Sunday, December 14th, 2008
by Chris
As the New Zealand government engages in vigorous back-pedalling with regards to our responsibilities and action on climate change, the rest of the developed world are celebrating the departure of one of the largest dead weights holding back progress.
That dead weight is George W. Bush, and Obama is the one tasked to replace him.
I guess we’ll see very soon whether action on climate change is incompatible with growing or recovering the economy as the conservatives would have us believe.
Tuesday, December 9th, 2008
by Chris
As suspected, National appear to want to ram their 90-day fire-at-will bill through under parliamentary urgency.
This is a pretty serious misuse of urgency. It also has the side effect of stifling debate on the matter by not allowing submissions from the public, but rather get rid of their unpopular policy at the start of the term so it’s forgotten by the next election.
It’s also highly hypocritical (surprised?). National, quite rightly, were very outspoken about the manner in which the Electoral Finance Act was passed, but even that went through Select Committee hearings and 6 months worth of public debate before it was finally signed into law.
Monday, December 8th, 2008
by Chris
Ok, so I now officially update my blog software more often than post on it, but I have a (poor) excuse! I could be convinced that Summer is almost here after two consecutive weekends of some great weather!
Spent the weekend up at Omaha and enjoyed the sunshine and the surf, kept up the sunblock so I wouldn’t be doing my beetroot impression for the next week.
Which makes me all the more concerned about the fact that Many of the country’s most popular swimming spots are not safe, according to a water quality survey by Consumer New Zealand. Having swum in Omaha previously for years, and absolutely failed to come down with campylobacter or sprout a new limb, I’m not too worried.
However, trying to find any information about this online you will quite quickly come up with nothing. A scour of the Auckland City and Rodney District council will turn up nothing except an 0800 number which, when I rang it, told me they had never heard of “Safe Swim”. Might need to try and and OIA that out of local government.
Auckland City council goes so far as to recommend “don’t swim at the beach for 48 hours after heavy rain“. Check your calendar, yes, we are in the 21st century. To further rub raw sewerage in the wound, the Council is looking to axe millions from storm water maintenance and upgrades.
Rates vs. swimmable beaches? You have to do what you have to do, although with John Banks there’s no guarantee that it will.
