REGIME CHANGE!

Photo by Ed Muzik.

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BIG CROWD SAYS NO TO 'THE BOB AND TONY SHOW'

TV1 News apparently reported a crowd of 1000 but that was an hour ago. Various estimates on the ground put it at 3000-4000.

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PEOPLE POWER

The good people of Christchurch protest against the Parker regime at the Christchurch City Council offices.

Photos by Ed Muzik.

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NO SOLUTIONS FROM SMITH

Nick Smith fails to address the real problems facing the Christchurch City Council.

The Minister of Local Government's 'big' idea to sort out the mess at the Christchurch City Council has been to appoint another bureaucrat to oversee its work. That job has gone to former Nelson mayor Kerry Marshall who'll be in the job until possibly as late as July. Apparently he's going to 'nursemaid' the city council and it'll be sweetness and light all round. Yes, it will. Really.

Marshall, of course, is also a member of the National Party so, despite the spin from Smith and Parker, he isn't politically independent. This is about as believable as Sue Wells declaring over the weekend that she isn't 'for' or 'against' Mayor Bob. Wells is clearly more stupid than I thought.

Will Marshall's intervention work? If the autocratic and furtive rule of Parker and Marryatt is brought to an end then perhaps. But if, as I suspect, Marshall's role turns out to be simply to make life easier for 'The Bob and Tony Show' then it won't. If it turns out to be 'business as usual', albeit with Marshall guiding the proceedings, then it won't take long for the whole process to turn to custard. If the Parker-Marryatt cabal is allowed to continued to rule the roost, excluding councillors who dare to disagree with them, then Smith's initiative won't work.

If a 'good working environment' means everyone having to agree with Sideshow Bob, then we should have new elections.

Its been suggested elsewhere that Smith may be setting up the Christchurch City Council for a fall.

The Christchurch City Council's problems are structural and Smith has failed to address that. There needs to be more internal democracy. In that respect Labour's 10 point plan to shine some light on proceedings does have its merits. The plan was drawn up last year shortly after Chrissie Williams resigned as a councillor and has been promoted by Councillor Yani Johanson.

In the current environment it is a positive and thoughtful proposal but the fact that Parker has shown no interest in the plan is hardly cause for optimism. Unfortunately Parker and Marryatt - as well as their supporters on council - behave as if they are working for a private corporation rather than a public body.

But I would like to see Labour's plan expanded to encompass real input from the good people of Christchurch into the decision making processes of the council. And councillors need to be directly accountable to the people who voted them into office. There needs to be a mechanism whereby councillors can be 'recalled' by the community if required. Councillors need to know that they cannot simply do what they like without there being real consequences.

Why should people's only input into local government be confined to voting every three years? (The same argument applies to national politics.)

Instead of political power being concentrated in the hands of the Parker-Marryatt cabal, its time to expand the democratic process to include the wider Christchurch community. This stands in direct contrast to councillors like Sue Wells who would like to see the Christchurch community deprived of any local democracy via the appointment of government commissioners. When the situation cries out for more democracy, she would like to see less.

One of the things that the Occupy movement has taught us that is we don't have to accept being passive citizens who merely vote every few years. We don't have to put our trust in unaccountable 'representatives' who simply ignore our wishes.

Protesting on February 1 is, among other things, a step forward in asserting our rights as active and politically engaged citizens.


Well, well, well.

When the Christchurch City Council 'CEO' was given his $70,000 salary increase, Sideshow Bob claimed it was in recognition of Tony Marryatt's outstanding work.

But now we learn that two in-house reviews, released under the Official Information Act, indicate that Marryatt hasn't been doing outstanding work at all. According to the reviews he has only been moderately successful and that his quality of work has declined since 2009.

So it looks like Bob has been telling porkies again.

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CAN SIDESHOW BOB SURVIVE?

In the face of mounting public pressure, Bob is getting desperate...

He's claimed that Christchurch City Council merely has 'communications problems'. He's raised the spectre of government-appointed commissioners taking over at the city council. He's even tried to be humble and admitted that 'mistakes' have been made.

But nothing a desperate Bob has said or done has been able to stem the rising tide of public opposition to his autocratic rule.

So now Bob has had a quiet word with his faithful right hand man and - surprise - Tony Marryatt now says that he has not ruled out turning down his $68,000 salary rise! It's amazing what a little bit of public pressure will do to halt stubborn and arrogant politicians right in their tracks.

This, of course, is a far cry from what Marryatt said just a month ago. He declared "I am not refusing the pay offer and I am not giving it to charity.''

But you have to read the fine print when it comes to despots like Marryatt. He also says that he will be interested in the 'outcome' of the meeting between city councillors and Local Government Minister Nick Smith tomorrow afternoon.

But if Marryatt thinks $68,000 will buy 'The Bob and Tony Show' the freedom to carry on with their secretive and autocratic ways , he'd better think again. And what's more it's completely unacceptable for Sideshow Bob and Marryatt to attempt to hold the good people of Christchurch to ransom - and try to predetermine the outcome of the meeting tomorrow.

Nor will $68,000 'buy off' the protest on February 1.

As organiser Peter Lynch has said : "We have much bigger issues to address, such as the dysfunctionality of the council, and the poor decisions it has been making,"

Something is rotten at the heart of the Christchurch City Council and cosmetic surgery won't solve the problem.

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HAIKU TIME!

Clare Curran is making a stand for the working class!

I don't read Labour's Red Alert much and a reader has just reminded me why.

The Labour Party is going nowhere fast and despite leader David Shearer's call for 'new ideas' there is nothing to suggest that Labour is going to break with neoliberalism. Indeed, if Trevor Mallard has his way, a new Labour Government would be launching its own attack on what remains of the welfare state. The brave Mallard wants to take the big stick to the 'undeserving' poor. What a guy.

But its good to see Clare Curran getting to the crux of the matter. The Dunedin MP isn't mucking about.

Last year she got all hot and bothered about Otago rugby jerseys - even getting herself of thrown out of Parliament. At the time she said : ' 'I was taking a wee stand (as we say in the South) on something I thought was important. Though I know taking direct action has its responsibilities. And consequences.'

Yes Clare knows what's important and this year she's writing....haiku's.

Curran's attempt at a haiku appeared on Red Alert a couple of days ago.

Though our aim divine/
The delivery human/
A labour of love

She says its a response to a critical piece that journalist John Hartevelt wrote on 17 January.

He made some justified criticisms of Red Alert which included:

'Trevor Mallard and Clare Curran do most of the writing. Mallard posts short, sometimes cryptic missives and has been responsible for some ill-judged if not downright juvenile efforts in the past. Curran's posts appear mostly on issues of special interest to her. Both Curran and Mallard have developed a strange habit for writing some of their posts as if they were poetry.'

Hence Curran's haiku.

Given the current dire condition of the Labour Party you would of thought Curran would be able to find some better things to do with her time. Here's a hint. Why not use Red Alert to start mapping out a true Labour alternative to National rather than just continuing to spout the same old neoliberal drivel? Just a thought.

Some Red Alert readers fired back some none too subtle haiku's back at Curran including this one from our old mate Chris Trotter:

The summer rains fall,
Hopes for better weather fade,
Shearer says nothing.

Curran hasn't responded to this.

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THE BIZARRE ADVENTURES OF COUNCILLOR WELLS

Credit: Assorted Goodies

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WELLS SHOOTS HERSELF IN THE FOOT

Councillor Sue Wells has lost the plot.

Mayor Sideshow Bob's and Tony Marryatt's decision to spend $80,000 of ratepayers money on an 'inquiry' into the Christchurch City Council's so-called 'communication issues' is a feeble and badly conceived attempt to halt the growing public opposition to Sideshow Bob's autocratic regime.

Predictably (except to Bob and Tony) it has just inflamed the situation. In quake-wrecked Christchurch no one is impressed that ratepayers money is being spent on a pointless inquiry about the city council's PR operations.

As well Marryatt's claim he is now going to talk with community groups has been met with derision. If he's expecting a cup of tea and a chocolate biscuit out in the eastern suburbs then he's going to be disappointed.

With a significant public protest scheduled for February 1, Sideshow Bob and his council flunkeys are scrambling to save themselves. The squeeze is on - and Bob doesn't like it at all. His calls for 'unity' and for councillors to rise above 'pettiness' are rich coming from a mayor who has been mostly responsible for the disunity and pettiness in the first place.

But the most bizarre 'solution' to the Christchurch City Council's woes has come from Councillor Sue Wells who says that the Government should replace the city council with commissioners. You may recall that Wells is the same councillor who had a holiday in Germany last year - and got the ratepayer to pay for it.

Wells treats local democracy like a doormat to wipe her dirty feet on but she doesn't really want to put herself out of a job that pays so well. She is on a salary of around $110,000 and also picks up another $30,000 for being a director of Christchurch City Council Holdings.

In 2010 mayoral candidate Jim Anderton said that if he became mayor he would request all councillors to forgo directorship fees for sitting on council-controlled organisations because they were already well paid. The money saved would then be diverted to struggling community groups.

Wells said she would refuse to give back her director fees. This is the true ugly face of Sue Wells.

There's always an 'angle' when Wells is concerned.

She doesn't want to lose her financially job lucrative job but calling for the sacking of council (which she knows won't happen) is designed to give the impression that she is prepared to sacrifice her own job for the sake of Christchurch. We voters are supposed to be impressed!

Buts it's all sound and fury, told by an idiot. And its a giant miscalculation by Ms Wells. Her self-serving attack on local democracy has just left her looking foolish.

There's nothing, of course, preventing Wells resigning as a councillor herself. But we all know that she won't.

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IT'S DR EVIL!

Why is Kim Dotcom guilty until proven innocent and why is the New Zealand media acting as a cheerleader for the American authorities?

Despite the fact that the owners of the filesharing site MegaUpload have yet to appear in court to answer the many charges laid against them, the US authorities have still pulled down a site that receives around 50 million hits a day and accounts for four percent of all Internet traffic. If you are one of the many millions of users who have paid to use MegaUpload for legitimate purposes - well, thanks to the good old boys at the FBI, you can no longer access a service you have paid for. You have also lost access to all the files that you might have had stored on MegaUpload. What can you do about it? Nothing.

As well, with the obliging assistance of the New Zealand authorities - who even called out the armed offenders unit - we have seen the US authorities seize property and cash and freeze bank accounts.

All this has been dutifully recorded by our media. The mainstream media seems completely unconcerned that Kim Dotcom (Kim Schmitz). and co have yet to be found guilty of anything. It seems that the New Zealand authorities are quite happy to suspend the principle of 'innocent until proven guilty' and be the foot soldiers for the American entertainment industry.

Just to rub it in, a campaign of character assassination is underway. While many of us won't care for the opulent lifestyle of Dotcom, the fact that he lives in a mansion, throws lavish parties and is a rich git with a shady past isn't a crime. If that was the case the likes of Mark Hotchin would of been thrown in the clink years ago. The media though have gleefully reported all the comings and goings at Dotcom HQ as if it was more proof that Dotcom and his mates were up to no good.

Dotcom, thanks to our gormless media, has been transformed into Dr Evil bent on world domination.

No one seems interested that MegaUpload are saying that the charges against it are 'completely overblown'

Said a lawyer for the site: 'Our initial impression is that the allegations are without merit and MegaUpload is going to vigorously contest them. We have deep concerns over due process and assets being taken without the opportunity for a hearing."

And while the US authorities have denied it, the FBI raid on MegaUpload seems to have been specifically timed. It came just a day after the Stop Online Piracy Act and the Protect IP Act—that would, if enacted, vastly expand the control of the US government over the Internet - lost significant political support in the face of massive public opposition.

The raid on MegaUpload is a demonstration that the United States Government will continue to take action against websites despite the widespread opposition to attacks on internet freedom.

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WASTING MORE MONEY

There's been a communications breakdown at the Christchurch City Council, claims Sideshow Bob. But we've all heard this excuse before.

Mayor Sideshow Bob never seems to tire of wasting other people's money and he's at it again. This time Sideshow and his faithful right hand man Tony Marryatt have decided to waste $80,000 of ratepayers money on an 'independent' review of the Christchurch City Council's 'communication issues'.

We've been down this road before. At the last election, when he was being pummelled in the polls by Jim Anderton, Sideshow explained his unpopularity on the basis that council decisions had been poorly communicated to the people of Christchurch.

In August 2010 Bob said that '“People need to know that I get it. I get that we have not taken everyone with us on important issues and at times people have felt that their input did not carry much weight. I acknowledge that on some issues I have not explained well enough the reason behind our decisions.'

But since then Bob has proved again and again that he actually doesn't get it. He is still running a secretive and autocratic council that is simply out of touch with the community it purports to represent.

It doesn't register with Sideshow that you might get away with running roughshod over the wishes of the community once or twice but if it becomes the norm, then expect the full weight of public opprobrium to descend on you. And that's what has happened to Sideshow Bob and his council flunkeys.

Councillor Yani Johanson is absolutely correct when he says that '"People are quite unhappy with the way things are being done; it's not just about communication,"

Ironically, despite chairing the council's communications committee, Johanson only learnt of the $ 80,000 review twenty minutes before a statement was sent to the media late yesterday. Once again this has been a decision hatched in secret by Parker and Marryatt and it has completely undermined Johanson's position on the communications committee.

Meanwhile Marryatt is trying to earn some brownie points by claiming that he accepts criticism of his lack of involvement in the local community. What he means by this, of course, is that he admits he has completely shunned the quake devastated eastern suburbs. Fifteen months after the first major quake it's a bit late in the day to claim that he now wants to talk to community groups and stakeholders.

This is political cynicism at its very worse compounded by the fact that that Marryatt still refuses to give back his massive and completely unjustified $70,000 salary increase.

Don't forget the protest outside the Christchurch City Council offices on Wednesday 1 February at midday.

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