It is impossible to avoid the United States election in our distant land. We are served up a daily dose of Trump Derangement Syndrome because it is part of a global movement to tell us what to think. Whether or not you believe the Orange Man Bad rhetoric and, despite
It is hard to know what to believe anymore. So many lies are told in the MSM, and government staff are the main source of misinformation while blaming “conspiracy theorists” for questioning the official line. The woke left tries to shut down any debate, while big tech is censoring free
Resource consent hearings are serious legal processes. They are run by councils and were originally supposed to involve elected councillors to represent the people. Unsurprisingly, there were so many bad decisions that councillors have now been replaced by experienced commissioners who actually have to pass an exam in order to
As I write this, staff from the New Zealand Transport Agency and the Waikato Regional Council are trying to block resource consent for a billion-dollar investment by Sleepyhead. The well-known bed maker is looking at moving from Auckland to Ohinewai in the Waikato so its employees can have a better
Napier City Council hit the national news by fining Whangarei’s Ross Salter $200 for “freedom camping”. It is a trivial story, but it shows the endemic problems we face with councils across the country. Salter had driven 600km to pick up a newly-purchased second-hand caravan, and rightly decided to
I have just read the latest New Zealand Herald article about COVID-19 “Hydrocortisone and dexamethasone found to save critically ill patients”. It came up on my phone as the lead story of the day. The author was the Herald’s environment and Maori affairs reporter, so I knew I could
I am not going to mention the current C-word. You can do your own comparisons, particularly with the figures for the 1957 Asian Flu as European countries are now down to single-figure daily deaths and the Unites States figures are declining as expected. The information here comes from the National
A consortium of nineteen major businesses have banded together to take Hamilton City Council to court in a case that will have implications for all councils. The subject matter is a judicial review of the council’s ‘development contributions policies’. Before your eyes glaze over, there is a simple explanation.
As Watercare CEO Raveen Jaduram departs ignominiously, it is time to look at the structure of the organisation. Is he the scapegoat for a deeper problem? Supposedly the Chief Executive is controlled by the Board of Directors. So why is Raveen the fall guy while the Board members continue collecting
While many Kiwis are now drowning in debt, some are literally drowning. Official figures show nearly one hundred preventable deaths per year. Learning to swim saves lives. Which is why many schools had pools. But ‘health and safety’ gone mad has seen a lot of them close their pools in
It didn’t take long for Labour’s new tenancy laws to backfire. Landlords had expressed their concern that antisocial behaviour would skyrocket as bad tenants were now protected from any consequences. Three written warnings are required within a 90-day period to begin the termination process. We predicted that the
Christchurch is blessed with a couple of good kiwi blokes, city councillors Phil Mauger and James Daniels. Local residents have been frustrated by flooding on Pages Road since the earthquake. Every time it rains, the footpath ends up underwater. The council has had enough time and money to build itself
The recently completed Resource Management Act (RMA) review includes a damned scary recommendation. One assumes a Labour government will introduce it quickly, knowing that an apathetic population is never going to read the 531-page report, let alone debate the salient points. The proposal is to give councils the power to
Mark Twain famously said, “there are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics”. All too often, statistics are used to mislead people. We are taught that numbers are to be trusted as facts, so they make powerful weapons in the hands of people who want to twist the
As many aspiring DIYers have discovered, building alteration and renovation projects are seldom easy or cheap. There are often surprises when the wall linings come off and you discover the shortcuts taken by the original builder. Crawling between rafters to stuff insulation into the tight confines of a ceiling is
The Auckland super city was supposed to rationalise the bureaucratic waste of 7 councils but ended up replacing them with 21 Local Boards. A reader sent The BFD a copy of the Kaipatiki Local Board’s draft annual plan. This is the consultation document that the public is supposed to
