WCC Watch / May 2013
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.
- Tagged as:
- elections2010
- featured
- wcc
- local-body-elections
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Aitken targets Pasifika vote in the West
- WCC Watch
- For a newbie candidate, Labour’s Onslow Western ward hopeful, Malcolm Aitken, has wasted no time in demonstrating just why the Labour party selected him.
- Accepted from WCC Watch feed
- Automatically tagged as:
- elections-2010
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- wellington-city-council
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Pannett warns Dom Post to be balanced
- WCC Watch
- Lambton Ward councillor, Iona Pannett has blogged that she hopes that all mayoral candidates get equal coverage following John Morrison’s front page coup announcing the 300-500 call centre jobs he brokered for Wellington.
- Accepted from WCC Watch feed
- Automatically tagged as:
- elections-2010
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- wellington-city-council
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Council supports runway extension
- WCC Watch
- Good to see something positive coming from the Wellington City Council with their 11-2 vote last night to put $1m towards the resource consent process for a $300 million runway extension at Wellington Airport.
- Accepted from WCC Watch feed
- Tagged as:
- wellington-city-council
- runway-extension
Wellington International Airport, Coutts Street, Rongotai, Wellington, Wellington City, Wellington, 6023, New Zealand (OpenStreetMap)
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Wood for Lambton?
- WCC Watch
- Sources have informed us that the Green Party will soon name serial vanity campaigner Jackson James Wood as their second Lambton Ward candidate.
- Accepted from WCC Watch feed
- Automatically tagged as:
- elections-2010
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- wellington-city-council
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Citi Opps shambles creates Labour/Green friction
- WCC Watch
- Labour Southern Ward Councillor, Paul Eagle has come out swinging on an interim report on the CitiOperations debacle that seems to raise a bunch of questions.
- Accepted from WCC Watch feed
- Automatically tagged as:
- elections-2010
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- wellington-city-council
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A tale of two cities + campaigns
- WCC Watch
- With the Greens’ announcing that they’re going all in for the Dunedin council elections it begs the question – why aren’t they doing the same in Wellington? Contrast the cone of silence that’s effectively been dropped in Wellington with the concerted push supporting Aaron Hawkin’s bid for the Dunedin City mayoralty and other council seats (campaign launches, media releases, websites, party resources, party leader support and endorsement, fundraising and volunteer recruitment), you have to wonder. Is it because the Greens have put Celia Wade-Brown at arms distance since she supported outsourcing of council services and voted against fellow Green Councillor, Iona Pannett? Or is it that the Greens think she’s bad for their brand as the right-wing Whale Oil claims? Or does Celia think she can do it without them? Wellington should be the jewel in the Greens’ local government crown. They have the mayoralty and other elected members and sympathizers, and like Dunedin, Wellington continues to deliver some of its highest amounts of party votes in general elections. But so far we haven’t seen any sign that the Greens see it that way and their slate of potential new candidates doesn’t really give that impression either. Rumours are also circulating her 2010 campaign manager Kent Duston has either been fired or has decided to quit, and now her campaign team isn’t much wider than her husband, Alastair. This would be a great shame as Kent proved to be an incredibly astute and effective political operator and his work probably pushed Celia over the line. How Celia responds to John Morrison’s recent entry into the mayoral race and enviable headlines in the past week will be critical. She needs to kick-start her campaign (and fix her website, below) soon. Celia defeated Kerry Prendergast because her campaign took the initiative, caught the incumbent off-guard, fronted footed issues, and had strong grassroots support and volunteer networks. Prendergast on the other hand looked complacent, barely made an effort to campaign, and lacked any real campaign apparatus. Incumbency will be Celia’s biggest strength, but with only 112 days until ballot papers start arriving in letterboxes I fear Celia is falling to the same traps her predecessor did. Here’s hoping I’m wrong.
- Accepted from WCC Watch feed
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- elections-2010
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- wellington-city-council
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Greeny, meeny, miny, mo… man.
- WCC Watch
- Despite having a presence on Council since the election of Celia Wade-Brown in 1994, the Greens only really gained influence over Wellington when Wade-Brown defeated Kerry Prendergast for the mayoralty at the last election.
- Accepted from WCC Watch feed
- Automatically tagged as:
- elections-2010
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- wellington-city-council
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And they’re off
- WCC Watch
- It looks like John Morrison is the first candidate out the gates with any campaign advertising with this ad in today’s Dominion Post. It does seem a bit strange that he still doesn’t have a campaign website (or any online presence other than his Council website bio). If you see/receive any campaign material please send us a picture or link to wwcwatch@gmail.com.
- Accepted from WCC Watch feed
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- elections-2010
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- wellington-city-council
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Morrison flexes muscle
- WCC Watch
- Timing is everything in politics and I can’t think of many better ways to kick off your campaign for mayor than to announce that you’ve brokered a deal to bring over 300 new jobs to your city.
- Accepted from WCC Watch feed
- Automatically tagged as:
- elections-2010
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- wellington-city-council
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City Watch #2
- WCC Watch
- Our second round up of recent news and events around Wellington.
- Accepted from WCC Watch feed
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- elections-2010
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- wellington-city-council
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Ritchie fighting Runway
- WCC Watch
- Fear not residents of the Eastern Ward, Ritchie’s got your back.
- Accepted from WCC Watch feed
- Tagged as:
- runway-extension
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New Labour?
- WCC Watch
- One of the unique features of the WCC is that the Labour Party stands its own candidates under the Party banner.
- Accepted from WCC Watch feed
- Automatically tagged as:
- elections-2010
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- wellington-city-council
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Coughlan’s call
- WCC Watch
- Will there be two vacant seats in Onslow-Western? With John Morrison entering the race for the mayoralty today we had assumed Onslow-Western ward Councillor, Jo Coughlan would pull out of the race given her incredibly slim chances.
- Accepted from WCC Watch feed
- Automatically tagged as:
- elections-2010
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- wellington-city-council
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Morrison announces
- WCC Watch
- As we predicted two days ago, the front page of today’s Dominion Post announced that City Councillor John Morrison is putting his hat in the ring for the Mayoralty.
- Accepted from WCC Watch feed
- Automatically tagged as:
- elections-2010
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- wellington-city-council
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Mystery solved?
- WCC Watch
- We have now heard from several well-placed sources that John ‘Mystery’ Morrison will be entering the mayoral race in the next few days.
- Accepted from WCC Watch feed
- Automatically tagged as:
- elections-2010
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- wellington-city-council
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City Watch #1
- WCC Watch
- A lot happens around Wellington that we cant always post about, so we figured a regular round up of recent news and events could be useful.
- Accepted from WCC Watch feed
- Automatically tagged as:
- elections-2010
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- wellington-city-council
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Time to get on with it?
- WCC Watch
- The mood for change to the structure of local governance in the region appears to be growing.
- Accepted from WCC Watch feed
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- elections-2010
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- wellington-city-council
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Living Wage City
- WCC Watch
- Hot on the heels of The Warehouse becoming the biggest business to sign up to the Living Wage, Wellington City Council could soon become the first council in New Zealand to pay a Living Wage.
- Accepted from WCC Watch feed
- Automatically tagged as:
- elections-2010
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- wellington-city-council
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All aboard?
- WCC Watch
- It seems a student campaign pushing for tertiary student concession fares on public transport is hitting a nerve.
- Accepted from WCC Watch feed
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Karori needs your help
- WCC Watch
- Recently, we saw the transformation of the Newlands town centre which goes a long way to bringing a rather dull suburb up to speed.
- Accepted from WCC Watch feed
- Tagged as:
- newlands
- karori
Karori, Wellington, New Zealand (OpenStreetMap)
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Celia out of step with what Wellingtonians want?
- WCC Watch
- From the outset Celia Wade Brown has been against the idea of amalgamation and from all accounts had to be dragged to the Regional Working Party by her Council.
- Accepted from WCC Watch feed
- Automatically tagged as:
- elections-2010
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- wellington-city-council
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We are not violent
- WCC Watch
- A reader has sent this in, apparently it was posted by a twitter user who found it in their letterbox. If anyone knows which part of the city these were distributed we’d be very interested to know!
- Accepted from WCC Watch feed
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- elections-2010
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- wellington-city-council
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Town Hall vs Capital Hill?
- WCC Watch
- Whale Oil has covered a recent Cullen Law breakfast where Celia apparently got hammered by Government Minister, Chris Finlayson.
- Accepted from WCC Watch feed
- Automatically tagged as:
- elections-2010
- featured
- wellington-city-council
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While we were away – Le Tour de Cock up
- WCC Watch
- So obviously quite a bit happened while we were away and now transmission has resumed it is probably worth recapping.
- Accepted from WCC Watch feed
- Automatically tagged as:
- elections-2010
- featured
- wellington-city-council
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We’re back
- WCC Watch
- WCC Watch is back under new management gearing up for the upcoming Wellington local government elections (Sept-Oct).
- Accepted from WCC Watch feed
- Automatically tagged as:
- elections-2010
- featured
- wellington-city-council
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