Wednesday, 16 July 2008

A disjointed (and shortsighted) DCC

Have just had a few newspaper articles given to me from the Otago Daily Times. (unusually one of the few newspapers in NZ that you can't access online without a subscription...)

It seems the DCC do not all share the same views on whether their attitude to shut out communication from ENSOC and UCSA was a wise one. A number of councillors were quoted this week saying they do not agree with pushing the Undie 500 'underground'. It looks like the DCC is going to implement a blanket alcohol ban across north dunedin for the whole month of August. This will be combined with a massive police contingent from all around the SI over some weekends in August. (at considerable cost to the taxpayer??)

The liquor ban was greeted by a comment by one councillor in the paper that he was not happy about the nanny state being created and "telling cirtizens when and how to bruth their teeth".

There was a general regret (from some councillors) that the DCC has not engaged in a 'constructive' solution to the issues raised by the Undie 500 in 2007. It is crazy that they would prefer to let a random young person, accountable to no-one but themselves, run an underground event, particularly after the scope and effforts of proposals and solutions put on the table by ENSOC/UCSA. Now none of us know what is planned and what will happen - we can just hope that all students obey the law because by the sounds of it - half of the SI police will be coming down hard on anyone who doesn't.

2 comments:

Deborah Fitchett said...

Re the Otago Daily Times - the UoC library lists it on the catalogue with two web links: the first goes to the ODT website. If you can't find the full text there of what you're looking for, the second link goes to Factiva, which lets you search the ODT (and all sorts of other news sources) back to 2002. The interface is a bit clunky but it's very useful if you need to look up news articles a lot, and any librarian will be happy to show you how it works (drop me an email if you're interested!)

The library also has pages on newspapers and NZ newspapers.

Amy said...

The ODT recently relaunched its website, which has gone from spectacularly crap to pleasingly adequate - most article now available online.