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Wednesday 25 July 2012

On A Plain

I'd like to write about what a disaster Gerry Brownlee is, and the overturning of his decision on land rezoning to the west of Christchurch could be an opportunity.  Certainly it indicates that he went about things the wrong way, though it doesn't say what he did was wrong.  And since I don't know enough about it, I'll not go there.  Yet.

What caught my eye was the companies involved in the court action around zoning.  One of them was Christchurch Airport, who opposed the development approved by Minister Brownlee.  You would expect that the board of the airport kept the shareholders informed of their opposition to the approval, and that the shareholders would support the board's opposition, or they would sack the board.

The shareholders, there are three, are Christchurch City Holdings (the investment vehicle of Christchurch City Council), the Minister of Finance and The Minister for SOEs.

It seems wrong that they would let the matter go to court.

Nirvana - Unplugged in New York, 1993

UPDATE - sorry, I had a bit of a case of thoughts in the middle of the night there.  It seems wrong to let it go to court because the ministers involved are all part of the cabinet, and at least two are what is known as the kitchen cabinet, i.e. the select group of ministers that actually make the decisions.  Avoiding this kind of dumb stuff ending up in court seems much more productive than increasing class sizes, selling off control of our energy supply or ruining ACC.  And let's not forget ECan, who are appealing the decision, are run by government appointed commissioners.

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