Update on the New Zealand elections

It is eleven days since my last post, one of the longest gaps in the history of this blog even when I have been travelling.

The almost final election results in the New Zealand election confirm Winston Peters and New Zealand First as king-makers.  Either National or Labour/Greens in combination could form government with New Zealand First support. Australians would find this position unstable given the apparent belief in this country that stable government requires one party to have a clear majority. Even here that's a bit silly since the Liberal Party generally can't rule without National Party support.

In The New Zealand case, some form of coalition or power sharing is the norm. This can create instability, but New Zealand Government has been noticeably more stable than the Australian equivalents in recent years. Wayne Mapp has an interesting piece on the coalition process in the New Zealand Herald.

 Looking back, the last full post I did on the New Zealand elections was in 2008, Sunday Essay - New Zealand elections 2008.

There were several interesting features about that election. The first was the then electoral decimation of New Zealand First. Now Mr Peters is back with a vengeance. The second was the success of the Mäori Party in winning all the Mäori seats. This election saw Labour take all those seats. The third was the commentary that the election had seen the collapse of the minor parties with the primary exception of ACT New Zealand and the Greens. Exactly the same comments have been made this time,

In 2008, seven parties got at least one seat, this time it's down to five, with ACT just hanging on to one electoral seat. Labour and National remain as the lead choices for primary governing party. The Greens are unable to win electoral seats, but retain enough broad support to just hold their position in the mixed proportional system. I say just hold because their electoral support in 2017 seems no different from 2008. I haven't checked all the results since. Then there is scope for another populist party.

Interestingly, only the main parties now seem able to win electoral seats with the one ACT exception. The others depend upon their capacity to attract a national vote at 5% or above, the minimum necessary to get list candidates into Parliament without an electorate seat.

This creates very different dynamics to Australia in that the strategic aim is to get that 5%. There is less point in maximising your electorate vote if it comes at the cost of a lower national vote.        

What might be the Australian equivalent of the Haka?

Haka is used throughout New Zealand by many, not only Māori, to demonstrate their collective thoughts. There is a haka for each of the Services, as well as the Defence Force. Units with the NZ Army have their own haka. This video shows the soldiers of 2/1 RNZIR Battalion performing their Unit haka, powerfully.

Now this is a video clip of Prince Harry visiting New Zealand. Further comments follow the clip.


Regular readers will know that I am part Kiwi. I take great pride in that part. My New Zealand family has been involved in Māori studies and Māori advancement for almost one hundred years. I take pride in that. It has influenced me for much of my life and does so now.

One of the difficulties we have in Australia is that we have no equivalent of the Haka. In New Zealand, if you are a Pākehā, you can and should take part in the Haka because you are a Kiwi. You are not excluded. It is a national thing. An affirmation of common identity dating back to New Zealand's Māori past. In Australia, we treat Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal as separate domains. If you are non-Aboriginal, you do not belong in the Aboriginal domain except, sometimes, as an invited guest or, more often, as an observer of something like a smoking ceremony.

Australia and New Zealand are, of course, very different. They are now and were prior to European settlement. In New Zealand, I think that we can say with a high degree of certainty that the Māori connection will be an integral element of New Zealand life in one hundred years time. We cannot say the same thing in Australia for the Aboriginal connection. We just don't share enough, we have no common ceremonies, there is no way of admitting non-Aboriginal Australians into elements of Aboriginal life that might create shared ceremonial bonds.

I accept that this is a sweeping statement yet, when I look at the Haka, I feel that it is true.

Newman, Abbott and English - why NZ is doing relatively better

There is an increasing harshness in Australian political discourse that I find very unpleasant. I regard it as un-Australian, although it has happened before.

This is Campbell Newman. He is Premier of Queensland. Fresh from his bikie triumph in which the first persona arrested was a forty year old librarian mother of three, he now wishes to intervene in the Schapelle Corby case.

Whether or not Ms Corby (and the Australian media) have behaved properly is one question; this News report summarises some of the discussion. But what, on earth, has all this to do with Mr Newman? Is this a matter of public importance in Queensland? And, in any event, just because, I think that this is correct, Ms Corby lived in Queensland prior to her arrest, she is certainly not in that jurisdiction now. It seems to me to be a case of see instant political gratification, grab that gratification.

Then we look at Mr Abbott's language on the boat people, on the harshness of Mr Morrison's expression, We look at some of the language of Premier O'Farrell in NSW discussing changes to the liquor laws. 

Many years ago now, I was part of a special program, the Administrative Trainee Program, designed to train future leaders in the Commonwealth Public Service. We started with a residential school at Brassey House where we combined with the Foreign Affairs trainees. One element of the course was a significant component on ethics. Not rule based anti-corruption training of the type we have today, but a philosophical discussion that drew out shades of gray.

Wilfred Jarvis explained the techniques that the North Koreans had used to brainwash US prisoners. He looked at the reasons why Turkish prisoners were less susceptible to the brain washing techniques. We took Adolf Eichman as a case study of the quintessential civil servant whose job was to find the most efficient and effective way of killing Jews.

We discussed our role in serving a Government, in providing advice within the Westminster system. What did you do when you fundamentally disagreed? How did you avoid a series of creeping decisions that finally left you morally compromised? There was no focus on whistle blowing. Confidentiality of advice remained central. It had to be if you were to provide frank advice. Rather, the issue was when you should resign, to oppose outside the tent.

I suppose, in a way, that the core message was that the public or civil service was a vocation, a profession with its own rules and codes. Now I wonder a little just how Immigration or Defence Department staff cope in today's environment.

I said that these things had happened before, I could cite case after case. The interesting thing, however, is that history has judged most (not all) of these past cases harshly. The rhetoric is condemned, the injustices exposed. How could you do that, the historian or reader asks?

We remember our leaders because of the positive things that they have achieved, These become clearer with time.

Just at the moment, there is a high degree of admiration in Australia for the achievement of the New Zealand Key Government in very difficult circumstances. I share that admiration. However, in cherry picking those things that suit them, many in Australia ignore some key features of the New Zealand Government.

The first is that on social and moral issues New Zealand is, as it has been for many years, on the Australian left. The second is that New Zealand actually has a very pragmatic approach, In an interview in today's Financial Review with NZ Finance Minister Bill English, he said and I quote:" We're a suburb of Australia and Australia is a province of China." Those are the realities for New Zealand. The country is dependent on economic management in Australia and China, and can only respond as best it can. Australia has yet to learn this lesson.

Mr English's rhetoric and arguments about structural reform would be familiar to many on the "right" side of politics in Australia. However, he makes two points that would be less familiar in this country.

The first is the need for stability, the need to provide a framework that will allow individuals and businesses to plan. Take time, be careful, don't rush.  The second is the need to look after the less advantaged and those adversely affected by change. Focus on them, but keep to your core approach. I have called this sharing the benefits.

If you do these things. Mr English argues, people will come along because they see the emerging benefits.  Just give them time. That position is supported by the New Zealand public opinion polls.

This is not the Australian position. Here the atmospherics and the poison dominate.

This morning, Prime Minister Abbott  delivered a speech on closing the gap, on bringing Australia's Aboriginal people up to the level of the rest of the country. I have absolutely no doubt of Mr Abbott's sincerity. He has earned that right. His longer term commitment has been well demonstrated,  And yet, how can he expect people to identify with this issue when he is polarising so many? 

Well, it's time that I ended.    

Saturday Morning Musings - Kiwis and Aussies are family

Dinner last night with cousin Anne from New Zealand. Anne had come across the ditch in her official role as General Manager of Tourism Central Otago (TCO) as well as Deputy CEO of Central Otago District Council. We met at her hotel, and then wandered down to the Rocks for dinner overlooking the water.  

Anne has been actively involved in the creation of the Roxburgh Gorge and Clutha Gold Trails, and on the the eve of their official openings she had come to promote them at The Bike & Lifestyle Show Australia .

I have known the Pullar kids for much of their lives. Their mum was my first cousin, and I first met them when they were children.

This is a shot of three generations taken on the farm at Pukerau in Southland. I was taking the shot, so am not there. But Brother David is in the back between Roger and Elaine. Second right at the back is Aunt May, the Belshaw linkage. Anne is in the front, holding a doll up for display.

The kin links go quite deep, There are so few members of my immediate Belshaw family, just nineteen of us spread across three generations and three countries, that we all feel a little isolated. Not surprisingly therefore, Anne and I spent time just catching up on our shared family, talking across countries and time.

With exceptions (I draw the line at supporting the All Blacks!), I am quite happy to claim my New Zealand ancestry and call myself a Kiwi. Perhaps it won't surprise you then to know just how deeply I resent the attempts of Governments to divide us. In Australia, it began during the Whitlam years and continued most recently under the Howard administration.

Australia and New Zealand may be, in economic terms, a common market like the EU. but the barriers to the free movement of people between our countries have increased steadily, the differentials in treatment have grown as the rules become more complex. I so resent that. To my mind, the role of Government should be to facilitate, not impede, integration.

Does this mean special treatment for New Zealanders in Australia, Australians in New Zealand? Of course it does, and I see nothing wrong with that. Remember what the word "special" means in this case. It means that in Australia, New Zealanders should be treated as our own and, conversely, in New Zealand. We are cousins as Anne and I are cousins, part of the same close knit family. That's all.            

Sunday Snippets - China, enlightenment and the importance of hope

This morning's Sunday Snippets wanders around recent discussion on this blog and elsewhere.

On China Financial Markets, Michael Pettis' Revisiting predictions is worth reading. It looks at some of the predictions he has made on developments in the Chinese economy. I have been following Michael's writing for several years and this has informed some of the cautions I have expressed about the scale and likely duration of the present Australian mining boom.

Fellow blogger Paul Barratt is chair of Australia21, a non-profit research organisation which Paul helped to establish in 2001. In What does it cost to run Australia21?, Paul discusses the working of the organisation and appeals for donations.

In Is a desire for enlightenment (in the Eastern sense) consistent with Enlightenment humanism?, Winton Bates continues the cross-blog discussion centred around the ideas of civilisation and progress. Do drop in an leave a comment.

In Our lost blogging opportunity, the Lowy Institute's Sam Roggeveen returns to his theme that although Australia has blogs, it doesn't really have a blogosphere. I responded to Sam's initial salvo - Reader riposte: Australia's blogosphere. Since then, we have seen Larvatus Prodeo and John Quiggin drop out, twitterised so to speak.

Staying with the Lowy Institute, Graham Dobell's Kiwi or not Kiwi, that is the question discusses the current joint Australian and New Zealand Productivity Commission inquiry into closer economic relations between the two countries.

The disparity in Australian and New Zealand growth rates was the subject of an earlier conversation between Winton Bates and myself. I won't bother you with the links at this point. Personally, I think New Zealand would be crazy to give up its own currency for a common currency since I doubt that this would help bridge the gap.

It's actually been a while since I mentioned Club Troppo. There Paul Fritjer's Hope keeps people happy and healthy so dont always tell the truth deals with something under current discussion on this blog, the impact of perceptions. Paul writes: 

Interest rates in Australia have just been reduced by 0.5% in the hope that this will stimulate the economy. Will it work? Uncertain. But will politicians say it will work in the coming federal budget? Almost undoubtedly.

Perhaps displays of optimism are not such a bad thing, even if they are unwarranted.

In a comment on Saturday Morning Musings - perceptions and insecurities, kvd wrote:

I keep deleting what I'd like to write in response to this post. It is not that I disagree with your analysis; I think you capture the present mood very well.

More, it is a case of thinking what a dreadful waste of the present, that we spend so much time worrying about a future completely beyond our personal control. Maybe it is hubris which leads us to believe we have any such control?

These things are linked.

In discussions the other day, a friend quoted an Australian psychologist who said that human happiness depended on three things: territory, someone to love, something to look forward too. Hope and optimism are pretty important things because they help give us something to look forward too.

Perhaps that's a good point on which to finish this Sunday Snippets.

"Things were a lot looser then" - the New Zealand hippie movement

My thanks to Lynne for this one.

I was never a hippie in the true sense of the word, but like many of my generation I was strongly influenced by the hippie movement.  These four youtube videos tell part of the story of the hippie movement in New Zealand.  I think that you will enjoy them. I have inserted a few brief background comments between the clips.

I was eight when I first went to New Zealand. I returned eight years later, and then from 1970 visited New Zealand nearly every year. On those trips I stayed with family, at youth hostels and with New Zealand friends, so I was exposed to some degree to the trends presented in the documentary.

New Zealand is an interesting place. Very socially conservative, it yet had a strong social reform tradition that manifested itself in a variety of ways from the very early days of European settlement. Australians tend to forget that. Further, New Zealanders had and still have a closeness to the countryside that Australia has long lost.   

 

Australia dwarfs New Zealand in population terms. In 1970, the New Zealand population was 2,852,100, rising to 3,176,400 in 1980. In part because of that smaller population, in part because of the travelling young, the counter culture elements were more visible in New Zealand.

The Whole Earth Catalog was first published in the US in 1968 and became something of a bible. I remember one year when we arrived at the youth hostel at Kakoura (I was travelling with two mates) on the South Island, we found a group huddled around a heater drying flowers that the WEC suggested would give a high if smoked. One of the group was a long term resident at the hostel who used to run each day to the top of a nearby mountain to meditate and commune with nature. People were into that sort of thing.

Drying finished, the flowers were rolled into a joint and passed around among the group. A little later, we ran into one of the girls at the Queenstown YHA. She told us that they had apparently used the wrong flower; the high effects were totally psychological!      

The world changes. The emergence of hard drugs, the demands of family, conflicts between residents and drop-ins, the unremitting nature of the hard work involved in making an alternative life style work, all combined to bring the period to an end. Society, too, was closing up, becoming less accepting, more controlling, and yet at the same time more individualistic.  

Nostalgia runs like a thread through the videos. There is a sense of loss, but also sometimes bemusement at things done. 

Nationals win in New Zealand

November three years ago I wrote a full post (Sunday Essay - New Zealand elections 2008) on the results of the New Zealand elections, including an analysis of the electoral system. Yesterday's elections saw: 

• John Key's National Party returned to power
• Labor's lost seats quite heavily
• The Greens seem to have picked up four seats, but unlike Australia are still effectively locked out
• ACT, big winners from the last election in relative terms, are down to one seat with former Reserve Bank Governor Don Brash out of Parliament
• New Zealand First and the mercurial Winston Peters are back in Parliament after electoral annihilation last time.

For those interested in more details, the NZ Herald coverage is here.   

Saturday Morning Musings - economic turmoil, education, New Zealand & the Armidale Express

I am feeling a bit moody this morning, not really wanting to concentrate. It's part connected with the Australian papers; depression in talk, depression in mood. Not happy, Jan.

I find the detailed economic reporting difficult to read at the moment. Quite a bit of it is actually dominated by ideological positions of one type or another. I would find it easier if there was some re-weighting between specific analysis and attacks on opposing views.

I am not being especially critical. I just find it hard to read.

National planning for global downturn is the start of an attempt on my part to refresh my own thinking. I suppose that I am trying to define to my own satisfaction an approach that might actually allow Australia to take some advantage of its relatively strong position at a time of continuing economic turmoil.

I have had many goes at what I see as short termism in Australian politics; Belshaw's World - big issues missed in political discourse is a recent example. On 23 September, Opposition Leader Abbott outlined his approach to improved productivity. Outside the ideological stances that affect the varying approaches, I actually see little difference between the two sides in that both have a mechanistic focus on a small number of policy measures; pull this policy lever, push that policy bail and the sun will shine again.

I said that I was feeling moody!

In earlier posts, I discussed the mess that had been created for Australia's export education sector by (among other things) shifting Government visa requirements. During the week the report of the Knight Inquiry into student visa requirements was released. I quote from Bernard Lane's story in the Australian:

UNIVERSITIES will be allowed to entice foreign students with quick visa approvals and the right to two years of work after graduation as part of a reform package to stem further losses of overseas student income.

Immigration Minister Chris Bowen and Tertiary Education Minister Chris Evans said yesterday they would act on a remarkably frank report on Australia's education export industry by former NSW politician Michael Knight.

By mid next year, foreign students keen on an Australian university degree will have access to a new, fast-track visa system.

Those who are interested can find the full report plus Government response here. I haven't read it yet, but it's apparently a very readable report. Blind Freddy could see that something would have to be done, if only to counter successful competition from New Zealand's eight state universities!

One issue that I haven't looked at for some time is the relationship between the university and vocational education sectors. The latest changes again favour the university sector.

On New Zealand, I have often tried to point to the importance of that country to Australia. This is not just my Kiwi side coming out, nor am I talking solely about economics. Relative to its size, New Zealand has had a disproportionate influence on Australia. If you doubt this, have a look at this 2006 post of mine, Changes in Public Administration - the New Zealand Model.

As a small, open economy perched on the edge of the world, New Zealand is exposed to change in a way that Australia is not. As an example, consider this quote from a paper by Dr Andrew Butcher of the Asia New Zealand Foundation:

New Zealand, among Western countries actively engaged with the Asian region, has a significant Asian population. At the 2006 census nine percent of New Zealanders identified themselves as ethnically Asian and we can reasonably suppose that had the census been held this year we would see that percentage increase. Based on projections from the 2006 census, 16 percent of New Zealand’s population will be ethnically Asian by the year 2026.

I have said before that the changes taking place in New Zealand and especially in Auckland dwarf those taking place in the larger and more insular Australia.

Border myopia is an interesting thing, Just as most statistical analyses of NSW ignore the presence of the ACT (an absurdity), so analysis of Australia ignores New Zealand. Yet for many practical purposes, Australia and New Zealand form a single entity in social and economic terms. Of course there are differences as there are between WA and the eastern states, yet New Zealand change does flow on to Australia, if with a lag.

Changing directions, I was fascinated by a story on the ABC, Aboriginal DNA dates Australian arrival. I quote:

The finding, published today in the journal Science, rewrites the history of the human species by confirming humans moved out of Africa in waves of migrations rather than in one single out-of-Africa diaspora.

The study is based on a lock of hair donated to British anthropologist Alfred Haddon by an Aboriginal man from the Goldfields region of Western Australia in the early 20th century.

The genome, shown to have no genetic input from modern European Australians, reveals the ancestors of the Aboriginal man separated from the ancestors of other human populations 64,000 to 75,000 years ago.

Leave aside the rather breathless reporting with its modern attitudinal overlays. The key thing is that it suggests that the Aborigines arrived early and by a southern route. On the surface, the story actually fits with some earlier DNA analysis carried out in India that I reported on back in 2009, An Ancient Australia-Indian connection.

I do love the way that science allows us to lift the veil from aspects of the human past!

Finishing this post with a change in direction, my Armidale Express column Belshaw's World - the online myth discussed aspects of education delivery in the on-line world. A little later, the paper carried some remarks by UNE VC James Barber on on-line education that I thought were remarkably silly. That reaction may be unfair; I will review and write later. 

I have been arguing for some time with my Express editor, Christian Knight, that he has to put more of the paper on-line. I say this now because the Barber story is not on-line.

The Express is a slightly unusual paper because of Armidale's role as an educational centre. It's not just that I write for it, but so do many others. Here I want to quote from Janene Carey, an Express journo who has by-lined national stories from her Armidale base:     

I'm always surprised by how many people discount country journalism and don't bother to buy the local paper. I had lunch with an academic friend recently who seemed bemused that I'd want a part-time postdoctoral fellowship so I could continue working at the Armidale Express. She even asked me if I'd 'ever considered journalism as a profession?' - by which she meant a job on a "real" newspaper, a daily in the city covering serious, important stories.

Although the list of things that I'll be working on today by no means represent a typical day at the Express, tasks like these do come along often enough to keep me hooked:

1. Writing up the speech Walkley-award winning journalist David Marr gave in Armidale on Tuesday about the 'politics of panic' driving Australia's asylum seeker policies
2. Waiting to hear back from federal MP Tony Windsor about his reaction to what Armidale-based environmental activist Carmel Flint said about the bill he's just introduced to Parliament (it's aiming to protect water resources from coal seam gas exploration - something dear to Carmel's own heart - but she's called it 'a toothless trigger')
3. Interviewing former PLC student Fiona Simson, who in July became the first woman to head the NSW Farmers Association (largely on the strength of her campaigning against CSG exploration and its effects on food production) for a profile in our next glossy Seasons magazine

I reckon that sounds like an interesting day's work!

And indeed it does, Janene!

Christian, I will continue my campaign. You are downplaying your own paper, and its contributors!

On beer, rugby & the patterns of change

The acceptance by Australian brewer Fosters of a takeover bid from UK based SABMiller marks the end of an era. I quote:   

... former Foster's chief John Elliott, whose dream in the 1980s was to "Fosterise the world" by expanding into overseas markets, was aghast that the company was set to fall into foreign hands.

"They made a real mess of the whole thing and have done a dreadful job," he told The Australian last night.

"It is a disaster. One of the great Australian icons is now gone because of exceptionally bad management and an exceptionally bad board.

I have always thought that Fosters' troubles actually began with Mr Elliott, but he is right about both management and the loss of an icon. In memoriam.

Part of the research I have been doing on my history of New England looked at the process of industrial and structural change from 1950 and especially from the 1970s and 1980s. This is actually a subset of the change processes that affected Fosters clearly seen because of the way it worked out at local level.   

  Both the Australian and New Zealand media have been carrying stories about the abuse of Australian Rugby spectators by some Kiwis before and after the Ireland game. There is a bit of that, although it needs to be kept in perspective.

Again, we are dealing with a change process. The relationship between the two countries and its peoples has always been complicated.

As Australia got bigger relative to New Zealand, a degree of arrogance crept into Australian attitudes towards the smaller country, matched by resentment on the other side. The shift in Kiwi attitudes was quite sudden.

For a period in the 1960s and the first half of the 1970s, I visited New Zealand every year to stay with family. I still remember my sense of shock when I experienced anti-Australian attitudes for the first time. One year they were absent, the next quite pronounced, indeed hard edged. This was during the Whitlam Government's nationalistic little Australian period when the Government tried (among other things) to introduce controls on the flow of people between the two countries, arguing that New Zealand should not receive special treatment.

I was in the Australian Treasury's Foreign Investment Division at the time and it made me very uncomfortable at a personal level to be writing material arguing that New Zealand investment should not receive special treatment on the grounds of non-discrimination. I didn't like this denial of the importance of shared history and culture. It roused the New Zealand nationalist side of my own family history.

As I write, the Australian Government is bringing forward debate on its new refugee legislation. I see that Andrew Metcalfe, the head of the Immigration Department, is briefing cross-benchers.

My instinctive reaction when the Government first announced the Malaysian deal was positive (When perfection's not possible: Gillard & refugees provides an entry point to my then thoughts), in part because I saw it as an element in a broader regional approach. This was very much a minority view. Since then things have unwound to the point that I wonder whether any form of sensible solution is possible.

In my Armidale Express column of 9 September (Belshaw's World - big issues missed in political discourse) I expressed disquiet about what I saw as the hijacking of political debate by a small number of issues. I remain of that view. However, there is a further issue, one that I didn't comment on at the time.

In earlier September briefings, Immigration Department head Metcalfe is reported as saying, among other things that London and Paris-style social unrest would break out in Australian cities if 600 boat people arrived a month!

Beyond wondering just which country Mr Metcalfe lives in, it's clearly not my Australia, I was actually struck by the political nature of the intervention. In briefing, the role of the official is to provide information on policy. Ministers are meant to deal with politics. To my mind, Mr Metcalfe's reported remarks were actually  a breach of the Westminster Conventions. But then, I suppose that I am an old fogie!

Finally, Global economic gloom marks another stage in my renewed musings on the economic outlook. I am really struggling with some of the current economic reporting. I find the cacophony of daily reporting just plain confusing.

As anybody who reads this blog will know, I am by nature a framework person. I like structures that will help me understand. I read the economics stuff and keep saying to myself, I don't think that's right, it feels wrong. If I can't explain why I think that it's wrong, it becomes an itch that has to be scratched.

A lot of the stuff I write is represents my attempt to understand. Some of this can be pretty boring. But is does help me to understand.    

Random musings on family & New Zealand

Somewhat tired yesterday and still today. Not surprising, really. We got up to go to the airport yesterday at 4am NZ time, 2am Australian. Then for booking reasons we came via Melbourne, only to be caught in the security scare at Sydney airport, forcing the plane to sit on the tarmac at Sydney airport for an hour and a half. In the end, we didn't get back to home until around 4pm Australian time, making for a fourteen hour trip.

While in New Zealand I read Frank Walker's The Tiger Man of Vietnam. It's a good yarn, although I have some reservations about some of the analysis from an historical perspective.

Upon return, an excited youngest daughter showed me her autographed copy of Frank's new book, Ghost Platoon. Why excited?

It's not just the autograph, but there in the book is a map that Frank got Clare to draw as an illustration. There, too, in small print is an acknowledgement of Clare as the artist!

Frank was a senior journalist at the Sun-Herald in Sydney who took retrenchment and then decided to become a full time writer. He is now working on his first novel.

I was thinking this morning as I was writing this week's Armidale Express column, this one on the Rugby, that I really must get Clare to do some illustrations for me. I can't afford to pay her at the moment, so will have to rely on charm!

I was thinking the other day that my three girls, while all very different, are frighteningly competent modern women.

Apart from her other activities, Dee has just facilitated her first course for the Australian Institute of Company Directors, was interviewed as one of the talking heads on insolvency for the George Negus Show and is the official speaker this year at one of the Sydney University graduation ceremonies.

Helen took me to New Zealand for the Rugby, displaying her practical organisation skills. I really didn't have to do a thing. Helen is very like her Aunt Kay with a high degree of emotional intelligence, a calm demeanour in a crisis and a very, very, practical approach. I do stand a bit in awe of her and her gift for friendship.

Clare is different again, far more mercurial and over the place. Still firming up in some ways, she has quite high artistic talent, can be all over the place, but also has very high level organisational skills when she wishes to apply them. Like Helen, she is a natural leader.

All this may sound a bit like boasting, and perhaps it is. But I was also thinking of broader aspects.

One element is the need for me to change as my family changes, and that is not always easy. It's part of the challenge today when relationships are based less on traditional roles, more on individual negotiation.

A second element that has always interested me is the way in which varying personalities are formed through the combination of genetics, experience and personal interaction. This includes the way that gender works itself out, for boys and girls remain very different.

I listen to the sometimes very funny interaction between Helen and Clare and continue to be amazed at their memories for dialogue, for situation and for mimicry. Boys can do this too, but I think that the way that the girls do it is very much a girl thing.

In New Zealand we stayed with cousin Richard. Looking at Richard and his two boys, I was again struck by the variations in personality as well as the commonalities.

In Auckland, we visited the Auckland museum because I wanted to show Helen and Dylan, Richard's youngest, the big Maori war canoe that brother David and I sat in when we were kids. You can't do this now, but Uncle Vic Fisher was curator of ethnography at the museum and took us there one day when the museum was closed.

The photo from the Museum collection shows Uncle Vic on the Monteray. 

I have written before of the way that attitudes, interests and approaches flow down through the generations. This is partly due to family contacts and traditions, but it also seems to occur independent of that.

On the Belshaw side, the interest in history, economics and anthropology is certainly due to proximity and family connection. But the way that this played out across countries and time also seems to reflect a little more, perhaps something in the blood, for people with common interests tend to marry.

My girls are generally patient with me when I get into didactic, introspective mode. I guess that they need to be, for they live in the present whereas I want to show them something about the depth and complexity of the Belshaw and Drummond past.

Introspection is crowding in as I write, as memories of the past come back.

As a child, Vic was simply someone married to my aunt, not an historical figure. He was someone whom I met many times on my visits to New Zealand, less often in Australia. A gentle somewhat gaunt man, he taught brother David and I to play chess. I remember on that museum visit how he showed us how the Maori lit fires, We experimented on the floor of his office at the museum.

Over the years that followed, I listened to his stories. On my last trips to New Zealand before his death he was fascinated by the similarities between the Maori and Elizabethan England. Travelling through the South Island, he yarned about the way that both societies as wood using societies had similar phrases. Tough as old oak had a direct Maori equivalent.

Walking through the Auckland Museum, I remembered those conversations and other family connections. It wasn't just that Vic helped build the Maori and Pacific Island collections. The collections also referred to trade in the pre-historic Pacific, to the ceremonial exchange cycle, something that cousin Cyril Belshaw had written on. Many years later I drew from Cyril's work in my own honours thesis.

Then there was the broader material on the Maori. Here Uncle Horace Belshaw played an early role in Maori advancement. As part of this, Horace organised a Maori Young Leaders Conference in 1939. More than seventy years later and in my own limited way, I campaign for Aboriginal advancement. In the meantime, cousin Cyril created a museum display at the University of British Columbia on the Canadian Indians.

As I write, my train reading is Cyril's book Choosing our Destiny: creating the utopian world in the 21st century, an attempt to apply the lessons from his studies of anthropology to create a better society. This type of approach has carried through several generations.

  I will write about Cyril's book later. For the moment, I just wanted to note that the views common among the Belshaws  means that as a family we have generally had a left of centre focus relative to the societies that we have lived in. This photo from Rachel Barrowman's A popular vision: the arts and the left in New Zealand 1930-1950 shows a gathering at Piha. Horace Belshaw is second on the left.

Looking across the family as a whole, we are not left wing in the conventional sense. However, we do have a social concern that carries through to today that does mark us a left of centre in conventional terms. However, formalised ideology has always played a secondary role to the simple objective of human improvement. 

As so often happens, this muse has taken me away from my original starting point. Here I want to finish with a comment I made to Helen as we drove into Auckland from the airport.

In the 1920s, Helen's great grandfather David Drummond visited New Zealand. He was then a backbencher in the NSW parliament. Coming from Northern NSW, New England, he was struck by the number of bigger urban centres with their own universities and other facilities. He contrasted this with New England. Why, he asked, is this so? Why can't New England do likewise?

As we drove into Auckland,I remarked that a country with a total population about the same as Sydney had five airports with international flights, more universities than NSW, sporting venues that took the Rugby World Cup across the country in a way unachievable in Australia.

I think that David Drummond's question remains valid. Still that's another post.

Media round up on Australia's rim

Note to readers: This is a post that ran out of control. I have explained why at the end.

This morning, I decided to do a short tour of the media in Australia's immediate region.

New Zealand

Over the ditch in New Zealand, the New Zealand Herald has, not unexpectedly,  a fair bit of coverage of last night's Rugby test between New Zealand and Australia; the Kiwi's won 30-14. I watched the second half of the match. It was a fairly comprehensive win, but not without its good points for Australia.

Rupert Murdoch may be in a tad of trouble in the UK, but in NZ there is speculation that Sky may be able to buy cash-strapped rival TV3, as the Australian owners look for a way out of the channel's crippling $560 million debt.

A NZ Government report suggests that NZ small and medium enterprises are better at innovation than their Australian counterparts, although neither are especially good by global standards. From my own observations, NZ business has been more innovative simply because it has to be.

As in Australia, the response to the latest global economic troubles centres on good exports plus stable government. Finance Minister Bill English said New Zealand was better placed than many countries and, with debt staying below 30 per cent of GDP, there was no need to panic.

PNG

In Papua New Guinea, the National reports that new Prime Minister Peter O’Neill has announced a 14-member caretaker cabinet while calling on the outgoing government to respect parliamentary democracy in his election to the top post. The former Government seems disinclined to accept this view, despite the size of the vote on the floor of the House (70-24). Australian PM Gillard has rung the new PM to congratulate him on his appointment.

The trouble dates back to the illness of Sir Michael Somare. The Post-Courier has a more detailed account of the tumultuous events immediately before the election.

Meantime union leaders continue calls for repayment to the National Superannuation Fund of 125 million Kina ($A54 million) Kokopo infrastructure project. Kokopo became capital of East New Britain after the the volcanic destruction of Rabual. In other economic news:

• Plans by Japan’s leading Fishing company Ikegami Hiroshi International invest up to $US500 million in the Pacific Marine Industrial Zone (PMIZ) project at Bidar outside Madang were disrupted by the change in Government.  According to the Post-Courier report, PNG is the best fishing ground for tuna in the world and investors are flocking in. Existing licences issued by the National Fisheries Authority (NFA) indicate that Taiwan holds the highest number of fishing licences followed by the United States, Japan and China.
• INTEROIL and Pacific LNG Operations Ltd have clinched a deal to supply Noble Clean Fuels Ltd, a subsidiary of the Noble Group, with one million tonnes per annum of liquefied natural gas from the Gulf LNG project.
• Canadian company PNG Gold has raised C$38.4m to fund exploration and development work on the company’s Imwauna and Sehula properties on Normanby Island in Milne Bay and for general working capital.

In other PNG news, it appears that the PNG bid consortium has not given up hope of gaining a spot in the Australian National Rugby League competition, although it appears an outside chance. Rugby League is the most popular national sport in PMG.

PNG is a former Australian colony that gained independence in 1975. It is the closest country to Australia geographically,with parts of Western Province literally a canoe ride from Australian territory. Cairns is about  one hour 46 minutes flying time from Port Moresby.

Australian knowledge of PNG has declined since independence, something that I think is a potential problem. Among other things, the PNG population is projected to rise from around 6.7 million now to 13.5 million in 2050. What happens to that population in terms of health, economic and social development will clearly be important to this country.

East Timor

Moving west, we come to Indonesia and Timor-Leste.

East Timor is a bit over 700k north of Darwin, so within an easy plane flight.

The Jakarta Globe reports that long-running violence in a district just outside East Timor’s capital ended last week with a dance, a prayer, a speech and the sacrifice of a goat and a pig. The paper's story links this to a mediation process that had been going on since the troubles in 2006. It's actually quite an interesting story.      

Meantime, an Al Jazeera story reports that former militia men who took the Indonesian side  during  and after the vote for independence and who were responsible for massacres in the wake of the vote for independence from neighbouring Indonesia in 1999 that claimed 1,500 lives and forced more than 250,000 - one-fourth of East Timor's population have found an ally in East Timor's president. Jose Ramos Horta has come out in favour of amnesties for them to allow them to return from the West Timorese refugee camps. This is obviously a sensitive issue in East Timor.

Indonesia

Indonesia is Australia's largest immediate neighbour and also borders East Timor and PNG.

In a story with direct Australian implications, the Jakarta Globe reports  that compensation negotiations relating to the 2009 Timor Sea oil spill that spread into Indonesian waters have been delayed yet again, this time over political changes in Thailand.

Masnellyarti Hilman, the Indonesian government’s chief negotiator, said the signing of a memorandum of understanding with PTTEP Australasia, a subsidiary of Thailand’s PTT Exploration and Production, had been deferred until later this month from the initial date of August 3.

In another story, The Globe also reports on Asian moves to calm markets down. In Kuala Lumpur, Yeah Kim Leng, a senior economist with financial research firm RAM Holdings, described Asia as a "relative sea of stability" compared to the volatile European and US markets. In an editorial, the Globe said in part:

In 2008, the last time the world faced such economic uncertainty, Indonesia managed to sail through the crisis relatively well. It will need to be resilient again. Fiscal discipline will be critical to maintain investor confidence in the rupiah and the bond markets. Investors will be looking for certainty in the face of global turbulence and Indonesia, if it plays its cards right, could be a major beneficiary.

in a way, this links to a point that I have made in a number of posts recently, the nature of the mismatch between current currency importance and the changing patters of world economic activity. If, as I expect and hope, Indonesia continues to strengthen its economic position, then it will emerge as a growing economic power in its own right.

Conclusion

I have had to stop here. What happened is that as I went around just this limited range of stories, I started checking past posts for background material. As I did so, I realised how fragmentary they - the background posts - were, just how many gaps there were.

You see, in just this simple range of stories as well as those I looked at but did not have time to include, I found that there was so much background material that would better inform the stories that I ran out of time. As it was, what was meant to be a simple controlled regional media round up took me over five hours!

What to do?

I have just drawn a line, and now have a dozen posts that I need to write to consolidate and fill gaps! I am going to do some of that over the next week or so.

ANZAC Day wrap-up

In yesterday's post ANZAC Day, national identity & the power of images I mentioned the blog World War Two Day-By-Day and that at this time in World War II ANZ troops were engaged in the defence of Greece, while at Tobruk besieged Australian troops were playing a key role in holding Rommel out.

At the time, I didn't know that the first ANZAC day ceremony was being held in Athens to mark the Greek campaign, while there had also been plans to hold a ceremony in Tobruk before the Libyan troubles intervened.

In this post, I just want to round off the previous post to pick up a few of the ANZAC Day stories I saw in my travels.

A story in the New Zealand Sunday Star Times, the forgotten Anzacs by Rob O'Neil, provides a New Zealand perspective on one element of the Greek campaign.

I mentioned that an ANZAC Day ceremony would be held at Villers-Bretonneux in France. This photo of the ceremony is from the Australian.    

A number of bloggers provided family perspectives, such as Neil Whitfield's  Anzac Day scans. I wrote A New England family war story.

As has been the case for many years, the Gallipoli ANZAC Day ceremonies were attended by many young Australian. This photo from the Australian shows part of the crowd.

I mentioned the war memorials that dot Australian and New Zealand towns. I should have added countryside. A story by Jennifer Ingall on ABC New England North West, 16 dead, but who were they?, gives an insight at a purely local level.

One thing that I did not mention in the original ANZAC Day story is of Australia until quite recently to recognise the role played by its Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Diggers.  The photo shows Grace Gordon Archibald with Frank Richard Archibald's WWII medals.

The contribution of the Archibald family is actually well recognised in Armidale. However, Michelle Hoctor's story in the Armidale Express, Family’s plea to put a brave man at rest, provides a human face to the story of one digger. 

In the previous post, I mentioned that the strange nature of ANZAC Day - celebration of a defeat on side, of a victory on the other - laid the basis for unexpectedly close relations between Turkey, New Zealand and Australia. In a tweet, tahir gürsoy wrote:

@phbarratt @JimBelshaw i wish to be there again my heroes and anzac soldiers sleeps together in my land, RIP all.

To finish this wrap-up with another photo from the Australian. This photo members of the Turkish Air Force acrobatic team perform over the Turkish Navy Warships sailing near Turkish Memorial at Gallipoli.

Postscript

Tim wrote in a comment:

There are a group of Western Australian school students taking part in the the ANZAC commemorations in Greece and Crete. They won the Premier's 2011 ANZAC essay competition.

My congratulations. What a wonderful opportunity.  

ANZAC Day, national identity & the power of images

Today is ANZAC Day in Australia and New Zealand and in many places around the world where Australians and New Zealanders gather. The day marks the day in 1915 when members of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps went ashore at Gallipoli in what is now Turkey, but was then part of the Ottoman Empire.

ANZAC Day is a slightly unusual military celebration.

To begin with, it actually celebrates a defeat. The aim  of the Allied invasion was to capture Istanbul, the capital of the Ottoman Empire. The Ottoman Empire  was allied to to the German and Austro-Hungarian Empires. If Istanbul could be captured, then the Ottoman Empire might be forced out of the war.

The Ottoman troops were led by Mustafa Kemal (later known as Atatürk), who would become the founder of modern Turkey. The Allied Forces lacked the numbers to defeat an entrenched well led army and finally were evacuated in secrecy at the end of 1915.  Allied casualties included 21,255 from the UK, an estimated 10,000 from France, 8,709 from Australia, 2,721 from New Zealand, and 1,358 from the Indian Empire.

Australians and New Zealanders celebrate ANZAC Day as a heroic defeat. To Turkey, it is a heroic victory. This makes for cooperation and shared celebrations that both sides can participate in. It also makes for closer links than you might expect between the three countries. The photo shows Turkish troops carrying the Turkish, New Zealand and Australian flags at an ANZAC Day celebration in Turkey.

As the Wikipedia article draws out, ANZAC Day has undergone many changes since the day was first named in 1916. By the 1960s many, including me, were either opposed to or at least ambivalent about it because we perceived it  as a celebration of militarism, even jingoism. Those opposed to it then really expected it to die as the diggers died. Instead, over the last twenty years it has become institutionalised and gone from strength to strength.

This is partially a reflection of nationalism, something that still makes me uncomfortable, but more a reminder of the sacrifice and horrors of war, a memory of Australians and New Zealanders who have died in so many conflicts beginning in the colonial period. The War Memorials that dot the towns in both countries are still being updated.

Despite the nationalism and the use of ANZAC Day as unifying national symbols, there is no triumphalism in ANZAC Day, no celebration of national military triumphs. This can be difficult for others from different traditions to understand.

In general, the first half of ANZAC Day is remembrance, commemoration. The mood at the dawn services that mark the start of ANZAC Day round the world is somber, restrained. Then after the marches the more larrikin spirit of both countries sets in as the mood changes.

The Australian gambling game two-up symbolises the second phase. Banned until the late 1930s when it was legalised just for and on ANZAC Day, two-up has given Australia such phrases as cockatoo (the person who watched for the police and then squawked a warning) and come in spinner (the spinner was the person who threw the coins). Played by the diggers, it has become a national tradition, although I suspect that more modern Australians know about the game than have actually played it!

ANZAC Day is also unusual because it is a day shared especially between two countries. New Zealanders become concerned that the more self-centred Australians sometimes ignore their role. However, that of itself is part of the complexity of a relationship that really has no direct comparison to national relationships any where else in the world.    

It's a bit like Christmas in some families where the kids fluctuate between harmony and dispute. The back-yard cricket (or rugby or netball or any game you care to name) can get quite vicious. Yet the links continue because neither side can deny the relationship.

Finally, from time I have referred to the blog World War Two Day-By-Day. This has just reached Day 602 April 24, 1941.

On April 24, 1941, the evacuation of the Commonwealth Expeditionary forces from Greece including Australians and New Zealanders in the face of the advancing Germans is getting underway. I wrote a little about this in Arrival in Iraklion, Greece, history & the on-line world and especially An Australian dies in Crete. There I record the words of Australian poet John Manifold who wrote of his friend John Learmonth:

This is not sorrow, this is work: I build
A cairn of words over a silent man,
My friend John Learmonth whom the Germans killed

As John Learmonth was being evacuated from mainland Greece to Crete where he would die, Australian troops were defending Tobruk in the face of Rommel's attacks. I quote from World War Two Day-By-Day:

 At 7 AM, Italian infantry attack the Tobruk defenses at 2 points after an artillery barrage at dawn. Advancing in suicidally close formation, they are broken up by Australian small arms fire from the forward gun pits and British artillery fire from the rear. The attacks are over within an hour (107 Italian POWs captured).

The Australians defending Tobruk became known as the Rats of Tobruk and were celebrated in Charles Chauvel's 1944 film of the same name. The link includes clips from the film.

To a degree this film is propaganda, myth making. Yet the courage at Tobruk stopped the Germans in their tracks. Rommel could not overcome.

Sixty five years later, any Australian regardless of background would instantly recognise the symbols. I quote from curator Paul Byrnes' notes on one clip of the film:

On an armoured patrol into the desert, men of the Australian 9th Division run into an Italian patrol. Peter Linton (Peter Finch) is wounded in the first skirmish. Bluey Donkin (Grant Taylor) and Milo Trent (Chips Rafferty) break off alone into the sand hills, picking off the enemy until both are wounded. As Milo tries to help Bluey, his own head wound makes him unconscious. Bluey tries to keep him awake until their comrades arrive in an armoured vehicle.

This is the film’s first real encounter in the desert and Chauvel emphasises the immediacy and very personal nature of the fighting, as well as the comradeship of the Australian soldiers. They are characterised as ferocious and individualistic fighters, able to function on their own, like guerrillas, but devoted to each other’s care once the enemy is defeated.

The style of this sequence is almost like a newsreel. The narration, written by Maxwell Dunn, is redundant in terms of information, but it gives the audience a sense of direct communication, as if being addressed by a friend in a letter from the front. Audiences were used to narration on newsreels; they were the only source of moving images about the war in an age before television news. Chauvel made use of real newsreel footage in the film, but also newsreel techniques. After the war, this kind of simulated naturalism would be given a name and a great deal of recognition in Europe, as neorealism.

Images are important. To a degree, we are what we believe we are. ANZAC Day reinforces the perceptions of Australians and New Zealanders about themselves. It is, like it or not, a central unifying element in two societies undergoing fundamental change.

The power of ANZAC lies not in its official promotion, its institutionalisation, but in the fact that people in both countries still identify with the underlying messages.   

Postscript:

Australia's ABC went from the Sydney ANZAC March to the Dawn Service at Gallopoli. From there, after a break, the cameras will move to the Dawn Service at  Villers-Bretonneux in France.

According to Wikipedia (link above), on 24 April 1918, Villers-Bretonneux was the site of the world's first battle between two tank forces: three British Mark IVs against three German A7Vs. The Germans took the town, but that night and the next day it was recaptured by 4th and 5th Division of the AIF (Australian Imperial Force) at a cost of over twelve hundred Australian lives.

In 1919 at the unveiling of a plaque to the Australians, the town's mayor spoke of the Australian role. Here he said in part:

Soldiers of Australia, whose brothers lie here in French soil, be assured that your memory will always be kept alive, and that the burial places of your dead will always be respected and cared for...

The school in Villers-Bretonneux was rebuilt using donations from school children of Victoria, (many of whom had relatives perish in the town's liberation), and above every blackboard is the inscription "N'oublions jamais l'Australie" (Never forget Australia).

As I watched the Sydney march I thought just how thin the ranks were becoming. I also thought that the march showed just how diverse Australia had become. As I watched former soldiers in the ARVN (South Vietnamese Army) march under the old South Vietnamese flag, I thought of the decision by Australian PM Malcolm Fraser to throw open the country's doors to Vietnamese refugees.

At the time some 50,000 per month were fleeing Vietnam with many drowning at sea, other clogging  refugee camps. In the end, Australia took something like 200,000. Yes, 200,000. That's a huge intake.    

   The photo shows Vietnamese refugees arriving for resettlement.

I had to leave the televising of the Gallipoli Dawn service for a period. When I came back, the cameras were focused on the Turkish flag with singing in Turkish. It took me a moment to work out what was going on. It was the Turkish national anthem.

This may not sound significant, but think about it for a moment. Here you have the crescent flag of an admittedly secular country but one with a dominant Muslim population being broadcast on Australian national television as an integral part of one of Australia's most important national celebrations. See what I mean?     

Courage, cooperation & Christchurch

A busy day packing and cleaning lies ahead. We move next week. I find the prospect depressing. Writing a post is one way of avoiding it all!

One of my frustrations with the on-line media is the way stories vanish. This is not a criticism of the press, nor of the search engines. It's simply a reflection of the story volume. I see a story that I want to refer to, put the matter aside and then can't find it. I know I should book mark them, but my temporary bookmarks have become uncontrollable.

In this case, the story that vanished was the scale of the Australian relief effort in Christchurch - 320 police, 300 search and rescue specialists, a full field hospital. On the not-so-pleasant side, Australian looters and confidence tricksters pretending to be police or relief workers.

I have written a bit on this blog about the need for cooperation between countries in the face of natural disasters. Here there was a very good story in the Australian by Nicolas Perpitch, Global 'family' of rescuers ready at a moment's notice, that provides background on existing cooperative efforts.

It is hard to say anything positive in the face of such a disaster, one that affected so many people. You can see a Japanese perspective from Asahi Shimbun  here and here.

The photo montage from the Australian, I can't give a precise link, shows the Canterbury TV building before and after the quake. This was the building in which the Japanese students died and which is covered in the two Japanese reports linked above.  

One thing that does come through is the raw courage as well as the terror generated by the moment. There are many disasters that go only partially reported because the media isn't there. We shouldn't forget that when we look at the coverage. That said, when the media coverage is there, the stories come through.

There have been so many examples. Just two here.

In Reduced to rubble, scarred by grief, Andrew Holden describes not just the quake, but the efforts to keep the presses rolling.  

Everything we've collected so far has gone straight to the web, but a paper gives people solidity, a touch of normality amid chaos. We don't realise it then, but with power out to most of the city, few people can watch television, or read the internet when their batteries run out. Communications will become increasingly tough over the next two days. Even those with home phones that need power are out of touch when their mobile dies. The old media stalwarts - print and radio - are all they have.

The second story is on the front pages across much of Australia today. This coverage is drawn from the Sydney Morning Herald. 

The photo shows Emma Howard and Chris Greenslade on their wedding.

On the day of the quake, Emma was working in the PGC (Pyne Gould Corporation) building. When the quake struck, she was thrown from her chair and trapped in the rubble where she spent the next six and a half hours. There she texted her fiance, fellow accountant Chris Greenslade, who raced to the building from his nearby workplace.

"He just ran to me, expecting to find me standing on the street, ready to take me home," she said.

Mr Greenslade dug among the remains, pulling out other people as he searched for his bride-to-be. He was photographed carrying an injured woman to safety in one of the first images that emerged of rescue efforts after the quake.

The couple decided to proceed with their already planned wedding on the due date, a celebration of life and hope in the midst of disaster.

A second thing that the quake has done, and this is a local perspective, is to remind Australians of the importance of the NZ relationship. The response to the quake in this country was quite emotional. New Zealand is family.

The last photo is from The Press in Christchurch. It shows Taiwanese rescue workers.

People who work together to save others build bonds. Bonds with each other and bonds with those they help.

It's a simple thing, but one that is quite important. These bonds build and can have profound effects. It is hard to hate or even distrust someone when you have worked together in the midst of fear, dust, sweat.

Australian aid to Indonesia during the tsunami transformed the relationships between the two countries. A simple thing really and very Asian where the prevailing cultural ethos is more collective than in many western countries. If you are there for me when I need help, then I have an obligation to respond.

I am not overstating this. However, I do think it worth remembering.

In the meantime, and as the media coverage of the Christchurch earthquake begins to dim, spare a thought for those in Christchurch who have a long and hard grind in front of them.

In disaster, the first reaction is courage and cooperation in the midst of despair. Then comes tiredness and a sense of despair. It becomes harder to cope. After that, comes the long and slow process of rebuilding. This is when things really get hard.

Christchurch earthquake

A Monday post, It all suxs, will give you a feel for the close relations between Australia and New Zealand. Australians as well as New Zealanders feel a sense of shock at the latest Christchurch earthquake.

The damage done to Christchurch and surrounds by the earthquake is quite profound. This photo shows the historic Anglican Cathedral in the centre of the city.

For those who don't know Christchurch, it is New Zealand's second largest city by population after Auckland, with a population of  339,000. I actually thought that it was third after Wellington.

The city lies at the edge of the Canterbury Plains on the eastern side of New Zealand's South Island. The plains stretch away to the spectacular New Zealand Alps in the distance.

In 1906, my paternal grandparents emigrated to Canterbury from Lancashire in England.

After working in various jobs, Grandfather Belshaw became a Primitive Methodist Home Missionary in Christchurch. My father, the youngest, was born in Canterbury. All three kids went to school in Christchurch.

Christchurch is a beautiful city whose central district was planned on similar lines to Adelaide.

The next photo from the New Zealand Herald shows the remains of the historic Canterbury Provincial Council building.

Originally the New Zealand provinces had their own parliaments. This was the Canterbury Parliament. It's not a large building, but was an attractive one popular with tourist. The building featured as the site of the inquiry in Desmond Bagley's 1975 avalanche disaster thriller, the Snow Tiger.

Christchurch is a popular tourist destination in its own right and as a stepping off point for those visiting the South Island; the city has an international airport. It is also a major conference centre. I have been there many times as a tourist, on marketing trips or to attend conferences.

New Zealand draws backpackers from around the world.

The next photo, also from the New Zealand Herald, shows the remains of the Hotel Stonehurst, popular with backpackers.

Measured by the Richter scale, this was a smaller earthquake than the one that occurred last September. However, it was closer to the surface, increasing the destructive power on buildings already weakened from the previous quake.

This quake also occurred in the middle of the day when central Christchurch was packed with shoppers, workers and visitors. More buildings were brought down including a modern office block, while falling rubble hit buses, cars and pedestrians.

Casualty figures are still unknown, but could be as high as 200.

The final photo from the New Zealand Herald shows the Catholic Cathedral. The scenes are reminiscent of World War II bombing damage.

New Zealand is a well organised country, but it is also a small country, stretching resources. Australia is relatively close and can therefore respond quickly.  The country has also had experience in responding quickly to disasters such as the Padang quake.

ABC news reports that the first 40 specialists, along with rescue equipment and supplies, left last night from the RAAF base at Richmond, in Sydney's north-west, aboard a C-130 Hercules transport aircraft. In all, 148 Urban Search and Rescue specialists are now being sent.

"These rescue teams are experts at recovering people who are trapped or affected by structural collapse and consist of highly-trained emergency services workers, doctors, engineers and search dogs," Mr McClelland said.

"They have expert search, rescue, medical, engineering and support capabilities."

The impact on the people of Christchurch of the quake has been severe, more so because it came on top of the previous quake and all the subsequent aftershocks.

As so often happens, there have been remarkable stories of people responding on the ground with immediate action to help others despite the shock. I do find the human spirit a remarkable thing.  

Postscript

On Skepticslaywers, DeusExMacintosh in Christchurch Earthquake: Please Give Generously provided information for Kiwis who wished to donate. In Australia, I know that at least the Red Cross has an appeal underway.