The Hobson March 2020

march 2020

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The March Issue, No. 66

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the editor’s letter

the teacher

the magpie

10

Judi Paape on goal setting for a clear steer on the year ahead

They’re no friends of hers, but even the Magpie can’t help but admire these cat and dog accoutrements

the columnists

13 the village Parnell residents lament the loss of old oak trees, development plans for Remuera, sculpture comes to the gardens at Kinder House, a new boss at the Waitematā Local Board, and more

32 the plan If ever there was a planning misnomer, it’s the ‘Single House-Suburban’ zone, argues Hamish Firth

33 the second act

the councillor

Continuing on her theme from the last issue, Sandy Burgham wants to give the new decade a guiding name

The councillor for the Ōrākei ward, Desley Simpson, shares her news

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the author

Updates from local MPs David Seymour and Paul Goldsmith

Ann Gluckman is a tireless writer and chronicler of Auckland’s Jewish history. She’s just published her latest book, age 92

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38

the politicians

the investment

the creative

The economy, stupid. Warren Couillault on why he’s sure the US president will be voted back in

Lyzadie Renault looks to the landscape of her adopted homeland to inspire her creative works

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42

the suburbanist

the educator

Tommy Honey finds new ways to get to the first rung of the property ladder

Teacher Pip Block’s passion for a method to ‘retrain the brain’ of students struggling with dyslexia sees her open a new school the hobson 6

46 the sound Andrew Dickens is hearing a LOT of live music this month, and moving house too

48 the cryptics Enjoy two of Māyā’s mindbenders this month (to make up for the last issue snafu)

50 the diary What’s going on around here in March

Orakei Local Board hosted a family fun day at Orakei Basin in February — see the story in our Village pages

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issue 66, march 2020 Editor & Publisher Kirsty Cameron editor@thehobson.co.nz Art Direction & Production Stephen Penny design@thehobson.co.nz News Editor Mary Fitzgerald maryfitzgerald.thehobson@gmail.com Writers This Issue Kirsty Cameron, Gretchen Carroll, Mary Fitzgerald, Hélène Ravlich, Wayne Thompson, Justine Williams, Fiona Wilson Sub-editor Dawn Adams

ithout conscious intent, this March issue celebrates the success of some amazing local women, which is timely with International Women’s Day on March 8.

I had the privilege of sitting down with the indefatigable Ann Gluckman in her Remuera home. Ann, at 92, has just published the third volume of Identity and Involvement: Auckland Jewry into the 21st century. A morning spent in her company is inspiring, and has certainly spurred me to follow through on a few loose thoughts I’ve had about doing some further study. And the book is engrossing for anyone interested not only in the Jewish contribution to this country, but about this city’s cultural makeup too.

In another story, writer Hélène Ravlich met local Lyzadie Renault, who in recent times moved from working as an architect to designing furniture and items for the home. Within six months of launching her studio, she was invited to show at the prestigious furniture fair in Milan and her practice continues to rocket.

And it was a call from a friend that put us onto a third ‘wonderful woman’ story this month. While all schools offer support to kids who struggle with learning, sometimes the fit just isn’t right or the problems seem insurmountable. The success she had teaching a method at St Kents to ‘retrain the brain’ of students with profound dyslexia has inspired Pip Block to set up a specialist school of her own.

Enjoy everything in this issue,

Columnists Sandy Burgham, Warren Couillault, Andrew Dickens, Hamish Firth, Paul Goldsmith, Tommy Honey, Māyā, Judi Paape, David Seymour, Desley Simpson Photographer Stephen Penny Cover Auckland's first synagogue, which still stands in Princes St. Photo by Henry Winkelmann, 31-W1025, reproduced with permission, Auckland Libraries Heritage Collection.

See the story, ‘Identifiably Ann’, page 34

Kirsty Cameron editor@thehobson.co.nz 0275 326 424 Facebook: The Hobson Magazine Instagram: TheHobson

THE HOBSON is published 10 times a year by The Hobson Limited, PO Box 37490 Parnell, Auckland 1151. www.thehobson.co.nz F: The Hobson Magazine I: @The Hobson Ideas, suggestions, advertising inquiries welcome. editor@thehobson.co.nz THE HOBSON is Remuera, Parnell and Ōrākei’s community magazine. We deliver into letterboxes in these neighbourhoods, and copies are also at local libraries, cafes, and at businesses including the Vicky Ave and White Heron dairies, and Paper Plus Parnell. For more about us, see The Hobson Magazine on Facebook.

The content of THE HOBSON is copyright. Our words, our pictures.

Don’t steal, and don’t borrow without checking with us first.

We aim for accuracy but cannot be held liable for any inaccuracies that do occur. The views of our contributors are their own and not necessarily those of THE HOBSON. We don’t favour unsolicited contributions but do welcome you getting in touch via editor@thehobson.co.nz to discuss ideas.

The Hobson Ltd is a member of the Magazine Publishers Association This publication uses environmentally responsible papers.

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Big (literally) congratulations to Kathryn Dunn, managing director of Spruik, a creative marketing agency that works with The Hobson. Kathryn donned a hippo suit to take part in a fundraising race on behalf of the Bowel Cancer Foundation Trust at Ellerslie on Boxing Day. She wasn't a winner of the field but we salute her staunch efforts, particularly on a very hot day!

Auckland Obstetric Centre is a unique practice in Parnell made up of six leading specialist obstetricians and support staff. Together we have many years of experience and feel privileged to be able to share in the care of women during their pregnancy. To find out more about how we can care for you and your baby call our team or visit our website.

09 367 1200 | obstetrics.co.nz

Lynda Batcheler Astrid Budden Eva Hochstein Katherine McKenzie Kirstie Peake Jason Waugh

The Columnists

Left to right from top row: Sandy Burgham (The Second Act) is a brand strategist and an executive coach with a special interest in midlife change and transformational behaviours. She runs a central Auckland practice. www.playclc.com Remuera resident Warren Couillault (The Investment) is an executive director and the major shareholder of Hobson Wealth Partners, a private wealth advisory group. He is also a manager of a registered KiwiSaver scheme.

Andrew Dickens (The Sound) is the host of the afternoon show on Newstalk ZB. For 13 years he was the breakfast host on Classic Hits. He grew up in Remuera.

Hamish Firth (The Plan) lives and works in Parnell and is principal of the Mt Hobson Group, a specialist urban planning consultancy. www.mthobsonproperties.co.nz Mary Fitzgerald is The Hobson’s News Editor. A Mainlander who transplanted to Remuera 15 years ago, she is passionate about hearing and telling our stories.

Urban design critic Tommy Honey (The Suburbanist) is a former architect. The Remuera resident is a regular guest on RNZ National, discussing the built environment.

Judi Paape (The Teacher) is a parent, grandparent and highly-experienced teacher and junior school principal.

A Parnell resident, her column appears bi-monthly.

Contributing writer Wayne Thompson is a former The New Zealand Herald journalist, covering Auckland news. He has been a resident of Parnell for 34 years.

Contributing editor Justine Williams is an interiors stylist, writer and fashion editor. The Remuera resident has been the editor of Simply You and Simply You Living.

the hobson 10

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the village

Town & Around

The Save Robbies Park group commissioned further renders of the National Erebus Memorial, based on the submitted plans. This aspect shows it in approach from the northern side

DIGGING IN OVER THE PARK Residents of Parnell and across the isthmus are waiting on the Ministry of Culture and Heritage’s next move on the proposal to install a large memorial in Dove-Myer Robinson Park to commemorate the Erebus tragedy. Both locals and the Waitamatā Local Board have requested that the resource consent for the work be publicly notified, allowing for submissions on the suitability and relevance of the chosen site.

Last year, the ministry (MCH) announced that a site within the park had been selected for the National Erebus Memorial, which will mark the 1979 tragedy in Antarctica, which took 257 lives. A design panel selected Te Paerangi Ataata – Sky Song by Studio Pacific Architecture as the winning design. It was shown as 17 metres in length, extending as a cantilevered concrete walkway towards the sea, with the names of all those who were killed incorporated into the design.

But opposition has grown from those principally concerned that the memorial is out of place in a park which has no connection to the disaster. Opponents involved in the group ‘Save Robbies Park’ say that as drawings have finalised, the edifice has grown in size and the construction of concrete pathways are a significant impost to the grass of a relatively small park. Including the Rose Gardens, the park’s total acreage is 5.56 hectares, bordered by Gladstone Rd, Judges Bay Rd and Judges Bay. After the outcry, MCH asked that its request to the Waitematā Local Board for landowner approval be deferred. No date has been

given for its return to the agenda, but MCH has gone ahead with archaeological investigation of the site, which it is also required to do as part of the consenting process. The results of those findings are expected shortly.

It also became known — but not shared with either the local board or the public — that a Boffa Miskell report commissioned

by MCH recommended against Dove-Myer Robinson Park, instead suggesting a site be found that looked to the Manukau Harbour (over which the fated DC-10 flew) and towards Erebus itself. Belatedly, the Waitematā Local Board also called for public feedback. In response, 77 per cent of those identifying as ‘local’ were opposed to the memorial’s location, and 63 per cent of Aucklanders were opposed.

“We believe the Waitematā Local Board will listen to the community,” says Parnell local Jo Malcolm, who has been active alongside Anne Coney in opposition to the installation. Malcolm’s father-in-law was an Erebus victim, and Malcolm is clear that while a national memorial is appropriate, ‘Robbie’s Park’ is not the place.

“The experts say it’s not in the right place, the community is saying it’s not in the right place, a large number of Erebus families are saying it’s not in the right place. Robbie’s Park should never have been on the shortlist,” says Malcolm. “It’s not NIMBYism.

It’s practical and pragmatic and sensible to find another site. The ministry needs to accept they got it wrong, and now put their energy into finding a place that is right.”

the hobson 13

the village

Objectors also include the family of former long-serving Auckland mayor Sir Dove-Myer Robinson, for whom the park was renamed in 1981, from Parnell Park. In an open letter to the NZ Herald, his daughters, Heather Levack and Ann Robinson, wrote in part, “our concern as a family is that if the Erebus Memorial were to be placed there, it would not be long before the park became known as the Erebus Park. It seems an outrage to us that a park, named to honour our father, is being considered as the site of a memorial to another group of people. Doing so would destroy the one and in no way adequately recognise the other.”

On January 31, archaeologists engaged by MCH spent a day doing exploratory work in small patches of the grounds where the proposed monument will stand. ‘Kilbryde’, the grand house of city father Sir John Logan Campbell once stood on the northern tip, before it was demolished in 1924. The proposed site for the National Erebus Memorial is within what was Kilbryde’s gardens, and an access road for construction will run across the site of the old house itself.

On its site, MCH explains that three consents are required before construction can begin: resource consent, landowner approval (the local board) and archaeological authority, in this case from Heritage New Zealand.

The park was purchased by 800 Parnell ratepayers as a gift to the people of Auckland when Parnell Borough amalgamated with the city of Auckland in 1914. And it’s to this intention of bestowing on the growing city more undeveloped, green space that Jo Malcolm believes should steer its future management.

“It’s arguably the most historic park in Auckland. And it should be heritage protected to safeguard its future. At present, it has no management plan. We should look at the original plan — it was planned as open space.” — Kirsty Cameron p For further information, see Save Robbies Park on Facebook, and mch.govt.nz/national-erebus-memorial

LOCAL BITES The troubled Clonbern Rd carpark reopened to shoppers in midJanuary after a quicker-than-expected demolition of the top deck,

and resealing of the remaining parking area. The work was done immediately after Christmas, the quietest period for the adjoining New World supermarket. “Short to medium term nothing is going to happen,” says Remuera Business Association chair Adrian Barkla, who is also the owner-operator of New World Remuera.

“The area will remain like it is now until the land is sold and the new owner develops something on that site.” Under the terms of sale, Auckland Council’s Panuku development arm has said a new development must include 220 public carparks.

The Remuera Residents Association wants to increase its membership and is also seeking a new chair. Residents and ratepayers keen to contribute to their community are encouraged to get in touch with the former chair, Iain Valentine, via chair@ remueraresidents.org.nz or check the RRA’s Facebook page or website, remueraresidents.org.nz for information. The RRA’s next AGM is April. p

MERCY’S NEW FRIENDS Led by Parnell-based real estate maven Cheryl Whiting, a new group has been formed to raise money for the work of Mercy Hospice. The Friends of Mercy Trust will formally launch on March 22 with a fundraising ‘al fresco party in the garden’ at a grand Remuera home.

“I’ve been involved as a volunteer with Mercy Hospice for many years, having had personal experience of the unique and special care they provide those at the end of life,” says Whiting. Whiting first encountered Mercy when her brother, property empire founder Colin Manson, died of cancer in 1998. Two years ago, Whiting’s daughter, Tanya, spent her last days in Mercy’s tender care.

Whiting has tapped “like-minded professional women” to form the Friends of Mercy Charitable Trust. The trustees are Whiting, Chrissy Douglas and Margo Stewart. Mercy needs to raise over $4 million per annum to cover costs beyond government subsidies to provide hospice care to central Auckland and Waiheke Is. The three trustees have in turn called on a network of well-connected volunteers to join in as fundraisers — locals Jackie Bott, Penny Clydesdale, Karen Beard-Greer, Di Goldsworthy, Krissy Jackson,

You Are Invited Join local MP David Seymour and special guests.

Friday, 13 March 2020

Wednesday, 25 March 2020

Topic: Recollections and thoughts from a former Reserve Bank Governor, Don Brash Where: Augusta Café, 5 Normanby Rd, Mt Eden Time: 10.30am - midday

Topic: “The State of Israel” in 2020 with HE Dr Itzhak Gerberg, Israeli Ambassador Where: St Barnabas Anglican Hall, 283 Mt Eden Rd, Mt Eden Time: 10.30am - midday

RSVP: Phone 09 522 7464, or email mpepsom@parliament.govt.nz

David Seymour MP For Epsom

Authorised by David Seymour, Suite 2.4, Level 2, 27 Gillies Avenue, Newmarket, AKL. Funded by the Parliamentary Service.

the hobson 14

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Fran Ricketts, Maria Ryder, Kate Shaw and Michele Whitecliffe.

“Our objective is to work independently, but as a complement to the Hospice’s own in-house fundraising team. Under our deed of trust, all net proceeds will be used entirely for patient care.”

For more information or to donate (Friends of Mercy has applied for a NZ Charities number to be able to provide receipts for tax deductions) contact info@friendsofmercy.co.nz or see friendsofmercy.co.nz. Limited tickets at $180 each are also available for the trust’s March 22 launch event, see friendsofmercy.co.nz for further information.

The trustees are also keen to hear from people who may be able to offer goods or services for auctions, or may sponsor an event. p

END OF THE LINE FOR PARNELL OAKS Parnell residents who are working to transform a railway gully into a pleasant greenway were upset in early January when a pair of mature oaks at the foot of the Ngahere Tce steps were felled as part of works ahead of the construction of a new retirement village.

The steps are well used by patrons of the nearby Parnell Station and by joggers and walkers as they go between Gibraltar Cres and the railway underpass to the bush path in the Auckland Domain. A hand-painted sign says “Bringing nature back to the city,” drawing attention to the community planting effort along the Waipapa Stream, in the historic valley between Parnell and the Domain.

Those intentions were bruised in a day of tension at the spot on January 3, involving the police. Security guards went on alert as contractors arrived to clear a total of four oaks from the development site. The action was resisted by members of a neighbourhood group, Parnell Rises. It tried to have the trees retained for the Waipapa Valley greenway scheme in line with Auckland Council’s Urban Forest (Ngahere) Strategy.

A week earlier, the Parnell Community Committee (PCC) had appealed directly to Summerset Group Holdings Ltd to save the oaks. Summerset plans to develop a retirement village for 350400 residents on the Parnell land sold by Kiwi Rail and Auckland Council. PCC chair Luke Niue and Summerset chief executive Julian Cook had worked alongside each other as volunteers at a Waipapa Stream clean-up and weeding day, and Niue sent Cook pictures of the Ngahere steps oaks.

But the felling went ahead. Summerset’s general manager, development, Aaron Smail, told The Hobson in a statement: “The oak trees were removed to enable a functional retirement village on our land in Parnell. It wasn’t a decision taken lightly, but due to the constrained nature of the site, it was unfortunately necessary to remove the trees which are not listed as notable trees by the

The New Year has ushered in confirmation that the residential property is back in favour. Real Estate Institute figures now confirm an increase in both median values and sales volumes. Buyers are back out in force. We can already report a much more positive ‘sentiment’ – confidence has returned! It is election year, that can often cause things to go into wait and see mode. Our sense however is that there is a general catch up in play.

Since 2015, until recent months, sales numbers have been falling. The foreign buyer ban was definitely part of this. Given the strength of immigration over the period and falling interest rates, we feel the lower sales volumes were driven by negative sentiment. We note several commentators/bank economists predicting an increase in house prices over the next year or three.

For home owners waiting for a good time to go to the market – this is it!

If you’re wondering what a property is worth please give me a call at any time.

Philip Oldham M 021 921 031 philip.oldham@uprealestate.co.nz

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Tāmaki Drive Improvements

Auckland Transport will start a project on Tāmaki Drive, between Quay Street and the Ngapipi Bridge, in early-February 2020. Work is expected to take 10 months to complete.

These works are likely to impact traffic flows during peak periods, however traffic management will be in place at all times. During construction, we will operate a ‘tidal flow’ traffic system to prioritise peak traffic flows.

Work on Tāmaki Drive includes:

Tidal Flow Traffic Management

• A 2.8-meter separated bi-directional off-road cycleway on the harbour side that connects to the existing cycleway along Quay Street

The tidal flow traffic system is designed to improve traffic flows by having two lanes open during peak periods. On Tāmaki Drive, during morning peak there will be two lanes open heading toward the city, and during evening peak there will be two lanes open heading east.

• A new pedestrian bridge at Point Resolution • Raising the height of the road by up to half a metre to address flooding on Tāmaki Drive • The current shared path will become a dedicated footpath

To avoid delays, you may want to change your route or, if you can, travel outside peak hours.

Peak flow

• Upgrading the footpath and kerb on the train track side of Tāmaki Drive

Find out more online at AT.govt.nz/projects-roadworks/tamaki-drive-improvements/ projects@at.govt.nz | (09) 366 6400

the village

Two of the oak stumps that remain after land was cleared in early January at the bottom of the Ngahere steps

Auckland Council. We are planning to plant at least another 75 trees, including oaks, as part of the new development.”

In preparing a case for the trees, says Niue, the PCC had its hands tied by lack of information. Niue says Summerset declined an invitation to preview its plans at the committee’s AGM in November. However, he understands the development will use former council land at 41 Cheshire St for a second access to its development, which is zoned to allow buildings of five and eight levels fronting the railway. He is heartened that the architects are Warren and Mahoney, who also designed the King’s School Centennial Project, and the Pt Resolution-Taurarua Footbridge.

Smail says Summerset is contacting neighbours, the Waitematā Local Board and Parnell Community Committee to view early building plans for the village. A community meeting will be held and Summerset will ask council to publicly notify the resource consent application.

Trying to defend the oaks was a frustrating and disappointing experience for Graham Roberts, part of the group of homeowners at Gibraltar Cres, which overlooks the Waipapa Valley. He recalls that in two years of trying to engage with Summerset, executives gave little information on the plans.

“Quite a group of us gathered before Christmas and we gathered 2400 signatures for an online petition, a significant number considering 4700 people live in Parnell. We asked the developer to wait for the council to process an application for the trees to be added in the schedule of notable trees.”

Robert believes the timing of the removal was strategic, when many people were out of town in very early January. On the day, he sat under the trees, with others, in the public area.

“Obviously, I had an agenda. We did put ourselves in harm’s way and we told them we were.” Protesters called the Police.

Summerset says the work was done safely and within the law q the hobson 17

the village

and WorkSafe NZ is not taking action.

Waitematā Local Board has supported restoration of the Waipapa Stream and is an advocate for opening the greenways route from The Strand through the old Parnell Tunnel, alongside the railway track and through Summerset’s land. Board member Adriana Avendano Christie sought information on the December 3 notable trees application for the Parnell Community Committee. On December 13, she advised the trees were not in the council’s Urban Ngahere context. In a reply to Niue, she said: “There is no upcoming plan change to review Schedule 10 to include additional trees. A resolution was made at the April 2019 Planning Committee meeting that the incoming council consider the timing of a full review of Schedule 10 within the context of Urban Ngahere (forest) work and resourcing considerations. Until the new council resolves to initiate a full review of Schedule 10, your nomination will be kept on file.”

Graham Roberts says protesters were fired up by the irony of the trees being chopped on Ngahere Tce, given that ngahere means forest in te reo Māori. He was sent an old picture showing when the terrace was the gateway of a forest. “The developer is saying it will plant 75 trees but they won’t be 100-year-old trees and they won’t be there for the benefit of the residents already in the area.”

Councils have limited ability to control the removal of trees not on the Schedule 10 of notable trees. In 2018, the board led the movement to increase the tree canopy in urban Auckland by up to 30 per cent through the Urban Ngahere (forest) strategy. The board had a report showing 65 per cent of the tree canopy was lost from private land in the 10 years to 2016, with half of that loss due to small-scale removals from thousands of sites.

“Parnell has lost something wonderful,” says Niue. “Thank God for the Domain forest to keep the natural environment going.”

— Wayne Thompson p

WHO’S MOVING IN? Several local groups, including Remuera Heritage, have expressed interest in using the empty retail space at the top of Victoria Ave vacated by NZ Post. Since the Post Office closed up in October, the space has gathered dust and is one of several in the neighbourhood that stands empty.

The building’s owner was not contactable by The Hobson to discuss expressions of interest, but Ōrākei Local Board chair Scott Milne says despite some inquiries, the board has no plans to lease the space for community purposes.

Likewise, no consents have been granted for any redevelopment of the site next door at 4 Vicky Ave, where the Citizen’s Advice Bureau (CAB) was previously located. Auckland Council via Panuku, its property arm, has requested tenders for the site.

“Consent was granted for one five-level tower with up to 20 apartments on the land of 4A, situated behind the old CAB,” says Iain Valentine, until recently chair of the Remuera Residents Association. “Panuku is handling the sale of 4 Victoria Avenue but has been very secretive. Tenders were requested by a real estate agent on behalf of Panuku, and opened and closed within two weeks with no advertising.”

Across the road, there is more activity, with ongoing works and refurbishment of the Village Green shops and properties fronting Remuera Rd, owned by developer Greg Wilkinson. Ōrākei Local Board member Troy Churton circulated an email late last year saying more demolition was expected around the precinct, but The Hobson understands there is renovation work ongoing, rather than wholesale demolition.

One of the newly refurbished sites, on the corner of the arcade at 405 Remuera Rd, will open as a daytime café operated by Blerta Rakovica, who with former business partner Buki Prekazi, started the popular Remuera Local Bistro Café, and then Artusi Cucina restaurant in the Village Green.

Commenting on the works (Wilkinson doesn’t talk publicly), Remuera Business Association chair Adrian Barkla says: “Basically that whole area will be cleaned up and it’s a ‘wait and see’ what goes in there. I know the owner simply just wants to make it right and I’m confident that it will only enhance Remuera.” Built around 1902 as the depot for the Remuera Road Board, the brick heritage buildings in the Village Green became an Auckland City Council depot and for a period, the Remuera Fire Station.

Plans revealed last year for the Village Green redevelopment showed the upgrading and strengthening of the historic parts of the complex, enhanced open areas and six new spaces created for hospitality and speciality retail. No date has been given publicly for completion. — Mary Fitzgerald. p

LUNCH | DINNER | DRINKS 1-3 St Marys Rd, Ponsonby ~ 099504855 the hobson 18

MEET THE BOSS Why did you stand for this role?

Because I believe I have the skills, knowledge, experience and outlook to develop and implement good decisions for the city centre and the inner suburbs. I want to help make Auckland a better, safer and more enjoyable place for all its residents, visitors and businesses to live, work and play in.

What board portfolios are you responsible for?

Community development and parks, and sport and recreation.

What do you consider to be the top two projects you will initiate and complete in your role to directly benefit the community?

The redevelopment and activation of Heard Park to be a great space for people who live in or visit Parnell. And developing and progressively implementing the Laneways Plan in Newmarket.

Tell us something about yourself that will surprise your community.

When I was 14 I won the Auckland Astronomical Society Prize for my research project on ‘The Moons of the Solar System’.

Both of the local boards which cover The Hobson’s neighbourhoods changed in membership at last year’s election. In our JanuaryFebruary issue, Mary Fitzgerald posed questions to Ōrākei Local Board chair; this issue, it’s the turn of Waitematā Local Board chair, Richard Northey What neighbourhood do you live in, and how long have you lived there?

I live in an apartment in Hereford St, off Karangahape Road in Newton. I have lived there for two and a half years. I moved there from Onehunga and have previously lived in Churton Street in Parnell.

What is your working background?

I have been a city councillor and an MP. I run a consultancy for public and community sector organisations. I have worked for the Arts Council as local authority liaison officer; for the Internal Affairs Department as community, recreation and youth adviser; for Auckland University as lecturer, first in political studies and then in planning, and as a builder’s labourer.

If you were prime minister, what would you do to improve Auckland?

Give council and Auckland residents the power together to decide their own future, rather than having transport and other big issues decided instead by CCOs. What is your favourite escape in Auckland?

The Central City Library.

Tell us a little about your family.

My wife Robyn has worked in health all her working life. She’s been a dental nurse, and manager of aged care and disability services, and recently retired after serving nine years on the Auckland District Health Board. Our son Andrew lives in Remuera and runs a software development business, and our daughter Fiona lives in Singapore and teaches primary school. Our youngest daughter, Miranda, lives in Melbourne and is a radiographer. We have eight grandchildren. p

582 Remuera Rd, Remuera Auckland 09 520 3119 | staff@sibuns.co.nz www.sibuns.co.nz

the hobson 19

the village

Artworks by Oliver Stretton-Pow on show this month at Kinder House, Parnell.

Above, Racing Axes, left, Doing Time

AT THE BAY Ōrākei Local Board hosted a family fun day at Ōrākei Basin in February. The board wanted to showcase the area after its recent investments in improved boardwalks, paths, grass tracks and bridges. The day’s activities included a sausage sizzle, garden games, miniature yacht races and water-skiing demonstrations. p KINDER’S SURPRISE CABINET OF CURIOSITIES The rooms and garden of Parnell’s Kinder House will host an exhibition of works this month by Waiheke-based sculptor Oliver Stretton-Pow that mix fact with fiction.

Long intrigued by early 19th century interactions between Māori and Pākehā, Stretton-Powell spent his childhood fossicking around the historic Kerikeri Stone Store, where his parents were the last proprietors.

Nine wunderkammer – little wonder rooms – will be sited within the Victorian interiors and gardens of Kinder House, built as the headmaster’s house for the grammar school which once stood on the opposite corner of Ayr St and Parnell Rd. Sculptures will be displayed as if they were found objects, excavated from the site. Mimicking artefacts, these creations are arty-fictional, appearing like resurfaced lost relics. Visitors will be encouraged to get physically involved in rearranging the works.

One of the wunderkammers plays on the honorary doctorate of divinity later awarded to the first headmaster, the teacher, artist, and minister Reverend John Kinder. Peering into a repurposed Gladstone bag, notes a guide to the exhibition, visitors can contemplate the utility of its complement of deities, soul maps and other accoutrements for operations in the field of divine intervention. What Kinder might make of it is anyone’s guess, but today’s visitors will find it a lot of fun.

Make History opens at Kinder House, Ayr St, on March 1, and runs to April 30. p

FUNDING LEAVES THE STATION Remuera Heritage and the Remuera Railway Station Preservation Trust are battling for funds to keep up with restoration and maintenance work required on Remuera train station buildings.

The 1907 station building and 1909 signal box on the Market Rd platform have Category 1 designation with Heritage New Zealand, and are the country’s finest remaining example of an ‘island’ station. The signal box, which retains many of its original workings, is one of only two remaining unmodified and in situ, according to information on remuerarailstation.org.nz. The exterior of the

the hobson 20

the village

George Troup-designed station building has previously been restored, but the interior, which retains much original period detailing, has not been and has been closed to the public for 50 years.

“The interior is in reasonable condition

but now the exterior, restored in the 1990s, is also deteriorating,” says Remuera Heritage chair Sue Cooper. “But the owner, KiwiRail, and lessee Auckland Transport have declined to contribute anything.”

Remuera Heritage and the Preservation

Trust have applied for grants funding to council, Foundation North and the Lottery Grants Board, but have not been successful.

Another round of applications will soon be underway. p

Music is important to many people — it often defines the era we grew up in, or a time in our history. When we plan a funeral with a family, there is often substantial discussion about what music we should have for the beginning of the funeral, what should accompany a slideshow, what they should be carried out to, and what hymns (if any) will be sung. We had one family where we all sang along to “Edelweiss” as it was a song they sang in the car as a family – something many of us could relate to. “My Way” by Frank Sinatra, ‘We’ll Meet Again’ by Vera Lynn, and the duet from The Pearl Fishers all invoke a time and place for many families. Recently, we conducted a funeral for a 90-year-old where he was carried out to “Dancing Queen” by ABBA, his favourite band. It was a true celebration of life.

At Aroha Funerals, our personalised approach ensures each family are treated with compassion and empathy.

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the hobson 22

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the councillor

Desley Simpson

2

020 has started off as 2019 ended; busy, busy, busy! In February I attended the sod-turning ceremony to begin construction to upgrade the walking and cycling facilities on Tamaki Dr, on the seaward side between Quay St and the Ngapipi Rd intersection. This is a shared NZTA/Auckland Council-funded project which will separate cyclists, who will now have a bidirectional off-road cycleway away from pedestrians on the other side of the grass berm and pōhutukawa, all while keeping the existing traffic lanes and widths. To find out more about the project and its delivery timeframe, you can go to the AT website and find it in the ‘projects-roadworks’ section.

I was also very pleased to see the Clonbern Rd carpark in Remuera resealed and available for use before school went back.

The project was meant to take eight weeks to complete but only took three. The real winner for me though is that the parking spaces are wider and longer than those previously. Over the next two to three years the site will now be prepared for sale, noting any future development must include 200 carparks for community use. Huge thanks to the Remuera Business Association chair and members for their advocacy and patience before and during works.

There are to be parking changes in Parnell too. After considering feedback from the Parnell community, AT has decided to implement several changes to improve parking availability by increasing turnover and discouraging commuter parking. Thank you to all who took the time to place feedback — the outcome reflected your response and hopefully will improve availability of parking. For more of a detailed overview of the changes, again you can look on the AT website in projects-roadworks.

Now is the time we ask for your feedback on council’s Annual Plan. This is your chance to voice your perspective on regional issues and the priorities for your local board area.

Rubbish and recycling continue to be a challenging area for

council. Sadly, compared to other world-leading cities. we have low rates of recycling and reuse of waste (35 per cent). We need to continue to find ways to mitigate this and make good decisions around our waste services.

So, what is being proposed? In the Annual Plan, we are beginning to look for ways to reduce the amount of rubbish in our landfills. Preventing further cost to our environment will inevitably require some financial cost – like the proposed rise in your annual waste service charge. Unlike many other areas of Auckland who operate on a user-pays system, our area will still have a fixed annual charge. The charge is proposed to rise from $130 a year to $144, but still works out to be 25 per cent cheaper than areas who have a payper-lift system. I am sure you are all aware of the increasing global pressures around waste management, which obviously impacts the market costs for both collection and disposal. Despite this, council managed to negotiate a waste management contract that was best value for money and at a reduced cost to what we had anticipated.

The budget also has a proposed average increase in rates from 2.5 per cent to 3.5 per cent. While increases are never particularly welcome, this will remain one of the lowest rates increases of the major urban councils (Tauranga is proposing 11 per cent). On top of that, our area will, for the first time in a while, benefit hugely from some large infrastructure projects.

But nothing is confirmed! You can give your feedback for any part of the budget either online or in person, and will find dates and venues for relevant events on the council website, aucklandcouncil.govt.nz, under the ‘Have Your Say’ tab. The consultation period closes on March 22. As you all know, I do listen to and appreciate your views.

Desley Simpson is the Councillor for Auckland representing the Ōrākei ward

Open Day Saturday 7 March 9.30am–1.30pm Enrol now parnellcollege.acgedu.com the hobson 25

the politicians

Paul Goldsmith

A

David Seymour

T

s we kick into election year, I’m optimistic. Not just for my party’s prospects, but also for our country’s longterm prospects. Sure, there are many causes for alarm out there: at the time of writing it’s hard to know how economically significant the coronavirus outbreak will be. Trade wars, droughts, international tensions may create problems.

But if New Zealand is well governed, we have the agility to get through whatever is thrown at us and continue to do well.

Our primary critique of the current government is that, despite all their fine words and announcements, their poor performance has meant that we have missed the opportunity to succeed. Despite enjoying export prices at the highest levels in generations, our economy is only muddling along at two per cent growth. Private sector investment – the true driver of growth – has been held back by added costs, massive policy uncertainty and a gathering sense of government incompetence.

Until now, the by-word for that incompetence has been KiwiBuild. Phil Twyford and Jacinda Ardern’s promise to build 100,000 houses collapsed into a farce. Ms Ardern’s intervention into the occupation at Ihumātao has directly stopped more houses being built than the entire $2 billion KiwiBuild project so far.

But that is rivalled now by the collapse of the government’s transport policy. Most people celebrated at the start of the year when the government announced they would invest in building some roads – including a second route south along Mill Rd and a few others in the Auckland area. But we should recognise that the announcement represents an abject abandonment of their previous transport policy, after two years of failure.

The transport policy for the first two years of this government was to stop all of National’s roads, which Phil Twyford and Julie Anne Genter portrayed as evil and misguided, and replace them with the grand light rail project down Dominion Rd. Two years later, at this time, we are still none the wiser as to what the purpose of the light rail project is – rapid public transport to the airport or urban regeneration down Dominion Rd. Commencement is years away.

Meantime, no progress was made on anything else. The critical rail projects which everyone agreed needed to happen – a third rail line between the port and South Auckland, and the electrification of rail to Pukekohe – stalled. Two-and-a-half years into government, the government has panicked and abandoned its policy and returned to National’s – proudly announcing it will build the roads.

Remember, big infrastructure projects are a bit like the old lawn mower – easy to turn off, but a devil of a thing to start again. People, skills, capital and equipment have been allocated elsewhere and have to be regathered.

And Aucklanders naturally look at Labour and the Greens and feel that their heart really isn’t in the new announcements. The Greens are livid that roads are back on the books and will do their best to thwart the plans. Everyone knows that Jacinda Ardern is world class at announcements, but simply can’t deliver.

Aucklanders, meantime, just want to see progress on transport.

The critical East-West Link is nowhere to be seen. The National opposition will have a strong story to tell as the year unfolds, building on our track record of delivering major projects.

ravelling in the United States over January, I listened to the Senate impeachment trial as I drove. What would America’s founding fathers make of it? Closer to home, what should we learn from it? The founders had studied the classical republics’ declines. Some of them had spent time in pre-revolutionary France.

Most had fought for independence from the English monarchy. They founded a republic fit to resist the tyranny of the mob, the King and the guillotine.

If the Democrats were right, Trump had to go. He bullied a foreign power (Ukraine) into kneecapping a domestic political opponent (Joe Biden). No society with self-respect or standards should tolerate such behaviour. But the facts and testimony were irrelevant to how senators voted on impeachment. The President has said he could shoot someone in Fifth Avenue and his supporters wouldn’t flinch.

The majority of (Republican) senators know the same voters also elect them. Thus they couldn’t uphold the constitution in the face of the mob rule it was designed to restrain.

We shouldn’t be smug or complacent about this stuff. We currently have two parties under investigation for electoral donations, one by the Serious Fraud Office and another by the Electoral Commission.

Two Beehive employees have remained directors of lobbying firms while working in ministers’ offices with full access to Cabinet papers. Winston Peters can’t fill out a government form properly, and perhaps more worrying is the ongoing mystery of how that fact became public. Then there’s Shane Jones. A company including Winston Peters’ partner and his lawyer’s son sought grants from his Growth Fund, but he forgot meeting them.

I predict President Trump will win again. His economic policies are delivering for the people who elected him. Of course, running fiscal deficits at the top of the economic cycle is nuts, but it should keep the party going until October. After that all bets are off. John Maynard Keynes may have been an irresponsible socialist, but even he said to run deficits in bad times, not at all times.

One of the greatest political ironies of this year is that Jacinda Ardern’s fortunes are tied to Donald Trump’s. She also needs the world economy to stay strong until October, she just doesn’t have quite the same power to make it happen, so she’s counting on him!

We are also riding high for a fiscal fall. You need only look at the Treasury’s forecasts for government spending. They produce two forecasts a year for the coming four years. The pre-election Economic and Fiscal Update (EFU) forecast $86 billion in government spending for 2020. The 2019 December EFU forecast $94b. After three years of working with the current government, Treasury have increased their prediction of government spending by $8 billion. After forecasting a $6b surplus back in 2017, their latest forecast is for a $1b deficit this year (if you’re paying attention, revenue forecasts went up $1b to balance it all). Your IRD account is the shock absorber for all of this. The election will decide whether it reverses, continues, or even accelerates.

This year I’ll be appealing for your vote on the basis of fiscal restraint and upholding our democratic ideals. I hope you’ll choose me to continue representing you as the MP for Epsom. I appreciate the National Party want you to vote for me but I have always believed I must earn your vote personally.

Paul Goldsmith is a National list MP based in Epsom

David Seymour is the MP for Epsom the hobson 26

the investment

The Economy, Stupid

T

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I am looking forward to getting underway and right back into assisting you with your property needs, whether you are looking at buying or selling.

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he Trump impeachment process has been intriguing to watch on many counts. I don’t think anyone was surprised that the Democrat majority US House of Representatives voted to impeach President Trump (completely on partisan lines). And although the Senate is yet to vote as I write this, it’s pretty clear that no-one will be surprised that the Republicanheld Senate will vote to acquit. It’s simply fascinating, the workings of the House and the Senate, the impeachment definition, the political establishment and the media.

But, by the end of this year; as we know the outcome of the 2020 US Presidential election, the impeachment process will be revealed as the political sideshow that it was, as the Democrats continue to scramble for anything to stop or even slow Trump’s considerable momentum and vote support.

James Carville was a strategist in Bill Clinton’s 1992 presidential campaign against incumbent George H W Bush, and he coined the phrase “The economy, stupid”. The US economy was in recession and the Clinton team relentlessly hammered the weak state of the economy as the main reason to unseat President Bush – and it worked. Here we are in 2020 and again it’s “the economy, stupid” which will be the centre of the Trump re-election campaign but this time, not because it is in the doldrums, but because it has been a screaming success under President Trump.

Here’s what the headlines and slogans will be, and why President Trump will win a second term: Almost four million jobs created since election including 100,000 in manufacturing.

Record high employment numbers. Strong overall GDP growth of 4.2 per cent last quarter. New unemployment claims at 49-year low, and all-time low unemployment rates among African-American, Hispanic-American and Asian-Americans.

Women’s unemployment at its lowest rate in 65 years, and youth unemployment at its lowest rate for nearly 50 years. Median household income at an all-time high. Effected the biggest package of tax cuts and reforms ever in the US. Strong business and consumer confidence, healthy share markets (save for recent coronavirus sell-off) and reforming trade deals with China and Canada, Mexico.

On top of all this great and positive economic news there’s more achievements that have been well-received by the American people: the southern border wall is being built.

Space Force – a separate branch of the US Armed Forces was established. Space Force is the first new military service since the US Air Force was created in 1947. Despite its name, the new branch has not been established to protect the world from potential alien threats but is tasked with protecting the US military’s assets in space. The First Step Act was passed, an important reform of the criminal justice system aimed at addressing mass incarceration, lowering recidivism and enhancing rehabilitation. ISIS was defeated.

All of the above will be highlighted as reasons to again vote for President Trump in the upcoming elections in November. And it’s a pretty compelling set of achievements, both economic and non-economic – that I suspect will see him home.

Voters back pockets are typically drivers of election outcomes all around the world. The American worker, taxpayer, consumer and investor have had a pretty good three years and it would be very unlikely for them not to vote for more of the same.

What or who do the Democrats have to offer? It’s the economy, stupid. — Warren Couillault

the suburbanist

A Rung Up

S

ome time ago, I found myself in my thirties and discovered I had forgotten to buy a house. Everyone else had, years before me, but somehow my life in the theatre had distracted me. It was easier then – both lives in theatre, and buying a house. Interest rates were higher, but houses were cheaper, and the property ladder leaned gently against a wall, the bottom rung only a step away. Then, after years of selfemployment in the arts, I got a job, a real one, in education with a salary and everything; a job I could safely tell my parents about.

I didn’t think much about buying my own house – a deposit still seemed years away.

A good friend, Suzanne, sat me down and told me how to get a deposit, fast. Armed with details of my salary, she advised I should go to my bank and ask how much they would lend me, if I had the wherewithal for a deposit and – more critically – what the weekly repayments would be. This figure would likely be way more than what I was then paying in rent. The next step was to set up a ‘house account’ and pay into it the potential mortgage amount and take out my rent. The residual amount would sit there and earn interest much more quickly than if I frittered away my good intentions with unnecessary spending. The discipline of this way of saving also meant that when I did buy a house, I would already be used to paying the amount of the mortgage repayments.

Extraordinary advice and I often wonder where I might be now, had I taken it. Things change, the world moves and within 10 years I did have my first – albeit very small – house, perhaps not what might have been had I been the furious, diligent saver Suzanne had hoped me to be. Other things change, including interest rates and house prices and if I were approaching 40 now with no savings, I would never hope to own my own house. The ladder is now so high I wouldn’t be able to reach the bottom rung even if I jumped. I have from time to time sat down a succession of young people, mostly in their twenties, and dispensed Suzanne’s advice with a fervour that made it my own.

Millennials – if you have to call them something, and I don’t – get a bad rap about their financial habits but recent research shows that they are better savers at the same time of their lives as Gen Xers. In spite of the escalating price of housing there are now more ways to get a house, the advice above notwithstanding.

YouOwn is a New Zealand start-up that facilitates co-ownership by partnering with buyers to purchase a home. Essentially you buy a portion of a property that you can afford immediately and YouOwn owns the rest. After five years you can buy out their share in total or part. Initially you might have a five per cent deposit and YouOwn will top up an additional 15 per cent and arrange finance. The fee for this is an equity charge of 4.95 per cent on the portion they have invested – not the total purchase price. It’s kind of like a friendlier version of a second mortgage.

Buyers need a total household income of $120,000 and the five per cent deposit, which could come from savings or KiwiSaver. If you are eligible, YouOwn works with you to find a bank to provide the loan and helps with the process of finding a home and securing it.

The Ownery is another NZ company with a slightly different model, where you can start saving for a house with as little as $500, which buys you shares in a company that owns a house.

The idea is that you are buying shares in the real estate market, so your savings grow at the same rate as the market. When you are ready to buy a house you can trade in your shares.

What makes YouOwn and The Ownery different from the options available in previous years is that it is based on coownership and opens an alternative pathway to home ownership; a stepladder to get you closer to the bottom rung of the ladder the rest of us are teetering on. — Tommy Honey

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the teacher

Welcome the New

W

ho doesn’t like anything ‘new’? A new year as well as a new decade offers an opportunity to decide on some pretty exciting resolutions. You know the ones I mean; the ones you have been meaning to set (and keep) for several years.

Well it’s a “now” moment for me and that’s just what I have done although I do realise that a New Year resolution is vastly different to setting a goal. The hardest thing in all of this is staying on track.

I know many of you will enjoy this statistic and will identify with it: up to 60 per cent of people abandon their New Year’s resolutions within six months, and 25 per cent abandon them within a mere seven days! Resolutions really don’t work for many of us but why do we need to restrict these to only one time of the year? It is better to go to the next level and get serious about goal-setting, if success is your plan.

US politican John L. Buckley’s quote “Most people don’t plan to fail; they fail to plan” is a good reminder of why planning and setting goals results in success.

This brings me to thinking about our students and what this year, and decade, will look like for them and how they will want to plan for this by setting some realistic goals. Even our tiniest students are able to learn to set goals that are age appropriate and quite short term (for obvious reasons at that age), but our more senior students are well able and should set longer-term, and short-term, goals that will help to keep them on track to achieve what is required of them within their year group.

School will have been back for a few weeks by the time you read this and all the nervous excitement will have settled down, so this is the perfect time to be cementing realistic goals for the year.

A great first step is to reflect on the previous year and to understand what worked, and what didn’t. A goal without a plan is merely a wish, and research confirms that setting student goals improves both motivation and achievement. For younger students it is important for them to understand the difference between a goal and a wish!

Research also suggests that if students write down their goals, they are 42 per cent more likely to achieve them. Writing them down not only forces clarity on what exactly is required to accomplish success, but it also plays a part in motivating students to complete tasks necessary for success.

Knowing how to set — and achieve — goals is undoubtedly one of the most beneficial skills we can develop. Without setting and staying on track with these set goals, one can end up leading a much different, and often disorganised, life. Boredom and dissatisfaction can be a result of lack of planning. Well-planned goals encourage us all to be stretched and to become better in every facet of our lives, bringing with it increased satisfaction and fulfilment in both professional and personal endeavours.

There is no doubt about it that students (or any of us) who set realistic goals, and constantly revisit them to make sure they are on track, achieve very well throughout the year. Canadian educator Laurence Peter summed this up nicely with his quote: “If you don’t know where you are going, you will probably end up somewhere else.”

I wish you all a successful new year with your children at school. A new year, a new decade, a new school/teacher and in many cases, a new uniform, all bodes well for a great 2020. New beginnings are always exciting and the path to success for the year involves lots of thought and lots of planning in the first few weeks. Schools are well set up to support their students all the way through at every level and every stage. And I encourage you to involve yourself in your child’s school activities as much as you can — it is greatly appreciated by the school and a wonderful way for you to meet the community you belong to. And it’s in these years that your children will set up life-time friendships. — Judi Paape

Amazing futures

Open Day Saturday 14 March

Register: stcuthberts.school.nz

the plan

Singled Out Activities

A

relatively significant portion of The Hobson catchment is in the Residential - Single House Zone. By virtue of the nomenclature many of us, with good reason, think it means one house per site and that is about it. Add a picket fence and some fenestration on the veranda and you have the ‘Single House Zone with a Special Character overlay’.

Well, dear readers, the Single House Zone (SHZ) is a whole lot more. Under the Auckland Unitary Plan (operative in part), permitted activities in this zone include that single dwelling, and an accessory building – think garage, pool cabana, shed. And you can have a minor dwelling up to 65m² and run the house as a home occupation (which includes a commercial sex premises for up to three workers).

However, there is more that may surprise you and give rise to why the Single House Zone is a misnomer. As well as the above, on the same site at the same time, subject to meeting the development controls you could also have, cumulatively, ‘visitor accommodation’ for up to 10 people inclusive of staff; boarding houses for up to 10 people, again inclusive of staff; care centres accommodating up to 10 people per site excluding staff ; and the conversion of a principal dwelling, existing as at September 30, 2013, into two dwellings.

Now it is unlikely that all of those activities would or could occur simultaneously on a 600m² site, but a suitable combination may be a house and five motel units, or a house and a small boarding house. Now that busts the myth of the zone only being for a villa and a garage, with a little sleepout out the back.

In short, the SHZ — the urban residential zone with the least development potential — actually can lead to sites developed for a range of activities and buildings we may more associate with commercial zones or those residential zones where the rules are more liberal, no resource consent required.

The elephant in the room is the IRD. Not in this case the taxman, but ‘Integrated Residential Development’. In short, this may be a retirement village (think Rawhiti Estate), or a care home (think Caughey Preston) or a multi-unit residential development (think Endymion, the three level brick apartment block at 90 Remuera Rd). In the SHZ, as a discretionary activity, on sites over 2000m²

and after going through a vigorous resource consent process, these IRDs may occur.

Of those three examples, and based on context, location and the size of the site, I think all three fit into their environment and would also integrate well in SHZ, especially considering the other wide range of permitted activities.

The Ōrākei Local Board, led in this case by member Troy Churton, are seeking a Council plan change to make IRDs noncompliant in SHZ areas. Churton was quoted recently on Stuff as saying “the issue is the Unitary Plan has opened up more areas for Integrated Residential Developments. We’re not trying to say get rid of such developments necessarily. But they need to be considered non-compliant in SHZ areas”. Churton went on to say that if SHZ areas weren't protected, developers could be given free rein to exceed density limits if they owned a site of 2000m² or more.

And he insisted that the board's proposal wasn't another case of NIMBYism. “However,” he said, “it will make it a lot more difficult if a developer wants to put 70 units on a site where only four units are allowed under the zoning. And that's in everybody’s interest.”

I call this NIMBYism (Not In My Backyard) of the highest order.

Based on the examples above and then finding a suitable 2000m² site in an SHZ, or trying to accumulate such sites, and then going through a vigorous resource consent process, there are not going to be many IRDs applied for, let alone approved. You may not like the idea of an IRD, but when viewed against what else could be undertaken in an SHZ without a resource consent, it all appears a bit knee jerk.

So I say Troy Churton is a NIMBY. But is that a bad thing? In last year’s local body elections, he received the most votes of those standing for the Ōrākei Local Board. We the people backed him! We are also NIMBYs. The numbers do not lie — Churton is protecting our patch knowing the people are behind him.

Given that within the SHZ lurks a three-person commercial sex premise, a 10-person motel and a care centre for up to 10 people all as a permitted activity, I say, let’s start a petition to change the name of the Single House Zone to the ‘Single House and More Zone’.

— Hamish Firth

OL I V E R S T R E T T ON -P OW

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the hobson 32

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the second act

OK Boomers, Let's do It

L

ast issue, I encouraged you to choose a word for the year, a theme that anchors the year and keeps you focused on a particular shift that is calling. It seemed to strike a chord with people, many of whom have shared with me their ‘word of the year’ that came to them during a period of contemplation.

These words range from ‘soft’ and ‘discipline’ to the ingriguing ‘tone’ and ‘surface’. Each word means something to the owner and serves to get them back on the path when life sends them off-course.

This month, I am stepping it up a notch and wanting to consider a ‘theme of the decade’. We are now well in to the new millennium — it’s almost a shock to consider that we are in the ‘20s. A century ago, the western world, led by the USA, was embarking on a heady ride to modernity fuelled by jazz, booze, technology, economic growth and new gender dynamics. While it was all to come crashing down on one black Tuesday in 1929, for a long time the ‘Roaring Twenties’ represented an era of optimistic change.

One hundred years later we seem far from optimistic. While there is a lot to be proud of in the world, the creeping orange skies that eerie day in January reminds us that any advances in humankind are set in a cataclysmic context which seem to beyond an individual’s sphere of influence. Or are they?

The ‘theme of the decade’ is different from ‘word of the year’ in that I am pondering a theme that is not just about the individual — but how they play in the world, and, importantly, how they might contribute to making it a better place.

This idea of choosing a deliberate decade theme from the outset was inspired by a colleague who noted that most decade themes are created retrospectively or even at the height of an era, versus being an intentional beginning. For instance, no-one said in 1920: “Let’s make this the Roaring Twenties.”

But what if we raised the stakes, and became intentional about what this decade could be about? A theme of the decade needs to be both meaningful and inspiring. A ‘Decade of Climate Action,’ as much as we need it, sounds serious and overwhelming. The ‘Decade of Mindfulness’? Again, while

needed, it seems too passive in light of what’s going on in the world.

My colleague had been inspired by a talk she attended by a social insights researcher who boldy dubbed the 2020s as the ‘Decade of Doing’. This doing-ness is, and will continue to be, fuelled by a subset of millennials and Gen Z (that some call Generation Do) who are already rising up to to challenge outdated modes of doing things, with direct action. I have long been a huge admirer of groups like Generation Zero, a youth-led organisation who have taken positive action to be part of the conversation on civic matters such as housing and transport, and now climate change and carbon pollution. And I am as admiring of Greta Thunberg, standing for what she believes in, as I am fascinated by the hordes of white male baby boomers who want to shut her down — why? So we can continue to follow their lead, which got us in to this mess in the first place?

Aside from active protest, my belief is that these younger generations will bring on societal change by voting with their wallets and influencing with their consumer choices and new behaviours. When my daughter announced her veganism last May, which was a personal action to to put her money where her mouth is and acknowledge climate change, I admit to some inward eyerolling. Now, through her quiet resolve, the meat consumption in our household has probably reduced by at least 75 per cent.

I was toying with a ‘Decade of Radical Recycling’ or ‘Conscious Consumerism’ but there is something about the simple idea of the ‘Decade of Doing’ that really resonates. It forces a conversation about action, rather than mere opinion.

Already it has made me look past my garden variety fear and laziness to say yes to a new venture that looks at social change more closely, as well as to commit to a research project on a subject that I feel needs to be explored and shared.

So ok, boomer, how about you? What are you going to DO in this decade that is different to the last decade — and how might this make the world (versus your fabulous lifestyle) a better place? — Sandy Burgham

Yes, even Mahé needs a navigator.

J U S T N O T O N T H E W AT E R

GUIDING, GROWING, AND P R O T E C T I N G YO U R W E A LT H

H O B S O N W E A LT H .C O. N Z | 0 8 0 0 74 2 7 3 7 Hobson Wealth Partners Limited (FSP29782), is an NZX Advising Firm. The disclosure statement for Hobson Wealth Partners is available upon request, free of charge.

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the author

Identifiably Ann At 92, Remuera’s Ann Gluckman has produced another book offering a deep and rich insight into Auckland’s Jewish communities. By Kirsty Cameron

O

ver her joyous, sad, eventful, richly-lived life, Ann Gluckman has worn many hats.

A science graduate when women were not exactly encouraged into the discipline, she has been an educator — the first woman appointed principal of a co-ed public secondary school — wife, mother of four sons, writer, community advocate, and recorder of Auckland’s Jewish heritage.

At 92, she’s physically more challenged than she’d like to be — “this is an inheritance from my maternal grandmother” she says with mild annoyance of a spinal issue that requires her to use a walker outside her home.

Physical robustness aside, she’s still burning with the energy of Ann Klippel, the keen-eyed girl with the brown curly hair lauded in the Auckland Star in December 1944 as both head girl and dux of Epsom Girls Grammar School.

Her third volume documenting Auckland’s Jewish heritage, Identity and Involvement Volume III: Auckland Jewry into the 21st century, has just been published.

The 460-page book shares stories of Jewish life and perspectives, many of them contributed by names

recognisable to any reader and of engaging content to anyone interested in the cultural fabric of modern New Zealand. She had no intention of creating this third volume, but it presented itself as a project.

“As I reached 90 I started to get very depressed, because while I still drive and I still play bridge, I found that physically I was becoming limited in things I love doing, such as tramping on the West Coast, or walking on the beach at Piha. A doctor said to me, ‘Ann, you need something to do that will really keep you occupied’.”

Self-described as “not really an afternoon tea or cocktail party lady” it became clear to Gluckman that what she needed was an intellectually stimulating project. So she began gathering notes for what would be the third tome in the Identity and Involvement series: volume one was published in 1990, and the second in 1993. (She also authored the popular Postcards from Tukums: A family detective story (2010), which thanks to a cache of postcards discovered in the attic of the Klippel family home in Lucerne Rd, took the family story of her mother, Dr Augusta Klippel, née Manoy, out from the shadows.)

Ann Gluckman photographed at her Remuera home by Stephen Penny

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For Identity and Involvement III, she brought in coauthors: Deb Levy Friedler grew up in Auckland (her mother is the family therapist and author, Diane Levy) and is the granddaughter of Holocaust survivors. Married to Auckland Hebrew Congregation rabbi Nathaniel Friedler, she has been involved in many Jewish community organisations, had worked as project manager and just as handily, had a wide network for tapping potential contributors. “We worked splendidly together, despite the 60 year difference in our ages,” says Ann. In turn, Deb introduced a friend, journalist and author Lindy Davis to the project, for a professional editorial hand. “I wanted the ideas of much younger generations to come though, so Lindy was very involved in this,” says Ann. 2020 is an auspicious time to launch such a book, Ann and Lindy note in their shared introduction, which follows a foreword by former PM John Key. This year marks 180 years since the Auckland Hebrew Congregation was established by David Nathan, the first service held in his Shortland St store. Poignantly, it’s also the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, the concentration camp where close to a million Jews were killed during the Holocaust, which took an estimated six million Jewish lives.

The 120 contributors to Identity and Involvement offer the broadest sweep of Jewish experience, from family stories of migration, heartbreak and new beginnings; to considerations on Israel and Zionism, belief, atheism, philosophies, philanthropy, vignettes of conversion, and of particular interest to Ann, interfaith dialogue. For the secular, there’s also a helpful glossary.

There was also impetus to record recollections for the younger members of a small population.

“There’s an enormous change in religious thought everywhere post-war, and it’s accelerated greatly,” Ann says of the timing of the book. “And although there are changes within the Jewish community in Auckland, it’s shrinking.

“The number of Jews in New Zealand is very small, but this is a community that has contributed a lot to New Zealand. In the latest census figures, there are no more than 7000 Jews in New Zealand and there never have been more than that in any census period.”

Whereas getting contributors to the first volume of Identity and Involvement — commissioned to mark the sesquicentennial of the Auckland Hebrew Congregation was challenging — for the third book the authors were able to draw from within the community and beyond. Writers

include children’s advocate Dame Lesley Max, Listener columnist and author Diana Wichtel, historian Paul Moon, and many who are descendants of Jewish families who shaped New Zealand in myriad ways: Nathan, Robinson, Levene, Fisher, Friedlander.

Most of NZ’s active Jewish community are based in either Auckland or Wellington. Auckland has the bigger population, and has two synagogues — the larger is the Auckland Hebrew Congregation (AHC) based in Greys Ave, and the smaller, Beth Shalom, in Manukau Rd. While both are ‘liberal’, the AHC is orthodox and Beth Shalom

EGGS Form 6A ('the Upper 6th' or today's Year 13/7th form) in 1944: from left, Muriel Falcon, Florence Wilks, Ann Klippel (Gluckman), Ethne Wylie, Anne Thompson, Margaret Bigelow

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the journey

a progressive community — women are not separated within the synagogue. Last year the AHC, of which Gluckman has been a member since her family settled in Auckland in 1934, announced it had purchased the Saint Kentigern School for Girls’ site (formerly Corran) in Remuera. It plans to relocate the synagogue and Kadimah School from Greys Ave to the St Kents’ grounds in 2024. Given the modest size of both communities — the AHC numbers around 500 families — there are suggestions that both could be based on the new property, sharing facilities if not temples, a proposal Gluckman agrees with, for the long-term benefit of both groups.

Advance copies of the book have garnered praise — historian Paul Moon contributed a chapter, “Identity, history and endurance”, and took the time to write to Ann when he received a copy, commenting that it is “that rare category of book that will be regarded as a treasure by those who own a copy, and the community, as well as the rest of the country owes you a great debt of gratitude for this accomplishment”.

The book was due to launch in late February at a ceremony at the AHC by the new Race Relations Commissioner, former Gisborne mayor Meng Foon. Many of the Gluckman clan would also be on hand to support their matriarch.

Ann and her late husband, physician and pyschiatrist Dr Laurie Gluckman, had four sons. The eldest, the eminent medical researcher Sir Peter, was for nine years to 2018 the government’s chief science advisor.

His wife Judy, is a direct descendant of David Nathan. Ann and Laurie’s second son, outdoor enthusiast John, has recently retired from farming.

“He’s climbed the highest peaks on every continent. He’s skied to the South Pole, now he’s going off to do the North Pole if he can. All sorts of mother-frightening experiences.”

The third son, Philip, is a third-generation medical practitioner in Auckland. (In 1922, his grandmother, Augusta, was the first Jewish woman to qualify in medicine from the University of Otago.) Tragically, the youngest of the Gluckman boys, David, was killed in a car accident in 1979, shortly before he would have finished his law degree, which was awarded posthumously (see the extract from Identity and Involvement, following page).

The three surviving Gluckman boys have contributed eight grandchildren ranging in age from nine to 42, and four great-grandchildren. Photos of all are neatly arranged on a bookcase in Ann’s immaculate apartment, which looks across a sweep of Remuera, to her and Laurie’s former home in the Pines apartment tower on the side of Maungawhau Mt Eden. Sitting on her balcony, colourful with tubs of potted hibiscus flourishing in the afternoon sun, she can enjoy the view: “I never had time to enjoy it when we lived in the Pines, as I was busy working.”

After teaching and a period as deputy principal at her alma mater, EGGS, Ann was appointed principal of Ngā Tapuwae College in Māngere, the first woman to head a coed public high school. She also completed further education, adding a BA in Religious Studies to her MSc, and served on the Middlemore Hospital Ethics Committee, and co-chaired the Auckland Council of Christians and Jews amongst other community engagements. She was awarded an OBE in 1993 for services to education and the community. Now Identity and Involvement III is published, will she start gathering notes for a fourth volume? “No! I’ve promised my children to write about their father. He was always too busy to do it, so I will.”

Don’t count on seeing Ann Gluckman lingering at the afternoon tea table just yet then.

Identity and Involvement Volume III: Auckland Jewry into the 21st century is published

by Renaissance Publishing, and available at good booksellers now. RRP $50 the hobson 36

Ann Gluckman, far left, with honoured guests and staff when Nga- Tapuwae hosted a visit by the then Governor-General Sir Paul Reeves (at rear) and Lady Reeves (centre)

My Road to Belief In this edited extract from Identity and Involvement Volume III: Auckland Jewry into the 21st century, author Ann Gluckman writes of her shaken faith following the death of her son.

M

y father died two days after the Day of Atonement in 1964. He was a really good man, and I felt a great resentment at God, because the Day of Atonement service, as I interpreted it then, would offer another year of life after sincere repentance. (In his will Dad had asked for the words ‘I BELIEVE’ to be inscribed on his tombstone.) Then, when our youngest son David was killed in an accident in 1979, also two days after Yom Kippur, I felt a deep rejection of faith – this literal view of God as a stern arbiter was untenable. This rejection was fuelled by what happened at David’s funeral and afterwards.

David was a very easy child. He had gone to St Kentigern College, a Presbyterian school, since intermediate, as we felt it not easy to follow his three older brothers to Auckland Grammar where, we learned, the same masters often compared the brothers against Peter’s very high academic achievements. David was a typical Kiwi all-rounder. He was a good student and a fine cricketer and golfer. He did the Duke of Edinburgh Award programme. At school he had to take Religious Studies, at which he excelled: one day the rather dour headmaster, the Reverend Adam MacFarlan, rang and said, ‘What would your rabbi say if a Jewish boy won the prize for the best Religious Studies pupil in the senior school?’ David was very active in Bnei Akiva [Jewish Zionist youth movement]. He shared Laurie’s and my interest in Māori. They went further than I did, as both were actively learning Māori from a noted Māori elder. David was the first Pākehā to enter a Māori speech contest, and when he was doing his law degree he did two papers in Māori. By then I was already principal of Ngā Tapuwae College in Māngere, where most of the students were of Pacific Island origin, and David often came to the school and spent many hours tutoring some of the pupils.

He got on particularly well with the two native speakers of Māori who were on the staff, Kepa and Pani Sterling, who were Ngāti Porou, a tribe with a very proud history. They built a marae on the school grounds which, years later, they developed into a separate Māori Immersion School. In the year before his death David spent three months in Israel with AUJS [Australasian Union of Jewish Students], including time on Kibbutz Erez.

The evening before he died we had sat on the sunporch steps at Lucerne Road and wondered if we could both be capped at the same ceremony – I with a Massey Diploma in Educational Administration, and he with his LLB. He still had to sit a final paper in the following week, to gain admission to the Bar. Months earlier he had started work as a junior in the firm of which David Robinson (now Judge) was the senior partner. That night he went to a friend’s birthday and was coming home when a car came around a corner on the wrong side of the road; David’s car swerved to avoid it and went into a lamppost. David would have been coming down Ayr Street hill at considerable speed. Laurie and I had heard an ominous bang about 1 am. At 3 am there was a loud knocking on the front door. I looked in David’s room. He was not there. There was a policeman at the door! Forty years on I regularly wake at 3 am, having heard the knocking in my sleep.

The accident was written up in the Herald, as both Laurie and I were both well known in our respective work. David’s funeral

was held at our home in Lucerne Road. The service was taken by the Hungarian rabbi who had been recently appointed; Laurie and I had never met him. The house was packed mainly with David’s friends. Suddenly there was an uproar – the Māori choir at Ngā Tapuwae had arrived in the school minivan. They had not told anyone, including Laurie and me, they were coming. They wanted to sing the 23rd Psalm. They had known David and loved him. But the rabbi refused to start the service with them in the room. Beyond that I have no recollection of the funeral. David Robinson gave a short but meaningful oration, which he sent to us later. David and Margot’s graves were among the first in the new Jewish part of Waikumete cemetery. We did not sit shiva, it had not been the custom in our small family. That we did not sit shiva is something I now deeply regret.

In the few days after the funeral we were visited daily by colleagues and friends, mainly not Jewish. Laurie and I were so involved in our respective careers we had had little time to socialise to maintain Jewish friendships – what a tragic admission. I was numb at first, and then despair and frenzy found outlet in intensive involvement with work. The love and demands of family assumed a new meaning.

As a result of these events I have come to think differently about many things. I am certain that one of the things that had happened as a result of living in what was then a predominantly British society is that many Jewish people became indoctrinated with the idea that it is wrong to show emotion, and that restraint at all times is proper. I am sure that the traditional mourning customs of our Jewish forebears were therapeutic and wise, and of course there are interesting parallels with Māori and other indigenous customs. In adopting the customs of the majority in New Zealanders I think some Jewish people have cast aside much that is of intrinsic value. I learned a lot from the many, often tragic Māori tangi I attended.

In 1979 Harold S Kushner’s book When Bad Things Happen To Good People was very much recommended. It did not help me.

I read everything I could about understanding how God could allow such things to happen. It gave no answer to me. In 1980, in search of an understanding of how others perceive God, I enrolled extramurally for a BA in Religious Studies at Massey University.

The readings and the essays and the residential courses greatly widened my horizons. The two week-long residential courses, three times a year, brought me into contact with people of many different races and religions, and differences within religions.

At this time I had already been teaching in multi-ethnic schools for six years. I had found that to be able to teach disadvantaged newcomers to New Zealand successfully, one had to get to know and understand their background, so these courses expanded what I had learned from experience.

At Massey I was exposed to ideas that were formative to me, including those of Wilfred Cantwell Smith (The Meaning and End of Religion, Fortress Press, 1964) who defined a religion as the duality of cumulative tradition and faith. I, personally, replace the word faith by belief. I strongly believe that each person’s belief is unique and the product of life experiences. At different stages in life belief may wax and wane but, to a theist, it is never extinguished.

Edited extract reproduced with permission from Identity and Involvement Volume III: Auckland Jewry into the 21st century (Renaissance Publishing)

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the creative

Maker, Mover, Shaker Remuera’s Lyzadie Renault designs beautiful, sustainable luxury items for the home — and the world is wanting them. By Hélène Ravlich

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Lyzadie Renault at home in Remuera, on a cabinet of her own design, and with several vases from the hand-blown 'Cloud' glass works

the creative

W

ith bachelor’s degrees in arts, architectural studies and architecture (with honours), and a soaring international career as a furniture and product designer, it’s safe to say that in the creative world, Lyzadie Renault can most definitely be regarded as a triple threat and then some.

Sitting in her Remuera home surrounded by an allNew Zealand art collection and her own creations, she is a passionate Kiwi despite having lived all over the world.

Born in New Caledonia to a French father and Melanesian mother, she spent her formative years between New Caledonia and France before the family made the move to New Zealand in her teens.

She would often spend school holidays visiting with her mother’s people in the Petit Couli area of New Caledonia, which she says made a major impact on her very early on.

“To witness people still so entrenched in the traditional ways of nature and connected to the land was a real eye opener,” she says, “and it definitely informed my lifestyle and my work.”

A keen student, she originally planned to complete a Fine Arts degree but became fascinated by the structure and process of architecture. After three years of architecture school in New Zealand, she and her husband, Michael Pollard, a lawyer, relocated to London in order for Lyzadie to attend the “best architecture school in the world,” which had been the training ground for her hero, Zaha Hadid.

Called the Architectural Association, it was where Iraqi– British architect, Dame Zaha Mohammad Hadid honed her craft. She went on to become a force to be reckoned with in the architecture world, and a recipient of the Pritzker Architecture Prize and the UK's most prestigious architectural award, the Stirling Prize (twice), before her premature death in 2016. Lyzadie loved the fact that the school encouraged Hadid’s passion for drawing and establishing a connection with the hand, “which made much more sense to me than working with [computer drawing programme] CAD, much more emotional and organic”.

After returning to New Zealand she threw herself into work as both an architect and mother to four children, now aged between four and 14. Lyzadie then made the shift to furniture and product design just two years ago.

“My grandfather and great-grandfather on my French side were both furniture makers,” she explains, “and my father worked as a builder. I grew up helping him on building sites and seeing from scratch what a ‘maker’ could bring to life.”

Her own makers can be found the length and breadth of the country, and are integral to her work. “I saw how essential collaboration was in my father’s work and within my mother’s tribe when I was young, and how specialists in their field work together to achieve the best possible end result.” There is something innate in how a craftsperson handles their material that brings out the very best in its form, and at LyZadie Design Studio, they take great care when seeking out partners. A mutually beneficial relationship that has seen the work of New Zealand artisans showcased on the world stage, it is clear that in collaborating with these extraordinary craftspeople, extraordinary things are achieved.

Her work is greatly informed by the New Zealand landscape in its myriad forms, with a different aspect apparent in each of her collections. 2018’s Flow Collection was a collaboration with Treology, a business that rescues timber to give it another chance at life. “They remove downed trees from the rivers and fiords of New Zealand and craft them into beautiful objects that merge the line between luxury furniture and functional art,” explains Lyzadie, who is determined to raise the profile of local design. “As an architect I would always see clients wanting to spend money on Italian design or Scandinavian design, and I want to change their minds and show them just what can be achieved closer to home.”

She created a product offering that “reflects the soul of this country at all levels”, as evidenced by the aforementioned Flow Collection, which was directly influenced by the South Island’s legendary braided rivers.

The warm glow of molten brass twists and turns like a river through the timber base, heightening the glorious tones of the rescued river rimu used in each piece.

Clearly hers is a formula that works, with the studio invited to exhibit at Milan Design Week just over six months after creating their first collection. “I was so shocked,” says Lyzadie with a laugh, “I thought, ‘are we good enough to be here, really?’.” The studio will again exhibit in Milan at Design Week next month.

They were also invited to become part of an sustainable luxury community based in Europe, which was established to question what luxury has been in the past — and where it is going in the future. Using carefully considered materials is vital to the designer, who says “luxury shouldn’t cost us the earth. We believe in making a minimal environmental impact and in giving back to our planet rather than taking from it.” The studio’s sustainable designs use raw and natural rescued materials, and keeping production in New Zealand allows them to control the environmental impact of their process from start to finish. She has recently started working with Piñatex, a natural leather alternative made from cellulose fibres extracted from pineapple leaves. “It’s a biomaterial that will relieve pressure on the leather and farming industry, which we well know is not the most sustainable.”

“We have so much power as consumers,” she emphasises as a final note. “Where you put your money is what you want to see in the world, and for me that goes for everything from organic produce to considered and sustainable design.”

For more of Lyzadie’s work, see lyzadiedesignstudio.com or follow @LyzadieDesign on Instagram

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Lyzadie Renault in her Remuera home, photographed by Stephen Penny in her TUI armchair, one of her designs. The TUI is made from rescued - covered in PiĂąatex leather alternative and the 'feathers' are river matai, repurposed old bicycle inner tubes. Its creation involves three different maker workshops around the country. Inset right, Flow Collection side tables, inspired by the South Island's braided rivers

At right, a Lyzadie coffee table, part of the Flow collection. The family is renting this - Remuera house while they build in Orakei — the design of which is being overseen

by Lyzadie, formerly a practising architect

the educator

Straight Arrows A new school in Auckland’s east gives kids with learning difficulties the tools for success. By Gretchen Carroll

T

he purpose of the A1 Student school is to “return hope” to students, says principal, Pip Block. A1 Student follows the ‘brain retraining’ Arrowsmith programme, which addresses a wide range of learning difficulties such as dyslexia, dyscalculia, dysgraphia, auditory and visual processing disorders, attention difficulties and non-verbal learning difficulties. So while the programme isn’t specifically for dyslexia, about two thirds of students now enrolled are dyslexic, says Block.

The programme is also designed for individuals who don’t have identified specific learning difficulties but are challenged with issues such as organisation, processing, problem solving, communication, memory, and independence.

The cognitive exercises that are at the core of Arrowsmith were developed by Canadian educator and psychologist Barbara Arrowsmith-Young, who established the Arrowsmith programme in Toronto in 1980. Arrowsmith-Young’s ideas have attracted critics but for parents at their wits’ end with a struggling child, it’s nothing short of a godsend. “The change in my son has been profound since starting at A1 Student,” says a parent whose dyslexic young teen is now attending full time. “I’ve gone from feeling anxious and nervous, to confident and excited about what the future holds for him. Watching his development track so swiftly and quickly is nothing other than brilliant.”

Pip Block has been teaching for 30 years, and started using the Arrowsmith programme at Saint Kentigern Boys’ School seven years ago, moving from her Year 7 and 8 classroom teaching to become an Arrowsmith practitioner. As word of success spread beyond the school, she says it became clear there was demand to establish a stand-alone school.

“It’s been a steep learning curve to go out and set up your own school,” she says of the new campus, which is located in Kotiri St, St Heliers. “We’ve poured a lot of time, energy and money into setting up the school but the benefits are you can run it how you want it to be, and be autonomous.”

A1 is housed in a bungalow next door to St Ignatius School, and opened its doors in time for the start of term last month. The house was the former nuns’ accommodation, so there was a hive of activity during summer sprucing up the premises with new paint, carpet and inspirational phrases on the walls.

This year there are 18 full-time students aged between seven and 17 enrolled from across the city, and 12 who attend part-time (there is another Arrowsmith programme school in South Auckland). The part-timers are mostly Year 9 and older. They come after school, as for whatever reason they aren’t suited to be taken out of mainstream, or are only impacted by a few learning dysfunctions.

“It can be scary for parents to take their children out of mainstream but those students who are full-time like to come to school and are happier at home too,” says Block.

When students start, says Block, the priority is to get them happy first, build their selfconfidence and start believing in themselves.

“Dare to dream is the motto of our school,” she says. “Parents who come to us are often desperate and feel that something isn’t right.

I say come here for a year, and see if it doesn’t work – yet is always does, even after two weeks we notice a difference.”

When a parent approaches the school, Block assesses whether their child would benefit and wants to be honest about whether they can be a good fit. Like any non-integrated private school, it’s not cheap. After an initial phone call, a consultation with parents and child is $175, followed by a day-long assessment session. If the fit is right, it’s $19,000+gst per annum for full-time students. As a new private school, A1 is in a provisional phase with the Ministry of Education, but may become eligible for some funding in the future.

A1 Student employs two other Arrowsmith-trained teachers as well as Block, and two teacher aides. In the classroom, there is no time pressure to get through the curriculum says Block. Progress is made at the child’s pace, and generally, in a short space of time there’s improvement. “No-one has ever done worse” for being on the programme, she says, and some students have been “off the scale” in improving on their results. In the seven years she has been running Arrowsmith learning, only two children didn’t improve, and that, says Block, was because they didn’t complete the outside of school work — between 60 and 90 minutes daily homework is expected.

All the students have different timetables tailored to them and their age – the older kids are in one room and the staff rotate around.

Some tasks are completed on computers, others are audio; paper and pen; or reading. The small environment means the older students the hobson 42

are able to help the younger which is nice, says Block, because they often haven’t been able to do that in their previous schooling and it builds the individual’s self-confidence. “We are one big family and there’s no name-calling. We are in constant communication with parents and they don’t have to wait a whole term or year for feedback.”

The children earn “Arrowsmith dollars” as rewards for hard work, which they spend at the school on stationery, toys or special privileges.

“We give them the vehicle but the kids do the work. We want them to be proud, confident lifelearners. We are returning hope to kids, handing them a pathway to their future.”

A1 Student, 10 Kotiri St, St Heliers, www.a1student.com

School's in — Pip Block at her new Arrowsmith campus in St Heliers. The teachers and teacher aides are supported by Block's husband, Michael Block, who fufills admin roles

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the magpie

Fur Enough The Mapgie extends her designing eye to other creatures great and small

Shop from this site, or simply go there to lighten your mood and enjoy scrolling through the images of cute dogs and their owners dressed in matching outfits (the people-sized threads are also for sale). The Magpie couldn’t go past this Onyx Teddy Jacket, around $85 plus shipping. From shopdogthreads.com

Save the upholstery, the curtains and your sanity with a (hopefully) distracting and fun corrugated cardboard District 70 Can for the Gingerbread/Whiskers/Socks in your life.

Around $85 plus shipping, dogwithamission.nl

Tally-ho and pip pip! Don’t you look spiffing in your little Balmoral Check Tweed Collar. Hand crafted in England by Mutts & Hounds, it’s authentic Yorkshire tweed, with leather and solid brass fittings. Available in five sizes, from $105 at eightpaws.co.nz

So your pup has a fabulous bed, and you’re using a bog-standard leash? The Mapgie thinks not. Check out the Lumi Leash from BooHo. Not the cheapest but so, so well designed. It begins with the lightweight aluminum circular handle, anodised for a satin lustre. The strap — in tan or black — is Italian Buttero vegetabledyed leather, natch. Also available is an attachable leather doodad for the discreet carriage of poo bags. Leash, approximately $270, bag, $90. Find them at shop.design-milk.com

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Raining cats and dogs? Not to worry, just throw on this Karen Walker Animal Print Poncho for walkies. You, not the fur-baby. $85, karenwalker.com

The pet aisles of your local Kmart are a happy place, so take a trundler and go for gold.

Current season pet accoutrements include a Pet Toy Bin, $6, Quilted Pet Blankets, $12, generously-sized stainless steel Pet Bowls, $8 and a Cat Tunnel and Mat, $15, that looks like something even the notoriously picky Gingerbread might enjoy

Get in behind, Fifi! Even the most urban of breeds will feel the call of the high country in a Swanndri Classic Wool Dog Coat. Available in the heritage brand’s classic red/black or blue/black check, it has a pure wool outer with a fleece lining, oilskin pockets and a snappy turned-up collar to better protect against the icy winds of say, Hobson Bay. Available in five sizes, $89.95, swanndri.co.nz

An extension of the brand’s ‘Architect’ collection for two-legged types, Coco Republic’s Architect Dog Bed is as stylish as you would hope. The teak frame features hand-strung rope detail, brass edging and of course, a cushion. In two sizes: small, $895; large, $1525. cocorepublic.co.nz

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the sound

Packing it all In

W

ell this year is really charging ahead. You could even say it’s marching ahead, it being the third month and all.

For my family, the year has been frantic because we’re downsizing. Everyone says downsizing makes things so much easier. That may be so, but the actual process of getting to the downsized end point is a truckload of work and emotion, which have been anything but easy.

This is the month the move actually happens. There’s going to be a very stressful weekend, which is going to be made even more difficult because March is full of mad concerts and I booked for most of them, before I knew the move was on.

But sometimes you’ve gotta do what you gotta do. The first mad March concert I booked was Midge Ure and The Band Electronica. I’m amazed when I say “Midge Ure” how few people know who he is. He’s the guy with the slicked back hair and pencil moustache who hit the big notes with Ultravox and “Vienna”, a song and video that dominated Ready to Roll in 1981.

It really is a bonkers song and so pretentious and somehow plodding and exultant at the same time. I think that’s purely because of Midge’s remarkable voice, and I’m looking forward to hearing him do that live.

Midge also wrote and produced “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” for Band Aid, and was behind the studio band, Visage.

Visage came before Ultravox, and are most famous for their song “Fade To Grey”. Which was a piece of genius sung by nightclub star Steve Strange from London’s Blitz club, but all created by Midge. It came out in 1980. YouTube it — it stacks up today, 40 years on, played on the first synths.

So this gig is a piece of history. Here’s where it gets really bonkers.

Firstly it’s at the Powerstation. The Powerstation! A grimy 1000-person room in Eden Terrace. Where, it must be said, I’ve seen some amazing gigs, like Paul Weller and Hunters & Collectors.

But still it’s a long way from playing Live Aid at Wembley to the Powerstation.

Secondly, the support act is The Mockers. You know, Andrew Fagan in a gorilla suit singing “One Black Friday”, “My Girl Thinks She’s Cleopatra” (fantastic title), and “Forever Tuesday Morning” — that one a song written by my radio mate Gary Curtis after the clock stopped in his studio in Broadcasting House in Wellington.

Gary and I used to make ads together. Not quite The Mockers.

Thirdly, another support has been announced, and it’s Andy Dickson from The Narcs, the Waikato band who nearly made it. I go

all gooey for “Heart and Soul”. I played it on provincial radio and at discos in towns like Greymouth and Whanganui and have seen it cause mass pashing at an industrial scale.

So for 1000 people in Eden Terrace, this night is going to be very weird. Or maybe just for me. So that’s a Friday. The very next night I’ve also got a date. This time it’s A-ha. Yep. “Take on Me”. But wait.

There’s also Rick Astley. Yep, “Never Gonna Give You Up”. But wait!

There’s also The Beths, New Zealand's latest power pop indie super band, taking NME by storm. What . . . ? The Beths — and these guys from 35 years ago?

It actually makes perfect sense. I interviewed The Beths recently and asked them about it, and they love both Rick and A-ha. Honest, pure music.

And I reckon the A-ha fans will love The Beths. They too have pure honest music with a high degree of technicality, which is what you get when the members of a power pop band all have degrees in jazz performance. By the way, the night before they play wih A-ha, The Beths are playing with The Pixies. This is going to be a pretty surreal weekend for the young band.

A-ha will perform their entire debut album which actually is a killer. Particularly the title track, “Hunting High and Low”. This is a symphonic tour de force full of longing and enormous dynamics.

Quiet haunting passages, followed by crescendos that crash like waves. It’ll be great, and bonkers. (Do yourself a favour and watch A-ha’s acoustic version of “Take On Me” from MTV Unplugged to figure out what the song is really about.)

My crazy March fare doesn’t stop there. Icehouse is playing the Aotea Centre when they should really be playing Spark Arena. Pat Metheny is doing his warbly jazz thing at the Town Hall. I’ve always liked Pat, ever since his jazz group hired David Bowie to sing their song “This Is Not America”.

Not bad for a rope-in.

Speaking of Bowie, I saw him live in LA in 1990 at Dodger Stadium and his support act was a young Lenny Kravitz. I then saw Lenny in London at the Hammersmith Odeon. A couple of years later, I saw him play in a tent in Nice, France. This month, I’ll finally see him in New Zealand.

Then there’s one of the first punk supergroups, The Exploited, playing the Whammy Bar. The Darkness are also playing the Powerstation in March.

This is a crazy month of gigs from crazy bands and my dance card is full. And somehow I have to find time to move.

— Andrew Dickens

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the kiosk

Moving on - Business Card.pdf

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the cryptic by māyā

Due to a production error, the Māyā puzzle in January-February issue was published with the wrong grid. We apologise for any outrage or snapped pencils this caused. Here are the clues again, and the correct grid.

As fans of Douglas Adams know, the ultimate answer is 42, and all the across answers contain a term which relates to it (in some way).

This term is ignored in the clue's wordplay.

ACROSS 9/10/7 Search engine holds vase and two aliens (one half human) - tempted to spend it all?

(7,1,4,2,4,6) 11 The Stranglers: occasionally gross? (7) 12 Film of dancers swanning around, perhaps?

(6) 13 Ammonium nitrate, a Zen master’s riddle? (4) 15 Dave’s number related to pull to the north (5,2,6) 17 Sad not to have a mount (5) 19 One’s religion (5) 20 We forsake weed - it’s put in the attic (6) 22 Stan almost reached ancient city (6) 25 Marvellous Stan, an American actor (3,6) 26 Sound made by a clock, perhaps, at a festival (9) 29 Tip: try to evade opponents (6) 31 Old name for disease caused by exercise classes (6) 32 Test at half five (5) 34 Final Tuesday starts flexible, then firms up (5)

36 Ministry partly ignores inferior diamonds (7,6) 39 Bulbous protrusion to the east (4) 40 Contradictory or contrasting microchip (6) 41 Painters from rough area (3,4) 43 He played sitar with delicacy after exchange of Roman Catholic leaders (4,7) 44 The Spanish and their leader’s consortia (7)

DOWN 1 Mess room where you might find a hookahsmoking caterpillar? (4) 2 Piper, a betrayer with good manners? (5,7) 3 Gripped by panic, lose tenor by mistake (2,5) 4 Shape Stan developed to get game birds (9) 5 Wing structures made from metal and l’eau (liquid) (6) 6 Quantity of liquor taken by mum’s keepers?

(5) 7 See 9 Across 8 French article held by merchant raised the alarm (8)

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14 Flummox E, for example (not D) on the floor?

(5,3) 16 Type of fabric left on a small piece of land (5) 18 (Ideas set like this?) (5) 21 Doctor’s work, on paper, gives the amount that falls off (8) 23 Play 3Fs, et cetera? Results are delayed (5-7) 24 Music player’s hot with no spirit (5) 27 About a theatre in Devonport: it’s on Queen Street (5) 28 Elvis mag I distributed at about twenty (9) 30 New German Reaga’s related to little grey cells (8) 33 Relative’s little devil over musical pieces (7) 35 Article relative abbreviated to make a dissertation (6) 37 Chilean volcano hidden by rhinoceros (or not) (6) 38 Load unopened figure (5) 42 Exit, pursued by headless fairy, from contest to find the Ace of Clubs (4)

Set by Māyā. Answers will appear in our next issue, April 2020. Can’t wait, or need help? Visit https://thehobsoncrossword.wordpress.com

ACROSS 1 As capital of 3 is to 3 (4) 3 Miss Spooner’s paronomastic heaps (10) 10 Bombastic circle, round with inner junction (7) 11 Appearance of 20’s 1 across in vision (7) 12 I board the “Sea Eagle”, which chooses favoured holders of premium 20s (5) 13 Like 20, rend apart (9) 14 Off acting, lacking force (2,2) 15 Familiar terms, like Adam and Eve (5,5) 18 Villain on course to hold diamond queen (10) 20 A 25 resulting from the use of adhesive? (4) 23 Peers upset during date, like Dan? (9) 26 Island elicits exclamations of wonder and disgust, I’m told (5) 27 Where sugar coating may be found, say - by the bedroom? (2,5) 28 Breathing apparatus is sound, left holding 9’s heart (7) 29 Giant slayer giving support to Jagger, say (10) 30 Villain returning on road (4)

DOWN 1 Spectral head of bold Elf, unfortunately (7) 2 Snuggle up with Clinton and an inhabitant of Crab Key (9) 4 Siberian river with no IT? Something to chew over when the geologist’s crust is moving onto the plate (9) 5 Mopes around source of salts (5) 6 2, for example, rising between prince and knight when the sky begins to lighten (7) 7 Nymph irrelevant to rise of Welshman (5) 8 Go back into Asian dwellings possibly served by Shrublands (7) 9 1 down stole a couple, and perhaps sunk ’em at first (5) 16 Kidnapped writer and rocket scientist, they say (9) 17 Rocket to collect lunar leaves? (9) 18 Mild oath acquires things starting with Q (7) 19 Creator of 20 a heartless rodent? Noted (7) 21 “Oh-oh! It's 20’s authorisation to 14!” (6-1) 22 At least 7 of them have played 21-7 (5) 24 Southern States’ greeting to raw fish (5) 25 Like 18 across’s first love, not right for representative (5)

Both the answers to the January-February puzzle, opposite, and the March puzzle, this page, will be published in our April issue

the hobson 49

the district diary

March 2020 1 It’s Children’s Day and Uplands Kindy is celebrating its 50th anniversary with a service at Somervell Church, 10am, followed by morning tea at the kindy. Families and alumni all welcome! RSVPs appreciated for catering: info@uplandskindergarten.org.nz Head along to the I Want to Learn Coding and Robotics Open Day at Scratchpad, a world of creativity for kids aged 5-18. It’s free to attend and parents are welcome to try their hand too. From 1.30-3pm, Scratchpad Centre, 38 Lunn Ave. To register scratchpad.co.nz

Whether your child is a budding Picasso or newly interested in art, kids at all levels are welcome at Aquarelle art classes. For 5 to 10-year-olds, Meadowbank Community Centre, 29 St Johns Rd, every Saturday from 10-11.30am. aquarelleartclasses.com 8 Get together with other ladies who share an interest in photography at Camera, Coffee, Cake & Conversations. Bring your camera and your questions for this fun, small-group chat.

Big Fish Eatery, 40 Stonefields Ave, $38 (incl. coffee and cake), eventfinda.co.nz for tickets

at bowling. Family friendly, free to attend and play. Doggos (on leads) welcome too. 30 Melanesia Rd, Kohimarama, 9am-2pm 21/22 The 2020 New Zealand Backgammon Championship isn’t just for the pros; you’ll be guaranteed at least five 7-point matches against players from novice to expert. Lots of fun and a great backgammon learning experience. Auckland Bridge Club, 273 Remuera Rd, eventfinda.co.nz for tickets

2 Rock the night away at Live at the Museum.

Tami Neilson brings her blend of country, soul and rockabilly to the Auckland Museum’s grand foyer. $45/$55, ages 15+, 6.30-9.30pm.

See aucklandmuseum.com/visit 4 It’s open day at King’s School, Remuera.

Register at kings.school.nz to find out what King’s can offer your boys You can look AND touch artist Oliver Stretton-Pow’s sculptural works in the Make History exhibition, in the gardens of Kinder House, Ayr St, Parnell. Wed-Fri 12-3pm, weekends 11-3pm. Until April 30. (Pictured right, Whalers Decoy) 4-22 Don’t miss the NZ debut of the West End smash-hit play Emilia, featuring a diverse, all-women cast; it challenges Shakespeare as you think you know him. Anthony Harper’s Pop-up Globe Theatre, Ellerslie Racecourse, 80 Ascot Ave, eventfinda.co.nz for tickets, popupglobe.co.nz for dates/times 5 Baradene College holds its open evening tonight, 6.30pm. Start at the auditorium (Gate 2) to learn about a Baradene Catholic girls’ education.

Keeping on the subject of women, The Women’s Adventure Film Tour, presented

by Macpac, screens this evening, 6-8pm, at Rialto Broadway, ahead of International Women’s Day (March 8). The award-winning collection of short films highlights inspiring women doing extraordinary things in the name of adventure 7 Discover what an ACG education can offer your children. It’s Open Day at the co-ed ACG Parnell College, 2 Titoki St, 9.30am1.30pm, free entry, all welcome to come and experience the school environment

13 Epsom MP David Seymour invites you to have a coffee with former Reserve Bank governor Don Brash. 10.30am-midday, Augusta Café, 5 Normanby Rd. Free, rsvp to mpepsom@ parliament.govt.nz or (09) 522 7464 14 Enjoy the St Cuthbert’s College open day and experience what this leading girls’ school can offer. See stcuthberts.school.nz for information Experience the sights, sounds and flavours of the South Pacific at the 2020 Pasifika Festival.

Food, music, dance, arts and crafts. Western Springs Park, 731 Great North Rd, free, all ages, 9am-5pm 15 Brunch and Bowls is how they roll at Kohi Bowling Club. Sample the delights of Auckland’s best food trucks then have a go

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25 Epsom MP David Seymour hosts Israel’s ambassador to NZ, Dr Itzhak Gerberg, who will talk about the state of Israel. 10.30ammidday, St Barnabas Anglican Hall, 283Mt Eden Rd. Free, rsvp to mpepsom@parliament. govt.nz or (09) 522 7464 The Violent Femmes are back on Kiwi shores, playing tonight at the Logan Campbell Centre, 217 Greenlane West. 8pm, tickets from plus1. co.nz 29 Auckland Council’s Music in Parks rounds off the month of March with ‘Love Songs from the Underground’ featuring Hallelujah Picassos, Carb on Carb and Lucky Boy. Free, Auckland Domain Band Rotunda, 1-4pm

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7 Paraone Place, Omaha From the huge pivoting front door, this bold, clean lined, Hulena architect designed cedar home, opens to a gobsmacking vista that sweeps along a wide columned walkway and continues through grand living, across the lawn, over the dunes to a dazzling ocean panorama. Brent Hulena has created an iconic, timeless beachfront resort; a relaxing luxury party playground, where you can follow the sun in multiple indoor outdoor living areas. Built around a huge internal courtyard with built-in barbecues, pool and outdoor fire the totally secure, very private, six bedroom hideaway spans 446 sq m (approximately) of living on 1,089 sq m more or less site.

Fusing breathtaking beach style and innovation, it is a masterclass in design sophistication. Offered as a turnkey sale, the chattel list is extensive. A level playground size lawn invites children to play and walkways lead over the dunes to the beach and a short stroll to the surf club and shops. A versatile home that will suit couples who love to entertain, families seeking a fun lifestyle to retirees who require flexible work from home spaces.

And a grand opportunity to enjoy one of the most beautiful pristine sandy beaches in the world at your front door, in exceptional comfort, this is not to be missed.

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FLOOR AREA: 446 sq m (approximately) LAND AREA: 1,089 sq m (more or less) FOR SALE: By Negotiation VIEW: nzsothebysrealty.com/NZE11165

AMANDA PLATT M +64 21 756 699 amanda.platt@nzsir.com