Here in Auckland they would form a sneaky committee in secret with members appointed from furtive Len Brown’s secret list of donors then put a sign up with what Len said it should say.
But speaking of aDead Duck…how aboutt his for a sign idea.
Those who crossed Ms Prendergast knew she bore grudges, sometimes mistaking dissent for disloyalty. But even the critics recognised that she knew what she wanted to achieve for the city and had developed strategies for corralling the votes for the policies that she wanted to implement.
Against that, Ms Wade-Brown looks less sure-footed. Her more inclusive style has brought those hitherto regarded as outliers into her tent, but because her leadership is more tentative, less certain, she is finding that these cats are still difficult to herd. In fact, her style has caused some to wonder aloud if she has the leadership skills and political nous to maintain the momentum that marked the terms of predecessors.
People didn’t vote for Celia Wade-Brown, they voted against Kerry Prendergast, and now it seems they are going to suffer a bit of voters remorse.
Auckland’s plethora of councils are now one, giving that metropolis huge political clout. To counter it, this region too must speak with one voice. That means the mayor of its largest city must be pragmatic, energetic and decisive.
If Ms Wade-Brown prefers impotent idealism to realpolitik, she will be a one-term mayor. And the city will have wasted three precious years.
Last week, Mayor Len Brown, who promised a transparent administration, opposed a move by nine councillors for an open debate on a funding package for the Maori Statutory Board.
This followed an attack by the Automobile Association on the mega-transport council-controlled organisation (CCO) for acting in secrecy and the Waitemata Local Board being stopped from talking about a secret deal condemning heritage buildings in the Wynyard Quarter.
In all these cases, Mr Brown, the Auckland Council and Auckland Transport have been criticised for keeping the public in the dark about important issues.
Len Brown certainly campaigned on transparency, he sat on a train in his campaign video and promised us he would open, honest, transparent and he would open the books. So far he has been the exact opposite of that. He has been secretive, furtive, lied, and the books still remain closed.
Six months into his mayoralty and Len Brown looks like he would be out of his depth in a car park puddle.
Earlier this year I interviewed Celia Wade-Brown, Mayor of  Wellington. She impressed me as having high integrity, and unlike charlatans like Len Brown is willing to personally use bikes and public transport rather than insisting that other people use them.
Phil Goff has said he was joking about calling for looters to be shot.
PHIL GOFF SAYS CALL TO SHOOT LOOTERS A JOKE QUAKE-GOFF Â Mar 10th
Wellington, March 10 NZPA – Labour leader Phil Goff joked that the army should shoot looters stealing goods after the Christchurch earthquake in a
radio interview.
On radio station BFM on February 28, Mr Goff talked about meeting a man in Linwood whose sister was killed in the quake, whose house had been badly
damaged but then it was ransacked by looters.
“I saw the army out in the street and I thought court martial, firing squads you just can’t believe how low a small minority of people can get,” he told the radio station.
Right wing blogger David Farrar highlighted the comment on twitter.
“Interesting that Phil Goff on radio said that army should shoot looters. Wonder how his caucus feel about his law and order policy?” he wrote.
Mr Goff said it was clear he was joking.
“I was making the point that first of all I had absolute contempt for anybody who would exploit other people’s misery at a time like this but I was making a joke … It was obviously not intended to be taken seriously by anyone other than the most dim-witted National Party blogger.”
However he stood by another remark during the interview about setting looters to work with a shovel.
“I thought that people who were offending in that way … should be part of the effort to clean up and help others as a form of restorative justice rather than exploiting their fellow Cantabrians. They should be required to carry out a sentence where they had to put something back into the community.”
NZPA
Quite apart from Phil Goff claiming to be joking about a situation where a person had lost their family member to the quake he really is now asking us to believe the unbelievable.
He not only suggested that looter be court-martialed and shot but also that perhaps some could be “shackled to shovels” and put to work. That is quite different from suggesting as he claims that they “should be part of the effort to clean up and help others as a form of restorative justice”
Now bear in mind that it is Labour through Grant Robertson that have attacked Judith Collins for suggesting that criminals should go to court then be locked up for a very longtime with a cellmate. Phil Goff went further, he says he joked, about a situation where a family member has lost a family member and that looters should be court martialed and then shot but at the very least they should be shackled to a shovel. What Goff has suggested is of a magnitude far exceeding anything other than rabid bloggers like myself have suggested. For him to essentially deny that he said it by saying he was only joking just makes matters worse.
This is a law and order policy that only the Sensible Sentencing Trust could wish for in their wildest dreams.
Just so we can be aware of the context, I have now obtained the full audio and also details of the short part that Phil says he was joking about. It is clear in the entire interview that there is no joking about this serious situation.
“I’m disappointed in Obama. He’s having trouble leading because he’s reluctant to offend people or piss them off. … Yes, that’s not a problem I ever had.” — Steve Jobs
