Last week the Tāmaki Makaurau local elections concluded, seeing an overall shift to the centre right exemplified by the landslide win of Wayne Brown.
This was largely due to an overrepresentation of older, upper-class people in the vote, a symptom of incredibly low voter turnouts across the board.
Many people criticised the accessibility of local election voting, with minister for local democracy Nania Mahuta being one of many who didn’t receive their papers in the mail.
In our regular City Counselling segment, we’ve had a chat with Shane Henderson, who has recently been re-elected to the Waitakere ward seat about the elections and his upcoming goals.
Auckland's current council term has now properly begun, with councillors being sworn in and beginning to set the groundwork for the next three years.
This includes the swearing in of new Deputy Mayor Delsey Simpson, who has made clear that she and mayor Wayne Brown have some differences in council approaches they’ll need to work through.
Waitakere Ward Councillor Shane Henderson has previously worked with Simpson, so for today's City Counselling segment Liam and Shane had a chat about what she could bring to Tamaki Makaurau.
They also spoke about the mass delays affecting Auckland's Western Train Line, and internet coverage in the outer western ranges.
Various criticisms have been levied at the level of infrastructure funding available in West Auckland, especially when compared to other areas in Tamaki Makaurau.
This comes after continuous issues with the western line train services, which are being consistently cancelled for repairs without a substantive bus system to replace it.
There’s also bee chat about delays in building a new complex in the North West of Auckland, which has been in talks for years but faced various delays.
To learn more about what the council is doing to curb these issues, Liam spoke to Shane Henderson, the councillor for the Waitakere Ward.
Frances speaks to Shona Tawhiao who has a new show opening at Te Uru Waitakere Contemporary Gallery and to Mags Delaney-Moffatt from Pumphouse Theatre about their Creative Talks evenings
Liam chats to Thomas Barrer from Õtautahi’s Fnife Games about their queer indie game 'Small Town Emo'.
And of course, your local arts guide for Tāmaki Makaurau over the next week. Get amongst it!
Happening tonight at UoA’s Unleash Space, Kiwijam will be taking Aotearoa’s new and experienced game developers, designers and artists through a whirlwind 48 hours to bring a project from start to finish. This is the events tenth - ish anniversary, and it’s first taking place in Whāngarei as well as Ōtautahi, Ōtepoti, Te-Whanganui-a-tara, and of course Tāmaki Makaurau. I had a yarn with the Auckland organiser Zac about the game jam, it’s history, and how folks can get involved.
Nicholas to Youth Support Coordinator Sarah Candler, about the Kids N Gigs initiative. An initiative that aims to provide live music experiences to at-risk youth.
Beth speaks to co-directors of the Upstairs Art Gallery, Carlos Toalii and Tatiana Harper, about the Footprint exhibition.
Nicholas also speaks to Esa-Jayne Peika and Anna Tukuitonga, two niuean performers, who will be performing as a part of this weekend’s Pasifika festival at MOTAT.
To end the show, Beth speaks to Are Sundnes, CEO at Hyper Games, about a new game; Snufkin: Melody of Moominvalley.
On May 4th, China celebrated the 100th anniversary of the May 4 Movement - a student-led demonstration that protested foreign imperialism, an authocratic and incompetent government, and asked for "democracy" and "science".
China has changed a lot in the past 100 years, and so has the meaning of the Movement. Producer Lisa Boudet tells us why.
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