Mayor Judd favours doing things by halves – and he wants all of NZ to accept his power-sharing model

And then I have this idea of putting all council seats aside for the tangata whenua…

About two months ago, the Mayor of New Plymouth was getting kudos from the Maori Party – and no doubt from lots of other Maori leaders – for acknowledging that our indigenous persons are special and should be given special treatment.

His council had just voted for a Maori ward by seven votes to six.

But he was getting plenty of stick, too, from folks who had the temerity to be miffed at the Mayor’s tinkering with their democratic structure (and doing it on the strength of a very close vote)..

One councillor – a true democrat – had the balls to oppose the move and resigned in protest.

The mayor, Andrew Judd, showed troubling signs of being confused about what he was up to.

Equality arguments in the Mojo matter are worthy of a hearing – from all sides

Did Alf hear correctly?

An important point here is that some people have difficulties in the hearing department, and Alf senses he might have to include himself as one of these as he gets older.

What he heard while munching on his toast – he thinks – was an ardent lobbyist blatting on Morning Report about extra funding being needed for a deaf MP to be accorded equitable treatment. Or equal treatment. Of something like that.

He is fascinated by the logic.

We are all equal – right?

But some people need more money for extra help than others require to do the same job. Public money, let it be noted.

This is a variant of that thing in Animal Farm about all animals being equal but some are more equal than others.