Australia-New Zealand one way love affair aflame as No-Hopers remittances extinct

Drenched in the victim-oppressor theme of their own country’s politics New Zealanders of all stripe have woken up to the knowledge that their country is internationally the most bountiful source of taxpayer-funded remittances to those of its “family” it would prefer lived in another country.

The reprise of the colonial era system of the established dynasties keeping their feckless and wastrel family members at arm length by funding them to live in the antipodes has been institutionally reprised.

What is known is that from the 20 years from 1999 Wellington paid $1,268,373,000 to Canberra in subsidising the federal government’s welfare payments to New Zealand citizens living in Australia. This does not include pension entitlements.

The government of New Zealand it has slowly been leaking out has been funding the Australian federal government to harbour tens of thousands of its citizens which both governments recognise as liabilities.

New Zealand taxpayer money used to fund these modern remittance men, and most of the recipients do appear to be male, has flabbergasted many.

Especially so in tolerant academia with its impression of Erewhon and other such romanticised literary renditions of upper class remittance-funded Antipodean settlement.

Contrary to a widely-held belief this remittance arrangement actually began under Helen Clark in concert with Australia’s John Howard (pictured.).

 The arrangement was that New Zealanders could flock there,

But not receive the same benefits as the Australian born and bred.

The genesis of the remittance scheme under a New Zealand labour government has been conveniently forgotten.

Now the thaw, known as the re-set, is well under way.

It is claimed that the discarded remittance process eased demand on housing which is seen as New Zealand’s greatest domestic problem.

The counter argument is that the money earned by New Zealand taxpayers has been spent in Australia and not New Zealand.

The less charitably inclined have compared it to a modern Danegeld….paying to keep the troublemakers at a very safe distance from your own shores.

Until now the New Zealand–Australia relationship has been a one way love affair with all the passion and peek-a-boo looks coming from New Zealand.

This rather embarrassing unrequited passion takes the form of a faux familiarity demonstrated by broadcasting presenters always prefixing anything to do with Australia with the words “across the ditch” followed by a grating repetition of the word “Aussie.”

It is currently being demonstrated by the quaintly naïve New Zealand side of this affair which cannot find anything wrong with the other side’s face-value open-handedness.

It actually disguises a win-win “reset.’

The new citizenship path smoothing will accelerate Australia’s dependence on New Zealand’s technicians and applied professionals such as nurses and teachers.

In other words Australia seductively takes the most productive workers while leaving New Zealand with an increasing proportion of the unproductive such as policy analysts, social scientists, human capital managers, “comms” practitioners and international relations professors.

Behind the one sided love affair there resides a key ingredient in such imbalanced relationships which is guilt, unworthiness.

This centres on the well-publicised New Zealand-derived criminal element in Australia.

This in turn rests on the little-discussed plunge by New Zealand into identitarian-driven politics which was quite some time before Australia did the same thing.

This uneasiness started at the time that Australia was getting to grips with its tsunami of boat people.

The issue arose about New Zealand’s own contribution to the assimilation problem.

This and then the more recent subsequent forced repatriations focussed the debate almost exclusively on the crime component of the relationship.

In human relationship terms the question of which side in the relationship was doing the other side the favour was easily answered.

In the popular mind it was Australia.

Camouflaged in this was the value being derived by Australia in the presence of large numbers of New Zealand skilled workers, notably craftspeople, and others who actually create wealth.

And yet…and yet every relationship has its highs and lows.

Before the current euphoria we can cite 1983 as the high point.

This was the year of the signing of Closer Economic Relations between the two countries.

Forty years later comes the new dawn commemorated by the promise of Australian citizenship for the worthy.

The lop sidedness of all this is underlined by the 670,000 New Zealanders living in Australia which compares to the 70,000 Australians living in New Zealand.

A restoration of balance in this affair could start by running a check on the 70,000 “Aussies” living here to ensure that they are pulling their weight.

If they aren’t then remittances are due from Canberra. To be paid retrospectively.

Why was Ventilation machinery Inside gassy Mine instead of Outside it?

Pike River Families access to official documents relating to the mine detonation and the death of 29 miners could shine light onto the mystery relating to the ventilation equipment and its associated electrics being installed at the bottom of the mine instead of outside the workings.

The Royal Commission in the aftermath of the Pike River mine tragedy described the internal position of the ventilator as a “world first.”

Experts consulted during the inquiry constantly returned to the conundrum relating to why the ventilation equipment was housed within the coal mine instead of outside it….the practice everywhere else.

Precisely why was the ventilation plant within the mine instead of safely outside it?

Was this electrical plant location related in any way to adhering to environmental considerations?

The Paparoa National Park was created in 1987 a number of years after the area had been identified as a source of premium grade coal used in steel making.

On Friday 19 November 2010 at 3:45pm there was an underground explosion at the Pike River coal mine. Twenty-nine men lost their lives, and their bodies have not been recovered..

The High Court has now ruled that the bereaved families may now examine the privileged material that led to the decision to abandon charges against elements of the Pike River Mine management.

There will be interest in the extent to which this material may relate to the circumvention of standard practice in order to meet environmental covenants.

The structural framework of the coal mine and its planning coincided with the era in which the nation’s green movement was intensifying in its electoral grip and was doing so in large measure through seeking to cancel fossil fuels in general and coal in particular.

A coal mine that operated in the vicinity of an only recently proclaimed National Park now of itself became an intensely volatile project.

The mine to a certain amazement went ahead.

It did so because of its own position in a district susceptible to and sensitive to unemployment which is the West coast of New Zealand’s South Island.

The implementation of the mine also intersected with a dilution of emphasis on the nation’s mine inspectorate resources.

Technical specialists in the aftermath of the mine explosions questioned the positioning of the ventilation equipment at the bottom of the mine instead of being positioned outside it.

This was especially so because the mine from the outset was known to be exceptionally gassy in its workings because of its coal seams being so prone to absorbing and then leaking the invisible methane gas

Methane threatens all underground coal mines everywhere especially New Zealand coal mines.

This is simply because these mines are of relatively recent geological formation meaning that the vegetation that eventually becomes coal is still decomposing and in this active reduction process emits the extra volumes of methane.

Ventilators are driven by electrical motors that by definition emit sparks.

Sparks fly upwards.

So does methane which being much lighter than air seeks to become part of the atmosphere.

Methane in common with other fossil gases becomes combustible, ignites, when mixed with the air.

The mine disaster aftermath coincided with a still evolving societal sensitivity most evident in the mass media sector.

Its haughty disdainful we-know-what’s-best-for-you condescension adds up to a reluctance, even refusal, to challenge or even question anything from the climate industry’s well-placed alarmists.

The decision by the High Court to permit the Pike River Families free access to the official papers relating to the abandonment of the pressing of charges against mine management opens up what may be the most revealing chapter of the disaster.

Were there other priorities than the preservation of human life?

Who or what persuaded, insisted, or allowed the mine management to take the additional risk of positioning inside the mine its ventilation plant?

The families of the brave miners in their persistence may now be instrumental in solving one of the biggest operational mysteries puzzling the extractive sector everywhere.

Perhaps even the biggest.

Highly qualified forestry scientist Minister failed to weather storm

Members of Parliament of all stripes have discovered a common purpose in diverting public attention from the havoc wrought by Cyclone Gabrielle in Hawkes Bay.

The reason is that having touted climate change as one of the great issues of our time, even the greatest, they did nothing to implement the change needed for climate change- ---and continue to do so.

An example is the Helensville power generating site ardently sponsored by the government and which is scheduled to occupy a loop in the Kaipara River which flooded last year.

The site then flooded three times between January 27 and the Cyclone Gabrielle which completely inundated the site of the eagerly sought solar plant with its house-sized structures

Two other such solar generating sites on low-lying river land are scheduled for the Wellington region.

King Canute–like officialdom believes that words, the more pious the better, can turn back the climate change which they confidently assert is upon the nation, and compounding in force by the day.

One reason offered for problems associated with the Hawkes Bay response to Cyclone Gabrielle was that there had been a prediction that it would pivot westward drifting south of Hawkes Bay. This means that it was expected to cover the river land now under proposal for approximately 1000 acres of daily land scheduled for these same solar installations.

While politicians found themselves unable to utter more than a sentence without capping it with a climate change intonation their policies meanwhile were ensuring the utmost vulnerability to this same climate change.

Why exactly were forestry projects in the Hawkes Bay leaving in their wake extensive piles of debris which washed downstream and cluttered the beaches?

The Minister of Forests was Stuart Nash. He was one of the few members of the government cabinet with a technical education instead of the usual socio-political tertiary background. He is a highly qualified forestry scientist.

Did Mr Nash warn his colleagues of the danger they were inviting in the form of ignoring climate change by failing to implement and then enforce a regime in which foresters tidied up after them?

In the event Mr Nash found himself washed out of the cabinet with a velocity similar to the bridge-destroying water propelled timber deluges that became the trademark of this particular manifestation of climate change.

In the immediate aftermath of the Hawkes Bay disaster the Hawkes Bay MP found himself engulfed in a weird drama centred on long-ago emails dealing with contributors and the direction of cabinet policy.

The source and the timing of these disclosures had the effect of diverting public attention away from the aftermath of Cyclone Gabrielle in Mr Nash’s own Hawkes Bay bailiwick. It had the quite extraordinary effect of rumour and innuendo trumping real news, disaster news.

Both parties Labour and the Opposition fell upon Mr Nash with, well, cyclonic force.

The multiplier was that Mr Nash from the start had been identified as prime ministerial material.

The politico media all-sides pile on was successful

Attention was diverted away from how Napier and Hastings became cut off, how the vaunted Heretaunga Flood Control scheme with its numerous pumps, stop banks, and deflection banks was washed away.

Also how public health and policing had become centralised in Hastings and was thus inaccessible to those in Napier .

There is here a detectable reverse ratio.

Politicians are ruthless in their cynical exploitation of the new urban professional voting class with its compulsion to be seen as greener than green

Yet the more they talk about climate change the less they are willing to implement the policies required to adjust to the main manifestation of climate change of which Cyclone Gabrielle was a stand-out example.

Mr Nash’s own transition can be seen now as a weather vane, a barometer for this all-party grab for the votes of this now so definable class with its inner-suburb roots.

One day his career needle was on Fair. Then it slipped back to Change. Another day or so of media drip-deed and it was on Stormy where the needle jammed.

In a political context it is hard not to consider Mr Nash as the first victim of climate change.