Guest post by Stephen Berry from Affordable Auckland
I’ll be teaming up with anti-corruption watchdog Penny Bright to organise this Saturday’s Len Brown Stand Down March: this Saturday, February 22. (Be there! It departs Britomart at noon, travelling up Queen Street to Airedale Street.)
In the 2013 election I was the third-placed candidate and Penny was fourth placed. Whatever our differences, and they are many, we are united in the importance of Brown opponents from across the spectrum to work together to unseat the Mayor – hence our support for a new Len Brown Stand Down Coalition dedicated to this happy event.
The whole purpose of the Len Brown Stand Down march has always been to create a unified coalition of those who are demanding the Mayor resign. We will probably disagree on other issues, we may even disagree on the reasons why Brown should resign. However, we are united in the opinion that Len Brown is completely unsuitable to be the Mayor of Auckland and needs to resign as soon as possible.
The coalition of Len Brown Stand Down participants are now focused on appearing at as many of Brown’s public appearances as possible and maintaining the pressure on him to quit the job. A contingent appeared at Walker Park in Point Chevalier last Thursday where the Mayor was welcoming the Broncos NRL team.
Persistence was rewarded when Len’s attempt to make a quick escape from our protests turned farcical. His car was blocked in by a Broncos’s bus parked across the exit and protestors surrounded the Mayoral vehicle while attempts were made to find the person with the keys to the Broncos’s bus. (We hope this played no part in the Brisbane boys losing their final.)
We were also joined by other Coalition members yesterday to form a welcoming committee for Len outside the Onehunga RSA. Unfortunately we, along with several groups of media, were not permitted inside the meeting. Berry wonders if Brown is trying to socially engineer future engagements to avoid being held accountable in front of audiences from now on.
Len Brown will have to keep one eye over his shoulder on Friday as Len Brown Stand Down protests follow him around more official engagements. We are adamant, and we are not going away: We will not step back until Len Brown Stands Down!”
Stephen Berry is the leader of Affordable Auckland, and was the third-placed mayoral candidate at the last election. Follow him on Facebook or contact him at Stephen.berry@affordable.org.nz.
5 comments:
We must keep repeating that the minister of local government can end this farce today.
The council governance has obviously failed: it's well past time the entire lot was replaced with a commissioner, with a brief to clean up the entire supercity mess, purge unions and labour/green stooges, and get the council back onto a sound commercial footing.
(And yes Len, that does mean selling all the swimming pools!)
Hmmmm. You need to get a grip and a day job methinks. This is a little bit stalker/obsessive.
I went over to the nines over the weekend. The Mayor was roundly booed by all and sundry in the crowd. When he went by a guy asked him, "Hey Lenny, did you tell her your loved her?" Good question.
Amit
Sure, Amit, sure. Good story, bra.
There are a lot of forces at work here to get rid of Len Brown. Each with it's own agenda of course but there is a common goal. Goodbye Quimby. A lot of effort went into this from you Stephen but with everything I read over the last few days I get the impression that the NZ Herald has decided to wield it's power. And with a stroke of their mighty pen they manipulate the public opinion once more but this time against Len. It makes me wonder if most things stand and fall by the grace of the media and what swayed the NZ Herald from dropping support?
Damn. "Goodbye Quimby" that is a great billboard to hold up. :-)
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