Tony Watkins

Doug Armstrong, Chair of Auckland City Council Finance Committee, openly advocates city violence rather than a peaceful city, nuclear war rather than a nuclear-free city, exploitation of the poor through unfair trading practices rather than a fair-trade city, the encouraging of profligate waste rather than zero waste, and the destruction of the planet through unsustainable patterns of growth rather than sustainability. (Panache 7, December 2009)

He hopes to achieve these things by ignoring the Local Government Act, which he does not agree with. Why, he asks, should he be expected “to promote the social, economic, environmental, and cultural well being of communities” (Part 2, subpart 1, section 10, Purpose of Local Government, Local Government Act 2002) simply because this is the law which has given him his power over other citizens.

When the Auckland City Council openly flouts the law of the land for its own corrupt ends, and is proud of doing so, how can any citizen be surprised when developers and other friends of councillors also openly flout the law, while ordinary citizens are crushed by a level of oppression which is too heavy to bear?

The dictatorships of Africa are not so different from those of Auckland. Anyone who speaks out will get beaten up, so the wise keep their heads below the parapet.

In the super-city ordinary dictatorship will become super-dictatorship. Little wonder that the powerful are ecstatic about the opportunities being opened up.