Investigate, January 2011 by Investigate Magazine

NEW ZEALAND’S LEADING CURRENT AFFAIRS MAGAZINE

INVESTIGATE January 2011:

PIKE RIVER:

WHY DID IT GO SO WRONG?

Pike River • Foreshore and Seabed • Suntan Prevents Melanoma?

WE UNCOVER VITAL NEW EVIDENCE FIGHTING ON THE BEACHES

The Foreshore & Seabed Debate: What’s really at stake?

TAN-TASTIC NEWS

New cancer study takes guilt out of sunbathing

THE CANCUN CLIMATE CON

Issue 120

Lord Monckton’s Report ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: Entry-level Onkyo home theatre system, the new version of Dragon, and the secret to ‘Jetpack’ Martin’s success

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C ONTENTS Volume 10, Issue 120, ISSN 1175-1290

F EATURES

EXCLUSIVE: Pike River

What caused the Pike River explosion that killed 29 miners? IAN WISHART pieces together new strands of evidence that Labour Party president Andrew Little says must now be a “major focus” of the Commission of Inquiry

Fighting On The Beaches

The Light Tan-tastic

The Cancun Climate Con

We’ve all heard about the Foreshore and Seabed debate, but how will it actually affect us? The author of a new book, DR HUGH BARR lays out his view, while HEENI COLLINS counters

Just when you were feeling guilty about getting a summer tan, along comes a new medical study that finds people who sunbathe without sunscreen have a much lower risk of developing skin cancer. Confused? IAN WISHART has the full story

The global warming believers are excited by Cancun, and LORD MONCKTON thinks he knows why

Waitangi Tribunal, Part 2

Should the Waitangi Tribunal be abolished because it’s essentially racist? AMY BROOKE concludes her two part case for the prosecution

‘Jetpack’ Martin’s Secret

Time magazine has named the Martin Jetpack one of the year’s biggest inventions. AMANDA CROPP finds out how Glenn Martin kept it under wraps for 30 years

Cover: NZPA

EDITORIAL & OPINION

Focal Point Editorial

Vox-Populi The roar of the crowd

Simply Devine

The Wikileaks drama

Mark Steyn A lesson for Supercities

Eyes Right

Richard Prosser on the miners

Line 1

Chris Carter on bike safety

L IFESTYLE

Fading Empires

Poetry

Contra Mundum

Money

Hal Colebatch on politically correct Aslan Matt Flannagan on Santa Claus

Amy Brooke’s poem of the month Peter Hensley on investment

Education

Amy Brooke’s education column

Science

Arsenic life study was wrong

Technology

Onkyo home theatre, Dragon 11

Online

Music

Sport

Movies

Travel

Cutting Room

Network security Chris Forster on 2010

CD reviews

Champagne

Dawn Treader, The Tourist

Blu-ray takeover

Food

Summer salads

Pages

Michael Morrissey’s summer reads

Chief Executive Officer Heidi Wishart | Group Managing Editor Ian Wishart | NZ EDITION Advertising 09 373-3676, sales@investigatemagazine.com | Contributing Writers: Hal Colebatch, Amy Brooke, Chris Forster, Peter Hensley, Chris Carter, Mark Steyn, Chris Philpott, Michael Morrissey, Miranda Devine, Richard Prosser, Claire Morrow, James Morrow, Len Restall, Laura Wilson, and the worldwide resources of MCTribune Group, UPI and Newscom | Art Direction Heidi Wishart | Design & Layout Bozidar Jokanovic | Tel: +64 9 373 3676 | Fax: +64 9 373 3667 | Investigate Magazine, PO Box 188, Kaukapakapa, Auckland 0843, NEW ZEALAND | AUSTRALIAN EDITION Editor Ian Wishart | Advertising sales@investigatemagazine.com | Tel/Fax: 1-800 123 983 | SUBSCRIPTIONS – Online: www.investigatemagazine.com By Phone: Australia – 1-800 123 983, NZ – 09 373 3676 By Post: To the PO Box NZ Edition: $85; AU Edition: A$96 EMAIL: editorial@investigatemagazine.com, ian@investigatemagazine.com, australia@investigatemagazine.com, sales@investigatemagazine.com, helpdesk@investigatemagazine.tv All content in this magazine is copyright, and may not be reproduced in any form without the written permission of the publisher. The opinions of advertisers or contributors are not necessarily those of the magazine, and no liability is accepted. We take no responsibility for unsolicited material sent to us. Please enclose a stamped, SAE envelope. Inquiries in the first instance should be made via email or fax. Investigate magazine Australasia is published by HATM Magazines Ltd

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FOCAL POINT

Editorial

A constitutional conundrum THE GOVERNMENT’S ANNOUNCEMENT OF A CON stitutional

review is, at one level, to be welcomed, but at other levels it raises a number of significant questions. To my mind, chief among those is the role of God. God? You might well ask. Let me explain. I think there’s a strong case that even atheists require God to be part of New Zealand’s constitutional equation if they genuinely want to protect their own freedoms. Here’s why. A constitution effectively recognises the rights of people, but who gave people those “rights” in the first place? If you want to argue that our “rights” only exist at the whim of the State, then we the people become subservient to the State, helpless in its power and with no ability or right to challenge the supremacy of the State. A right “given” by the State can equally, at a later date, be “taken away” by the State, on a whim. A constitution without God is a constitution that effectively places divine power in the hands of a State. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I am extremely uncomfortable with the idea of an all-powerful State writing its own constitution that enshrines the status of the rest of us as “mere subjects”. Such a concept is archaic and dangerous and makes it very hard to legally challenge rogue future leaders who claim to have the power of the State. If a new constitution enshrines the Treaty of Waitangi at its centre, with the modern idea of “partnership” between the Crown and Maori over the rest of us, we are doomed as a country. The Treaty was a deal done between Chiefs and the Queen, essentially an agreement haggled out between two supreme rulers. The idea that it can form the basis of a modern New Zealand is ludicrous. Ordinary Maori and ordinary Pakeha rightly reject the idea that the Crown or tribal rangatira somehow still hold supreme

power over the rest of us – they don’t! A return to the Treaty as a living constitutional document is a surrender of power from the people back to rulers who think they can stitch together deals in smoky backrooms behind closed doors. Which brings us back to God. The US constitution is arguably the finest document of its kind in the history of civilisation. It cleverly recognises that individuals have certain inalienable, fundamental rights deemed to be God-given, that States and rulers can never take away or sell off. Without the recognition that the rights of New Zealanders exist independent of and supreme to the rights of the State, we have no rights at all, because such a constitution

a founding document) but which formally transfers sovereignty from Crown and Treaty partners to the People of New Zealand, who then re-delegate some of that power back to Parliament to wield on their behalf subject to constitutional checks and balances. Government should be the servant of the People, not their Master. Anything less is a copout and a cynical manipulation of the public. A new constitution vesting sovereignty in the New Zealand people would be an efficient and modern way of laying the power and control ambitions of politicians and Maori tribal bosses to rest, as it would supersede the Treaty of Waitangi arrangement and end the debate. What do Maori get out of this? Freedom from their own control freaks, just like the

A constitution without God is a constitution that effectively places divine power in the hands of a State would never recognise the supremacy of the people. An atheist who can’t accept that our rights exist independent of the State sets him or herself up for a fall. We can recognise, with affection, that the Treaty of Waitangi founded the nation of New Zealand in February 1840, but it is no more a blueprint for life and government in modern New Zealand than the Treaty of Yandabo in February 1826 gives Britain the right to occupy modern Burma. Time has moved on, history has moved on, and we should not confuse the importance of something with the efficacy of something. The ideal constitution for New Zealand is one that recognises where we have come from (Crown and Rangatira hammering out

4 INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM January 2011

rest of this. There is nothing stopping such a constitution delegating some powers to iwi authorities – with the People’s permission – in the same way we delegate powers to Parliament. But there’s one major difference – under my proposed constitution the People, not Parliament, would have the final say. Our rights, whether we are black, white, grey or indifferent, come to us from God, not from the State and not from ancient deals hammered out between ancient kings. We, the People, need to make this clear.

INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM January 2011 5

VOX POPULI

Communiques The roar of the crowd

Police laziness

Ever since reading the article raising the possibility that Heidi Paakkonen may still be alive, or at least was alive weeks after the police decided she had been murdered, I’ve been worrying that action had been taken by someone or other, to search the particular house on Kawau Island before your magazine was printed. If not, any criminals of any bent will be long gone by now and any relative evidence destroyed. Prior to the Crewe murders I had unquestioned faith in the Police. One of the Judges involved ( in either the appeal or second trial)) declared that if Thomas was found not guilty it would ruin the public’s faith in the Justice system. This had exactly the opposite response from my husband and me. After all, where is the justice if a wrong cannot be righted? Since then there have been far too many cases where the convictions are suspect to say the least. The Police cannot seem to get it into their heads, that if they admitted an error and worked to rectify the findings this would immediately help toward restoring the public’s faith. M Robertson, Tauranga

Police safety

Another policeman, Bruce Mellor, is attacked and almost killed while on duty, this time by machete-wielding youths. The policeman’s most robust form of defence against this attack? His forearms. It is nothing less than an act of social treachery when citizens of a society and its leaders will not support the appropriate arming of those to whom we delegate the authority, responsibility, and accountability to defend themselves and us from harm. Such a deficit also erodes confidence in citizens that they and their families will be

protected. In the absence of the Government making a meaningful commitment to empower those they appoint to guard me and my family, I have now taken the step of arming myself to do so, and I would encourage every other citizen with similar concerns to now do the same. The police cannot sufficiently protect us from the bad people, because our Government consistently refuses to let them. I have thus decided that when the Police are permitted to carry their own weapons, I will lay down mine – and not before. Steve Taylor, Auckland

Pike River delays

I have to agree with your published comments (TBR.CC) regarding the rescue operation at Pike River Mine. Our police are cementing their already unenviable reputation. You have touched on a few of their less successful outcomes. To add to the list can I suggest the Wahine disaster in which the police took an awful drubbing in the subsequent enquiry. Of lesser magnitude was the outcome of Graham Burton’s little escapade in the hills above Epuni in Lower Hutt, where fresh from his success in killing young Kuchenbecker he was rewarded with a police bullet to the knee rather than to the head. He has gone on to hold this country to ransom for various misdemeanours in the prison. Not to mention the extravagant measures taken to protect the Beak at his subsequent trial. Here was a one legged man in a wheelchair in the body of the court, virtually surrounded by police, who for the safety of the Beak, it was considered necessary Burton should be denied access to the front of the court by a palisade of steel pipes from floor to ceiling. What was the cost of that little exercise?

6 INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM January 2011

More so when you consider our brilliant Government, you will recall, was balking at the prospect of a few pensioners getting subsidised free travel on the Waiheke ferry. A little bit further down the track was the Iron Maiden disaster where a couple of men lost their lives. This was seen as another example of police intransigence in spurning the offered resources of Search and Rescue, which was prepared to put a helicopter in the air in an attempt to rescue the crew. The subsequent enquiry tried to downplay the outcome by suggesting the person captaining the ship was known Cannabis user. In what way did that warrant the failure to marshal available resources for a possible rescue? It has long been recognised that this country is very well prepared for disasters, provided they come along at the appointed times! Peter Grove, via email

In defence of Hubbard

We wish to draw your attention to violations of civil, human, and legal rights occurring as a result of the investigations surrounding Allan Hubbard of Timaru and the refusal of Grant Thornton statutory managers to pay Mr Hubbard’s lawyers in order for Mr Hubbard to be assured of legal recourse given the situation he has been placed in by the government. On Wednesday 8th December 2010, head of the SFO Adam Feeley announced to the media the intention of the SFO to arrest someone the following day, who was involved in a Ponzi scheme. This sent some of the media into a frenzy. On the morning of Thursday 9th December, Mr Hubbard left his home at 5.30 am to drive to Christchurch. There were reporters with cameras waiting outside his house. On the same day, the Timaru Herald published two articles about Allan Hubbard. One suggested that his supporters had suf-

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fered a nervous night, waiting for his arrest. The other article speculated about whether or not Allan Hubbard was the person about to be arrested by the SFO, and showed Allan Hubbard’s photo. The Christchurch Press published an article on the front page that day too, showing Allan Hubbard’s photo, and speculating about whether or not he would be arrested. Naturally, Mr Hubbard was deeply upset when he became aware of the articles concerned. We note that the Christchurch Press in particular, as well as the media in general, has consistently presented an overwhelming bias against Mr Hubbard since reporting on the statutory management and SFO investigation(s) in relation to him. The Christchurch Press has published numerous half-page articles, effectively condemning him. Most media organisations have deemed it incumbent upon Mr Hubbard to prove his innocence of the accusations made against him, in public. While we are aware that Mr Feeley of the SFO has contacted Mr Hubbard’s lawyers and Grant Thornton statutory managers to

apologise for the consequences of his actions, we would like the appropriate Minister to remind Mr Feeley that it is inconsistent to say “I don’t conduct investigations in the media” and then do precisely that. Furthermore, publishing of the articles concerned was not only a breeding ground for speculation, but also defamatory. We note that media speculation has been the most consistent result of all of the current investigations into Allan Hubbard so far, and that the speculation invariably surrounds the very public trial Mr Hubbard has been enduring since 20th June 2010. As we have previously shown you, some people are calling for him to be jailed. He is 82 years old and well known to be in poor health. The statutory managers appointed in his case are paying themselves from investors funds, but they are not paying Mr Hubbard’s lawyers. This means that Mr Hubbard would be denied any legal representation if his lawyers were not prepared to wait for payment. Given the profound stress this entire situation has already placed upon Mr Hubbard and his wife, this situation is profoundly unjust.

We urge Minister Simon Power to show greater consideration than he has thus far shown for the rights of Allan and Margaret Hubbard and their investors, who are caught up in this through no fault of their own. The media trial they and the Hubbards have endured is undeniable, without a conclusion. Natural justice is most certainly not occurring in the case of the Hubbard’s and their investors. Far from it. It is also completely illogical for Adam Feeley to suggest that the actions of the SFO are calculated to give investors confidence and then proceed to demoralise them further, beyond the damage he has already caused because of his obvious fascination with the media. We therefore urge Minister Simon Power to ensure that any infringement of the Hubbards’ rights, and the rights of their investors, is rectified immediately. To be clear, we mean human rights, civil rights, and legal rights, it would appear that they are all being breached in one way or another. A J Langridge & 188 others

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Wikileaks a diversion?

When will the Western news media focus upon the major offender in the WikiLeaks issue – the treasonous homosexual U.S. serviceman Bradley Manning – and the worrying and far-reaching ramifications of his betrayal, instead of mainly upon Julian Assange, whose WikiLeaks website has disseminated such classified material? After all, Manning, now in a U.S. gaol, has admitted as much, even to voicing grievances about U.S. military policy and, as a homosexual, his sense of social isolation in the service. This indeed is a can of worms crying out to be opened up to critical scrutiny, and all the more so, ironically, as President Obama, citing a highly suspect troop poll, urges the Senate to repeal the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (DADT) ban on open homosexuality in the U.S. military, which also just happens to be a major plank in the homosexual political agenda. According to the NZ Herald of 2nd December (“Military calls for gays to be able to serve openly”) U.S. Senator John McCain calls such moves “politically motivated and dangerous at a time of war”. Questions need to be asked about the news media’s widespread pussyfooting around this

deep and troubling aspect of the WikiLeaks issue: the betrayal of military confidences by a disgruntled, dissident homosexual serviceman. After all, surely it is hardly coincidental that such suppression will suit very well the current mindless and dangerous moves by the U.S. Administration with its push to ban DADT, thus paving the way for more openness of homosexuality in the military. The last thing they, and the powerful and vociferous homosexual lobby, will want right now is a reminder of the very real vulnerability of the service to betrayal by homosexual servicemen/woman with a particular axe to

grind, as is being demonstrated right now in the Bradley Manning case. More, and leaving aside for the moment the pros and cons of his involvement in this issue, could it be that Julian Assange is being made a convenient scapegoat here, and international security is at risk of being jeopardised into the bargain, and all in the cause of pandering to the nefarious homosexual political agenda? When, I wonder, will the largely leftist Western news media have the courage to call a spade a spade in their coverage of this issue? Barbara Faithfull, Auckland

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For once I’d like to be the rain And not the ground on which it falls For once I’d like to be the sea And not the beach to whom it calls The name upon a thousand lips The face to launch a thousand ships The silver light in star-hung skies That dives into a billion eyes The strongest word, the final say The tide turner, the only way The golden crown, the ivory throne The sword and sceptre, mine alone! Gwyn Ryan (Charn, in C.S. Lewis’s The Magician’s Nephew from the Narnia series, is an ancient mythical world with questions unanswered, dying when Digory and Polly visit. (Poetry editor’s note).

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NEW ZEALAND’S LEADING CURRENT AFFAIRS MAGAZINE

INVESTIGATE January 2011:

PIKE RIVER:

WHY DID IT GO SO WRONG?

Pike River • Foreshore and Seabed • Suntan Prevents Melanoma?

WE UNCOVER VITAL NEW EVIDENCE FIGHTING ON THE BEACHES

The Foreshore & Seabed Debate: What’s really at stake?

TAN-TASTIC NEWS

New cancer study takes guilt out of sunbathing

THE CANCUN CLIMATE CON Issue 120

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A “GLOBE” power struggle behind Wikileaks arrest NO ONE BELIEVES JULIAN ASSANGE IS NOW SITTING

in a British jail cell because he is a rapist. The Swedish charges have been a convenient way to shut up the Australian-born founder of WikiLeaks, who keeps embarrassing the powerful by publishing details of 250,000 secret US documents on the internet. In fact, the allegations against Assange, 39, which were the basis of an international warrant for his arrest, make a mockery of rape. How long did it take to arrest the men who raped and murdered thousands of Bosnians in the Srebrenica genocide of 1995? Yet Assange has been locked up for what the UK Daily Mail describes as two one-night stands in August and “allegations [that] simply don’t ring true.” The two alleged victims have been all over Twitter and the media giving a version of their encounters with Assange which appear to be more about women scorned than women victimised. The most comprehensive story detailing the allegations appeared in the Daily Mail on December 7, claiming Assange slept with a feminist activist who had lent him her apartment when he was in Stockholm in August to speak at a seminar. They reportedly went out for dinner and then home to her flat and had sex, during which a condom broke. They remained on friendly terms, with the woman throwing him a party the next night. By the following day, however, he had already met another female fan, in the seminar audience, with whom he was “intimate” after lunch. A couple of days later Assange and his new admirer slept together at her house using a condom. The next morning they had sex again, without a condom. She later complained that she was upset about his refusal to wear a condom. Nevertheless they went out for breakfast together and he promised to stay in touch.

Then she phoned the woman in whose apartment Assange was staying and learned that he had been sleeping with both of them. “The sex had been consensual from the start but had eventually turned into abuse,” they later told a reporter. The women went to the police and the media and hired a “gender lawyer” to go after Assange using Sweden’s complex sex laws. Soon enough, Assange was on Interpol’s most-wanted list for sex crimes, despite the fact, as the Mail writes, “there is scant evidence – in the public domain at least – of rape, sexual molestation or unlawful coercion.” We now have American politicians calling

secret information and wreak supposed havoc, then Assange should be thanked for bringing the vulnerability to our attention. If the information WikiLeaks is releasing is so threatening to international security, why wasn’t it better protected? And if the top secret, sensitive information is actually locked up so tightly that WikiLeaks can’t get hold of it, then all Assange has done wrong is to embarrass people in high places. We didn’t need WikiLeaks to tell us that Kevin Rudd is a pompous ass. But the revelations that US diplomats regarded him as an “abrasive impulsive control freak” who

And if the top secret, sensitive information is actually locked up so tightly that WikiLeaks can’t get hold of it, then all Assange has done wrong is to embarrass people in high places for Assange to be executed, Canadians saying he should be assassinated, Sarah Palin saying he should be hunted down “like Osama bin Laden”, and bloggers calling for his Australian son, 20-year-old Daniel Assange, to be kidnapped. And the Australian Prime Minister’s response has been to call him a criminal and threaten to cancel his passport. David Hicks got better treatment and he was bearing arms in Afghanistan for the enemy. Where’s Dick Smith now? The fact is that if American security is so weak and incompetent that a lovelorn soldier lip-syncing to Lady GaGa can steal

14 INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM January 2011

blundered about the world making “snap announcements without consulting other countries or within the Australian government” is useful. WikiLeaks has shown what a liability Rudd’s ego has been to Australia’s image abroad, and if he has any shame, the revelations ought to take some of the newfound spring out of his step. The official fury unleashed against Assange is largely about the embarrassment WikiLeaks has created for diplomats. But the US is lucky it is Assange controlling the information because he does abide by some sort of moral code.

Writing in The Australian newspaper yesterday he said his “core values” were forged in the small Queensland town where he grew up – “where people spoke their minds bluntly. They distrusted big government as something that could be corrupted if not watched carefully… WikiLeaks was created around these core values. The idea, conceived in Australia, was to use internet technologies in new ways to report the truth.” Assange represents a peculiarly Generation X breed of egocentric moral anarchist – simultaneously altruistic, idealistic and cynical. His mother Christine, who runs a puppet theatre in Queensland, has denied to The Sunshine Coast Daily that she was ever a hippie. But she brought up her son with a distrust of authority, common to fatherless boys. According to The New Yorker, he had moved 37 times by the time he was 14. He was a clever boy who was home-schooled, read voraciously, and became a computer hacker early on. From 11 to 16 he lived “on the run” with his mother and half-brother, hiding from a stepfather.

Today he is a citizen of the world, described by his lawyers as “homeless” and living in airports and the homes of friends. It is an unorthodox, almost stoical life, and some of his expressed political views are pure left-wing anti-globalisation conspiracy. But he is on the side of Truth, which has no ideological bent; WikiLeaks has caused equal opportunity squirming from both right and left. On climate change for instance, WikiLeaks was only tangentially involved with the climategate emails, which threw so much light on the dishonesty of the global warming industry. But it has more recently released US diplomatic cables which reveal some of the secret arm-twisting, bribery, coercion and plain greed behind the postCopenhagen climate accord. It also reveals the existence of a shadowy global climate organisation of legislators that sounds like something out of an Alex Rider novel: GLOBE International, “Global Legislators Organisation for a Balanced Environment.” WikiLeaks has also revealed that, far from being too hawkish on the threat of Iran’s

Two monitors show the website of Wikileaks with published confidential dispatches of US diplomats (L) and a portrait of the founder of Wikileaks Julian Assange. A US bank shall be the next target of the website. / Jens Buettner

nuclear program, the US and Israel are in reality remarkably restrained compared to Iran’s Arab neighbours, who have been urging the US to “cut off the head of the snake”. As Assange says, no evidence has been produced by his critics that anyone has been harmed as a result of WikiLeaks revelations, or that intelligence sources were compromised by the release of Afghan war logs. Perhaps his worst crime is that he has hired the insufferable Australian grandstander Geoffrey Robertson as his lawyer and counts among his most ardent supporters Noam Chomsky, John Pilger and Jemima Khan. devinemiranda@hotmail.com

INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM January 2011 15

STRAIGHT TALK

Mark Steyn A lesson for Super cities? SINGLE PAYER… PUBLIC OPTION… CAP & TRADE…

No, wait, is that health care or something else? It’s all so complicated, isn’t it? Which is the point. It’s so hard to follow we have to leave it to our betters – ie, Barney Frank and Nancy Pelosi – to follow it for us. They don’t really follow it, either, but, while they may not actually write the legislation or even read it, they do have vast retinues of highly remunerated underlings tasked with reconciling the competing claims of various interest groups. And thus the republic, after a fashion, survives. Health care isn’t really that complicated, not for you and your dependents. To be sure, if you need a particular operation or course of treatment, it can be a four- or five-figure sum. But, in the course of his life, the average American makes many four-, fiveand even six-figure purchases: They’re called, just to cite the obvious examples, cars and homes. Very few of us stroll into the realtors with an attaché case containing a quartermillion dollars in small bills. Yet remarkably most of us manage to arrange the acquisition of houses and automobiles without routing the transaction through some vast federal bureaucracy. If you attempt to design a system for hundreds of millions of people, it’s bound to be complicated. Ask your nearest Soviet commissar, whose five-year plans we now seem to be emulating in both their boundless optimism and entirely predictable consequences. A few weeks back I mentioned a couple of bridges in a neighbouring town of mine, both on dirt roads serving maybe a dozen houses. Bridge A: The town was prevailed upon to apply for some state/town 80/20 funding plan, which morphed under the stimulus into some fed/state 60/40 funding plan. Current estimated cost: $655,000. The town’s on the hook for 20 per cent of the state’s 40 per cent – or $52,400. There’s

no estimated year of completion, or even of commencement, and the temporary bridge the town threw up has worn out. Bridge B: Following their experience with Bridge A, the town replaced this one themselves, in a matter of weeks. Total cost: $30,000. Government is simple provided two conditions are met: You do it locally, and you do it without unions. The first is the reason America is one of the few large countries that hasn’t disintegrated. If it were as centrally governed as

Blogger. Across the land, every illiterate and innumerate Third Grader can master Facebook and Blogger without getting the best part of half a million taxpayer bucks. But apparently it would be unreasonable to expect a state library to get the hang of it without a massive federal program. What is it the eco-bores say? Think globally, act locally. Yet the global thinking is intended to impede genuine local action – or, at any rate, distort and corrupt its motivations. The other obstacle to effective localism is unionization. The relative strength of orga-

A snapshot of America in the 21st century would show a motivated can-do, small businessman working round the clock till he’s 78 to pay for a government worker who retires at 52 with pension and other benefits the private sector schmuck could never dream of the USSR or Yugoslavia, it would have bust up in the early 19th century. And, while the Obama Administration is certainly testing that proposition to the limits, they’re hardly starting from scratch. I’m a big fan of Laura Bush, and found her utterly charming on the one occasion we met, but I can think of no good reason why taxpayers should fund a “Laura Bush 21st Century Librarian Program”. Sample disbursement: $420,000 to the State Library of Illinois to fund a program to help its employees master “social networking” tools such as Facebook and

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nized labour is the key difference between America and most other developed nations: According to a Fraser Institute report, the least unionized state in America is North Carolina, at 3.9 per cent, whereas the least unionized province in Canada is Alberta, at 24.2 per cent. But, whatever the arguments for private sector unionization as a protection against the robber barons of capitalism red in tooth and claw, there is no justification whatsoever for public sector unions. After all, government is a monopoly: Even if it goes bankrupt, it’s never going to go

Brigitte Sporrer/NEWSCOM

out of business, much as one might long to see the “Final Liquidation. Everything Must Go” shingles hanging in the windows in Sacramento and Albany. A snapshot of America in the 21st century would show a motivated can-do, small businessman working round the clock till he’s 78 to pay for a government worker who retires at 52 with pension and other benefits the private sector schmuck could never dream of. That’s why Big Government produces no economies of scale. The bigger the government the more everything it does costs, whether it’s a Facebook workshop in Illinois or a bridge in New Hampshire. The metastasization of the public-sector

workforce eventually becomes an existential threat to democracy. One in every eight workers in New York State – or 1.2 million – is a unionized government employee, and thus a reliable vote for the Democrats, the Party of Government. Recently I heard Herbert London of the Hudson Institute put it this way – that, on the first day of any Empire State election campaign, the Democrat starts with those 1.2 million votes and the Republican starts with zero and attempts to play catch-up. It’s hardly surprising very few do. Building a bridge is easy and affordable: America’s settlers did it all the time. What makes it complex and unaffordable is stat-

The bigger the government the more everything it does costs, whether it’s a Facebook workshop in Illinois or a bridge in New Hampshire.

ism. A couple of seasons back, the preferred shorthand for government waste was “A Bridge To Nowhere”. In fact, the bridge leads somewhere quite specific, and, if you don’t like where it’s headed, you’d better do something about it before we’re any further across the river. ©2010 Mark Steyn

INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM January 2011 17

EYES RIGHT

Richard Prosser Good Bastards one and all

MY GREAT-GRANDFATHER WAS A WELSH COAL MINER. My

grandfather followed him down the pit briefly, before thinking better of it and turning to drain laying instead. This was frowned upon in a way by his family and community at the time, because coal mining was, and to an extent continues as, a way of life in Wales, but at least laying drains still involved digging holes and getting dirty, so in the end it was decided that that was sort of alright. Coal and mining are a way of life on the West Coast as well, and, as we have been so tragically reminded by the Pike River disaster, at times a way of death. The West Coast and New Zealand lost twenty-nine of our finest when the Pike River mine exploded, twenty-nine men taken too soon from twenty-nine families whose pain in some degree belongs to us all. Many of them were native-born West Coasters, some from other parts of New Zealand, some adopted into our nation from the far-flung reaches of the world; all, now, as they lie in the bosom of this fair land, they are all our sons, and they are sons of us all. Everyone knows that mining can be a dangerous business, underground mining especially so. The risks presented by heavy machinery, explosives, and falling rock in open cast mines, are compounded by the threat of cave-ins, poisonous and explosive gases, fire, and flooding, when the search for minerals moves underground. We who are not involved in mining know these things, but we do not understand them in the same way as do those who live them on a daily basis. Cosseted in our towns and cities, our farms and our factories and our workshops and office blocks, we all rely on the products of the mining industries, but we do not risk life and limb in the pursuit of them. I have enormous respect for those who do. On the Coast they know it all too well. If you live on the West Coast of the South

Island and you’re not a miner, then it’s a safe bet that you’re married to one, or you’re a parent of one, or you went to school with one or more. And your business, or the business you work for, will be dependent, directly or indirectly, on the mines for all or part of its viability. Mining and the Coast are suffused with each other, intertwined, inseparable. Coasters dig and quarry the earth which provides the benefits of its riches to the rest of us; gold, silver, and copper for wealth and industry, coal for heat, electricity, and steel; limestone for cement and fertiliser; aggregates for road building and construction. And there are others – titanium, tin,

The danger is ever present. The reality of it hits home with tragedies like Pike River, the name of which will pass into infamy along with Strongman, Brunner, Kaitangata, Ralphs, Glen Afton, Denniston, and Dobson – a somber catalogue of New Zealand’s too long a history of fatal mining accidents, and a sobering reminder that just as the earth can give up its riches, it can also take away that which is most precious of all. But West Coasters are resilient people. In spite of the risks and in the face of adversity they remain united and staunch. They’re hardy folk on the Coast; they work hard, play hard, drink hard, live hard, in an envi-

We dishonour them if we fail to learn from this tragedy; we dishonour them if we fail to do things differently and better next time, in whatever ways may prove to be necessary and other minerals used in the production of paints, plastics, paper, textiles, rubber, and PVC. And there is the potential for more; uranium, rare earth elements, antimony, lead, iron, and even bauxite. Mining touches our daily lives because the things we use and depend on every day for our modern lifestyles are made from its products, and the people of the West Coast touch our daily lives because it is they who make that production possible. They delve into the earth to extract her bounty, they put themselves on the line, body and soul; they toil, they sweat, they bleed for us all; and sometimes, they die.

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ronment which is as harsh and unforgiving as it is beautiful and bountiful. And despite the ever-present possibility of death and disaster they stay cheerful and optimistic. I never met a Coaster I didn’t like, and I have met more than a few. They will survive the agony of Pike River. The Coast will carry on and the mining will carry on, as it should and as it must. There will be enquiries, as there also should. There will be a Royal Commission. Twenty-nine good men will not go to their graves without us finding out what happened and why, they will not die without lessons being learned so that others may work

A miner lays down flowers at the White Knight Bridge near the entrance to the Pike River mine. / Xinhua/NZPA

the mines in greater safety. There will be accusations and perhaps recriminations in the fullness of time, there will be suggestions that things could and perhaps should have been done differently, and that the approach to mining the Brunner coal seam may not have been the same had priorities been set in another manner. But here and now is not the time for that; now is the time for the nation to stand behind the Coast, to let them grieve, to help them recover and rebuild. Coasters have a proud tradition of selfdetermination. The West Coast retains a great measure of the pioneering spirit which has all but faded from most of the rest of the country. The Coast was the cradle of the Union movement and the birthplace of the Labour Party, back in time in a more genuine age, when both those organizations were born of necessity amongst men who worked with their bodies to extract the resources needed by a young and hungry colony. It is a different place, honest and forthright, where the values and perceptions of the New Zealand of old have remained pure these past fifty years, while the rest of us have grown jaded and materialistic. It is a place where Rugby League has established itself as a creditable rival to Rugby Union, like almost nowhere else in the country. And when Dominion Breweries, the new Corporate owners of the time-honoured local brewery Monteith’s, decided to shift their brewing operation to Auckland, the Coast responded by creating its own brand new, indigenous, and locally produced ale as a mark of defiance. In true West Coast fashion, they called the brew Good Bastards beer. Realising they were beaten, DB agreed to a compromise, and the Greymouth brewery remained open. I for one say good on the Coast. They are an example to us all. And long may that example continue. We,

the rest of New Zealand, owe an enormous and un-repayable debt to the West Coast. They are the Keepers of the Clear Vision, the people who remind us of who we are and what we were, and of how much of our past we have lost, squandered, or become ashamed of. The forestry, the Railways, the fishing boats, the farmland hacked and wrestled and won from the bush with blood and perspiration, with slashers and chainsaws and bulldozers, and of course the mines; this is a raw land where real people still do real work, and these are a gritty folk who embrace that role, and who risk their very lives so that we may all share in the prosperity they create. Once upon a time, all of New Zealand was as the West Coast is now. Today, we do not face death for them as they do for us, and that, I believe, is worthy of remembering and respecting. Our way of life could not exist without the technologies we have created out of the treasures we extirpate from our planet. Twenty-nine Good Bastards lie under that mountain, and we dishonour them if we allow ourselves to forget that fact. Yes, maybe the mine could have been constructed differently, but it wasn’t. They knew that and went in anyway. Yes, the money is good, but the hazards are real as well, and they knew that and still went in anyway. They did so for many reasons, not the least of them being that they possessed a courage which we do not, and that we must never forget. We do not dishonour these men if we continue to mine for coal. We dishonour them if we fail to learn from this tragedy; we dishonour them if we fail to do things differently and better next time, in whatever ways may

prove to be necessary; we dishonour them if we give up and walk away. There is talk of heroes in these early days when memories are most painful and emotions are still visceral. There are the leaders who planned in vain for a rescue, the rescuers who waited so eagerly for a chance to rush to their comrades’ aid. All true enough, I would posit; but unsung as heroes are the men who had the guts and determination to walk into the pit every day; those who still do, and the twenty-nine who never came out again. We will build monuments to these fallen, that much is certain, so that no-one will ever forget their sacrifice; but the greatest mark of respect we can show them is to carry on their good work and to allow West Coasters to continue with their way of life. We will not give up and walk away, of course, and neither will the Coast. They will soldier on – and we, the rest of us, who have ridden their backs for so long and with so little acknowledgment, must now walk alongside them as they do. I salute the miners of Pike River, those who perished and those who have lived to dig another day. I salute your grit, your passion, your determination, your bravery; your solidarity, your humour, your tenacity and your humanity. I am humbled by your example and pained by your loss. I say God Bless the wild West Coast. It is this country’s last frontier and the final bastion of the real New Zealand, and I and all New Zealanders owe you a debt of honour. And God Bless you wild West Coasters, good bastards one and all. © 2010 Richard Prosser

INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM January 2011 19

LINE ONE

Chris Carter

Ghost riders, or they soon will be PICTURE THIS: YOU’RE CRUISING ALONG A FAIRLY TYP ically narrow piece of New Zealand highway,

complete with blind corners, no curbing and frequent undulating hills, when, with little warning, your lane is effectively blocked by a bevy of straining cyclists moving at a speed around 10% of the posted speed limit. Inevitably, coming towards you is something like a milk tanker giving you the choice of you and your family getting the chop or otherwise a group of innocent pedal pushers learning very quickly of the inadvisability of riding on lethal-to-use busy secondary roads. It surprises me, actually, that the fatality rate amongst cyclists isn’t around twice or three times the amount that sadly it is at the moment. Think about it: slow moving, frequently wobbling bicycles, usually without rear vision mirrors (therefore keeping the rider blissfully ignorant as to a car or a truck about to pass him or her). Like it or not, when a multi-tonne truck and trailer unit inadvertently squashes such a cyclist like a bug, it surely makes the “Right” to ride a bike on the road one of the sillier that any of us might choose to exercise. It has long been established common law that a free man has a fundamental right to drive a horse and cart on the roads, but not many choose to exercise that right. I watched fascinated the other evening various cyclists on TV One proclaiming their rights to use the Queen’s highway, which up until recently would have had my full support. I owned a series of high performance motor bikes for the better part of several decades, without I might add ever collecting either a ticket nor, thank heavens, being involved in an “accident”. Essentially, my (some might say) charmed life was sheer luck, but in fact it really came down to my highly developed sense of self preservation. My Dad told me as I bought my first bike

that the local funeral director would probably be holding a party, but more importantly continually pointed out my car driving faults that when I started to ride my new bike without some major improvements, would have me on a one way ticket to the embalmers in short order. It was good, practical advice like, “watch your mirrors like a hawk, both will save you a lot of tickets and reduce your chances of being crowded off the road by say a cattle truck or a visually challenged motorist. “Give absolute right of way to anything on the road bigger than you are, same as rarking up a front row forward in the pub – don’t do it you’ll only end up second best.

the “Right” to go on green, but now you are dead so forget about “rights” and try using your brains! By the way, if you do have a desire to live dangerously and ride a motor cycle, buy a high performance machine -they brake and handle much better than these low powered putt-putts we still insist that people start out on which frequently also don’t have sufficient power to pass safely on the open road. But if motor bike riding is likely to be a bit dodgy in the safety department, then riding a push bike on the open limit highways should just about be akin to being a kamikaze volunteer. By and large, nothing ever seems to change when it comes to safe bike

Bearing in mind that cyclists at the moment are being killed and injured in bulk numbers, where are the television ads to educate cyclists as to how to be safer riders “Remember that a high proportion of our road users are really not qualified to even cross the road let alone drive on it, treat all of them as probable ax murderers that are out to get you. “Pretend that you’re a World War II fighter pilot. Those that kept their eyes open got to live. ‘Watch for the Hun in the sun’ translates on the road to watch out for that prat at the next intersection, he may very well pull out and run into you. Same at traffic lights, green light means that it’s your turn to go but the chances are that several colour blind people will ignore their red light and run into you.” As my father points out, sure, you had

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riding does it? I remember some years back after mentioning on radio that my bike riding kids were under firm orders from me to only ever ride on the footpath when using our very busy road and copping a real punishing from listeners that I was telling our kids to break the law. Fair enough that packs of high-fashion clad, heads-down-bums-up wanna-be competitors for the next Olympics should not do this, they would doubtlessly scare to death normal pedestrians who, my kids were told, had absolute right of way and were not to be hassled in any way. Speaking of which, traffic rules and regulations: what do we have to do to engender

a wee bit of common sense into the apparently addled brains of those who still call the shots in this area from the Ministry of Manslaughter down there in the windy city? Bearing in mind that cyclists at the moment are being killed and injured in bulk numbers, where are the television ads to educate cyclists as to how to be safer riders. When does an enforcement blitz start to fine cyclists for accident-promoting behaviour? When are rear view mirrors for bikes becoming compulsory or for that matter warrants of fitness for bikes, just like we had to get at school years back before we were allowed to ride our bikes to school! Can anyone think of one good reason why it should be that any visitor from overseas or for that matter any New Zealander can become a road user in this country by riding a bike, without any proof that they know the first thing about our current road rules? If you don’t have a motor vehicle drivers license then presumably you shouldn’t be legally allowed to use the roads for any transport uses. So why shouldn’t all adult bike riders have to have a license to show that they at least know the road rules, say to be carried in the pocket and to be produced on demand to any policeman, same as every other road user...make ticket issuing much easier for plod as well eh? As I mentioned I’ve watched fascinated the hordes of bikers’ rights people doing the usual Kiwi thing of trying to entirely shift the blame of this latest spate of cyclist road deaths onto the long suffering motor-

Richard B. Levine/NEWSCOM

ists. This shouldn’t be another edition of the blame game, simply a major problem that could and should be overcome. The guy from Wellington that Close Up featured a few nights back who was bleating about every time he rode along the Hutt Road he suffered at least a couple of life threatening experiences, surely this guy has an undiagnosed death wish or isn’t aware of the excellent train service. But perhaps not unlike

someone who wishes to jump from an aircraft using an umbrella as a parachute, it’s a free country. It’s your life that you want to risk, but maybe if you weren’t covered by accident compensation to help bury you, the effect that your demise may well have on your family might give you more cause to think. Chris Carter appears in association with www.snitch.co.nz, a must-see site.

INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM January 2011 21

FADING EMPIRES

Hal G. P. Colebatch A politically correct Narnia POLITICAL CORRECTNESS HAS NOW RAISED ITS HEAD

is what one would have thought a stronghold of traditional Christianity – the work of C. S. Lewis. To be precise, the new film of his Voyage of the Dawn Treader, one of the best-selling “Narnia” series of children’s books. The Dawn Treader is a revival of an old Irish form, the Immram, telling of a ship voyaging among islands, with the crew learning some lesson at each stopping place. The imaginary world of Narnia is, of course, under the rule of kings who acknowledge the rule of its Creator, the good lion Aslan, an attempt by Lewis to make the idea of Christ accessible to modern children. However, actor Liam Neeson, who provides the voice of the lion in the Dawn Treader, has claimed Aslan is also based on other religious leaders such as Mohammed and Buddha. In fact there is not the slightest doubt about Aslan’s identity. In the first Narnia story, The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, Aslan takes on the burden of guilt and punishment for another, undergoes a kind of crucifixion and rises from the dead. Neither Islam nor Buddhism have any remotely comparable episodes. Following Lewis’s conversion, the entire body of his writing apart from his purely scholarly work consisted of Christian apologetics of one kind or another. He said on more than one occasion that his purpose behind writing the Narnia books was to introduce children to Christianity and to get the Christian message to them “past the watchful dragons” of modern secularism. He wrote of Aslan: “He is an invention giving an imaginary answer to the question, “What might Christ become like if there really were a world like Narnia, and He chose to be incarnate and die and rise

again in that world as He actually has done in ours?”’ Neeson was quoted as saying “he [Aslan] also symbolises for me Mohammed, Buddha and all the great spiritual leaders and prophets over the centuries. “That’s who Aslan stands for as well as a mentor figure for kids – that’s what he means for me.” Walter Hooper, Lewis’s former secretary and a trustee of his estate, was quoted as saying the author would have been outraged: “It is nothing whatever to do with Islam. Lewis would have simply denied that. He wrote that the ‘whole Narnian story is about

Calormenes worship a vulture-headed god called Tash and, unlike any Muslims, conduct human sacrifices. Their city has statues, which are forbidden in Islam. They also drink wine. However, it is equally obvious and quite unmistakable that they are meant to be Muslim-like: they are warlike, live in the hot, desert-like country, are swarthy, wear turbans and run the slave-trade. Their ruler, the Tisroc, practices polygamy and his prime minister is known as a chief vizier. The women live in harem-like seclusion. They fight with scimitars and their unit of currency is called a crescent.

Lewis did not make the Calormenes identical with Muslims. It is probable that he deliberately made them different in important ways so the books would not be regarded as simply anti-Muslim tracts Christ.’ Lewis could not have been clearer.” Conservative Christian William Oddie, a former editor of The Catholic Herald, accused Neeson of “a betrayal of Lewis’s intention and a shameful distortion”. Although there are wicked witches and other supernatural evil creatures threatening the good kingdom of Narnia, the chief political and military threat to it is Calormene, the great and cruel empire to the south. Lewis did not make the Calormenes identical with Muslims. It is probable that he deliberately made them different in important ways so the books would not be regarded as simply anti-Muslim tracts: the

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The Calormenes government is Oriental despotism. The Tisroc is a capricious and merciless tyrant (“Call back the pardon we wrote for the third cook. I feel manifest within me the prognostics of indigestion.”) Insulting the Tisroc results, for one of his subjects, in a short life and a slow death. There are no Christian values in government. The Tisroc, who regards “our subjects” as “vile,” in The Horse and His Boy plots the death of his eldest son before the son can assassinate him, remarking: “I have eighteen other sons and Rabadash, in the manner of the eldest sons of kings, was beginning to be dangerous. More than five Tisrocs in

Tashban have died before their time because their eldest sons, enlightened princes, grew tired of waiting for their throne.” The state of Calormene law is indicated by the fact that “there is only one traffic regulation, which is that everyone who is less important has to get out of the way for everyone who is more important.” The Narnians, by contrast, though we do not hear much about their organized religion, try to live by Christian-like values and an idealized version of medieval chivalry, and to revere the Lordship of Aslan in actions as well as words. The Calormenes regard peace with the Narnians as no more than temporary truces, are always trying to conquer Narnia and in the end, in The Last Battle, succeed. The Calormen names, such as Arsheesh, Ahoshta, Lasaraleen and Rabadash, are not specifically Muslim but have a kind of Arabic sound to them. As Narnia represents the Christian and classical heritage of Europe (it has beings from classical pagan mythology such as fauns and dryads as well as “northern” fairy-tale creatures and talking animals), so Calormen represents the perpetual infidel military threat to it, as the witches etc. represent the spiritual threat. Buddhism, incidentally, is simply not mentioned in the stories at all (I am at least grateful that writing this has given me a chance to re-read them). Further, it is made clear that Aslan-Christ is, under the Emperor-Over-Sea (God the Father), the only good God. No syncretism is possible. In The Last Battle a phoney syncretic religion, running together Aslan and Tash is concocted by Calormene crooks and slave-traders. A bewildered and exploited donkey wearing a lion-skin is presented as “Tashlan” to fool the Narnian animals into obeying the Calormenes. It is seen as a portent, literally the “End Times” of terminal degeneration and decay ushering in the end

of not just Narnia but also of Calormene and the whole Aslan-created universe. The good Calormenes are saved at the end in The Last Battle not because Tash who they sincerely worshipped had any aspects of goodness, or identity with Aslan but because Aslan claims that any good action, even if does in another’s name, is his own. Lewis made the same point in The Screwtape Letters, in which the demon Screwtape complained that God saved the souls of men who died in a bad cause “on the monstrously sophistical grounds that they were serving

the best cause they knew.” This is about as far from syncretism as it is possible to get. Further, Lewis wrote very forcibly that he did not believe it was possible to regard Christ as a great moral teacher, comparable with Confucius or Socrates. He had repeatedly made the specific claim, as no other moral teacher or religious leader had, to be the only-begotten Son of God, and had to be regarded as that or nothing. Hal Colebatch’s “Immram,” Counterstrike, is being published by Australian publisher Imaginites.

INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM January 2011 23

CONTRA MUNDUM

Matthew Flannagan In defence of Santa

I GRASPED THE SPONGE, WATER DRIPPED DOWN

my wrist as I took aim. The man from the McGillicuddy Serious Party raised his voice and said “now throw!” The sponge flew through the air from my hand and struck Santa solidly on the chest soaking his red costume. Santa laughed and said “throw another one!” It was my second year at university and the McGillicuddies were running their annual “throw a sponge at Santa” event. This was done ostensibly to protest materialistic consumerism of which they saw Santa as a modern icon. I was simply sick of the whole hypocritical façade that was Christmas. An event that for many, myself included, has deeply religious significance was being trivialised by a fat man in a red suit from the north-pole. It really irked me. Years have passed since this event and with age comes (I hope) more reserve and wisdom. I have learned more about the cultural icon known as Santa and I have come to appreciate, at least from an historical perspective, why this icon exists. I agree that today the historical meaning of this icon has been forgotten. However I think that the solution to this forgetfulness is to reawaken our cultural memory by addressing the theological and historical ignorance prevalent in our culture; attempts to cut ourselves off from the past even further are not the right approach. The reference to Santa as an icon is apt because the original Santa, Nicholas of Myra, became an icon in religious art. In earlier times there was no printing press and illiteracy was widespread so vivid art became an important way of communicating a message. Characters had to be readily recognisable, in religious art Nicholas was represented by the figure of a man with a large white beard. Given that he was a Catholic bishop, he was portrayed in red robes. The figure of

a white-bearded man in red robes became a symbol for an historical person, and the story of Nicholas was kept alive because of its immediate relevance for the present. Nicholas of Myra was probably born between 260 and 280 AD in Petara (Turkey). He was raised a devout Christian and became Bishop of the nearby province of Myra. He lived through turbulent times. In the early 300’s the emperor Diocletian launched one of the most severe persecutions of Christians in history, many were killed, imprisoned and exiled. A few decades later the Roman Emperor Constantine announced he had converted to Christianity and the Roman Empire became officially Christian. Nicholas lived through both events and

children. He is believed to have intervened to save innocent people from execution. His acts served as role model for others and so his example was appropriated to future generations. Much of the historical facts about Nicholas’ life have merged with legend which seems to have developed hundreds of years after the events in question. The Middle Ages saw the development of a particular literary genre know as hagiography. Hagiographies were biographies of the saints, people from the past whose character and devotion had been considered exemplary. Hagiographies retold the past in an idealised, exaggerated manner to inspire moral lessons on the part of the hearer, often mixing history with edi-

Nicholas was held out as an example of generosity to the poor so as to inspire other people of means to do the same while the facts are disputed, some records claim he attended the council of Nicaea which saw the hammering out of key Christian doctrines such as the trinity and incarnation. The creed of Nicaea is accepted by all major branches of Christianity today – whether orthodox, Catholic or Protestant. Nicholas was, like all human beings, flawed and at one stage is believed to have assaulted another bishop in a heated theological dispute. His flaws aside, his religious commitment clearly made an impression on his contemporaries. Nicholas was quite wealthy yet he gave his wealth away to assist impoverished children. He became known as a leader who generously gave to the poor and who sought and stood up for the welfare of

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fying legend to make the story memorable. These stories were usually highly stereotyped and often employed the same literary motifs and plots from one account to another. The point of such stories was not to get the historical facts correct in all their details but to ensure that the moral example of past saints was made vividly available to future generations. Nicholas’ life was no exception to this, much of what we know of him today comes from embellished hagiography. Despite this there is one striking story about Nicholas which appears to be rooted in historical reality, even if the re-telling is somewhat stylised. It comes in at least three versions but all three agree in the essence and differ only on minor details. The story goes

like this. A wealthy man in Myra fell into economic hard times and was unable to provide a dowry for his three daughters. In the culture of the time this meant that his daughters would have been unable to marry and would probably have been forced, by economic necessity, into either slavery or prostitution to provide for themselves. Nicholas, upon hearing of the family’s plight, secretly visited them in the night and tossed gold through the window of their house. The details differ between accounts, in some accounts what was tossed were gold balls, as opposed to gold coins. In one version the gold is said to have landed in stockings left before the fire to dry. On some versions Nicholas came on three consecutive nights but in others the process was more staggered, with him coming only when the first girl was of marriageable age, then again when the second reached marriageable age with the process being repeated with the third daughter. On the third occasion, the man, desirous of knowing who was sending the gifts waited up to discover who the mysterious stranger was. On one version of the story the father discovered that the giver is Nicholas who then refused to take credit, instead he suggested he was simply doing his duty before God. But in another version, Nicholas evaded detection by secretly dropping a sack of gold down the chimney. The point preserved in the tradition is that through his generosity and social concern, Nicholas saved three women from a dire path. These stories were retold frequently throughout the Middle Ages to function as exemplars of virtuous living. Nicholas was held out as an example of generosity to the poor so as to inspire other people of means to do the same. Like many early church leaders, Nicholas was venerated in subsequent ages and was later canonised as a saint. Feasts were established in memory of him, where this story of his generosity to the poor was ceremonially remembered and re-enacted to reinforce the moral point of the story. It is not hard for the astute reader to see the obvious origins of the Santa phenomena played out each Christmas. Here we have a man whose name, St Nicholas, has obvious linguistic affinity with Santa Claus. Nicholas was historically identified as a white-bearded man, who wore red robes, who secretly comes bearing gifts either via a chimney or by leaving them in stockings near the fireplace, left out while the house sleeps. We also have a tradition of feasting where this tale

is remembered and ceremonially re-enacted. What is important to remember is that the function of such theatrics was to vividly reinforce in the hearer the important moral lesson of giving generously to those in need. This was the whole point of retelling and remembering the story. Over time, traditions become repetitive and are simply repeated by rote. Unless they are cherished and re-appropriated by each generation, their significance can be lost. The fact that many contemporary New Zealanders have limited knowledge of history and that western culture, unlike other cultures, does not emphasise appropriating the lessons from the past, means that Santa has been transformed from an icon representing generosity into the cartoonish figure that, to so many of us, represents commercialism, consumerism and gluttony. During an economic recession, many families stressfully ask how they are going to afford the gifts they are socially obliged to buy and the expensive feasts, traditional foods and decorations that goes with Santa. Many children learn the prudential value both of greed and being spoilt for one day a year. This is perhaps one of the biggest

ironies of Christmas, as while we all feast and receive things we probably don’t need, women will roam the streets selling themselves as prostitutes, often out of economic necessity, and the poor around the world continue to be sold into slavery and enticed into sweat shops. The solution to this irony is not to castigate Santa Claus (as I did many years ago with a wet sponge) but to recapture the lesson our forefathers carefully tried to reinforce through artwork, ceremony, ritual and legend. That those of us with wealth have an obligation to give and assist those facing destitution and hardship that is what God’s will for us is and doing this humbly represents the spirit of Christ. One way to do this is start reclaiming back into our culture the real story of Santa; the wealthy Bishop who, without pomp or ceremony, helped others out of poverty and was immortalised in legend as a result. That, instead of reindeers and bells, is worth preserving. Dr Matthew Flannagan is an Auckland based philosopher/theologian who researches and publishes in the area of Philosophy of Religion, Theology and Ethics. He blogs at www.mandm.org.nz.

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What Went

WRONG?

VITAL NEW EVIDENCE RAISES TERRIBLE QUESTION 26 INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM January 2011

The Government’s Commission of Inquiry into the Pike River disaster will get underway soon, but already evidence is emerging that financial pressures may have encouraged some of the miners to take safety shortcuts that the mine management failed to detect. IAN WISHART has the exclusive story INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM January 2011 27

ew people will forget where they were the afternoon that news broke of a major explosion in New Zealand’s biggest underground coal mine. Like the Kennedy assassination, the moon landing or the death of Princess Diana, the blast that silently consumed 29 miners on November 19 – unheard on the surface – nonetheless sent its shockwaves through the hearts of virtually every New Zealander. In schools nationwide, children would later stand in two minutes’ stark silence in remembrance of the lost. Across the country, we all saw footage of the memorial service. It’s been nearly two generations since New Zealand suffered a comparable mining tragedy, in the nearby Strongman tunnels in 1967. For 43 years, miners have worked with a belief that modern technology had largely solved the problems of the past and eliminated much of the risk. But there’s an old saying that familiarity breeds contempt, and what Investigate has found raises questions about the kind of shortcuts all of us take when we become complacent in our work or home environment. One of the mysteries about the tragedy is the contradiction between Pike River Coal assurances that gas levels were ordinary and within safe limits prior to the explosion, and what actually happened. Chief executive Peter Whittall told journalists assembled in Greymouth the following day that there’d been no unusual readings from sensors inside the mines designed to detect unsafe levels of explosive gases like methane. He elaborated on this with TVNZ’s Q & A Programme on 28 November: “To allow a slow build-up of methane in our working areas I would find very unlikely, given that at the time of the incident we were on a continuous shift, they’d been working all day. And the night before mining officials had been taking methane readings, and in the working faces we’ve got the records from the early indications – and …my indications from reading those reports is that they were being done properly. The only reports we haven’t got are from one of the guys, Peter O’Neill, who is still in the mine. And his shift went longer, through the end of the shift. He worked a 12-hour shift, so his reports for that build-up that day before are still with him. But I would expect that there hasn’t been a slow build-up in many of the working faces.” Was it possible that the miners had released

some methane into the tunnel through blasting? TVNZ asked that question but Whittall confirmed there’d only been one tiny piece of blasting work, at 11am that morning, and no one had recorded anything unusual: “We shotfire and blast every day, we have done for a couple of years. We have procedures for that. And on this particular day I understand we did a very small shot on a piece of roadway where sometimes if you can’t get a machine in to mine it, and it’s only small, you want a small little stub roadway, then shotfiring’s the most quick and efficient way. We had fired a shot at 11 o’clock, 11am, I believe. I haven’t looked at the records, but I’ve asked management on site, and was assured that the explosives and detonators had all been booked out. Those that were used were accounted for, and those that weren’t used were returned and accounted for, and they were happy with the procedures that were followed. So I have said before that, to my knowledge and the knowledge of the management that have advised me, there’s no direct link between our shotfiring activities, and there was no shotfiring to our knowledge going on at the time of the incident.” So again, what went wrong? Investigate believes it now has some answers. On Saturday December 4, we received an anonymous email from a man whose wife was connected to the Pike River mining operation. The woman, he said, had come into possession of information that she wasn’t sure how to handle. “As a contractor, they don’t get paid when the mine shuts down due to high methane levels,” our source told the magazine, “and as a consequence, some of the contractors would cover the sensors with chewing gum to stop them triggering.” Was the cause of the mine blast that simple – a bad choice made because workers lost money if the mine closed down due to gassiness? On its own, the claim is unverified, but as the editor of the Washington Post told Woodward and Bernstein on the Watergate investigation, “get me two more sources and it’s a story”. The first corroboration came when the Timaru Herald interviewed former Pike River miner Brent Forrester and left this nugget of information buried halfway down the page: “Mr Forrester recalled an incident where a miner received a written warning after putting an air hose up to a methane sensor to bring its reading down.” The significance of this, or why a miner

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would do such a thing, was not fully explained in the Timaru Herald article, but now becomes clear from the information given to Investigate: some mining contractors on hourly rates had financial reasons for wanting or needing the mine to stay open, and evidently playing with the sensors formed a part of that strategy. The third piece of confirming evidence comes from Labour Party President and EPMU union boss Andrew Little, who has told Investigate he’d heard similar stories from miners: “I can tell you what I’ve heard, in the days immediately following, is that there’s apparently a bypass mode on the methane sensors

“MR FORRESTER RECALLED AN INCIDENT WHERE A MINER RECEIVED A WRITTEN WARNING AFTER PUTTING AN AIR HOSE UP TO A METHANE SENSOR TO BRING ITS READING DOWN”

used on the operating gear and heavy equipment by the miners…the emphasis was on maximising the coal take and some people were putting sensors on the equipment into a bypass mode. “So when we’re hearing three different stories about the sensors then I certainly think there’s something in it and that now has got to be one of the major focuses of the Commission of Inquiry, and the backdrop has to be, what kind of incentives were there that would have encouraged this kind of thing to happen?” exclaims Little. The engineering union president confirms that contractors “only got paid when the mine was getting coal out, if there was

no coal coming out the contractors weren’t needed, so there is an issue there.” The source who first contacted Investigate claimed it was some of the contractors blocking the methane sensors in order to ensure they worked a full day and got a full day’s pay. Former miner Brent Forrester told the Timaru Herald there were a number of safety breaches in the mine and that management were not sufficiently onto it, but it’s significant that he recalls the worker who tampered with the methane sensor received a written warning. Clearly, when the company did find out about such safety breaches it was concerned about them. For his part, Andrew Little suspects the

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company was putting too much pressure on crews to get coal out and make the mine economic – which would shift blame back onto the company, but he concedes independent contractors did have a financial incentive of their own to keep the mine operational, and the competing interests of private contractors and fully paid union men is something that may well be relevant in other New Zealand mines if the same compensation for downtime issues exist elsewhere. The Commission of Inquiry, then, has a range of options to consider and the truth may be a mix of all of them, or none of them. The company was certain its methane readings were normal. But clearly there are now three reports of workers tampering with the methane sensors, so investigators cannot rely on the company gas readings as being true and correct. The elephant in the room

is that the mine blew up despite apparently “normal” gas readings, which lends significant weight to something being badly wrong with the gas detection system. Brent Forrester has told journalists the Pike River mine “always had ventilation issues” while he worked there, and that his own personal gas detection unit frequently went “off the charts”. He is critical of management, saying many of the methane sensors inside the mine were not properly calibrated – which was a factor in a West Virginian coal mine explosion earlier in 2010. Sensors were supposed to have been calibrated there every 31 days, but hadn’t been calibrated for three months. Was it the same story at Pike River Coal? “My first reaction was, ‘I knew this was going to happen’,” Forrester told the newspaper. “I just had a feeling.”

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A specially designed jet engine arrives from Austrlia to clear the mine of gases following the deaths of the 29 miners there. Xinhua/NZPA/Ross Setford

“I’m actually surprised the two guys that got out, got out,” he added. “If you look at some of the information, it would have hit over 1200 degrees Celsius straight away from the explosion…there’s a risk of further explosions so obviously it’s very hot. That coal has a low sulphur, high carbon content so it burns very hot. It’s a very unique sort of coal, it always fetches more on the market. If it ever caught fire you’d be struggling to get out of there.” The moment on the Saturday morning

that one of the surviving miners revealed he’d seen a flash up the tunnel just before the blast knocked him from his earthmover, it should have become fairly obvious that the chances of anyone surviving close to ground zero were slim to nil. A flash in a dark tunnel meant ignition, ignition meant flame, and flame meant the kind of searing temperatures that would scorch a person’s lungs from the inside out while they lay breathing unconscious from the blast. It is almost certain none of the trapped miners suffered in their passing, and those (if any) still alive after the flashfire would almost certainly have gone to sleep in the heavily carbon monoxide-laden atmosphere. One of the criticisms Labour Party president Andrew Little does have of the mine and police is their collective failure to communicate the seriousness of the miners’ plight once confirmation of a fireball had been made: “One of the issues is how much the families and public were told about the chances

sion in New Zealand where bodies were not brought out within 24 hours of a blast. For the sake of context, we’ve had nine such explosions since 1879. One expert, Peter Ewen, has questioned whether Pike River’s ventilation system was the problem, pointing out it was the only one of the nine mines where the ventilation fan was installed underground instead of on the surface. To be fair, though, it’s unlikely that any of the nineteenth and very early 20th century mine explosions had effective ventilation systems at all. “Some questions have got to be asked about the fan,” Ewen told the New Zealand Herald. “The fan was 100 metres underground, and once the explosion happened there was no way they were going to restore ventilation because they couldn’t get to it… Who went against the old way of doing it, by allowing the fan in the mine itself? You had no access to it once there was an explosion.” Peter Ewen may have a point. In the United States, underground fans in

underground explosion would be relieved; • Each main mine fan shall be offset by at least 4.57 m (15 feet) from the nearest side of the mine or shaft opening; • Automatic closing doors shall be provided to prevent possible air reversals through the fans in mines ventilated by multiple main mine fans. “The installation of main mine fans underground is prohibited by 30 CFR Part 75.310, (a)(l).” There’s some suggestion Pike River Coal either thought it could get away with a smaller extraction fan if it installed it deep inside the coal mine, or alternatively that the environmental impact of a large surface fan was deemed too problematic to get the project past Green/Department of Conservation scrutiny in the planning stages. A fan on the surface would have to be much larger and stronger to suck the bad air up and out. “I suspect one of the reasons you would have it at the bottom is you would try to get as much pull as you could,” remarked

“EVEN GIVEN THE LIMITATIONS OF THE VENTILATION SYSTEM, HOWEVER, THERE ARE THOSE WHO ARGUE MINE RESCUE TEAMS SHOULD HAVE DONE WHAT THEY ALWAYS HAVE – ENTER THE MINE IMMEDIATELY AFTER THE FIRST BLAST. ACCORDING TO OLD TIMERS AND ESTABLISHED HISTORY, THERE’S A WINDOW OF OPPORTUNITY AFTER AN EXPLOSION WHERE IT IS SAFE TO ENTER BEFORE THE GASES BUILD UP AGAIN” of survival after that first explosion. One of the things I’m critical of, the more I learn from others, is that the chances of surviving that first explosion were pretty remote anyway, and families should have been told that rather than raise hopes day after day until that second explosion five days later. “The gases that are left behind are suffocating, and the gas rescue packs only last about 40 minutes. Now I got down there on the Saturday morning and the miners were telling me that if they hadn’t walked out by that time the chances of them surviving were extremely remote.” Which brings us to the next big question of the Inquiry: could and should mine rescuers have done more to enter the mine immediately they knew there was a problem on that first afternoon? Pike River will go down in history as the only coal mine explo-

coal mines are expressly forbidden – illegal in fact – under Federal law, as Richard Jay Jr summarises in a mining industry research paper: “The mandatory safety standards for underground coal mines that apply to the installation of main mine fans are listed in 30 CFR Part 75.310. Stipulations which impact the design of the fan system arrangement are contained in paragraphs (a)(l), (a)(5), (a)(6),(d), and (1) of 75.31 0: • Each main mine fan shall be installed on the surface in an incombustible housing; • Each main mine fan shall be protected by weak walls or explosion doors in direct line with possible explosive forces; • Explosion doors or weak walls shall have a cross-sectional area at least equal to the area of the return air shaft or drift opening through which the pressure from an

mining engineer David Bell to the Herald. “It would be more efficient to have it at the bottom of the shaft.” Even given the limitations of the ventilation system, however, there are those who argue mine rescue teams should have done what they always have – enter the mine immediately after the first blast. According to old timers and established history, there’s a window of opportunity after an explosion where it is safe to enter before the gases build up again. One of those commentators is Australian mining journal editor Ross Louthean, who believes Police and the Occupational Safety and Health teams should never have been in control of the rescue process. “My perception is simple. I’ve been to several mine rescues, I’ve seen the training systems that go on at mines in Australia. When

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there is a disaster it should be in the hands – as it is in Australia – of the mines rescue specialists and the Inspector of Mines. But mind you, poor old NZ’s Inspector of Mines office has been emasculated – I believe there’s now [just] two and I don’t think they have the powers to do what they used to be able to do. “My understanding is they did have a mines rescue unit and that party could have gone down. I do know, from people that I can’t name, that they became angry with all the procedural issues. I’m not blaming the local cops, I think they did a wonderful job. But it’s a procedural thing and there’s a gathering of bureaucratic power that’s the problem. That’s got to be undone. The mining industry is not big, but I do wish some

of them would grow some balls and agree with what I’ve said. “This is just such a major issue, it needs comment.” Louthean, pointing out that coal mine explosions are inherently more dangerous than rock-fall rescues, nonetheless believes that centralised Wellington bureaucracy wrecked any chances of getting anyone out safely. “This is a dangerous situation where you have to get down within the prescribed amount of time or you endanger the lives of the rescues – and with the rubber stamp way they approached it that became an issue. “When you hear that lawyers’ approval was needed from Wellington before actions were taken, this is bad. When I hear that drillers

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who come in voluntarily with big rigs to help out were hit with red tape – I know one group was Australian and they were just rope-able because their whole intent was to try and save lives, not to be paid to do anything. “So it’s a procedural issue.” To get a feel for how rescuers reacted to the Pike explosion, it’s worth looking at some of the mine rescues in similar circumstances elsewhere in the world. The Homer City mine explosion of July 1983 in Pennsylvania is one example. The mine had been closed for summer vacation and was being maintained by a skeleton staff. One of the ventilation fans malfunctioned at 8am, and nine hours later, soon after a worker went into the affected section – known as E-Butt – the mine exploded. “At approximately 4:05 p.m., Dwyer and Mitsko entered the mine,” notes a report on the explosion. “Mitsko’s initials in D-Butt at the power center indicated that he was in the section prior to the explosion. “At approximately 5:40 p.m., an explosion occurred in the E-Butt section. On the surface, all the lights in the hoisthouse went out and the fan signal, located in the hoisthouse, sounded. Syster arrived at the No.3 fan at approximately 6:30 p.m. He discovered that the fan was down and according to the fan recording chart, had not been operating since approximately 8:15 that morning. “Shortly after 6:00 p.m., Vresilovic contacted Dwyer and informed him that possibly a fan was not operating. About the same time, the automatic belt warning signal for E-Butt was transmitting over the mine phone. When Dwyer learned that Mitsko had not been contacted, he informed Vresilovic that he was going to E-Butt. “Upon entering the E-Butt section, Dwyer observed that the air was hazy and the entry blackened. He had proceeded inby the E-Butt switch approximately 800 feet when his jitney derailed. He then continued on foot for an undetermined distance, until he had to retreat because of a burning sensation in his eyes. “After being notified, Hancher, McElhoes, and Dwyer entered the mine about 8:05 p.m. and travelled to E-Butt. They quickly concluded that an explosion had occurred and returned to the surface to arrange for assistance. “The Florence Mining Company Nos. 1 and 2 mine rescue teams started to arrive at the mine approximately 10:30 p.m., and about an hour and a half later had enough members to make up two teams. “At approximately 5:20 a.m., the first

“WHILE MINE BOSS PETER WHITTALL AND POLICE SUPERINTENDENT GARY KNOWLES WOULD REPEATEDLY TELL THE NEWS CONFERENCES “THE GAS LEVELS ARE OFF THE CHART”, THEY REFUSED TO SPECIFY THE PRECISE READINGS TO INVESTIGATE OR ANYONE ELSE” fresh-air base was established on the No.2 track entry inby 13R crosscut in E-Butt section. The victim was removed from the mine at 12:50 a.m., July 6, 1983. At approximately 7:00 p.m., the same day, the E-Butt section was explored and ventilated. “During the exploration and recovery of E-Butt section, extreme caution had to be used throughout when exploring inby fresh air bases. Mine rescue teams frequently encountered high concentrations of methane, carbon monoxide, and low oxygen. Air samples analyzed showed concentrations as high as 26 percent methane, 4.73 percent carbon monoxide, and oxygen as low as 4.10 percent.” Note the contrast here: American mine rescue teams went in to an atmosphere 8 times higher than the evacuation limit for methane concentrations, and got the body out seven hours after the explosion and nearly 17 hours after the ventilation fans stopped working. They knew the dangers but pressed ahead carefully. For the record, Investigate magazine twice formally requested from Pike River Coal’s media team details of the exact methane percentages they were getting from their readings while they contemplated a rescue. However, while mine boss Peter Whittall and police superintendent Gary Knowles would repeatedly tell the news conferences “the gas lev-

els are off the chart”, they refused to specify the precise readings to Investigate or anyone else. Those details are directly relevant because they form the baseline against which the claim, “it’s too dangerous to send anyone in” can be measured. In fact, they are the only way of assessing whether the Police were being too cautious in their approach. Those figures have not been revealed, even now.

ut was the Homer City mine recovery operation unusual, in the decision to send recovery teams into a 26% methane atmosphere? Apparently not. In April 2010 the Upper Big Branch Mine in West Virginia blew up at 3.27 in the afternoon. One of the survivors, several kilometres away in a different section of the mine, nonetheless knew it was bad: “The wind picked up and..before you knew it, it’s like your ears stopped up, you couldn’t hear, and the next thing you know you’re in the middle of a tornado,” survivor Steve Smith told American media. And what a tornado it was. Despite knowing their mine had blown up, miners immediately entered the tunnels, and a mile inside the labyrinth the Los Angeles Times reported they found damage from “a fireball so intense that it tossed rail cars and twisted steel rail lines like a pretzel.”

As can be seen from the official preliminary report from the US Mine Safety and Health Administration, there are a number of similarities between the Big Branch blast and Pike River: “The explosion at the Upper Big Branch Mine occurred at or around the time of a shift change. It killed miners in and around two working sections of the mine. It also killed and injured miners who we believe were travelling from the working sections at the end of their shift.” In total, two men in the path of the blast survived, a further 29 Virginian miners were killed. “Following the explosion but prior to rescue teams arriving, miners already in the mine reportedly proceeded deeper into the mine to search for survivors. They found 2 miners who would survive the explosion, and 7 who did not survive, but determined from carbon monoxide levels that it was unsafe for anyone other than trained rescue teams with oxygen masks to continue further. As such, they withdrew from the mine. “At approximately 3:27 pm, MSHA records indicate the company alerted the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) and the West Virginia Department of Miners’ Health, Safety and Training of the explosion. Immediately, over 20 mine

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emergency rescue teams from Massey, other coal companies in the region, the state, and MSHA responded to the disaster, with the first rescue teams going underground at approximately 5:30pm. “Due to the extensive damage from the explosion, the rescue teams reportedly had to proceed more than a mile on foot to reach the working section. “Within the first 10 hours following the explosion, the rescue teams had found 18 victims in the Upper Big Branch Mine, in addition to the 7 dead and 2 injured miners evacuated by fellow miners immediately following the explosion. Rescue efforts continued in the early morning hours of April 6, but were suspended when rescuers reported encountering heavy smoke, methane, and carbon monoxide. Rescuers started drilling boreholes to clear the air inside the mine

Prime Minister John Key walks by a table holding memorabilia from miners during a memorial service in Greymouth on Dec. 2, 2010. /Xinhua/NZPA

before the rescue teams re-entered the mine. “Mine rescue teams made additional efforts to enter the mine the early in the morning of Wednesday, April 7, the night of Thursday, April 8, and early in the morning of Friday, April 9. Each time they were forced to exit before the final four miners were found. “Finally, during the evening of April 9, the final four miners were found [dead].” During this cat and mouse game that rescuers were forced to play with the explosive mine, one of the top federal mine safety offi-

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cials, Kevin Stricklin, told reporters he held out little hope for the remaining four men they were struggling to get to: “Based on what I’m seeing and hearing from the people underground, I don’t think they had an opportunity to get to [the rescue chambers],” he told local media. “All of these things were good to have in place. Unfortunately, this happened so quickly and it was so strong of a force that I don’t think they had the opportunity to utilize any of that.” “There was no radio communication with the miners, and any phones inside the mine would have been knocked out by the explosion,” Stricklin said. Media reports paraphrased Stricklin on another important point that contrasts sharply with the New Zealand tragedy: “He said the rescue team members were dismayed when called out of the mine and said if there was even a minute chance that someone is still alive, they would not hesitate to go back in. ‘It is ingrained and embedded in them to rescue trapped miners,’ Stricklin said. ‘It won’t be a problem for them to go back’.” The West Virginians, and the US Government’s mine rescue service, threw everything they had into forcing their way into the Upper Big Branch Mine despite the gas levels, just to get to four men who they were pretty convinced were already dead. Methane levels, again, were said to be around 25% in the mine. And again, neither Pike River Coal nor Police have ever revealed what the methane levels inside the Pike tunnels were. An official report into another US disaster, Sago Creek, notes that rescuers likewise faced uncertain conditions: “It was not possible to know with any certainty if the explosion had started a fire in the mine. The elevated methane levels confirmed the possibility of methane accumulations in the inby areas of the mine. Even though these conditions existed, at 4:55 p.m., the command center made the decision to permit the mine rescue teams to begin to explore underground. There was a high degree of risk associated with this decision and it was discussed with all parties including the mine rescue teams before they started underground.” One miner, Randall McCloy, was found still alive nearly 24 hours after the Sago Creek blast, but in critical condition. He later wrote to families of his 12 dead colleagues about their final hours after an initial methane blast. “The mine filled quickly with fumes and thick smoke and breathing conditions were

nearly unbearable....I shared my [oxygen] rescuer with Jerry Groves, while Toler, Jesse Jones and Tom Anderson sought help from others. There were not enough rescuers to go around.” He said the men tried to escape but couldn’t because of the gas, and “had to abandon our escape attempt and return to the coal rib, where we hung a curtain to try to protect ourselves. The curtain created an enclosed area of about 35 feet.” Some of the trapped miners tried to bang metal plates as a signal to any listening rescue teams, but lost energy. “We found a sledgehammer, and for a long time we took turns pounding away. We had to take off the rescuers in order to hammer as hard as we could. This effort caused us to breathe much harder. We never heard a responsive blast or shot from the surface. “The air behind the curtain grew worse, so I tried to lie as low as possible and take shallow breaths... I could tell that it was gassy.” When another attempt to escape failed, the miners “began to accept our fate. Toler led us all in the Sinner’s Prayer. We prayed a little longer, then someone suggested that we each write letters to our loved ones.” McCloy says he “became very dizzy and lightheaded. Some drifted off into what appeared to be a deep sleep, and one person sitting near me collapsed and fell off his bucket, not moving. It was clear that there was nothing I could do to help him. The last person I remember speaking to was Jackie Weaver, who reassured me that if it were our time to go, then God’s will would be fulfilled. As my trapped co-workers lost consciousness one by one, the room grew still and I continued to sit and wait, unable to do much else. I have no idea how much time went by before I also passed out from the gas and smoke, awaiting rescue.” The New Zealand methane blast appears to have been much more intense than the Sago Creek one, and it now appears certain the force of the Pike River blast killed the 29 miners instantly. Nonetheless, the question remains as to whether New Zealand bureaucracy prevented the successful rescue of anyone who, like the two survivors, may have been just a little further up the tunnel and reachable by an early rescue. US best practice has been to send five-man rescue teams in who are trained to stop at 300 metres and establish a safe base from which to extend a further 300 metres into the mine, and so on. Doing this, they can measure air quality at regular intervals, reestablish ventilation and communication as

they go in, set up blast protection barriers and provide a safe retreat point if they have to pull back for any reason.

hile Pike River management and Police referred to the mine tunnel as “the barrel of a gun”, with the implication that an explosion at one end could kill mine rescuers at the entrance, US mine safety officials have formal plans that allow for this and provide blast protection areas. This was not spelt out to the New Zealand media as an option, possibly because Pike River did not have blast protection barriers capable of being moved in by rescue teams. It’s not known whether the Pike River Mine had pre-installed safe bases of its own, but if not the question might now be, ‘why not?’. The mine’s preparedness for a disaster will be another factor that comes under scrutiny at the Inquiry. EPMU president Andrew Little, for example, acknowledges that in hindsight New Zealand probably needs a state of the art mine rescue robot stationed here, after two less than ideal Defence robots were destroyed by moist mine conditions. “I don’t believe management spent enough time in the mine,” former miner Brent Forrester lamented to the Timaru Herald. “They spent too much of their time up in the office filling in paperwork.” Australian mining expert Ross Louthean sees elements of that bureaucracy in the recovery operation in conversations with NZ mines people. “The very simple thing is, they just felt everything was hamstrung by an approval procedure that was just totally wrong. It doesn’t mean that things would have been different, but any chance of getting those guys out had to be at the beginning. But I don’t think any of them had a chance. “Australian mining industry people that I’ve spoken to all said the same thing: ‘what were the cops running the show for? Where’s the mines rescue people?’” In the US as well, control is federally mandated to lie with the mining company involved, assisted by the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration, who can call on police and other emergency services to do their bidding and provided logistical support as needed. But control of mines disasters stays with dedicated mines personnel. Ross Louthean says the rest of the mining world is closely watching how the Pike River Disaster unfolds. “Absolutely, absolutely. Mainly on the

issue of how and why it happened, but yes it has already caused a lot of interest and we’ve certainly had a few reactions from people. “Perhaps there might have been a need for more exhaust facilities, perhaps more air vents, who knows.” On the issue of whether environmental pressures prevented Pike River from being an opencast mine, Louthean is doubtful, as the coal seam runs to the back of a mountain, “and in that case you’d be mining to the edge of a cliff, which would have presented its own difficulties.” Can the Pike River mine be re-opened? Overseas experience suggests it can. The Dotiki mine in the US suffered a massive underground fire that was capable of burning underground for a year, even if all the mine entrances were sealed, because of the amount of oxygen available in the tunnels. By deploying mobile tunnel seals deep inside the mine, close to the fire, they cut that waiting time drastically, reports the MSHA: “By inerting the fire area, the fire was controlled to allow installation of permanent explosion resistant seals. The success of the operation is credited to the implementation of newly developed seal technology and the cooperative efforts of all parties involved in fighting the fire. Proper planning and execution of the plan were key components to resuming production in only 26 days after the fire started and resulted in miners being able to return to work in record time.” Andrew Little remains adamant that mining is part of the blood supply of the West Coast, and will continue. “But lessons need to be learnt from this tragedy”, he tells Investigate. Finally, to those critics who support the it has to be “100% safe” mantra before rescuers can go in, that’s never been the kiwi way, and indeed it’s not realistic. There’s a danger in just crossing the road, but most of us take that risk each day. Nothing is 100% safe, and we can never be “100% certain” as Superintendent Gary Knowles put it, that something is safe. War heroes like Willie Apiata are praised for rescuing wounded colleagues while coming under artillery and machine gun fire. The risk to such soldiers was far higher than the risk to mine rescue volunteers, yet we support one kind of rescue and not the other. For now, the Pike River families must wait for answers to the questions they desperately want to ask, while we, the public, share their vigil. The answers now emerging hint at a question no one dreamt they would ever need to raise. q

INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM January 2011 35

THE GATHERING

STORM

THE CASE AGAINST THE FORESHORE LAW CHANGE 36 INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM January 2011

W The Foreshore and Seabed legislation comes to a head in February but the Government is taking a pasting from both sides in the debate. One of its strongest critics is DR HUGH BARR, whose new book, The Gathering Storm, argues that National is giving too much away, and in this extract from the book he explains why.

e hear a lot about the “foreshore and seabed” but what exactly does the term mean? As one walks down the beach, the foreshore starts at mean high water springs (spring high tide MHWS), followed by mean high water mark (MHWM), and then mean sea level (MSL), followed by mean low water mark (MLWM), and then finally mean low water springs (MLWS). This is followed by the seabed, which stretches from MLWS to the limit of the territorial sea (12 nautical miles from land). New Zealand has a large foreshore and seabed area, partly because we are long, narrow islands. It is defined approximately as the area from mean high water springs (in all harbours and river-mouths where there is a tidal rise and fall), out to the extent of New Zealand’s territorial sea. From 1840 until the Territorial Sea, Contiguous Zone, and Exclusive Economic Zone Act 1977, the outer limit of the territorial sea was three nautical miles. But this Act increased it to twelve nautical miles. A nautical mile is approximately 1,852 metres (1.852 km). It is also 2,025 yards long, so is 15% longer than a mile, i.e. 1.15 times a mile (1,760 yards). Twelve nautical miles equals 22.2 km. Two hundred nautical miles (the direct distance to the normal boundary of a nation’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), if it has one, is 370 km. It is estimated that the area of the foreshore and seabed, using a coastal baseline,

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is more that 10 million hectares (100,000 sq km). New Zealand’s mainland area is about 27 million ha, (270,000 sq km). So, the area of foreshore and seabed is greater than 35% of New Zealand’s land area. New Zealand’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) extends for at least 200 nautical miles (370 km) from the coast i.e. 188 nautical miles beyond the territorial sea. The EEZ can also include additional areas of continental shelf. As New Zealand is effectively a sunken continent, called Zealandia, the continental shelf that we are allowed extends

even further, though it is constrained by the Australian possessions of Norfolk Island and Macquarie Island. New Zealand has the fourth largest EEZ in the world, covering an estimated 4,083,744sq km. Under the 1982 UNCLOS definition, New Zealand can claim areas within 370 km of land at mean low water springs. The EEZ is usually regarded as starting at the edge of the territorial sea (12 nm) and stretching out generally to its 200 nautical mile boundary. A December 2003 Land Information

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New Zealand (LINZ) report to the Labour Government set out survey data on coastal ownership – parcels of land that adjoin the foreshore. LINZ estimates that New Zealand’s coastline is 19,883 km, including the Chatham Islands, but not the unsettled Kermadec or Sub-Antarctic Islands. This coastal land either stretches to mean high water springs, or, in rare cases, goes beyond it into the foreshore or possibly the seabed, as a result of erosion. Of this land LINZ claims that the Crown owns over a third (37.6%) (7,455 km). This

includes national park land that runs to the coast, marginal access strips – (part of the Queen’s Chain) and reserves and railway land. Regional and district councils own almost a third (31.4%), mostly made up of esplanade reserves (from coastal subdivision), public recreation reserves, and road parcels (part of the Queen’s Chain). Privately owned land makes up the remaining 30.4% of resolved coastline, with 0.6% unresolved. General land covers 3,979 km (20%) and there are 2,916 parcels

of Maori land covering 2,053 km (10.4%) of coastline. So, if customary title should be awarded only for exclusive Maori possession, then only a maximum of 10.4% could qualify. However, National’s Treaty Negotiations Minister, Chris Finlayson, has said that the requirement for Maori exclusive occupation since 1840 will be waived. Also, once the principle of Maori customary title to the foreshore and seabed becomes law, it opens the way for Treaty claims to all the foreshore and seabed.

Very little of the foreshore and seabed is privately owned 350 parcels were originally surveyed to MHWS, and have a moveable marginal strip. 12,243 parcels were originally surveyed to the MHWM, i.e. have no Queen’s Chain. 9,403 of these are general land parcels (3,843 km), and 2,840 are Maori land parcels (1,996 km). The LINZ report identified 240 parcels and 46.8 sq km of land as being either privately owned seabed parcels or eroded parcels. So the seabed in private ownership is not large (4680 hectares).

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The myth pf “Treaty Partnership” New Zealand was the last major land mass to be settled by humans. All those who live here are descended from people who came here from somewhere else relatively recently. The Polynesians came in their big canoes from the Tahiti area in the 14th century after discovery by Polynesian explorer Kupe and others from 900 AD. Abel Tasman was the first European to discover New Zealand in 1642, only some three hundred years after significant Polynesian settlement. The pioneer settlers (from whom the bulk of New Zealanders are descended) arrived in their sailing ships from the British Isles in the 19th century after voyages of discovery by James Cook (1769-77). Other migrants have come by liner or jet plane from divers places in the 20th century including the South Pacific and Asia, often to escape oppression and always in search of a better life. In other words, no race can claim to be “indigenous” to these

fair isles. “Indigenous” people in North America were there 20,000 years or more before Europeans, and 40-60,000 years before them in Australia. We are a melting pot of peoples from all round the globe, not least Maori, who have inter-married with newer arrivals in a way that is unique for so-called “indigenous” people. There are no identified fullblooded Maori. Many of those who claim to be Maori have far more non-Maori blood in them than Maori blood. New Zealand as we know it has been built by the skills, energy, imagination and hard work of many people, of whom the pioneer settlers were in the vanguard since it was only after their arrival that the infrastructure and institutions of the country were built. Ever since the introduction of British law in the 1840s equality before the law, regardless of race, has been a foundation block of our laws, culture and society. This was spelled out in the Third Article of the Treaty

of Waitangi, which extended to the Maoris the same protection, rights and privileges of other British subjects. The Maoris, who were in the process of being annihilated by their own tribal “musket wars”, welcomed the Treaty because they knew it was the only structure under which they could live in peace and establish some form of settled land ownership. Such could only be an improvement on their own system whereby a tribe would live in an area for a generation or so before being forced to flee in the face of a stronger tribe from over the hills or across the water. 1 There never was a Maori-Crown “Treaty Partnership” The Treaty of Waitangi was NOT a partnership or co¬administration between the races as the self-interested “Treaty industry” would have us believe but a contract whereby Maoris became subjects of the Crown in return for protection.

Seabed and Foreshore – how did we get here? Heeni Collins takes a Maori perspective

aori have had unprecedented access to the inner circle of power in the New Zealand Government over the last two years. They have made some gains, against the odds, but a current issue is threatening to divide the party from within. Since the establishment of the English system of Government, said to be given authority by the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840, Maori have been struggling to regain some political say in a country they once enjoyed as their own. The political systems introduced by the British largely excluded them, as only those with individually-owned property had voting rights. Maori then set up their own national political structures, the Kingitanga and Kotahitanga movements, to retain land and other rights. Europeans saw a need for integration and in 1867 offered Maori four seats in Parliament (four Maori electorates) out of a total of 76. Initially seen as temporary, they were affirmed in 1876 and have continued to this day. The mid-to-late 19th century was a period of serious land loss and population decline for Maori, and a consequent weakening of Maori cultural and social identity. Around the turn of the century, there was talk of Maori as “a dying race”, and even Maori leaders like Sir Maui Pomare were arguing that there was no choice for Maori but to assimilate and “become like Pakeha”.

But the Treaty, while being seen by the British as giving them the right to govern, also contained promises of partnership, protection of Maori “taonga” (all things precious), rangatiratanga (chieftainship, or self-determination), and participation (rights of citizenship). Maori never gave up hope, and some took petitions to Queen Victoria and King George V in England based on the Treaty during the 19th and early 20th centuries. The monarchs referred responsibility back to the New Zealand Government. Then in the 1920s a Christian faith healer T.W. Ratana led a spiritual revival, gathering a significant following from his rural village near Wanganui. Ratana developed a political movement based on the Bible and Treaty rights, and in 1943 his candidates won all four Maori seats. Ratana was closely aligned to the Labour party and his Members of Parliament predominated in the Maori seats until 1993. Encouraged by civil rights movements overseas in the 1960s and 70s, Maori too grew vocal in advocating for retention of land and recognition of Treaty rights. A former Ratana youth leader Matiu Rata became prominent in the Labour party, and achieved some key reforms – a law which gave Maori greater control over their land, and the setting up of the Waitangi Tribunal, to hear claims under the Treaty. However in the late 70s, while Minister

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of Maori Affairs, Rata became disillusioned with Labour, resigned and formed the Mana Motuhake (Maori self-determination) party. Failing to win a seat during the 1980s, the Mana Motuhake party joined forces with other small parties to form an Alliance, along with left wing parties and environmentalists. Sandra Lee, a leader of Mana Motuhake, won the Auckland Central seat in 1993 and remained a list MP for the next two terms. Meanwhile the rising star in Maori politics proved to be hard-working grandmother Tariana Turia. With an American father and a Maori mother, Turia also hailed from the west coast region of Whanganui, the home ground of Ratana. Initially entering Parliament as a Labour list candidate in 1996, she won the west coast Maori seat of Te Tai Hauauru in 2002. But a head-on clash with Labour occurred in 2003 when debate broke out about rights to the foreshore and seabed. Labour planned to legislate Crown ownership, while Turia described this proposal as confiscation of Maori land. The controversy arose after a Court of Appeal finding that Maori were entitled to make claim to portions of the foreshore and seabed in the Maori Land Court. This sparked fears that Maori would claim the whole coastline, though this was far from likely. At the right-wing end of the spectrum, the National party claimed that Labour’s proposed leg-

The Treaty is a straightforward document with a preamble and three articles. It was put together by Captain (later Governor) William Hobson, in the week after he arrived in the Bay of Islands, and was translated into Maori prior to its initial signing on 6 February 1840. The signing of the Treaty made New Zealand a British colony and is considered to be New Zealand’s founding document. The Treaty of Waitangi offered the same protection to everyone regardless of race. This was the situation under which New Zealand lived in relative racial harmony and prospered from 1840 until 1987. Then came the “Lands case” (New Zealand Maori Council v Attorney General)2 concerning the State-owned Enterprises Act 1986. In it the late Chief Justice, Sir Robin Cooke. proposed that “a relationship akin to a partnership” somehow existed between the Crown and tribes because of the Treaty. He declared this to be its so-called “Partnership Principle”.

A number of Acts state that the “principles” of the Treaty need to be observed. Parliament had not set out what these principles were in the legislation, and it is highly questionable whether they should exist at all. This left the way open for the Court of Appeal to usurp the role of Parliament as the highest Court in the land, and to decide what the “principles” were – a most unsatisfactory situation in a democracy, All the principles are questionable since the Treaty of Waitangi does not mention principles at all. But the “Partnership” principle, invented in this Court decision, is the most dubious of all. And isn’t it strange that it took 147 years to attempt to extract “principles” out of the Treaty? The word “partnership” is not used in either the English or the Maori versions of the Treaty. Nor can the word “Principles” be found in the document. Any “Partnership” would also over-rule Article 3, which established legal equality between Maoris and Europeans.

In an analysis of this decision, political commentator, Peter Zohrab, argues effectively that there are no “principles” or “partnership” deducible from the Treaty. 3 He also states that “There is thus no one to represent Non-Maori in Treaty negotiations, which are to that extent a corrupt and invalid process.” As we shall see, this is exactly the problem with the Treaty Minister Chris Finlayson’s approach to the foreshore and seabed issue. Throughout his “consultations” Finlayson has taken little or no account of the interests of non-iwi. Re-interpreting the Treaty also contradicts Article 33 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties which says that each version has equal status, unless the parties agree otherwise.

islation was too generous to Maori, as it made provision for Maori who proved customary association with certain areas to be consulted over those areas. Fear-mongering found fertile ground and National’s support escalated. A Waitangi Tribunal report in early 2004 was highly critical of the bill, and Turia decided to vote against it, resigning from the Labour party in May 2004. A protest march involving 15,000 people walked from the far north of the country to Parliament in support of Turia’s opposition to the law and she became one of two co-leaders of a newly formed Maori Party. She won a by-election in the Tai Hauauru seat two months later. The Foreshore and Seabed Act was passed by a small margin in November 2004 and remains controversial. Since 1996 our Parliament has been elected under the Mixed Member Proportional system, which has supported minority representation. Also, due to increases in the number of adult Maori registering on the Maori roll, the number of Maori seats had increased to seven by 2005. At that time, Maori made up about 14% of the population of New Zealand, and the proportion of Maori seats was about 6% of the total. In 2005, the Maori Party won four of the seven Maori seats, an unprecedented number for an independent party advocating Maori rights which refused to align itself to either of the main parties before the election. Throughout the Labour-led Government of 2005-2008, the Maori party remained in Opposition,

but retained its integrity and unity, building its experience and team strength within the House. After the Maori party won a further seat in the 2008 election it began talking possible about a partnership deal with National - a combined visit to Ratana village in January was significant. After talking with its membership around the country, in November 2008 the party entered into a Confidence and Supply agreement with National, as did the right-wing party (Act) and United, enabling National to form a coalition Government. Some of the gains promised and won as part of this relationship were that Maori party MPs would be given Ministerial positions, the Maori seats would be retained (while Maori continue to want them), and the Foreshore and Seabed Act would be reviewed. Tariana Turia became Minister of the Community and Voluntary Sector, and associate minister of Social Development and Health. Co-leader Pita Sharples became Minister of Maori Affairs and Associate Minister of Education and Corrections. The Maori seats have so far been retained, though National had planned to legislate them out of existence. But the repeal of the Foreshore and Seabed Act is proving more difficult to achieve. National party representatives have kept such tight control

on reform of the Act, that what they are offering seems scarcely better, or some think even worse, than the 2004 Act. Maori Party leaders have pushed hard for the bill to allow whanau, hapu and iwi to go to court to claim customary title over areas of the foreshore and seabed, but many think the criteria by which Maori are being asked to prove these rights seem excessive. While the leaders try to advocate for the bill, they are opposed not just by right-wing concerns who think it is too generous to Maori, but also by significant numbers within their own ranks who think it represents too much of a compromise. The Select Committee hearing submissions on the bill is due to report back to Parliament on the issue in late February next year. If the bill fails to get enough support from the House, this will be a major setback for at least four of the Maori party leaders who have lobbied so hard for it (Hone Harawira has stated his opposition). The coming year will also show whether the issue has the potential to topple the leaders of the Maori party, and undermine its partnership with the party which still holds so firmly to the reins of power, and is likely to ride happily back into power in next year’s elections – National.

“Partnership” for a minority racial group is not possible in a Democracy It is not possible for all citizens to be treated equally if some defined persons have higher social or legal rights because they are in a

INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM January 2011 41

group that is in “partnership” with the government. If that country is a democracy, then the privileged ones can both exercise their democratic rights, as well as the considerable influence they have through being in “partnership” with the Government. Hence the “Partnership” group has significantly more influence than the rest of society. What New Zealand really needs is an enduring partnership between our different racial groups and NOT a partnership between the Government and one minority race only. Several Government-superior group “partnerships” of this type have existed through history but in most cases the lure of special privilege was abused to give power or wealth or both to the favoured, at the expense of the rest of the population: South African Apartheid: People with white skins had the vote and special privileges, while those of darker pigmentation were unenfranchised and legally discriminated against. Examples were “Whites only” beaches, transfer of blacks to “homelands”, white-only national rugby teams etc. The whites were effectively in “partnership” with the Government. But the rest of the community were not. Feudal and chiefly societies: Societies ruled by monarchs under the doctrine of the “divine right of kings” usually meant that the rest of the community was ignored at the expense of the monarch’s family and court. The Tudors in England and today’s royal family in Tonga, are examples of such partnerships. Communist regimes: The Communist Party was in partnership with the Government in communist countries – a one-party state. Party members were appointed to influential positions and gained special privileges, e.g. cars, better accommodation etc. Non-members of the Communist Party had little influence. Examples are Russia, and, after the Second World War, East Germany, Hungary, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia etc. These are examples of “partnership” and the privileges they usually give rise to. Any legalised “partnership” between the Government and one particular group – especially a racial group – creates the risk of takeover by the partner, to the serous detriment of the rest of the community. Like the former Apartheid system in South Africa, New Zealand’s Maori “partnership” system is legally entrenched by the “Principles of the Treaty of Waitangi” being

required to be followed in most legislation since 1987. These include the Conservation, State Owned Enterprises and Resource Management Acts. In New Zealand, as with South Africa under Apartheid, the purpose of this legislation is to give privilege to people of a particular race, in this case part-Maoris. There are probably more people employed in Government agencies enforcing the “partnership” and other principles than there are employed on future policy development. Indoctrination courses on the Treaty are run, and attending and agreeing with these is essential for senior jobs in the public service. It is high time that the concept of a Partnership Principle with people of Maori descent, and the “Principles of the Treaty” were removed from New Zealand law. Foreshore and Seabed is not a Partnership issue Chris Finlayson and John Key have adopted the fallacy that the foreshore and seabed is a Treaty Partnership issue that relates solely to iwi. Hence they conclude for their own convenience that consultation with other sectors of the public don’t count and should be ignored. This is the likely reason why consultation with the broader public has been abysmal and offensive, as we shall see later. Any Government that, ignoring the interests of the wider community, makes unfair deals with iwi for its own perceived personal gain, is naive and foolish, if not corrupt. The above examples of “partnerships” being abused show how they survive because of the corrupt power base that they build up, and because of the major benefits able to be taken by the “partner” from the rest of the community. As we have seen the myth of “partnership” was invented by the Court of Appeal in the case of New Zealand Maori Council v Attorney-General. In deciding this case the judges, led by Lord Cooke of Thorndon, ignored the clear wording of the Treaty as well as a hundred and fifty years of settled law to declare that the Treaty created a relationship between Maoris and the Crown, “akin to a partnership”, its nature being left to the courts to decide as future cases would come before them. This decision, based on an incorrect reading of the Treaty, was nothing less than a naked power grab by the judges at the expense of our hard won democracy. In other words, public policy decisions would no longer be made by our democratically

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elected Parliament but would be subject to the veto of unelected judges who misread the Treaty and put more power into their own hands. This was an affront not only to the wording and integrity of the Treaty but also to democracy itself. The proper role of courts in a common law jurisdiction like New Zealand is to interpret the laws made by Parliament and not to make the laws themselves by a wrong reading of a 160 year old document. By unnecessarily opening up a racial can of worms that would long outlive his own life, Lord Cooke was proving the correctness not only of Kipling’s description of King James I – “Learnèd in all things, wise in none” 4 (Rudyard Kipling, Definitive Edition, 1940, P. 721) -but also of the words

that Shakespeare put in the mouth of Mark Antony during his eulogy for Caesar, “The evil that men do lives after them, The good is oft interred with their bones.”.5 By misreading the Treaty of Waitangi Lord Cooke and his fellow judges set a precedent that has been followed by the Court of Appeal ever since, not least in its decision in 2003 on the Ngati Apa foreshore and seabed case. Here it undid 160 years of settled New Zealand law when it declared that Marlborough iwi (and by implication all Maori) were entitled to make a claim for “customary rights” over the foreshore and seabed, thus provoking separatist ambitions and demands among greedy iwi leaders, most of whom have far more European blood in them than Maori blood.

Hugh Barr’s new book on the foreshore and seabed controversy, The Gathering Storm, has just been released and is available from all good bookstores. ISBN 9781872970240 References: 1. See: The Musket Wars, A history of inter-iwi conflict, 1806-45, R.D. Crosby. 2. 1987, 1 NZLR, Page 641 (High Court and Court of Appeal) 3. See: The Treaty of Waitangi has no Principles, Peter Zohrab http://nzmera.orconhosting.net. nz/noprinci.html 4. Rudyard Kipling’s Poems, Definitive Edition, 1940, P. 72 5. Julius Caesar, Act III, scene ii, 79 q INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM January 2011 43

HEALTH

? A M O N A L E M D I O V A O T T WAN

Get A Tan Groundbreaking new research in Britain has found weekend sunbathing without sunscreen during summer significantly reduces your risk of developing skin cancer – provided you don’t burn! IAN WISHART has the controversial details

he Vitamin D/sunbathing debate has been thrown another curve ball this summer with a bombshell medical study suggesting sunbathing may actually help prevent – rather than cause – melanoma skin cancers. The study has just been released in the European Journal of Cancer1, and its findings turn the Cancer Society’s ‘slip – slop – slap’ message on its head. The scientists leading the investigation found British residents who sunbathed for five hours or more a day each weekend during the warmer months obtained substantial protection against later developing melanoma – the deadliest form of skin cancer. There are a number of caveats to the findings, which we’ll come to shortly, but the idea of summer sunbathing for five hours a day to protect your skin against melanoma goes against the grain of everything we’ve been taught since the Cancer Society first latched on to the amount of money that could be made from selling sunscreen lotion to a frightened public years ago.2 Perhaps more than anything else, what is

an ordinary person to make of such contradictory advice? To understand this, first some background. For the past ten years a scientific battle has been raging over whether melanoma is really caused by sunlight and therefore a threat to everyone, and also over whether the Western world’s “get away from the sun” messages have actually caused more deaths than they’ve saved. That’s because there’s rapidly growing evidence that the Vitamin D created in the skin by sunlight protects humans from a wide range of nasties – from cancer and heart disease down to Alzheimer’s and multiple sclerosis. In fact, one of the clues that led scientists to re-examine the slip-slop-slap advice was the massive increase in cancers and other ‘modern’ diseases that emerged after we began to discourage sunbathing several decades ago. Could the efforts to protect ourselves from skin cancer – a small killer that claims only 300 or so lives a year in New Zealand out of nearly 50,000 deaths – be depriving us of something far more vital to our overall good health – sunlight?

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Leading the new study is Professor Julia Newton-Bishop, a melanoma expert based at Leeds University in Britain. “Our paper suggests that moderate regular sun exposure may actually reduce the risk [of developing melanoma],” Newton-Bishop told British journalists. What surprised the media even more was what she said next – the protective effect doesn’t kick in unless you are getting substantial sun-tanning time in the weekends: “We are talking about quite high levels of sun exposure for the protective effect, with an average of four to five hours a day at weekends.” The evidence shows that regular weekend sunbathing appears to build up immunity in the body against melanoma and skin cancers, but that with our modern office-bound lifestyles and cautionary messages about sun-

bathing, not enough of us are building up proper, safe sun-tans. So instead, when we do find ourselves out in the sun, we’re caught and burnt quite quickly. The key point, says Professor NewtonBishop, is to avoid getting sunburnt, which means getting to know your skin type and whether you are the kind of person who can tan gradually without being burned to a crisp. It’s an important point, because Newton-Bishop’s study found the extended sunbathing times don’t protect people with red hair, freckles, or fair-skinned people with blonde hair. In other words, if you burn easily there’s no benefit from extra sunbathing without sunscreen. That’s a message the New Zealand Cancer Society wants to reinforce. The NZCS has been caught between a rock and a hard place since the news broke five years ago that the

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sunshine vitamin might protect against cancer and heart disease. The Cancer Society has a massive investment in selling sunscreen and related products, and a massive investment in the slip-slop-slap PR campaign. But although skin cancer has been the media darling that the Society has hung its publicity hat on, other cancer specialists are now publicly suggesting there may be merit in encouraging people to sunbathe to help protect themselves from much deadlier cancers. Representing the cancer sector overall, the NZ Cancer Society has to tread a fine line on this issue. Spokeswoman Dr Judith Galtry told Investigate her organisation has been “proactive” in discussing the controversy, and inviting comment from people at both extremes of the debate. “We believe that’s been helpful in arriving at a consensus,” she explains. Part of that consensus is a position statement pointing out that peak UV levels in New Zealand and Australia are around 40% higher than UV levels in the UK or North America – five hours in the NZ summer sun is a far bigger UV dose than five hours in the sun at Blackpool. “You can’t compare NZ and British advice,” Galtry adds. But that doesn’t alter the core truth in this latest peer-reviewed medical study: people who spend more time in the sun, unprotected, without getting burnt, have a much better chance of avoiding or surviving melanoma, than those who slap on the sunscreen, long-sleeves and don’t sunbathe. One expert who finds the latest study credible is Auckland University’s Robert Scragg, one of New Zealand’s main vitamin D research scientists. “It is a well designed population based case control study led by an experienced researcher actively working in the area of sun exposure, vitamin D and melanoma,” says Scragg of the British report. He raises a 2009 study by the US Food and Drug Administration’s Dianne Godar and others3 which found indoor office workers have higher melanoma rates than outdoor workers – a finding that supports Newton-Bishop’s conclusion that people who get outside in the sun at weekends are less likely to get melanoma than people who stay out of the sun. “Paradoxically,” reports Godar’s study, “although outdoor workers get much higher outdoor solar UV doses than indoor workers get, only the indoor workers’ incidence of cutaneous malignant melanoma (CMM) has been increasing at a steady exponential rate.” “The Godar paper argues that the environ-

ment we have created living indoors behind glass since the beginning of the 20th century, which allows exposure to UVA, but not UVB which synthesises vitamin D, is responsible for the epidemic of melanoma,” explains Robert Scragg. Office buildings, homes and car windows have been allowing burning UVA radiation through while blocking UVB rays – which actually help generate protective vitamin D3 if they can reach your skin. The US Food and Drug Administration study found vitamin D3 – created in the skin by suntanning – acts like a timebomb when it is absorbed by melanoma cancer cells. “Outdoor exposures include UVB (290– 320 nm) radiation, so that previtamin D3 and thermal conversion to vitamin D3 can occur in the skin. Vitamin D3 can then be converted to its most hormonally active form, 1a,25-dihydroxvitamin D3 or calcitriol, which kills melanoma cells and SCC (squamous cell carcinoma),” the Godar study reports. The D3 attaches itself to melanoma cancer cells and explodes them. “Calcitriol can control or eliminate melanoma cells by binding to the vitamin D3 receptor (VDR) on the nuclear membrane signalling for either growth inhibition or cell death via apoptosis [15,20–22], while it protects normal melanocytes from apoptosis.” Apoptosis is the way the body normally destroys cancer cells safely, but cancers spread when apoptosis isn’t working properly. Vitamin D3 appears to powerup the body’s natural cancer-destroying mechanisms. New Zealand’s Robert Scragg is on record recommending people get around 10 to 15 minutes of unprotected sun exposure at midday, to build up natural vitamin D3 levels in the skin. While he sees the Newton-Bishop study as fascinating, with its findings that people who sunbathe for several hours a day have less skin cancer, he backs up the Cancer Society’s Judith Galtry when he says it is too soon to be throwing away the sunscreen: “What does this study mean for our current policy on sun exposure? Nothing at the moment as the results of the Newton-Bishop study need to be replicated by other studies,” points out Scragg. “However, collectively, the research to date indicates that the effects of sun exposure on melanoma risk are more complex than we thought, and that some components (eg. UVA) may increase risk, while other components (eg. UVB through vitamin D) may decrease risk. But more research, which

separates melanoma risk from outdoor v. indoor sun exposure, is required to decide whether the hypothesis in the Godar paper is correct.” As if all this wasn’t enough bad news for sunscreen promoters, a new French study of 70,000 women over ten years4 has found women who got the most sun reduced their risk of developing breast cancer by a massive 43% – nearly halving the risk. There is no pill you can currently obtain to reduce your chances of breast cancer anywhere near that much, so it’s little wonder the sunbathing debate has become so heated. The New Zealand Cancer Society told North & South magazine in 2010 that it felt

“NEW ZEALAND’S ROBERT SCRAGG IS ON RECORD RECOMMENDING PEOPLE GET AROUND 10 TO 15 MINUTES OF UNPROTECTED SUN EXPOSURE AT MIDDAY, TO BUILD UP NATURAL VITAMIN D3 LEVELS IN THE SKIN”

health message without thinking about the risk of skin cancer. We must be very cautious but we think that increased Vitamin D levels by reasonable sun exposure and higher dietary intakes should be encouraged. “As suggested by our results, diet alone seems unable to provide an adequate amount of Vitamin D.” So if you’re on the beach reading this article, don’t feel guilty about sunbathing, but make sure you don’t burn and make sure you remember the five hours a day at weekends advice was for Brits where the sun is weaker…it takes far less time to get a protective dose of sunlight in New Zealand or Australia, and the key message from the overseas studies is to build a tan safely by doing it gradually, and don’t try it if you are fair-skinned and freckly or prone to easily burning. References

adding vitamin D to food would be a better option than encouraging women to sunbathe, but the new 70,000 study has shot that down after finding supplements are ineffective without sunlight. It specifically found vitamin D3 in dietary supplements doesn’t appear to activate in the body at a high enough cancer protection level, without sunbathing as well. “Our findings support a protective effect of sun exposure on the risk of breast cancer,” Dr Pierre Engel, the lead author on the new study, told a British newspaper this month. “These results confirm other work we have carried out showing that women with high blood Vitamin D levels are at reduced risk of breast cancer compared to those who have very low levels. “It is difficult to have a simple public-

1. “Relationship between sun exposure and melanoma risk”, J Newton-Bishop et al, Eur. J Cancer (2010) doi:10.1016/j.ecja.2010.10.008 2. The Cancer Society’s annual accounts for 2009 show it earned $677,000 in royalties that year from promoting sunscreen lotions. The accounts further show that the Society then spent another $830,909 on a company called Daffodil Enterprises Ltd, owned by the Cancer Society, which the annual report describes thus: “Daffodil Enterprises is a marketing company involved in the research and development of products and new markets for the Cancer Society which include sun protection products and other health and beauty items… Daffodil Enterprises Limited started trading on 15 May 1997 as a wholly owned subsidiary of the Society. Daffodil Enterprises Limited is responsible for the merchandising activities of the Society that includes the sale of sun protection, sunglasses, hats and skincare products. The Company operates under a royalty agreement with the Society. It also pays a dividend to the Society of 75% of its trading surplus. This has been waived for the 2004/05, 2005/06, 2006/07, 2007/08 and 2008/09 years due to expansion and development of overseas markets.” 3. “Increased UVA exposures and decreased cutaneous Vitamin D3 levels may be responsible for the increasing incidence of melanoma”, D Godar et al, Medical Hypotheses 72 (2009) 434–443 4. “Joint effects of dietary vitamin D and sun exposure on breast cancer risk: results from the French E3N cohort”, Engel et al, Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev cebp.1039.2010 q

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The Abdication IS CANCUN SETTING US UP FOR GLOBAL GOVERNANCE BY 2012? The Cancun climate gravy train is gathering speed as New Zealand chairs the next series of meetings leading up to another big talkfest in Durban next Christmas. But if British sceptic LORD CHRISTOPHER MONCKTON is correct, the real agenda wasn’t really emissions cuts, but putting in place the framework for a UN-based world government. He filed this report from Cancun on his website on the eve of the final declaration

Juan Novelo / NEWSCOM 48 INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM January 2011

Of The West I

usually add some gentle humor to these reports. Not today. Read this and weep. Notwithstanding the carefully-orchestrated propaganda to the effect that nothing much will be decided at the UN climate conference here in Cancun, the decisions to be made here this week signal nothing less than the abdication of the West. The governing class in what was once proudly known as the Free World is silently, casually letting go of liberty, prosperity, and even democracy itself. No one in the mainstream media will tell you this, not so much because they do not see as because they do not bl**dy care. The 33-page Note (FCCC/AWGLCA/2010/ CRP.2) by the Chairman of the “Ad-Hoc Working Group on Long-Term Co-operative Action under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change”, entitled Possible elements of the outcome, reveals all. Or, rather, it reveals nothing, unless one understands what the complex, obscure jargon means. All UNFCCC documents at the Cancun conference, specifically including “Possible elements of the outcome”, are drafted with what is called “transparent impenetrability”. The intention is that the documents should not be understood, but that later we shall be told they were in the public domain all the time, so what are we complaining about?

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Since the Chairman’s note is very long, I shall summarize the main points: Finance: Western countries will jointly provide $100 billion a year by 2020 to an unnamed new UN Fund. To keep this sum up with GDP growth, the West may commit itself to pay up to 1.5% of GDP to the UN each year [although the Cancun Agreement decided not to drop references to this specific percentage in its final draft]. That is more than twice the 0.7% of GDP that the UN has recommended the West to pay in foreign aid for the past half century. Several hundred of the provisions in the Chairman’s note will impose huge financial costs on the nations of the West. The world-government Secretariat: In all but name, the UN Convention’s Secretariat will become a world government directly controlling hundreds of global, supranational, regional, national and subnational bureaucracies. It will receive the vast sum of taxpayers’ money ostensibly paid by the West to the Third World for adaptation to the supposed adverse consequences of imagined (and imaginary) “global warming”. [Delegates agreed to establish a special climate fund organization to administer and co-ordinate this. The organization is to be an “operating entity” of the UN, answerable to that organization, with the World Bank acting as its trustee. The Cancun documents indicate officials in this new entity will be given “immunity”, but the documents do not clarify what from.] Bureaucracy: Hundreds of new interlocking bureaucracies answerable to the worldgovernment Secretariat will vastly extend its power and reach. In an explicit mirroring of the European Union’s method of enforcing the will of its unelected Kommissars on the groaning peoples of that benighted continent, the civil servants of nation states will come to see themselves as servants of the greater empire of the Secretariat, carrying out its ukases and diktats whatever the will of the nation states’ governments. Many of the new bureaucracies are disguised as “capacity-building in developing countries”. This has nothing to do with growing the economies or industries of poorer nations. It turns out to mean the installation of hundreds of bureaucratic offices answerable to the Secretariat in numerous countries around the world. Who pays? You do, gentle taxpayer. Babylon, Byzantium, the later Ottoman Empire, the formidable bureaucracy of Nazi Germany, the vast empire of 27,000 papershufflers at the European Union: add all of

these together and multiply by 100 and you still do not reach the sheer size, cost, power and reach of these new subsidiaries of the Secretariat. In addition to multiple new bureaucracies in every one of the 193 states parties to the Convention, there will be an Adaptation Framework Body, a Least Developed Countries’ Adaptation Planning Body, an Adaptation Committee, Regional Network Centers, an International Center to Enhance Adaptation Research, National Adaptation Institutions, a Body to Clarify Assumptions

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and Conditions in National Greenhouse-Gas Emission Reductions Pledges, a Negotiating Body for an Overall Level of Ambition for Aggregate Emission Reductions and Individual Targets, an Office to Revise Guidelines for National Communications, a Multilateral Communications Process Office, a Body for the Process to Develop Modalities and Guidelines for the Compliance Process, a Registry of Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions by Developed Countries, a Body to Supervise the Process for Understanding

Juan Novelo / NEWSCOM

Diversity of Mitigation Actions Submitted and Support Needed, a Body to Develop Modalities for the Registry of Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions, an Office of International Consultation and Analysis; an Office to Conduct a Work Program for Development of Various Modalities and Guidelines; a network of Developing Countries’ National Forest Strategy Action Plan Offices; a network of National Forest Reference Emission Level And/Or Forest Reference Level Bodies; a network of National Forest Monitoring Systems; an

“BABYLON, BYZANTIUM, THE LATER OTTOMAN EMPIRE, THE FORMIDABLE BUREAUCRACY OF NAZI GERMANY, THE VAST EMPIRE OF 27,000 PAPER-SHUFFLERS AT THE EUROPEAN UNION: ADD ALL OF THESE TOGETHER AND MULTIPLY BY 100 AND YOU STILL DO NOT REACH THE SHEER SIZE, COST, POWER AND REACH OF THESE NEW SUBSIDIARIES OF THE SECRETARIAT” INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM January 2011 51

Office of the Work Program on Agriculture to Enhance the Implementation of Article 4, Paragraph 1(c) of the Convention Taking Into Account Paragraph 31; one or more Mechanisms to Establish a Market-Based Approach to Enhance the Cost-Effectiveness Of And To Promote Mitigation Actions; a Forum on the Impact of the Implementation of Response Measures; a Work Program Office to Address the Impact of the Implementation of Response Measures; a Body to Review the Needs of Developing Countries for Financial Resources to Address Climate Change and Identify Options for

Mobilization of Those Resources; a Fund in Addition to the Copenhagen Green Fund; an Interim Secretariat for the Design Phase of the New Fund; a New Body to Assist the Conference of the Parties in Exercising its Functions with respect to the Financial Mechanism; a Body to Launch a Process to Further Define the Roles and Functions of the New Body to Assist the Conference of the Parties in Exercising its Functions with respect to the Financial Mechanism; a Technology Executive Committee; a Climate Technology Center and Network; a Network of National, Regional, Sectoral

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Greenpeace activists form the word “hope” and a question mark with their bodies, next to a giant life saver, during a demonstration near the site of the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Cancun, Mexico. / Xinhua/David de la Paz

and International Technology Centers, Networks, Organization and Initiatives; Twinning Centers for Promotion of North-South, South-South and Triangular Partnerships with a View to Encouraging Co-operative Research and Development; an Expert Workshop on the Operational Modalities of the Technology Mechanism; an International Insurance Facility; a Work Program Body for Policy Approaches and Positive Incentives on Issues Relating to Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries; a Body to Implement a

Work Program on the Impact of the Implementation of Response Measures; and a Body to Develop Modalities for the Operationalization of the Work Program on the Impact of the Implementation of Response Measures. The world government’s powers: The Secretariat will have the power not merely to invite nation states to perform their obligations under the climate-change Convention, but to compel them to do so. Nation states are to be ordered to collect, compile and submit vast quantities of information, in a manner and form to be specified by the secretariat and its growing army of subsidiary bodies. Between them, they will be given new powers to verify the information, to review it and, on the basis of that review, to tell nation states what they can and cannot do. Continuous expansion: The verb “enhance”, in its various forms, occurs at least 28 times in the Chairman’s note, Similar verbs, such as “strengthen” and “extend”, and adjectives such as “scaled-up”, “new” and “additional”, are also frequently deployed, particularly in relation to funding at the expense of Western taxpayers. If all of the “enhancements” proposed in the note were carried out, the cost would comfortably exceed the annual $100 billion (or, for that matter, the 1.5% of GDP) that the note mentions as the cost to the West over the coming decade. Intellectual property in inventions: Holders of patents, particularly in fields related to “global warming” and its mitigation, will be obliged to transfer the benefits of their inventiveness to developing countries without payment of royalties. This is nowhere explicitly stated in the Chairman’s note, but the transfer of technology is mentioned about 20 times in the draft, suggesting that the intention is still to carry out the explicit provision in the defunct Copenhagen Treaty draft of 15 September 2009 to this effect. Insurance: The Secretariat proposes, in effect, to interfere so greatly in the operation of the worldwide insurance market that it will cease to be a free market, with the usual severely adverse consequences to everyone in that market. The free market: The failed Copenhagen Treaty draft stipulated that the “government” that would be established would have the power to set the rules of all formerly free markets. There would be no such thing as free markets any more. In Cancun, the Chairman’s note merely says that various

“market mechanisms” may be exploited by the Secretariat and by the parties to the Convention: but references to these “market mechanisms” are frequent enough to suggest that the intention remains to stamp out free markets worldwide. Knowledge is power: The Chairman’s note contains numerous references to a multitude of new as well as existing obligations on nation states to provide information to the Secretariat, in a form and manner which it will dictate. The hand of the EU is very visible here. The EU grabbed power from its member-states in four stages: first, acting merely as a secretariat to ensure stable supplies of coal and steel to rebuild Europe after the Second World War; then as a registry requiring member states to supply it with ever more information; then as a review body

“NATION STATES ARE TO BE ORDERED TO COLLECT, COMPILE AND SUBMIT VAST QUANTITIES OF INFORMATION, IN A MANNER AND FORM TO BE SPECIFIED BY THE SECRETARIAT AND ITS GROWING ARMY OF SUBSIDIARY BODIES. BETWEEN THEM, THEY WILL BE GIVEN NEW POWERS TO VERIFY THE INFORMATION, TO REVIEW IT AND, ON THE BASIS OF THAT REVIEW, TO TELL NATION STATES WHAT THEY CAN AND CANNOT DO”

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A picture shows a member of the Sierra Club and The Sierra Student Coalition dreessed like a polar bear , during a protest against the industrialized nations that generate ‘greenhouse gases’ in Playa Marlin, Cancun, Mexico. / Juan Novelo/dpa

determining on the basis of the information supplied by the member states whether they were complying with their obligations on the ever-lengthier and more complex body of European treaties; and finally as the ultimate law-making authority, to which all elected parliaments, explicitly including the European “Parliament”, were and are subject. Under the Cancun proposals, the Secretariat is following the path that the plague of EU officials here have no doubt eagerly advised it to follow. It is now taking numerous powers not merely to require

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information from nation states but to hold them to account for their supposed international obligations under the climate-change Convention on the basis of the information the nations are now to be compelled to supply. Propaganda: The Chairman’s note contains several mentions of the notion that the peoples of the world need to be told more about climate change. Here, too, there is a parallel with the EU, which administers a propaganda fund of some $250 million a year purely to advertise its own wonderfulness to an increasingly sceptical population. The IPCC already spends millions every year with PR agencies, asking them to find new ways of making its blood-curdling message more widely understood and feared among ordinary people. The Secretariat already has the advantage of an uncritical, acquiescent, scientifically illiterate, economically innumerate and just plain dumb news media: now it will have a propaganda fund to play with as well. Damage caused by The Process: At the insistence of sensible nation states such as the United States, the Czech Republic, Japan, Canada, and Italy, the Cancun outcome acknowledges that The Process is causing, and will cause, considerable economic damage, delicately described in the Chairman’s note as “unintended side-effects of implementing climate-change response measures”. The solution? Consideration of the catastrophic economic consequences of the Secretariat’s heroically lunatic decisions will fall under the control of – yup – the Secretariat. Admire its sheer gall. Damage to world trade: As the power, wealth and reach of the Secretariat grow, it finds itself rubbing uncomfortably up against other supranational organizations. In particular, the World Trade Organization has been getting antsy about the numerous aspects of the Secretariat’s proposals that constitute restrictions on international trade. At several points, the Chairman’s note expresses the “decision” – in fact, no more than an opinion and a questionable one at that – that the Secretariat’s policies are not restrictive of trade. The Canute provision: The conference will reaffirm the decision of its predecessor in Copenhagen this time last year “to hold the increase in global average temperature below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels”, just like that. In fact, temperature in central England, and by implication globally, rose 2.2 Celsius in the 40 years 1695-1735,

as the Sun began to recover from its 11,400year activity minimum, and rose again by 0.74 C in the 20th century. There has been no warming in the 21st century, but we are already well over 2 Celsius degrees above pre-industrial levels. The Canute provision, as some delegates have dubbed it (after the Danish king of early England who famously taught his courtiers the limitations of his power and, a fortiori, theirs when he set up his throne on the beach and commanded sea level not to rise, whereupon the tide came in as usual and wet the royal feet), shows the disconnect between The Process and reality. Omissions: There are several highly-significant omissions, which jointly and severally establish that the central intent of The Process no longer has anything to do with the climate, if it ever had. The objective is greatly to empower and still more greatly to enrich the international classe politique at the expense of the peoples of the West, using the climate as a pretext, so as to copy the European Union by installing in perpetuity what some delegates here are calling “transnational perma-Socialism” beyond the reach or recall of any electorate. Here are the key omissions: • The science: The question whether any of this vast expansion of supranational power is scientifically necessary is not addressed. Instead, there is merely a pietistic affirmation of superstitious faith in the IPCC, where the conference will “recognize that deep cuts in global [greenhouse-gas] emissions are required according to science, and as documented in the [IPCC’s] Fourth Assessment Report.” • The economics: There is no assessment of the extent to which any of the proposed actions to mitigate “global warming” by cutting emissions of carbon dioxide or to adapt the world to its consequences will be cost-effective. Nor, tellingly, is there any direct comparison between mitigation and adaptation in their cost-effectiveness: indeed, the IPCC was carefully structured so that mitigation and adaptation are considered by entirely separate bureaucracies producing separate reports, making any meaningful comparison difficult. Though every economic analysis of this central economic question, other than that of the now-discredited Lord Stern, shows that mitigation is a pointless fatuity and that focused adaptation to the consequences of any “global warming” that may occur would be orders of magnitude cheaper and more cost-effective, the Cancun confer-

ence outcome will continue to treat mitigation as being of equal economic utility with adaptation. • Termination: Contracts have termination clauses to say what happens when the agreement ends. Nothing better illustrates the intent to create a permanent worldgovernment structure than the absence of any termination provisions whatsoever in the Cancun outcome. The Process, like diamonds, is forever. • Democracy: Forget government of the people, by the people, for the people. Forget

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Kimoon gives a keynote speech at the opening ceremony of the 16th Conference of the Parties (COP) at a hotel in Cancun, Mexico. / Yonhap News/YNA/NEWSCOM

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Susana Bates /NEWSCOM

“THE STORY BEGINS WITH SIR MAURICE STRONG, AN IMMENSELY WEALTHY UN BUREAUCRAT FROM CANADA WHO, A QUARTER OF A CENTURY AGO, ESTABLISHED THE IPCC AS AN INTERGOVERNMENTAL, POLITICAL BODY RATHER THAN AS A SCIENTIFIC BODY PRECISELY SO THAT IT COULD BE MANEUVERED INTO ASSISTING IN THE UN’S LONG-TERM AIM” the principle of “no taxation without representation” that led to the very foundation of the United States. The provisions for the democratic election of the new, all-powerful, legislating, tax-raising worldgovernment Secretariat by the peoples of the world may be summarized in a single word: None. How did this monstrous transfer of power from once-proud, once-sovereign, once-democratic nations to the corrupt,

unelected Secretariat come about? The story begins with Sir Maurice Strong, an immensely wealthy UN bureaucrat from Canada who, a quarter of a century ago, established the IPCC as an intergovernmental, political body rather than as a scientific body precisely so that it could be maneuvered into assisting in the UN’s long-term aim, reiterated at a summit of senior UN officials this May by Ban Ki-Moon himself, of extinguishing national sovereignty and

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establishing a world government. The Process began in earnest in 1988, when the IPCC was established. Shortly thereafter, on a June day in Washington DC deliberately chosen by Al Gore because it was unusually hot, his political ally and financial benefactor James Hansen appeared before a Congressional committee and put before it a wildly-exaggerated graph predicting global warming over the coming 20 or 30 years. Yet June 2008, the 20th anniversary of his testimony, was cooler globally than June 1988, and worldwide warming has happened at less than half the rate he predicted. The Rio Earth Summit in 1992 allowed environmental groups and world “leaders” to grandstand together. From that summit emerged the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, which began holding annual conferences on “global warming”. The Kyoto Protocol in 1997 committed its signatories to cut back their national CO2 emissions to 1990 levels by 2012. Most are not going to make it. The US Senate, with Al Gore as its president, voted 95-0 to reject any treaty such as Kyoto, which bound only the West while leaving developing nations such as China to emit carbon dioxide without constraint. Very little progress had been made by the time of the Bali conference in 2007: but at that conference a “road-map” was constructed that was to lead to a binding international treaty in Copenhagen in 2009. Just one problem with that. The US Constitution provides that, even if the President has signed a treaty, his signature is meaningless unless the treaty has been debated in the Senate, which must ratify it by the votes of at least 67 of the 100 Senators. It became clear to everyone, after the Obama administration failed to cajole or bully even 60 Senators into passing the Waxman/Markey cap-and-tax Bill, that no climate treaty would pass the Senate. Worse, the Secretariat grossly overreached itself. Believing its own propaganda to the effect that none but a few vexatious, fossilfunded sceptics believed that “global warming” would be small enough to be harmless, it drafted and posted up on its website a 186page draft Treaty of Copenhagen, proposing to turn itself into an unelected world government with unlimited powers to impose direct taxation on member nations without representation, recourse or recall, to interfere directly in the environmental policies of individual nations, and to sweep away all free markets worldwide, replacing them with

itself as the sole rulemaker in every marketplace (treaty draft, annex 1, articles 36-38). Some quotations from the draft reveal the sheer ambition of the UN: “The scheme for the new institutional arrangement under the Convention will be based on three basic pillars: government; facilitative mechanism; and financial mechanism … The government will be ruled by the Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change with the support of a new subsidiary body on adaptation, and of an Executive Board responsible for the management of the new funds and the related facilitative processes and bodies.” (Copenhagen Treaty draft of September 15, 2009, para. 38). The three central powers that the UN had hoped to grant itself under the guise of Saving The Planet from alleged climate catastrophe were as follows: “Government”: This use of the word “government” is the first use of the term to describe a world government in any international treaty draft. “Financial mechanism”: The “financial mechanism” was a delicate phrase to describe a new power of the UN to levy unlimited taxation directly on the peoples of its member states: taxation without representation, and on a global scale. “Facilitative mechanism”: This mechanism would, for the first time, have given the UN he power directly to coerce and compel compliance on the part of its member states, by force if necessary. The Treaty draft describes it as – “… a facilitative mechanism drawn up to facilitate the design, adoption and carrying out of public policies, as the prevailing instrument, to which the market rules and related dynamics should be subordinate.” In short, there was to be a New World Order, with a “government” having at its command a “financial mechanism” in the form of unlimited rights to tax the world’s citizen’s directly, and a “facilitative mechanism” that would bring the rules of all formerly free markets under the direct control of the new UN “government”, aided by an already-expanding series of bureaucracies. At no point anywhere in the 186 pages of the Treaty draft do the words “democracy”, “election”, “ballot”, or “vote” appear. As the EU has already demonstrated, the transfer of powers from sovereign democracies to supranational entities brings those democracies to an end. At the supranational level, in the UN, in the EU and in the proposed world govern-

ment, decisions are not made by anyone whom we, the voters, have elected to make such decisions. The exposure of the draft treaty in major international news media panicked the UN into abandoning the draft before the Copenhagen conference even began. Instead, the UN is now legislating crabwise, as the European Union does, with a series of successive annual agreements, the last of which was the Copenhagen Accord, each transferring more power and wealth from individual nations to its supranational bureaucracy. The latest of these agreements is being finalized here in Cancun. The European Union, which has stealthily stamped out democracy over the past half-century by a series of treaties each transferring a little more power and wealth from elected hands in the member states to unelected hands in Brussels, has been advising the Secretariat on how to do the same on a global scale. After the spectacular bloody nose the Secretariat got in Copenhagen, it was most anxious not to endure a second failure in Cancun. To this end, it obtained the agreement of the German government to host a monthly series of conferences in Bonn in the early part of 2010, some of which were open to outside observers and some were behind closed doors in a comfortable suburban palace, where the new way of legislating for the world – in secret – first came into use. The Chinese regime, anxious to get a piece of the action, agreed to host an additional session in Tientsin a few weeks ago. The purpose of this near-perpetual international junketing – which the national delegates have greatly enjoyed at our expense – was to make sure that nearly all of the elements in the Cancun agreement were firmly in draft and agreed well before Cancun, so as to avoid what too many journalists have tediously and obviously described as a “Mexican stand-off”. It is precisely because of all this massive and expensive preparation that the note by the Chairman, whose main points are summarized above, may well reflect what is finally decided and announced here in a couple of days’ time. The Chairman is not simply guessing: this Note reflects what the Secretariat now confidently expects to get away with. However, following the Copenhagen disaster, our grim future New Masters are taking no chances. They persuaded their friends in the mainstream news media, who

cannot now easily back out of their original declarations of blind faith in the Church of “Global Warming” and are as anxious not to lose face as the Secretariat is, to put it about that at Cancun this year and even at Durban next year very little of substance will occur. The intention is that, after not one but two international climate conferences, the second of them in Rio in 2012 on the 20th anniversary of the Earth Summit that began it all, the Secretariat will have become so wealthy and will have accreted so much power to itself that no one – not even the US Senate – will dare to resist ratifying the Treaty of Rio that brings democracy to an end worldwide and fulfils Lord Mandelson’s recent statement that “we are now living in a postdemocratic age.” Over my dead body. The people know best what is best for the people. The governing class no doubt knows what is best for the governing class, but does not necessarily know what is best for the people, and must always be kept in check by the ballot-box. If we are to have a world government at all (and, as the science of “global warming” alarm continues to collapse, the current pretext for world domination by a privileged few is wearing more than a little thin), then it is essential that the world government should be an elected government, and that, as Article 1, Section 1 of the US Constitution makes plain when it grants “All legislative power” to the elected Congress and to the now-elected Senate, none shall make laws for the world or impose taxes upon the world except those whom the people of the world have elected by universal secret ballot. How can we, the people, defeat the Secretariat and keep the democracy we love? Simply by informing our elected representatives of the scope, ambition, and detail of what is in the Cancun agreement. The agreement will not be called a “Treaty”, because the Senate, particularly after the mid-term elections, will not pass it. But it can still be imposed upon us by the heavily Left-leaning Supreme Court, which no longer makes any pretense at judicial impartiality and may well decide, even if Congress does not, that the Cancun agreement shall stand part of US law on the ground that it is “customary international law”. What to do? Send this blog posting to your legislators. It is their power, as well as yours, that is being taken away; their democracy, as well as yours, that will perish from the Earth unless this burgeoning nonsense is stopped. q

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Unaccountable

THE CASE FOR ABOLISHING THE WAITANGI TRIBUNAL, PART TWO Imagine a court effectively controlled entirely by one party to a court case, and which applied the law differently depending on which side you were on. Would you trust such a court to produce a fair verdict? With billions of taxpayers’ dollars at stake, AMY BROOKE argues the Waitangi Tribunal operates like this, has too much power in the treaty settlement process and is too biased and unaccountable to be allowed to continue. This is the conclusion of her argument (Part One appeared last month) 58 INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM January 2011

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his Ngai Tahu 1998 settlement is an important one to focus on, as is it particularly relevant in scrutinising the workings of the Waitangi Tribunal. Researcher Denis Hampton also noted at the time in a letter to the Christchurch Press of September 9, 1997, that then Ngai Tahu chairman Charlie Crofts claimed that the previous 1994 settlement of the Ngai Tahu claim “was imposed on the tribe by an allpowerful Crown” and that those reading the Waitangi Tribunal report could well agree with him. The tribunal, on the evidence presented to it, then concluded that the majority of the tribe had given only retrospective approval to the settlement. Even bypassing the fact that this was disputed by the former MP for Southern Maori, Mrs Whetu Tirikatane-Sullivan, whose own father Eruera Tirikatane had taken the 1994 proposal around all the iwi and received its unanimous endorsement, another factor contradicts Mr. Crofts’ claim, as Hampton illustrates.. “In 1969, aware that the annual payments from the 1944 settlement would soon cease, Frank David Winter, Chairman of the Ngai Tahu Maori Trust Board, together with over 2000 other members of the tribe, petitioned Parliament for the payments to continue in perpetuity. The petition included a clause stating that “the 1944 settlement was not and never has been accepted by the Ngai Tahu tribe as affecting a full and final settlement of the claim.” “In 1971 the petition was considered by the Maori Affairs Committee. “Evidence brought before the committee showed that the 1944 settlement had been well and truly discussed before it was enacted. It was pointed out that from May 1943 until the passing of the act, numerous meetings were held in both the North and South Islands. The words ‘was not and never has been accepted’ were not considered by the committee to be correct” and it therefore did not rule in Ngai Tahu’s favour. A year later, Ngai Tahu tried again, and the petition was reconsidered. The committee was apparently “impressed by the petitioners’ dignity and obvious sense of belief in the justice of their case.” But they failed to produce any fresh material evidence and again the petition failed. Although the Waitangi Tribunal accepted Crofts’ assertion, it is impossible to avoid the fact (as Hampton pointed out in an article “ A settlement imposed?”) that Charlie Crofts’

belief that the 1944 settlement was imposed on the tribe was simply wrong. Hampton also noted that “Mr. Anthony Hearn QC , in his submissions on behalf of the Crown to the Waitangi Tribunal, was well aware that the petition had been considered by the select committee both in 1971, and in 1972. “For some inexplicable reason, he did not elaborate on the findings and failed to submit them as part of his supporting documentary evidence. “ However a Ngai Tahu website continues to claim that in relation to The Ngai Tahu Claim Settlement Act 1944, providing for annual payments of £10,000 for 30 years to the Ngaitahu Trust Board, a not inconsiderable sum for those times, “The tribe was not consulted on this until the legislation was passed.” Where does the responsibility lie for such misleading, provably inaccurate claims? The government is not bound by the recommendations of the Waitangi Tribunal, except in relation to The Treaty of Waitangi (State Enterprises) Act 1988, but its influence on government decisions has been considerable. The question now has to be whether or not its methods of operation and its composition best serve the interests of the country – or whether the claims on which it bases its decisions should be more appropriately heard in a proper court of law, operating on a far more objective basis, and removed from the arguably inappropriate setting of a marae, with all its pressures and particular beliefs, by no means always consistent with the actual facts of our co-history. Although its findings are not automatically enforceable, the lack of opportunity to scrutinise these concerns leaves New Zealanders disenfranchised from any participation in its proceedings. Its lack of judiciousness, exemplified by its exaggerated Parihaka pronouncements, let alone its apparent judicial activism on behalf of Maori factions only, has led to what its critics forewarned in 1988. Already, New Zealanders at large are being stripped by the tribunal’s decisions of assets of enormous value, such as mineral rights, rights to forestry, power stations and conservation estates in which Maori already have as equal a share as all other New Zealanders – more at this stage, given that the government has granted the sole use of certain conservation land – what should be Crown Land available to all New Zealanders – to the same powerful and manipulative Ngai Tahu body as compensation (apparently compensation to Ngai Tahu is a movable feast) for the lessening of the value of

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their third “full and final” settlement by the government’s introduction of its Emissions Trading Scheme. Moreover, the National Government is poised to go even further down the disastrous path of racial advantage by handing over areas of the foreshore and seabed to local groups of Maori claiming “customary rights” – a newly invented form of property rights historically untenable, but giving local family or tribal groupings extraordinary advantages over all other New Zealanders in relation to stretches of our coastline, to mineral access and power

“EVIDENCE BROUGHT BEFORE THE COMMITTEE SHOWED THAT THE 1944 SETTLEMENT HAD BEEN WELL AND TRULY DISCUSSED BEFORE IT WAS ENACTED. IT WAS POINTED OUT THAT FROM MAY 1943 UNTIL THE PASSING OF THE ACT, NUMEROUS MEETINGS WERE HELD IN BOTH THE NORTH AND SOUTH ISLANDS”

of veto – even sole rights – over developments. Naturally, all these unprecedented and undemocratic initiatives have the full backing of the Waitangi Tribunal. However, this perceivedly radical tribunal has brought itself into disrepute into other areas. Its Taranaki Claim Report contained intemperate language and greatly exaggerated assertions. Land confiscations of the times it referred to should be seen in the context of the same Taranaki tribes’ invasion of the Chatham Islands, and the pillaging, enslavement, torture, and ultimately

genocide of their peaceable Moriori victims. Such a comparison places in better proportion the skirmishes and land confiscations of the Central North Island, unjust although in hindsight some of the latter might have been. Today’s attempt to revisit history from the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi onwards in examining the facts relevant to the Taranaki and Waikato tribes’ infighting (one only of all those undertaken by the Labour government, on the initiative of the then Minister of Justice, Geoffrey Palmer) was not only an impossible but an

incredibly naive one, given that reportedly even more Maori tribes fought on the side of the Crown. Given the tangled territorial claims and counter-claims, it is highly likely that the truth of such issues can never be clearly defined. Moreover, it is also arguable that given the passing of over a century and a half, the principle of permanent land alienation, as realistically applied in Europe, should have been applied here – and the country as a whole should have moved on. Furthermore, given that there was never

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any reparation or any apology from the Taranaki tribes to the descendants of the Chatham Islanders, the Waitangi Tribunal’s emotive and one-sided description of the Taranaki confiscations as “the Holocaust of Maori history”, was quite outrageous. Shameful although the Parihaka incident might have been, even if understandable in the context of the times with the butchering of settlers – men, women, and children – having its inevitable consequences, it was inexcusable, if not an act of hysteria, for the tribunal to rank it “with the most heinous action of any government, in any country, in the last century”.

or example, as historian Martin Doutre recounts, during the summer and autumn of 1863 it was an almost a daily occurrence that outlying settlers’ homes were invaded and looted and occupants subjected to violence and intimidation. “These incidents were far to the north of the Mangatawhiri Stream, which constituted the northern boundary of the Kingite territory”. In June 1863 …”the situation had become so intolerable and dangerous for the settlers that the government, in exasperation, required that the Maori living to the immediate north of the Mangatawhiri stream, in the region of growing hostility, plundering and constant unrest,” must swear an oath of allegiance to the Queen or move to the south of the stream…those who moved to the South were allowed to take their arms with them…”Murder of the outlying settlers began in earnest after June 1863”. Moreover, not one death occurred at Parihaka – apparently the only casualty in this peaceful confrontation was, regrettably, a horse standing on a boy’s foot. These are not the facts which the tribunal preferred to make public. Although it was now obvious from the time of its extraordinary “Holocaust” accusation that the tribunal had become well and truly discredited, its inexcusably distorted assessments were disseminated worldwide by courtesy of the Internet – and regarded as blot on New Zealanders’ cohabitation. No wonder we have misinformed United Nations personnel descending to inspect what must appear to be our horrific and discriminatory practices! Further controversy has long surrounded the tribunal’s power to virtually compel the return of state assets, tied in with what has been regarded as essentially opportunism – not only its absurd recommendation that ownership of the electromagnetic spectrum and the airways also belong specifically to

tribal Maori, but its assertion that there was at the time of European settlement no Maori concept of land as a saleable commodity, the land under question regarded as being merely leased to the Crown. There is plenty of evidence that tribal negotiators well understood the onus of a transaction being located squarely between consenting adults. The tribunal managed in the 90s to advance yet another inventive claim: “The central issue of later Crown purchase is, therefore, not so much the intention of Maori in transacting, but more importantly, the integrity of the Crown in buying.” However, attempting to second-guess the intentions of the Crown with regard to a contract – while retrospectively infantilizing

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the Maori perception of bargaining – does little justice to the rules Maori had continually brought to bear in these processes, let alone the considerable intelligence and acumen shown by some of the chiefs at the time. The lack of opportunity to properly scrutinise the tribunal’s modus operandi concerns New Zealanders disenfranchised from any participation in its proceedings. Its apparent activism on behalf of Maori factions only, has led to what its critics forewarned in 1988. Furthermore, the New Zealand Herald of November 17, 1999 published an article in which Justice Durie, the chairman of the Waitangi Tribunal, stated that “Some Treaty of Waitangi claimants have asked researchers to change findings that would be unhelpful to their cases” and that “some tribes had

even tried to make the payment of research conditional on findings being altered.” He stated that this issue, as well as several others, raised questions about the need for a code of ethics for researchers’ claims lodged under the treaty. He quoted some groups requiring “commissioned researchers to remove material unhelpful to the claimant cases” – which meant that their conclusions were suspect. There were also complaints from researchers of instructions not to consult with certain persons, or only those approved by the claimants’ groups. Durie was alluding to that same travesty of justice which so concerned Brian Priestley in relation to the Ngai Tahu claim… the highly self-serving view by some claimants “that kaumatua opinions and recollections should not be challenged or cross-examined” – and queried whether their evidence presented to the tribunal should be publicly available. Claims of conflict of interest are consistently raised when it is pointed out that some tribunal members appear to be wearing two hats. An expectation of impartiality and balance should be fulfilled in any semi-judicial hearing making recommendations to government involving multi-million-dollar handouts to tribes.

ing the Te Roroa claim – a clear conflict of interest in my view that would not be permitted in any other New Zealand court. It is not the first time that claimants have been judge and jury – or that members of the tribunal sitting to consider claims have had a relationship with the tribe whose claims they were hearing. The District Field Officer at the time, Mr. L.G Fraser, stated that although the claim received verbal support “naturally” from the majority of the Committee, “the Department of Lands and Survey has already investigated this claim and was of the opinion that it could not be sustained.” He went on to point out that “the information presented to the Committee with the documentation presented to them was very lightweight and they would be on very shaky ground making a recommendation decision on that information.” This reminder is particularly relevant in connection with the Te Roroa claim, as the present Minister for Treaty Negotiations, Chris Finlayson, has been responsible for authorising payment of $9.5 million of taxpayer funds in connection with this claim. In reply to a March 2010 query by Ross Baker to the Minister of Finance on behalf of the

Minister of Treaty Negotiations was then a member, contained members who, through intermarriage and genetic inheritance, have tribal affiliations. How have we arrived at a situation where a less than impartial committee may report back to Parliament? It might well trouble the impartial observer that of its eight part-Maori members some were related to Te Roroa , and Georgina Te Heuheu was a member of the Waitangi Tribunal that actually heard the Te Roroa Claim. Pita Sharples, the present co-leader of the radicalised Maori Party, was also one of its members. This matter was apparently brought to the attention of the Speaker of the House at the time, but nothing was done. Its National Party member Tau Henare subsequently claimed to Parliament that the One New Zealand Foundation submission had not been heard – when, in fact, the committee had indeed heard it. That these submission contained documents and evidence (as did the Federated Farmers submission with its 17,000 membership backing – about which Parliament was also never informed) showing the Te Roroa claim was only an alleged, and never a proven claim, seems to have been the rea-

“IT IS ALSO ARGUABLE THAT GIVEN THE PASSING OF OVER A CENTURY AND A HALF, THE PRINCIPLE OF PERMANENT LAND ALIENATION, AS REALISTICALLY APPLIED IN EUROPE, SHOULD HAVE BEEN APPLIED HERE – AND THE COUNTRY AS A WHOLE SHOULD HAVE MOVED ON”

However, known radical activists, advocating strongly for their own tribes, are periodically members of the tribunal. The research of the one New Zealand Foundation’s Ross Baker has uncovered a Department of Lands and Survey file, as far back as November 1985, pointing out that during the District Maori Land Advisory Committee Tour of Northland “a Mr Ned Nathan seems to be the leading local person pursuing this claim and he also sits on the Waitangi Tribunal in place of Sir Graham Latimer when he has an interest in the land under consideration” (italics mine). In other words, Ned Nathan, the main Te Roroa claimant and a plucky World War II veteran who’d managed to resist Gestapo torture, was also a member of the Waitangi Tribunal hear-

One New Zealand Foundation asking if taxpayer funding has now been provided to compensate Te Roroa for their “alleged” but unproven claim and if so why, a partial answer only was received from the Minister of Treaty Negotiations, to whom the query was forwarded. Finlayson confirmed that the Te Roroa Deed of Settlement, originally signed on December 17, 2005 had now provided land and financial redress to the value of $9.5 million as part of the settlement package.” However, to an impartial observer, all would not seem to be well. Not only had chief Judge Shepherd found there was no evidence to support this claim in 1939, and it was further rejected by parliament in 1942, but the select committee of which the now

son why Parliament was not informed of these. In other words it can well be argued that far from this committee being impartial, its members were stacked, and their findings were far from objective. Most of this committee’s members were also List MPs. i.e. Members of Parliament not elected by the public but appointed by the parties for their loyalty. And yet Parliament acted on its recommendations. Clearly this is not good enough. Although Hansard dutifully records what it was told, that the Maori Affairs Select Committee did not hear the one New Zealand Foundation’s submission, the evidence is there that it was actually heard at Parliament on May 2, 2007. It was presented by historian Ross Baker at the select committee hearing and he appar-

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ently answered questions from Finlayson at the time. There were eight opposing submissions to this bill. Back in 1992, the then Minister of Justice Doug Graham pointed out that “the government is accountable to the public to respond to the expenditure of taxpayer funds and must stand up to public scrutiny.” Who would disagree? Yet what recourse does the public have when this requirement is being withheld? Disturbingly, as parliamentarians, their hands full with their own portfolios, do not have time to read up on these issues and must largely rely upon a select committee’s recommendations, the question arise whether this select committee misled Parliament through a highly disturbing act of omission. It is at least a travesty of justice that it did not inform Parliament that

the Te Roroa claim was unproven – that it was simply alleged – and that in its report to Parliament it withheld vital information concerning this fact. Bearing in mind that the select committee’s duty is to read all submissions and hear those that request to be heard, there is a further responsibility to prepare an unbiased report to be presented to Parliament for MPs to decide whether to vote for or against the Bill. In most cases, this is the only understanding parliamentarians have of a Bill before they vote on information given in the select committee report. So it is by no means an unimportant issue that no mention was made at any time that this claim was only an “alleged” claim, although this was stated in most of the opposing submissions, with documented evidence.

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The question is inevitable: why did this claim proceed when the Waitangi Tribunal, the Crown and the claimant apparently did not have one new piece of evidence to substantiate it, and when it had been well and truly rejected in the past for this reason? There are grounds to argue that the Bill/claim would never have been allowed to proceed if parliament and the public had been informed of the detailed submissions opposing it. Again we have a situation almost paralleling that of the signing of the Ngai Tahu Claims Settlement Act in 1998, where, as has been documented, the select committee was instructed to virtually disregard the very many submissions made to it on the grounds that the Bill had already been signed. Similarly, the recent Tuhoe settlement is yet another instance of taxpayers once again being compelled to make very dubious “compensation” – this time to the tribes of the Central North Island – when there is well-documented evidence, recorded at the time, to show that the Tuhoe were paid at a very good rate and were well satisfied with the compensation they received for marginal land subsequently planted in forestry by the State – land for which they themselves have managed to receive a further recent large payout. Claims were made by Tuhoe which, arguably, on the evidence of the times, were simply untrue. However, at the convenience of government, such important facts are ritually ignored. For example, apparently Tuhoe did not have 24,147 ha of land confiscated. The true figure supplied by the One New Zealand foundation was 5700ha, and, contrary to Tuhoe’s always highly emotive representation, this land was not confiscated without good reason. An article by Stephen Oliver published in the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography leaves little doubt that the government of the day had every right to confiscate land from Tuhoe. Moreover, it has also been stated that Tuhoe was not subsequently compensated for this land. But in Richard Hill’s, Justice Department record for the Lange government in 1989, page 11, clause 31, Tuhoe were as shown to have received $200,000. The Maori economy, undoubtedly in large part due to ongoing taxpayer contributions as compelled by various governments, is reported to now amount to nearly $18 billion. Taxpayers’ money invested in promoting the largely now modernised Maori language alone reportedly amounted to $260 million dollars this past year. Settlements of accumulatively to hundreds of millions of

dollars are still under way, although total tribal wealth is now considerable – and the country is faced with making drastic cuts to our military and defence capability from financial necessity.

eanwhile, tribal groupings still constantly approach government for financial help for developments and initiatives they could well afford to finance themselves. Moreover, little accountability has been sought for money given for various Maori-only initiatives in business, enterprises, health and education which appeared to have been siphoned off to tribal relatives and misapplied – taxpayer money still unaccounted for to date. Those New Zealanders, both part-Maori and non-Maori who see the ongoing haemorrhaging of taxation towards Maori tribal claims (some of the largest regarded by independent historians as reinvented, elasticised or simply spurious) as a massive drain on our economy have a point. Many would now agree with Martin Doutre’s claim that “much of what is cited as history is little more than grievance-industry, politically driven, expedient fantasy, which has little or no basis in fact and can’t be corroborated by the observations of those who were there on the ground at the time. The same gaggle of social engineers who stole our egalitarian Treaty of Waitangi from all the people of New Zealand and turned it into a document of apartheid are responsible for fabricating this nouveau version of colonial history.” Other troubling practices have been cited with relevance to the operations of the Treaty of Waitangi, including that some of the Crown historians have previously worked with the Maori claimant groups. Although the tribunal seems to have been originally conceived as a sop to Cerberus – a gesture of appeasement towards radical activists – history shows us that individuals’ or groups’ distorted ideological perceptions are never removed by appeasement. As we have ourselves seen in recent years, radical activists, obsessed by their one-sided perception of issues, lack a sanity of vision which acknowledges the immense advantages to themselves and their people – as well as the inevitable disadvantages – of the shared occupancy of this country. Arguably the former have been far more valuable. Given the expectation, in our democracy, that it should be the courts with their access to the right of appeal that decide on the legitimacy of claims – without prejudice

to race, gender, class or creed – those arguing for the disestablishing of the Waitangi Tribunal have a very strong case. Those arguing for far more rigorous scrutiny of its advice that the government acts on, given awareness of its method of operating and of Brian Priestly’s assessment that “it would be hard to imagine any public body less well organised to get at the truth of an issue” have an unanswerable one. Moreover, Geoffrey Palmer’s recognition that “the balance of power has tilted against the government of the day towards the courts and the tribunal” is hardly an issue for a democracy to celebrate. Currently, moves to entrench the Treaty of Waitangi in a New Zealand Bill of Rights “to tidy up the constitutional position further” by giving even more status to the ever-nebulous “principles” of the treaty will alarm majority New Zealanders already concerned at the embedding of what have amounted to racist politics geared towards Maori preference issues. In 1989, the discovery of the Littlewood Treaty, now regarded as Hobson’s final draft, showed unequivocally that the treaty referred to all the people of New Zealand, equal in law under the British crown. We have moved a long way from this prior acceptance of equality to an increasingly apartheid-like system which has the parents of part-Maori children being encouraged towards a separatist, total immersion education which arguably puts them at a considerable disadvantage compared to other New Zealanders, in terms of the sophisticated demands of what is required of students worldwide, at an international level. However, these children become very useful to a tribal grouping recruiting activist members. Moreover, it is curious that an Australian Broadcasting Commission Four Corners current affairs TV programme in 1990 was, as the One New Zealand Foundation reminds us, banned from showing in New Zealand. Reportedly, according to the New Zealand Herald, the Rev. Sir Paul Reeves then Governor- General of New Zealand, but known for his radicalised views on Maori issues, clashed with Geoffrey Palmer, representing the New Zealand government. In an extraordinary admission Palmer reportedly stated on this programme that “the meaning of the treaty in terms of operational consequences is now far from clear. In fact, it is a document that is so vague that that is the problem. The idea that somehow hundreds of millions of dollars are going to change hands in such a short period of time is I’m afraid,

idle.” Palmer added that such expectations were unreasonable and would not be met. History, however, has proved that these unreasonable expectations have been and are being well and truly met – and it can be argued that it is this former minister’s original activism that has contributed to the state of affairs. Reeves himself compared the treaty to the covenant made between God and Abraham or God and Noah, with an expectation that the treaty referred to the Crown (God) and Maori (Abraham or Noah) i.e. in the nature of a partnership. However, Prime Minister David Lange at the time made his perceptions quite plain: e.g. “Did Queen Victoria for a moment think of forming a partnership with a number of thumbprints and 500 people?” The resurfacing of the Littlewood Treaty, publicised by Ross Baker, Martin Doutre and Ian Wishart (Investigate magazine, December 2003), and referenced by scholar Paul Moon (The Treaty and its Times, Moon and Biggs, Resource Books, 2004) has cast considerable doubt on the validity of supposedly accurate translations of the Treaty of Waitangi, translations conveniently used as the basis for radicalised Maori activism. The ensuing public backlash is still with us, as is what many regard as the ongoing gravy train of treaty settlements. Moreover, many moderate Maori have left New Zealand with their families to escape this, and to escape the pressure of activist tribal involvement. Underpinning all this disquiet has been the Waitangi Tribunal. Public perception now is that not only is the tribunal biased in the way it operates, but the fact that that some of its members come from radicalised backgrounds and have close links to tribes whose claims the tribunal hears cannot possibly contribute to impartial hearings. Moreover, it has been wrongly allowed to operate as if it is a genuine judicial authority – when it is nothing of the sort. Both these realities bring into question its very existence, as well as the fact that majority New Zealanders – including very many part-Maori who are not organised into activist neo-tribal groupings – are disadvantaged by the tribunal’s links to tribal and government representatives – given the now compromised Maori vote-buying governments of the day. It is hard indeed to avoid the conclusion that the abolishing of this highly divisive body with its arguably damaging recommendations is well overdue. ©Copyright Amy Brooke www.amybrooke.co.nz

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THE SECRET LIFE OF IT’S HARD TO SOAR LIKE AN EAGLE WHEN SURROUNDED BY PARROTS We’ve yet to see jetpack inventor Glenn Martin buzz the Auckland Skytower but, as AMANDA CROPP discovers, his obsession with non-disclosure and keeping things close to his chest appears to have paid off

ne of the most impressive things about Christchurch jetpack inventor Glenn Martin is his ability to keep a secret. The revolutionary new flying machine remained under wraps for 27 years until just before its launch at an American air show and has just been listed as one of Time magazine’s 50 best inventions of 2010. Almost obsessive intellectual property (IP) protection has helped keep the jetpack ahead of its rivals with Martin insisting that almost everybody in the know had to sign non-disclosure agreements, including his parents and wife Vanessa. Over the years Martin has collected more than 200 NDAs and, apart from his two young sons, he made just two exceptions: Virgin Atlantic boss Richard Branson,

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whom he trusted to keep his mouth shut; and the land owner who hosted the early test flights. “We didn’t get him to sign an NDA; he’s a New Zealand farmer. We just shook his hand and asked him to keep it quiet.” Curious neighbours were told the engine noises emanating from the Martin garage came from hovercraft test runs. “It was a craft and it hovered.” Keeping Mum became second nature. “For many years we kept this mental list in our heads of who was ‘in’ and who was ‘out.’ It was a bit like being a member of the Lodge. Vanessa and I would go out with friends and look around the table. If they were all inner circle people, we could talk openly as long as nobody was within earshot, but if there was one outer circle person, we couldn’t.” Nowadays the Martin Aircraft Company

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occupies a nondescript building in a Christchurch industrial estate. There’s no sign, just a street number, and a high cyclone fence topped with barbed wire. The front door is permanently locked even during working hours. Right up until the official launch of the jet pack the company name – GNM Ltd (Martin’s initials) was as deliberately unassuming as the premises. “We changed it 29 days and 9½ hours before the launch. As soon as you name a company Martin Aircraft people’s ears prick up, whereas GNM means nothing to anyone.” Such measures might seem extreme, paranoid even, but Martin is simply protecting a multimillion dollar investment in IP because he knows that in a fiercely competitive global market, his pioneering technology is a tempting target for clever copycats.

INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY BASICS A Patent protects the concept or idea behind an industrial product and allows exclusive use of an invention for up to 20 years. It can be bought sold, transferred or licensed like any other form of property. A Trademark, often referred to as a ‘brand,’ can include a word, phrase, shape, symbol or logo and is designed to link a certain product or service with the trademark owner. Design Registration protects the external appearance of a manufactured article such as its shape, pattern or ornamentation. Copyright covers certain original works such as prototype drawings, computer programmes, and training manuals, but does not cover ideas. Copyright comes into existence automatically when a work is created (no formal registration is required) and it can be used to prevent one party from copying the work of another.

ome of his innovations are patented, and others – like the complex mathematical algorithms that make this US $100,000 gizmo fly – are carefully guarded company secrets. Glenn Martin admits it’s a tricky balancing act using non-disclosure agreements. Although anxious to protect his IP, but he doesn’t want go overboard like the Americans “who work on the basis that you trust nobody.” Often it comes down to the integrity of the individual, and to his chagrin Martin Aviations’s jetpack was “outed” to TVNZ shortly before its official launch by someone who had signed a confidentiality agreement. Glenn Martin’s introduction to inventing started early. He didn’t watch a lot of TV growing up and from the age of three he and his father Neil spent most evenings tinkering in the garage. “My Dad grew up in the generation that went through the depression and if you wanted something, you made it. My mother decided she wanted to go on a caravan holiday so we built a caravan. I still remember lying on the garage floor as my Dad got a piece of chalk and drew around me to size the beds.” With his father’s encouragement, the four year-old Martin designed the brake system for the caravan. “He knew the answer but he led me through the process. He allowed me to come up with the design and had the wherewithal to make it.” “That’s where I got the ability and the focus to know I could make stuff, and that there’s a technique to making stuff.” With his shock of blond hair the 49-year-

old Martin still has a boyish look about him, and his enthusiasm for jetpack technology seems as strong now as the day he dreamt up the idea as five year old looking for a safe way to cross a busy Dunedin intersection. A couple of years later timely intervention by Dad prevented him leaping off the garage roof with homebuilt wings attached to his arms, but the dream refused to die. As a biochemistry student at Otago University he had the ‘aha moment’ that inspired him to spent nights and weekends working out the mathematical equations that would eventually make the jetpack fly. Martin also set about acquiring the skills he’d need to make his invention a commercial success. “I read a lot of books about inventors and where they went wrong. It’s almost like a cliché to have them dying in the gutter unknown. Mr Singer made a lot

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of money out of sewing machines but the guy who invented them died unknown in the gutter. “I realized I needed to learn about stuff like IP, about business and marketing, so that’s when I left university (three quarters the way through a Masters degree) and deliberately got a job in the commercial world to learn how it all worked.” Martin joined the sales team of Douglas Pharmaceuticals in Christchurch, went on to work for a biotech company, and continued to build prototype jetpacks in his garage as funds permitted. Martin began patenting relatively recently, largely as a requirement of a substantial investment from venture capitalist company No 8 Ventures, but no one has tried to copy his jetpack. “Yet.” Two or three companies making versions

David Trotman-Wilkins/MCT/NEWSCOM

of the Bell Rocket Belt are trumpeting improvements to it, but Martin is not worried about competition from a device that flies for about 30 seconds, and is like having a bomb strapped to your bum. “They’re fuelled by very pure hydrogen peroxide which has a nasty habit of exploding. People who fly the Bell Rocket Belt are incredibly brave; I have a lot of admiration for them, but you couldn’t get me anywhere near the darn thing.” The petrol powered Martin Jetpack can fly for about 30 minutes and although primarily aimed at recreational users, it has also attracted interest from military and search and rescue organisations, and a company that conducts inspections of high rise buildings. Martin Aviation engineers are currently working on projects with a couple of large

international organisations but the boss won’t elaborate. “It’s all still below the radar.” IP protection measures are being jacked up a notch as a result. “We’re getting suggestions from military about how we do our security.”

Naturally Martin won’t say reveal where that military advice is coming from… old habits die hard. This is one inventor with no intention of dying penniless in the gutter leaving someone else to profit from his life’s work. q

“MY DAD GREW UP IN THE GENERATION THAT WENT THROUGH THE DEPRESSION AND IF YOU WANTED SOMETHING, YOU MADE IT. MY MOTHER DECIDED SHE WANTED TO GO ON A CARAVAN HOLIDAY SO WE BUILT A CARAVAN. I STILL REMEMBER LYING ON THE GARAGE FLOOR AS MY DAD GOT A PIECE OF CHALK AND DREW AROUND ME TO SIZE THE BEDS” INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM January 2011 69

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money

The Money Merry-go-round Peter Hensley notes that if you owe the bank $900,000, it controls you, but if you owe the bank $90 billion, you control it

oira was sitting in her favourite chair in the conservatory. It was another pleasantly warm day, the tide was coming in and the kite surfers were making the most of the gentle zephyr blowing in from the west. She counted nineteen, a good number for that part of the coast. She recognised that the more experienced ones kept well away from the novices. She had witnessed the odd mishap over the past couple of summers and knew that the tangles that ensued were not pretty. Jim came out with a cup of tea and biscuit at the same time the door bell rang. It was Neville from next door. Neville had a question and as he knew he could always count on a fresh muffin and a hot drink he dropped by to see his favourite neighbours. Jim enjoyed the company and Moira appreciated Neville’s quick mind and appreciation of all things financial. Jim quickly disappeared back into the kitchen to source him a hot drink. The view from his neighbours’ conservatory was more impressive than his own. Because of advances in engineering Jim and Moira had been able to extend their building to a point where they enjoyed maximum views to the north east. Being further out also allowed them a little more privacy whilst ensuring they took advantage of the sun for most of the day. Neville had kept up to date with the financial shenanigans that were currently going on in Europe and he wanted to share a few thoughts with Moira. The IMF had recently come to the rescue and bailed out a financially stretched Greece. Now Ireland appeared to be on the receiving end of yet another bail out package. Neville went on to point out that Greece had to be bailed out in order to support the Euro. In the olden days (pre Euro) Greece would have defaulted on its debt, revalued its currency (downwards), modified both its fiscal and monetary policies and after a period of adjustment would have been accepted back into the global economic scheme of things. Creating the Euro has complicated all things European.

Neville raised the point that the current Irish government had agreed to borrow almost $88 billion Euros in order to save both its banking system and economic future. He went on to say that in the olden days this couldn’t or wouldn’t be allowed to occur. They are attempting to borrow their way out of debt. History and logic says this strategy is not a long term solution. It has never worked in the past and there is nothing to indicate that it is going to work this time. Moira suggested that France and Germany were not being entirely altruistic. If you follow the money, you would find that their

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country’s banks are the owners or the debt. Accordingly they have their own selfish reasons to bail out their neighbours. Their own future depends upon the game of musical chairs continuing. Realists amongst us know that the party can’t go on forever and at some stage the band will need a break. Neville, satisfied that his understanding of the European situation concurred with his neighbours then asked Moira what she knew of the legislative changes for financial advisers that came into force on 1st December. “It depends”, Moira replied. “The

Financial Advisers Act is well meaning in its intent. It is supposed to promote the sound and efficient delivery of financial adviser and broker services and to encourage public confidence in the professionalism and integrity of financial advisers and brokers.” Moira went on to say that she did have some reservations about some of the sections in the Act. In order to set some parameters the authorities have had to place definitions on advice. Accordingly the Act sets out five categories of financial advice. 1. Broking Service: This is best described as the strict execution of a client’s instruction(s) to buy or sell a security. No advice is offered or expected. If a client requests advice on whether to buy or sell, then the level of service automatically alters to Personalised Service (see below). 2. Class Service: This is best described as the supply and clarification of Product Information only. No advice is offered or expected. If a client requests advice on whether the product would suit their circumstances, then the level of service automatically alters to Personalised Service (see below). 3. Personalised Service: The adviser is legally obliged to take into account the client’s particular financial situa-

5. Discretionary Management Service:

The adviser is legally obliged to take into account the client’s particular financial situation when providing financial advice

tion when providing financial advice. The caveat to the adviser providing a personalised service is that when an adviser provides a personalised service to a retail client, the Authorised Financial Adviser (AFA) MUST provide a written explanation on the basis on which those services are provided. 4. Investment Planning Service: The Act states that a person provides an investment planning service if they design or offer to design a plan for an individual(s) that is based on their particular financial situation and takes into account their investment goals.

This is when the adviser has (delegated) authority over a client’s portfolio and decides which financial products to buy or sell and they act under that authority and subsequently acquire or dispose of products (investments) Financial advisers also have to be registered and depending upon the products they advise on some have to be authorised. Moira said that their adviser had already qualified to be both registered and authorised, so she believed that they were in good hands. She was concerned that the authorities approach to pigeon-holing advice could initially cause some confusion to those people seeking advice for the first time. It would also undoubtedly increase the cost of financial advice potentially pricing it out of reach to those who need it the most. . Moira noticed that Neville’s attention had been captivated by the kite surfers as he commented that their view of the beach was better than his. Moira mumbled something to herself about their neighbour being a typical male with a short concentration span. A copy of Peter Hensley’s disclosure statement is available on request and is free of charge. Copyright © Peter J Hensley December 2010

EVE’S BITE

THE DIVINITY CODE

“…the most politically incorrect book” in New Zealand. He is absolutely right…Prepare to be surprised and shocked. Wishart may ruﬀle a few feathers but his arguments are fair as his evidence proves. If you are looking for a stimulating mental challenge, or a cause to fight for, Eve’s Bite will definitely satisfy. – Wairarapa Times-Age

Wishart takes up the gauntlet laid down by Richard Dawkins in The God Delusion, and in fact, uses Dawkins own logic and methodology to launch a counter-attack against unbelief. Challenging…thought provoking…compelling – keepingstock.blogspot.com

Discover the truth for yourself. Get these two books today from Whitcoulls, Borders, PaperPlus, Dymocks, Take Note, and all good independent booksellers, or online at

I’m having a cracking good read of another cracking good read – The Divinity Code by Ian Wishart, his follow-up book to Eve’s Bite which was also a cracking good read – comment on “Being Frank”

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education

Chaos theory rules Education In physics, things left to their own devices eventually atrophy. ‘Ever-decreasing circles’ is another analogy. Without constant energy, input and correction, systems lose balance and accuracy. It’s a lesson apparently lost on the Ministry of Education, where Amy Brooke reports on a policy destined to mimic ‘the blind leading the blind’:

ne wonders what planet they’re on, the education “experts” advising Anne Tolley, who still has to cotton on to the fact that until control of education is removed from our education bureaucracy (both from the ministry and the unionized “facilitators” in the classrooms) things aren’t going to change. It won’t escape knowledgeable readers why I say the “facilitators” in the classrooms. I was reminded of how little things have changed, recently reading an interview of a former local headmistress. For well over

two decades now, unionized once-teachers – although still demanding higher pay as actual “teachers” – have endorsed the concept of “facilitating” rather than actually teaching. And out came the same tedious mantra with her asserting it is irrelevant to teach content (i.e. actually teaching pupils) as “knowledge changes so quickly”. She, too, sees the teacher’s job as being merely to facilitate pupils accessing information. Well, most of today’s children already know that with a click on their favourite Web search engine they’re able to do a quick

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cut and paste, then cobble it all together. They know how to access information all right. This has nothing to do with actual learning, studying, thinking, understanding, once the tasks expected by real teachers who knew their subject, choosing it because of its importance, and whose conviction had a good chance of carrying across to their pupils. In fact, they marked and tested pupils’ work to evaluate the results. As Dr Kevin Donnelly, director of the Australian Education Standards Institute points out, leaving it to children to supposedly acquire their own learning leads, for all except the very bright with a genuine appetite for knowledge, “to a superficial and a narrow understanding…. The English syllabus, for example, ignores the importance of classical literature by arguing that students should study teen mags, avatars, social networking sites and manga” (Japanese-inspired comics and print cartoons). As in New Zealand, the significance of our Western heritage is ignored, as schools are made to teach from indigenous, Asian, and environmental perspectives . Christianity, the underpinning of the West, barely rates a mention. The shortfall in thinking of this retired headmistress, maintaining it is unimportant to actually teach content shows a mind unchallenged by deep thinking, or else highly politicized by the propaganda all teachers now receive from ministerial apparatchiks. The “facilitator” nonsense constantly recycles as in – “Not the sage on the stage – but the guide at the side” – doggerel that teacher friends passed on in disquiet a couple of years ago. It parallels the memory I have of a boorish teacher over a couple of decades ago at Nelson College. Out of his depth teaching English, he triumphantly trotted out the same facilitator jargon. I wonder if he, too, has since learnt to think for himself, but I rather doubt it. Basically a Phys-Ed Teacher, with other English teachers at the time he was parroting the radicalised Noam Chomsky’s nonsense that children don’t need to be taught grammar and syntax, as they learn it at their mother’s knee. What if mother is a bikie and hasn’t had much going for her, either? I asked, remembering some of the well-meaning mothers I’d met while teaching English and languages at Queens High School in Dunedin – and encountering girls sent through to secondary school having been being taught almost nothing throughout their primary years. Those who had most objected to my con-

cern that these children had been shortchanged, and that we should be teaching all the little five-year-olds thoroughly and well, to as far as possible help them to compete on equal terms in the outside world, were most of my fellow English teachers. Somehow, teaching the skills to speak and write well was “inauthentic”… insulting to their railway workshop or freezing works parental backgrounds. The unfairness and even stupidity in such thinking quite stunned me. It took a time to comprehend what lay behind the teacher refresher courses – the Marxist aim – not to improve the chances of those who had least going for them, but to dumb down all teaching to remove the advantages of the brightest and best, scholastically. It has all been part of the plan to control society’s thinking, dumbing down a generation of unfortunate children who become the next generation of parents, and voters. So, yes: apparently, as in the college interview where the virtually zombified teacher intoned that putting red pencil on students’ work to indicate mistakes was out – “inhibiting their spontaneity”, this nonsense still recycles over two decades later, in recent educationists’ pronouncements. Nothing changes. What I have belatedly discovered was the sheer incompetence of those teachers who were glad of an excuse to avoid displaying their own ignorance. Most English teachers I’ve encountered know no more about teaching English, its grammar and syntax, its great literature and poetry, than their unfortunate pupils. Yet Professor John Hattie told the Labour Party conference in October that our education system is among the best in the world. It isn’t. And he advises Minister Tolley – among others whose names are familiar from their advocacy in the 80s and 90s when the last steps in removing schools’ accountability were taken, with the Left’s successful phasing out of external examinations to replace them with standards-based assessment and the third-rate NCEA structures. Contradiction Hattie’s over-confident pronouncements, Peter Hughes, a former secondary maths teacher now lecturing at the University of Auckland, reminds us that only one third of primary pupils going into secondary school are numerate, and “most secondary students do not understand numbers to a level classed as numerate.” Both science and maths teachers have written shocked analyses of what has happened to the prescriptive requirements for teaching these subjects. Arguably, not only the teach-

ing of English but of other subjects as well is now in the hands of those who were never properly taught themselves – including a former jovial pupil whom I inherited too late (particularly in view of his considerable selfesteem) to succeed, in the short time I taught him Latin, in reducing the massive ignorance he showed of English grammar and syntax. I recall his mother laughing recently when, having heard that he himself is now teaching English, I expressed surprise, as he hadn’t had any understanding of how the language worked. He still hasn’t, she cheerfully replied. However, the outcome for this happy chappy’s students is fairly obvious. Little wonder all these teachers aren’t in favour of external examinations which show up

As in New Zealand, the significance of our Western heritage is ignored, as schools are made to teach from indigenous, Asian, and environmental perspectives. Christianity, the underpinning of the West, barely rates a mention

ignorant teachers, as well as their unfortunate pupils. And the internally assessed National Standards simply promises more of the same – particularly as two thirds of primary school pupils are reportedly already failing these. The so-called “moderation process”, enabling teachers to fiddle with and fudge their pupils’ results, is open to precisely the same abuse as all other internal assessment. Naturally, the education bureaucracy is now talking about the “challenges involved in improving moderation” – exactly the same as tweaking the results to get the desired outcomes. Education Minister Anne Tolley, talking about “the poor teachers”, says that is “a complex matter for schools and teachers to moderate the standards”. Poor

dears. Life get so very complicated when the truth of issues becomes unpalatable. The tide has well and truly turned overseas when discovery learning, with the consequences we can see from the above, has been described by Jerome Bruner in a memorandum submitted by Tom Burkard in a UK Parliamentary publication * as “the most inefficient technique possible for regaining what has been gathered over a long period of time… It poses insurmountable obstacles for pupils with poor working memory: deficits in this area are central to hyperactivity and low attainment in literacy and maths. “ What can possibly be wrong with the mental processes of ministerial advisers and so-called experts who continue to regurgitate this sheer nonsense – that it is not necessary to teach children thoroughly and well to help each individual child achieve his or her full potential ? How can it be that for over 20 years the nonsense of “self-discovery” still underpins the educational failure of so many children so very cheated out of quality teaching? It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to recognize what the ministry and numerous principals and teachers obstinately refuse to face – the fact that “effective teaching, yes teaching, is the key to social and intellectual development”. * Does this seem familiar? “The curriculum has been progressively stripped of declarative knowledge which virtually all children can master.”* (The Japanese point out that it takes the slow pupils a little longer, but that all, well-taught, can get there.) “Sending pupils ‘to problem-solve’ and to ‘facilitate their own learning ‘ depends upon knowledge bases which children of poorly educated parents are unlikely to have…. Discovery learning, in fact, degenerates into a charade of pseudo-enquiry which fools nobody, least of all the children, but which wastes a great deal of time.”* No single minister has a hope of reforming our education system, nor can she rely on her fellow politicians, largely themselves undereducated and often worryingly ignorant products of a system long failing. Only a knowledgeable, parent-controlled initiative is now capable of opening the doors of the Augean Stables of ignorance and political hypocrisy. Individuals, as always, will have to stand up to be counted. © Copyright Amy Brooke www.amybrooke.co.nz www.100days.co.nz www.summersounds.co.nz http://www.livejournal.com/users/brookeonline/

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science

Whoops! NASA got arsenic life study wrong Critics are finding big problems with a December study in Science showing arsenic as a life source, reports Eryn Brown

his month, amid much fanfare, scientists reported that they had found an organism that – unlike all previously observed life on Earth – was able to do without phosphorus and use the normally deadly element arsenic in its place. Just a week later, skeptical scientists voiced serious concerns about the discovery and the researchers’ interpretation of their experimental results. “There must be a hundred things in that paper that have people going, ‘Hey wait, that can’t be right,’” said Rosie Redfield, a microbiologist and professor of zoology at the University of British Columbia who kicked off the widespread criticism with a blog post mid December. “Each of those things is a little red flag.” In a paper published in the prestigious journal Science, researchers affiliated with NASA’s Astrobiology Institute reported that the bacterium they found in California’s Mono Lake was able to survive in an arsenic-rich broth that included only trace amounts of phosphorus. The bacterium was able to incorporate arsenic into its DNA and in other parts of its cells – proof, they claimed, that it was subsisting on arsenic instead of phosphorus. Redfield questioned the team’s assertion that there wasn’t enough phosphorus in the broth to sustain the bacteria. She raised doubts about the method the team used to prepare the microbes’ DNA for analysis, saying the bacteria could have become contaminated with outside arsenic during the process. The next day, Harvard biogeochemist Alex Bradley wrote on the blog “We, Beasties” that the Science paper actually disproved its own result. If indeed there had been arsenic-based DNA in the cells, as the researchers claimed, it would have fallen apart quickly once it was extracted from the cells, Bradley wrote. Previous experiments have showed that it takes just minutes for water to break down arsenate esters, the molecular parts that were ostensibly providing the structure for the bac-

terium’s DNA ladder. In contrast, phosphorusbased esters take millions of years to decay. If there was DNA present to test, Bradley wrote, it had to be phosphorus-based. “You never see a measurement that absolutely rules out that it isn’t phosphoruscontaining DNA,” said Steven Benner, an astrobiologist at the Foundation for Applied Molecular Evolution in Gainesville, Fla. The Science paper “also never rules out the obvious alternative explanation” – that these microbes were merely very good at tolerating arsenic, and were able to eke out an existence by scavenging tiny amounts of phosphorus. Benner, who offered a skeptical take on the study during the NASA news conference, said that because these researchers challenged firmly-established knowledge about chemistry, their burden of proof was very high. “This is an exceptional claim, and exceptional claims require exceptional proof,” he said, paraphrasing the late scientist and writer Carl Sagan. In an interview, Redfield said that the researchers’ eagerness to declare they had found a unique form of life might have led them to forgo steps in the experiment that would have confirmed – or overturned – the result. “They overlooked what should have been sim-

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ple opportunities to avoid contamination,” she said, adding that “scientists are human.” She also said she “guessed” that the outside experts who vetted the study as part of the journal’s peer-review process may have gone too easy on the researchers. “They were unlucky that peer review missed problems with the paper,” she said. It wouldn’t be the first time peer review has come under the spotlight. In 2009 the Climategate documents revealed many key studies on climate change had been peer reviewed by friends of the scientists involved. Benner, who said he had seen the reviews on the arsenic study, said that the committee members were not biochemists and did not ask the right questions about the experiment. The paper’s lead author, NASA astrobiology research fellow Felisa Wolfe-Simon, declined to discuss the controversy. But she responded to critics on her website. “We presented our data and results and drew our conclusions based on what we showed,” she wrote. “But we welcome lively debate since we recognize that scholarly discourse moves science forward.” She said her team was “preparing a list of ‘frequently asked questions’ to help promote general understanding of our work.”

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technology

Affordable home theatre arrives Forget geeks with gadgets, the latest range of home theatre systems will simplify your life and allow you to fully enjoy your TV and audio systems, writes Ian Wishart

remember my very first ‘home theatre’ system. It was nigh on 13 years ago, when DVD players were still the reserve of the very wealthy at $2,500 a pop and NICAM stereo VHS was essentially state-of-the-art for most of us. The system in question, a Sanyo, decoded the NICAM signals using Dolby ProLogic and spat them out into a five speaker (four surrounds and a centre) layout that, as I recall, made even a 14 inch bedroom TV seem like a cinema setting. Times have changed. The house has seen a couple of generations of home theatre systems since then – the first based on a Dick Smith 5+1 set up, and the second based around a proprietary DVD unit that contained the 5+1 amplifier. When the DVD unit gave up the ghost, the 5+1 sound system became useless. But it’s the advent of large screen TVs and HDMI cabling that really brought the issue to a head in our household. It’s all very well having an LCD with three HDMI inputs, but have you seen the size of the HDMI cables? If your set is mounted on the wall, that’s three dirty great monstrosity cables snaking up the gib board and frustrating the aesthetic senses of those who’d seen glossy brochures of TVs and sound systems with no visible cables. As anyone who’s read Tone magazine knows, the solution often involves installing false walls to hide the messy installations.

Then along came Onkyo with their home cinema in a box concept: an AV receiver that took all the HDMI feeds into it from MySky, Freeview/TiVo or your Blu-ray/DVD player, or even a PS3 or X-Box gaming console, and fed out only one cable to the television. Onkyo are not the first, and of course the dedicated enthusiast can spend literally thousands on an AV receiver, but what Onkyo have done is include high quality audio processing and features you might normally find in a $3,000 system, and pack them into a box retailing for less than $700. As bang for buck goes, it doesn’t get much better. We purchased an Onkyo HTS 5305 system from retailer JB HiFi – one of three new systems this year from Onkyo and the first to contain HDMI 1.4 compatibility, meaning the systems support 3D TV and audio-return from full HD TVs (the TV and Onkyo ‘talk’ to each other on the single HDMI cable and you don’t have to run a second audio cable to the set). The AV unit has three HDMI inputs, and one output, along with three digital audio inputs, component and composite support, and enough jacks to connect stereos, VCRs and iPods (you can purchase an optional docking station, or run a line-out). A builtin FM/AM radio with a 40 station memory adds to the versatility. More to the point, the performance of

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this unit has to be heard to be believed. Based around the HT-R538 amp, the system delivers 100 watts a channel across six speakers including the subwoofer. At the top end of tolerance for my ears, the sound was still crystal clear on either CDs or movie soundtracks, with no distortion, and a number of overseas reviewers have made the point you’ll kill your hearing before you kill the amp in searching for distortion. There are bass and treble controls, and a number of DSP preset modes for music, movies and gaming that you can select to your preference. A nice additional touch is a second set of speaker terminals, meaning that with a push of the A/B Speakers button you can deliver sound to a set of speakers in another room or outside on the deck as well, great for entertaining or if your TV is in sight of the spa pool on a cold winter night – you can listen without leaving the door open. Drawbacks? Nothing substantial. We experienced an installation hiccup when the Onkyo refused to deliver sound or picture consistently from a Samsung DVD player. A call to the Onkyo agents in NZ initially put the quality of the HDMI cable and its length (10 metres) under suspicion, but a switch to an LG DVD player from elsewhere in the house fixed the problem instantly with no need for an expensive HDMI cable replace-

ment. Further investigation found that HDMI relies on a ‘handshake’ between different components and technical glitches in those ‘handshakes’ are still being ironed out by the HDMI boffins worldwide who set the standards. They’re few and far between, but we struck one and still managed to solve it. Since then, the Onkyo system has performed flawlessly, and it was easy to set up. It was equally simple to plug a laptop in and feed playlists from our Windows Media song database into the Onkyo – again, perfect for summer entertaining. Sadly, the last of the HTS 5305 systems has reportedly sold out in this country, but a fresh shipment of the 3305 systems, also known as the AVX-380, has just arrived in the country. The only difference between the 5305 and the AVX-380 is that the 5305’s subwoofer is active, and the 380’s is passive. Other than that, they contain the same audio processors, power output and features. Highly recommended as a summer sound solution and an ideal combination home theatre/stereo system that won’t break the bank or home harmony.

Dragon Naturally Speaking 11 Premium The ability of software maker Nuance to corner its market knows no bounds. Only a year and a half after the delivery of version

10 of the Dragon speech recognition software to the world, version 11 has hit New Zealand and Australia with a vengeance. Nuance is not content to rest on its laurels and is constantly refining and improving already-good products. The biggest gains come in accuracy. Version 10 offered a 20% improvement in the already good accuracy of Version 9. Version 11 improves itself by a further 15% over Version 10. The speed of translation is instant – Dragon 11 fires out the sentences on screen literally as fast as you say them, so transcribing a one hour interview, in my case, takes around an hour and a half, allowing for rewinding the recording in places, pausing, checking spelling of names and places and so on. That’s a far cry from the three to four hours of transcription time the good oldfashioned way – tape recorder and typing. What else has changed between versions? Dragon 11 is specifically designed to make full use of the processing power of today’s multi-core computers, which makes it even faster. A ‘multiple match indicator’ means Dragon now recognises multiple instances of a word that may need correcting, and deals with them all at the same time. The programme’s uptake of corrections made via the keyboard (still my preference as a native typist) is much faster. Earlier versions required time-consuming voice corrections so the programme could learn from its mistakes. Not anymore. If you correct it via keyboard or voice, the correction is taken onboard. Perhaps Dragon’s biggest boast with Version 11, however, is the ongoing move towards eventual voice control of your entire computer. The list of commands and programmes that Dragon is now capable of controlling is huge. Tell it to send an email to Mary Smith and it will open Outlook’s new message window with Mary’s email address already selected. This doesn’t, of course, happen entirely straight out of the box. You still have to let the software get used to your accent and style, but once you’ve put the effort in and trained it you’ll find you can sit back with your feet up on the desk and dictate letters and emails, or browse the web, to your heart’s content, all via the power of your voice.

This is particularly useful, indeed a must, for anyone suffering twinges of repetitive strain injury from keyboard overuse, or those who cannot use their hands for whatever reason, or who are slow one-finger typists. Most people type at 40 to 60 words a minute, but Dragon rolls it out at around 120 words a minute. Do the productivity math yourself. For families, Dragon 11 Premium can handle more than one voice profile, so if the software is installed on the family computer there’s no reason Mum, Dad, Amanda and Timothy can’t all have their own voice profiles so they can use Dragon for homework, business or play. Again, highly recommended. Available from Harvey Norman and other retailers, or contact Mistral Software in Auckland.

Tell it to send an email to Mary Smith and it will open Outlook’s new message window with Mary’s email address already selected

INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM January 2011 77

n THINK LIFE

online

with Chillisoft

WWW – Web Weaponisation and WikiLeaks ESET’s Jeff Debrosse looks at what happens when two tribes go to war, and what it means for the rest of us

etwork security sometimes hits the headlines but then disappears. But WikiLeaks and its founder Julian Assange have raised the profile of the dangers of leaving your sensitive data open to snoopers, hackers and trusted employees. Love him or hate him, Mr Assange may have changed the way we look at (and interact with) the internet, perhaps forever. To put it succinctly, in the last few weeks attempts have been made to shut down WikiLeaks’ operations – from payment processors to hosting providers and others. Mr. Assange has had unrelated charges filed against him and was recently arrested on those charges. But this article isn’t about his arrest – it’s about the resultant firestorm that continues to rage across the internet as a result of countless people rising up and protesting against what they perceive as ‘internet censorship’. DDoS The protests are being conducted in a way that can be devastating to any organisation that finds itself in the crosshairs of these activists. For those that are wondering, the countless people’s actions referenced above are the devastating DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attacks. In a nutshell, a DDoS is an attack where the target of the attack is subjected to the output aggregate of bot-driven and individually-generated data that are both distributed and large on receipt. The result is that the target can no longer respond to requests, or its ability to respond to those requests has become significantly diminished – in other words, ‘tango down’ (a word used to describe a terrorist that has been eliminated). Preventing a DDOS on your network So how do you protect your organisation from a DDoS attack? Here are just three recommendations – there are others that are fairly complex but these are somewhat approachable. (1) Separate the internal business func-

tions, whatever those might be, from your public-facing web servers. This has continually been one of the key methods of preventing DDoS attacks from severely impacting the internal operations of any organisation. For those organisations that are dependent on online ordering, a DDoS attack can yield a crippling effect. (2) Having a hosting company host your website(s) as well as DNS (domain name server) is crucial. They are more readily able to address the flood of inbound traffic than most non-hosting organisations. They often have the expertise, bandwidth and equipment necessary to respond to the attack. Note: not all hosting companies are created equal and one’s mileage may vary when it comes to the type and intensity of attack. There are also various costs involved with different services and SLAs (Service Level Agreements). (3) Rate-limiting / traffic shaping frontend hardware to reduce the amount of traffic that can reach mission-critical servers (such as e-commerce sites). This may also come in on the form of a proxy-type service that classifies traffic and only forwards non-malicious traffic. Sometimes the use of firewalls may help slow down the site it is set to protect (if at the perimeter). Having a hardware appliance up front with defined ACLs (Access Control Lists) to filter the packets quickly is a good first step. The “when, where and why” of a DDoS attack is very dynamic, and as such, it means that any person or organisation is prone to being attacked at any time for any reason. So what’s a person to do about this? It all comes down to risk management – knowing the benefits, liabilities and costs of using the internet as a business, social, educational or political platform. Coordination via Twitter If that wasn’t enough for the world, or curious onlookers, there’s also a report of a malware worm linked to WikiLeaks-related spam. An e-mail with “IRAN Nuclear

78 INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM January 2011

BOMB!” in the subject line has been detected, with a spoofed header to make it look like it came from WikiLeaks.org, saying “OBAMA is an IMPOSTOR!” and offering an URL. By clicking on it, the victim is taken to a site where a Wikileaks.jar file attempts to download a worm on the victim’s computer: The worm in question opens a backdoor into the system by using a predetermined port and IP address, and allows the attacker to do all kinds of mischief: stealing, spying, routing traffic through the computer. It can also spread further by copying itself to removable drives and the share folders of file-sharing programs. In other words – be careful when on the lookout for information on WikiLeaks. Or, for that matter, for information on any topic that is very popular at that moment. Don’t click on links in unsolicited e-mails and opt for well-established news sites to get the latest news about the matter. Hacked together by Chillisoft NZ from various sources, blogs and ramblings including Jeff Debrosse, Senior Security Evangelist at ESET, LLC (developers of ESET NOD32 antivirus software).

Ian Wishart

This Christmas, there’s one book everyone wants

Arthur Allan Thomas

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Jailed for a crime he didn’t commit, now for the first time in 40 years, he tells his incredible story as we name a new prime suspect

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Whitcoulls, Paperplus, Borders, The Warehouse, Take Note, Dymocks and all good bookstores INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM January 2011 79

FEEL LIFE SPORT

Paul Walsh/Actionplus/NEWSCOM

Bumper harvest It’s been an intoxicating sporting year for New Zealanders. A near perfect season for the All Blacks, was matched by the Kiwis’ glory in Australia, and an unforgettable World Cup campaign, and that’s just for starters. Chris Forster sorts out the standout performances, and a notable exception TOP PERFORMERS (IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER)

The ominous All Blacks Dominant and expressive, Graham Henry’s chosen ones cashed-in on rugby’s new freeflowing rules with an unbeaten Tri-Nations campaign and an unstoppable Slam dunk of the 4 British nations. Kieran Read came of age as a world-class loose forward alongside the consistently brilliant Richie McCaw and powerhouse Jerome Kaino. Their only hiccup was a letting the Australians off the hook in Hong Kong, in a test which helped Robbie Deans’ side snap an 10 match losing streak against his country of origin. Dan Carter became the all-time leader points scorer in tests. Mils Muliaina excelled

at fullback and Sonny Bill Williams lived up to his hype, to add another potent weapon for their attempt at World Cup redemption on home soil in 2011. They’ve got the best coach, the best captain, the best loose forwards, the best first five and fullback and home advantage. The stars appear to have fallen into alignment. Ryan and the All Whites Their achievement on the World Cup stage on South Africa’s high veldt will probably never be matched. Coach Ricki Herbert and his inspirational captain Ryan Nelsen melded together a team of true character and considerable skill. They became the darlings of the tournament when Winston Reid soared into the penalty box to latch onto an inch-perfect Shane Smeltz cross for that last gasp equaliser against Slovakia. Smeltz gave them a shock lead against the ageing champions Italy, and they came close to one of the biggest boilovers in football

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history. The scoreless draw against Paraguay was almost anti-climactic, but ensured New Zealand’s mix of professionals and part-timers finished unbeaten, and only just out of the top 16. Nelsen was heroic as the talismanic leader at the heart of the defence. He provided the glue and the class for the rest of the team to play out of their skins. He deserves a medal or two – from both the government and the folk who dish out the Halberg Awards. Benji Marshall and The Kiwis The guy is a bona fide genius, with a deep bag of tricks to showcase dazzling skills and electric speed. On November the 13th – 24 year old Marshall proved he could also handle the burden of captaincy and the mantle of the world’s best player. He set-up

the two stunning late tries which steered the New Zealanders from near inevitable defeat to a 16-12 triumph over the Kangaroos to steal the Four Nations title at Suncorp Stadium in Brisbane … the same Australian rugby league shrine where Benji played a less assured role in their World Cup upset two years earlier. It was also a victory few could’ve predicted after their capitulation to the Australians in front of 40,000 gutted and inebriated fans at Eden Park the previous weekend. They did it without their most potent tryscorer, injured winger Manu Vatuvei. But they couldn’t have done it without those two magical moments from Marshall late in the second half. Rowing champs There’s always something secondary about world championships in elite sports transfixed by the four year Olympic cycle. But Lake Karapiro’s hosting of the annual showpiece got the pitch just right in early November. All the top rowers were there, pacing themselves for London in two years time, but still going full throttle for glory in the natural amphitheatre near Cambridge. Nearly 70 thousand fans turned up over the eight days, witnessing three memorable golds in a bag of 10 for the host nation – and savouring plenty of world class competition. Hamish Bond and Eric Murray edged their arch-rivals from Great Britain for gold in a classic tussle and Juliette Haig and Rebecca Scown look unbeatable in the women’s pair. Then came the fitting finale on the Sunday as the unheralded pair of Nathan Cohen and Joseph Sullivan surged to a high-octane triumph in the heavyweight sculls. These were memorable moments on home waters to provide neat dress rehearsal for the colossal rugby show to follow in 2011. Nikki don’t lose that number Nikki Hamblin became a household name in the cauldron of erratic organisation and cultural differences that were the Commonwealth Games in Delhi. The blonde Kiwi of English extraction sizzled to silver medals in the two glamour middle distance events – over 1500 and 800 metres – in the space of four days.

Hamblin’s got an iron-will and it’s no secret she had a torrid relationship with her coach. But she also delivered withering speed in the dash to the tape in difficult conditions, to provide an unexpected track bonus for New Zealand athletics. Valerie Adams may be the golden girl in the shot put, but for a wider audience it’s the running events which matter. It’s now over to the 22 year old from Cambridge to prove Delhi was no flash in the pan. Ferns refuse to wilt For pure sporting drama, you don’t get much better than the New Zealanders denying the Australians in double overtime to defend their Commonwealth Games crown. The Silver Ferns needed a sublime shooting display from Maria Tutaia and a lack of cutting edge from the Diamonds to make it a memorable final day in Delhi. There were plenty of mistakes but it will go down as a netball classic. After all the sport’s second biggest prize and a coveted gold medal were at stake. It was very nearly a heartbreaker, then turned – eventually and almost painfully – into a night to remember for New Zealand. But it’s the Australians who’ll have the psychological edge when Singapore hosts the World Championships in May this year. Top bloke on spokes Veteran Kiwi rider Julian Dean turned into a human highlights reel in the Tour de France mid-year. Fate dealt him a rather interesting hand riding for American contenders Garmin Transitions. He capitalised on an injury to their top sprinter with three top three finishes, including the famed sprint up the Champs Elysees on the final day of the three weeks long gut-buster. Dean crashed early in the event, recovered to score second place two days later and was on the receiving end of a bizarre head-butting incident from Australian rival Mark Renshaw, who was chucked out of le Tour for his bad behaviour. The 35 year old also gave New Zealand road cycling a welcome flood of publicity at home and abroad, the stuff money can’t buy.

Honourable Mentions

The Phoenix. Made the top four of the A

League for the first time, sold out Westpac Trust Stadium to give their coach and a

quartet of New Zealand front-liners a tasty appetiser for the World Cup to follow. The Tall Blacks. Did well to progress beyond pool play at their World Champs in Turkey with a stunning victory over France, Came unstuck against the Russians, but unleashed a new star in swing-man Tom Abercrombie. Timeless Sevens coach Gordon Tietjens. Bounced back from a forgettable 2009 to finish a close second in the IRB title race. Then guided a souped-up New Zealand team to gold in Delhi, and rubbed the Aussies’ noses in it to boot. Cycling Pursuiter Alison Shanks. She provided THE golden moment for the muchheralded cycling team at the Commonwealth Games and now faces a switch of events for the Olympics.

Dishonourable Mention

The Black Caps. They’ve slumped to a hor-

ror losing streak in One Day Cricket on the sub-Continent, topping double figures. These included a scalping from the Indians and a humiliating series walloping from Bangladesh. The summer loving could be a little lukewarm as the strife-torn Pakistanis provide the main attraction through till early February.

International Hall of Infamy

France, England and Italy. Forgettable and

at times disgraceful campaigns at the FIFA World Cup in South Africa. The squabbling French were sent home in disgrace, the English barely fired a shot and defending champs Italy couldn’t even make the second round, and could’ve easily lost to New Zealand in pool play. That’s equivalent to Italy beating the All Blacks, but we won’t go there in a Rugby World Cup year. Tiger Woods. Well he did alright in the circumstances. But Tiger’s fall from grace and very public divorce was so massive and so hard to shake, he couldn’t regain his Midas touch in 2010. Almost ended on an encouraging high in his elite tournament in California, but lost in a playoff. But there is some doubt the deposed number one will ever regain his respectability, or air of invincibility.

INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM January 2011 81

TASTE LIFE TRAVEL

Christian Lantenois/NEWSCOM

Champagne for the holidays

Bill Daley discovers both the place and the drink

hristmas in Champagne country: The bubbly fizz of holiday toasts, flickering candles piercing a cathedral’s gloom, cascades of tiny blue lights festooning the streets, the spicy scent of hot wine wafting in the chill air, the lively sound of holiday tunes played by a Santa Claus band. So it is in Reims, the city of kings and Champagne. A quick 45-minute ride from Paris’ Gare de l’Est station via the superfast TGV train, Reims offers many attractions in a relatively compact area easily navigated by foot or, if you must, by taxi. There’s the Gothic masterpiece that is the Notre-Dame Cathedral and the more subdued Roman-esque Basilica of St. Remi (53, rue Simon), where lies the tomb of said saint, who baptized Clovis, king of Franks.

You can visit the Musee de la Reddition (The Surrender Museum, 12, rue Franklin Roosevelt), where the Germans surrendered to Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, ending the European phase of World War II, or gaze on the Mars Gate (Place de la Republique), the only remaining gate to what was the Roman city of Durocortorum. Dine in subtle but unmistakable luxury in the Michelin onestar restaurant Le Millenaire (4-6, rue Bertin – try the langoustines four ways to start) or jovially jostle elbows with locals and visitors (if you hear any English, they’re likely British) at fast, affordable neighbourhood boites such as Le Lion de Belfort (37, place Drouet d’Erlon – try the Gruyere cheese omelette: deliciously simple).

82 INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM January 2011

And don’t forget the Champagne houses – yes, some remain open for the holidays – where you’ll be able to tour ancient quarries-turned-winecellars and sip some of the bubbly that made Champagne world famous. Dominating the city skyline is the Cathedrale Notre-Dame de Reims (Our Lady of Reims). Construction began in 1211. Each succeeding century has left a mark for good or ill. The cathedral was nearly destroyed by German bombardment during World War I, and it remains a restoration work in progress. The cathedral (1, rue Guillaume de Machault) strikes me as being far more imposing than Notre Dame in Paris. The

Gregory Yetchmeniza/NEWSCOM

scale seems grander, with the pillars soaring upward to the vaulted ceiling high above. Nor are there the crowds and the lines you have to endure at any of Paris’ historic churches. At the neighbouring Palace of Tau (2, place du Cardinal-Lucon), the former home of the archbishops of Reims, you can

get a close-up look at some of the statuary removed from cathedral facade because they were too fragile or damaged. The kings of France were crowned in the cathedral, the last being Charles X in 1825. So it’s natural the palais would have an exhibition focusing on the kings and their coronations. Children and those of like heart will adore the annual

display of nativity scenes from around the world. The creches range from minuscule to more than life-size, serious to whimsical, expertly carved and naively rendered. This exhibit runs through Jan. 16. Every year, Reims hosts Le Village de Noel, or Christmas Village. The action is centered on the Place Drouet d’Erlon, one of the major downtown streets just minutes from the Reims train station. Take the time to get into the holiday spirit by strolling down streets lined with some 120 small wooden chalets selling everything from jewellery to clothing to tree ornaments to creches to food and drink. Open every day through Christmas Eve, the Christmas Village is a great opportunity to peoplewatch and, perhaps, snag a bargain or two. Interestingly, the Reims tourism Web site, reims-tourism.com, heralds the Christmas village prominently on its French-language site but not at all on the English version. Maybe they think Le Village de Noel is only a French thing; go surprise ‘em. The Christmas celebration in Reims is echoed with holiday festivities in 40 surrounding villages and towns. Rent a car, if you like, and go exploring. For details visit the region’s official holiday website, noelsdechampagne.com. Reims is friendly, but remember: English can be sparse, so learn some rudimentary French phrases, practice your pantomime and meet smile with smile; you’ll be all set for the holidays here and year-round.

IF YOU GO

INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM January 2011 83

TASTE LIFE FOOD

/CLASSIC/

Tall or tossed?

Summer means salads with the BBQ, and a chance for Jacques Windell to test his dodgy sense of humour at the same time

thought I’d initially give a bit of a different spin on things and share some very interesting salad related stories I have found in my travels, which I thought you would find astounding, as indeed I did. According to my sources Caesar Maximus was a vegetarian and a pretty crazy one and that. He thought up all sorts of ideas to generate attention and become popular. One such idea was building the Coliseum. He took his creation a step further by inviting people to throw vegetables at the deer, giraffes and monkeys he would release into the arena every Sunday afternoon. Couldn’t have been fun for the animals being pelted by apples, pears and who knows what else. His soldiers would then round up all the un-eaten veggies, mix them together into Caesar’s salad and serve it to his guests. But the Roman populace weren’t entertained by this for long and soon attendance waned, until lions and the idea of making Christians the main meal was introduced. As one of my Vietnamese friends would say: “Co*m thi` rau, ddau thi` thuo^’c” – When you eat, it’s vegetable, when you are sick, it’s medicine.” No wonder Caesar liked vegetables. He needed lots of it. Vincent Van Gogh apparently served the nude women he painted a delicious salad during his frequent “breaks”, salad he apparently prepared himself. I guess that was one way of keeping his models at their very best. Then of course there was Leonardo Da Vinci who is reported to have been a great consumer of salad. He was apparently extremely popular among the virgins of Florence. It is said he had so many virgins waiting for his favours at any one time that he routinely sent his extra virgins out to pick olives from his olive grove. By now you’ve probably realized that I’ve been messing with your head… I seriously doubt whether any of these stories had any ounce of truth in them, but who knows, right? I had a good chuckle when I heard them and thought you might enjoy them too. It’s interesting however, how believable a half-truth can be in the midst of some fact.

I suspect The Da Vinci Code author, Dan Brown knows that all too well. My Vietnamese friend would of course argue: “A(n ma(.n no’i ngay ho*n a(n chay no’i do^’I” – It’s better to eat salty food and speak the truth than to eat vegetarian and tell lies.” But, seriously gone are the days when green salad meant iceberg lettuce. Today, most supermarkets and green grocers offer many different types of greens. There’s red leaf, red and green romaine, mixed greens, butterhead, spinach, kale, watercress and arugula. Generally speaking, the darker the leaf, the higher the nutrient content.

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Various colored vegetables add texture and interest to salads. These also provide healthpromoting plant chemicals called phytochemicals. Red, yellow and green peppers, beets, broccoli, cauliflower, red cabbage, green peas, red onions and radishes all make tasty additions. Vegetables are also one of the best sources of fibre, which help reduce blood cholesterol levels, the risk of heart disease and cancer. The daily recommended intake is between 25 to 30 grams, so eat your greens! Adding fruit to a green salad is a great way to add color and texture along with extra

Adding fruit to a green salad is a great way to add color and texture along with extra vitamins, minerals and fiber. Pineapple, orange and melon chunks, raisins, berries and grapes compliment any green salad.

vitamins, minerals and fiber. Pineapple, orange and melon chunks, raisins, berries and grapes compliment any green salad. Garbanzo beans, kidney beans, tofu, lean ham, turkey or chicken strips, or canned tuna in spring water also work really well. Croutons, bacon bits and chow mein noodles aren’t always the healthiest options. Low-fat shredded cheese, hard-boiled eggs or ground flaxseed make excellent substitutes. One also has to be careful how one dresses one’s salad, because this is where the fat and calories can add up. No more than two tablespoons should be used as that will add roughly 150 calories and 15 grams of fat to the salad. If you’re trying to lose weight reduced fat and calorie dressings should be used. However, the amount you use is still important. And as that very good Vietnamese friend of mine would say: “Mot mieng khi doi bang mot goi khi no – One piece of food while hungry equals a big box of food while full.” I think what he’s trying to say is that green salad without dressing is salad not worth consuming. I mean you have to at least enjoy your food, right? I mean one dry piece of greenery equals the same taste in my mouth as an AB loss to the Wallabies. If you love the “real” thing, consider vinaigrettes made with olive or canola oil. These oils are high in mono-unsaturated fats that can also help lower blood cholesterol levels. For an almost no-calorie, no-fat topping, splash your salad with lemon juice or flavored vinegar, add salt and pepper and enjoy!

Swiss brown, spinach & bacon salad You’ll need: 12 Meadows Swiss Brown Mushrooms 225g fresh small leaf spinach 175g streaky bacon 1 avocado Juice of 1/2 lemon 15ml snipped fresh chives or chopped spring onions 3 small tomatoes quartered Dressing: 60ml olive or salad oil 15ml dry sherry 15ml lemon juice Grated lemon rind Pinch of castor sugar Pinch of dry mustard Freshly ground black pepper To make: Wash spinach in cold water and drain. Grill the bacon until it is really crisp. Leave to cool and then cut into small pieces. Arrange the spinach in a large salad bowl. Halve the avocado slices on the spinach. Add the meadows Swiss Brown mushrooms and sprinkle with bacon and chives or spring onions. Mix all the dressing ingredients in a screw-top jar and shake well. Just before serving pour over the salad. Serves 4.

INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM January 2011 85

TOUCH LIFE TOYBOX

EPSON EB-1700 SERIES The thinnest 3000 lumen 3LCD projector in the world has joined the Epson corporate projector range, in a variety of business-friendly configurations to match mobile user needs. At just 45mm high – less than the height of a credit card – and weighing a mere 1.7kg, the Epson EB-1700 series of ultraportable 3LCD projectors deliver bright, colourful images in regular meeting environments, yet are small and light enough to fit in the same bag with a notebook computer. The top of the range EB-1775W has executive-style and speed with fully automated setup – just switch on and leave the rest to the projector, including vertical (± 45 degrees) and horizontal (± 30 degrees) keystone correction, and a one touch “screen fit” button that automatically resizes the image to match with the edges of the screen, adjusting focus at the same time, all in less than 4 seconds. The EB-1760W and EB-1750 are designed for absolute ease of use in every business situation, with automatic vertical keystone correction, source search, auto detection of RGB/ Component connections, multi-screen colour adjustment, password protection, auto iris on/off, internal speaker, normal and ECO power modes, and three pre-set colour modes. The EB-1700 series projectors are available through Epson projector retailers and major electronics stores. RRP including GST is: Epson EB-1775W $2,899 Epson EB-1760W $1,999 Epson EB-1750 $1,699 www.epson.co.nz

DATATRAVELER R500 Kingston has announced the release of the new Kingston DataTraveler R500, a stylish, fast and rugged USB Flash drive. The Kingston DataTraveler R500 provides users with high-speed data transfer rates and a durable rubberized casing protecting the drive from scratches and general wear. This is the ideal solution for users such as photographers or graphic designers who want to store and share high-definition photos or videos, large documents, presentations or music. This is the ultimate USB Flash drive for those who desire fast transfer rates and a sturdy design. The Kingston DataTraveler R500 provides high data transfer rates of up to 30MB/s read and 20MB/s write. It is available in capacities of 16-, 32- and 64GB. The Kingston DataTraveler R500 is backed by a five-year warranty, 24/7 tech support and Kingston’s legendary reliability. www.rememberkingston.com

BENQ DV S11 CAMCORDER The S11 not only shoots 1080p Full HD video, but it includes a pico-projector you can use to show your movies at up to 50” in size. What’s more, the S11 can display the video on its own screen at the same time, and even capture images from your video as you play it back. All that, and it fits right in the palm of your hand! At a party and just captured some awesome video of a hilarious game of charades, somebody’s pitch-perfect impersonation, or just a scene of everyone having the time of their lives? Why wait and send the video to everyone later, when you can enjoy it together, right then and there with the S11’s built-in projector? You can even use the S11 to show off your favorite clips, whether they’re from an online source, or saved on your computer. Just let the included software automatically convert the video format, and you’re ready to put on a big-picture screening for your buddies. Take advantage of these pre-configured modes—Auto, Night, Sports, Landscape, Portrait, Sunset, Sand/Snow, Flower, Fireworks, Water—to get perfect results instantly without the need to fiddle with complex individual settings. Everything is configured so you get professional results with minimal effort. www.benq.com

CANON POWERSHOT S95 With HS System and f/2 lens, the 10.0 MP PowerShot S95 excels in low light. HD Movies, RAW and unique lens Control Ring for manual control make it the pocket camera for the serious photographer. The ability to shoot at higher ISO speeds and maintain excellent image quality is a key feature of the PowerShot S95. The HS System is a powerful combination of high-sensitivity sensor coupled with the latest DIGIC 4 image processor for outstanding image quality in a wide variety of lighting conditions, including low light. The fast f/2.0 lens allows the user to shoot without a tripod or flash in darker conditions. The optical Image Stabilizer corrects camera shake up to 4-stops, while Hybrid IS gives sharper results in macro scenes. The lens Control Ring allows quick access to manual adjustments. Various functions can be controlled by the ring such as zoom, aperture, shutter speed, focusing, ISO or exposure compensation. RAW capture is also possible for postprocessing in the supplied Digital Photo Professional software. www.canon.co.nz

DELL VENUE PRO You want a smartphone that enables you to stay connected, be productive, and keep in touch with colleagues, friends and family? Dell Venue Pro is a do everything smartphone that helps you be more efficient in how you stay connected and entertained. Seamlessly toggle between your work and life apps. From your favorite games to keeping up on Facebook, Twitter, Gmail and YouTube, Venue Pro keeps what’s most important to you at your fingertips. See the world and your life like never before with the stunning 4.1-inch WVGA AMOLED capacitive, multitouch display. The large screen allows for easy navigation and viewing of your email, calendar and Web. Your photos, videos and movies have never looked better in the palm of your hand. No more squinting or panning — see the full width of the Web page in one glance. And Corning’s high-quality, scratch-resistant Gorilla Glass means your view can stay crystal clear. Imagine being able to see everything you care about in a single glance without ever breaking stride — an email from a friend or co-worker, appointment reminders, the score in the game or just the weather and time. www.dell.com

SEE LIFE / PAGES

In Sargeson’s shoes Michael Morrissey goes in search of polio, and re-lives the achievements of Janet Frame through Frank Sargeson’s perspective Nemesis

By Philip Roth Jonathan Cape, $49.99 Polio now longer strikes fear into our hearts. Thanks to modern medicine, the vicious virus has been conquered, largely laid to rest. As has smallpox. While these medical victories may convince some that one day we will live in a disease-free environment,. I don’t believe this to be the case. New diseases will arise to devastate humanity. In the 1940s and earlier, polio was one of the most dreaded diseases in the canon of illness. It struck rapidly, its cause and method of transmission unknown. The victims were often children. Sometimes they died within days or survived only by means of the iron lung which pumped their atrophied lung muscles. As described by Roth, fear of the polio virus reached paranoiac proportions – children being forbidden to use the public swimming pool, go to the movie theatres, take the bus, use public toilets, or public drinking fountains. They were not permitted to swig someone else’s drink, get a chill, play with strangers, borrow books from the public library, talk on a public phone or

buy food from a street vendor. Yet despite all these precautions, the virus continued to infect. Enter the hero/anti-hero, Bucky Cantor. He is a vigorous athlete – a javelin thrower and diver but because of poor eyesight rejected by the forces and therefore – unlike most other young men of the time – not overseas fighting either the Germans or the Japanese. Instead, his task is to run children’s summer camps, a job that he thoroughly enjoys and is good at, though the sweetness of this task never quite compensates for the bitterness of not being able to serve his country where most needed. Bucky is no Einstein nor a charmer. He is a sort of cut to measure Everyman who is neither brilliant, largely humourless, “with barely a trace of wit” who never speaks satirically or with irony and yet you feel his heart is always in the right place. You have to admire his dogged devotion to what he does best – inspiring children to push past their athletic barriers and perform better. He is also looking after his ageing grandmother. Bucky Cantor is a good person and this make us warm to him..

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Nemesis is not a typical Roth novel. It doesn’t have angry Jewish characters breaking into impassioned speeches. But the Jewish element, as always, is not omitted. The unfortunate Jews have been blamed for so much, why not blame them for the spread of polio? The anti-Semites say Weequahic is the centre of the polio epidemic so it should be burnt down along with all the Jews in it. Fortunately, this remains as wild talk, nothing more. In the midst of the epidemic, Bucky’s romantic life manages to flourish. His beloved is Marcia, daughter of a wealthy doctor. Underprivileged Bucky is amazed that the Steinberg house has its own private garden – he is only used to public gardens. Despite the difference in prosperity, Marcia’s genial father approves of the match. This was an era when young men asked fathers if they could get engaged to their daughters. But Bucky’s idyll is about to end. He is offered a comparable job in a more rural setting, presumably safe from the epidemic which is decimating his old school. The upshot is the fit, healthy athletic Bucky also succumbs to the virus. Though not compelled to live out his days in an iron

lung, his limbs wither, so his athleticism is gone forever. The book moves (almost) into Hollywoodish mode. Marcia still wants to marry him, despite his polio-crippled body, but he declines, too stubbornly in her view. Yet Marcia comes to accept that Bucky’s decision is the right one, so the too noble Hollywood-style ending (as in The Best Days of Our Lives) is avoided. Nemesis ends on a heart-warming note of nostalgic affirmation that manages to avoid sentimentality. The question remains – has that fierce lion of letters, Philip Roth, been tamed at last?

Gifted

By Patrick Evans Victoria University Press, $30 Well known as a Janet Frame scholar, Evans has now written a remarkable novel about the intense yet subtle relationship between the young Janet Frame and her middle-aged mentor, Frank Sargeson. Sargeson, “founding father of our literature”, is the first person narrator throughout. He was renowned for being a friend and mentor to many writers, myself included. While Sargeson himself was a covert homosexual, not sexually interested in women, he had many women friends. With Frame, he was more than just a friend, he was in every way a writing mentor and someone who gave her full support throughout her endeavours. While Sargeson lived in his humble fibrolite shack, Frame occupied the

even more basic army hut behind. Today the army hut has gone but Sargeson’s structure remains as a cultural icon.. A keen gardener, Sargeson grew potatoes, peppers, and capsicums (of which the local greengrocer was ignorant) and cooked for his young charge. You could almost say it was like a fatherdaughter relationship. It is important to remember the era – 1955. At this time, the number of full time literary writers in New Zealand was tiny; Sargeson may have been almost the only one. Plus Janet Frame. If any Sargeson readers are expecting a style like early Sargeson, they will not find it. Instead we encounter a complex neo-Victorian style that may challenge some readers but the challenge is well worth the effort. This is perhaps reminiscent of Sargeson’s own later sophisticated work Memoirs of a Peon. At times, Evans’ virtuosity is breathtaking: I soon grew used to hearing the clatter of her typewriter coming from the door of the army hut after lunch as well as before, whenever I passed it in my afternoon gardening or sometimes from the other side. I saw her caught for a moment or two in the uneasy striated wartime glass of its little window, a rippling image of her head rocked back as she paused, her eyes uplifted as if seeking the brow of Calliope herself – and then, successful as it seemed, down to earth she’d come again with her inspiration, and yet once more her fingers would begin pounding it out into words as I watched. One might say Sargeson is becoming too watchful of his youthful companion

writer and presently feeling a little sapped by her fierce writing energy. In real life, as in the novel, Sargeson would only write in the mornings and not in the afternoons whereas the younger Frame would pound away all day. And what was more perplexing, never say a word to Sargeson about what she was writing (though many writers will nod their heads in agreement with this prudent reticence). This delicate game of cat and mouse has the more youthful mouse often outwitting the more slow moving cat. At times, Sargeson’s self-tortured reaction makes you feel that two writers practically under the same roof is not such a good idea. And remember, this was the age of the noisy clattering typewriter. When Sargeson own writing dries, that machine gun noise coming from the army hut undermines his morale – though he recovers. And how skilfully and subtly Evans depicts this war of creative nerves! There is a third character involved – Harry Doyle. Harry is a former war veteran who comes and goes whenever he feels like it. Sargeson is almost irrationally fond of the ageing scoundrel. Evans’ astonishingly detailed prose brings the old goat to life in vivid detail. Predictably, he and Janet do not get along. Sargeson, the character, is the self-made victim of his own intense and complex introspection. His agile mind is constantly at work, analysing, probing, comparing, contrasting. Evans uses the occasional cliff hanger to

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offset the intensity of the introspection. When Frame hands Sargeson her manuscript – an exploration, not a novel, she says – we have to wait a few pages before Sargeson reads it. It is a masterpiece, he tells us and seems not to be jealous but pleased. We therefore get a reaction but no real clue as to its content. Similarly, when Frame receives her publisher’s letter, we don’t discover what it says. Isn’t this perhaps a mite too coy? In real life, Albion Wright of Pegasus Press was pleased to accept the book which we now know as Owls Do Cry. Though Evans withholds this information from us, it is, of course, readily available. For all who knew Sargeson and Frame, and for those who didn’t but admire their work, this novel is recommended without reservation – it is a masterpiece.

CRETE: Death from the Skies By David Filer David Bateman, $49.99

Crete was a disaster for the Allies, including the New Zealand division. General Freyberg, a prominent and highly regarded New Zealand military figure, was put in charge of British Greek, Australian and New Zealand forces on April 30, 1941. On May 20, the Germans deployed the first major airborne invasion in history and succeeded in taking the island in 10 days. Though victorious, the Germans paid a high cost, losing 6,600 troops, one in four being paratroopers. The Germans neutralised anti-aircraft guns with a heavy aerial bombardment prior to the paratroops landing. Hitler was said to have been so appalled by the losses, he never approved any more airborne invasions. Of course one could blame the Germans for being too strong, but the tradition, as it were, has been to blame the Allied generals for losing the battle of Crete rather than “praising” the Germans for winning it. Freyberg isn’t the only one to come “under fire” but let us consider him first. It was observed that the tall New Zealander had an unusual way of issuing commands: “He would start by throwing around some broad, contradictory, even outlandish ideas and, pushing for reactions, would create doubt and confusion. Consequently some British officers considered him a ‘bear with little brain’.” Leading war historian Antony Beevor writes somewhat harshly of Freyberg’s ‘obstinacy and lack of comprehension’. Here is how Filer defends Freyberg’s method: “Later it would

be clear that he was trying to make them (his officers) think outside the box”. Then there was the debate over whether Freyberg had obtained information from Ultra. Ultra was the secret German code which the British had cracked. The allied policy was not to act in such a way as to signal to the Germans that their code had been broken. This could mean not acting at all or finding a way to confirm that the “secret” information had been obtained by other means. In the 1980s, Freyberg’s son claimed that his father had Ultra-cracked information but couldn’t act on it – couldn’t move his forces to appropriate locations to defeat the Germans. This claim has been hotly contested and Filer says that no one can be certain either way. Surely a good general would have found a way around the dilemma? Another New Zealand officer who made poor decisions was Brigadier Hargest. A former Southland farmer, who had suffered severe shell shock in the First World War, the symptoms were to return under the strain of Crete. Despite Freyberg’s opposition to his appointment, Prime Minister Fraser insisted on it. Hargest was to prove indecisive on the battlefield. When Lieutenant Colonel Andrew called for the back up of the 23rd Battalion, Hargest did not give it. In his fairminded way, Filer notes that Hargest later recovered his self assurance, but his earlier performances were below par. Freyberg receives additional criticism from Beevor Beevor accuses Freyberg of confusing two sentences in a report resulting in a mistaken view that a German sea attack was imminent, prompting a disastrous counter attack on Maleme. Filer takes a differing view. I found this part of the book difficult to follow. Analysing war in depth is a confusing business. War, from an historical perspective, can have a rare “comical” side. Two Maori soldiers mistakenly arrested an English general! I’m sure this incident prompted a few furtive chuckles. An example of how more effective boldness can save the day was when General Kippenberger called to retreating soldiers, “Stand for New Zealand! Stand every man who is a soldier!” and the Kiwis rallied and prevailed. However, the Germans re-took the village the next day. In the ensuing fighting near Canea, Brigadier Puttick gave an order to withdraw and thereby disobeyed his commanding general.- ie Freyberg. This withdrawal proved a bad mistake. So Crete was a series of hesitations, withdrawals, errors, misunderstandings. Despite

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much brave fighting by the troops, it seems inevitable that the Allies lost. And as this account makes clear, the commanders were the ones responsible. This elegantly produced book has numerous black and white photographs – many poignant – of the conflict and some paintings by official war artist Peter McIntyre.

Sunset Park

By Paul Auster Faber and Faber, $39.99 A Paul Auster novel is always very like a Paul Auster novel and unlike any other writer’s creation. His is a unique voice – sombre, clear, ironic, surprising. He is not a humorous writer and humour is something this reader always appreciates. Among other reasons, it’s why I prefer Dostoyevsky over Tolstoy. But, hey, the majority of world literature isn’t written to amuse but to teach us moral lessons and haunt us with its visions. Haunting is a good word for Auster’s work. The central character is twenty eight yearold Miles Heller, a man of no particular ambition who makes a living “trashing out” abandoned houses. That is to say, he cleans out urban detritus. Though he doesn’t see himself as an artist, he is fascinated enough by the junk he disposes of, to make a photographic record of it. He feels deeply guilty about accidentally causing the death of his step-brother, Bobby. In contrast to this darkish world of rubbish and guilt, is Miles’ passionate involvement with the enchantingly young and charmingly intelligent Pilar Sanchez. His meeting with her – depending how you look it, strains coincidence (they are both reading The Great Gatsby at the same time while sitting in a public park only ten feet apart) – or is typical Auster, who likes to make certain books and films of key importance to his characters. Their romance has a fairy worldlike quality never more so than when Auster has Miles meditating on the various joys his young partner gives. The list – over a page in length – runs the gamut from the joy at seeing her face, to watching her frown and her brush her teeth as well as the predictable joy of making love to her. When Miles returns to New York, he moves in to drab “Sunset Park” with three other folk, all in their twenties, and who, in their own way, are as life-wounded as Miles himself. One of them is Bing Nathan, a former friend of Miles who in parallel to Miles, restores similar items to what Miles photo-

graphs – old typewriters and obsolete telephones. Bing runs a shop symbolically called The Hospital for Broken Things. Some people may see this as sad but personally I like the idea. Then there is Alice Bergstrom writing a thesis on mid I940s relationships as viewed through popular culture. This gives Alice (or Auster) carte blanche to examine The Best Days of Our Lives, a post war film directed by William Wyler, for several pages. I resisted then capitulated – this excessive detail got me fascinated enough to take out the film and enjoy its sincere, heavy-handed period charm, complete to the Hollywoodsweet ending when a sweet young thing marries a wounded war veteran man with steel pincers for hands. The other character in Sunset Park is Ellen Brice who creates erotic drawings. All of Auster’s characters are unfulfilled, discontented; several are wouldbe artists who seem likely to stay that way. One of Auster’s trademarks is the shifting narrative voice. So after we have moved around the unhappy inhabitants of Sunset Park, we visit Morris Heller (Miles’s father) and Mary-Lee Swann, his mother, facing a Broadway comeback. Morris is both struggling with his quality publishing house and his marriage. The ambiance, to be sure, is high culture New York but it seems smothered in lugubrious snow and wintery sorrow. And here I discovered I was wrong about there being no humour in Auster’s work. Here it comes: “six thousand cockroaches holding political conventions in every cupboard.” Who said misery can’t be cheerful? But it’s a rare glint. Auster specialises in the dazzlingly long sentence – sometimes running to a full page – effortlessly taking us on a switchback ride aboard a streamlined roller coaster. There’s never a note of strain in their composition. These sentences contain dazzling miniaturised summaries of the underbelly of American life that Auster continues to explore with sombre virtuosity.

When A Billion Chinese Jump

By Jonathan Watts Faber and Faber, $35.99 The western dragon is fiery but the Chinese dragon is watery. The Chinese water dragon has been a menace throughout Chinese history so it is little wonder the taming of the great frequently destructive rivers like the Yangtze and the Yellow River is paramount in their thinking.

However, Watts doesn’t begin his marvellously compendious survey of contemporary China with the rivers (to which we will return presently) but with the quest for the mythical Shangri La, an idyllic locale immortalised in James Hilton’s famous novel Lost Horizon. Mythical though it may once have been, the Chinese have located it! A segment of the Yunnan province was given the name in 2001 to attract tourists – a successful ploy. The area was well chosen – it had beautiful lake, it is home to half of the country’s types of vertebrates, and 72 per cent of the country’s animal variety. Alas, virgin spruce forest in the nearby area has been decimated by logging and the animals are at risk. Throughout Watt’s dazzling account, beauty and nature (or its attempted restoration) fight an often futile battle with colossal engineering schemes, massive pollution, and frenetically rapid industrial development. In the Yin and Yang of today’s China, the Yang principle has overwhelmed the Yin. By now everyone has heard of the massive Three Gorges project. But how many know there is talk of projects as large or even larger? For instance, the South-North Water Diversion, twice as expensive as the Three Gorges project, aims to construct three channels nearly 1000 km long in order to divert water from the moist Yangtze basin to the dry lands north of the Yellow River. If you think this is ambitious how about a 2km-wide tunnel under the Himalayas to carry warm moist current to the north. Method? Two hundred nuclear warheads to blast the tunnel though solid Himalayan rock. Fortunately, even in grandiose China this scheme was considered over the top and ridiculed. Let’s turn to coal. Coal is essentially what drives China’s massive industries. Seventy per cent of their energy needs are fuelled by coal. Unfortunately their coal mines are the most dangerous in the world – with a

death rate thirty times that of the United States. The pollution in many coal mining towns is quite simply awful. However, when Watts visited the Shangwan pit, he initially thought he had encountered the coal mine from Shangri La. It produced a million tons of coal per month, had just 300 coal miners and a 100 per cent safety record, something rather unusual in the Chinese coal mining industry. The surrounding grounds had trees and lawn and no coal dust. What was going on? They were using the process of coal liquefaction. Though clean and safe, each tonne of diesel fuel requires six and a half tonnes of water with more than three tonnes of carbon dioxide being released into the air during manufacture. Thus more green house gases. On the other side of the coin, China has some of the world’s largest wind farms and solar power is also being developed on a massive scale. While there is hope in these alternative sources of energy, the fact remains that heavy industries continue to forge ahead on an ever increasing scale. Throughout his impressively researched book – he interviewed over 200 people – Watts swings between a dash of alternative hope and a truckload of ecological gloom. Near the end of his book, he sombrely concludes: “Almost none of the eco-cities, eco-villages, eco-cars and even eco-toilets I have seen are operating successfully on a commercial basis”. Watts sums up the whole vast panorama of China in one pithy sentence: “China is a 3,000-year-old civilisation in the body of an industrial teenager.” This is a frightening prospect and we – the rest of the world – can only hope that some form of moderation will one day prevail. What China will do when its coal runs out doesn’t bear thinking about. Presumably, unless some other form of energy is discovered, hydro power will come under increasing pressure. Watch this space – and hope.

The South-North Water Diversion, twice as expensive as the Three Gorges project, aims to construct three channels nearly 1000 km long in order to divert water from the moist Yangtze basin to the dry lands north of the Yellow River INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM January 2011 91

SEE LIFE / MUSIC

Mushy peas The Black Eyed Peas’ latest serving is not so tasty The Black Eyed Peas

Ke$ha

Kevin Eubanks

After the painfully dumb but multi-platinum Monkey Business in 2005, the Black Eyed Peas got it right with last year’s winningly dumb and even more multi-platinum The E.N.D., perhaps the most successful hip-hop album ever to hit the bar mitzvah circuit. What made The E.N.D. work was the way will.i.am took his concise and inherently optimistic raps straight to the dance floor, making the Peas over as an Auto-Tuned electro-dancepop band that went “Boom Boom Pow,” both figuratively and literally. The Beginning follows The E.N.D. with the same formula, this time being even more brazen with the crassness of the MC Hammerworthy samples. Yep, that’s Dirty Dancing’s “(I’ve Had) The Time of My Life” that powers “The Time (Dirty Bit).” But will.i.am can be pretty creative when he puts his mind to it, and The Beginning is well-enough made to get the job done. But too often the Peas mastermind is content to borrow lazily from U2 here and Blondie there, as he augments obvious hooks with lyrics frequently so awful that even a perfect beat couldn’t save them.

Where Lady Gaga goes, Ke$ha follows – a less glamorous, more amorous, skankier version, but that’s Ke$ha’s shtick. So here’s Cannibal, the companion to January’s charttopping Animal (as Gaga did with The Fame, then The Fame Monster). Like its predecessor, Cannibal’s got manic sass, unapologetic sleaze, and wildly contagious production/ songwriting help from electro-pop’s go-to hitmaker, Dr. Luke. Yet his hyperkinetic rhythms and Auto-Tune sheen – along with Ke$ha’s usual salaciousness – never blankets her chops or progression. Ke$ha freestyles like a champ and makes herself small on intimate ballads such as the childish but impassioned “C U Next Tuesday” – a quiet tune proving she can sing in stripped-down fashion. While the jittery “Grow a Pear” takes men down a peg or three, her dance anthem “We R Who We R” poignantly discusses the bullying that plagues gay youth. Ke$ha’s not as grand or eloquent as Gaga. But if Gaga is our generation’s glamperiod Bowie, Ke$ha is our KISS – ruder, simpler, but with an occasional point to make.

It may take a while to shake the persona that guitarist Kevin Eubanks projected for nearly 18 years as musical director of “The Tonight Show With Jay Leno.” But this CD nicely changes the channel. Eubanks, who grew up in Philadelphia and played in the early 1980s with drummer Art Blakey, among many others, is a serious player, and this quintet recording finds him sounding very assured working alongside some L.A. pals: tenor and soprano saxophonist Bill Pierce, drummer Marvin “Smitty” Smith, keyboardist Gerry Etkins, and bassist Rene Camacho. Intelligent fusion is the general theme here. Eubanks doesn’t project his own sound so much as exhibit proficiency and ease at many guises. It’s as if he’s drawing from Leno’s long line of musical guests. “Dirty Monk” has a dark, stomping feel and some vicious solos along with a pretty coda, while “Adoration” is folky and prettier still. “The Dancing Sea” hints at a Pat Metheny vibe, which resonates occasionally through these 10 originals.

– Dan DeLuca

– A.D. Amorosi

– Karl Stark

The Beginning 2 stars

Cannibal 3 stars

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Zen Food 3 stars

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SEE LIFE / MOVIES

Two voyages – different destinations Dawn Treader pleases, but Tourist not so much The Chronicles Of Narnia: The Voyage Of The Dawn Treader

Starring: Georgie Henley, Skandar Keynes, Will Poulter, Ben Barnes Directed by: Michael Apted Rated: PG (for some frightening images and sequences of fantasy action) Running time: 115 minutes 3 stars What kid hasn’t dreamed of being a queen or king in another world? C.S. Lewis’ Narnia novels merged that fantasy, Christian allegory and high adventure in a recipe that has enchanted generations of readers – and now, moviegoers. This third instalment from the children’s series, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, follows the two younger Pevensie siblings back to the magical land of Narnia with their bratty cousin Eustace. And this time, after his disappointing absence in

2008’s Prince Caspian, the fable’s lion king/ messiah Aslan makes a roaring return. Old Brown Eyes is back. The film is a throwback to colorful, wholesome adventures like The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad and Swiss Family Robinson, with rollicking adolescent derring-do, scary (not terrifying) monsters and adorable animal sidekicks. In the capable hands of director Michael Apted (who gave us Coal Miner’s Daughter, Gorillas in the Mist and the James Bond feature The World Is Not Enough), a potentially syrupy allegory becomes razzledazzle children’s entertainment, with the religious dimensions gracefully conveyed. The story opens in World War II-era London as Lucy (Georgie Henley) and Edmund (Skandar Keynes), living in their uncle’s home, yearn for old friends and adventure in the otherworldly kingdom. Who can blame them, with their snotty younger cousin (Will Poulter) spying and snitching on them? Eustace doesn’t believe in

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faith and fairy tales. He spends his time reading, as he sneers, “books with facts.” He isn’t actually wearing a sign on his back saying, “Kick Me, I’m An Atheist,” but he might as well be. Poulter gives the story a needed jolt of conflict and comedy; his performance as the petulant, cowardly blowhard is wicked good. He’s delightfully annoying. Returning to Narnia through the portal of an enchanted painting, the three find themselves aboard the royal galleon Dawn Treader, with King Caspian (swoony Ben Barnes, now with a regal goatee and without his odd exotic accent) and the swashbuckling mouse Reepicheep. Their expedition to rescue missing lords and collect mystic swords will lead to encounters with a book that conjures magic spells, a shining star in human form, a titanic sea monster and the dread White Witch (the always-extraterrestrial Tilda Swinton in a brief, scary cameo). Lewis’ fable, with fauns and dragons and dwarves and Arabian Nights exoticism all

jumbled together, doesn’t make tons of cosmological sense, but it’s undeniably fun. On their journey each of the children faces temptation, confronts inner demons and experiences a transformative rebirth. The tone is much lighter than in Prince Caspian, with its dark, intense combat sequences, and so is the look. “Dawn Treader” is suffused with radiant South Seas light. There are scores of hectic, high-spirited, kid-friendly battle scenes, where nary a drop of blood is shed. There’s a lot of plot to shoehorn into 115 minutes, and the pace feels breathless, but that’s probably fine with the young target audience. Lewis purists will grouse about Dawn Treader’s emphasis on sea serpents, dragons, tentacles of evil green mist and onelegged dwarves over the subtler moral battles against temptation, but that’s the price of getting a movie bankrolled in mammonworshiping Hollywood.

Any film in which the stars connect more intensely on the poster than on the screen is in a world of trouble, and a combination of Jolie playing dress-up and Depp doing dressed down dooms their connection

– By Colin Covert

The Tourist

Starring: Johnny Depp, Angelina Jolie, Paul Bettany, Timothy Dalton Directed by: Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck Rated: PG-13 (for violence and brief, strong language) Running time: 98 minutes 1 star There is a moment in The Tourist when Johnny Depp turns to Angelina Jolie and asks “Why is all this happening?” It’s a question moviegoers will be asking themselves as well. Lured into theatres by the pairing of the most seductive film stars working today, audiences will be nonplussed to discover a not particularly thrilling thriller about mistaken identity that doesn’t come close to living up to expectations. Adapted by a bunch of high-profile screenwriters (three are credited but there were reportedly more) from the 2005 French film Anthony Zimmer, about an ordinary man drawn into an extraordinary world, The Tourist is so lacking in pace, involvement and excitement that by the time its numerous plot twists materialize we can’t be bothered to care. Even the presence of director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck (one of the credited writers along with Christopher McQuarrie and Julian Fellowes) doesn’t make a difference. It is not given to everyone to direct frothy caper movies, and by the evidence here the capable von Donnersmarck,

who did the excellent, Oscar-winning The Lives of Others, is not one of the elect. Probably the most surprising factor in The Tourist’s underperformance is the startling lack of chemistry between Depp and Jolie. Any film in which the stars connect more intensely on the poster than on the screen is in a world of trouble, and a combination of Jolie playing dress-up and Depp doing dressed down dooms their connection. The Tourist begins in Paris with a crack French surveillance team focusing its attention on one Elise Clifton-Ward. As played by Jolie in a series of drop-dead outfits, the femme-fatale-and-a-half Elise is less the flesh-and-blood woman Evelyn Salt was and more a well-dressed mannequin who wears clothes better than she engages emotions. Though she doesn’t look particularly dangerous, Elise has caught the eye not only of the French police but also of Scotland Yard’s Financial Crimes Division and even Italian Interpol. That’s because her inamorato, Alexander Pearce, is a financial wizard who is wanted in 14 countries and has ruffled feathers around the world with his fiscal chicanery. Since no one knows what Alexander looks like, he has concocted a plan to throw the police off his trail. He instructs Elise to take the high-speed TGV to Venice, select someone on the train who shares his height and build and try to convince the world’s police that this harmless nobody is the great financial wizard.

Since Depp, looking bearded and intentionally frail, is the only movie star on the Venice train, Elise picks him for the task. Depp plays Frank Tupelo, a math teacher from Wisconsin who is such a timid, unworldly type he tries to be understood in Spanish when he’s in Italy. Depp may be Heartthrob No. 1 for many moviegoers but his soul is the soul of a character actor, and given half the chance he will flee playing the classic romantic lead. The Tourist gives Depp the excuse he needs to hide his formidable charisma, but his insistence on underplaying Frank has a paralyzing effect on the on-screen connection between his character and Jolie’s. So even though Elise more or less adopts Frank, even letting him stay in her suite, her interest in him is never less than implausible. And when Frank finds himself thrown into a dangerous world of cut-throat killers and international intrigue, his unforeseen ability to cope is not particularly convincing either. Because neither Depp nor Jolie bring real juice to the proceedings, it is left to the supporting characters to provide what energy the film has. Both Steven Berkoff, as the gangster Pearce stole $2.3 billion from, and Paul Bettany, as the British police inspector who wants to collect a $744 million tax bill, are strong but to little effect. They do their best, but they swim against a tide of lethargy that will not be denied. – By Kenneth Turan

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SEE LIFE / THE CUTTING ROOM

Love is Blu Say goodbye to DVDs, it’s a Blu (ray) Christmas this year, writes Robert W. Butler More and more movie lovers are switching over to Blu-ray, the home entertainment technology that delivers images and sound as sharp and clear as a movie theatre. “Blu-ray is the last stand for packaged media,” says Erik Gruenwedel, news editor for Home Media Magazine. “You can’t make it any better than this” – “this” being entertainment on a disc. The experts tell us that even Blu-ray will become obsolete, that eventually all home entertainment will be delivered electronically via the Internet, cable and satellite systems. But that’s going to take a while. For now, Blu-ray is state of the art. “We anticipate that packaged media – Bluray and DVD discs – will remain the dominant delivery mechanism for the foreseeable future,” says Sean Bersell of the Entertainment Merchants Association. “Digital distribution will eventually dominate, but right now it’s a small part of the market.” Shoppers who hit the stores this Christmas found sale prices on Blu-ray players nearly as cheap as conventional DVD decks. But price is only one incentive for upgrading to Blu-ray. Unlike the shift a decade ago from VHS to DVDs – which meant replacing videotapes of favourite films with newly purchased discs

of the same titles – consumers can keep their old DVDs. “Every Blu-ray player is backward compatible,” Bersell says. “Not only do you not have to throw out your DVDs, a Blu-ray player will ‘upconvert’ a DVD to near highdef quality. They will play fine and generally look better on Blu-ray than on your old standard definition player.” Top-of-the-line Blu-ray players can cost several hundred dollars, with the price often determined by hardware and software to access web-streamed entertainment on their big-screen, high-def televisions. Even more expensive are 3-D Blu-ray players. But if all you want from a new machine is the ability to play Blu-ray discs and make your old DVDs look better, even a cheap Blu-ray player will do nicely. “With prices coming down, we’re nearly at the point where if your DVD player breaks, most people will replace it with a Blu-ray,” Bersell says. Adding more fuel to Blu-ray sales are the bells and whistles available on many Blu-ray titles. The format’s compression technology makes it possible to cram five times more information onto a Blu-ray disc than a conventional DVD. This allows for not only

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better picture and sound but also detailed graphics and additional special features. With a DVD version of a recent movie you might get extras like a commentary track and a making-of documentary. A Blu-ray release of the same title will have that and much more – additional commentaries, production art galleries, deleted and alternate scenes. Plus, Blu-ray technology allows for more interactivity. A Blu-ray disc often allows viewers to watch the film with pop-up factoids that explain how sequences were filmed. A frame in the corner of the screen may show storyboard drawings so that the finished film can be compared to the “blueprint” version. Some Blu-ray discs allow users to take virtual tours of a film’s sets or landscapes. Many titles aimed at children feature simple video games that can be negotiated using a remote control. All of this added value has triggered a surge in Blu-ray disc sales. While DVD sales are down 14 percent below last year, Blu-ray disc sales are up by 80 percent. Of course, sales of Blu-ray discs (which generally cost several dollars more than the DVD versions) are but a fraction of the overall market. And it will take years before all titles now on DVD are re-released in Blu-ray. “The whole Blu-ray thing hasn’t really taken off yet,” says Gruenwedel. “We’re still in the early stages.” But there are unmistakable signs. This holiday season the entertainment industry is unveiling new extras-loaded Blu-ray versions of classics like Disney’s Beauty and the Beast, Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now and the musical favourite The Sound of Music – as well as recent hits like this summer’s Inception. “We’re seeing a big push of Blu-ray releases in the fourth quarter,” says Gruenwedel. “It’s a great way to repurpose existing catalogue content in all its high-def glory.” The Walt Disney Co. has pioneered the release of multi-disc combo packages that include the film in both DVD and Blu-ray, plus a Blu-ray-only disc of special features. And in many instances these combo packs include a downloadable version of the film that can be watched on a computer, iPod or other portable player. Gruenwedel calls that approach “future proofing” – it guarantees a customer will be able to enjoy the product now (on DVD) and in the future (on Blu-ray or computer). Of course many of the special features are available only on a Blu-ray disc – a not-sosubtle nudge to consumers to upgrade to a Blu-ray player if they want the full experience.