robertguyton

Nothing to worry about here in Southland

2012-02-13T15:46:00.001+13:00

"Southland's economy is better than it has been in years", according to John Scandrett, Otago Southland Employers Association chief executive. Speaking at the Association's briefing to outline the forecast for 2012, Mr Scandrett poured cold water on the argument that we need Solid Enegy's proposed lignite mine for our region's survival - clearly we're doing fine without it. Mr Scandrett said, " Overall, the economic landscape in Southland is probably as stable as it's ever been, "As the heartland of the agri-sector, it is solid and has not been this good in many years."
Mr Scandrett is talking farming here and should get on the phone to Don Elder and tell him he and his farm-destroying SOE are not needed here and that we are doing just fine without them, thank you very much!

Palm stone

2012-02-13T09:21:00.000+13:00

The stone/seed from which my palms have sprung. Well, they sprang from their own individual seed, but all looked like this. Amazingly, the root emerges from the middle of the back of the stone, through a tiny hole that looks like it was drilled. I've never seen that before! I guess only growers-of-things-from-seed will be at all interested in this post, if anyone at all.
But I am.

Snapshots

2012-02-12T10:50:00.000+13:00

Sell! Sell! Sell!

2012-02-11T12:02:00.000+13:00

"History would show when these things go on the market they get overseas interest."
Here's the follow-up to whispers that the Government is moving to sell Christchurch's assets. A report in today's Southland Times headed, "Airport, Orion likely to appeal" describes the way ahead for the hock'em off Government, represented by Big Gerry Brownlee.
The article begins, "International and local investors are expected to be potential buyers of Christchurch City Council's airport and electricity companies should it be forced to sell some assets to pay its earthquake bills..."
Marta Steeman's story is here on Stuff.

The horns of Key's dilemma (they're sharp as!)

2012-02-10T19:34:00.000+13:00

Claims by the New Zealand Maori Council look set to puncture National's daft plans to privatise what is presently publicly owned. Key is presently impaled on the twin horns of this issue and Idiot/Savant at NoRightTurn seems to be enjoying describing his discomfort and how the issue might/must play out.
Here, he explores the possibilities, both a far cry from Key's 'elegant solution'.

"One option is a part share in the SOEs. Which of course blows the government's case for sale out of the water. Another is the enactment of similar clauses to the existing sections 27 - 27D, which protect Māori interests in transferred land, and allow for the Waitangi Tribunal to order its return. That too would blow the government's case for sale out of the water; either it would have to accept lower prices to reflect its uncertain title, or it would have to indemnify purchasers against "Treaty risk" (or both). Either way, suddenly privatisation looks like an even worse deal..."

Ouch!

Selling Christchurch's assets

2012-02-10T16:50:00.002+13:00

The Christchurch City Council has great assets: Red Bus Ltd, Lyttelton Port Company, Orion and Christchurch airport, all owned by Canterbury citizens through their council, as Eugenie Sage describes in her post here. Eugenie believes, and she is not alone in her thinking, that the Government, through the huffy protestations of Gerry Brownlee, is softening up the citizens of Christchurch and beyond, for their very own fire sale of treasured assets. Starting with a not so subtle undermining of public confidence in the Council, in the same way they shaped public opinion over the Ecan Council, National's big men are sheeting all sorts of blame and accusation to the councillors of the CCC. No doubt they are enjoying the spectacle of the people of Christchurch rounding on the CE as well - grist to the mill, that sort of churn.
It will be interesting to see if Cantabrians can be fooled twice. There were vocal protests when National strong-armed Ecan out of the way. I wonder what will surface if they try it again?

Trouble in the House of English

2012-02-10T07:45:00.000+13:00

The Honorable Bill's brother Hamish, the English who really does live in Dipton has made what seems to be an extraordinary statement in a letter to the editor printed in the Southland Times today. On the topic of water, and who owns and should pay for what, Hamish asks;

"Are we as a country sleepwalking to relinquishing some level of control of a large chunk of New Zealand's water by way of partial hydro asset sales?"

Hamish's question is the $64 000 one and likely to have him crossed off Bill's Christmas card list for at least a decade.

Raising the question of, and casting doubt over the ownership and control of New Zealand's water in light of the asset sale plans the National Government is intent on foisting upon the country is something I hadn't expected anyone from the English family to do in public.

That's Reginald Perrin - isn't it?

2012-02-09T19:07:00.000+13:00

Asset sale trickery

2012-02-09T18:53:00.000+13:00

David Beatson doesn't think the Government's claims around the sale of our assets is as it sould be - honest and transparent that is.

"The paper also contains a major contradiction about the cap on individual shareholdings. Early in the piece, it says the Crown will bind itself to hold 51% of the shares in the Mixed Ownership companies, and “no other investor will be able to hold more than 10 percent of the shares with voting rights in each company.”
That statement is contradicted a few pages later. Under an innocuous heading about “Placing the companies under new legislation”, the paper also says “trustee corporations or nominee companies that hold shares on behalf of other persons may be exempt from the 10 percent limit”."

It's passages like this one that make Beatson's article so valuable for anyone wanting to learn the truth behind John Key and Bill English's honeyed words around the sale of assets.
He titles his article, "Asset sales - where are mum and dad's shares?"

Clowns to the right of me

2012-02-09T14:51:00.001+13:00

"Bob and Gerry have a bust-up. But is Gerry Brownlee just looking for an excuse to sack the Christchurch City Council and sell its assets? "

Steve Cowan at Against the Current asks the right questions.

Rosemarie Smith - champion gardener

2012-02-08T15:44:00.002+13:00

Rosemarie Smith, Southland Times garden writer tells us this morning that mining ruins good garden soil, or something along those lines, only she does it a little more obliquely and entertainingly. Rosemarie has put a cat among the pigeons with her latest article, which focuses on the Moanataiari subdivision of Thames, her old stamping ground. Or rather, place of cultivation. She describes the harm done to the soil there following the mining and the legacy that still exists, years after the batteries stopped pounding. It's not a story that's new, but it's timely. Rosemarie is presently living nearby to the proposed lignite mines of Mataura and clearly is concerned that damage like that she's seen up north, will affect her gardening activities down here, should Solid Energy's open cut lignite mine go ahead. Her whole article raises the alarm over just what mining does to the soil and for how long it does it. She's to be congratulated for raising the issue of the real effects of large scale mining on ordinary people and their livelihoods.
There's a photograph of Rosemarie (I can't post it or the article as it isn't on-line), showing her holding a handful of the soil she presently cultivates, and the caption reads:
"Unknown: What's in this soil?
The Moanataiari case has made me think about the history of the soils in my own garden beds and about long-term air and water quality issues that might arise from Think Big lignite developments upwind."
Curiously and coincidentally, I had a letter published in the same newspaper this morning, on the theme of gardens and lignite.

Mining ruins farms

I struggle to believe Greg Visser's assurances that the Mataura farms destroyed by mining for lignite will be put back better than before once the mining is finished.
Solid Energy plans to remove millions of tonnes of lignite from beneath some of the best farmland in the world.
To do that, they'll have to bulldoze that excellent soil off to one side, dig up the layers of subsoil and pile it somewhere, then with their huge machines grind the mass of lignite out and carry it away.
If I imagine this happening on the scale of my garden, I have no confidence whatsoever that what I've developed during the years could be "put back better than before"., especially given that so much of my garden would become a deep-pit lake, as is promised for Mataura.
Mr Visser might believe that the wonders of diggers and bulldozers, urea and propaganda can care for the farmland of Mataura, but I don't."

Robert Guyton

Serendipitous, eh!

Chicane gets one right

2012-02-07T14:06:00.000+13:00

Breaking news: Land thief caught red-handed!

2012-02-07T12:30:00.000+13:00

Best caption of the day: Brybry on The Standard.

Krumdieck on biochar

2012-02-07T10:06:00.000+13:00

The idea of turning plantation forests into charcoal then burying it as a way to sequester carbon and reduce the load on the atmosphere has been floated for a long time now. Dr Susan Krumdieck, (Sensible Susan, I call her - in my mind :-)

Director, Advanced Energy and Material Systems Lab

Associate Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering

University of Canterbury

,gives her (sensible) view, which interestingly, dovetails tidily with that of Geoff, our local expert in the field.

"As an energy engineer I find the biochar concept to be loopy.

Here are the points:

1. New Zealand plantation forestry is in no manner sustainable. It has been shielded from scrutiny by sustainable forestry certification because it does not sell lumber of high enough quality to get into USA, Europe and Canada markets. It is a biodiversity, watershed, and ecological disaster. Therefore, basing a future political decision on a past political mistake is not good for society.

2. Making charcoal (biochar is a new marketing of charcoal) requires high grade thermal energy (high enough temperatures to do many other useful things like boil steam). Charcoal is a higher grade fuel than wood, so the energy investment is warranted when you need a higher temperature, lower bulk, lower emission fuel.

3. Burying a perfectly good fuel in the ground to sequester carbon is nutty. Particularly if it is to "offset" the carbon produced by digging a fuel out of the ground and burning it. Nutty.

4. Pelleting the wood rather than pyrolysis is a much more energy positive approach to waste wood.

5. There is not enough wood in the world to make a dent in offsetting carbon emissions from coal and oil. Remember, Europe and the USA have already cleared their native forests and largely to make it into charcoal to run industry.

6. The thermal processing of wood to charcoal (pyrolysis) is very polluting if done in the "natural" smouldering way and requires heavy engineering if done in an industrial way. The costs of this are going to vastly exceed the costs of using less fossil fuel by improved efficiencies.

My pronouncement = LOOPY

Can we move on?

Cheers

Susan Dr. Susan Krumdieck Director, Advanced Energy and Material Systems Lab

Associate Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering

University of Canterbury

Christchurch

New Zealand +64 3 364 2987 extn.

7249 www.aemslab.org.nz

www.signsofchange.org.nz

English insults Maori

2012-02-07T07:53:00.001+13:00

The murmer of disapproval/ rumble of discontent that ran across the paepae at yesterday's powhiri at Te Rau Aroha, in response to Bill English's disparaging remarks about 'Northern Maoris', was a jarring note in an otherwise enjoyable Waitangi Day celebration.
Perhaps he believed that running down the northern tribes would curry him favour in the South, but saying, "If the northern tribes could run a marae properly, New Zealand might have a more positive view of the Treaty.", served only to reveal him as gauche. Certainly he flushed at the reaction from the tangata whenua, themselves a mixture of North and South Island Maori, seated across the marae atea. I wondered in any case, why he was bleating on about 'the protesters' and his disdain for them. It hardly seemed an appropriate topic for discussion on a marae where he was being so cordially treated. Some carefully crafted praise for the Awarua Runaka wouldn't have gone amiss, as they'd put on a fantastic day. Their hakari at noon for starters, was legendary; crayfish, oysters, paua, blue cod, titi... they provided everything the southern oceans have to offer, and there was plenty of it!
Mind you, at least Bill had the manners to have a cup of tea and a biscuit following the powhiri as kawa dictates. His rude boss Key didn't even bother to show that consideration at Waitangi, according to a story in today's rag. Stomp, stomp, Mr Key. People don't like that sort of behaviour, especially people who regard manakitanga so highly.

We sailed to Ruapuke

2012-02-06T22:13:00.001+13:00

We left Motupohue in our wake

Sea birds wheeled overhead

The island hove into view

It's an odd place

Boney

As we left, the low profile of Ruapuke became apparent

Best expose of SOE sale plans

2012-02-05T23:48:00.000+13:00

John Armstrong exposes the true ramifications of National's plans to sell our SOE's.
I'm copy/pasting his complete article here, so good a read it makes. It may be not the done thing, such an unauthorized grab of someone else's work but if need be, I'll take it down and link to the original.

"National's "mixed ownership model" - the innocuous-sounding vehicle tasked with making the party's unpopular privatisation agenda more appetising - paradoxically may yet end up making the partial sell-offs of state corporations even less palatable to voters.

The model was supposed to take the political heat out of the issue by hocking off minority shareholdings in a clutch of major energy-related state-owned enterprises, rather than selling them holus-bolus.

This week, the plan instead raised the temperature of the privatisation debate and, worse, pitted supposed allies against one another.

Too late, the warning bells should be ringing in the Beehive.

The model may turn out to be one of those seductive ideas which seem to offer all the answers, but end up stumbling under the weight of their own contradictions and unforeseen consequences.

This week's very public stoush between the Maori Party and National over the retention of a longstanding treaty clause, is the first such sign of trouble ahead.

This problem should have been foreseen. Cabinet papers released under the Official Information Act last year indicate the tricky question of whether the catch-all treaty protection clause in the 25-year-old State Owned Enterprises Act should be reinserted into replacement legislation which will cover the partially privatised companies looks to have been on Treasury officials' radar.

But someone forgot to tell the Maori Party.

What the wrangling over the treaty clause has exposed is the inherent flaw in the mixed ownership model.

Its seeming beauty when unveiled by the Prime Minister just over 12 months ago was that it offered something to appease everyone.

The new state companies would benefit from greater commercial and market discipline through having private shareholders.

The share floats would be safe havens for small investors. The sale proceeds would make a sizeable contribution to the capital spending budget of a severely cash-strapped Government.

All this and the State would still retain control through its majority 51% shareholding.

The latter factor - state control - is the most crucial in political terms. It will prove to be a myth.

It is a myth that John Key and Bill English were naturally keen to perpetuate in the run-up to last November's election, however.

Ownership and control are not the same thing. Mr Key, in particular, has confused the two, perhaps deliberately.

Moreover, the rights of minority shareholders will have to be taken into account. Above all, commercial imperatives will drive these entities to the exclusion of everything else.

These restructured companies - the electricity generators Mighty River Power, Meridian Energy and Genesis, and, the state coal company Solid Energy - will not be accountable to the Prime Minister or Minister of Finance.

They will be expected to behave like any other privately listed company and be answerable to the stock exchange.

It might be argued that traditional 100% state-owned enterprises have been equally profit-driven and rarely, if ever, behave in anything but a corporate fashion.

The difference is that the latter are still potentially subject to ministerial direction and have been over such things as dividend policy and through the drawing up of their guiding statements of corporate intent.

The SOEs are also obliged to be "socially responsible", although that has rarely been tested.

The dispute over the treaty clause has Labour predicting that the social responsibility provision will also not feature either when the exact working detail of the mixed ownership model is unveiled in conjunction with the float of Mighty River Power, the first candidate for partial sale.

Labour is probably correct. The Treasury has consistently and insistently warned that any trade-offs to Maori or mechanisms to maintain Crown control will depress the share price and thus reduce the receipts from the share floats.

An inadvertently released draft report setting out the terms for consultation with Maori is also instructive as to the Government's thinking. It declares that ministers' powers with respect to the mixed ownership model "will not be as great" as they have under the SOE Act.

The intention was to move the restructured corporations into a framework that applies to listed companies and create a "greater commercial focus to their operations".

These statements were exorcised from the report's final public version, however.

Clearly, the Government does not want the public to know yet that these entities are going to be very different creatures from the standard SOE.

The Treasury's advice, meanwhile, notes that introducing other shareholders into a company "fundamentally changes" governance arrangements be it in board appointments, voting rights or company planning.

The blueprint for the likely structure and corporate governance of these new companies is Air New Zealand, in which the Crown has a 74% shareholding.

It was only as the result of pressure from the Auditor-general in 2003 that Air New Zealand was made subject to Parliamentary scrutiny, though only in minimal form.

The report covering the last such select committee review of the airline in 2009 had no matters to report and stretched to all of five lines.

Apart from the Government having to agree to the board's choice of its chairman, Air New Zealand is free to run itself as it sees fit.

It is conceivable that National could seek to ensure tighter control of the new state companies through nominating directors and placing veto rights over appointments and introducing specific Kiwishare provisions, for example, to limit foreign ownership.

The public, however, is still under the mistaken impression that these companies will still very much be like SOEs, albeit with some private shareholders on board.

Mr Key and Mr English will have some explaining to do when the public discovers otherwise. However, they will ride out the storm on the back of what they (fingers crossed) expect to be highly successful floats.

All this begs one question: Apart from retaining the dividend flow, what will be the point in the Government maintaining ownership?

National's political opponents will see this model as proof of what they have long been arguing - that the partial privatisations are a halfway house to full sale and that was always National's intention.

It will be a difficult charge for National to rebut.

John Armstrong is The New Zealand Herald political correspondent

Opinion | News: Politics | Maori Party | National Party | Week in politics

Te Rau Aroha

2012-02-05T20:52:00.002+13:00

Tomorrow is Waitangi Day and I'm spending it at Te Rau Aroha marae at Motupohue/Bluff.
There'll be all sorts of dignitaries there, from Sir Tipene O'Regan to the Hon Christopher Finlayson.
I'm hoping for fireworks.
After the marae events, there's a boat trip out to and around Ruapuke island, with a commentary by Tahu Potiki and I'm lucky enough to have been given a boarding pass for the trip.
I'm taking my camera and three spare batteries and will report back here on the day's adventures.

Key chicken?

2012-02-05T19:30:00.001+13:00

"Tomorrow, I expect that the protests will be smaller. But if Key had stayed he could have projected a defiant image as even Sharples and Turia have reportedly not left the area yet. However, he chose to run off like a chicken. Perhaps radical Maoridom have pointed out another of Key's achilles heels - that when challenged directly he doesn't like it. He chooses to hide rather than confront the fact that both Maori and Pakeha are opposed to asset or land sales of any description."

Chris Ford, blogging at Voxy has some harsh words for the Prime Minister, whom he regards as not so much rooster, as hen.

Isle of Capri

2012-02-05T17:15:00.000+13:00

Malcolm called in with an Isle of Capri tomato and a bucket of Italian flat beans.
That man knows how to grow 'em!

"Prime Minister, why are you leaving?"

2012-02-05T16:26:00.000+13:00

Key flees Te Tii.

MC

2012-02-05T16:08:00.000+13:00

At the Mataura community meeting, Keep the Coal in the Hole, I was Master of Ceremonies.
Here are shots taken by David Russell of Southern Exposures (some cropped by me), in which I had some part. It was a very good meeting, I reckon.

Opening the discussions

John Purey-Cust and I

Relaxed and happy Jeanette

Dave and Christine

Sid Plant and I

Jeanette and her helper-on-the-day.

At this time of the year...

2012-02-05T09:09:00.000+13:00

...the apples are swelling and ripening, and the annuals are shedding their seed.

Don't be fooled

2012-02-04T22:48:00.000+13:00

(Comment by escapefromwisconsin on The Archdruid Project)

"I'm sure many readers here might be familiar with the article that appeared in The New York Times a while back that profiled a Waldorf school in the heart of Silicon Valley where many children of the priviliged high-tech caste went. The school forbids the use of computers:
LOS ALTOS, Calif. — The chief technology officer of eBay sends his children to a nine-classroom school here. So do employees of Silicon Valley giants like Google, Apple, Yahoo and Hewlett-Packard.

But the school’s chief teaching tools are anything but high-tech: pens and paper, knitting needles and, occasionally, mud. Not a computer to be found. No screens at all. They are not allowed in the classroom, and the school even frowns on their use at home.

Schools nationwide have rushed to supply their classrooms with computers, and many policy makers say it is foolish to do otherwise. But the contrarian point of view can be found at the epicenter of the tech economy, where some parents and educators have a message: computers and schools don’t mix.
A Silicon Valley School That Doesn’t Compute

In other words, Silicon Valley is peddling computers in every classroom as a miracle cure for the world's educational system, but when it comes to their own kids, computers are banned in favor of developing their own potential. Quite telling, isn't it? Is the push for computers really about improving education or opening new markets?

The ring Robyn found...

2012-02-04T18:45:00.002+13:00

...while she was running on the beach.

A sign I never thought I'd see

2012-02-04T18:44:00.000+13:00

On the 'advertisements' wall at our local supermarket - wtf?

Strange fish

2012-02-04T18:42:00.002+13:00

Corn up-date #3

2012-02-04T13:51:00.002+13:00

Lush

2012-02-04T13:50:00.000+13:00

It's green and juicy out there in my garden.

The Digger's Club

2012-02-04T13:46:00.000+13:00

(Hat-tip Steve)

Australia has an equivalent to our "King's Seeds catalogue, and then some. The Digger's Club is a garden club that focuses on heritage seeds and all that goes with them. They have a magazine from which I shot this cover image. I don't know what the figures represent but like them very much, especially the stalk-legged pot.

Calm day

2012-02-04T13:03:00.002+13:00

The first day of Waitangi Weekend is settled and refreshing, here in the South. The estuary was as still as can be when I went down to make an image. While I squatted on a rock in the shallows, I noticed crabs and bullies gracefully going about their brackish business, shuffling about in the sandy bottom, measuring the distance from food to sanctuary, trying crevasses for fit and algae for flavour. I watch the surface of the water dimple and knew there must be inanga feeding but they're so swift, it took a while to tune in to see them below the surface. When I did, I saw that there were dozens of them, sleek and quick. I'd fight to protect those little guys from anyone, individual or corporation, that threatens their existence.
Here's the estuary.

Why is it so difficult...

2012-02-03T16:15:00.002+13:00

...to shoot a stick insect?

Autumnal flowers

2012-02-03T14:28:00.000+13:00

John Key is misleading you

2012-02-03T06:58:00.000+13:00

The editorial in today's Southland Times describes how the Prime Minister is pulling the wool over your eyes. His claims about the clause that has the Maori Party all steamed up and Maori in general girding their loins for a Waitangi Day stoush were not true at all and have been revealed for what they are, by various lawyers up and down the country.
Key say he was misinformed by his advisors, whom he will not name. He's used this ploy before; say whatever suits him, then pass the buck when the untruth is revealed.
Sneaky Mr Key.
The prospect of a lively Waitangi day for the Prime Minister is intensifying by the day. Roll on Monday!

Waitangi entertainment

2012-02-02T10:02:00.001+13:00

"Yesterday, Mr Key said he expected the issue of the Treaty clause to come up at Waitangi on Sunday.
He would raise it at Te Tii Marae himself to help address any "confusion and bamboozlement" caused by misinformation."

Can't wait to watch Mr Key elegantly removing the bamboozlement from the clouded minds of the simple natives!

And while I'm at it...

2012-02-02T08:02:00.000+13:00

How about a decent cow pat?
A good one is supposed to look like a tam 'o shanter.
Not a stain.

Question (something to ruminate on)

2012-02-02T07:56:00.000+13:00

Years ago, it was common to see cows, sitting contentedly in their field, chewing their cud.
Seen any of that action lately?

Trotter on Parker, Marryatt and other Authoritarians

2012-01-31T21:48:00.003+13:00

Chris Trotter nails the problems with the Christchurch City Council to the wall so we can all have a gander and it ain't pretty.

"Neither Mayor Bob Parker nor council chief executive Tony Marryatt appear to have grasped the urgency of transforming the council into the principal advocate of - and for - Christchurch's battered citizens.
On the contrary, both men seem to have scant regard for the three principles indispensable to the construction of unity: transparency; consultation; and accountability.
Local democracy is not about gathering together a bare majority of compliant cronies whose sole contribution to local government is to rubber-stamp the joint recommendations of the mayor and his chief executive.
And it is certainly not about the mayor's cronies, puffed-up with pride at their insider status, heaping scorn upon those councillors denied admission to the magic circle of power.
Indeed, nothing is more calculated to breed disunity, disaffection and defensiveness: the very feelings that cause politicians to resort to that time- honoured response to secrecy and exclusion - the leak."

Trotter's vision is clear here, and the problems he describes, not confined to just the CCC.

"Two manifestations of administrative authoritarianism deserve special attention. The so-far- unsuccessful attempts by local government officials to impose legal restraints on the degree to which elected representatives can participate in contentious debates.
And, the Local Government Commission's ongoing campaign to reduce the number of elected representatives on city councils and with them the ratio of councillors to citizens."

Read the full article here.

Gardening with a wild heart

2012-01-31T11:25:00.000+13:00

" A wildflower field was an unplowed, unmowed, unfertilized, untilled, unpesticided, unwatered, always returning grain field."

While writing my NZGardener column this morning, discussing the value of sowing suburban front lawns in cereals festooned with wildflowers, but needing to know the types of wildflowers that would do best among rye, I stumbled upon this page from a blog by a woman who loves wildflowers.
You might enjoy it. The video of wildflowers blowing in the wind might be something to watch. I've not had the time yet to do so.
I stole the image from her site.

Coal camp - Mataura

2012-01-31T04:21:00.000+13:00

We made apricot jam

2012-01-31T04:17:00.000+13:00

Grow oranges in Southland!

2012-01-31T04:05:00.000+13:00

(Hat-tip Antje)

"WASHINGTON -- Global warming is hitting not just home, but garden. The color-coded map of planting zones often seen on the back of seed packets is being updated by the government, illustrating a hotter 21st century.

It's the first time since 1990 that the U.S. Department of Agriculture has revised the official guide for the nation's 80 million gardeners, and much has changed. Nearly entire states, such as Ohio, Nebraska and Texas, are in warmer zones."

Southland's frost records show the same trend - far fewer frosts now than in the past and trending toward none at all. Good for growing oranges perhaps, but welcomed also by every sap-sucking bug in creation.

Read more here: http://www.thenewstribune.com/2012/01/26/2000017/usdas-new-planting-zones-reflect.html?story_link=email_msg#storylink=cpy

Maori Party outraged

2012-01-30T22:42:00.000+13:00

"The Maori Party have today slammed the approval of sale of Crafar Farms, with co-Leader Dr. Pita Sharples saying “our land should stay in our hands.”
“We are totally outraged that the Overseas Investment Office would approve the sale of this massive land holding to foreign investors,” said Dr. Sharples."

Take it to your pal, John Key, Mr Sharples.

Maori Party see the tohu on the wall

2012-01-30T22:38:00.000+13:00

"The Maori Party has described Government plans to remove Treaty protections from the sale of four SOEs as ‘selling Treaty rights to the highest bidder’."

It's become very hot in the Government kitchen just lately.

“The whole Treaty settlement process, and all the progress made over the past 25 years, has largely been driven by the Treaty clauses in the SOE Act, and we must not allow the government to dump those protections in order to get a better price for the power companies,” said Co-leader Dr Pita Sharples"

Tautoko, Pita!

China could have sued

2012-01-30T22:35:00.000+13:00

"If the New Zealand government had declined the Shanghai Pengxin purchase of the Crafar farm it could have faced an international law suit for breaching its free trade agreement with China, says University of Auckland law professor Jane Kelsey.
‘When China’s politicians warned New Zealand politicians last year that the agreement was a two way street it is clear they were referring to their rights as foreign investors under the so-called “trade” treaty.’"

Jane Kelsey makes it clear that there are serious problems with the Chinese purchase of New Zealand farmland, and with the manner in which Key is playing with our sovereignty.

"‘The government would have pulled out all the stops to avoid a Chinese investor supported by the Chinese State taking it to international arbitration for breaching the FTA, even if it felt it was on strong legal ground.’
‘Such a dispute would have huge ramifications for New Zealand’s diplomatic and economic relationship with China.’
‘It would also cast a spotlight on the even greater risks of the more extensive foreign investor rights proposed for the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA), a debate that the government is desperate to avoid.’
According to Professor Kelsey ‘the US is demanding much stronger protections for its would-be investors in the TPPA than China secured and the Key government has apparently rolled over and agreed to them, unlike Australia’.
‘The popular angst being channelled towards the Chinese needs to become a more principled opposition to deals that sign the sovereignty of our resources over to foreign corporations and who can sue the government in offshore courts if they don’t get their way.’"

The plot thickens...

2012-01-30T16:00:00.000+13:00

(hat-tip Kylie)

Questions are being asked as to the legality and appropriateness of Nick Smith's appointment of a Crown Observer to keep a (Big) brotherly eye in the Christchurch City Council. Here, Council Watch does their job - the've watched and now they're asking questions. Good stuff.

Ombudsmen And Crown Law Asked To Investigate Minister’s Decision WELLINGTON, 30 January 2012 Council Watch has formally requested the investigation of Local Government Minister Nick Smith’s appointment of a Crown Observer to Christchurch City Council. The Minister’s office had arranged for Sir Kerry Marshall MBE to take up an observation role in the weeks leading up to a meeting with the Chief Executive and councillors of Christchurch City Council. Council Watch Local Government Engagement Advisor, Jim Candiliotis, has formally asked the Office of the Ombudsmen to investigate the advice provided to the Minister. He says Council Watch has also requested the Solicitor General to review the appointment. “Local government is constituted separate from central government under an Act of Parliament for a reason,” says Mr Candiliotis, “When the Local Government Act was drafted our lawmakers saw fit to give the Minister four options if intervention was necessary in local government affairs. These powers are outlined in the Local Government Act and are accompanied by clear requirements to follow if used. “The appointment of a ‘Crown Observer’ is not derived from the Act and we believe it is unconstitutional, unlawful or at the very least a blatant interference in the governance of a city. “To date the Minister’s office has not provided a satisfactory explanation for taking such a course of action.” The Minister has borrowed from a little-known provision in the Education Act 1989. Under S.195C of that Act the Minister of Education may appoint a Crown Observer to the council of a Tertiary Institution. It does not provide for such an appointment to a local body, nor does it allow any other for any other Minister to appoint a Crown Observer. Mr Candiliotis says the move begs the question why the Minister is involving himself in the Council in the first place. “Anyone who works with Councils understands there are tensions at the Councillor level – that is the nature of democracy. When it comes to misbehaviour, arguments and public spats the people we elect to Parliament provide a much greater spectacle than those we elect to councils. So why has the Minister gone to all this trouble? “How would the taxpayers of New Zealand feel if Barack Obama appointed the American Ambassador to sit in on Cabinet meetings at the Beehive? “The ratepayers of Christchurch no doubt are feeling a bit like that now. Mr Candiliotis does not know when he’ll be getting a ruling from either the Ombudsmen or the Solicitor General, but he says the issue is too important to allow it to rest. “There has been a lot of interference by central government in local authorities in the past three years,” he says, “And the subversion of democracy is a slippery slope. Our hope is the Minister takes a step back and allows the Council to sort its own problems out, or else uses the provisions allowed him under the Act. “Just because you are elected to Parliament, it does not give you the right to bend the law.” ENDS

Christchurch City Council and ES - sisters?

2012-01-30T13:29:00.000+13:00

(Hat-tip Jan)

OPINION: Nick Smith has missed an opportunity to redeem himself for the hatchet job he did on the Environment Canterbury (ECan) council two years ago. Local Government Min-ister Smith swept into town on Friday at the "invitation" of Christchurch Mayor Bob Parker to meet with elected members of the dysfunctional city council. It probably brought back memories for Smith of the day when he, as Environment Minister, and his gone but not forgotten local government minister predecessor Rodney Hide dropped into the city to unveil the commissioners they had chosen to replace the ECan councillors. This time though Smith was accompanied by Earthquake Recovery Minister Gerry Brownlee at the meeting which Parker originally said he had hoped to "invite" the minister to. You have to wonder how much of an "invitation" it really was. Smith had an announcement all ready explaining his introduction of a Crown observer, and also had somehow managed to secure the services of former Nelson mayor and – quite appropriately for the squabbling council – marriage guidance counsellor Kerry Marshall just a couple of days after his "invitation" from Parker. With all due respect to Marshall, a lot more fun could have been had if Smith had eaten some humble pie for the ECan council massacre and instead appointed another Kerry – former ECan chairman Sir Kerry Burke. Burke was always a hotshot on council procedure, standing orders and the "right way" for councillors to behave at meetings. As an observer of both councils, and despite what politicians find convenient to say publicly, I have to say the ECan council was nowhere near as dysfunctional as the current city council. In fact, unlike what Smith and Hide kept repeating in the hope it might actually become the case, the cobbled-together report into ECan by former National deputy prime minister Wyatt Creech never harped on about the council being dysfunctional. There are parallels here in that Smith and Parker have grabbed on to and keep repeating another convenient supposition that the city council is in its current plight because of constant leaking. Sorry guys, you're wrong there too, no matter how many times you say it. There haven't been many leaks at all, less than a handful. The council is in trouble because not all councillors are treated equally. Appointing Burke as the Crown observer would have been hugely ironic, given Parker was the driving force behind the Canterbury mayors banding together to complain about ECan to the Government. Along with the background unitary authority agenda, the water issue and how it dovetails with the economy were irresistible temptations to those in Government wanting to take greater control. The ECan council was the stumbling block. Just think, Burke overseeing Parker and his councillors! One can only imagine how Parker would have felt in that situation, the wheel having turned full circle.

Heard of section 9?

2012-01-30T13:22:00.001+13:00

Tumeke! has the goods on the possible stumbling block to Key's asset sale plans.

The mermaid's gone

2012-01-30T13:18:00.000+13:00

And in her place, the freshness of a newly decorated bedroom. The matai floors have been sanded and oiled, the ceiling painted 'alabaster white' and the walls papered with a green damask.
Curtains are next, then it'll be habitable.
Feeling a little proud.
(So as not to feel too alienated from our past, I kept a fragment of the mermaid's tail :-)

Tenants in our own land

2012-01-29T16:29:00.002+13:00

"John Hartevelt says that John Key has brought the controversy on himself with his ‘tenants in own land’ rhetoric, and now fails to be able to explain why his effective support for the sale to Pengxin is not hypocritical – see: Sun always shines in the land of Key. This is particularly ironic as taxpayers (in the form of Landcorp) will indeed be the tenants, and the new owners are backed by cheap credit from the Chinese Government, who appear to have no qualms about actively supporting acquisition of assets."

Bryce Edwards points interested New Zealanders in the right direction over the Pengxin sale.

Read, and weep.

2012-01-29T10:26:00.000+13:00

Pablo at Kiwipolitico tears the Authoritarians a new one, and discusses 'our culture of impunity':

"...With that in mind I ask readers if such a culture of impunity exists in NZ. I ask because it strikes me that although diluted and less repressive in genesis, there appears to be an attitude of impunity in the political and economic elite. They can buy silence and name suppression when they misbehave; with a wink and a nod they accommodate employment for their friends and provide sinecures for each other (think of various Boards); they consider themselves better informed, in the know, more worldly and therefore unaccountable to the popular masses when it comes to making policy (think of the use of parliamentary urgency to ram through contentious legislation and the NZDF command lies about what the SAS is actually doing in Afghanistan); they award themselves extraordinary powers in some times of crisis (Christchurch) while absolving themselves of responsibility in others (Rena). They use the Police for their own purposes (Teapot Tapes and Occupy evictions, the latter happening not because of public consensus but done by summary executive fiat). More generally, think of the lack of transparency in how government decisions are made and the duplicity of elite statements about economic issues (say, the price of wage goods) and political matters (e.g., recent internal security legislation). Coupled with equally opaque decision-making in NZ’s largest publicly-traded firms, or the cozy overlap between sectors of the judiciary and other elites, the list of traded favors and protections is long."

Read the full article here:

Sold! To China.

2012-01-28T11:17:00.002+13:00

You know what I mean.

Straterra myths and legends

2012-01-28T09:10:00.000+13:00

I followed Dave Kennedy's link to the Straterra 'Climate Change' page on their website. I was taken-aback!
Here, I've pasted their material and added a comment or two (in red) where I felt there was some flim-flam going on (if it was ink, I'd have used gallons).

Climate change

Myth: Coal, oil & gas development in NZ will affect the climate.
(Stop right there, Mr Straterra! There is no question what so ever that the development of coal, gas and oil in New Zealand has already, and will if it continues, affect the climate. The only question can be 'by how much'? Your, 'myth' tag here is utter nonsense. Consider this - if you believed it was a myth, would you be talking gas capture and sequestration at all? Your first 'play' on this page is an epic fail.)

Reality: Fossil fuels do lead to greenhouse gas emissions, however, this statement needs to be measured in the context of New Zealand’s climate change response. That is that we must do our fair share - and we are. For example, New Zealand has 70% renewable electricity generation, a world leading figure. While close to half our emissions come from agriculture, this industry helps feed the world and is less emissions intensive than it is in many other countries.
(This 'rationalization' is complete bollocks! You do lead, however, with a true statement; "Reality: Fossil fuels do lead to greenhouse gas emissions..." which kind of makes your lead statement at the top of the page look foolish, doesn't it. You seem to be saying here, that because elsewhere in the world, others are creating greenhouse gases at a greater rate, we are okay adding our smaller amounts. The mind boggles at your logic and apparent ability to deny the obvious. New Zealand's climate change response, as championed here by you, is widely recognised as a very, very soft one. For you to willfully add to the output of greenhouse gases that we are already failing to account for, is not admirable, Mr Straterra.)

Myth: NZ should ban coal mining and oil & gas development, to reduce emissions.
(This is a myth? It doesn't even have the form of a myth, Mr Straterra. If it said, "Banning coal mining and oil & gas development in New Zealand would reduce emissions, it would of course be true, no myth at all. However, you seem to be implying that there is a claim 'out there' for the banning of coal mining and oil and gas development. You have, I guess, made that up. The most credible calls I hear from those agencies who regard extractive activities such as you describe as as a threat to the climate aren't calling for a ban on existing coal mining, especially those that are mining high grade coals, they are calling, not for a ban, but a moratorium, on lignite extraction where new mines are proposed and they are calling for a similar moratorium on off shore drilling for oil, not a ban on those already in operation. Your 'myth' is one you have, I suggest, dreamed up to suit your purpose. It's not one that is circulating in the real world.)

Reality: Yes, but climate change demands a global response. That will include carbon capture and storage technologies (CCS) to address the fact the world will continue to burn fossil fuels for many years yet. According to the International Energy Agency, 47% of new electricity generation in the last decade is based on coal. Unilateral action would only harm NZ – e.g. closure of dairy and wood processors, steel mill, methanol plant, cement plants - while not benefiting the climate, unless the world acts in concert. It is not, at present.
(Reality: Yes! Goodness, your myth, by your own reckoning, is a reality? You might need to adjust your spin on this Mr Straterra, it's a little revealing!
Climate change demands a global response you say? So you've accepted that it's not just a myth, I take it.
'Global response' must be a conglomeration of local responses, naturally, and you have the chance to be some of those local responses (or are you hoping that 'overseas' will fix the climate change you describe?).
Unilateral action is the great 'stick of fear' producers of green house gases like to wave, but of course it's nonsense. Other countries/companies/communities are taking action. Our own is dragging the chain and the mining industry is one of the worst offenders here - and that's you, Mr Straterra! Claiming that we can act til the world acts, benefits those who also claim the same thing in order to carry on business as usual, ignoring the fact that their activities are causing a worsrning of the climate and a direct threat to every human on the planet. "But they're doing it" sounds like a school yard wheedle and doesn't impress when it comes from a seemingly sophisticated corporation.

Myth: CCS doesn’t work and is corporate spin.
(Had you been at the public meeting at Mataura where the Lincoln University specialist in CCS spoke, you'd take down this claim, Mr Straterra. He fisked your argument so thoroughly that you'd have slunk from the room.
"in operation, not in operation, or in the planning around the globe" - weasel words, those. The one thaat I've seen a report on that is collecting some of its CO2 is pumping it through a 300km pipeline and pushing it into a partly-empty oil well in order to force the oil up and into the pockets of the investors - not possible here in Southland, Mr Straterra, we've no half-empty oil wells here, none that are empty and waiting to be filled with Co2 and Taranaki's a very, very long pipeline away. CCS is a hugely underwhelming solution to what will be an unavoidable problem for your industry.

Reality: The IEA reports more than 70 large-scale CCS R&D projects in operation, not in operation, or in the planning around the globe. Many billions of dollars are being spent on this - a serious investment aimed at dealing with global reality, i.e. 1 trillion tonnes of coal is due to be burned in coming decades. That said, CCS is yet to be implemented at scale. For that, significant investment and de-risking, e.g. via improved regulatory environments, will be needed.
("That said, CCS is yet to be implemented at scale." - I commend you for your forthrightness and honesty, Mr Straterra. It's not, as you say, a reality yet, so I guess that makes CCS more myth than anything else!)

Myth: Lignite is particularly bad for the climate because the level of GHG emissions is high.

Reality: This depends on the use of the lignite, and whether CCS is deployed.
(Hard to know whether to bother with this last lame claim, Mr Straterra. Your argument is wet-tissue weak and I'm feeling kindly, after finding a grain of truth in your page (see above).
I think I'll leave it for another day. Thanks for your time.)

Asset sales

2012-01-28T08:23:00.001+13:00

Let's see.. each and every New Zealander owns these assets and shares the returns from them but soon we won't because they are to be sold to people wealthy enough to buy the shares.
Someone is being screwed here.
There will be a guarantee from the Government that those shares that are for sale won't just be sold on to overseas to buyers offering far more money than the shares originally cost, won't there?
I mean, the Crafar farms example shows who wins when Chinese investors, flush with cash, bid against we poorer New Zealanders. We don't want our energy companies driven by parties from overseas, do we?
That'd be plain stupid.
That could mean that Solid Energy's direction could be called from the other side of the world. How would people from Mataura feel about that? If locals found that the mining was intolerable for some reason, they'd want to be able to influence the company to keep themselves; their families, health and physical environment safe, wouldn't they? They'd feel very anxious if the decision makers were all sitting in the northern hemisphere, growing rich from the mining and resisting any calls to slow down or stop.
Have people thought this through?

Bon voyage

2012-01-27T11:16:00.001+13:00

The tide's going out on our mermaid.
She's been casting her protective gaze over my children for all the years since she was painted on the sloping ceiling of their bedroom by the Irish girl who stayed with us for a week or two as part of her world travels, but now it's time for our maid of the sea to leave us. My daughter is no longer of an age where a mural like this resonates, and so today it's sandpaper and dust masks, as I scrub off the siren and paint her out in favour of a plain ceiling.
The night sky, with it's Milky way and swirling nebula that I painted many years ago, when my eldest son was 7, still covers the ceiling in the other upstairs bedroom, is staying, though he's moved out and has a ceiling of his own. He's kept his interest in astronomy though, so the effort that went into painting a ceiling (have you ever tried it? I'm talking a high ceiling, of the sort found in colonial homes) is still realising value.

Pre-sand

Post

Worst blog nomination!

2012-01-27T10:41:00.000+13:00

Exciting!
My blog has been nominated for the 'Worst Blog 2012' on the Right-wing blog 'Gotcha' that's bodged together by the tempestuous WhaleOil/Slater.

My nominee?
Inventory2 from Keeping Stock.

Righteous!

Bernie Napp - funny fellow

2012-01-27T07:27:00.003+13:00

Ya gotta laff!

Straterra's response to the weekends anti-lignite mining festival, through senior policy analyst Bernie Napp's letter to the Southland times, was a seemingly maladroit attempt to counter some of the issues raised at the public meeting at the Mataura Community Centre. Dave Kennedy has countered several of the silly claims made by the Straterra man, but I found Napp's generic 'without mining we are doomed, dooooomed!' caterwaul the funniest.
Bernie says,
"Indeed, if there were no energy and minerals, whether imported into or produced in New Zealand, there would be no hospitals, no transport, no schools, no electricity, no food, no clothing, no phones." and
"The sky is falling, the sky is falling!"
In fact he didn't say the latter, but had it echoing around inside his head, I'm sure.

The large and well-informed party of opponents to Solid Energy's plans to open-cut mine lignite at Mataura are not saying, as ~~Chicken Little~~ Bernie Napp says, no mining at all, they are calling for a halt to the plans for new lignite mining in Southland. Bernie's efforts which appear so clumsy, are no doubt designed to confuse that message.

"No clothing!!!"

Lordy!

Cob oven dissolution

2012-01-26T08:24:00.000+13:00

We've returned our cob oven to the soil. The beauty of an oven made from clay, sand and straw is that when it need to be replaced, it can go straight back into the ground. Our oven was wearing out (should've covered it from the start - clay does not repel Southland rain for long) and we've decided to make a new one, so the old had to go. Josh did the work and Peter will manage the reconstruction of the new model. I'll get the 'hood', made from craddy sticks and cabbage tree thatch, over it the moment it's finished. The materials from the original cob oven will have dissolved into the soil by then, leaving no trace. Perfect!

Corn up-date

2012-01-26T08:17:00.000+13:00

I'm keeping the nitrogen to it and it's growing apace.

Perhaps the world's gruntiest...

2012-01-26T08:15:00.000+13:00

...strainer post. The photo doesn't show just how massive this post is. If ordinary strainers were seals, this is a sea elephant. I shot it on my way home from Mataura, during one of my 'saddle-breaks'.

Mike Dunbar's on-farm cinema

2012-01-26T08:11:00.000+13:00

(Reeks of lanolin)

Don't trust coal companies, Aussie farmer tells Southland

2012-01-25T10:57:00.000+13:00

(CANA press release)

A coal company has all but destroyed the community of Acland, Queensland, where Australian seed and grain farmer Sid Plant lives, he told the community of Mataura, Southland, today at the “Keep the Coal in the Hole Summer Festival” open day.

Around 300 people are attending today’s open day at the Mataura Community Centre. Locals have joined the 150 scientists, members of NGOs, MPs, farmers and concerned citizens from across New Zealand who have been camping since Friday, discussing Solid Energy’s plans to develop dirty lignite coal, which would increase our greenhouse gas emissions by 20%. They’re camping on the land of one farmer who refuses to sell to Solid Energy, Mike Dumbar.

Mr Plant’s 1200 ha farm in southern Queensland (near Toowoomba) borders the four million tonne New Hope coal mine that will later expand to ten million tonnes. He has watched as neighbour after neighbour has been bought up by New Hope.

“The mining companies all say ‘we will make it better than it was’ but they destroy the land – it can never be rehabilitated. I’ve witnessed the desecration of the best quality farmland where I live – just as Solid Energy is about to do in Southland. You can never get it back,” Mr Plant told the meeting.

Also speaking at the Open Day was orthopaedic surgeon Russell Tregonning, on behalf of Ora Taiao, a group of more than 140 senior doctors and other NZ health professionals gravely concerned about the impacts of climate change as a leading global health threat this century (according to the World Health Organisation).

“The threat from climate change supersedes the threat of cardiovascular disease, cancer, AIDS/HIV, the diabetes epidemic – all combined,” he told the meeting.
Dr Tregonning also outlined the threats to the local community from a range of pollutants that would be emitted from Solid Energy’s operations in Southland.

“Coal pollutants affect all major body organ systems and contribute to four of the five leading causes of mortality in the US: heart disease, cancer, stroke, and chronic lower respiratory diseases,” he warned.

Antarctic geologist Dr Peter Barratt outlined concerns about climate change.

“Changes to the climate have already begun. As an Antarctic scientist, it troubles me that the ice sheet has already begun to melt – when I traveled there 40 years ago that idea was inconceivable. If we keep on burning fossil fuels the way we are now, by the end of the century there will be as much CO2 in the atmosphere as 40-50 million years ago when average global temperatures were many degrees warmer than they are today.”

Dr Shannon Page, a lecturer at Lincoln University’s Environmental Management department, warned against assurances that the emissions from lignite can be taken care of by Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS).

“CCS is an experimental technology, but even in the best case, it could only reduce emissions from some of the process of coal use – not the extraction nor the end use of briquettes. It is highly unlikely that there would ever be somewhere to bury CO2 in Southland,” he said.

Coal Action Network Aotearoa spokesperson Kristin Gillies was “delighted” with the turnout both at today’s meeting, and with the festival.

“The whole of New Zealand should be extremely worried about Solid Energy’s plans for lignite exploitation in Southland. As a result of this festival we now have a national campaign determined to oppose this company, every step of the way.”

ENDS

Garden

2012-01-24T21:01:00.002+13:00

Finally, a chance to get information

2012-01-24T18:40:00.001+13:00

(Letter to the editor, Southland Times, 24 January)

Solid Energy complains (January 22) that "green lobbyists" are doing their best to limit discussion on lignite mining.
I went along to hear their case at the Mataura Community Centre on Sunday.
By my memory, Solid Energy's current proposals for its use of Gore district lignite first appeared in public in 2006.
Ever since, apart from a little commercial puffery, Solid Energy hasn't ever opened its proposals to public discussion.
More remarkable perhaps has been the reaction of the Gore District Council - nothing.
Not a word of information or explanation. Not a sign of public discussion.
For this project of this size, is that good enough?
Lignite underlies about 16,000 hectares of the Gore district, apart from some urban areas, all good farmland.
Getting on for half of that is said to be already signed up by Solid Energy.
What happens to the rest?
I would listen to Solid Energy's case if they made one.
I would participate in our council's discussion if they came out of their shell, but the only option I actually had to learn anything was at Sunday's meeting.
I found the case convincing, and yes, you've guessed it, not a Gore district councillor in sight.

John Purey-Cust
Gore

Lignitemare

2012-01-24T09:16:00.003+13:00

Mataura pre-mine

I made it back from the 'Keep the Coal in the Hole' summer festival, by sheer force of will! My bicycle and my muscles were willing, but the 90km ride was made more difficult than I'd hoped it would be, due to a combination of rain and wind but I did eventually pedal into Riverton, many hours after I left Mataura and the excitement of a weekend of listening to and talking with, experts on the subject of lignite mining. The caliber of the invited speaking guests was very high and their presentations powerful. I was asked to take Gerry Ford's place as MC for the public meeting in the town hall on Sunday and I enjoyed that very much. It was easy working with quality 'talent' and an intelligent crowd. The large, modern hall was full and the programme covered by both TVOne and 3, along with Radio New Zealand, Radio Southland, the Southland Times, ODT and several fine local newspapers. The message was clear - leave the lignite in the ground. That unequivocal stand was overlaid with the message that Solid Energy was not presenting its intentions and the situation in a realistic way, and that there is a need for the public to demand clarity from them. Plans were laid for such a revelation. I had a great deal of interest in the comments from one of the speakers whose field of expertise is carbon sequestration, who said, no, they can't do it. I was not surprised but appreciated hearing from someone who knows for sure.
As to the camp, it was fascinating. There were 4 MPs staying over the weekend, all Green, as well as Jeanette Fitzsimons and her husband, Harry. The remainder of the 'tent city' was made up of young, experienced campaigners from all over the country and a number of Southlanders who wanted to show, I suppose, that there is tangible support for the national movement here, on the ground, and at least to suffer some discomfort along with those from further north, who must have been doing it harder than we were. It was wet at times, and windy, but everyone was bright and positive. I learned a great deal from the camp and look forward to the next stage of the programme to stop the mining of lignite in Southland. The Solid Energy security people were there too, by the way, and the police, who swarmed on occasion, but had nothing real to do. There will have been a Solid Energy mole or two among the campers, I imagine, but as the camp and its activities were open and freely communicative, they needn't have been furtive. The 'no surprises, communicate intentions to all agencies' philosophy of the CANA organizing team is one I fully endorse. It seems an enlightened way to go about business.
Thanks, btw, to all involved and that certainly includes the cooks, working from their flapping tents - your work was superb and the food excellent.

Bio

2012-01-20T11:41:00.002+13:00

Sam's mushroom

2012-01-19T20:07:00.000+13:00

Babbling brook...

2012-01-19T20:05:00.000+13:00

Or soaking lentils?

Tipping point

2012-01-19T20:03:00.000+13:00

Opportunity, in the form of a freak gust of wind, presented Boxy with a dilemma - run free in the wide world, or stay put where it was safe.

High winds

2012-01-19T13:15:00.000+13:00

It's howling here in the deep south!
I've just lost a young sweet chestnut tree to the gale and it looks like it's just getting started (the gale that is - the trees been growing for three years. I'll go out and prune it back to its single remaining branch when the wind dies down. Our intrepid cycling Green MP won't be enjoying this at all! Nor will those setting up their tents at Mataura in readiness for the coal festival.)

Coal action t-shirts

2012-01-19T11:20:00.000+13:00

White t-shirts will be available at the festival and they'll carry this image.
Any thoughts?

The smell of burning wings

2012-01-19T05:55:00.000+13:00

"When the journalist and photographer from the regional newspaper come out to the green and pleasant Southland farm to give us the vital coverage we need to promote our summer festival 'coal camp', let's get them to photograph us standing around one of the ramshackle toilets we are bodging together for the event. That'll create atmosphere and attract support from Southlanders reading the paper over their morning toast and coffee!"

Bristlecone moment

2012-01-18T09:03:00.000+13:00

It's easy turning 54, when your family and friends treat you to a birthday picnic amongst the trees at an arboretum and cover the picnic rug with delicious treats to eat and drink and the weather pitches in as well with evening warmth and still air. There was even the opportunity to do a good deed by lending a helping hand to a motorist with a blown out tyre and a missing jack.
Walking off the mountains of food afterwards and exploring the dappled 'rooms' of the arboretum revealed the presence of a bristlecone pine tree!
How young that made me feel!

Lignite letter (to the editor)

2012-01-17T07:54:00.002+13:00

Next weekend's 'lignite' festival at Mataura looks to be very interesting and good fun. People from all over the country have booked a tent site for the festival and there are speakers from outside of New Zealand as well as well-known Kiwis, coming to give their views on what impacts the mining of lignite would have Southland. I was so impressed to hear that young Green Party MP, Julie Anne Genter is cycling all the way from Christchurch to be at the festival, that I've vowed to get on my bike too, and ride home to Riverton afterwards. Both she and I have our fingers crossed for calm, sunny weather.

Robert Guyton

RIVERTON

Dirty mining business

2012-01-17T07:16:00.001+13:00

"Apparently, the 78 mining companies using conservation land are together paying DOC less than a million dollars a year for the privilege."

Bryce Edwards at Liberation opens the debate on what the Government plans to do this year to achieve it's extractive plans and links to articles that explore the details of the dirty business that's already undermining the quality of our environment and democracy.

Dave Kennedy at Local Bodies describes well the festival at Mataura and what's behind Solid Energy's behaviour there.

Shooting against the sky

2012-01-16T19:20:00.000+13:00

Corn up-date

2012-01-16T16:20:00.001+13:00

I drenched the soil around the corn-clump with liquid plant feed made from comfrey leaves (12 month old brew).
The leaves are growing apace in the once-again-present sunshine and thank-goodness-you're-back warmth.

Two bees (or not ...)

2012-01-16T16:17:00.000+13:00

This poor creature has only one wing and none of its body bristles. I wonder what happened! It seems completely miserable.
The second bumble bee, by contrast, is all a'buzz with passion for these lemon flowers, in fact, I'd say it was obsessed with them - despite my poking the lens in its face repeatedly, it continued to suck nectar relentlessly.

Cucumber flower

2012-01-16T16:11:00.002+13:00

Ankor what?

2012-01-15T07:17:00.000+13:00

My garage has become overwhelmed by a Manchurian gooseberry and a kiwifruit vine.
Ought I to be concerned?
There's fruit on the smooth-leaved actinidia for the first time, so I'm not going to prune it til that's ripe.

The Great Corn Cob Experiment (up-date)

2012-01-15T07:11:00.001+13:00

I planted a whole corn cob, saved from last year's crop, in the soil to see what would happen.
A couple of weeks later, a clump of leaves has formed. I'm figuring that if I feed the clump well, with aged comfrey soup from the barrel behind the shed, the growth may continue. What the cluster will look like in a fortnight's time is anyone's guess, but I'll be there with my camera.
Some would say this is a pointless exercise.

3 French visitors

2012-01-14T17:10:00.001+13:00

This trio of French women stayed with us last night and cooked a three-course meal in the French style, which we shared over a glass or two of wine.They cooked:
Soupe a' l'oignon
Gratin Dauphinois
Tarte fine aux pommes

And it was all delicious!

You are what you eat, eats.

2012-01-14T12:43:00.001+13:00

This excellent article on nutrition should capture the interest of anyone who...eats.
It will in fact, interest very few but it's a brilliant (in my view) description of what we need to know in order to thrive into the future.
(Hat-tip darkhorse)

How to make sense of the Food Bill (Part One)

2012-01-14T11:28:00.000+13:00

Ms Timms breaks ranks

2012-01-14T08:17:00.002+13:00

Commenting in today's Southland Times on yesterday's confidential meeting of the 4 member CEO's Performance Review Committee, council chairman Ali Timms said 10 out of the 12 councillors attended and unanimously agreed to seek legal advice.
Confused?
Someone is.

Indistputable

2012-01-14T08:10:00.001+13:00

After more than a day and a night of constant rainfall, Environment Southland CE Ciaran Keogh has made the difficult call and declared in today's rag, that 'Southland's soil moisture levels were rising'.
My vegetables can rest easy in their beds, celebrate even, knowing that they're now officially wet.

Good story - Fiordland Advocate (click for larger view)

2012-01-13T18:56:00.000+13:00

Invertebrate

2012-01-13T18:34:00.000+13:00

The plastic beads

2012-01-13T18:10:00.000+13:00

They're missing the point. Those beads breakdown into tiny 'units' that are eaten by tiny sea organisms, which are in turn eaten by slightly larger, then larger still until fish of the sort we like to eat, meaning we humans end up with tiny plastic 'units' integrated into our bodies. The release of these plastic beads is, in my opinion, a serious issue.
There are other dangerous goods in the containers that were being transported on the Rena.
The efforts by the Rena salvors spokesperson to play down the threat on the radio today was not laughable, but rather sad.

Eco-terrorist caught

2012-01-13T10:55:00.000+13:00

The intentional buggering-up the environment by this goose has resulted in a fine he'll have to pay, but the damage to the dairy industry's image is far greater. Hot on the heels of the revelation that Tasman dairy farmers were misrepresenting data around fencing off their waterways, this idiotic act by the Canterbury dairy farmer, which has resulted in sullying the 'flagship' efforts by the Government, Fonterra and Ngai Tahu, to repair the damage done to Lake Ellesmere/Te Waihora, will further stain the copybook of the dairy industry which needs to convince the public that its activities are safe for the environment. This latest blot proves that it is not.

Quote of the day

2012-01-13T09:24:00.000+13:00

“But communication is two-sided - vital and profound communication makes demands also on those who are to receive it... demands in the sense of concentration, of genuine effort to receive what is being communicated. ”

Roger Sessions

A fightin' Guyton

2012-01-13T07:47:00.001+13:00

This morning's Southland Times carries the swashbuckling story of fightin' men from the south and our own Bioneer's one of them!

There's movin' pictures too, here, on the Times' website.

The clash of swords and shields echo over Fernworth School on Thursday evenings.
Members of Medius Auvum Comitatus, the Invercargill medieval swordfighting club, go there to practise their skills.
It is a stunning sight, and an incongrous one in New Zealand two men clad head to toe in armour wielding massive swords, swinging at each other's heads and bodies.
The appropriately-named Zane Knight first got into swordfighting growing up in Whangarei.
''I'd always been into medieval history,'' he said.
''It's a part of my family heritage. There's a lot of Scottish and Danish there. I also grew up with stories of ancestral swords brought over from Denmark ... It's always been a passion.''
The original club still existed in Whangarei, he said, but he set one up in Invercargill when he moved South in 2007.
His comrade-in-arms Terry Guyton discovered the group when he stayed late at work – he is a teacher at Fernworth.
He concedes his skills do not match Mr Knight's.
''If Zane was fighting someone closer to his level there would not be so many strikes,'' he said.
Mr Knight made the swords the group uses himself, using a steel bar reduced and shaped by a sander. The process can take up to 60 hours.
The group have two-handed greatswords as well as single-handed swords, which Mr Knight prefers to use.
Armour is also time-consuming. At the time the group tends to portray, armour was transitioning from chain mail to plate.
Chain mail – links of metal formed into a shirt – is extremely hard to make, while plate metal is expensive.
Mr Knight's first chain mail shirt had 28,000 links, each of which had to be connected by hand.
''It's something to do when you're really bored,'' he said.
On their bodies, the group wear 1cm thick leather jackets called gamesons, with metal plates for the shoulders, upper arms and neck.
There are different types of helmets, all heavy. When struck by a sword blow, you hear ringing but feel little.
The skills being taught come directly out of original treatises written to instruct knights.
The same techniques would have been used on battlefields and in tournaments across Europe in the 14th and 15th centuries, during conflicts such as the Wars of the Roses in 15th century England.
The bucklers (small shields) used by the group would have been used only in tourneys – they were no use against an arrow or a crossbow bolt.
In battle, men would have used bigger shields, and, as technology developed, larger swords to penetrate advanced armour.
There is a thriving subculture of medievalists in New Zealand. Each year, there is a tourney in Taupo, featuring swordfighters and jousting, Mr Knight said.

Il pleure

2012-01-12T18:45:00.001+13:00

These frogs are two from my collection.

Today, three French girls arrived on our doorstep and we are about to share a meal.
And it's raining.

Congratulations, Ray and Flora

2012-01-12T18:41:00.000+13:00

It's the 55th Wedding Anniversary of Ray and Flora Kennedy, of Invercargill.
By extraordinary coincidence, it would also be the 55th Wedding anniversary of Lance and Patricia Guyton, if they still trod the planet.
Even more remarkable is the fact that today is the 28th Wedding Anniversary of Robert and Robyn Guyton, of Riverton!
Will wonders never cease!

Ray and Flora - the longer-lasters!

Paranormal's answer

2012-01-12T17:41:00.000+13:00

Green cyclist leads the way

2012-01-12T16:49:00.001+13:00

Not the Tour of Southland - the weather's far too good for that, but something more impressive - a Member of Parliament, biking half the length of the island to show her commitment to green transport.
Thaty's impressive, I say.
Julie Anne Genter, fresh new Green MP is coming down to Mataura for the 'Keep the Coal in the Hole' summer festival and she's not winging it in a fossil-fuel burning jet plane, she's pushing pedals to get here.
Again, impressive.
What do you think? Is that 'walking the talk' or what!?

Sam got a shot

2012-01-11T12:54:00.000+13:00

deux cartoons de jour

2012-01-11T09:43:00.000+13:00

Rena - bad to worse

2012-01-11T09:33:00.000+13:00

Despite pie-in-the-sky predictions from right-wing commentators, the Rena salvors haven't floated the stern of the vessels safely into port 'for a quick unload'. She's broken up and the stern has sunk, spilling containers and their potentially toxic contents into the ocean. So much for the armchair salvors who poo-poo the idea that attempts should have been made from day one, to haul the whole ship free and tug her to shore, whether that required the judicious use of explosives to clear some reef, or not. Our own aluminium smelter are expressing concern that their containers aboard the Rena might pose an environmental hazard. The picture is not good and can't get any better, in my view.

In the early morning garden

2012-01-11T08:00:00.000+13:00

Up and about early, to foo-foo around in the garden before it gets too hot to be outside.
The growth of my corn, planted among the alkanet and clover, is beginning to accelerate and I'm hopeful of fat ears.

This shaggy cabbage tree stands watch over the brassica garden, keeping the easterly winds off the turnips and swedes.

Some people dislike convolvulus, but I am not one of those. It's a soft vine, easy to clear and the granny's bonnets are pretty.

I caught an up-early bumble bee enjoying a mullien flower.

And lastly, my daughter's garden. It's great to have a daughter who gardens.