Posts Tagged ‘Auckland’
Softly, softly
The wave of crimes happened in South Auckland ([1],[2],[3]) are, yes, very sad, especially when all three victims are ethnic minorities.
However, I have no reason to panic.
If my memory serves me right, the crime rate have been gradually decreasing since the abolishment of capital punishment. Read more
Pro-china rally in Aotea Square today
If you don't know what I'm talking about, here's the news.
I do not held a point of view on this kind of events. We are living in a free country so everyone has the right to get on the street and make his/her voice heard.
However, I do have an opinion on people who put themselves into this Tibet debate and protest thing. Whether they are pro-china or pro-Tibet; it is in my opinion that people from both sides are fundamentally the same - extremist, ignorant, and both sides believe they are representing the holy truth - the only difference is that they have different religious belief.
If you thought Chinese are non-religious people, you sure need to know a lot more about this country.
Anyway, I still just enjoy to use my camera to record everything down.
Photos below are thumbnails... If you click on them in this webpage, you will see a larger size photo in lightbox; if you are reading this from a rss reader, you will see a new window with larger size photo.
Eden Stadium funding
John Banks seems to be bit too excited about his re-election to Auckland's mayoralty. In the news today, he said that he would pull out ratepayers' fund from Mt Eden Statdium upgrade.
We don't live in a world where things just happens without cash, so who should pay for the 2011 World Cup?
I'm bit left, but I also like right wing sometimes: they do things on common sense, not "social values" . My version of common sense is that, people and groups who will benefit from the stadium upgrade should pay. Based on that, here is the list of people and groups that I think should pay, from the biggest payer to smallest.
Central Government -Rugby world cup and Mt Eden statdium are the issues of national importance. The cup will bring benefit to the whole country, and central government should come up with the largest share of funding to represent the benefit that it will receive (increased tax, tourism...)
NZRU - no explanation needed.
Businesses in Auckland - clearly, some businesses will benefit from the cup.
and, lastly, I cannot see any benefit that an average Aucklander can get from this. An increased wage? Possibly, but that also means more taxes paid. In fact, people are more likely to get annoyed by increased amount of car and pedestrian traffic.
If interests of people are harmed by an activity or a building upgrade, what is the proper way to compansate those people? You pay them.
That concludes my opinion.
Welcome Back, Mr Banks.
In 98% of vote counted, the former Auckland Mayor John Banks, has a clear lead of more than 11,000 votes to the current mayor, Dick Hubbard.
In council and community board elections, right wing groups overturned their defeat in 2004.
Citizens & Ratepayers has a 2 seats majority in Auckland City Council. That puts Mr Banks in a comfortable position to implement his policy and purposals in his three year term.
Citizens & Ratepayers has also won the majority in most community boards in Auckland.
I hope this mayor can stay longer than just one term. We have three one term mayors already, there is no need to add another one.
