WCC Watch / October 2010
Welcome to WCC Watch. The idea is pretty simple. Basically, the coverage of the upcoming (Sept-Oct) Wellington City Council elections are going to be sporadic at best. There are a multitude of personalities at play, some smart, bold, dynamic candidates, and some total fruit bars. I’ll be trying to cover everything I can to follow the election.
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Bits and pieces…
- WCC Watch
- The Dom Post ran with a front page story on Lonely Planet rating Wellington the 4th coolest capital in the world.
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Slash and burn: Dom Post talks up councillor pay cuts
- WCC Watch
- The Dom Post reports that Mayor Celia Wade-Brown may cut councillors pay but also give each councillor at least one portfolio.
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Wade-Brown makes her mark
- WCC Watch
- I find it somewhat frustrating that much of the reporting on the new council structure will focus on councillor’s remuneration, but I guess given the modern political environment of expense scandal after expense scandal, we should hardly be surprised.
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Fran Wilde re-elected as GW chair
- WCC Watch
- While they haven’t updated their website yet (the new councillors are yet to be added), Greater Wellington Regional Council have just announced that Fran Wilde has been re-elected as the council’s chair for the coming triennium. I doubt anyone will be surprised.
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Dom Post wait until swearing in day to rain on new mayor’s parade
- WCC Watch
- Today we posted on the Wellington City Council’s plans to cut 10% from its budget to pay down debt.
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Government Minister goes troppo over council’s poison plans
- WCC Watch
- Government Minister and United Future leader Peter Dunne has attacked the Wellington City Council and Kaori Wildlife Sanctury’s plan to poison Zealandia’s upper lake and streams with Rotenone.
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An orderly handover of power
- WCC Watch
- In a democracy the handover of power can be fast and brutal.
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Big cuts coming at Wellington City Council
- WCC Watch
- It looks like Chief Executive Garry Poole is taking a leaf out of George Osborne’s (British Chancellor of the Exchequer) book rather than compatriot Bill English and is seeking 10% cuts at the council to fund a growing debt balance, projected to be $360 million next year.
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Jackson will never make the Hobbit on my watch
- WCC Watch
- Who said that? a) Simon Whipp; b) Robyn Macdonald; c) Arthur Scargill; d) The Chairman of NewLine cinema The answer is d).
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A mouse calls Mayor Celia a dragon
- WCC Watch
- Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me.
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Deputy Mayor elect Ian McKinnon prepares to cane Ray
- WCC Watch
- The Dom Post reports that Celia Wade-Brown has nominated Holden Astra fan Ian McKinnon as Deputy Mayor.
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Roads not light rail looks set to dominate short-term agenda
- WCC Watch
- Troops in mud – not unlike a visit to the Buckle Street war memorial on a rainy day.
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Ms Wade-Brown goes to Parliament
- WCC Watch
- Something Kerry Prendergast would never do but new Mayor Celia Wade-Brown went down to Parliament on Wednesday to join the 22,000 protesters showing their distain for National’s pro-employer industrial relations policies.
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A leading Wellington artist Barry Thomas is being evicted by WCC for his art
- WCC Watch
- Barry Thomas has been on the Wellington art scene since the 1970s.
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Litigation mad WCC fights 758 tenancy cases in less than 4 years
- WCC Watch
- Government report Bigcities showed that 10 of New Zealand’s 12 largest cities have council supplied social housing.
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DomPost reports on WCC 2040 report
- WCC Watch
- Following on from our comprehensive coverage of the report on Tuesday, the mainstream media have picked up on the report today, Thursday.
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What If; The council elections had been FPP
- WCC Watch
- The Dom Post today reports that businessman Graham Bloxham wants “to start a conversation” about the single transferable voting system.
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Kerry’s $46 million swansong causing blinding rage
- WCC Watch
- The DomPost reports that Kilbirnie’s half-built indoor sports centre has a roof producing dangerous levels of glare for nearby residents, and potentially pilots at the nearby international airport.
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ASB Sports Centre, Kemp Street, Kilbirnie, Wellington, Wellington Region, 6022, New Zealand (OpenStreetMap)
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The man in the pub
- WCC Watch
- Have I mentioned that the 14 foot poster guy Adam Cunningham got 380 first preference votes in Lambton Ward, 15 more than the bottom ranked guy Kris Price who didn’t campaign at all. No. Well I just did.
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Screaming Jets play Wellington, Sept/Oct 2011
- WCC Watch
- No, this is not a post on the Aussie hard rock band Screaming Jets.
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Wellington International Airport, Coutts Street, Rongotai, Wellington, Wellington City, Wellington, 6023, New Zealand (OpenStreetMap)
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Looking at Wellington with 2040 vision
- WCC Watch
- Feedback on the Council’s 2040 project has been released this week.
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Lone ranger shoots back
- WCC Watch
- The Dom Post reports that Prime Minister John Key told TVNZ’s Breakfast programme the suggestion he was becoming a lone ranger was “a load of rubbish”.
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Wellington’s super secret super city report set for release in November
- WCC Watch
- In the leadup to the recent local body elections, the regions’ mayors met in secret in October to consider a report on amalgamation.
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Gordon Campbell’s take on local body politics
- WCC Watch
- Veteran journalist Gorden Campbell’s analysis of the local government election results is well worth a read.
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It’s the final countdown
- WCC Watch
- Wellington City Council announce that it’s only six weeks until Manners Mall is no more and the buses will be zapping back and forth under their shiny new wires.
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Who owns the heritage Norfolk Pine at high risk of extinction?
- WCC Watch
- On October 21, we posted a story about a rare public notification process for a resource consent being sought to chop down a heritage tree in Khandallah.
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Khandallah, Wellington, Wellington City, Wellington, 6035, New Zealand (OpenStreetMap)
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Attack of the greenie hordes
- WCC Watch
- Celia Wade-Brown’s campaign adviser Kent Duston has made a big impact this year and last.
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Parliamentary inquiry into 2010 local government elections
- WCC Watch
- On Thursday, 14 October the Justice and Electoral Select Committee resolved to initiate an inquiry into the 2010 local authority elections, a regular inquiry it undertake every three years.
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Getting off parking tickets – ask your council how
- WCC Watch
- This year’s Ombudsmen annual report to Parliament, tabled last week, had an interesting discussion on the disclosure requirements around the rules governing parking ticket waivers (page 39).
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Paul Eagle tells the truth about DomPost howler
- WCC Watch
- In response to our post on the “six rebel” councillors story, Cllr Eagle has replied and put a bomb under the entire Dompost article on Friday, which I see has been repeated again on Saturday.
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Garry Poole is our dear leader, for now
- WCC Watch
- The Weekend Dom Post ran a story about the outgoing Mayor’s final day, farewell tour of council offices, and drinks with staff.
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WCC’s angry communications
- WCC Watch
- Now that we have a new, inclusive and some say “cuddly” Mayor, can we expect to get more friendly and inclusive communications from the Wellington City Council itself.
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Metropolitan city council polls are becoming our ‘mid-term’ elections
- WCC Watch
- The people have spoken and the last two years may not have been the easy ride polls have indicated.
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Tory paper smear campaign or inexperienced new Mayor
- WCC Watch
- This morning the Dom Post reported that Mayor elect Celia Wade-Brown had not contacted a substantial number of councillors, despite having plenty of time to cycle round Civic Square on her push bike.
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WCC Wifi: Restricted, censored, limited
- WCC Watch
- Back at the start of the election campaign, to much fanfare, the then Mayor Kerry Prendergast and Trade Me announced in September an initiative to bring free Wifi to the waterfront.
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Statement to WCC Watch from the Office of the Mayor
- WCC Watch
- It appears the Dom Post’s story on candidate profiles was not entirely accurate.
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Green MPs jump on the bandwagon, late
- WCC Watch
- It’s amazing how people love success.
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Wellington City parking supremo dies in Sydney
- WCC Watch
- The founder of Tenix, Carlo Salteri, died on Tuesday night in Sydney, aged 89 according to a Sydney Morning Herald report.
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New and Re-elected councillor profiles
- WCC Watch
- The DomPost today published mini profiles of all the new and re-elected Wellington City Councillors.
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Freedom of information – WCC is the worst city council in the country
- WCC Watch
- Wellington City Council is the worst city council in New Zealand accounting for 17% of all Local Government and Official Information Act complaints to the Ombudsman.
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Congratulations Celia
- WCC Watch
- Wellington has a new mayor in Celia Wade-Brown, ending Kerry Prendergast’s three term run. In the end she pulled through with a majority of 176 votes, which will hopefully be enough to starve off a recount – Wellington does not need that right now.
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Mayor Kerry’s last words
- WCC Watch
- Statement from Mayor Kerry Prendergast “It has been a fantastic honour to be Mayor of Wellington for the past nine years.
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Celebrate a green Wellington with a green weekend
- WCC Watch
- Admission to Wellington’s Kaori wildlife sanctuary, known by ad executives at the top end of town as Zealandia, is free for all locals this weekend. See your rates being spent and enjoy a breath of fresh air at the same time.
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775 heart beats to go
- WCC Watch
- Radio NZ reports that election officials are checking 775 special votes to ensure they qualify for the counting stage, due to start on Wednesday afternoon. Some 963 special vote ballots were sent out, but 188 have been disqualified because they were not returned on time. It’s getting close to the end. Is your heart fluttering?
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Heritage tree to be axed in Khandallah
- WCC Watch
- It’s time to stand up and be counted.
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Khandallah, Wellington, Wellington City, Wellington, 6035, New Zealand (OpenStreetMap)
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What’s up between Onslow candidates Mike and Andy
- WCC Watch
- What’s up between Mike Flemming and Andy Foster and why do some candidates feel the need to mass email the rest of the candidates post election with their gripes (see Thomas Morgan below)? Is it a case of sour grapes? And when will some tell Mike not to put the message in the title space? Mike contested the Onslow-Western Ward and obtained 567 votes.
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A poor politician blames the electoral system
- WCC Watch
- Following on from comments in yesterday’s Dom Post, they have followed up today with a front page story with Kerry blaming STV, not Celia, for any impending defeat (and her language seems to suggest she sees defeat as inveitable).
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Poll mayhem has Kerry reaching for worry balls
- WCC Watch
- At last coverage of the Wellington City Council elections is starting to heat up, two days after polls closed.
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Celia’s overtures to Labour
- WCC Watch
- Radio New Zealand has provided outstanding coverage of the local body elections, and have provided extensive coverage of the results.
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Big Wednesday it is
- WCC Watch
- The Herald reports that Wellington City Council spokesman Richard Maclean, a regular blogger on this site, said tonight counting the special votes was a “very complicated and extensive sort of process”.
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Complain, complain, complain
- WCC Watch
- Today unsuccessful, serial candidate Thomas Morgan, who received 96 votes in Southern Ward, emailed all councillors and candidates asking them to complain or raise issues about the election if they had any.
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Too crazy for words: Bly could toss Celia to victory
- WCC Watch
- The DomPost is reporting Wellington’s mayoral race could be decided by a coin toss.
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Too close to call?
- WCC Watch
- The Dom Post have finally decided to take a proper interest in the race to be the next Mayor of Wellington.
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District Health Board
- WCC Watch
- It was good to see an article this morning discussing the Capital & Coast District Health Board results.
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Results are coming in…
- WCC Watch
- The council will be announcing the preliminary result at 6pm. Any last minute predictions? Over the next few days we’ll be trying to do a few email interviews with new (and possibly re-elected) councillors. Does anyone have suggestions for questions?
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Regional Council Results
- WCC Watch
- Let’s not forget that the regional council results also came out yesterday.
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Reflection on the results
- WCC Watch
- Well after a very long wait the WCC have announced the preliminary results.
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Dom Post on Rob/James/Kerry Goulden
- WCC Watch
- The Dom Post have published a story on the news that Rob Goulden has been making up fake identities to push his own agenda… Wellington city councillor Rob Goulden used fake internet identities to issue a homophobic insult, personal attacks, and push his message that he’s a good, hard-working bloke.
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Johnny: Back from top level meetings
- WCC Watch
- Sorry everyone for missing all the excitement last night and today.
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Voting returns update #5 – last minute surge
- WCC Watch
- The council have updated their voting returns page with the figures for Thursday.
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Code of conduct complaint?
- WCC Watch
- We’ve had a few emails regarding Rob Goulden’s behaviour over the last few days. In particular, a few people have asked if his masquerading as other people is a breach of the council’s Code of Conduct. One way to find out would be to lay a complaint with CE Garry Poole. Anyone want to test the water? Has anyone done so already?
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Heros and villians, winners and losers
- WCC Watch
- We are now in the very final stretch, less than 24 hours until polls close, and we may have some preliminary results by this time tomorrow. Feel free to use the comments thread on this post to discuss who you think will win and lose. Even better if you can back your predicions up with a logic! We will attempt to do live blogging tomorrow, no promises though.
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Who to vote for – a hard left femisist view
- WCC Watch
- Maia at The Hand Mirror, a left wing feminist blog, has written a great post on who she’s chosen to vote for in the WCC elections (living in the Lambton Ward).
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Bishop and Ganley reflect residents serious concerns about city parking
- WCC Watch
- One of the worst statistics in the WCC’s 2009/10 annual report is residents satisfaction with the availability of car parks.
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WCC website survey
- WCC Watch
- We had some interesting discussions about open democracy the other day, flowing on from some policy ideas from Marcus Ganley.
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The many faces of Goulden
- WCC Watch
- As readers of this blog will have noticed, there have been many times where councillors, council staff and members of the public have left comments voicing their own opinion, adding additional facts or to simply point or errors or omissions where we get things wrong.
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Cast your vote at the council offices or a library asap
- WCC Watch
- All voting documents must be in the hands of the Electoral Officer by 12 noon on Saturday, 9 October 2010.
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Capital Times Best of Wellington 2010
- WCC Watch
- The Capital Times have released the results of their annual Best of Wellington survey for 2010.
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Who’s working the hardest for you?
- WCC Watch
- The table below shows the meeting attendance statistics for elected members of Wellington City Council for the 2009/10 financial year, as set out in the Council’s annual report governance section.
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Get out of jail free card
- WCC Watch
- Today it was announced by the Police that no offence has been disclosed regarding the free mayoral concert.
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Pre-election information enables freedom of choice
- WCC Watch
- But does Wellington City Council think ignorance is bliss? The Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Bill is currently before Parliament’s Local Government and Environment Select Committee.
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WCC – Will the last one out turn off the lights
- WCC Watch
- Staff turnover in the last four years has accumulated to a shocking 100% at the Council, according to this week’s annual report.
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Voting returns update #4 – great leap forward
- WCC Watch
- The council have now processed the votes that were sent in over the weekend, and it was a rather substantial number. From the council: “The latest batch of votes takes this year’s total higher than 2007 so far – when 23.6 percent of votes were returned.”
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BBQ season and Garry Poole needs a grilling
- WCC Watch
- In August the DomPost ran an editorial calling for the Wellington CEO to get a grilling.
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Fowler endorses Yan
- WCC Watch
- 3 News (seriously) are reporting that Sir Michael Fowler has endorsed Jack Yan for the Mayoralty.
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Marcus Ganley has a good idea
- WCC Watch
- I see that one of the Lambton Ward candidates is campaigning for more openess and transparency at Wellington City Council and has a poll running on the sorts of things that should be more open such as payments made to councillors and voting records. Might be worth a look and a vote. If he doesn’t make it, it would be good for someone to pick up these proposals.
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Meet Wellington’s Chief Mr Bean Counter
- WCC Watch
- For most of this year the city’s chief financial officer Peter Garty has been in discussions behind closed doors about Terry Serepisos’ rates debt to the council.
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Voting returns update #3
- WCC Watch
- The latest voting returns are up on the council website.
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Mayor Kerry wants a GG for Christmas
- WCC Watch
- Sources close to WCC Watch have suggested that Prime Minister John Key wants to appoint a woman as next Governor-General, and Kerry Prendergast is high on his list.
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Cronyism or considered response?
- WCC Watch
- This mornings Dom Post is reporting that WCC CEO Gary Poole has ‘cleared’ Kerry Prendergast over last week’s complain from Bryan Pepperell that she was abusing her power as mayor to secure her reelection.
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Super Wellington Update: Super good or super bad
- WCC Watch
- Today the regions mayors consider a PricewaterhouseCoopers report on amalgamtion.
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Something lighthearted for a Sunday…
- WCC Watch
- Wellington’s best dressed mayoral candidate.
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Carry on abusing electoral law
- WCC Watch
- Just after we posted on excessive numbers of press releases and launches by Wellington City Council during the election period, featuring the Mayor and other elected respresentatives like John Morrison, it appears the Mayor is at it again.
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Kerry and the Audits – Their Greatest Hits
- WCC Watch
- Audit Office guidelines for the local government election period are quite clear.
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Earthquake Weather in Wellington?
- WCC Watch
- Cliffhanger is the only way to describe the mayoral vote in Wellington.
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