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There seems to be a lull going on here.
I will charge into the gap with my pet non-event :
The campaign is in full swing. The election is in two weeks. The nation’s soul is at stake.
You are not likely to read about it in the papers. The problem is, the political situation here is no less complex than, say, the presidential election in Indonesia, but the whole thing is about two orders of magnitude less important. We are a small country, and the election campaign in New Zealand is unlikely to merit more than two paragraphs anywhere else in the world. And since there is nothing much you can explain in two paragraphs, the sub-editor will quite likely cut it out completely.
There are a number of things that make the electoral process here interesting. Firstly, the nature of the electoral system itself : a hybrid of territorial and proportional representation which is, as far as I know, unique, and arguably the world’s most democratic.
Secondly, the variety of political parties in presence, and the certainty that no single party will have a majority, makes for some interesting horse trading.
Thirdly, the genuine bafflement and disillusion of the electors, ant the relative newness of the electoral system, mean that there is a high proportion of undecided voters, and therefore a high degree of uncertainty as to the outcome.
And lastly, this election represents the country’s last chance to save its soul, to recapture the values that I grew up with, that I thought were defining elements of what a New Zealander is, and that have fallen by the wayside over the last fifteen years.
I will try to keep up a diary over the next three weeks, recording notable events of the campaign and of the formation of the resulting government, while filling in a bit of detail as to the history, the parties, the personalities, and perhaps some self-indulgent anecdotes from my own days of active political involvement.
2. IrvingSnodgrass - 11/13/1999 8:01:38 AM
Alistair:
I look forward to your reports. Please tell all, and spare none of the gory details.
3. alistairconnor - 11/13/1999 8:59:35 AM
Gory Detail of the day :
The New Zealand First party (comical name, comical leader, comical party) have illustrated, yet again, the downside of proportional representation. Winston Peters, populist centrist demagogue, had stacked his party list (of which probably the first ten or twelve will be elected) with fresh new faces, leaving several loyal sitting MPs by the wayside, howling with rage.
One of these bright new things turns out to be in serious trouble with the tax department. She hadn't bothered to tell the party. It's too late to withdraw her candidature, poor old Winston has to go through the election then resign her.
The wondrous electoral system is called MMP (don't ask me what it stands for). It is a hybrid system, in which half of MPs are elected in territorial electorates, and the other half are taken from party lists according to each party's share of the vote.
This is only the second election under the new system. Popular feeling against this system has been running high, mainly due to the antics of Winston Peters. I think, on the whole, the system will be a good one when it settles down.
Since the 1930s, and until 1996, New Zealand had been governed alternately by Labour and National (conservative) governments. There was no law against third parties, but no hope of representation either.
The ructions which came out of the right-wing economic policies applied by the Labour government of the eighties, led to the birth of two new parties, both by schisms in the Labour party.
One, representing traditional Labour values and economic options, called itself New Labour (no, Tony Blair didn't invent the name, and they wouldn't have had him in the party).
The other, formed by those whose hard-right economic options had thrown the Labour party, and the country, into disarray and decline, is called ACT (don't ask me what that stands for either).
These two parties are now the prospective coalition partners for Labour and National respectively. But the odds are not good for either of these two groupings to get a majority.
The new MMP system was brought into disrepute by Peters' NZF party, who held the balance of power after the last election in 1996. He obliged the two main parties to engage in a bidding war that lasted a couple of months, before a government could be formed. He had campaigned against the National govermnent, and was expected to coalesce with Labour, but they could not stomach his demands, nor the prospect of being held to ransom by him for three years. He became Deputy Prime Minister in Jenny Shipley's National government.
Halfway through the parliamentary term, Winston engineered a showdown and walked out of government. But Shipley pulled a fast one - she bought off half of his MPs with Cabinet posts and other blandishments, and split his party in two. She managed to retain a bare one-vote majority, and see out her three year term.
4. alistairconnor - 11/13/1999 9:47:38 AM
So the forces in presence are:
On the far right - ACT, presided by Sir Roger Douglas, whose economic policies, known as "Rogernomics", have transformed the country over the past 15 years as radically as Thatcher transformed Britain. The party leader is the barking mad Richard Prebble. Back in 1983, Prebble and I were both in the Labour Party, and I served on his electorate committee, a very conservative and tightly controlled outfit. On any issue that mattered, I generally found myself in a minority of two, along with Margaret Wilson, who was at that time Labour Party president... of whom more later perhaps.
On the centre right - but the whole political spectrum has shifted to the right in the past fifteen years - the National Party. In power for nine years now, and looking very tired.
All over the place, but schematically in the centre - Winston Peters' NZ First party. Nobody would dream of forming a coalition with him this time, so Winston, making a virtue of necessity, has announced that he will sit on the cross benches and vote on a case by case basis. Both major blocs are praying that he won't hold the balance of power this time.
5. RickNelson - 11/13/1999 9:56:57 AM
alistair,
This is excellent. I'm sorry my post, stuck in the middle so to speak. Please keep it up, this is all new for me. I've wondered what Kiwi's were up to. A few years ago, I started watching for news of NZ and find just about nothing here. Once I saw a travel brochure, the pictures are so panaramic, I know a visit would be visually exciting.
I also will be interested in the people. What is happening with the natives? I know there have been concerns because I've read that on my browses in native concerns pages. But, I've nothing recent and have nothing of substance. You know I'm a curious pluck with regard to natives. Well, being off your topic I will not expect a response, but if you get ready some day, I'll be waiting.
6. alistairconnor - 11/13/1999 10:08:12 AM
On the centre left - the Labour Party, chastened by nine years in opposition, and purged of its right wing elements; put purged of its soul too.
Further left - the Alliance. Basically the New Labour party which has absorbed another couple of small parties. Positioning itself as "the heart of a new Labour government".
And finally - the Greens. They have three MPs in the outgoing parliament, elected on the Alliance list. They are running this time under their own colours, but will coalesce with Labour and the Alliance if required.
Rick, there is plenty to say about Maori on this subject. Proportional representation has been an opportunity for Maori to make their voice heard, and they have certainly done that.
I will certainly write more on this subject, but I'm going to bed now.
7. PelleNilsson - 11/13/1999 2:05:46 PM
Posts have not been deleted. The gap springs from my ineptitude in moving posts.
*some numerical corrections have been made during archiving
8. pseudoerasmus - 11/13/1999 2:17:17 PM
By the way, you may not believe it, but you are one of my favourite prose stylists of the Fray/Mote. No one writes a better sardonic turn of phrase.
9. SnowOwl - 11/13/1999 4:04:37 PM
On the centre left - the Labour Party, chastened by nine years in opposition, and purged of its right wing elements; put purged of its soul too.
Come on, Alistair, the image makers efforts to turn Michael Cullen into a latter day Michael Joseph Savage haven't changed his political stripe. The right wing elements are still there, although I'll give you that they're not as strong.
10. SnowOwl - 11/13/1999 4:23:54 PM
A brief explanation of MMP (Mixed Member Proportional - the same system as used in Germany).
Each voter gets 2 votes, one for his/her constituent member and one for the party of their choice. The 60 constituent seats are allocated on a first past the post system, the candidate who wins a plurality of the votes gets the seat. Once the constituency seats are allocated, all party votes are counted. The percentage of the total list votes that each party gets is calculated. To get list seats a party must do one of two things. They must either win one or more constituency seats or gain more than 5% of the total party vote. All parties which fail to meet this threshold have their votes eliminated and the percentages of the remaining party votes are renormalised. Now each party's allotment of the 120 total seats in Parliament is calculated. This is equal to the percentage of the renormalised party vote multiplied by 120. Fractional seats are allocated by the Saint-Legue method.
Each party's representation in Parliament then consists of the members from constituency seats the party has won, topped up with members from the party's list.
If a party has won more constituency seats than the total allotment of seats that the party vote would give them we have what is known as electoral overhang. Basically, those extra members increase the size of the Parliament and are not counted against the party percentage.
That is, theoretically the size of our Parliament could be as big as 180 seats, although this is exceedingly unlikely.
11. MrSocko - 11/13/1999 7:03:42 PM
For all Connor's chin-in-hand analysis, the fact remains that the New Zealand political spectrum in New Zealand is for the most part much of a muchness. He talks about "far right" parties, but no such groupings exist as they do, say, in Europe. The same is true of the so-called far left: Alliance, an ad hoc collection of leftish brands, is basically an old-fashioned welfare statist entity. It can in no sense be described as seriously or radically left-wing.
New Zealand politics is almost always an ineffably dull affair, one that to the outside eye must resemble nothing so much as an arcane family video in which the nuances of character and plot are invisible to all but those most closely involved. And when local pols reach out to the world, trying to make something larger of themselves and their messages, the effect becomes even worse. To wit, a recent article here from The Christian Science Monitor.
12. MrSocko - 11/13/1999 7:39:35 PM
... I await the tedious screeds on New Zealand Maoris, who usually are no more than one-eighth Polynesian, and why the polity will not be at peace in the antipodes until every last one of them has a government-funded motor vehicle.
13. alistairconnor - 11/14/1999 4:20:02 AM
Snow, I grant you that Cullen is a conservative, and will make an orthodox treasurer. But I love him, for he is one of the few who attempted to stand up to the Douglas/Prebble gang in the eighties. Also for his cruel wit.
Thanks to our resident Judaeo-Christian political scientist for linking a somewhat insubstantial article... But fancy quoting such a nonentity as columnist Russell Brown?!
14. alistairconnor - 11/14/1999 4:21:47 AM
Today I at last got around to meeting my local Greens. At a meet-the-candidates brunch, I got to know our Auckland Central parliamentary hopeful, a dreadlocked Rastafarian by the name of Todor Takacz (insert accents where appropriate). He is also the head of the Wild Greens faction, an undisciplined bunch known for commando actions against plantations of genetically engineered potatoes and the like. Needless to say, we got on like a house on fire.
Also discussed tactics with the candidate for Titirangi, the place I grew up in. My feeling was that the seat should be an easy victory for Labour; he predicts a close race. On learning that my mother is on the Labour candidate's campaign committee, he asked me to pass on any indications I could glean about Labour's evaluation of their chances in the seat. The Labour candidate has asked him for an endorsement, a sort of "vote for the Labour candidate, but for the Green list" message to Green supporters. This he feels reluctant to do, but he would feel terrible if he brought about the defeat of the Labour man, who we agree is an excellent candidate.
Having run out of leaflets to deliver to letterboxes in my neighbourhood, I asked around insistently; of course, nobody had any. The Greens campaign is excruciatingly, maddeningly low-key. I evaluate the potential national support at 10%, if we could only get the message across. I would be delighted if we achieved half of that on polling day.
15. alistairconnor - 11/14/1999 4:22:51 AM
I also had an entertaining conversation with an authentic tree-hugger, who achieved national fame a couple of weeks ago by being ejected for heckling from the National Party's campaign launch. He had been fairly brutally manhandled by a National Party member of parliament, against whom he has laid a complaint. All of this was filmed, but not broadcast, by national television. The question now is, will the police lay charges against the MP before the election? That would be wonderful. And if not, would that be due to political interference? What about due process, indispensable ingredient of democracy? Interference is possible at two levels : the state-owned television network could be encouraged to be slow in releasing the film to the police, and the police could be instructed to have more important things to do over the next couple of weeks.
Notwithstanding any such interference, it's quite likely nothing will come of it anyway; the police are chronically overworked, demoralised and understaffed, as we learned to our cost when we were burgled a couple of weeks ago; and the sergeant who is in charge of the case is about to take a week off work to study for exams.
16. stostosto - 11/14/1999 5:15:50 AM
alistair
Are you campaigning for the Greens, but formerly for Labour. (Just to get the facts straight).
How can an episode of an MP manhandling anyone be 'filmed, but not broadcast'? I think that would be unthinkable here as in most western democracies, ripe with sensation driven media. Quite another thing is whether such evidence would be handed over to the police. We have a case here at the moment regarding the riots I told about last week; the police had a judge issue a warrant for all photographs taken and all TV and video footage shot that night. But this has been overturned by another judge, and the media anyway refuse to comply.
17. alistairconnor - 11/14/1999 5:50:19 AM
To begin to appreciate the profound insularity of New Zealanders, truly a defining characteristic of the national psyche, you really have to go back 130 million years. New Zealand was the first land mass to break away from the primeval mother continent of Gondwanaland, which makes the country a living botanical and zoological museum of species which once covered the earth's land masses but since have disappeared from every other continent.
For example, I learned recently that amber, the highly prized fossilized resin that has been found in many parts of the world, in particular in high concentration around the Baltic, is nothing other than... kauri gum. The kauri tree agathis australis, capable of living two thousand years, is something of a national emblem, and second only in size and age (I believe) to the Californian sequoia. The kauri secretes protective resin when damaged. This is amber. The presence of amber elsewhere in the world -- practically everywhere, it seems - indicates that forests of agathis were once present on all continents, but were displaced by more recently emerging species everywhere else but here.
Of course, such archaic survivances are an embarrassment to those who wish NZ to take its place in the global economy. This is undoubtedly why they are so keen to destroy the last remnants of virgin native forests by commercial logging.
18. alistairconnor - 11/14/1999 5:54:30 AM
All in good time, my dear Sto... I intend to intersperse and discurse until it all falls into place. But in short, yes, formerly Labour, now green.
19. cmboyce - 11/14/1999 1:26:04 PM
Nice looking thread, Alistair.
What about Socko's representation of the NZ political gamut as running from, say, K-Q? (forgive the misinterpretation, Mr. Socko, if you meant L-O or F-U).
20. alistairconnor - 11/14/1999 5:04:09 PM
The news this morning is good.
The Greens seem assured of winning an electorate seat, thus obviating the need to pass the 5% threshold, and quite possibly will hold the balance of power in the incoming parliament.
Any electoral system has its perversities. This news will undoubtedly drive up the Green party vote, as potential supporters are assured their vote will not be wasted, and it will quite likely reach the 5% mark after all...
21. alistairconnor - 11/14/1999 5:59:38 PM
Boyce, I am a bit puzzled about Socko's assertion of a narrow political spectrum.
Admittedly, the left hand side is pretty threadbare, what with the shift of the whole spectrum - the Alliance would be lukewarm social democrats in any European context - but he is dead wrong about the far right. ACT is unlike the European far right in that it does not have explicitly racist policies or historical links with Nazism; but on the economic and social policy front they are way out on the loony fringe.
This is not readily apparent from looking at their web site; they love to keep their real agenda, not actually secret, but out of the public eye.
22. alistairconnor - 11/14/1999 6:13:15 PM
For example, they are in favour of a voucher system for schools, and will be pushing for its implementation if they and National get a majority, but they are not advertising this, because they know that New Zealanders would throw up their hands in horror at the idea. They nearly succeeded in getting legislation through the current parliament to begin privatizing the country's road network; but you won't find any trace of that either.
Another example : their arts policy. A journalist checked with the party's arts spokesperson, and corroborated his information from other party sources, then asked barking-mad ACT leader Richard Prebble if it was true that ACT would suppress all Government arts funding, apart from heritage stuff.
Prebble blew a fuse, repeatedly called the journalist a liar, grabbed his microphone, tried to turn his tape recorder off and started to storm out of the room... before he realized that the interview was taking place in his own office.
Needless to say, the ACT arts policy is being hurriedly re-written.
23. MrSocko - 11/14/1999 8:08:55 PM
Note to all: the New Zealand party known as ACT (Association of Consumers & Taxpayers) could easily fit as moderate Republicans or conservative Dems. Connor's problem is that he dislikes the leader, and so smears the party with a meaningless "far-right" tag, which carries a totally misleading connotation for Europeans and Americans. (I doubt that a party merely advocating lower government spending and less arts funding for idiot creative types would be reckoned to be fascist in any locale outside of Connor's head.) It amazes me how somebody so well traveled can so quickly turn provincial upon returning to the antipodes.
24. alistairconnor - 11/14/1999 9:17:55 PM
Toejam, refresh my memory, name two or three countries which don't do public funding of the arts?
While you're at it, name two or three political parties, excluding parties of the extreme right, which have such a policy?
ACT advocates no arts funding. Not less arts funding. Prebble was caught out contradicting his party's stated policy on this, because he happened to be addressing a convention on the arts, in the electorate he is contesting, which is heavily infested with arty types. Good luck to him.
25. alistairconnor - 11/14/1999 9:20:36 PM
Perhaps while you're at it, Toejam, you could provide a list of conservative Democrats or moderate Republicans who advocate a voucher system for schools? A list of countries which has implemented this moderate proposals? US states? Anything?
Political parties, or countries which have considered privatizing the road network and introducing satellite tracking of cars to bill motorists? All eminently moderate stuff.
26. pseudoerasmus - 11/14/1999 10:57:50 PM
...survivances...
Good Frenchism. Should be used more often.
27. MrSocko - 11/14/1999 11:26:13 PM
Message # 25:
You clearly know little about the US education system, which is not administered by the federal government. So your question is meaningless. As is your use of the smear "far right" to describe a political party against funding the arts by way of the Consolidated Fund. (The ACT group isn't even against all arts funding by the government, only the living arts. Good for them.)
Let me say it again: the ACT Party would in America be considered centrist. Your sojourn in Europe has evidently robbed you of any useful perspective when it comes to assessing how parties in the New World figure in the conventional political specturm.
28. MrSocko - 11/14/1999 11:28:22 PM
I can't imagine any non-New Zealander having the slightest interest in this discussion. Connor manages to make the country appear even more provincial and hickish than it already is.
29. alistairconnor - 11/14/1999 11:51:31 PM
Um, sorry Socko, I never indicated that I believed the US federal government administered education. I asked for a list of US states that had implemented a voucher system ? Counties perhaps? Moderate politicians who advocate such a thing? Don't want to answer, eh?
Why on earth is "far right" a smear, rather than simply descriptive, other than in your head? Tell me what you associate it with? (or tell your psychiatrist perhaps).
And as for your cultural cringe -- poor little insignificant New Zealand -- I'm afraid you're beyond even psychiatric help on that.
30. alistairconnor - 11/15/1999 12:22:49 AM
... and in any case, as long as you and I are enjoying the discussion, who cares about the rest of the world?
As for New World political parties, I will probably talk about Australia a bit, as it gives a handy point of comparison, and as I don't know much about the USA.
31. alistairconnor - 11/15/1999 12:37:33 AM
The ACT group isn't even against all arts funding by the government, only the living arts. Good for them.
Fine, you subscribe to their view that the only good artist is a dead artist. What I find confusing about this is I can't really see what's so special about dead artists, and why they deserve my support, as a taxpayer.
Prebble shares this view with far right politicians around the world. Why, I remember having a discussion about this very subject with Stumbo a few weeks ago. The Front National would have no problem with this, but there are other parts of ACT's policies that would make Jean-Marie Le Pen's hair stand on end, and have him running to the barricades to defend the French Republic.
32. alistairconnor - 11/15/1999 6:01:23 AM
Sto; How can an episode of an MP manhandling anyone be 'filmed, but not broadcast'? I think that would be unthinkable here as in most western democracies, ripe with sensation driven media.
Well, I'm not really qualified to comment, as I rarely watch the TV news or even read a paper, outside election times - In fact I would like to get Socko's view on this - but my gut feeling is that in spite of a bit of surface bluster - interviewers being rude to politicians - the news media are really pretty subservient and docile in this country. Easily cowed. It's a very small goldfish bowl.
An example : David Jacobs, a documentary film maker, made a documentary for television exploring the issues surrounding chemical vs organic horticulture. He was told, by state-owned television, that the program was too political -- it has never been screened on TV here as a result -- and that he would have to choose whether he wanted to be a politician or a film maker. He is a candidate for Labour in this election.
33. alistairconnor - 11/15/1999 6:10:47 AM
"Interesting Fact" of the day:
Of the six main political parties, three are led by women; these include the incumbent Prime Minister and her probable successor.
"Local Colour" of the day:
The husband of the Green Party leader challenges the Prime Minister's husband to a sheep-shearing competition.
34. MrSocko - 11/15/1999 7:02:27 AM
Message # 29:
I can't give you a list of American states that have instituted a voucher system. I do know that the American system -- systems, if you will --has a great deal of variety. If, say, one lived in DC, then one would almost certainly seek private education for one's children; the public school system there sucks. Cross over the border into Maryland, however, and it's a different story. The public schools there are generally very good. (These realities have little to do with public policy. The reasons are far more complex.)
I fail to see what's so "far right" about vouchers, or any other system of public education, if the scheme fits the needs and circumstances of a majority of the inhabitants of a particular area or country. The idea that parents ought to be able to choose where the education votes goes, in terms of their own offspring, could in many cases be a useful one. There's no holy grail when it comes to this issue, you know.
WRT public funding of the arts: In general, I believe this is a bad use of funds by a government. It doesn't really benefit societies -- or put another way, the social dividend is minimal. Arts funding bodies tend to shell out money to their pals and patrons, which would be fine, I suppose, except it's not their money that's been given out. The real innovators and outsiders rarely get a look-in. For all of these reasons, and more, I'm opposed to the idea.
You call mine an extreme right wing position; your view only reveals the pitiful standard of political discourse in the antipodes,
35. RickNelson - 11/15/1999 8:23:09 AM
So, what are the party platforms this election? Vouchers?
Check out this link http://queststar.net/webb/choice/ see what you think? Sorry it's not coded, I'm rushing now.
The link has a Kiwi link at the end.
Ciao.
36. marjoribanks - 11/15/1999 12:27:04 PM
Very nice subthread, AC.
But where are the pictures, the maps, the charts and graphs? Why, if it were my subthread, it'd be full of gifs.
37. PelleNilsson - 11/15/1999 2:36:17 PM
alistair
I've introduced a slight amendment in the news heading in order to keep up everybody's interest in the thread.
And don't you dare to use your superior powers to re-amend it!
38. alistairconnor - 11/15/1999 5:18:56 PM
Well, one could argue that the USA's lack of any sort of national standard or system with respect to education is an anomaly, it certainly is an international oddity insofar as the education system is a strongly defining characteristic of any nation. Is America a nation?
Perhaps the variability, or non-normativity(?) of American education is a strength. For America. But what earthly relevance, or use, could it be for a nation of less than four million people?
The whole idea of breaking down any trace of national standards in education, which is already in progress, and which a
voucher system would push to its logical conclusion, runs counter to the values this young nation was founded on.
My thesis in this thread, insofar as I will ever get around to actually developing one, is that New Zealand has/had a whole bunch of
defining national characteristics, strengths/weaknesses/idiosyncracies/idiocies, whatever, that are in the process of being bulldozed away, to be replaced by ... what?
39. alistairconnor - 11/15/1999 5:23:46 PM
Well, Marj, I have linked web sites for the principal political parties, plus a news feed, and I have also linked the official election day site. I believe this will provide on-line results in real time, on election day (Saturday 27th). Mark it in your diaries... From approx. 8 am GMT, when the polls close, I will try to provide a bit of running commentary. The results should be fairly clear by about noon GMT, unless it's a real cliff hanger.
As for charts, gifs etc, I will have a go when the fancy takes me.
40. alistairConnor - 11/15/1999 11:09:05 PM
You want gifs? I'll give you gifs...
41. alistairConnor - 11/16/1999 12:48:08 AM
Rick, as you can imagine, your link does not tell the whole story about school in New Zealand.
A tale of two schools
When we arrived back in NZ a year ago, we had a choice of two schools. Isn't choice wonderful? Well actually we could have gone further afield, but two within walking distance. We chose the one my sister's daughter goes to. It is also the closest.
It's a very successful school, under the new competitive model. It has doubled in size over the past few years, they keep adding classrooms. Things will get interesting next year, when they reach their maximum size, and they will have to start turning people away. On what criteria? I don't know.
The other school turns out to be a loser in the new scheme of things, a school for losers. Its roll has halved over the same period, a large number of its classrooms are empty. Apparently it had a principal who wasn't up to the job, and not enough resources to stop the downward spiral. Anyway, large numbers of parents pulled their kids out, mostly to send them to our school.
Our neighbourhood has historically had a higher proportion of Maori and Pacific Island people than the national average, I would guess at about 25%, and they tend to have larger families than most. Interestingly enough, the kids who have stayed on at the losers' school are overwhelmingly of these origins. Whereas at our school, they number perhaps 10%.
Well, why don't these people just pull themselves up by their bootstraps, eh? The reasons are fairly obvious....
42. alistairconnor - 11/16/1999 5:16:55 AM
Well, not that obvious perhaps. My feeling is that those who are pulling their kids out are the motivated parents, those who are likely to be actively involved in their child's education, those who are more likely to have a higher than average educational level themselves. The actual difference, or even the perceived difference, between the two schools does not have to be very great at the start, as long as there are a certain number of parents prepared to make the shift. For example, if it's a fashionable thing to do.
But once the downward spiral starts, how do you stop it? The school, which has autonomy in hiring and firing, and a budget determined by its roll, has less resources every year, and has ever increasing difficulty hiring or keeping good teachers. The school governors, volunteers elected by parents, are likely to be continually depleted because the more motivated and able people will be quite likely to move on to another school with their children. They are less likely to be in a position to raise money to supplement the school's shrinking resources, than those who are leaving.
Those children who are left are likely to be those whose parents take a more passive attitude to education, who have, for example, cultural or language differences with the school system... and so the spiral continues.
In fact, that school now has a new principal, a bunch of new, motivated teachers, excellent results in reducing violence and improving educational attainment, and they are really turning things around. How did they do this? A triumph of the new system, everything turns out fine in the end?
Well, not exactly. Massive intervention by the central education authority is what happened, over the heads of the competent authorities as defined by the new, competitive system. They pumped in extra resources to help out the losers. They were obliged to, because the new system simply doesn't work.
43. alistairconnor - 11/16/1999 5:23:11 AM
You want Gifs? phase II:
44. alistairconnor - 11/16/1999 6:01:16 AM
That graph should update itself daily. The three or four different brands of opinion polls are giving wildly different results, some having National and Labour neck and neck, and others giving Labour a ten-point lead. The sample in this one is small - a hundred voters questioned per day, and the points on the graph are a five-day rolling average. So the margin of error is huge; but the trends are interesting.
45. alistairconnor - 11/16/1999 6:01:48 AM
A mildly amusing parody of ACT's site
These people -- Dr Prebble and his (far) right-hand man, Mr Hyde --really inspire a lot of hate. David Jacobs, the documentary maker I mentioned in #32, who is running against Hyde in the conservative Epsom electorate, has lost the plot a bit, and publicly called them fascists today. The third man in the Epsom race, National candidate Richard Worth, apparently agrees.
46. alistairconnor - 11/17/1999 5:53:05 AM
47. alistairconnor - 11/17/1999 6:02:03 AM
This world view ignores the fact that the other locations where goods and services are produced and consumed regard themselves as nations. Terribly wrong-headed of them, but there it is. The shocking truth of the matter is, Australian consumers will buy an Australian product in preference to a New Zealand, Thai or Indian product, all things being equal. Japanese or American governments will erect tariff barriers to keep out New Zealand's agricultural produce, to prevent their citizens from making rational economic decisions.
It's all so terribly, terribly unfair, it must make Mr Prebble and Mrs Shipley weep bitter tears of frustration.
48. alistairconnor - 11/17/1999 6:26:46 AM
New Zealand's economy, at least in its phases of success and expansion, has always been driven by state participation. It is hard to see what other model could have worked, given the special circumstances of small population, distance from other economic centres, and lack of capital. From the 1860s onwards, successive governments have raised loans overseas in order to develop infrastructure, and to help industries and farmers make productive investments. And it's a model that worked pretty well for a hundred years : by the 1960s, New Zealand had a standard of living among the highest in the world, on a largely pastoral economic base.
It is fashionable to say that before 1984, New Zealand had one of the world's most regulated economies outside the Communist bloc. In fact, what had happened was that, in the vital period in the 70s and early 80s when the government should have been leading the economy out of dependence on pastoral production which had lost much of its market value, the country was governed by a control freak, a small-minded accountant who micro-managed every aspect of the economy, and of society, personally.
49. alistairconnor - 11/17/1999 7:23:21 AM
How we hated that man. How carefully he incited and manipulated our hate. The left doesn't like nuclear weapons? Well, we'll ask our friends the Americans to send us a nuclear warship from time to time. It's a bit out of their way, but they will do it to oblige us. The left doesn't like apartheid? We'll ask the rugby union to bring the all-white Springboks here on a tour, in election year.
So we threw him out. Gee, it felt good. That was in 1984.
The incoming Labour government had to do something about the economy. In retrospect, I wonder what that should have been? In any case, a small clique within the party knew what it wanted to do.
50. Candide - 11/17/1999 8:59:57 PM
alistairconnor
Your thread is wonderful. I was raised in New Zealand and imbibed the egalitarian character with my school milk. My family supports ACT which is a source of anguish to me.
I am hanging on your words. Keep up the tremendous work.
Could you please explain the educational "vouchers"?
I grew up in Palmerston North although my father's family were early settlers of Southland. I have to admit that my schools (apart from a brief sojourn in a genteel Anglican Prep school for a school my parents couldn't afford), were lousy. My brother's High School seems to have been excellent. I suppose I'm saying that the egalitarian thing was a bit of a myth in practice and in small towns boys in those days had the advantage.
But I still fervently believe that a good education is every child's birthright. I got that attitude in New Zealand didn't I?
If I lived there now I'd support the Greens and or the Alliance.
51. alistairconnor - 11/17/1999 11:03:52 PM
Will Georgina Beyer become the world's first transsexual member of parliament next week? 
Or has that honour already been taken, in another country? Does anybody know?
She is high enough on Labour's national list to be assured of a seat, but she is looking increasingly likely to win her electorate, a rural seat, and a former National stronghold. She is in her second term as mayor of the small town of Carterton.
52. alistairconnor - 11/17/1999 11:15:12 PM
Candide, I love your moniker. Please, some more comments of the expatriate's view. Where are you living now? When did you leave? I'm an expatriate myself, fundamentally... Doubly in fact.
Palmerston North... that's practically Georgina Beyer country. I suppose there are a lot of positive things that have happened in the past couple of decades; tolerance, generosity and mutual acceptance are genuine New Zealand virtues, in spite of the best efforts of the new right, and now of the education system, to turn us into self-seeking mercenaries.
53. pseudoerasmus - 11/17/1999 11:44:30 PM
by the 1960s, New Zealand had a standard of living among the highest in the world, on a largely pastoral economic base
Actually, NZ's standard of living peaked around 1945, when it had the highest per capita income in the industrial world. It's been a steady (relative) decline since then.
54. alistairconnor - 11/18/1999 12:01:55 AM
You mean, a higher per capita income than any country in the industrial world...
55. Candide - 11/18/1999 3:08:34 AM
alistairconnor and pseudoerasmus
Both of you made good points.
There is no doubt that New Zealand prospered by selling saturated fats and proteins to Britain during and after the war. That was when its per capita income peaked.
But 'standard of living' is another thing. It has to do with contentment and enjoyment of life.
I left New Zealand, I had studied and lived in Christchurch, at the start of the 1960s and travelled by sea to Britain where I was appalled by the lack of joy in the London suburbs. I worked there as did my husband, and finally, for health reasons and just a pining for sunlight, we left for Sydney when an opportunity presented itself.
I have never again found a society as socially cohesive and generous as the New Zealand I left. There was much of the same to admire in Britain. My work frequently took me touring throughout the industrial north and it occurred to me then that only the welfare state made it fit for humans.
Perhaps it's naive to expect that established fraternal feeling to last in either New Zealand or Australia, but its loss is not measuable, except in sadness and a new officially sponsored unkindness.
When I realised how the environment had been savaged by European settlers (Gerald Durrell talked about it when he visited NZ many years ago) I became alarmed. I wrote letters, and received replies, to Walter Nash about the flooding of Lake Manapouri. I left shortly after that, but I have always challenged the Tasmanian claim to have originated the environmental movement. Good luck in the forthcoming elections. New Zealand needs you.
56. pseudoerasmus - 11/18/1999 4:38:03 AM
I don't know what's so hard about what I said: in world rankings, NZ GDP per capita peaked in 1945. It's been a downhill slide since then. NZ growth was no higher in the 1945-86 period than in the 1986-99 period.
57. MrSocko - 11/18/1999 6:52:15 AM
Candide appears to be aged somewhere aroud 83.
58. MrSocko - 11/18/1999 6:53:34 AM
Connor: Do you actually think anybody is interested in all of this guff? Don't you think you could do better than standing in as the Alliance's one-man version of Pravda?
59. Candide - 11/18/1999 7:12:54 AM
Much younger I assure you MrSocko.
I don't see why pseudoerasmus feels that he was in any way contradicted.
I haven't claimed that life in New Zealand was flawless. Many of us with specific talents had to leave New Zealand early in order to fulfil ourselves, but we also found, when we arrived in the Big World, that the competition was not frightening. One advantage of a small population is that talents are given an opportunity to grow in any forum that is available in their area of work. That's true today. That's why "Once Were Warriors" could look the world in the eye.
When New Zealanders of my generation arrived in the United Kingdom we discovered that our peers in that country had not shared the same opportunities and the competition though considerable, was not annihilating. Still, a country with three million people will always be inadequate for many individuals.
The point now is what priorities are New Zealanders going to choose?
Is MrSocko a yuppie who puts holidays in France before a secure life in the home country? I hope he can deal with maturity once it arrives.
I am not advocating a return to the past. Just a measured look at the realities of the geographic and social situation.
60. RickNelson - 11/18/1999 7:27:10 AM
Socko,
Well, I'm reading it. Not knowing is probably not going to have huge impact upon me. Knowing is making for good reading in that I get to understand some other culture a tad bit better. I have a feeling that any of the moties who read this have not been exposed to the NZ side of life before. So, I want all of this to carry on and expand too. I keep waiting to read paragraphs of insight from you. No obligation Socko, but speaking for myself, I've been expecting it.
61. robertjayb - 11/18/1999 10:41:02 AM
.
Beginning with Message # 41 this tread is displaying
too wide for my screen and there is no butterscotch
bar.
Grump.
62. robertjayb - 11/18/1999 10:44:21 AM
.
Except for my Message # 61 above.
Double grump.
63. pseudoerasmus - 11/18/1999 11:57:58 AM
I just love these kiwi punch fests. Can we have more inter-kiwi fights?
64. Candide - 11/18/1999 3:31:33 PM
The late Colin McCahon was a New Zealand painter who concentrated his personal 'vision' in the small population set in a frighteningly beautiful landscape and largely isolated from the rest of the world. The isolation created a curiosity that increased New Zealanders' awareness of other places.
His paintings are now considered to be some of the most intense and original works pained this century. He had a bitterly impoverished life for many years. He was forced to work as a travelling salesman until in the 1950s he received recognition from a small group of admirers and was employed as a curator at the Auckland Art Gallery.
Now that he's dead, his work has been the centre of dramatic robberies. People who bought his work during his earlier days find themselves unable to afford the necessary insurance.
The ACT party's proposal to deny assistance to living painters probably stems from the philistine idea that suffering is good for artists. It's never been thought to be good for accountants or bank managers.
65. alistairconnor - 11/18/1999 3:45:14 PM
Personally, I'm going to ignore el Yuppo Socko until he posts something substantive I can sink my teeth into.
But on to more substantive subjects...
Just take a look at the polls!
If those numbers were reflected in the election night results in eight days' time, well, let's say I could live with it.
66. alistairconnor - 11/18/1999 3:54:13 PM
The above poll gives the Greens over 5%, and a clear centre-left majority without Winston's Me First party.
This poll tells the same story but puts the Greens much lower.
In any case, it all depends on how you massage the data. Surely they are not unprofessional enough to publish the raw results?
67. SnowOwl - 11/18/1999 4:05:20 PM
Perhaps the flooding in Central will push the Greens up a little. There's a lot of anger in Alex over the silting of the Roxburgh dams which is seen as responsible for this, the third severe flooding they've experienced in 5 years.
68. alistairconnor - 11/18/1999 4:12:35 PM
Candide, I had been cogitating a whole series of posts about the origins of the Greens, starting with that Save Manapouri campaign. In the late 60s/early 70s, the government decided to raise the level of a large lake, thereby destroying a huge area of virgin native rainforest, to generate electricity. The campaign to save the lake kicked off a whole bunch of stuff, including the formation of (?) the world's first environmentalist political party, the Values Party. I had a friend who wrote a thesis on the subject (we parted ways during bitter political infighting in the youth wing of the Labour party. After an abortive attempt to launch a right wing environmentalist party a few years back, he was last heard of trying to get a place on the National Party's list. Steve, if you're out there, you're a scumbag.)
So you see, you've got a lot to answer for, Candide...
Irony : Are you aware of the flooding in the South Island lakes area? Lakes Whakatipu, Te Anau, Hauroko etc are metres above their usual level after a week of torrential rains. Water in the streets of Alexandra, Queenstown etc.
69. alistairconnor - 11/18/1999 4:16:30 PM
Cross-post, Snow... Yes, that's an excellent point. I imagine that the work on de-silting etc doesn't enter into the generator's cash-flow model. I want to have a hack at describing the fiasco of the privatisation of New Zealand's electricity industry if I get the time. It makes my skin crawl, particularly the way the rivers and lakes are effectively privatized under the terms of the contracts of sale of the hydro generating plant.
70. PelleNilsson - 11/18/1999 4:41:09 PM
PE
NZ GDP per capita peaked in 1945. It's been a downhill slide since then.
So NZ is a poorer country now than in 1945?
71. PelleNilsson - 11/18/1999 4:44:06 PM
MrSocko's moniker must have been stolen by some grumpy old fellow.
72. MrSocko - 11/18/1999 5:09:45 PM
What's so grumpy about me suggesting that Candide is 83?
For all we know, she may even be older.
In fact, on the basis of her Message # 64, I would hazard that she considerably older. I mean, really, how can anyone, except an aged and sad person, or perhaps a NZ Treasury economist, take seriously the proposition that Colin McCahon was a serious painter deserving of "support" from the government.
She tells us, with spurious dignity, that McCahon's work rates as "one of the most intense and original" of the century.
Item: Colin McCahon used as his technique the simple and sole expedient of spraypainting Bible verses onto black canvas. That's all.
Only in a terminally backward little village such as New Zealand could such a fraud ever by doxologified by critics and the simple-minded public. The idea that this clown, or future clowns like him, are owed a tax-funded living, must rate as the last word in antipodean foolishness.
73. alistairconnor - 11/18/1999 5:34:33 PM
(Yaaaaaaaawn.....)
Pelle, the Pseud is only pointing out that New Zealand's world ranking for standard of living has declined. The standard of living itself has kept slowly creeping up since then.
That is, the mean standard of living. The defining characteristic of the past 15 years in New Zealand has been the ballooning of both extremes, the upper decile becoming very rich, and the lower decile very poor, starting from a very narrow spread. The decay of an egalitarian society.
74. Candide - 11/18/1999 5:47:48 PM
MrSocko's stupid outpouring against the internationally recognised painter, the late Colin McCahon, (who was a great deal older than I was when I knew him) gives me an opportunity to correct an error in my earlier post.
It was Sir Tosswill Woollaston who worked as a travelling salesman. Colin McCahon worked as a manufacturer of costume jewellery and then as a gardener.
MrSocko has clearly seen little of McCahon's work from the ignorant stereotype he presents. There is a Cezanne-like structure and intensity in many middle-period McCahons, and later he became more of a mood poet. And I'm talking structure, not words.
Agreed, grants to artists tend to be given to friends of friends. I think they should be few in number and that they should undergo a rigorous process.
I would be interested to hear MrSocko's summation of the works of Rouault, or of the collage cubist period of Picasso.
I recently was sorrowfully forced to sell a McCahon of the Titirangi period and was thus able to purchase a new car, have a new bathroom built, have two skylights put in the ceiling of my livingroom and have the house painted. So Mr Socko is out of step with the art-buying community.
It is in the United States that Colin McCahon's name is held in the highest esteem.
I should tell AlistairConnor and MrSocko that when MrSocko was an angel in the sky, I wrote, from London, a letter to Mr Holyoake saying that it embarrassed me as a New Zealander in London, that the New Zealand troops were fighting in Vietnam. Mr Holyoake replied (his secretary more likely) that he was afraid that they could not allow their foreign policy to be shaped by my social life.
The floods in Queenstown are nightly on Australian television.
Please AlistairConnor, tell us about the privatisation of the electricity supply. That sounds really interesting.
75. SnowOwl - 11/18/1999 6:52:35 PM
The notion that NZ was an egalitarian society is a bit of a myth anyway. The gap between rich and poor has certainly become a lot wider over the past few years but NZ was a stratified society long before 1984.
76. Candide - 11/18/1999 7:13:18 PM
Arundhati Roy the Indian writer, recently said that although an egalitarian society was an impossibility and did not exist, all decent societies should always strive towards egalitarianism.
77. alistairConnor - 11/18/1999 9:57:59 PM
Exactly... there was once a consensus about that striving. Now, on the contrary, we officially glorify inequality.
--------------------
It's difficult to escape a feeling of elation today. The fact that the Greens have been attributed a score over that mechanical threshold of 5% in an opinion poll is nothing in itself, but the public perception is another matter. The actual percentage on polling day could turn out quite a bit higher, as people now will have a high level of confidence that a Green vote is not a wasted vote.
In any case, Jeanette FitzSimmons is looking more and more certain of winning her electorate of Coromandel. This is a rural region with probably the country's highest proportion of "alternative lifestylers" (or hippies, freaks and weirdos if you prefer), but they couldn't possibly constitute more than 10 to 15% of the electorate. She will win because the locals like her. Also because she has collapsed the Labour vote.
National is panicking at this prospect, rolling out the pork barrel and sending in the big guns. This is backfiring beautifully - the Greens have invited Mrs Shipley to come back there whenever she likes, because she is boosting their campaign considerably. The locals are justifiably a bit sceptical about promises to upgrade their local hospital, for example, after nine years of neglect. Especially as National won't be around to deliver.
78. fred - 11/18/1999 10:16:52 PM
The sad fact is that the (white) New Zealand project is over. Nobody wants to buy fat from nz since the 70s. We have tried various options- plan a, borrowing lots of money to build very large machines. Unfortunately by the time the machines were built, nobody wanted what they made, so plan b. Take money from poor people and give it to rich people. Because they would build factories to export things, unfortunately they spent the money on beemers and holidays in Tuscany. So we are now in the position that the bnz economist announced ( Monday herald) that because of our balance of payment crisis, nz will have major currency crisis in 5-10 years. I.e. because we think we are still living in the first world the banks are going to have to teach as a lesson. Man the lifeboats
79. Candide - 11/19/1999 12:26:34 AM
To keep this fine show on the road until someone better joins in, and I hope that they will, here is a quote from a real old fogey, George Bernard Shaw as quoted in the 'Auckland Star on 15 March 1934:
"You have no business to let New Zealand remain dependent on what you amusingly call the Home market, or any other overseas market. The real home market for New Zealand is the North Island plus the South ... Keep your wool on your own backs; harness your own water power, get your fertilising nitrates from your own air; develop your own manufactures and eat your own food; and you can snap your fingers at Britain's follies."
Later he said:"What you have to do in these islands is to eat your own butter and to see that everybody in New Zealand has plenty of butter to his bread. When you have reached this point, stop producing butter and produce something else.
(A voice): 'What?'
Shaw : "Start producing brains perhaps."
(quoted from 'Heinemann Dictionary of NZ Quotations')
This was before saturated fat was a no-no and before saying "his" bread looked peculiar.
AlistairConnor, something I have wanted to know: when land is used to grow export produce for Japan or any other place, is the land sold to the foreign producer or is it leased as is the practice I believe in the Czech Republic?
80. MrSocko - 11/19/1999 2:23:21 AM
Message # 74
So Mr Socko is out of step with the art-buying community.
Is this supposed to be a compliment or insult? "Art-buying communities" anywhere in the world tend to be populated largely by businessmen in diapers. That tends to be doubly the case with antipodeans, who, as is well known, are vulgar farming types.
It is in the United States that Colin McCahon's name is held in the highest esteem.
Rubbish.
I recently was sorrowfully forced to sell a McCahon of the Titirangi period and was thus able to purchase a new car, have a new bathroom built, have two skylights put in the ceiling of my livingroom and have the house painted.
You never mentioend the fact that you're a skateboarder resident in a trailer park. A woman in her late 80s ought to be able to do so much better.
81. Candide - 11/19/1999 3:40:11 AM
MrSocko
I do hope that you are not a New Zealander. With such a small population that would be a sad diminution of quality.
82. Candide - 11/19/1999 3:46:14 AM
MrSocko
Tell us all about yourself. Where do you live? Where did you go to school, assuming that you did, and what are your political views and why are they your political views?
What are your interests? Do you read books? If so, which books?
Give us something constructive.
83. PelleNilsson - 11/19/1999 4:50:27 AM
If a New Zealander is an antipodean, what am I? A podean?
84. PelleNilsson - 11/19/1999 5:44:47 AM
Or a propodean?
Quiz (not open for antipodeans): Which European city is closest to being exactly opposite Wellington?
85. Candide - 11/19/1999 6:18:33 AM
"Is this supposed to be a compliment or insult?" (To be out of step with art-buying public).
Depends whether you're an impoverished painter or a company wanker.
It is in the United States that Colin McCahon's name is held in the
highest esteem.
"Rubbish"
Nope. Fact.
"You never mentioend the fact that you're a skateboarder resident in
a trailer park. A woman in her late 80s ought to be able to do so
much better."
And I did! I traded the skateboard for a mechanised wheelchair.
Come on Sockums. Spit the dummy. Tell us what you want, apart from putting the boot into pensioners.
86. Candide - 11/19/1999 6:24:40 AM
Fred
There is a certain elegant NZ designed and manufactured dishwasher that is generally considered to be the state of the art in its field. I have been told that it now is being manufactured in the USA and is considered the best in the market.
New Zealand can do that sort of thing. It lacks Sweden's geographic advantage, but it has similar people and a strong work ethic.
87. MrSocko - 11/19/1999 8:25:24 AM
Candide:
I fail to see the point of your Message # 82. If you really must know, the most recent books I've read are Evelyn Waugh's Black Mischief (again), a biography of the poet-singer Patti Smith, the Krugman collection of essays ( Accidental Theorist) and a terrific anthology of H. L. Mencken's writing edited by Marion Rodgers. (Pseudoerasmus, as you may already have noticed is this forum's sub-Menckenian poster.)
My political views are generally conservative.
I am a New Zealander.
I hate Colin McCahon.
Pelle:
I would hazard that Wellington's sister city is somewhere in Spain -- perhaps Madrid?
88. PelleNilsson - 11/19/1999 1:21:46 PM
Very good, Socko. I made it out to be Valladolid, just a bit north-east of Madrid.
89. Candide - 11/19/1999 4:02:13 PM
MrSocko like a typical conservative, has cheated.
Antipodeans were asked not to take part in the Quiz
I grew up knowing the answer and tried to dig my way through to Spain quite a few times when a child. (Last century.)
H.L. Mencken eh?
What is your personal definition of a conservative? What general developments for New Zealand would you prefer? How do you see New Zealand's future?
What do you plan to 'conserve'? Apart from personal wealth that is.
Leaving aside your artistic judgement, you will be surprised to learn that had I lived in New Zealand in recent years my own judgement may have become clouded about McCahon because of the over-promoting and nationalism associated with this painter.
When you are as ancient and decrepit as I am you may be able to become more detached and realise he is actually very good and is more harmed than helped by his fan club.
In my experience it has always been the habit of the verbally prolix but non-visually gifted, to establish their credentials with the masses by laughing at visual work they don't understand. And that includes some art critics.
.
90. Candide - 11/19/1999 6:22:36 PM
MrSocko
In return, I too admire Evelyn Waugh and reread him frequently. I have just reread Richard Dawkins's 'River Out of Eden'. Recently reread "Midnight in Sicily' by Peter Robb, 'Bosnian Chronicle' by Ivo Andric and "The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Phillip 11" by Fernand Braudel.
I am NOT a conservative. At least I am, but in the true sense of the word being in pidgin 'no bugger-up'.
Seriously, there are huge economic and social tidal changes in the world and AlistairConnor has stated a serious fact - New Zealand is geographically distant from large markets. This doesn't mean that trade is impossible but others may get in first. New Zealand got in first in Europe and Asia, before Australia, according to my limited knowledge.
Another fact stated by AlistairConnor, New Zealand has been brutalised environmentally by our ancestors, and I do include Maori burning of forests in this statement.
What do propose should be done, starting from where you now find yourself?
Which party do you consider most likely to achieve the results that you want or at worst, to do the least harm?
These are fair questions to ask from one's deathbed sonny.
91. alistairconnor - 11/19/1999 9:57:25 PM
Candide, it may interest you to know that I just saw 
Tame Iti,
the guy brokered the deal to return the stolen McCahon Urewera mural, campaigning at the Grey Lynn Fair this morning. He is a candidate in my electorate, for the Mana Maori movement, a hastily cobbled-together bunch of opportunists, as far as I can see... but who am I to understand these things.
I imagine you know the story : the mural was stolen by Tuhoe activist 
Te Kaha, to mark a political point of some sort. Tame Iti got it back, in the process becoming an "intimate friend" of arts patroness Jenny Gibbs - they were seen on the Cote d'Azur together - and Te Kaha was sentenced to community service in the Auckland Art Gallery...
Another recent Tame Iti venture was the launching of an up-market Maori restaurant, serving all sorts of ancestral delicacies revisited by cuisine nouvelle. It flopped.
92. Candide - 11/19/1999 10:42:05 PM
Alistair Connor
Thank you for those stories. It is very funny.
Isn't it awful how easily all of us can be bought. There was a huge spread about the whole saga in one of the Australian weekend newspaper magazine supplements, including the jaunt to the opera.
I didn't mean to turn this thread into a discussion about the merits of different painters, but I think there is a lot of political content not only in this story, but in the way New Zealand painters helped to form New Zealand's idea of who it is.
I am a friend of painters who were very involved in the anti-nuclear small boats' movement. The ones who went out in their tiny kit-set boats and confronted the huge war ships that came into Auckland harbour. You will know the people about whom I am speaking. I was not a seafarer myself but I have been buzzed by military helicopters above Mrs Macquarie's chair by Sydney harbour.
Americans will never understand how we felt early in the grey dawn as the nuclear armed ships with sailors neatly lined up around their decks, came into our harbours.
I was of course aware of the power failure in Auckland. And the water shortage.
Have you heard this anecdote about the recent tragic British rail disaster.
On a BBC news broadcast, an ex-manager of the ex-British Rail said that before privatisation, a similar event would have been immediately investigated by consulting forensic experts in order to pinpoint the cause of the disaster and normally it would be solved rapidly.
There was another British rail disaster two years ago that was still unsolved at the time of the interview. The reasons were: the rails belonged to one company, the signals belonged to another company, the engine belonged to yet another company and THEY ALL HAVE LAWYERS.
I thought that point may be of some service.
93. alistairconnor - 11/19/1999 10:51:34 PM
"Man the lifeboats" Fred? Defeatist swine.
The sad fact is, people of my age group, mid thirties to mid forties, skilled and qualified people who are the lifeblood of the economy, see no reason to believe in a better future here and are leaving the country in droves.
It's pretty traditional to leave the country at age 20, to see the world (most often, the Sydney beaches or the inside of a London pub), but most come home after a year or two. Some, like Candide, or like me, stay away; but this has always been a small proportion.
But in recent years, there has been this abandon-ship mentality setting in. Part of it is purely economic - New Zealanders have always had better prospects of pay and professional advancement elsewhere; but there is also a sense of loss; the feeling that this is no longer the ideal place to bring up one's children; not only of a broken-backed economy, but of a dream destroyed.
94. alistairconnor - 11/19/1999 11:11:08 PM
I ran across an intriguing article in the paper the other day : the New Zealand workforce is hugely under-qualified. I was well aware of this problem, but I had no idea the numbers were so appalling. Unfortunately, the on-line version of the article lacks the graphs, but I will summarize them.
| Finland | 160 |
| Sweden | 120 |
| Japan | 100 |
| United States | 80 |
| Australia | 60 |
| New Zealand | 20 |
| Japan | 8% |
| Finland | 5% |
| Australia | 3% |
| United States | 2% |
| New Zealand | 0.5% |
95. alistairconnor - 11/19/1999 11:12:51 PM
#58 : Socko, I was going to recommend a chiropractor to correct your cultural cringe, but I fear you will need orthopaedic surgery. I hope you have private health insurance.
96. Candide - 11/20/1999 2:39:08 AM
AlistairConnor
What about tertiary institutions for training people in these skills? Are those university departments falling off as well?
New Zealand is reputed to lead the world in structuring buildings for earthquake stress. How was this possible in such an environment? Surely fire-engineers (was that their description?) would be part of that?
Is lack of funding the main reason for this statistic?
97. Candide - 11/20/1999 3:21:34 AM
MrSocko I have reread the whole thread and your views are clearer to me now.
Basically ACT now, pay later. Or perhaps you don't favour any party exclusively. But you must understand something about ACT.
Could you tell us what sort of society you think ACT wants? I have gathered it's a no-government-interference philosophy.
What is ACT's policy about housing for those who fall through the net?
Capital punishment?
Health?
Education? I don't understand what "vouchers" are or how they would be used. There have been mutterings about them in Australia but only from the most radical groups.
If MrSocko can't tell us could AlistairConnor help out? I realise that US citizens know already.
98. SnowOwl - 11/20/1999 3:28:44 AM
Goodness, I didn't realise we were supposed to provide our credentials in order to post on this thread. Since, however, I fail to see what our reading habits or admiration of particular artists has to do with the coming elections I'm not going to post mine.
Two of my children live overseas and are likely to remain living abroad permanently. The reasons have nothing to do with any dreams destroyed, they are purely economic and/or career motivated. One is a molecular biologist who works in a very small and specialised field. There is simply no work for him in New Zealand. The other is a fairly recently qualified doctor who owes the IRD something like $70,000 in student loans. That's a fairly hefty debt burden for a 24 year old, and since I thought the manner in which loans were introduced was despicable I have no shame in encouraging him in his decision to remain abroad.
99. SnowOwl - 11/20/1999 3:36:07 AM
Candide, if you are really interested in educational vouchers do a search and you'll find plenty of information on the Net, including the results of research done in places where a voucher system has been trialled.
Briefly, under a voucher system, parents are given "vouchers" to pay for education at the school of their choice. Theoretically, this puts choice into the hands of the consumer of education. Good schools will naturally attract more students, poor schools will either have to enhance their performance or will fail and close. Of course, this doesn't take into account that schools will in fact be able to pick and choose the students they will take from the applicants. Nor does it take into account the other factors that form part of school choice, ease of access for example.
100. Candide - 11/20/1999 3:48:36 AM
SnowOwl
I only asked MrSocko about his general cultural preferences after he had been fairly uppity about a dead painter who really is widely esteemed internationally, no matter what MrSocko may believe. This was in relation to financial aid for the arts. It got out of hand.
Your children do you credit. In Australia students not lucky enough to have rich parents are deeply in debt after graduation. This is still a shock to a country that had become used to Gough Whitlam's free access to tertiary education.
I have no children and don't work in the field of education so I had only been dimly aware of "vouchers". I wonder do schools that cater for children with special problems get included in this all over levelling process? They would have fewer pupils. Or are there no such schools?
101. SnowOwl - 11/20/1999 4:58:01 AM
Candide,
I'm a New Zealander and I'm well aware of who Colin McCahon is.
There are very few, if any, schools for children with special needs these days. Most such children have been mainstreamed, under the guise that education in the mainstream is beneficial for these children, although the reality is that it is a cheaper option than providing specialised schools and what we've ended up with is a situation of maindumping. Mainstreaming can only work when extra resources are made available to support the teacher, and these resources have been sadly lacking in our schools.
As I understand it, under most proposed voucher systems, extra vouchers would be provided to parents of children with special needs to enable them to purchase the extra resources those children need.
However, given that voucher systems tend to put power of choice into the schools (rather than the consumers as claimed), it would surprise me if schools would readily accept many children with special needs.
102. Candide - 11/20/1999 5:58:57 AM
SnowOwl
I never doubted for a minute that you knew who C.M was.
I suppose New Zealand is joining the Australian pattern where middleclass parents opt for private education and the state schools are left floundering.
You say there are no destroyed dreams. Presumably you have lived in New Zealand throughout the changes and the boiling frog principle will have acclimatised you to changes.
As an expatriate I have no right to dreams. I have a curiosity about the state of the land of my birth.
103. Candide - 11/20/1999 6:28:05 AM
I raise this in all temerity.
Are any New Zealand politicians proposing amalgamation with Australia? I understand that the Australian constitution has a provision for that to occur. The barriers are probably insuperable. The problems it would cause probably outweigh any economic advantages gained.
I am aware of the tremendous sensitivities involved in this. I am not advocating it. I know that the idea is raised every now and then and election time is a likely moment.
104. alistairconnor - 11/20/1999 7:07:20 AM
For our propodean readers:
Before discussing political union with Australia, it might be helpful to explain the nature of New Zealanders' feelings for their big trans-Tasman brothers.
When Australia played France in the recent Rugby world cup final, 90% of New Zealanders were fervently backing France. Heck, they would have backed Satan's Invitation XV against the Wallabies.
How do Canadians feel about their southern neighbours? How enthusiastic would they feel about amalgamation with the USA? Is my analogy any good?
Here's a joke that might help. This is alleged to be a letter sent to the agony column of a New Zealand newspaper.
105. alistairconnor - 11/20/1999 7:09:38 AM
Letter found in a" Personal Problems" advice column - From Gavin of
Wellington, NZ.
I am a sailor in the New Zealand Navy. My parents live in the suburb of Seatoun and one of my sisters, who lives in Palmerston North, is married to an Australian. My Father and Mother have recently been arrested for growing and selling marijuana and are currently dependent on my two sisters, who are prostitutes in Auckland. I have two brothers, one who is currently serving a non-parole life sentence in Mt. Eden Prison, Auckland, for the rape & murder of a teenage boy in 1994, the other currently being held in the Wellington remand centre on charges of incest with his three children. I have recently become engaged to marry a former Thai prostitute who lives in Christchurch and indeed is still a part time "working girl" in a brothel, however, her time there is limited as she has recently been infected with an STD. We intend to marry as soon as possible, i.e. when she turns 16 and are currently looking into the possibility of opening our own brothel with my fiancee utilizing her knowledge of the industry working as the manager. I am hoping my two sisters would be interested in joining our team. Although I would prefer them not to prostitute themselves, it would at least get them off the streets and hopefully the heroin. My problem is this: I love my fiancee and look forward to bringing her into the family and of course I want to be totally honest with her. Should I tell her about my brother-in-law being Australian?
106. SnowOwl - 11/20/1999 1:37:19 PM
Candide,
Please read properly. I did not say I had not seen any destroyed dreams, I said that in the case of those of my children who have chosen to live elsewhere it was not for such a reason. If work was available in my oldest son's field he would be home immediately. The younger one will almost certainly remain overseas (he's in the UK now) as he's marrying an Australian girl and they like life in tropical Queensland.
People who leave a place because of the political climate (and I'm not talking about those living under repressive regimes) get very little sympathy from me. If they don't like what they see happening to their country they should fight to change it.
Amongst those people I know the overwhelming feeling at the moment is
cynicism and a total lack of faith in any politicians and political parties. The machinations of the last Labour government destroyed many people's trust in the political process.
It's been a number of years since I worked in education, but there was no sign then of a huge swing to private education. I'm not sure of the current status, whether more people are opting to send their children to private schools or not. In the part of the country I live the best schools are state schools anyway, and that certainly hasn't changed.
107. Candide - 11/20/1999 6:05:06 PM
Just stirring. And successfully too.
SnowOwl,
I didn't leave for political reasons. I agree with you about staying and working to improve the situation.
I left for the same reasons as your micro-biologist, although my field was different. I was unhappy about leaving and have always felt myself to be very much a New Zealander, although I can't relate to the present state of things. I would be a sad and confused foreigner if I returned.
Some of my dearest friends in New Zealand are doing exactly what you advocate. That is, working consistently to improve some things and to preserve those things worth preserving.
My hopes (and many New Zealanders are understandably rather vicious towards expatriates who dare to express any hopes about New Zealand) -my hopes are that the still relatively pristine physical environment will be protected and preserved. That ('relatively'for AlistairConnor) will be seen as a tremendous asset for New Zealand.
AlistairConnor
The letter was priceless. Apocryphal?
The nuclear issue is one of the main dividers between Australia and New Zealand. I had better come clean and confess that I was one of the naive fools who was on the first steering committee of the New South Wales Nuclear Disarmament Party. And that's only one of my involvements concerning this issue. My defensive love for New Zealand certainly fired me on to waste? years of my life in this heart-breaking activity.
I fervently hope that New Zealand will continue to be a symbol of sanity in the nuclear thuggery that surrounds it.
108. alistairconnor - 11/20/1999 6:23:31 PM
Are you calling me a coward, Snow?
Well yes, I'm a coward. I was a political refugee for 14 years. Although my life would not have been in danger had I remained in New Zealand, my sanity certainly would have been.
I am afraid I'm going to have to recount all that in excruciating personal detail. This election closes a fifteen-year cycle for me; there is a pleasing sense of healing and personal vindication in the way the result is shaping up.
But first, I must gloat a bit over the opinion polls.
109. Candide - 11/20/1999 6:23:48 PM
AlistairConnor
"When Australia played France in the recent Rugby world cup final,
90% of New Zealanders were fervently backing France. Heck, they
would have backed Satan's Invitation XV against the Wallabies."
And you can imagine how sick anti-nuclear Australians feel about that!
110. Candide - 11/20/1999 6:27:55 PM
AlistairConnor
Please recount those 15 years in excruciating personal detail. Only in as much as you want to, of course.
111. alistairconnor - 11/20/1999 6:54:13 PM
Today's numbers are probably too good to be true, and one wishes to avoid the elementary error of winning the election a week too soon, but, again, the psychological impact of the figures will be huge in the last week of the campaign.
For the last two years, Labour has consistently polled higher than National, pretty well always at least 10% clear. The closest National came to closing the gap was at the start of the official campaign about three weeks back.
At that point, the Prime Minister was basking in the glory of all those photo opportunities with Slick W. Clinton -- yes, incredibly, he was an electoral asset to this right-wing harridan -- after the APEC summit in Auckland.
The summit itself was a potential PR disaster for her which was fortuitously turned into a triumph by the Timor emergency. Without all that feel-good anti-Indonesian table-thumping, and the sending-our-boys-to-defend-democracy thing, the NZ public would undoubtedly have focused on the real issues that summit was supposed to be about - first and foremost, free trade. And Mrs Shipley, and New Zealand with her, would have been publicly humiliated by the lack of results obtained from our crucial Pacific trading partners. Because New Zealand is apparently the only country in the world to take the "free trade" ideology at face value, and has abandoned all import controls, hoping to lead by example! Sort of like unilateral nuclear disarmament; I suppose we should be proud of our government's idealism.
Had the APEC summit not been dominated by Timor, the headlines would have been all salt in NZ's wounds on trade questions, for example the USA's recent decision to slap punitive tariffs on New Zealand's lamb exports (I have nothing against such a move myself, it seems only commonsense to protect America's small and inefficient sheepmeat producers against cheap third-world imports).
112. alistairconnor - 11/20/1999 6:59:14 PM
But I digress... (that's half the fun)...
The other feelgood factor that had boosted the Right at the beginning of the campaign, was the Rugby World Cup. Which we were guaranteed to win; we had carefully counted our chickens.
This is the state religion we're talking about. New Zealand = All Blacks. Whatever else happens, we know we're the best in the world.
Except when we fall to pieces in the semi-final.
113. Candide - 11/20/1999 7:09:45 PM
AlistairConnor
Australia has also lain down and said "take me" to the world re the free-trade rip off.
We're the only two Charlies who actually believed that the 'level playing field' was real.
Our reactionary politicians when in the USA actually mentioned it politely to Bill, just enough to try and placate the desperate agricultural sector back home.
You see sometimes Australia and New Zealand SHOULD get together.
114. alistairconnor - 11/20/1999 7:11:28 PM
Never mind that the match, France-New Zealand, was the finest, most exhilirating game of rugby I've seen in my life - you may think me biased because I was backing the French - but expert opinion agrees with me - the reaction of New Zealanders to the loss was very telling.
The anger and the pain. The bitter recriminations, and the baying for blood. All of this was predictable.
But the whole model that this infallible team was constructed on, and the fragility of that model, was an eye-opener for quite a few people. Was that team constructed on the traditional All Black/NZ values of hard work, solidarity, comradeship, and inventive improvisation?
No, it was constructed on stratospheric salaries, bitter internal dissensions, complicated game plans, high skill levels and individualism. This is the only model for success that the New Right has provided us with; and when it craps out, it really craps out.
115. Candide - 11/20/1999 7:14:41 PM
The popular belief in Australia is that it's smart for a political party to play the 'under-dog' card.
116. alistairconnor - 11/20/1999 7:16:44 PM
Candide,
I'm well behind on what's really happening in Australia. You are saving me from making a complete ass of myself, as I was going to start harping/carping on about how Australia has stuck to its core values while New Zealand has abandoned them; looks like this is less true than I had imagined.
However even that old bastard Ron Howard is well to the left of the NZ National Party. Hell, I would bet that on a lot of specific and important stuff, he's to the left of the NZ Labour party.
117. Candide - 11/20/1999 7:23:11 PM
AlistairConnor
"Was that team constructed on the traditional All Black/NZ
values of hard work, solidarity, comradeship, and inventive
improvisation?
No, it was constructed on stratospheric salaries, bitter internal
dissensions, complicated game plans, high skill levels and
individualism. This is the only model for success that the New Right
has provided us with; and when it craps out, it really craps out.""
I LOVE IT!
118. marjoribanks - 11/20/1999 7:34:26 PM
Hey, what a great sub-thread. Good job, AC.
I too am waiting for the personal background info which will give context to your excellent and impassioned comments. BTW, love the rugby analogy.
119. alistairconnor - 11/20/1999 7:39:13 PM
But back to those numbers...
Grain of salt and all that, but gloat, gloat:
| Labour Party | 39% |
| National Party | 28% |
| Alliance | 10% |
| Green Party | 7.2% |
| ACT | 5.9% |
| NZ First Party | 4.8% |
120. Candide - 11/20/1999 7:45:04 PM
AlistairConnor
"even that old bastard Ron Howard is well to the left of the
NZ National Party."
I think you mean our Little John Howard whom we recently managed to prise out of opening the Olympic Games.
Don't you wish NZ had the Olympics? Not!
121. alistairconnor - 11/20/1999 7:50:55 PM
This may all turn out to be wishful thinking. But what the heck.
National, with its back to the wall, is turning nasty, and is promising "attack" TV commercials for the final week of the campaign, and goodness knows what other dirt. So far, their efforts in this direction have backfired badly. They have spent much of the past week attacking the Green Party on its marijuana policy! This has had the result you can see above. Huge validating effect.
New Zealand has a huge public health problem with marijuana. In my opinion, it may well run a close second to alcohol abuse. Not with respect to physiological effects, obviously, but in its impact on individuals and on the fabric of society. NZ has a fairly small hard drugs culture, which is nurtured and encouraged by the huge marijuana industry, which is controlled by gangs.
Most New Zealanders, and 90% of those under 40, are pretty relaxed about de-criminalising grass, and responsive to their ideas of diverting the resources wasted in the losing battle of enforcement into a public health approach. No-one who is contemplating voting Green is going to respond to scare tactics on this issue. Whatever was National thinking of?
Probably trying to scare conservative Labour voters into voting for them. That hasn't made any measurable impact either. But thanks, guys.
122. robertjayb - 11/20/1999 7:51:34 PM
.
This long piece in NZ's The Press on-line was interesting to me even though it's routine election stuff and I have trouble keeping
the players straight. I must review Alistair's posts and make myself
a chart.
Casting Votes
Since mid-September voters in three Christchurch electorates -- Christchurch Central, Ilam, and Wigram -- have been monitoring the General Election campaign for The Press. We met these sample voters on September 18. Now, a week from polling day, they share their views on the parties, the leaders, and the policies, and reveal whether the electioneering has changed their opinions. DAVE WILSON, KATHERINE HOBY, and MIKE BRUCE report.
123. alistairconnor - 11/20/1999 7:55:53 PM
... sorry, isn't the Aus PM called Ron Howard? Am I out of touch or what?
As to political union with Australia, on balance, after the experience of the last 15 years, I'm all for it. Checks and balances, multiple levels of power, and an upper house are all ways of stopping or slowing radical change. New Zealand could have done with that.
And when NZ wakes up to its core values, they are pretty close to those of Australia.
"Australia is the paradise of the Third International." Who am I quoting?
124. Candide - 11/20/1999 8:04:22 PM
AlistairConnor
It embarrasses me beyond belief to say anything good about John Howard, but I can never get away from the fact that it was that frustratingly unimaginative little suburban lawyer who stood firmly against the gun lobby. I don't think any of my Labor heroes would have performed as well. The trouble is that even when he's doing something good his personal irritation factor is so high that it over-rules the good impression.
An Italian friend once said to me that it isn't the leader one should watch but the sharks swimming in 'his' wake.
Another good quote for public use. Use it freely.
125. SnowOwl - 11/20/1999 8:15:35 PM
Alistair,
I apologise if you thought I was directing any remarks at you. I certainly wasn't. People do what they do for a variety of reasons and I'm not criticising anyone's actions. I've lived out of New Zealand myself at various times in my life but that never stopped me from expressing my opinions on what was happening back home.
I am somewhat amused at what seems to be some fairly romanticised notions of a New Zealand that never was. The shared values that get talked about as though they had some reality are, in my view, myths.
And they're myths that served the ruling classes very well for a long time. While I hate what's happening in the country now, perhaps if at last the scales have fallen off the eyes of the populace, it will in the long run be worth it.
126. Candide - 11/20/1999 8:19:36 PM
robertjayb
I'm an old Christchurch resident, now living in Australia.
That report was interesting but maddening. Why do people want theatre from their elections. "It's a dull campaign'.
Right. Get out their you lummoxes and liven it up.
Contribute some ideas.
Write to the newspaper.
Talk on talkback radio.
START SOMETHING.
Actually, Christchurch has started a lot of things and it has a permanent place in my affections. I liked it when the university was in the centre, not an industrial complex at Ilam.
127. Candide - 11/20/1999 8:27:18 PM
SnowOwl
"I am somewhat amused at what seems to be some fairly
romanticised notions of a New Zealand that never was. The shared
values that get talked about as though they had some reality are, in
my view, myths.
And they're myths that served the ruling classes very well for a long
time. While I hate what's happening in the country now, perhaps if at last the scales have fallen off the eyes of the populace, it will in the long run be worth it."
That's good.
My NZ childhood was all about snobbery. Snobbery was about all they taught me. But also a respect for every single citizen. A strange mixture. When I got to England and said I was a New Zealander, they replied kindly : "Never mind dear. It doesn't show". And they meant to be nice!
My snobbery training had produced nice vowels and table manners, but the other bit of New Zealandness had produced outrage at their smug complacency and condescension.
And I'm much more bloody minded now.
128. alistairconnor - 11/20/1999 8:34:40 PM
So here's a recap of the spectrum, right to left reading down:
| Party | Positioning | Leader |
|---|---|---|
| ACT | "Far" right. |  barking-mad Richard Prebble. |
| National | Right. |  Prime Minister Jenny Shipley. |
| NZ First | Centre. |  barking-mad Winston Peters. |
| Labour | Centre left. |  Helen Clark. |
| Alliance | Left. |  Jim Anderton. |
| Greens | Loony left. |  Jeanette Fitzsimons. |
129. alistairconnor - 11/20/1999 8:40:00 PM
Actually, of the six web sites linked, one stands head and shoulders above the others, technically speaking, for look and feel, ease of use and all that. It's the one my company built. I even had a small part in it myself. Intensely embarrassing.
Worse : if I wanted to, I could throw a spanner in the works of that site right now, from my home computer. I know the passwords and everything. I could make them say any sort of gibberish. (Would anyone notice??)
What a terrible handicap it is to have a professional conscience.
130. alistairconnor - 11/20/1999 8:42:35 PM
You are quite right, Snow. I'm romanticising like mad. It's literary license, bear with me. Very pretentious of me I know, but has anyone picked up the literary allusion of the thread title?
131. Candide - 11/20/1999 8:42:54 PM
Correction of embarrassing 'typo?'
GET OUT THERE you lummoxes. Get out THERE and start something yourselves.
An opportunity to underline the message be the reason ever so humiliating.
132. alistairconnor - 11/20/1999 8:48:07 PM
The quote in #123 was from V.I. Lenin... I have read somewhere that all extant Australian political parties were born from splits in the Australian Labour Party. I suspect that pre-dates Pauline Hanson's racist outfit.
Oddity of the current NZ parliament : All five parties in the parliament elected in 1996 contained former (or current) Labour MPs.
This I suppose is the intro for my personal story...
133. alistairconnor - 11/20/1999 9:08:48 PM
... but it will have to wait. Work to do I'm afraid. More later.
134. Candide - 11/20/1999 9:10:08 PM
ABC Radio National has just had an interview with Colin James, foreign correspondent of the NZ Herald.
He said thet Richard Prebble is the guy running with ACT's populist lines that resemble those of Australia's Pauline Hanson. Lauranorder, time limit on Maori claims - hitherto sustained by a liberal concensus in Wellington. His figure for them was a more dire 10 or 11 percent.
But he absolutely backed up the Greens figures supplied by AlistairConnor.
He said that polls in NZ have for a year consistently had 60 per cent saying life was worse and over 30 per cent saying that it was better.
135. Candide - 11/20/1999 9:12:04 PM
AlistairConnor
I recently discovered that Kerensky spent a couple of years in Brisbane.
136. alistairconnor - 11/20/1999 9:34:13 PM
... a couple of years in Brisbane?
All I can say is, he deserved it.
Colin James is a wanker, but never mind.
I was surprised at the weakness of ACT in the poll I quoted - who knows. They are in fact the only party playing the race card at this election - pandering to those who believe the whole Treaty thing is a can of worms that never should have been opened, by proposing to clamp it shut. In detail, their policy is flatly self-contradictory, because they have recently announced that they want treaty claims to be settled at hapu (sub-tribe) level, rather than at iwi (tribal) level. This would take ten times as long to arrive at settlements, so the end date would blow out from ACT's stated "final-solution" date of 2010 to at least the year 2100...
For the entertainment rather than the edification of readers, here is a link to a previous discussion on Treaty issues, which will save the trouble of recapping.
137. robertjayb - 11/20/1999 9:34:28 PM
.
Alistair,
Thanks for the chart. And now for some important questions:
Ms MacDonald lives in the blue-ribbon Ilam electorate, and has traditionally been a Labour voter. Although she knows her Labour electorate vote will count for little, she has not wavered in her intention to give the party both ticks come polling day.
What does blue-ribbon Ilam electorate mean?
What does it mean to play conkers?
What is the beehive?
Do you have compulsory voting?
138. SnowOwl - 11/20/1999 10:16:27 PM
Trobert,
Blue ribbon essentially means it is a safe seat, that is, it is traditionally held by members of the same party.
Conkers is the traditional children's game involving banging horse chestnuts together until one breaks.
The Beehive is the House of Parliament, located in the capital city of Wellington. It's called this because it is a vaguely rounded conical shape just like a beehive. I doubt very much if it refers to the work habits of the inhabitants.
No, we don't have compulsory voting. We do have compulsory registration on the electoral roll, however no-one has ever been punished for not enrolling.
139. SnowOwl - 11/20/1999 10:17:37 PM
Ouch, sorry, that should have been addressed to robert, not Trobert (whoever he or she may be).
140. SnowOwl - 11/20/1999 10:20:16 PM
Your literary allusion isn't to Victorian erotica, is it Alistair? I can only think of Diary of a Flea.
141. Candide - 11/20/1999 10:30:13 PM
Having read that scarifying March debate I would add a tad of information for MrSocko who it turns out is, as I had already guessed, a member of the chattering classes.
I briefly met the late and much lamented Dr Bavandra in Sydney(with the late South Australian Premier, Don Dunstan), leader of the Fijian party that was elected to government, among other reasons, because of its strong support of the Nuclear Free Pacific treaty.
Meanwhile and contemporaneously, back in Australia, an unexplained suicide in a parked vehicle started a trail that led to a shonky bank, Nugan Hand, revealed to be an artificial construct of the CIA. It was then connected to a strangely profitless copra factory in Fiji operated by an American who also turned out to be a CIA man. He later left the copra plant to crumble, shortly after Rabuka's coup, and disappeared.
This story was well covered in Australia by 'National Times' journalists, as I recall,the distinguished writers David Marr and Marion Wilkes.
Years before these events, travelling back and forth to the South Island to attend university, in transit I talked a lot to Fijian students who were simmering with nationalist feeling against the Indian Fijians. Everybody knew that the feeling was always there.
It was "miraculous" the way it suddenly was choreographed into action immediately after Dr Bavandra's party was elected to government. And wonderfully convenient for certain parties.
A historical detail that had been homogenised out of existence by MrSocko.
142. Candide - 11/20/1999 10:44:02 PM
I thought I should explain the above.
Message 13684 March 8, 1999
MrSocko"One wonders how inclinable marjoribanks, the great defender of the Maori nation, would be to the behavior of Fiji's racist thug, Gen. Rabuka, who snatched democratic power from the Indo-Fijians in 1987 under the pretext of "indigenous" rights."
143. Candide - 11/20/1999 11:13:27 PM
I've just looked up Richard Prebble's personal profile and I find to my delight that the party reveals its real reactionary attitude by the archaic French spelling of the word, 'PROGRAMME' insread of the normal English spelling 'program'.
That says it all I think.
When he was minister of railways what happened to the railways?
I am a keen advocate of rail travel, for environmental and asthetic reasons. Whenever I travelled through Italy I used to imagine a similar network in New Zealand. The North Island in particular would lend itself to rail travel because of the numerous towns.
There would be employment too, building the railways, maintaining them and more jobs in the towns that it passed through, as well as a removal of polluting heavy traffic from roads.
I used to travel by rail to school. At least from Palmerston North to Wanganui when I changed to bus from Wanganui to New Plymouth, which always made me sick. The bus, that is.
144. Candide - 11/20/1999 11:17:12 PM
A-E-sthetic! Aesthetic. InsTead not insread.
You've made me nervous SnowOwl.
Ever since you told me to read carefully.
I admit it. I talk first and think later. But not always.
145. Candide - 11/20/1999 11:46:32 PM
Does anybody know whether the population figures would support more railway routes in the North Island?
Does any party advocate the building of more railway lines?
146. mad - 11/21/1999 12:06:10 AM
Thoughts on the so called left & right in NZ politics.
In Europe & the US the extreme right appear to be typified by a fear of immigration (esp.from countries that are culturally different), multinational corporations,open international trade etc.
Obviously the one party that encompasses these fears the most is Winston First,however all 3 parties of the so called Centre Left (Labour,Alliance ,& the Greens ) also portray some elements of this.
The so called Centre-Right parties National,Act,United;dont't seem to have this problem - any thoughts as to why...
On another note - I actually supported the Wallabies against the Frogs in the World cup Final.
147. alistairconnor - 11/21/1999 12:07:13 AM
Most attention is focused on light rail for the cities, i.e. trams, which are sorely needed. The rail company would probably needed to be threatened or expropriated out of its current do-nothing approach to passenger transit. Existing rail lines are absurdly under-utilised.
I don't imagine anyone knows whether or not it would be profitable to build more long-distance rail links. It all depends how you frame the equation, and measure the benefits, and what hidden subsidies are being provided for alternative modes. Generally, the "free market" says buses are cheaper. But slap on some carbon taxes and make road users pay the true costs, and suddenly it's a different story.
148. alistairconnor - 11/21/1999 12:12:35 AM
Madperson:
??? That's a broad brush you're tarring the left with.
I presume you are talking about the fact that the Alliance and the Greens are both opposed to "free trade" - Labour doesn't appear to be. But were your remarks about fear of immigrants also directed at the left? If so, you'd better justify them.
149. alistairconnor - 11/21/1999 12:16:41 AM
And again, the only party explicitly playing the race card in this election is Act. They are implicitly playing for the damn-bloody-Maoris-are-just-lazy-and-don't-deserve-taxpayers'-money vote, breaking the broad concensus on Treaty issues. Fair enough, in a sense; that's always the risk of a broad concensus on that sort of issue. But let's not pretend otherwise.
150. Candide - 11/21/1999 12:17:24 AM
AlistairConnor
I would have imagined that transporting agricultural produce and other heavier produce would be more convenient by rail. The modern container method means that the goods can be collected near delivery point by trucks.
Light rail is preferred by planners in most countries for urban locations.
I see a positive advantage in long-distance heavy rail. I can remember several towns dying in New Zealand when they lost their railway station.
It would boost tourism too. It is wonderful to travel through open landscape and experience a sense of topography - and boy - New Zealand has loads of topography -and perhaps toy with a pleasant simple meal and drink a glass of wine.
151. Candide - 11/21/1999 12:22:43 AM
Parties advocating population control often appear like racists although their motives are different.
Sometimes these parties attract people who ARE racists but any party worth its name can sort them out.
It is a fine line.
152. SnowOwl - 11/21/1999 12:39:52 AM
Hmmmmmmmm, I shall have to be very careful not to spell program in my usual way lest I be tarred with the same brush as Richard Prebble. In fact, the only time I spell programme without an added me is when referring to a computer program. I was unaware that this is an archaic spelling, everybody I know spells it that way.
Candide, the existing rail services is in urgent need of upgrading, we need a wider gauge and double tracks before it would become really economic as a means of transporting goods. A decent coastal shipping service would probably be another effective transportation method.
153. Candide - 11/21/1999 12:54:34 AM
SnowOwl
There we both go again.
Don't worry, I just couldn't resist the opportunity. It's ACT's pretence of being 'state of the art' that tempted me.
An editorial decision was taken about a series of publications that I was/am working on in a humble capacity, that 'programme' was an out-dated and fussy way to spell the word and that the American spelling was more logical. Therefore I am "programmed" to resist that way of spelling it in English. In French, "programme" at all times.
Coastal transport makes sense, although I have been told that coastal transport is dangerous. I still remember with great nostalgia the Wanganui River coastal port.
Rail, on the other hand would return its investment if intelligently used and benefit many inland communities. The coastal ports could connect with rail.
154. alistairconnor - 11/21/1999 1:12:31 AM
Candide, I beg to differ with respect to programme, catalogue, and a whole bunch of other Englishisms (not Frenchisms) that apparently have become archaic in Aus, but still appear to be alive and well in New Zealand. That Australia should chose to go the way of the Yanks, that's all very well and logical, but please, don't big-sister us...
As for population control, I can't imagine what relevance that could have to New Zealand. It is still a hugely under-populated country, and although Winston tried to cook up a yellow-peril scare a couple of years back, it fell pretty flat. Net immigration is a concensus question in NZ politics as a desirable outcome; the problem at the moment is that there is net emigration, a haemorrhaging of the country's talents.
155. SnowOwl - 11/21/1999 1:20:04 AM
Candide,
Coastal transport has a much better safety record than road transport. Most marine accidents involve recreational sailors and small fishing craft. Unfortunately labour costs have put it out of consideration.
156. SnowOwl - 11/21/1999 1:21:59 AM
I love the way the National Party seems to be playing right into the hands of the Greens. I would imagine their latest gaffe will backfire nicely, and I look forward to seeing an even greater leap up the polls for the Greens tomorrow.
157. Candide - 11/21/1999 2:18:05 AM
AlistairConnor
Steady on.
I wasn't big sistering you. (Ooh. Touch of sizeism!) New Zealand is just as big as Australia only its all wrinkly.
The change to 'program' is widespread through the English-speaking world, including England. I'm sure I've seen it in New Zealand publications as well. It's a sort of Shavian drift that does away with frills. I still spell 'catalogue' as 'catalogue'. Most of my working life has involved the word 'program' so I was particularly happy to shave it down. I'm not anti-French in case you think I am. I'm just against some of the things they do. Now I know whose website you produced. Sorry. No offence intended.
In Australia population-pressure on the over-stressed environment is a key concern for environmentalists. I don't know the present assessment by environmentalists of the potential population that the terrain of New Zealand can bear. I assume as a green you want to keep the remaining forests.
SnowOwl
New Zealand yachting friends have told me that currents around the coast are very dangerous. I used to play as a child near the wrecked Port Bowen (Bob Semple tried to convert it into a tank) at Castlecliff Beach at Wanganui. Perhaps that made a bad impression. The Australian coast is a history of 19th century shipwrecks.
I'll take your word for it.
158. Candide - 11/21/1999 2:28:45 AM
Is there much use of wind energy in the land of the roaring forties?
Or much talk about it?
159. Candide - 11/21/1999 2:45:23 AM
You realise Alistairconnor that I thought I was helping you when I attacked ACT's website.
Serve me right for sucking up to the threadmaster.
160. Candide - 11/21/1999 3:15:51 AM
I may as well continue talking into a vacuum to say that there is a breed of Australian politician that wants to fill up the continent with people. "They'll come if we don't bring them". This ignorant guff gives the world the impression that Australia is a large deeply top-soiled country with infinite water and that only greed and meanness keeps out the homeless of the world. Because most environmentalist parties have a strong population policy other less attractive parties and individuals try to associate their ignoble racism with environmentalism.
I thought that perhaps MAD had picked up some of this from the ether.
The truth is that Australia is less able than New Zealand to support a large population and many experts think that it's already overpopulated. Irrigation increases soil salinity and so on.
I always believed New Zealand to be a better-equipped country although I think NZ shares some of the soil deficiencies. Water is certainly less of a problem.
161. SnowOwl - 11/21/1999 3:35:15 AM
Candide,
Just as an aside, my husband (a marine engineer) spent over 25 years in the merchant navy, many of them on the New Zealand coast. He assures me that engine driven cargo ships are much less susceptible to being driven on to reefs than wind powered sailing ships.
There are some wind energy projects around the country these are all small private concerns. As far as I'm aware there are no wind farms as yet, and I haven't heard any real discussion about the feasibility of large scale endeavours.
162. alistairconnor - 11/21/1999 5:52:22 AM
The problem with wind farms in NZ is a transient one. Some have been built, but they are not economically viable - i.e. return on investment is poor -because wholesale electricity prices are historically low at the moment, due to the completely irrational way the electricity sector has been carved up into small competing units (in order to flog it off the more cheaply, it seems). In short, a competitive market for production has been created, which has driven prices down for the producer - but effective monopolies on distribution and retailing have meant that the price for the consumer has gone up!
A stroke of genius. The minister in question, Bradford I think it is, had "staked his reputation" on electricity prices going down as a result of the reforms. Mud, thy name is Bradford.
163. alistairconnor - 11/21/1999 6:02:16 AM
As to whether NZ is topsoil mining or not, I'm not sure. Apparently NZ's pastoral miracle is based on clover - it grows all year round here, fixing nitrogen, and eliminating the need for nitrogen based fertilisers. But NZ's clover is sick, it seems- nitrogen fixing is on the decline - no-one knows why.
The answer, of course - (of course!) is to switch to organic farming. World markets for organic produce are expanding hugely. Japan's organic imports, within a few years, are predicted to outstrip NZ's entire agricultural output.
Organic farming is by definition sustainable, and the produce commands a price premium. Converting to organics is an expensive business though, it's a three year process during which you have to apply only organic methods but can't sell your produce as organic.
What is needed is government help to enable producers to make the switch. This is all Green Party policy of course - the aim is a totally organic New Zealand by 2020. Nothing particularly difficult about that.
164. Candide - 11/21/1999 6:59:37 AM
Goodnight.
I've tried to stir up some better informed people than I am. I've just been tapdancing until they turn up.
This is a very interesting thread.
Thank you SnowOwl. Your expert information is very valuable.
165. alistairconnor - 11/21/1999 5:13:47 PM
I've updated the resource links in the pound-of-butter-coloured side-bar. In particular, www.context.co.nz, which I have just discovered, is a fabulous site.
166. Candide - 11/21/1999 5:38:15 PM
Enough of the railway line already.
The big question seems to be this:
How is New Zealand going to get rich without losing its virginity?
167. Candide - 11/21/1999 5:51:09 PM
Thanks for that new site Alistairconnor.
It is splendid.
168. Candide - 11/22/1999 7:01:01 AM
Still tapdancing.
Are there no passionate debaters in Bunnythorpe?
Gore?
Invercargill?
Paekakariki?
Stratford?
169. Candide - 11/22/1999 3:44:44 PM
Eketahuna?
Balclutha?
Kaitaia?
Waipukurau?
Rotorua?
Lower Hutt?
Greymouth?
Ashburton?
Anybody?
170. Candide - 11/22/1999 5:03:53 PM
Blenheim?
171. alistairconnor - 11/22/1999 7:33:10 PM
Candide, to get more punters, you have to drag them in kicking and screaming. New Zealanders are endearingly shy. Or something.
Here are some election result predictions, this one expounding the conventional wisdom of a victory for the left, and this one predicting a cliff hanger with a Maori independent holding the balance of power.
Personally, if we must have a hung parliament, I would rather have Tame Iti holding the balance of power than Derek Fox... he's more entertaining.
172. alistairconnor - 11/22/1999 7:48:19 PM
Time constraints at the moment, but I am intending to add a lot of stuff tomorrow.
173. Candide - 11/22/1999 11:22:51 PM
AlistairConnor
Perhaps the small population creates this reticence. People with any reputation are often easily recognised even when they use a pseudonym.
In an earlier post I mentioned the 'under dog' factor in elections. The wisdom is that when people think that a certain party that they support is a shoe-in for victory they often don't bother to vote, thinking that their vote won't matter. For that reason, in Australia, the major parties are falling over themselves at election time in an effort to appear doomed to failure. In Australia there is compulsory voting which, to my amazement, I have come to favour. People are not compelled to vote for anybody - they can spoil their election paper if they wish - they just must show up at a polling booth or, if unwell or overseas, record an absentee vote. This does tend to make politicians try harder to reach the voters and it also makes apathetic citizens a bit more politically aware.
174. robertjayb - 11/23/1999 12:12:15 AM
Once among the most hated, NZs Jenny Shipley popular but in trouble
AUCKLAND, Nov 23 (AFP) -
Public opinion polls are telling Prime Minister Jenny Shipley she is in trouble six days out from a general election and she is admitting it.
175. Candide - 11/23/1999 2:05:02 AM
robertjayb
Very interesting. Haven't they given her 4 extra inches?
But it does indeed seem to be the party that cried 'woof'.
176. Candide - 11/24/1999 3:22:57 AM
If, as Jenny Shipley has sid she plans to do, all tariffs are eliminated and all the assets are sold off, including public broadcasting, what sort of country will New Zealand become?
At the moment there are still decent remnants of attitudes left over from an older culture.
After two or more generations of people with no life experience of good public broadcasting nor any concept of job protection, what sort of individuals will live in New Zealand, and will New Zealand still own any of its land or any of its assets? In the event of an international economic downturn, how do people who sell off the family's jewels expect to sustain services?
177. alistairconnor - 11/24/1999 5:33:42 AM
Here's an excellent example of the alienation of New Zealand's assets. It has been announced that Singapore's Changi Airport has bought shares in Auckland International Airport, which was formerly owned by the regional authority. Changi would like to expand its holding to a controlling interest.
I have nothing against Changi airport - on the contrary, it's the best airport I've ever been to - but why does it need to be foreign owned? The process will not stop until we are paying rent to foreign landlords for every building, factory and road in the country. If we don't change the government.
There is a rich irony in the fact that Changi Airport is publicly owned, by the people of Singapore.
178. alistairconnor - 11/24/1999 5:44:30 AM
I haven't really left this thread hanging. Just a bit short of time, and somewhat burned out with election stuff. I suspect this is a general public sentiment in the country - I tend to be a good barometer of this stuff - and I hope people will be motivated enough to vote.
179. alistairconnor - 11/24/1999 5:54:40 AM
New Zealand is a banana republic (a puha republic?) As well as electing our representatives, we are being asked this weekend to vote on two referenda. Hardly anyone is aware of this fact, and there has bee no campaigning or public information on the issues.
The first question we have to answer is :
Should there be a reform of our justice system placing greater emphasis on the needs of victims, providing restitution and compensation for them and imposing minimum sentences and hard labour for all serious violent offenders?
Since I don't think there will be a box labelled "That's a bloody stupid question" on the paper, I will be obliged to tick yes or no. That is a composite mishmash, of which the first two thirds corresponds to the policies of the Alliance and of the Greens - the non-centre left parties - and the last bit is Act policy - the non-centre right.
It'll have to be no.
180. alistairconnor - 11/24/1999 5:56:21 AM
Here's a good discussion of this question.
181. Candide - 11/24/1999 3:26:46 PM
alistairconnor
Has there truly been no public debate over the issues in the two referenda? If that is so then it is truly shocking. The last time that I was in New Zealand, some years ago, I was astonished by the lack of openness on radio and television about all sorts of important issues of the time. I have been told that there is some lively radio. I believe that radio is the most effective, and frequently the most subversive, of all the media.
At the moment in Australia there has been a wonderful unveiling of deep corruption in commercial radio. Those who have been tryin