OPINION: What a pile of busy bodies those Auckland Councillors.
Interfering, nosy, social engineering, sneering, ageing, fun-free fun police.
Auckland Council is so damn useless at the stuff they should be doing - like building consents and traffic control and moving people around the city. Instead, these tasks are given up in favour of ruining the lives of children and families who actually like to, one day a year, blow their bag of fireworks to smithereens in the backyard.
- Auckland Council votes to take fireworks ban to Government
- Auckland Council mulls ban on public sale of fireworks
- Guy Fawkes: Auckland Council readies the fire extinguisher
The councillors have voted to stop that and have asked the Government to sign it off.
Why does Councillor Cathy Casey want to ban this - because of total self and personal interest.
She has led this ban on fireworks because she has two dogs that get so upset hearing fireworks, as do other animals.
To be the lead councillor pushing a country-wide ban looks to me like total self or personal interest.
Casey says Aucklanders made their views heard but only 7000 submissions came in. There are 1.5 million people in Auckland and she labels those 7000 emails as overwhelming.
Yes the polls will probably favour a ban. But I don't. This is law making that does not acknowledge the many, many responsible people doing the right thing.
And this is not the right way to go about regulating fireworks. Auckland Council should stick to resource consents and sewage. Council is so bad at it, there is massive room for improvement.
Duncan Garner is the host of The AM Show.
