Trumped! Now Biden- Our Time…

  The last four years have made the USA feel like a foreign country, to us – our wonderful ex-wwoofing friends have been stuck in an alien land run by a psychopath, egging on the sad and the bad to acts of intimidation and violence, and destroying many of the bonds of friendship and solidarity […]

Happy Solstice, we hope…

  We wish you  a Happy Solstice, with a colour-full covid-free summer if you are in Aotearoa or the Pacific… …and if you are in the Northern Hemisphere, or in a Covid-infected area, and dealing with  lockdowns and deaths,  please take care, and know that we are sending our love to you, with our hopes […]

Some Brilliant Things…

Toi Tu, Toi Ora The most outstanding current event in Tāmaki Makaurau is the contemporary Māori Art exhibition in the Auckland Art Gallery – a wonderful celebration of 112 Māori artists (60% of them women) , filling the whole gallery, and ranging from works, several storeys high to tiny exquisite objects, and in many different […]

Stuff, and Ihumatao…

Congratulations to NZ Stuff Media for their courage in taking responsibility for their long history of institutional racism, and making a commitment to change.  This is the first time a major media group has acknowledged its bias, with examples, and taken responsibility for the change that is needed – throughout almost all media and other […]

ELECTIONS: Aotearoa and DSA

  Aotearoa In the final tally, Labour won a clear 50% of seats (i.e.60 of the 120). National lost a further two seats so now has only 33 on the final tally.   As we  hoped, the Maori Party now has two MPs, Rawiri Waititi and Debbie Ngarewa-Packer (one electorate seat and one list MP).    […]

Elections 2020 in Aotearoa

      Sunday 18 October – the day after our  elections How lucky we are to live in a country where a warm, eloquent and truthful woman Prime Minister has been able to hold our nation together during the difficult times of the last three years.  We  hoped that Jacinda Ardern and the Labour-led […]

Reflections on Westminster-style democracy..

Our government structures are based on those of England, unsurprisingly.  Early settlers from England, Scotland and Ireland assumed their right to install the systems of government they were used to.  After the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840, they flooded the country with immigrants (historian James Belich describes the settlement process as a […]

Out and About

Bubbah at the Basement Theatre… Our first theatre outing after Covid Lockdown was a Basement Theatre production: Bubbah: My Ode to South Auckland, described  as “South Auckland stories by South Auckland people”, written by Bubbah in her garage with her team of Maori and Pasifika mates, describing life as it happens in their ‘hood – […]