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...]
Garry’s thoughts 21 November 2023
The elected reps will be debating the future of CCHL as part of the upcoming Long-Term Plan (LTP). There have been several attempts over the years to sell the city’s trading assets. Everyone unsuccessful. I am sure this will continue with the current council. When central government sold its … [Read more...]
Tuesday Club is back in the flesh this week with Jim Palmer and Local Government Review
This week we have Jim Palmer who chaired the Review on Local Government at Tuesday Club. In June the report from this group(who had undertaken an exhausting exercise to obtain widespread feedback from all over NZ) was published. This report was released in June but promptly got lost in the leadup to … [Read more...]
There’s much to admire in King Charles:
My old mate Jim Lunday worked with the then Prince Charles when he had a village designed some decades back. Glaswegians are not enamoured with royalty but Jim reported to me on a number of occasions that Charles has an impressive value set and understanding of what makes up a decent … [Read more...]
Housing – One thing which fills me full of despair is NIMBY’ism.
People who want no change to their neighbourhood. If they had any understanding of history those who went before them in their suburb gave up looking out their window and the enjoyment of cows chewing their cud in the paddock next to them. Change is inevitable. We just must densify rather than … [Read more...]
It is really important thaat we critically analyse who is advising our leaders
Recently Martyn Bradbury wrote: The Neoliberal NZ experiment: You are never allowed to question the de-unionised work force that amputated wages, you can never question selling off our assets, you can never criticise the growth mentality, you are never allowed to attack the free market … [Read more...]
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