Speaker: It's called "planning" for a reason
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Joe Wylie, in reply to
. . . sort out the ‘freedom’ campers, the dirty bastards.
Maybe you need someone like former NSW Minister Michael Yabsley, who was supposed to have shouted "Come here and let me hammer a rubber bung up your backside" to a vocal heckler protesting a proposed sewage outfall.
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Sacha, in reply to
Funding future demand rather than current patterns is a big shift for some
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O Sacha (hear the loud weeping in the background) (that's from infected creatures in our lagoon) - WE HAVE TRIED for the past 12 years for our ridiculously-tiered local body systems to get them to take our infected waters seriously. They keep pushing expensive non-local oversight-free bodies to do'testings' -
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Sacha, in reply to
Minister of Tourism would want that situation fixed, surely? Surcharge on the rental companies, nationally-funded toilet facilities all around the country or just ban the vans altogether.
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Islander, in reply to
Well Joe, there is a wee local movement er push to go out with harmless but very loud crackers when we notice shits shitting out there - ok. it could get very boring observing, but we do have cunning others to report back to us...and the photos we'll publish on line should be quite a deterent-
ANYONE VISITING OKARITO: IF YOU SHIT ON OUR BEACH OR AROUND THE VILLAGE WE WILL HOUND YOU - AND YOU WILL NOT APPRECIATE THE PUBLICITY-IT *WILL*OCCAISION PROSECUTION-
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Islander, in reply to
Um, Sacha, you have a touching faith in the Ministry of Tourism. People at Lake Hawea were driven to park very large boulders to prevent fucking loopies from crapping at iconic bay sites.
Your suggestions are the rational ones.
The Ministry for Tourism (let alone any other responsible body) has done shit all to implement any preventional strategy.
We (here) are fed up up with shitty loopies.
Bet you we'll make our voices
heard during future tourist occaisions- -
a touching faith in the Ministry of Tourism
Actually I'm somewhat cynical that you could get the Minister in question to move beyond smug relaxation about it. But that's what's needed - leadership rather than snivelling. Action. Ambition. Decency.
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And Johnkey is going to do that?
Yeah. Right. -
Ooh, the poo debate. You know, when you go on a Great Walk, they advise you take five steps off the track, scrape aside a little flora, do your business, wipe with the flora, cover the lot in a little dirt and carry on down the track. It's all composted itself in a couple of weeks, no one the wiser.
Also, all those dairy cows? Totally just shitting everywhere out in the open like a bunch of animals. If the farmers didn't concentrate it in ponds that flood into local streams now and then it wouldn't hurt either.
Poo is quite a useful natural product. It fertilises the ground, and has natural odours that warn of it's disease carrying properties in the most minute traces. What's strange is that when you don't provide people with a toilet you then get angry about them defecating in a paddock.
I get that the local hoteliers want that banned, because there's money in the alternatives for them. Only there isn't, because the freedom campers will not come any more if we make them pay to sleep. The funny thing is a lot of the "mess" comes from locals chucking baby's nappy out wrapped up tight in plastic bags to rid themselves of the smell mid-journey, and have a pee while they're stopped, of course.
But we can't have public toilets out in the tourist spots, because local kids get drunk and vandalise them in the winter. No one wants to pay for that either, especially not the people selling the booze.
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Islander, in reply to
Your point, tussock?
There are public toilets in our camp ground - we do have a grant from the WDC, to assist with keeping them clean, but a substantial part of the monies for running them comes from the OCA.
And - apropos your other wee shitty comment - there arnt any babies, or 'hoteliers' or, actually, "local kids" here - I did say, we are rather different, and I will emphasize that we are fucking sick of bloody loopies coming here-they all went away apopo?
Great! Life would get back to normal, and very few of us would miss the shitty (or other kinds of)tourists. -
Bumfight at the Okarito Corral…
…to get them to take our infected waters seriously.
perhaps you have to put a real “motion’ before them?
a grassroots movement to stop grass top movements?
but seriously it would a tragedy if Okarito was to become known as “the great heron after’ – it would in fact be an Heronymous Botch-up….
[apropos] …I have just bought a fabulous tea towel, by Anita Peters and Murray Hedwig, of a local Heron – Heronymous – and others of Pohutakawa, Kahikatea and whitebait at the market on saturday, these two also produced a great book on whitebaiters in New Zealand*, with a foreword by a leading Okarito luminary… get them where you can, I can’t find a web presence for buying the tea towels as yet. *(see below)
; – )*this was also mounted as a street exhibition, during the last Chch Arts Festival, all along Worcester Boulevard
*[edit and add a bit] I just found the tea towels here and larger pictures (but dearer) here also
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Sacha, in reply to
Poo is quite a useful natural product.
Two wrinkles: used loopaper festooning the bush near any place a van can pull over, and giardia. Thanks, visitors.
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Sacha, in reply to
But we can't have public toilets out in the tourist spots, because local kids get drunk and vandalise them in the winter.
True in many places, sadly.
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Sacha, in reply to
Also, all those dairy cows? Totally just shitting everywhere out in the open like a bunch of animals. If the farmers didn't concentrate it in ponds that flood into local streams now and then it wouldn't hurt either.
And I think you're under-rating the increasing concentration of pooing cattle as commercial imperatives drive farms to over-stock and fertilise beyond their local environment's ability to cope. Dead rivers don't lie.
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It’s all composted itself in a couple of weeks, no one the wiser.
That can work when the individual poo sites are very widely distributed, eg off infrequently used tracks in the bush. Once there's a lot of crap in one area, human or bovine, nature gets overloaded fast.
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Matthew Poole, in reply to
Also, all those dairy cows? Totally just shitting everywhere out in the open like a bunch of animals. If the farmers didn’t concentrate it in ponds that flood into local streams now and then it wouldn’t hurt either.
The reason those ponds exist is to catch all the shit that has to be washed out of milking sheds. Hundreds of cows corralled into a concrete yard twice daily means lots of poo to wash away if you're not to end up neck-deep in crap within a month.
The effluent ponds collect the run-off from the sheds. The effluent has to go somewhere, and better ponds than just running off into the paddocks. -
Islander, in reply to
Hieronomo, dear Ian D - we called him that a couple of decades ago...
And I thoroughly tautoko buying Anita and Murray's works - they are really neat creative people, and that book was a load of fun! (for me anyway - I didnt do the hard years of travelling & photography...just drank their couth gift, and continued happily 'baiting...) -
Richard great to see you here. But why the odd prejudice against trains? Repeating the false idea about AK's density, while also implying that you need Tokyo before a train will work. Not true, Ak's trains are working OK now despite savage underinvestment and various attempts at killing them off. Growth in use has been a staggering 248% since Britomart opened. And here are to two great things about them: 1. they don't run on the roads or park on the street. Without the current deeply limited rail system AK would grind to a total halt,. There is simply no possibility for the city to grow into the vibrant place it can be without moving people in and out by building more roads. And the current ones are full. Also you've tasted the air and seen the streetlife down from your office... it's filling up with low tech fume belching inhuman buses. And 2. the trains will soon be running on silent, renewable, powerful, modern, electricity. A very tricky thing to achieve with our bus fleet. Only rail has the capacity to transform the urban fabric of the city AND make living in the 'burbs for those that choose it more efficient and pleasurable. If only the trucking lobby wasn't running the country we would be well on the way to really making this work now. Of course buses are vital for feeding the rail network and the Northern Busway is great until it reaches capacity but can then be upgraded to rail. Until then it still has a few downsides: 1. it still shares the bridge with general traffic [although that has fallen since the busway opened] 2. it clogs downtown with dozens of unpleasant vehicles. and 3. it isn't connected with the rest of the network, when it is rail it will really link the Shore to say, Manukau and of course the Airport [Michael Barnett and his vested interests notwithstanding]. Come over to the light side Richard... or are you after some motorway work from NZTA and Joyce? [sorry] cheers Patrick R
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More wisdom from the experts from a couple of years back, and still relevant.
- Wellington's apartment boom (from 2006)
- Avoiding Auckland's shoe box surplus
-'Go up' to tackle housing unaffordabilityAnd to Richard: from the first article I cited, high-density and physical exercise aren't mutually exclusive:
We play tennis at the Renouf Centre, throw a ball at Wellington High, scoot along the waterfront and swim at Oriental Bay and I don't have to mow lawns. It's perfect.
Patrick R:
If only the trucking lobby wasn't running the country we would be well on the way to really making this work now.
Unfortunately we're not the only country where the trucking lobby is used to having its way...
- Federal Government lets Trucking Lobby Have its Way on Safety (USA)
- Trucking Lobby Revs Up Over Greens' Rail Freight Plan (AU)
- Ski industry, truckers at odds over Hickenlooper I-70 restriction idea (USA) -
Due to popular local acclaim, the erstwhile (as in long-dead) Hieronomo will now be
known as Heronymous-as-named-by-Joe.... -
Not trying to get into an argument about this, but Auckland has the biggest gap between taxes paid and taxes returned and that’s down to the density benefits that make it more cost-effective to build roads, hospitals, schools and all those other things that are provided by the state in this country.
Like I said, I don't object to Auckland getting it's fair share. Indeed, that's all the argument it should need, the "important for the economy" one annoys me because it implies that other parts of the country aren't.
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Matthew Poole, in reply to
Kyle, the problem is that for many people any money going to Auckland is a cause for complaint, whether or not it's "fair". Witness the oft-repeated comment that Auckland leaches off the rest of the country, for example, made all the more galling when it comes from regions that rely heavily on Auckland's excess of payment-over-return to give them healthcare, schools and roads. Cue the reaction from Mainland mayors to the arrival of Megatropolis, which looks as much as anything like terror at the prospect of Auckland getting back a larger chunk of the tax that is generated in Auckland.
The only way to pry the purse open in the face of such bigotry and ignorance is to justify it in terms of "It's important for the economy." Anything else is "It's just those fucking Aucklanders taking more of my hard-earned money!"
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Sacha, in reply to
Like I said, I don't object to Auckland getting it's fair share. Indeed, that's all the argument it should need, the "important for the economy" one annoys me because it implies that other parts of the country aren't.
I'd say the public case about threshold global scale has not been well made. People seem to be hearing either zero sum where it doesn't apply, or subsitution options for other cities where they do not actually exist.
Mostly, all regions are equally deserving of investment in their own way. But in some cases we only have one option. That's just a function of our country's size and population distribution. Nothing personal. Auckland will still lose at rugby, if that helps.
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Sacha, in reply to
Cue the reaction from Mainland mayors to the arrival of Megatropolis, which looks as much as anything like terror at the prospect of Auckland getting back a larger chunk of the tax that is generated in Auckland.
I think it's fair for them to be worried about a unified Auckland having a louder voice now. But as I say, rugby..
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Matthew Poole, in reply to
I think it’s fair for them to be worried about a unified Auckland having a louder voice now
See, I don't think it's at all fair. If it worries them, and Auckland has historically not been well-treated by Wellington, then that says that they're worried that about Auckland getting something that looks more like "fair" treatment.
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