“[Leader of the Opposition] Mr Little said last week that New Zealand typically saw 25,000 people enter the country in net migration and Labour wanted to “target that sort of level”.

“Recent figures showed that a net 71,333 people settled here in the year to February.

“But speaking to Morning Report today, Mr Little denied he wanted to cut immigration numbers by as much as 50,000.”

Full article

NZ First leader Winston Peters says he wants net immigration limited to 10,000 a year — and as he has been in the past, he could be the Kingmaker in this year’s parliamentary elections.

The country’s continual population growth since the early 2000s has been one of the two factors in the steady growth in house prices, in Auckland particularly, but also in the Wellington area.  Foreign investors, particularly Chinese, have been the other factor.

In Kapiti, the assumption of a steady increase in population has been behind Dougherty’s empire building strategy and this was admitted in the Long Term Plan document from 2015.

The ‘Ewy’ has been something of a double-edge sword in that respect, though — it is making Kapiti a dormitory area of Wellington, but the million square meters of land acquired by the central government for it as far as Peka Peka (from there to Otaki adds to it) reduced the amount of land that the council collects rates on. So, the answer is to convert a lot more agricultural land to housing which has a much higher value.

In 2012 this report in the Dominion Post said that: “council forecasts predict Waikanae will continue to outpace the rest of the coast. Over the next 20 years its population is expected to grow 35 to 45 per cent, compared to 20 per cent for Kapiti overall, and it will account for 40 per cent of the district’s growth.”

The expectation was that by 2032 Waikanae will have a population of 15,000.

We said in November 2015: “As can be seen, the Waikanae North and the Maypole company subdivisions are going to add considerably to the existing number of households (about 50%) — if they are allowed to proceed as their businessmen investors want.”   As the council also wants a bigger population for the reason given, these subdivisions are certain to be allowed to proceed, although hopefully this will be with tough restrictions and caveats.

Population growth isn’t pain free: it brings more congestion and a need for more infrastructure and facilities of all kinds.  Do Waikanae people want that?  The Waikanae Beach Residents Association certainly doesn’t like the idea, but it’s what they are in for.

new housing underway currently in the Waikanae North development

This was a topic in the Waikanae by-election of 2015, but by the time of the 2016 general election it had been announced that the central government had taken control of the issue of putting fluoride in tap water. See the post from 2015.

Global Healing Center Published on Nov 16, 2015 Is fluoride bad for you? Should you be concerned about sodium fluoride being in your water or toothpaste? Learn why Sweden, Norway, Austria, Finland, China and more countries have banned fluoride. How did fluoride get approved for use in the United States and what are the health […]

via “Fluoride: Poison on Tap” Doco – Examine the Evidence for Yourself — Rangitikei Enviromental Health Watch

(thanks to a reader)

Drone views.

Smears of the most obnoxious type against Councillor David Scott [news item here – Eds] are indicative not of the councillor’s alleged wrongdoing, but of the continuing dysfunction of KCDC, despite His Worship Gurunathan being elected to end the nonsense that pervaded the prior council. There seems to be a long-running pattern of victimisation.

Questions that need asking, rather than the regurgitation of bilge, include:

1. Why was this supposedly confidential complaint leaked to the media? There were very few who knew about the matter;

2. Why did the complainant forward details of her complaint to a contractor engaged in work for KCDC that David Scott has opposed?

I know from my own experiences of two years ago, having been falsely accused of chasing a female councillor around chamber with my walking stick, in order to have me silenced, how readily a few senior staff and councillors will blatantly lie and seemingly think nothing of destroying one’s reputation to advance some agenda. His Worship Gurunathan knows this full well.

Hopefully others who have been victimised by council with lies and smears will step forward and expose what is happening. It is ironic, or perhaps predictable, that the one councillor who is known as a man of honour and integrity finds himself in this situation.

Kerry Bolton with Kathy Thomson

This sentence in this article –

“David Scott said the council was trying to force him to resign over the incident because he was the lone voice of dissent around the council table, which included voting against a pay rise for the chief executive.”

probably explains it? – Eds

The Memorial Hall was packed out for the service at 11 am — the historic hour which saw the cessation of hostilities in World War One, on 11 November 1918.

Two years ago it was the centennial of the landing at Gallipoli, October this year sees the centennial of Passchendaele in Belgium, and the campaign in Belgium’s Flanders saw many more New Zealand servicemen deaths than at Gallipoli — details.

As can be seen, in Waikanae there was a performance by the Kapiti Brass Band, and statements by VIPs including the local MP, Nathan Guy, and Mayor Guru.  For those who preferred the sunshine on the crisp and clear autumn morning, there was a loud speaker in the rose garden.

This is being held today and tomorrow (Anzac Day) and has a wide variety of themes and styles from local artists.  Sam Lewry’s very distinctive work is featured.  There is a $2 per person admission to cover the hall hire cost, surplus will be donated for restoration work on it.

While there you could walk the short distance to the beach where a new rough-sea protection wall for Paekakariki and Raumati is planned for the near future. “Build the wall” was one of Mayor Guru’s slogans from last year’s elections; like Donald Trump it seems he is getting his wall. 🙂

The Kapiti Coast Facebook page has a lot of comments about mass calls, mostly to mobiles, being made from the number shown which when answered simply result in a disconnect — the obvious expectation is that people will call it back.

The number isn’t of someone in Ewy, rather the 70 area code in Poland (country code 48) is used for premium rate services like the 0900 number in NZ where you pay the number’s holder — and we figure it’s probably a hefty amount.

Someone else reports a number in Zambia — country code 260.  As always, with anyone you are dubious about, check them out!

On Te Moana Road, just on the east side of the ‘Ewy’.  This must be about 25 metres high.

We wonder how long it would last if a certain local property businessman owned that house: his thinking would be, “that tree shades my house and will reduce the value of my property as people want all-day sun.”  Not everybody does; there are those who like trees and birds.