John MacDonald: Attn Christchurch Council - don't sell us short

Let’s start with a quote.

“You can take it from me that under my watch as mayor, I will not be selling any of these assets.”

Guess who said that before last year’s council elections? None other than Phil Mauger who, of course, went on to become mayor.

So that’s what he was saying less than a year ago about what he called “the family assets”.

But guess what he’s saying now about things like the airport and port company? Something quite different.

Chris Trotter: Three Waters. Three Mayors. Three Cheers!

The three Mayor's proposed revision of Three Waters is timely, sensible, and ought to be accepted by the Labour Government. If Jacinda Ardern and her colleagues press on regardless, then the electorate will know just how little Three Waters has to do with securing an affordable upgrade of New Zealand’s water infrastructure, and how much the controversial scheme is now about mandating the co-governance of water.

Not that the Prime Minister will admit that co-governance is the driver of the proposed reforms. To do so would be to lay upon the table, for free and frank debate, the fraught issues of radical constitutional change, and the future of our democracy. Ms Ardern is, almost certainly, in possession of poll data indicating that any such debate would be lost by her Government – decisively.