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The Persuader
My personal blog, started in 2006. No paid or guest posts, no link sales.
Posts tagged ‘local government’
15.01.2023
A Mastodon post about my mayoral campaign policies. No, I didn’t foresee a global pandemic as such (though I certainly was on Twitter perplexed at why the WHO had not declared COVID-19 a global emergency in January 2020), but I did feel there was insufficient resilience in our economy and wanted to advance ideas that would at least put this city right.
I saw the cafĂ©s all opening around town, the PM John Key’s support of tourism, and thinking: there’s not enough diversity among these types of businesses, and we’re well behind other cities on the percentage that IT plays. We need more high-wage jobs if we were to increase our rates’ base sustainably, not make Wellington unaffordable by taking a bigger and bigger chunk of incomes that had barely risen in line with the cost of living. All this I stated at the time, and they were trends that stared us right in the face.
Working from home was a way of alleviating stress on our traffic network, or at least help stagger the amount of traffic on the road at any given time. Tied in to that was publicizing real-time about public transport, which I think is starting to happen, to encourage their use.
The expansion of the wifi network meant that Newtown would be next, heading out to Berhampore, the whole idea being to bridge the digital divide for our less well off communities. I had already been into a meeting with Citylink and had a model through which it could be funded. I lived in Newtown as a boy, and I know how little we had in terms of the family budget. And, as we saw in lockdown, internet access was very far from being equal among our communities.
I’m not subscribing to ‘That’s easy to say in hindsight,’ because all these ideas were a matter of record, as well as the reasons behind it. I am subscribing to a degree of cherry-picking but when you consider these were my “flagship” ideas, I’m not even being that picky.
To think we could have set all this in motion starting in 2010 and been ready for 2020. I don’t really sell nostalgia if I’m running for office because that would be disingenuous. You’re being asked to vote on the future, and so many politicians are trying to resell you the past. I’m grateful to those voters who got this and put me in third place twice. We have a good mayor now who’s young enough to get it.
Tags: 2010, 2013, 2023, Aotearoa, COVID-19, internet, local government, Mastodon, mayoralty, New Zealand, politics, social media, social networking, Wellington, Wellington City Council, Whanganui-a-Tara
Posted in business, internet, New Zealand, politics, technology, Wellington | No Comments »
06.09.2022
Almost makes you want to run for mayor again.
I had a look at my 2013 manifesto during the weekend and it wasnât half bad. And, with respect to our candidates in Wellington, each of whom I know socially (and politics aside, actually like), it goes into more detail, and is arguably more visionary, than what Iâve seen from them to date.
It was quite uplifting to read this from Stephen Olsen writing in Scoop, covering the 2022 mayoral candidatesâ meeting at St Peterâs Church last night:
To be honest the lack of rigorous thinking made for a lacklustre event. It even had me pining for the 2010 and 2013 Mayoral campaigns of an outsider, Jack Yan, who did reasonable and intelligent things like put forward a detailed manifesto and who did justice to the role of an articulate, knowledgeable and expressive candidate. (A disclaimer being that I was on the Back Jack team of 2010 and a supporting advisor three years later).
It was written without bias, and evaluates each of the three leading candidates.
Stephen concludes:
Tory Whanau did have a few Jack-like moments in calling as forcefully as possible for more democracy, more boldness, more engagement of citizens and more community-based co-design opportunities to rejuvenate Wellington. However for her campaign to get some wind under its wings it will need far more amplitude on those basic but vital notes. Itâs not a time to pull punches.
In both of the elections I contested, I said we could not have politics as usual. I stand by that, because look at the lack of progress between 2013 and 2022 when voters choose politics as usual: rising rates, little change in the industry make-up (which is another way of saying very few high-value jobs have been created as a proportion of the total), which leads to a lack of economic resilience (and things being unaffordable for Wellingtonians). I said as much nine years ago.
Paul and Andy represent the old guard, and are conservative. Tory is a well read womanâI recall seeing Richard Rumeltâs Good Strategy, Bad Strategy in her office, among others, and she is aware of the world outside politics. She is the same age Mark Blumsky was when he was mayor, and the same age I was when I first ran. A good age, young enough to articulate a vision and have the energy to carry it out.
Whomever took a jab at her âinexperienceâ as detailed in Stephenâs article obviously does not know her history or background. That person evidently does not know Wellington well enough, either, or just how well the last 30-something mayor we had improved the place. Maybe their memory’s playing tricks on them now and they’re out of touch. I mightnât have agreed with everything Mark did, and maybe there are some rose-coloured glasses at playâbut I do agree with the digital advancement this city made under him. Anyone miss the wooden bus stops along Courtenay Place? Anyone? Bueller? I thought not.
Our choices this year are Tory boys or Tory in name. Tory Whanau would make a fine mayor and (finally) the cityâs first non-white mayor, too.
It wasnât nostalgia that had me looking up my 2013 manifesto. It was one Jack Yan running for mayor this year. Not me, but the guy in Toronto.
Jackâs finally got his website up and got in touch, in good humour, as he saw the crazy coincidence of not just the name but of running for mayor of oneâs city. I naturally forwarded on the emails I received thanks to mistaken identity. Out of interest, I had a look through what I wrote back then and sent it on out of interest. Just helping a brother out.
He probably doesnât need it, as he has good, comprehensive policies tailored to his city. Thereâs a Tory called Tory running there. Torontonians have way more candidates to choose from. To the folks there, give the guy a chance and check out his website at jack2022.ca.
Tags: 2013, 2022, Aotearoa, book, campaign, campaigning, Canada, endorsement, history, local government, New Zealand, Ontario, politics, Scoop, Toronto, Tory Whanau, Wellington, Whanganui-a-Tara
Posted in leadership, media, New Zealand, politics, Wellington | No Comments »
11.07.2022
As far as coincidences go, this was unexpected.
To readers from Toronto, and anyone else emailing me about this, Iâm not the guy running for mayor there.
I realize Iâm way more likely to come up in searches for my name and for my name with mayor or mayoral candidate, since my namesake doesnât appear to have much of a digital trail yet.
If youâre the Toronto mayoral candidate, please get in touch. I have a domain name you might be interested in. English and French spoken. (Which no doubt will add to the confusion.)
PS.: My namesake now has his website up. Head here to visit it. Some decent policies here!
Tags: 2022, Canada, election, local government, Ontario, politics, Toronto
Posted in politics | No Comments »
26.05.2020
When I ran for office, there was often a noticeable difference between how I was treated by locally owned media and foreign- owned media. There are exceptions to that ruleâThe New Zealand Herald and Sky TV gave me a good run while Radio New Zealand opted to do a candidatesâ round-up in two separate campaigns interviewing the (white) people who were first-, second- and fourth-pollingâbut overall, TVNZ, Radio New Zealand with those two exceptions, and the local community papers were decent. Many others seemed to have either ventured into fake news territory (one Australian-owned tabloid had a âpollâ, source unknown, that said I would get 2 per cent in 2010) or simply had a belief that New Zealanders were incapable and that the globalist agenda knew best. As someone who ran on the belief that New Zealand had superior intellectual capital and innovative capability, and talked about how we should grow champions that do the acquiring, not become acquisition targets, then those media who were once acquisition targets of foreign corporations didnât like what they heard.
And that, in a nutshell, is why my attitude toward Stuff has changed overnight thanks to Sinéad Boucher taking ownership of what I once called, as part of a collective with its Australian owner, the Fairfax Press.
The irony was always that the Fairfax Press in AustraliaâThe Age and The Sydney Morning Heraldâwere positive about my work in the 2000s but their New Zealand outpost was quite happy to suggest I was hard to understand because of my accent. (Given that I sound more like an urban Kiwi than, say, the former leader of the opposition, and arguably have a better command of the English language than a number of their journalists, then thatâs a lie you sell to dinosaurs of the Yellow Peril era.) A Twitter apology from The Dominion Postâs editor-in-chief isnât really enough without an erratum in print, but there you go. In two campaigns, the Fairfax Pressâs coverage was notably poor when compared with the others’.
But I am upbeat about Boucher, about what she intends to do with the business back in local ownership, and about the potential of Kiwis finally getting media that arenât subject to overseas whims or corporate agenda; certainly Stuff and its print counterparts wonât be regarded as some line on a balance sheet in Sydney any more, but a real business in Aotearoa serving Kiwis. Welcome back to the real world, we look forward to supporting you.
Tags: 2010, 2010s, 2013, 2020, Aotearoa, Fairfax Press, journalism, local government, mainstream media, media, media bias, New Zealand, news, newspaper, politics, publishing, racism, Sinéad Boucher, Sky TV, social media, The Age, The New Zealand Herald, The Sydney Morning Herald, TVNZ, Twitter, Wellington, Whanganui-a-Tara
Posted in business, globalization, media, New Zealand, politics, publishing, Wellington | No Comments »
28.11.2018
Given the topic of this post, some of you will know exactly why this still, from the 1978 Steve McQueen movie An Enemy of the People, is relevant. If you don’t know, head here.
Admittedly, I was getting far more hits on this blog when I was exposing Facebook and Google for their misdeeds. Of course I have less to report given I use neither to any degree: Facebook for helping clients and messaging the odd person whoâs still on it (but not via Messenger on a cellphone), and Google as a last resort. I shall have to leave all this to mainstream journalists since, after a decade on this blog, itâs all finally piqued their interest.
It also seems that my idea about pedestrianizing central Wellington, which appeared in my 2010 mayoral campaign manifesto (which I published in 2009) has finally reached the minds of our elected mayors. Auckland has a plan to do this thatâs hit the mainstream media. I notice that this idea that I floatedâalong with how we could do it in stages, giving time to study traffic dataânever made it into The Dominion Post and its sister tabloid The Wellingtonian back in 2009â10. Either they were too biased to run an idea from a candidate they âpredictedâ would get a sixth of the vote one actually got, or that foreign-owned newspapers suppress good ideas till the establishment catches up and finds some way to capitalize on it. Remember when their only coverage about the internet was negative, on scammers and credit card fraud? Even the ânet took years to be considered a relevant subjectâno wonder old media are no longer influential, being long out of touch with the public by decades.
To be frank, my idea wasnât even that original.
If you are on to something, it can take a long time for conventional minds to come round.
Tags: 2009, 2010, 2018, Aotearoa, blogosphere, internet, local government, media, New Zealand, politics, society, Wellington, Whanganui-a-Tara
Posted in culture, internet, media, New Zealand, politics, publishing, Wellington | No Comments »
04.05.2018
Clilly4/Creative Commons
I see thereâs an opinion piece in Stuff from the Chamber of Commerce saying the Wellington City Council should sell its stake in Wellington Airport, because it doesnât bring in that much (NZ$12 million per annum), and because Aucklandâs selling theirs.
Itâs not too dissimilar to calls for the Council to sell the Municipal Electricity Department a few decades ago, or any other post-Muldoon call about privatization.
Without making too much of a judgement, since I havenât inquired deeply into the figures, itâs interesting that the line often peddled by certain business groups, when they want governments to sell assets, is: âThey should run things like households, and have little debt.â
This never applies to themselves. When it comes to their own expansion, they say, âWe donât need to run things like households, we can finance this through debt.â
The same groups say that governments should be run more like businesses.
However, their advice is always for governments to be run like households.
Has it escaped them that they are different beasts?
I wouldnât mind seeing government entities run like businesses, making money for their stakeholders, and said so when I campaigned for mayor.
Doing this needs abandoning a culture of mediocrity at some of those entities. Some believe this is impossible within government, and there are credible examples, usually under former command economies. But then there are also decent examples of state-owned enterprises doing rather well, like Absolut, before they were sold off by the Swedish government. If you want something current, the Shanghai Automotive Industry Corp. is one of the most profitable car makers on the planet.
The difference lies in the approach toward the asset.
But what do I know? I come from Hong Kong where the civil service inherited from the British is enviably efficient, something many occidentals seem to believe is impossibleâyet I live in a country where I can apply for, and get, a new passport in four hours. Nevertheless, that belief in inefficiency holds.
Change your mindset: things are possible with the right people. Donât be a Luddite.
And therein lies why Stuff and I are on different planets.
Tags: 2018, Absolut, airport, Aotearoa, business, China, civil service, corporate culture, Fairfax Press, finance, government, Hong Kong, local government, media, New Zealand, people power, politics, SAIC, Wellington, Wellington City Council, Whanganui-a-Tara
Posted in business, China, culture, globalization, leadership, media, New Zealand, politics, Sweden, Wellington | No Comments »
16.12.2017
While I no longer live in the Southern Ward in Wellington, I know whom I would vote for if I still did. Itâs after a lot of thought, given how strong the candidates areâI count several of them as my friends. One stands out.
I have known Laurie Foon for 20 years this year and have watched her genuinely take an interest in our city. This isnât just political hype: two decades ago, she warned us about the Inner City Bypass and how it wouldnât actually solve our traffic problems; her former business, Starfish, was internationally known for its real commitment to the environment and sustainability (its Willis Street store walked the talk with its materials and lighting); and as the Sustainable Business Networkâs Wellington regional manager, sheâs advised other companies on how to be environmentally friendly (sheâs recently received a Kiwibank Local Hero Award for her efforts).
In 1997, when I interviewed Laurie for Lucireâs first feature, she had enough foresight to say yes to a web publication, at a time when few others saw that value. (This is in a pre-Google world.) Itâs important for our local politicians to be ahead of the curveâyet so many voters have opted to look firmly in a rear-view mirror when it comes to politics, fixated on re-creating the âgood old daysâ. If I vote, I vote for our future, and Laurie really can make a difference in councilâas she has been doing in our community for the past two decades and more, issue after issue. Sheâs forward-looking, and she can help make our city carbon neutral, waste-free, and socially responsible. Itâs a wholehearted endorsement for Laurie to make good things happen.
Tags: 1997, 2017, activism, Aotearoa, business, corporate social responsibility, election, environment, fashion designers, local government, Lucire, New Zealand, politics, Starfish, sustainability, Wellington, Whanganui-a-Tara
Posted in culture, New Zealand, politics, social responsibility, Wellington | No Comments »
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