Act no place for women?

The Green’s policy of co-leaders, one male and one female, and ranking its list to alternate men and women has always seemed unnecessaily contrived to me.

In the 21st centruy choosing people for their skills, abilities and what they can contribute to their party, parliament and the country should come up with a mix of men, women, ethnicities and whatever else was needed to ensure the list was representative and diverse as well as capable.

That theory has been tested by Act which has only one woman in parliament. When the party has such a small caucus, that could be explained as chance, but having no women at all would look like not just bad luck but bad management.

Now that Heather Roy has lost the party’s deputy leadership it’s unlikely that, if she decided to stand again, she’d get a winnable place on Act’s list next time. That leaves Act with the possibility of having no women in its caucus at all.

On present polling the party is unlikely to have more MPs after the next election and it may well have fewer.

If one of those MPs isn’t a woman the party should be looking at its structure, operation and policies. A party which either doesn’t have capable women willing to stand, or has them willing but not represented in the higher positions on its list has a problem.

Alternating men and women on the list looks like artificial equality, having no women in winnable places  at all would look like actual inequality.

UPDATE: Toad has pointed out I was wrong about the Greens – they can be flexible with the gender balance in list rankings.

August 19 in history

On August 19:

1504 Battle of Knockdoe.

1561 An 18-year-old Mary, Queen of Scots, returned to Scotland after spending 13 years in France.

 

1612  The “Samlesbury witches“, three women from  Samlesbury, were put on trial, accused for practising witchcraft, one of the most famous witch trials in English history.

 

1631  John Dryden, English poet, was born  (d. 1700).

1666  Second Anglo-Dutch War: Rear Admiral Robert Holmes led a raid on the Dutch island of Terschelling, destroying 150 merchant ships, an act later known as “Holmes’s Bonfire“.

 

1689 Samuel Richardson, English writer, was born  (d. 1761).

1692 Salem witch trials:  one woman and four men, including a clergyman, were executed after being convicted of witchcraft.

 

1745  Prince Charles Edward Stuart raised his standard in Glenfinnan – the start of the Second Jacobite Rebellion, known as “the 45″.

1768 Saint Isaac’s Cathedral was founded in Saint Petersburg.

 

1772  Gustavus III of Sweden staged a Coup d’état, in which he assumed power and enacted a new constitution that divided power between the Riksdag and the King.

1782 American Revolutionary War: Battle of Blue Licks – the last major engagement of the war, almost ten months after the surrender of the British commander Lord Cornwallis.

1812 War of 1812: American frigate USS Constitution defeated the British frigate HMS Guerriere off the coast of Nova Scotia, earning her nickname “Old Ironsides”.

1813  Gervasio Antonio de Posadas joined Argentina’s second triumvirate.

1839  Presentation of Jacque Daguerre’s new photographic process to the French Academy of Sciences.

1853 Edward Gibbon Wakefield was elected to the New Zealand Parliament.

1861 First ascent of Weisshorn, fifth highest summit in the Alps.

1883 Coco Chanel, French clothing designer, was born  (d. 1971).

1895 American frontier murderer and outlaw, John Wesley Hardin, was killed by an off-duty policeman in a saloon in El Paso.

1902 Ogden Nash, American poet, was born  (d. 1971).

1919 Afghanistan gained full independence from the United Kingdom.

1927  Metropolitan Sergius proclaimed the declaration of loyalty of the Russian Orthodox Church to the Soviet state.

1928 Bernard Levin, English journalist, author, and broadcaster, was born  (d. 2004).

 

1930 Frank McCourt, Irish-American author, was born  (d. 2009).

1934  The first All-American Soap Box Derby was held in Dayton, Ohio.

1934  The creation of the position Führer was approved by the German electorate with 89.9% of the popular vote.

1939 Ginger Baker, English musician (Cream), was born.

1940 Johnny Nash, American singer-songwriter, was born.

1940 First flight of the B-25 Mitchell medium bomber.

1942  Operation Jubilee – the 2nd Canadian Infantry Division led an amphibious assault by allied forces on Dieppe, France and failed.

 

1944  As his damaged Hawker Typhoon fighter-bomber rapidly lost height, Pilot Officer James Stellin struggled to avoid crashing into Saint-Maclou-la-Brière, a village of 370 people in the Seine-Maritime region. He succeeded, but at the cost of his own life.

1944  Liberation of Paris – Paris rose against German occupation with the help of Allied troops.

1945   Viet Minh led by Ho Chi Minh took power in Hanoi.

1946 Bill Clinton, 42nd President of the United States, was born.

1951 John Deacon, English musician (Queen), was born.

1953  Cold War: the CIA helped to overthrow the government of Mohammed Mossadegh in Iran and reinstated the Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.

1955 In the Northeast United States, severe flooding caused by Hurricane Diane, claimed 200 lives.

1960  Cold War: in Moscow, downed American U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers was sentenced to ten years imprisonment by the Soviet Union for espionage.

 

1960  Sputnik 5 – the Soviet Union launched the satellite with the dogs Belka and Strelka, 40 mice, 2 rats and a variety of plants.

 

1980  Saudia Flight 163, a Lockheed L-1011 TriStar burned after making an emergency landing at King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh killing 301 people.

1981  Gulf of Sidra Incident: United States fighters intercepted and shot down two Libyan Sukhoi Su-22 fighter jets over the Gulf of Sidra.

1987  Hungerford Massacre: Michael Ryan killed sixteen people with an assault rifle and then committed suicide.

1989  Polish president Wojciech Jaruzelski nominated Solidarity activist Tadeusz Mazowiecki to be the first non-communist Prime Minister in 42 years.

1989  Raid on offshore pirate station, Radio Caroline in North Sea by British and Dutch governments.

1989 Several hundred East Germans crossed the frontier between Hungary and Austria during the Pan-European Picnic, part of the events which began the process of the Fall of the Berlin Wall.

 

1990  Leonard Bernstein conducted his final concert, ending with Ludwig van Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7.

 

1991  Collapse of the Soviet Union, August Coup: Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev was placed under house arrest..

1991  Hurricane Bob hit the Northeast, United States.

 

1999  Tens of thousands of Serbians rallied to demand the resignation of Federal Republic of Yugoslavia President Slobodan Milošević.

2002 A Russian Mi-26 helicopter carrying troops was hit by a Chechen missile killing 118 soldiers.

2003 A car-bomb attack on United Nations headquarters in Iraq killed the agency’s top envoy Sergio Vieira de Mello and 21 other employees.

2003  A Hamas planned suicide attack on a bus in Jerusalem killed 23 Israelis, 7 of them children in the Jerusalem bus 2 massacre.

2005 The first-ever joint military exercise between Russia and China, called Peace Mission 2005 began.

2005 A series of strong storms lashed Southern Ontario spawning several tornadoes as well as creating extreme flash flooding in Toronto and its surrounding communities. .

2009  A series of bombings in Baghdad, killed 101 and injured 565 others.

Sourced from NZ History Online & Wikipedia

Medley

Sir Howard Morrison would have been 75 tdoay.

Word of the day

Quobled – hands that are shrivilled and wrinkled from doing too much washing up.

Culinary disconnect

When I call on an elderly aunt who lives by herslef I usually take some food.

More often than not it’s something which can be frozen if she doesn’t want to eat it in the next day or two.

One of the something’s I’ve often taken is a picnic pie.

But  when chatting with another aunt recently I discovered this particular culinary offering wasn’t being appreciated because Aunt 1 didn’t like picking all the paper from round the pie.

Paper? Aunt 2 wondered.

Then the penny dropped – Aunt 1 hadn’t come across filo pastry before and had mistaken it for baking paper.

He said I had, I knew I hadn’t

When checking out of a hotel in Christchurch last week the bloke behind the desk was itemising our account and mentioned an internet connection.

I said, no. I used a T-stick with mobile broadband and hadn’t connected to the internet through the hotel.

He gave the date and time. I was probably in the room and may have been on the internet but if I had it definitely wouldn’t have been via the hotel connection, even by accident.

I’d have had to plug my computer in and log-on and I’d done neither. Why would I at the exorbitant $20 an hour when I’m on a monthly plan with a flat payment?

He looked at me, I looked back, he shrugged and accepted my word – or at least accepted that he wasn’t going to get me to agree I’d used it.

I wonder how reliable the hotel system is if it logs a connection to the wrong room; how often it happens?

I also wonder how many times the hotel system logs a connection which a customer denies using even if s/he did?

NFOs make sense if not cents

Pita Alexander, a farma ccountant with a well deserved reputation for interesting addresses, spent a couple of weeks in Australia.

One of his anecdotes recounted a meeting with five young men, mostly truck drivers, who had travelled 1,800 kilometres to go fishing and then had to travel the same distance home.

“They would, I felt, have been better to pool their resources and purchase a fish shop near their home base. None of them though seemed ot udnerstand the sound economics invovled with this suggestion.

“This is similar to what I found in the USa. Fishermen just don’t seem to be able to focus rationally on this issue.”

It’s not only fishermen who don’t apply eocnomics to everything they do.

An older farmer was explaining to us that a recent purchase wasn’t making any money but it was keeping him out of his wife’s hair.

“It’s an NFO – a non-financial objective,” he said.

August 18 in history

On August 18:

293 BC  The oldest known Roman temple to Venus was founded, starting the institution of Vinalia Rustica.

 

1572 Marriage in Paris of the future Huguenot King Henry IV of Navarre to Marguerite de Valois, in a supposed attempt to reconcile Protestants and Catholics.

 

1587 Virginia Dare, granddaughter of governor John White of the Colony of Roanoke, became the first English child born in the Americas.

 

1634  Urbain Grandier, accused and convicted of sorcery, was burned alive in Loudun France.

 

1848  Camila O’Gorman and Ladislao Gutierrez were executed on the orders of Argentine dictator Juan Manuel de Rosas.

 

1864 American Civil War: Battle of Globe Tavern – Union forces tried to cut a vital Confederate supply-line into Petersburg, Virginia, by attacking the Wilmington and Weldon Railroad.

1868 – French astronomer Pierre Jules César Janssen discovered helium.

1870  Franco-Prussian War: Battle of Gravelotte .

1877  Asaph Hall discovered Martian moon Phobos.

1885 Nettie Palmer, Australian poet and essayist, was born  (d. 1964).

1891 Major hurricane struck Martinique, leaving 700 dead.

 

1903 German engineer Karl Jatho allegedly flew his self-made, motored gliding aeroplane four months before the first flight of the Wright Brothers.

1904 Max Factor, Polish-born cosmetics entrepreneur, was born  (d. 1996).

1909 Mayor of Tokyo Yukio Ozaki presented Washington, D.C. with 2,000 cherry trees.

 

1917  A Great Fire in Thessaloniki, Greece destroyed 32% of the city leaving 70,000 individuals homeless.

1920 Shelley Winters, American actress, was born  (d. 2006).

1920 The Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified, guaranteeing women’s suffrage.

 

1935 Sir Howard Morrison, New Zealand entertainer, was born (d 2009).

1935 Robert Redford, American actor, was born.

1938  The Thousand Islands Bridge, connecting New York State, United States with Ontario, Canada over the St. Lawrence River, was dedicated by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

1941 Adolf Hitler ordered a temporary halt to Nazi Germany’s systematic euthanasia of the mentally ill and the handicapped due to protests.

1950  Julien Lahaut, the chairman of the Communist Party of Belgium was assassinated by far-right elements.

1952 Patrick Swayze, American actor, was born  (d. 2009).

1958  Vladimir Nabokov’s controversial novel Lolita was published in the United States.

1963 American civil rights movement: James Meredith became the first black person to graduate from the University of Mississippi.

1965 Vietnam War: Operation Starlite began – United States Marines destroyed a Viet Cong stronghold on the Van Tuong peninsula in the first major American ground battle of the war.

1966 Vietnam War: the Battle of Long Tan - a patrol of 6th Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment encountered the Viet Cong.

 

1969  Jimi Hendrix played the unofficial last day of the Woodstock festival.

 

1971 Prime Minister Keith Holyoake announced to Parliament the decision to withdraw New Zealand’s combat force from Vietnam before the end of the year.

1976 In the Korean Demilitarized Zone at Panmunjeom, the Axe Murder Incident resulted in the death of two US soldiers.

1977  Steve Biko was arrested at a police roadblock under the Terrorism Act No 83 of 1967 in King William’s Town, South Africa. He later died of the injuries sustained during this arrest.

1982  Japanese election law was amended to allow for proportional representation.

1983  Hurricane Alicia hit the Texas coast, killing 22 people and causing over USD $1 billion in damage (1983 dollars).

 

1989  Leading presidential hopeful Luis Carlos Galán was assassinated near Bogotá in Colombia.

2000 A Federal jury finds the US EPA  guilty of discrimination against Dr. Marsha Coleman-Adebayo, under the Civil Rights Act of 1964, later inspiring passage of the No FEAR Act.

2005 Massive power blackout in  Java, affecting almost 100 million people.

2008 President Of Pakistan Pervez Musharaf resigned due to pressure from opposition.

Sourced from NZ History Online & Wikipedia

The Parent Trap

Happy birthday Maureen O’Hara, 90 today.

Word of the day

Callipygia – shapely buttocks (from ancient Greek).

Tuesday’s answers

Monday’s questions were:

1. What do we use the masseter,  temporalis, medial pterygoid, and lateral pterygoid  for?

2. Who said: “Wit has truth in it; wisecracking is simply calisthenics with words.”?

3. What colour is eau-de-nil?

4. It’s arco iris in Spanish, arcobaleno in Italian, regenboog in Dutch, arc-en-ciel in French and aniwaniwa or kopere in Maori – what is it in English?

5. Where is New Zealand’s largest earth dam and what is it called?

Busy day – no time to work out who got what, you’ll have to mark yourselves.

Tuesday’s answers follow the break:.

Did you see the one about . . .

Bookworm - creative photography at Mila’s Daydreams. (Hat tip: Beaties Book Blog).

I love my job – RivettingKate Taylor on the joys of her work.

The blogosphere prevails - Zen Tiger marks his 1000th post at New Zealand Conservative with some thoughts on blogging (a bit late with this one).

It’s inappropriate to be judgemental - Karl du Fresne on the ubiquitous prissy euphemism.

Round numbers are over rated: celebrating 191 posts - Darcy Cowan at Sci Blogs does the numbers.

Myths of socialism # 1 – Macdoctor in the first of a series countering the left’s mistakes.

Little things are big things

A reading often used at wedding includes the line: the little things are the big things.

That is at least as applicable to politics as marriage.

A pair of underpants played a major role in Tuku Morgan’s undoing. I have no idea how Len Brown runs the city he’s mayor of but I know far more than I want or need to about his coffee habit.

Yet Phillip Field hung on for months in the face of charges which eventually led to his conviction for corruption and Winston Peters clung on to the baubles of power with major questions over his behaviour and trustworthiness.

Perhaps the little things are the big thing because we can all relate to them, our own lives are full of them.

That could be one of the reasons the media focuses on what might seem to be very minor matters while giving at best cursory attention to major ones.

But little things are often silly things for which to risk losing a lot.

While never condoning major wrong doing, we might understand how someone thought a big gain was worth the risk. It’s much harder to understand why people risk their reputations and maybe even their careers over trifling expenditure which they could well afford themselves.

August 17 in history

On August 17:

986  A Byzantine army was destryed in the Battle of Gates of Trajan by the Bulgarians under the Comitopuli Samuel and Aron.

1786 – Davy Crockett, American frontiersman and soldier, was born (d. 1836).

1807  Robert Fulton‘s first American steamboat left New York City for Albany, New York on the Hudson River, inaugurating the first commercial steamboat service in the world.

1839 The NZ Company’s sailing ship Tory dropped anchor in Queen Charlotte Sound to pick up fresh water, food and wood before proceeding to Port Nicholson (Wellington Harbour).

1862  Indian Wars: The Lakota (Sioux) Dakota War of 1862 began as Lakota warriors attacked white settlements along the Minnesota River.

1864  American Civil War: Battle of Gainesville – Confederate forces defeated Union troops.

1883  The first public performance of the Dominican Republic’s national anthem, Himno Nacional.

1893  Mae West, American actress, was born (d. 1980).

1904 Mary Cain, American newspaper editor and politician, was born  (d. 1984).

1907  Pike Place Market, the longest continuously-running public farmers market in the US, opened in Seattle.

1908  Fantasmagorie, the first animated cartoon, realized by Émile Cohl, was shown in Paris.

1914  Battle of Stalluponen – The German army of General Hermann von François defeated the Russian force commanded by Pavel Rennenkampf near modern-day Nesterov, Russia.

 

1915  Jewish American Leo Frank was lynched for the alleged murder of a 13-year-old girl in Marietta, Georgia.

 

1918  Bolshevik revolutionary leader Moisei Uritsky was assassinated.

1920  Maureen O’Hara, Irish actress, was born.

1943 Robert De Niro, American actor, was born.

1943  The U.S. Eighth Air Force suffered the loss of 60 bombers on the Schweinfurt-Regensburg mission.

1943 : The U.S. Seventh Army under General George S. Patton arrived in Messina, Italy, followed several hours later by the British 8th Army under Field Marshal Bernard L. Montgomery, completing the Allied conquest of Sicily.

1943 First Québec Conference of Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and William Lyon Mackenzie King began.

 

1944 Larry Ellison, CEO of Oracle Corporation, billionaire, was born.

1945  Indonesian Declaration of Independence.

 

1946 Martha Coolidge, American film director, was born.

1947 The Radcliffe Line, the border between Union of India and Dominion of Pakistan was revealed.

 

1953   First meeting of Narcotics Anonymous in Southern California.

1959  Quake Lake was formed by the magnitude 7.5 1959 Yellowstone earthquake near Hebgen Lake in Montana.

1959  Kind of Blue by Miles Davis the much acclaimed and highly influential best selling jazz recording of all time, was released.

1960  Gabon gained independence from France.

1960 Sean Penn, American actor and director, was born.

1962  Gilby Clarke, American musician (Guns N’ Roses), was born.

1962  East German border guards killed 18-year-old Peter Fechter as he attempted to cross the Berlin Wall into West Berlin becoming one of the first victims of the wall.

 

1969  Category 5 Hurricane Camille hit the Mississippi coast, killing 248 people and causing $1.5 billion in damage.

1970  Venera 7 launched.

1978  Double Eagle II became first balloon to cross the Atlantic Ocean when it landed in Miserey near Paris, 137 hours after leaving Presque Isle, Maine.

 

1979 Two Soviet Aeroflot jetliners collide in mid-air over Ukraine, killing 156

1980  Azaria Chamberlain disappearsed, probably taken by a dingo.

1982  The first Compact Discs (CDs) were released to the public in Germany.

1988  Pakistani President Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq and U.S. Ambassador Arnold Raphel are killed in a plane crash.

1998  Monica Lewinsky scandal: US President Bill Clinton admitted in taped testimony that he had an “improper physical relationship” with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. On the same day he admitted before the nation that he “misled people” about his relationship.

1999 A 7.4-magnitude earthquake struck İzmit, Turkey, killing more than 17,000 and injuring 44,000.

2004  The National Assembly of Serbia unanimously adopted new state symbols: Boze Pravde becomes the new anthem and the coat of arms was adopted for the whole country.

2005 The first forced evacuation of settlers, as part of the Israel unilateral disengagement plan, starts.

 

2005  Over 500 bombs were set off by terrorists at 300 locations in 63 out of the 64 districts of Bangladesh.

2008  By winning the Men’s 4x100m medley relay, Michael Phelps became the first Olympian to win eight gold medals in the same Olympics.

 

Sourced from NZ History Online & Wikipedia

Breaker Morant

Happy birthday Bruce Beresford, 70 today.

Word of the day

Recumbentibus -a knock-out blow, physical or verbal.

Monday’s quiz

1. What do we use the masseter,  temporalis, medial pterygoid, and lateral pterygoid  for?

2. Who said: “Wit has truth in it; wisecracking is simply calisthenics with words.”?

3. What colour is eau-de-nil?

4. It’s arco iris in Spanish, arcobaleno in Italian, regenboog in Dutch, arc-en-ciel in French and aniwaniwa or kopere in Maori – what is it in English?

5. Where is New Zealand’s largest earth dam and what is it called?

Is the sun setting on sheep?

MAF’s annual Sheep and Beef Farm Monitoring Report was pretty gloomy reading.

. . .  mild lambing conditions across the whole country resulted in record lambing percentages for the 2009/10 season, but MAF Christchurch Regional Team Leader, John Greer, says drought in Northland, Central Otago, North Otago and South Canterbury saw reduced production and early sales of stock.

“Unfortunately lower lamb schedule prices, generally attributed to the high New Zealand dollar, caused average lamb price to fall $8.43 compared with 2008/09 and this more than offset the record lambing.”

MAF’s national sheep and beef model shows that farm surplus for reinvestment fell 37 percent to only $19 300 and cash surplus fell to a very modest $6900.

Profit in the coming year is expected to be similar to the 2009/10 season, with a slight increase in the lamb price expected. Cattle income is predicted to fall slightly in 2010/11 as farmers recover from the 2009 drought.

Farmers are budgeting for a very low cash surplus of $4400 in 2010/11, despite an increase in dairy grazing in many regions, an expected increase in wool weights and prices, and a continued effort by farmers to reduce spending in many areas.

It’s no wonder farmers are looking for other opportunities including dairying or dairy support.

But is the sun setting on the sheep industry?

We’re breeding sheep again for the first time in 12 years. Lambing 11,000 ewes is a sign that we have confidence that there is still money to be made from meat – and hopefully wool.

Rabobank’s rural confidence survey  suggests we’re not alone:

The latest survey – completed this month – shows 34 per cent of the country’s farmers expect the rural economy to improve in the next 12 months. While this was up only slightly on the 32 per cent with that expectation last survey, the number of farmers expecting conditions to worsen fell from 26 per cent previously to just 11 per cent this survey.

Rabobank general manager Rural New Zealand Ben Russell said the survey showed much of the improvement in rural confidence had been driven by sheep and beef farmers, who had a more optimistic outlook about conditions in, and prospects for, their sectors.

“There have been several factors working in the favour of sheep and beef producers,” Mr Russell said. “The dollar fell slightly during the survey period, while there has also been good news in terms of commodity prices in these sectors.”

Mr Russell said lamb prices, in particular, had held at higher levels than expected during the main processing season, due to good offshore market prices.

“Farmgate lamb prices season to date have averaged around $80 a head, compared to the approximately $70 a head envisaged at the start of the processing season,” he said. Meanwhile beef prices had also improved earlier than usual during the peak processing season from the lows experienced pre-Christmas.

I’m not sure why the Rabobank shows a more positive outlook than the MAF survey suggests is realistic.

But meat prices were stronger last year and are expected to hold up this season.

Beef + Lamb NZ and the Meat Industry Association have released the terms of reference for their Meat Sector Strategy and B+LNZ’s economic service says sheep numbers are stabilising again after three consecutive years of dramatic falls.

A 2.5 per cent increase in total sheep numbers to 33.20 million head at 30 June 2010 has been driven by the retention of hoggets, up 10.4 per cent on the previous year on both breeding and finishing farms. Whilst rebuilding of the flock slowly takes place following the droughts in recent years, the ewe flock is still 16.6 per cent lower than five years ago. 

B+LNZ Economic Service Executive Director, Rob Davison says the annual stock number survey, which establishes the productive base of livestock for 2010-11, shows sheep numbers increased by 3.3 per cent (+0.53 million) in the North Island and 1.8 per cent (+0.29 million) in the South Island. 

“The increase in total sheep numbers is driven mainly by the retention of hoggets. Fewer hoggets were kept in previous years as farmers sold off ewe hoggets for cashflow. Also, farmers are expecting good returns for store two-tooths in the coming season, based on strong ewe prices last summer.” 

Mr Davison says early indications suggest this spring’s total lamb crop will be back on last year’s by around 0.71 million lambs (-2.5 per cent).   

“This decrease will come from a slight drop in breeding ewes (-0.6%) to 22 million, with North Island numbers down 1.2 per cent and South Island numbers remaining static.  There will also be fewer lambs born per 100 ewes due to scanning results back 5-10 percentage points and poorer ewe condition heading into lambing likely to affect lamb survival. However, as always, the final judge for the actual lamb crop will be the weather this spring. 

“With this year’s lamb crop likely to be back on last year’s, it is expected that the number of lambs to be available for export will be around 21.4 million, similar to the export year just ending.”

Lamb has been defying the normal rule of supply and demand with numbers falling while demand has been high.

Perhaps the return of confidence in farmers reflects the hope that this season high demand and lower supply will result in better prices.

Dairying has lots to be proud of

DairyNZ is changing direction with its Go Dairy campaign which until now has been aimed at attracting urban people into dairying.

The new campaign aims to show New Zealanders there is a lot to be proud of in the dairy industry.

“Previously our ads have been designed to attract new people to dairy farming, but this year we’re telling the great story we have, showing New Zealanders that we lead the world when it comes to dairy,” says DairyNZ CEO Dr Tim Mackle.

He says research has confirmed New Zealanders are becoming increasingly disconnected with their rural heritage and that this campaign is about reversing that trend.

“It’s a concerning trend for all of New Zealand. We have something special here, and it’s important that we’re able to sit down and talk with the community and government about key issues and challenges we face and how we can address them.

“Many people don’t know where we sit on the world scale or appreciate the fact that New Zealand dairy products are exported to more than 140 countries, that we’re responsible for some world-leading innovations. 

Rural media showcases successful and innovative dairy farmers. But almost all the stories about dairying outside the farm pages centre on the payout or portray dairying in a bad light.

I’m not suggesting covering anything up, but I would like to see a bit of balance. There is a lot to celebrate in dairying, as the campaign will show.

“We know we’ve got challenges – the size of our environmental footprint can’t continue to increase along with the size of our contribution to the economy. And we’re serious about reducing dairy farming’s impact on the environment. We’re working on these issues, because it’s important not just to dairy farmers and our customers, but to all of New Zealand,” he says.

The campaign, created by Naked Communications and Josh&Jamie, will run on television, and also in newspapers and magazines.  The television commercial tells the story of a Kiwi dairy farmer who goes round the world on his quad bike and returns to New Zealand with the realisation that while other countries may have more land, money, people, rain and sun than us, when it comes to dairy, New Zealand is the world leader, exporting to over 140 countries, feeding over 100 million people and accounting for a third of the world’s dairy trade.

Dr Mackle says the print ads provide further evidence for the statements made in the television commercial, with stories of a Waikato dairy farmer’s invention of the electric fence, showing how a Fonterra factory is conserving water in Australia and showing how our dairy products go to all corners of the world.

“It’s talking about some of the innovation and achievements of the industry and enabling New Zealanders to feel proud of how good we are at dairy farming here,” he says.

The TV ad is here.

August 16 in history

On August 16:

1513  Battle of Guinegate (Battle of the Spurs) – King Henry VIII of England defeated French Forces.

1777  American Revolutionary War: The Americans led by General John Stark routed British and Brunswick troops under Friedrich Baum at the Battle of Bennington.

 

1780 American Revolutionary War: Battle of Camden – The British defeated the Americans.

1792  Maximilien Robespierre presented the petition of the Commune of Paris to the Legislative Assembly, which demanded the formation of a revolutionary tribunal.

1819  Seventeen people died and more than 600 were injured by cavalry charges at the Peterloo Massacre at a public meeting at St. Peter’s Field, Manchester.

1841  U.S. President John Tyler vetoed a bill which called for the re-establishment of the Second Bank of the United States. Enraged Whig Party members riot outside the White House in the most violent demonstration on White House grounds in U.S. history.

1858 U.S. President James Buchanan inaugurated the new transatlantic telegraph cable by exchanging greetings with Queen Victoria.

 

1859  The Tuscan National Assembly formally deposed the House of Habsburg-Lorraine.

1865  Restoration Day in the Dominican Republic which regained its independence after 4 years of fighting against Spanish Annexation.

1868  Arica, Peru (now Chile) was devastated by a tsunami which followed a magnitude 8.5 earthquake in the Peru-Chile Trench off the coast. An estimated 25,000 people in Arica and perhaps 70,000 people in all were killed.

1869  Battle of Acosta Ñu: A Paraguay battalion made up of children was massacred by the Brazilian Army during the War of the Triple Alliance.

1870  Franco-Prussian War: The Battle of Mars-La-Tour reulted in a Prussian victory.

1888 T. E. Lawrence, English writer and soldier, was born (d. 1935).

1896 Skookum Jim Mason, George Carmackn and Dawson Charlie discovered gold in a tributary of the Klondike River in Canada, setting off the Klondike Gold Rush.

 

1902 Georgette Heyer, English novelist, was born (d. 1974).

1913  Tōhoku Imperial University of Japan (modern day Tōhoku University) admitted its first female students.

1913 Menachem Begin, 6th Prime Minister of Israel, Nobel laureate, was born (d. 1992).

1913 – Completion of the Royal Navy battlecruiser HMS Queen Mary.

1914  World War I: Battle of Cer began.

1920  Ray Chapman of the Cleveland Indians was hit in the head by a fastball thrown by Carl Mays of the New York Yankees, and dies early the next day.

1920 – The congress of the Communist Party of Bukhara opened.

1929  The 1929 Palestine riots in the British Mandate of Palestine between Arabs and Jews.

 

1930 The first colour sound cartoon, Fiddlesticks, was made by Ub Iwerks.

1940 Bruce Beresford, Australian film director, was born.

1940  World War II: The Communist Party was banned in German-occupied Norway.

1941  HMS Mercury, Royal Navy Signals School and Combined Signals School opened at Leydene, near Petersfield, Hampshire, England.

1942  World War II: The two-person crew of the U.S. naval blimp L-8 disappeared on a routine anti-submarine patrol over the Pacific Ocean.

1944 Council of Organisations for Relief Service Overseas (CORSO) was formed.

1944  First flight of the Junkers Ju 287.

 

1945  An assassination attempt on Japan’s prime minister, Kantaro Suzuki.

1945 – Puyi, the last Chinese emperor and ruler of Manchukuo, was captured by Soviet troops.

1954  The first edition of Sports Illustrated was published.

1957 Tim Farriss, Australian musician (INXS), was born.

 

1960  Cyprus gained its independence from the United Kingdom.

1960  Joseph Kittinger parachuted from a balloon over New Mexico at 102,800 feet (31,330 m), setting three record: High-altitude jump, free-fall, and highest speed by a human without an aircraft.

 

1962 Pete Best was replaced by Ringo Starr (Richard Starkey) as drummer for The Beatles.

1964  Vietnam War: A coup d’état replaced Duong Van Minh with General Nguyen Khanh as President of South Vietnam.

1966 Vietnam War: The House Un-American Activities Committee began investigations of Americans who aided the Viet Cong.

 

1972 Emily Robison, American country singer (Dixie Chicks), was born.

1972 The Royal Moroccan Air Force fired on, Hassan II of Morocco‘s plane.

1987 A McDonnell Douglas MD-82 carrying Northwest Airlines Flight 255 crashed on take-off from Detroit Metropolitan Airport in Romulus, Michigan, killing 155 passengers and crew. The sole survivor was four-year-old Cecelia Cichan.

1989  A solar flare created a geomagnetic storm that affected micro chips, leading to a halt of all trading on Toronto’s stock market.

 

1992  In response to an appeal by President Fernando Collor de Mello to wear green and yellow as a way to show support for him, thousands of Brazilians took to the streets dressed in black.

2005  West Caribbean Airways Flight 708 crashed near Machiques, Venezuela, killing the 160 aboard.

 Sourced from NZ History Online & Wikipedia