Flimflam man

Just before we change the topic, we'd draw attention to this comment on the previous post:

Anonymous said...
Folks, we're getting sidetracked with frivolous issues. We need to get the word out to the public to pressure the WDC in[to] getting a S&P rating.
2:26 PM, January 15, 2007

As with most LawsWatch posts a whole raft of extraneous (but nonetheless interesting) issues were debated. And we welcome and encourage that. But where there's a chance to actually do something rather than simply vent, let's seize that opportunity. Talk to neighbours, write to the newspapers (yeah, we know, but the editors might just let through one letter critical of the Mayor, to "balance" the dozen or so he writes in praise of himself (using both his own name and those of his imaginary friends)).

If someone thinks Council is doing a great job, then a Standard and Poors assessment will surely provide that opinion with a sound factual backing. So no reasonable person could object, surely?

And now onto the next gulp of Michael Laws' Patented Fiscal Flimflammery (available in Snake Oil flavour from all good magic stores).

Apparently, it's okay to leave some rural settlements without a passable road (effectively rendering them unlivable and wiping out the value of private properties) because "the economic return on some of the roads servicing our region doesn't provide a return to the ratepayers" according to Mickey. (We await the spirited defence of rural dwellers from their Rural Community Board members - people like Nickie Higgie, Alan Taylor and Don McGregor. And wait. And wait...)

So projects are evidently now going to be assessed on the basis of cold, hard, financial criteria measuring economic return to ratepayers. Doesn't allow much room for human concerns, but at least it's not a flexible measuring stick. Economic returns from a project are relatively easy to measure, and once everyone agrees on the measuring tools it takes all the emotion; all of the purely personal, egotistical considerations, out of the equation.

So on that basis, we await Mickey's explanation (and objective measurement) of the economic returns to ratepayers of:

• Any of the "Heart of Wanganui" options
• The Splash Centre extension
• The $1.8 million waterfront project (originally costed at $260,000 in the 2005 Referendum, a cost blowout of seven times the original estimate before work has even begun).

And that's just for starters.

The prompt for his remarks was apparently Muriel Newman's suggestion that that all petrol taxes and road-user charges be invested back into roading. This has long been NZ First policy, which alert readers will recall Mickey often lays claim to having invented almost single-handedly. Yet offered the opportunity to resoundingly endorse Ms Newman's idea, he uses it as a platform to launch an attack on isolated rural settlements who actually have the audacity to believe that - as they pay rates too - they have a right to roading maintenance.

No prizes for guessing the ethnicity of most of those people.

Oh, and by the way, Rangi Wills? Yes you, asleep up the back there. These are your constituents that are going to suffer most under this bold new roading policy. Any thoughts? A single thought will do...

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