Monday, November 13, 2006

Stadium stuff

As now would appear to be an excellent time to be giving anything French a right royal thrashing, I would say that the 'rogue' Auckland City councillors who are going into bat for Carlaw Park are flogging un cheval mort.
I don't really care where the Final of the 2011 Rugby World Cup is played as long is it not the Telstra Dome in Sydney. I think that the waterfront is a staggering waste of money for a stadium that will have an effective half life of a couple of months as a 60,000 seat affair. A longer useful life as a 20,000 seat effort, maybe. Even London (pop. approx 10 million) has seen fit to make the bulk of the stadium they are building for the 2012 Olympics in temporary seating. My reel beef over the whole debacle, and that is certainly what it is turning into, is the sheer bloody arrogance of this government is exhibiting - yet again- in the way it treats the great unwashed. It has decided what it wants and bugger the rest of you that is what it is going to get. RMA? Don't need it. Consultation? Yeah right. Due process? No time.
As I have opined before I think the RMA is fine in theory but a complete crock in practice. Bovver Boy also thinks that, apparently. All I can do about my opinion is whine and whinge about it in forums such as this. What does Pond Scum do? He repeals it lock, stock and barrell when it gets in the way of what he wants. This is why the protagonists of Carlaw Park have no show. The Politburo has made its mind up and that's that. They have Big Ears jumping around like an uncoordinated simian idiot doing all their publicity for them and have given 'Auckand' two weeks to do as it is told. Now what does that mean? Does 'Auckland' mean you and me, the proles? Yeah, right. It means Big Ears has a fortnight to get his bunch of performing dogs to jump through the correct hoops. If you are one of those dogs and are sitting in the middle of Carlaw park singing Cumbaya then I would earnestly suggest you get back into the real world. We are going to get a waterfont stadium whether we like it or not. The Ports of Auckland have no say, you have no say, I have no say. The Rugby Union has no say but, unless the whole thing goes completely tits up and we lose the bid, at least they are probably in a win/win situation and at very little financial cost to themselves.
Mallard as the larynx of the Kremlin, sorry Beehive, has spoken.

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