Monday 29 December 2014

Be careful what you ask for

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I was surprised at the speed in which the Masterton District Councillors dismissed the Local Government Commission’s (LGC) recommendation that Wairarapa join a Wellington Super City. It was apparently an acrimonious debate which saw those councillors preferring a Wairarapa Unitary Authority win the argument by six votes to four.

There were suggestions that the supporters of a Unitary Authority had not read the draft proposals thoroughly and that councillors should be careful not to paint themselves into a corner before having a dialogue with their community. I suspect however those opposing were sensing that there was no mood for a Super City amongst the rank and file who inhabit the town.

I wonder though if it has been carefully thought through. The LGC believe that Wairarapa can’t afford to go it alone and that stance has a good deal of credibility. Many people don’t realise that for the Wairarapa Council’s to combine and take over the role of the regional council would come at a huge cost for the 40,000 dear hearts and gentle people who live and love in the Wairarapa.

If the rest of the councils in the Wellington region go kicking and screaming into the proposed super city then in effect the Greater Wellington Regional Council ceases to exist and Wairarapa, out on a limb, will have to pay for its own flood protection measures, catchment and pest control, environmental issues and more importantly the trains that take many of our residents to and from the capital city.

This is the very same city where many find employment, go to for sports and entertainment events and occasionally shop in, but apparently don’t want to join.

I do have some sympathy for this view. I suspect one of the reasons we are wary of being part of a Super City is our belief that it is not working well for Auckland. In fact it may be working perfectly well in Auckland, but we’ll never know because to judge it against the old deeply divided City of Sails is almost impossible. And it doesn’t help that Mayor Len Brown is universally unpopular for reasons of his own doing and for some beyond his control.

Anyway the LGC say they have learnt from Auckland’s mistakes and their proposal identifies where Auckland went wrong and makes adjustments accordingly.

We are all working on the assumption that for the Wairarapa there are just two options. We either join the Super City or combine the three Wairarapa councils and form a unitary authority.

In fact there is a third option and that is the status quo.

We know the two Hutt’s, Upper and Lower, have no appetite for the Super City concept and neither does Kapiti. Only Porirua has signalled that it would happily buy into the deal, but that enthusiasm is coming from feisty mayor Nick Leggat, with little support I suspect from his constituents.

So the councillors of all these districts need only to get together and say they don’t want a bar of the proposal and it will be dead in the water.

Combining the three Wairarapa councils would be a nightmare. Parochialism is just as alive and well in the Wairarapa as it is in the Upper and Lower Hutt’s and other areas like for instance Tawa and Porirua.

Where, you might ask, would the main council office for the Wairarapa be? The Wairarapa’s fastest growing town Carterton has always believed it should be the centre of the Wairarapa and has thought so right from its formation when it planted itself midway between Greytown and Masterton back in the nineteenth century. So it’s not hard to imagine that they would want the centre of local government to be within their environs and have built a splendid new events centre and repaved and reformed Holloway Street to allow for that eventuality.

Conversely Greytown might consider that they are the centre of the region geographically and argue that their quaint village should play host to the combined entity. 

Masterton’s grand town hall, which has only just been branded so that photographs taken from the picturesque new town square can be recognised nationally and internationally, is starting to look redundant by the minute.


I’ve been trying to think of future use for it and I wonder if it might become a Charter School.

And the mayor? Well Masterton has the voter grunt, but given that Carterton and the South Wairarapa folk don’t hold much truck with their big brother to the north they could promote just one candidate and ensure that their representation is intact.

A council centre in Carterton and a mayor from Martinborough might be the answer to overcoming parochialism.

But Masterton has spent a small fortune on its mostly underground infrastructure of late and may be reluctant to have to help pay for the other Wairarapa towns upcoming works in this category. It can also work the other way. Masterton has spent $50 million on a new sewerage scheme, but still pours treated effluent into the Ruamahunga River. New CEO Pim Borren said recently that we should have spent $100 million and done the job properly.

Ratepayers contemplating those figures could cause our sewerage facilities to go into overdrive.

And then of course there would be a shortfall amounting to millions of dollars that the regional council would not be spending in our precincts. That council is still paying off our reasonably new train-sets; I wonder if these repayments will be passed over to us?

I was on the Greater Wellington Regional Council for three terms and was amazed and gratified at the money that was spent in the Wairarapa - far in excess of the rates we paid - from the generous Wellingtonians, most of whom I suspect didn’t realise how generous they were.

If it ain’t broke, why fix it? If our representatives can’t handle a Super City then they should join with their brethren in the south and west and demand the status quo.

Otherwise the Masterton councillors will start to look like turkeys who voted for an early Christmas.

“If you would be known, and not know, vegetate in a village; if you would know, and not be known, live in a city.” – Charles Caleb Colton

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Wednesday 17 December 2014

The fall and rise of consumerism

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I have never read Edward Gibbon’s The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, though I may have been instructed to do so at some stage during my secondary school years. Therefore it is only anecdotally that I am led to believe that the fall was due to widespread immoral behaviour.

A few years ago however it was thought that if the empirical grouping of the Western democracies ever declines and falls it would likely be due to shopping. The buzz word at the time was “shopocalypse” which was coined by an anti-shopping evangelist in New York who called himself the “Reverend Billy”. He headed The Church of Stop Shopping and featured in a documentary called: What would Jesus Buy?

The Reverend Billy – real name William Talen – toured shopping malls with a gospel choir who sang cynical anti-shopping songs while the good reverend cast out demons of consumerism and exorcized credit cards.


He wasn’t a real reverend of course, but he dressed in a smart white suit and was deadly serious about his evangelical performances. He sincerely believed that Christmas had turned into a jingle hell of bloated consumerism that wasn’t merely soul-destroying, but economy destroying and even planet destroying.

William Talen disappeared from consciousness in September 2008 when the global financial crisis hit the world stage and it was revealed that the real culprit of the decline and fall of the western democracies was in fact international financiers, especially the irrationally exuberant Anglo-Saxon sort who thought they had found a way to banish risk when in fact they had simply lost track of it.

The great moderation years of low inflation and stable growth fostered complacency in the hallowed halls of the money-men. A savings glut in Asia pushed down interest rates and borrowers were encouraged to buy houses priced way above their true value and in the process inherited crippling mortgage repayments.

Much of world is still affected by the collapse of Lehman Brothers, a sprawling global bank, but sound stewardship by the Key government has meant that consumerism is getting back on track in our country although retailers now face the added competition of website sales that in most cases don’t attract the added burden of GST.

Huge distribution centres in far off lands that are hooked up to fast-flying freight planes and then on to couriers allows goods to land on your doorstep within a few days of placing an order.

Supermarkets in the main don’t suffer from the ignominy of their customers sourcing goods from overseas and I imagine their cash flows are eye-watering. There are constant queues at the checkout counters and they offer up a choice of merchandise that would astonish our forebears.

I recall my mother’s modest brown cardboard box of groceries delivered to our door each Wednesday afternoon which lasted our family of four until the following Wednesday, apart from a few minor top-ups from the corner shop along the road.

But we’ve moved on since then and the end result is mounting credit card debt and a stressed society struggling with repayments on a diet of alcohol and anti-depressants.

Recently in a $2 shop an item that caught my eye was a plastic brush and shovel on sale for $1.45. Made in China of course and I studied the product looking for flaws, but found none.

I can’t for the life of me understand how it could be manufactured, warehoused, delivered to the port, shipped, warehoused again, then trucked to the shop, unpacked, labelled, placed on the shelf and sold to the consumer by a reasonably well-paid shop assistant, allowing all those in the chain to make a profit along the way.

The western world is totally dependent on lowly paid third-world workers to sustain us in our consumer heaven at prices that keeps inflation in check. We now live in a society that, apart from the agricultural sector, hardly produces anything of real value and we rely on incomes from service industries and paper-shuffling businesses.

It looks like a house of cards with the Chinese being the dealers.

And I suspect in this environment some retailers resort to trickery. I was mystified as to how a well-known retail giant manages to stay solvent given the company promotes back-to-back sales with thirty to sixty per cent off most items.

So I did some sleuthing. I went to the store in question and chose a well-known brand of a regular household appliance and checked out the price: $219.99. However a large attached card announced: “40 per cent off.” Using my iPhone calculator I determined that this would attract a rebate of $88.00 meaning at the checkout the item would cost $132.00. Seemed like a bargain. But I went to a shop just down the road and found exactly the same item, with the same model number, on the shelf for $130.00

I’m not sure what Jesus would buy, but I would advise him to shop around.

“Christmas is the Disneyfication of Christianity” – Don Cupitt

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Wednesday 10 December 2014

The modern day gossip columnist

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One of this country’s abiding mysteries is how one man can capture the attention of the news media and even the House of Representatives so often and for such a prolonged period. Such a man is Cameron Slater, son of a past president of the National Party and a thorn in the side of many members of parliament, mostly from the left, but who is not averse to using his acerbic pen to berate politicians and persons of prominence of all persuasions.

It was pointed out that he was mentioned over 100 times over three sittings of parliament recently; he probably has his own button on the Hansard recorders. These days you can’t turn on the radio, or read news stories without being bombarded with negatives about Cameron Slater. Many are vying to convince the rank and file that this is some kind of anti-Christ that has come to live amongst us.

So what is it that he actually does?

He runs a blog.

To be fair, not just any blog.

He manages to attract about 240,000 readers a day which probably makes him one of the biggest “newspapers” in the country. In April of this year he won the Canon Media award for being New Zealand’s best blogger and just last month he won Netguide’s prize for “Best Blog of the Year.”

I have been a regular reader of Slater’s Whale Oil Beef Hooked. The site is most entertaining; habitually outrageous and more often than not over the top with its iconoclastic claims.

His is not the only blog I frequently visit. I also peruse The Daily Blog which is as vitriolic towards the right as “Whale Oil” is of the left and is edited by Slater’s nemesis Martyn “Bomber” Bradbury. David Farrar’s Kiwiblog is also a good read, undoubtedly right leaning, and I balance this by accessing a blog titled Slightly Left of Centre.


And then there is ex-Dominion editor Karl du Fresne’s blog, awash with common sense utterances to round off a day of thoroughly good reading.

Just like newspapers, blogs are merely a form of entertainment, but the pen is said to be mightier than the sword, hence the disquiet.

Slater first came to national prominence and attracted a whole coterie of potential readers when he exposed the dastardly dalliances of Auckland mayor Len Brown. He already had a large following at that stage, but his audience doubled during the period and has hardly diminished since.

Nicky Hager tried to bring him down with his book Dirty Politics, but like the Len Brown saga, it simply increased his devotees.

Writing in last Saturday’s Dominion-Post journalist Tracy Watkins said: “John Key is badly tainted by his association with Whale Oil blogger Cameron Slater whose brand is repugnant to most voters.”

Slater responded by publishing a most unflattering photo of Ms Watkins and said his “repugnant brand” was continuing to build to an ever increasing audience.

Ms Watkins seems to have missed the point that the Prime Minister’s association with Mr Slater was well documented before the election, but appeared not to have affected his constituency.

Slater is of course just a 21st century version of the gossip columnists of old. Nobody would admit to ever reading them, but they were syndicated internationally and helped sell newspapers and periodicals over a long period.

Names that spring to mind are Hedda Hopper, Louella Parsons and Walter Winchell. In more modern times we’ve had Matt Drudge, David Hartnell and Metro magazines Felicity Ferret.

“The Ferret” was unceremoniously retired in 2010. She was described as being daring, embarrassing, crass, irreverent, funny and just a little bit mean.

Sounds a bit like a feminine version of Cameron Slater. “The Ferret” however was said to be the social adventures of Metro staff, although Auckland cafĂ© queen Judith Baragwanath was suspected of being the central contributor.

Slater is now threatening a new web-based media outlet he will call Freed. This will be a counter-punch to Dirty Politics he says and is likely to embarrass many of New Zealand’s mainstream-media journalists.

He was recently taken to court by someone who believed they had been wronged and subsequently faced substantial court costs and legal fees as a result. His staff made a plea to readers to help by contributing towards the expenses. I didn’t respond, but many must have because the fund was over-subscribed in just a few days.

A faithful readership that is generous as well; seems like a good recipe for continued success.

But Mr Slater ought not to forget the adage: “In the case of scandal, as in that of a robbery, the receiver is always thought as bad as the thief.”

“The blogs, mad and bad as they are, add richness and diversity to the political debate.” - Rodney Hide

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Wednesday 3 December 2014

What is happening to my world?

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Many years ago an old family friend said to me: “I feel sorry for you young guys today; I reckon your father and I have lived through the best of times.” I expressed surprise at the claim. I reminded him that he and dad had lived through two world wars and a depression, how on earth could they be described as the best of times?

I’m not certain what prompted his remark. Thinking back it might have been when we were going through the so-called first oil shock, circa 1973, when the OPEC countries banded together to raise the price of oil from $3 a barrel to $12. Or perhaps it was the second oil shock in 1979 when our government panicked, believing the doomsayers’ warnings that oil would soon run out, and introduced carless days to reduce demand.

Those two events triggered severe recessions, but thirty-five years on we now know the world is still awash with oil to such an extent that in America petrol is less than three dollars a gallon.

Nevertheless today we might well be facing the worst of times.

For instance there is a life and death struggle going on to ensure a large section of the African continent doesn’t succumb to Ebola.

Meanwhile Mr Putin is perilously close to initiating a European war and potentially a third world war with his foray into the Ukraine with a downed passenger airliner already a casualty.


I do have some sympathy for his stance. The democratically elected president of Ukraine, who was pro-Russian, was overthrown by a street mob that was tacitly encouraged by the West. In previous decades we saw America’s reaction when right wing dictators in South America, financed into office by Uncle Sam, were overthrown by the rank and file. It was swift and ruthless, not unlike Mr Putin’s.

Western interests also encouraged others to topple their rulers during the “Arab Spring.” Egypt is now under military rule after its disastrous coup, Iraq has never recovered from America and its “coalition of the willing” pursuing its strong-man leader and in Syria a rebellious section of the populous, supplied with western weaponry, spawned ISIS which is now challenging world peace with frightening brutality.

Our hypocrisy over who we support and don’t support is breath-taking.

We recently put out a red carpet for the Chinese Premier conveniently forgetting that their human rights practices don’t sit well with twenty-first century ethos. For instance they execute thousands of murderers and drug dealers every year.

The brief Brazilian tourist Philip Traynor-Smith can thank his lucky stars he’s not domiciled in China.

But the worst human rights practices are undoubtedly being displayed by those fundamentalist Muslims assembled under various nomenclatures such as The Taliban, Boko Haram, Hezbollah, Al Qaeda and Isis. Their very existence threatens us all and their terrorist tentacles have the propensity to reach into the uttermost ends of the earth.

Many of their Imams and clerics have apparently declared a holy jihad against the “infidels of the world” and their followers are told that by killing an infidel they are assured a place in heaven.

Incidentally an “Infidel” is a non-believer.

The contrast between Islam and Christianity is stark. My conversation with a fundamentalist Muslim might go something like this: “Does Allah really ask you to kill me in order for you to go to heaven while Jesus tells me to love you because I am going to heaven and he wants you to be there with me?”

But there are no onward Christian soldiers to fight the good fight. We have mortally mitigated the strength we once had. Our churches are rendered almost powerless by a population who have largely chosen the wide path to bypass them. Even the Pope has had to water down some of the tenets of his faith to maintain momentum.

And don’t look for any sustenance from our leaders. Our great cornerstone religion is under further assault. The latest incursion in to its very existence is coming from the New Zealand’s legislative chamber. The Speaker of the house is proposing that in future, prayers are only offered up to Almighty God.

Every religion, every civilisation, believes in God or a god.

Only Christianity believes in Christ.

Not daring to offend anybody, the Speaker wants Jesus name expunged.

If they can eliminate the founder of Christianity from the prayers in parliament, where will He be removed from next, Christmas and Easter?

“Go in through the narrow gate, because the gate to hell is wide and the road that leads to it is easy, and there are many who travel it. But the gate to life is narrow and the way that leads to it is hard, and there are few people who find it.” – Matthew 7:13-14

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