Here’s what Ian Powell reported last week on expenditure on consultants to establish Te Whata Ora by the previous government: In an email to me, a former DHB chief executive commented on the amount spent on consultants: That is a total spend of $332.8m over just 4 years. Much of the … [Read more...]
As CCC works on its Long-Term Plan how will it handle future water investments
Regular readers will remember my absolute distaste toward the 3 Waters policy rammed on our communities throughout NZ by the Labour Government. People will be expecting me to be jubilant that the government intends to scrap the badly thought through water plans of the previous … [Read more...]
The migration, tax cuts and housing shortages are inflationary
It was the wet blanket on National’s hopes for a summery economic honeymoon. Last week Bernard Hickey (my favourite commentator) wrote: The Reserve Bank last week upgraded its interest rate and house price forecasts to account for: The Reserve Bank’s forecasts and comments in … [Read more...]
Infrastructure costs in New Zealand
New Zealand is the most expensive country in the world to build new infrastructure. That was the charge levelled recently by Sean Sweeney, chief executive of the City Rail Link (CRL). “But” said Sweeney, “I don’t just want to complain about it. I have some thoughts on how to fix it.” Speaking … [Read more...]
This week’s speaker Tony Simmons on PC14
This week we have Tony Simons from the Combined Residents Association to talk about PC14. We decided to address this issue as I received several stroppy emails reacting to my comments about NIMBY-ism in the last Tuesday Club notes. The writers assumed I was referring to PC14. I didn’t have a clue … [Read more...]
Garry’s Thoughts 28 November 2023
Elected reps need to understand that they make the decisions and must balance staff’s advice with their personal contacts and experience... It has always been an issue for me that too many people get elected to office and they just take the advice they are receiving from staff as gospel. It is … [Read more...]
Dawn Baxendale has left the building…
In an article in Newsroom David Williams wrote about the CE of CCC, Dawn Baxendale resigning from her position. Here’s the article A new dawn for Christchurch’s council after mystery and mayhem (newsroom.co.nz). I recommend that you read it if you have not already. I found the article useful because … [Read more...]
CCHL AGM this week…
I attended the CCHL AGM on Friday. Several times the chair referred to their commitment to openness and the fact that this was the first time that CCHL had had a public meeting to announce their performance in the past year. That is another example of “without a knowledge of history you are … [Read more...]
The new government is heading NZ down a scary road…
When we were finally informed of the makeup of the new government it became clear that we are in for an interesting (scary?) time with this lot. Climate Change Another feature of the coalition agreement was the prioritisation of portfolios within and outside of Cabinet. Both Climate Change … [Read more...]
Why Labour lost…
In an impressive editorial Ian Powell wrote in https://politicalbytes.blog/2023/11/22/why-labour-lost-the-2023-election-so-badly/ why he felt Labour lost the election. Here are some of his quotes: It lost the election so badly because it could only see things through a narrow elitist and … [Read more...]
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