Bob Parker

The Herald may have decided to run all its stories through the spellcheck, however one reporter doesn’t know the difference between satirical and sartorial.

Turns out that The Civilian website by Ben Uffindell is not only funny but really well dressed.

X Factor fans have gone into a frenzy after a sartorial website posted a fake story announcing Tom Batchelor as the winner.

The Civilian appeared to have crashed as viewers of the show flooded the site.

The story said a technical error resulted in TV3 airing the final episode months before it was supposed to.  Read more »

What a bugger, Sam Johnson would have been a good councillor for Christchurch. He is a genuine top bloke.

I hope Lianne Dalziel finds someone equally as good because Bob Parker has to go.

Student Volunteer Army founder Sam Johnson will not challenge Mayor Bob Parker in the upcoming Christchurch elections, despite agonising over an offer to team up with Labour MP Lianne Dalziel.

The Weekend Press revealed Dalziel – the MP for Christchurch East and Labour’s earthquake recovery spokeswoman – invited Johnson to be her running mate and would-be deputy mayor in October’s local body elections.

Neither Dalziel nor Johnson would comment on Friday, but Johnson admitted last night he “very seriously did consider” the offer. He finally decided against it on Saturday afternoon.

“I really wanted to do it,” he said. “It was a really difficult decision to make, but I don’t think it is the right thing for me right now.”  Read more »

Leaked polling numbers I have seen suggests that Bob Parker is trailing Lianne Dalziel by over 25%. Bob’s negatives are very high, and his handling of Tony Marryatt have not helped. The same poll has even higher negatives for Mrs Mayor, who has a reputation for being extremely difficult to deal with.

Bob’s previous backers have failed to respond for requests for money because Bob has been so busy being mayor he has forgotten his friends. National have washed their hands of him so will not be helping, with most National supporters remembering Big Gerry’s clown comments.  Read more »

Six weeks ago I called for Lianne Dalziel to run for Mayor of Christchurch. The MSM have finally caught up with her plans and the Press has a story about Lianne’s campaign.

Labour MP Lianne Dalziel has asked the founder of Christchurch’s Student Volunteer Army, Sam Johnson, to stand together to challenge Mayor Bob Parker in this year’s local body elections, The Press understands.

Speculation has been mounting as to who will run against Parker in October. And The Press can now reveal Labour’s Canterbury Earthquake Recovery spokeswoman Dalziel has asked Johnson, 24, to be her running mate and would-be deputy mayor.

Johnson himself would have to be elected as a councillor to assume the deputy’s position, and Dalziel is believed to have sounded out other running mates too.  Read more »

Our pinko mate doesn’t like the idea of moving Canterbury University to revitalise the rooted CBD. He doesn’t say it outright, he just sledges.

Having the university more central isn’t a bad idea by itself, but money doesn’t grow on trees (except for the Greens). If Bob Parker really thinks it is essential, than maybe he can identify what projects he would can to pay for it.

Big Gerry has had a bit of a bad run, and many bad moments. Many of them, and obviously the pressure got to him last week. In a long time in politics it is hard to remember a politician, even under severe pressure, use such intemperate language.

First up there was him calling Bob Parker a clown. Hard to argue with Big Gerry on this one, but a really dumb thing for a minister to say, and pretty much unprecedented.

Then he reckoned that some people in Christchurch doing it tough after the earthquake where just buggerising around on Facebook and they should stop moaning.

Next up he was buggerising around with the schools in Christchurch and managed to completely screw up the program with the able assistance of Hekia Parata, who is managing to make Anne Tolley look like a genius.

Then he had a hand in buggerising around with democracy and keeping the commissioners at Ecan rather than having an election.

The big question is what’s with Big Gerry? Why the intemperate language and why the bad temper? Has his stomach acid getting to him? Or has he been found out as a lazy and indolent minister who wanted to give up Earthquake recovery because it was too much work? Or is he just about to burst?

The National Party has its LNI regional conference this weekend in Napier.  Delegates should ask the party hierarchy what they are doing about local government elections in 2013, especially since National opponents hold the mayoralties in the three major cities.

In Auckland Len Brown is vulnerable for numerous cock ups and generally looking like he is incompetent. He wants to spend all sorts of tax payers money on things National doesn’t want to spend money on, and has put rates up excessively in many National voting areas. He should be vulnerable but no one in National seems to be doing anything to run against him. Auckland based board members Alastair Bell and Peter Goodfellow seem to have done nothing to find a competent candidate to take on Len.

Wellington sees the Green Mayor Celia Wade-Brown facing a tough battle with Annette King. National have no potential candidate lined up to run against the two left wingers.

In Christchurch Bob Parker is not a National friend. Gerry Brownlee called him a clown, and probably wishes he could have said what he really thought. Lianne Dalziel will win and win easily against Bob. Internal polling show Bob has negatives that are absolutely unprecedented, so unprecedented that the poller suggested that Boober Fraggle would beat Bob by close to ten to one, and not even an earthquake would save Bob.

Does National have any good mayoral candidates?

ᔥ NZ Herald

How will this help with the rebuild?

Christchurch Mayor Bob Parker is to visit South Korea and Israel for eight days.

He will leave this Thursday, returning to Christchurch on Friday May 11.

While in South Korea, Mr Parker will travel to Christchurch’s sister city Songpa-Gu and also speak at a business breakfast in Seoul hosted by the Kiwi Chamber of Commerce.

A highlight is a visit to the Korean Antarctic Programme.

After Korea, he will travel to Israel for the International Mayors’ Conference, to be attended by 73 mayors from around the world. The invitation to Mr Parker follows a visit to Christchurch in April last year by Israel’s Speaker of the Knesset Reuven Rivlin.

Mr Parker returns to South Korea on May 10 where he is a guest speaker at the 2012 Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief Conference in Seoul.

Christchurch City Council said the cost of Mr Parker’s travel was being met by the conference organisers. His wife will accompany him and Mr Parker is paying for the cost of her travel.

ᔥ Stuff.co.nz

The Bob and Tony Show is more like bad imitation of Laurel and Hardy, in that they are trying to be comedians but just aren’t funny.

Protests made Tony offer to pay back his 14.4% pay increase. Now he is using a weasel clause to get out of it.

Christchurch City Council chief executive Tony Marryatt will not make a decision on whether to return part of his controversial $68,000 pay hike until a Government observer leaves.

The council awarded Marryatt a 14.4 per cent increase last December, sparking a wave of public criticism.

In January, he said he had asked the council to stop paying the increase. However, he held on to more than $25,000 already received and said he would return the money only if councillors worked together.

“The councillors said they would work together collegially,” he said in January. “If they can be true to this commitment, I will make a similar commitment in the same spirit of good faith and will give back any increase I’ve received to date.”

ᔥ NZ Herald

The whole place is rooted but at least there won’t be any fracking causing more earthquakes in Christchurch. Personally I think Bob Parker should frack off. I’m pretty sure that residents of Christchurch would have wanted their council to focus on more important things than fracking…like re-building their city:

Christchurch City Council has voted unanimously to declare Christchurch a fracking-free zone.

Fracking or hydraulic fracturing is a mining system that involves injecting chemicals into rocks so they break, releasing oil and natural gas.

The stance is because of concerns about the impact of fracking on the local environment, including contamination of the city’s underground water supply and fracking’s link to earthquakes.

The council also decided to call on the country’s other territorial/local authorities and regional councils to declare their areas fracking-free. Christchurch City Council will discuss the issue with Environment Canterbury.

Christchurch Mayor Bob Parker said the council received extremely positive feedback when it called for a moratorium on fracking earlier this year.

“However, today’s decision takes our opposition to this practice a step further. It is a very strong sign from the Council that we do not want fracking taking place in this city. We hope that the strong stand we are taking is picked up by councils in other areas,” Mr Parker said.