Posts by Matthew Poole
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motorway was once gazetted from the CBD to Mangere Bridge running somewhere to the east of Dominion Road. Let action-man Mr Joyce and his friends in the trucking lobby get to think resurrecting that is a good idea and you could be toast.
No, my present residence is still safe under such a plan. I'm far too close to the Southern to be at risk.
More seriously, the costs of such a project make it pretty much impossible that it would ever go ahead. If they think the Waterview link is expensive they'd all die of heart failure of the costs associated with buying and building right the way through a densely-populated area were calculated.hmm, actually, when I put it that way... ;)
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I still maintain that labelling any income churches receive as a charitable donation no matter what it's used for is dodgy, though.
And you would like to take the on the challenge of drafting the legislation to close the loophole? You would, I assume, make it applicable to all classes of charity rather than just religious ones? Where would, say, Dilworth fit into the picture?
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Yes, I was joking. I actually seem to have done a better job of killing the conversation. Rich appears to have been scared off. Either that or he's got a "day job" that requires attention today.
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WTF is this CMJ that has entered the frame wrt the motorway?
Central Motorway Junction, aka Spaghetti Junction.
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New Zealand voters have at best a 12 month memory and mostly closer to 6 months. There is no point in trying to win over voters now and Labour and Goff know that.
National are doing a spectacular job of setting themselves up as one-term wonders. Think it through. ACC changes will be legislated next year (after the report from Caygill's group is delivered, which is scheduled for June), which means probably in October if there's no unseemly use of urgency; something that National have signalled won't happen. Changes to ACC will be implemented in sync with the tax year, meaning April 2011. The report will potentially open the way for "competition" in other accounts, and that's easily turned into a Yank-style tort-horrors bogeyman.
The RWC is shaping up to be a total shambles. Public transport in Auckland is going nowhere fast, and people won't care that Labour could've got us electric trains in time. The blame will be laid right at Joyce's feet, and he certainly has to shoulder a lot of blame. Similarly it's looking very unlikely that we'll have integrated ticketing, and that one is even more squarely Joyce's failure. I won't go near the TV debacle, either, but we all know that that hot potato is likely to end up looking more like a certain green stem fruit.
Both of those things will be forefront in the public's collective consciousness come the election. Unless the AB's can reverse history and do the business at the RWC, National will be facing down a very hostile electorate at the election right at a time when a number of their policies will be festering nicely, ripe for Labour to bandy about. -
Way to kill the conversation, Tracy.
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I can also go to church on a Sunday without being exhorted to patronise diocese-owned businesses, or else.
You're clearly hanging out with the wrong crowd, Craig :P
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At the least, the money used to pay the clergy should be subject to income tax, it if isn't currently.
Why wouldn't it be? Clerics are employees, and subject to PAYE just like any other employee. Churches have to pay ACC levies, too. Heck, they even have to buy insurance.
Not having to pay income tax on their own income doesn't mean that churches are entitled to any other particular special treatment around their outgoings, except for the rating exemption on premises used primarily for worship. -
So who are the real beneficiaries of the Waterview connection?
The residents of Epsom.
Epsom is the only suburb through which vehicles travel to the airport? Really? I'm sure the residents of Royal Oak, Mt Roskill, Hillsborough, Waterview, Avondale, New Windsor, Rosebank, New Lynn, Te Atatu and sundry other suburbs that lie between the Southern and North-Western motorways and the South-Western motorway will be relieved to hear that they actually imagine that their suburbs are utilised as conduits for airport-bound traffic originating from throughout the isthmus north of Greenlane.
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Sacha, hate to break it to you but all the intellect in the world can't convince me that it doesn't feel like a long way from Waterview to Rosebank. I know the hard data, but it feels like a very long way.
Also, if it's 4.8km from CMJ to Waterview, that 3km from Waterview to Rosebank means that CMJ-Rosebank is 62.5% further than CMJ-Waterview. So thank you for confirming to me that 3km is a hell of a long way relative to the distance from CMJ, but you haven't done a damned thing to convince me not to feel like it's a long way between Waterview and Rosebank.