Penny Webster is good – reports the War for Auckland

Generation Zero Gives B-Plus: While she readily admits that she was initially opposed to Len Brown’s plans for rail, she was converted by the need to get people out of their cars and using public transport. While the Mahurangi Magazine is a big fan of public transport, it despairs at the unquestioning and excruciatingly expensive assumption that workers must move to their work, as opposed to moving the work to the workers. chart Generation Zero

Penny Webster is good. She’s been a keen advocate for old people who don’t like apartments leaving the centre of Auckland, which is one of the key values of our War effort. Besides that, she’s handled a key finance role for the last three years [and the three years before that], and despite what you read in the Herald, Council debt is not out of control.

None of the other people standing in Rodney are as good as Penny Webster.

This is the opinion of the online magazine SpinoffStrictly it is The Spinoff, but the Mahurangi Magazine’s policy of disrespecting names beginning with The stands, and, particularly the last sentence, is also that of the Mahurangi Magazine.

The Spinoff’s the War for Auckland: A Voter’s Guide is:

…a core part of our outlandish and belligerent campaign for a better Auckland.

It is highly entertaining but informative tool that heavily rewards incumbents who have consistently voted for intensification, and draws upon work done by Generation Zero, which gave Councillor Penny Webster a B+, but her rival Steven Garner a C-. It appears that none of other candidates responded to Generation Zero, but if Greg Sayers had, based on his rhetoric, he would have scored even lower than Steven Garner, who at least has been a strong long-term supporter of the Mahurangi Regatta.

Slow to Accept Unification: Rather that work to ensure Rodney interests were best protected, the then Mayor Penny Webster wasted a good deal of time and money railing against regional governance. Since, as an Auckland councillor and chair of the strategy and finance committee, Penny has more than atoned for her sins, and, in any event, has always been a firm and loyal friend of Mahurangi. Penny’s yellow here, of course, a reference to her term as an Act party list member of Parliament. cartoon Majorlook Productions

Penny Webster and the Mahurangi Magazine did not see eye to eye when she was mayor of Rodney District Council opposing unification of the Auckland region. The Mahurangi Magazine, knowing unification was both inevitable but also desirable in principle, argue that the last Rodney mayor should be working hard to ensure that the district came through the mother of all restructuring exercises in the best possible shape, and not be wasting hard-earned ratepayer dollars on an unmandated billboard campaign in Wellington, and possibly the most egregiously loaded survey of public opinion ever commissioned by a local territorial authority.

Penny Webster and the Mahurangi Magazine almost certainly sit at very different points of the political compass, but putting politics aside, which is usually the best place for them, when it comes down to the devilish detail, invariably end up on the same page. An example is the Mahurangi-initiated 50-year plan for the regional parks network that is going before the council’s parks, recreation and sport committee tomorrow morning. Penny has proved to be strongly supportive of an ambitious and innovative approach, which is probably the best prospect for regional parks keeping pace with what could easily be more than the trebling of population of the metropolis that occurred in its last 50 years.

The Spinoff, to the immense shame of the mainstream media, is the only publication that has commissioned a poll during the election campaign and has also published a second poll, by Horizon Digital, which was funded by the Aera Foundation. But as to which candidate is likely to be Rodney’s councillor after 8 October, voters are completely in the dark. Polling is expensive, and pollsters can have to pay up to $42 per respondent, just for the phone call. Small wonder more and more use is being made of online polls.

Meanwhile, with the polls published by the Spinoff and the analysis of Generation Zero, the Mahurangi Magazine can provide the following guide, safe in the knowledge that the mayoralty—barring bolide strike—is safely sewn up by Phil-the-Neoliberal-Dinosaur Goff, and to give one tick, and one tick only, to:

SWARBRICK, Chloe for mayor

WEBSTER, Penny for councillor

BERGER, Tessa for local board member