Rudman (I must be ill, reading this bloke again) asks why we have accepted that annual rates increases in the region of 10% have become accepted as the norm. A bloody good question. This above a piece outlining where some of the money in the Auckland region is going. The stand out obscenity is Bob Harvey's Waitakere spending $38mil on new Council buildings. This informative box is surrounded by council spin from some clown claiming that the councils are spending responsibly but the real problem is the costs of compliance with Central Government regulations. He cites complying with buiding controls and, wait for it, the RMA as part of the problem. They, the councils, are struggling on manfully in face of this 'intolerable pressure' (to quote Charlie Dempsey) from Wellygogs. He points out that the Council is ensuring we have clean beachs etc. etc. I'll send him a photo of the sign outside my house warning people not to swim in the sea after heavy rainfall. There is an answer to the compliance with RMA type things - vide infra.
Transpower's laughable attempts to cover up their maintenance inadequacies (the dog ate the reports) led Old Mother Hubbard to opine that Auckland needs a power generation facility North of Auckland. Great command of the bleedin' obvious. What better than a little nuclear number. Kaiwaka sounds a good location to me. This hot on the heels of Tony Blair announcing that the UK is to build six nuclear power plants (along with some tidal bizzo in the Bristol Channel that will supply up to 5% of the country's power needs - must be a very big bizzo indeed). Notice TB did not say they are thinking about it, they are going to build them. He predicts opposition to this (great command of the blee....) and delays often caused to projects by consent processes (I assume this to be the UK equivalent of the RMA). What to do? Fast track the bureaucracy which amounts, in practice, to ignoring great chunks of it. The Headmistress is often heard to say how close the NZ Labour Party is to its UK equivalent. Any chance of borrowing a few ideas. No I would say when our only trans-sexual MP sees getting equal rights for her ilk sorted out as a thing she must do before she leaves parliament. Then we have to sort out the pressing matter of same sex couple adoptions. I think this nice red striped deckchair would look much better over by the shuffleboard court.
The real highlight of todays Herald, however, is your correspondent getting his name in print in Sideswipe carrying his campaign to rid the world of Bill Gates' influence beyond the hallowed bandwidth of fishing.net.nz
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