Jacinda and Winston – our brand new start
‘Far too many New Zealanders have come to view today’s capitalism not as their friend, but as their foe. And they are not all wrong. That is why we believe that capitalism must regain...
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The wreck of the Niagara – a clear and present danger
Readers of this site will be aware of the concerns I have been raising about the scale of pollution of our inner harbour and streams from sewage- contaminated stormwater. While the problem has been...
Harbour ferry Kestrel and our waterfront in danger from bureaucratic group-think
The announcement by Ports of Auckland chairwoman Liz Coutts that it was ‘no longer acceptable’ for the port to reclaim the harbour was the most sensible utterance from any city leader on this subject...
Parnell Heritage Station – a work (of art) in progress
After years of delays Parnell Station finally opened in March – but for Southern Line services only. Western Line and Onehunga trains don’t stop during weekday working hours, and Auckland Transport (AT) management remains...
Conserving and restoring Auckland’s precious heritage: Motukorea – Browns Island and the Parnell Station
When I last wrote about Motukorea – Browns Island in February, I promised to keep readers posted on progress – so here goes. To recap – after the island was rescued from the ignominious...
Time and patience running out for the Super City?
Auckland has had the Super City for more than six and half years now and for a lot of people it’s starting to feel like a sentence. It should be recalled Aucklanders were never...
Selling the port – selling out the people of Auckland
Mayor Phil Goff’s intentions regarding the Ports of Auckland always struck me as quite ambiguous. While he has been free with comments about wanting to physically move the port… to the Firth of...
The planned sell-out of Ports of Auckland – and why selling is losing
The Spinoff series. Storm in a Port series One would have hoped given all the problems Mayor Phil Goff has right now, the unhappy progress of his ‘bed tax’ for example and his council’s...
Auckland Transport’s March of Folly
Historian Barbara Tuchman’s acclaimed March of Folly – from Troy to Vietnam published in 1985 was about ‘the pervasive presence, through the ages, of failure, mismanagement, and delusion in government – contrary to its...
Here come the Coalition: history repeats as citizens step up to protect the harbour
The mid-March storms revealed just how stretched Auckland’s civic infrastructure has become. More ‘chickens coming home to roost’ after years of council and government high population growth policies for Auckland. While the irony of...