Sharon Stewart

It looks like Lyin’ Len Brown’s sneaky tactics have finally caught up with him.

As I have previously revealed, Len is up to his sneaky tricks again and is trying to avoid the full weight of transparency for his flagship Auckland Unitary Plan.

It was good to see Amy Adams took my advice and told Len to pull his head in.

Len Brown approached the Government desperate for a secret process for the development of the Unitary Plan. The Government told him to bugger off and instead come up with its own plan.

Len also demanded that the Unitary Plan was granted immediate legal effect so he could do whatever he liked and strip Aucklanders off all their rights.

Again, the Government told him to piss off.

The reason the Government rejected Lyin’ Len’s request for immediate legal effect was because it was already provided for under the RMA. That means if Lyin’ Len is so keen to block public feedback he can go to the Environment Court and request this course of action.

But he won’t because he knows he’ll be laughed out the door all the way back to his high rise apartment….except Len likes to live on a lifestyle block and force other Aucklanders to live in high rises.

Lyin’ Len has staked his reputation on the Unitary Plan, but now according to the Herald, his councillors are revolting against him.  Read more »

ᔥ NZ Herald

The results are fairly comprehensive from the online survey at The NZ Herald.

Fully 53% are against the race at Pukekohe at all wither thinking it is a complete waste of ratepayer cash (49%) or not happy at all about it being at Pukekohe (4%).

A further 24% aren’t interested in a car race anyway, bringing the total either opposed or dis-interested to 77%

Meanwhile just 11% are enthusiastic.

Perhaps Len’s lackeys should take a bit of notice. I think it is high time we started to campaign against profligate councillors and put them on a list to rinse them in the next local body elections.

Only George Wood, Sharon Stewart, Cathy Casey, Sandra Coney and Cameron Brewer can hold their heads high over this.

I t may have been interesting to have the vote when the full council was in attendance. Len Brown, Arthur Anae, John Walker, Mike Lee, Richard Northey, Dick Quax, Calum Penrose, Wayne Walker and IMSB member John Tamihere were all absent.

I doubt Calum Penrose would have voted for this waste, nor Dick Quax.

C&R should really look now to de-select Chris Fletcher and Noelene Raffills. While they are at it they should axe the current leadership of C&R who put in place the removal of caucus whipping that allowed these two to go against the principles of C&R. Noelene Raffills has become Len Brown’s conservative poodle so desperate she is to retain her committee chair job.

People seem focussed on standing someone against Len Brown for Mayor. They should not, what they need to do is focus on a credible, cross spectrum “Auckland First” ticket focused on representing ratepayers and fiscal conservatism and clean out the council leaving Len Brown as but one vote on a council stacked against him.

I for one would be interested in establish such a ticket and campaign. C&R have lost their way, they should be retired, same goes for Labour and City Vision…time is up on petty party politics in Auckland. Time for a new way.

The streets will flow with the blood of left-wingers after this coming Thurday’s Auckland Council committee meeting on the Ports of Auckland industrial dispute.

To be discussed at the meeting will be a series of questions posed by Richard Northey and answered by Auckland Council Investments’ Gary Swift.

Also on the table will be the nutty and pathetic tablings of Local Boards (they who are so clearly not tasked with regional and investment matters) who have even had MUNZ come and whinge to them about what is happening. This is all a bit ho-hum.

What is going to really set the cat amongst the pigeons is Richard Northey’s motion as chair:

• That the Accountability and Performance Committee express to the Ports of Auckland and to the Maritime Union:

i) its strong desire for an immediate return to good faith bargaining aimed at the achievement of a fair collective agreements that further significantly improves port efficiency, and
ii) its opposition to the redundancy and contracting out of 292 port workforce positions as proposed.

This amounts to political interference amongst the management of the Ports. Should this motion pass, then the left will have massively backflipped – and in the process handing a massive humiliation to Len Brown who has said his hands are tied and he won’t interfere.

It will also be interesting to see which councillors do not turn up (like last time), or choose to abstain. This includes Len Brown, whose failure to turn up last time kicked off the cunning C&R strategy of baiting Len into a foolish and compromising position of “supporting both sides” in mid January.

Brown is now tasked with an even worse set of choices thanks to Richard Northey’s desperation to show he is a worker’s mate.

a) Don’t turn up and be called a coward
b) Turn up and vote for the motion, completely upending his council and risking central government wrath (with the wrath rumoured to include legislation that the council might not like)
c) Turn up and vote down the motion, doing the right thing but further hurting his support with the militant left

I will be counting on the votes of the 5 C&R councillors, plus independents to show that it’s NOT the business of council politicians to publicly contradict and countermand previous decisions it made to support the boards of its investment wing. (Remember than on 8 December, the council voted at this same committee to back the Ports board and Auckland Council Investments). Nominally centre-right councillors like Penny Webster, Michael Goudie, and Calum Penrose, plus centrists like Arthur Anae, Sir John Walker and Sharon Stewart will be scrutinised heavily to see if they back this hard left retrograde step to inferfere in the management of the Ports.

On top of this – the votes of the two unelected Maori Statutory Board members will be scrutinised hard too.

This is going to be the showdown of the council term – this vote may define the Len Brown and Labour-left led council in the same way the Waterfront Stadium debate of the Hubbard Council wrecked the inter-personal relationships between left-wing councillors and humiliated Dick Hubbard publicly.

Len Brown is the Secret Mayor. He didn’t want anyone to know who he had dinner with and fought for 8 months all the way to the Ombudsman. He lost that fight. He wanted board appointments held in secret so he could put his mates on the board unchallenged. And now he has fought an attempt to have the business of the Maori Statutory Authority conducted with openness and transparency.

Secrecy surrounds a new funding plan for the Maori Statutory Board after Mayor Len Brown yesterday crushed a move by many councillors for an open debate on the issue.

Mr Brown, who campaigned last year on openness and transparency, did not want councillors speaking publicly about one of the biggest embarrassments of his six months in the Super City hot seat.

He gathered 11 votes, just enough to stop nine councillors who wanted to debate the council’s new negotiating position with the board in public.

Said councillor Cathy Casey: “It is time to speak out, say what you think and own your words.”

9 Councillors voted for openness. They were Cameron Brewer, Cathy Casey, Christine Fletcher, Mike Lee, Callum Penrose, Sharon Stewart, Des Morrison, John Walker and George Wood. They can hold their heads high.

The other 11 – Len Brown, Wayne Walker, Michael Goudie, Arthur Anae, Alf Filipaina, Richard Northey, Anne Hartley, Penny Webster, Sandra Coney, Penny Hulse, and Noelene Raffils need to be drummed out of the council for letting down their people.

Len Brown sat on a train and campaigned for openness and transparency. He promised “open books”. He has lied to Aucklanders. This discussion is about the budget of the Maori Statutory Board, if that isn’t part of the books then what on earth is?

Aucklanders know now that Len Brown prefers the shadows, back-room deals and weasel words. He has the spine of a jellyfish and the gumption of a fart. It is unacceptable that discussions about spending ratepayers money are held in secret.

We deserve better.

Check out these three stooges. Sainsbury cons the Clown of Campbells Bay, Browneye Bob and Aortic Len into the indignity of eating on national television.

Chomp, chomp, chomp, mmm the buns aren’t delicious but having the camera focus on this lot making fools of themselves certainly is.

What a bunch of weirdoes. Just nowhere in the same league as John Banks.

I was sad to see that Len Brown collapsed from a massive heart attack last night.

My thoughts and prayers are with him and his family.

Len was well on the way to becoming a very popular mayor. Everyone who has met or worked with Len only speaks highly of him. Since becoming Mayor he has worked tirelessly to put his own mark on the mayoralty and gained an impressive reputation. Let’s all hope he recovers swiftly.

Funding for disabled frozen – New Zealand, world, sport, business & entertainment news on Stuff.co.nz

These stories make me so mad.

Funding has been frozen for providers of caring for 7000 people because why?

Because “due to higher than anticipated spending on assessing the needs of clients, further contract-rate increases for providers were postponed.”

So lets get this right, the people at the pointy end caring for disabled people are getting stiffed because the bureaucrats at the back end spent more in “assessing the needs of clients”

Assholes. And why have the costs of “assessing the needs of clients” gone up? Well because the ministry implemented a NEW needs assessment and service co-ordination information system and mandated that everyone have a client review.

So again, let’s recap. The funding at the pointy end has been stopped because the back-end bureaucrats caused a cock-up that means that they exceeded their own budget.

In the Army we used to call this a “clusterf*#k” caused by REMF’s (google it)

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While Hubbard breaks the law council officers are being sent on a witch-hunt to track down other offenders through political manipulation. 

Mayor Hubbard's election bill boards are illegal and contravene the very same By Laws he voted for at City Hall. Like many decisions at City hall the Mayor and Council have often not understood what they are doing or the implications of what they are voting for.

Hubbard's Bill Boards on the back of buses have been around for weeks and although illegal Council Officers have elected not to do any thing about it yet immediately some one else's signs appeared on vehicles action was swiftly taken within hours.

As posted here previously Council Officers have acted as a result of political intervention.

Council Officer Stephen Bloxham sent an email to the other offenders dated 27 September 2007 pointing out By Law 27.3.4

Brian Rudman: Dying in a ditch over doomed stormwater tax – Plans by Auckland City to pad retail water bills to pay for stormwater improvements have already cost veteran City Vision team leader Dr Bruce Hucker the deputy mayor's job and his place on the left-leaning ticket. Now, thanks to… [Auckland News]

Brian Rudman gets into Hubbard over the report from parliament over his councils mis-leading of the public over its water policy.

[quote]But not even Dr Hucker's ugly fate was warning enough for Mr Hubbard. Obdurate to the bitter end, he is now left to take the local government select committee's medicine alone. The policy, say the parliamentarians, is "not acceptable" and they "strongly advise" Auckland City Council to reconsider it.

As I've already pointed out, Mr Hubbard excepted, the committee is preaching to the converted. The two main tickets, City Vision and Citizen and Ratepayers, both now see the errors of their earlier ways. Mr Hubbard's main rival for the mayoralty, former mayor John Banks, is also opposed.

Which leaves poor old Mr Hubbard, caught alone in the headlights like a trapped possum. If ever there was a time to scurry off, it would be now. After all, win or lose the upcoming election, he's never going to get enough votes to resurrect the scheme. But, suicidally, he's decided to come out fighting anyway, muttering darkly about political motivation behind the inquiry, as though that was the point.[/quote]

Hubbard is about to join the long list of one term mayors and his council and legacy will be one of ignominy. All Banksie has to do now to win is to say and do nothing. Hubbards one remaining supporter (Perky Pinky) no doubt will be commenting here later about howterrible it is that everyone is picking on such an inept fool.

Once again Corrections is in the news and once again it is for the wrong reasons.

Damien O'Connor must have some bloody good pictures of Helen Clark as he seems almost bullet-proof as his Ministry lurches from one crisis to the next.

This time the fools at Corrections have released a Christchurch prisoner from a six-month prison sentence after just 10 days due to a "computer cock-up".

It is unbelievable that no-one takes any blame but the computer is somehow at fault. Look at the complete incompentence when explaining how it happened;

[quote]Christchurch Men's Prison manager John Roper said Faalilo's sentence had been miscalculated.

"Prison sentences are complex to calculate. We deal with over 12,000 prisoners each year. Unfortunately from time to time we may get these calculations wrong, which has happened in this case," he said. [/quote]

Might I suggest a simple spreadsheet and some basic queries could solve this problem. How bloody hard is it to calculate a prison sentence anyway. they get sentenced to 6 months they should do 6 months give or take a year.