On cultural aspects within the entity, such as karakia, Reti said Levy would take advice from the Houhora Māori Committee
WTF?
Mr Luxon, either you are governing New Zealand or the natives having completed their coup, have you spreadeagled over their barrel sucking from the cultural teat.
When are you going to cease their co-governance desires forthwith and immediately secularise every facet of government?
Remind me how many $M was spent on the last road closure into Northland?
30mm of rain overnight, only recently opened after a never-ending closure and the Brynderwyns are closed yet again by slips on SH1. The alternative northward route is also closed by a slip.
Mr Simeon Brown, this infrastructure is long overdue for a four-laned fix. Set the D9's to 15 degree incline and proceed apace toward the summit and down the other side. A tunnel would be even better to extend the 'holiday highway'.
Meanwhile, further north, the Mangamukas remain closed despite $160M+ being poured into the supposed fix. Also this piece of infrastructure has the dubious honour of being closed more often than being open in the past five years.
"Over my dead body" or similar intent - fighting words from the head honcho at Jafaland Central.
Aucklanders don’t appreciate a dump like Wellington telling us how to live. As a city, we don’t like to be told what to do.
This will be fun as the planners protecting their patches are fired The government is finally doing something about housing.
Time to get the popcorn in.
I see this morning that KIW690 is halfway back to Cairns from Tokyo.
A flight of chance.
Will it make it or will Mr. Luxon have to spend more hours on the deck in Port Moresby?
“Removing the regulatory red tape will not only speed up the build process, it is also estimated to save up to $6,500 just in the standard building and resource consenting fees per build, not to mention all the savings in time and resource," Bishop said.
As a possible owner-builder, I'm all for total removal of the arse-covering box-ticking assume zero responsibility bureaucracy of hoops to jump through councils currently impose on prospective builders. A knee-jerk reaction to leaky buildings they say. My local bureaucracy (FNDC) wants to charge $7K+ just for a building consent, let alone anything to do with a resource consent! And not to mention the "permission to build" separately charged PIM. God help you if the local savages decide to need to run their eye over proceedings. Taniwhas and necessary bribes abound in those processes.
Below are some issues that add to the regulatory overburden for owner-builders.
If you can reliably nail or screw bits of 4x2 together, or successfully maintain / replace a single piece of weatherboard / roofing iron / gutter, pour a concrete footing, you could be an owner-builder. Although legally mandated, unfortunately there is zero support from the bureaucracy for anything to do with owner-builds.
We have a proven, long established, mostly functional, current building code (NZS 3604:2011) that limits the build envelope to 10m height, 12m maximum width, anything over that envelope needs an engineer. It also has very well defined range of buildable wind zones which ultimately determine the well listed bracing requirements, up to Extra High (200 km/h) wind zone, above which an engineered design is again required.
Recently a 30 square metres allowance was given for small buildings, an increase from an archaic 25m2 allowance, still not even big enough for a decent 2-car garage. Now this government wants to go to 60m2 for granny flats attached to an existing main house without council regs. Good on that!
Unfortunately, previously when the increase to 30m2 occurred, the last Labour government saw fit to further restrict owner-build options under the building code to exclude the well detailed Extra High wind zone and reduced the envelope height limit to 8m. Insidious changes to force further entrenchment of regulations. No doubt engineers had a say in that to preserve their uber-expensive work stream, similarly as was said elsewhere (Slam Dunc) re this new change - "the engineer will need to run their eye over your design and your good to go!". I hate to think how much "engineer" will be inserted in this latest mooted change.
I say no to any engineer increase, the current envelope limited building code was designed way back in 1999 to get engineers out of the workstream on residential builds. It has been extensively modified since then to even include necessary changes from the Canterbury earthquakes. From the BRANZ Basis of Engineering of NZS3604 the ethos is as below:
NZS 3604 Timber-framed buildings sets out the construction requirements for light timber-framed buildings in New Zealand that do not require specific structural engineering design. By limiting the size of the building and scope of application, a series of solutions are presented, enabling a designer to select an element or detail appropriate to the situation without needing to engage a structural engineer.
For those users of NZS 3604 whose projects, designs or systems fall outside its scope, it is important to know the technical basis for the standard. This report documents the engineering basis used to derive the technical provisions of NZS 3604, including the member selection tables and connections. Ambiguities and problem areas are highlighted for attention by future standards drafting committees.
Engineers (and architects) currently do everything to insert themselves into the residential build workstream, causing the owner-builder near insurmountable hurdles. Councils, each in their own fiefdom, do everything to make design difficult - every consent requires endless paperwork on proven products to support the consent. Most of this paperwork is commercially available for products that are widely utilised in multiple residential builds. If a product is stated to meet a required design standard - no paperwork should be required! Manufacturers employ a lot of expensive engineers to prove their product meet the standards.
Council wallahs are no more than box-tickers when such products are questioned over fitness for purpose. (witness the recent furore over Winstone Gib plasterboard versus Elephant plasterboard - councils said if Gib was specified, the equivalent could not be used)
BRANZ is another trougher - every house consent is taxed (BRANZ levy) on the build cost. Now an owner-builder is rightly not allowed to charge for his/her time on build, but the local council thieves tax the consent as if the build was done by a fully charged out builder! Another regulation in dire need of change.
Now if we can in future build 60m2 granny flats without regulation, why not build a house 3 bedroom (about 95m2) without the bureaucracy? An increase of 35m2 should be easy, after all the only difference is more bedrooms!
Watch this space - councils and engineers will do every thing to stymie the owner-builder workstream.
I look forward to any small steps toward total removal of councils out of the build workstream.
“Māori wards are a mini version of Māori seats in Parliament. Is your next step after Māori wards to remove Māori seats in Parliament?”
The answer to that question is an emphatic "Yes!"
The sooner the better for New Zealand.
Further in same article:
“Local community members deserve to have a say in their governance arrangements.”
via Granny, as naysayers do their level best to stop the bill.
Asked whether the calls for strike action on Budget Day as part of the nationwide activation were appropriate, Luxon said: “No, that would be illegal.
”I think that is wrong – I think that is entirely wrong. Feel free to protest, that’s what we have weekends for. Te Pāti Māori, they’re completely free to protest as long as it’s legal.
”It’s pretty clear what the rules are around strike action and I would suggest to you that’s not one of them.”
"Illegal" you say?
Time is up, show the rabble who's in charge. The rest of New Zealand watches with bated breath, knowing that you do not have the cojones to address this long festering issue.
Currently you are on a fast-track to being a one-term government. National won't get a second chance, all are watching for definitive action. Get off the fence.
Trip #3 for Winnie's taxi to Noumea under way. No sign of any dingoes so far. Utterly amazing that our ancient Herc is still flying, guess the techs pulled another all nighter.
I see a Frog Airbus is almost 3 hours out of BNE heading to islands. I guess that now Macron has gone back to his school mistress, the recently imported Gendarmerie and Foreign Legion types are surplus to requirements. It will be Bon Voyage for Paris, France is going to let the place burn.
[update] The Frog Air Force Airbus passed overhead headed for the NE Pacific. It passed directly over the Noumea International Airport at flight level 330. Just to show who's really in charge in the colony. The imported gendarmerie must still be ashore subduing errant islanders dreaming of independence.
Now that the head cheese eating surrender monkey has been to Nouvelle Caledonie and I assume has buggered off, the rescue flights are today on again. No doubt the frogs deployed a few capable Gendarmes and Foreign Legion types in recent days to quell internal rioting.
Our ancient Herc has been in and is just airborne out of the sh*thole toward New Zealand. I wonder where the 757 is? Joined its sister as spares?
Meanwhile the Dingos have one C130J (a decent aircraft) about to land, the second has just departed Brisbane aimed for the sunny islands. At least their aircraft are fit for purpose.
I remain amazed ours actually made it there and back without a breakdown. We'll watch to see if they run again tomorrow.
Stroppy mayors have written to Mr Luxon etc about Maori wards. The talking head on Pravada 1 remains convinced that race based wards are the way to go.
The first reading of the bill to remove race based wards is tomorrow. Bound to be top entertainment.
Judging by the recent noise and flak on such matters I'd say the government is right on target as those sucking undemocratically on the ratepayer teat are heading towards a brutal exorcism.
Keep it up Winston and David, you're over the target!
Far North District Council and Northland Regional Council are set to oppose the coalition Government’s signalled changes to Māori wards
The FNDC Mayor, not content with recent 35% rates increases, is going to try it on to retain wards for natives. Wards that require a quantum to get selected and are not available to the general populace.
The regional council is likely to oppose signalled Local Electoral Act changes on the basis Māori constituencies were not raced-based selections but a “Te Tiriti/Treaty outcome appropriate to deliver equity”
The regional council is in la-la land trying to sell the 'not race-based selections'. Most see the selections as racist.
No doubt, like myself, more than few New Zealand ratepayers look forward to the upcoming binding polls to remove all race based wards in every council.
Dubai recently turned into a lake during a somewhat unexpected 24 hour downpour of over a year's worth of pluvium.
Some are reporting that there was a 6x run cloud-seeding op conducted on the hours prior. A great conspiracy theory?
If not so, it worked. Man can control climate change the weather.
Today from over the ditch as things heat up in the 'benign' socialist paradise of the South China Sea.
China’s strategy is to escalate until its adversaries give up, so beating the war drums is intended to cause them to back off
Awaiting Luxon to emphatically back our traditional allies. Or did he sell us down the river last at last week's visit by the envoy from the Dragon Empire?
Still waiting. For God's sake get off the fence and man up!
The imminent WWIII will truly be bloodletting on a global scale.
via here
Simeon Brown, a LabourLite MP, suggested the other day that the Brynderwyns might be bypassed in 10 years or so.
I live in hope that this project will complete much sooner removing the bottleneck that often strangles upper North Island businesses.
And just in from NZTA on this auspicious day of April the 1st...
We are going to provide monthly updates of progress on this nationally significant roading project. Complete with maps, fly-by videos, detailed technical reports and other information as might be required. Every month, without fail for 120 months or so.
The project purchaser's, the long-suffering New Zealand taxpayer, will also see finely detailed expense accounts showing who's shagging who and which taniwhas might have been diverted from making an appearance with copious
brownmailkoha.As part their contracts, these financials will include the minutiae of payments with reasons made to so-called consultants and local government bureaucrats
troughing in or holding upassisting the project with their mostly exorbitant fees.
//
Back to reality.
If not, why not Simeon? It is only 120 or so reports easily produced by all parties in this computer age.
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