Tim Murphy was a sceptic when Victoria Crone’s candidacy for the Auckland mayoralty was announced. But watching her form at a public meeting on Thursday has him questioning that judgement. It’s rumoured among Auckland’s political cognoscenti that Victoria Crone, should she fail to pull off a miracle and win the Super City mayoralty, has been promised … Read more
We fixed Larry Williams’ abominable ‘ban the beggars’ column. For the most part, all it took was replacing the words ‘beggars’ and ‘begging’ with ‘boomers’. It started with Bob Jones. Then the virus spread. A Wellington mayoral contender called for begging to be banned, in an edited Facebook post that originally called addiction a “lifestyle choice”. A … Read more
Auckland has been awash with praise for the proposed waterfront stadium. Hayden Eastmond-Mein swims against the tide, and argues it’s a really awful idea. Sport has a unique ability to defy reason and distort logic in New Zealand. It’s a proud tradition. We’ve used sport to turn a blind eye to the worst of human behaviour. … Read more
The Unitary Plan is a complicated beast of a document that has flummoxed many taking part in the debate. Simple misunderstandings are massively exacerbating Auckland’s housing crisis, says architect Henri Sayes. I’m an architect, I like buildings. And as an architect, I deal with planning regulation on a daily basis and know that the planning … Read more
Tim Murphy heads to a café in a South Auckland garden centre to witness a most peculiar mayoral campaign launch. It is fitting that John Palino’s campaign launch is on February 29. He, too, is a peculiarity who pops-up awkwardly once every few years. It’s also Oscars day, drowning out all but the most melodramatic … Read more
Last week people submitting on the proposed Unitary Plan to Auckland Councillors were routinely jeered and shouted at by “the miserables of Kohimarama“. A marathon 7 hour meeting ended with the council backing down and the eventual crippling of Mayor Len Brown’s sanity. Hayden Donnell gingerly offers his two cents. Further reading: Read Alex Johnston’s account … Read more
You wouldn’t know it looking around the meeting, but we were the voice of the roughly half a million Aucklanders under 24, a voice that has been largely sidelined in the debate on the city’s future. Yesterday the democratic deficit present in Auckland’s local body politics was well and truly evident. In a room of … Read more
In light of National’s decision to fast-track the City Rail Link, Hayden Donnell looks back at some of the times the party’s top MPs scorned the project as a terrible idea beloved only by wastrel lefties. National’s stance on public transport in Auckland lurched toward sanity yesterday, with an announcement it will fast-track funding for … Read more