These are letters submitted to the Christchurch Press and not published. Because I am arrogant enough to think they deserved to be published I've decided to post them here - for posterity, or something.
October 2007 Lisa Leary trying to justify the killing of anyone who isn't like her
Some people choose to ignore the fact that most people break some laws at some time. They prefer to draw a sharp distinction between law-abiding citizens and criminals. The former deserve police protection; the latter are rubbish who deserve 'to be taken out'.
It makes it easier to justify 'taking out' deviants if they are dehumanised by locating them in a 'feral underclass', or labelling them as 'drug-crazed maniacs'.
The shooting of Stephen Bellingham has formed a boundary between a NZ in which people are deeply concerned by the moral and legal ramifications of an agent of the state shooting dead a disturbed man who was armed with a hammer; and a NZ in which a self-proclaimed law-abiding citizen says she would shoot someone who was damaging her car.
What a dark and baleful place Lisa Leary's NZ is; I'm glad I live in the other one.
Aug 2008 Lorne Keuhn on useful idiots
Lorne Keuhn is like the soldier who hasn't realised the war's over.
He denounces Christopher Moore as having hagiographical tendencies because of Moore 's favourable review of Robert Fisk's latest book.
Kuehn calls Fisk a 'useful idiot'. This term, allegedly first used by Lenin, was actually a piece of right-wing agitprop and, like the people who use it, a relic of the cold war.
My father, inspired by the Birch Society, used to tell me I'd be among the first of the 'useful idiots' to be shot if the Reds ever invaded NZ.
If the term has a modern application, it is to those who blindly defend the ugly outcomes of the USA 's 'oil addiction'. Evidence of how powerful and dangerous that addiction is can be found in the fact that the American military uses as much oil in a day as the whole of Sweden.
Nov 2008 The frequently obnoxious and always ugly cartoons by Al Nisbett annoy me ....
Today's Underzone cartoon in the Press features a 'downsizing' plan for 'psycho killers' - in the form of a 'lead diet'. Perhaps cartoonist Nisbet could enlighten us as to what marks out the 'psycho killers' from the person who is about to machine gun them?
I don't like Nisbet's cartoons in either style or content as I don't find aggression and hostility funny and it seldom results in anything insightful.
Aggression and hostility have been on display on internet message boards in the run-up to the election. The most consistently hostile and abusive people, especially on issues of race and sexuality, are those who say they vote National or ACT. They also tend to favour Nisbet's lead diet for 'violent' criminals.
It is truly disturbing. Almost as disturbing as Sarah Palin thinking that Nicholas Sarkozy would ring her for a chat.
Nov 2008 They really can't take it when it's aimed at them ....but oh how they love to dish it out
In the Nov 11th report on Jill Singer's acerbic piece in the Herald Sun, the sentence 'not even his family were spared her bile-soaked pen', indicated the writer didn't find it amusing.
The famous Kiwi inability to take a joke (especially from an Ozzie) appeared again today in the letters page.
Singer's comments weren't especially unkind but I do agree that, in general, families and private lives should be off limits.
It's a pity that people on internet chatrooms and blogs didn't apply that principle to Helen Clark and her family.
I read hundreds of venomous, obscene and abusive attacks on Clark 's appearance and her relationships – posted by people who claimed to be National and ACT supporters.
It was shameful and I hope John Key is as embarrassed by such 'support' as I am embarrassed to share a nationality with people who are capable of such hateful conduct.
Jan 2009 Serial whinger moans about PCness
According to A Creed, criticism of Prince Harry's 2006 video is 'PC'. To establish himself as anti-PC, Creed describes the UK Equality and Human Rights Commission as a 'bunch of old women' and argues that the term 'Paki' isn't offensive nor is using the term 'raghead' to describe an enemy who is 'trying sincerely to kill you'.
Lieutenant Wales isn't on the front line and is unlikely to be killed by keffiyeh-wearing enemies - however sincerely they may try.
The term 'Paki' is not analogous to the terms Kiwi and Aussie as it's used to label people who originate from many different countries, not just Pakistan , and is only used by ignoramuses and racists.
The term 'raghead' is an ethnic slur and belongs in the same racist lexicon as those other 'jewels of the language' - 'dune coon' and 'sand nigger'.
The interesting question to my mind is whether foot-in-mouth disease is hereditary.
Jan 2009 More on that subject
Yesterday A. Creed argued that the words 'raghead' and 'Paki' aren't offensive. My letter rebutting that assertion was rejected on grounds of space.
Today John Waldron, presumably imagining he is striking a blow for free speech, tells us that he calls his dog 'Nigger' and likes to eat sweets called 'nigger-boys'.
Why stop there? Why not argue for the right to use even more names from that long list of pejoratives coined by white folk for those they consider to be inferior.
How about – alligator bait, boong, chink, coolie, dago, darky, dink, dune coon, gook, jigaboo, jungle bunny, kaffir, kyke, nignog, porch monkey, sambo, sooty, spic, tarbaby, timber nigger, wog, wop or yid?
If J Waldron and A Creed want to know why these sort of words are so offensive and so destructive they should google 'niggermania' and similar hate-sites.
July 2009 David Round rewrites history
David Round (Press July 2nd ) tells a tale of doctrinaire extremists dedicated to turning our cities into a primeval wilderness of boring native plants, and to the exiling of beautiful exotics.
I don't know how one would 'exile' a plant but full marks to him for piling on the political allusions.
David is standing up to this Goliath-sized group of 'grim ascetics' by exposing their ideology of 'botanical correctness'.
Very droll I'm sure, but he's right – there are political agendas.
The one that I find most interesting invariably denies it exists but betrays itself with such contrapositions as: the cultivated exotic versus the wild native, and the civilized garden versus the uncivilized wilderness.
If the suggestion that plantings of natives on traffic islands could provide a habitat for endangered lizards is 'stupid', how do we rate Round's argument that there's a politically-inspired move to return our cities to 'primeval wilderness'? Puerile?
Oct 2010 The Great Paul Henry Show
I was offended by many of Paul Henry’s remarks but I didn’t expect anything better from him. And I don't expect anything better from those Kiwis who think he is talented, quickwitted and funny. Afterall he reflects and says what they think so they’re hardly likely to think he is crass and boring.
But it's the remark I read in the Press (Oct 1th) which I hadn’t heard before that has shocked me most. It didn’t result in an avalanche of complaints nor attract widespread media comment at the time, yet it is deeply offensive on many levels.
In relation to infant mortality rates in the developing world Henry is quoted as having said: " “Oh they’ve got enough babies to take care of that. Don’t worry about that. We’ve got 6 others out the back.'
Perhaps the anti-PC brigade can explain how the deaths annually of millions of babies is a joking matter? Oh, but of course, silly me, they're brown and black babies. Enough said.
Oct 2010 Michael Laws on 'freedom of speech' - aka the right to insult and denigrate people
Michael Laws (Oct 17th) says that ‘many New Zealanders’ have been ‘bewildered by our rapid transition from monocultural to bicultural to multicultural’ and ‘should be allowed to express that bewilderment’.
Who’s stopping them? Legal constraints on the public expression of views are post hoc and lenient and broadcasting standards are just the exercise of common sense and common decency.
Of more interest to me is who’s included in that collective pronoun. The only time New Zealand was monocultural was prior to European colonisation, so is he including Maori in the ranks of the bewildered? Or is he harking back to the time when white NZ thought of itself as monocultural?
Post-colonial New Zealand has always been multicultural. British colonists came from the distinct cultures that make up the UK; others came from all over the world. What Laws is talking about is that mostly they were white.
Laws also claims that the ‘Henry affair’ is evidence of an all-pervading metropolitan based political correctness that presages a ‘descent into a new fascism’.
This is as histrionic as it is opportunist and cynical. Henry resigned because, having lost sight of whether he was a news presenter or an entertainer, he embarrassed himself.
Nov 2010 The not-so-great Gadsby puts his foot in it
It was obvious that the Pike River tragedy would reopen the issue of open cast mining of the West Coast’s gassy coal reserves.
With indecent haste to score political points, Jon Gadsby (Press 26th) uses the tragedy to reopen the schism between ‘Coasters’ and ‘Greenies’ by suggesting that environmentalists caused the deaths by opposing open cast mining. This is deeply unpleasant both in intent and timing.
I was in Britain during the Miner’s Strike and remember the strike and the destruction of jobs and communities that followed it. I remember also how the government and most of the media vilified and demonised, not just the NUM leadership, but also the miners and their communities – labelling them ‘the enemy within’.
I wonder how many of the people who are crying over this tragic loss of life would have supported Kiwi miners in their historic struggles for decent pay and conditions?
Jan 2011 Did the Deans give us Hagley Park?
Islay McLeod (Jan 11th) needs to take care - if she tugs her forelock any harder her head might fall off.
Rather than counter a previous correspondent’s claim that Jamie Gough’s and Tim Carter’s election to CCC owed much to privilege, McLeod confirms it with her acknowledgement that Christchurch is indeed about WHO you know, not WHAT you know.
In fact, she argues, ordinary folk should thank the ‘great families’ of Canterbury for their ‘noblesse oblige’ and asks the rhetorical question, ‘didn’t the Deans give us Hagley Park?’
No, they did not. The Canterbury Association drew up plans for the park before the city was established and it could be argued that the land for it was acquired by swindling Ngai Tahu.
But hey, that’s history. 21st century Christchurchians can rest easy in the knowledge that the philanthropically minded Sons and Daughters of those original philanthropically minded City Father and Mothers are looking after their interests.
July 11 The 'Feminist Cabal" strikes again
Terry Pierson should note that, if you want to pontificate about the ‘obtuse and shallow nature’ of other people’s discourse, you’re best to make sure your own is astute and learned.
Some people use the intellectual equivalent of a scalpel to dissect an issue. Pierson wielded the equivalent of a meat cleaver when he claimed that a ‘potpourri’ of socialists, feminists, academics - and the mysterious ‘other wheelbarrow pushers’ - had whipped the Periodgate furore into a frenzy.
His letter did a bit of frenzy-whipping of its own.
It was assisted by a headline starring that figment of fevered rightwing imagination - ‘The Feminist Cabal’ – which has the effrontery to agitate about the fact that the first country in the world to grant universal suffrage still hasn't fully achieved equal pay for equal work.
They'd better not mention equal pay for work of equal value -Terry might lose a finger.
Oct 11 Apologists for the free market unite, you have nothing to lose but your shirts
Philip Hayward says respondents to the draft central-city plan are an undemocratic minority of know-all ‘barrow-pushers’ - whatever they are.
He also claims the 'free market is the ultimate form of grass roots democracy.'
When I read that, and after I'd wiped my coffee off my husband, I set about writing an indignant rejoinder.
But then I wondered - was Hayward being ironic? After all, no-one in their right mind could see the 'free market' as anything other than an ideological construct.
I know some people fervently pray that one day the Free Market will appear and - abracadabra! – will solve the world's problems, but sensible folk know the world economy is controlled by BIG business - with the help of its servant States and institutions. The market is well and truly locked up.
So, was Hayward's depiction of the residents of Canterbury who expressed views about the way their city is to be rebuilt, tongue-in-cheek?
Let's hope so. Otherwise he'd be a mean-spirited and ideologically motivated bombast who needs to mind his own business and let Canterbury folk get on with theirs.
Sunday 18 December 2011
A Tale of One City
This is a tale of a city that outlived its usefulness.
The problem for the city was it sat at the centre of a region with vast natural resources that the central government wanted to exploit. There was considerable and varied local opposition to this largely because of the effects on the environment.
This was a wealthy city that had developed as a light industrial hub for the traditional rural economy of a wealthy region. Clever manipulation of national laws aimed at privatising the public sector had enabled the local government to maintain effective control of much of its assets. But the concentration of population and wealth was seen an obstacle to the Government’s plans to exploit the region’s natural resources, and to sell off the city’s assets.
The Government’s first move was to declare the elected Regional Authority to be incompetent and to install commissioners selected by, and answerable to, it. The region’s elected Mayors, organised by the City’s Mayor, all actively collaborated with this.
The government’s next move was to support the re-election of those city and district mayors who would work with them in the exploitation of the region’s natural resources.
Plans were well under way when nature stepped in and gave the Government a helping hand in the form of natural disaster. The shock of this disaster, and an effective PR machine, ensured the election of government friendly mayors right across the region. More importantly, it gave the Government the justification for creating even more swingeing legal powers.
A second, even more catastrophic disaster, resulted in the Government creating an overarching authority run by people selected by them – which had complete power to do whatever the government deemed necessary. The powers given to the central government and bureaucrats were unprecedented in peacetime.
The city’s re-elected Mayor proved to be a very popular figure in the aftermath of the disaster and was very useful to the Government in managing the public response to it - but he too was to outlive his usefulness. He continued to work in the way he always had, doing deals behind closed doors and colluding with the CEO to reduce the effectiveness of the council.
The Mayor’s power base in the city council began to be challenged by a group of councillors who attacked the way the council was being run. The dissidents presented themselves as champions of the people whilst, probably unknowingly, actually doing the work of the Government. The Council split into two opposing camps.
The local press started a campaign which seemed to be about demanding greater accountability and democracy but which had the effect of further undermining local confidence, not just in the Mayor and CEO, but the whole council.
Even with a mayor and councillors who were prepared to stand up to the government, the Council would have struggled to represent the people of the city and stop the plundering of the city’s and the region’s assets. In the political and managerial void left by the increasingly dysfunctional council and CEO, the Government’s new Authority rapidly expanded its role.
And then came the proverbial straw – an action by the Mayor and his supporters that outraged his opponents and, when it became public, also outraged the population of the city. People had had enough and many disparate interests coalesced around the understanding that, while this Mayor and CEO were in charge, their city was never going to be rebuilt into a vibrant modern version of what had been destroyed.
The calls for the sacking of the CEO and Mayor began. Normally compliant and conservative city dwellers flooded the local media with their angry views and began to stage protests. Councillors who had approved the action that had sparked the outrage called for the dissolution of the Council and blamed the dissident Councillors for the mess.
The Mayor, despite having colluded with the sacking of the democratically elected regional authority, put his grave, pro-democracy face on and warned the population to be careful what they wished for.
The CEO, who had always stayed out of the media limelight for the very good reason that he was PR-challenged, tried to make amends and made matters worse.
The government appointed a single observer and claimed not to be interested in the dissolution of the Council - unless it had no alternative.
Central to the Government’s long-term plan was the depopulation of large areas of the city and key satellite towns. These happened to be the areas occupied by people likely to be troublesome to the government’s plans for the region. the effects of this diaspora had already been felt in the national elections. Many people had been left to camp out in their ruined homes and neighbourhoods for months before the government declared swathes of the city as uninhabitable. The months of anxiety, inactivity and uncertainty were followed by offers for resettlement that appeared to be fair and generous but which actually made it impossible for many people to stay.
This was a forced resettlement. On the surface people were given a choice – the government appeared to be generous by offering to buy people’s homes and land from them but, leaving the development of new land to the market resulted in a free for all – and land, rents and building prices sky rocketed.
Many people found that they had to increase their mortgages to afford to replace like with like. Others, unable to afford larger mortgages or refused loans, had to downsize – or ended up renting or were forced to leave town.
The Government’s writing off the land also gave the insurers an out. They not only saved money on some payouts but they avoided future liability by the Government forcing large numbers of people away from a region that was deemed no longer worth the risk of insuring. And behind these actions lurked the spectre of bigger commercial interests, the exploitation of the region’s water and oil resources.
A government of the people, for the people, by the people would have stood up to the insurers and forced the insurers to meet their legal and ethical obligations.
It would have purchased land and created new subdivisions and sold them at prices that enabled people to replace what they had lost.
It would have leased land on 999 year leases and given the freehold titles to the Council or community housing associations.
It would have assisted in relocating whole communities that wanted to stay together.
It would have invested in land remediation leaving only those areas which should never have been built on to be turned into nature reserves and parks.
It would have given people security and choice by buying the mutual insurance company it had already underwritten, merged it with its own earthquake insurance bureaucracy and created a state insurance option for domestic dwellings and local and central government infrastructure.
And it would have more wisely and circumspectly managed the vast reserves of taxpayers’ money that had been built up over decades in the national disaster fund.
But, this was a government of big business, by big business, for big business. It not so much got into bed with the insurance industry, as bought the best bed on the market, made it up with fine linen and a goose down duvet, tucked the industry in, made it a mug of milo and read it a bedtime story.
What happened to the city? Well, it ended up less than two-thirds of its original size. Its political structure had changed forever and much opposition to the government was wiped out as formerly cohesive and well-organised communities were fragmented and dispersed.
Go there today and it’s a pretty sad place. The city centre still has great gaping holes where buildings once stood because there’s no incentive to build. Vast swathes of its suburbs are weed-ridden wastelands.
The region’s once glorious rivers and waterways are polluted and depleted by the intensive agriculture that exists solely to feed an increasingly unsustainable international neutraceuticals industry.
Its oil resources are being exported and the promised wealth has not trickled down to the populace although some have become even richer and retreated further into the safe confines of their gated communities or moved north.
No doubt I’ll be labelled a conspiracy nut or accused of being unhelpfully negative and pessimistic by painting this picture of Canterbury but I think that the people of this region need to wake up and smell the fertilizer because this is what has been and is being done to our region.
We do not have a vote in local regional democracy until 2013; in all likelihood the people of Christchurch soon will not have a say in the running of their city as it may be a matter of time before the CCC is dismantled. Every action and inaction of the council combined with the low public profile and high pay of its CEO are more nails in the coffin of local democracy.
Local councillors were powerless enough before – they are seen as a waste of public money now. The wealth of ChCh and Canterbury as a whole is about to be sold off to the private sector, not to rebuild the city and region, but to be milked for as much short-term profit as can be extracted from it.
I do not believe that this government has any loyalty to Canterbury. It doesn’t want a big, bold, wealthy city guarding and drawing on the natural resources of the Canterbury plains and seabed.
It wants to sell the best stuff to its mates -the people in whose interests it governs, which – let’s face it – isn’t ordinary folk. Some will profit – the vast majority will not. In fact, an awful lot of us will be impoverished, left further in thrall to the banks and/or forced to relocate from the city and region we call home.
I have a big emotional investment in Canterbury – I never knew how much until I saw it threatened. And I’m not talking about the threat of the 9000 or so earthquakes since September 2010– I’m talking about the political and economic quakes. They’re what will destroy NZ’s second city and take most of the Canterbury we knew with it.
The problem for the city was it sat at the centre of a region with vast natural resources that the central government wanted to exploit. There was considerable and varied local opposition to this largely because of the effects on the environment.
This was a wealthy city that had developed as a light industrial hub for the traditional rural economy of a wealthy region. Clever manipulation of national laws aimed at privatising the public sector had enabled the local government to maintain effective control of much of its assets. But the concentration of population and wealth was seen an obstacle to the Government’s plans to exploit the region’s natural resources, and to sell off the city’s assets.
The Government’s first move was to declare the elected Regional Authority to be incompetent and to install commissioners selected by, and answerable to, it. The region’s elected Mayors, organised by the City’s Mayor, all actively collaborated with this.
The government’s next move was to support the re-election of those city and district mayors who would work with them in the exploitation of the region’s natural resources.
Plans were well under way when nature stepped in and gave the Government a helping hand in the form of natural disaster. The shock of this disaster, and an effective PR machine, ensured the election of government friendly mayors right across the region. More importantly, it gave the Government the justification for creating even more swingeing legal powers.
A second, even more catastrophic disaster, resulted in the Government creating an overarching authority run by people selected by them – which had complete power to do whatever the government deemed necessary. The powers given to the central government and bureaucrats were unprecedented in peacetime.
The city’s re-elected Mayor proved to be a very popular figure in the aftermath of the disaster and was very useful to the Government in managing the public response to it - but he too was to outlive his usefulness. He continued to work in the way he always had, doing deals behind closed doors and colluding with the CEO to reduce the effectiveness of the council.
The Mayor’s power base in the city council began to be challenged by a group of councillors who attacked the way the council was being run. The dissidents presented themselves as champions of the people whilst, probably unknowingly, actually doing the work of the Government. The Council split into two opposing camps.
The local press started a campaign which seemed to be about demanding greater accountability and democracy but which had the effect of further undermining local confidence, not just in the Mayor and CEO, but the whole council.
Even with a mayor and councillors who were prepared to stand up to the government, the Council would have struggled to represent the people of the city and stop the plundering of the city’s and the region’s assets. In the political and managerial void left by the increasingly dysfunctional council and CEO, the Government’s new Authority rapidly expanded its role.
And then came the proverbial straw – an action by the Mayor and his supporters that outraged his opponents and, when it became public, also outraged the population of the city. People had had enough and many disparate interests coalesced around the understanding that, while this Mayor and CEO were in charge, their city was never going to be rebuilt into a vibrant modern version of what had been destroyed.
The calls for the sacking of the CEO and Mayor began. Normally compliant and conservative city dwellers flooded the local media with their angry views and began to stage protests. Councillors who had approved the action that had sparked the outrage called for the dissolution of the Council and blamed the dissident Councillors for the mess.
The Mayor, despite having colluded with the sacking of the democratically elected regional authority, put his grave, pro-democracy face on and warned the population to be careful what they wished for.
The CEO, who had always stayed out of the media limelight for the very good reason that he was PR-challenged, tried to make amends and made matters worse.
The government appointed a single observer and claimed not to be interested in the dissolution of the Council - unless it had no alternative.
Central to the Government’s long-term plan was the depopulation of large areas of the city and key satellite towns. These happened to be the areas occupied by people likely to be troublesome to the government’s plans for the region. the effects of this diaspora had already been felt in the national elections. Many people had been left to camp out in their ruined homes and neighbourhoods for months before the government declared swathes of the city as uninhabitable. The months of anxiety, inactivity and uncertainty were followed by offers for resettlement that appeared to be fair and generous but which actually made it impossible for many people to stay.
This was a forced resettlement. On the surface people were given a choice – the government appeared to be generous by offering to buy people’s homes and land from them but, leaving the development of new land to the market resulted in a free for all – and land, rents and building prices sky rocketed.
Many people found that they had to increase their mortgages to afford to replace like with like. Others, unable to afford larger mortgages or refused loans, had to downsize – or ended up renting or were forced to leave town.
The Government’s writing off the land also gave the insurers an out. They not only saved money on some payouts but they avoided future liability by the Government forcing large numbers of people away from a region that was deemed no longer worth the risk of insuring. And behind these actions lurked the spectre of bigger commercial interests, the exploitation of the region’s water and oil resources.
A government of the people, for the people, by the people would have stood up to the insurers and forced the insurers to meet their legal and ethical obligations.
It would have purchased land and created new subdivisions and sold them at prices that enabled people to replace what they had lost.
It would have leased land on 999 year leases and given the freehold titles to the Council or community housing associations.
It would have assisted in relocating whole communities that wanted to stay together.
It would have invested in land remediation leaving only those areas which should never have been built on to be turned into nature reserves and parks.
It would have given people security and choice by buying the mutual insurance company it had already underwritten, merged it with its own earthquake insurance bureaucracy and created a state insurance option for domestic dwellings and local and central government infrastructure.
And it would have more wisely and circumspectly managed the vast reserves of taxpayers’ money that had been built up over decades in the national disaster fund.
But, this was a government of big business, by big business, for big business. It not so much got into bed with the insurance industry, as bought the best bed on the market, made it up with fine linen and a goose down duvet, tucked the industry in, made it a mug of milo and read it a bedtime story.
What happened to the city? Well, it ended up less than two-thirds of its original size. Its political structure had changed forever and much opposition to the government was wiped out as formerly cohesive and well-organised communities were fragmented and dispersed.
Go there today and it’s a pretty sad place. The city centre still has great gaping holes where buildings once stood because there’s no incentive to build. Vast swathes of its suburbs are weed-ridden wastelands.
The region’s once glorious rivers and waterways are polluted and depleted by the intensive agriculture that exists solely to feed an increasingly unsustainable international neutraceuticals industry.
Its oil resources are being exported and the promised wealth has not trickled down to the populace although some have become even richer and retreated further into the safe confines of their gated communities or moved north.
No doubt I’ll be labelled a conspiracy nut or accused of being unhelpfully negative and pessimistic by painting this picture of Canterbury but I think that the people of this region need to wake up and smell the fertilizer because this is what has been and is being done to our region.
We do not have a vote in local regional democracy until 2013; in all likelihood the people of Christchurch soon will not have a say in the running of their city as it may be a matter of time before the CCC is dismantled. Every action and inaction of the council combined with the low public profile and high pay of its CEO are more nails in the coffin of local democracy.
Local councillors were powerless enough before – they are seen as a waste of public money now. The wealth of ChCh and Canterbury as a whole is about to be sold off to the private sector, not to rebuild the city and region, but to be milked for as much short-term profit as can be extracted from it.
I do not believe that this government has any loyalty to Canterbury. It doesn’t want a big, bold, wealthy city guarding and drawing on the natural resources of the Canterbury plains and seabed.
It wants to sell the best stuff to its mates -the people in whose interests it governs, which – let’s face it – isn’t ordinary folk. Some will profit – the vast majority will not. In fact, an awful lot of us will be impoverished, left further in thrall to the banks and/or forced to relocate from the city and region we call home.
I have a big emotional investment in Canterbury – I never knew how much until I saw it threatened. And I’m not talking about the threat of the 9000 or so earthquakes since September 2010– I’m talking about the political and economic quakes. They’re what will destroy NZ’s second city and take most of the Canterbury we knew with it.
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