Here’s how you carry out a takeover of local government. It is a six-step process to deliver communism at the local government level.

Step 1:  Exaggerate any minor local issues and say it is a “crisis”.  A localised water quality issue in, say, Havelock North, for example.

Step 2: Place huge additional demands on local authorities. Tell them that they must come up with plans to handle climate change,

and tsunamis,

and intensification of cities,

and changing roading to public transport, walking and cycling only

and that they need to improve rubbish collection and waste going to landfills

Anything will do: just demand that they have massive, new, invented responsibilities.

Step 3:  Tell them that you have conducted studies that show that they have massive problems with a lack of diversity, bullying cultures, systemic racism and homophobia, and that teaching Te Reo is now their most important priority.

Step 4: When you have forced them to take on huge additional staff, tell them that their costs are too high, and that they aren’t efficient enough anymore. When you have made them all run around in circles trying to do what you told them to do, tell them that they are too disorganised.

Step 5:  Produce a report saying that the councils are clearly unable to do their job: they aren’t diverse enough, they are over-staffed, they are disorganised, there are so many new invented “crises” that you can’t count them and the only way to sort this out is for the government to amalgamate them.

Step 6:  Congratulations, you have graduated in Communism 101.

Please share this article so others can discover The BFD.

As much at home writing editorials as being the subject of them, Cam has won awards, including the Canon Media Award for his work on the Len Brown/Bevan Chuang story. When he’s not creating the news,...