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...
The cost of high growth – the dirty secret Auckland council would rather you not know about
It came as a shock to most Aucklanders when the NZ Herald recently revealed the scale of stormwater-driven sewage regularly overflowing into the harbour. The source is mainly from the western side of the...
Auckland’s dirty secret – can we handle the truth?
Sewage pollution of the inner Waitemata harbour is a direct consequence of Auckland’s disproportionate growth. The failure to provide for sufficient basic sanitation infrastructure is something the Auckland Council and the government driving these...
Motukorea – Auckland’s forgotten gift – rediscovered
Motukorea or Browns Island (60 ha), the iconic inner-Gulf island, formed by a 10,000 year old extinct volcano, a sight familiar to all ferry users and yachties, was back in the news recently –...
Public oversight of Auckland Transport – is less really more?
Mayor Goff’s announcement that Cr Chris Fletcher and myself were to be removed from the board of Auckland Transport and not replaced by any other councillors came as a surprise to a lot of...
Letter to Mayor Goff – in defence of democratic representation on the board of Auckland Transport
31 October 2016 Hon Phil Goff, Mayor elect of Auckland Dear Mr Mayor, Thank you for your letter dated 26 October 2016 (note this was emailed to me on 28 October) regarding...