Welcome back – yes, I’ve been away, but now I’m back and so welcome back to the readers – if anyone returns with me. There are so many big stories to write about – but so few really attached to stories of Wellington. For instance, the biggest story of the year – decade – century really, is of course the hilarious battle of Dickheads going on right now.
No, not Seymour vs Peters, nor Luxon vs both of them – but of course the battle between Musk and Rusk. The formerly wealthiest man in the world vs the head of the formerly United states – now the biggest collection of fuck-ups in the universe, the president of a banana republic vs the man who has lost the most money in the history of the world.
I’m a helluva amused by just how stupid Musk can be – having bought Twitter for $40billion and tanking that, wasting most of the $40B – now is destroying the value of Tesla, formerly the world’s coolest car and now virtually worthless, as no-one will ever want to buy one again, so the company value keeps heading south, and now with his latest salvo against the Resident RumpSteak, alleging (quite correctly) that Rump is implicated in under-age sexual abuse along with Epstein, he looks set to lose his third big company down the gurgler too.
SpaceX currently has giant Nasa-funded government contracts that are fast eroding before our eyes. Could he lose it all? Sure thing! He is surely going about it the right way! From Hero to Zero. World’s biggest destruction of theoretical money. Close call between Rump’s losing money even while running a Casino. Perhaps that should be ruining a Casino. He’s the most hopeless, dumbass, pretend property developer in the history of the planet – but gets a Masters degree in pure bullshit.
Musk, on the other hand, is just a classic 14 year old ADHD boy wrapped up in the body of a pretend Adult, given control of far too much power and money. 14 year old boys like things like BMX bikes, Electric super-cars with a button labelled “insane” or “ludicrous”, Rocket-ships to Mars, and fart jokes. Plus, having sex with girls and boobs and stuff! Real grown up stuff, despite not being grown up at all. Simply put, too much money, now being all taken away from him.
All of which makes Wellington’s bureaucracy seem like a streamlined model of efficiency by comparison, a well-oiled machine of careful management and excellent planning. And so Tory Whanau comes out smelling of freshmint and cologne and not at all like the gelignite and rotting banana skins that the former USA smells like. Sure, there is a noise and a smell from people around the edges, who loudly protest about “I don’t want to spend money on a cycle way!” or also “Don’t spend my rates on the Golden Mile” – just “keep spending on drains and roads”.
However, I am intrigued to read and watch on the Herald today, that the Wellington Old Town Hall job is now moved on from being a never-ending disaster scenario and is now going well and is due to open early next year, apparently. Although I’m sure that we have not head the last of the outrageous final cost of the project – the trouble of signing off on a project that is being billed on a “no fixed price” basis. Hold onto your breath for when we eventually hear the final final cost…. There is a video on the Herald showing Minister Goldsmith, having a tour of the Wellington old Town Hall, and having a great time. Goldsmith announces that Government will give an additional $2mill, to go towards the Music School that is hidden in the building – in the basement, apparently.
Did you know about a Music School at the Old Town Hall ? In the basement? Below the floor of the Auditorium? So, no longer in a separate building in the carpark of the MFC, not on Illot Green, but in the basement, down with the base isolators and effectively underwater? Sure, so there is a recording studio down there, “for the Symphony” nominally, but apparently also some practice rooms for people who don’t mind being sub-aquatic. Sorry – it has been renamed. Not a Victoria University Music School – now it is a National Music Centre.
Secret Underwater Command Centres used to be the work of organisations like International Rescue or SMERSCH or Evil Baddies UNlimited – now, it could be the NZSO or VUW or MUSKOX. Oh how the mighty have fallen…
Great comment on the Guardian website, in a column by Arwa Mahdawi today:
“It’s worth noting that Musk, a man who reportedly foists his sperm on every woman of a certain age that he meets, has a well-documented history of calling other people sex offenders. The self-sabotage probably started when he called the British cave explorer Vernon Unsworth a “pedo guy” in 2018, without any justification, after Unsworth helped rescue 12 boys trapped in a Thai cave. Musk, in case you had forgotten, had made a lot of noise about how he was going to rescue the kids with a very special little submarine. He did not, in fact, rescue any children and Unsworth hurt the billionaire’s feelings when he suggested Musk “stick his submarine where it hurts”.”
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jun/05/trump-musk-fight-fallout
It was probably just the first sign that Musk was less Tony Stark and more Justin Hammer. We don’t need to impose retaliatory tariffs, when we can just keep driving Ioniqs & Hiluxes instead of Teslas & F-150s, and shop at AliExpress instead of Amazon. As of typing this, Little Orange Hands has sent the National Guard into Los Angeles, in an attempt to make an example of “Commiefornia” for resisting no-knock deportations without due process conceivably being done by pardoned Jan 6 insurgents.
The irony of Rump praising and then pardoning the Jan 6 insurgents, versus the immediate calling out of the National Guard and now the Marines – for some stupid rock hurling and squad car firings from the young firebrands in Cali – that’s how Dictators roll ! But hopefully within 4 years, or less, there will be a massive Cicil War uprising, and the torching and destruction of Mar El Lago… and the hanging / decapitation of the Orange Blovoid in Chief. Nothing less will be too good for him…!
A comment on http://www.interest.co.nz that peels behind the headline, and finds….nothing much really.
“Every media outlet is reporting it and the subsequent huge dive in the ‘value’ of Tesla stock. -US$152 bln in one day. A great headline, and true. But we should also note that the price TSLA closed at on the Nasdaq US$284.70, is the same it was on May 8, 2025, February 27, 2025, and November 6, 2024. It’s down sharply, but since November 6 it has risen to US$480 at one point, and a US$220 low at another.”
Also, The Dollop Podcast did a fantastic. look behind the curtain at the Orange Blusterfuck.
Episode 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mx85YaGBA8M
Episode 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Il8_0VIaAzA
For the town hall I read construction complete in July of next year, and 15 million under the most recent excessive budget: https://wellington.govt.nz/news-and-events/news-and-information/our-wellington/2025/03/town-hall-annex-proposal
“So, the basement has a stream running through it..”
“Great! Lets put something in there which is a large open void that needs to be watertight, how about a music practice room”
“Cool! Rates money is a neverending supply, Let’s piss it up against the wall!”
We don’t need the US to supply us with any extra stupidity, we have the homegrown supply running amok
Mind you, American stupidity has a tendency to contain copious amounts of lead and depleted uranium.
“Not a Victoria University Music School – now it is a National Music Centre.”
Its always been the National Music Centre, – it was just the Uni were going to co-locate their music school nearby (until the Uni ran out of money)
All of the provided images came from this 2023 NZSO release (no doubt re heated for the invited media last week)
https://www.nzso.co.nz/the-nzso/about-us/news/new-recording-studios-for-the-wellington-town-hall
Yeah that picture showing all the shoring required directly above the basement rooms is what we in the industry call “a clue”
A clue that fixing it will either cost a lot of money or
fall over in the next shake
Probably both
It reminds me of that annexe thingy the council stuck on to join the library to the council buildings which lasted maybe 10 years?
However long it lasted, ratepayers footed the bill for putting it up and demo-ing it – because putting something solid up in the air between two buildings that move around in an earthquake was another great idea
Putting something big, open and wobbly (town hall) up requires solid ground and when you discover a stream running through shitty old ex-beachfront pebbles and sand it is time for sensible people to put the kibosh on your fancy big open playroom and stick it somewhere cheaper
Yes they will say it is under budget, my point is that it was a waste of money to start with
At this stage the only question I have is what do the French say when they get deja-vu?
Something about temps perdu?
The Portico, as it was known, linked the library to the former CAB building. It was built in 1992 and demolished in 2014.
Thanks ChrisH
15 years
If I proposed a large building and asked the council to sign off on it I believe the standard is 50 years?
Yet these eedjits blow our money on vanity projects and get taxpayers to pay for it twice, once to put it up and to take it down again
Honestly these people couldn’t find their own bums with both hands if you switched the light off
When the Council proposed that they were going to demolish the Portico, because of its earthquake prone nature, one concerned architecture-lover contacted me to see if I would support a campaign to keep it.
I would not. I did not. I do not like it Sam I Am, I do not like black Portico sham. I do not like over there, I do not like it on a chair. I do not want a Civic Square decorated with a blackness floating in thin air.
And so down it came.
Well prepared to be either vexed or pleased that the MFC could be heading for the landfill. I used to watch it bigger each day as I rode past it on the bus on the way to school back in the early 1980s when it was being constructed. There was an interesting briefing to the WCC last week about Civic Square and all that surrounds and things don’t look fantastic. Worth watching…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYwXTna8HAc
Medium Density is back
https://www.interest.co.nz/property/133754/housing-minister-chris-bishop-has-brought-back-blanket-medium-density-rules-most
I find this all really confusing, and I suspect much of the public does too. The article you link to above (thanks 60) says:
“This means housing developers in Tauranga, Hamilton, and Wellington will be free to build medium-density homes almost anywhere in these cities. The compulsory MDRS is back, except in Auckland and Christchurch which have been given exemptions.”
“Auckland will be allowed to withdraw its incomplete housing plan, called PC78, which stalled after the Anniversary Weekend floods as the council was not legally permitted to downzone hazard-prone areas.”
“It will instead have until October 10 to draw up a bespoke housing plan which focuses on significantly upzoning around public transport links, such as the soon-to-open City Rail Link.”
Now, significantly upzoning near City Rail Links. I can understand. Makes perfect sense. But not being allowed to “down zone hazard prone areas” is surely just ludicrously silly?
And so onto Wellington. We have no City Rail Link. We have no Light Rail, because central government and local gov combined to fuck it all up. We do have some character areas, heavily fought over, but in saying that now we have MDRS everywhere, does that mean EVERYWHERE? It mainly seems to be happening in the Hutt and in Porirua. And a tiny bit in Island Bay. But how can we get it happening in Wellington itself ?
If anything, surplus office buildings in central Wellington that haven’t been red-stickered could be retrofitted for residential use. Way better than get-back-to-the-office directives.