24 August 2004

Disenfranchised Wellington Voters Return to Tim’s Campaign

Wellington Mayoral Candidate, Tim O’Brien, says he’s overwhelmed by the Wellington people who have told him that now he’s standing they have someone to vote for.

“One elector told me that he will now vote for the first time since Carmen ran in the late seventies,” Tim laughed.

Tim O’Brien says that on a more serious note the level of disaffection among Wellington voters in an indication with how out of step with public feelings the Wellington council has become.

“The recent rise in parking charges is an issue raised by people from all backgrounds,” he says.

“There’s a perception that inner city height allowances agreed in the District Plan arbitrarily enforced; that the character of neighbourhoods in the city and suburbs can change with little consultation; and that open space is up for grabs.

“These are issues where people feel they have no input or that their views are ignored,” Tim O’Brien says. “That has led to cynicism and many people entirely giving up on the process.”

Tim says the aim of his candidacy is to bring the whole city’s views back into play so people will realise it is worth their time and effort to collaborate on the city’s future.

“The city is a collaborative enterprise and all of us have the same interest in its success,” he says.
Writer and broadcaster, Tim O’Brien, is a native Wellingtonian. He says he was persuaded to stand for the mayoralty by the possibility that a wide range of views about the city’s future were not going to be represented in the current campaign.

ENDS

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Gordon Campbell: On the Sony cyber attack

Given the layers of meta-irony involved, the saga of the Sony cyber attack seemed at the outset more like a snarky European art film than a popcorn entry at the multiplex.

Yet now with (a) President Barack Obama weighing in on the side of artistic freedom and calling for the US to make a ‘proportionate response’quickly followed by (b) North Korea’s entire Internet service going down, and with both these events being followed by (c) Sony deciding to backtrack and release The Interview film that had made it a target for the dastardly North Koreans in the first place, then ay caramba…the whole world will now be watching how this affair pans out. More>>