Fancy working fewer hours without a reduction in pay? Then the Northland Regional Council may be for you.
In a
split 5–4 vote, councillors decided to make permanent a trial that saw most
full-time NRC employees move to a 72-hour fortnight, down from 75 hours,
without any reduction in pay. The hours of part-time employees were reduced
proportionately.
The estimated value of the reduction in staff time is $2.88 million a year—equivalent to around a 5% rates increase.
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Not
only are businesses losing income because of a lack of parking southbound and
northbound, but there is the everyday potential of heavy vehicles colliding
with power poles northbound because our so-called experts at Council decided to
close the parking bays on the left-hand northbound lanes. Because of this, our delivery
trucks are so much closer to the poles. It is a catastrophe just simmering
away, waiting to boil over. Who’s going to pay for the damage? Council? I don’t
think so.
I am
a recently retired truck driver, and it is decisions like this that cause
headaches for my mates still doing it. Wake up councillors, get it right!” – M.P.
Under
its “Head Start” programme, councils were invited to submit proposals for
restructuring local government in their regions. Eighteen proposals were
received by the August deadline, including one from Northland.
The Government says more work is required because none of the proposals received unanimous support from all councils within their respective regions.
That
strategy seeks to minimise the number of party votes used to elect Māori Party MPs
while maximising the number elected through the electorates. The result would be
to potentially increase the total number of MPs in Parliament and, more
importantly, increase the chances of a left-wing coalition.
The
ACT Party says money collected through fuel taxes and road-user charges should
be spent maintaining and building roads—not on expensive artworks incorporated
into roading projects.
It
has highlighted the following examples:
·
$630,599 for
the 12-metre Te Manu Rangimaarie sculpture at the Piarere roundabout
near Cambridge.
· $810,000 for the Te Waka sculpture on the Waikato Expressway.
If National is re-elected, the new regime will begin influencing council long-term planning from next year, with the caps taking full effect in 2029. The target range will be reviewed every six years to reflect changes in costs outside councils' control.
When the RMA was introduced in 1991, it was promoted as transformational environmental legislation that would enable development while protecting the environment. Simon Upton, the Environment Minister who shepherded the legislation through Parliament, said that provided its core environmental objectives were met, “what people get up to is their affair. As such, the Bill provides a more liberal regime for developers.”
An evil man will burn his own nation to the
ground to rule over the ashes – source not Sun Zu