased rates is how.

Popularity: unranked [?]

hat tip No Minister via Dub-Dot-Dash

Len Brown in 2007 railed against hip hop star Ice-T aka Ice Cube coming to New Zealand. Yet he professes a love for hip hop and even tries his own hand at it.

It seems that Len Brown is keen to be seen embracing a Gangsta culture when he thinks it will get him votes.

Popularity: unranked [?]

Should the Auckland City Council fund with ratepayer cash….

” an exhibition of lesbian activism on Treaty of Waitangi issues during 1979-1983” (Charlotte Trust, page 9 of the linked PDF)

CityVision (Labor and the Greens stealth ticket) and Labour say “yes” - rates should be used to fund an exhibition of lesbian activism on Treaty of Waitangi issues during 1979-1983.

Citizens  & Ratepayers said no.

This is just like how CityVision (Labour and the Greens) funded seances, tarot card readings, phone calls to the Congo and other drippy ideas when they were in charge.

Remember these people want control of the super city and Len Brown is supporting them and they are supporting Len Brown. If they get in charge this is where your rates will be going. The left know no bounds when it comes to troughing and gouging tax and ratepayers.

Popularity: unranked [?]

With the imminent resignation of Sue Bradford from Parliament, there ought to be much rejoicing among the forces of conservatism and the centre-right that the biggest, baddest social engineer of modern New Zealand is going.

Unfortunately, she’s now threatening to come back to politics by standing as a councillor for the new Auckland supercity.  Even worse than that, there are some serious talks to bring in Sue Bradford as the deputy for Brown.

Of course, the role of deputy is a serious one under the Auckland Council given the increased Mayoral powers, the budget and the size of Auckland. But it’s even more serious when you consider the likelihood of her becoming the actual Mayor with Len Brown’s bad heart condition.

Everyone knows how Len Brown was probably jump started in order to save his life when he collapsed with a massive heart attack in mid 2008. It’s also well known he spent some weeks fighting for his life, with complications in his heart bypass, meaning he had to be opened up twice under general anaesthetic to save his life. In total, Brown had six (SIX!) heart valves replaced under a double-triple bypass due to massive blocking, and after the first op, one of the valves then ripped open again requiring another operation.

Brown had the last rites read, such was his outlook.

So, having established the clear state of Brown’s lack of health, there is a very real possibility that under a high pressure job like the Auckland Mayoralty, Brown would suffer significant stress, particularly with the massive task of bringing the old councils together.

Sue Bradford would be literally one heartbeat away from the Auckland Mayoralty. Parliament’s most divisive and militant operator, the social-engineer who knew better than 87% of New Zealand’s families, would be in charge of all Auckland.

And that’s a risk that no right thinking person in Auckland would want to consider.

Popularity: unranked [?]

It’s still a whole year before the first vote is cast in the Auckland council elections, and already the Labour Party is trying to stitchup the Mayoral elections!

The Labour conference has provided us with many many good reasons why we don’t want Labour back in charge of anything

- Free condoms
- Capital Gains Tax on investment properties
- Ministry of Social Inclusion (or MinSocInc if you want to get Orwellian)
and now horse-trading between Mike Lee and Len Brown, with a promise that there will be jobs for one of the Labour Lads if they fall into line.

It’s an irony isn’t it – that it’s at a Labour Party conference in a hotel room hundreds of miles away from Auckland, that a candidacy for the future of Auckland’s Mayoralty is being stitched up a whole year before a vote gets cast.

There will be a lot of voters in Botany and Pakuranga and Howick who voted for that nice Mr Brown and his nice blue and green signs at the last local body elections who will be spitting their Cornies across the table at the realisation that they were hoodwinked by Len Brown now that he has shown his true colours to be deep red.

Oh, and here’s a thought – when have the left EVER been united in local government? They’ll unite for the purposes of remuneration, but after they’ve divvied up the jobs, they’ll be at each other’s throats, just like Hubbard, Hucker and others were a few short years ago.

Popularity: unranked [?]

So Len Brown has announced to a packed, well ok there were 100 people there, including  erstwhile Mayor Dick Hubbard and wannabe mayor Bruce Hucker. What is strange is that Bruce Hucker and Hubbard never saw eye to eye on anything.

Len’s big announcement has gone down with a cup of cold sick with other lefties like Matt McCarten. You see Manukau City went to the Royal Commission opposed to Maori seats (2.27Mb pdf) on the council, now all of a sudden Len Brown, whose own council doesn’t have Maori seats, has done a flip flop. Strangley he seems to think that advoccating and campaigning for separatist race based seats is somehow inclusive.

How can Len Brown claim to unite when he proposes to divide the city by race?

In Manukau City’s submission tot he Royal Commission they went out of their way to suggest to the Commission that Manukau’s method of engagement with Maori was superior to other cities and encouraged them to look at that model. All of a sudden Len Brown wants to do a flip flop. He can’t have it both ways. He either supports the creation of race based seats or he supports his council’s previous positions of Agreements that “recognise the Mana Whenua groups as Treaty Partners and the guardianship role they hold in Manukau. Other councils in the region have differing arrangements. The R oyal Commission is encouraged to examine these arrangements and consider whether there is a model such as described above which would apply to the Greater A uckland Council and local councils.”

Cries from the left of a lack of a referendum should be ignored. When Helen Clark set up the Royal Commission it was set up as a fait accompli, the people have had their say in submissions, and now the Super City will happen. We must however be mindful that Len Brown is Labour’s chosen candidate, he has Labour staffers working in his office and he is still a Labour Party member, there is no hioding his left-wing credentials no matter how he tries to spin it.

Popularity: unranked [?]