Point of Order: Cultural consultants cash in $1.365m while Dunedin rates soar

• The Taxpayers’ Union reports –

The New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union can reveal through a Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act request that Dunedin City Council (DCC) has spent a staggering $1.365 million over just three years on consultation with Aukaha—an iwi-owned consultancy firm—with ratepayers now hit by an average rates hike of 17.5%.Taxpayers’ Union Investigations Coordinator Rhys Hurley said:

Peter Williams: What did he say?

How can a racist slur be a racist slur if we're not told what was said?

There’s been quite the public spat here in the south about the chair of the Strath Taieri Community Board, a very rural part of the Dunedin City Council area.

The man’s name is Barry Williams and at some stage in recent weeks he made a supposedly racist statement to a member of the public in a pub.

Gerry Eckhoff: Different votes for Different Folks

The expression, “Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war”, penned by the greatest of them all -Shakespeare -  usually refers to the political and societal restraints being unleashed to operate against a civil society, often in times of peace. Vladimir Putin, who clawed his way to power has literally unleashed his dogs of war against the people of Ukraine in the worst way imaginable.

Here in New Zealand our PM has more overtly let slip the collar of those who very aggressively support the creation of an indigenous minority government, led by something similar to that which is characterized by the current Maori Labour caucus.

Bob Edlin: Yes, the Dunedin City Council CEO has the power of censorship, but questions remain around talk of a Treaty Partnership

Recent happenings in Dunedin illustrate the extent to which “the Treaty partnership” has become a facile concoction of local and central government and is applied to justify whatever politicians or administrators want to justify when dealing with Maori rights and privileges.

In this case it has been applied to justify censorship and to inhibit an elected community representative’s attempt to foster discussion of the proposition that when te reo is spoken at public gatherings, a translation should be provided to enable the great majority of the country’s population who don’t speak that language to comprehend what was said.