ESCAPING
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SEP / OCT 2012
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Hawke’s Bay’s Biggest Gamble Ever By Tom Belford
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FROM THE EDITOR
Who do you trust? BY ~ tom belford
Two issues are about to burst into serious public debate in Hawke’s Bay.
One is the political decision, to be made by the Regional Council in October, regarding whether to proceed with a $500 million water storage scheme in Central Hawke’s Bay.
Maybe we should aim for a two-fer in October 2013 – referenda on both water storage and amalgamation. Hastings voters would get a bonus … they’re already slated for a referendum on fluoride.
The second is the issue of local government amalgamation. Not simply a Napier-Hastings merger, but more likely a consolidation involving all five of the region’s councils.
In all of these matters, the issue ultimately arises: who do you trust? Especially when huge changes are being mooted.
To date, both these issues have been carefully watched mostly by a hardy band of insiders … immediately affected ‘Stakeholders’ in the case of the dam, and politicos (especially elected officials) and with amalgamation, those community leaders who frequently engage with councils. But developments in each case will now move the issues into a wider spotlight. The Regional Council has begun its public consultation on the inter-related issues of water storage in the Tukituki catchment and the quality and allocation of that river’s water. While I, as a member of the official Stakeholder group, have been privy to an impressive pile of studies, this information is just now coming into public view. Even now, environmentalists among the official Stakeholders are unhappy with the late and incomplete tabling of critical environmental research that must inform a prudent decision. In my article, Hawke’s Bay’s Biggest Gamble Ever, aligning with other conservationists and environmental groups, I argue that the downside risks of this project are yet to be adequately and independently vetted.
It can be argued that people routinely fall back on trust, versus the bothersome concerns of skeptics. It’s in human nature to accept the easier path. Asking questions, challenging assumptions and forcing debate requires real work, energy, intellectual labour, time. And too many of us don’t have the stomach for that. Much easier to say the Regional Council and its army of hired consultants must be right. They do this stuff all the time. Yeah, right. And that’s why the river’s stuffed today. And the defenders of the local government status quo will throw all sorts of scares at the public, many of whom will believe. Because they’re coming mostly from elected officials. And shouldn’t we trust them to know what’s best? After all, these individuals have been steering the ship for decades. Uh huh. Enough said! There’s just the small matter that local government isn’t working. So I ask you to fortify yourself. These are big issues ahead of us. Don’t trust the experts. Don’t lazily accept the status quo. Prepare yourself to wade in and find the best answers for yourself. You can start by attending the EIT-BayBuzz Tukituki Water Forum on 18 September, 5:30-7:30pm, at EIT.
Once all the necessary facts are on the table, some in the community believe this $500 million investment decision holds such vast implications that it should be submitted to a public referendum. What do readers have to say about that? And while fusillades have been launched periodically over the past year regarding the prospect of amalgamation, the real action has awaited enactment, expected in October, of a government bill that would streamline the process for re-structuring local government. Assuming this bill passes, citizens’ group A Better Hawke’s Bay will submit a concrete proposal to the Local Government Commission, and then the ‘fun’ will really begin. There’s a high likelihood that any reorganisation proposal recommended by the Commission would be put to a referendum. I would welcome putting this issue to the test.
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ISSUE No.8 : SEP / OCT 2012
6
THIS MONTH Some struggles are quite public; others are personal and stay under the radar. This edition looks at the $500 million Central Hawke’s Bay dam project and the prospect of amalgamation … two issues about to climb into public debate. And at the private struggle surprising numbers of us have to escape depression and debilitating mental stress.
FEATURES 16
WILL HAWKE’S BAY FARMERS RAISE THE BAR? By Keith Newman
36
‘A’ IS FOR ASSESSMENT By Jessica Soutar Barron
6
HAWKE’S BAY’S BIGGEST GAMBLE EVER By Tom Belford
Is the $500 million CHB water storage scheme a win/win proposition or a dam(n) disaster?
22
22
THE OTHER SIDE By Mark Sweet
Can we connect with spirits? Who are the infamous ghosts of Hawke’s Bay?
32
do more with less By Tom Belford
ISSN 2253-2625 (Print) ISSN 2253-2633 (Online)
32
After a year of skirmishes at the fringes of public awareness, the protagonists for and against local government reorganisation are about to do serious battle.
6
40 THE BLACK DOG
By Jessica Soutar Barron In Hawke’s Bay, many of our family and friends endure lives marked by debilitating mental stress, including depression, called by some 'the black dog’.
40
IDEAS & OPINIONS
CULTURE & LIFESTYLE
14
48
WATER MATTERS, EVEN WHEN THERE IS TOO MUCH Bruce Wills – HB farmer & national president, Federated Farmers
20
cursed by a name Paul Paynter – Orchardist
28
THE MORAL COMPASS David Trubridge – Designer
30
GOOD BYE TO A GOOD BAY Dick Frizzell – Artist
46
EDUCATING FOR UNCERTAINTY Dr Suzette Major – Educator, EIT
THE ART OF SPRING Lizzie Russell
52
ROADBLOCKS REMOVED FROM DIGITAL LEARNING HIGHWAY Keith Newman
54
BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES Kay Bazzard
56
PECHA KUCHA Jessica Soutar Barron
58
WAR OF WORDS Brendan Webb
THE BAYBUZZ TEAM > EDITOR Tom Belford Senior writers Kathy Webb, Jessica Soutar Barron, Keith Newman, Mark Sweet,Tom Belford columnists Brendan Webb, Claire Hague, David Trubridge, Des Ratima, Douglas Lloyd Jenkins, Elizabeth Sisson, Kay Bazzard, Lizzie Russell, Paul Paynter, Phyllis Tichinin, Roy Dunningham editor’s right hand Brooks Belford photographyTim Whittaker creative, design & production Steff @ Ed art assistant Julia Jameson advertising sales & distribution Tessa Tylee & Graham Brown Online Mogul business manager Silke Whittaker printing Format Print
sep/oct 2012
contributors > JESS SOUTAR BARRON Jess is a wordsmith and project manager whose past gigs have included time with Sky TV, Hastings District Council and Band, as well as three years as a communications manager with the Metropolitan Police Service. She also produces Fruit Bowl Craft Jam and Pecha Kucha in the Bay. KEITH NEWMAN Keith is a journo with nearly 40-years’ experience across mainstream and trade media. He’s won awards for writing about hi-tech, produces Musical Chairs programmes for Radio NZ and has published four books, one on the internet in New Zealand and three others on New Zealand history. LIZZIE RUSSELL Lizzie grew up in Hawke’s Bay, and returned in 2010 after stints in Christchurch, Palmerston North, Wellington, Te Awamutu and Tokyo. She works at Hastings City Art Gallery and as a freelance writer, and is co-organiser of the Wildflower Sculpture Exhibition and the HB Readers and Writers Festival. TOM BELFORD Tom’s past includes the Carter White House, building Ted Turner’s first philanthropic organization, doing heaps of marketing consulting for major nonprofits and corporates. Tom publishes BayBuzz and writes an acclaimed blog for professional NGO fundraisers and communicators in North America and Europe.
This publication uses vegetable based inks and environmentally responsible papers. The document is printed throughout on Sumo K Matt, which is FSC certified and from responsible and Well Managed Forests, manufactured under ISO 14001 Environmental management Systems.
Hawke’s Bay’s Biggest Gamble Ever BY ~ tom belford
Intensified farming meets the environment
tim.co.nz
WATER UPDATE
The $500 million Central Hawke’s Bay water storage scheme … a win/win or a dam(n) disaster? As public consultation gets underway, Tom Belford sizes up the project.
The logic seems straightforward The basic situation for the Tukituki seems straightforward: • The Tukituki catchment is overallocated in terms of granting farmers rights for too much water extraction for irrigation purposes. • The result of excessive water extraction is steady depletion of the Ruataniwha aquifer (underlying much of CHB’s best farmland) and, with that, diminished flows in the Tukituki
River, particularly in summer, with adverse effects on the river’s ecology and recreational values. • At the same time, nutrient runoff from existing farming, together with the dumping of effluent from the infamous poo ponds of Waipukurau and Waipawa, further diminishes water quality. The remedies: A) Make more water available to farmers and to the river in summer low-flow season when all demands are at their highest, by using ‘surplus’ water stored behind the dam during the winter; or, B) Reduce (‘claw back’) irrigation allocations, requiring farmers to farm within the sustainable limits of the existing ecosystem. C) And in either case, clean up the water by dealing – at long last – with the poo ponds and by improving farming practices and erosion control so as to mitigate environmental impacts. Combining options A and C, the Regional Council promises a win/win outcome. The solution seems straightforward, but raises these issues: • The dam option has an off-farm price tag of $230 million (maybe more) and an on-farm cost estimated (still quite loosely) at another $200-$300 million. How much more intensively must (and can) the land be farmed to generate the extra revenue to justify that enormous cost? • What are the environmental consequences of such intensified farming, and to what levels must water quality be protected so as to satisfy ecological and recreational values? • Can – and as importantly, will – farmers adopt ‘best practices’ that sufficiently mitigate the environmental impacts of their intensified farming? Continued on Page 8 »
Bee in the know ~ sep/ oct 2012
Since April 2010 I have served on the Ruataniwha Water Storage Stakeholders Group, as well as its smaller working party examining the implications of land use intensification on water quality in the Tukituki catchment. During 26 separate half-day (and some full-day) meetings so far, our groups have been given extensive briefings and dozens of studies on many aspects of the proposed water storage project, as well as a proposed plan change for managing Tukituki water quality and allocation, which must proceed whether or not a dam is constructed. Many of the most pertinent studies from an environmental standpoint have been ‘works in progress’ until literally the last couple of weeks. Indeed, some of the most critical science issues are still in dispute. And many operational aspects of the storage scheme (and the farming practices it will expand), which will ultimately dictate its environmental consequences, have not been disclosed and vetted. So we have a paradox of seemingly extensive pre-consultation with stakeholders, which has left critical questions unanswered, and no public involvement to date. Nevertheless, the HB Regional Council remains bound and determined to sell the project on an accelerated schedule. Given this unsettled context, what assessment can be made as the Regional Council embarks on six weeks of public consultation, focused on a set of “Tukituki Choices”?
7
WATER UPDATE
Tukituki Catchment Facts at a Glance BIG NUMBERS
HBRC model assumes these ‘best practices’ will occur:
500
$
• • • •
million
Or more. Cost of Ruataniwha (CHB) water storage scheme, including on- and off-farm costs.
22,500 to 31,870 hectares Land that could be irrigated by the CHB water scheme.
15,000 hectares Maximum land in CHB that might be devoted to dairying with scheme. Less than 4,000 ha today.
50 to 60 %
%
Bee in the know ~ sep/ oct 2012
61 to 100 %
%
Using existing guidelines for nitrate toxicity (ie. levels that protect 95% of species), the projected increase in percentage of days when the pollution guideline would be exceeded in the Tukituki River at Waipukurau, assuming intensified farming. Note: HBRC proposes increasing the permitted levels.
50 to 70 %
• • •
“There are limits we have to manage our business to. Ignoring that message is going to ignore increasing public concern around catchment quality. As agricultural managers we will be in the firing line if that is not taken on board. We have to upskill ourselves and our managers to deliver on our obligations. That will be a critical factor.” Hugh Ritchie, CHB farmer
Percentage increase in nutrient runoff (Nitrogen) projected from farms using the scheme’s irrigation water.
8
•
Fenced and destocked waterways Vegetated buffer strips along streams No fertiliser spread in waterways Nitrogen applied at a rate that can be taken up by the pastures and crops Fertiliser applications made according to a nutrient budget Careful cultivation to minimize soil loss by erosion and to reduce the breakdown of organic matter Careful grazing management to minimize pugging and runoff Irrigation management to maintain growth but minimize leaching
%
Percentage of farms in irrigation area expected to change ownership if the proposed water scheme goes through.
From 8.6% to 6% The reduction in return on capital for the individual farmer given the estimated costs of the mitigation regime modeled by HBRC. Return on capital for the scheme as a whole reduces from 7% to 5.7%.
“The top 10% dairy farmers are two times more profitable per hectare than the average farmer, and five times more profitable than the bottom 10%. In sheep & beef, the top 10% are two times more profitable than the average, but 32 times more than the bottom 10%.” Phil Journeaux, AgFirst
WATER UPDATE
tim.co.nz
Over 90% of the Bay’s primary production leaves through the Port of Napier
» •
Can farmers afford the mitigation measures? Which raises a larger issue: Will farmers in CHB actually join the scheme? And what if they don’t?
Let’s consider each of those issues in turn.
Environmental consequences On the plus side, the Regional Council originally promised that summer low flows would be enhanced 30%. That commitment, if met, would significantly improve the river’s ecological health and recreational value. But HB Fish & Game believes the dam project and the planned operation of the scheme has been so substantially altered since inception that this potential has been unacceptably eroded. Other environmental impacts of the scheme include both habitat destruction by the dam reservoir itself and the downstream impacts of increased farm runoff of nutrients (nitrogen and phosphate) into the river system. Provisional plans for habitat restoration
around the dam reservoir itself seem to largely satisfy Mãori and conservationists concerned about biodiversity, assuming those plans are ultimately adopted by HBRC and adequately funded. The farm runoff issue is more problematic. Modeling completed by the HBRC predicts a range of nutrient runoff caused by farming intensification. As with any modeling, the quality of and agreement around the inputs (in this case, the actual farming practices presently engaged in, livestock numbers, fertilizer use, etc) determines the credibility of the predicted outcomes. In the case of HBRC’s modeling, a number of issues stand out. Effectively, an intensification of irrigated farming covering from 22,500 to 31,870 additional hectares (HBRC is still not sure, only 6,000 hectares are now irrigated), which includes at least a doubling of dairying and far more cropping (which can involve even higher nutrient leaching than dairying) is projected to ‘only’ increase nitrogen runoff from the total affected area by 25% and phosphorus runoff by 20%. However, the nitrogen runoff from farms actually using the increased irrigation would increase 50% (60% in high dairying scenarios); this projection has not been provided in modeling reports. Instead, the reports assume this more polluted water would be diluted by water flowing in from higher in the catchment and, more importantly, that various mitigation measures – measures assumed to be practiced by the “top Continued on Page 10 »
Bee in the know ~ sep/ oct 2012
The value of intensified farming Is the dam worth the candle? Unfortunately, as noted in my water article in the May/June edition of BayBuzz, the economics of the water storage option have been the least publicly discussed aspects of the proposal. Here is what can be said. Obviously more ‘intensive’ farming must include some combination of added land being farmed, changes in farm types (most expect significantly more dairying), changes in crops grown, and more inputintensive farming. Farming consultants to HBRC have theorized a new blend of farm types that would emerge after the storage scheme was in place. The predominant forecast is that a blend of more dairying and cropping would occur (up to 80% of the land under irrigation) – with dairying more than doubling from 3,825 hectares to 7,851 hectares, and mixed arable up to 3,101 hectares. Other HBRC documents estimate that dairying could account for as much as 48% of the farming under irrigation … more like 15,000 hectares. The Regional Council projects the change in farming mix will increase gross farm income from $111 million per annum to $290 million, while
increasing the area’s GDP contribution from $125 million to $348 million. All of this increase depends of course on willing markets, mostly abroad, for farm products whose production costs rise with the cost of the water scheme itself and the measures required for environmental protection. The detail to support these projections is yet to be seen. It should be noted that the entire premise of the HBRC case for water storage is that water is, in fact, the only limiting factor in increasing the productivity and value of farming in CHB. Other observers point to climate (e.g., too many spring frosts), mixed soil quality and farmer capabilities as critical limiting factors, even if more water is available.
9
WATER UPDATE
The Regional Council originally promised that summer low flows would be enhanced 30%. » 20%” of farmers (i.e., the best) – would
be employed by all farmers, thereby justifying lower estimates of the nutrients in downstream waterways. Here are some of the best practice measures cited in the modeling report: • • • • • • • •
Fenced and destocked waterways Vegetated buffer strips along streams No fertiliser spread in waterways Nitrogen applied at a rate that can be taken up by the pastures and crops Fertiliser applications made according to a nutrient budget Careful cultivation to minimize soil loss by erosion and to reduce the breakdown of organic matter Careful grazing management to minimize pugging and runoff Irrigation management to maintain growth but minimize leaching
How many of these practices are being carried out today by the 80% of farmers in the potential irrigation zone who are not among the best. Unknown. The modeling then assumes that if additional mitigation measures, beyond those listed above, are embraced by all farmers, the ultimate nutrient losses into the waterways could be further reduced, from the 25% N increase noted above down to 14%.
Bee in the know ~ sep/ oct 2012
10
Aquatic species can relax What is the environmental impact of these increased nutrient losses? That depends on which environmental standards are used, a matter of unfinished debate within the Stakeholders Group. HBRC data indicates that, at present, using existing guidelines for nitrate toxicity (ie. levels that protect 95% of species), the percentage of days when the pollution guideline is exceeded in the Tukituki River at Waipukurau doubles from 18% to 36% in the scenario described above that assumes “top 20” best practices are being employed by all (and increases to 29% if additional mitigation measures are taken). In other words, with the best of farm management, under existing guidelines, species toxicity warning levels would be violated from 61% to 100% more often. Not exactly a ‘win’ situation for the environment.
But wait, says the HBRC, we’ve had new research conducted, and that research indicates that any standards we impose don’t need to be nearly as rigorous. Indeed, nutrient levels can be raised considerably without threatening species. The Stakeholders Group has not seen this research; environmental representatives await an opportunity to see the final data and have it independently reviewed. Claims HB Fish & Game: “The Regional Council is attempting to increase the amount of nitrate it will allow to pollute the Tukituki system by increasing the guidelines; in effect creating more headroom for nitrate to enter the system from intensified land use.” Thus, the water quality standards at the crux of the matter in terms of environmentalist support for the dam could well wind up in legal dispute. Among the points of contention will be the toxicity standards required to protect fish spawning areas. Water quality in these most sensitive areas has not been systematically measured at all to date in this process, and therefore no modeling of nutrient impact has been done. A rather significant omission. Nevertheless, the HBRC is proceeding with its ‘Tukituki Choices’ public consultation on the basis of embracing the new standards. The happy outcome (for HBRC and other dam proponents), the significantly increased farm nutrient runoff is not environmentally harmful after all. Aquatic species can relax!
Farmers and best practices Setting aside the standards dispute, those concerned about protecting the environmental health of the Tukituki catchment must assess the capabilities and commitment of the fewer than 200 farmers in CHB whose practices will translate into ‘win/win’ or disaster should the water storage scheme proceed. Already noted above is the ambitious suite of measures farmers would need to adopt to have any hope of mitigating the impacts of intensified farming. One might think of these as the bottom line of ‘best practices’ in conventional farming terms. However, some farming advocates would say ‘unconventional’ practices are required – and available – that would help the situation. There are ‘biological farmers’ in Central Hawke’s Bay who are using more natural farming methods that require less fertilizer inputs, increase farm output and animal health, yield food higher in taste and nutrition value, and revitalise the soil and its water retention at the same time. For instance, CHB dairy farmer Kevin Davidson uses biological methods, which translates into 80% less nitrogen fertiliser, 95% less phosphate, and more milk production per head. There is no examination in HBRC’s $5 million of studies of more ‘radical’ approaches like biological farming, let alone any consideration of requiring these as part of any mitigation strategy. But even without considering the likes
WATER UPDATE
Dairying will at least double with water scheme
Affording the dam According to Phil Journeaux of AgFirst, the top 10% dairy farmers are two times more profitable per hectare than the average farmer, and five times more profitable than the bottom 10%. In sheep and beef, the top 10% are two times more profitable than the average, but 32 times more than the bottom 10%. That’s quite a financial spread, indicating that affordability will be a key issue for the water storage scheme. Anecdotally, as stated repeatedly in meetings, interviews and to the media, many CHB farmers simply cannot afford what they understand to be the ‘farmgate’ costs of the scheme, let alone the costs associated with environmental mitigation, which they have yet to hear about. For example, studies done for HBRC indicate that strategies to reduce nitrogen losses from irrigated dairy farms could progressively reduce farmers’ profits by up to 29%, and for an intensive arable farm, up to 40%. One HBRC study concludes: “The probable higher capital costs and lower profitability resulting from nitrogen loss reductions will be reflected in a lower return on capital for the irrigated arable and dairy farm systems and in turn a reduction in the rate of return for the proposed irrigation scheme.” The estimated costs of the modeled mitigation regime reduce the return on Continued on Page 12 »
Bee in the know ~ sep/ oct 2012
of Kevin Davidson and the definition he brings to ‘best practice’, there is a huge gap in practice (and profit) between the average and poorly-performing farmer and the best of breed. No different than any other occupation or pursuit. This performance gap is well-known and vexing to the farming community – from bankers to farm consultants and advisers to industry spokesmen to researchers to farmers themselves. The farming trade publications speak often of the issue. Speaking at a recent farmers’ science day, Mike Petersen, chair of Beef & Lamb NZ talked about the laggards who were “content to stay home and do what they’re doing.” He continued: “Engaging with that group is still the biggest nut to crack. We talk to farmers about this all the time and to our farmers’ council and ask, ‘how do we change that?’ In the end we have to accept that many have no desire whatsoever to change and that’s their prerogative.” But is it “their prerogative” when the long-term health of the soil and the water catchment is at stake? Environmentalists think not. The HBRC’s proposed scheme assumes very significant behavior change on the part of individual farmers, each of whom has their own attitudes about what to grow, how to grow it, and whether to adopt the most effective mitigation measures. Not long ago, Farmers Weekly cited CHB farmer (and Stakeholder Group member) Hugh Ritchie: “There are limits we have to manage our business
to. Ignoring that message is going to ignore increasing public concern around catchment quality. As agricultural managers we will be in the firing line if that is not taken on board. We have to upskill ourselves and our managers to deliver on our obligations. That will be a critical factor.” Is that merely talk? Will farmers upskill? How will farmers respond if and when more stringent environmental protection measures are required? Indeed, will they be required? At what stage or trigger points? As measured and enforced by whom – farmers themselves, industry auditors, independent parties, Waterco, the Regional Council? None of this has been articulated by the Regional Council, even to the Stakeholders Group. And yet this upgraded performance regime and enforcement of it is one of the key promises that the Regional Council is asking the public to buy. None of this is say farmers are malevolent. Rather, it’s a fact that serious change for the better must come, and not all farmers will embrace it. Some might simply not be able to afford it.
11
WATER UPDATE
» capital from the scheme as a whole from
7% down to 5.7%. For the individual farmer, from 8.6% down to 6%. As one CHB farmer put it, the conservative farmers with no current debt are mostly old guys who won’t want to start now to take on debt, and the ambitious guys already have too much debt and can’t take on any more. The largely unspoken assumption is that the high financial cost of the storage scheme will cause a substantial ‘weeding of the garden’ in Central Hawke’s Bay. A major change in farm ownership will occur – in the range of 50-70% say dam advocates familiar with experience elsewhere in New Zealand. So, if current locals don’t buy in, then who are the customers for the water storage scheme?
Bee in the know ~ sep/ oct 2012
12
A scheme looking for customers Given that the Regional Council’s new Long Term Plan only provides $80 million from HBRC, where will another $400-$500 million in investment for the proposed scheme come from? A smart new breed of younger, entrepreneurial farmers? Corporate landlords? Iwi? Overseas investors like Shanghai Pengxin? Obviously there are a plethora of issues arising from the ultimate control of the scheme and its water rights, including philosophical and strategic arguments over foreign ownership of New Zealand’s productive soil and water. Those are bigger issues than this article can explore, but clearly the debate must be had … and the HBRC is avoiding it like the plague. Here we’ll only consider the implications of ownership from an environmental perspective. Assuming that mitigation measures will be needed – and are assured by scheme proponents – farm by farm, farmer by farmer, how responsible (and accountable) might various owners be about discharging their environmental obligations? The HBRC paints a picture of local model farmers like some of those currently operating in Hawke’s Bay becoming the norm. If every farmer were a biological farmer like Kevin Davidson, or an ecologically committed Greg Hart, or a progressive Bruce Wills, maybe environmentalists would
be comforted. Local farmers might be expected to be more responsive to local community norms. But where is the local investment capital to come from? Most of the nation’s farm debt of $48 billion is held in the pastoral sector and two-thirds of the total aggregate is in the dairy sector already. Is there a single CHB farmer ready to write a cheque to secure his water rights under the proposed new scheme? Let’s see the hands raise! More likely, the new owner would be a corporate profit-taker, like Crafar. Or a foreign speculator. Farmers Weekly recently reported that a Chinese company, Shanghai Zhongfu, is bidding to buy 30,000 hectares of new irrigation land to be watered by Australia’s largest man-made storage scheme, the Ord. If successful, the bid would secure twothirds of the region’s irrigated land and a yet-to-be-determined amount of permanent water in the region. Maybe they’d like to hedge their bet with an equivalent morsel in New Zealand? What commitment would owners like this have to the ecological integrity or recreational value of the Tukituki catchment? And how would we hold their feet to the fire? Dam or Damn? At this stage, it’s impossible to confirm that the proposed water scheme would deliver the win/win promised by the Regional Council. While yes, the project has been undergoing feasibility analysis for two years, too much of the most critical information has been delivered at the 11th hour, and it is still unclear how the pieces fit together. Key elements of the environmental science remain under challenge. Critical operational and financial aspects, which might provide the confidence farmers and environmentalists – as well as all ratepayers – deserve, are still to be set forth, let alone scrutinized. Indeed, confidence is the missing requisite ingredient here. Given a $500 million price tag, the environmental health and economic sustainability of a major region at stake, and the inherent irreversibility of the decision once made to proceed, the public confidence level must be very, very high. The Regional Council wants to make its political decision to proceed by the end of October, giving the project unstoppable momentum. It would leave fundamental operational issues and mitigation measures to be negotiated
afterwards, during the formal consenting process. Financial viability would be determined later still. From a conservation standpoint, achieving the environmental half of the win/win is still a risky proposition, requiring a huge leap of faith with only the vague reassurances from a distrusted Council that historically has not been a champion for our region’s waterways, and acts more like an economic development agency each day. HB Fish & Game concludes: “We would support the dam if the flows promised could be delivered and water quality was improved; however it appears unfortunately that neither of these two outcomes can be delivered.” The Bay’s environmental groups have been meeting on the Tukituki water issues, and plan to present a united view to the Regional Council – namely, that the water quality and land use protections signaled so far are inadequate to the need. The water storage scheme is the greatest gamble ever for Hawke’s Bay. This project might in fact prove sound when – with all necessary information in hand – it is more completely and impartially vetted by those without a direct personal, institutional, or commercial stake in it. But right now, lacking that review, the gamble is too great. The Regional Council should not be advancing the scheme at this time or at this pace. If ultimately approved, the dam will last 100 years. A few more months of gestation will not wreck the Hawke’s Bay economy, and can only improve the outcome.
tim.co.nz
A few more months of gestation will not wreck the Hawke’s Bay economy, and can only improve the outcome.
Can HB move beyond commodity exports?
Water matters, even when there is too much BY ~ BRUCE WILLs, Hawke’s Bay farmer, National President of Federated Farmers
The La Nina pattern of last summer blessed the eastern North Island … until the rain that doesn’t seemed to have stopped turned an exceptional harvest into a very average one.
Bee in the know ~ sep/ oct 2012
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For many growers, yields for Hawke’s Bay barley and oats were up two tonnes on last year, until that rain turned up. Being a sheep farmer at elevation who absolutely depends on grass, my experience still puts a smile on my face. I don’t wish to confirm everyone’s assumption about farmers, but if the dollar could drop, it would make our lives a lot better. At the time of last summer’s plentiful rain, Federated Farmers’ grain and seed chair, Rob Foley, described it as “one of the best in ten years” for barley and oat crops. While we may look up at the sky and curse the rain, how easy is it for us to forget that consecutive droughts made things very tough in the Hawke’s Bay. If there is one word that ought not to be in our vocabulary, drought is arguably it. On annual rainfall alone, both Gisborne-Wairoa and Hawke’s Bay ought
to be lush and green. The difference is that while it generally falls well from autumn into winter and then early spring, we tend to hit a long dry and hot summer. Then, water moisture is quickly sucked from the soil in 30 degree plus summer days and the performance of pasture deteriorates. Water our Achilles heel Pasture is the engine room of any farm and by extension, the economy. If you fall into a downwards cycle, green can quickly give way to brown and once you hit that point, you can lose your topsoil. It also means that by the time rain finally reappears, hills can start to slide affecting the visual clarity of water. Not to mention an inevitable nutrient spike in creeks, streams and rivers. Coming back to the winter of 2012 one thing is for certain; it stands as one of the wettest ever. Speaking on RadioLive, Central Hawke’s Bay Mayor, Peter Butler, said one farm put July 2012 as the second wettest July since 1890. Farmers have a fixation with the weather and record every millimetre because it provides a pointer to the future. While history doesn’t repeat, patterns can, and past experience provides a pointer for future management. As a farmer, the one thought now going through my mind is if we’ve had all of this rain now, what will happen
come spring and summer? Last year’s La Nina Goldilocks weather will surely not repeat and does that mean we’ll face a long hot El Nino summer? The only good news is that soils are now at or over capacity. The bad is that the roots of our pasture are likely to be growing at the surface in order to breathe. If we strike several weeks of hot dry weather, these roots could be caught at the surface and pasture will be knocked back just as we hit drier weather. This is often known as a green drought; pasture is there but isn’t sufficient to sustain livestock. I guess this not only illustrates the balancing act we have as farmers, but the three preconditions needed for pasture to grow, as well. They are sunshine hours, soil temperature and, of course, water. Hawke’s Bay is usually blessed with the first two, but water remains our Achilles heel … the current rain not withstanding. This is why Hawke’s Bay Regional Council’s Ruataniwha Plains Water Storage Project is so vital. If it comes off, it will not only be big for the Hawke’s Bay, but big for New Zealand. Utilising summer The centrepiece is of course a $200 million project, with a dam wall 77 metres high. The resulting reservoir will cover an area of some 400 hectares; only slightly smaller than Sydney’s central business
BRUCE WILLS
district and double the size of Wellington’s. What it means is an uplift in our irrigable area from 6,000 hectares to over 20,000 hectares. This greatly aids the development of not just our sector, pastoral agriculture, but horticulture as well. We are already seeing positive indicators for how farming and value-adding industries mesh together. At the beginning of this year, Heinz announced they were closing their Australian plant in favour of the Hawke’s Bay. It means Heinz will no longer make sauces or ketchup for Australia. It means they’ll be eating our ketchup, there. Realistically, there aren’t enough raw ingredients for Heinz to use only New Zealand grown product. Yet this water storage project creates the real potential for horticulture to grow by creating the means to utilise summer without fear of what happens when it doesn’t rain. It is the same for our pastoral sector, because environmentally, as I wrote earlier, the best way of preventing the loss of topsoil and nutrients is to keep our pasture and crops growing. Only last week, in Sydney, Ohio State University’s Professor Rattan Lal praised the uplift in soil carbon taking place in New Zealand right now.
The 6% achieved on some farms has us well ahead of the world and helps to put some of the debate around nutrient loss into context. Soil carbon is increasing in New Zealand because of the freerange system we generally employ based around grass. The reality of combatting nutrient loss lies with keeping our pastures green year-round. To achieve this end demands water storage and reticulation of the kind being advocated by Hawke’s Bay Regional Council. Science is starting to show that pasture is perhaps one of the best tools we have to keep nutrients on-farm. Living pasture contains microbiological processes we still have much to learn about. There is much work to be done in this field, as we have tended to focus on what happens above ground instead of what happens with root structures below. Yes there are environmental constraints in agriculture, but our response shouldn’t be to demand that we just do less. Especially when we come to discuss water. The one thing I can say with certainty and from experience is that very little good comes from pasture that has browned-off and died. Water means green grass. So from my standpoint, ‘green is good’.
“We are already seeing positive indicators for how farming and value-adding industries mesh together.”
Bee in the know ~ sep/ oct 2012
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Sites selling now
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tim.co.nz
Sponsoring insight into the economic prospects of Hawke’s Bay
Dan Bloomer with Scott Lawson, whose state-of-the-art tractor drives itself using GPS technology.
Bee in the know ~ sep/ oct 2012
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Will Hawke’s Bay farmers raise the bar? Keith Newman finds evidence that a land-based economic revival may be based on more than hot air and fertiliser. Patch protection and endless reports are finally giving way to action, as Hawke’s Bay’s primary-sector movers and shakers agree on important ground work to give our flagging rural economy a boot up the proverbial. When 20 influential farming, processing and production outfits, related industry groups and central and local government agencies sat around
the same table early this year it was considered a minor miracle. The fact they agreed on common objectives, including the formation of a Pan Sector Leadership Group with Hawke’s Bay Regional Council tasked to drive things forward, was enough to make you want to read this sentence again. The existence of such a group, alongside HBRC’s all-consuming passion, the Ruataniwha water storage project, and the formation of Business Hawke’s Bay, has heightened the buzz that something of substance is brewing. Although hi-tech offers great opportunities for growth in all sectors, it’s generally agreed that quicker returns will come from adding value to what we already do well, leveraging our landbased industries. The challenge is to translate the marketing hype of ‘added-value’ into serious revenue streams by applying science and technology, smart thinking, processes and marketing to what would otherwise be commodity products and services. Rather than shipping carcasses, raw product or
bulk fruit and vegetables, to use our local knowledge and expertise to transform, process, label and market something greater than the sum of the parts. The pan-sector group will support pastoral, dairy and arable clusters that feed into new projects and technology transfer. It’s already working on a high-level strategy, contributing to policy development around land-use intensification, plan changes and farmirrigation budgets, and peer reviewing feasibility reports for the dam. Strategy refresh imminent Along with work being done by Business HB this will feed into a refreshed Regional Economic Development Strategy with plans to improve Research and Development (R&D) capabilities and upskill around best practice farming and irrigation, for example. “The region has been challenged about being fragmented and Business HB is an example of things coming together, being supported and working well. There are good results already,” says
Farmers must raise the bar
HBRC’s economic development manager Michael Bassett-Foss. So who’s sitting round the table in this Pan Sector Leadership Group? Fonterra, Silver Fern Farms, McCain, Watties, MAF, Beef + Lamb, DairyNZ, Zespri, Pipfruit NZ, Irrigation NZ, HB Fruitgrowers, the Foundation for Arable Research, Federated Farmers, local councils, the CRIs, Plant & Food, AgResearch, Massey and Lincoln ... and the list goes on. “They’re all doing really good stuff; some are the best in the world in their field, but they’re working in silos, fighting for the same resources, people and often funding. There hasn’t been a coordinated approach before,” says Bassett-Foss. “This is a really a big deal for us, with the big irrigation project it’s important we build a more robust foundation of R&D and a strategy that identifies strengths and weaknesses, gaps and opportunities and what projects are needed to fill the gaps.”
“If we want to compete at a basic commodity level with Third World countries then we should not expect to have a First World economy or lifestyle.” dan bloomer
Leader of food pack The high cost of getting to market can be an obstacle, particularly for smaller players. The Chamber of Commerce is working hard to facilitate collaboration to share the cost of processing, transport costs and containers. It says more businesses could create savings by competing “in market rather than on the way to market”. Food Hawke’s Bay, a cluster group formed about seven years ago, already facilitates the sharing of productivity techniques, warehouses, technology, expertise and commercial kitchens between ten participating companies. It’s just received a funding boost from local councils to expand its approach to more of Hawke’s Bay’s niche food producers. A deal has also been signed for R&D sharing through the Ministry of Science and Innovation and Massey University. That might mean access to science and technology to enhance taste, flavours or colouring or the sharing of food technologists and specialist processing machinery. HBRC’s Bassett-Foss says Food HB is already seen as a leader of the pack around food clustering. He sees a raft of other clustering opportunities in primary sector support, including packaging and design and engineering. Continued on Page 18
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Bee in the know ~ sep/ oct 2012
Positioning for value In reality we’re bit players on the world stage competing with so many other producers for a slice of the primary sector export pie. Essentially there are two options, differentiate and do it better and smarter, or exhaust ourselves in a commodity price war we can never win. The export bar is being raised all the time by compliance and consumer expectations. We have to grow, process and deliver to meet increasingly stringent international requirements and more refined consumer taste, or we’re not in the game. Science and technology are pivotal for enhancing and adding value to our produce and providing its journey to market with track and trace capabilities so we can receive the credit when it goes right or the blame when it goes wrong. What’s needed, says farm consultant Dan Bloomer, is for the highest value to be added locally, which means selling ready-to-market goods not ingredients. If we continue to see ourselves as primary producers “we’re at the whim of the market, as price takers, market forces mean we get what’s left.” The only way to change that is to remain in control as long as possible. “The biggest environmental impact happens at the extraction and primary growth stage. The highest value is added just before final sale.” Bloomer says the key to adding value is efficient factory processes, but he likens the current situation to the
supermarket duopoly rather than true competition. While Watties and McCain add value by processing bulk peas and corn into TV dinners or packaged soups, he believes one or two more processing plants would be good for local growers. The wine sector model is an example of what works best for Hawke’s Bay. “They don’t just sell grape juice or grapes, they sell a processed product inside a bottle with an extremely sophisticated label and branding for a lot of money.” We need to find other high-value niches if we want to get wealthy. “If we want to compete at a basic commodity level with Third World countries then we should not expect to have a First World economy or lifestyle,” he says. The pipfruit industry is better geared for this than some other sectors. They can sell container loads of apples or add value by selling five mini apples in a tube, slicing and dicing and pulping or preparing for specific markets. That’s exactly the process Enzafoods is championing in the apple industry. It’s invested $7 million into the region this year to expand its core processing capabilities to turn second- grade apples into dices and purees for baby food, apple sauce and other food ingredients. It’s also adding pouch-pack production for diced apples, pears and other fruit for bakery, food service and industrial markets in Australasia and Asia. Essentially that’s leveraging what used to be called the waste stream, using increasingly capable processing plants. The great push forward needs strategic market thinking to match markets with opportunities, focusing more on what the consumer wants rather than what we want to push out the gate. Rather than the gate-to-plate metaphor you start with what customers want in a restaurant, which could go right back to the genetics. A perfect example would be the joint venture between Hawke’s Bay companies Brownrigg Agriculture and Firstlight Foods to produce high-quality marbled beef for premium local and international markets. The Ministry for Primary Industries has committed $23.7 million over three years into the Firstlight Wagyu project which crosses Wagyu beef with Kiwi dairy cows and Angus beef. Rather than grain feeding penned cattle, the marbling in the Hawke’s Bay initiative is based on genetics, breeding, specialist pastoral farming and processing.
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» Murray Douglas has a lot of
confidence in Hawke’s Bay’s export producers: 308 at last count, with a hundred of the larger ones exporting regularly and 30 under the wing of New Zealand Trade and Enterprise. It’s the next tier the Chamber wants to see ramped up for export success. Hal Josephson, an international economic development advisor, now based in Hawke’s Bay, argues we need to specialise and tightly focus on what we’re trying to achieve. He says exporting intellectual property (IP), services or licences based on our expertise could be a winner for Hawke’s Bay, perhaps food safety, food security knowledge or even sending viticulturalists to China. Relationships with China are all about reciprocity. “It’s in the grape zone and doesn’t have expansive knowledge about making great wine.” Josephson believes knowledge transfer can open up huge export opportunities. “It’s about being cooperative and building models and scenarios that make sense.” The gating factor, however, is having access to business capital to develop those markets and the knowledge and expertise to expand globally. Thirst for success While most modern farmers use computer systems to track stock and land use, there’s reluctance in some areas to keep up the momentum.
Hawke’s Bay based Sam Robinson, chairman of Crown research group AgResearch, says the modern dairy farm, typically with some form of equity or share farmer partnership, puts more thought into its practices than a lot of sheep and beef farmers. There’s plenty of scope for improvement, but rather than his organisation driving things forward, he wants to see farmers taking the lead. He says scientists need to know whether they’re packaging things acceptably and correctly assessing the risks. “Farmers always look for quite a high reward for adopting new technology because there’s always the risk of climate, market, biological and implementation failure.” Having to learn the new technology and make some adjustment to farm systems can curb progress. “There has to be a real thirst for success, a hunger for growth and I honestly don’t know how you move that.” Robinson says farming communities need to present much clearer ideas of their needs so AgResearch and others can deliver the goods. Rather than a group of Hawke’s Bay farmers getting together at the local hall this should come through Beef + Lamb, Dairy NZ or similar representative groups. Robinson says they may discover their thinking and market plans align with others as part of a national strategy, which would have a much greater impact on local and international markets.
tim.co.nz
Bee in the know ~ sept/oct 2012
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GPS allows precision cultivation and seeding
“There has to be a real thirst for success, a hunger for growth and I honestly don’t know how you move that.” sam robinson
Raising the level Who better to understand market trends than the bigger processing companies and niche players who are part of the Pan Sector Leadership Group? They write the supply contracts for the growers and drive land use, and their input is invaluable in determining the way forward. The group is gearing to respond to the knowledge and skill gaps in our land-based industries; it’s estimated only 20% of farmers are creaming it, and technology-transfer levels are around the same. The challenge is to motivate and upskill the other 80% with appropriate educational packages. If the industry is savvy to its own needs there’s a greater chance for successful market-led R&D. While it’s all down to Plant & Food currently, that’s about to change. A deal has been signed with Massey University, with funding in place for a primary sector R&D resource to fill specific gaps, and to develop capacity through tailored courses and exposure to IP. Hawke’s Bay Federated Farmers is leading a ‘farming within limits’ initiative, where limits on water and effluent management and environmental constraints are viewed as challenges for science to overcome, rather than barriers to growth. Again, this is to be farmer led, based on productivity improvement, leveraging work done in Waikato and Canterbury, and not just around dairying. “This is important for the region and for New Zealand because of the discussion about land-use intensification and degradation of the environment,” says Bassett-Foss.
Call us on 0800 2 UNISON (0800 286 476) www.unison.co.nz
Firstlight Foods uses genetics to produce higher quality beef
years. “Some of our local wineries will go carbon zero in the next few years. That’s got to be a selling point.” Soil and water consultant Dan Bloomer, insists there are some common sense solutions to increasing productivity; for a start taking greater care of the physical soil so the nutrients and minerals take care of themselves. That can be as simple as rotating crops medieval-style: “pasture, peas, cereals, potatoes then back into pasture for a couple of years.” A number of paddocks around Hawke’s Bay show evidence of the practice he’s championing called permanent bed farming: zebra strips straight as a dye sprayed on the land, guiding the cultivation of designated seed beds. Basically he’s saying don’t wreck your soil by driving all over it and compacting it, or hoeing up everything in sight, or it won’t produce reliably. “You only cultivate the piece your seeds grow in, not the whole lot.” If the wheel span of cropping, cultivating and spraying equipment is the same width you stick to the same tracks with assistance from GPS, now standard on most cropping tractors, to ensure you drive a straight line. He claims significant
benefits, including fewer tractors, less fuel consumption and staff, and improved soil quality, particularly for larger farmers and croppers. He hasn’t found a crop it doesn’t work for, including sweet corn, maize, lettuce, potatoes, onions, cereals, salad leaf plants ... Will farmers embrace new methods like this, and other R&D? Demographic challenges mean many traditional dairy and sheep farmers are reaching what city folk call retirement age and wondering about ‘farm succession’. That places an awkward and often unspoken uncertainty about the future of significant land holdings around the Bay, where farming practices haven’t changed much in the past 40 years, but also presents opportunities for a new generation of owners or partners, more aligned with market trends and innovation opportunities, to inject new life and diversity into the heartland. Leveraging expert knowledge and leading-edge technology to add value to what the Bay does best, and a long overdue ‘whole of sector’ strategy, are encouraging signs that the region may yet return to an era of land-based prosperity.
Bee in the know ~ sept/oct 2012
Precision farming While everyone’s still waiting on the sustainable numbers to determine whether the Ruataniwha Dam will go ahead, HB Chamber chief Murray Douglas says it could drive precision landuse, including new crops and the farming systems behind that. The cost-benefit of crops for bio-fuels is being looked at along with more intensive fat lamb raising. “You run much higher stocking levels and get the protein content of the grass up. It’s all based on science.” Douglas says precision agriculture and better management of nitrogen, water, fuels and hydrocarbons could add value along the Heretaunga Plains where water has been over-allocated. In fact good farming practice will become a pre-requisite if we’re going to continue pursuing lucrative markets in Europe and Asia. “They’re going to demand less residue on our products and to see some justification for carbon emissions. That will bring huge changes over the next 20 years and our use of science and technology will be enablers.” The wineries are well advanced in this, having made good use of science for
19
BY
Cursed by a
PaPynaul ter
Post Ma ste
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V8 Lucife
My son is head down and ready to enter this world. We are ready with bassinette, breast pump and bottle of Bollinger. There’s just one thing we haven’t sorted out …
Bee in the know ~ sep/ oct 2012
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“We need a name,” my bowling ballesque beauty berates. “All mine have been rejected,” I sputter in defence. “Well, think of some new ones. There’s a baby name book over there. Haven’t you any great uncles I don’t know about. We could name him after them.” “Yes, ah, Uncle Ralph.” I get the ‘unhelpful’ stare. “Any others?” “Uncle Horace,” I reply, asking for trouble. I’m ignored. “What about your heros; people you admire greatly?” “Epictetus, Ludwig von Mises and Nassim Taleb,” I grin. Daggers. Naming babies is a weighty business. You ought to get these things right. Or at least not horribly wrong.
John Key, Phil Goff, Don Brash; I wondered at the last election if it was just coincidence that these guys have short, solid-sounding names. Did Helen Clark adopt a three-syllable name just to appear softer and more feminine? That only worked until the first time she bared her teeth. Is it a surprise that great All Blacks captains – Jock Hobbs, David Kirk, Fred Allen, Wayne Shelford – were the sort of men who weren’t mired in an excess of tricky syllables? So you’d think, given the aspirations of greatness we have for our offspring, we’ll all choose short, solid, prime ministerial names. You’d think wrong. With the birth rate in New Zealand now consistently over 60,000 per annum some people are bound to make a mess of things. Increasingly they choose silly names, or just make them up. The name Police The Department of Internal Affairs (DIA) is responsible for administering baby names, or more specifically, rejecting ones they don’t like. Their criteria are simple. Most critically, you can’t have a name that is likely to cause offence, one that is or resembles an official title or rank, or one that is unreasonably long (more than 99 characters including spaces).
The Economist reports the idiocy that exists in naming babies. Regrettably, New Zealand is a standout performer and the DIA has recently rejected Lucifer, V8, Anal, Christ and Sinbin. Also disappointed will be parents that wanted to call their offspring a number (89), or a punctuation mark (*). The DIA also declined Justus, Duke, Baron, Prince and King. Our Australian counterparts applied much the same thinking in declining Post Master General and Chief Maximus. On the face of it this might seem a triumph of good government. It is not, on two counts. Firstly, these people have been allowed to breed. The complete hash they’ve tried to make of their babies’ names will likely be the forerunner of on-going parental incompetence. A bad name is the least of our concerns. Secondly, the DIA are a permissive bunch, outside a few basic rules, and have allowed names such as Ravenous, Veneer, Fish and Chips (for twins), Cinderella Beauty Blossom, Yeah Detroit, Number 16 Bus Shelter, Midnight Chardonnay and the daddy of them all, Tallula Does the Hula from Hawaii. Tallula had to go to the courts to have her name changed at the age of nine.
PAUL PAYNTER
were being wonderfully creative, but their children’s achievements are likely to be hampered by their names. It’s a Machiavellian reality. People reach hasty irrational conclusions sometimes based purely on someone’s name. What’s in a name? In a NZ Herald article – ‘Naming Babies Isn’t Easy’ – Auckland University linguist Dr Helen Charters confirms that even the sound a name makes influences people’s expectations of that person. “Large open-mouth vowel sounds are often associated with big things or strength, while ‘ee’ sounds are associated with smaller things.” There is a lovely young girl locally whose thoughtful parents named her Poppy Dickie. For me this name has some unfortunate connotations. I speculate she may have a brother called Helmut. Poppy’s name is a good example of how the wee ‘ee’ sounds might prove a hindrance. The name is very cute, perfect for a four year old, but perhaps not so for the woman she might become. Have the parents unwittingly placed an impediment on her becoming Dame Poppy Dickie, Chief Justice Poppy Dickie or Partner-in-Charge Poppy Dickie? I think we can also safely rule out Jamie Oliver’s daughter becoming Chancellor of the Exchequer, Daisy Boo. It seems to me some parents can only imagine their children as…children. Another potential error compromising the future of our children are names beginning with R. It is likely that our economy will become increasing linked with Asia. That being the case, we should be thoughtful when it comes to the difficulties some Asian cultures have in pronouncing R’s. In Japan for instance, Ronald McDonald had a corporate name change to Donald McDonald. It seemed like the polite and honourable thing to do. To have Robert, Rupert and Ryan grow up, only to be called Lobert, Lupert and Lyan seems to me a retrograde step. Even at quite an orthodox level, we are capable of irrational bias when it comes to people’s names. Recently I had young job applicants by the names of Ethan and Tristram. Phonetically these are solid enough names, but somehow they lack weight. What impact on history would there have been if Alexander the Great or Attila the Hun were called Tristram? Tristram had a decent CV, but somehow I couldn’t see a youthful, well-educated Tristram commanding the respect of grizzled field managers – sensibly named Ian, Dave and Tom.
“Regrettably, New Zealand is a standout performer and the DIA has recently rejected Lucifer, V8, Anal, Christ and Sinbin.” A slightly stronger name and he might have made the interview cut. This might seem shallow but I am unrepentant. What were his parents thinking when they called him Tristram? Young boys are inclined to develop speech impediments. More than 80% of children with lisps or stutters are boys. What if Tristram developed a lisp? Announcing his name would sound like the floundering failures of a novice saxophonist. Such thoughtless parents are the type that would actually encourage him to take up the saxophone, on the basis it is a cool instrument. That is until he first lisped into “My name is Tristram and I am a saxophonist.” Lisping Tristrams of the world unite! Change your name to Jim and take up the oboe. Speech impediments be damned! Perhaps the glimmer of hope in this age of creative names is that they’re easy enough to change. As time passes, parents also seem to realise the error of their ways. In the last year for instance, 762 children’s names have been changed by their parents before they turned two. Unlike a bad tattoo, this folly is not difficult to rectify. None of this helps me in finding a name for my son. A friend of mine did offer some good advice; “When I was young I wished my name was Jim Curry,” he said. Jim Curry is the perfect name for a man; solid, adventurous and slightly spicy. Let me check with my wife …
Bee in the know ~ sep/ oct 2012
Condoleeza My most common exposure to odd names occurs at the Avis depot in Los Angeles. Avis locations are commonly staffed by African-American girls with names like Ja’Quaelah and Tashaonda. These appeared ridiculous, made-up names to me, but many are not. Like many African-American names, they derive from their African roots and many have African-Islamic influences. That’s not to deny that the US African-American community are overachievers when it comes to name invention. So it was in 1956 when former US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice was born. Condoleezza was, you guessed it, a name completely made up by her parents. No other child was called Condoleezza that year, or probably that decade. And yet Condi Rice was well educated and rose to the top of the political echelon. People seem inclined to condescend and declare odd names the domain of ‘the underclasses’. That’s simply not true. Educated, affluent hill dwellers, who drive boring cars and have expensive haircuts, are capable of a mad rush of creativity when it comes to naming their children. While mainstream politicians tend to have sensible names, the advent of MMP has seen things spiced up a little. Green Party leader Russel Norman named his precious first-born son Tadhg. It reminds me of that awkward group of letters you get stuck with at the end of a game of scrabble. Yet again I was too quick to giggle. Tadhg is actually an ancient Irish name, misspelled. There is no ‘H’ in Gaelic and this was added at a later date. Why this was seen as helpful I can’t explain. Celebrities seem prone to near lunacy when it comes to naming their children. Bob Geldof’s children are called Fifi Trixibelle, Peaches Honeyblossom and Little Pixie Frou-Frou. Not be outdone, chef Jamie Oliver knocked out some cutsie-goulash in naming his three girls, Poppy Honey, Daisy Boo and Petal Blossom. More recently they have been joined by their little brother Buddy Bear. Perhaps it’s a reflection of modern society and a disease of affluence. We’re all told how wonderfully unique and special we are and set about carving out a unique space. Many do this with piercings that look like low-grade industrial accidents; or tattoos that Pamela Anderson would think crossed the lines of taste and decency; or these nonsense names that will likely curse their children’s lives. I’m sure the parents thought they
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MARK SWEET
the other side Once again, BayBuzz has asked our resident explorer of the alternative, Mark Sweet, to take us somewhere few of us generally go. Or in this case, maybe all of us … eventually. Mrs McAneny said soon after I sat down. Miranda started giggling. It was her idea we visit the clairvoyant. “He’s Chinese.” Miranda burst out laughing. “Sorry,” she said, “I better wait outside.” Mrs McAneny was very clear. She said my Chinese companion came to New Zealand as a prospector for gold. He left his wife behind with the intention of sending her money for her passage, but gambling was his vice, and he died without seeing her again. “He wants you to take him back to China,” the clairvoyant said. Miranda and I scoffed and giggled all the way home. Two weeks later a job was advertised in The Dominion. I applied and was successful. The job was in Hong Kong. Everything is planned Bev Bailey, Minister of the Napier Spiritualist Church, remembers Mrs McAneny. She has no doubt my Chinese companion helped me on my way. “Everything is planned. Nothing happens by chance. People talk about coincidences but there’s always cause before the effect. And miracles are natural occurrences.” But why would a spirit need me to take him back to China. How does it work? “I can’t answer that. But I know earthbound spirits often latch onto people for the experience. For instance, heavy drinkers – alcoholics – will often have hangers-on from the spirit world because they want the experience of drinking and pubs and so on.” Continued on Page 24
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Bee in the know ~ sep/ oct 2012
It’s a cold night. Frost is growing on car windscreens and my breath freezes into mist. But inside, the room is warm, and soon over twenty people have gathered for a meeting of The Spiritualist Church. We are welcomed. Prayers, a reading, a reflection, and singing follow. And then those in the congregation who require healing are asked to come forward. They sit on the chairs provided and behind them the healers stand. Hands are laid on backs, and chests, and shoulders. Sometimes the healer doesn’t touch. Instead, palms scan, and settle. Afterwards, two healers describe what they have seen. An elderly woman, tall and lean, dressed in a fine wool suit came to support a man with a limp, who walked with the aid of a stick. “Do you recognise her?” the healer asks. “Yes. My mother,” the man replies, emotion choking his voice. “Oh, this is interesting,” the healer says, “A friend has just come to me. I think she’s come to give me a name. This happens sometimes. Her name is Mary. Does that …” The man is nodding. “Mary was your mother’s name?” “Yes,” the man says, and cups his head in his hands. “Your mother came with love and joy,” the healer says. Other messages follow. Messages from the living and the dead; animals too. And I am transported back thirty years to a house in Maraenui. “Goodness me, you’ve got a chatty one,”
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THE OTHER SIDE
What Others Say In the Bible, Mark 5: 1-20, Jesus heals a man who is possessed by demons. The man pleaded for help, and Jesus urged the demons to enter a large herd of pigs grazing nearby, and the herd rushed down a steep bank into the sea and drowned. The Bible does not purport spirits are from departed human beings. Rather, they represent the struggle between the demonic and angelic forces. Similarly, Islam does not consider departed human souls dwelling among the living. Islam explains the realm of the unseen as Jinn; creations of Allah that live in the world parallel to us. Jinn is an Arabic word derived from the verb, Janna, which means to conceal or hide. “We have created man from dried clay of black smooth mud. And We have created the Jinn before that from the smokeless flame of the fire.” Al Hijr 15:26-27. Hinduism, and its off-shoot, Buddhism, are populated by a plethora of devas, demons, and spirits, which include departed humans. The concept of departed spirits, who are materialistic in nature, or suffer from earthly lusts and addictions, attaching themselves to the living is accepted in both traditions. In Maori culture, kikokiko are malevolent ghosts that take possession of living people, making them lose sanity. And the concept of tipuna, one’s ancestors, being guardians of the living is readily accepted. Other spirit entities are patupaiarehe, who live in the forests, and water dwelling taniwha.
Bee in the know ~ sep/ oct 2012
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Modern science is materialistic by nature, but increasingly, the gap between physics and metaphysics is narrowing, as quantum physicist Henry Stapp points out: “Aspects of a personality might be able to survive bodily death and persist for a while as an enduring mental entity. I do not see any compelling reason why this idea could not be reconciled with the precepts of quantum mechanics, and also allow certain purported phenomena such as ‘possession’, mediumship’, and ‘reincarnation’ to be reconciled with the basic precepts of contemporary physics.” EnlightenNext magazine (Issue 46, 2010)
Bev & Peter Bailey
» Am I to assume my companion enjoyed the experience of traveling with me in China and at some point decided to stay behind? Bev Baily had been a member of the Spiritualist Church for 15 years before becoming a minister in 1987. Her work is unpaid and she has selflessly dedicated her time and energy in service. “Spiritualism came into being so we could give people evidence of survival in order to give people hope when their loved ones die. Many people come to me and say: ‘Is my mother alright? Is my father alright? What’s happened to my baby?’ So I give them a reading if that’s what they need. I tell them I don’t want to know what’s happening in their lives. I don’t need to know about them. I just say, ‘Let’s do the reading and see what happens’.” “For instance, a woman from Havelock North came to me. She wanted a reading and I could tell she was needing something but I didn’t know what. A boy came in, fourteen or fifteen. I didn’t know her son had been killed. But I was able to tell her all the things he had done. And I named his achievements. And then she started to cry. I said, ‘Give me a hug, because your son is with me, and you will feel him’. She hugged me, and said, ‘Gosh, I can feel him’. That’s what she needed to hear and she was comforted.” Bev met her husband Peter through the church. He’s a deep trance medium. Peter accepts spirit into his body and talks on their behalf. He has no recollection of what he says. “Peter steps aside and spirit talks through him. Everybody has a different way of communicating, and everybody’s psychic. But you need to train and have discipline. When I first started to
learn I saw nothing. I would sit in the circle meditating and see nothing, but my senses were on high alert. Slowly I learned to see and hear, not with my physical ears and eyes, but with my heart and mind.” I ask Bev about reincarnation and past lives. “Reincarnation? Of course. And I sense you have an inclination about a past life you feel?” The three women were dressed all in white. A shirt was found for me; a big man’s dress shirt which covered me like a night gown. We sat in a circle. Candles lit the room with a soft glow. And we followed the meditation instructions. Deep into visualising my body filling with white light, an image fixed in my mind. A man was standing on a scaffold with a noose around his neck. I was petrified with fear, and stared in horror as the man fell, but the moment it was over, I no longer felt afraid. My fellow meditators were sure I had glimpsed into a past life experience; an experience that was holding me back in this life. Ask for a sign, one suggested, if I was unsure. Later, I visited a friend and told him what happened. He chuckled, and told me it was all in my head. We drank whiskey and he talked about existentialism, and I agreed with him after a while. When I woke up the next morning my neck was aching. My adam’s apple, and the gnarly bits above, felt bruised, and when I gently pressed and prodded, I found a piece of bone I could hold between two fingers, and wiggle from side to side. On my next visit to the doctor I asked about the floating bone that had
MARK SWEET
suddenly appeared in my neck. He probed, and asked, “When did you injure your neck?” I didn’t tell him it might have been the 16th century. Past lives In the sitting room of her home in Paki Paki, Robyn Boag is comfortable talking about her psychic work. She is familiar with her past lives. She can recall with explicit detail her death at the hands of the man she loved in medieval Scotland, and once she was a midwife in ancient Aotearoa. How does it work? I ask. How do you do it? “To connect with spirit you have to be in the higher realms of vibration and the deeper and slower I breathe the more I can raise my vibration. You have to let go of the dense matter, the physical stuff, and go into that space which is pure consciousness. “As soon as I’ve taken a few deep breaths, and I’ve opened my heart, I’m ready for what comes through. “I don’t have any preconceived ideas. Sometimes, I’ll have information before people come to me, but more often than not, it’s not till the person’s on the table, that I get everything I need. I like it that way. I simply keep my energy open and
allow whatever needs to come in. I can feel the energy in my pineal gland at the back of my head. It’s all working in that third eye area. Most important for me is the feeling that we’re surrounded by love. That tells me everything is safe and I know what’s coming through is what is needed. “Sometimes spirit comes for healing, sometimes it is to give information.” I tell Robyn I’m curious about a past life. I don’t tell her about Mrs McAneny, or the Chinese gambling addict, but I find myself rubbing my neck wondering if I’m in for another hanging. Robyn asks me to visualise myself walking along a path. “Any path. Just walk.” We come to a door which is the threshold between present and past. I walk through. “What do you see?” “I see trees; giant trees with gnarly roots as big as buses. And the canopy high above is filtering the sunlight.” “Keep walking along the path until you reach a clearing.” I follow the path toward a distant lake; a cool sapphire sitting in a blaze of jade. I hear familiar birdsong. Robyn tells me how to connect with my higher self. We merge. It’s time to invite a past life in. “What do you see?” “A man is circling me, moving like a
“People talk about coincidences but there’s always cause before the effect.” bev bailey wary cat. His long hair is tied back, and all he wears is a tattered strip around his waist, and in one hand he carries a taiaha.” “Ask him in.” Hesitantly, the man approaches the glowing orange orb that is me and my higher self. I beckon him to join us and share his story. Someone calls to him. He looks into a burrow at a woman and two children huddled together. He has been guarding them since their capture. Is he related to them? Certainly there is affection in his gaze. Another man takes his place, and he walks the short distance to a camp site tucked into the base of a massive tree. Roots, like buttresses to a tower, form the walls of shelters roofed with twigs and fronds. He squats down in front of an old man whose shoulders are draped in a cloak. ‘No’, he says, shaking his head. ‘No. It is wrong’. Continued on Page 26
» Bee in the know ~ sep/ oct 2012
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THE OTHER SIDE
» His punishment for refusing to kill the
captives is banishment from the tribe; for life. He lives by moving with his river from its source in the mountains to where it meets the lake. And he lives a long life. The last image I saw of him was of an old man curled up like a cat on a soft bed of ferns. “What does he want? What needs to be put right?” I can’t see him anymore. But his answer is very clear. He doesn’t need anything from us. With Robyn’s help I reconstruct the mental state for connecting with the past. Soon, someone appears at the edge of the circle. Then another. And before long a crowd has massed. “Does anyone want to come in.” I look around me. It’s as if I’m a goldfish looking out from its bowl at people looking in. But they’re not particularly interested in me. They’re having too much fun greeting one another like excited guests at a fancy dress ball. “That hasn’t happened before,” Robyn says. “If they get to the circle they usually want to come in.” What I saw had the texture of a dream. My eyes were closed, but I was awake. It was like seeing a vivid dream yet being aware I was not dreaming; a very strange experience, which I’m inclined to enjoy, rather than analyse.
In the eye of the beholder ...
Ghost busting Another thread to Robyn Boag’s psychic work is ghost busting. She often works with a man who sees ghosts. I spoke to the man but he didn’t want publicity. In our brief conversation he told me he saw his first ghost as a teenager. He was at boarding school, and one night, he saw a man reading the notice board. He was wearing a black trench coat, a hood covered his head, and where his face should have been was a black void. Today, the man uses his skills to identify the presence of earth-bound spirits, and with Robyn’s help, sends them on their way, if that’s what is needed. A case he recalled vividly was of a woman who was experiencing strange phenomena, like lights switching on soon after they’d been turned off, especially in the garage. Her husband had recently died but hadn’t moved on. He was young and didn’t want to leave. They found him in the garage. I ask a friend what she thinks about ghosts. Julie is among the most grounded people I know. “I once lived with a ghost,” she says casually. “The previous owner knew about her. She came with the house. My partner would hear her, and I saw her.
“I can feel the energy in my pineal gland at the back of my head. It’s all working in that third eye area.” robyn boag
I remember her green woolly cardigan and that her face was gaunt. This was 15 years ago, mind you.” At the address Julie has given me, a man is painting the fence. I tell him my mission and he fetches the owner from inside the house. No, she hasn’t seen a ghost. But, she knows something is present. It feels like a woman, definitely feminine energy, and quite harmless. And then there’s the cat … a big black cat she sometimes sees out of the corner of her eye.
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Bee in the know ~ sep/ oct 2012
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MARK SWEET
Olde Napier Prison
Famous Hawke’s Bay Ghosts
Who the ghost(s) might be hasn’t been firmly established, but a man named Basil who died in the south wing is a favourite candidate. He is said to have a moustache only on one side of his face. A staff member quit shortly after seeing Basil, and Basil is also the name of the resident cat. With no other leads I asked Basil (the cat) for guidance, and immediately he mounted the gibbet, where four men were hanged in the 19th century. Most famous is Kereopa Te Rau, who took part in the murder of missionary Carl Volkner. Kereopa swallowed his eyes, calling one ‘Parliament’ and the other the ‘Queen and British law.’ Another was Rowland Herbert Edwards, who murdered his wife and four children. In Hastings, the Opera House is inhabited by a ‘Lady in Red.’ She is thought to be a woman who was crushed to death during a fire evacuation. She’s not particularly fond of men and it has been reported that men using the stairwell have had doors slammed in their faces. There is also the ‘Odd Couple,’ last seen in the Grand Circle in 2004, dressed in 1940s attire. When a technician went to see them they had disappeared, and what was puzzling was that the only way out was down the stairs he walked up. Why the Opera House should attract ghosts could be down to the entertainment provided, but might also be because the orchestra pit was used as a temporary morgue after the 1931 earthquake.
Bee in the know ~ sep/ oct 2012
Haunting experiences at the old Napier prison in Coote Road are numerous and well documented. “I felt this mood of anger in the room. I just pretended to sleep as I felt this presence. Somehow I did fall asleep. The next morning, all the things by my bed were tossed across the room, scattered across the floor. This place is without a doubt, haunted,” wrote a young backpacker.
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The Moral Compass BY ~ david trubridge
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On the last ocean voyage on our yacht Hornpipe, our compass turned out to be useless and we nearly ran into North Cape in the dark. We had just undergone a major refit, which included welding a new rub rail all around the top of the steel hull. I had swung and adjusted the compass to allow for the altered magnetism of the boat, but stupidly only while upright. Now we were hard on the wind and heeled well over. There was a massive and unknown compass deviation causing us to steer completely the wrong course. Luckily I had been reading about how the Polynesians navigated without instruments, and we still managed to find New Caledonia using the wind, swell
patterns, sun and stars as a guide. The sea has long provided our language with a rich source of metaphors, and the compass is one of them. As we voyage through life, what are our guides? There are many, but crucially important is a set of morals. It is my contention that our moral compass has swung too far towards ‘me’ and one of the causes is an overemphasis on money. A story is told by Michael Sandel in his book What Money Can’t Buy which illustrates the difficult relationship between money and morals. The Swiss use nuclear power to generate electricity, so they also need to dispose of the nuclear waste. A suitable mine site was found in the mountains and, prior to the final decision, the neighbouring village was polled for its attitude. The Swiss being a socially responsible people, 51% agreed to accept the mine. Even though I am sure no one wanted it, they
acknowledged that they use the power and were resigned to their civic duty. Then they were re-polled, but this time they were also offered an annual payment if they accepted the disposal. Those in favour dropped to 26%! Increasing the payment changed nothing. When there was no money involved, the slim majority of Swiss villagers were guided by their morals. But the introduction of a payment was seen as a bribe, as a form of inducement. They no longer needed to exercise their difficult moral duty. Money encouraged selfishness. Too much emphasis on money becomes a critical mass, which causes serious deviation to our moral compass, pulling us off course into a dangerous future. I was reminded of it recently when I was approached by a business-mentoring scheme. Looking at their website it initially seemed like a great idea: local
DAVID TRUBRIDGE
business managers got together to share their experiences and to help each other. But then I reached the page that listed a significant cost, and my enthusiasm evaporated. The inclusion of money destroyed what I had hitherto seen as a spirit of mutual cooperation and generosity, turning it into a profit-making machine for someone else.
“Of course we all need to make a living, but I believe that money has infiltrated our society too much, at the expense of our sense of community. interests, I would respect them more. Such a model of disingenuousness is copied right through society as people find ways to justify what they are doing, often in terms of their ‘right to happiness’. Why restrict yourself for some old-fashioned community moral when you can ignore that and do better like everyone else seems to? But is your happiness acquired at the expense of someone else’s? For a caring person with morals, that would no longer be happiness. The pleasure of doing things for one another One way out of this is to reduce the power of money. Next summer we will hold a ‘Repair Fair’ at our base in Whakatu. Everyone will be invited to bring in old broken items of furniture, clothing, jewellery, whatever. Craftspeople on-site will creatively repair and rebuild these things. Visitors can watch the process while sampling local food and listening to live music. At the end of the day they can either take their piece or leave it for someone else. A koha box will go to a local charity. No one there will be paid for their time – they are volunteering for the community. So this is done entirely for the spirit of the occasion and there is no money involved to deviate the compass. Can we build more community activities that deliberately shut out the profit motive, and replace it with the sheer pleasure of doing things for one another?
Bee in the know ~ sep/ oct 2012
Money at the expense of community Of course we all need to make a living, but I believe that money has infiltrated our society too much, at the expense of our sense of community. The last 100 years have seen incredible progress in the comfort and standard of living of most people in the world (unfortunately a lot more for some than for others), and that is a great thing. But anecdotally, there seems to have been a stronger community spirit in harder times. In my youth I was close friends with an old Geordie who had grown up through the Depression in northeast England. He told me many stories of the deprivation they suffered, but also of the rugged strength and spirit of their communities.
Other social injustices – such as slavery, segregation and apartheid – were conquered by enough people coming together and standing up for what they believed in. Today global warming is shaping up to being one of the greatest social injustices of all time. On our current course it is very likely that our selfishness will deny future generations (of both humans and other creatures) the abundance that we are lucky to thrive in now. Morally, surely no one would disagree that this is desperately wrong. And yet why are there so few people standing up and clamouring for change? Is it because our moral compass has been swung off course and points more towards ‘me’ than to the wider community, which includes our descendants? Have affluence and toys bought off our morals? When did anyone last do something voluntarily that was for the benefit of others and against their own interests? A hot environmental issue in Hawke’s Bay is hydraulic fracking. There is a strong case against it because of its uncertain risks. But at a recent meeting of opponents it was suggested that we widen our opposition to all local oil drilling. This is typically selfish ‘me’ behaviour: I use oil but someone else can have the pollution. Like it or not, we are all dependent on oil and, like the Swiss, have to accept the consequences. The best we can do is try to minimise our usage and push for the safest extraction. Governments twist morals to suit their own interests. The Americans, Russians and Chinese refuse to sign the Global Armaments Treaty which would reduce senseless killing as in Syria. They deviously try to justify it, but the reason is simply that they are making too much money from arms sales. If they just came out and said that we are in the business of selling weapons and this is not in our
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tim.co.nz
Good bye to a good Bay BY ~ dick frizzell
Bee in the know ~ sep/ oct 2012
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As he departs for Auckland, Dick Frizzell reflects on his life and times in Hawke’s Bay. A funny thing happened when we bought our beachside property in Haumoana and started to build, with the rumours of the property’s aquatic history ringing in our ears. Five hundred or so metres up the beach the Tukituki River began to ominously and inconveniently eat its way round the leading edge of the southern stopbank. In a very generous and quite unexpected gesture to the Haumoana villagers, The Council (and in this account I will refer to the various councils involved as ‘The Council’ because the constant accountability overlap between all the different councils and the Napier fiefdom is
too hard to unravel) threw a large and impressive groyne out into the sea from the end of the stopbank to direct the flow of the Tukituki away from the Haumoana CBD. And very effective it was too … ugly but effective. The cost didn’t bring Hawke’s Bay to its knees; there were no time delays or any resourceconsent problems (it doesn’t seem too complicated a process if you’re awarding the consent to yourself). And then, wonder of wonders, this mighty pile of limestone boulders and interlocking akmons proved to have a fabulous and surprising ‘unintended consequence’. It immediately began to capture unimaginable cubic metres of gravel on its downside – our side – and the beach in front of our house got bigger! So big in fact, that the occasional thrill of our modest inundations from the sea became less and less, to the point of becoming a distant memory.
A few years later, when the WOW group was formed to find ways to convince The Council that the Haumoana, Te Awanga and Clifton coastal community was an iconic stretch of beach real estate more worthy of protection than being ‘abandoned to nature’, we began by arguing for the value of groynes. Sternly told by The Council that the cost of a groyne field would be millions of dollars more than relocating (in a ‘managed’ way) an entire community to the safety of Otane – and that it wouldn’t work anyway – we silently pointed to the Tukituki groyne and the great isthmus of shingle amassed in its wake. The Council gave us a withering look, muttered something about the irrelevance and unreliability of ‘anecdotal evidence’, and put it to us in no uncertain terms that just because something works in real life was no proof that it would work in theory!
DICK FRIZZELL
A huge chunk of my professional life is still up there of course, quite literally in some instances, and I had no idea how that worked until I walked away from it. It’s a long commute! So Auckland won the tug-of-war. I can’t live in two places at once so something had to give. But to Hawke’s Bay’s credit, it has been an amazing experience … leaving the big city for the rural … something that a lot of people talk about doing and never do. Been there done that! A genuine point of difference Wow. Lived off crayfish for a year over at Waimarama with the extraordinary John Pinel. Designed and built the dream beach house from scratch (painless, thanks to Concept Builders). Got into the cushion and teatowel business. Started a wine label. Made some very special friends. And even did a few paintings! Maybe it’s the space down here that makes you feel you can do this – start things, have a go, get a couple of mates together and make it happen. I’m not sure it could happen on quite that level in Auckland; too much competitive buffeting maybe. And I guess this loops me back round to The Council again. They need to embrace this ‘bottom up’ idea: throw their arms open wide, say yes to everything (and wriggle out later – works for me!), lengthen the runway, fix up Clifton Camp and its strategic boat ramp. Join in! Facilitate! Which brings me right back here … to Te Awanga, Haumoana, the Cape Coast. A unique stretch of classic old-school New Zealand beach culture, unspoiled thanks to those beautiful pebbles. Something to be treasured … cultivated. I can’t understand why all this isn’t screamingly obvious. When you’re presented with a genuine point of difference (instead of the identical ‘lifestyle’ blandishments that all councils dream up, thinking they’re the only ones to do so), you’d think that time and money would be expended on figuring out how to exploit it. Enhance it! Listen to the people rather than aggressively dump on all local initiative! It’s a very frustrating and unhelpful climate to live out your life in. ‘Anecdotal evidence’ tells you you’re living in paradise, but Council’s expert opinion tells you you’re dreaming, and that in one hundred years they’ll be proved right, because ‘they know’. Well, good luck with that! I’m going back to Auckland… Haumoana isn’t going anywhere.
Bee in the know ~ sep/ oct 2012
Obstructive negativity I supply this personal anecdote by way of illustrating a significant point that has come slowly to me in the course of all this dodging and duck-shoving, and goes a long way, I think, to explaining why Hawke’s Bay might not be the shining model of ‘provincial progress’ that it could be. The Council seems to be totally committed to operating from a position of determined negativity. Better and safer to say, ‘no, no, impossible’ from the get-go and back away into the dark recesses of the council chambers than come forward with a welcoming smile and say, ‘let’s see if we can make this happen!’ I don’t think this cultivated science of arse-covering is endemic to Hawke’s Bay, but it does seem to flourish down here to an extraordinarily accomplished degree! The sunny disposition of the geography is not reflected in its governing bodies. Someone’s not keeping up! It’s a simple trick…positivity…and I’ve seen it done. I’ve seen what my old friend Bob Harvey did for Henderson. Henderson! We lived through a nightmare of obstructive negativity when we built the house (still there!) and I lived through it again with WOW. The mad threats, the fabricated figures, the general atmosphere of contempt … not a great model of how to treat your citizens and definitely no way to manage an important resource! There are better ways, but I’m not sure if the current culture at The Council is capable of the paradigm shift required to adopt it. This is a great place, with great people doing amazing things, and they deserve better. I’m looking forward to coming down for a visit already! And return we will…for that visit… because none of the above gripes about The Council’s peculiar notion of forward thinking (want a used Havelock pod anyone?) has anything ultimately to do with this return to Auckland. Things just change. I spent forty years of my adult life in that sprawling great mess of a city, aiding and abetting as it struggled to define itself. And now that it seems to be making some actual headway (which it started to do the minute I left, oddly enough, which could be a good sign for Hawke’s Bay), I thought I should get back and enjoy some of the payback! And the grandchildren are conveniently beyond baby-sitting these nine years on, so we will have dodged that one.
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Do more with less
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After a year of skirmishes at the fringes of public awareness, the protagonists for and against local government reorganisation are about to do serious battle. Tom Belford reviews the developments that will bring the prospect of amalgamation into sharper focus in the months ahead. By the end of October Parliament is expected to enact a local government reform bill that streamlines the local reorganisation process. The aim of the bill is to upset the status quo. The prospect that it will do so has rattled the likes of Napier politicos like Barbara Arnott, Stuart Nash and Bill Dalton. And encouraged the broad-based ranks of A Better Hawke’s Bay.
Napier versus Hastings on the hockey turf ... typical dysfunctional rivalry
Back in July, I made a submission to the Local Government and Environment Select Committee in support of the bill. I had just spent many hours in June watching our councils deal with public submissions to their respective Long Term Plans (LTPs). It’s a spectacle that underscores the need to consolidate our local bodies. Time after time submitters were forced to plead the same case before two or three councils; councils were repeatedly ignorant of, at odds with or sniping at one another’s priorities and policies; or they simply played pass the baton with submitters’ requests and proposals. Here’s just a sampling of the many issues where inconsistency, buck-passing and/or lack of regional cohesion frustrated submitters and good government alike … • International hockey turf – affected three councils, with three points of view. Duplication on its face, or a sound way to capitalize upon the sport’s popularity? Temporary stalemate. Back to the drawing boards.
• Tourism support – Hawke’s Bay Tourism asked for money to support a regional events strategy (two years in the making) that supposedly all councils support. But all declined to fund! Instead, Mayors Yule and Arnott floated the idea of a bed tax to generate Hawke’s Bay promotion funding, but the Regional Council (HBRC) rejected that idea outright. • Haumoana beach protection – HDC effectively kicked the decision out of touch till after next election, while complaining that HBRC has been inappropriately removed from (even hostile to) arriving at a consensus solution to the problem. HBRC blew the property owners off. • Public health issues – District Health Board staff dutifully trudged around to each council to submit, trying to make the same underlying concerns look ‘unique’ to each council. And ditto for the needs of Sport Hawke’s Bay, Sustaining Hawke’s Bay Trust, Art Deco Trust and other community groups.
AMALGAMATION
• Te Mata Peak Visitor Centre – high drama as the only regional project truly deserving of the term ‘regional’ fought for funding. However, project proponents threatened a deal which HDC had made with HBRC (HDC wanted 100% of its share of the HBRC ‘regional facilities’ booty allocated to the above-mentioned international hockey turf — i.e., leaving no money for the Visitor Centre). Ultimately, HBRC bowed to the merits of the Centre, and awarded it $500,000. The case needed to be made three times to three councils (not counting a second time to NCC, which had misplaced the paperwork). • Film Hawke’s Bay – a group that tries on an oily rag to lure film, TV and commercial producers to Hawke’s Bay, where they’ll spend hundreds of thousands on the ground. FHB pleaded to three councils; only one saw the logic for the region and partly funded, leaving the group twisting in the wind. • GE-Free Hawke’s Bay – HDC, which has most of the farmland at risk, responded warmly, talking about adding protective rules in its District Plan and even providing national leadership. HBRC more or less
yawned, not quite ‘getting’ the case made by local farmers for protecting and even enhancing the value of the region’s agricultural output, but deigned to participate in a forum to discuss the issues. • Airport runway extension – same submission was made to HDC and NCC, the two territorial councils that own shares. Meanwhile, our Regional Council has nothing to do with this vital piece of regional infrastructure. • Te Taiwhenua o Heretaunga – leading Mãori voice in the region … multiple issues had to be presented to multiple councils. • Sewage treatment – HDC and NCC have funded identical plants a few kilometers apart. The Central Hawke’s Bay Council, after more than a year of nursing along an upgrade scheme with full support of the Regional Council (which purchased and planted forest land on which to spread expected effluent), decided at the last moment in its LTP process to adopt instead an entirely different and untested approach, calling into question its own competence and poking a stick in the Regional Council’s eye.
Over the last few years, I have spent well over one thousand hours watching firsthand the dysfunction of councils’ planning and decision-making in Hawke’s Bay. If members of the Select Committee witnessed just a portion of this nonsense, they would better understand the parochialism, missed opportunities and transaction costs caused by our multi-body governance arrangement. It would also be clear why the structural changes required will not be initiated by the councils themselves. The intent of the reorganisation provisions of the government bill is to empower those who seek more effective local governance – and the positive change that will enable in their communities. It is the most rare mayor, councilor or council who will take such initiative to change their status quo. Assuming the bill is passed, reorganisation proponents in Hawke’s Bay are poised to submit a reorganisation proposal to the Local Government Commission. By the end of the year, the people of Hawke’s Bay can be debating a concrete proposal, rather than speculating about the fear-mongering claims of politicians protecting their patches. Continued on Page 34 »
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100 years
PROUDLY SERVING
HAWKE’S BAY BUSINESS
» Fresh insight
Bee in the know ~ sep/ oct 2012
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In the meantime, an independent study examining the impediments to Hawke’s Bay’s social and economic betterment has been completed. The report, prepared by a seasoned local government executive and consultant, Peter Winder, was funded by the Regional Council, but prepared under terms of reference approved by the region’s five councils. The project so far has drawn upon existing studies and plans prepared by councils, conducted its own updating research, and freshly interviewed 60 or so community leaders. Winder’s ‘phase one’ report, which examines the problems and opportunities for the region, has just been made public. Winder examined the benefits of shared services (he notes little progress in HB) and full regional amalgamation. He observes that regional amalgamation would deliver far greater ratepayer savings than shared services ($25 million per annum versus $3 million), and questions whether the community can maintain local government costs that are increasing faster than the growth of both the domestic economy and wages. Indeed, he questions the future viability of the Wairoa and CHB Councils. That said, Winder considers the greater importance of amalgamation rests in enabling a single strategic plan and stronger “transformational leadership”, which he relates to energizing social and economic improvement initiatives. It will be intriguing to see how individual mayors and councils interpret Winder’s report, and how they respond if they don’t care for his findings or their implications. While the Winder report(s) await digestion, important results from reorganisation are already being reported from Auckland. Doing more with less In a July NZ Herald article, Rodney Hide cited some remarkable fiscal results so far from local government reorganisation in Auckland. In 2009 when the transition began, there were 10,000 staff across the eight councils; there are now 8,000 … a reduction of 20%. Says Hide: “The cut was not from front-line staff and service delivery but to management as duplication was eliminated in establishing the one council.” Hide claims the savings total $94 million in wages alone each year … or about $1 billion in savings over 10 years.
Checking on Hide’s claims, BayBuzz found that the figures came from Auckland’s new Long Term Plan. In his LTP message, Auckland chief executive Doug McKay reports: “We are delivering on the promise of amalgamation and the $81 million in cost savings we produced in the first full year of Auckland Council are just the beginning. A further $50 million in costs will come out during the first year of the LTP (2012/2013). These savings are material; every $14 million we manage to reduce in costs is the equivalent of a 1% rates reduction.” And from Auckland’s 2012-2022 LTP: “The council has an efficiency programme to leverage savings from the amalgamation and build a culture of value for money. The programme has been successful in identifying ongoing efficiency gains and other cost savings of $81 million from 2011/2012; permanently reducing the general rates requirement by this amount. … the council is forecasting that over the next six years a further $107.2 million of permanent ongoing savings will be realised, so that total savings of $188.2 million per annum will be achieved by 2017/2018. These savings are projected to accumulate to $1.7 billion over the full 10-year period of this plan. In general, these savings represent the reduced cost of delivering the same service levels planned by the legacy councils. The savings will primarily come from improved procurement practices, process automation, system rationalisation, resource optimisation and enhanced commercial management.” Says Mayor Len Brown, in his LTP message: “We have found $1.7 billion in cumulative savings and efficiencies within the LTP while maintaining council service levels.” McKay notes that the average rate increase across Auckland for the past eight years was 5.7%, while the new LTP holds the average rates increase to 3.6% in the first year and no more than 4.9% in subsequent years. At the same time Rodney Hide credits Brown with doubling public capital investment in Auckland infrastructure, from $1 billion to $2 billion per year. Local reorganisation opponents in Hawke’s Bay are spitting tacks, and attempting to discredit the figures, which have been approved by the Auditor General. But Hide sums it up simply: “The Auckland Council is doing more with less.”
What about Hawke’s Bay? ‘Doing More With Less’ is not a bad aspiration for amalgamation in Hawke’s Bay. And politically, any reorganisation must deliver fiscal savings to ratepayers. Recently the DomPost reported survey findings from Wellington residents that underscored the importance of rate savings to the voters, saying: “Many Wellingtonians would support a super city if they could save $2 per week. Survey results show that a $100 saving on their annual rates bill would be enough to persuade the 59 per cent of Wellington residents who opposed amalgamation to change their minds. And for 31 per cent it would take a saving of only 20c a week, or $10 a year.” As indicated by the Auckland results, reorganisation savings and efficiencies are more likely to reduce the growth of local government spending in our region over time, and deliver more bang for the buck, as opposed to yielding cuts in current rates paid. But with the reductions evidenced in Auckland – and projected for Hawke’s Bay by the Winder report – the savings opportunity is nevertheless very significant, making reorganisation well worth the candle. There’s no question that matters of the wallet strongly influence most ratepayers. But savings aside, many in the community who think seriously about the region’s future and work constantly to achieve better outcomes also see enormous benefits in unified strategic planning and investment. The ‘vision thing’ has its place as well in the case for reorganisation. In addition, those who interact the most with our local councils on a day-today basis, from contractors to community groups, see heaps of benefits merely in the time they will save and the consistency of regulations and outcomes they can expect if council consolidation occurs. So stay tuned … BayBuzz expects plenty of action on the reorganisation front before the year is out. Apart from BayBuzz, you can follow the debate most closely on the website of reorganisation advocate, A Better Hawke’s Bay – www.abetterhb.co.nz. Sign up there for their updates. And for a contrary view on amalgamation, try this website – www.recessmonkey.org.nz – maintained by Stuart Nash’s former campaign manager.
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BY ~ JESSICA SOUTAR BARRON
Bee in the know ~ sep/ oct 2012
A is for assessment. Our education system has seen a lot of quick change in the last few years, with potentially still more to come. National standards, league tables, charter schools – much of the change introduced by the Government is motivated by a desire to ‘lift the tail’. That is, bring up the achievement rates of the bottom percentile of students, many of whom are Maori or Pacific Islanders and most of whom come from low socio-economic communities.
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(The statistics are tidy: 20% of kids leave school with no qualification; 20% of kids grow up in poverty.) The theory goes, if some form of measurement that is ‘standardised’ across schools is brought in, parents, teachers, children and government can all work towards achieving those standards in a way that leaves no child behind. So difficulties with reading, writing and maths are spotted and sorted out in the early years before they become a real issue. The problem is humanity. No two humans are alike and no two ways of learning are the same. But what about teachers, should there be a national standard for them? Or is it enough to have a nice smile and a firm hand. “A lot of the emotion attached to education is around an experience of schooling that happened 20 or 30 years ago,” says Mark Johnson, principal of Greenmeadows Primary School. “Everyone is an ‘expert’ on schools because everyone went to one.”
“Trust us” Almost everyone certainly has an opinion on teachers, their conditions and the quality of the work they do. Schools are adamant that teachers put in the hours, and tease out results that are, on an international scale, above average. The frustration for parents potentially lies in the lack of transparency. Teachers are assessed, but the findings of those assessments are kept confidential. Parents have ERO reports and word of mouth to go on. Schools say, “Trust us.” “If I was looking for a new doctor, would I be able to check up and see what kind of success rates they had? No.” Mark Johnson says. “What can I go on? Word of mouth. I can’t read their personal performance reviews or find out how their patients fared. I can only base my choice on what people say, I’m not privy to appraisals.” Geraldine Travers, who has led Hastings Girls’ High School for the past 14 years, knows how much the evaluation of teachers has changed.
EDUCATION IN HAWKE’S BAY
“A lot of the emotion attached to education is around an experience of schooling that happened 20 or 30 years ago.” mark johnson “In the mists of time it may have been right to say that teachers were not accountable for student achievement, but now that is simply not the case. Thirty years ago the teachers’ responsibility stopped at the exam, but now achievement of students is directly linked to the teachers. If there’s an issue, the first place we’d look is the teacher.”
Guilty until proven innocent Tamatea Intermediate has 25 teachers and 460 students, with another 240 coming into the school to do technology. There is a also a special needs class at Tamatea, which is a decile 4 school. “In many ways, we’re middle New Zealand,” explains Sye. Sye agrees that although assessment of teachers is happening and to quite a large extent, the lack of transparency may be a challenge for some parents. “There will be parents who look solely at academic results but they will be a small minority. For most parents, they are looking for a general feel and for most that is enough.” Rather than teachers being innocent until proven guilty, it could be argued that the opposite is true. The onus is put on teachers to prove their competency, and that takes a lot of extra work for a workforce that is already stretched thin. Sye is concerned that the need to rectify potential issues may be leading to rushed and ill thought-out changes to our education system. “Comparing achievement within schools is hard enough, comparing achievement across schools is near on impossible, it’s just not apples with apples,” says Sye. “My hope is that the Government doesn’t simply want us to fail at national standards so they can bring in national testing.” One plus one doesn’t always equal two The Government seems less inclined to hear the views of principals and teachers, and instead are lending an ear to the great omnipotent collective it calls ‘Parents’, who it says want greater transparency and accountability for the performance and achievement of their children. “Twenty parents will look at twenty different things; a quality that is good for one may be totally wrong for another,” says Mark Johnson of Greenmeadows Primary. Standards and tables are also skewed by a variety of impacts, including homelife, environment and the children themselves. Therefore using academic results as an indicator of teacher performance may not be as simple as one plus one equalling two. “The best teachers often very willingly take on the most challenging kids, the ones that will always struggle to meet
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Continued on Page 38
Rating Teachers Students at Hastings Girls’ High School are encouraged to evaluate their teachers against the following set of criteria (6=Always, 1=Never). ✔ This teacher makes it clear at the start of each lesson what I am going to learn. ✔ This teacher makes it clear at the start of each lesson why what I am about to learn is important. ✔ This teacher gives instructions that are clear and easy for me to follow. ✔ This teacher is on time to class. ✔ This teacher has all books, resources and material ready. ✔ This teacher makes sure that we don’t waste time when we change from one activity to the next. ✔ This teacher has clear rules. ✔ This teacher is fair if I do not follow the rules. ✔ This teacher makes a class a good place for me to be. ✔ This teacher helps me feel interested in learning. ✔ This teacher provides activities that are challenging but possible for me. ✔ This teacher provides a range of activities that help me learn. ✔ This teacher believes I can succeed. ✔ This teacher explains things so that I can understand them. ✔ This teachers knows a lot about the subject. ✔ I can approach this teacher to ask questions. ✔ This teacher knows and understands me.
Bee in the know ~ sep/ oct 2012
Where is the time to teach kids? Rather than a deficit of measurement in schools there is perhaps a glut. There are appraisal systems, personal goal setting and all-school goal setting. There are peer reviews, self reviews, warrants of fitness and student evaluations, and external consultants are brought in to review and cross-check. There is perhaps so much review and assessment it begs the question: where is the time to sit in a classroom and teach stuff to kids? Tamatea Intermediate School has in place a multiple part system where a WOF is carried out on every teacher each year. Teachers must keep comprehensive professional development logs as well as a “Teaching as Inquiry” plan, designed to focus them on reviewing their own teaching practice and style. Roy Sye, principal at Tamatea Intermediate, says, “People have no idea what teachers do outside the classroom. There’s a lack of respect. Teachers work very hard and people don’t realise what’s going on.” Coupled with a lack of understanding from the public, Roy sees recent Government initiatives and attitudes towards teachers as unhelpful and unsupportive. Goal posts keep moving, new initiatives and processes are introduced, grand and sweeping changes are forewarned with little or no dialogue with schools. “Teachers and principals are seen as the enemy by the Government and we’re marginalised. There’s a lack of trust, no transparency from the Ministry of Education and no communication,” says Sye. “We don’t feel like we’re partners in education, the Government just comes
along and says, ‘Here’s the next change, and here’s the next’. “
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EDUCATION IN HAWKE’S BAY
“My hope is that the Government doesn’t simply want us to fail at national standards so they can bring in national testing.” roy sye principal, tamatea intermediate
» standards. Those kids can make huge
progress with that teacher, but it is very hard to measure that against what is happening with other children, or in other schools,” says Johnson. “Our educational system is inquiry-led and holistic. We are trying to build the whole child and that is something that is hard to measure. Rather than looking at academic results solely we look at the
child’s attitude and how comfortable they are in the learning environment. Putting measures on that and communicating it is very hard.” No room for creativity Geraldine Travers agrees opinions on education are often coloured by experiences parents had of their own education. “I guarantee if you ask parents in the street about education they will say negative things about teachers and schools in general, but if you ask them about their child’s own teacher, they will say good things.” For Travers, the public’s opinion is often based more on hearsay than on fact. She quotes figures from recent international scoring systems to reinforce her belief in the strength and quality of the New Zealand education system. In the PISA rankings for education in OECD countries, New Zealand scores
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Bee in the know ~ sep/ oct 2012
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Roy Sye
Geraldine Travers
low in only one area: of 29 countries we are 20th when it comes to government spending on education. In reading and science we are 4th, in maths 7th, in teacher hours worked 3rd. Many of the initiatives being proposed or introduced by the Government have been tried in other countries. So rather than wishing for a crystal ball through which to imagine our future education system, we can look overseas. “We are copying the failed experiments of other countries,” says Geraldine Travers. Phil Carmine is deputy principal at Hastings Girls’ High School and has the task of analysing NCEA results and other measurements across all subjects. Although he agrees that transparency around individual teachers’ achievement is lacking, he feels there is good reason for this. “Some parents would be interested, but it would be like publishing personal performance appraisals. Analysing statistics and results is a pretty blunt tool. It can guide, but a black and white piece of paper that ranks teachers isn’t everything.” Carmine is also concerned that too much focus on measurement of teachers will have a detrimental impact on the passion and commitment it takes to bring quality educational experiences into the classroom. “Teachers looking at statistics run the risk of losing something creative in their teaching. They will always be asking themselves: ‘Can I afford a week out of my assessment to explore this idea with my class?’ Our energy needs to go on our students, not on filling out boxes.”
When you’re 12, what makes a good teacher? Jakob Flynn, Head Boy; Melissa Tahere, Head Girl; Isobel Barretto, Deputy Head Girl; Peter Laferty, Deputy Head Boy. All in year 8 at Tamatea Intermediate School. For half an hour we sit together and discuss what makes a good teacher. In preparation for my visit the four children have written some suggestions on a whiteboard, but except for Principal Roy Sye popping his head through the doorway a couple of times, presumably to check that I haven’t eaten any of the kids, we are left to our conversation. “Good teachers have fun and they’re humorous,” begins Jakob. “But they also show respect to their students and they bring discipline to the classroom so it’s a healthy place for people to learn.” Jakob, backed up by the others, explains how important balance is. “It’s hard to learn when it’s too quiet or when it’s really loud.” Peter agrees. “Good teachers keep the class at a reasonable noise level, so you can get to have a discussion but it’s still a good working environment.” Melissa believes the school values (perseverance, respect and responsibility) play an important part in the equation and that they’re not just for kids. “Teachers have to show our virtues too or else they stop meaning anything. They have to be an example to us in what they do and say.” A good relationship with a teacher needs to be mutual, according to Peter. “A teacher that likes you and you have a connection with makes a big difference, and trust is really important.” Honesty and integrity are important to Jakob, “If they don’t show you who they are then you can’t trust what they say. I can pick a faker a mile away, even just by the way they walk. Some people walk with a swagger and they’re just too confident. It’s fake.” As with students, attitude can be all important. “Attitude can affect your learning. If a teacher is on a down-buzz then you won’t be able to learn. My favourite teacher doesn’t care about answers, he cares about how you get there,” says Jakob.
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For Peter, a teacher’s perspective on his work is a vital learning tool. “Feedback and feedforward are both very helpful.” He adds: “The way a teacher teaches is more important than their personality.” Isobel has a direct comparison in her class, with two teachers job-sharing one role. “It’s interesting to see the difference between the two of them. One’s nice but quiet. I’m not quiet so I don’t so much like the quiet teachers.” Jakob has definite opinions and is confident in sharing them. “I’ve always been above at school but I like teachers who help people that don’t cope so well. You never know where that person might go in life.” It may be a generalisation to say girls benefit from group work, but Isobel and Melissa certainly enjoy the process. “I prefer teachers who let us work in groups,” says Isobel. Melissa adds: “I like group learning because I like helping people. Everyone has a different opinion and that can help you think about things more.” Both girls enjoy being set work, having things explained and then being left to get on with it. Melissa: “You feel independent and good teachers help with independence. [A favourite teacher] holds back a bit and lets us learn for ourselves.” When it comes to bad teachers, all four
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“A teacher that likes you and you have a connection with makes a big difference, and trust is really important.” peter laferty children agree that yelling is a big negative. “Yelling makes me really just want to leave the room,” says Jakob. Inconsistency, particularly in terms of discipline, is another bugbear. “When one person does something really naughty, then the teacher picks on that person,” explains Isobel. “Then for the rest of the lesson if anything happens the teacher pins it on that person, whether it was them or not. And if they do anything, even tiny like scrape their chair, the teacher yells at them.” To conclude our session I asked the children what they wanted to do once they finished studying. Jakob would like to study law at Harvard, or be a geriatric anaesthesiologist. Peter wants to do something practical like engineering or building. Isobel tells me she hasn’t found what she really loves yet. And Melissa says she’s also uncertain: “I’m just living in the moment.”
The Black Dog BY ~ JESSICA SOUTAR BARROn
In a world where the media define mental illness in terms of mass shootings and psychotic behaviour, in New Zealand hundreds of thousands endure lives marked by debilitating mental stress, including depression, called by some the ‘Black Dog’. Jessica Soutar Barron looks at these walking wounded.
THE BLACK DOG
GPs the point of entry Dr David Doig has been in general practice in Havelock North for ten years. “We’re the 50 cent psychiatrist, to put it
bluntly,” says Doig. “The barriers are that you need to be tremendously unwell to attract the services of the hospital.” Barriers are also raised by the need to fund support once a suitable avenue for help is found. Although patients can occasionally access up to six free sessions, counsellors and psychologists don’t come cheap, with $150 a session the average. “Being psychologically unwell is quite challenging financially,” says Doig, who estimates one out of every four patients he sees would be primarily dealing with a psychological illness. “And in two or three out of every four there is an element of psychological distress,” he says. Although the numbers are high, he sees 110 patients every week (alongside the 140 some of his colleagues may see), Doig believes it is only the tip of the iceberg. “The levels of hidden mental illness are pretty enormous. People are very good at hiding things from family and friends.” Around 15% of New Zealanders (WHO figures) suffer from mild or moderate anxiety, and often it is left untreated. Only the US figures are higher (27%). The last mental health survey carried out nationally in New Zealand – Te Rau Hinengargo, 2006 – found that a large proportion of people developing mental health problems, even severe ones, never sought or obtained healthcare at any level. For most, the process of seeking help – if they do – starts by visiting their GP. “Everyone is quite different and they approach us in different ways. Some people come in with what they think are physical problems – lungs, heart, brain – some are dragged in by someone else. It’s very individual.” GPs then have a range of resources to help people, of which one is antidepressant medication. Counselling, psychotherapy and sessions with Weleda’s nurses are other options. The government-funded Primary Mental Health Initiative is designed to assist people experiencing their first episode of psychological illness in the mild-to-moderate category. After a screening test GPs can refer patients for four fully-funded counselling sessions. But the initiative is capped. For the 11 doctors and 10,000 patients at Doig’s practice there are only 11 places on the initiative every quarter. “The mental health service is stretched very thin. They are under pressure to see people with the highest need. There’s a high turnover of staff. It’s a high-pressure area of medicine. They should get the best conditions but they tend to be the poorest.”
“We’re the 50 cent psychiatrist, to put it bluntly. The barriers are that you need to be tremendously unwell to attract the services of the hospital.” dr david doig
VIEWS Auckland University’s Department of Psychology is currently conducting a survey asking people about their experiences with antidepressants. It’s the first such survey in New Zealand. Researchers say that although one in 11 adults are prescribed antidepressants each year there is very little information available about how those using the drugs actually experience them.
Bee in the know ~ sep/ oct 2012
The Black Dog is costing us. High rates of those claiming a sickness benefit cite mental illness as the chief reason. Over half of patients seeing their GP are presenting with some level of psychological distress. Nearly one and a half million prescriptions a year are being filled for antidepressants. The DHB is funnelling resources into assisting those classed as severe; the greater number of mild and moderate cases are seen by GPs, or are not seeking help at all. Life is fast paced, busy and full. For many it’s just too much. Throw in any number of relationship, employment, financial (and other) pressures and the Black Dog can turn feral. The meaning of life, our search for gratification, our sense of curiosity, are all elements of what we term the human condition. It’s in all of us, in different forms and concentrations. It’s the thing that brings us wonder, creativity, joie de vivre. There’s a dark side too to the human condition, especially when difficult life circumstances, genetic makeup, traumatic experiences and chemistry come in to play. People sometimes struggle to cope with the day-to-day. Some turn to medication, others self-medicate, some people find a way to ask for help, a few don’t make it out the other side. In its Annual Plan, the Hawke’s Bay District Health Board (DHB) outlines its overarching approach to health. Key strategies include “better, sooner, more convenient” care, enhancing the capacity and capability of primary and communitybased providers, and increasing focus on wellness and supported self-care. This approach is applied to all health, whether it’s mental or physical. “As we move progressively towards the more minor mental health problems ... the emphasis has to be on equipping primary care, communities and families to support those who need help,” says DHB clinical director of mental health Dr Simon Shaw. The DHB does put resource into mental health; in 2011-12 it budgeted around $37 million for mental health (about 8.6% of its total budget). But the DHB focuses its activities on those ‘severely affected’ and, to an increased extent, is clumping mental illness and addiction services together. For those presenting with mild or moderate mental illness, sometimes seen as depression and anxiety, the DHB relies on Primary Health Organisations to coordinate support through primary health providers, like GPs.
People interested in taking part in the study should visit: www.viewsonantidepressants.co.nz
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Gender differences Doig cites comedian Mike King and sportsman John Kirwan as real heroes in terms of mental health advocacy. Few people are willing to talk openly about their own mental health. “John Kirwan’s impact has been quite extraordinary, especially in terms of New Zealand men coming in.” OECD figures mark depression as the leading cause of disability in highincome countries. Although overall the prevalence of mental disorders is about the same among men and women, depression is more common among women, with men more likely to experience substance-abuse disorders. Continued on Page 42
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WALKING WOUNDED
COSTS Studies on the cost of illnesses carried out in seven OECD countries during the past ten years show care for mental and behavioural disorders accounted for 9% of total health care costs on average. In many developed countries the cost of mental health is put at about 4% of GDP (International Labour Organization figures). From a societal wellbeing perspective it is important to realise most of the costs associated with mental health don’t occur in the health sector, since they take the form of reduced productivity at work, absenteeism, sick leave, early retirement and receipt of disability benefits. The HBDHB agrees, citing in its annual plan the impact mental health has on our benefit system. When it comes to sickness and invalid benefit recipients in Hawke’s Bay, the main reason for incapacity is psychological or psychiatric conditions.
Bee in the know ~ sep/ oct 2012
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» A recent study by Dr Kate Scott and Associate Professor Sunny Collings of University of Otago has found men with anxiety or depression have more difficulty functioning on a social level than women. “Women are more likely than men to experience mood and anxiety disorders. What is new is our finding that among men and women with those disorders, it is actually men who experience greater difficulties in role, social and cognitive functioning,” says Scott, who suggests the findings should be taken on board by health providers, clinicians and policy makers.
Dr David Doig believes the pathway towards becoming well again is very specific to each individual. “It’s the patient’s journey and they have to be ready for it. Just coming to us, discussing things, identifying solutions, that may be enough for some people. We will see some people who simply want chemicals to fix the problem, and there is a place for antidepressants. Probably as many as 60% benefit, there’s a percentage who are made worse, and a percentage where there is no effect at all.” Medications have pros and cons Journalist Lindy Andrews has first-hand knowledge of the mental health ‘journey’ and antidepressant medication. “You have to sort out depression from sadness. Depression is a very different animal. It’s called the Black Dog, and it really is a blackness that dogs you.” After years struggling with her own health, Andrews has become an advocate for a raised awareness around what antidepressant medication can do. In 1993 a number of significant stressors – at work, in her relationship and with family – meant Andrews began experiencing panic attacks, she couldn’t sleep and she had trouble compartmentalising. Her GP suggested Arapax, one of the first selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) brought into New Zealand. “At first the medication gave me energy, it flattened me emotionally, it made me impervious to stressors.” But within a month Andrews was also experiencing physical problems. “I developed a movement disorder, I was beginning to lose clear speech and I had to stop work.” Andrews spent 16 years on antidepressants and it took until 2009 to discover her increasing disability was an adverse reaction to antidepressants, specifically SSRIs.
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september 20 – 30
“Over time I progressed from Arapax to Prozac to Cipramil. I was prescribed them for anxiety, but they could be prescribed for depression, anxiety, pain relief. Until the early 2000s it was believed they had no side effects.” There is certainly more information available today, with most drugs having been used for five or six years overseas before coming to New Zealand. Drug side effects, while now clearly stated, are still staggering. One such drug, Efexor-XR (advertising in the Listener, 25 Aug 2012), lists “common side effects” that “include stomach, bowel, urinary tract problems, headache, difficulty sleeping, drowsiness, dizziness, nervousness, confusion, agitation, muscle tremor or weakness, fast heart beat, menstrual problems, weight loss, sweating, hot flushes, hair loss, bleeding or bruising more easily than normal, changes in your eye sight, sexual function problems.” “For a great number of people these medications do work,” says Andrews. “Although I had a severe adverse reaction, I wouldn’t recommend anyone suddenly stop taking their meds. It’s vital people talk to their GP or psychiatrist first.” However, Andrews is clear that if she had her time again she would think carefully before taking antidepressants. Over the last twenty years she has found other things that help tremendously with her anxiety and depression. “At the time I took medication I was under extreme stress. In retrospect there were several things I could have done differently. I could have learned to relax, I could have taken more exercise, improved my diet, had some counselling. But, like many people who live in this truly fastpaced world of ours, when I was offered a quick fix, I took it.” Verona Nicholson is a counsellor who practices psychotherapy. She has been in private practice for over thirty years and in Hawke’s Bay for eleven.
THE BLACK DOG
PERSONAL STORIES One in four suffers from mental health issues, but what does that look like on a day-to-day level? In the personal stories told here, names have been changed to protect the anonymity of those interviewed. Although it is discrimination, insurers, employers, landlords, even some friends and family, make judgements on people with a mental health diagnosis. The people whose stories are told here are living in Hawke’s Bay, and have recent experience with mental health and its service providers.
Rae’s story
They were good for her but she didn’t like taking them. “She was physically violent. She’d spend a lot of time alone in her room. She went from rages to sombre moods to being fine. When she gets backed into a corner her first thing is to lie and manipulate. That’s what she’s figured out works for her. “When Emma turned 17, she was drinking and she wasn’t doing so well at school, then her half-brother turned up - she hadn’t seen him since she was little. A month later she hit rock bottom, it was April this year. “I took her back to the GP, he said she needed to go back on antidepressants. She refused. Then a few weeks ago she threatened to kill herself. I didn’t believe her, but I rang the hospital. They told me to make sure sharp objects and pills were kept away from her! That was their advice. A few days later a social worker met with us. After a one-hour conversation he wrote a report on her. It was a very slanted view. It didn’t show the depression, stress or anxiety we see at home. What she needs is a no-nonsense psychiatrist who can get into her head. “Because she’s over 16 I can’t make her see a counsellor but because she’s under 18 I have to have her living in my house. I know she needs help and I’ve found her that help since she was five, but now no one can do anything to help her until she signs a bit of paper, and she won’t do that. “Until she turns 18 we walk on egg shells waiting for the next big thing, it’s like watching a tornado coming towards you. I don’t have a problem with sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll - you know the demons you are playing with. Mental health is like fighting a ghost.”
Happy pills It has been twenty years since Prozac and what’s known as the new generation of antidepressants became available in New Zealand. Every year use of the drugs climbs steeply. Prescribing has nearly quadrupled since 1993. Pharmac estimates 400,000 New Zealanders are on antidepressants. Each year about 1.4 million
prescriptions for antidepressants are filled. This is up 36.6% from 1 million in 2006. There are 18 antidepressants on the New Zealand market, with three added in the last few years. Hawke’s Bay is on the lower end of the figures with about 12,000 scripts filled each year. Dr Peter Moodie, medical director of Pharmac, says the peak of spending on Continued on Page 44
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Bee in the know ~ sep/ oct 2012
Her experience is that medication used to get through the day can also help facilitate personal work with a counsellor. “For some people meds can give them a foot up so they can address things. It can give them some stability so they can go to a counsellor when they might otherwise not even be able to get out of bed,” says Nicholson.
Rae is 38 and has cared for her step-daughter Emma, now 17, since she was a toddler. Rae is married and has three younger children. “When Emma came to us she had lots of issues. She had no rules, no routine. I took her to specialists and they’d always say it was a social issue. “At school, the counsellor saw her every day from when she was 5 to 12. She was brilliant and she helped us a lot. During that time Emma went to Australia for four weeks to see her mother. After she came home we got a letter saying we were being done for sexual abuse of Emma. Her mother had signed an affidavit saying Emma had told her these things. I ended up taping phone calls and in one Emma’s mother let it slip that it was lies. Eventually we were cleared. In the meantime Emma went through hell. “Then Emma’s mother cut her off. No presents, no letters, no phone calls, no nothing. We didn’t hear from her for five years. And as she got older things got more and more complicated. “I ended up going to Directions Youth to get help for her - I knew she wasn’t right - but it didn’t really help her and they couldn’t tell me what was wrong because of confidentiality. She’d go through moments of serenity and calmness, then for a month we didn’t know what might happen, she’d really go off the rails. “When she was 15 her mother rang out of the blue. Within 48hrs she’d gotten into my meds and taken a lot of them. She tried to knock herself off. “I took Emma to my GP and he prescribed an antidepressant and referred her to the DHB. A psychiatrist there talked to her for a few hours. He felt she had long-term depression. We went to the psychiatrist for eight sessions and then she was supposed to be miraculously cured. “She was on antidepressants for a whole year.
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WALKING WOUNDED
“The most cathartic thing was just telling my story. Getting it out of my head. You can’t answer all the questions all at once – you peel off the issues.”
Kim’s story
kim, mental health sufferer
» antidepressants was ten years ago. In 2003,
we spent about $30 million. Now, $20 million each year is spent on the drugs. “Although the numbers have gone up, the prices have gone down,” Moodie notes. At the mild-to-moderate end of the mental health spectrum, the question is whether to treat at all, says University of Otago’s head of primary health care and general practice, Professor Tony Dowell. With the average length of time for depression being around three months and often linked to a traumatic event, such as a job loss or marriage break-up, should we even treat mild-to-moderate depression? Another expert in the field of antidepressant medication, Professor David Healy from the University of Cardiff has received press here in New Zealand and internationally for claiming drugs may be more of a hindrance than a help in cases of depression. He believes only one out of every ten prescribed so-called ‘happy pills’ is helped by them. He also feels pharmaceutical companies hide evidence about the effectiveness and risks associated with psychiatric drugs.
Bee in the know ~ sep/ oct 2012
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Distressed youth For many, teenage years can be when mental health issues first show themselves. Diagnostically it may be referred to as ‘adjustment disorder’. Some young people have a shaky time and get through; for others, what manifests in adolescence stays put long after. Fiona Rainbow has been a counsellor at Directions Youth Health in Hastings for nearly seven years. She works with 10-24 year olds. “Thirteen to sixteen is a particularly difficult period and people often need more support than just their parents. Schools have counsellors and there is help at the Napier Family Centre and Family Works, but some want anonymity. We have a free service for youth and that encourages young people to take control of their own health,” Rainbow explains. In the years she’s been at Directions, only two or three clients have been prescribed antidepressants, although a
Kim is 41. Divorced with two pre-teen children, she is a professional working in the health industry. “My personal experience was that I’ve had shit years for as long as I can remember and the only thing that changed was to see it reoccurring in my children. “I’d always had the perception that life was hard, that it wasn’t fair and that what happens in your life is of your own making - you can’t really turn around and complain. When things went wrong I felt it was my fault and therefore I didn’t deserve any help. “Eighteen months ago I crashed with my past and I couldn’t hold it back. I had a breakdown to such an extent as I couldn’t look after my children anymore. One day I got up, I dropped the kids at school like normal, I said goodbye to them at the gate, I got in the car and I drove for hours. I just wanted to disappear. I had no plan except to get away. “My personal experience is not that I wanted to die. What is true is you get to a point where you can’t keep going. It’s like walking through treacle. You can see the door but physical exhaustion means you can’t get across the room. “I went into my GP and said I wanted antidepressants. I said I needed to take care of my children and he had to help me. The
number of others have come to see her while already on medication. “If there is a struggle that’s persistent, that’s affecting life, we talk about medication as a support while we’re doing therapeutic work.” Adolescence can be a trial for some but there are often other things at work when mental illness presents itself. Fiona Rainbow: “There are hormonal changes and changes in the limbic system, and if you add time, drugs, alcohol, predisposition, the impact of friends who have perhaps committed suicide, vulnerability – there’s a lot of things at work.” Societal changes mean young people are perhaps not as prepared for the ups and downs of life than they may have been in the past. “In our two-minute-noodle society we are less trained and less familiar with
GP made me see a counsellor, initially for six sessions. He wouldn’t give me drugs until I agreed to that. I was very defensive and it’s true to say I only did counselling so I could get the drugs. I was very clear I had no intention of lying on the couch for years and years - I wanted tools. “The most cathartic thing was just telling my story. Getting it out of my head. You can’t answer all the questions all at once - you peel off the issues and leave them sitting there to unpack later. I left tons of weight in that room. I felt lighter but also the drugs would have kicked in by then. “The medication I take is almost ritualistic now. I don’t question it. My GP told me I have to take it for two years and so that’s given me two years to begin to sort things. Then I’ll reassess. “When it comes to medication, there was no minute when I suddenly said ‘wow I feel great’. It made no discernable difference until maybe six months down the track - it just smoothed things out. The highs weren’t so high, the lows weren’t so low. It hasn’t made life happier and it doesn’t answer any questions. “I was in my mid-twenties when my father took his own life. It’s obvious that genetics is part of my picture and it’s stupid of me to think I would escape some kind of mental health issue - it was the package I came with. “Depression for me was when I became overwhelmed with choices, emotions, decisions and exhaustion - it’s so overwhelming you can’t think, and your brain and your body just stop. I physically couldn’t get up in the morning. I couldn’t do normal things. I was immobilised by it. “I feel so lucky to have had that breakdown, without it I would have gone on as if nothing was wrong with no room for transformation. I feel very hopeful about the future. I’m not there yet - and that’s exciting - but don’t get me wrong, it’s terrifying too.”
strategies to live through hard times as humans. There’s a lack of richness and depth of understanding that life is a mixture of hard and good,” says Rainbow. A major drive is currently taking place focused on the mental health of youth. Over the next four years the Government will spend $62 million overhauling mental health resources to ensure they are “youth-friendly and technologically up-to-date” (John Key, April 2012). This will include investigation of technology, such as Facebook, smartphone apps and online pop-ups, and $2.7 million in funding for computer administered “e-therapy” tailored for young people that can be carried out at home. While many people, once they have come through it, talk about their mental health experiences in the past tense, Fiona Rainbow is in the thick of it. The
THE BLACK DOG The Bible for psychiatric diagnosis immediacy of her work makes it a vital link in the mental health equation. “Working with young people is very ‘live’. It’s happening now. While it’s happening you can hear them, honour them, give them strategies. There are things you can do to really help before it becomes ‘for life’.”
is preventable. If a person is determined to carry out a suicidal act and doesn’t tell anyone of their intentions then prevention is very hard.” Verona Nicholson feels that seeking support can itself often come after a long journey, “A real hurdle is that it’s hard to ask for help. There’s a culture of ‘you should be able to manage’. There has been some shame attached to it, creating an attitude that if you sought help you were mentally ill, as opposed to being a person who was suffering and didn’t know what to do about it. And further that you couldn’t seek help unless you were feeling extremely mentally unwell. But the more mentally unwell you are, the more disenfranchised you become, and the harder it is to get help.” “Sometimes people don’t know where to start. In many ways you have to hit bottom before you can begin to climb out,” says Nicholson. Lindy Andrews certainly hit rock bottom, two fold, the mark left on her by SSRIs overshadows that left by the anxiety she began feeling twenty years ago. “There are tremendous pressures placed on women anyway: raising children, holding down a job, staying fit and healthy, doing the majority of domestic chores at home. Add some
HELP If you would like to access help with mental health issues, go to: www.depression.org.nz. Or you can phone Lifeline on 0800-543-354. There is also a site where young people can access information specific to them: www.thelowdown.co.nz To find certified counsellors and psychotherapists in Hawke’s Bay, visit these sites: www.nzac.org.nz or www.nzap.org.nz. For the best care, suited to your individual needs, make an appointment to see your GP, who can make a referral if needed.
Bee in the know ~ sep/ oct 2012
“Gone After A Long Illness. At Peace Now.” For the legions of people accessing some form of mental health help, there are one or two who don’t make it through. Suicide is not something we talk about openly in our society. Most people know someone affected, but in obituaries and eulogies we use euphemisms to protect ourselves from painful questions: could I have done something more to help? GP Dr David Doig: “In the first five years of practice I was very nervous about what might happen if I got it wrong. Now it’s more a recognition that even if you do everything right there are some who will not be saved, and I think in the approaching decade we may see more.” Data published in April 2012 by the Ministry of Health showed 111 suicides in Hawke’s Bay from 2005-2009. Every year there are 500 across New Zealand with 2,500 intentional self-harm hospitalisations. Men are three times more likely to suicide. The highest risk ages are 15-29 and 45-54. Sometimes suicide comes out of the blue, but often people have been seen at some stage by a health professional. DHB’s clinical director of Mental Health Dr Simon Shaw: “Very sadly we do see suicides occurring from time to time in people in contact with mental health services. This is partly due to the fact that, just like severe heart disease or severe lung disease, severe mental illness does sometimes result in a fatal outcome despite everyone’s best efforts. It is an enduring myth that every single suicide
stressors, then it’s basic laws of physics: for every action there’s an opposite and equal reaction. But we don’t want to put a halt on our lives long enough to get better.” Lindy’s advice for anyone first identifying the need to talk to a GP about mental health is this: “Don’t expect a GP to do it in ten minutes, so make a double appointment, make a list of things that are bothering you so you can be clear about your needs, ask if there are options other than antidepressants.” Dr David Doig agrees: “First, be honest with someone close to you who can support you. Secondly, understand that GPs have enormous experience with mental health and the best thing to do is not be shy or embarrassed, and to bring up the big issues right at the beginning of the appointment.” “Many people come to us with something physical, a sore elbow for example, and it’s only after a lot of talking that we get the real reason they made the appointment,” says Doig. “It’s much better for them if they are upfront and honest right at the start. Then we can really help.”
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Educating for Uncertainty BY ~ DR suzette major, Head of School, Arts & Design at EIT
How do you educate students of today for a world that is changing so rapidly that we don’t know what it will look like tomorrow?
Bee in the know ~ sep/ oct 2012
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It is perhaps one of the most fundamental and challenging questions facing those involved in education, from our teachers to managers to policy makers and parents. Of course the idea of change is nothing new. I, like many, still recall conversations with my father and grandfather that begun “when I was a boy…” But while change itself may be acceptable, the rate of change that our world is currently facing is unprecedented. Economically, environmentally, ecologically, technologically our society is transforming at a rate that it is becoming increasingly difficult to anticipate where we will be next year, next month or even next week. So, how do you educate students under such circumstances? How do you equip students to take their place in the 21st century when we are unsure what the 21st century will be like?
Shift Happens A well-viewed YouTube clip entitled Shift Happens presents a series of facts and figures outlining how such change is impacting on our society. It states that “the Top 10 in-demand jobs in 2010, did not exist in 2004”. If, as a child, I had told my parents I wanted to be an ‘information designer’ or ‘web analyst’ for example, they would have stared at me blankly. I recall with a sense of amusement that in the mid-1990s when delivering a lecture to a class of 250 students, I asked, “How many of you have been down to the computer labs and looked at this thing called the Internet?” Two hands went up. That was not very long ago, and yet seems like more than a lifetime. Research shows that the amount of new technical information is doubling every two years. That means, “for students studying a four-year technical degree, half of what they learn in their first year of study will be out-dated by their third year of study”. As described by creativity expert Sir Ken Robinson: “Our children are living in the most intensely stimulating period in the history of the earth. They are being besieged with information and calls for their attention from every platform – from computers, from iPhones, from advertising hoardings,
from hundreds of television channels.” So, how do we keep their attention in the classroom, and how do we ensure what we are teaching them is relevant, useful and necessary for the world they are entering? There are two strategies that I have seen at play in the classroom – neither of which I think is the answer. One is for the teacher to become a performer. This is where the line between education and entertainment becomes blurred – sometimes referred to as edutainment. This is not to say that all edutainment is bad and education cannot be fun. But, we need to be careful to not view learning as a bitter medicine that needs to be sugar-coated. The danger with the edutainment approach is that it can assume that education is unpalatable or inherently unpleasant. In my view, education is vital for our changing world and it should be celebrated and respected for its role in preparing students to face the 21st century. The second approach to keeping students’ attention away from the overtly stimulating world outside the classroom is to turn the teacher into a tyrant – checking attendance multiple times throughout the day and penalising those who do not focus fully during a lesson. I find this particularly odd at a tertiary level where students have chosen to come and paid money to
SUZETTE MAJOR
Dr Suzette Major attend. The danger with the teacher-astyrant approach is that learning is seen as a punishment that students must suffer whether or not they are willing.
ability to resolve a brief, think outside the box, reject the norm and embrace the unknown that will serve them well in the decades ahead. Because we do not know where we are heading, having a multifaceted approach becomes paramount. It is unlikely that graduates of tomorrow will specialise in one area and focus only in that area for their entire working lives. Indeed, the US Department of Labour recently estimated that “today’s learner will have 10-14 jobs by the age of 38” (Shift Happens). This is not to suggest that focusing only on one discipline is wrong, but specialisation without any general knowledge is an increasingly limiting and out-dated model. It is no surprise that degrees around the globe are stripping out majors or that education programmes worldwide are being increasingly delivered in a project-based learning manner, which allows students to apply multiple skills to any given brief depending on the demands of that ‘real world’ project. Finally, as eloquently put by Sir Ken
Robinson, “collaboration is the stuff of growth”. Students of tomorrow must learn to work together if our society is to prevent any further fragmentation and disjunction. It is such disconnectedness that has largely led to the problems of today, as clearly pronounced by the “we are the 99%” protest movement. But working together is largely at odds with how our education system operates. Our teaching and assessment methods are often very individualised, where students are graded individually against each other in a competitive manner. Even worse, students that work together can be accused of cheating rather than collaborating. To truly embrace collaboration is to call for a change so profound that it may be beyond the current system’s capacity. Looking ahead is part of the role of an educator. Our job is to prepare students for the future, not for the past. When it is so uncertain what the future might be, it can feel daunting to work out what we should do today to educate students for tomorrow. But like our students, educators hold the inherent capacity to imagine. And it is this imagination and ability to think creativity that will ultimately enable us to flourish and triumph through the dynamic, exciting, scary and changing 21st century.
Bee in the know ~ sep/ oct 2012
Change the content, not teachers Rather than asking teachers to become performers or tyrants, I would suggest that the classroom content itself is what needs transforming. To consider in what ways our education system needs transforming is to ask what skills we might need in the 21st century. Drawing on the galaxy of powerful thinkers who are contemplating this very question, such as Sir Ken Robinson, Richard Florida, Robert Fisher and Mary Williams, Ross Jackson, Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett, I would submit that there are three key skills that will serve us well to survive and thrive in our uncertain and changing world: creativity, multifacetedness and collaboration. A well-known adage says “as educators, we are preparing students for jobs that don’t exist yet, using technologies that haven’t been invented yet, to solve problems that we don’t even know are problems yet.” To cope with such extraordinary change, we will need to draw deeply on our human capacity for creativity and imagination. How exactly that creativity may manifest, however, is often unknown and less important than the process of creative thinking itself. At the School of Arts and Design, for example, we teach painting, printmaking, sculpture, photography, design, graphics, fashion, film and music. While the outcomes may be stunning, it is the creative thinking, the conceptual development and underlying process that are the essential skills. It is the student’s
“As educators, we are preparing students for jobs that don’t exist yet, using technologies that haven’t been invented yet.”
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Angel by Will Jameson (photo by Duncan Innes)
The art of spring BY ~ lizzie russell
Muff Aitken
Para Matchitt
Spring is here! And somehow the warmer months just seem more conducive to interacting with art, even if the dark, dull days might fuel the romantic image of artists toiling away in coal-heated garrets. In Hawke’s Bay, when the sun comes out, so too do the viewers. And that’s where the magic really happens – when an audience engages, when conversations occur.
EAST2012: representing the visual arts in Hawke’s Bay With Creative Hawke’s Bay in a period of reflection, planning, and generally scaleddown operation, Hastings City Art Gallery (HCAG) has taken over responsibility for the regional art exhibition, previously known as the Creative Hawke’s Bay Invitational. The format was ripe for
Opening night at HCAG
overhaul, and consultation with artists, stakeholders and members of the arts community has provided valuable insight into what changes are needed and what improvements are possible. Full disclosure: I may be slightly biased in my excitement about this new show. Partly because I work part-time at HCAG, but mostly because I love the idea of a more outward-looking, varied exhibition to represent the success and state of the visual arts in our region. As this goes to print, the final selection of exhibiting artists has not been made by external curator Bill Milbank from Whanganui. I can report however, that on the list of 70ish submitting artists were many names of emerging and lesser-known artists, alongside those more familiar. This is because the submission process has changed. Previously, specific artists were invited to submit work for selection by the external curator. This resulted in what some saw as a pattern of repetition – the same names being highlighted and celebrated year after year, while new arrivals to the region and emerging artists failed to make the cut through a simple lack of visibility. With EAST there has been an open call to all artists with a significant connection to Hawke’s Bay, whether they’ve exhibited in the Invitational before or not, and whether they’re known to the curator and the gallery or not. We’re expecting freshness and an increased interest in the show as a result,
and also as a result of other changes to the format. A people’s choice award is being introduced. HCAG director Maree Mills remarks that there is huge value for artists in being recognised and honoured by their peers and audience. There will also be potential value for all exhibiting artists if EAST leads on to the East-West art exchange she is hoping for. Curator Bill Milbank, the former longterm director of Whanganui’s Sarjeant Gallery, who now runs a dealer gallery in the river city, has the right to tour EAST, which will mean increased profile for our artists, and may lead on to a coast-to-coast conversation through regional exhibitions and collaborations. Maree notes that moving the regional show from an autumn-winter time slot to spring-summer is another way of improving the exhibition and lifting the profile of the artists involved, and the regional arts output in general. “Having EAST open in late October and continue over the Christmas period and into January gives our artists an extended audience. It’s great for them also to be able to share the experience of a major exhibition with visiting family and friends.” For some of the exhibiting artists, this may be their first big show, and to be able to have their work seen by the widest audience possible Continued on Page 50
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Sculptors Jacob Scott and Ricks Terstappen at Round Pond
Bee in the know ~ sep/ oct 2012
Traditionally, February is the golden time for Hawke’s Bay – winery concerts, art deco and almost-guaranteed sunshine – but the schedule looks to be changing. This spring sees the arrival of F.A.W.C! (the Food and Wine Classic), as well as the return of the biennial Cranford fundraisers, the Hospice Holly Trail and the Wildflower Sculpture Exhibition. We could well be witnessing the start of a major new regional visual art tradition too, in the form of EAST2012.
William Jameson
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THE ART OF SPRING
Ricks Terstappen engage with it, talk about it, come back for second helpings, tell us they want another one, then that’s what they’ll get, and a new tradition will begin. As I mentioned earlier – art is at its finest when it creates a conversation. There is no point putting on an exhibition if no one reacts and responds to it. I’m hoping (and suspecting) this will be one to get us all talking.
» – which may include some of their own
visitors – is a valuable bonus. One aspect of the regional exhibition that won’t change is the opening night. The local art community knows how to frock up and party, and with the help of wine sponsor Clearview, the EAST gala opening promises to keep the custom alive. Tickets will be on sale in late September. So with EAST2012 almost upon us, when will we see the follow-up? The short answer is 2014. Perhaps producing the exhibition annually was one of the problems of the Invitational. It does seem obvious that a biennial show will engender more anticipation and excitement, and probably a more vigorous curatorial approach. As it stands, the HCAG schedule for 2013 is already crammed full of other bold and interesting exhibitions (excuse that bias raising its little head again). Basically if the public love EAST, if they
The Wildflower Sculpture Exhibition The other major art event of the season in my book is the third biennial Wildflower Sculpture Exhibition in early November. It runs in association with the Hospice Holly Trail as a fundraiser for Cranford Hospice. Reliant on volunteer time and labour, and the help of local sponsors, this is an event without the political aspects of a show like EAST, but with its own set of challenges. Further disclosure: I am one of a small group working on this exhibition (which takes place at my family’s home), but then who better to write about it than someone on the inside? Hawke’s Bay has a proud tradition of mixing art with charity causes – think the Winebox Charity Auction and the HB Winegrowers Charity Wine Auction (which often features art – this year it was Ricks Terstappen’s sculpture Still Life with a bit of Red), and this is a trend increasingly seen universally. While I sometimes find myself wondering at the fact that here in the ‘modern’ world, community fundraising is needed for something as essential as palliative care, there is no denying that Cranford provides a fantastic service, and is a cause people are happy to support. What’s special about the Wildflower Sculpture Exhibition is that it provides the public with an opportunity to support the cause just by turning up and paying the
“Art lifts us out of our preoccupations with the more mundane minutiae of day-to-day life.” entry price. There’s a certain amount of the feel-good factor at an event where anyone can experience the artwork without the pressure to purchase (although that’s more than welcome). Visitors are donating just by having a great day out. The exhibition also offers the community the chance to interact with visual art in a setting that encourages shared engagement, shared conversations. The exhibition epitomises spring, as visitors enjoy the outdoor space, in family groups or with friends, and spend hours looking at, talking about and touching fine pieces of 3D art. They have an art experience on a more active level, walking (or golf carting if necessary) through a ten acre canvas of natural art dotted with sculptural art, stopping to take tea or coffee or lunch. And of course, it’s the best time of year to see a garden like this – as it comes into bloom after the starkness of winter. Weather and timing have seen a less-than-perfect field of wildflowers for the last two exhibitions; they did come, but a week or two after the audience. Fingers crossed, Mother Nature plays ball this time around – we’re cautiously confident. I like to think of the sculpture exhibition as bringing out all the best aspects of art – approachable and engaging work, shared experience, surprise – without the unfortunately ingrained ideas about what and who art is for. Art without gallery walls somehow has a wider appeal, and holding an exhibition in a setting like Round
Bee in the know ~ sep/ oct 2012
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THE ART OF SPRING
Art and garden interact
EAST2012 27 October ~ 19 January www.hastingscityartgallery.co.nz Wildflower Sculpture Exhibition From 7 ~ 11 November www.wildflowersculptureexhibition.co.nz
What’s on in the arts? Start here. We’re a way off having a central regional arts organisation to hold and maintain a comprehensive arts event database. However, we do have Hawke’s Bay Tourism’s website at: www.hawkesbaynz.com The site includes an events calendar that’s powered by and hooked into Eventfinder. More and more cultural groups and arts organisations are listing events here as it becomes the go-to spot for finding out what’s on in the Bay on any given date. Please take a look at the calendar for what’s coming up at the HB Opera House, the Napier Municipal Theatre and most of the galleries and performance spaces. You can also sign-up to have these events routinely emailed to you on a weekly basis.
THE LOFT ART STUDIO
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JOHN SPITTLE
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For paintings of NZ landscapes, Architecture and Rural life
Bee in the know ~ sep/ oct 2012
Pond Garden (just south of Hastings) means that there’s plenty of space for an exceptionally wide variation of work. This year for example, we have around 60 artists on board, and they’re presenting work in metal, glass, stone, found materials, ceramics, wood and mixed media. While the list is still in its unconfirmed stage at the time of writing, it looks like there will be art for sale priced from $100 right up into the tens of thousands. Artists have commented to me that this exhibition is valuable to them for the chance to show their creations in a setting where there is space for the work to stand alone, unobstructed by other pieces, and because Round Pond Garden, with its various ‘garden rooms’ and thoughtfully designed areas gives prospective buyers the chance to imagine a sculpture in a potential home setting. They also enjoy the challenge of making work that might be site-specific, or at least speaks to the garden environment. An average of 3,000 viewers for each of the previous exhibitions has to be good for profile too. But for the organisers and our band of merry volunteers, what’s the motivation?
Mostly we do it because it makes us happy. Art brings people together, to experience it, to coordinate it, often to make it. Art lifts us out of our preoccupations with the more mundane minutiae of day-to-day life and makes us think and feel on a different plane. And when a group works together – drawing on individuals’ talents and interests to make a community-benefitting project fall into place and finish with a decent cheque to hand over – there’s something art-like about that too. I want to live in a region where art happens. A lot of art. It’s clear there are plenty of others who do too, so enthusiastically spending untold hours helping to pull together a show that (hopefully) pumps money into the regional arts sector, adds to the reputation of Hawke’s Bay as an arts destination, brings the community together to celebrate spring and creativity, and raises funds for a muchneeded health service. I’m pretty sure these are the reasons there are countless other groups and individuals working on community art projects and events around Hawke’s Bay and the rest of the country. But of course, these projects, like more traditional art exhibitions, sit incomplete without an audience to play their part in the dialogue. I hope to see you out and about, partaking in and enjoying Hawke’s Bay’s artistic endeavours over the spring months.
EXPERIENCE THE DIFFERENCE
Open 7 Days 10am – 4.30pm 14 West Quay Ahuriri info@quaygallery.co.nz p. 06 835 4637 www.quaygallery.co.nz
TechFocus
Roadblocks removed from digital learning highway Keith Newman talks to the principal and students at Karamu High School about the lightspeed liberties enabled by their new ultrafast broadband network.
Bee in the know ~ sep/ oct 2012
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When Karamu High School principal, Martin O’Grady, talks about his students getting As, he most likely means “access, access and access”; although with turbocharged broadband now in place across the campus, he’s confident that’ll extend to improved grades as well. The fact many students often had better internet connection speeds at home had been an embarrassment for a school with the motto “knowledge is strength” until earlier this year. “Kids are generally interested in learning and we were slowing them down — as teachers we were supposed to be leading the way,” says O’Grady. The new network makes last year’s copper-line based ADSL, which maxed out at around 5Mbit/sec downstream and 500kbit/sec upstream, seem lame. When multiple users were online at the same time the on-screen egg timer made regular appearances as downloads stuttered, re-buffered or froze. Clearly a new era has begun: ultrafast cabled broadband and its wireless equivalent now promote innovation rather than stifling it, with ample connectivity for whatever electronic device students use to enhance their learning. It enables a network of data projectors in every classroom and a brand new iMax suite in the media studies lab where students’ assignments include producing their own movie clips. “It used to be a struggle but now they’re just flying,” says O’Grady. And it’s not just technology-focused classes that are benefiting, there’s potential for change in the way students learn across most subjects, whether it’s mathematics, science, English or health and physical education. Converging of forces Principal O’Grady says a fortuitous “converging of forces” has enabled the network to be put to maximum use,
promoting greater connectivity among staff and students. At the time the $8 million project to rebuild 75% of the school was getting underway, funding from the Ministry of Education was approved for a three-year ICT professional development programme for staff. Having the new infrastructure in place means teachers are now able to put into practice new ways of doing things; far less time is spent on the nuts and bolts and more on the learning process. While everyone’s still coming to terms with the possibilities, O’Grady is confident this is where education technology must go. “I really feel we’re going in the right direction with fibre all the way. Some schools have used their SNUP (School Network Upgrade Project) funding to put in Cat 6 copper wire, but I believe a fibre optic backbone should be a regional strategy for our schools.” Sensibly the school used trenches dug for water and sewage to lay ducts for fibre installed by Chorus, which now spans out to all the teaching areas from the new hi-tech server room with its gigabit speed switches and hubs. This ultra-fast broadband capacity is then distributed to desktops and mobile devices across the campus by a leading edge Ruckus wireless network, at speeds up to 100Mb. Each wireless router, geared to seek out the best signal strength, connects up to 30 computers and devices, removing the need for a spaghetti jumble of cabling. Less time fixing things School IT manager, Matthew Strickland, had just completed loading software and configuring the last of the 128 Hewlett Packard netbooks and 60 Lenova thin-screen terminals when BayBuzz dropped by. The netbooks, available to students for class-work needs, are stripped down devices with no disk drives; running Microsoft Office, video-editing tools and other
applications directly from the school’s internal internet. Strickland says the wireless network made his life a lot easier. “There are no cables, and the network is more robust and reliable; I spend a lot less time fixing things and can be more focused with my time.” The network set up is something you’d expect to see in a hi-tech business, with its rack of state-of-the art servers and switches, back-up and management technology. The cable is future-proofed; an $8000 switch upgrade could boost backbone capacity to 10Gbit/s. Both Principal O’Grady and technology manager Strickland have their fingers crossed that all the ground landscaping and new technology will be up and running smoothly by Labour weekend when the school celebrates its golden jubilee. Digital kids whizzing In the digital technologies lab, encompassing computing, information management, ICT and electronics – a converted dark room in the belly of the school - students were working on a range of projects from layout and design to digital photography. Thomas Kendall is greatly relieved he can now seamlessly access YouTube tutorial videos for advanced lessons on Photoshop and listen to music, using headphones of course, while he’s soaking up all that knowledge. Thomas, who’s a year 13 student, is considered the school’s best photographer and has plans to continue his media studies at university with the advertising industry as a possible goal. “When the network would slow down you couldn’t get any work done; now you don’t have any worries, I get stuff done much more quickly — it doesn’t feel like there are limits anymore.” Just along the bench from him are Tagon Duncan and her classmate who are working with InDesign and other Abode media
KEITH NEWMAN
“...the next wave is smart phones. Teachers will walk into the class and say, ‘alright students get your phones out and look up this information’.” martin o’grady principal, karamu high school
Real-time access streamlines media studies
tim.co.nz
Smartphones as standard While cellphones are still banned in some schools, smartphones that can surf the internet and run education enhancing apps are being encouraged at Karamu High School. In fact, O’Grady is convinced they’re the way of the future, particularly as they become more affordable. “Students are already using laptops, iPads, and other devices and while initially we may have to provide some of this, the next wave is smart phones. Teachers will walk into the class and say, ‘alright students get your phones out and look up this information’.” Acessing data through the school’s Ultranet, which links to internet-based
resources, does not incur any data costs, although outside the school gate it’s back on the public network with its associated costs. Protocols that allow both Android and iPhone devices to operate together and issues around security and responsible use are still being worked through. In the meantime it’s been open slather; some students have been found accessing the network after school hours. However, the school’s IT management system can monitor who’s using what, when and where and filters are in place to block objectionable material and other content that is unlikely to be related to school work, such as Facebook. “The school day belongs to us and it is not acceptable to waste time or misuse the technology. If you do, there will be consequences,” says O’Grady sounding for a moment more like the school principals I knew as a youngster. “Changing people’s behaviour takes a while and we have to learn the bounds of acceptability in the digital world. New legislation relating to social media is planned and once case law is established it will be clear to students what is and is not acceptable,” says O’Grady. Karamu has already had a couple of visits from other schools in the region who’re considering doing something similar but O’Grady’s not making any great claims about leading the way “while we’re still deep in it.” And he’s quick to point out that teachers will continue leading the learning in this new ‘blended’ environment where the best of old and new come together. “We’ve not gone crazy like some schools around the world where the teacher disappears behind a glass wall and only interacts through videoconferencing or messaging.”
“In the past you had to fudge the look and create something that appeared like a film using a number 8 fencing-wire approach. Now we’re shooting on high definition digital film, using state-of-the art software like Premier Effects, which is what they use in Hollywood, and editing on FinalCut Pro to do colour grading and sound work.” Hunter says everything is going into the cloud; in other words hosted offsite by a service provider for access over the internet, including freeware for script writing and editing. “All my notes can be accessed anytime from anywhere using DropBox, and all the seniors’ work is going online. Soon every school will have their own YouTube site.” With students training themselves using instructional videos, Hunter has more time to teach conceptual or philosophical ideas, values and collaborative learning to get them “thinking at a higher level”. While three of his graduates are now working with Peter Jackson’s Weta studios, that won’t be the career path for most, although he likes the idea that transferable skills, computing, production and marketing, are relevant across a range of jobs. Karamu High School is the only school in Hawke’s Bay running all three levels of media studies, and increasingly, says Hunter, media studies is being accepted as a way to gain literacy credits.
Bee in the know ~ sep/ oct 2012
applications as part of an assignment. Tagon has industrial design in mind and is greatly relieved things now work as they were designed to. Principal O’Grady sees the lightspeed communications as removing obstacles so students can “charge on ahead” in a range of areas from design, technology, performing and visual arts to the use of video in teaching. “For health and physical education or even science they might use their smartphone to film a golf swing or a science experiment and analyse this later.” Previously they would have to book out a camera from the IT department. O’Grady says faster access has created new ways for students to demonstrate what they know, and capture their work in e-portfolios. “Under the old system, if you could write something you were considered intelligent; if you couldn’t, then in the eyes of the examination board, you knew nothing.” He says that’s neither right nor fair. “A lot of kids have skills and abilities but writing may not be their strength area.”
Media studies students at Karamu High School are making up for lost time, and with the new broadband network are now only limited by their technology skills and creativity, says tutor Tom Hunter.
53
THE BEST YEARS OF
OUR LIVES
A Working Life After 65 Kay Bazzard explores the issues that will determine whether people take the National Super at 65 and retire, or continue working into their 70s.
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Recently, at a Hawke’s Bay filling station I was served by a woman called Shirley*. She was in her late 50s, early 60s, dressed warmly in a corporate windproof jacket, woollen mittens with a beanie on her head. She was chatty and her movements were quick. As she processed my sale, we grumbled about the cold, wet and windy conditions and she said to me, “Yeah, I’ve been in hospital three times this year but I’m really glad to be back at work again.” I noted she was approaching retirement age and doing an uncomfortable all-weather low-waged job and that her health was dodgy, yet she appeared cheery and full of optimism. She loved her job; that was obvious. But will she want to work after she turns 65? Will her health force her into retirement? Will she be able to afford to retire?
A number of published research studies suggest that the number of over65s still in the workforce is increasing. With greater longevity, better overall health, and changing attitudes to ageing and work, older people are less likely to settle into a contented if boring old age, as their parents might have done. This is backed up by the results of the New Zealand Boomer Dreams Study 2009 which asked 1,200 self-selected survey volunteers aged in their 50s about their attitudes to retirement. The study surveyed their ‘dreams’ and ‘aspirations’ for that period of their lives after the official retirement age, and received a resoundingly clear response. The majority had no intention of retiring at 65 to take up voluntary work. They would keep on working, enjoy the independence, leisure and lifestyle it funded. And they did not see themselves as ‘old’. Economic and health factors In June of this year a Treasury working paper entitled Health and Retirement of Older New Zealanders was released. It delved into survey data provided by Massey University and the Family Centre Social Policy Unit, following a group of older New Zealanders through the years 2006, 2008 and 2010. This evidence-based study shows that economic and health factors were the predominant factors determining whether 65 year olds retire or not. It found that two primary factors were encouraging 65s to
exit from the workforce: poor health and eligibility for a pension or a benefit. In addition, it noted that if wives remain in employment, their husbands are likely to remain working beyond 65; but not the other way around. The data shows that for women, financial security is a more important factor in the decision to retire, with higher household net wealth being associated with earlier retirement. Also, for women, “the dissolution of marriage is associated with a higher likelihood of continuing workplace participation.” Of far greater significance are factors such as financial incentives, results showing that receipt of New Zealand Superannuation substantially reduces the likelihood of remaining in the labour force, as do private superannuation income and receipt of government transfers. Talking about retirement Napier couple, Pete and Sue Phillips* are an English professional couple who moved here ten years ago and qualify for a UK pension from the age of 60. They are 53 and 58 respectively and both enjoy their work. Their superannuation is very important in their future plans. “We don’t want to push ourselves beyond 65, [superannuation] is the bread and butter, everything else is icing on the cake.” Pete: “At this stage, I can’t imagine not working and I don’t think about easing off. I’m just plodding along, but I might reduce hours by the time I turn 60. It really depends on what turns up.”
THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES
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To work or not? The whole discussion about raising the retirement age comes into focus when you talk to people like Shirley and Murray. For the kinds of work they are engaged in, 65 is long after their use-by dates. Ideally, they should be able to settle into lighter work or an earlier retirement. Sue Phillips thinks that job satisfaction would be a significant factor in determining whether someone stayed in their job after 65, and compares being in an interesting, non-physical job with menial, or heavy manual jobs. But she also observes that you’d have to be a brave person to cut off your job at 60-plus; at this age career changes are not an option in the current economic situation as there are fewer jobs. People will be forced to reconsider their long-term plans. Fifty year olds made redundant are likely to have problems in finding work yet they will have to keep on trying. Those in their early 60s will be expecting to find it harder, and will probably be less inclined to put themselves out there. Given the shortage of skills and experience in the workplace, we might expect that employers would want to retain skills, perhaps by giving encouragement to older employees to stay on by making their hours and working conditions more appealing and appropriate for their health and strength. By allowing the people with expertise to withdraw from work at their own pace, employers could use them to build expertise in their workforce by training their younger staff. It is likely that the people who choose to continue working would be in positions of influence as they are better able to determine their own working conditions. But even here, things like ageism, lack of respect, where the employers know they can take advantage of an older person, are circumstances that would ensure they would retire. Not always a choice There is confirmed evidence from the Health and Retirement of Older New Zealanders that it is difficult to get back to work after a health or redundancy crisis, and as Sue points out, that can affect people still in their 50s. Older people in Hawke’s Bay find it almost impossible to find work in spite of wishful talk by politicians and others about the need for New Zealand to retain their skills and experience. Many a disappointed senior job applicant is convinced they are unable to find employment due to the ageist attitudes of
“People retire when they can afford to and there is no evidence that people have changed.” pete phillips
recruitment staff and employers, and this could well be the case. Equally, their lack of success may be due to senior workers’ reluctance to embrace new technologies or to inter-generational perceptions of this nature. For those who wish to continue working, staying healthy and keeping abreast of new technologies will be the best determinants of keeping in work, balanced by sympathetic working conditions. For the rest, the likelihood of exiting the workforce will be determined by their health and strength, or by being able to afford to retire. Either way, in Hawke’s Bay the decision of the individual 65 year old to work beyond the age of retirement won’t always be a matter of choice. * Names changed
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Bee in the know ~ sep/ oct 2012
Sue: “When you’re young you hardly think of it. Now though, we discuss our plans for the future, including that we want to explore things we didn’t do as young people, like travelling.” She has already reduced from full-time to part-time work and as financial commitments allow she will reduce her hours further. Sue: “I’m really looking forward to having the time and freedom to go walking with friends, just reading a book or becoming involved with communitybased volunteering.” Both Sue and Pete have read the research material quoted above and Pete says bluntly, “the Dreams Study is rubbish. People retire when they can afford to and there is no evidence that people have changed. I think that the Treasury study is consistent with that. I believe there is no difference in attitude [to retirement] from previous generations.” Manual worker, Murray*, is a 55-year-old linesman who has worked in the outdoors doing heavy work all his life. He started as a school leaver, and today works as a surveyor monitoring power fluctuations through the lines system. It is solitary work and whilst still quite physical, it is not the heavy work he formerly did digging trenches, repairing underground wires and filling them in again. But he misses the company of his workmates. As he pulled on his high-viz vest and safety helmet, I brightly suggested that he should take care up the ladder and he replied, “I’m too old for this, it’s hard work climbing up and down ladders all day.” I asked when he would retire and he replied, “I’d love to retire but I can’t, I’m only 55 and I’ve got a family and a mortgage. My wife works as a nurse and we just have to keep going as long as we can.”
55
Pecha Kucha BY ~ JESSICA SOUTAR BARROn
Bee in the know ~ sep/ oct 2012
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Sushi is a credible metaphor for another Japanese import: pecha kucha. Also served up in small portions, as diverse in flavour as any sushi train, pecha kucha is food for the mind, japanese style. My arguably over-egged metaphor is a crutch. Used here mainly because pecha kucha is so tricky to describe. Some have likened it to an open mic night, but PK presenters are prearranged so there is no ‘open mic’. Others call it stand-up comedy’s nerdy brother, but then as many tears as guffaws have been shared at PK nights. Up until this year PK was something Bayers experienced in the bustling metropoli of Sydney and Melbourne, Auckland, Wellington and … ummm … Gisborne. But late last year Creative Hawke’s Bay – at the time transmogrifying into “an agile enabler of The Creative Conversation” – tapped into the PK phenomenon. It felt the perfect channel to facilitate creative chatter in the Bay in a relaxed, open and accessible way.
Sushi is easy to eat. It comes in bite-sized pieces. And in a range of tastes, so there’s something for everyone. If you try a bit and it’s not to your liking you haven’t committed much and it’s easy to move on to the next flavour.
The formula is simple: Anyone on any subject; twenty images, twenty seconds each; six minutes forty seconds to hold the audience; a bar; an MC. As with all successful gigs – he tangata, he tangata, he tangata – it’s the people that make it fly: those in the audience and those at the lectern. Everyone has their own favourite PK presentation. Andy Heyward on Mona Lisa, Rich Brimer on Bad Design, Perry Davies on fire escapes, Maree Taylor on rare Hawke’s Bay plants, Dick Frizzell on Antarctica. It’s an ephemeral experience, even when taped and YouTubed nothing beats being among like-minded souls who have the patience and energy to hear a good story. Even the ‘boring bits’ have a certain charm, like Grandpa’s slide shows back in 1978. And although people ask consistently from about two weeks out who is speaking and on what, it’s often the ‘unknowns’ who have the best stories. We have to be mindful to move away from celebrity towards the
truths, peculiarities and triumphs of the Everyman, which is quite reassuring as it opens the floor up to all of us. August marks the third of four PK in the Bay this year. We’ve scheduled them every two months through the winter from April to October. Our last PK2012 will be on October 10th. It’s a Wednesday. More details here: www.facebook.com/pechakuchahb And even on a Wednesday PK certainly pulls a crowd. There were 140 at the first one held in the Clive Hall, and 200 at the second, also in Clive. Around the world there’s pecha kucha happening every day in over 530 cities. Hawke’s Bay is a special case, we’re one of only a very few districts awarded a licence by PKHQ in Tokyo – still run by originators Klein Dytham, who first thought it up and rolled it out ten years ago, around the same time Creative
PECHA KUCHA Photos by Tim Whittaker ~ tim.co.nz
PK Presenters from Wed 15 Aug Gerard Barron Dr Suzette Major Richard Wood Paul (Dutch) Sandkuijl Ngahiwi Tomoana Lee Pritchard Jo Pearson Hal Josephson Mary Kippenberger
Japanese, like a sneeze please
own compatriots – some jet-setters, some home-bodies – it’s truly local and truly global in equal measure. At Creative Hawke’s Bay, a body established to support the development of professional artists, we have been asked whether we can credibly include ‘nonartists’ in our PK nights. But we believe wholeheartedly that life is art and storytelling is the central creative impulse and output of all human beings. It’s satisfying and rewarding to help create a space in which that can manifest itself so simply.
Bee in the know ~ sep/ oct 2012
Hawke’s Bay was born. [As a side point, we had to jump through a few hoops to show that Hastings and Napier could work together to make PK happen. When PK International granted the licence they said how obvious it was to them that the two cities were so close they could credibly be counted as a single authority – just saying.] There’s something heartening about being part of a world-wide happening, especially when it’s in the comfort of your own quirky venues, listening to your
Remember to tell all your friends about pecha kucha, Japanese for chit-chat, and if you do you should learn to say it correctly. That’s the tricky bit. Each syllable has the same weighting, which is a challenge in English where we generally put the emphasis on one specific part of the word. One way to attempt it is to sing along to the Muppet song Mahna Mahna, but instead of Ma-na-ma-na put in pe-cha-ku-cha. Last resort: go online, there’s a dozen different videos that talk you through it.
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BRENDAN WEBB
War of Words The black caped figure strode quickly through the alleyways of Napierion. As the figure reached Fortress Barbarossa, the closely-guarded headquarters of Barbarous Arnottus, Napierion’s legendary woman leader, he smiled to himself. Neelus The Tailor had secretly followed the Labourite cult leader, Steward of Gnash, when he’d met the old hag known as the The Oracle of Ahurirum down on Napierion’s west shore that morning. He had heard her telling The Steward about her vision of a tall, dark, bearded man sitting on a throne. Barbarous would reward him well for his watchfulness. Neelus had begun in his father’s humble tailor’s shop, before deciding that cutting cloaks and repairing robes was not for him. He had quietly worked himself up through the town’s administrative ranks to become Municipalus Manipulatus, the key figure behind the throne of Napierion. Neelus prided himself on the wall of secrecy he had built up around Fortress Barbarossa that shielded Napierion from jealous prying eyes. It was his lifetime’s legacy. But these were uncertain times. If The Steward of Gnash and his rabble of supporters toppled Barbarous for the town’s leadership, the wall of secrecy could be dismantled and Neelus could see himself back at his old toga classes.
Bee in the know ~ sep/ oct 2012
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A few leagues away, a group of centurions trudged along the Awatotus shoreline, their shields and breastplates gleaming in the bright Spring sunlight. As they reached the southern entrance to Napierion, they encountered sentries and the small army’s leader, Lawrencus Yulus, signalled a halt. The ruler of the Hustings district held aloft his banner, a rampant blue lion above crossed red boots. Lawrencus cleared his throat. “Friends, Romans, countrymen . . .” he began. “No we’re not,” interrupted a sentry. “We’re your enemies, not your friends. We’re Napierions, not Romans and you lot are the country bumpkins. You lot have statues worshipping sheep,” he said
Lawrencus Yulus
The Steward of Gnash
to laughter from his fellow guards. “We’re a popular tourist destination, preserved as it was at the time of the great earthquake of 32AD – best thing that ever happened to the place if you ask me.” Lawrencus smiled grimly. He tried again. “Enemies, Napierions, tourism hotspot dwellers . . . lend me your ears.” “Oh here we go,” yelled the sentry. “Old Lawrencus Yulus wants to borrow again. Try saving up your own ears mate and leave ours alone. If you are having trouble hearing, it’s because you’re up to your ears in debt.” “I have come to tell Napierions that you should not fear the amalgamation of our two fiefdoms,” said Lawrencus. “Rome wasn’t built in a day.” “We never said it was,” said the sentry. His colleagues nodded. Lawrencus’ right hand strayed toward his broadsword as he gazed at the sentry, but he held back. He glanced at a piece of parchment in his other hand. “The darkest hour is just before dawn,” he said after a few minutes. “Not this morning it wasn’t mate,” said the sentry, examining something he’d found in his ear. “It was a full moon. The place was lit up like daylight when we took over from the nightshift. We could see you lot coming over the bridge at Clivus two hours ago.” “Well then, it’s an ill wind that blows
nobody good,” Lawrencus offered. “Don’t know what you mean about an ill wind,” said the sentry. “We do get the odd whiff from the outfall at Awatotus but nothing like the stink those poor sods at East Clivus fort have to put up with. I pity them. Nobody thinks that’s good.” “Every cloud has a silver lining then,” Lawrencus retorted. “Silver? Grey you mean. Ah, that’ll be a wet easterly coming,” said the sentry, glancing out to sea. “I wouldn’t hang around here too long in that case. You’ll have a wet backside going home, specially in that little leather skirt you’re wearing. Goes well with those boots, mind you,” he nodded approvingly. A red mist flooded Lawrencus’ vision and he gripped the handle of his sword. Its highly polished blade flashed a dazzling beam across the faces of the guards. “Oi!” bellowed the sentry. “You could have blinded us with that. My eyes are my livelihood. I’ve got a wife, two mistresses and six Nubian slaves to maintain. My job description is ‘lookout’ or ‘night watchman’. Who’s going to employ a blind sentry?” Lawrencus stared at the man, then nodded. He looked down the list of suggested sayings his advisors had prepared. “All roads lead to Rome,” he said after a while. The sentry shook his head. “Not this one, Puss in Boots. It leads to the port and into the sea. I don’t know where it leads south. I’ve never been beyond these walls.” Lawrencus turned over the parchment. There was nothing on the other side. “I’ve got a couple for you Lawrencus,” the sentry said. “How about: A fool and his money are soon parted?” There was silence. A seagull squawked overhead. “Okay then,” said the sentry. “Here’s one: ‘Never in the field of human conflict, has so much been owed by so many to so few’.” Lawrencus looked up at the smiling guard, puzzled. “What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked. “That’s what Napierions say about Hustings’ debt,” grinned the sentry.
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