An amazing bit of reporting from the NZ Herald this morning especially given the cultural background of the journalist involved.

Yvonne Tahana is almost good enough to be a blogger in the work she has put into uncovering the wild unsubstantiated claims made by Pita Sharples about the number of people who visited the $2 million dollar tax payer funded waka on the Auckland water front.

Sharples recently put out a press release claiming the waka was even more successful than predicted and was now projected to attract over 250,000 visitors.

Yvonne’s article in a politely subdued manner, makes mince meat of Sharple’s propaganda-

Technically, this appears possible. The visiting rate – which equates to more than 60 people a minute – would have visitors pass through a completely filled waka in 10 minutes.

Turning over the whole waka every 10 minutes for a week sounds a challenge, but it is more than possible for a visitor to get through the small space in that time.

The queues into the waka can accommodate at least five people abreast, meaning a row of five people passing through every five seconds is enough.

Yesterday, 1015 people entered the waka in the half-hour between 12.48pm and 1.18pm, a rate of 0.6 people a second. At a busy time on a brilliantly sunny day, the waka saw only a fraction the required number of people.

The waka has been a cronyist rip off of the NZ taxpayer from day one with allegations of special treatment in the tendering process, and John Key donating $300,000 to kick the project off from the Prime Minister’s departmental budget.

How Key can escape censure for such an obvious misappropriation of taxpayer’s money is another example of the gross cronyism and corruption that occurs when socialist politicians (like Key) intermingle with money grubbing racist opportunists like Pita Sharples and his supporters.

If politicians were subject to proper legal scrutiny, Key should have been prosecuted and fired for that “donation”.

Congratulations to Yvonne Tahana for some real reporting. A rare event in that socialist rag the NZ Herald.