NZ Views: Waikato

This past week was one of the busiest I’ve had in ages. It’s actually not entirely over yet, with some odds and ends to clear up before moving into this week. All of which is why I haven’t blogged much lately. So as I take care of those last things from last week, I thought I’d just share some more of my views of New Zealand.

Yesterday we went down to the Waikato for a family get-together, a birthday BBQ. We were outside of Hamilton, near a settlement called Gordonton, an area Nigel and I have always thought was quite nice: It’s rural, but close to Hamilton and only about an hour and a half to Auckland. We also have family there or not very far from there.

The Waikato is a large region, which is primarily faming country (especially dairy and sheep farms), but it’s more varied than that. The area we were has farms, but also “lifestyle blocks”, large bits of land on which “executive style” houses are built. Often these houses are in small clusters, like a suburban subdivision, but on sections that typically range up to five acres.

Maybe it’s because I grew up in the middle of a continent, but I tend to be drawn to wide-open views over land rather than sea views, much as I like them, too. But one of the things I like most about New Zealand is the visual diversity: There are mountain views, places near dense bush or forests, overlooking wide-open plains or rolling farmland as well as, of course, plenty of sea views (and lake and river views for that matter). You want it? We got it.

I’m trying to post more photos of the places I visit, and I actually have more from another part of Auckland, when I get the chance to post them. These will have to do for now.

I don’t have time for this

I don’t have time for this. This is the busiest week of the month for me, and I have a lot of work to do, so I don’t have time for a blog post. But that’s not what I’m talking about: I just don’t have time for the bullshit anymore. Tonight Maine repealed marriage equality.

This came about because our opponents ran a campaign filled with lies and distortions made possible by millions of dollars in out-of-state contributions. This came about because of out-of-state agitators organised by a prominent national organisation quietly backed by the Mormons.

The people fighting for our side were brilliant: They ran a strong grassroots campaign involving thousands of ordinary Maine folks who made phone calls, went door-to-door and did all they could to keep equality in Maine. However, they had one major handicap: They were in the reality-based world where facts and reason matter, something our opponents know little about, but, apparently, didn’t need to.

Our opponents played on people’s fears, as they always do. They played on people’s ignorance, as they always do. They played on people’s prejudice and hatred, as they always do. And for good measure they just made stuff up, as they always do. Our side couldn’t match the millions of dollars the right’s churches collected to promote the lies and hatred, so it was always an uphill fight.

It’s time to make one thing abundantly clear: Our opponents don’t have a minor disagreement with us—they hate us. It’s not the word “marriage” they have a problem with—it’s that we have any rights whatsoever.

In California, they claimed their problem was with “activist judges” (a term they only use when they disagree with a ruling). If “the people” don’t enact it, it’s not legitimate, they said. Then when Maine’s elected legislature enacted marriage equality, and its elected Governor signed it into law, the religious extremists tripped all over themselves to repeal the law the people’s representatives had enacted. Apparently, by “the people” the religious extremists meant only themselves.

In doing so, the religious extremists glossed over the gross immorality of the majority ever being allowed to vote on the rights of the minority, as if it’s ever proper for voters to decide who has full equality and who does not.

Maine’s governor—who formerly opposed same-sex marriage—was a strong advocate. So were many other prominent Mainers. But the national Democratic Party, including President Obama, were absent. The president issued a mild, vague statement but never said, “vote NO”.

The mainstream news media failed miserably. They treated it as an interesting, possibly significant, curiosity. They never once called out the religious bigots on their lies; maybe they’re too frightened of them.

Still, despite all that, we'll win because we’re on the right side of history. Those who oppose us will be remembered like the famous bigots of the near past—Thurmond, Wallace, and so on—and that day is fast approaching.

So, I refuse to give up on America. Despite all the hate, despite all the money and power being deployed against us, despite the evil being done in the name of their god, I know we will win. I have that hope because America gave it to me as a birthright. I have that hope because generations of Americans have fought and died to nurture it. I have that hope because at this moment, all across America, millions of people are hanging their heads in sadness or shame over how GLBT people are being treated—again. I have hope because, as the president once said, “In the unlikely story that is America, there is nothing false about hope.”

An activist friend suggested the song in the video at the top of this post as an antidote for those filled with sadness from this defeat. I love how very gay it is to take courage from a song by Liza—Judy’s daughter—but I also love the sentiment.

This isn’t the end: It’s just the beginning. We will win—if not tomorrow, then the day after that.

Fourteen

Today is Fourteenth Anniversaries, plural: I arrived in New Zealand to stay on this day in 1995, which makes it my “Expataversary”, or the anniversary of the day I became an expat. That means it’s also the date Nigel and I have always taken to be our anniversary, since this was the day our life together really began.

So much has changed over those years, not the least the fact we now have another Anniversary: January 24, the day we held our Civil Union. We were talking the other day about what we would answer when people ask how long we’ve been married. We decided the long explanation is best: We’ve been together fourteen years, and made it “legal” in January. This lets people know both the long-term nature of us, and also that we’re legally joined, too.

In the past, I’ve talked about how people ask me if I’d ever live in the US again and, truth be told, I’ve always ducked the question because I’ve never known how to answer it. However, I realised recently that the chances I’d ever live there again are slim to none.

The America I left in 1995 no longer exists, it’s changed so much. Whether those changes are good, bad or indifferent is beside the point—it’s the scale of change that matters. Every year I live away from the US, the more like a foreign country it becomes. Every week I see a reference in American news media or among my Internet friends to something currently in American pop culture—and I have no idea what they’re talking about.

If this sounds implausible, then consider that when I left the US the Internet (as we know it today) was still in its infancy: Connections were slow and expensive and the World Wide Web was barely beginning. Cellphones existed, but were expensive and only beginning to catch on (and they were analogue—no WiFi, no texting, no downloading anything to your phone).

When I arrived in New Zealand in 1995, I couldn’t possibly have known that over time I’d begin to feel like a foreigner in my own homeland, but that’s what happened. But I also couldn’t have imagined that a day would come in which I’d feel completely at home in a country other than the US, and that happened, too.

I think the difference for me is that I love adventure—not the trekking across the Antarctic kind, but the perfectly ordinary “let’s see where this goes” kind. As Nigel and I have built our life together, we’ve moved around and tried new places and jobs, but we’ve always moved to something, not from anything.

And that was true for me, too, fourteen years ago today. I think that sense of adventure is the secret to why this experience has been so amazingly wonderful for me. The fact that Nigel and I share a sense of adventure is probably one of the secrets to why our life together has been so amazing.

So, on this fourteenth anniversary, I’m living in a place I love, having a wonderful life, and sharing it all with my best friend and soulmate—and now husband, too (and Jake, too, of course). Fifteen years ago, I couldn’t have imagined that any of that would be true, so maybe that’s the real “take away message” from my experience: Don’t assume that your dreams won’t come true, because you may be only one day away from the start of it all.

And for me it all started fourteen years ago today.

Previous years’ posts:

Lucky 13: Expataversary and more

Twelfth Anniversary

Eleven Years an Expat

A related post:

Ex, but not ex-

What Magna Carta?

The New Zealand has enacted a law that will allow the police to collect DNA samples from anyone arrested for a crime that could lead to a jail sentence. The arrested person has no say in this and a warrant is not required. If the person is ultimately found not guilty, we’re promised that the samples will be destroyed, which actually isn’t at all reassuring.

Predictably there’s been the chorus of “if you’re not doing anything wrong, you’ve got no reason to complain,” but this goes against nearly a millennium of common law stretching all the way back to Magna Carta. There should be probable cause and warrant from a judge, just as there is for other searches. This law change is the reason the phrase “slippery slope” exists.

The other day on TVNZ’s “Breakfast”, the ever-moronic Pippa Wetzell dismissed this as if her opinion were fact. Perhaps she might want to learn something about the issue—and the history of our system of rights and legal privileges—before pontificating on something she clearly knows nothing about.

Halloween, R.I.P.

As I expected, we didn’t get a single Trick-or-Treater last night. So, because I’m always prepared just in case, I’m stuck with candy I’ll have to eat. Such a burden!

Since I started posting about Halloween seeming to be dying out in New Zealand (in terms of the American traditions, at least), I’ve heard from several people in NZ who are or are not still seeing evidence of Halloween (some of those comments can be seen in the comments to previous posts on this subject). The TV news featured a party for kids in Devonport put on by some Kiwis who—surprise!—had lived in the US one stage, and liked the Halloween hoopla. This year, that seemed unique.

What I’ve seen this year has been a decline caused the one force more powerful than hype: Indifference. There was no campaign against it, no public discussion, just indifference.

When I first started seeing people in our area pushing American Halloween traditions—especially Trick-or-Treating—I hadn’t been in the country very long. Then, the opposition, such as it was, came from two main areas: Those who resented “creeping Americanism” (a phrase I hardly ever hear anymore), and those who objected on religious grounds (Auckland’s North Shore seems to have more than its fair share of fundamentalist churches—way more than its fair share…). But even way back then the biggest opponent was simple indifference.

This year, the NZ Police made two signs (above) available for download from their website. One was designed to welcome Trick-or-Treaters, the other asked them to stay away. This is a sensible, common-sense solution I thought was a logical thing to do way back when, but the Internet makes it easy to distribute such signs.

The police also posted a flyer of “Spooktacular things to remember at Halloween”. It was filled with the sort of advice that American parents follow, like “Stay in areas that are lit with streetlights,” “Be visible,” and “Always go trick or treating with an adult” (the first couple years, I seldom saw adults anywhere nearby). But there was also somewhat more modern—and sad—advice: “Only go where you or your friends know the residents.”

The police also reminded kids to “Understand what a prank is. Do not commit a crime thinking you will get away with it because it is Halloween.” Killjoys. They offered “Key Messages for householders” (why do all organisations talk of “key messages” nowadays?): “Householders do not have to open the door or respond to knocks on the door on Halloween.” Um, duh?

Kudos to the police for putting their slogan “Safer Communities Together” into action. The flyer may have been a bit wordy, but the advice was sound and the whole thing was a sensible way of approaching Halloween.

So, while this year was a total non-event in our area, that doesn’t mean it won’t come back in the future. Indifference is a powerful thing, however.

Update November 2, 2009: Some houses, however, are into Halloween fun.

Lion sleeps tonight

Lion Nathan, one of New Zealand’s oldest companies, ceased to exist today: It was de-listed from the New Zealand Stock Exchange (and Australia’s, too) after the company was acquired by Japan’s Kirin Breweries. While this was a bit of a yawn by itself, I think it says something about the modern business paradigm.

The brewery was formed in Auckland in 1840 by John Logan Campbell, and only became Lion Breweries in 1977. After tycoon Doug Myers took control of the company in the 1980s, the company bought New Zealand’s largest retailer (at the time), LD Nathan & Co. from the asset-stripping merchant bank, Fay Richwhite and formed Lion Nathan.

In the early 1990s, they bought the brewing companies of Aussie tycoon Alan Bond, Tooheys Brewery and Castlemain Perkins. A few years later, Kirin bought 45 percent of the company.

The Kirin move sparked a major revamp of the Takeovers Code because ordinary people couldn’t participate in a partial takeover. The Kirin move solidified government resolve and the new Code was completed in time to prevent Lion Nathan from taking over wine maker, Montana.

In 2000, after the Kirin partial takeover, Lion Nathan moved its headquarters to Sydney. By the time of the company’s death, it controlled 50% of the New Zealand beer market and 40% of the Australian market.

What’s instructive about this is that the company followed the current business imperative for New Zealand companies: Grow big, so big that international expansion is required to continue growing profits, then be taken over by a multi-national corporation. This, conservatives tell us, is the highest and best result for any company.

That’s true—if greed is your sole motivator.

While the right wing considers globalisation to be holy, it’s not always, nor the best objective. As once proud New Zealand companies are reduced to irrelevant branch offices of multi-national corporations, something of our cultural identity is lost, as well as a stake in the success of the company.

Multi-nationals try to force consumers into a kind of great global goo, and in the process the unique cultural heritage, traditions and even preferences of a place get reduced to mere “local market variations”. All decisions, and the fate of NZ workers, are decided in some foreign country that won’t feel the consequences of their actions here.

Economic conservatives tell us while that’s sad, it’s ultimately the way of the world. Describing a situation is not prescribing it. Investors hell-bent on acquiring maximum wealth no matter what may not care if a New Zealand town loses its biggest employer when the foreign owners move production to Asia (for example), but there ought to be value in a company that digs in its heels and seeks to maximise its profits AND its connection to New Zealand. That’s what’s missing from the current business paradigm that values maximised profit over everything else.

So Lion Nathan is gone. I won’t mourn it, since, in my view, it was hardly a “good corporate citizen” in its last couple decades. By the time of its death, it wasn’t really a New Zealand company anymore, and neither were its profits or its commitment. And that’s the problem.

The extent of Halloween

Last week, I posted a couple photos from what was the largest Halloween “display” I saw at our local mall. Actually, it was really the only Halloween display.

So as part of my research into my thesis that Halloween is fading, I went to our local shopping centre. The photo above shows the candy display in our supermarket. It was the only display in the entire store.

Out in the mall, a cheap shop had a small display (photo below). As a percentage of store size, this was actually the biggest display I saw.

Today I went to our local, smaller branch of the main discount store, and the Halloween stuff was at the front of the store—and consisted of two displays, each one square metre in size. I heard on the radio this afternoon that the chain was offering 20% off all Halloween decorations “while stocks last.” Sounded like they were trying to get rid of it.

Now I’m especially interested in what happens on Saturday.

Slap some sense into this story

A man identified as “an Auckland businessman” plans to spend up to $450,000 on a march to protest the Government’s decision to ignore the deeply flawed smacking referendum. He’s been endorsed, of course, by the same far-right christianist group that’s been moaning the loudest about the referendum. The march idea is silly, and the nearly a half-million dollars would be better sent on preventing child abuse. Still, it’s their democratic right to waste their money on yet another stunt if they want to.

However, they can’t expect to spout utter nonsense and not be called out for doing so.

Their promotional material reads: “In the election 45% of votes counted for John Key. In the referendum 87% of votes counted for nothing.” Bad grammar aside, this is a double deception.

First—and most importantly—what they’re referring to is that 87.4% of people who voted cast a pro-smacking vote. However, what the activists are hiding is that the voter turnout was only 56.09% of eligible voters. That means that fewer than 48.98% of all eligible votes actually voted the way the activists claim. If you’re feeling generous, you could say that “about half” of New Zealand voters voted “no” in the referendum, but constantly using the 87.4% figure is deliberately deceptive and misleading, meant to imply overwhelming support where it never existed (see also my previous post on the results).

Second, there’s absolutely no direct link between those who voted for the National Party in the general election and those who voted “no” in the referendum: In fact, we have no idea how many voters of any party voted in the referendum or how they voted. We can make some educated guesses, but a direct correlation, as the activists imply, simply does not exist.

A companion piece on the christianist group’s website reads “Should a kick in the guts as part of responsible government go unanswered?” Intended as a play on the wording of the referendum, it’s also deliberately confrontational. If less than half of New Zealanders supported the activists’ position, how is it a “kick in the guts” if the government recognises that there’s no mandate for change? The referendum question was deliberately written to be confusing and counterintuitive. It’s not a stretch at all to assume that some of the “no” voters actually favour the law as changed and don’t back activists’ position.

So what we have are activists who were backed by fewer than half of all New Zealand voters, but who are still trying to force their agenda on everyone. The government is right to ignore them. Let the activists spend their half million dollars on a vanity rally if they want to—at least it’s not taxpayer money this time.

Are they really so clueless?

The more this National Party-led Government goes on, the more I wonder if they have a clue what they’re doing. So many of their ministers are so clearly out of their depth that it’s difficult to have any confidence in John Key’s premiership. Worse, their approach on issues often seems, at best, naïve.

The government’s strategy on Internet broadband is a good example.

The previous Labour-led Government set a goal of ultra-fast broadband (UFB) available to most New Zealanders. They intended to use the government as the instrument for achieving what the commercial sector had shown no interest in doing. The current government, however, has decided to pursue “public-private partnerships” to make this happen.

As a centre-right government, it’s understandable that they’d have unshakeable faith in this approach. The reality is that sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t—which means it’s no perfect solution, as they seem to think.

Their initiative will require the formation of companies to take on the wiring of local areas with fibre-optic cables to the premises (which they call “FTTP”). This in itself a good thing: Previous commercial interest has been in extending cables only to exchanges. One company proposed to extend the cables to the cabinet (the junction boxes on the street), but they provided no timetable and didn’t actually do anything.

The government’s goal is “a minimum uncontested 100 Mbps downlink and 50 Mbps uplink”, with the capability to support speeds up to ten times that. This would represent a dramatic improvement. The government intends that UFB will ultimately be available to “75 percent of the New Zealand population.” However, since a projected 4.5% of New Zealanders will live outside of “high-density population centres” by 2021, the government has decided that some rural areas will probably not get UFB. But their own projections also show that UFB won’t be available to about 20% of the population, which means some non-rural areas won’t be served, either, because it won’t be economically feasible.

And that’s the crux of the problem: National’s reliance on “public-private partnerships” means that urban areas will be wired first, providing, they believe, the profits necessary for the companies to wire smaller areas. Despite National’s unbridled optimism, there’s no evidence to suggest that without massive government subsidies businesses will find any economic rationale for going outside urban areas.

The plan calls for this all to be completed over a decade (or longer). The need for reasonably-priced, fast broadband exists now, and we’ll continue to fall behind the world the longer it takes. The government doesn’t seem to understand the huge urgency behind upgrading our Internet infrastructure.

New Zealand is completely dependent on the so-called “primary sector” (chiefly dairy products, meat and wool). In order to compete in a global economy from one of the countries farthest from world markets, New Zealand must have a fast, reasonably-priced and reliable internet infrastructure as soon as possible. Despite good aspects of the current initiative, there’s nothing in it to suggest the government understands this.

Update: According to Statistics New Zealand (via NZ Herald), in the 15 months to June, broadband connections in New Zealand jumped 27 percent to 1.1 million, meaning that broadband now makes up three-quarters of all Internet connections. However, half of all broadband subscribers had a data cap of less than 5GB per month. The number of subscribers with a 20GB data cap or more had tripled, but was still only 126,000. All of which shows how the market is not delivering the solutions that New Zealand needs.

Um, no, no it won’t

The Sunday Star-Times (via Stuff) reported that the longtime aide to former Prime Minister Helen Clark, Heather Simpson, has married her partner, Sue Veart, in a civil union at their home in Wellington. Clark, whose government created civil unions, did not attend.

The article talked about Simpsons political power during Clark’s Labour-led government, before moving on to how Simpson had her “arm twisted” to work for Clark at the United Nations in New York City. Apparently Veart recently left her job so she could join Simpson.

The article said: “One acquaintance said she believed the civil union would make it easier for Veart to live in the US.” Personally, I doubt that’s true, given Simpson’s well-known political nous. She would know that no foreign or domestic legal recognition of same-sex relationships—whether civil unions or marriages—are recognised by the US Government for any purpose whatsoever, including immigration. The couple could’ve held a Tupperware party, because it would make no more difference to American authorities than their civil union will.

All of which goes to show—yet again—that GLBT people, even ones who were powerful in their home countries—are still seen and treated as second-class in the United States. Sugarcoat it all you like, but America is not a land of equality or equal opportunity for all its citizens or legal residents. This is just another example of why it isn’t.

Changing their tune

The New Zealand Herald reported that New Zealand-owned Marbeck’s CD stores are about to open a “concept store” in Dunedin, a kind of "boutique Borders". Unremarkable news by itself, the article says that the new store “will be run by older staff than those usually seen in The CD and DVD Store” (the chain that bought Marbeck’s three years ago).

But what caught my eye was this: They plan to offer their own digital music downloading service. Roger Harper, Marbecks' managing director, told the Herald, "Initially, we viewed downloading as a threat, now we are working it into our business strategy, seeing it as an opportunity—we're not going to sell more CDs tomorrow." It’s the first time I’ve seen a traditional music retailer acknowledge that the future of music sales is digital music without a physical CD. Put another way, we consumers were right all along, they were wrong, and now, late in the game, they realise that.

The move to digital music, adding books, knowledgeable staff and a café, and even avoiding use of the extremely limited—and increasingly old fashioned—company name, "The CD and DVD Store" shows that the customer is always right. For their sake, I hope they didn’t learn that lesson too late.