Auckland Governance Report

The Royal Commission has released its report with recommendations on the future governance structures for the Auckland region. An executive summary is here [PDF]
Auckland will get one Council, abolishing all current structures of city and regional councils. Plus it will get an "executive mayor", much like London's Lord Mayor. Expect jostling for that position to become as fanciful as in London. My bet is that John Banks (JoBo) will become Auckland's BoJo.

The devil will be, of course, in the details and how much and what of the report will be implemented by legislation. But I quite like the idea of a unified Council for the region with stronger community boards, as I have outlined in my submission to the Royal Commission.
Waiheke Island gets mentioned once and it's all promising:

33. Generally, community boards will no longer be required in the model the Commission proposes. The Commission recommends that an exception be made for the Great Barrier and Waiheke Island Community Boards, which should be retained, with wider delegated powers.

What those delegated powers will be is still the question. But any improvement on what the community board competences are now is a plus.

The electoral process of those 23 Auckland Councillors has been rightly criticised as unfair and inequitable. It's inevitably what you get with a First Past The Post system.
The only solution is to go for 25 Councillors elected from party lists. You really don't want 25 beauty contests of candidates, but that super council to implement solid policies for our region. So why can't we vote for policies instead of show ponies? An effective 4% threshold for your list of candidates would seem much fairer than what is being suggested now - and no need for race-based seats either.

UPDATE 7 APRIL: The Government has published its decisions on what the Royal Commission has recommended.
They have reduced the number of Auckland Councillors from 23 to 20 by abolishing race-based seats (good) but not really addressing the voting system. 20 seats would give a 5% threshold if proportional voting was introduced (good) but 8 will be elected at large (bad) and 12 from wards (bad too) and this will lead to under-representation of minorities and an over-representation of the moneyed classes and lobby groups who can mount a city-wide election campaign.

The Royal Commission executive summary is not without its humour: they have been unable to find a Maori name for the Rodney area. Even the Herald was asking: "Who was Rodney?" To which any post-colonial citizen answers: "Who cares?"
On the other hand, since North Shorians are less than happy with their new name "Waitemata", it would recommend that area to be renamed "Del-Boy"

Can you imagine our Queen doing that?

From AFP:

Denmark's Queen Margrethe has created the costumes and sets for a film adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen's 1838 fairytale "The Wild Swans," she told reporters on Friday.
The 68-year-old monarch has in recent years designed costumes and decor for several ballets inspired by the famed Danish author, and has since the 1980s delved into painting, drawing and book illustrations, as well as scenography for theatre and television production.
This is the first time she has worked on a film.

Why can't we have a creative queen like that?

Nude news

Nude news from Belgium: A man caused a scandal on Saturday night during a lingerie fashion show in Angleur, near the city of Liege.
The 34-year-old climbed naked on the catwalk where he displayed offensive behaviour using a champagne bottle.
The police arrested the fellow and appeared before magistrates on Sunday (who says justice is slow in Belgium?). The judge asked him for his motive and the culprit said he wanted to be the star attraction.

No reports on whether the audience clapped, booed, hissed or whistled for more (or whether his show was worth it). Nor any details on what he did to the champagne bottle, whether it was full and corked so a foamy explosion was anticipated, or whether he emptied it over himself or sprayed it over the audience Formula One victory style.
Worst of all, no pictures in the newspaper reports!

Thames-Coromandel or Auckland?

The current hot potato political issue on our island is a proposal by one of the Community Board Members to transfer local and regional governance over the Hauraki Gulf Islands from Auckland City and Auckland Regional Council to the Thames-Coromandel District Council and Environment Waikato.
Nobilangelo Ceramalus's proposal in his own words is at length on his blog.
Now that the proposal has been accepted by the Local Government Commission for consideration, you can now make submissions to the proposal before 20 April, but no convenient internet submission form is available. It has to be mailed to where? Is this to discourage dissidents?
Also nowhere is a mention made that any change proposals have to be subjected to a referendum before they can take effect. Or will it be a case of Commission bureaucrat fiat?

Needless to say the proposal has been causing some ruckus on the island, with bitter words published back and forth. And a petition against the transfer was doing the rounds on the ferry over the last few days, with a great deal of signatures collected.
All good fun and games, but there is of course a serious base to this: the perceived arrogance by Auckland City Council with all things Waiheke, and their never ceasing attempts to turn us into a suburbs with the same rules, regulations, fees and services as the mainland but without asking for our input, and when they do, to dismiss us as Cadbury Island (as in fruits and nuts).

I have often railed in the past against the rule by Babylon-across-the-sea, but I have yet to see the light on the Thames-Coromandel proposal. The timing of the project is certainly unfortunate with the report by the Royal Commission on Auckland Governance due to be released at the end of the month. If that has a satisfactory outcome for Waiheke (such as beefed up competences for the local community board) I don't see the need to move to Coromandel, but I'd be happy to wait until we reach 10,000 citizens and we can establish our own Council again.

You kneel, I arise

The Government wants to bring back titulature such as Sirs and Dames so it can "properly" reward its supporters for all the hardship they have had to endure under the previous Komintern Government.
Going back to the middle ages for that sits nicely with their medieval approach to crime and punishment, so I guess we might as well go the whole hog. Now all we need is stocks, racks and dunking stools.
And a legal requirement for all non-nobs to grow forelocks to tug when their betters pass them in the street.

On the other hand, Lord Waiheke has a nice ring to it. But we should get our Count back first.

The only Dame I recognise is Dame Edna Everage. (Queens are royalty, of course, not nobility)

Gay sex in a recession

The Red Queen has been worried lately about the impact of the economic recession/meltdown/growth correction on LBGT life - possibly the worst acronym ever invented, I prefer it to mean a Large, Big Gin & Tonic.
So he's been asking angsty questions on how ever will we cope with these dark times:

1. What happens to our sex lives when recession hits? Do our sexual habits change?
I'm unsure whether it would change much, perhaps the frequency would be higher since it’s a free activity and we have more spare time after having to cut back on paid leisure activities.

2. What about gay men’s sex on site venues? Are they affected by the onset of a recession, which might mean that low income MSMs prefer outside cruising routes in preference to having to fork out cash?
Sex on site venues suffer not from recession but from that endless email ping pong on dating sites that in the end gets you nowhere (or nowhere fast in my experience) compared to the quick, easy, fast, in out in out at, say, Lateshift.

3. What happens to sex workers if fewer punters have the disposable income required to pay for them? Will this affect brothel viability, producing more worker-run, self-managed home-based escort services? Will trans street workers be especially hard hit? How will the government’s ninety day provisional employment bill affect new sex workers?
You do what every small and large business does: entice with different offerings, products and options, i.e. frequent fucker cards, Sunday morning discounts, Tuesday two-for-one specials etc. Anything to get the edge over the competition.

4. Will redundancy leave some lesbians or gay men too emotionally depressed to have sex? Might low self-esteem lead people to take risks with sex and/or drugs?
If you got more time, use it to experiment and perfect your craft and skills in the sack.

5. Given that lesbians get paid less than gay men do, how will their personal economic situation affect the viability of women’s venues and events that rely on their disposable incomes?
There are no female sex on site venues, only potluck dinner parties

6. Given the costs of long-term relationships, will there be more one-night stands across the board?
Au contraire, sharing your life is cheaper than living alone, you can even share one-night stands if your flatmate has your stamina

7. How will the recession affect civil unions? Or, do we deliberate more about that major phase in our lives, given the stability of civil unions compared to heterosexual marriages?
Economising on aping hetero examples is aways a good idea. Lesbian marriage always seemed like a permanent potluck dinner arrangement to me

8. What about LGBT-led families? Will their relative incomes decline compared to their straight family counterparts, and/or single LGBTs?
Why should LGBT families be exempt from the general recession? The credo is the same for everyone: work hard, get out of debt and be nice to your mother.

9. How will the recession particularly affect transgender/whakawahine/fa’afafine, whose anti-discrimination protection is still ambiguous? Will they suffer greater problems with employment stability, accommodation, and access to the medical services needed for transitioning?
Buy a nice frock and show off those new puppies.

10. How will a contracting economy affect the cost of protease inhibitors for PLWAs and Herceptin and other preventative drugs for lesbian and bisexual female cancer survivors?
Why should those minority patients be singled out as deserving extra special treatment? Sick is sick and we all should qualify equitably for public health services.