Pansy Wong got 56% of the vote in 2008, and Jami-Lee Ross got 55% of the vote in 2011. The turnout was (I estimate) around 38%, which is very low – even for by-elections. The majority is 3,996 and will end up being above 4,000 after specials. The turnout is half that of 2008, so it’s equal to around a 9,000 majority in a general election.
Michael Wood got 28% of the vote, which is up from the invisible Koro Tawa. Of course there was no Green candidate this time as they didn’t nominate in time.
In third place with 10.5% of the vote was Paul Young of the New Citizen Party. Looks like he piced up some of the vote which went to Kenneth Wang last time.
Congratulations to Jami-Lee Ross, the new MP for Botany. He has a long career ahead of him. Kudos to Michael Wood also for a sold effort he’ll be pleased with.
Another day, and another story about Jetstar.
Jetstar must have the worst corporate reputation or brand of any major company in NZ, because time and time again they treat their custimers like shit. They did it in their first week of operations, and have kept it up since.
It would be great to have decent competition in NZ, but I refuse to fly Jetstar in NZ. Their service is bad enough, but it is their attitude that really appals me.
In a very rare move, the National Party Board has cancelled and restarted the selection in Rodney.
The last time this was necessary was in Selwyn in 2007/08. That little episode ended up costing the party a lot of money as it ended up in court.
I think the Board has done the right thing, to make sure the selection is beyond reproach. Whale has blooged numerous times on the issues in Rodney, and the Board, by their actions, have shown they share his concerns. In fact Whale is even congratulating President Peter Goodfellow for his leadership on this issue.
The Press reports:
New Zealand’s first second-strike violent offender has had his sentencing delayed because of the devastating Christchurch earthquake.
Manahi Ripia, 20, of Wainoni, was meant to have been sentenced in Christchurch District Court yesterday for aggravated robbery and a series of burglaries.
But because of the quake, pre-sentence preparations could not be completed. Yesterday, Judge Gary MacAskill – sitting in Rangiora Courthouse because the Christchurch courts are off limits – remanded him in custody to May 27.
Ripia was on bail after receiving a first-strike warning when he committed a further offence.
That led to him being read New Zealand’s first second-strike warning on January 26, and he was remanded in custody for sentence yesterday.
Mr Ripia seems a slow learner, commiting more crimes while on bail after his first strike. Fortunately we now have a law which won’t allow him to just receive minor sentences for-ever. At this second strike his senetence will be of normal length, but he won’t get parole, meaning he will serve the full term.
And if after release he gets convicted of a third strike for aggravated robbery, then he’s going to be off the streets for many many years.
I think almost everyone in NZ has been impressed with the Student Volunteer Army in Christchurch. They formed from a good idea and a Facebook page for the 1st earthquake and sprung back into life for the second earthquake.
Green MP Gareth Hughes blogged a post in praise of them. I agree with him saying:
The volunteers and organisers I met today represent the nation at its best. Simple and humble community-service and hard-work mixed with cutting edge online tools and organisational software (with a large dose of fun mixed in). They all deserve medals.
But then Gareth had to go for the cheap political jibe, concluding with:
The image of the lazy, selfish, and drunk student or the inept and corrupt student association so favoured of ACT and National Party arguments is well and truly busted.
I commented:
Oh Gareth you were doing so well before you went for the cheap and nasty political jibe. You could have just praised the students for the wonderful job they have done.
Before you embarrass yourself further, you might want to reflect that the student who organised the SVA, and whose idea it all is, is a National Party member. So maybe your little smear against National is rather stupid.
The SVA is not political, and it was only when Gareth tried to politicise the great job they have done, did I point out how ludicrous his position is.
And kudos to UCSA for getting behind the SVA and providing support to it. UCSA is one of the better run student associations, and I’ve blogged this in the past – in fact held up the market research they recently did on what services students want as a model for other campuses.
To make things worse for the Greens, my comment was deleted from the blog after it was made. It later reappeared (along with Whale’s – see his blog here) and the disappearance was put down to technical issues.
For those who understand this graphic, do you agree or disagree? What changes would you make.
Matthew Hooton says he’ll pay higher taxes for Christchurch in his NBR column (offline):
With horror still unfolding, it’s too soon to be arguing over how to finance the rebuilding of Christchurch but already politicians are being forced into positions against the public interest.
The government’s opening position was correct. It would rule nothing in or out. John Key initially applied that policy to a national earthquake tax but, within days, media pressure had him limiting likely new imposts to increasing the $60 annual Earthquake Commission levy to $180.
Bill English also tried to hold the line, refusing to rule in or out cuts to Working for Families and interest-free student loans but was immediately over-ruled in theDominion Postby “a highly placed government source.” “A highly placed government source” with the credibility to over-rule Mr English surely had to be someone who outranks him.
Needless to say, after another day of media hysteria, Mr Key went public and as good as ruled out any interest on student loans. He limited discussion of changes to Working for Families to those on higher incomes.
This is the point I was trying to make a couple of days ago. Ideally the Government should not rule anything out or in until we actually have a better idea of the fiscal and economic cost. But no Government can risk days of scare-mongering headlines such as “Govt considering tax hike” or “Govt considering abolishing interest free loans”.
Hooton then puts up his case for change:
It’s unconscionable that fit, healthy 65-year-old chief executives will get superannuation when Christchurch primary schools need rebuilding.
Interest-free student loans mean the taxpayer is paying to cut the real value of the loans of doctors, lawyers and accountants rather than rebuilding Christchurch Hospital. They should at least be adjusted for inflation.
The problem with Working for Families is not primarily that it gives welfare to high income earners (although that’s ludicrous) but that it churns billions of dollars and creates massive effective marginal tax rates.
I’ll happily pay higher taxes to rebuild Christchurch. In return, the government ought now to take these issues seriously.
My view is somewhat different. I also believe that the age of super should increase, that there should be interest on student loans and that WFF should be reformed – not because of the earthquake – but because it is good policy to do so.
Michael Field at Stuff reports:
Prime Minister John Key has spoken to his Israeli counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu after claims an Israeli search and rescue team was refused entry to Christchurch’s inner-city cordon.
Earlier today, the Government rejected Israeli media reports that Wellington refused Israel’s offer to send a search and rescue team to Christchurch after the earthquake.
Key said this afternoon the Israelis were not part of a United Nations-accredited team.
The Government had received a wide range of offers of help but had not accepted all of them because there were enough people on the ground, he said. …
“I understand that private search experts retained by families of missing Israeli citizens presented to Civil Defence officials in Christchurch.
“Civil Defence requirements for (Urban Search and Rescue) teams were that they be self-deploying, self-sustaining and United Nations-accredited.
“Civil Defence officials therefore declined the private Israeli offer, and other similar non-accredited offers of assistance.”
Civil Defence have an incredibly hard job coping with a disaster of this magnitude, and generally are doing very well. However in this case, I believe it is highly regrettable that procedure won out over common sense.
As a disclosure, one of the dead Israelis is a close friend of one of my good Israeli friends – in fact the person who hosted me in Israel in November 2009. He approached me for assistance in getting a favourable decision made on getting the Israeli team admitted, and I put them in touch with the appropriate MFAT officials. I have no criticism of the MFAT officials who were very responsive and helpful, my criticism is of the ultimate decision maker, which I presume is someone in Civil Defence.
Now it is correct that this search and rescue team did not meet the official criteria of being an official Governmental team, accredited with the United Nations. It was a private team (however the Israeli Government was in full support of the team being admitted). So in terms of ticking all the boxes, it didn’t qualify.
But I think some common sense would have been useful. I would have asked the question – what’s the worst thing that could happen by allowing this team to join the other s&r teams, and consider the emotional damage caused by excluding a team that is already in Christchurch and ready and waiting to go into action.
The team was commissioned by one of the fathers of the (now known to be dead) Israelis. He paid for them at his own expense and rushed them out to NZ to maximise any chance of his son being found alive. It might only be a small fractional improvement in the odds, but it was better than doing nothing. It gave comfort that they were doing everything they possibly could. And they were accepting that this would not be some rogue team only searching for the Israelis – they were totally happy to work where-ever directed to by Civil Defence.
Now one reason you might want to exclude a private team, is if they were, well basically amateurs, who might be a risk to themselves or others. I’ve seen the backgrounds to the team members, and they are the exact opposite of amateurs – we’ve talking team members who have huge experience in search and rescue in earthquakes, and other situations.
The team leader was Hilik Magnus. Here is an extract from his website:
Over the last 17 years, Hilik has led numerous search parties, locating and rescuing hundreds of travelers of different nationalities, mainly in the Far East and South America. Over the years, he has built a unique network of contacts with authorities and private organizations across the world, advised foreign governments and security forces, and assisted thousands of families in receiving information regarding their loved ones. In Israel he has earned the unofficial title of “the national rescuer.”Hilik has trained a team of rescue experts with specialist skills on constant alert and still leads most of the search parties himself. Over the years, the company’s capabilities expanded to include legal aid, hostage negotiation and disaster relief. Magnus teams were among the first international rescue groups to reach the stricken coastal areas of Thailand following the 2004 Tsunami disaster and in recent years are at the forefront of intervention and rehabilitation in cases of substance abuse crises overseas.
Sounds rather capable I have to say. There are numerous testaments to their effectiveness, including a recent one from NZ, as reported in 2008 in the NZ Herald:
Tas, a 26-year-old media studies student, was here to help with the search for his missing sister, 35-year-old Liat Okin, who was last seen alive leaving a hut on the Routeburn Track late on the morning of March 26, in jeans and sneakers.
Joining the search was crack Israeli search-and-rescue expert Hilik Magnus, hired by Okin’s family to continue with a private search after he had finished with the official police search.
When that search was suspended on April 22, Magnus led the private search in what was at times inhospitable terrain surrounding the Routeburn Track. …
And they found the body, which the official s&r had failed to do. But even then, he was not big noting:
He is emphatic in his praise for the police, DOC and local volunteers who formed part of his search team. “I have never seen a team working as well as the local team. We have a lot to learn from them, how well organised and managed they were.”
Local support was outstanding, he says. The team, from six to 16-strong, at times included police search-and-rescue members, a dog handler and locals with knowledge of the Routeburn area, which straddles Fiordland and Mt Aspiring National Parks.
Even though the area where the body was found had been covered in the police search, police efforts, led by Senior Sergeant John Fookes, should not be undervalued says Magnus. “It’s a very cruel job: you are judged only by the results. People should understand that finding at the end, it is the outcome of a lot of invested days of search and you need a bit of luck. Because if we passed two metres, or half a metre away, we haven’t got the view of this backpack and we would have missed it.”
I think admitting the team lead by Magnus should have been a no brainer.
They were in Christchurch within a couple of days of the quake, but were never allowed to assist because they are not on some UN approved list. I really think it was a bad decision.
The young Israelis killed in the quake died instantly, it transpires, and letting the private team in would not have changed that. But it would have given greater comfort and solace to a worried and grieving family on the other side of the world that they had done everything they could to find their son. Instead they spend several days of battling bureaucracy, and having to even get the Israeli Prime Minister involved in their efforts.
I hope in future disasters, consideration is given to a more flexible approach. If there is to be a Commission of Inquiry into the earthquake, this is one (of many) issues that could be considered.
A very selfless editorial from the NZ Herald:
In the wake of the Christchurch earthquake a debate is developing about the merits of depriving other regions, notably Auckland, of development for the sake of Christchurch’s recovery.
In fact, there is no choice. Christchurch is one of the hubs of the national economy and the disruption of its normal activity will reduce economic activity nationwide. Its recovery is imperative and quite properly it will have first call on public investment for a good year or more.
The idea that boosting Auckland’s activity might enable the national economy to grow despite the earthquake is fanciful. Auckland’s infrastructure programmes are not gold discoveries; at best they are of incremental value to the economy.
They note:
In the wake of the earthquake, it seems clear the Auckland Council will have to forget about an inner-city rail loop if it wants this Government to fund it. That $2 billion proposition was already struggling to convince Transport Minister Steven Joyce that its business case was soundly based.
Members of the Auckland Council may be aggrieved that the centrepiece of their public transport plans may be sacrificed to the needs of Christchurch. …
If the Auckland Council dared to levy its own ratepayers for the bulk of the capital cost, its chances might be better still. But if the council continues to plead for national finance, it will find the Government more deaf than ever for a good while. The needs of Christchurch will take precedence over Auckland schemes, and properly so.
There will be two constraints on infrastructure spending outside Christchurch, which I agree must be the priority. One is fiscal – how much can one afford in any one year. But the more important constraint might be capacity – the construction industry is so big and can only handle so much work without leading to huge cost inflation. So some prioritisation in terms of timing may have to occur, and again Christchurch should win out.
The Dom Post reports:
Former Whanganui mayor Michael Laws is refusing to accept a High Court ruling that the council’s controversial gang-patch ban is unlawful and invalid.
The decision, issued by Justice Denis Clifford yesterday, will send Whanganui District Council back to the drawing board to create a bylaw that does not effectively ban gang insignia.
But Mr Laws, who spearheaded the bylaw and is now a councillor, said the judge was “wrong in fact”.
The High Court found in favour of Auckland Hells Angels gang member Philip Schubert, who argued that the council had exceeded the powers granted to it by Parliament when it passed the Prohibition of Gang Insignia Bylaw in September 2009.
Parliament had allowed the council to ban gang insignia in specified, but not all, public places. Because the bylaw banned gang insignia throughout the wider Whanganui urban area, it had effectively removed them from the district and was therefore unlawful, Justice Clifford ruled. He also said the Whanganui council failed to fully take into account rights regarding freedom of expression.
I din’t think this is that big a setback to those who want the patch ban. Basically the court has just said you can’t ban them in the entire urban area of Whanganui. The Council really just needs to come back with a bylaw which bans them in specific places – those places might comprise 90% of the urban area of Whanganui.
Of cours ethe composition of the Council has changed, and it is possible that a majority on the Council no longer support a patch ban – off memory the new Mayor doesn’t.
Brian Fallow writes:
Key is right to be dismissive of the idea of an ad hoc tax akin to the Australian flood levy.
If levied on the same basis – half a cent in the dollar of income for those earning between $50,000 and $100,000 or 1c for those earning above $100,000 – a back-of-the-envelope calculation indicates it would bring in a bit less than $500 million. About half would come from those earning between $50,000 and $100,000.
There is an opportunity cost to such an impost. It is money they cannot spend on consumption or investment elsewhere in the economy.
The economy started this year without a whole lot of momentum.
Export prices are at all-time highs, true, but many farmers are using the money to pay down debt and the flipside of the commodity boom is more and more of people’s incomes is soaked up by such necessities as food and fuel.
For firms chasing the consumer’s discretionary dollar an ad hoc levy is the last thing they need.
I totally agree. Putting taxes up when you are on the verge of a recession is daft.
As for calls for cuts to programmes like Working for Families or student loans, the case for such policy changes is no better or worse than it was before the earthquake.
They should be considered on their long-term merits. They should not be trundled through under cover of an all-purpose excuse, the cost of Canterbury’s misfortune.
I also agree. An inctreased abatement rate for WFF should occur because National doesn’t believe in welfare to relatively wealthy families, not because of the earthquake. The earthquake may prove to be a catalyst for considering the issue, but any change should be subject to an electoral mandate in November.
The response of both the previous Government and the present one to the global financial crisis and accompanying recession was to loosen fiscal policy.
They cut taxes and they let the automatic stabilisers work. As revenue took a hit and more people landed in the social safety net, operating surpluses turned to deficits and public debt rose (from a very low base).
They let the Crown’s balance sheet take the strain. It was the appropriate policy then and it is again.
This is a one off shock. The balance sheet is the appropriate place to take the strain, so long as the level of debt is not so great that the interest on the debt leads to structural deficits – it there is still a credible path back into surplus.
Botany goes to the polls tomorrow and unless a comet hits Earth, Jami-Lee Ross should be elected the MP for Botany.
Even before the Canterbury earthquake, it was going to be a low profile campaign. The Labour candidate conceded defeat the day after he was nominated, the Green candidate failed to get nominated in time and the ACT candidate boasts she is more left-wing than Jami-Lee. There is no sense of a contest or race.
Throw in the earthquake. Not only does it knock all other news off the media radar, it also means that candidates (correctly) pull back their campaigns.
By-elections traditionally have a very low turn-out – around 50% or so. This by-election will probably have the lowest turn-out in history. I suspect it will be well below 50%.
What this means is that the actual majority will be quite modest, because the turnout will be very modest. So the important numbers to look at will be the percentage of the vote each candidate gets, rather than the raw majority.
Death tll now at 163.
Sent in by a friend:
A banker, a National MP and beneficiary are having morning tea with a plate of 12 biscuits. The banker takes 11 then leans over to the National MP and whispers “Watch out for the beneficiary she’s after your biscuit”.
Heh
The last four US Presidents in order were George HW Bush, Bill Clinton, George W Bush and Barack Obama.
In theri first two years of office the number of q+a sessions they did with the press was from least to most 75, 159, 258 and 408.
See if you can match up each president with his number of press q+a sessions.
There are certain movies you can watch time and time again. Life of Brian is one of them. A recent addition to my (short) list of movies I can watch an endless number of times is Kick-Ass.
I absolutely love the movie. The only thing that has surprised me about it, is that Family First hasn’t called for it to be banned. I am sure it is an oversight on their part!
The Government has said they will look at some changes to working for families, as one way to help free up some money for the earthquake recovery. The possible changes are to remove eligibility for higher income families to it.
At present, familes (in work) receive WFF up to the following income bands:
Now I have long advocated that a family earning $107k a year (let alone $127k a year) should not be receiving welfare. Welfare should be for those who truly need it.
It is also economically very inefficient to tax people, and then give them some of it back as welfare. One should minimise what they call churn.
Also on a personal level, I have no qualms about paying taxes to help a family on say $40,000 with two kids. Bit I do have qualms about paying taxes to be handed over to a family earning $125,000 a year, just because they have decided to have lots of kids.
Now National said they would not alter WFF during this term, and I believe they should honour that. The earthquake recovery will not just be taking place in the next six months. It is good that National will possibly (all they have said is they are not ruling it out) look at changes to WFF, but they should make them an election policy, and implement after the election if re-elected – as they are doing with partial asset sales. It is vital to get a mandate for this. Yes the earthquake is a game changer, and you can use it to justify a pre-election change. And if the election was two years ago, I’d argue you might not be able to wait. but the election is only six months away.
You might even announce changes in the budget to take effect on 1 April 2012, but hold off making any change until after the election, so said mandate is gained.
Now if the intent is to not have WFF, for more wealthy families, how would one do it? There are three ways.
What I would consider is increasing the abatement rate from 20% to 25% just for those earning over $70,000 a year. You see National dropped the top tax rate from 39% to 33% (something Labour vows to reverse)for those earning over $70k year so the EMTR would still be slightly lower than it was under the last Government if they are a sole income family.
Now one could say is there any point in reducing the top tax rate by 6% and increasing the WFF abatement rate by 5%. Well yes there is. It is better to have a lower tax rate and not pay a relatively wealthy family welfare, then have higher tax rates and higher welfare payments. Tax churn is inefficent and wasteful.
So what would an extra 5% abatement do for WFF maximum incomes? They would be:
It would be a small modest step in the right direction of saying wealthier families should not recieve welfare. And it would leave Labour in the ludicrous position of having to argue that a family on $120,000 should not receive a tax cut but should receive welfare.
Take this quiz of 10 statements and select whether Charlie Sheen or Muammar Gaddafi said them. Harder than you might think.
Had an interesting chat to Mike Hosking on radio this morning about Simon’s decision to retire. Hosking said that it may be partly an age thing – just as younger workers routinely swap jobs every five years or so, you also have younger MPs who don’t want to spend their life in Parliament. They want to do 12 – 15 years and then go onto other things. The thought of doing a Phil Goff and joining a political party at age 15, standing for Parliament at age 28 and still being there when you are close to 60 is exactly what they don’t want to do.
Power became an MP at age 29 and is leaving at age 41. A big contrast.
Hosking asked me if anyone other MP has got out when they so obviously had a Ministerial acreer ahead of them, and my answer was Katherine Rich – a close friend of Simon’s. And it is quite possible that Simon has observed how absolutely happy Katherine has been since she left Parliament – a theory shared by Duncan Garner.
But there is one upside to Simon’s decision – it does make rejuvenation easier for National, and indeed the decisions of both Simon and Wayne Mapp should serve as a wake-up call for other Ministers that no-one is there for ever.
Soon after National won the 2008 election, I pondered what National needs to do to have a lengthy Government – three or even four terms. There’s a lot of factors which are situational – policies, economy, issues, response to scandals etc. But there are also some factors which tend to be almost always true – that the public are loath to keep re-electing the same old people into Government.
So a necessary (but not sufficient) condition for a long-term Government is to rejuvenate. And this has to happen not just in your third term, but throughout. Helen Clark did some useful rejuvenbation in her third term, but by then it was too little too late.
National has 23 Ministers at present. For the sake of easy maths, we’ll pretend they have 24. To maximise chances of a third or even the holy grail of a fourth term, one has to go into your third election with half your Ministry being new, and to get a fourth term, almost your entire Government needs to be new – including arguably the Prime Minister.
So in the rejuvenation plan I sketched in my head, one would have the following rejuvenations:
Helen Clark found out the hard way that NZers are reluctant to give a PM and an almost unchanged frontbench a fourth term. Likewise John Howard made the mistake of going for a fifth term, when he could have retired with greatness after four.
It is important to stress that Ministers should retire and allow rejuvenation not because they are bad Ministers, or because their replacements will be necessairly better than them. Often a new Minister will take time to come up to speed. But without rejuvenation you burn off public support (and you end up with frustrated backbenchers).
So far in this term, we’ve had two Ministers resign (Worth and Wong) and three Ministers announce their retirement (J Carter, Mapp and Power). I think there is a reasonable chance of one more retirement before the election, so by coincidence the number will be six. Of course two of the spots have already been claimed by Nathan Guy and Hekia Parata.
Winning a second term doesn’t tend to be about rejuvenation – more about the performance of the Government (and Opposition) only. So that is why you tend to keep Ministers in office until the election and have their sucessors become Ministers after the election (if you win).
In the second term, it is different. You want to go into that election for a third term with actual new faces – around half the Ministers should be different from the beginning of the first term. So one would expect the PM to do a significant reshuffle around a year before the 2014 election. Leaving it until after the election is too late.
What this means, is that most (that is not the same as saying all) of the Ministers who were also Ministers in the former National Government of the 1990s should be thinking seriously about retiring at the 2014 election, with a step down from the Ministry at the end of 2013. You will have had five years as a Minister and of course your previous ministerial experience. Your experience has been invaluable to stabilising this Government, but rejuvenation will be essential to maximise chances of a third term or beyond.
And if National does manage to win a second and thrd term, then I do think that John Key could do what no other Prime Minister in NZ’s history has done – and get out while on top. I don’t think he wants to set a record for longest serving PM in power as Clark did. I think he will feel that 7.5 to 8 years as PM and 9 – 10 years as National Leader is a pretty good run, and he’ll let new leadership emerge for that elusive chase of the 4th term. And if people see the National Government seeking a 4th term as a very different beast to the National Government that came into power in 2008, it may be possible.
Now you may think I’m getting ahead of myself thinking about third and fourth terms, when a second term is yet to be won. Well as I said, the second term doesn’t tend to be an issue of rejuvenation. But rejuvenation is an issue you have to be candid about well in advance. It is unfair on Ministers to have them think they will continue forever, and then after an election they find out they’re a backbencher again. Then you just get a surly backbencher for three years.
It is important to make sure rejuvenation expectations are known well in advance. That way Ministers can announce that they will retire at the next election, before any reshuffle, so that they are seen as retiring, not as being forced out. One should always try to preserve dignity.
So fow now, the level of retirements is about right. But if re-elected, some Ministers should give careful consideration (in my opinion) to retiring in 2014. Not because they are doing a bad job. Not because they are not valued. But because you don’t win if you don’t rejuvenate.
The actions of both Power and Mapp in retiring long before they were due to be pushed, should serve as an example to others.
It’s also an example some Labour MPs could follow.
Flect-Re-Flect is on for just five days at Circa, closing Saturday. The official blurb is:
Bob Dylan’s blues harp will have a solo all of its own in Flect-Re-flect, the new multi-media work being created by Wellington composer Michelle Scullion and her company of musicians, singer-actors and dancers for the Wellington Fringe Festival in March. The harmonica was a personal gift to Scullion from the great man himself when he visited Wellington during the 80s and they met back stage after a concert at Athletic Park. Scullion has been creating the songs for Flect-Re-flect using the poetry of the well-known New Zealand poet, the late Alan Brunton and the words of the late Sally Rodwellj – both of Red Mole Theatre – as the basis for the lyrics. She wanted to pay special tribute to Brunton and decided to compose a solo that reflected Dylan’s trade-mark harmonica – playing in his honour.
The show is a fast 75 minutes of non-stop music and song all composed by Scullion and performed by some of Wellington’s leading musicians and singers. In addition there will be dance, short monologues and scenes, together with projected film and imagery to reflect a variety of moods throughout the show.
I went along on Tuesday night, and it was an enjoyable quirky performance. The two sopranos of Jacquie Fee and Sally Barratt-Boyes were excellent and by themselves worth attending for.
At first I tried to look for a great plot linking all the songs and scenes together. This made my head hurt, so I stopped. While there are some themes running through the show, don’t expect this to be a story with a plotline that resolves itself. It’s not that sort of production.
What it is is just really some good old fashioned music, dancing and fun. It’s timed just right at 80 minutes.
Death toll now 160.
A very funny auction on Trade Me. The blurb is:
For sale 1 owner 25 – 30 tonne landscape feature (answers to the name Rocky) …
He is in pristine condition (just a little bit of concrete dust). Suitable for garden feature, or as in our case a magnificent addition to your living area.
Rocky will enhance your “indoor outdoor” flow considerably, especially if you load him in through the garage roof like we did.
Sorry, but we are unable to deliver Rocky but would be happy for you to pick him up and roll him away (please mind our neighbours when you do) 🙂
The Q+A is of course great:
Hi Phil, the rock looks awfully shiny are you sure it has not been pre-owned? kincare (64 ) 3:23 pm, Mon 28 Feb
Answer: Nope – just the one owner for the last 65 million(ish) years. 3:56 pm, Mon 28 Feb
What sort of council permits do you need to have?? I’m sure there must be some 🙂 milo134 (25 ) 4:20 pm, Mon 28 Feb
Answer: Yep – you need a 4017 form filled out in triplicate. This is called an “Application for homing a large rock”. This form must then be taken to at least 6 council offices to be approved by 6 different departments and then into ECAN for environmental approval. Once complete you must apply to the SPCR (society for protection of rocks) for a housing permit. For a small fee I can help you with this :0
All proceeds from the earthquake will go to the earthquake relief fund.