It looks like the government wants to appoint former National Prime Minister Jenny Shipley as dictator of Canterbury.
This is what National does: abolishes local democracy to hand power to their cronies. They're being more subtle in Auckland, using stacked government-appointed boards to make the real decisions while maintaining a charade of democracy through an elected mayor and council who won't have the power to do anything. But in Canterbury, they're being far more blatant about it. The people of Canterbury keep voting for environmental protection at the expense of National's farmer-donors - and so they'll have their vote taken off them and a dictator appointed to make the "right" decisions. This is no different from what Bainimarama is doing in Fiji. And it should be regarded in exactly the same way.
