Council rates about to go down?

building consents were "at a depressing level, and probably cannot get any worse"

So we are about to see some severe pruning of the local council's building Stasi numbers? And a corresponding reduction in my rates?

Thought not.

New party of lefties?

The hair may be dyed, but at least the product is not airbrushed or photoshopped.

"This must not happen again..."

In the face of public uproar over the demolition of three 70-year-old buildings, Auckland Mayor Len Brown has promised to do his utmost to avoid a repeat

We will do everything reasonable in our power to ensure this doesn't happen again

Damned right!

five-year tussle with heritage campaigners

We've tried to do everything properly

I wonder how much has the farce of saving some borer-ridden outhouses in St Heliers cost the developer over 5 years? And the ratepayers of the old Auckland City? And now me, as a multiple ratepayer of the newly formed Super Shitty?

If I was the developer, I would be looking to send a large bill via the highest court in the land to the opponents of the development. Unfortunately, that includes the council who refused to stand up for the owner's properly consented development rights.

And Lyen Len, you are damned right. This should never happen again. Orklund City Council should not be wasting ratepayer monies actively usurping the rights of property owners. You know, the ones who are actually paying for your expensive, but short, tenure.

Stuff spoiler alert...

Stuff stuffs up the daily quiz and needs a good wallop with a piece of HDPE

"New Zealand still has work to do..."

"This message has to start in our homes and schools, workplaces and places of worship, sports clubs and community organisations"

Yes, one day I sincerely hope New Zealand communities will lead the world in renouncing the creeping sickness that is gay rights.

New Zealand definitely does have work to do, violence is not the answer, but unfortunately remains in the thrall of insidious hedonistic family wrecking legislation and attitudes.

"perhaps my biggest single achievement"

One of the most destructive MP's ever to disgrace the New Zealand Parliament has announced his retirement.

He will be forever remembered as that greenie communist MP 'The Honourable Member for Cambodia' that spent his whole time outside the tent, pissing on it.

And his greatest single achievement? Importing a known terrorist.

Flexing native veto muscle

An "unfortunate" grazing lease renewal on conservation land skirting Lake Ellesmere/Te Waihora should be reversed, Ngai Tahu says

The right of native veto is being flexed over a grazing lease near a lake. Already approved, the local natives are looking to usurp a farmers right to graze. After he has been through the mandated consent process.

Shades of what is going to wash up on your foreshore and seabed at the next high tide? As the local natives take exception to non-natives being on 'their beach'.

Yes, native veto is exactly what is about to happen at your local beach if the foreshore and seabed are given in the name of customary rights.

Elderly woman collapses on hearing "Yet more rich prick taxes"

Labour will scrap income tax on the first $5000 and introduce a new top rate for the highest earners under plans revealed by leader Phil Goff today.

Did we expect anything else from Liarbour? And the first $5K tax free. Especially made for all those swing voters looking for ever more handouts but do not contribute tax in any way shape or form.

would make the first $5000 of income tax-free, a policy that would be introduced in stages

Fresh from bending the native vote over a pork barrel, Philomena Gaffe, erstwhile leader of Liarbour, offers a bribe to open the offerings in an election year. Staged? Read "a carrot to bribe the electorate this year, a rich prick tax immediately upon assuming the yoke of control and maybe you will get the thirty pieces of silver tax cut in three years time...". We do know how it works.

And who will pay? Need you ask?

Goff has also targeted property investors who use losses on their portfolios to offset their income tax as part of a promised crackdown on tax avoidance, branding them "bludgers" and pledging to close the loophole.

Labour will target speculators who arrange their affairs so they can rip off the tax system and leave other taxpayers to carry the load. This kind of avoidance is bludging.

Tell you what, I'll believe it when not one Liarbour MP minimises their personal tax bill. Like owning a second or more home in a LAQC, trust or other vehicle. Just how many does Madame "Landlady" King own in Wellington?

Nothing but a bribe whilst looking for election traction.

No wonder the old dear collapsed at the thought of it all.

God botherers: Listen Up!

be respectful of others when spreading the Gospel online and not see their ultimate goal as getting as many online hits as possible

All you God botherers out there in blogland - Listen Up! Da main man has said it is not about getting that hit rate up. So I can expect a bit less in your face from NZ Conservative?

Yeah right.

Gillard's lot admits people smuggling

I guess since three have been charged with being people smugglers, the smuggled non-refugees will exported forthwith.

I thought not.

How to market crap

Big news! Playboy - both old & new - will be available on iPad beginning in March

What red-blooded male could resist buying an overpriced, overhyped Apple product when there is an offer like that?

Smile and Wave: Continue doing nothing

Continue doing nothing. Nothing to put New Zealand back on the economic map wrenching the country out of a unioinised welfarist racist state of victimhood. Nothing but smile and wave.

That's the message the left is sending loud and clear to NACTional. As the left goes into meltdown with the thought that racist Hone Hadfield might leave the Maori Party, or be shown the door, LiarbourLite does not need to shift off the centre fence.

As Hone leaves and/or joins up with the other losers of Bradford and McCarten or remains independent, that will drag votes to the tune of 4-5% from the hard left. Both Liarbour and greens will suffer, removing any chances of making a coalition. Or having to deal with Winnie. And he will, yet again, be kingmaker. The racist Maori Party will be consigned to the dustbin of history. Hopefully followed soon thereafter by Maori seats.

So pinko NACTional/LiabourLite will unfortunately be perceived as the right without having to actually shift right at all. Whilst the left lurches hard-a-port toward a full on conversion to watermelon communism, all the time looking for traction in the polls.

Keep it up doing nothing Mr Smile and Wave. Your day of reckoning is fast approaching this year.

Still looking for that pound of flesh

We must never forget we promoted the hell out of Clint Rickards. Almost to the very top. It must never happen again.

As ever, some still looking for a pound of flesh. Innocent until proven guilty?

Rickards was acquitted of rape in 2006

Management might back you once acquitted? Might even apologise? Never in this country as the arse-covering and subsequent fallout continues.

And certainly not if you were tarred with the Nicholas brush.

Mr Plod misses opportunity, now gaming system

I didn't feel affected by the alcohol

At 0145 hours any driver departing a bar is a target.

On his way he was stopped at a checkpoint near the Waikato River control gates. He failed three breath alcohol tests, including the evidential breath test.

A junior constable tickets another Plod. Well done that woman.

did not request a blood test until 18 minutes after he failed the breath tests

Now wasting court and police time, the ticketed one is trying to game the system by arguing the toss over the blood test timing. Which must be taken within 10 minutes. Man up, admit you were pissed and take the rap. The station Sergeant had this to say;

He had the opportunity but missed it

No doubt typical of the missed opportunities senior management will be ruing today with the release of a damning report about the culture within Mr Plod's shop when such actions are the norm.

Impressive: Outrunning the solar wind

Voyager 1 is nearest to the edge of the "heliosphere," where the million mph flow of charged particles from the sun — the solar wind — meets interstellar space.

33 years on Voyager I has reached 11 billion miles from home, outrun the solar wind and has only had one equipment failure. But not one of the few moving parts.

It's still working, more than 5 million "steps" later. "I bet that motor is probably the longest, continuously operating device in space, ever.

They have working memories a million times smaller than your home computer. They record their scientific data on 8-track tape machines. And they communicate with their aging human inventors back home with a 23-watt whisper.

Impressive engineering!

Outside the square: Taking unions on at their own game

We have had to start thinking outside the square a bit.

The association, which has been in existence for 122 years, has opened one of its centres near the University of Otago during the school holidays, to run a holiday programme in conjunction with the university's Summer School.

The Kelsey Yaralla Kindergarten reopened on January 10 and will remain open until normal classes at the remainder of the association's kindergartens resume officially on January 24.

A great initiative.

the New Zealand Educational Institute was unhappy about the kindergarten opening during the official holiday period

NZEI's responsibility is to make sure collective employment agreements are upheld.

As expected, the unions called foul. Nothing like a dose of their own medicine. The Dunedin Kindergarten Association employs non-union labour during the summers hols. Bypassing the collective contract which only applies to the unionised.

We realised our families don't have the luxury of a five-week break

The unionised are on 5 weeks of leave, but some families still require childcare. 5 bloody weeks of leave!

Nearly as bad as bastard politicians who have not been near the House for 8 effing weeks. And yet we still pay them. But I digress. That is another story about self-legislated privilege.

the association was not violating union contracts by asking teachers to work during their official holiday

I applaud the initiative. Long may it continue. Employers just need to do it more often.

Employers need to start offering real incentives for not being unionised.

Labour: We will pay DPB bludgers to breed [updated]

She said Australia also had a "baby bonus" - worth around A$5000 ($6430) a year - for some who weren't eligible for leave provisions.

While Labour had not yet considered a similar step, she said the difference between the two countries showed New Zealand had to make some improvements.

Doing what it takes. In other words, a bribe to vote for those who breed and are not taxpayers. Rewarding their voting base. It will come to pass.

Nobody is saying it should be a benefit for life, but it is to assist people at a time when they are caring for children. Surely the aim here is to bring up responsible, well cared for kids. And those of us who have tried it know that that is hard work.

Oh dear! Always "won't someone think of the kids".

Working for Families would be more generous for parents of children under 2 - allowing more freedom for a parent to remain at home with young children. Changes to the domestic purposes benefit were also planned.

I fear more of my taxpayer dollars paying for bludging breeders. As if the drones don't already get enough of it via Working For Welfare.

[update]
Lindsay asks Where will it all end?

Doing what needs to be done...

IV2 at Keeping Stock reports a golf club is doing what needs to be done. Timely, professionally and with a view to remaining solvent. Without any taxpayer assistance.

Meanwhile, we have this piece of ethnic nepotism.

It is recognised that a Commissioner to Te Aute College will require highly perfected skill sets and competencies to ensure the iconic school with its long and proud history of contributions to the nation remains open.

There is the understanding that the selection of a commissioner will not proceed without agreement from the Trust Board, who will participate in the nomination and appointment process and also assist in the preparation of the terms of reference.

Nothing but a thinly disguised request for taxpayer dollars to preserve an insolvent school. Using the culture as an excuse for a cash injection. 75 pupils last year, zero maintenance, sitting on tens of acres of prime farmland. And to be done with the utmost cultural concern to their conditions. What utter bollocks.

Bugger the history, shut the place down immediately and sell it on the open market.

Do what is needed to be done, Anne Tolley, Minister of Education.

On to it...

Emmerson

Be thankfull: It was only a minor flood after all

The peak well below the 1974 flood level spared numerous homes and high-rise apartment buildings from flooding.

So it was a minor flood. After all, the 1974 flood was about half of some previously recorded floods.
















Stats do not lie. Have a squiz at some history here. Particularly what was said about the area in the 1820's.

Meanwhile the local councils continue to build in the dangerous floodplain. And the greenies will not allow more dams to be built to act as a shock absorber. And the warmists blame climate change on a single weather event for natural events that obviously have been occurring since Dreamtime, scouring out the Brisbane River basin. And buggering the coral reefs offshore.

More at CR

Transcendent gods and enlightened elites

hard-core, serious, mainstream Greenism exposing itself in all its nudey-rudey

Of course, this transcendent god will exercise his punishment through the state.

It goes without saying that the required authoritarian society needs to be controlled by enlightened elites, like, well, the good Professor.

The temperature is rising in the frog pot, reaching desperation levels.

Greenism is not going to fade away. The biggest mistake we could make is to laugh off Greenism and not take is seriously precisely because it is so absurd. It is an evil ideology with totalitarian aspirations. It is insinuating itself more and more into the corridors of power in the West. It must be exposed, confronted and rejected. Desperate times and all that.

More at M&M.

"New Zealand could lose up to 70 per cent of its glaciers..."

Really?

The pics here show a different story to that uttered by so-called experts gobbing off over the holiday period.

Well I never

Here's a sum I just did.

In 2070, population will probably have grown to about 9.0 billion

-- an increase of 35%;

CO2 levels will probably have increased to nearly 700 ppm

-- an increase of about 300ppm.

And how will we feed all those thronging masses? Read on.

An increase in CO2 atmospheric concentrations from 380-400 to 680-700ppm sounds serious, right?

Well, here are some figures:

The average indoor room has 600ppm (more if you've got a stove or a cave.)

You won't notice a continuous level of 1,000ppm for your lifetime. This is the OSHA ventilation standard, which is ultra-precautionary.

Workplace laws prohibit a shift of more than 10 hours at more than 10,000ppm.

At 20,000ppm you might start to feel uncomfortable (sweaty, headache...) after several minutes.

Workers are not supposed to be exposed to more than 30,000ppm for more than 10 minutes.

At 50,000ppm CO2 is definitely toxic, you will die after long exposure.

At current rates of increase it will take planet earth 26,000 years to kill you by CO2.

Now... Where's my cigar?

From the commentary we will not keel over belly up with that token increase in CO2 as dire warmists would have us believe. Seems the only output to date is not carbon, but GoreBull BS. Time indeed to light one of the finest Cubans.

Oops...

Here. Don't think that was supposed to happen.

Now changed. Funny that.

Guilty working the system to avoid consequence

A hospital surgeon is fighting a drink-driving charge after driving home from a bar with what police say was more than double the legal breath-alcohol limit

Yes, I know "innocent until proven...". But this type of tactic delaying the inevitable really gets up my nose. Someone with connections and money working the system to avoid being found guilty. Not arguing the numbers, but wasting everyone's time trying to get off by being picky about process. You got caught, like most obviously know the rules, now take your medicine. Something to be said for personal responsibility, eh?

Wonder who employs this wench? Wouldn't surprise me if it was the taxpayer.

Taking a scythe to government waste

Alarmed at discovering that the state pays for 96,000 cellphones, Gov. Jerry Brown issued an executive order Tuesday seeking to cut in half the number of devices being billed to taxpayers.

Brown also wants to reduce the number of state vehicles ... is requiring that each vehicle’s purpose and necessity be "rejustified,"

Good on the Guv making a start on government waste.

Here in New Zealand, I wonder how many 'must have' cell phones and 'needed at any time' utility vehicles are in my local council. And the regional council duplicating the same functionaries? The newly formed Orklund Council? Smile and Wave's central government? All paid for by my taxes whilst we borrow $350M a week!

I can feel the need for a few OIA requests coming on. Feel free to write similar requests to your councils Dear Readers.

What a nice way to start an election year with a few impertinent requests for the scythe to be wielded.

Council wheels grind on...

The ironic thing is that after 7 years of drought we are still under water restrictions!

via a fresh despatch off the wire from mates not 15 minutes from the centre of Brisbane.

Astounded?

"I don't understand how, in the society we live in today, with the laws we have, how people can still feel uncomfortable."

Really?

They've yelled at customers outside our shop, saying `Don't go in there', calling us faggots.

Some nutters up sticks at their shop muttering to the press "it's because were gay...". The Chris Carter mewling to the fore yet again!

Maybe those of that persuasion would do well to remember that it does not matter how many liberal laws are passed or progressive mass indoctrinations occur via schools and media, there are those that consider their chosen lifestyle is utterly depraved, despicable, immoral and obscene in the extreme. And rightly will do so till the day they die.

Handbag overdoes fake tan...

Dye or paint?

This up and coming handbag obviously spent too long in the fake tan booth!

Caring Mandy...

Guess what Mandy, we might believe when your husband is behind bars for the term of his natural.

The aftermath

... and men are bastards

Fresh on the heels of another recent outburst about all parents being abusers till proven innocent, a second member of the medical profession lets rip.

What is wrong with our medical people?

More like the aftermath of a decade of socialist indoctrination where the pressure is now too great for some in the profession without Nanny state making every decision for them.

For all you armchair sailors...

A typical day at sea in a mild storm. You might see why the Navies and Coastguards of the world require decent seakeeping ships. Particularly to conduct SAR missions, for this weather is typical, if not worse in those scenarios.

And for those of you, landlubbers now, who have regularly experienced the thrill of such a blue-water storm, this video will bring memories flooding back. Solid green water on the bridge windows is common in stronger weather.

via Theo

Asian Tiger bans Skype

China on Thursday announced that it had made illegal the use of Skype, the popular internet telephony service, as the country continues to shut itself off from the rest of the world.

Freedom of speech reigns supreme in Asian Tiger country!

"Untrustworthy and obnoxious"

Mr Key says he will also start turning his mind seriously to finding a replacement for Governor General ...

But he had fired off one name to a colleague and the response had been, "Don't even think about it".

"Untrustworthy and obnoxious" is what his ministerial colleague had thought about the suggestion, which remains unknown.

No, whilst you admirably fit that description and as much as you might like to, you cannot nominate yourself Mr Key.

But seriously, the cancerous corrosive hating and wrecking fraud purporting to be a painter is definitely not an option.

Gentlemen!

Some comments of late have contained offensive words.

Whilst I appreciate the interaction and am aware that in heated debate parties let rip, giving it their all, I ask you to make considered commentary.

Cheers,

Have a nice one.

The Management

An election year dawns...

Thought I'd remind you to focus on what matters most, whilst you open your foggy eyes and deal with that thumping headache.

It is game on. An election year, the question is will he go early or late? Maybe early in case we lose that game. Yet again. Or maybe after all that taxpayer and local government wedge has been pissed up against the wall in the name of the national sport of Thuggery on the Paddock (tm) leaving us, those that pay, mortgaged to the gills.

Unfortunately the percentages suggest that he will win again. Handsomely. And will take that as a mandate to continue ignoring sensibility from the populace whilst currying favour with racist separatists. The options against are sub-zero.

And that thumping headache? I have a cure for that. Stop borrowing $300M a week. Take an axe to government and local government spending, along with the rampant welfarism present in New Zealand. Never again, I hear you say.

Happy New Year, Dear Readers!

And may the best man win.