Oakley Creek

I'm on holiday...not that it feels like a proper one, as I cannot afford to go away.

I suppose we could have gone camping, but we thought we would have one at home, and go out for lunch ocassionaly.

I've been cycling to St Heliers and back every other day, but the weight refuses to budge.

We do a walk along Oakley creek sometimes, check out the photos. Hard to believe there is such a large waterfall in suburban Auckland, about 200m from a road that carries about 20,000

cars per day!

They were going to put the motorway through all this, but the plan now is to put it underground.

Back to work on Monday 19th Jan. Ouch.

Thank goodness it's all over...now the fun begins!

Western Springs-Auckland City
The garden progress......spuds and tomatoes

Here are some of the beans with yet more tomatoes and some coriander and parsely.

In case you had not noticed, I have installed a site counter on this page.  This is because I was wondering if I had any visitors at all!

It is made by a firm called Statcounter, which is free to use and I have been using it on my other Autocad blog, where it seems to be working OK.  It works by somehow linking to their site, all I did was go to my Layout page and choose "Add a Gadget", then cut and paste the code they provided into the window.

Went tramping last weekend and  wore a hat which prevented me from seeing the tree branch coming, so ended up with a scraped head.  Further disasters awaited in the form of three lady trampers who I thought had gone up another track so I thought it was safe for me to go skinny dipping in the nice bush pool....but no, they came back!  Luckily for me and them the water was not that clear and they were not that close.  (Usual smart remark from friends who came with me was " It's alright, they would'nt see much" were of no help-they said the water was too cold for that sort of thing.)

So now we have a nice shiny new government.  Time will tell, but seeing how the DOW is going, I might just get the spade out  tomorrow and dig up even more of my lawn and plant some silverbeet and any other winter veg that can be planted.

Time to Make Your Mind Up, Swinging Voters!

Well, I have made my mind up....I did have some money in Hanover Finance, which, while it has not officially gone, has disappeared in a moratorium on repayments. This has been a major part of swinging my vote: The purpose of a government (at least from a constituent's point of view), is to LOOK AFTER it's citizens. They have not done.

As far as preventing finance companies from falling over, the present Labour government has done spectacularly badly in my view.

That said, I would imagine National would have done just as badly.

In the last few weeks, I have witnessed an apparent desire on the part of National NOT to be the government---well at least they should have locked one of their members in a chicken coop for the duration of the election!

It is all a bit deja vu, Helen promised 9 years ago to cut government spending, now John Key looks like coming in saying the same thing.

I've now taken up gardening-seems like a skill that may be in demand in the coming year.

The general election is soon

Being a not too busy Saturday, I thought I would have a bash at checking the policies of the major parties.  Yawn....  Does everyone else have this problem?  You go to the party's site, pick on just two areas of policy and fall asleep almost instantly.

What should I expect?  Life must be tough for the spin doctors who put all this stuff up for the us to read:  How to make what they have done sound like a lot.

It would be nice to be able to check out a site that puts it all into 2 x A4 pages....Is life this simple? No.

So I will probably be like the rest of the swinging voters and vote for John Key because a) he's someone different, and b) he must know a thing or two about money, and that might be extremely relevant right about now.  All this is embarassing to admit.

Someone has lent me Ian Wishart's book "Absolute Power", which is about Helen Clark, the prime minister.  In it, he makes the point that Labour came to power on a platform of cutting Governmental spending:In fact, they appear to have increased it.  

Listening to the radio on Thursday, I heard a man (not a politician) who seemed to tell it like it is: We are a tiny nation, and our standard of living is going backwards compared to Australia.

Governments, Labour and National have both had a turn, so I don't think things will change much, no matter who gets in. (In economic terms-antismacking, that's another bundle!).

Nothing will change, unless someone in the National Party wakes up one morning and has a rush of blood to the head as follows: What we need is a plan, a ten year plan that copes with all sorts of variables-chief among these would be: how to escape economic harm from events overseas, and how to cope with the worlds expectations on climate change- assuming that there is such a thing.

I remember years ago suggesting to my father that we should be economically independent from the rest of the world.  He countered that "trade was the life blood of any country", and that we would all be extremely poor should this happen.   If you think about it, we are very dependent on second hand cars from Japan, medicines from USA,  machinery from Germany and so on.

Imagining a country of 4 million coping with car production, medicines and so on seems far-fetched.   Having said that, I hope we are not about to pay the price for dependance on the outside world.

Politics-Election 2008

In my attempt to evaluate as fairly as possible, I have decided to check out the various party's web sites to see what the differences are. I am declaring here and now that I am a swinging voter.
Take tax cuts:
I went to Labour's site and found this:
"Labour’s tax cuts are responsible and fair to workers. We focused on the lowest rate so all New Zealanders benefit. Labour will do the right thing for workers, families, and the economy.
Labour’s personal tax plan will result in:
A new low tax rate of 12.5 per cent A lifting of the 21 per cent threshold by $10,500 to $20,000 A lifting of the 33 per cent threshold by $4,500 to $42,500 A lifting of the 39 per cent threshold by $20,000 to $80,000 And advancing boosts to working for families on 1 October 2008 By the third year of our tax cut programme, we will deliver $50 a week or more to around 50 per cent of all households.
A Kiwi family on the average household income of $72,000 – split two thirds/one third between two parents – with two children at primary school is almost $43 a week better off on 1 October this year – that’s equivalent to a 3.6 per cent increase in take home pay.
By full implementation of the tax package in 2011, that Kiwi family is almost $85 a week better off – the equivalent to a 7.5 per cent increase in their take home pay."

Then I checked out National's site and had difficulty finding their policy, but in one of the speeches I did find:
"One, we will institute an ongoing programme of personal tax reduction that will encourage hard work and help keep our workforce in New Zealand. This sensible, step-by-step tax programme is, I believe, even more important given the current economic conditions."

I recall someone in National promising $50/week tax cuts, but could not readily find this on National's site.

From the above, it seems to me that Labour's policy is more defined and out in the open.

If National do give a $50 tax cut, on top of the above Labour introduced cuts, then I would imagine a lot of people giving that some thought.

For myself, I would like more tax cuts, but this has to be balanced by the idea that if they cut taxes, this may result in a lower quality of defence/education etc.

Politics

In New Zealand, we have our general elections coming up this November, so a bit of political comment might be in order.

I still do not know who I am going to vote for, but I have read a bit on John Key, the National Party leader and he seems to be better than his predecessors. Other than that, I have only a vague idea of how National's policies differ from Labour's.

I feel quite guilty, as here I am, 62 years in NZ and only a vague idea of what is going on in the political arena, in spite of listening to the radio and finding out all the dirt that the journalists can dig up on the MPs. Maybe policy just does not interest the public?

My political thoughts are quite basic: Why do we have government? Answer: To look after the people.

Take a simple issue such as smoking: If we look after most of the people, what about the poor old cigarette manufacturers/tobacco farmers? Right away it appears to a grey area. But if we were using our heads in this case, we would say: Tough luck, go do something else.

This does not seem to be happening...hmmm....wonder why!

Then there is the idea of freedom of action: Why should we not smoke if we want to?

I get a feeling that in 50 years time, maybe everyone will be so educated that the idea of smoking and drinking alcohol would be looked on as doing something strange.

Anyway, where am I going with this? Well, a Constitution would be a good start. Ian Wishart tried to get that one off the ground, but it never flew.

My goal this election is to:
1. Check on Labour's promises previous to the last election.
2. Find out what the main differences are in the policies.

My feeling is that people are ready for a change, and that National will get in.

The Sewing Room is Finished!

Here it is, end of August, finished at last:

Many thanks to Robbie, who was a great help!