Engage with all risks rather than listing them
The Otago Regional Council’s submission on local government reform makes for colourful reading (ODT 12.2.26).
Cr Laws is right that the proposal document is poorly written, but bad prose doesn’t mean bad policy.
The councillors worry that mayors on a combined territories board would face conflicts of interest. The government’s proposal does offer some tools such as weighted voting adjusted by the Local Government Commission, and dual majority requirements for resource management decisions.
I would go further. Constrain CTBs to co-ordination, not governance. No independent policy-making, no independent rating power, no asset ownership.
A body that cannot set policy is not a conflicted policy-maker, it is a co-ordinator.
Cr Robertson raises [the matter of] the Clutha River, suggesting competing authorities would pull it apart. Dual majority voting helps, but the fix is national environmental standards being enforced independently.
The river’s rules should not depend on which council monitors compliance.
Cr Gillespie says governance "cannot be made simple". Perhaps not, but one layer with clear scope is simpler than two layers tripping over each other.
Reform needs scrutiny, and I suspect the submission process rewards clear alternatives, not just objections.
A council submission that reads as defensive pushback rather than constructive critique may struggle to land.
Engaging with how risks can be managed is going to be more persuasive than simply listing them.
Muddy thinking
News that the government wants to tax us a billion dollars for a bunch of gas tanks to "save New Zealand millions" is the same sort of muddy economic thinking that had us cancel perfectly good ferries for smaller ones that all up cost more money.
It is time we replaced these amateurs with people who can add.
South Islanders shouldn't be being taxed for something that only benefits the North Island, and mostly North Island industry at that.
A better plan to use a billion dollars to address energy security would be to put solar panels on every Kāinga Ora home in the country, reducing the costs for the people who need it the most and putting the rest on the grid.
We’re all doomed
I refer to Mike Paulin’s letter (3.2.26). It actually doesn’t matter what our politicians think or their parties stand for. No changes that New Zealand makes in reducing fossil fuels will have any effect on climate change and global warming.
What politicians can do is to help us all become more resilient to climate disasters. We also need to adapt and learn how to mitigate the effects of climate disasters.
I think one of the best examples of this is people in South Dunedin taking their own initiative in raising their homes above potential flood levels.
Any individual can reduce their own emissions by reducing their carbon footprint if that is what helps them feel that they are reducing global warming.
Ong wrong
The arrogance of Benedict Ong beggars belief. One wonders what his actual motive was to stand for council. It's going to be a long three years.
I have news for you Duncan and it’s all bad
Duncan Connors (Opinion ODT 11.2.26) shows his ideological bias against Donald Trump.
The biased information he uses is from several former Trump staffers, who worked for Trump in his first term as president and on whose advice, the president, as a first-term politician made many poor decisions.
He is now more hands on and has surrounded himself with people he trusts and knows will do a good job.
The world is a far safer place now than under the Biden administration. Duncan Connors obviously thinks the cessation of hostilities in Gaza, the crushing of Iran’s nuclear capability, the sealing up of the US border, and the removal of illegal immigrants, to mention a few, are unworthy of mention.
I did not see any opinion pieces from Duncan Connors criticising the pathetic and ideologically compromised Biden administration. I guess this did not fit Duncan Connors’ left-leaning narrative.
What I take out of his piece is that Duncan Connors hates Trump, who has overturned the established order as decreed by people like himself and others, who think their world view is the only way forward.
Well, I have news for them, it isn’t.
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