Reflections - One-and-a-half months on, Due to Necessity: I.e. Google/Blogger Et Al! - Upon Local Elections, October 2022, in Aotearoa-New Zealand

*Yes, the Labour majority Government is now - well and truly - on notice; and in two of its heartland cities, (Dunedin and Christchurch), to boot...

...and it arguably fared even worse in the 'big-ticket' cities of Auckland and Wellington, though the latter's new Green Party Mayor perhaps runs somewhat counter to such a - clear and obvious - narrative...

*Yes, outgoing (now gone) Green Party Dunedin Mayor Aaron Hawkins is - was - right on: the people here (and around God's Own) are simply [fed up with] the Government's contentious '3 (now 5) Waters' reforms, though the seemingly never-ending roadworks all around the city doubtless played just a wee part in his own rather catastrophic - as in dramatic and significant - demise...   

Or, to use an old Clintonism: it's the potholes - and roadworks - (everywhere), stupid!

(Though in Hawkins' case, methinks his and his bureaucrats' arguably criminal coverup (if not actual stuffup) vis-a-vis the Waikouaiti/Karitane (lead in the) tapwater hardly contributed to confidence in and love for Hawkins & Co...though old friend (Pastor) Kristin Jack's wife (Doctor) Susan conveniently copped the flack for the entire saga)...

As for the NZ-wide media reporting "a significant shift to the right in Dunedin's City Council", hardly, folks...

...Hey, but when did the real facts of the matter ever get in the way of a good story (in our contemporary 24/7 news cycle, that is)...

*Tim Shadbolt, long-time Mayor of Invercargill: a classic case of the career politician who never knows when his time is finally up, though to his endless credit, he rarely 'acted the part' of a career politician, but concerned himself far more with such mundane matters as pragmatic politics and getting things done......

Incidentally, where oh where was the ever up-and-up-and-up new Invercargill City councillor and then  mayoral aspirant Marcus Lush on the night? (Perhaps taking his cues from that ancient scallywag and denizen of things conventional, Reggie Perrin, of 'The Rise and Fall and [Resurrection] of Reginald Perrin' fame...

*Was sad re the Topp Twins' lady missing out up in Methven, but 'nothing ventured, nothing gained', as they say, and she probably did a whole lot better than Yours Truly in his lonesome run for national office back in 2008... 

*New Christchurch Mayor was refreshingly open and non-partisan, modest yet self-assured, in his post-election tv and radio 'appearances', yet it was sad to see (as ever it would be) a david losing to a Phillip.

*The new Auckland Mayor - 'calling it like it is': gutsy and gutsier still...

The main lesson in all of it? Now stardustless Jacinda Ardern's public endorsements verily a kiss of death, no longer worth the tissue-paper they appear to be written on...   


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