Spotted at Eastridge, Mission Bay yesterday.  Alas, no parking tickets printed yet.  Plenty of other examples were available, just not as bad as this one.

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We are creating a nation of sooks where very soon w will have to send kids to school wrapped in bubblewrap.

A misguided health and safety culture is threatening to render children’s play meaningless, early childhood providers are to be warned.

The United Kingdom-based founder of Outdoor Play and Learning (Opal), Michael Follett, says a “policy of fear” has reshaped play to the extent that children are losing out on vital learning.

“You are taking away their ability to learn through primary, first-hand experience, which is how children actually learn.

“They need to fall over, they need to cut themselves, have bumps and bruises.

“If you over-protect, they don’t learn resilience.”

Life is full of knocks, bumps, grazes and falls. Best let kids experience that so they learn the ground is hard and corners are sharp.

Len Brown’s unitary plan may well be the undoing of him, that is if someone can find some courage to stand against him. meanwhile grassroots unrest is now turning into an insurgency against Len Brown and his plans for  Auckland.

John Roughan in the Herald explains.

I haven’t seen real suburban unrest before. This isn’t a “rates revolt” where people come to public meetings and sound off about an additional hundred dollars as though it matters. There is a deathly quiet about this plan.

We weren’t asked to vote on Tuesday night, just urged to send individual submissions to the council. Forms were distributed by a group organised to call for a “rethink” but our association wasn’t ready to endorse them.

Its founders are folk who believe more is to be gained in co-operation than combat. Just a month ago when the chairman circulated information on the council’s contentious metropolitan boundaries, he said he didn’t think it had much to do with Campbells Bay.

Nor did I – then.  Read more »

Nick Smith, already known and a greenie loon is fat becoming as unpopular as Len Brown in Auckland.

Why on earth John Key has made him the minister and the oracle of all things Auckland when he lives mostly in Wellington and partly in Nelson is beyond me.

But statements like this just makes us Aucklanders want to run him out of town on a rail.

Aucklanders need to get over their nimbyism and accept lower quality developments if they want affordable housing, says Housing Minister Nick Smith.

As residents in older suburbs grapple with possible changes under the draft Unitary Plan, the Government’s planned special housing areas threaten to override current planning rules designed to protect existing neighbourhoods.

A law change before Parliament would give more permissive consenting powers in the designated areas, to be agreed between the Government and Auckland Council under their new Housing Accord. Notification – allowing neighbours to object – would be more limited.

When first unveiled, it was assumed the designations would be on cheaper rural land in a bid to speed up home building. But Dr Smith says greenfield subdivisions earmarked for housing within the urban limits and in areas zoned for intensification could be declared special housing areas.

“Higher quality equates to high price. You end up with conditions requiring expensive sections and expensive homes.”

With comments like that it certainly looks like Len Brown has found a left-wing cabinet minister to push his agenda. God knows why he was rehabilitated into cabinet.

The only people moaning about affordable housing are broken arsed losers.

The old saying is never screw the crew, this Indian IT executive forgot that and now is suffering cock tax as a result:

Phaneesh Murthy, the Indian chief executive of outsourcing firm iGATE, has been sacked “for not disclosing a relationship with a subordinate”.

Mr Murthy had “violated iGATE policy” by failing to report this relationship, the firm said in a statement.

The firm said it had also investigated “a claim of sexual harassment” against Mr Murthy and found that he had not violated the firm’s harassment policy.

Mr Murthy said the charges against him were “completely baseless”.  Read more »

The Chinese PLA is starting to get all chummy with business and are actively facilitating access now:

Some of Australia’s most high flying business leaders were feted in China by an ”influence” platform of the People’s Liberation Army, a Fairfax investigation has revealed.

Andrew Forrest, who touted his talks with Chinese business leaders last month as a lesson on how to do friendship with China, was joined by the heads of four of the five big banks, Qantas, the Business Council of Australia and a former Australian ambassador to China, Geoff Raby, who is a director of Mr Forrest’s iron ore company, Fortescue Metals.

It is understood that none of the Australian business leaders was aware that the ”social organisation” facilitating their access, The China Association for International Friendly Contacts (CAIFC), was a platform for ”influence operations” by the Liaison Department of the General Political Department of the People’s Liberation Army.

The department, which was once known as the Department of Enemy Work, specialises in ”carrying out work of disintegrating the enemy and uniting with friendly military elements”, according to a 2003 manual seen by Fairfax.

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Yet another Simon Power screw up has been revealed, and once again it will have to be Judith Collins who has to repair the damage that FIGJAM rushed through in his final months.

The courts will continue to operate with the current legal aid system for the timebeing despite the Court of Appeal ruling it unlawful.

The Criminal Bar Association (CBA) launched court proceedings after the Government’s cost-saving shake-up of the legal aid system, which resulted in legal aid lawyers getting a 10 per cent pay cut.

The CBA lost a High Court case but took it to the Court of Appeal, which today held that the Legal Services Commissioner, who is responsible for granting legal aid, was unable to function independently of the Government.  Read more »