Posts Tagged ‘Auckland’

The Northwestern Motorway shooting

I'm not an expert on police procedures so just a little bit of my opinion.

Herald got a nice illustration on how the whole thing happened.

First, under certain circumstances police in this country has the right to shoot to incapacitate or  kill. In this case, the offender is armed and fired shots, dangerously speeding, threatening the safety of the general public, I would guess this is one of  the circumstances that justifies the use of firearms.

So the death of an innocent civilian, 17 year old Halatau Naitoko  is a case of whether the police should took more care, not the case of whether the police should fire shots in the first place.

As the Herald report shows, Naitoko's van is stopped just behind the gunman, and within the line of fire.  The situation looked like this:

Police/AOS |------|Gunman|------|Naitoko in his van

I think the key is, whether the AOS knew the car behind the gunman got  people in it or they were just too concentrated on the gunman. The police probably should took more care but I cannot see any wrongdoing in this case - police or even AOS are not Naval Seals so you should expect some of their shoots to miss, and unfortunately, Naitoko was caught in the line of fire. Gun battles may look exciting in the American TV series and Hollywood movies, but in real life, police need, and pressured to make  split-second and sometimes random decisions, and that could lead to tragic consequences.

I don't think  there's the need to charge  whoever fired that shoot as AOS were simply doing their job. This is rather an unfortunate case for both police and the Naitoko family - if the police and gunman swap places, then Naitoko could be killed by gunman rather than the police - will that make the this case easier to swallow? Probably not, as some would still blame the police for not doing enough to protect the public.

This is one of the things that happened in the wrong place, probably in the wrong time as well.

If we blame police for doing their job then next time if something similar pops up, officers will be more hesitate to fire, worrying that if he/she got wrong then he/she may end up in jail, and put themselves and general public in a greater danger.

The Naitoko family are more than entitled to receive compensations from the crown as the police is responsible for his death, police should also apologise to the family, but hold someone accountable for doing their job is bit of a step too far. You may argue that AOS and police officers should receive more training, but that's the problem of the Police as a whole, not the responsibility of individual police officers.

Bigger is greater?

The Royal Commission’s report on Auckland Governance will be presented to the Governor-General at end of March this year. However, I saw in the news yesterday that John seemed so eager to get that “Lord Mayor” post he jumped out to claim that title months before the final report.

Auckland region is NZ’s economic powerhouse and has about 1/3 of total New Zealand population. Any changes on how Auckland is governed should be considered in national, even international context. As a student in this area I was fully aware of the issue, and made a submission myself.

In my opinion, a super, single council is simply not viable, and I believe the Royal Commission should understand this fact too. The coverage of the authority is just too wide, if it controls 1.4 million people from Wellsford to Bombay, this council will grow enormously big, effectively become another central government of New Zealand, creating even more confusion and more red tapes to make this monstrous authority work.

Another risk of creating a big, super council is that, no matter who runs it, that Lord Mayor is likely to run the whole region the way he managed his smaller council before. Now there’s problem, most of us think all district councils in Auckland region as part of the same “Auckland”, but in real life each district has its own local identity and, sometimes culture as well. An obvious example jumped out of my mind is Waitakere City’s “EcoCity”.

Auckland will become one, super city eventually, but not now. The problem facing Auckland is not much of the red tape, it’s local councils' very short sighted, self centred vision and lack of policy consistency across the region. The region, especially metropolitan areas are becoming more connected and a lot of decisions, like the Rugby World Cup, will likely to affect several councils.

I think there’s two ways to go. First is to create a new super council but with smaller jurisdiction area. What I prefer is to include Auckland Metropolitan Area and some parts of rural land for future development and buffer. Regional Council stays but all city councils must go.

I also liked the idea of elect councillors based on electorate-like wards. If this is the case, however, I don’t think there’s a need for a Lord Mayor, or even councillors. Each City elects one Mayor as a person should be enough, and those mayors become councillors of the bigger council.

The only viable route for a region wide super council, is to maintain current local councils to be at least some kind of services branches of a super council.

No matter which way it goes,  our adolescent-like urge to change is likely to stay for a while longer.

two for the price of one

Everyone likes bit of bargin (not just ladies), when there's a  two for the price of one deal, I would be more likely to purchase that item, especially if I really need them.

It's about this.

If you don't know what this is about, it's in Botany Electorate.

This ad has caused a bit of trouble because, according to  National's Pansy Wong office, it sort of endorse votes to go for Pansy, effectively making it an election campaign for Pansy Wong, without her financial agent's authorisation.

Kenneth completely rubbished the claim that he might breached the Elecoral Finance Act. I kind of agree. Kenneth is an electorate only candidate, a vote for him sure means no vote for Pansy. "get  ... and Wong" means get Wong through the National's party vote. The ad is more like a statement of fact, rather than a promotion for National.

But I was somewhat amused by Kenneth Wang's claim that this ad is offering voters 'two for the price of one' deal for the Botany electorate. Well I knew politicians are usually cheap, but I didn't know they are THAT cheap:)

Despite of that, politician is not something that you want more when IT IS at the half price.

Nah just joking. Botany electorate would be a very interesting spot to watch in the election. It's not just about who wins, it's more about how Asian, especially how Chinese vote.

Finally...

Just got rid of all the assignments at the moment, great.

Lots of interesting stuffs happened while I’m away, including the latest transport policy from National – a user pay system that charges around $5 for some sections of Motorway in Auckland. It is likely to increase the cost of an average Auckland commuter by $50 a week.

I usually refer people to this clip every time when National announces something. The user-pay system should nicely fit into that category too.

The system sounds fair, but it’s not, it only seeks fairness in the economic sense.

From a planning point of view, I’m more concerned about the accessibility issues, how to ensure that the low income people have the maximum accessibility to the opportunities provided by the CBD? Motorway is tolled; Dominion Road and Great North/South road are all in a miserable state and you cannot see a bus for half an hour in some area - well people need a way to move around a city?

Sure there’s no such thing as a free lunch, but you cannot force people to take one type of lunch or get them unfairly disadvantaged. The toll just shouldn’t go ahead without viable alternatives to people.

Finally...

As the name suppression is no longer in place, I can now name the kidnapper in the Cina Ma case.

The kidnapper's name is Aaron Deng, a 25 year old real estate agent from Ray White's Pinehill branch.

What I heard is that his family is also quite wealthy and fiancially supported his study here. I understand that he's working in Ray White not because of money to support his life, but to enable him to stay here.

So I don't think he kidnapped Cina Ma for ransom. In fact, what I heard is he didn't plan to hold Cina for that long, Mr Deng just want to "give the family a warning" by hold Cina for few hours, and then release her (that's why Cina was found only a street away).

You know the rest, the police was there most of the day, and his "plan" seems to be backfired.

It is still not yet clear on what kind of dispute between those "adults" triggered the kidnap.

Bounty on Rice.

as you may know, United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will be in Auckland this weekend.

Auckland University Students Association(AUSA) has offered a bounty of $5,000 for any student who can make a successful citizen's arrest of Rice.

I like this idea but this $5,000 bounty is unlikely to be claimed by anyone as it is very unlikely to make a "successful" citizen's arrest of a high level diplomat.

And for $5,000 it is really not worth to risk your own life, but I reckon there will be at least one attempt if there are students who actually work in the hotel where Rice stays.

Just hope no one gets hurt ...

BTW, when I was searching this news in AUSA's site, I accidentally found out that there is a large number of spam links hidden at the bottom of each page. Anyone know how to do this? I need a bit of PageRank boost as well, haha.