Amalgamate Or Pay A High Price
It's come around again - the Wellington Super City scheme or the Hutt Valley Not So Super City and Wellington City-Porirua-Kapiti Not So Super City alternatives.
Auckland amalgamated its seven councils into a single unit in 2009 and there was a concerted effort to do likewise for the Wellington region in 2015.
We have gotten over the Auckland shock where a lot of people had considered it a kind of failure to now when it has been deemed a substantive success. The chief finance person in the Auckland CC said in 2019, amalgamation had saved Auckland ratepayers two billion dollars. And judging from that the current savings would be around three billion dollars.
Most people living in other parts of our region have strong links to Wellington city. In so many ways I feel proudly bound to Wellington even though I have never lived there past a few days since my first year at college. So the city of Central Government and of Government departments and housing most of the things that attract me from outside the boundaries of my home, presents no problem to me in being part of a Wellington Super City: second largest city In NZ and 500,000-strong and takings the learnings from the Auckland model to not make their initial mistakes and errors of judgement.
Poll: Would you rather: Christmas in summer forever or winter forever?
Just a bit of a fun poll to get you thinking.
If you had to live out your Christmas days, would you prefer it was a summer Christmas or a winter Christmas?
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63.3% Summer
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35.4% Winter
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1.3% Other - I'll share below
EMPIRE BUILDING TRUMP
So Donald Trump does not want to start any wars and is a peace maker.
And yet he is seriously seeking to annex the world's largest island, Greenland from Denmark, take over the Panama Canal from the sovereign country of Panama who have owned it since 1977 and even forthrightly suggesting that Canada ceases being a nation and become a state or series of states of the USA.
Greenland above everything else, harbours minerals vital for todays and tomorrows world and that is what probably attracts Trump most. His son is looking things over in Greenland as this thread is being produced. Climate change is also changing Greenland which despite its name is currently mainly covered in ice and snow all year round. Greenland has a population of 55,000.
Panama's major asset after tourism and services is the canal with a current revenue of $5 billion. It operates its shipping charges through an international organisation so that the USA gets an unbias deal for its ships etc that use the canal. Panama is a poor country on the improve and has a population of 4.5 million.
Denmark is a member of NATO. But Trump has threatened many times for the USA to pull out of this Europe-USA defence alliance and Greenland may be the straw that finally breaks the pact.
Canada is surrounded by the USA but it is so much unlike the USA and much more akin to Australia and NZ. In contrast to the USA, Canada is one of the happiest countries in the world and in total land area is the world's second largest.
NZ is going to come under the scrutiny of Trump and his henchmen/women. He will probably look to cut NZ away from its free trade arrangements with China with some kind of ultimatum.
New Year, New Questions You Won’t Solve!
I get smaller every time I take a bath.
What am I?
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