You might think the AK Super City idea is a good one. And it may have been, the way the Royal Commission recommended. But National, in its railroading process, appears to have dispensed with most of the better ideas that would have made a super city good for Aucklanders.
Why is National so damn keen to have an Auckland Super City, you may ask? Think about it – over a million people all safely in the clutches of right-wing, National-supporting toady, John Banks ‘SuperMayor’. No more painful Bob Harvey gibes (go Bob!) or Mangere success stories for National to contend with. National only likes Remuera success stories, you see.
And you don’t get to vote on the Super City. How does that make you feel?
After a week of classic faux pas over the motorway extension, we were treated to the bizarre spectacle of a glowing John Key looking almost post coitally smug. Why? Because President Barack Obama had deigned to speak to him on the phone.
Was I the only one fighting down nausea?
But I feel like writing a thank you letter to Key all the same. Because he handed us the precious gift of Melissa Lee as a ‘candidate’ for Mount Albert. What a turkey! Who in National thought that just putting an attractive right-winger forward over the hard-working National incumbent in the always Labour electorate was a good idea?
What a howler. Excellent.
And I commented a while ago that Labour had better not lose this electorate, and that Phil Goff should step up and sort it out. To his credit, he did so. While I commiserate with MP Phil Twyford, who lives in the Mt Albert electorate and wanted to run as Labour’s representative, I am relieved that we no longer have the spectre of Judith Tizard looming over us. I am looking forward to a much better outcome as a result: Labour retaining Mount Albert (if Shearer can just get his interview nerves sorted out). Plus a rosy possible future that has Phil Twyford representing Auckland Central instead. I find this an extremely welcome idea.
Frankly, the fact Ak Central went to Nikki Kaye in the last election was a crime. What the hell were you thinking, Central Aucklanders? How is she even a politician? (I know, I know: she wasn’t Judith Tizard.)
However, the thought of a soon-to-be-still Labour Mount Albert kind of pails into insignificance when you consider it will most likely be subsumed under the right wing umbrella held up by the awesomely crass figure that is John Banks.
Well, most of you voted National last election, so I feel like saying ‘suck it up, losers!’.
Unfortunately, I live in Auckland.