Norman Kirk - Humanitarian and Visionary

                                                     Norman Kirk at Waitangi Day celebration 1973

                                                                         Photo: Doug Cole/New Zealand Herald

I remember the night of 31 August 1974 very well. Mum and Dad took my sisters and myself to a posh restaurant called La Boheme. After that we watched a very funny film called Paper Moon. We were full of laughter in the car coming home. When I got home and to turned on the radio around 11:30 to hear announcer Alan Gaskell say, "We will have more news on the death of the Prime Minister". Our laughter turned to sadness. Norman Kirk had died.

Norman Kirk, who ordered a New Zealand frigate to sail to waters off Mururoa Atoll to show the French Government that it did not have the right to exclude ships from international waters so that it could test nuclear weapons; Norman Kirk who re-opened the New Zealand Embassy in Moscow; Norman Kirk who established diplomatic relations with China, and Norman Kirk who, at a speech at the United Nations General Assembly, called for an international treaty to ban all testing of nuclear weapons.

Norman Kirk understood the needs of people:

"Basically there are four things that matter to people: they have to hav somewhere to live, they have to hav something to eat, they have to have clothing to wear, and they have to have something to hope for."

His death had a profound effect. Someone told me that he organised a strike so that he and his workmates could attend Norman Kirk's funeral. If you ask people if they remember Norman Kirk, many will say they remember when he died. 

Maybe Norman Kirk foresaw the rise of neoliberalism and its consequences. Here is an exceprt from his last public speech at the opening of St Peter's high school in Palmerston North:

"“We live in an age where many of us are intent on sacrificing our individuality and humanity for the superficial benefits of the affluent age. The quality of concern for others, of compassion, tolerance and understanding, are being eroded by a slow, deadly, process.

“The end-product will surely be a desert of arid minds and soul-less men.”

Maybe if Norman Kirk had lived longer, National would not have come to power and Aotearoa New Zealand would not have gone down the road of neoliberalism.

(You can see a documentary about Norman Kirk here: https://youtube.com/watch?v=em2KL1r71rM )

Guest Blog - Political Will

Geoffrey Robert Burns shares his thoughts on the housing crisis.

Plenty people got the leverage to purchase property. Too many people can barely to pay rent. There are more people than houses. Some worked hard for a decade or three and more live in ten bedroom mansions. Some people pay rent week by week for a room in a flat with x number of others. Some people do live in box on t’ side of t’ road. There is both inequality and relative poverty and it can be argued that there is also absolute poverty in New Zealand.

Whether we live in ten bedroom mansions or cardboard box on t’ side of t’ road, we are all citizens and we all have equal rights. Or so we are led to believe. I refuse to believe anything, but I do believe that we ought have equal rights.

Both wings of the political bird agree that there is a housing shortage. If one agrees with the necessity of limitless economic growth then a housing shortage needs to be maintained, so that inflation stays within 1% to 3%, GDP averages 3.1% and unemployment stays within 5% to 6%.

Suppose we do have the material and human resources and the land to create a housing surplus, what becomes of the mums and dads who have invested their live savings expecting to make enough capital gain to retire and leave a family home for their children? Honest hard working mums and dads are the back bone of New Zealand, they are also the people who the politicians want votes from.

If we do have habitable land, arable land for food fibre and fuel, and spare land with raw materials for industry plus a significant percentage of land to maintain biodiversity, what might be the obstacles to building a housing surplus, obstacles to rent controls on landlords and obstacles to medium to long term tenancy agreements?

Can the needs provide all the needs of a constantly growing population?

TV3 News Poll - Be Careful With Minor Parties

 The commentary on the  TV3 News poll that came out last Sunday that came out last Sunday was interesting but  there are two things to remember.

1. The margin of error is 3.1% so the results don't tell you much about any party getting below about 3% in such a poll. MANA has been fluctuating between about 0.3% and 1% since the election. Such fluctuations probably mean little and are likely to be more related to my second point.

2.Over two-thirds of MANA Newtown members have not given us their landline number, probably because they only have mobile phones. I believe this is the same throughout MANA. The rating we get probably depends on the proportion of how many MANA supporters with landlines happen to be contacted by the surveyors in a survey. This should be the same in any random survey but the numbers are so low that it probably isn't.

Another thing I didn't like about the analysis was that it stated that it predicted the Conservatives to win an electorate seat. Well which one will it be and what evidence is there that they will win it?

Guest Post by Ariana Tutanganui-Tamati - Peter Dunne -Will he rise from the ashes and save our state owned assets or is he really just a puppet?

Thanks to Ariana for allowing me to post this piece that she has written.

It's very symbolic that Peter Dunne's puppet was the worst damaged in the fire at the Backbenchers last week and that Hekia Parata was forced to evacuate a neighbouring apartment.

 

This is a sign. Peter has the opportunity to redeem himself. `Will he rise from the ashes and save our state owned assets or is he really just a puppet'.

 

Even Dunne himself admitted on National Radio that his puppet is resurrectable. "I'd like to suggest one or two improvements. I think just a general spruce up will do. I don't normally go around wearing sack cloths and ashes”.

 

If Dunne keeps insisting that State Asset Sales is a Dunne Deal he will forever remain in the minds eye of the public, a sad figure of insignificance who had a buffy hairdo rather than be  what he purports to be, a family centred man and the defender of the rights of ordinary mum’s and dad’s.

 

The partial sale of state owned assets is definitely not in the interests of his representative group. Even his own electorate have tried to show him the errs in the logic of asset sales by facilitating and presenting him with public submissions. Dunne refused to meet with members of his own electorate in person or answer the questions and serious concerns of the submitter's.

 

To date Dunne has chosen to tow National’s party line over his own on this issue. In the Election United Future said that they would fight for NZ Owned. Dunne thinks that having a cap of 10% for any one investor and a private sector minority share holding of 49% is enough to keep our state owned power companies from eventually being assumed by foreign companies. Members of his electorate have been trying to warn Dunne of the serious implications of the Trans Pacific Partnership since he started his election campaign last year. TPPA  exposes this Government  to be sued by large coporate entities and it only takes a foreign shareholder investment of 1% to be able to enact this.

 

Dunne should stick to his knitting and provide blankets for those who will be left out in the cold should he allow this Bill to go through.

 

But we have seen Dunne pull his own strings and pull in the Government by using the `no surprises’ clause in the confidence and supply agreement with the increased class sales that, owing to mounting heat from the public, forced Hekia to evacuate the policy.

 

People’s Power Ohariu will be taking a letter to Peter Dunne tomorrow to Parliament at 1pm urging him to vote against or abstain from voting on the Mixed Ownership Model Bill. The Bill is not a Dunne Deal yet. The passing of this Bill rests on his shoulders. Will Dunne do a U-turn on supporting this Bill or will he follow National by pandering to the interests of the wealthy, sharebrokers and financiers who are the true beneficiaries of this Bill.

Moving Beneficiaries into Work - Will it Work


Gordon Campbell's article on moving people off benefit is very good.

The Government could be congratulated for wanting to improve psychiatric health services. It must have realised that in 1970 (the year John Key uses to compare with today) there were thousands of patients in psychiatric hospitals not receiving benefits.

Treating psychiatric illness is only the first piece of the puzzle, the other pieces include having enough jobs and a change of attitude among employers. I wonder when John Key thinks these pieces on the puzzle might appear.

Before his Government continues in its programme to move people off benefits, John Key should spend a Saturday morning at Newtown Mall.

Is There Life on Enceladus?


Ever since the Galileo probe left to orbit Jupiter and pass by some of its moons, I have been interested in the possibility of life in other parts of the Solar System (apart from Earth). Scientists were and are still speculating that Europa has a liquid ocean under its ice but Galileo could not determine whether it has.

In 2005 the Cassini probe, which is orbiting Saturn discovered a geyser coming from near the south pole of one of its icy moons Enceladus. There is debate over whether this is due to a liquid ocean beneath the surface. Below is the latest finding, which suggests there is. It is a news release from NASA released last Thursday.

RELEASE: 09-147

SALT FINDING FROM NASA'S CASSINI HINTS AT OCEAN WITHIN SATURN MOON

PASADENA, Calif. -- For the first time, scientists working on NASA's
Cassini mission have detected sodium salts in ice grains of Saturn's
outermost ring. Detecting salty ice indicates that Saturn's moon
Enceladus, which primarily replenishes the ring with material from
discharging jets, could harbor a reservoir of liquid water -- perhaps
an ocean -- beneath its surface.

Cassini discovered the water-ice jets in 2005 on Enceladus. These jets
expel tiny ice grains and vapor, some of which escape the moon's
gravity and form Saturn's outermost ring. Cassini's cosmic dust
analyzer has examined the composition of those grains and found salt
within them.

"We believe that the salty minerals deep inside Enceladus washed out
from rock at the bottom of a liquid layer," said Frank Postberg,
Cassini scientist for the cosmic dust analyzer at the Max Planck
Institute for Nuclear Physics in Heidelberg, Germany. Postberg is
lead author of a study that appears in the June 25 issue of the
journal Nature.

Scientists on Cassini's cosmic dust detector team conclude that liquid
water must be present because it is the only way to dissolve the
significant amounts of minerals that would account for the levels of
salt detected. The process of sublimation, the mechanism by which
vapor is released directly from solid ice in the crust, cannot
account for the presence of salt.

"Potential plume sources on Enceladus are an active area of research
with evidence continuing to converge on a possible salt water ocean,"
said Linda Spilker, Cassini deputy project scientist at NASA's Jet
Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "Our next opportunity to
gather data on Enceladus will come during two flybys in November."

The makeup of the outermost ring grains, determined when thousands of
high-speed particle hits were registered by Cassini, provides
indirect information about the composition of the plume material and
what is inside Enceladus. The outermost ring particles are almost
pure water ice, but nearly every time the dust analyzer has checked
for the composition, it has found at least some sodium within the
particles.

"Our measurements imply that besides table salt, the grains also
contain carbonates like soda. Both components are in concentrations
that match the predicted composition of an Enceladus ocean," Postberg
said. "The carbonates also provide a slightly alkaline pH value. If
the liquid source is an ocean, it could provide a suitable
environment on Enceladus for the formation of life precursors when
coupled with the heat measured near the moon's south pole and the
organic compounds found within the plumes."

However, in another study published in Nature, researchers doing
ground-based observations did not see sodium, an important salt
component. That team notes that the amount of sodium being expelled
from Enceladus is actually less than observed around many other
planetary bodies. These scientists were looking for sodium in the
plume vapor and could not see it in the expelled ice grains. They
argue that if the plume vapor does come from ocean water the
evaporation must happen slowly deep underground rather than as a
violent geyser erupting into space.

"Finding salt in the plume gives evidence for liquid water below the
surface," said Sascha Kempf, also a Cassini scientist for the cosmic
dust analyzer from the Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics. "The
lack of detection of sodium vapor in the plume gives hints about what
the water reservoir might look like."

Determining the nature and origin of the plume material is a top
priority for Cassini during its extended tour, called the Cassini
Equinox Mission.

"The original picture of the plumes as violently erupting
Yellowstone-like geysers is changing," said Postberg."They seem more
like steady jets of vapor and ice fed by a large water reservoir.
However, we cannot decide yet if the water is currently 'trapped'
within huge pockets in Enceladus' thick ice crust or still connected
to a large ocean in contact with the rocky core."

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the
European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Cassini
cosmic dust analyzer was provided by the German Aerospace Center. The
Cassini orbiter was designed, developed and assembled at JPL. JPL
manages the mission for the Science Mission Directorate at NASA
Headquarters in Washington.

More information about the Cassini mission is available at:

http://www.nasa.gov/cassini

-end-

"Maori Leaders" Don't Mind Asset State Sales

According to Radio New Zealand some Maori leaders don't oppose further sales of State assets provided Maori are involved.

Sure, holding on to State assets is not in itself socialistic and many State assets are held by State-Owned Enterprises whose primary function is to make profit, not serve the people, but many State assets can or could be used for the benefit of the people. For example people generally have access and can enjoy activities on Department of Conservation land. Also the electricity network and the Government's three electricity companies could come under the control of an organisation whose function is to both assist energy conservation and to ensure that everyone gets electricity when they need it. These things wouldn't happen if State assets were all sold off.

Privatisation can, however, benefit some people - investors. Perhaps this is who these Maori leaders are representing. The bulk of Maori are working-class, ie., they work for wages or salaries, are waiting for a job, are retired or live in families of workers.

The statement was made at a closed-door meeting between the leaders and New Zealand Prime Minister John Key at Waitangi. Since it was a semi-secret session, did the leaders seek the views of the mainly working-class people they purport to represent?

Another worry is that this meeting discussed the ownership of water.

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