Cr Ong: the pestilential menace or a godsend?
He who protesteth is not always right.
Cr Ong is obviously confused about protocol in local body politics — or any committee for that matter — if he thinks he can get his own way without the support of his fellow members.
It is what democracy is all about. It is not a one-man band and hopefully never will be — a lesson he should have learned before putting his hand up prior to the local body election and wasting the time of those who voted for him.
Breach of trust
I read in the ODT (7.5.26) that Cr Ong disclosed confidential information from the Dunedin City Council.
This is not the first time he breached council ethics and protocol. He therefore must be expelled from the council.
The DCC has enough to contend with without dealing with Cr Ong’s antics.
On the other hand
I, for one, am tired of local government using the price of a toothpick as a reason to exclude the public and press from deliberations of public interest.
I welcome Cr Ong's bravery in disregarding all council standing orders and codes of conduct in disclosing information of public interest to journalists and thus the general public.
Hooray for rebellion against stupid rules.
Cr Ong’s latest leak wonderfully illustrates how idiotic the whole woke system is.
He is doing us a service. We can put so much energy into arguing why we shouldn’t do something, rather than spending the energy on doing something that actually needs to be done.
Poisonous questions
Lead is a well known environmental poison and precautions should be taken where there is a significant level of contamination.
The following questions must be answered before significance can be assessed.
1) What are the actual lead contamination levels that have been measured in the soils of the sites of concern and how do they compare with those measured in other urban centres? Is there any reason for Dunedin regulations to be any different from those of other urban centres?
2) What levels of lead are measured in the blood of Dunedin citizens and how much greater is that in those people who have worked in the suspected contaminated environments?
3) What is the incidence of clinically observable harm and excess deaths due to lead poisoning in Dunedin in comparison to other NZ urban centres? How much greater is this incidence in those who have worked in the suspected contaminated environments?
These questions must be answered before requirements are imposed that impede development.
Picture imperfect
In this morning’s ODT (5.5.26) there is an article by the president of the Principal’s Federation. Accompanying the article is a photograph captioned "Every pupil has their individual needs." This bears out what I have always understood – pupils go to school because they have to, students go on to tertiary study because they choose to.
Repetition on road works the lowest form of wit
I offer the Dunedin City Council some communications advice.
Today a council spokesperson is quoted in a front-page story on a botched DCC roading job on Kaikorai Valley Rd (5.5.26). This spokesperson concludes their comments with the phrase "We thank everyone for their patience and understanding."
Three days beforethe same spokesperson provided a response to a published letter which complained, quite reasonably, about the DCC’s extended closure of Blueskin Rd. Their concluding remark was the exact same phrase.
The first problem with this repetition is that it suggests that the spokesperson has completely missed the point in both instances. These matters have been raised in the media because affected individuals and businesses are frustrated and annoyed. It is well past thanking them for their patience and understanding. In fact, making such a comment in the circumstances could easily be interpreted as sarcasm.
Second, repeated use of such a trite comment suggests boredom, a lack of understanding of the issues and a lack of empathy for the affected parties.
Better is expected of the DCC.
Christianity is a politically variable thing
Clearly Graham Redding (Opinion ODT 29.4.26) is less moved by people coming to faith in Christ as Lord, than he is disturbed by the likelihood that their faith may — in its political implications — be conservative.
He is also disturbed that such a faith may have implications — conservative ones — for public life.
Dr Redding’s position may be described by the term used by C S Lewis in his classic work, The Screwtape Letters, as "Christianity And."
This is a position by which a Christian profession is to be approved of only insofar as it is an appendage to some other goal.
In the US, and in some developing countries, some people are apparently coming to Christian faith, or taking such faith as they have more seriously, because of the cultural, moral, environmental and political chaos of our times, and because such chaos — aspects of which are welcomed by ideologues of the Left and Right — is driving more and more people to boredom, mental illness, and irresponsibility.
Dr Redding would, it seems, prefer people not to come to faith unless it is a faith consistent with predictable progressive positions, to values like open-ended inclusion, and a preference for questions rather than answers.
What Dr Redding fails to acknowledge is that Christian faith is based on coherent truth claims.
It will have private and public implications because it is true.
Progressive approaches to faith that do not make this central have never made converts.
Christianity will not always align with conservatism — as Dr Redding would warmly acknowledge — but nor will it align with progressivism, as he would like to believe.
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