BB#40-Mar-Apr-2018 by BayBuzz

I S S U E N O. 4 0 • M A R C H /A P R I L 2 0 1 8 • $ 8 . 0 0 I N C L U D I N G G S T

Events

36 happenings not to miss

The

Great Divide

9 772253 262016

Little & Fox: fabric heaven Councils need big dollars to fix water woes AI will take over your life! Energiewende: Germany’s energy transition Poet Laureate in Hawke’s Bay Exploring Elsthorpe

Craggy track: gift or scar?

M A R C H/A PR IL 2 0 1 8

BayBuzz March/April 2018 This Month Inside story on the Craggy track. Artifical intelligence (AI) is taking over. HB can learn from local energy plans in Germany. Extraordinary camera collection lives in the Bay. Councils planning big spends to improve water dependability. A feast of fabrics and interior design. NZ Poet Laureate honour rooted in HB. Plus fitness for seniors, Baddeley rants on eateries, Paynter appeals for more risk, blind cricket, discovering Elsthorpe, special events, stuff you must know, and more.

Cover photo: Craggy Range by Tim Whittaker Above: Elsthorpe by Florence Charvin

MARCH/APRIL 2018 â&#x20AC;˘ BAYBUZZ â&#x20AC;˘ 1

Features

CRAGGY TRACK LEAVES SCAR Mark Sweet How did it happen? And what next?

ARTIFICAL INTELLIGENCE MOVES BEYOND SCI-FI Keith Newman AI will affect everything … our work, play, social interaction

ENERGY LESSONS FROM GERMANY Bridget Freeman-Rock Germany’s smart local energy use should inspire HB

POLITICAL UPDATE Tom Belford Councils’ investment plans finally admit water systems neglect

SNAPSHOTS IN TIME Keith Newman Colin Trevelyan’s rare cameras have stories to tell

Bee in the Know

BEE IN THE KNOW Lizzie Russell

EVENTS 36 of the Bay’s best happenings

DID YOU KNOW? Improving your Hawke’s Bay IQ

2 • BAYBUZZ • MARCH/APRIL 2018

Photo: Florence Charvin

80 Ideas & Opinions

OPPORTUNITY KNOCKS FOR HAWKE’S BAY Stuart Nash Here’s what new Government means for Hawke’s Bay

JOHN ROUND: FUELING DEBATE Sarah Cates John Round wants you to think

Culture & Lifestyle

MORE RISK, PLEASE Paul Paynter We’re being stifled by rules

LEST WE FORGET Andrew Frame Napier’s War Memorial debate continues

EXERCISING IN THE SILVER YEARS Sarah Cates

WINDS OF CHANGE Kent Baddeley

THE FABRIC OF HOME Michal McKay

POETRY ROOTED IN HAWKE’S BAY Lizzie Russell

DISCOVER ELSTHORPE Bridget Freeman-Rock

LETTER FROM THE COUNTRY Mary Kippenberger

MARCH/APRIL 2018 • BAYBUZZ • 3

BayBuzz Regulars

Articles online at: baybuzz.co.nz Editorial enquiries editors@baybuzz.co.nz Advertising enquiries Carlee Atkin carlee@baybuzz.co.nz 021 074 8678

The BayBuzz Team

EDITOR: Tom Belford ASSOCIATE EDITOR: Michal McKay ASSISTANT EDITOR: Lizzie Russell SENIOR WRITERS: Bridget Freeman-Rock; Keith Newman; Mark Sweet; Tom Belford COLUMNISTS: Andrew Frame; Mary Kippenberger; Matt Miller; Paul Paynter; Sarah Cates EDITOR’S RIGHT HAND: Brooks Belford PHOTOGRAPHY: Tim Whittaker; Sarah Cates; Florence Charvin ILLUSTRATION: Brett Monteith DESIGN: Unit Design Max Parkes; Giselle Reid ADVERT ART MANAGEMENT: TK Design ADVERTISING SALES & MARKETING: Carlee Atkin ONLINE: Mogul BUSINESS MANAGER: Bernadette Magee PRINTING: Format Print SOCIAL MEDIA: Liz Nes

BayBuzz, PO Box 8322, Havelock North ISSN 2253-2625 (Print) ISSN 2253-2633 (Online)

This document is printed on an environmentally reponsible paper produced using Elemental Chlorine Free (ECF) pulp sourced from Sustainable & Legally Harvested Farmed Trees, and manufactured under the strict ISO14001 Environmental Management System.

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SARAH CATES Originally from London, Sarah has made Hawke’s Bay her home. Some know her as a bossy aqua-fit instructor commanding a group of over60s. Others, as a mother – rearing four vibrant children. Or the photographer, catching a moment of magic. And the writer – times of complete immersion.

ANDREW FRAME Andrew Frame is a 40-year-old husband, father, and life-long Napier resident. He writes the www.napierinframe.co.nz website and promotes all things Hawke's Bay on social media.

BRIDGET FREEMAN-ROCK Bridget, Hawke's Bay grown, lived abroad in Australia and Germany before returning with her family in 2009. She has a fairly eclectic, free-range writing vocation, freelancing as a writer, copy-editor, translator and occasional performance poet.

MARY KIPPENBERGER With a degree in anthropology, Mary is a keen observer of the human species, and interprets our foibles, trials and tribulations as a superb storyteller and children’s writer. Her farm in Otane is a regular home for drama and music workshops, festivals and performances.

MICHAL MCKAY Michal McKay has spent most of her working life involved in the world of style. And living in “other” parts of the world. A year ago Havelock North became her home. The arts, interior design, cooking, travel and a new cuddly canine keep the spark in her eye. So does writing about the same.

MATT MILLER Matt Miller co-owns web company Mogul Limited, based in Havelock North, but serving clients around the world, including BayBuzz. His beat for BayBuzz is digital trends and best practice.

KEITH NEWMAN Keith is a journo with over 45 years’ experience across mainstream and trade media. He’s won awards for writing about hi-tech, produced music programmes for Radio NZ and published five books, one on the internet in New Zealand and four on New Zealand history.

PAUL PAYNTER Paul Paynter is our resident iconoclast and cider maker. Sometimes he grows stuff at Yummyfruit.

LIZZIE RUSSELL Lizzie has been working in the arts and communications in Hawke’s Bay since returning in 2010. Along with her work for BayBuzz, she also runs Tennyson Gallery in Napier

MARK SWEET Napier-born, Mark worked in Hong Kong and Scotland, before returning to Hawke’s Bay, and establishing Pacifica restaurant. Re creating himself as a writer, Mark’s first novel Zhu Mao was published in 2011. His next novel, Of Good and Evil, will be published soon.

FLORENCE CHARVIN

TIM WHITTAKER

Hawke's Bay is the adopted home of French photographer Florence Charvin. Florence likes to photograph people and what they are passionate about.

‘Born & bred’ in Hawke’s Bay, Tim has 25 years experience in photojournalism and professional photography. He’s a fixed wing and drone pilot, shooting unique elevated photos and videos.

EIT En rolmen Target: tV 17-18 ye ar old s ideo tudents Views to date: 18,000 plus indelib le.co.nz W /video/ atch it: hardco re-park our/

TARGETED VIDEO Know your audience. Create an engaging script they can relate to. Capture and edit it in a style that grabs and holds their attention. Show it in the places where they hang out. Get your message across and make them act on it. Target your video. Target your audience.

06 842 2383 indelible.co.nz 1 Dickens Street, Napier

FROM THE EDITOR TOM BELFORD

Potted Plants Hawke’s Bay’s voters have elected 49 representatives as councillors to our various territorial authorities and the regional council, plus four mayors. The mayors (and the Regional Council chairman) can’t help but be busy, given the presumption that these are full-time jobs. If nothing else, they are officially the single point of interaction with the paid staff of their councils. Although even that oversight is officially limited to their council’s chief executive, who by law is solely responsible for ‘management’. So what do all these councillors do? Recent evidence is … in far too many cases, not much. In the local bodies, they seem to follow a tradition of mainly being ‘watered’ by their mayors and chief executives … like potted plants. Of course, for councillors that brings the advantage of avoiding responsibility when things go wrong. Here are some recent examples. Take the highly controversial Craggy Range track. Although HDC staff knew of Craggy’s plans back in May, we’re told that twelve councillors knew nothing in advance about a proposal to build a walking/mountain biking track up the east face of the most highly valued and protected landscape in the entire Hastings District Plan! One other councillor sitting on the Te Mata Peak Trust board did know (but sounded no alarm) and the second councillor on that board ‘missed the meeting’. [In contrast, regional councillors, at our insistence, each receive a weekly report identifying every consent applied for. We can’t say, ‘We didn’t know!’] After having their wrists slapped by the independent QC reviewer of their ‘oversight’, HDC’s 14 councillors, after perfunctory discussion in public session (which mostly underscored their ignorance of the Resource Management Act), have now shunted

6 • BAYBUZZ • MARCH/APRIL 2018

So what do all these councillors do? Recent evidence is … in far too many cases, not much.

into a ‘workshop’ (i.e., out of public sight) their consideration of what needs to be done to prevent a re-occurrence of such a process (and substance) travesty. Nor have any of these councillors indicated whether they are prepared to spend ratepayer dollars to defend the consent that has been awarded, but will certainly be legally challenged, should Craggy Range renege on its current public commitment to remove the track. Behaviour like this understandably creates doubt as to how well-briefed councillors ever were, are now, or ever want to be on far more complex matters, like the state of Hastings District’s drinking water and wastewater infrastructure. But Hastings is not alone. CHB, after being mandated ten years ago by the Environment Court to clean up its waste flowing into the Tukituki, still can’t get the job done. Indeed, in that time the challenge has grown bigger. Now a new mayor and council seem to be facing up to the harsh realities in their draft Long Term Plan (LTP). Said Mayor Alex Walker recently, “The sad truth is adequate renewal investment into our core infrastructure has not been a possibility for years because of affordability and financial constraints.” I suggest the major ‘constraint’ was her elected predecessors’ political neglect. Napier, if anything, is worse. Here’s a city mainly below sea level, whose

storm and wastewater needs to be pumped into the Bay on a good day. But bring a bad rain and this wastewater comes up through the manholes … if not released instead into the Ahuriri Estuary, as was done last April with 2.5 million litres of wastewater. Says the responsible manager, “mitigating risks to human health (i.e., avoiding sewage coming through manholes into the streets of Taradale) will always take priority over the condition of the estuary environment”. Where are Napier City councillors through all of this? Instead of pounding the council table and demanding a better choice than s**t in the street or s**t in the estuary, they’re either deadly silent or busy promoting more baubles for Marine Parade. Wairoa has its own share of water infrastructure issues coming to the fore as well. Across the region, with rare exceptions, councillors are dormant and invisible. Name a councillor who maintains a blog, website, or e-newsletter for serious ongoing discussion of the issues facing their council. At best we see some ‘photo opportunity’ Facebook pages and the (very) occasional letter to the editor or talking point. It’s time to wake up your councillors. And the LTP processes underway now at each council provide your opportunity to test their diligence. Potted plants that just flower at election time are not good enough.

Tom Belford

tom@baybuzz.co.nz Tom is a HB Regional Councillor. His past includes the Carter White House, building Ted Turner’s first philanthropic organisation, doing heaps of marketing consulting for major nonprofits and corporates. Tom writes an acclaimed blog for professional NGO fundraisers and communicators in North America and Europe.

Illustration: Brett Montieth

MARCH/APRIL 2018 • BAYBUZZ • 7

BEE IN THE KNOW

Photo: Tim Whittaker. tim.co.nz

HERO PHOTO

Alex Walker Alex Walker was elected CHB’s new mayor in October 2016, winning her first elective office. She brought to the table a master’s degree in microbiology, agri-business experience in the multi-national corporate space, and local business

8 • BAYBUZZ • MARCH/APRIL 2018

experience via her start-up, The Chook House, an advisory service and professional space for people in small businesses. It’s motto: Get Cracking! Education, music and drama round out her interests. Alex inherited a daunting raft of problems, especially related to water infrastructure. But she indeed got cracking and has impressed BayBuzz

and others by tackling these head-on with candour and transparency. The long-term plan proposed by mayor Walker and her council asks CHB ratepayers to dig deeply to invest in a sustainable future. CHB voters opted for fresh eyes and a step-change in capability in selecting Alex. Now they will need to consider whether to support her leadership with their wallets.

Better Futures Report 3. Increasing Cost of Living

7. Cleaning Up New Zealand’s Waterways

4. Suicide Rates

8. Pollution of Lakes and Seas

1. Violence in Society

5. Build-up of Plastic in the Environment

9. Lack of Affordable Housing

2. Protection of New Zealand Children

6. Not Having Access to Good, Affordable Heathcare

10. Drugs / Alcohol Addiction in Society

Sustainability at work:

Big numbers:

73%

68%

64%

91%

55%

83%

Market research leader Colmar Brunton have been conducting research and releasing annual reports for seven years on New Zealand consumers’ changing attitudes and behaviours regarding sustainability. Their 2017 Better Futures Report offers the following insights into our thinking and actions.

Our top ten concerns:

69% 68%

68% 64% 63% 62%

say it’s important to work for a company that is socially and environmentally responsible

of Kiwis would rather work for a company with strong values even if they are paid less

agree that it’s only the most innovative and progressive businesses that take sustainability seriously

60% 60% 59% 58%

of Kiwis agree that climate change is the biggest problem the world is facing today

believe that ALL New Zealanders are responsible for improving the quality of our waterways

would stop buying a company’s products if they heard about them being irresponsible or unethical

MARCH/APRIL 2018 • BAYBUZZ • 9

BayBuzz Event Guide

March John Butler Trio at Church Road

9-11

Tremains Affordable Art Exhibition at Napier Girls’ High School Support Napier Girls’ High School annual fundraiser where you’ll find over 300 original artworks by around 80 New Zealand artists, including Cam Munroe, Angela Maritz, Barbara Franklet, Christine Parnell, Mat Scott and Tony Harrington. Also select work by teachers and students. affordableartex.nz

MCL Construction Triple Peaks Management of this iconic HB running event has changed, and there’s a new course, but the local flavour remains. Competitors can run, walk or mountain bike the 50 kms course which traverses private land on Mount Erin, Mount Kahuranaki and Te Mata Peak as individuals or as part of a three-person relay team. triplepeaks.co.nz

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Maraekakaho Country Market Day Make the jaunt (it’s only 15 mins from Hastings) out to Maraekakaho for the annual country market day and enjoy local produce, coffee, baking and gourmet foods, crafts, toys, clothing, jewellery, furniture, landscaping plants, art and entertainment. fb: MaraekakahoCountryMarketDay

MADE (Music And Dance Event) for a Cause at Napier Municipal Theatre Hawke’s Bay Indian Cultural Centre (HBICC) presents MADE for the third year in a row, in support of Kidney Kids NZ. A three-course Indian meal will be followed by a 90-minute classical dance and music performance. napiermunicipaltheatre.co.nz

Summer Sessions at Abbey Cellars

10+

Summer Sessions at Abbey Cellars March 10 + March 17, 24, 31 Relax in the sun with pizzas, platters, Abbey Cellars wines and Fat Monk craft beers, while entertained by some top local musical talent. eventfinda.co.nz

Church Road Live Summer Sessions With a line-up of Annabelle & Ash, JR and Ritchie and Ian Munro on the stage and foodtruck Vagabond Jack’s serving their tasty treats, this sounds like an ideal way to wile away a Sunday. eventfinda.co.nz

Alliance Française French Film Festival

Heart Kids Charity Golf Day at Napier Golf Club Here’s a great way to support Heart Kids and the work they do locally, helping out around 200 Hawke’s Bay families. Register a team and be sure to bid in the fundraising auction. eventfinda.co.nz

13-19

Horse of the Year NZ’s most prestigious equestrian event takes over the Hastings A&P Showgrounds. An extravaganza of showjumping, dressage and eventing competition, as well as shopping (food, fashion, lifestyle, home and equestrian supplies). hoy.kiwi

CMNZ Presents: Anderson & Roe Piano Duo at MTG Century Theatre Bold, modern and energetic, Anderson and Roe take their audience on a wild journey through Bernstein, Stravinsky and Piazzolla, to Mozart, The Beatles and Leonard Cohen, with consummate skill and artistry that will electrify audiences. eventfinda.co.nz

Laura Collins and the Back Porch Blues Band at Rumpy BayBuzz columnist Mary Kippenberger and whānau host Laura Collins and the Back Porch Blues Band at their CHB venue “Rumpy” for a night of Fats Domino, Beth Hart, Bonnie Raitt, Nina Simone, John Lee Hooker, some of Laura’s own and others she can put her stamp on, all with their roots in the blues. More information: Mary Kippenberger 06 856 8367

21+

Alliance Française French Film Festival at Event Cinemas, Havelock North March 21 – April 4 NZ’s annual Francophile film fest rolls into Havelock and as always, promises a delicious mix of entertainment from familiar faces to off-beat drama. frenchfilmfestival.co.nz

Harcourts Hastings City Night Market - Hawke’s Bay Harvest There are a bunch of themed night markets amidst the regular offerings this summer/autumn. Check out the food trucks and fresh produce on a balmy Thursday evening. hastingscitymarkets.co.nz

Scott Clinic Ironkids Triathlon – Race 3 Get the kids involved in this fun series which sees 7-10 year olds take on 100m swim, 2km cycle and 1km run, and the 11-13 year olds hit 200m swim, 4km cycle and 2km run. trihb.kiwi

Gut Health Talk at St Thomas More Catholic Church Hall, Napier Join speakers Anita from The Kefir Company, Louise from Pacific Harvest and Kathryn from The Vegery as they provide extensive knowledge and support on everything to do with gut health. eventfinda.co.nz

18+

Fraser Mack at Crab Farm March 18 (and April 1, 6, 13, 20) Make your way to Bayview for Fraser Mack’s distinctive tapping, picking, strumming style as he rolls through his set of acoustic covers and originals. eventfinda.co.nz

Shed 2 Triathlon and Duathlon Race #5 At each of these events there are three different races offering distances and options to suit everyone from beginners to hard-core athletes. Walkers are welcome and there’s a kids’ aquathlon too. trihb.kiwi

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Kaimoana at the Park at Moana Park Combine Moana Park wines, beers from New Zealand Craft Breweries and a range of fresh seafood prepared onsite for a delicious Easter Saturday. eventfinda.co.nz

April 6+

Oliver! At the Tabard Theatre, Napier April 6 – 28 Experience the streets of Victorian England through the cast and crew of the Napier Operatic Society as they bring this iconic musical to life at the Tabard. napieroperatic.org.nz The Big Easy

The Marriage of Figaro at Central Hawke’s Bay Municipal Theatre, Waipawa Check out one of the world’s favourite opera’s in one of our favourite venues. This new adaptation by writer/soprano Georgia Jamieson Emms is performed in English and features a cast of singers from New Zealand Opera. eventfinda.co.nz

John Butler Trio at Church Road Seeing this multi-award winning Australian blues and roots act live at Church Road sounds like an ideal way to spend Good Friday in the Bay. eventfinda.co.nz

30+

The Extravaganza Fair at Anderson Park, Napier March 30 – April 2, then at the Havelock North Domain April 7 – 8 Ideal for the whole family, this travelling event features market stalls, arts and craft, food, musical entertainment, circus shows, performers, tiny homes, and kids shows & games. eventfinda.co.nz

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The Little Easy, CHB and Wairoa The Little Easy CHB is a gentle 12km meander on the Rotary River Pathway, including the brand new 100m-long swing bridge over the Tukituki River. The Wairoa ride is a cruisy 5-10km ride. Both make great options for easing into Easter. thebigeasy.co.nz

Magpie Market at the Meeanee Hall Check out the monthly collectible market for craft and collectibles stalls, clothing, jewellery, natural therapies, antiques and coffee of course. eventfinda.co.nz

The Big Easy This year’s family-friendly Easter ride starts out at Black Barn and takes 42kms of tasty stops along the Hawke’s Bay Trails to end up at the after party at Church Road. thebigeasy.co.nz

The Enchanted Forest Ball HB’s newest major event promises “the sensory delights of the forest, locallysourced produce and summertime in Hawke’s Bay”. The location is top secret until the night but there’s certain to be an abundance of great food & beverages plus music from Wellington-based The Avenue, and Auckland-based Black White Dynamite and Mr Mime. eventfinda.co.nz

The Chapelwick Fair, Porangahau

The Chapelwick Fair, Porangahau If a country drive and a Devonshire tea sound like a great day out then head to Chapelwick to see the gorgeous homestead and the fair stalls plus loads of fun for the kids. eventfinda.co.nz

Napier Port Harbour to Hills Finish up the season with a 2km ocean swim, 95km ride and then a 21km run (two laps of the Rotary Pathway) in this destination triathlon. harbourtohills.co.nz

Phantasm

Taradale Village Fete

Taradale Village Fete This year’s fete promises over 80 stalls, from baking to a bouncy castle and from coffee and handmade sweets to plants, woodwork and art. eventfinda.co.nz

Pecha Kucha at Havelock North Function Centre Here’s your chance to hear short stories and tall tales from 8-10 locals brave enough to take the stage and entertain the crowd in the international Pecha Kucha format.fb: pechakuchahb

Napier Port HB Primary Sector Awards Dinner The Hawke’s Bay A&P Society presents the awards night which will see the announcement of major category winners including the Silver Fern Farms Hawke’s Bay Farmer of the Year and the Bayleys Hawke’s Bay Primary Sector Professional of the Year. eventfinda.co.nz

Poets’ Night Out at Havelock North Function Centre Current New Zealand Poet Laureate Selina Tusitala Marsh, accompanied by poet friends, will share work and insights during a very special night of poetry as part of the weekend-long inauguration celebrations. eventfinda.co.nz

The Frank Burkitt Band

The Frank Burkitt Band Album Release at The Common Room Fresh from their debut Australian tour, The Frank Burkitt Band will be performing tracks from their new album ‘Raconteur’, featuring their original music inspired by jazz, blues, folk, swing, soul and all things American roots. eventfinda.co.nz

Lake Tutira Off Road Half Marathon, 12k & 5k Trail Run This picturesque off-road event over a challenging course offers options for distances and walkers are also welcome on the 12km and 5km routes. hbtrailrun.co.nz

SuperStock Autumn Nationals and Fireworks This is the final event of the stocks season and promises plenty of action. Drivers from around the country are expected to descend on Meeanee for the MotorWorks Hawke’s Bay SuperStock Autumn Nationals. Plenty of refreshments available, plus a fireworks display to mark the end of another busy season at the speedway. eventfinda.co.nz

May 1

CMNZ Presents: Phantasm at MTG Century Theatre The Phantasm consort is known as the world’s finest viol ensemble. In Napier they will perform their rich repertoire from the golden age of the viol consort, with music by William Byrd, Orlando Gibbons, Matthew Locke and Henry Purcell, and then conclude with excerpts from Bach’s profound Art of Fugue. eventfinda.co.nz

Heath Franklin's Chopper

Heath Franklin’s Chopper–Bogan Jesus at Napier Municipal Theatre Star of 7 Days, and Chopper’s Republic of Anzakistan, Heath Franklin returns to take a long, hard, bogan look at religion and what civilisation has to show for it, from terrorism and war to Christian rock. eventfinda.co.nz

MARCH/APRIL 2018 • BAYBUZZ • 13

BEE IN THE KNOW

Water

How much do you use? FLUSHING TOILET

SHOWER

FULL FLUSH

PER MINUTE

6 litres USING TAPS The average person in New Zealand uses 227 litres of water per day. Half the world’s population uses 95 litres per day. In Hastings district, per person water use averages 500 litres per day; in Napier, about 436 litres per day. Using the following measures, you can estimate your water use.

The Robots Are Coming

14 • BAYBUZZ • MARCH/APRIL 2018

10 litres PER MINUTE

15 litres BATH

90 litres

WASHING DISHES

WASHING MACHINE

(BY HAND)

FULL LOAD

6 litres

100 litres

DRINKING WATER

COOKING, ABOUT

PER PERSON PER DAY

PER POT

3 litres A new report released by PwC says we as a global workforce will feel the effects of three waves of employment-affecting automation over the next couple of decades. The study – Will robots really steal our jobs? An international analysis of the potential long term impact of automation – analysed the tasks and skills involved in the jobs of over 200,000 workers across 29 countries in order to assess the potential impact of automation on workers in different industry sectors and of different genders, ages and education levels. The first wave, known as a ‘Flood of algorithms’ is already here, affecting data analysis and simple digital tasks, which are being taken over by technology. The second wave, ‘Augmentation inundation’, is expected to arrive in the mid to late 2020s and concerns repeatable tasks and

1.5 litres the exchange of information, as in financial data analysis, and will come to be done by humans and automated systems working together. The final wave is called the ‘Autonomy tsunami’. Starting by the mid-2030s, machines and software will make decisions and take physical actions, like driving cars, with little or no human help. Looking to the UK workforce, the PwC researchers predict that up to 30% of UK jobs could be potentially impacted by automation by the early 2030s. The study suggests that more women will initially be impacted by the rise of automation, whereas men are more likely to feel the effects in the third wave by the mid-2030s. Elsewhere in this BayBuzz, Keith Newman probes the implications of artificial intelligence, and in our next edition, he’ll look at robotics use here in Hawke’s Bay.

At Caci we understand that when you look your best, you feel your best. At Caci we treat your skin and body concerns, such as lines and wrinkles, pigmentation, unwanted hair and stubborn body fat. With over 40 locations nationwide and more than 20 years’ experience, we’ve learnt a lot along the way - including that the best way to get truly long lasting results is with a tailored plan of treatments.

At Caci we can customise a treatment plan to give you the best possible results, in a time frame and budget that suits you. Simply choose from: •

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When you sign up to any treatment plan at Caci you will enjoy: •

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0800 458 458 caci.co.nz

And your skincare plan doesn’t end at the clinic. Caci are stockists of Murad Skincare and Caci’s own skincare brand Ki. This means that our team of experts can help assist you in creating the perfect at-home skincare regime to compliment your treatment plan. To book your free consultation contact the team at Caci Havelock North or Napier: 0800

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458 458 or visit caci.co.nz

BEE IN THE KNOW

Did You Know? Napier house values rose 17% year on year and 4.1% in the final quarter of 2017. The average value in the city is now

$478,059 Hawke’s Bay has over

A recent Marketview report shows that New Zealand’s under-30s spend 20% of their disposable income on food and drink, outpacing other age groups. That figure has more than doubled over the last eight years and is now almost twice what they spend on clothing.

The annual shortfall in Cranford Hospice’s budget which needs to be met by fundraising and donations is $2.8 million, or $7,700 per day.

AROUND 7.6 MILLION TONNES

of soil are lost from our region’s land every year, mainly through waterways.

16 • BAYBUZZ • MARCH/APRIL 2018

350 22,000 247

and values are now 40.5 per cent above the previous peak of 2007. In Hastings, prices were up 17.6% year on year and 3.6% over the quarter, with the market 41.6 % higher than 2007. The average value there is now $441,307.

kilometres of open coast & estuary shoreline.

kilometres of rivers & streams.

kilometres of stopbanks.

Hawke’s Bay has

3,780 PERSONS

with total annual personal income over $100,000, representing 3% of our population aged 15 years and over. In contrast, 41,568, or 35%, have incomes less than $20,000.

The oceanarium (big fish tank) at the National Aquarium in Napier holds 1.5 million litres of water and over 1500 fish in its two compartments.

Average rates paid to our various councils last fiscal year, per rating unit:

CHB-$2,406 HDC-$2,249 NCC-$1,999 WDC-$1,601 HBRC-$251

Two places we’re hearing great foodie buzz about are

Go With the Flow Hawkes Bay (you’ll find them on Facebook) is a recently established not-for-profit organisation which distributes sanitary items to those in need through various charities, organisations and schools. They’re always after donations (either monetary or in kind) to help girls and women right here in the Bay.

PIKU IZAKAYA

at the Red Barrel, Havelock North (open until April), where chef Ben Harper gives a Japanese twist to tapas and

HUNGER MONGER

on Marine Parade in Napier where owner/chef Fraser Slack is sharing his love of kaimoana.

The Hawke’s Bay Trails cover over

220KM of cycleways.

There are approximately

The average garden hose delivers 1,000 litres of water in an hour if you have sprinklers on.

The fourth biggest brewery in New Zealand is quietly snuggled in Ahuriri.

3.1 MILLION LITRES

of water to fill Splash Planet for a summer of fun with 100,000 visits.

587

building consents were issued in Hawke’s Bay in 2017, with the highest number – 74 – in May.

Central Hawke’s Bay artist Vivienne Hollings-Haddon has opened new gallery, Artistically Inclined, at Pukehou, just opposite the primary school. You can check it out on Facebook.

The region is home to 200 lakes, with 90% of them privately owned.

Hot tip for foodies: the team at Cape Kidnappers has organised Tour de Chef, a food and wine cycling tour of Hawke's Bay featuring star chef Josh Emett and international cheese expert Juliet Harbutt (who hails from Havelock North) over the weekend of May 25 – 27.

24,000

aircraft movements per year at Hawke’s Bay Airport. Currently listed by

AIRBNB:306 Hawke’s Bay homes and dwellings. The retail spend in Hawke’s Bay for the first 28 days of 2018 was

$117.2 MILLION This represents a decrease of 17.8% against the previous month (December, think Christmas), but an increase of 5.2% year-on-year. MARCH/APRIL 2018 • BAYBUZZ • 17

BEE IN THE KNOW

Hot Hot Hot

1.0 degree

143 km/h The highest wind gust was 143 km/h, observed at Mt Kaukau (Wellington) on 6 January

The lowest temperature was 1.0°C, observed at Manapouri on 7 January

37.6 degrees The highest temperature was observed on 30 January at Clyde

223 mm

The highest 1-day rainfall was 223 mm, recorded at Takaka on 17 January

21.7° 22.7° 21.3° 23.0° NAPIER HASTINGS WAIPAWA WAIROA Average Highs: Hawke’s Bay temperatures crushed records in January. All of these were 2.9c – 4.1c higher than what has been thought of as ‘normal’. It wasn’t just you – January really was a hot one. Not only the country’s hottest January on record; in fact, New Zealand’s hottest month ever on record. Reliable temperature records began

in 1867, and previously record-breaking months were February 1998 with an average of 19.6C and February 2016 with 19.5C. The previous warmest January was in 1956 with an average

of 18.8C. With a mean temperature of 20.3°C, this past January was 3.1°C higher than the 1981-2010 January average. Of the six main centres in January 2018, Auckland was the warmest, Dunedin was the sunniest, driest and coldest, Tauranga was the wettest and Hamilton was the least sunny.

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18 • BAYBUZZ • MARCH/APRIL 2018

Sport Hawke’s Bay’s new board members Lawyer Carl Rowling, Karamu High School deputy principal Dionne Thomas, Hawke’s Bay Racing chief executive Andrew (Butch) Castles, and former executive dean at EIT Dr Susan Jacobs MNZM are the four new faces recently appointed to the Sport Hawke’s Bay board.

Mr Rowling has been in Hawke’s Bay for two years, having brought with him broad experience as a senior commercial lawyer and as general counsel for Auckland City. His firm Rowling Law & Strategy is principal legal advisor to Duco Events, organisers and promotors of the upcoming World Champion Unification bout between Joseph Parker and Anthony Joshua. Mrs Thomas is a current board member of Hawke’s Bay Netball and throughout her career in education has shown her passion for sport and recreation, from grassroots level to governance. Mr Castles was with Auckland Racing Club at Ellerslie for 11 years before taking up the chief executive role at HB Racing, so brings with him a strong background in sports administration. Dr Jacobs was with EIT for 30 years several high level roles until retiring in 2016 from the position of Executive Dean of Education, Humanities and Health Science. She brings to the board knowledge and experience in health, tertiary education, research and board governance, along with a keen interest in how recreation and sport can contribute to health and societal equity.

The four new appointees, who were selected from a late-2017 board recruitment drive, join chair Damon Harvey and Sandy Titter, Brendan James, Graeme Taylor, Naomi Fergusson, and Ngāti Kahungunu Iwi representative Aayden Clarke. “We have had a very effective board throughout the organisation’s history and with long serving board members Sean Bevin and Malcolm Dixon recently retiring there was room within our constitution for more trustees. We thought it was an ideal time to add four fresh and very capable locals to the board,” said Mr Harvey. “I’m certain they will add significant value as we aim to get more Hawke’s Bay people active more often and improving their wellbeing.”

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MARCH/APRIL 2018 • BAYBUZZ • 19

BEE IN THE KNOW

The Humanity Star

Rocket Lab continues to put Mahia Peninsula on the map. On 21 January a rocket launched from the northern Hawke’s Bay base reached orbit for the first time and deployed customer payloads into space. The electron rocket known as ‘Still Testing’ was carrying a Dove Pioneer earth-imaging satellite for launch customer Planet, and two Lemur-2 satellites for weather and ship tracking company Spire. “Reaching orbit on a second test flight is significant on its own, but successfully deploying customer payloads so early in a new rocket program is almost unprecedented,” Rocket Lab founder and CEO Peter Beck said on the day of the successful launch. “Rocket Lab was founded on the

principle of opening access to space to better understand our planet and improve life on it. Today we took a significant step towards that.” With the serious business of orbital launch and payload deployment taken care of, Rocket Lab made the announcement that the electron had also been carrying Peter Beck’s special project, the Humanity Star, which was released along with the customer payload. The Humanity Star is a highly reflective 65-faced ball crafted of carbon fibre, and will orbit earth for nine months. The goal of the Humanity Star is to encourage us to reflect on our place in the universe. But neither the lofty idea or the act of sending the satellite

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20 • BAYBUZZ • MARCH/APRIL 2018

up have delighted the astronomical community. The satellite has been called “vandalism”, “space graffiti” and “space garbage”. Columbia University astronomer Caleb A. Scharf wrote in the Scientific American that "Astronomers are well used to finding their hard won images streaked with the destructive light trails of glinting objects as they pass overhead." He also compared launching the Humanity Star to sticking a "big flashing strobe-light on a polar bear." Around October, its orbit will decay, and the satellite will disintegrate as it descends in the atmosphere. Check out www.thehumanitystar.com to track the satellite so you can spot it in the night sky for yourself and see what the fuss is about.

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COVER STORY

Photo: Tim Whittaker. tim.co.nz

Editor:

In 2015/16 extensive public consultation was undertaken by the Te Mata Trust regarding the future of the Park. This followed announcement that plans first mooted in 2011 for a major Visitor Centre would be shelved. Although three councils had pledged critical funding, concern developed over long-term support costs and whether resources would be better deployed against more modest amenities (toilets, parking), more tracks (walking and biking), and overall better and more sustainable Park maintenance. Councils committed in their 2015 LTPs to reserve their funding for a ‘Plan B’. But what was that to be? The ensuing public consultation, conducted by the Trust over several months, included discussion papers, public forums, open days and an online survey to which nearly 700 responded. Out of this extensive process, led by Bruno Chambers, came a new ten-year strategy and the Te Mata Park Management Plan: 2015–2025. Of many issues raised during the consultations and addressed in the final plan, the extent of and balance between walking and mountain biking

trails was one of the more vexing. But a balance was indeed struck, with 8.5 kilometres of new mountain biking trails committed for the Park. This scheme was approved by the QEII National Trust Board, after a representation that the “overall level of landscape and visual effect of the proposed upgrades and additional tracks on the character and values of the Park were very low.” In effect, a deal was struck between additional development and protection of natural landscape. Councils responded by transferring their Visitor Centre funding to support for the new plan. And the public – Pākehā and Māori alike – was satisfied. Even though this process technically applied only to the Trustgoverned part of Te Mata Peak, only the rare observer might conclude that the sentiments expressed during that consultation – and the values and outcomes agreed – should not govern the totality of this heritage, including its unmarked eastern face, which most simply assume is part of Te Mata Park. Then along came Craggy Range – blind to this context by ignorance or willful design – and all hell broke loose.

Here’s the story. MARCH/APRIL 2018 • BAYBUZZ • 25

Respect and care for the land … So reads a banner on the Craggy Range Winery website. But as chief executive Michael Wilding acknowledges, the brand has “taken a hit” over building a zig-zag track up one of Hawke’s Bay’s most iconic landscapes, the eastern side of Te Mata Peak. Brands and their stories need to align, but ‘care for the land’ and the track do not, in the opinion of people committed to preserving landscape and cultural values. A fierce debate has ensued. With the prospect of ongoing dispute played out by media, competing online petitions and the threat of a legal challenge, Craggy Range remedied the situation by choosing to remove the track and restore the land. However that is not the end of the story. The debate continues, with intentions of the various players still suspect. How Craggy Range got into this mess is partly due to the Hastings District Council’s handling of the resource consent process. Whether Council deliberately circumvented the process to succour favour with Craggy Range, or were simply remiss, is hard to determine. Equally hard to determine is whether Craggy is a naïve victim or shrewd manipulator. Here’s how the drama unfolded.

Early 2017 Craggy Range ceo Michael Wilding has stated, “We purchased the parcel of private land opposite the Giants Winery on Waimarama Road earlier this year (2017) for the sole purpose of building the path, which is intended for the community to use and enjoy.” The ‘purchase’ was a subdivision from the Jeffrey Drabble and Felicity DobellBrown land holding of 52 hectares. If the subdivided land area had been 5 hectares instead of 4.99 hectares, the transaction would have been subject to consent from the Overseas Investment Office (OIO) and publicly notified.

26 • BAYBUZZ • MARCH/APRIL 2018

7 July 2017 A meeting is held between Michael Wilding and Council’s planning representative Craig Thew. A follow-up email from Wilding requests, “I would appreciate an introduction to the appropriate member of your planning team for us to progress initial discussions further and build the path of least resistance together.” Wilding attaches a “soft copy of the concept design” dated March 2017. Thew forwards this request to HDC colleagues, commenting: “I can organise an initial discussion between parties to discuss what will need to occur and best practice...”

25 August 2017 On behalf of Craggy Range Vineyards Limited, Matthew Holder of Development Nous Ltd submits ‘an application for a Non Notified Resource Consent’ to Hastings District Council (HDC). The covering letter to chief executive Ross McLeod said, “It is intended by Craggy Range to purchase proposed Lot 2 so a public walking/mountain biking trail can be established to provide a connection to the Te Mata Peak Park.” The application asks HDC to waiver two requirements of the District Scheme – the creation of a rural lot under the required size of 20 hectares, and earthworks four times the allowable volume. Holder contends the environmental effects would be “less than minor”, and there were “no other matters that provide reason for Council to decline the subdivision and land use activity.” BayBuzz asked Council if they advised Craggy Range that a non-notified resource consent would be acceptable. Council replied, “the applicant (Craggy) engaged an experienced planning consultant (Holder) with knowledge of both the RMA and the Hastings District Plan. The application prepared by that professional did

not identify a need for notification or consultation.” When asked to respond to the above, Holder said, “At all times I acted for Craggy Range in respect of the application. I did not specifically ask for the application to be non-notified, the Hastings District Council must make its own decision on notification under the Resource Management Act. My covering letter enclosed the usual non-notification filing fee because the Council only requires this at lodgment. Neither Craggy Range nor I attempted to pre-empt the Council’s decision on notification.” ‘Delegated authority’ within Council saw the application assigned to planner Simon Hill.

13 September 2017 A meeting of the finance subcommittee of the Te Mata Park Trust Board is held at the council building. Present are board trustees Malcolm Dixon, Bruno Chambers and Ian Gold, and Council representatives, Colin Hosford and Craig Thew. Fifth item on the agenda was Proposed New Tracks. The minutes show the meeting was told “Craggy Range intends to develop” a track and “will purchase land from the Drabbles …” Chambers recalls, “There was no mention of a resource consent being lodged, no plans, or details. It was all very vague.” The minutes note, “Bruno Chambers suggested that consideration be given to extending this track to under the summit face. This would require the Hutton Family agreeing to some of their land being included.” When BayBuzz asked Chambers to elaborate, he said, “Over many years I’ve had discussions with Tommy Couper, and Mary and Johnny Hutton, about the various options for ensuring the eastern face [of Te Mata] is protected, whether by QE2 covenants, or other means.” The Couper/Hutton title comprises

Brands and their stories need to align, but ‘care for the land’ and the track do not, in the opinion of people committed to preserving landscape and cultural values. most of the eastern face of Te Mata, and Chambers says, “The possibility of access under the summit using existing farm tracks, and blending with the contour of the land, and connecting with tracks in the Te Mata Park has been considered over the years.” He continued, “In fact, it must be nearly 20 years ago when we started talking with all the Peak landowners about how best to protect the landscape values.” When asked if the council members were deceitful in not declaring the resource consent, Chambers said, “I wouldn’t be surprised if they didn’t know.” In fact, Craig Thew was well aware of the situation; he was an active party to discussions from the outset. In reply to a request from the HDC planner, Council’s development engineer, Nicholas Beacock comments, “The topography of the proposed lot … shows very steep cliffs at the western extremity of the cycle path. I would caution the need to keep cyclists and pedestrians well away from such areas. At the eastern extremity of the proposed lot, the mountain bike track joins into Waimarama Road, which at this point has a posted speed limit of 100kmp. Full design details of the proposed

junction with Waimarama Road shall need to be submitted …”

27 September 2017

to be a walking track only. In reply to ensuring public access (and as means of overcoming the under-sized lot in a rural zone) Craggy Range proposes granting an easement over the land in favour of Hastings District Council. Scribed by solicitors Hansen/Bate*, the easement vests all responsibility for the track to Council: 4.1 - The Council indemnifies, and will keep indemnified, Craggy Range for all loss or damage suffered by it as a result of establishment, maintenance, and use of easement. 4.2 - Craggy Range will not be liable for any loss suffered by the Council from the act or omission of a member, or members, of the public. As for legal fees to Hansen/Bate: 5.1 - The Council shall meet the reasonable legal fees and costs incurred by Craggy Range in connection with the consideration and grant of easement. The requested landscape report was completed by Josh Hunt of Hudson Associates. He quotes the District Plan saying, “that the landscape and visual integrity of Te Mata Peak (ONFL1) should be protected by

On behalf of Craggy Range, Matthew Holder withdraws the request for mountain bikes to use the track. It is

*Michael Bate, an avid mountain biker, is a member of Te Mata Trust Board.

14 September 2017 HDC replies to Nous Development requesting “further information to fully assess your proposed activity.” Most significantly Council requests a Landscape Architect Report, “given the significance of ONFL [Outstanding Natural Feature and Landscape].” Only Te Mata Peak and the subject Eastern Face have Category 1 status in the District Plan, thus regarded as the most significant landscapes in Hastings District. The planner’s requirements for the consent to proceed are extensive and detailed, and a further 17 points of clarification are requested, including: (6) How to “ensure future public access”, (17) Traffic safety on Waimarama Road, and (18) How the track “will be safe for both pedestrian and mountain bikers”.

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MARCH/APRIL 2018 • BAYBUZZ • 27

maintaining”, among other considerations, “the open space character of the land” and “the undeveloped natural landform character”. However, Hunt contends the effect of building the track “is less than minor and is not considered, from a landscape and visual amenity stance, to be contrary to the Objectives and Policies of the Proposed Hastings District Plan.”

2 October 2017 Consents planner Simon Hill writes to Holder saying, “I will try to review the amended application as soon as possible, but given my workloads and other consents that are ahead of this one, it may not be until late this week - sorry.” Three days later Hill requests further details on “matters that have not been attended to”. The letter concludes, “At your client’s request, I am happy to meet with whomever at either 9am or 12noon tomorrow. At your client’s request, I have cc’ed in Mr Wilding.”

16 October 2017 Decision made: “Consent as a Non-Complying activity is granted to Craggy Range to subdivide … and create a public walkway from Waimarama Road.” As justification for being non-notified the applicant is told: “1. There are no affected persons in terms of Section 95E of the Resource Management Act 1991”, and “2. The proposed subdivision is unlikely to have any adverse affects on the environment.” In citing Section 95E of the RMA, HDC is saying no-one needed to be consulted on building a track up one of Hawke’s Bay’s most outstanding natural landscapes (ONFL). The consent approval – “granted under delegated authority from Council” – was signed off by Murray Arnold, environmental consents manager. In an effort to find out who would have been party to the consent process, BayBuzz requested HDC to “set out the chain of delegation particular to this case, starting with the chief executive officer”. HDC chose not to answer. Construction of the track begins.

28 • BAYBUZZ • MARCH/APRIL 2018

“This has been so big in the worse possible way for our district in regard to dividing communities, dividing families, communities against Māori.” COUNCILLOR ROD HEAPS 29 November 2017

14 December 2017

Holland Beckett Law emails ceo Ross McLeod (copied to Sandra Hazlehurst) on behalf of clients who, “are deeply concerned at the destructive and visually intrusive nature of the track which is within an outstanding natural feature and landscape”. The letter requests “a full copy of the Council’s file”, a record of “any Iwi consultation undertaken”, and suggests “that the Council may wish to consider whether the works being undertaken should cease pending the ability of our clients to consider the lawful basis for the works being undertaken”. Democratic support manager Jackie Evans replies on McLeod’s behalf the same day, saying, “The applicant did not carry out any public consultation or supply any record of consultation with Iwi, as it was not required under the District Plan. Council notes that cutting or constructing of tracks on farm land is permitted activity under the District Plan provided the cut is not higher than one metre. The only factor that meant a resource consent was required for the track was the volume of earth being removed over the length of the track.” As for ceasing work until legality could be established, the recipient was told, “Council understands that works to construct the track are complete”. This was not true. The correspondence was copied to Craggy Range.

Craggy Range issues its first press release … “Pleased to announce the development of a new public walking track on the eastern face of Te Mata Peak.” Soothing the concerns about scarring the landscape, track designer Jeff Carter says, “If you look at the Lowe trail 1km up the road on the same eastern face it looked the same during construction and is now no longer noticeable.” He doesn’t mention that the Lowe trail is not easily viewed from the road, and is grassed, not shingle and limestone covered. “Good progress is being made on developing the track. We’re excited to share it with the community and will be holding an opening event early in the New Year.”

4 December 2017 “It looks like Te Mata Peak has had open heart surgery,” headlines the first media attention – Marty Sharpe writing for the Dominion Post. He is quoting a local resident who questions, “How did something so jarring get consent?” And so the public debate begins, with passionate comments from both sides on social media and newspaper comment pages and websites.

But the same day Marty Sharpe of the Dominion Post signals, “Council to review decision that saw Te Mata Peak butchered.” Quoting a Council spokeswoman, “Councillors have asked staff to bring back a report which will allow councillors to consider whether the balance in the current District Plan between landowner’s ability to use their land and protection of outstanding natural landscape is in the best interests of the community.” All Hastings District councillors say they were unaware of the Craggy Range consent application to build the track. George Lyons, representative for the area (Kahuranaki Ward), and chairman of the Planning and Regulatory Committee, says he didn’t know; and Councillor Dixon echoes Bruno Chambers’ recollection that the briefing to Te Mata Trust Board in September was vague. Responding to a BayBuzz OIA query, HDC replied, “Councillors were not advised of the project until 28 November 2017.” It is usual practice for thes strategic advisor culture and heritage at Council to inform Te Taiwhenua O Heretaunga

(TTOH) of any resource consents that may affect iwi, but it appears the person in that role, Marama Laurenson, did not flag the consent. According to TTOH’s Marei Apatu, notification was received by his office, but was “buried inside a report and not at all specific. Just that Craggy was building some farm track.” Apatu acknowledges a “disconnect” between Laurenson and Taiwhenua, which has been resolved by the appointment of Dr James Graham to the advisory role.

16 December 2017

Illustration: Brett Montieth

Tukituki resident, Anna Archibald, begins a petition on Change.org to remove the track. “Hastings District Council have allowed Craggy Range to establish a highly visible zig zagging pathway up the sacred and iconic eastern face of Te Mata Peak without the involvement of Iwi and with no public consultation. This flies in the face of the protections that are meant to be in place for this Outstanding Natural Feature.” Within days the petition gathers thousands of signatures. Comments are damning of the visual effect of the track, and incredulous that no consultation took place with iwi. Some criticism of the Peabody family is callous. A week later, Waimarama resident Rebecca McNeur starts a petition to keep the track. “The new Craggy Range track and the Peabody family have been vilified which they don’t deserve and to remove the track will

MARCH/APRIL 2018 • BAYBUZZ • 29

create a bigger scar. This is a pushback against those who have signed a petition to remove the track and to stand up for what is right. We are better than this!” The combative tone of McNeur’s petition sets the scene for online comments, some of which are overtly racist, and abusive to those opposing the track. Focus is largely on the rights of property owners to do with their land as they wish, and there’s much praise for the Peabody family investment in Hawke’s Bay. Within days McNeur’s petition has nearly 4,000 signatures.

18 December 2017 Ngāti Kahungunu Iwi chairman, Ngahiwi Tomoana, harshly criticises the track, saying it is “an act of idiocy” that looked “like an open sore”. He is so incensed he requests return of the commemorative plaque consecrated by the iwi when the winery opened. “They asked us to bless it, but they didn’t ask us about this. It’s sort of selective consultation.” For Ngahiwi Tomoana the significance of Te Mata is personal. His great-great-grandmother, Winipere Rotohenga, was captured on the foothills by invading Waikato in 1825. “It still burns deep within, the fact that my great-great grandmother was taken prisoner almost 200 years ago, and that she cut herself deep to remind us of our kaitiaki responsibilities to protect our land. So it cuts deep that today this landscape vandalism is on my watch in our time,” he told Marty Sharpe. “Winipere lacerated herself as an expression of grief,” says historian Patrick Parsons. “As a high chiefteness she requested she be allowed to go to the summit of Te Mata to take leave of her land.” “I have a soft spot for Winipere,” says Parsons, “because she showed a greater example of respect and reverence and understanding of outstanding natural landscape than a lot of the clots spouting off today.” Over the years, Parsons has been a fierce advocate for upholding the 1996 Outstanding Landscape Report commissioned by HDC. He was a key player in the Cape Kidnappers case, and devoted time and money in the Environment Court hearings to protect the Titiokura ridge line from the

30 • BAYBUZZ • MARCH/APRIL 2018

visual pollution of windmills. “Here we go again,” Parsons says of the Craggy track.

19 December 2017 The Environmental Defence Society (EDS) announces it is considering legal action over what it considers the “unlawful” consent decision by Hastings District Council. EDS chairman, Gary Taylor, told BayBuzz one of the major grounds for a judicial review in the High Court was Section 6 of the Resource Management Act (RMA) – Matters of national importance – which calls for “the protection of outstanding natural features and landscapes from inappropriate subdivision, use, and development”. Replying for Council, planning and regulatory group manager, John O’Shaughnessy, disagreed, saying, “Council is confident that the proper process has been followed, that in doing so it has applied the law correctly, and that the issue of the resource consent for the track was the correct outcome of that process.” (HB Today)

23 December 2017 On behalf of Craggy Range, ceo Michael Wilding, announces their decision “to remove the track, restore the land, and return it to the previous owner.” A communication lost to many in the holiday buzz. In a meeting at the winery the day before, it was made clear to Wilding that a High Court judicial review of the consent process was foreshadowed, and mana whenua representatives told him the only appeasement was restoration of land. Later Wilding says, “It is incredibly important you face into it and act decisively with both integrity and transparency. Personally I believe that was the right thing to do and so did our board.” Over the Christmas/New Year holiday period the walking track, although officially closed, attracts hundreds of walkers. For many the steep climb over 2km brings a sense of achievement, and the view from the top is spectacular. The ‘Keep the Track’ petition and letters to the paper brim with support.

Comments from opponents point to the flawed consent process and question whether HDC is serious about protecting any outstanding landscape in Hawke’s Bay.

January 2018 HDC commissions Auckland barrister Matthew Casey QC to review the resource consent process. Casey has represented Council in both the High Court and Environment Court, and would likely take the case if it goes to judicial review. Casey is soft in his language but does identify “a number of areas where the report is not as thorough as it could have been”. Notably he says, “The potential for cultural effects ought to have been expressly considered, particularly given the flagging on the Plan of the Peak’s importance to Ngāti Kahungunu. The lack of information on this topic (included in the assessment) would likely be a cause for concern for a court reviewing the decision.” And Casey points out that the notification assessment did not consider Policy LSP2 in the District Plan, which provides, “Protection of the present landscape qualities of Te Mata Peak shall be afforded the highest priority through the District Plan.” Nevertheless Casey opines, “any challenge by way of court action would be unlikely to succeed.” Undaunted, and standing ready to challenge, EDS believes otherwise. Mayor Hazelhurst responds to the ‘independent review’ announcing, “Next week Council will consider options to strengthen the District Plan to better recognise the status of Te Mata Peak, to our community.”

February 2018 At the meeting of all councillors held 8 February, chairman of the planning committee, George Lyons, presides. From the planning and regulatory services department, John O’Shaughnessy and Rowan Wallis are there to answer questions. Councillors consider a detailed report seeking “guidance on whether changes need to be made to the Proposed [District] Plan to better safeguard the cultural and visual values of

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Te Mata Peak.” When it comes to questions, first up is Simon Nixon: “Do these changes have any retrospectivity? Does it [deconstructing the track] need consent?” “Yes, they [Craggy] will have to come to us for consent.” (EDS lawyers dispute this.) From Councillor Dixon: “In the 2015 District Plan hearings where were their submissions?” And he points across the table when he says, “They were remiss and should have done it then.” Councillors Barber and Poulain shake their heads. John O’Shaughnessy is quick to reply: “It is the responsibility of Council to recognise cultural values. Councillor Barber has outlined the conundrum. It’s Council’s responsibility to get the consultation right, and I don’t believe we did.” In other words, ‘we got it wrong’. Next, Damon Harvey asks about any plans for an alternative track. Wallis: “Yes, but given the intense public interest any new considerations would have to go through a rigorous public consultation process.” Harvey: “So there would be public consultation?” O’Shaughnessy: “We’ve learnt from this, but until we have a proposal, I can’t answer that.” Councillor Barber then addresses “the comment made by Councillor Dixon that hapū didn’t submit to the District Plan Review. That is not true. The report done in 2012 outlined numerous outstanding landscapes with numerous hapū stakeholders.” Barber is referring to his Cultural Impact Study, which reviewed the 1996 Outstanding Natural Landscape Report and identified cultural impacts of the report on Māori values. He says, “There was a disconnect between the report and what got into the District Plan.” Mayor Hazlehurst asks: “Can someone tell me why the Outstanding Landscape Report and Cultural Impact Study weren’t included in the District Plan?” Wallis: “They were included in the appendix. But some elements could be better outlined …” Hazlehurst: “This is a learning process and we have to get this absolutely right.” Councillor Heaps makes a plea: “We can’t afford to let this happen again. This has been so big in the worse

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“It’s Council’s responsibility to get the consultation right, and I don’t believe we did.” HDC’S JOHN O’SHAUGHNESSY

possible way for our district in regard to dividing communities, dividing families, communities against Māori.” No councillors ask O’Shaughnessy or McLeod whether they discussed the consent process with the delegated planner or whether they were party to the decision. Or whether there was political interference. No one asks, “How come we weren’t informed of such a significant development in our district?” Indeed, no councillor offers views on whether they favour the track or not, or support Craggy’s decision to remove it. The meeting closes with a recommendation that “Council hold a joint workshop to consider all options in drafting a variation to the District Plan, and include the outline of process for consultation.” Public excluded.

The future Public opinion is divided, and how public opinion will sway the politicians is yet to be seen. The Keep the Track petition comments are peppered with opinions from influential Hawke’s Bay identities, many expressing an ‘Us and Them’ mind set. The vitriol directed at Māori – the perception that they caused the problem – is the most disturbing element of social media commentary. Mayor Hazlehurst has said, “We have to listen to the public.” However, EDS would argue that the legality of the track takes precedence. If the Craggy Range track debacle is a “learning process” as Mayor Hazlehurst asserts, then a prime lesson must be that consultation at the outset would have avoided the current dilemma. That Craggy Range didn’t discuss with anyone in the mountain bike fraternity, Te Mata Park Trust, iwi, or councillors, their plans to build a walking and mountain bike trail up the most outstanding natural landscape in Hawke’s Bay seems extraordinary – astonishingly naïve, incredibly dumb, or deliberately deceptive … you decide.

That the resource consent was processed and approved in-house, ostensibly without councillors or the mayor knowing about it, is – to be generous – an egregious failure in communication. For which no one, from the HDC chief executive on down, has been held accountable. Will Mayor Hazlehurst take the opportunity to forge fresh and more accountable relationships between elected representatives and council employees? Meanwhile, leaders of the Te Mata Trust Board, chairman Mike Devonshire and Michael Bate, play a confusing if not mischievous role. Despite Craggy’s decision to remove the track, the Trust’s website, where many might seek clarity, says, “a solution is not yet decided for the future of the Craggy Range Track”. Appearing before the Regional Council on 21 February, Devonshire deflected questioning on whether the Trust agrees with Craggy’s decision. The next day, the Dominion Post revealed that “mana whenua representatives walked out of a 12 February Trust Board meeting when it became clear to them the board wanted to retain the controversial track.” For its part, Craggy ceo Wilding wrote to BayBuzz on 22 February: “We have commissioned a landscape architect to complete a remediation plan for us and we are having the plan independently peer reviewed to ensure it is robust. We will have that plan and the independent review completed by the end of March. Once we have the report we will seek legal advice as to the appropriate approach to resource consent.” So not everyone is yet on the same page. Although Craggy Range has given their assurance the track will be filled in and the land restored, some are working behind the scenes to ensure the track remains. So the clock ticks as opponents of the track await on-site evidence that Craggy Range – still holding an approved consent – has indeed begun to remove the track. For those who see the track as a scar, seeing is believing.

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Three digital humans created by Auckland Company Soul Machines

Artificial Intelligence Moves Beyond Sci-fi KEITH NEWMAN

The theme of smart machines dictating the terms of engagement with humans has underscored decades of sci-fi books and movies from Hal in Space Odyssey to Skynet in The Terminator movies and an array of recent dystopian dramas. While we marvel or sit back in bewilderment at how the computer and communications revolution has challenged every aspect of our lives, another wave of disruption – next generation artificial intelligence (AI) – is evolving and learning more quickly than anyone imagined. AI imitates human brain networks so massive amounts of data can be processed, and is already embedded in many corporate and public-sector processes, through voice and pattern recognition, machine learning and enhanced automation. AI is not just computing on steroids, but technology that can rapidly learn from other machines, smart devices, ‘intelligent agents’ and sensors to solve problems, find short cuts, create efficiencies or detect anomalies, patterns and trends. Imagine what will happen when AI – which doesn’t sleep, eat or take breaks and can multi-task endlessly – gets a firm grip on accounting, market research, telemarketing, front line retail (reception, helpdesk, check out, ticketing, etc.), software development and the next level of automation! Massive investment from the likes of IBM, Microsoft, Facebook, Amazon, Google, Uber, Apple, Skype and Elon Musk’s Tesla is setting the scene for a paradigm shift. In an agricultural and horticultural

Like the worst sci-fi scenarios, the fear is that interconnected ‘intelligent’ software and machines embedded in our essential infrastructure get out of control or become vulnerable to hackers, crackers or cyber-terrorists.

based economy like Hawke’s Bay, there are calls for urgent investment to tap the potential benefits, alongside serious concerns about negative social and economic fallout, including job losses. Interim New Zealand reports are calling for broad-ranging discussions and government guidance on AI advancements, with a warning that failing to engage early could lead to the worst outcomes.

Machine offspring

In May 2017, Google revealed its AutoML project, an AI system designed to help create other AIs. Within five months it had built machine learning software more powerful and efficient than anything designed by humans. Building next generation AI systems requires skills possessed by only a few thousand scientists, but this breakthrough, according to Google CEO Sundar Puchai, opens the way for “hundreds of thousands of developers” to get involved. It’s this imminent shift in capability that has prominent scientists and technology leaders warning that we need a social and moral ‘rain check’ before smart, self-learning technology

starts telling us what to do or making decisions on its own. Like the worst sci-fi scenarios, the fear is that interconnected ‘intelligent’ software and machines embedded in our essential infrastructure get out of control or become vulnerable to hackers, crackers or cyber-terrorists. A 2015 open letter from the Future of Life Institute, signed by leading theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking, billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk and more than 8,000 others, insisted on more research into the benefits and pitfalls. It warned of unrestrained AI in the military and the prospect of finance, insurance and consumer markets being susceptible to disruption through AI technologies that learn, model and predict human and market behaviours. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, in opening Microsoft’s 2017 Build conference in Seattle, spoke of the risk of creating a frightening dystopian world like George Orwell’s 1984 or allowing autonomous weapons to decide when and where to fire rockets. He said a moral intervention was required, something machines were not capable of. And while experts claim machines can’t be racist or sexist or make other

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The greatest threat would be “not considering the impacts”. Many other countries are developing coordinated AI strategies and “New Zealand needs to be among this vanguard”. AIF CHAIRMAN, STU CHRISTIE

biased decisions, how will they know whether they are or not? Will they treat us humans with dignity and fairness and is there at least a ‘Pause’ button before committing to their digital decisions? Apparently, that’s being worked on. Google’s DeepMind, invested in by Musk and co-founded by ex-pat Kiwi Dr Shane Legg, has developed an AI ‘off-switch’ as part of a safer path for the next stages of AI.

Twilight zone

The AI Forum of New Zealand (AIFNZ), suggests changes might be coming faster than we are able to adequately prepare for and will explore the opportunities and challenges in a forthcoming impacts report. The AIFNZ, an NZTech initiative launched in June last year, has mounted a call to action so people have a say in how these technologies are deployed and whether they can opt out.

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AIFNZ chairman Stu Christie says AI-driven technology will impact everything about our society, not only how we work but how we play and conduct ourselves as a community. The greatest threat would be “not considering the impacts”. Many other countries are developing coordinated AI strategies and “New Zealand needs to be among this vanguard”. We need to engage in a “broad participation debate” and come up with a “cohesive national response so we’re well positioned in the future-state digital economy”. Christie says the social impacts of increased labour automation, for example, are political and economic. There is an urgent need to demystify the technology and ensure the right technical and management skills are available. A report from the Institute of Directors and law firm Chapman Tripp wants a working group of experts from science, business, law, ethics, society and government, to make recommendations about how New Zealand should prepare for AI-driven change. Its 2016 report and call to action, Determining our future: Artificial Intelligence. Opportunities and challenges for New Zealand, says AI is pushing the boundaries of machine intelligence “to create artificial general intelligence … a machine that could successfully perform any intellectual task in any domain that a human can”. That’s way beyond current single-task focus of driving a car, recognising speech, searching the internet, playing chess or making product recommendations. The report warned of human resources implications and the impact on the economy if we fail to invest. “Our focus on primary production and our relative underinvestment in technology companies may see us fall behind other counties which are better able to realise productivity gains from AI technologies.” It suggested government revenue may be affected with AI able to accomplish tasks faster and more accurately than people, thereby “destabilising income related revenue”. Lower socio-economic communities would bear the brunt. “Low-skilled and repetitive jobs are most at risk of being displaced by technology. At the same time, AI may bring significant benefits to poorer communities and

make better use of limited resources through predictive modelling and personalisation of services and support.” AIFNZ’s Christie says existing research indicates anything based on repetitive tasks or roles will be impacted by AI-driven technology, including in the primary industry, manufacturing and the services sector. While international research is indicative, he says it needs to be localised, including evidence for where and how AI will lead to new jobs and tasks “by augmenting human capabilities”.

Outsmarting criminals

Former Taradale High School 2008 dux, and Fullbright scholar, Sam Corbett-Davies, is studying AI in policy decision-making for a PhD in computer science at Stanford University. He suggests we proceed “with cautious optimism” as there are “huge potential upsides and downsides”. While machine learning algorithms are better than human experts at making certain predictions, for example in medicine and criminal justice, questions are being raised about the fairness of these tools, particularly in a US criminal justice system already tilted heavily against minority groups. These predictive tools and algorithms can help decide “how much evidence police need before they search the cars of drivers of different races?” and are being used by judges in the US and elsewhere to determine who should be remanded in custody before their trial and who should be released. Corbett-Davies’ research argues these tools can have a positive effect and if carefully implemented and evaluated can decrease crime and incarceration levels. “While some tools currently in use have flaws, there’s no evidence that any are biased against certain racial groups.” The most exciting AI developments, suggests Corbett-Davies, are self-driving cars and voice recognition. “In the last few years we’ve seen huge improvements in voice recognition, which could change how we interact with computers … and fridges, cars, houses and everything else with a computer in it.” As for self-driving cars, he says they’re now close to being viable and “could massively reshape cities in good and bad ways”, including environmentally. Removing human error from driving

Sam Corbett-Davies

AI and the agribots If Hawke’s Bay’s best thinkers and developers get in early enough, technologies based on artificial intelligence (AI) could deliver efficiencies in agriculture, manufacturing, infrastructure and transport, creating a competitive edge through value rather than volume. Apple and kiwifruit picking with machines that learn from humans and each other have been demonstrated at the annual Mystery Creek field days. And there’s talk of AI-driven robots running milking sheds while

drones monitor stock movement and crop health. Sam Corbett-Davies, a Hawke’s Bay boy now working with smart decision-making tools at Stanford University, was initially lauded for developing the AI system for a grape vine pruning robot in his final year at Canterbury University. His specialty interest was computer vision, building machines and computer systems that can ‘see’. The viticulturists on the project said relatively unskilled seasonal workers often made mistakes, “whereas a robot could be trained to prune vines consistently and correctly”. Corbett-Davies told BayBuzz advances in computer vision and robotics will continue to make fruit harvesting and sorting more efficient. He applauds companies like Hastings-based Compac which he says is leading the way in accurate, high-speed fruit grading, sorting and packing technology for the produce industry. He says the use of AI and robotics may result in increased yield with clear potential for New Zealand research and development engineers to lead the world in developing these systems. Corbett-Davies suggests creative thinking around AI technology would add further value to what Hawke’s Bay produces and exports. “Maybe advances in genetics and machine learning could be used to develop

new fruit varieties?” New Zealand Artificial Intelligence Forum chairman Stu Christie says opportunities will evolve for Hawke’s Bay’s primary sector through machine learning, robotics and other AI applications, specifically in areas where large amounts of data can be gathered for processing. He says there’s plenty of scope for using remote sensor technologies, broadband, low power wireless data access and sufficient processing power for AI development platforms. Christie says businesses and industry need to start creating these platforms now, “effectively building on existing precision agriculture, leveraging real-time low-earth orbit satellite data streams and adding in robotics and machine vision on top of existing automation where applicable”. He suggests opportunities could include automated harvesting of complex crops and within difficult terrain; genetic engineering; CRISPR editing of genes (for bacterial defence systems); development of synthetic meat and milk; and “robotic harvesting of sensitive crops using sensing technologies”. Christie says the return on investment for big data-driven and AI needs to be more clearly articulated so key stakeholders like banks and other investors can understand and support these businesses.

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will save thousands of lives annually and make commuting easier. “Why worry about a three-hour commute if you can just sleep or work while your car drives?” On the downside, it could also exacerbate urban sprawl and add to pollution. While some autonomous vehicles will be electric, he says that’s unlikely to be viable at first with ride-sharing companies wanting to maximise time on the road rather than wait for a recharge. Uber and Ford say theirs will be hybrids, while GM, Tesla, and Alphabet are using EVs. “Fast charging also causes batteries to deteriorate, further adding to costs. It’s much easier to imagine a hybrid car driving 20 hours a day for five years than a fully electric one.” There’s also a dilemma around how to apportion blame if a self-drive vehicle gets it wrong? Corbett-Davies says that’s a legal question many are now working through. He is, however, concerned that humans will be progressively forced out of jobs by automated systems. “If self-driving trucks replace the two million truck drivers in the US, who are making NZ$56,000 annually on average, that will have a massive affect on rural economies.” More prosaically, he says, we’ll see AI taking over “boring, everyday decisions”, and while its presence will mostly be invisible, the spread of AI

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While some autonomous vehicles will be electric, he says that’s unlikely to be viable at first with ride-sharing companies wanting to maximise time on the road rather than wait for a recharge.

decision-making systems “will add up to big changes” in how we live our lives. “Humans have lots of well-known cognitive biases, especially when interacting with other humans”, so we’ll probably find computers are better at finding good job candidates, predicting which children are at risk of maltreatment, and identifying potential tax evasion.” A computer system will evaluate your moles instead of a dermatologist, and “we’ll catch a lot more melanomas than before”.

Innovation underway

AIFNZ’s Christie is confident New Zealand AI innovation is already well underway and likely to operate “in the application level of the technology stack” where there are “specific use cases and data-sets requiring problem resolution”.

If world-class solutions are developed, such as Auckland-based Soul Machines, there’s no reason why they wouldn’t be exported, adding to the $32 billion in annual outputs of the tech sector, which now makes up about 8% of the New Zealand economy. Soul Machines, using neuroscientists, psychologists, artists and innovative thinkers to ‘re-imagine’ the convergence of humans and technology, created a virtual assistant avatar called Nadia, used around the world for medical diagnosis. Nadia, powered by IBM’s $50 billion cognitive system Watson, has a higher success rate than human doctors and also helps people with disabilities navigate government services. Another smart assistant, Rachel, helps with online banking. These lifelike avatars can read facial expressions, show human-like empathy or ‘emotional intelligence’, and will increasingly be used as ‘digital employees’ or smart assistants. Microsoft is using AI for congestion monitoring and modelling around the world and is working with Auckland Transport to try and alleviate gridlock, hopefully resulting in more intelligent decisions about traffic light timing and rerouting of traffic. BNZ is one of the first users of Intel’s Saffron AI-based money laundering detector, which analyses big data so

the banks can detect misuse of its systems in hours or days rather than weeks or months.

Technology creep

It is hard to escape the inevitability of AI becoming relatively pervasive, when there’s profit to be had from faster, more efficient production and decision-making. One international survey suggests 50% of people believe AI will be smarter than humans within the next 24 years. The majority of those surveyed believe that milestone would be reached within at least 60 years. Google’s director of engineering Ray Kurzweil, insists computers will have human-level intelligence by 2029. Many hard questions remain. Is our education system equipped to generate the skills and mindsets that will thrive in the not so distant AI future? Should tertiary institutions begin redesigning their curricula or focus on general thinking and problem solving? How will we cope if several layers of paid work are eliminated? If AI is going to create new jobs will those same people be retrained or become

redundant like those displaced by previous advances in technology? We’re told digital-assistants, self-driving vehicles, robotic workers, drone delivery systems, remote diagnosis and other AI innovations replacing repetitive and manual tasks will free workers up for more creative tasks and greater leisure time. The sceptic may recall the promises made at the dawn of the computer age that technology would free us up so that we need only work three or four days a week! Instead, technology has us connected and on demand 24/7 with many now working twice as hard or taking on extra jobs just to keep pace with the cost of living. What if there are no new jobs and we’ve simply culled the work force in the interests of efficiency and higher production? Will socially-impacting AI decisions be democratically made or profit-driven? What happens if AI just keeps learning and getting better? At what point does this become a moral or a human rights issue? One 2017 US study estimates 50%

of low skill jobs will be replaced by AI or automation. The only saving grace might be that computers can’t really think creatively (yet), so we’d better start doing a lot more of that for ourselves, particularly how to retrain the impending jobless and how to make human creativity the new added value.

Resources: • IOD-Chapman Trip report: https://www.iod.org.nz/Portals/0/ Publications/Artificial%20 Intelligence_17.pdf • Human-like assistants https://www.soulmachines.com/ blog/2018/1/22/video-rachel-andher-brain

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Energy Lessons from Germany BRIDGET FREEMAN-ROCK

Many proponents of alternative energy, serious energy conservation and carbon neutrality point to Germany as the exemplar amongst industrial nations. BayBuzz took advantage of ‘foreign correspondent’ Bridget Freeman-Rock’s recent extended sojourn in Germany to get a first-hand report on what that country is doing energy-wise, especially at the local level, and what Hawke’s Bay might learn from it.

On New Year’s day, 6am, Germany reached an historic milestone as the country slept following Silvester celebrations and strong winds blew. For a moment in time, wind power alone produced 85% of Germany’s energy consumption, with hydro and biomass decking the rest. For a moment in time, Germany’s electricity was completely fossil fuel and nuclear free. The next day, having witnessed the moment in sleep, I flew back to New Zealand, following a fourmonth Heimatreise with my family. The trip had taken me from Berlin to the North Sea and down the west of Germany, through the densely populated Ruhrgebiet, the former industrial coal belt, along the romantic Rhine and Moselle valleys, to sunny, wealthy Baden-Wurttemberg in the south, the country’s top-ranked federal state for its energy transition efforts towards a carbon-neutral future.

Renewable energy giants

At the North Sea, we had stayed on the peninsula between Wilhemshaven and Bremerhaven – two key ports and centres for the development of windpower technologies. We had cycled on the flat, low-lying lands beside the UNESCO-protected Wattenmeer, cows grazing in super-green marshland pasture under the flapping rat-tat-tat-tat of wind turbines, while the horizon out to sea was filled with the massive pylons of an offshore windpark. Onshore wind power is the central pillar of Germany’s Energiewende (energy transition), producing 10% of the country’s electricity in 2016. With capacity significantly boosted in 2017, it makes up 40% of all power from renewables. Each of Germany’s nearly 29,000 onshore wind turbines has an annual output equating to the energy

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Vauban, home to some 5,500 residents, is designed as a car-free neighbourhood. A fused grid lay-out filters out cars using cul-de-sacs and crescents that give way to a criss-crossing ‘green transportation’ network of footpaths and bike ways that connect everything up.

consumption of 1,000 average German households, and technological advances mean increasingly more efficient, powerful turbines (in ideal conditions, some of the latest models can power 6,000 households). Meanwhile, the biggest growth area is in wind turbines at sea, with a 49% jump from 2016 to 2017, and similar projections for 2018. Germany’s Renewables Act stipulates that total offshore wind power capacity grow to 6,500 MW by 2020, a goal it’s well on the way to meeting, with 1,200+ offshore wind turbines in Germany’s North and Baltic seas so far holding a potential capacity of 4,600 MW per annum. These kind of figures are impressive on paper, and the turbines are like giants in the landscape. However, when it comes to looking from the ground level at energy reduction and efficiency, and what steps can be taken to adapt society to more far-reaching change than ‘just’ switching to renewables, they’re less indicative of what’s possible than the smaller scale efforts and the local.

Vauban: Freiburg’s model ecohood

Energy reductions in transport are a key ‘steering target’ under Germany’s climate goal of cutting total CO2 emissions by 40% by 2020 (compared to 1990 levels), and it’s the area Germany, on a national level, has made the least tangible progress on (2%) so far. It does, however, have radical, functioning examples of rethinking ‘the car’ and our dependence upon it. Freiburg, at the foot of the Black Forest, is a cyclist’s city, and for many, the main mode of transport – it’s the most convenient, quickest way of getting around, with 500km of cycle lanes. But its internationally renowned eco-quartier, Vauban, on the outskirts of town, a 10-minute tram ride away from the centre, takes this to a whole new level. Home to some 5,500 residents, it’s been designed as a car-free neighbourhood. A fused grid lay-out filters out cars using cul-de-sacs and crescents that give way to a criss-crossing ‘green transportation’ network of footpaths and bike ways that connect everything up. Every home is within walking distance of a tram stop, and all schools, shopping centres and businesses in the Vauban vicinity. Most of the streets are no-parking zones, with residents who own cars obliged to lease a car lot in one of the multi-storey, solar-powered carparks on the main road. Around 70% of residents don’t own a car

42 • BAYBUZZ • MARCH/APRIL 2018

PICTURED: Vauban, Freiburg’s energy-efficient eco-quartier, including the Schlierberg Solar Settlement (second from bottom), with its 59 energy-plus homes. BELOW: Bridget and children waiting on a provincial train platform. For their four month sojourn, the Rock family traversed Germany using regional train networks and urban public transport.

at all, and 39% of car-free households are members of Freiburg’s carsharing pool. Cycling accounts for 61% and 91% of all commuter trips, by car-owners and the carless respectively. The effect is a neighbourhood that’s truly peoplecentred and family-friendly – kids from a young age have the freedom (because it’s safe and overseeable) to play out in the streets, in the green spaces between houses, in the adventure playground commons. It’s interesting to note, that the original impetus came from the squatters and students who took over the former, abandoned French barracks in the 1990s with a vision for an alternative community. Grassroots activism led to changes at the top when a citizens’ organisation, Forum Vauban, was formed and solar energy and passive-design experts were brought on board to develop the plans. The city council, seeking to redevelop the site for family housing, collaborated with the Forum to bring a visionary concept to fruition. Construction: 1999-2006. Vauban is a showcase for Passivhaus architecture, with 170 units built as ultra-low energy houses, requiring no heating at, and using less than 15kWh/ m2/yr. A further 70 are ‘energy-plus’ homes – producing more energy than they consume. Heating from a local heating network powered by renewable energy (RE) sources and the use of solar technology is the norm for most. The quartier’s best-recognised feature, perhaps,

The effect is a neighbourhood that’s truly people-centred and family-friendly – kids from a young age have the freedom (because it’s safe and overseeable) to play out in the streets, in the green spaces between houses, in the adventure playground commons.

is Das Sonnenschiff (Sun Ship), which houses the organic supermarket, Alnatura, and other retail on the ground floor, three floors of office and commercial space and nine residential penthouses. It’s designed for maximum efficiency (cool in summer, warm in winter) and produces four times the solar energy it needs. Surplus is fed into the grid and profits equally distributed within the Sonnenschiff community. Low-energy building has been mandatory in Freiburg since 2011; its building codes stipulate energy inputs cap 65kWh/m2/yr (half the average German standard, which varies from district to district). For comparison: the NZ Building Code sets a minimum of 150kWh/m2/yr, with a typical construction in Queenstown, for example, using 250kWh/ m2/yr.

E N O U G H C L E A N WAT E R F O R PEOPLE, O U R RI V E R S A N D G R O U N DWATER I S V ITA L TO O U R W H O L E C O M MUNI TY...

T H IS IS TANK In 2012, the Hawke’s Bay Regional Council formed a stakeholder group to look at the best way to manage the freshwater resources of the Tutaekuri, Ahuriri, Ngaruroro and Karamū catchments. The project quickly became known as TANK. This year, the TANK Plan will give clear direction to water users. It’s an opportunity to set fair rules for water use and protect the environment. Our rivers and aquifer come first, while we also rely on safe, secure water when we need it. KEEP IN TOUCH: Information about TANK progress is on hbrc.govt.nz search #tank

Safe, secure water for Heretaunga Plains

MARCH/APRIL 2018 • BAYBUZZ • 43

Innovative, integrated efficiency

While Baden-Wurttemberg generates less wind and solar energy than other federal states, such as Lower Saxony and Mecklenberg-Vorpommen in the north, which have massive wind and solar infrastructure, it’s ranked top in its transition to a low-carbon future, largely due to the political will to make change at every level, and in particular its integration of cutting-edge energy-efficient solutions in new residential developments – such as Vauban and Rieselfeld (home to 10,000 residents) in Freiburg. It is the only federal state with a regenerative heating law, which requires all new building developments to ensure at least 15% of heating is sourced from renewables. And here, the city of Tübingen, 30 km south of Stuttgart, has pioneered a project that ticks every box in future-oriented, energyefficient innovation. When its municipal works body was commissioned a few years ago to build a state-of-the-art communal heating station for a new residential quartier, the district’s wastewater treatment plant nearby was also due for an overhaul. The result: a synergetic, resource-savvy collaboration, an urban first on this scale. Instead of torching off the biogas generated from the anaerobic processing of so-called ‘sewerage sludge’ (waste-product of water purification) – the more usual practice – the biogas from the refurbished wastewater plant is used to power the new Blockheizkraftwerke, generating 75% of the heating and hot water needs for the 700 residents in the Alte Weberei; natural gas makes up the shortfall. Such localised heat networks are far more energy-efficient than each building operating its own heating system, and their advantage for local authorities in Germany is the multi-purpose opportunities they offer. A localised heat network can be used to service municipal facilities, as well as residential housing and commercial businesses, drawing on diverse sources of generated heat (solar thermal, heat produced by industry, small combined power and heat stations, surplus wind energy), which not only increases RE use (good for meeting climate targets!) but often improves air quality. As an aside, one of the coolest things I saw during our six weeks in Tübingen was a passive ventilation system: two large pillars of ice in a heated indoor swimming complex. The refrigerated steel surface draws the humidity from the air, which then freezes, before melting slowly into water that’s piped out and recycled.

Localised production and reductions

Germany is king at developing clever, novel ways of harnessing energy from waste products. Bioenergy is Germany’s second largest RE after wind, accounting for 24% of the country’s RE production. But it’s the most diverse of the renewables – biogas generated from energy crops, landfill, manure or ‘sewerage sludge’, biogenic waste (compost), biomass, both solid (waste wood) and liquid (plant oils) … the most expensive to produce, and mostly suited to localised, small-scale production.

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Citizen participation is seen as a key reason for Germany’s rapid uptake of renewable energies, made possible through legislative tools under the Renewable Energies Act.

Modern farms increasingly generate their own power from the biogas won from maize silage plus animal manure sourced at site, like Hof Seveerns, a mixed horse stables and dairy farm on Butjadingen Peninsula. Or they generate bioenergy for their rural locality – as of 2016 there are 179 officially registered ‘bio-energy villages’ across Germany, aiming to supply their entire communities with 100% renewable electricity and heat. While less competitively placed than wind and solar, it’s brought an economic boon to many of these communities, and plays a starring role in local energy transition. It’s also the most stable, controllable RE in Germany, with huge potential for reducing waste and energy consumption for heating. 2017 figures show waste emissions have been cut by 71% (from 1990 levels).

Citizen participation

Citizen participation is seen as a key reason for Germany’s rapid uptake of renewable energies, made possible through legislative tools under the Renewable Energies Act (Erneuerbare-Energie-Gesetz 2001-2014) – and its predecessor the Electricity Feed-In Act (1991-2001) – that mandated change and, importantly, enabled access to small and medium enterprises, local body initiatives and cooperatives through its feed-in tariffs. These incorporated a “special equalisation” mechanism that offered higher renumeration per kWh to smaller sized producers and to yields that are harder won – such as windpower in less windy regions, and biogas that is more expensive to produce. In 2016, private citizens (as individuals and energy cooperatives) owned 31.5% of installed renewable power capacity in Germany – making them the most important investors in the sector, ahead of energy companies, developers, farmers, funds/banks etc. And with wind power, that proportion of private citizen investment was 39%. Angela Merkel’s government, however, has changed the playing field, with 2016 revisions to the EEG, replacing the FIT scheme with a tendering system that’s geared towards corporations and market forces rather than reliant on government regulation. While the first auctions in 2017 led to an initial surge in uptake and a dramatic drop in the price of RE, making it more cost-effective (to the consumer) than conventional energy in some cases, there are fears that the tendering system will disadvantage small and medium enterprises and energy cooperatives

TOP: Private citizens are the biggest investors in renewable energy, here a home in the Black Forest. BOTTOM: To meet its target to get 1 million electric vehicles on the road by 2020, government incentives include purchase grants, tax exemptions and free parking.

who don’t have the scale to compete or to weather the vagaries of the market. The risk critics perceive is that citizens will become mere consumers under the new scheme, and that citizen-initiated innovation (which has pioneered much of the more far-reaching changes) will be hindered, thus ultimately holding back the Energiewende. As Philipp Vohrer, managing director of Germany’s Renewable Energies Agency, AEE, points out, “The acceptance of, and commitment to, renewable energy expansion depends on the possibilities citizens have to take part and invest.” Even more true, I would add, when it comes to reducing energy use and for increasing the number of integrated, cost-effective, energy-efficient systems. To my mind, what we in Hawke’s Bay can learn from Germany is not from its RE giants and stellar achievements (though they’re to be applauded). Instead, it’s from the example of countless smaller, decentralised, people-centred projects like Freiburg’s Vauban or Tübingen’s energy-efficiency programme, that have flourished under the original concept of the Erneuerbare-Energie-Gesetz (EEG). It takes bold, far-reaching legislation to transition to a low-carbon world, and it takes capital and savvy business, but most importantly it takes people who are enabled to implement the alternatives, to innovate, to take ownership, literally. To become the ‘we’ that makes the change. And this is my take-home message to Hawke’s Bay’s regional and local councils: let’s find possibilities to get us all involved and invested.

More to come MARCH/APRIL 2018 • BAYBUZZ • 45

“Tübingen macht blau” – one city’s climate protection plan

Tübingen, an orderly yet dynamic city of 89,000 on the river Neckar in Baden-Wurttemberg, has one of the oldest universities in Europe (dating back to 1477) and its picture-book mediaeval city centre – crooked, cobblestone alleyways, half-timbered houses and thriving market square – has been exquisitely preserved. But, with students making up a third of its population, it’s also one of the youngest cities in Germany, and an instigator for change in the transition

to a carbon-zero future. Green mayor Boris Palmer (who is halfway through his second eightyear term), has led a vigorous climate protection campaign since 2008, which the city council officially took up in 2015, ratcheting up its ambition to reduce CO2 emissions. It’s done this by breaking down the ‘climate load’ at an individual level, so everyone can take responsibility for their part. The Umweltbundesamt (Federal Ministry for the Environ-

Smarter Thinking Online. 46 • BAYBUZZ • MARCH/APRIL 2018

The campaign’s 2022 goal is to cut Tübingen’s CO2 emissions per person by 25% compared with 2014 levels.

ment) has calculated that on average each citizen in Germany generates 10,670kg of CO2 a year (approximately 30kg per day). The council has taken comprehensive measures to address each of the key areas (transport, electricity, heating and food) through education, support (consultation, funding), and carbon-neutralising its municipal infrastructure. The campaign’s 2022 goal is to cut Tübingen’s CO2 emissions per person by 25% compared with 2014 levels.

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At one of Tübingen’s power transmission stations, surplus energy is siphoned off, converted to heat and piped underground through SWT’s 37km remote heat network, servicing 100 residential and commercial buildings with heating and hot water.

Here are some of what they’re undertaking in the interests of energy efficiency: Tübingen aims to meet half of all the city’s electricity needs with locallygenerated renewable energy (RE) by 2020. To this end, it has its own municipal-owned and operated power company, Ökostrom swt, which uses 100% RE, much of it already produced within Tübingen’s 108km2 area through multiple solar, wind and hydro plants. Over 12,000 households have signed-up to date. There’s an optional Ökostrom tariff to support RE development – Stadtwerke Tübingen (SWT), the district’s municipal works body, has significant investments in wind power throughout Baden-Wurttemberg. And incentives to sign on, such as public transport discounts and coupons towards the purchase of a new eBike or pedelec.

To encourage home-owners to install solar PV, Tübingen offers a lease-arrangement. Residents can lease solar panels from SWT (which will install them at no cost) rather than fronting up with a hefty outlay. Tübingen has a blue star certification it awards to local enterprises that have actively reduced their energy-use, and supports small and middle businesses towards energy and cost-efficient changes by providing energy consultation and finance for goal-oriented projects. This is undertaken by SWT in conjunction with an independent agency for climate protection and Tübingen University, which also offers its research facilities (and students) for undertaking innovative trials. SWT operates Tübingen’s popular bus network – with over 20 million

individual bus trips taken a year, that’s at least 200 trips per capita – and is gradually replacing its fleet with more energy-efficient vehicles. It now has eight ‘Blauer Engel’ buses (the prestigious environmental accreditation), which, electricpowered using locally generated RE, produce zero CO2 emissions. To stabilise the RE power supply, Tübingen is shifting to smart grid technology, so fluctuations and seasonal variations can be accurately monitored and augmented. At one of Tübingen’s power transmission stations, surplus energy is siphoned off, converted to heat and piped underground through SWT’s 37km remote heat network, servicing 100 residential and commercial buildings with heating and hot water.

Unison is pleased to sponsor robust examination of energy issues in Hawke’s Bay. This reporting is prepared by BayBuzz. Any editorial views expressed are those of the BayBuzz team and do not reflect the views of Unison.

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MARCH/APRIL 2018 • BAYBUZZ • 47

POLITICAL UPDATE TOM BELFORD

Catch-up Money

Money – specifically, ratepayer money – is the hot topic of the day as the region’s five councils each conduct public consultation on their long term plans (LTPs). LTPs are the vehicles that attach funding to councils’ programme priorities, with particular attention to the first three years of each ten-year cycle. This year, the key period is FY2018/19 through FY20/21. All LTPs must be formally adopted by 30 June 2018. Generally, councils are loathe to increase rates beyond the rate of inflation. But in this cycle, it appears a new spirit of political candour has taken over, as our councils face up to the reality that throughout the region we have under-invested in critical infrastructure. All of our territorial authorities (TAs) are marked by woeful neglect with respect to infrastructure issues. And that’s why our infrastructure sucks across the region. And I’m zeroing in here especially on the ‘three waters’ as our councils refer to them – drinking water, stormwater, and domestic and industrial wastewater. As a ratepayer, you might think that ensuring these delivery and removal systems are in dependable working order – keeping the nasties from flowing into our stomachs, streets, waterways, estuaries and Bay – was a main function of your territorial authorities. For years council staffs have reassured us that robust ‘asset management’ plans are in place, with requisite funding, ensuring that all the pipes and pumps and treatments are fit for purpose and replaced when they need to be. But what a joke that has been proven to be.

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“I am proud to say that our council is aiming to take a pro-active stance to the plight of ageing water infrastructure that is plaguing all councils and communities.” CHB MAYOR ALEX WALKER

Leader in CHB

The CHB District Council, under its new, politically brave leader, Mayor Alex Walker, is most forthright in terms of ‘speaking the truth’ to its ratepayers. CHB’s LTP contemplates $30 million of capital investment in water treatment and delivery infrastructure over the next ten years. And that’s the local body with the smallest rating base in Hawke’s Bay. To help kick-start the investment, CHBDC is testing two options – an earmarked rate adding $49 to every ratepayer’s charge in 2018/19, rising to $57 in Year 3; or a bolder ask of $73, rising to $85 in the third year. Recently, Mayor Walker penned a remarkable Talking Point – ‘Infrastructure needs to be priority’ – in Hawke’s Bay Today. Remarkable for its honest assessment of CHB’s situation. She wrote … “I am proud to say that our council is aiming to take a pro-active stance to the plight of ageing water infrastructure that is plaguing all councils and communities … These are the issues we need to invest in today to ensure that our children and grandchildren are not dealing with even bigger problems left by us.

“The sad truth is that adequate renewal and investment in core infrastructure for most smaller councils, like CHB, has never been possible due to affordability constraints. And our small district is facing the consequences of that.” After detailing the infirmities of CHB’s water systems, she observes … “None of this is good enough. And we can’t keep our heads in the sand. For our district to thrive, and even to survive, we have to take this seriously.” Amen!

Hastings scrambles

In Hastings, water infrastructure is also getting overdue attention. But it’s hard to credit local political leadership here; HDC was shaken out of its doldrums by a Water Inquiry led from above. The Hastings Council will spend $10 million on one project alone – building a new water main from Hastings (Heretaunga East and Sylvan Road) to Havelock North (Napier Road and Karanema Drive). This will complement an existing water main to bring adequate drinking water to Havelock, replacing the illfated Brookvale bores that caused the gastro crisis. A move the Yule regime resisted for years, despite the bores being implicated in a similar 1998 water contamination event. But that’s not the full extent of HDC’s projected water investments, which will reach $38 million, including UV treatment and chlorination of all ten HDC water supplies and investigation of new water sources, on top of $12 million on improvements spent thus far. Initiatives to date include the UV plant for Brookvale 3 bore ($800,000) and

A summer Sunday, 30C, but no swimming.

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Nap ve rA so d in W

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HAVELOCK NORTH

Third World Napier

Here’s a city mainly below sea level, 75% of whose storm and wastewater must be pumped into the Bay or Ahuriri Estuary on a good day. But bring a bad rain and this wastewater comes up through the manholes. As Napier’s council has found more and more baubles to build, its infrastructure has descended to Third World status. What else can be said about an urban water system that offers no choice but to flush its raw wastewater into one of the most ecologically important

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estuaries in the nation?! This is precisely what happened last April – 2.5 million litres of raw wastewater pumped into the Ahuriri Estuary. Says the manager in charge, “mitigating risks to human health will always take priority over the condition of the estuary environment”. Is relief in sight? Not anytime soon. One of the problems is that the outfall from Napier’s sewage treatment plant, which dumps ‘treated’ water into the Bay, only works at 80% of capacity. NCC has spent about $650,000, so far unsuccessfully, to fix the outfall, with plans to spend another similar amount. Ironically, a tradewaste pipeline that also feeds directly into the outfall and would compound its inadequacy is currently out of commission because it’s blocked with fats! So where does that tradewaste go … into the main wastewater network. The new NCC infrastructure manager, who has inherited a shambles, promises, “At the present time our water specialists are prioritizing urgent upgrades to our drinking water network. Wastewater is on the radar, of course, and we will continue to work towards coming up with a successful long-term solution for our network.”

M id dl e

the purchase of $1.5 million on pipes for the first new connection between Hastings and Havelock North. Eight new staff are now employed in the water team. For residents connected to the Hastings water system, the LTP proposes a targeted water rate of $100 per household per year for two years, and $50 in year three. And this overdue attention to water needs sits alongside other major civic investments, such as the Opera House and Plaza refurbishment, bridge strengthening and investing in “central city vibrancy”.

Te M ata Rd As Napier’s council has found more and more baubles to build, its infrastructure has descended to Third World status.

First up over the next four years will be $16.4 million to upgrade the current water treatment system, build two new treatment plants in Taradale and Awatoto, replace four below-ground bores, make improvements to Napier’s reservoirs, and improve flow to them. Over the next 30 years, NCC now projects spending $77.4 million on improving its water supply systems, and another $86.8 million on stormwater improvements. Meantime, here’s a solution: why not a moratorium on new home building consents in Napier until the wastewater system can handle those already flushing. As regional councillor Rick Barker commented, “We’ve had all these huge capital investments considered which are salutes to the greatness of

HASTINGS

HDC will spend $10 million just to deliver more water from its Hastings bore to Havelock North.

Council Rates Comparison

Based on 2016/17 Annual Report information CHB HDC NCC WDC HBRC Total Rates $18,520,000 $69,254,000 $50,840,000 $11,657,000 $17,661,000 Rating Units 7,699 30,799 25,429 7,729 70,344 Ave Rate/Unit $2405.51 $2248.58 $1999.29 $1601.46 $251.07

the current officeholders but do nothing for the treatment of sewage into the estuary when there is a moderate amount of rain. Something needs to change here.” One prod for change he cheekily suggested … if sewage indeed flooded the streets of Taradale, perhaps politicians would mobilise! More recently than the April episode, human sewage contaminating mussels, with serious illnesses resulting in August and September. Mystery E.coli in the drinking water. Surprise water restrictions. So let’s build a $45 million aquarium! At least it’s water related.

Natural infrastructure

The infrastructure the Regional Council deals with is only partly ‘engineering’ and ‘hard structures’ (stopbanks, port); the focus of its stewardship role is aquifers and fresh water, soil, air, biodiversity and the

near-shore marine environment. But just as with the water mains, municipal bores, pumping stations and treatment plants for which our TAs are responsible, our natural infrastructure has been neglected too long as well. There is heaps of catch-up work to be done. Recognising this, the Regional Council’s LTP proposes a 19% rate increase in its first year, with 6% increases in the two following years. One-fifth of the increase reflects HBRC’s agreement to take over from the TAs the total funding of civil defence for the region (your TAs should be showing a corresponding savings in their rates). The other fourfifths funds a major strengthening of our commitment to the environment. As HBRC chairman Rex Graham has written, “Many of our rivers, streams, lakes and estuaries are a mess. It’s clear to us that fixing the issues in our environment needs a step-change

approach. Our community is impatient for change …” In fairness, the percentages by themselves are misleading, as they apply to a rather small existing base revenue, as indicated by the following chart. Across the region, the TA rates ‘take’ is 7 to 9 times that of the Regional Council, whose responsibilities are no less demanding.

Council rates comparison

Thus, for the average ratepayer, the first-year HBRC rate increase amounts to about $50 dollars … or $1 per week. By comparison, a 3% increase for Hastings or Napier Councils would be roughly $67 and $60 respectively. Moreover, as noted above for CHB and Hastings, other councils will use additional targeted rates to finance their water infrastructure costs – $49 (or $73) per ratepayer for CHB, $100 for HDC. Last year, more than 2,000 residents responded to an HBRC poll regarding

“Placing families first.” Napier 06 835 9925 | Hastings 06 870 3399 | www.beth-shan.co.nz

MARCH/APRIL 2018 • BAYBUZZ • 51

the ‘step-change’ in environmental investment the new council was proposing in its Annual Plan, intended to give a ‘kick-start’ to a more ambitious environmental programme – 69% supported spending more on waterways and aquifers, 45% supported spending more on protecting our marine environment, and 41% on enhancing native species and fighting pests. Numerous national surveys clearly indicate that the ratepayers of Hawke’s Bay are in synch with the rest of New Zealand. For example, a recent Colmar-Brunton survey reports that two of the top five goals important to Kiwis are climate action and clean water and sanitation. The bottomline is that if our community wants … • Clean, safe freshwater • Clean, safe and sustainable aquifers • Protection of at-risk native species • Pro-active response to climate change • More riparian planting and afforestation • Accurate monitoring of environmental health • Vigorous enforcement of environmental rules Then we need to get serious about committing the required resources. Take just one example of HBRC’s ‘infrastructure’ challenge – soil loss. Around 7.6 million tonnes of soil are lost from Hawke’s Bay land every year, mainly through waterways. The loss of this ‘natural capital’ is bad enough in its own right in terms of productivity, but the accumulation of the resulting silt is deadly (that’s not an over-statement) to every water habitat – to our rivers and streams, our coastal estuaries, and ultimately Hawke Bay itself. Arguably there is no single investment that would benefit our environment more than retaining soil … and the answer to that is planting trees on both public and private lands. Moreover, planting trees of all varieties at scale would vastly diminish our region’s carbon footprint (as the trees, and healthier soil, sequester carbon), increase water retention, and restore biodiversity-enhancing habitat. And if we’re clever enough, we might even be able to put wood waste from logging to smarter clean energy and fertiliser use as well.

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Can you think of a better win, win, win, win scenario? That’s why the HBRC’s LTP is proposing to borrow $30 million over ten years to fund riparian planting and maintenance of planted areas on a shared cost basis (75% public, 25% private). Moreover, the economic benefits of tree planting are so great (including carbon credits) that HBRC plans to progress a scheme for massive afforestation throughout Hawke’s Bay … in this case co-funded through an HBRC investment vehicle, iwi, and central government (target: $200 million). The goal here is to reap environmental benefits as well as a strong commercial return that can provide stable future funding for the Council’s environmental work. Other components of the HBRC proposed LTP provide for better farm planning and resilience, marine research, extending predator control (e.g., feral cats), addressing biodiversity hotspots, adding regulatory/enforcement staff, and a ‘Sustainable Homes’ loan programme to help homeowners make investments in solar, domestic water storage and modern septic systems (100% cost recoverable, just as we presently do with clean heat and insulation investments).

Arguably there is no single investment that would benefit our environment more than retaining soil … and the answer to that is planting trees on both public and private lands.

Then there’s the Port

So far HBRC has resolved to: • Not to provide further capital to meet Napier Port’s growth needs; • Not to increase debt to imprudent levels on Napier Port’s balance sheet; • To maintain dividend income from Napier Port; and, • Not to sell strategic assets to fund business as usual operating costs.

Complicating the Regional Council’s long-term funding strategy and capacity is its wholly-owned Napier Port – the Regional Council’s most obvious infrastructure investment. Currently, yearly dividends from the Port fund around 22% of HBRC’s operating costs. However, the Port is at a financial crossroads, where maintaining the status quo is simply not an option. The key issues to address are: 1) future-proofing the Port’s own infrastructure so that it remains competitive in the NZ and global sea transportation system; 2) de-risking the HBRC’s investment in the Port (think earthquake, portfolio concentration), while preserving a funding resource; and 3) guaranteeing local control of the Port as the strategic asset that provides the essential gateway for our region’s export economy. To simplify: Secure capital. Maintain control. De-risk and wean HBRC. A capital review committee (including external advisors) has examined the situation from all angles and in December issued a draft report outlining the issues and options.

The fundamentals seem clear: • The Port requires a sizable capital infusion – estimated up to $275 million over the next ten years – if it and the region’s exporters are to grow together; but the scale required precludes borrowing (certainly not the totality). • External capital is available through various options that diminish 100% HBRC ownership, but do not give away control. • Prudence suggests that over time HBRC should reduce its reliance on Port dividends for operating funds (instead earmarking any dividends for long-term strategic investments, like afforestation).

That leaves these options are on the table: 1. The Port increases its prices or introduces a levy on Port users to fund Port developments; 2. Council charges ratepayers a special levy to fund Port developments; 3. Introduce a minority investment partner to the Port; 4. The Port is listed on the NZX, with Council retaining a majority ownership; 5. The Port is leased to another party, with Council maintaining ownership of Port assets. Where does this leave the Regional Council’s draft LTP? It basically ‘straight-lines’ the current Port dividend at around $10 million for the first three years.

Frankly any councillor who has served more than ten years should be embarrassed for allowing this state of affairs.

LTP Consultations

All of these issues are discussed in the Financial Strategy section of the Regional Council’s LTP and I urge you to digest and comment. That said, because the Port is deemed a ‘strategic asset’ of the Council, any final proposal to alter ownership structure would be subject to its own public consultation process at a later date.

But, I submit, we have left our vital infrastructure – especially our water systems and our natural capital – decay far too long. Frankly any councillor who has served more than ten years should be embarrassed for allowing this state of affairs. For too often previous councils have chosen to fund the bauble or the monument, instead of the core fundamentals. That cannot continue. It’s beginning to bite us in the butt. Napier’s ‘put it in the street or put in the estuary’ conundrum is perhaps the most striking example, but not the only one … every council in Hawke’s Bay (and probably NZ) has one. And these are not failures of know-how, they’ve been failures of political priority. ‘Infrastructure’ – whether hard engineering or natural capital – is the legacy we will leave our children and grandchildren. We have a moral obligation to do better. Right now we’re leaving, as Rex Graham says, “a mess”. Beyond the moral challenge we have, happily, a very immediate

Gut check time

No council or individual councillor lightly goes to their electorate asking for a rate increase … let alone the first-year increase of 14% (plus 5% for regionwide civil defence) proposed by HBRC. However, I think it’s gut check time, for each of our councils and their ratepayers. Collectively, we have let too much slide for too long. Yes … opera house restoration, museums, CBD projects, tourism, swimming pools, sport facilities and other ‘big ticket’ items might have their place in the funding pie. And submitters to the various LTPs should speak their minds on these subjects.

2018-2028

Council Opens Close CHB 19 February 29 March HBRC 19 March 23 April Hastings 7 April 11 May Napier 15 April 14 May Wairoa Mid-April Mid-May

practical – and fortunate – opportunity. That is, a government that intends to spend $1 billion on regional economic development … precisely in areas like afforestation and other infrastructure. So now is the time for Hawke’s Bay ratepayers to show our readiness to play our part with ambitious but realistic initiatives that win some of that co-investment, as Stuart Nash urges in his column in this BayBuzz. The co-investment opportunity makes this set of LTPs more urgent than ever. Whatever your nervousness about rate increases might be – whether 1%, 5% or 15% – I urge you to look closely at what infrastructure investment you see planned in your council’s LTP, and demand assurance that it’s adequate to meet manifest need. If you’ve never weighed in on council LTPs before, now’s the time! And here’s the schedule. Check you council’s website for details of the plans themselves, scheduled public forums, online submission forms and other ways to get involved.

MARCH/APRIL 2018 • BAYBUZZ • 53

Snapshots in Time KEITH NEWMAN. PHOTOS: FLORENCE CHARVIN

Colin Trevelyan is a world traveller, admirer of unique cars and, from two locations in Hawke’s Bay, hosts possibly the largest collection of photographic memorabilia in the world – and he’s a marvellous storyteller.

Trevelyan has a photographic memory, reciting histories, model numbers and quirky collector’s tales about his colossal camera collection that quickly morph into adventure stories of his exploits on the oilfields or his acquisition of rare classic cars. A few years back he moved his Living Image Vintage Camera Museum from Te Awanga to its current premises, only disclosed by phone appointment, north of Hastings. Still struggling for display and storage space, he then purchased the old National Bank building in Waipukurau to house 1,000 of his pieces, opening as the Millennium Museum of cameras and photography in time for the township’s 150th anniversary in October 2017. The 70 year old’s meticulously displayed and documented accumulation of photographic memorabilia – ranging from 1800s-era full-plate tripod box cameras to ‘affordable’ Box Brownies, instamatics, Polaroid’s and hybrid cameras that can capture digital and film – fill all seven rooms at the old homestead plus the dining room, lounge and passageways. All up Trevelyan has over 4,600 cameras … Kodak, Canon, Nikon, Polaroid, Pentax, Olympus and of course German camera makers – Voigtlander, Zeiss-Contax and his favourite collectible, the Leica range. As an added aside, he’s got laboratory x-ray machines, microscopes and

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binoculars dating back to the 1850s and the only complete set of Swatch watches commemorating 100 years of the Olympic games. The story behind rare cameras is part of the appeal; the original box and instructions get a peak rating, topped only by having the original receipt or ‘never-been-used mint condition’. Trevelyan says, it’s no good collecting cameras unless you’re prepared to fix them and track the serial number and year of manufacture to learn a little history. Most are in good working order. “I don’t just clean them up and stick them on the wall.” You can track a Leica back to the country it was exported to, who bought it and the day it was sold, often from handwritten books. “That’s how they find cameras worth a huge amount of money.” He selects an ancient-looking Leica. “This one is the 0 series, number 131, made in 1924 ... they only made 31 of them and only nine have been found.” He has the Zeiss Ikon Contax owned by Herman Hess in 1930. “The German company tracked it back through the serial number confirming ownership.” He points to a gold-plated Leica created for the 1936 Berlin Olympics branded with the Nazi symbol, and insists he has the lens used to photograph Hitler that year. In every corner there’s another piece of photographic history – a National Geographic telephoto lens that cost

US$42,000 in 1973; the camera owned by New Zealand’s first cricket rep, former All Black and war hero William M. Carson who died in WW2, and those that belonged to Hawke’s Bay’s fossil hunter, Joan Wiffin. Then there’s an identical camera to the one taken up Everest by Sir Edmund Hillary. Trevelyan spotted a glaring error in the 2016 TV series Hillary. “In the second part where he was photographing Tenzing [Norgay], the halfwits have him using a camera not made until November 1957. The original was a 1937 Kodak Retina.”

The first camera

Trevelyan recalls precisely when he got his first camera, a Thornton Imperial: 10 April 1958 at 11am. “The neighbour (Mrs Lunt) brought it over for my 11th birthday. Her husband had died a couple of months before. It was an 1880, 6 x 8 glass plate camera.” He found a way to use film rather than glass plates ... that was the start of his passion, which he insists is not an obsession. At the dawn of the 1960s he had a paper round, was part-time Waipukurau exchange operator and taking photographs at weddings and social events for Bob Partridge at Wendy Studios. He left school early to work as a linesman for the local Power Board, then signed on as a deckhand on a ship heading for South Africa. He got

He points to a gold-plated Leica created for the 1936 Berlin Olympics branded with the Nazi symbol, and insists he has the lens used to photograph Hitler that year.

drunk, missed the return boat and ended up building power pylons to the gold fields. After bumming his way around Europe, he bluffed his way into a job on the oil rigs in Norway, eventually rising through the ranks acquiring highly-paid skills. By 1990 he was with Schlumberger “in charge of 200 guys working two semi-submersible rigs off Iran and through Iraq, then off Malaysia.” He claims to have been around the world over 100 times with the oil industry and was still consulting even after his retirement in November 1999. During his shore leave he would return to Hawke’s Bay, purchase property – at one time owning 17 houses in Te Awanga – and accumulate cameras. He divided the country into grids, advertised initially for Leicas, then broadened his focus. “I had to buy the house next door to store them.”

Film era fading

The era of film cameras is long gone, but there’s a certain nostalgia among enthusiasts familiar with the days of

the dark room and its chemical bath processes as negatives were turned to positives and hung out to dry. Tour groups are mostly aged between 60 and 90 years. “They’ll say they’re coming for two hours and end up staying for three and a half until the bus driver is just about tearing his hair out. Then I’ll get people in the 18-20-year age group and they’ll walk through in five minutes.” Trevelyan still has his own darkroom, although film is hard to get and processing an arcane art. He purchased 20 rolls in New York late last year and chemists no longer sell the chemicals due to concerns about drug manufacture — no courier will touch the one litre bottles of developer that have to be bought in from Auckland. Leica remains his first love. “They’re like the Rolls-Royce or Rolex of cameras … well, at least up until 2000 they were.” He doesn’t believe digital cameras will ever be collectible, because the circuitry and batteries keep changing. He did, however, splash out $16,000 on a digital Leica in 2006, but then a

stain appeared in the window. He put a challenge to those in charge of Leica’s museum when, as one of the world’s top collectors, he was invited to the company’s 100th birthday celebrations in Germany in May 2014. “After being shown through I told them, ‘Your museum is shit. You haven’t got much here at all’ …They knew I had a lot more than them.” He asked if they could fix his Leica digital? “So, you can fix 100-year-old cameras but not one that cost me a packet in 2006?” He was offered a more expensive S2 plus lenses, but he declined. Knowing they only made 50, he asked why they didn’t have one in their museum? “Well, we thought we had one about 5 minutes ago”. He still has his digital Leica; the stain doesn’t impact the photos and “that camera will fit any of the older lenses back to 1920”.

Post-war purchases

During WW2, Leica made cameras for the German army and airforce and via Switzerland sold to the Americans and British. Founder Ernest Leitz operated the Leica Freedom Train relocating Jewish workers and their families to Canada, France, Britain, Hong Kong and the United States so they wouldn’t be sent to Hitler’s concentration camps. Part of the local Leica appeal is that many New Zealand soldiers after returning from WW2, returned to the battlegrounds of Europe in the 1950s where they purchased a car and a Leica camera, which was “like the Crown Jewels … costing upwards of £270 to £400”.

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Many were kept in mint condition. “They wouldn’t take it out in the weather or to the beach because it cost so much. They often kept it in its box with all the paperwork … they’d be lucky to take a film a year.” Trevelyan grabbed his fair share when they were being sold off about 20 years ago.

Missing links

He’s still got a keen eye to complete sets of sought after models. A little old lady, visiting his Waipukurau museum in late 2017 with a busload of retirees, announced she had an old Kodak box camera. “I thought, ‘Oh god, not another one’ and then she said, ‘I noticed you didn’t have a grey one’.” Trevelyan’s interest was piqued. Kodak made a hundred thousand or so red, green and blue Box Brownies but only 10,000 grey ones which were “very hard to get”. As he recounts, another lady chipped in: “I noticed you gave Mavis a card. I’ve got an old Kodak folding camera … and I see you have a 1923

Boy Scout camera in green there.” These were made for Baden Powell’s first Scout Jamboree in Britain. She continued: “I’ve got the 1924 Girl Guide one that was made in the Girl Guide colours at the same time.” Acquiring these two rarest of Kodak cameras was like a kick of adrenaline. “I’m like a record collector, always looking for the one that will complete everything from a particular artist.”

Aerial view

The compulsive camera collector was determined to acquire the extensive inventory of Aerial Mapping Hawke’s Bay, founded by Piet van Ashe. He’s got every Aerial Mapping camera from 1935 onward, including the one Piet’s uncle gave him to photograph farm animals at the back of Te Awanga when he was about 12 years old. “Someone walked through the door and gave it to me.” Piet’s brother Derek van Ashe, who owned land between Haumoana and Te Awanga was also a photographer who photographed the gannets at

Cape Kidnappers in the 1940s and 50s for publications and postcards “He had a Leica … I’ve got his camera as well.” Aerial Mapping took New Zealand’s formative aerial survey maps and conducted ‘mapping’ flights for the Americans in Afghanistan from the late 1970s. Entering the 21st century the company was sold, but new owners failed to invest or move to digital technology and it went into liquidation in 2014. Trevelyan also purchased the old Bridge Pa Aero Club buildings where Aerial Mapping’s remaining assets were stored including a 660lb (299kg) camera. On a recent trip to London, Trevelyan approached several camera dealers and collectors to assess the value of his collection. One buyer wanted to sign immediately, but the eclectic camera collector decided to hold on for another couple of years. “It’s not that I got cold feet; I just wanted to know what was possible.”

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MARCH/APRIL 2018 • BAYBUZZ • 57

IDEAS AND OPINION STUART NASH

Opportunity Knocks for Hawke’s Bay Politically, things have changed for the first time in nine years. This has led to a brief moment of uncertainty in a few areas of society. Often uncertainty and change are met with trepidation, but I don’t believe there is any reason to worry; in fact quite the opposite – opportunity for significant provincial growth has been provided by a government for the first time in memory. First and foremost, Finance Minister Grant Robertson has signed up to a set of five Budget Responsibility Rules that promise fiscal prudence, including managed debt reduction. So don’t expect money to flow recklessly or to see unrestrained growth in the State sector (in fact one of the first things we are addressing is the huge growth in State sector CEO salaries). The one big difference in economic management between what National promised and what the Labour-NZ First coalition Government will do is how we raise money through taxes and how we spend money in order to ensure community health and wellbeing. In essence, National had promised tax cuts and we have promised investment. So what does this mean for Hawke’s Bay? Well, that depends. Under the Coalition Agreement with New Zealand First, we have created a $1 billion per year regional economic development fund. Included in this is the provision to plant a billion trees over ten years. This is a fully contestable fund, which is about supporting economic and social development across regional New Zealand. How successful we are at accessing this fund will depend on how ambitious we are as a region. It is, in my view, that simple. We are off to a great start, and for this I give credit to CEO James Palmer

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In essence, National had promised tax cuts and we have promised investment.

and his staff and councillors at the Hawke’s Bay Regional Council. Where I have been critical of the HBRC in the past, I am now of the opinion that they are one of the most forward-thinking and innovative regional authorities in the country when it comes to land management. The HBRC has identified 250,000 hectares that would be better planted in trees than left in poor quality farm land (around 10 million tonnes of silt from eroding land flows into Hawke Bay every year). This equates to around 250,000,000 trees. A quarter of what Minister Jones is required to plant. Working with the Government in a proactive way will ensure that we get the funding necessary to ensure a huge afforestation programme that will provide employment and opportunities for decades to come. The Regional Economic Development Fund is also available for local businesses and projects that create wealth and wellbeing. Again, if our companies, organisations and councils can come up with innovative ideas to create wealth in a way that meets the requirements of the Fund then they will have the ability to partner with this government in a way that allows them to realise their ambitions. The Regional Economic Development fund is not, however, the only way in which Hawke’s Bay communities will benefit. Further investment in policing

resource (1,800 across the country over three years) will see a significant increase in police in our suburbs. As Police Minister, I do not have the ability to direct resources into any specific geographic area, but what I can say is that our commitment to rebuild our community policing resources, as well as our organised crime squads, will see a concentration on ‘Prevention First’ and a focus on completely disrupting the drugs supply chain at every point. In effect, this means going after the gangs; both at international level and within our communities. For me, the measure of policing success is not based around increases or decreases in crime statistics, it’s whether people feel safer in their homes, have increased confidence in our police, and if police internal measures around job satisfaction improve. One area that we know must improve is the mental health and addiction area. It is why Health Minister David Clark has launched a very high-powered inquiry into the state of our mental health system with a view to implementing significant improvement. While again, it is difficult to determine the exact outcome, what we do know is that services will improve to the point where those at difficult times in their lives will have the ability to access services necessary to address their issues. Most important. In my Small Business portfolio there are a number of initiatives that will drive productivity and increase efficiency if business owners choose to adapt and adopt. Key initiatives like e-invoicing, new business journeys and business.govt.nz provide the tools to improve business practice and, therefore, profitability. But one initiative more than any will improve the lives and relieve

Napier MP Stuart Nash serves in Cabinet as Minister of Fisheries, Police, Revenue, and Small Business.

Photo: Tim Whittaker. tim.co.nz

the stress for small business owners: under my Revenue portfolio we are introducing an alternative to the loathed provisional tax regime with a pay-as-you-go system. In conclusion, there will be significant change in the way that this government invests in education and social services, drives productivity increases and seeks to improve the lives of those who live in the regions. Many of this government’s initiatives will be implemented directly and we will see the consequences in our communities as the education system is improved and health funding restored. Whereas other initiatives, like forestry, require us to be innovative and engaged and compete for the, literally, millions of dollars available for regional economic development. So let’s get on with ensuring Hawke’s Bay is the best place in the country to set up and grow a business. We have provided the settings; it’s up to you to take up the initiatives. Let’s go hard.

MARCH/APRIL 2018 • BAYBUZZ • 59

IDEAS AND OPINION SARAH CATES

Exercising in the Silver Years At the first White House Conference on Aging in 1961 Robert Kennedy said, “We have added years to life; it is time we added life to years”. Some would say increased longevity is the success story of our time. In 1900 a baby born would not expect to live beyond 50 years. In many countries now, life expectancy has risen to more than 70 years. In New Zealand the average life expectancy is 81.46 years. The population of Hawke’s Bay is older than the national average with 16.8% of people being aged 65 and over, compared to 14.3% of the total population. Combined with declining fertility rates, the global population of those over 60 years is destined to outnumber those under 5 years by 2020 … for the first time in recorded human history. Any success story is not without its opportunities and challenges. Notably the largest challenges that face our over-65s are to be found in the areas of health and wealth. Current trends show that cardiovascular and respiratory diseases are stabilising while musculoskeletal disorders and poor mental health are rising rapidly. Musculoskeletal disorders are the leading cause of disability, effecting 1 in 4 adults. Each year 8,700 New Zealanders receive primary knee and hip replacements; 77% of patients are over the age of 60. The New Zealand Orthopaedic Association predicts this number will double by 2026. Unfortunately, many people live with chronic pain, facing long hospital waiting lists, and are unable to live active, healthy lives. Losing independence through the loss of mobility can lead to depression, anxiety, feelings of isolation and loneliness. Age Concern New Zealand published research that showed around half of older New Zealanders experience some level of loneliness. Lack of meaningful social interaction results in physiological processes that harm the immune system. Health professionals

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The population of Hawke’s Bay is older than the national average with 16.8% of people being aged 65 and over, compared to 14.3% of the total population.

have described loneliness as ‘biologically toxic’ and is comparable to smoking 15 cigarettes a day. Feelings of isolation have been highlighted as a cause of premature death and early admittance to nursing homes. To maintain a healthy quality of life, which could extend well into your 80s or 90s, it is beneficial to slow down the progression of functional decline and remain active for as long as possible. There is strong evidence to show increased physical activity delays the effects of aging. Exercise has also been shown to help with many different aspects of psychological wellbeing, from anxiety relief to improved creativity. Meaningful activity is recommended for healthy adults, as well as those with chronic health problems. The World Health Organisation (WHO) recommends that adults 65 years and older should be participating in, at least 150 minutes per week of moderate intensity aerobic activity. Adults with poor mobility should do balance exercises to prevent falls on three or more days a week, and muscle strengthening activities on two or more days a week. It can be hard to change behaviour and get oneself into a committed, healthier routine that includes exercise. Encouragingly, Hawke’s Bay has a lot to offer folks that need a reassuring and supportive hand. Sport Hawke’s Bay active recreation

team leader Eana Young is passionate about keeping those in their senior years in good shape. She says, “Everyone can benefit from physical activity, even in small amounts. Just 30 minutes of moderate physical activity on most days of the week will put a bounce back into your life.” Young leads Sport Hawkes Bay’s ‘Active 4 Life’ programme and ‘Kiwi Seniors’, which consist of specifically tailored fitness programmes and social exercise groups for older adults across Hawke’s Bay. She continues, “There is a general awareness in the community of how important good living is. We are seeing increased participation in all our classes and our Kiwi Seniors club is thriving. Our participants create strong friendships while improving their physical health. Many enjoy the cup of tea or coffee after the class as much as the activity itself! “Encouragingly, people in Hawke’s Bay are being physically active more often. Our greatest challenge is to get new people involved in the programmes, particularly men. We are trying to develop programmes that men would enjoy. We pride ourselves on being sensitive to people’s needs and understand for many the first hurdle is knowing they can physically do the activities. We have qualified, experienced instructors and all our programmes are accredited under the nation-wide Community Strength and Balance initiative.” Sport Hawke’s Bay is connected across the community and actively supports ‘grass roots’ exercise groups that literally spring up from a few enthusiastic individuals. For example, the ‘Recycled Rebels’, a cycling group, was started in 2005 in Napier by three retired men who decided to ride together each Wednesday morning. Recycled Rebels has grown its active member base to an impressive 27 with ages spanning from

Photo: Sarah Cates

65 to 82 years. The popularity of the group grew to such an extent another group was created in Havelock North. This group now boasts 20 members, and a waiting list! The key characteristics of this group and other grass roots exercise groups in the area are fun, fitness and friendship. Eana adds, “Hawke’s Bay is a metropolis of opportunity when it comes to physical activity. People can walk, swim, cycle or attend structured classes with a qualified instructor. They can exercise on their own or as part of a group. If balance or high impact

exercise is difficult for you, many swimming pools in Hawke’s Bay offer aqua-aerobics classes. It’s about finding what suits you as an individual. I have a great respect for all that walk through my door and if Sport Hawke’s Bay can’t offer what you need, myself or a member of my team will direct you to someone who can. It’s just about taking that first step.” Life is for living. Many see the later years of life as a gift. It’s when you can kick back and value what’s important. If remaining physically active allows you to experience the silver years with

purpose and fulfilment, surely it’s worth a little effort. Sport Hawke’s Bay – (06) 845 9333 or visit their website: www.sporthb.net.nz

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Ensuring your healthcare needs are met so you can get the very best out of life MARCH/APRIL 2018 • BAYBUZZ • 61

IDEAS AND OPINION PAUL PAYNTER

More Risk, Please I was elated in 1985 when the speed limit was lifted from 80kph to 100kph. You see in those days you could get a full licence at 15 and mine was newly minted. What euphoric madness it was to be 15 and hurtling along at 100kph in my sporty looking Datsun Sunny 1.5ZX coupe. At that speed it didn’t so much drive as float along the road. Any faster and I almost became airborne. Now the speed limit on these same roads is 80kph, on the basis that it’s safer. But my car is safer too. I have innumerable airbags, collision prevention, blind spot recognition, ABS brakes and a host of other high-tech features. No, you don’t need a $100,000 Audi for this kit in 2018; you can find it all on the notoriously well-priced Suzuki Swift. Despite the waning testosterone and increasing girth of my middle age, I’m now not permitted to drive at 100kph. I’m incensed and make a point of ignoring this daily. The history of mankind is a history of risk taking. It started with derided loons who dreamt of sailing across oceans, or harnessing the power of flight. There were a few casualties along the way, but once someone cracked it, the naysaying establishment came on board and we embarked on a period of considerable refinement. That is they lowered the risk – but they didn’t do this by flying slower or lower but by using technology. ‘New societies’ often show an abundance of pioneering spirit, but as these societies get more sophisticated they become increasingly burdened by legislation. France is a good example. The new nation borne of the French Revolution, adopted wonderfully aspirational tripartite verse, ‘Liberty, Equality and Fraternity’. Initially, ‘or Death’ was attached to the end, but that seemed overly dramatic when the revolution settled down.

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France today isn’t the model of liberty they aspired to and is mired in endless EU regulation. These days they specify everything, right down to the required curve of a banana. Sadly, New Zealand now has the disease. The pendulum has swung rather too far, towards a risk adverse, bubble wrap society. This trend has mostly been driven by governments. While they may have made us safer, they have eroded our quality of life. There are plenty of examples.

We have a wonderful water resource in Hawke’s Bay, arguably the best in the country. We should be pitching Hawke’s Bay as the last bastion of untreated water.

In recent years you’ve been required to get a liquefaction report before building a house. “It’s because of Christchurch,” a planner told me. “To be honest the report just tells us what we already know and what we tell you on a LIM. It will settle down in a few years and probably we’ll get rid of it.” The opposite has occurred. Instead of a liquefaction report costing a few hundred dollars it is now far more comprehensive and costs $5,0007,000. I know a bloke building a house half way up Te Mata Peak who has just had to fork out. It’s nonsense. To the best of my knowledge they haven’t stopped anyone building as a result of these reports, but it does provide some butt-covering paperwork.

The wholesale chlorination of water is another prime example. We have a wonderful water resource in Hawke’s Bay, arguably the best in the country. We should be pitching Hawke’s Bay as the last bastion of untreated water. Any contamination is most likely to come from the well heads or the reticulation system. These things can be managed without full time sanitation measures. In our fruit packing facility, we run comprehensive food safety systems. I counted 13 different audits we had to undertake in a calendar year a while back. We test our water every two weeks and after about 300 clear tests, we got a low level positive for E. coli. We couldn’t believe it, but retest confirmed the result. The well was clear, the buffer tank was clear, the supply of processing water was clear, but the positive result turned up in our lab tap water. Most likely we have a ‘dead leg’ in our water system which is the source of the problem. So, one weekend, we ran chlorine through the system until we could demonstrate it was sanitary at every point. Then we stopped with the chlorine. Since then we’ve not seen another issue. I expect we may do in about another 300 tests. When we do, we’ll have a fair idea of how often the sanitation of the reticulation system is warranted. It’s not the water that needs sanitising – it’s the pipes. Applying this methodology, why couldn’t councils run chlorine through their pipes, say for the first day of every month – leaving us with a sanitised reticulation system but unchlorinated water for all but 12 days a year? The answer is that they want ‘zero risk’. I’m not bleating about all this from a position of naivety. I know quite a number of people who have been killed or maimed in road accidents and

Photo: Tim Whittaker. tim.co.nz

but I still want my water unchlorinated. ‘Risk’ comes from the Old Italian word ‘risicare’, which means ‘to dare’. It’s clear that boffins and bureaucrats don’t dare to take any risk, they just want to avoid getting it wrong. But your quality of life may be compromised as you potter along at 80kph and drink chlorinated water.

The real question they should be asking is not what risk they’re prepared to bear, but how much are their citizens are prepared to take. It would be nice if they asked us. Paul Paynter is our resident iconoclast and cider maker. Sometimes he grows stuff at Yummyfruit.

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friends in Christchurch who have suffered through the earthquakes. I’m also a ‘gastro victim’ and have experienced the velocity redefining symptoms of campylobacter. Moreover it seems probable I’ve developed an incurable physiological disorder as a result of the experience. I will live with the gastro crisis for the rest of my life,

MARCH/APRIL 2018 • BAYBUZZ • 63

IDEAS AND OPINION ANDREW FRAME: NAPIER

Lest We Forget They say ‘truth is the first casualty’ in war. The same could be said of war memorials. Concerned citizens have waged a protracted battle with Napier City Council over the future of the city’s (former) War Memorial on Marine Parade and how to honour the past – those immortalised in its Roll of Honour plaques and Eternal Flame. Donations from the Napier public of £15,000 (equivalent to around $150,000 today) contributed to the building of the memorial, opened in 1957. At the dedication ceremony mayor Peter Tate said: “I ask you to preserve the sanctity of the building and protect it from vandalism or ill-use. We will ever remember that this is Napier’s Memorial to those men and women who gave their lives [in World War Two].” The War Memorial’s hall, with its Eternal Flame and marble Roll of Honour plaques, originally displayed on the outside of the building, became a social focal point. Most Napier residents will have attended a function there at some point in the last 60 years. Napier War Memorial underwent renovations in the early 90s, reopening in 1995 with the Eternal Flame and expanded Roll of Honour (now including First World War, Korea, Vietnam and other modern conflicts) moved inside the entranceway to the newly named ‘War Memorial Centre’. And so it remained for another 20 years. Until a Napier City Council meeting on April 6, 2016, where a motion was moved, “That the War Memorial feature of the existing War Memorial Conference Centre be relocated to Memorial Square.” The city’s elected representatives, well-practised in playing ‘follow the

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leader’, unanimously agreed and the War Memorial was no more. Napier ratepayers gave no mandate for this. No one had approached their local councillor asking for the change. This was merely a recommendation from council management that our elected councillors swallowed hook, line and sinker.

Napier ratepayers gave no mandate for this. No one had approached their local councillor asking for the change.

“Moved. Put. Voted. Done. Gone. Breathtaking. Disgraceful.” wrote Les Hewett, President of Hastings’ Royal New Zealand Air Force Association. The Roll of Honour and Eternal Flame were gone – snuffed out in a cloud of renovation dust. A gaseous flame motif persisted, but it wafted above a new, bland, marketing-friendly ‘Napier Conference Centre’ brand. The Guy Natusch designed memorial, with views of Hawke Bay beyond was built over and boxed in – the facility now looking more like the delivery dock to Briscoes than a memorial dedicated to the city’s fallen. The condition and whereabouts of the Eternal Flame and Roll of Honour became a big issue in 2017. Public pressure mounted until even the local paper was requesting the council grant access to wherever they might be stored. The council eventually provided a ‘proof of life’ photo of what they claimed was the Eternal Flame in July,

but the gas burner sheltered by a rubbish bin lid in the picture was a far cry from the noble glass, copper and marble mount that had housed it for the last 20 years. The condition of the 30+ marble and bronze Roll of Honour plaques remained a mystery. Sentiment was turning against the council. Despite hundreds of online comments, letters and texts to Hawke’s Bay Today to ‘put them back’, returning the Eternal Flame and memorial plaques to the conference centre “was not on the list of options” presented by unelected council management to yet another publicly-excluded council working group. A public meeting was finally held at Napier’s Century Theatre in August last year. Seen by the public as an opportunity to vent their frustrations over the Memorial changes, it was instead turned by council into a ‘these are your options, pick one’ presentation. Napier’s mayor said “the simple answer” was the Eternal Flame and Roll of Honour could not return. To try and ignore the will of the public who elected you, or recent wrongdoings relating to a memorial so intertwined with the expression ‘Lest We Forget’, is inexcusable. Public pressure started to weigh on Napier’s other councillors, and in September they effectively reversed their initial decision condemning the War Memorial, albeit too late. Returning the War Memorial name to the whole, or part, of the facility was back on the table. The original Memorial’s architect, Guy Natusch, produced a proposal for the re-housing of the flame and roll features at the War Memorial’s neighbouring Floral Clock site, which received coverage and praise, but so

Photo: Tim Whittaker. tim.co.nz

far ‘a proposal’ is all it remains. For many locals, veterans and family members of the fallen the process is taking too long. For them nothing but the return of the plaques, flame and War Memorial name to their original Marine Parade site will suffice. On the 25th of April Napier will commemorate another ANZAC Day without its War Memorial on Marine Parade. In November, at the eleventh hour,

on the eleventh day, of the eleventh month we will commemorate the 100th anniversary of The Armistice and the end of World War One. Hopefully some form of armistice between council and ratepayers will occur by then. More respectful hands are said to have taken over management of the Memorial project within council. And with councillors finally remembering to whom they

are answerable, we might start to see evidence of conciliatory, constructive progress at upcoming council meetings. ‘Lest we forget’ indeed. Andrew Frame is a 40-year-old husband, father, and life-long Napier resident. He writes the www.napierinframe.co.nz website and promotes all things HB on social media.

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MARCH/APRIL 2018 • BAYBUZZ • 65

IDEAS AND OPINION

John Round … Fuelling Debate INTERVIEWED BY SARAH CATES

Many know John Round as the enthusiastic, outspoken and politically engaged attendant at BP 2Go Millward Motors in Havelock North. Even if you don’t know his name, if you’ve ever bought petrol there, chances are you’ve encountered John and know who he is. Impossible to ignore, his friendly, positive and straight-up outlook on life precedes him.

Super-informed and finger on the pulse, a street-smart advisor to many local politicians whose tanks and ears he fills! BayBuzz sat him down at home for a chat. John, Hawke’s Bay born and bred, has been at the service station for ten years. His dad, a mechanic, instilled in John a love for machines. Cars, trains, traction engines, just about anything that goes, John has a fire for. For John, his work at BP 2Go ticks numerous boxes – his passion for machines; meeting, helping and talking with people from all walks of life; and the opportunity to impart a thought-provoking statement or two upon often unexpecting motorists. Married to his wife Jo, John has two children and seven grandchildren. However, many more ‘adopted’ family fall under the protective wings of John and Jo. Q: You were born in Hawke’s Bay and haven’t really left. What’s so special about Hawke’s Bay? A: I left for about a year when I was around 20, kiwi fruit picking in Te Puke, packhouse work and drove a few trucks. But I always headed back

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to Hawke’s Bay. When I met Jo in 1981 we had to decide between Hawke’s Bay or Manawatu. There really wasn’t any contest. As a little kid I spent endless summers, summers that seemed to go on forever, camping out at Clifton Camp Site. Such great times. I suppose it has a lot to do with the climate. You know us in Hawke’s Bay, we live for spring, summer and autumn. Winter is a necessary evil, something we tolerate. Even though people go on about us being ‘cut off’ from the rest of New Zealand, I really don’t think it’s a big deal to get anywhere from here. That’s another cool thing about Hawke’s Bay. I am lucky both my kids have stayed here. But, even if they left there is always a home for them, and they know that. I like to spend heaps of time with them, the grandkids and my friends. Q: What drives your political appetite? A: When I was younger my political views leaned more towards the right, but as I aged I became more left wing. I think about my kids and grandkids. When I’m dead and they come to visit

my tomb stone I want them to leave flowers, not kick it! We must think about what sort of world we are going to leave behind. We cannot wait any longer, what will Hawke’s Bay look like if we don’t do something about it now! Q: In your opinion, what are the most pressing issues facing Hawke’s Bay? A: Water. Water storage, drinking water, rivers, and sea-level rise. If we don’t look after our water we will all die, it’s as simple as that. Water is the new gold. We must protect our drinking water. Stop overusing and polluting our rivers! Just look around the world to see the damage … the Colorado River is a great example! We don’t want to resort to desalination plants. Not only are they costly but the discharge is high in salt and other chemicals which kills the ecosystem it’s dumped into. We will end up back on square one, like in the game Snakes and Ladders, and no one likes to be there. It’s not just the direct impacts we are having on our planet that worries me, it’s the issue of governance. Some of these ideas they come up with are laughable! Take coastal erosion for example. You cannot defend

Photo: Florence Charvin

I think I may have alienated myself with proponents for and against! I have been asked to sign petitions from both sides. I can’t sign either.

the coastline against the might of the Pacific Ocean! The only choice is to head for high ground, anything other than this, in my humble view and I am not a geologist, is an exercise in futility. Q: You’re on a roll, any other examples spring to mind? A: Yes. The most recent one is the Craggy Range track. I think I may have alienated myself with proponents for and against! I have been asked to sign petitions from both sides. I can’t sign either. I am sceptical about the entire thing. The council and Craggy Range had a moral obligation to notify the people. I don’t care what the ‘rule’ book says. It’s time to put the rule book down and put people first. They didn’t take any time to think how it might impact the community. And

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look, it’s literally divided the community in half! People who come in for fuel say to me, “John, if they consulted us about everything, nothing would ever get done!” I think bollocks to this! It just causes rifts! We need to talk to each other and find solutions! Q: What would you do differently if you were a councillor? A: [John laughs out loud.] Well firstly, I wouldn’t have any friends if I was a councillor! Seriously, I think most of them do an alright job. But personally, I would put the rule book back on the shelf and talk to the ratepayers. I would find out what they need and what they want. Any projects must be fully justified. Is it necessary? Is it affordable? Is there a better way? If the

project includes developers who seek to gain financially, don’t use the public purse and sell it to us with ‘flow on’ benefits! And I wouldn’t use words like ‘projection’! A projection is just a projection! That doesn’t make it a fact. I would remind Council that every dollar they spend is not their money. Spend it wisely for the long term good of the people. I probably wouldn’t change much about the Regional Council. I know Tom Belford gets a fair bit of flack, but that’s because he’s a Yank. Look, I don’t agree with everything he says, but I listen. He’s trying to do something about it. Everybody’s opinion will be based on their own life experience and therefore different. It’s important to hear people out and make an informed decision. We’re all adults here. I have my worries about how the Hasting District Council chooses to spend money. A few years back they spent a huge amount modifying the front of their building (which personally I don’t think worked all that well) when certain footpaths in Hastings were in a terrible condition, uneven and dangerous. I spoke with a

councillor – he will know who he is – and to his credit he got the footpaths sorted out. But, really, their responsibility is to spend money on core infrastructure. And certainly not helping developers with hotels! Profit should not be the focus. There has been a definite decrease in the number of amenities the council provide for our rate dollar. Back in the day we all used to get a rubbish bag! They need to spend money on core infrastructure and public services like drinking water, rubbish, recycling, footpaths, street lights, etc and public amenities like libraries, sports centres and so on. Q: How engaged in local issues do you think the general public of Hawke’s Bay are? A: The turn out for the election says it all. Don’t vote, don’t moan. Q: What will it take to get more people involved? A: I don’t know. I don’t think there’s an easy fix. It’s like we have voter apathy. Are they too busy? Not provoked enough? Or, do they think it doesn’t affect them? Our young people don’t follow the news anymore,

I would remind council that every dollar they spend is not their money. Spend it wisely for the long term good of the people..

there’s too much online distraction. I reckon it will take a face-to-face campaign to make any real improvement. Q: How would you spend a perfect day in Hawke’s Bay? A: I would like some classic Hawke’s Bay weather, mid to high 20’s with a slight sea breeze. BBQ in the backyard, kicking back, surrounded by my kids, grandkids and my friends. I love getting the family together. If you have been here for as long as I have you become blasé about what Hawke’s Bay has to offer. Yeah, I could go to Waimarama or walk up Te Mata Peak, but I have done all that before. It’s great for people who have just moved to the Bay or for visitors, but I am very content to just stay at home and enjoy being with my family.

Q: Do you have any advice for the BayBuzz readers? A: Be sceptical! If you don’t agree with something give it some thought! We are all grown up and should be able to do our own research. Just ask Uncle Google, not Aunty Wiki, she lies. [John’s wife called out from the kitchen, “I have a personal piece of advice for Tom Belford. Tell him Nanna Jo says, Tommy, come over and have a cuppa with me, and CHILL OUT!”] Q: A parting comment? A: Wouldn’t it be great if we were all a bit more up front. If you’re an arse, wear a badge that says, ‘I am an arse’ then we all know where we stand.

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IDEAS AND OPINION KENT BADDELEY: FOOD

Winds of Change

It’s happening everywhere, things are changing and becoming more global by the minute. We are all sharing the same ideas and concepts simultaneously, and recording our experiences live. The food hospitality industry would have to be the number one victim of this explosion. There was a time when banks were happy for a restaurant lease to be a security over a loan. A time when licensed restaurants for any city were limited, and to buy such a restaurant, you had to purchase one that had a license. This enabled the longstanding owner to retire after a great life in the industry. In many cases the classical food that was on offer would have been the fare for many years. The patrons would return year after year for their signature dish … a tradition. However, I believe the traditional fine dining restaurant will decline until only a couple in any town will exist. In Hawke’s Bay I guess that would probably be winery restaurants such as Elephant Hill and Craggy Range. Especially the latter as its brand is becoming more powerful globally. These establishments will be very expensive, because they will drive deeper and deeper for a more polished service, and that takes lots of investment and serious amounts of money. In many cases these restaurants operate at a loss, but the belief in their provenance is more important. I for one certainly agree with the concept. There will always be a need

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Excellence used to stand for ages. Then along came social media and the Instagrammers and now longevity is surpassed by the next new thing.

to have a real place of celebration and ceremony. The rest of the market, as we are seeing, is creating a vibrancy and immediacy little known twenty years ago. Even the local Hastings council is about to redevelop a part of the CBD, as Eat Street … think Asian-style eateries and hang-outs. This area is already starting to grow, with the likes of, I guess the pioneer of the new movement, Gerard at Common Room, Matt & Emma’s Brave Brewing Bar joined at the hip with Nicole & Dan’s Carr’s Kitchen. Or Nick’s new place, Funbuns, where the humble Bao has lit up the evening traffic in Hastings. The real backlash in my opinion, though, is the rise of the small artisan or crazy little joints that are opening. Thus creating the new buzz. However, the settling down process and the longevity of the investments in the “hot stuff of the day” restaurants or bars is yet to be seen.

Excellence used to stand for ages. Then along came social media and the Instagrammers and now longevity is surpassed by the next new thing. For example, last year Bareknuckle BBQ was going nuts and our phones were showing all our friends there … the ‘hot’ place to be. Now Funbuns is getting the same noise, and we don’t hear of BBQ no more. What happens when we are on the 50th cycle of this? I have been talking to chefs up and down the country and there’s a lot of talk about trying to control the phones – no wifi, etc. I certainly believe that through social media, the “global village” is very nearly achieved. We – all of us – see our friends’ dinners, luncheons, drinks, parties etc on an hourly basis. This has driven the hipster operators to force change and to try and make their product stand out on Instagram. Sadly, in many cases these days the look is more important than the content. All the while, we share our experiences from these places by photo or video with our social media accounts. Even to the point that we can immediately become the critic and damn the establishment with bad reviews on Trip Advisor etc. Where the disgruntled client can vent or, as in many cases, the competition can try and get an edge. Meantime, the new editor at Cuisine magazine has begun to morph the restaurant trade into her image of what a restaurant should be, often

Photo: Tim Whittaker. tim.co.nz

opposed to the owner’s concept, which is another story. And a ‘Hat’ system is in play where the food is relegated to less than 50% of the experience. Street food and fastfood joints have the same ratio. I question the credibility of such lists. Sadly, there have been suicides of chefs who have lost stars, and the backlash is that many chefs are opting out, this chef included. I really don’t understand how a journalist knows my food better than me?! We have come to the point that we need to go out to be entertained and have fun. We don’t need ponce or ceremony; just something cheap, easy and delicious to eat and drink that won’t have to change our lives forever. Amidst all this, we are left confused, a little broker, but are we happier? Kent Baddeley, owner/chef, 1024.

Brett Monteith Mobile 021 1684 381 facebook.com/gupillodes bretthamiltonmonteith@gmail.com

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CULTURE & LIFESTYLE

The Fabric of Home MICHAL MCKAY. PHOTOS:FLORENCE CHARVIN

The Oxford dictionary defines ‘creativity’ as the use of imagination or original ideas to create something. A ‘something’ Asha Payton has in abundance. Little & Fox, her wonderfully imaginative and original business situated in an old warehouse in Ahuriri, is proof.

Walking through the entrance of Asha Payton’s fabric warehouse is akin to stepping into Aladdin’s Cave. A sumptuous display of lush and lovely fabrics that immediately urge you to throw your entire interior out the door and start again. Housed in a warehouse of soaring ceilings and concrete floors on top of which are tossed at random deep-piled rugs reminiscent of Istanbul’s Grand Bazaar. An eclectic array of velvets, linens, crewels, embroidered and embossed fabrics and textures line the walls in a display that literally seduces – demanding immediate touch and feel and even inhale. Asha moved into her warehouse a year ago last February, finally deciding that working from her Te Awanga home and a tiny dusty garage in Onekawa was just too restricting. “I needed to move, but it was Joe [her husband] who found the warehouse. Basically it was just a shed but we knew it was right. We found the owner. He gave the okay. We put in walls and lights and made it mine.” Overlooking the waters of West Quay in Ahuriri she confesses she didn’t even think about customer catchment. Quite simply, they went with their gut – “We just loved it.” Obviously her instincts are reliable. Little & Fox has become ‘the’ place for any home owner, threading a path to redecoration, to explore. By then she had four children – Otis age 7, Teddy a year younger and twins Pepe (Māori for ‘little’) and Fox, age 4. And her business (named after the twins), had grown … from the odd client popping in to ask advice on

re-upholstering a chair or a colour for a room to a full scale interior and upholstery consultancy that demanded space. That may well have daunted a lesser determined spirit. “But I had a nanny and au pairs from the time I first started and Joe is incredibly handy as well as having a great eye.” (His father is the artist Simon Payton so that’s not a surprise.) It’s a far cry from studying commercial aviation and graduating as a pilot. But as evidenced everywhere you look both in her Ahuriri warehouse and her home in Te Awanga, Asha has a very strong creative streak. She says her grandmother Maddie played a pivotal role in bringing out her flair for interior design. “She was before her time. Full of style. A little eccentric but very cool. And she nurtured that passion in me.” It all began when Asha wanted to re-cover an old armchair, but quotes were blindingly dear. Local upholsterer Beau Hollyman was recommended to her. “I just knocked on his garage door where he worked. I loved watching him. I was in Te Awanga and he was in Clive. And basically I did that for nearly three years. He was so generous with his time and friendship.” Meantime she had started doing odd jobs for friends. They built a very close bond; when he developed brain cancer and passed away soon after, she found he had written her into his will and left her all his tools and equipment. Much of which she still works with today. It was the springboard for her next move. Initially her social media infiltration

came through a well-read Facebook page, with Instagram and Pinterest swift to follow … picking up customers in droves. “But our website we came to quite late,” Asha explains. “Our development really came from Facebook and we built up contacts that way.” Facebook continues to be the fabric from which she has created a wide network of followers. The website now serves as a major factor in assisting customers in fabric selection, offering a tantalising selection of hard-to resist textures and patterns. That too has come about through Asha’s initiative and realisation that many of the good quality and designer fabrics available required long frustrating periods of ordering time. And were expensive. “I found in doing up upholstery pieces particularly I couldn’t find small quantities and we needed to relax the process of choice. We now buy from leading NZ designer fabric houses and hand select from UK and USA choosing high quality close-outs and end-of-line stock. This means we get it at very reasonable prices and can supply direct to clients.” She maintains a close liaison with suppliers through Skype and now has plans to travel for more resourcing. It also means she is able to hand-select from all over the world … always with an eye to providing something just a little bit different. “We have a lot of the top-end names and many favourites including Designers Guild, House of Hackney, and Clarke and Clarke from the UK along with Ralph Lauren in America.” Tricia Guild is probably her most favourite with her brilliant bold

The Little and Fox team, from left to right: Margs, Agata, Diane, Asha, Anna and Sophie.

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Asha's own style is reflected in the eclectic array of heirlooms and found pieces along with contemporary touches she has given to her home in Te Awanga.

designs … and someone with whom Asha finds a close affinity, having started her own phenomenal business in 1970 when finding unusual decorating textiles and fabrics was a challenge. By changing colours on a collection of traditional Indian handblocked fabrics, the brand was born. Much in the way that Asha has developed Little & Fox … finding a gap in the market and building a framework that filled it. Opposite the seductive selection of fabric bolts, huge wooden tables are set up for the upholstery section. A fascinating scene. Last year Asha persuaded Sophie, whose talents in old-school traditional style upholstery were apparent

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when she searched through specialist schools in England, to come out with her husband to work with her. As she taps away restoring many a family heirloom, Margs is at another vast table creating cushions and squabs. It is a hive of activity and brings a confidence-inspiring reality to customers who are able to discuss their needs and desires there on the spot as they watch. Drapery is now also a part of the Little & Fox offering. “I have two ladies who work for me and do all the measuring and quotes,” says Asha. “And we are working with a man in Pakistan who actually contacted me who will over-dye Persian rugs. So often we find that the needed final touch in a

room is the rug. So we’re into that now too.” Along with a burgeoning bespoke headboard and ottoman area created by client demand. Asha’s philosophy is to find “one piece that sparks”. She collects furniture, keeping her eye out for good pieces … Trade Me is a big area of opportunity. “Old pieces are usually incredibly well made; much better in many cases than the brand new. Which was why I scouted round in the UK to find Sophie. We encourage customers to take photos of their homes and bring them in so we have an idea of what their surroundings are like and can then, with that visual information, relate much better to their decor and how to enhance.” She has a bank of heirloom and vintage chairs-in-waiting ready to achieve a new life through Little & Fox TLC and notes that there is a move to restore older pieces. Making a feature of a bespoke piece is definitely the trend. Her own home in Te Awanga is a living example of the Little & Fox style. With its pristine plaster walls and simple symmetrical shape it is the perfect backdrop to the eclectic pieces and artworks that the home houses. In contrast to the current throwaway culture, where everything from clothes to furniture seems to be seen as short-term and disposable, Asha is definitely of the school that finds it far more interesting and soothing to be surrounded by things made with care … and have stories to tell. She inherited many pieces from her grandfather Peter Norman, the original MD of Borthwicks meat works in Hawke’s Bay, and grandmother Maddie, who also owned the beautiful Drummond Cottage in Greytown (her grandfather’s birthplace). Bentwood chairs, carved wooden beds and an elegant sideboard pepper her home, nicknamed ‘le Cube’ by the former French owners. Asha and Joe’s love of art is obvious with walls adorned with works including those of Robyn Fleet (a great friend and ex-nanny) and Lex Benson-Cooper. And her collector’s instinct is evident with the two enticing eau-de-Nil velvet chairs in the living room, which were a ‘deal’. Another set sitting beside the pool was found on the side of the road. She is a self-confessed hunter and seeker. “I will pick up pieces for the warehouse and find I have to stop

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myself because it is compulsive to give old pieces a second chance,” she smiles. Both she and Joe are of the recycling and repurposing school. So little surprise to find recycled timbers and metals throughout the house, alongside the inherited heirlooms. Downstairs, the free space of living room and kitchen opens out to a garden filled with fruit trees and a recently installed swimming pool – a brilliant aqua that reflects the blue from the walls of the facing veranda. “They told me only two clients out of 250 pool owners had chosen that particular blue,” Asha laughs. One finds it hard to understand why as it sparkles like a brilliant turquoise under the sun. A found table frame sits by the pool fitted out by Joe’s brother Toby with a newly minted lightweight concrete form. “It’s an amazing composite called GFRC, which is glass fibre reinforced concrete,” explains Asha. “It is so easy to lift, a third of the weight of concrete, requires no reinforcement and you just wipe it down.” Another addition reflecting their inbuilt hospitality streak that makes their house a home. She adds that bespoke shapes can be ordered through the

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warehouse or from Raw Concrete Design. The house when they bought it had been recently repainted, which suited them well. Asha has just added stunning Designers Guild curtains to the kitchen which houses the repainted Bentwoods tucked under a dining table of recycled wood made by Joe (with his trademark planks painted ad hoc). And a Pyroclassic fire from a Hawke’s Bay company was installed in the living area. “It’s good for the environment,” says Asha, “and we also like to support local.” Another wall was added separating the laundry to make a great private room for the essential live-in au pair. In fact the only serious redo needed was the bathroom upstairs where, as luck would have it, metres and metres of original copper piping were discovered behind the walls. They commissioned the plumber to make a shower and tapware out of the copper, “which saved us heaps”. Joe also sourced wood from old stadium seats at the Hastings Show Grounds and having commissioned a local metal producer to build a frame to fit the vanity space, cut and glued

them to fit. The copper lights above are from Bali. Joe’s much loved outdoor pizza oven, which took months to build, is another of his achievements. A perfectionist at heart, he wanted it to fit perfectly in the sunken outdoor space at the side of the house … so naturally he did it himself. “It’s one of Joe’s love affairs,” comments Asha dryly. “He’s just resigned from the Magpies after nine years and had thoughts he might start a pizza business. No, it’s a passing phase.” Can a sense of relief be detected? A very large campervan parked outside has usurped the pizza period. “Joe is planning to do it up,” she explains. “Actually it functions very well. The whole family spent three weeks in it at Lake Rotoiti in the South Island this past Christmas. But it will be nice to have the odd refit before the next family expedition.” This year all four children are now at school, so who knows what this inventive couple will venture into next? Whatever, that collective creative thinking will be tapped. The world awaits. www.littleandfox.co.nz

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CULTURE & LIFESTYLE

Poetry Rooted in Hawke’s Bay LIZZIE RUSSELL. PHOTOS: FLORENCE CHARVIN

The New Zealand Poet Laureate award is a celebration of New Zealand poetry. At its roots are relationships that connect the world of poetry to a slice of Hawke’s Bay, thanks to over twenty years of commitment from Te Mata Estate, Matahiwi Marae and artist Jacob Scott. Every two years, a very accomplished poet who can speak on behalf of New Zealand poetry and to its readers is appointed to the role. And during the two-year term, the laureate is supported by the National Library of New Zealand, through the Alexander Turnbull Library, to extend the arm of poetry out into the wider community and to create a new body of work. When New Zealand’s current Poet Laureate Selina Tusitala Marsh comes to Hawke’s Bay in mid-April for her inauguration events – accompanied by family and fellow poets – she’ll do so as the eleventh poet laureate, following on from Bill Manhire, the late Hone Tuwhare, Elizabeth Smither, Brian Turner, Jenny Bornholdt, Michele Leggott, Cilla McQueen, Ian Wedde, Vincent O’Sullivan and CK Stead. Based on Waiheke Island, Selina is of Samoan, Tuvaluan, Scottish and French ancestry. She was the first person of Pacific descent to get a PhD in English from the University of Auckland and is now an associate professor there, where she specialises in Māori and Pacific literary studies and creative writing. Spending time in Hawke’s Bay is,

But it was a throwaway comment from MP Doug Graham at a wine industry dinner in Wellington, that “there would never be a New Zealand Poet Laureate” that pricked John’s ears up.

Selina says, a joy, and something she’s intent on doing more of during the laureateship. While her appointment came on National Poetry Day, 25 August, the official inauguration events don’t take place until April 2018, right here in Hawke’s Bay. Selina visited in late January, travelling around the region with Marty Smith from the Writers in Wineries Trust (which produces the inauguration events and the Readers & Writers Festival), and staying at a cottage at Te Mata Estate, while getting to know Tom Mulligan from Matahiwi Marae, artist Jacob Scott and John and Toby Buck from Te Mata. It’s an initiation that all the poets laureate go through in some form or another as they connect with the history and purpose of the award. The New Zealand Poet Laureate is the second stage of an award originally known as the Te Mata Estate Poet Laureate. The poet laureate award’s life began in 1996, but its history is much longer.

Te Mata Estate is the country’s oldest winery to have been growing grapes on the same site, starting back in the 1890s, with its first licence granted in 1896. In those early days the estate was gifted the name ‘Te Mata’ by Ngāti Kahungunu and the strong relationship between iwi and the winery has remained. As the winery approached its centenary, John Buck searched for a way to mark it. His is a family of booklovers and communicators, so something literary would perhaps have always come about. But it was a throwaway comment from MP Doug Graham at a wine industry dinner in Wellington, that “there would never be a New Zealand poet laureate” that pricked John’s ears up. There had been infighting within the literary scene around the time, leading to the loss (before it even began) of a writers’ residency in London, and, John says “Parliamentarians had had it up to here with the literary community, and Doug Graham just said that, and for me it just went DING!” Bill Manhire was announced as the inaugural Te Mata Estate Poet Laureate at the winery’s centenary dinner in 1996 and the laureateship came into being. John Buck is a kaumātua at Matahiwi, and his involvement there, and as a board member alongside Tom Mulligan on the Hawke’s Bay Rugby Union at the time meant that along with conversations within the

Opposite: current New Zealand Poet Laureate Selina Tusitala Marsh with Samoan orator’s fly whisk – fue – and the matua tokotoko carved by Jacob Scott. This is the ‘master’ tokotoko which usually remains at the National Library. Selina is traveling with it until she is presented with her own at her inauguration weekend in April.

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publishing and literary community and with wine writer and friend Keith Stewart, he was also in discussions with Tom as to how to give the award a true home from which to spring. Matahiwi Marae was that true home from the beginning and still remains the base today. The involvement, Tom says, is a permanent feature and a highlight on the two-year marae calendar. There is also an expectation from the marae that the poet laureate will create a poem inspired by Matahiwi during their term. Tom hosts the welcome and the ceremony during the inauguration weekend, and to read accounts of other poets laureates is to learn of the fantastic warmth extended by Tom and the wider marae community towards the poet laureate and their family and supporters. He also selects the person to bless the tokotoko, which each poet laureate is presented with at their inauguration weekend. Haumoana-based artist and designer Jacob Scott creates an individual tokotoko for each laureate, and the home of these tokotoko is Matahiwi, further deepening the marae’s role in the laureateship. Currently Jacob is working on Selina’s tokotoko, while she has possession of

The tokotoko Jacob has made for previous laureates have each been highly individual, and often collaborative. “I’ve asked each of them what story they’d like told, that might be their own story, their family’s story, their whakapapa, what’s important to them.” Opposite: Artist and designer Jacob Scott at home in Haumona. Above: Selina Tusitala Marsh, Marty Smith, Tom Mulligan, John Buck and Toby Buck at Matahiwi Marae.

the matua – master - tokotoko, which otherwise is held at the National Library. Selina took this tokotoko with her on a recent trip to Samoa and presented it to former head of state, His Highness Tui Atua Tupua Tamasese Efi, to ask for his thoughts on it. “He immediately said well in Samoa this is the to’oto’o – the orator’s staff. And it is always paired with the fue, the fly whisk.” Selina has with her a fly whisk, and demonstrates the flicking, satisfying movement of Samoan orators. “So it all feels like a bit of a homecoming, in a Polynesian sense.” The connection between Māori orators and oral history, and in Selina’s ancestral case, Polynesian, is another

connection between parties involved in the laureateship. As John Buck says, “Language is at the base of all our communications, and it needs to be promoted and celebrated.” Selina has handed over a small collection of items to Jacob, to help inform her tokotoko, including the fue and a special piece of pounamu from colleague Jim Peters, provice-chancellor (Māori) at the University of Auckland. “Selina has picked up the kaupapa of the whole thing really strongly, and is really activating these relationships, so that’s got a lot of promise for the process,” says Jacob. “And she’s gone and done her own research too, and

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Left: Jacob and Selina in Jacob’s workshop. Right: Writers in Wineries Trustee Marty Smith – also a respected poet – takes a turn with the fue.

made the connection back in Samoa with her whakapapa.” The tokotoko Jacob has made for previous laureates have each been highly individual, and often collaborative. “I’ve asked each of them what story they’d like told, that might be their own story, their family’s story, their whakapapa, what’s important to them.” Hone Tuwhare was a good family friend of the Scotts’ so that was an easy relationship to work from. “Hone’s was a bit of a joke one,” says Jacob. “I thought I’d take the opportunity to get a lifetime supply of Te Mata wine for Hone, so I made his as a dipstick, and the idea was to have John give him a barrel of wine instead of bottles, and he could order another one when it got down too low!”

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Jacob had to get to know those who followed in order to be able to make the pieces. Elizabeth Smither’s was reminiscent of a gearknob out of a Holden. “I liked getting to know her,” says Jacob, “She was into all that retro stuff.” Brian Turner’s was made like a hockey stick to reference his sporting history – he played hockey for New Zealand and comes from a sporting family. Michelle Leggott was having problems with diminishing sight, so Jacob says, “It made sense for hers to be sort of utilitarian, so she could use it to help guide her way. It was made out of a pool cue.” Cilla McQueen’s was made from driftwood she and her friends found down south, and it has her 100 mostused words on attached ribbons. It was

Bill Manhire who sorted through her writing to find the words. Bill Manhire’s inaugural one contained the story of Te Mata Estate and the locale, and was made from wood from the original Te Mata wine press. Te Mata managed the laureateship through five terms – Bill Manhire, Hone Tuwhare, Elizabeth Smither, Brian Turner, and toward the end of Jenny Bornholdt’s tenure, age started to catch up, says John. “We’d always kept government in the loop, and always known that when the time came the National Library was the appropriate organisation to hand it over to.” Conversations with the National Library management, and two ministers for the arts (Christine Fletcher and then Judith Tizard) led John to

sit down with then-Finance Minister Michael Cullen who was able to see the benefit of keeping the laureateship going. “It was announced as part of the budget – along with roading and everything else – this bit of money set aside for the Poet Laureate. I’ll always remember that,” John says. The National Library took on the administration of the laureateship, but embraced Te Mata and Matahiwi’s involvement, and the relationship remains strong. While John is still closely involved with the laureateship, his son (and sales and marketing manager at Te Mata) Toby has a large role in keeping up Te Mata’s link with the award. An accomplished writer himself (winner of the Katherine Mansfield prize at the BNZ

Literary Awards in 2014), Toby is part of the advisory committee which presides over the appointment of the laureate. “It’s a committee of six to seven people, and the one constant is Peter Ireland from the National Library,” Toby says. “He has a great feel for the tone of everything, and great vision.” The panel gathers to pore over the nominations which come from the public, former poets laureate, universities and publishers from across New Zealand. It’s an interesting process, Toby says, but a difficult one. There can be over 50 nominations and each one must be given fair due. “It’s really hard, especially once you get narrowed down to the top names, because there are all kinds of considerations. It’s not a lifetime achievement award; it’s not the ‘best poet’ in

an academic sense. The Laureate has to be a statesperson for poetry. They have to uphold the prestige of the position, and a really big part of it is generosity towards other poets, and the ability to speak about other poets and other work.” The great pleasure he finds in this is seeing how each of these poets interpret the brief of the laureateship. “I really feel that every poet who has been chosen has brought something really different, which is great – everyone changes the laureateship each time, it takes on the characteristics of the person,” Toby says. Selina seems to have been fitting the bill since before she was appointed last year, having argued fervently on Radio New Zealand for Sam Hunt to be the next Poet Laureate. And she’s looking forward to joining with the other poets later in the year for a special event. “They’re great when they’re all together,” John says with a smile, “they’re just great fun, and they spark off each other wonderfully.” Selina and the former Poets laureate (and their tokotoko) will return to Hawke’s Bay for an event at the Readers & Writers Festival which runs alongside the Hawke’s Bay Arts Festival in October. Selina also plans to lead a workshop with local rangatahi to develop stories to express and supplement the beautiful murals at Matahiwi Marae which depict the region’s unique history. Such a big part of the purpose of the laureate is, she explains, to help bring poetry out into the wider world, into places where poetry doesn’t always live. “I’m hopeful that we can empower people to express themselves through poetry,” she says. Bringing her poet laureateship home to Matahiwi not just for the inauguration, but also as part of her poetry outreach sounds like another powerful way to keep these relationships thriving, and to keep the story evolving. Tickets for the April 14 evening event ‘Poets’ Night Out’ will be available on Eventfinda, Beattie & Forbes, Plaza Books and Libraries. Details of the Readers & Writers Festival event will be released later in the year.

To follow Selina Tusitala Marsh’s journey as NZ Poet Laureate, you can read her blog at poetlaureate.org.nz.

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Exploring Hawkeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Bay:

Elsthorpe

CULTURE & LIFESTYLE

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Exploring Hawke’s Bay: Elsthorpe BRIDGET FREEMAN-ROCK. PHOTOS: FLORENCE CHARVIN

Middle Road follows an old Māori coastal path south, wending through rolling farmland in the Tukituki Valley, from Lucknow Lodge on the edge of Havelock North to Patangata Tavern and the once-longest concrete bridge in the southern hemisphere. It’s a pretty drive: the white gold of Hawke’s Bay hills set against a brilliant blue sky, an occasional lone ti kouka. Pockets of poplar trees and gums shimmer like a mirage, and to the left, the river, languid on its wide shingle bed. On a sultry hot day, the landscape feels eerily empty; a few sheep grazing, the apocalyptic roar of cicadas. The Tukituki was an important, navigable waterway for tangata whenua, who did a thriving trade with the early pastoralists from their many fortified pā and kainga (open settlements) along here, ferrying wool and grain down the river and supplies upstream. It became a key ‘highway’ for Pākehā pioneers too, but clearing the dense vegetation for pasture gradually led to the river widening, eroding its banks, and forming a stony shallow course. From the former site of Camp David (now Youth Quest), there are stunning views across the terraces down to the Tukituki River, sweeping out to the coastal ranges. Pātangata Pā (‘the pā of many people’), which sprawled from here to Patangata Bridge, was still occupied when negotiations for Donald Mclean’s brokered land purchase took place, the so-called Waipukurau, or Hapuku Block, in 1851 – one of the first significant land sales in Hawke’s Bay, which paved the way for large-scale pastoral farming and European settlement. At the Patangata junction – 100 years ago a community with a post office, hotel, school, store and blacksmith; now a popular recreational river spot – if you nip up River Rd, just past the

Patangata Clay Target Club, you can visit the historic grave of Charles de Pelichet, a Crown surveyor who died pig-hunting in 1853, shot accidently by a mate. To the slightly unsettling accompaniment of gunfire, you climb a gate and walk across the paddock, where he rests beneath a stone memorial, some dead thistles, watched over by sheep. Following Kairakau Rd towards the coast, Elsthorpe is approached by an extraordinary stretch of road. Crossing the First Bull Paddock and Second Bull Paddock bridges ‘classic’ Central Hawke’s Bay countryside gives way momentarily to thick, dark stands of native bush: kahikatea, tōtara, rimu … many of these trees are 400-500 years old, part of the large podocarp forest, Tapu a Hinemahanga, that once covered the whole Elsthorpe basin and down to Kairakau Beach. In 1896 when Elsthorpe Estate was divvied up as a settlement, 35 hectares of native bush was set aside for protection. The reserve (in two parts, both sides of the village) is one of the best remnants of the original forest, and gives a glimpse into how these hills once looked. It’s well worth the journey to walk the 15-minute loop track at the Elsthorpe Scenic Reserve, cool and peaceful in the summer heat; the deep whirring wings of kererū, while not far-off, the siren sounds for the voluntary fire brigade. St Stephen’s, the little weatherboard church with its corrugated iron roof and lancet windows, is an example of a Selwyn parish church – that distinctly NZ-adapted style of Gothic revival architecture found throughout rural New Zealand. It was built around the same time (1907-8) as the Elsthorpe Hall next door. But as with many rural communities lucky enough to still have one, the heart

of Elsthorpe is now its small vibrant school, which has been going strong for 120 years; the original school house still standing. Kairakau Beach with its dramatic cliff forms, scalloped shore and dynamic river mouth, is a beloved beach in the iconic Kiwi way: camping ground, clapboard baches, tractors on the sand. The first baches were built in the 1920s, but Māori have lived and fished here for centuries. On the hills to the right of the picturesque entrance, is the commanding historic site of Manawarakau Pā. The three volcanic rock formations off the beach are known as Hinemahanga’s floats – as with many of the geological features along this coast, there’s an accompanying legend. Going back three million years, the Elsthorpe district itself was all under the sea. Kahuranaki Rd, from Elsthorpe to the Waimarama turnoff and the sweeping back of Te Mata Peak, runs along the Elsthorpe Anticline. As the seabed lifted up, compression from the east bent the sedimentary rocks into a huge archshaped fold; over the intervening millennia the centre eroded, leaving two limestone ridges on either side. Look out for Mt Kahuranaki (664m) on the right, the highest summit on the Hawke’s Bay coast (the telecommunications trig was built in the 1950s). It’s a unique geological feature and a significant wāhi tapu for Ngāti Kahungunu and the Te Whatuiapiti hapū, with ancient burial sites and a rich oral history. The mountain is protected under the New Zealand Historic Places Trust. Editor: Bridget will be ‘discovering’ other less-travelled Hawke’s Bay places with stories in future editions. Tell us places you’d like to see discovered: editors@baybuzz.co.nz

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: remnants of the forest that once covered Elsthorpe; Kairakau Beach; Elsthorpe Scenic Reserve; Mangakuri River inlet at Kairakau; St Stephen’s Anglican Church.

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Photo: Lizzie Russell

CULTURE & LIFESTYLE

Blind Cricket The return of Mike Marsh to his hometown has seen the arrival of blind cricket to the region, as Mike has brought his passion and experience playing the sport internationally. Mike has been involved with blind cricket since 2006, and has represented New Zealand as a member of the Blind Caps. He toured Australia in those early days and they competed in the first blind T20 World Cup in Pakistan in 2007. Last year he was in India for the World Cup, an experience he describes as “a big deal”. “In the T20 final there were 25,000 people in the crowd. And it was broadcast nationally. We had kids

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swamping us for autographs, it was just incredible.” Back in the Bay things are a little more subdued than that, but picking up. The Hawke’s Bay team has played throughout summer in the national league, and from that fixture a new national development squad will be assembled, including a number of Hawke’s Bay players. “I put the word out in February last year, and by September we had a team, and now our Hawke’s Bay team is up there with the best of them,” Mike says. The game is played with similar rules to cricket for sighted players, but with minor changes such as using a slightly different ball – it’s white (so players with some vision can see it) and filled with ball bearings, and is bowled underarm so the players can hear it coming.

The team trains at St Johns College in Hastings and is aligned to the Cornwall Cricket Club. And while cricket is Mike’s main sport, he has big hopes for extending sport for the blind community – rugby could be next. The team also has matches with sighted teams, with sighted players donning blacked-out or partially blacked out glasses. Mike says the team is looking forward to taking on the local Police team at the end of March. That’s the great thing about sport in Hawke’s Bay, Mike says. “Everyone just stands up and says ‘What are you playing? Oh really? What can we do? How can we help?’ And we get on with it.” Anyone interesting in getting involved with the Hawke’s Bay Blind Sports Club can check them out and make contact through their Facebook page, facebook.com/HBBSC.

Yuki Kihara: Te Taenga Mai O Salome MTG’s exhibition of leading interdisciplinary artist Yuki Kihara’s new work is the result of their first artist residency, which took place early last year. The artist spent three weeks researching and creating work exploring the connections between Ngāti Kahungunu and her homeland of Samoa, and ideas around colonisation and de-colonisation. The exhibition is made up of a series of projected video works and lenticular photographs – the first time Kihara has used this type of photography – in which her alter-ego Salome enters te ao Māori for the first time. In previous works, Kihara has used Salome, a ghostly historical figure of a Samoan woman dressed in a black Victorian mourning dress, to explore her homeland’s history, including its violent past under New Zealand rule in the first half of the 20th century. MTG’s art curator, Jess Mio, who spent much of Kihara’s residency with her and developed the exhibition, says the show has been well

received so far by the public, and this has been helped by text and video supplements. “The exhibition is quite text-rich,” Jess says, “We’ve presented it that way because Yuki’s work explores history we don’t learn here.” Samoa’s colonial history is drawn upon, and linked to New Zealand’s, and the present is explored too, with particular focus on the contemporary connection of the RSE (regional

seasonal employment) scheme which brings many Samoan workers to Hawke’s Bay. Kihara was inspired to set her works here after reading the late Tama Huata’s account of the great Takitimu waka, which said the waka was built in Samoa many generations before carrying ancestors of Ngāti Kahungunu to Aotearoa. The exhibition runs until June and entry to MTG Hawke’s Bay is free.

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CULTURE & LIFESTYLE

Photo: Florence Charvin

In the Shade

Bay local Andrew Mckenzie may be a builder by trade, but his heart beats to a different rhythm – namely music. And his frequent trips to myriad music festivals throughout Europe during the five years he spent overseas provided the lure to his current calling. Electric Pukeko – or EP as it is more familiarly known – was released at the Irish Electric Picnic music festival in 2010. During those scorching summer multi-day festivals obviously a hat is a must, and Macca as he’s known to his mates developed a fondness for the trilby. “In Europe’s heat sunglasses, hats and sun cream were the essentials for survival. Hats especially. And I was blown away when I did the math … thinking to myself, we get damn good summers in New Zealand, so hats just might work for our own festivals.” The brand name – “a fun play on words” – owes its origins to Macca instinctively realising a Kiwi link was needed. “But since the kiwi bird and silver fern had been thrashed I decided the pukeko with its vibrant colours was right. Also it resonates with music lovers – the release of a first album is called an EP.” That was the start. Heading back to NZ for a short visit he noted hats on offer throughout menswear and surf shops specially. “The trilby and the

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fedora were pretty limited then, but there were lots at the European festivals. So I figured it was just a matter of time before they took off back home.” He’d spent some time in South East Asia and liked the Asian attitude. So en route back to England he dropped in on a friend in Shanghai and they sourced hat factories for trilbies. “The first shipment was great quality and we sold out of stock two days into the three day festival in Ireland.” Finally the visa ran out. So Macca headed home via Shanghai ordering a variety of hat shapes and set up in Havelock North. With an eye on retail he booked into the Auckland Trade Fair, acquired stockists for not only his hats but also sunglasses, and shifted his main business to wholesaling, meantime creating an online presence. The summer music festivals became places for clearing out previous seasonal stock. A particularly successful business solution. He puts a lot of that good sense down to partner Jessica Whyte. “Even before she came on full-time as a partner, she was an incredible support. We now often tie in a Europe trip to suss out current trends in our winter and travel to our factories as well as various markets to select materials, hat bands and hat moulds.” Supplier visits are usually twice a year. “We need to do all that sourcing face to

face as it’s just too risky without touching and feeling the final product. We’re constantly on the lookout for ‘the new’. We travel the length and breadth of the country pre-summer visiting some 220 stockists.” Climate naturally plays its part. “And our pop-up shop is very weather dependant. We do have ponchos, umbrellas and hoodies on hand as back-up. Womad in New Plymouth is pricey, but it’s our favourite and does great business for us being close to the end of summer season. Besides there’s a great vibe …” The business is just the two of them but they pull in extras as required to help with packing in the busy months or local help for any events. And philanthropy also plays a part. “We often help out local HB schools that are wanting to fundraise by supplying a range of our clearance products to sell during their school gala days, from which they can earn a commission. As for the future? “We’ve tailored the business so it frees us up for a few months during winter when we do our design and sourcing trips in Asia. Time in Europe allows for research. There’s been so much to learn, which I never discovered at building school. But doing it together keeps the adventure alive with some amazing memories!” www.electricpukeko.com

Photo: Florence Charvin Sarah Mulcahy

What is Hawke’s Bay Foundation? Hawke’s Bay Foundation exists to assist donors in making their dreams for a stronger Hawke’s Bay community a reality. The Foundation is a charitable trust that receives donations of all sizes from individuals, families and businesses throughout the region. These funds are pooled and invested forever. Only the earnings are distributed and this happens annually to support Hawke’s Bay community initiatives and organisations bringing about positive and powerful social change. The Foundation provides a trustworthy vehicle that allows donors to contribute to local causes that really matter to them, without any of the administrative stress. Plus, the community we all love directly benefits from the generosity of Hawke’s Bay people. Who is behind Hawke’s Bay Foundation? Hawke’s Bay Foundation is governed by a Board of eight voluntary trustees. All are passionate about Hawke’s Bay and are united by the same focus – making sure Hawke’s Bay continues to be a place we proudly call home.

Trustee, Sarah Mulcahy is an independent consultant to the health and social sector, who joined Hawke’s Bay Foundation Board two years ago. Born and raised as the youngest child in a large Central Hawke’s Bay family, Sarah has always had a passion for social justice. She has volunteered in international community development projects ranging from food and medical relief programmes to a chimpanzee rescue centre in Uganda. Returning and settling in Hawke’s Bay after a 15-year OE, Sarah says the concept of a community foundation “struck a chord” with her. Sarah says the Foundation is unique in that it wants to form long-term relationships with the organisations that it funds. “We want to understand what the burning issues are in our community and how we can help.” The Board has a number of committees, who oversee areas such as investment, marketing and distributions. As a member of the distributions committee, Sarah helps oversee the distributions process from application through to recipient accountability. “In 2017, we considered more than 70 individual applications, which illustrates the level of need for funding to support our community

organisations. Needless to say there are never enough funds to meet the funding requests and the committee works hard to balance grants against the funding available,” says Sarah. All recipients are thoroughly vetted, with preference given to organisations that provide an essential ‘safety net’, or those that support people to develop skills to cope with life’s challenges. Most importantly, we want to support organisations who work collaboratively and contribute to building a strong, vibrant community for everyone.” Sarah says it’s both daunting and humbling to see the work that is happening in our community, along with the incredible generosity of the Foundation’s donors. “All of our donors are invested in the Hawke’s Bay community and are supporting a future where great things can happen through their generosity,” she says. “It’s a concept which is simple yet effective and efficient.”

BayBuzz is pleased to support the Hawke’s Bay Foundation

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CULTURE & LIFESTYLE

Muse Gallery … An Inspired Year Growing up in Hastings, Kaye McGarva Tollenaar dreamed of becoming an artist. An ambition dashed by failing to get through the gates of Elam. So instead she focused her creativity on food – pastries particularly – reaching the pinnacle of patisserie excellence when she and her husband Richard Tollenaar opened Pandoro Bakery in Parnell in 1992. Almost ten years later, when Pandoro was recognised as ‘the’ bakery in Auckland, they sold. And Kaye was able to return to her first love of art and design when she opened Muse Gallery in the heart of Havelock Village. That was in March 2017, a time when many galleries were closing. Although she says with a wry smile that it has been “a deep learning curve”, the gallery one year later has developed a strong local client base and also attracts big visitor numbers. Muse has evolved into the Exhibition Space which is self explanatory, the Object Space with accessible art pieces and brands (such as Dinosaur Designs) unique to the

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gallery, plus the Stock Room. It showcases not only her own work (she was named Top Research Student when she completed her visual art and design degree at EIT, and a finalist in the National Contemporary Art Award), but that of other local artists and artisans drawing on some of the best talent in New Zealand. It’s very much a family-run business with both her husband and daughter Zoe closely involved. As Kaye stares into next year’s crystal ball she says there are “definitely new developments happening, such as growing the Object Space area with more jewellery. And mobile art, an initiative where we take art into people’s homes and help them find the right piece.” She has a very collaborative approach, demonstrated by the Muse Art Club, based around Facebook, which helps provide a broader understanding of art in all its form, with meetings held every three months. Floor talks are very popular and include guest speakers as well as exhibiting artists. The Muse residency allows artists to look at aspects of Hawke’s Bay with a view

to reimagining a vista. Cathy Carter’s recent photographic exhibition is one such example with its magical photographs of Waimarama. Neal Palmer – whose work was shown at the opening of Muse – will exhibit again to celebrate the first anniversary. Recently relocated to Wanaka, he describes his work as using “the illusion of a photographic ‘depth of field’ to allow images to slip in and out of pictorialism and abstraction through shifting the viewer’s conscious reactions to colour, composition, and form.” This anniversary exhibition will show more of his flowers and flax and some new hydrangea paintings with an emphasis on silver and black. Known for his super-modern works on a vast scale, it was Kaye who persuaded him to come to the Bay. “He fell in love with it – and the vibrancy of the art scene here.” So no surprise then that he returns to mark Muse’s first artful year – with its mantra “Let us inspire you”. Muse Gallery, 5 Havelock Road, Havelock North. Ph: 06 8778970 www.museart.nz

Hamish Pinkham When Taradale-raised Hamish Pinkham and two university mates started work setting up an end-of-year party for 1,800 revellers in late 2003, one possible site was Waimarama, another was a picturesque vineyard in Gisborne. Waiohika Estate won them over in the end, and the iconic Rhythm & Vines festival was born. Fifteen R&V festivals on and Hamish is still loving the challenge of putting on the ‘first festival to see the sun’, but is expanding his operations with a separate promotions company, and finally bringing some of the music and the magic home to the Bay. Endeavour Live, based out of Auckland, presents John Butler Trio

this Easter at Church Road Winery. It’s an act Hamish says will suit the winery feel, and build on Church Road’s history of great acts, including James Taylor and Jack Johnson. It’s also a step away from the young scene of R&V and, Hamish says, in a way it makes sense that the focus is now widening to work with acts more aligned to his generation. As he says, he’s not in his early twenties anymore. Working on this Hawke’s Bay project with the Church Road team has been a very positive experience, Hamish says. “They’ve been super accommodating, and it’s a really attractive venue with a great reputation, so we’re really enjoying building the relationship. Napier City Council have been great to work with too – it all makes the region really inviting for people like us wanting to bring events in.”

While Endeavour Live is working on bringing a range of acts into Auckland, the idea is to make the Church Road concert an ongoing series – a major spot on the Hawke’s Bay events calendar. In the meantime however, the plan is to get this one right, to deliver a safe and secure event that gives around 5,000 concert-goers a truly special Hawke’s Bay experience. “And of course it’s nice to have been able to spend a little more time in the hometown working on this,” Hamish says. “Hawke’s Bay offers so much, for visiting acts and for people wanting to get out and spend a weekend away, so I’m really keen to help add to the region this way.” John Butler Trio plays Church Road on Good Friday, March 30. Visit eventfinda.co.nz for tickets.

Upcycled Furniture Wooden Decor Wall Art Design & Manufacture Commission Work

06 651 2793 or 027 924 5612

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IDEAS AND OPINION MARY KIPPENBERGER

Self-Checkout & Adoring Fans

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mutter with a machine that talked back. I have become my mother. The next day the phone rang. The caller announced his desire to buy one of my books for his children and was it possible to buy it from me personally. “Of course!” I agreed warmly if not a little grandly. My public ... of course they wanted to come to our place, to see where the muse found her inspiration, the kind of lofty inspiration that produces the finely drawn observation of kittens and their toilet habits. Oh the depth, the creativity. I would give them a tour. I would be humble; they would be reverent.

up and down aboard fiery lions and galloping ponies. Colours blazing from fairy lights and the clock waiting impatiently for a new audience to gasp and exclaim its pretty twists and turns. If I wasn’t careful I’d have to admit to feeling pretty darned pleased with myself, and a tad above and beyond. My best smile was fixed as I waved them into the compound. The man leapt out and shook hands. I peered in at the tethered children but they were intent on their tablets, collecting points and crops for their imaginary farms. The mother sat in the front seat, head down, device mesmerized.

The phone safely back in its cradle I glanced around the house. Some adjustments were needed and I had one hour to make ready for the adoring ones. I began my run. I vacuumed, washed windows, folded washing, washed dishes, cleared tables, stuffed homeless miscellaneous objects into bags secreting them behind closed doors. I was sweating, I was puffing, I was out of my pajamas and make up was gathering on my face. I was ready. Finally I heard the bump, bump as city tyres met rough track. I imagined the girl’s squeals of delight when they entered the WOW Room, the carousal with its tiny riders methodically rising

“Ummmm, would the children like to get out?” “Oh no,” said the man happily as he passed me the money, swung back into his car and headed back to civilization. Best efforts had not met with any family eye contact, but I reckon they were as happy to meet me as I was them ... deep down ... really, really, deep down. Haha. That will teach me! If I had space I’d tell you that MooMoo is a rascal, the festival was a success, the food caravan worked, a water pipe burst and we lost two 30,000 litre tanks of water. But I haven’t got space so instead I will wish you sunshine, night-time rain and veges from your own garden.

Photo: Katie Charlton-Jones

I’d rather be cold than too hot. I found the summer heat wave debilitating and gave Peter some ‘You sound like your mother’ moments. It’s a very effective sentence. I was at Pak’nSave and the checkouts were snaking. I decided to do something I had never done before. I decided to enter the self-checkout sanctum. Oh how I hate self-checkouts. Unnecessary reduction of jobs and human interaction isn’t up there on my high five list, but this particular day had exhausted me of all principles and I just wanted to go home. I approached with confidence. Ten minutes, if that. I’m an educated woman, ten minutes and I would be homeward bound. The screen invited me to START so I did. The ping indicated success and I accepted my machine’s suggestion to place the item in the bagging area. Item two, Success. Item three, Success. Item four, ping, then … UNIDENTIFIED ITEM IN THE BAGGING AREA. What do you mean ‘unidentified’! I muttered ... aloud. REMOVE UNIDENTIFIED ITEM FROM THE BAGGING AREA It’s not unidentified! CALL FOR ASSISTANCE Oh for goodness sake. (I smile sweetly at the assistant. She came, she conquered.) I try again. REMOVE UNIDENTIFIED ITEM FROM THE BAGGING AREA Oh come on! (remove item) RETURN ITEM TO THE BAGGING AREA You just told me to remove the stupid thing! (return item) CALL FOR ASSISTANCE You’re kidding me! (call for assistance) Try again UNIDENTIFIED ITEM IN THE BAGGING AREA Oh you pillick! And so it went, for 30 minutes. It is just possible that people were beginning to stare at the old woman deep in irritable