Yesterday the new Auckland Councillors gave their maiden speeches. The ones delivered by Efeso Collins from the Manukau Ward and Richard Hills from the North Shore ward were particularly good. Watch them here
Here’s Daniel Newman from the Manurewa-Papakura ward and Greg Sayers from the Rodney ward
And finally Desley Simpson from the Orakei Ward.
Efeso Collins has a rising star in local politics. I won’t be surprised if he ends up in the Wellington parliament one day.
Yeah, yeah!
He’s too good/genuine (spent some time with him). Labour doesn’t tolerate that (too threatening to the incumbents).
Sayers cant make up his mind, At the start he says we need to cut wasteful spending, later he says we need to pay for rail to kumeu, and seal a bunch of rural roads. I guess the cost savings are to be found in wards other than Rodney
Well, they would be less of a waste of my money then a bunch of cycle lanes in town and spending $900,000 on street lights for Franklin rd.
how much would you get sealed for 900K and how many people would that benefit vs the number of users of franklin road?
Who cares? But, they’re lights Dan. How about you write an essay on the relative benefits of 2km of sealed road vs replacing some lights with another set of lights.
Don’t you care? After all it’s you that suggested replacing some road with some new road was better than replacing some lights with some new lights.
Franklin Rd carries over 16k vehicles per day and is being rebuilt. The new lights are part of that rebuilt and the method chosen was to enable other outcomes on what is one of Auckland’s most iconic streets. It’s a bit hard to compare that to a rural road carrying a few hundred vehicles a day at most.
Dan, I care as much about your cycle lanes, train tunnels, light rail and Franklin rd as you do about getting my road sealed.
Get it? My needs aren’t yours and yours aren’t mine. But only the city gets its needs noticed.
Only the cities needs are noticed? Why then did the council fund an extra $10 million over 3 years to ramp up the sealing of Rodneys roads? This is a 1000% increase in funding. Some people might take it as a sign that council spending is out of control.
There’s a reason most of the farmers and lifestylers in Rodney don’t seal there own driveways, and that’s because gravel roads are actually a very cost effective solution for long roads that see light traffic. Yet somehow Sayers forgets this when pleading for the council to live within it’s means.
Oh please. The increase was about 6 not 10 and it’s a tiny token gesture given in an attempt to make the transport levy more palatable.
But it’s not just about gravel tracks Dan, but whatever…
Time for a reality check Tony. The Interim transport levy is $96.77 +GST a year per ratepayer. There are 20,100 households in Rodney. This means over the three years the good folks of Rodney are paying a a total sum of $5.8 million on the levy… and getting at least six million in new spending out of it.
A token gesture? Hardly when you get more than you put in! Or are you expecting the rest of us to subsidise your transport wish list even further?
That’s strange Nick cause according to this from 2013
http://www.stats.govt.nz/Census/2006CensusHomePage/QuickStats/AboutAPlace/SnapShot.aspx?id=2000004
there were just under 40000 dwellings either existing or under construction.
And then there’s the business contribution which you seem to have forgotten about.
Er, that was the old Rodney District Council in 2006 (ten years ago FYI) which included all of suburban Orewa and the peninsula.
The current Rodney data is here: http://www.stats.govt.nz/Census/2013-census/profile-and-summary-reports/quickstats-about-a-place.aspx?request_value=13609&parent_id=13170&tabname=#13609
Just over 20,000 occupied dwellings.
Ok fair enough. But it’s just under 25000 and you still haven’t included the business contributions.
Danni’s negative politics are such a bonus for Manurewa-Papakura. Hard to believe such an asset has been rejected by Labour and National.
Who are all the bods sitting behind them doing nothing?
The top brass of course.
From those I know and in no particular order:
Chief Operating Officer (CEO is sitting next to Phil)
Chief of Planning
Director of Governance
Mayoral Chief of Staff
Looks like legal is present
Couple of mayoral comms
Director of Finance and Policy (I cant see the Chief Financial Officer in the shot)
More to the point more names than one probably should know >_<
Not a great look that guy jamming food in while someone is speaking.
Nope
Not when there are regular breaks
Efeso is nice enough. I voted for him and I’m glad he got in. He’s youngish, well educated and understands firsthand the issues that poor, brown people face. I think he will be a good advocate for Manukau. But he is a typical politician, loquacious as they come. Mostly eloquent talk, but lacking in concrete action.