Worth Quoting: Richard Hills

Yesterday, my friend Richard Hills made his maiden speech as the newly elected Councillor for Auckland’s North Shore Ward (the other Councillor, Chris Darby, with whom he ran as a team, was re-elected). It was a good speech, and I wanted to share it, so why not make this the first “Worth Quoting” post featuring someone I actually know?

The video above is the entire first part of the day, and the start of his speech is at 11:41. Or, the video's on YouTube, and the link will go to the correct spot. Richard also posted his speech on Medium, where it be read in its entirety.

But I wanted to share part of it here:

I’m committed to working for better more efficient public transport, Shore Rail, more safe cycling and walking connections including Skypath, addressing climate change, the housing crisis and homelessness, protecting our parks, beaches, reserves and native bush, putting more effort into youth engagement and initiatives and making sure council is seen in a more positive light with increased community input to become a more people focused organisation.

By becoming more people focused, our community might feel more positive about us. We need to talk about people more.

Public transport isn’t about buses or trains, it is about people, how they get to work or around our city in a faster, less stressful, more efficient way.

Cycle ways aren’t about cyclists they’re about people who want to ride bikes safely and make room on the roads for other people.

Young people are just people that happen to be younger than us. I have worked closely with young people across our city for years. They have hopes and dreams, they have a lot more experience than we give them credit for, they love living here too, so let’s respect their ideas and thoughts and plan a city with them for their future not just short term fixes for today.

There’s much more of course, and is well worth reading or watching.

It’s always nice when a friend does well, and I know that Richard will be a good Councillor, and his speech is a good indicator of why I know that: It expresses who he really is, what his values are, and how he sees the world. As I’ve said many times, he’s the real deal.

All of which definitely makes him worth quoting.

AmeriNZ Podcast 322 is now available

A new AmeriNZ Podcast episode, “AmeriNZ 322 – Progress” is now available from the podcast website. There, you can listen, download or subscribe to the podcast.

I voted again

Voted!! 😀 #civicduty #kaipatiki #aucklandvotes

A photo posted by arthur_amerinz (@arthur_amerinz) on Sep 26, 2016 at 4:57pm PDT

This is the sort of photo I always take when I post an election ballot. That’s partly because I can’t show “normal” voting (photography isn’t allowed in the booth). While it’s also a way to document what I’m doing, and that’s important to me, it’s also a way to subtly encourage people to vote. Well, I hope so, anyway.

There’s a small story to go with this photo. We got our voting papers a week ago today and filled them out that evening. However, because of my gout relapse, I wasn’t able to get out and about, so I couldn’t get around enough to go post them and take a photo like this. Until today.

Also, my thumb mostly obscures the bar code in the address panel. That’s because I read somewhere it’s illegal to share that with anyone (like, in a photo). However, I didn’t have a chance to verify that for myself, so, a bit of prudent caution.

And that’s another vote posted back. There’s one more to go yet this year, of course.

My voting papers arrived today

My voting papers finally arrived - I wonder who I should vote for? LOL, my mind's already made up. Of course. 😊

A photo posted by arthur_amerinz (@arthur_amerinz) on Sep 19, 2016 at 9:30pm PDT

Letterbox democracy

I haven't directly shared things from Instagram on this blog—and I have no idea why I haven't. Since I've been spending so much effort merging all my "content", this seems like an oversight. I think it's time to change that.

When I publish a blog post with a photo I've also posted to Instragram, it's usually to illustrate what I'm talking about, and that makes sense. But sometimes, as with the "Nature photo a Day" series, I want to explain the photo in more detail, to tell the story of the photo itself. In that case, I could certainly embed the photo, as I have in this post. But there are other photos that I could share here to tell my story more fully.

I don't use Instagram all that much (in truth, I forget about it…), but it's a very convenient way to share a photo that briefly tells a story, and in a way I don't typically do on this blog. Yet that's precisely why I realised that I should share those photos here: They often capture "slice of life" details of what I'm doing that would be perfectly at home here on the blog, though possibly not in a full post.

So, starting today, from time to time I'll share my Instagram photos as I have below. Sometimes I'll say something about it, sometimes I won't, leaving the embedded description to tell the story (and the caption for this photo does tell the story, really). I've also added an "Instagram" tag for these posts.

Maybe this will make me remember to use Instagram a little more often when I'm out and about. We'll see—so to speak.

These turned up in our letterbox. We got one the other day from a team I wouldn't vote for, so these were a welcome change. 😀

A photo posted by arthur_amerinz (@arthur_amerinz) on Sep 13, 2016 at 7:41pm PDT

NZ local elections coming up soon

New Zealand’s local government elections—Local Body elections, we call them—are coming up soon. The video above is a TV commercial currently running and is intended to remind Kiwis to register to vote before August 12. There will be more commercials about the elections in the weeks ahead.

August 12 actually has two events. The first is that nominations for candidates running for office in local government close at 12 noon. The other is that the electoral rolls close and voter enrolment ends.

Any eligible voter who hasn’t enrolled by August 12, or whose details are wrong, will have to cast as “special vote”, but they can vote.

The Local Body elections are held by postal ballot, and voting documents will be delivered to households between September 16 and 24. October 8 is designed as Polling Day, and all ballots must be received by the local council by 12 noon that day. In most cases, prelimary results should be released as soon as possible after that time, though some elections, particularly those using STV, may take longer to be counted. Official results, which includes ordinary and special votes, will be released sometime between October 13 and 19—and sometimes it’s not known until then who’s actually been elected.

All New Zealand citizens and permanent residents are eligible to vote. In addition, people who own property in one council area, but who live in another, can also vote in the council where they own property. However, they cast only ONE vote (no matter how many people own the property together), not one vote per owner as in the council area they actually live in. This is to ensure that all property owners have some say in how their rates (property taxes) are spent.

There will probably be some TV ads from candidates for mayor, and I may share some of them, too. But if the past is any indicator, there will be too many candidates to talk in depth about all of them.

But soon, it’s all on once again as election time begins.