Wellington.Scoop
The Wellington City Council has announced four different rates increases in the last four months. Read more »

Wellington.Scoop
Derogatory, offensive, pathetic, nasty, intimidatory, threatening, gutless and spineless.

Whoa! Councillor John Morrison is angry. And why? He’s telling the DomPost what he thinks of being sent a package pointing out that the costs of Wellington’s next big roading projects would be far greater than any economic benefits. Read more »

Wellington.Scoop
by Lindsay Shelton
Unnecessary expenditure of $500,000 is being recommended to a meeting of the Wellington City Council today. This would be the cost if the council decides to review the ten-year-old Framework which governs the development of the waterfront. The expenditure is not necessary. Read more »

Wellington.Scoop
Banners telling us that we are the “coolest little capital in the world” are on display throughout the CBD. But if we’re so cool, then why are Manners Street retailers so unhappy? Read more »

Wellington.Scoop
Tui are being seen in many parts of Wellington as summer gets closer. This fat and happy pair were feeding at Otari-Wilton’s Bush.

Rata in full flower are the attraction for the tui. The photos were taken by a friend of Otari-Wilton’s Bush (its full name is the Otari Native Botanic Garden and Wilton’s Bush Reserve), who writes: Read more »

Wellington.Scoop
by Lindsay Shelton
It’s 24 years since Peter Jackson’s film-making career was kick-started, by one small cheque. He received it from the Film Commission in Wellington in November 1986. His life, as they say in summaries of movie plots, was never the same again. On the same day that he received the cheque, he resigned from his job on the Evening Post and became a full-time filmmaker. Eighteen months later, he’d completed Bad Taste, his first feature.

Last night at the Film Commission’s Ghuznee Street offices, four young film-makers also received financial support for their first features. The money isn’t a lot – $250,000 for each project – but it will launch their careers and could change their lives. Depending on the success of what they make. Read more »

Wellington.Scoop
Today’s Lonely Planet review of Wellington (“…might just be the best little capital in the world”) has to be balanced against the enormous outreach of the Lonely Planet empire.

It’s great that we’re number four on Lonely Planet’s list of the world’s top ten cities for next year. But it all depends which list you’re looking at. Go on line to check the Lonely Planet’s top picks for New Zealand, and you’ll find we are only the tenth of 15 recommendations. We’re on that list, but we are sharing it with Auckland, Napier and Rotorua, among others. And we haven’t been updated since February last year. Read more »

Wellington.Scoop
At almost the same time as Mayor Celia Wade-Brown was being sworn in last night, the Prime Minister was announcing the success of his negotiations to keep the two Hobbit movies in New Zealand. The Hobbit decision ensures the continued growth of Miramar, where Sir Peter Jackson’s activities are centred. It also means that the new mayor begins her three-year term with the surety of substantial economic activity for her city.

No doubt she’ll be initiating discussions on many levels to take advantage of last night’s $670m news. But the results of economic planning don’t come quickly. Here are 12 suggestions which could be programmed into her first 100 days. They would enable the new mayor to show that she can deliver results quickly, and they would build on the goodwill which surrounds her election. Read more »

Wellington.Scoop
Variety, the leading international entertainment newspaper, reports that as more actors sign on to “The Hobbit,” its production companies New Line and Warner Bros are leaning toward keeping the films in New Zealand. The newspaper quotes studio insiders as saying that now the actors’ boycott threat has eased, staying in New Zealand makes the most sense “because that’s where Peter Jackson shot his three Lord of the Rings films.” Read more »

Wellington.Scoop
by Lindsay Shelton
It was unprecedented when Peter Jackson made his decision to stay in Wellington instead of moving to Hollywood. Up to that time, every New Zealand filmmaker who had earned international recognition had been persuaded to move offshore. Jackson was different. Moving to Hollywood was “something I have always resisted,” he said in the mid 90s. And from his Wellington base he created three feature films which became three of the biggest international successes of all time. But now he’s saying “If we can’t make films in our own country, then what hope is there really. We may as well not live here.” Read more »

Wellington.Scoop
Council of Trade Unions president Helen Kelly doesn’t seem to approve of last night’s pro-Hobbit demonstration by film workers in central Wellington. “Richard Taylor … has obviously wound them up like springs,” she said.

Winding them up? Consider her speech at Parliament earlier in the day. “The government has turned its back on Kiwi workers and their families … the government thinks its okay to kick working people again … “ She obviously knows a thing or two about winding people up. Read more »

Wellington.Scoop
Buses were to be provided to get Wellington union members to today’s stopwork meeting (above) to protest against changes to the workplace laws. But buses won’t be needed for today’s strike by teachers. The teachers will be staying at home, like their pupils. Read more »

Wellington.Scoop
While we wait (and wait) for an explanation from Councilor Ahipene-Mercer about last week’s ill-considered complaints on behalf of his group of dissenting councilors, it’s reasonable to hope that he has been studying the code of conduct for our elected representatives. Read more »

Wellington.Scoop
by Lindsay Shelton
On the same day that Wellington elected a new mayor, the city council mailed me a summary of issues which the public thinks are most important for the central city over the next 30 years. The timing of the release was ideal – Celia Wade-Brown will be encouraged to discover how much the results of the consultation are aligned with her policies. Read more »

Wellington.Scoop
The Saturday edition of the DomPost failed to correct its fragile Friday report about councilors meeting to complain they hadn’t had a phone call from the new mayor. Instead, the newspaper repeated it. Its summary on Saturday was that “a group of six councilors were concerned” they hadn’t been contacted by the new mayor within 24 hours of her election. But Friday’s report was wrong. Read more »

Wellington.Scoop
Some Wellington city councilors made a foolish political mistake yesterday when they allowed their names to be used in a report complaining that the new mayor hadn’t yet spoken to them about the makeup of the new council. Read more »

Wellington.Scoop
Cuddly. A strange word for the DomPost to choose in this morning’s front page headline announcing that Wellington has a new mayor. Read more »

Wellington.Scoop
Cliffhanger: a melodramatic adventure serial in which each installment ends in suspense in order to interest the reader or viewer in the next installment. Or
a situation or contest of which the outcome is suspensefully uncertain up to the very last moment . . . That was the Wellington mayoral election.

But this afternoon’s announcement of Celia Wade-Brown’s victory seems to bring the long-running serial to an end. Read more »