Wardfire

David Farrar over at Kiwiblog has replied on the subject of unbalanced supercity wards, accusing critics of simply having a go at Rodney Hide. I shall oblige and leave the minister of local government out of this, and instead focus on the undemocratic shambles that this new supercity plan is building.

Farrar claims that the grossly disproportionate wards are okay, as we need to be able to make exceptions for some cases for rural areas. I actually agree- my issue is not with the fact that there is a ward with a greater than 10% difference from the average of the Supercity. My issue is that eight of the twelve proposed wards (or twelve of the twenty counselors) are within the unacceptable range. By definition, two thirds of a group cannot all be exceptional cases. Even if this arrangement benefited the left, it would clearly be wrong and necessitate urgent reform. It’s not about who’s winning. It’s about the principle that elections ought to be fair, and votes ought to be as equitable as possible for people living in different areas.

With relatively little deviation from areas of interest, it should be possible to smooth out the differences between the wards much more, and allow the two wards Farrar mentions to be truly exceptional outliers that barely graze that 10% margin, instead of crushing it at 24% and 17% deviations. A 24% outlier can’t even be called an exceptional case- it’s the kind of statistic that smells of gerrymandering. Let’s preserve geographic and social boundaries without making a joke out of local elections, shall we?

 

Arise, Sir Rodney Bjelke-Petersen

Sir Joh would have been proud.

Back in the1970s and 1980s one of New Zealand’s more infamous emigrants, the corrupt and racist Queensland Premier the late Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen, held onto power by what became known as the Bjelke-mander under which electorate boundaries were drawn so that rural electorates had about half as many voters as metropolitan ones.

As a result, Bjelke-Petersen was able to retain the State Premiership with as little as 20% of the vote going to his Country (later National) Party.

Now take a look at this table, taken from the Local Government Commission’s proposed ward boundaries for the Supercity:

I live in the Waitakere ward. So the vote of someone who lives in the Rodney ward will be worth 1.42 times my vote.  The vote of someone who lives in the Hibiscus-Albany-East Coast Bays ward will be worth 1.32 times my vote.  The vote of someone who lives in the Howick-Botany-Pakuranga ward will be worth 1.31 times my vote.  The vote of someone who lives in the Frankin ward will be worth 1.28 times my vote.

The structure is clearly screwed to provide greater worth to votes from areas that traditionally vote centre-right than those that traditionally vote centre-left or are more evenly politically balanced.

I don’t blame the Local Government Commission.  They were left with little choice given the Government’s legislating that there  would be only 20 councillors, that they would all be elected under First Past the Post, and that Rodney and Franklin would have to have one councillor each.

A gerrymander was inevitable.  And was no doubt planned because, as Rodney Hide said himself:

…you turn up with your papers … they [Cabinet] are too busy with their own stuff; they’re not bothered…

 

Fear and loathing on Tamaki Drive

Despite being a Wellingtonian I’ll confess that I’ve driven on Tamaki Drive many times before. And my anecdotal experience has been that it’s not the latte-and-lycra cyclists on their bikes-that-cost-more-than-cars that are causing road rage. It’s the hundreds of other cars banked up behind each other. A bike pelaton moving along at 35 km an hour is hardly likely to slow down a car stuck in traffic and moving at 25 km an hour? The only rage they cause is to the cafe-goers sitting quietly down to a coffee when 30 cyclists all drop by en masse to order their long blacks.

 

Race-based seats

Isn’t it strange that Rodney Hide represents the electorate with the lowest proportion of Māori in the whole country and the second lowest level of Māori speakers and yet he is opposed to race-based seats? Surely his party wouldn’t have a seat in Parliament if it were not for the existence of seats that did not reflect the demographics of the national population?

 

Hard to see how it would ever happen again

While like the rest of the Green Party, I wished the Maori Party the best of luck with their decision to support a National-led government, it probably wouldn’t have been what I would have chosen to do in their place. I have no desire to play a game of “I told you so”, but what I am wondering is this: How exactly does National think it will ever get the Maori Party on side for a future agreement on confidence and supply if it sides with gormless idiots like Rodney Hide on “a matter of principle” like denying an under-represented community their right to be represented how they choose? It’s not as if anyone is calling for Maori to have a more effective vote- (rather, to be able to sign up for voting for candidates that represent them more directly, if they so choose) any ward seats designed to service the Maori community would presumably represent a similar population to other wards. You could perhaps argue that this might set back race relations in the long run by segregating politics, but even that argument ignores the fact that we’re still in a place where Maori politics gets squashed whenever it does not have special seats set aside to enable its development. And the final argument? We shouldn’t do it for Auckland unless we do it everywhere? Fine, let’s be consistent and do it everywhere. That’s not an argument against the prospect at all. (This argument has also been run on protecting assets from privatisation, and is just as wishy-washy there.)

What exactly have National actually given the Maori Party in return for their incredibly patient support of a government that doesn’t seem ideologically inclined to work with them? The most significant thing is obviously the foreshore and seabed review, but that hasn’t exactly paid off yet. Apart from that, there’s really only the opportunity to fly a flag on the harbour bridge. There are business interests funding National that have got better treatment since the election than this coalition partner has.

If National really wants a second term, it would do the right thing for the country and actually start engaging with the Maori Party. It’s not likely that Act is going to represent a significant bloc next term given that they’re polling below the margin of error, so the “redneck vote” that views the idea of Maori deciding to represent themselves as abhorrent will have nowhere else to go. And even if Act do represent a significant bloc next election, can you imagine them withdrawing support from National over local body Maori seats when they support entrenching the parliamentary ones? This whole “debate” is frankly bizarre and doesn’t even have a leg to stand on. Even those Pakeha members of the public who cared enough to submit about Auckland’s supercity generally endorsed the idea of Maori seats. It’s really hard to see who exactly National is siding with if it’s not worried about the precedent of favouring the Maori Party over Act.

 

Global Poverty Project campaign launches in Aotearoa

I’ve been a little busy lately, for one reason or another, and neither been attending many events, nor blogging about green stuff.

I’ll make amends with a quick description of an event I was invited to by the Wellington Activation Manager for the Global Poverty Project, Sarah Wood, which took place at the Banquet Hall of Parliament last night.

MP’s Jackie Blue (N) and Steve Chadwick (L) spoke, as the hosting MP’s and Chair and VC of the Parliamentary Committee to Effect Change on Women’s Issues, and welcomed the organisers of the Global Poverty Project to Wellington, and also to Aotearoa/New Zealand, as they begin the launch of their campaign here.
In Australia, it’s fronted by Hugh Jackman, no less, and has had endorsements from Bono and other celebrities, but you can look at the website here.

In Wellington, we were treated to a very well-presented launch by Hugh Evans, a young man who first experienced the priviledge of his birthright when he was taken to the Phillipines by World Vision as a 14 year-old schoolboy. He realised then that most of the things he took for granted about his life (home, access to schooling, his parents’ jobs) were essentially an accident of birth – if he had been born at the same time, in another place, his life might have been like that of the teenagers he met, who survived by selling scavenged metals on the Burning Mountain rubbish dump that he visited.

The presentation is travelling around New Zealand, visiting the major cities.
It’s back here in Wellington on Friday 28th August, at Rutherford House, Pipitea Campus of Victoria University of Wellington. Lecture Theatres are on the ground floor, there’ll be signs to guide you to the right one(s).
RSVP to
newzealand@globalpovertyproject.com
so they have some idea how many lecture theatres they’ll need! They requested that for today as a deadline, but if you find this late, Sarah is a very accommodating person and may let you off.

 

Template for Making Submissions on Waterview Connection

I’ve written a draft submission on the Waterview Connection that you’re welcome to copy and adapt. Submissions are due this Friday so please take a few minutes to read through it, add your name and contacts, delete any points I’ve made you don’t like, add any of your own ideas and then send it in to the NZTA at waterview.connection@nzta.govt.nz You could also send it to Steven Joyce as he is the one driving this project on steven.joyce@parliament.govt.nz

This will be one of the most expensive motorway projects ever built in NZ (per km) and by completing the Western Ring Route it will have a really lasting effect on traffic patterns in Auckland. So, don’t be shy, wherever you live in Auckland feel free to submit!

If you wanted to write your own submission that would be even better! For more information about Waterview check out here: http://www.transit.govt.nz/projects/waterviewconnection/. And for the Green Party’s position see here: http://www.greens.org.nz/node/21145

Draft Submission on Waterview You Can Adapt

Date
Name
Address

I oppose the early completion of the Western Ring Route (WRR) through the Waterview Connection because I believe:

• the priority for Auckland should be building new public transport infrastructure. For example, electrifying the Auckland rail system, extending the rail line into a loop around the CBD, or putting in a rail link from Avondale Station to Onehunga Station to the airport and back to Puhinui on the Southern Line.
• the Waterview Connection will not reduce traffic congestion in Auckland in the long-term. Completing the WRR will not reduce congestion on local roads near the motorway or in the greater Auckland region long-term. This is because building the motorway will induce traffic, that is, it will cause more people to drive in private vehicles than currently do so or are predicted to do so in the NZTA’s modeling of the project’s impact on traffic flows.
• the costs and benefits of the projects have been calculated in a way that is fundamentally flawed. For example, almost 90% of the economic benefits of the project are based on congestion reduction or time savings for commuters but, as stated above, I do not believe building this motorway will reduce congestion long-term.
• oil prices may rise sharply in the near future as they did in 2008. Constructing this motorway does nothing to “future proof” Auckland against sudden changes in oil prices. Instead it will simply increase Aucklander’s dependence on private motor vehicles to get around and mean we have no alternative mode of transport if oil prices peak.
• climate change will require NZ to reduce our emissions dramatically. Road transport is one of the sectors in NZ whose emissions have risen most rapidly since 1990. Building this motorway will increase rather than reduce our emissions.

Some of the specific effects of the Waterview Connection I am most concerned about are:

• the 240 people who will be forced to leave their homes and will only receive the government valuation of their house.
• if there are backups of traffic waiting to get onto SH16 at peak times (as seems very likely due to the traffic that the project will induce) this will worsen traffic congestion on Great North Road.
• negative effects on the local sports club Metro Mount Albert who will lose some of their fields when the Alan Wood Reserve is taken for the motorway.
• impact of poor air quality in Waterview on the health of children at Waterview Primary School and St Francis School. NZTA traffic modeling suggests there will be more than 90,000 vehicles/day traveling through the interchange between SH16 and SH20 which will be only a few 100 metres from both schools.
• negative effects on Waterview School of losing some pupils (due to the loss of houses in the area). I do not believe that moving more Housing NZ tenants into an area with poor air quality that will be cut off from the rest of Auckland by two major roads (the Waterview Connection and SH16) is an acceptable solution to this problem.
• loss of green spaces (e.g., Alan Wood Reserve, Hendon Park) in an area that already has a very low ratio of green to built up space.

If the early completion of the Waterview Connection goes ahead despite my opposition some modifications I would suggest to the project to decrease its negative effects are:

• make one of the two lanes in each direction available only to buses, freight, and high occupancy vehicles (3 passengers or more). This will counteract the “induced traffic” effect of completing the WRR to some extent.
• use sound walls and tree planting to minimize the effect of the above-ground sections of the motorway on residents.
• compensate those people who will lose their houses by giving them slightly more than the current government valuation for their properties.
• cover the section of the motorway that will be above-ground near the intersection of  Blockhouse Bay & Great North Road.
• ensure that the project will not make construction of the Onehunga to Avondale rail line any more difficult than it would have been before the Waterview Connection is built.
• carry out on-going testing to ensure that air pollution from the interchange of SH20 and SH16 will not damage the health of students at Waterview or St Francis School. If there is a health risk then I believe NZTA should investigate the possibility of either relocating the schools to another site close by or using tree planting to provide an air-cleaning buffer between the interchange and the closest classrooms.
• work with the Metro Mount Albert sports club to ensure that they are compensated for their lack of fields through construction of new fields elsewhere.
• use bike and walking bridges over the motorway to ensure that residents are not cut off from their communities by the motorway.

Finally, I live in the project area so I hope my comments will be noted with due attention/I do not live in the project area but since I believe that the completion of the WRR will affect traffic throughout the Auckland region I hope the NZTA will attend to my comments.

I would like to be kept informed about this project by email/post. I can be contacted at xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx email or xxxxxxxxxxxx phone number as well as by mail.

 Yours Sincerely

XXXXXX

 

Neo-pagan Winter Solstice

I had the pleasure of attending two distinctly different Solstice celebrations this weekend, both involving food, fire and friends, one private & incorporating birthdays as well, and one very public.

I’ll review the public one, as it covers a few aspects of life dear to my heart.

There’s a fantastic group of people called the Phoenix Astronomical Society, who grew out of staff of the now-defunct Carter Observatory, where I was priviledged to work part-time a few years ago. They decided to set up a stone circle in the southern hemisphere, for the purposes of teaching star-lore to the inhabitants of Aotearoa/New Zealand, as well as visitors.

This is the now well-travelled locus of Solstice and Equinox festivals in New Zealand, and is a locus for Pagan groups (Druidic and Wiccan) from all over the North Island.
I’ve been invited many times, (including the historic Autumn Equinox of 2007, with the High Druid of Britain, Phillip Carr-Gomm, in attendance) but for one reason or another not made the trek – so this time, I thought I’d have a go.
There was a bus from Wellington, a dinner afterwards in Carterton, how hard could it be?

Having been advised to ‘rug up warm’, I layered on as much merino clothing as I could find, under my woolen dress, and got off the bus to find a damp afternoon in the Wairarapa, clouds threatening more rain; and a lot of people in cloaks of many colours under umbrellas, being watched by an even bigger crowd of sensibly dressed locals who’d come to observe the pagans. This was going to be interesting!

I joined with my hosts, members of the Grove of the Summer Stars of Wellington, and was duly offered a citronella torch to bear for the procession. Suitably equipped, I followed our leader and processed to the Henge, circling widdershins once before we entered the Henge to ‘hold’ the Southern placement during the ritual. There was an ‘order of service’, celebrants had parts scripted to play, and a flow of serious proclamations of our commitment to peace and care of the earth followed. I didn’t take as many photo’s as I thought I would, as I became caught up in the meaning of the ceremony.
(For a better explanation than I’m fit to give, see the Woolshed, home of the Grove.)

Grove of the Summer Stars banner

The ceremony began around 4.30pm, and continued through the dusk to true solstice about 6pm, when despite the overcast sky and inability to actually see the sun set directly over the sunstone, there was a very eery sense of power having been raised and then released in the course of the ritual.

Closing ritual - Druids Pamela and Tom

As this photo shows, it was quite dark and cold at the end!

Afterwards, we all piled back into the bus & various cars, and headed back to Carterton, where a dinner for about 200 pagans and sympathisers was held at the RSA. After-dinner entertainment came from Richard Hall, one of the Henge creators, who gave a sound presentation about the origins of modern pagan practice, assisted by Pamela from Wellington and Chris from Auckland.
This has to be the best midwinter feast I’ve ever attended, and I’ll certainly sign up for the next one.

Happy Solstice, everyone, and let’s look forward to longer days now that the longest night has passed. Maybe we’ll even see more sunshine than the fitful streaks going past my window today!
More info (and better pictures) about the Henge here.

 

Mt Albert by-election, a win-win?

Well, it’s been an interesting evening, what with the regular updates in every ad break on TV3, so I won’t say all that much, as they seem to have done the coverage well enough without my help!
See Russel’s speech after the results.

There’s a lot more on the TV3 website, too. Go fossicking, after you’ve heard Russ!

Toad, Frog, etc – someone please feel free to add a perspective from ‘on the ground’ of the last few days

I’d like to say congrat’s to David Shearer, he’s now got a long stretch to the next election to bed himself down and put his own stamp on the electorate. His local branch have campaigned well, and I’m sure there’ll be support there for him as he finds his feet as a new MP handling local clinics, a habit ingrained with Kingsland/Morningside/Mt Eden/Mt Albert residents by the previous incumbent!

 

Rank indeed

I’ve blogged before about Christine Rankin’s unsuitability as a Families Commissioner – on the basis of her past performance as WINZ chief executive.

Last weekend I was at the Green Party AGM in Dunedin, and didn’t get to see the Herald on Sunday until I got back to Auckland – only to find this:

Christine Rankin has the worst attendance record among elected members of Greater Auckland’s major councils.

The North Shore resident and newly appointed Families Commissioner skipped almost half the council and committee meetings to which she was invited since the local body elections in October 2007.

The attendance records of the 84 members of the Auckland, Manukau, North Shore and Waitakere City Councils and Auckland Regional Council varied widely.

Rankin attended just 51 per cent of the 100-plus meetings to which she was invited…

That’s an appalling attendance record. Who knows where it will end up now she has the added “responsibilities” of being a Families Commissioner.

Unfortunately, it is the antics of the likes of Rankin in Auckland local government who have given Rodney Hide the excuse to launch Grand Theft Auckland.

Hat tip: greenfly (for the blog post title)