More Stadium

I wasn't going to, but I can resist no longer. The waterfront stadium debacle is just that for many reasons. That it is a massive smoke screen for Thai tilers, pledge cards and the like is a gimme. That the whole thing is being done with indecent haste on the back of the first point is also glaringly obvious. You don't set about spending the fat end of a billion dollars like this. You don't ask people to spend that sort of money with no plans or no finalised budget. No plans means no plans at all. No architectural drawings, just artists' impressions full of those artist impression trees and artist impresson people strolling in the sunshine. No engineering plans on how to actually do it. No plans about where the dislocated part of the port is going to go. No planning on how to run the damned thing or how much that is going to cost. If I ran my life like that I'd be living in the city mission. The indecent haste also means that if the thing goes ahead it won't because so many legal loopholes are being left through which you could drive a fleet of Kenworths. Rudman points this out this morning in a column that is so boring it is not true. But he's right. What ever decision they come up with on Friday, because the 'proper consultation process' so loved by this country where every thing has to be so damned fair has not been followed there will be people serving writs all over the show. And then proper process will be followed and the whole thing will get bogged down in the familiar bureaucratic swamp. We can't do things 'properly' here. You can't half consult any more than you can be half pregnant. There is no right answer, there is no wrong answer. Time for the jackboots and stop pretending anything else. Just make a bloody decision - and I don't care which one -, be fair to nobody, bowl buildings, evict old ladies and I'll support it.

The Don Brash emails. I'm not sure about this and would prefer to think a little more about where the rights and wrongs of this are. I am struggling manfully to try and forget that Hagar the Horrible lives under a stone as I try and clear my thoughts.

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