Local Bodies

Rachael Goldsmith Alex Fensome, political journalist for the Southland Times provides this interesting overview of the local election campaign.  The contrast between the parties could barely have been more defined. The Nats were sitting around an open fire in the venerable Invercargill Club, surrounded by black-and-white photographs and plush carpet. Labour met in the dingy confines of the Jed St Trades Hall with cask wine and savories on hand, clustered around a projector as the results came in. The Greens had themselves a barbecue at Dave Kennedy's leafy Gladstone home, chatting away like it was a housewarming. It was they who had the most to celebrate. Both Kennedy and his Clutha-Southland colleague Rachael Goldsmith rode the Green wave to the party's best-ever southern results. The pair ran good campaigns, focused on the party vote but not forgetting to go to candidate's meetings, where, barring the odd misstep over wages and tax, they impressed. That Goldsmith polled...

The Greens have much to celebrate, our campaign has been widely praised as the most effective of all parties and we have achieved our goal of getting more than 10% of the party vote. We had hoped to get our top 15 candidates into parliament but James Shaw just missed out. This was a real pity because the Wellington Central campaign he led was probably the most comprehensive of all the Green campaigns and was only 12 votes short of pipping Labour. The Greens will make history when Mojo Mathers becomes the first profoundly deaf MP to be elected, while Mojo didn't get in on the initial voting she is likely to do so once the special votes have been included. As for my own campaign, I had hoped we could double the Green vote in Invercargill and we almost did that by raising the 4.26% we got in 2008 to just .1 away from 8%. I must admit that I was a little disappointed as the impression I got throughout the campaign indicated a greater level of support. Three factors probably created...

Dear Sir New Zealand is a country rich with resources and a relatively small population. We have an education system that is ranked amongst the top in the world and a growing percentage of wealthy who are spending millions on luxury items ($480 million on Bentley cars last year). There is no good reason why we should also have 270,000 children living in poverty and one of the worst statistics for child health and welfare in the OECD. There should be no excuse for allowing most of our rivers to be polluted and unsafe for swimming and it makes no economic sense to sell off our state assets when we have so much potential in innovative and renewable technologies. For a country that produced the people who split the atom, invented the jet boat and the jetpack we should be able to build our own trains and farm sustainably. The Green Party has achievable, practical and fiscally sound solutions for bringing at least 100,000 children out of poverty, cleaning our rivers and creating 100...

I have just attended the funeral of Alister Fraser who died aged 81 after serving his community selflessly for most of his life. Alister was the principal of Invercargill's largest intermediate school and a school inspector when I was beginning my career in teaching. He was a larger than life personality whose passion for education knew no bounds and yet we heard at the service how he constantly worried that his support of teachers was adequate enough and whether the job he did made a difference. After Alister retired he continued supporting schools and teachers where he could and even gave his time, most mornings, on a busy school crossing. He was involved in community leadership for much of his retirement and worked part time at Anderson Park Art Gallery as an attendant and guide. Alister spent much of his life in serving the communities he lived in and the remuneration he craved for was not financial, but the knowledge that he had made a difference in the lives of others. Th...

New Zealand stifles its poor with much heavier taxation than in Australia and because half of New Zealand  income earners earn less than $28,000 it is also stifling our domestic economy. The median wage in Aussie is over $40,000. A simple comparison between the two tax regimes makes interesting reading. New Zealand taxes all those earning $14,000 or less at 10.5 cents for every dollar while Australia doesn't tax the first $6,000 of earnings at all. In New Zealand we tax those who earn between $14-$45,000 17.5 cents for each dollar and Australia only taxes 15c from $6,000 through to $37,000. For those at the top end of earnings, $70,000 and above, New Zealanders get hit by 33 cents. Australia keeps ranking up the taxation for those who are better off, those earning $80,000 to $180,000 have a 37c tax and those above $180,000 are taxed at 45 cents in every dollar. Imagine our Government's increase in revenue if we did that, no asset sales needed. GST is set at 15% in New Z...

Nicky Chapman comes from four generations of Southland Farmers, he is currently a member of Transition Town Port Chalmers. This opinion piece was published in the Otago Daily on November 18. One thing's missing so far in all the hoo-hah about whether we should partially sell some of our state assets: the consequences of doing so for Southland and Otago. These consequences are to do with the region's estimated six billion "economically recoverable" tonnes of lignite, three billion under the fertile paddocks of Eastern Southland alone. One of the state assets up for partial sale, Solid Energy, proposes to convert this lignite to briquettes, diesel and urea. Because lignite (brown coal) is a particularly low-quality fuel, the conversion process itself emits a lot of CO2, as well as the end products. Quoting Solid Energy's own estimates, the Greens' Dr Kennedy Graham has noted that the lignite projects will add an extra 10 to 20 million tonnes of carbon emissi...

This isn't Russell's farm (it was too wet to get a photo) but come from a useful site: The Global Dairy Agenda for Action I had a very enjoyable and informative afternoon on Thursday. Russell McPherson, Southland's Federated Farmers Dairy Chairman, had invited me out to his dairy farm to have a chat and look over his property. As it turned out the weather wasn't too great so I viewed his farm through a window and we talked at length over a cup of tea. Russell came across as the sort of farmer who is easy to admire, a hard worker who began his career as a shearer and worked his way into farm ownership. He is a man who would never be happy with the status quo but is always reflecting on the efficiency of his practice and looking for a new challenge. Russell's conversion from sheep to dairy was a business no brainer and his dairy shed reflected state of the art technology at the time of construction. I could tell by the appearance of his home and the visible surround...