Must read

What's hot

Affordable housing fails in the cheap back blocks of Nelson
MARION VAN DIJK/FAIRFAX NZ via Stuff
17

Sledge of the Day

by Whaleoil on June 20, 2012

David Farrar puts a sledge on Simon Bridges about the Hairy McClary Statue for Tauranga:

Tauranga MP Simon Bridges has welcomed news that the Ministry for Economic Development has allocated $150,000 to the installation of the bronze sculpture of Hairy Maclary and Friends on the Tauranga City waterfront.

“This is great news for Tauranga and particularly for our CBD.  I believe the sculpture will be a strong draw card bringing local families as well as national and international tourists into our town centre,” Mr Bridges says.

Farrar just says it how it is:

Tagged: • • • •

Related posts

  • Apolonia

    Tauranga enters the “bronze age” but the Greens want to take it back to the stone age.

  • Le Sphincter

    So this is is where the jobs are coming from ?
    From the Ministry of ECONOMIC development.
    Heads should roll for this absurdity, and Bridges is so out of touch he thinks that it needs promotion.
    What next , big subsidies for movie makers ?….. too late

    • In Vino Veritas

      As always Sphinc, your view on what Government departments actually do is at odds with reality. The Ministry of Economic Development doesnt create jobs. Well, unless Labour are Government, then they employ dozens, if not hundreds of bureaucrats in meaningless positions that future governments in less enviable economic conditions have to deal with. Oh thats right, sort of like now.

      • Le Sphincter

        Well in this case they ‘created a job’ for the artist. In what parallel universe does funding directly this statue meet the criteria of the MED mission

        “The Ministry’s purpose is to create the conditions for businesses to succeed and New Zealanders to prosper.”

        The $150k seems to be only part of the cost as Creative Tauranga is raising funds.
        Surely this is a Creative NZ project.

        But it gets worse, there is a slush fund called ‘Tourism Facilities Grants to Provide or improve a nationally significant tourism facility which will enhance the understanding and enjoyment of New Zealand by overseas visitors’

        Since when did a stand alone ‘statue’ become a facility.

        • In Vino Veritas

          Sphinc, the artist already had a job. As an artist. And I see you have at last done some research, hallelujah! MED does not create jobs, business’s do.

    • Chris

      No, Funding for Hip Hop.

    • Guest

      Bit of hyperbole here from Bridges, but it will be true that this will be a nice drawcard for families visiting Tauranga. I’d like to take my children to visit Hairy McLary and friends the next time I take my family to the Bay of Plenty.

  • johnbronkhorst

    It sound like one of those “cut and paste” statements that ministers have given for decades when ASKED to comment on something like this. You just change the subject of the statement to suit!

    • Le Sphincter

      Trouble is the luvvies at Creative Tauranga, an oxymoron if there ever was one, what next Thrilling Plamerston North? – have credited Bridges with making it happen. Even getting Foss the Minister concerned with the slush fund to visit the proposed site and do a grip and grin for the cameras.

      Cut and paste comment ?? Its the full production with TWO ministers

      • Bunswalla

        Fuck off arsehole. What next in the oxymoron pantheon – intelligent sphincter?

        • Le Sphincter

          Everybodys got one.

          • johnbronkhorst

            YES but unlike you not everyone’s is positioned at the back of their head!!!

      • Karlos

        When was the last time you went to Tauranga Sphincter? IMO it is the best laid out most forward thinking city in the country! I’ll put it in terms you should understand, comparing Tauranga to Palmerston North is like camparing Moet to Chardon. I am sure you will understand this because it seems you are in love with NZ’s bullshit Champaign Socialists!

        • mediaan

          He actually compared it to Plame-rston. I thought we weren’t allowed to say that word.

  • Mediaan at war with I-Pad

    Simon Bridges has done the right thing 100% and well done too Craig Foss if he was there.

    There is no ratepayer funding in this, nor in the planned Hairy McClary sculpture trail ($1 m), nor by the look of it in the current Art Gallery exhibition of Lynley Dodd artworks (the author). Though I can’t say the books would tempt me to visit the art.

    The author has written a first class series of children’s books, and is now a Dame of the Realm. She is getting translated world wide. She is a popular heroine and an increasing export.

    As Guest commented, families will love it. It will enhance any plan to visit Tauranga. Tauranga is a seaside holiday sort of town, heavily dependent on family-scale visits, and this should boost it.

    You have to think outside the square. That is where success lies in business sometimes.

    So, ugly justified, top marks to the Ministry for Economic Zdevelopment.

%d bloggers like this: