Category: This Is Christchurch
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A Tale Of Two Electricities
This post is about electricity and how the Government has taken a cavalier approach to it in the last 30 years or so in NZ. Firstly in electrical safety, and secondly in the provision of electricity at a cost that people can afford. So let’s look at electrical safety. We can remember Consumer magazine reporting…
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Mainstream Media Don’t Have A Monopoly On Freedom Of The Press
There has been a great deal of reporting over the past week or two on a story involving two journalists being photographed meeting a former NZ First party president amid the alleged leaking of confidential party records to those same journalists. These photos were then published on a blog site called “The BFD”, which is…
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Why NZ First Self Destructs
NZ First is self destructing again. The reason they do this is because they piss people off. The reason they piss people off is their party is not a collective interest. It is based on self interest of each member, starting from the very top. The party is not democratic like other parties. Winston Peters…
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Why Councils Are Risk Averse In Building Processes
So this one is a little different, it’s defending councils against the allegations that they have ensnarled building processes in red tape. Anecdotally you can hear many concerns over what it costs to build a house or some commercial premises these days, and especially over the consents process with a local council and the fees…
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Hamilton City CEO Calls For Local Electoral Reform
An interesting op-ed appeared in the Stuff website yesterday, reporting on the call from Hamilton City’s CEO Richard Briggs for reform of local government elections (reported on Radio NZ three weeks ago). The Stuff article is written by three academic management specialists, so it’s refreshingly non-partisan in its approach. Briggs has stated his view that…