Five questions for ex United Nations Security Council President Terence O’Brien.
Few practitioners from any nation have enjoyed quite such an extended career at the heart of the global firmament as British-born diplomat Terence O’Brien (above). He was president of the Security Council of United Nations during the Balkans conflict. He was one of the principal access negotiators on behalf of New Zealand when Britain originally entered the European Common Market. He has occupied posts in London, Brussels, Bangkok and Geneva. He was the founding director of the Institute of Strategic Studies.
You have been an outspoken opponent of mixing trade with foreign affairs?
This is not strictly accurate. I take issue rather with the jargon that “all New Zealand foreign policy is trade” which is a holdover from earlier times and reflected today in a sense promoted by some New Zealand leaders, that NZ’s success and place in the world is to be judged primarily by the number of Free Trade Agreements that it is able to secure.
NZ’s modern experience especially in respect to emergent Asia proves emphatically that successful trade arrangements depend firstly and vitally upon sound political and diplomatic relationships (China is a prime but by no means solitary example). NZ’s accomplishments in Asia and indeed elsewhere rely in other words, upon earned trust with other governments. Fostering that trust is a political/diplomatic responsibility.
Predictable trade relationships require a great deal more than nimble private sector commercial skills- although those are indispensable of course to overall success and the New Zealand private sector plus NZ primary producer groups have been notably effective in this regard.
To what extent do you view the recent NZ sponsorship of the UN Israel censure as a development of this blend?
There may have been in the minds of some on the NZ side, the thought that sponsorship might earn credits in some Gulf States where NZ seeks to formalise free trade arrangements; but around the UNSC table there is genuine concern about the danger for the future of ‘two state solution’ to the Israel/Palestine conflict ,that has been the long established diplomatic basis for eventual peace. The present Israeli government appears openly to resile from this formula as it continues resolutely to expand Jewish settlements on the West Bank, a practice deplored by the UN Security Council. From the moment it gained a place on the 2015-16 UNSC NZ committed itself to contributing to the search for progress on this key issue. Co-sponsorship of the eventual UNSC resolution which calls as well for Palestinians to desist from provocation and terrorism, was the logical consequence.
Looking back on your days as a dairy sector negotiator during Britain’s entry into the Common Market, how do you view Brexit now in terms of NZ diplomacy and trade?
From the perspective of a small, distant but companionable partner of Europe, Brexit appears to be a mistake. It comes too at a time when conservative populism is on the rise within Europe with the emergence of right wing nationalist political groups in several countries. Twentieth century experiences of European mistakes and miscalculations and their devastating global consequences, not once but twice, are not to be overlooked.
British entry into Europe was a taxing experience for NZ. The deals struck for safeguarding NZ trade interests represented a stay of execution rather than reprieve for this country . Within relatively short periods of negotiated transition the New Zealand farm economy was obliged to diversify production and markets. That process drove foreign policy extending NZ political and diplomatic interests to a wide range of new partners (in the Middle East, Communist Europe, Latin America and, most notably Asia) . It consolidated NZ as a genuine world trader with global interests. Global interests are inextricably bound up with global responsibilities even for small countries, and require contributions to global wellbeing and stability.
The process deepened NZ support for international rules based behaviour particularly in trade but also in directly related areas such as peace and security, freedom for transport and navigation, responsible behaviour in global environmental and resource protection and so forth. Because of the very nature of its own being the European Union (EU) has been a notable champion of an international rules based system. But the fact of BREXIT places a question mark over how influential a collective European voice will now be in the future. At a time when American commitment to global rules is questionable under a new inexperienced President Trump, the need for sustained collective European support for the system has never been greater. The foreseeable future suggests that New Zealand will crucially need the courage of its convictions.
How do you feel about the Helen Clark bid to be the UN Secretary General especially in regard to her role as an officer of the UN at the time?
The selection process for a new UN Secretary General in 2016 sought to break new ground - which is always difficult in the UN. Formal candidatures backed by governments and involving public job interviews were decreed for the first time in 70 years. Hitherto candidatures had been exclusively personal affairs and selection decided behind tightly held UN Security Council doors where the votes of the five permanent Council members (US, UK, France, Russia and China) were decisive. This time a new approach was defined in the interests of greater transparency and democracy in the selection process. It is stretching things somewhat to suggest those goals were achieved.
There was a general sentiment beforehand that the new appointee should be from Eastern Europe (which has never supplied a UN Secretary General ) and also be female (which would be a first). In the event neither aspiration prevailed and the choice, of a Portuguese male, was once again taken behind closed doors at the UNSC.
Helen Clark was a creditable candidate and the NZ government campaigned for her, but her success depended first and foremost upon her own efforts. She came as a candidate from within the ranks of the UN itself, but this is not without precedent (Kofi Annan one the most effective SGs, was a UN Secretariat employee). As head of the UN’s largest aid institution she was well known across a very wide number of UN member countries ( especially developing countries).The reasons for her lack of success will probably never be known in full. Her relatively poor showing in the straw polling of UN member countries before the final appointment, was an undeniable disappointment. The most that can be said is that she was a serious contender; and NZ can take some consolation from that.
What are your views on Russia and NZ’s participation in the US-EU trade embargo?
With Russia and NATO we are reaping what was sown. At the end of the Cold War there was an opportunity for the Americans and Europeans to consolidate a cooperative inclusive (of Russia) security system for a post CW Europe. The Soviet led Warsaw Pact subsided into oblivion which is what military alliances historically do when conflicts end, and/or the reason for their existence disappears. NATO in direct contrast did not. It was enlarged with new members, new bases installed and its boundaries extended into Russia’s borderlands - which for the US anyway potentially included Ukraine. But who was the adversary? An enfeebled Russia could do nothing but (as George Kennan amongst others warned) one could not rule out economic recovery by Russia and new leadership that objected to NATO expansion (which included into the affairs of the Middle East) and would push back. Enter Mr Putin, and so it has come to pass. His preemptive seizure of Crimea (where the Russian fleet has had a base for two centuries or so) is contrary to the international rule of law - but hardly surprising in the wake of western foolhardiness.
NZ should sustain a suitably detached policy position over present NATO-Russia. We do not have a dog in the fight. Russia does not threaten the US although Putin clearly intends that Russia be assertive and taken seriously internationally. Russian interference in the US electoral process may or may not have occurred. If it is proven Russians would presumably point to equivalent American policies in the name of “spreading democracy” in Russia ,its satellites, and including Ukraine. They are, on both sides, ‘pots calling kettles black’
| From the MSCNewsWire reporters' desk | Monay 27 March 2017 |||
Statesman told his family to journey as far away from Germany as possible.
The New Zealand-born grandson of Ludwig Haas leader of the German Democratic Party in the 1920s and often described as the only politician who could have stopped World War 2 is assisting in a major biography of his ancestor.
The biography sponsored by the Commission for the History of Parliament and Political Parties is being published by Droste Verlag of Dusseldorf, a general interest publishing house.
Ludwig Haas (pictured above) died in 1930 while organising a broad based coalition to counter what he perceived would become the burgeoning and overwhelming rise of the National Socialists.
The politician’s early death was ascribed to the ravages of the front during the First World War in which he was decorated with the Iron Cross
With his last breath the dying politician instructed his son Karl “to put as much distance” as the son could “between you and Germany.”
Karl Haas took his father’s instructions literally, eventually arriving in New Zealand shortly before the outbreak of World War 2.
He began his career working in Auckland for wool brokers E. Lichtenstein. After finding his feet in his new country he then acquired a farm near Pahiatua in New Zealand’s North Island.
It was there, in this remote location, that the Haas family remained with Tony Haas, the grandson, being born toward the end of World War 2.
Tony Haas, (pictured, below) Ludwig’s grandson, is widely known in New Zealand for his work with Pacific Island communities and their economies.
In recent years has become acknowledged as one of Oceania’s public intellectuals. Two years ago Mr Haas’ own autobiography was published entitled Being Palangi: My Pacific Journey.
|| From This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. | Thursday 23 March 2017 |||
At large in the northern hemisphere Brent Marris of Waihopai Valley’s Marisco Vineyards answers Five Questions......
Brent Marris and his family have been part of Marlborough vineyards and wine making since the inception of the terroir and its associated appellation. In recent years the family has focused on developing in the Waihopai Valley its Marisco Vineyards and its marques The Ned & The Kings Series. We caught up with Brent Marris (pictured) in Europe........
What has been the impact of Brexit on your business?
The Brexit effect is huge and is due to the weak pound. Because we trade in UK pounds it has impacted on bottom line. A movement of approx 20%. Our fingers our crossed that it bounces back. Or, prices will have to go up, we fear. .
What are your hopes and/or fears for the in-progress NZ-EU trade agreement?
With the NZ-EU trade agreement it is simply that the closer we can get to reducing tariffs and other such charges the better. The more open freedom to do trade, the better from our point of view.
You have just been notably visible on the trade scene in London, and now we have found you at Prowein in Dusseldorf. How valuable are these trade fairs to New Zealand exporters and as a long time exhibitor can you spell out some dos and don’ts for the benefit of NZ industry at large?
Prowein has proven to be excellent from our point of view especially as both more UK and US trade buyers are attending. If you can afford your own exhibition stand then that of course is the best option. But starting out on a New Zealand shared stand is a good beginning. A tip? Having enough meeting spaces on your stand is vital because it offers more chance of serious discussions, the ones with worthwhile results. This is imperative, incidentally, in our experience in terms of selling in the UK and in the EU.
A problem in your sector has been in actually getting paid by importers. What measures do you take to ensure payment?
Payments have not been an issue for us simply because we deal with large reputable buyers in the UK. In the EU zone we have own warehouse space and staff so everyone we deal with we know personally. Communication is the key here, hardly surprisingly.
You produce Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, and Pinot Gris. Define for us current international tastes and preferences?
Consumers happily enough still love our Sauvignon Blanc while Pinot Gris, Rosé and Pinot Noir are gaining traction. In regard to preferences it is our experience that people love stories and if you can attach a good story to your wine brand then you are ahead. In general, we find our brands are seen as good, honest wine brands of quality that have been around for a good length of time therefore are reliable.
|| From the MSCNewsWire reporters' desk | Wednesday 22 March 2017 |||
By-product of Marcom build up
Vodafone has joined in the online media gold rush by what it describes as “launching its own news website.”
The New Zealand subsidiary of the British mobiles telco in recent times has swelled its marketing communications force with television, business, and IT sector journalists.
The company’s “news” website meanwhile resembles an online version of the once familiar IT sector marketing support instrument, the house magazine.
The company’s news site hardly surprisingly features Vodafone in its community role.
Notably with emphasis on its participation in the post–earthquake Christchurch reconstruction participation.
Also its ability to deploy helpful rapid support services in Oceania.
The marcom by-product news site at this stage does represent though a potential challenge to the IT trade press.
This is dominated in New Zealand by International Data, a US publishing, survey, and events operator which publishes under licence here with such titles as Computerworld, CIO, and PC World.
According to Vodafone its “Vodafone News will feature behind the scenes video of important developments, offer advice and readable features across a range of topics for consumers as well as insights from leaders in a range of diverse fields.”
A heavily promoted video-voice-words convergence over hand-helds poses a medium to longer term threat to the media at large.
This is because by definition it targets the younger market, the one which increasingly relies exclusively on palm tops of various descriptions as access to news that it can use.
Since the heyday of IT recruitment advertising, as significant in its era as property advertising is now, the print proprietors have pretty much given up on targeted IT news, absorbing it into their general business sections.
Vodafone is not the first retail telco provider to move into the wider news sector.
Telecom was first off the mark with an authentic diversified aggregated news site for its Xtra users. This was then subsumed into Yahoo which expanded the already comprehensive localised curated coverage.
For reasons that remain unexplained this long established open site remains un-ballyhooed.
In this reticence may lie the gap that Vodafone has identified.
| From the MSCNewsWire reporters' | 19 March 2017 ||
Co-venturing Wellington and Auckland universities will rub collegiate shoulders with world’s major production engineer
General Motors subsidiary Holden’s arrival in Newsroom as founder-backer of the online information enterprise is GM’s second venture into the New Zealand information sector.
It was New Zealand’s major data processing proprietor when it owned Databank through another of its subsidiaries, Electronic Data Systems.
Databank at this time was considered the southern hemisphere’s pre-eminent non-governmental data processing operation in terms of capacity.
GM’s return this year to the New Zealand information sector carries value through the early involvement in it also of the University of Auckland and Victoria University of Wellington.
GM internationally is accelerating its recruitment of information technology graduates and its ground-floor involvement with the two universities will give it a special advantage in talent-spotting.
The auto manufacturer originally entered the information sector when it acquired Electronic Data Systems from Ross Perot of US presidential race fame.
With Electronic Data Systems now came New Zealand’s Databank at that time the world’s first and most successful nationwide cheque-clearing cooperative.
General Motors began to shed its non-core investments such as Electronic Data Systems and thus Databank as Asian manufacturers continued to pour on the competition.
Its new cat’s paw into the public dissemination sector of the information business in New Zealand through the Newsroom co-seeding also presents a valuable opportunity to the two universities involved, the ones in Auckland and Wellington.
This will be to take advantage of the commercial collegiate opportunity of rubbing shoulders as co-venturers with a research and development investing production engineer of this magnitude.
A constant problem for New Zealand universities has been to get on a working level with this category of production engineering multinational.
The indirect solution via the Newsroom joint involvement indicates a working opportunity that has consistently eluded New Zealand universities in the co-development sphere.
If the association looks a fruitful creative mix in automotive/academic terms then the news venture promoters could well find themselves with sufficient additional investment allowing them to take their foot off the paywall accelerator.
New Zealand browsers continue to exhibit a reluctance to pay for a service that they consider part of the free model.
| From the MSCNewsWire reporters' desk | Fidy 17 March 2017 ||
University of Auckland and Victoria University of Wellington have put their academic shoulders to the wheel in backing Newsroom online alternative to print media.
Their other foundation partners include auto company Holden and telecommunications lines outfit Chorus.
The association will allow the US auto manufacturer Holden a fresh opportunity to counter the Japanese auto manufacturers which dominate branding on the free-to-air television channels.
Chorus, which is restricted to wholesale activities only, will benefit from additional use of its telecommunications circuits.
It is unsure at this stage if the two universities will contribute from an investment point of view, supplying content, or both.
The universities have long resented what they see as a failure by the daily newspapers in both Wellington and Auckland to give their universities the coverage that they believe they deserve.
Newspapers have long been disappointed by their circulations in universities. In recent years the dailies have clamped down on publishing learned academic articles. More sensitively still, they have ignored requests from the universities to publish their copious degree allocations lists and other such honoraria.
They have dropped their educational roundspeople as part of general belt tightening, thus exacerbating the resentment
Newroom meanwhile indicates that it will have a full time editorial staff approaching in numbers that of a New Zealand metropolitan daily.
The original Newsroom began as a lunge into vertical markets by the NZX. The high-end web aggregator was then acquired by information technology interests which then in turn aggregated it with Scoop, the pioneering New Zealand online challenge to the dailies.
Results were mixed. Scoop stayed in Wellington. Newsroom gravitated to new parentage in Auckland that groomed it for its current apotheosis as a multi-funded direct challenge to the dailies.
There has been talk of the unflappable family-controlled Dunedin-based newspaper chain centred on the Otago Daily Times being involved. This makes sense because Newsroom will require print pick-up.
The failure of Newsroom Versions: 1&2, and also of Scoop to get print pick up was a signal factor in their struggles.
Newsroom Version 3 must have pick-up disseminated through print to let the public at large know that it exists in the first place.
There is mention of dickering with the Wellington based chain Fairfax in exchanging stories. But whatever the stated reason, the real one will be pick-up.
The new Newsroom is unlikely to get it from NZME’s daily NZ Herald or its radio stations.
NZME which has especially aroused the indignation of its university simply by ignoring it gives all the signs of being the target-in-chief for this curious merger of industry and academia.
| From the MSCNewsWire reporters' desk || Friday 17 March, 2017 ||
Will purchase appease shareholders and their class action?
The acquisition by Toronto’s Resolver Inc of assets of Wynyard Group points up the need for an international partner by New Zealand technology companies.
Resolver has taken over a slew of products from the Wynyard Group which went into liquidation. In doing so the Canadian company also acquires a user base, notably in the public sector.
Resolver’s activities in the crime-fighting, counter insurgency, and security IT application sector mirrored those of Wynyard.
The failure of Wynyard much earlier to acquire a big league international collaboration is all the more strange bearing in mind that Wynyard sprang out of Jade which achieved its global market share through an initial tie up with Unisys, and then with the UK’s Skipton Building Society.
Even so, collaboration poses a special threat for risk systems producers.
The less people in on the codes, the better. The less diluted their allegiance, the less the risk of leaks.
These systems require input from law enforcement authorities. Tolkien buff and New Zealand resident Peter Thiel’s Palantir is an example.
It is not known if the acquisition by Resolver of the Wynyard Group product line is sufficient to appease the formerly NZX main board company’s shareholders with their class action.
Meanwhile, the transaction reinforces a long tradition of Canadian IT involvement in this country which started with the introduction of the first PC portable, as they were then known, the Hyperion, then the Commodore, and much more recently the BlackBerry, long the Parliamentary standard.
Canadian manufacturers that played a big part in the telecommunications ramp-up included Mitel, Norpak, and Brian Tolley’s Bell Block cable extrusion process factory Canzac.
| From the This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. | Wednesday 15 March 2017 ||
Story So Far---Newspaper Managers Ironical and Touching Failure to Cooperate
The extra month of unexpected additional breathing space allowed before the promulgating of the final verdict of the Commerce Commission in the matter of the proposed merger of the two newspaper chains, NZME and Fairfax, will allow all interested parties more time to study the implications of the word deceive.
Deceive features in the Commerce Commission’s own glossary of words, the ones that fall into heavy use in its own jurisdictional bailiwick.
Indeed, as a helpful compendium this technique might well be used by other such official authorities.
The Commerce Commission defines it thus:-Deceive:-
To cause to believe what is false, to mislead as to a matter of fact, to lead into error; to delude, take in:
We may use this crisp definition to parse it in the case of the two supplicant chains requiring the approval of the Commerce Commission to bring about their desired amalgamation.
Therefore does the desired merger cause New Zealanders:-
To believe what is false? Not at face value – the chains are overwhelmingly in the print business which is shrinking rapidly. A diminishing marketplace requires diminished fixed costs which requires economy of scale such as might be achieved by merging.
To mislead as a matter of fact? The chains have been candid. They want to merge. They are not, for example, seeking to establish a cartel, fix prices. Both of which are difficult anyway in a severely over-supplied market and one with no bar to entry.
To lead into error? The Commerce Commission in its earlier draft verdict seemed to indicate that it had in fact defined an error. Namely that the erring is in the elimination of editorial diversity represented by having one proprietorship instead of two, leading to a contraction in the diversity of opinion.
To delude? Here we must answer this one with another question. Would the “reasonable” person, so beloved of, for example, by libel lawyers, be “deluded” more or less by one single amalgamated chain, instead of two? The increasingly widespread distrust of journalists, not to say, contempt, might indicate that the reasonable person today already sceptically applies two pinches of salt, instead of just the one.
To take in? See “To delude.” See also bundling (below)
We may now refer in this context to the Commission’s own underpinning objective also clearly and prominently displayed on its web site. The Commission’s purpose, it proclaims is:-
Achieving the best possible outcomes in competitive and regulated markets for the long-term benefit of New Zealanders.
It is the three words “long term benefit,” that carry the freight in the merger context.
Without the merger, can the two chains sustain their score or so of subscription daily newspapers?
A curious element of the journalistic makeup, and one which cross-infects their management is an inability to explain their own case whatever it is with any degree of concision at all.
Another and a trait which has been notably on display in this matter is an inability to see something from the point of view of the other person.
Therefore one cannot take for granted that the two chains have explained to the Commission that should they have to close their provincial dailies then they will also have to close scores of rural free sheets that distribute agribusiness information gleaned by their subscription stable mates
Now to the matter of bundling.
This is an information technology term which refers to a provider rolling out a product which can only be connected with and used with parts and other add-ons from that same supplier which are said to be “bundled” with the original product.
The Commission’s veto of the Vodafone – Sky marriage turned on the notion that Vodafone’s subscriptions would become part of a bundled subscription package that contained Sky also.
For Sky, think sports broadcast rights.
If anyone is still in doubt about the significance of sport in relation to what the Commerce Commission might postulate as being “for the long-term benefit of New Zealanders” then they might contemplate its priority treatment by, for example, the free-to-air television broadcasters.
Any moral backsliding by anyone with any profile at all in a moving ball sport moves into the narrow early bulletin time band still allowed for authentic news, as opposed to the pre-orchestrated, or contrived version of which leisure/sport is the mainstay.
Any such similar behaviour by a member of a once revered calling, let us say by a lawyer or a cleric, is interpreted as being of little surprise value and is thus shunted, if it appears at all, into the tail end of the news hour.
The Commission in its veto of the Vodafone – Sky marriage took this singular benefit into account, the one of access to real time sporting rites of passage, and decided that it should not be bundled into mobile telecommunication subscriptions.
Bundling, customer capture, is another word for leverage. Is there any leverage bundled seen or unseen into the NZME- Fairfax nuptials?
One area of such coercion could be levering Fairfax subscribers into NZMEs radio stations.
But the NZME stations are free to listen to anyway.
In the heyday of the Newspaper Proprietors Association, the 42 daily newspapers of that era happily worked together shuffling news and advertising back and forth to mutual advantage.
This happy state of affairs reached its zenith when Reuters, in which the newspaper proprietors held 12 percent of the global value went public and generated a windfall which saw the retirement of the last of the benign old newspaper families.
Since this triumphal hour the ensuing professional managers displayed a touchingly innocent absence of cooperation.
This culminated in their failure to join forces in the purchase of TradeMe and thus allowing it to be sold at an international value instead of a local one.
If there are two less conniving, two less cunning mercantile institutions in Oceania, then they should be revealed. Ideally, prior to the Commerce Commission’s final verdict on the NZME-Fairfax merger.
| From the This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. | Monday 13 March 2017 ||
Quai D’Orsay and Lambton Quay share a nightmare
The New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade must now begin the difficult and counter-ideological process of accepting that Marine Le Pen’s National Front Party might win the pending Presidential Election in France.
The reason is that Miss Le Pen has pledged to extricate France from both the EU and also the eurocurrency.
Miss Le Pen (pictured) and her party according to the polls is now the front runner to take over the Presidency and thus the government of France.
The former Prime Minister Francois Fillon has dropped in the polls following revelations that the leader of the Republican (i.e. Conservative) Party had while serving President Sarkozy put most of his family on the parliamentary payroll for performing duties that still remain unclear.
The second-line Republican Party candidate Alain Juppe has ruled himself out from succeeding the beleaguered Mr Fillon, partly because Mr Juppe, also a former premier, had also been mixed up in what the French describe as “fictitious employees.”
This leaves Miss Le Pen, followed by Emmanuel Macron the youthful former economics minister under President Francois Hollande.
Mr Macron in exiting the government of President Hollande did not wait to become adopted by an existing party. He simply formed his own France En Marche—France on the Move.
The Socialist Party led by Mr Hollande is simply not in the running, and does not feature in any of the polls as a realistic winner.
All this is bad news of course on Quay D’ Orsay and equally on Lambton Quay. On the quays the fervent hope was that while Miss Le Pen’s National Front might win the first round in the election, the once solid-seeming Mr Fillon would wash her away in the second round.
If the current polls hold water also washed away will be two years worth of negotiations in formal support of the EU-New Zealand trade liberalisation agreement.
Also swept aside will be the European Commission’s mandate to put the trade deal into action.
The reason is that France’s departure from the EU, and it is likely to be abrupt if Miss Le Pen takes charge, will invalidate the central axis of the union which is the German-French one.
France is the link between the Nordic/ Teutonic zone and the Mediterranean member countries.
It is uncertain if New Zealand’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade has charted a contingency plan in the now likely chance that Miss Le Pen and her party will emerge victorious from the imminent general election in France.
But given last year’s upsets in the US and the UK a suitable such contingency scheme would be to have ready a shrink-wrapped substitute deal with the EU’s northern nations.
The victory of President Donald Trump in the United States indicated that the New Zealand apparatus did not lay any groundwork, notably alternatives, for an event that it most ardently hoped would not in fact happen.
To an only slightly less extent the Brexit development is a similar indicator in an antipodean belief in the status quo.
| From the MSCMewsWire reporters' desk | Thursday 9 March 2017 ||
Other countries that are not even “clean-green” have dealt with the tyre problem
Governmental public hand-wringing over the rural mountains of old tyres must be tempered with the understanding that central and local government was quite literally upto its neck in creating the detritus, noted the nation’s foremost developer of tyre remediation machinery.
Ken Evans (pictured) of Tekam Closed Loop is responsible for the New Zealand’s first all-size tyre granulator which converts discarded tyres into a variety of paving products.
Neither central nor local government encouraged the use of these granulated paving products and in some cases even discriminated against their use.
Government in all its forms had long failed to understand that the allocation of national and district contracts also militated against the use of granulated composition in roading and also in amenities surfacing.
Tekam Closed Loop’s tyre granulator is dual function in that it granulates the tyres in toto complete with their radial steel bands, or extracts the bands prior to granulation.
One of the reasons that surplus New Zealand tyres were being shipped to China was that the Chinese routinely used granulated tyre paving as a standard roading application.
Rubber roads are now standard in China, Brazil, Spain and Germany. The technique has been found to cut traffic noise by about 25 per cent, he noted.
Other applications in these countries convert tyres into ground rubber or rubber shreds, used to create ground cover for playgrounds, backfill for civil engineering projects, garden mulch, erosion control barriers or drainage foundations around buildings.
Low shock industrial surfaces such as those required for stock handling was another such example.
In his experience, Mr Evans noted, district and regional councils simply talked about installing granulation systems.
Though stockpiling old tyres in land dumps was now banned in the EU simply because they are not bio degradable, the practice continued unabated in this country, and showed every signs of continuing to do so once the current round of crocodile tears had dried up.
The technology existed in converting old tyres into asphalt, yet it was ignored in favour of instead formulating directives and policies instead of dealing with a problem that countries which do not even market themselves as being clean-green had long eliminated.
Another problem in New Zealand he said was that district authorities tended to consult on the problem with their roading contractors who had a vested interest in ensuring the continuation of the status quo, and thus doing nothing about the tyre problem.
Tekam Closed Loop developed the granulation system in conjunction with Napier Engineering and Contracting.
| From the MSCNewsWire reporters' desk | Monday 6 March 2017 ||
Palace of the Alhambra, Spain
By: Charles Nathaniel Worsley (1862-1923)
From the collection of Sir Heaton Rhodes
Oil on canvas - 118cm x 162cm
Valued $12,000 - $18,000
Offers invited over $9,000
Contact: Henry Newrick – (+64 ) 27 471 2242
Mount Egmont with Lake
By: John Philemon Backhouse (1845-1908)
Oil on Sea Shell - 13cm x 14cm
Valued $2,000-$3,000
Offers invited over $1,500
Contact: Henry Newrick – (+64 ) 27 471 2242