One’s 18 months-old the others just nine weeks.

They both brought their parents with them, one also brought an aunt, the other brought a grandmother; another set of grandparents and a great-grandmother arrived too.

All day all the adults helped to look after the wee girls – cuddling, reading and singing to, and playing with them.

There was always someone to share the care with the parents, keeping an eye outt to ensure the wee ones were safe and happy. There were lots of laughs and lots of love.

This is normal for our family.

The shame and tragedy is that it isn’t normal for all families.

Making it normal for all children to grow up in a loving home with the loving support of wider family and friends ought to be the goal of the Green paper on vulnerable children.

But how do we achieve that when loving, supportive families aren’t the norm for far too many parents?

But does know what he’s suggesting when he writes:

 . . . So my suggestion to the Occupy diehards: pick the nicest of the 16 Crafar farms to camp on, pack up your mung beans and your hacky sacks in your old kit bags and occupy some land to highlight an issue that really matters to so many New Zealanders. . . 

The right of the protesters to occupy public spaces has been subject to debate. That would not be the case with the farms – they are private property.

Regardless of the nationality of the owners, anyone who tried to occupy the farms could be charged with trespass.

It’s possible Plunket has got his tongue in his cheek but even so his comments will add to a growing concern among farmers that the public don’t understand that the property rights which apply to small areas of land in town apply just as much to large ones in the country.

1676 – Feodor III became Tsar of Russia.

1814 – France defeated Russia and Prussia in the Battle of Brienne.

1834– US President Andrew Jackson ordered first use of federal soldiers to suppress a labour dispute.

1842 Auckland’s first Anniversary Day regatta was held.

1845 “The Raven” by Edgar Allan Poe  was published in the New York Evening Mirror.

1860 Anton Chekhov, Russian writer, was born (d. 1904).

1863 Bear River Massacre.

1874 John D. Rockefeller Jr., American entrepreneur, was born (d. 1960).

1880 W.C. Fields, American actor and writer was born  (d. 1946).

1886 Karl Benz patented the first successful gasoline-driven automobile.

1891 Liliuokalani was proclaimed Queen of Hawaii, its last monarch.

1916  Paris was first bombed by German zeppelins.

1939 Germaine Greer, Australian writer and feminist, was born.

1940 Three trains on the Sakurajima Line, in Osaka collided and exploded while approaching Ajikawaguchi station. 181 people were killed.

1944  USS Missouri (BB-63) the last battleship commissioned by the US Navy was launched.

1944 Approximately 38 men, women, and children died in the Koniuchy massacre in Poland.

1944 In Bologna the Anatomical Theatre of the Archiginnasio was destroyed in an air-raid.

1945 Tom Selleck, American actor, screenwriter and film producer, was born.

1949 Tommy Ramone, Hungarian-born musician and record producer (The Ramones), was born.

1954  Oprah Winfrey, American talk show host and actress, was born.

1989 Hungary established diplomatic relations with South Korea, making them the first Eastern Bloc nation to do so.

1996 President Jacques Chirac announced a “definitive end” to French nuclear weapons testing.

1996 – La Fenice, Venice’s opera house, was destroyed by fire.

1998 In Birmingham, Alabama, a bomb explodes at an abortion clinic, killing one and severely wounding another.

2001 Thousands of student protesters in Indonesia stormed parliament and demanded that President Abdurrahman Wahid resign due to alleged involvement in corruption scandals.

2002 In his State of the Union Address, United Statses President George W. Bush described “regimes that sponsor terror” as an Axis of Evil.

2005 The first direct commercial flights from the mainland China(from Guangzhou) to Taiwan since 1949 arrived in Taipei. Shortly afterwards, a China Airlines carrier landed in Beijing.

2006 – India’s Irfan Pathan became the first bowler to take a Test cricket hat-trick in the opening over of a match.

Sourced from NZ History Online & Wikipedia.

When they eventually raised enough they bought some paint  and a working bee got cracking on a weekend morning to do the work.

When they were about half finished they realised that they were going to run out of paint before the church was fully painted.

The preacher said, “It’s a water based paint, just thin it down with water.”

They continued painting and thinning until the colour started losing its depth and when they finally finished it was striped – going from dark, through medium to light.

The minister and the other amateur painters stood back to get a good view of the church so they could admire their work.

As they did, clouds rolled in, the heavens opened and it began to pour with rain.

They ran back to the church for shelter and when they got there found that the rain had washed all the newly applied paint off the building.

They were understandably upset that all the money they’d raised and work they’d done had been wasted.

They were discussing what to do next when there was a flash of lightning and a clap of thunder and a voice from the sky said, “Repaint, repaint and thin no more.”

New Zealand Post had decreed there would be no extensions to the mail routes because of rising costs and our gate would be the nearest existing stop to the new house.

Now the company is increasing all parcel post rates and adding a $2.80 rural delivery charge to cover the cost of petrol.

I can’t argue about cost recovery and user-pays but I wonder if they’ll also increase charges to senders of junk mail?

Without junk mail fewer stops would be required because not everyone gets mail every day, but with junk mail the driver has to stop at all boxes which must add to delivery time and therefore fuel used.

Its real importance to New Zealand is the extent to which it strengthens ties with a market fast becoming this country’s most important economic lifeline. – ODT

But those in Auckland obviously don’t include the homeless among the poor they purport to want to help:

Meanwhile, several homeless people have taken issue with the Occupy protesters, for ruining what they say is their home.

Several spoken to by Radio New Zealand say they can’t stay in any of the parks around the city now.

Mount Roskill resident J. D. Simon says he has taken in 13 homeless people, many of whom are now camping on his lawn.

Oh the irony.

The faux homeless who have homes to go to have pushed out the genuine homeless people who don’t.

While on the subject of the occupation, Chris Trotter asks the questions of the day:

. . . Did anyone ever consider asking the Mayor if he and his staff could identify any wasteland in the city that could serve as a camp ground? Or if there were areas that could be turned into community gardens? Did anyone ever think of asking Aucklanders to help Occupy Auckland grow food for families who were struggling to feed their kids? . . .

Practical help, rather than aimless protest – now there’s a radical idea.

It wouldn’t have looked as exciting on TV as resisting police. But it would have made a difference and done it without inconveniencing the genuine homeless.

1457  King Henry VII, was born (d. 1509).

1521 The Diet of Worms began.

1547 Henry VIII died. His nine year old son, Edward VI became King, and the first Protestant ruler of England.

1573 – Articles of the Warsaw Confederation were signed, sanctioning freedom of religion in Poland.

1582  John Barclay, Scottish writer, was born (d. 1621).

1624 Sir Thomas Warner,  founded the first British colony in the Caribbean, on the island of Saint Kitts.

1706 John Baskerville, English printer, was born  (d. 1775).

1724 The Russian Academy of Sciences was founded in St. Petersburg by Peter the Great, and implemented in the Senate decree.

1754 Horace Walpole, in a letter to Horace Mann, coined the word serendipity.

1813 Pride and Prejudice was first published in the United Kingdom.

1820 – Russian expedition led by Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen and Mikhail Petrovich discovered the Antarctic continent approaching the Antarctic coast.

1827  French explorer Jules Sébastien César Dumont d’Urville sailed the Astrolabe through French Pass and into Admiralty Bay in the Marlborough Sounds.

1833 William Seward Burroughs I, British soldier and administrator, was born (d. 1885).

1841 Henry Morton Stanley, Welsh-born explorer and journalist, was born (d. 1904).

1855 The first locomotive ran from the Atlantic to the Pacific on the Panama Railway.

1855 William Seward Burroughs I, American inventor, was born (d. 1898).

1863 Ernst William Christmas, Australian painter, was born (d. 1918).

1864 Charles W. Nash, American automobile entrepreneur, co-founder Buick Company,  was born  (d. 1948).

1864 – Herbert Akroyd Stuart, English inventor of the hot bulb heavy oil engine, was born (d. 1927).

1871 Franco-Prussian War: the Siege of Paris ended in French defeat and an armistice.

1873 Colette, French writer, was born (d. 1954).

1878 Yale Daily News became the first daily college newspaper in the United States.

1887  Arthur Rubinstein, Polish pianist and conductor, was born (d. 1982).

1887  In a snowstorm at Fort Keogh, Montana, the world’s largest snowflakes were reported, being 15 inches (38 cm) wide and 8 inches (20 cm) thick.

1890 Robert Stroud,  American convict, the Birdman of Alcatraz, was born (d. 1963).

1896  Walter Arnold of East Peckham, Kent became the first person to be convicted of speeding. He was fined 1 shilling plus costs for speeding at 8 mph (13 km/h), thus exceeding the contemporary speed limit of 2 mph (3.2 km/h).

1901 Wellington blacksmith, William Hardham, won the Victoria Cross - the only New Zealander to do so in the South African War.

1902The Carnegie Institution was founded in Washington, D.C. with a $10 million gift from Andrew Carnegie.

1909 United States troops leave Cuba with the exception of Guantanamo Bay Naval Base after being there since the Spanish-American War.

1912  Jackson Pollock, American painter, was born (d. 1956).

1915 An act of the U.S. Congress created the United States Coast Guard.

1916 Louis D. Brandeis becomes the first Jew appointed to the United States Supreme Court.

1917 Municipally owned streetcars began operating in the streets of San Francisco, California.

1918  Harry Corbett, English puppeteer (Sooty), was born(d. 1989).

1921 A symbolic Tomb of the Unknown Soldier was installed beneath the Arc de Triomphe to honor the unknown dead of World War I.

1922 Knickerbocker Storm, Washington D.C.’s biggest snowfall, causes the city’s greatest loss of life when the roof of the Knickerbocker Theater collapses.

1929 Acker Bilk, English jazz clarinetist, was born.

1933 – The name Pakistan was coined by Choudhary Rehmat Ali Khan and is accepted by the Indian Muslims who then thereby adopted it further for the Pakistan Movement seeking independence.1934 The first ski tow in the United States begins operation in Vermont.

1935 David Lodge, English author, was born.

1935 Iceland became the first Western country to legalize therapeutic abortion.

1936 Alan Alda, American actor, writer, and director, was born.

1938 The World Land Speed Record on a public road was broken by driver Rudolf Caracciola in the Mercedes-Benz W195 at a speed of 432.7 kilometres per hour (268.9 mph).

1943 Dick Taylor, English musician (The Rolling Stones and The Pretty Things), was born.

1944 Susan Howard, American actress, was born.

1955 Nicolas Sarkozy, President of France, was born.

1958The Lego company patented their design of Lego bricks.

1964 A U.S. Air Force jet training plane that strayed into East Germany  was shot down by Soviet fighters near Erfurt ; all 3 crew men are killed.

1965  The current design of the Flag of Canada was chosen by an act of Parliament.

1977 The first day of the Great Lakes Blizzard of 1977, which severely affected and crippled much of Upstate New York, but Buffalo, NY, Syracuse, NY, Watertown, NY, and surrounding areas were most affected, each area accumulating close to 10 feet of snow on this one day.

1. Who said: “Never be afraid to laugh at yourself, after all, you could be missing out on the joke of the century.”?

2. What is the common name for Didelphimorphia Phalangeriforme?

3. It’s premières crevette in French, gambero crudo in Italian and gamba crudo in Spanish (I couldn’t find it in Maori), what is it in English?

4.Who wrote My Brilliant Career? and who wrote A Town Like Alice?

5. What are the first four lines of the Australian National Anthem?

Points for answers:

David got  two – one for # 3 for being close with the Maori answer and another for a good try with the anthem.

Gravedodger got three and a half with a bonus for extra commentary on the possums.

Andrei got one and a half and a bonus for being the only one to get raw and for confusing me with #5. Was there another meaning in the wording of the question that I missed?

Adam got two and a bonus for being the first to get Miles Franklin whose endowment funds one of Australia’s most prestigious literary awards.

PDM got a half plus a near enough with the anthem and on the right track with the kangaroo.

Teletext wins an electronic bag of apricots for five (though I think Opoosum is the American one.

I’ve been lenient over answers to #2 -  shrimp is near enough to prawn – though for the record shrimp is crevette in French; gamberetto in Italian; camarón in Spanish and kōura rangi, kōuraura or uraura in Maori. Only Andrei got raw.

Answers follow the break:

1. Dame Edna Everage.

2. Possum.

3.  Raw prawn.

4. Miles Franklin, Neville Shute.

5. Australians all let us rejoice/ For we are young and free /We’ve golden soil and wealth for toil, /Our home is girt by sea. . .

“It is clear that all criteria under sections 16 and 18 of the Overseas Investment Act 2005 have been met, therefore we accept the recommendation of the OIO to grant consent,” Mr Williamson said.

“We are satisfied that Milk New Zealand’s application for consent meets the criteria set out in the Act,” Mr Coleman said.

The approval follows the receivers, KordaMentha’s acceptance in late 2010 of Milk New Zealand’s bid for the farms.

Milk New Zealand’s acquisition will further support the supply of high quality dairy products into the Chinese market and help set the foundations for further economic and export opportunities with China.

Stringent conditions policed by the OIO will ensure that Milk New Zealand’s investment delivers substantial and identifiable benefits to New Zealand. These include investing more than $14m into the farms making them more economically and environmentally sustainable; protecting the Nga Herenga  and the Te Ruaki pa sites and improving walking access to the Pureora Forest Park and Te Rere falls.  An on-farm training facility for dairy farm workers will also be established.

If the application meets the Act’s criteria the ministers had little choice but to approve the bid.

But this won’t be the end of the matter:

A press release just issued by the Michael Fay backed Crafar Farms Purchase Group says the decision to approve the farm sale to Shanghai Pengxin Group was “wrong in law and, if not overturned by Judicial Review, sets up open season for any foreign buyers wanting New Zealand land.”

The Group said it is the highest New Zealand bidder ($171.5 million), offering $21.5 million more than the Government’s farming SOE, Landcorp.

The Group confirmed it would proceed with a Judicial Review launched earlier this week to try to stop the land from being sold offshore.

But the Herald puts the purchase of the farms into perspective:

The 16 Crafar farms have a combined area of approximately 7,893 hectares.

In the last two years, consent was granted for overseas persons to acquire 357,056 hectares of agricultural land.

Consents granted involving agricultural land by country of majority ownership, are:

* United States to acquire 25,306 hectares of farm land

* Germany to acquire 6,834 hectares of farm land

* Switzerland 9,727 hectares of farm land

* Australia 3,861 hectares of farm land

* United Kingdom 22,600 hectares of farm land

* Hong Kong to acquire 759 hectares of farm land

I don’t remember any fuss over any of those sales nor over the sale of a total of 650,000 to foreigners approved by Labour in the nine years it was in government.

There are very stringent conditions on the sale:

• The individuals with control of Milk New Zealand must continue to be of good character
• Milk New Zealand must invest a minimum of NZD $14m in the properties
• Milk New Zealand and their associates must not acquire an ownership or control interest in milk processing facilities in New Zealand unless a 50% or more ownership or control interest in those facilities is held by non-overseas persons
• Milk New Zealand must establish an on-farm training facility for dairy farm workers and must meet the capital cost of establishing this facility
• Milk New Zealand must give two scholarships of not less than NZD $5,000 each year to students of the on-farm training facility with the first two scholarships to be awarded by 31 December 2013
• Milk New Zealand must use reasonable endeavours to assist Landcorp to extend its business to, and market its products, in China
• Milk New Zealand must provide public walking access over Benneydale Farm and Taharua Station, in consultation with the Department of Conservation  and the New Zealand Walking Access Commission
• Milk New Zealand must take reasonable steps to protect and enhance existing areas of significant indigenous vegetation and significant habitats of indigenous fauna and flora on the properties
• Milk New Zealand must register a heritage covenant in respect of the Te Ruaki pa site on Tiwhaiti Farm
• If required by the Office of Treaty Settlements, the Applicant must transfer the Nga Herenga pa site (approximately 1.6ha located on Benneydale Farm) to the Crown for nil consideration.

The third point, restricting ownership or control of milk processing here to no more than a 50% share, should allay concerns about food safety and standards.

The OIO’s recommendation is here; the decision summary is here  and background information here.

The only question I’m left with is why the receivers insisted on selling the operation as a whole rather than offering up individual farms.

They say they would not have got as much that way but I find that difficult to believe. The demand for individual farms would have been much greater than it was for the whole operation and therefore the price ought to have been higher.

It’s not just New Zealand’s temperate climate and ability to grow lush green  grass that has caught the eye of Chinese investors.

Our ability to produce high quality milk cheaply and efficiently is matched  only by our ability to do so safely.

As an analyst for NZX, Susan Kilsby has compiled a report on the booming  Chinese dairy industry. She says for the Chinese, it’s all about food  security.

“It’s not just setting up the farm, it’s also the security of supply chain  from the time the milk leaves the cow to the time it reaches the consumer  product at the end,” she said.

Our reputation for food safety is priceless and something we must do everything in our power to safeguard.

I don’t have any problem with the sale of farm land to foreigners as mandated by current legislation. But we do need to ensure that any food which is produced in, and marketed as from, New Zealand conforms to our standards.

But it wouldn’t take anyone who knows their way around the internet long to find the YouTube clip of the conversation recorded between John Key and John Banks.

The MSM is constrained by police advice it is an offence to disclose private communication unlawfully intercepted.

That could apply to websites based here but lots aren’t. It’s all over Twitter and some blogs also have links to the clip or enough information to help people looking for it.

And people are looking:

Yesterday evening the top search terms for this blog were:

Whether or not the old rules apply to new media might be debatable but the coverage the tapes are getting on the internet show that there is enough uncertainty to leave old media at a disadvantage.

However, without divulging the contents almost everyone agrees there was nothing of great moment on the recording.

That has led political opportunists to say that proves John Key was wrong to make an issue of it.

On the contrary it shows he was motivated not by a desire to hide something but by principle.

All of us, whether or not we are public figures, ought to be able to have a conversation without the risk it might be recorded and made public without our knowledge or permission.

1343 Pope Clement VI issued the Bull Unigenitus.

1606  Gunpowder Plot: The trial of Guy Fawkes and other conspirators began, ending with their execution on January 31.

1695 Mustafa II became the Ottoman sultan on the death of Ahmed II. Mustafa rules until his abdication in 1703.

1756 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Austrian composer was born  (d. 1791).

1785 The University of Georgia was founded, the first public university in the United States.

1825 The U.S. Congress approved Indian Territory clearing the way for forced relocation of the Eastern Indians on the “Trail of Tears“.

1908 William Randolph Hearst, Jr., American newspaper magnate, was born (d. 1993).

1921 Donna Reed, American actress, was born (d. 1986).

1933  Mohamed Al-Fayed, Egyptian billionaire businessman, was born.

1939 First flight of the Lockheed P-38 Lightning.

1941 Beatrice Tinsley, New Zealand astronomer and cosmologist , was born  (d. 1981).

1944  Nick Mason, English drummer (Pink Floyd),was born.

1944 The 900-day Siege of Leningrad was lifted.

1945 – World War II: The Red Army liberated the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp in Poland.

1951 Brian Downey, Irish musician (Thin Lizzy), was born.

1951 Nuclear testing at the Nevada Test Site began with a one-kiloton bomb dropped on Frenchman Flat.

1962 Peter Snell broke the world mile record  on grass at Cook’s Garden, Wanganui, in a time of 3 mins 53.4 secs.

1967 Apollo 1 – Astronauts Gus Grissom, Edward White and Roger Chaffee were killed in a fire during a test of the spacecraft at the Kennedy Space Centre.

1967 – More than 60 nations signed the Outer Space Treaty banning nuclear weapons in space.

1968 Mike Patton, American singer (Faith No More), was born.

1973 Paris Peace Accords officially ended the Vietnam War. Colonel William Nolde was killed in action becoming the conflict’s last recorded American combat casualty.

1974 The Brisbane River flooded causing the largest flood to affect Brisbane City in the 20th Century.

1979 Daniel Vettori, New Zealand cricketer, was born.

1981 Tony Woodcock, New Zealand rugby union player, was born.

1983 Pilot shaft of the Seikan Tunnel, the world’s longest sub-aqueous tunnel (53.85 km) between the Japanese islands of Honshū and Hokkaidō, broke through.

1984 Pop singer Michael Jackson suffered second and third degree burn on his scalp during the filming of a Pepsi commercial in the Shrine Auditorium.

1996 Colonel Ibrahim Baré Maïnassara deposed the first democratically elected president of Niger, Mahamane Ousmane, in a military coup.

1996 Germany first observed International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

2006 Western Union discontinued its Telegram and Commercial Messaging services.

Sourced from NZ History Online & Wikipedia

“Today I can confirm that we are still on track to post a surplus in 2014/15, and the upcoming Budget Policy Statement will show a forecast surplus in the range of $300 to $500 million in that year,” Mr Key said.

“Given the events in Europe, this surplus is understandably smaller than was previously forecast. But we remain on our tight fiscal track.”

It might be politically tempting to soften the target but it is much better economically, and in the country’s long-term interests, to stick to the goal of surplus as soon as possible.

The commitment was made in a speech delivered this morning in which he outlined the government’s priorities:

Our first priority is to responsibly manage the Government’s finances. In the world as it is today, the state of the country’s finances is all-important.

Our second priority is to build a more competitive and productive economy. That means an export-focused economy, which is selling more of what the world wants, at a competitive price, and is built on a solid base of innovation.

Our third priority is to deliver better public services to New Zealanders, within the tight budget the Government is operating under.

And our final priority is to rebuild Christchurch, our second-biggest city.

The full speech is here.

It’s not easy to hear what is being said by John Key and John Banks in their pre-election conversation because of the background noise.

But from what I could hear and understand there is absolutely nothing to cause embarrassment or upset to anyone.

If that is all there is, the Herald on Sunday and TV3 who had the tape and made such a fuss about it really need to look at themselves, their standards and motivation.

They inferred  implied the contents were politically sensitive and potentially embarrassing.

They told us it was in the national interest to release them. If that’s all there is it wasn’t. They are simply boring.

The HOS and even more so TV3 turned a non-event into a potential scandal and then someone from one of those media outlets or Bradley Ambrose, the reporter who, inadvertently or not, recorded the conversation, gave something to Winston Peters which enabled him to do what he does best – manufacture outrage to generate attention.

The only embarrassment is to the media who created an issue out of nothing.

I am not linking to the recording because I am unsure of the legal position but if you can’t find it you’ll save yourself 10 minutes and 46 seconds of boredom.

Whaleoil, Kiwiblog and Keeping Stock also have posts on the recording.

2. What is the common name for Didelphimorphia Phalangeriforme?

3. It’s premières crevette in French, gambero crudo in Italian and gamba crudo in Spanish (I couldn’t find it in Maori), what is it in English?

4.Who wrote My Brilliant Career? and who wrote A Town Like Alice?

5. What are the first four lines of the Australian National Anthem?

From the opening words of her safety briefing Sam had us all listening and laughing as she delivered the usual spiel with several very amusing twists and additions.

She put a lot extra into doing what is a necessary but usually boring part of her job and she continued to elicit smiles and laughs in her interaction throughout the flight.

We flew home again yesterday, the cabin attendants did all that was required of them and we couldn’t fault their service but they didn’t get us listening and laughing the way Sam did.

She obviously enjoyed her job, put a lot into it and in doing so made it a much more enjoyable and memorable flight for the passengers.

Our cobbers and mates (is there a difference between the two?) across the Tasman are celebrating and don’t they do it well?

They have an Australia Day address – this year’s by Associate Professor Charles Teo Am, a first generation Australian.

You can listen to him delivering it and read a transcript at the link above. If you don’t have time for that, at least ponder this which applies just as much to New Zealanders:

. . .  I would like to see this Australia Day as a turning point. I want my fellow Australians, those who were born here and those who have immigrated here, to pause and think of the lives that have been sacrificed for what we take for granted today. I want everyone who finds themselves angry and intolerant to think first about the misfortunes of those who are less fortunate…such as those with cancer. I want anyone who has come from another country to embrace the Australian way of life, it has served us well. I want all Australians to see how immigrants have contributed to our nation and to appreciate that a rich and prosperous country such as ours has a moral and global responsibility to share our resources. . .

They have the Australian of the Year :

The Australian of the Year 2012, Geoffrey Rush, has now celebrated 40 years as an Australian actor, achieving the rare international distinction of the ‘Triple Crown’ – an Oscar, a Tony and an Emmy. . .

The Senior Australian of the Year 2012, Laurie Baymarrwangga, is an extraordinary elder from the island of Murrungga in East Arnhem Land, Northern Territory. . .

The Young Australian of the Year 2012 is 22 year old engineering advocate Marita Cheng of Brunswick East whose leadership is changing the occupational landscape for women by encouraging girls to pursue engineering studies and careers. . .

Australia’s Local Hero 2012 is foster mother and carer Lynne Sawyers of Darbys Falls. Lynne has shared her home, her family and her love with more than 200 children. For 15 years, she has been on call to care for lost, abused and bewildered children in heartbreaking circumstances. . .

They have family and community celebrations and they have lamb with lambassador Sam Kekovich:

They seem to have a unity we have yet to achieve over celebrating a national day. But they also have a contrary view: see Australia Day/Invasion Day: Unity/Disunity at Larvatus Prodeo.

But he’s gone to the wrong side.

He says the Government must not sell the 16 former Crafar farms to a Chinese company as  it’s not in the national interest.

But the government doesn’t own the farms.

They are private property on which large sums of money are owed and the receivers must do what they can to recoup as much from the sale as possible.

It would definitely not be in the national interest, nor in that of the creditors, to have political interference stymie a sale at a higher price in favour of one which would recoup around $40 million less.

Shearer wasn’t part of the Labour government which sabotaged shareholders’ value in Auckland Airport with the refusal to let a Canadian pension fund buy it but he ought to know about it the damage it did.

The Crafar farms have become a symbol but while a big holding for an individual person or company they are a very small percentage of New Zealand farmland, only about 1% of which is foreign-owned.

Kiwiblog points out a good deal more was sold by Labour:

Labour during their nine years in office approved the equivalent of the Crafar farms being sold to foreign owners every single month! Yes the Crafar farms are around 9,000 hectares and Labour approved 650,000 hectares – equal to 75 Crafar farms.

Shearer wasn’t part of those governments either, but what has changed that made those sales right and this one wrong? Nothing but an increase in xenophobia, emotion and political opportunism.

Prime Minister John Key says:

“The wholesale sale of land in New Zealand is not in New Zealand’s best interests, and that was why we sought to toughen up the overseas investment act,” he said. “At around about 1 percent, I don’t think we have a substantial issue.”

The Overseas Investment Office has strict criteria for approving land sales to foreigners.

If there is a need for that to be stricter it should be done properly and on principle.

Political interference which overrides the criteria for an individual case is not in the national interest, especially when there is no guarantee that the consortium which is the under-bidder would not then on-sell some or all of the farms; nor that some or all of the new purchasers wouldn’t be foreigners too.

340  King Edward III of England was declared King of France.

1500  Vicente Yáñez Pinzón became the first European to set foot on Brazil.

1531  Lisbon was hit by an earthquake–thousands died.

1564 The Council of Trent issued its conclusions in the Tridentinum, establishing a distinction between Roman Catholicism and Protestantism.

1565 Battle of Talikota, between the Vijayanagara Empire and the Islamic sultanates of the Deccan, led to the subjugation, and eventual destruction of the last Hindu kingdom in India, and the consolidation of Islamic rule over much of the Indian subcontinent.

1589  Job was elected as Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia.

1699  Treaty of Carlowitz was signed.

1714 Jean-Baptiste Pigalle, French sculptor, was born (d. 1785).

1722 Alexander Carlyle, Scottish church leader, was born  (d. 1805).

1736 Stanislaus I of Poland abdicated his throne.

1788 The British First Fleet, led by Arthur Phillip, sailed into Port Jackson (Sydney Harbour) to establish Sydney, the first permanent European settlement on the continent.

1808 Rum Rebellion, the only successful (albeit short-lived) armed takeover of the government in Australia.

1813 Juan Pablo Duarte, Dominican Republic’s founding father, was born  (d. 1876).

1838 Tennessee enacted the first prohibition law in the United States.

1841 The United Kingdom formally occupied Hong Kong.

1844 Governor Fitzroy arrived to investigate the Wairau incident.

1855 Point No Point Treaty was signed in Washington Territory.

1857 Trinley Gyatso, Tibetan, The 12th Dalai Lama, was born .

1880 Douglas MacArthur, American general, was born (d. 1964).

1885 Troops loyal to The Mahdi conquered Khartoum.

1892 Bessie Coleman, American pioneer aviator, was born  (d. 1926).

1904  Seán MacBride, Irish statesman, Nobel Prize Laureate, was born  (d. 1988).

1905 The Cullinan Diamond was found at the Premier Mine near Pretoria.

1905 Maria von Trapp, Austrian-born singer, was born  (d. 1987).

1907 The Short Magazine Lee-Enfield Mk III was officially introduced into British Military Service, and remains the oldest military rifle still in official use.

1908  Stéphane Grappelli, French jazz violinist, was born  (d. 1997).

1911 Glenn H. Curtiss flew the first successful American seaplane.

1911 – Richard Strauss‘s opera Der Rosenkavalier debuted at the Dresden State Opera.

1913 Jimmy Van Heusen, American songwriter, was born  (d. 1990).

1918 Nicolae Ceauşescu, Romanian dictator, was born (d. 1989).

1920 Former Ford Motor Company executive Henry Leland launchedthe Lincoln Motor Company which he later sold to his former employer.

1922 Michael Bentine, British comedian and founding member of The Goons, was born  (d. 1996).

1924 St.Petersburg was renamed Leningrad.

1925  Paul Newman, American actor, philanthropist, race car driver and race team owner, was born  (d. 2008).

1930 The Indian National Congress declared 26 January as Independence Day or as the day for Poorna Swaraj (Complete Independence) which occurred 20 years later.

1934 The Apollo Theater reopened in Harlem.

1934 – German-Polish Non-Aggression Pact was signed.

1939 Spanish Civil War: Troops loyal to nationalist General Francisco Franco and aided by Italy took Barcelona.

1942 World War II: The first United States forces arrived in Europe landing in Northern Ireland.

1945  Jacqueline du Pré, English cellist, was born  (d. 1987).

1950 The Constitution of India came into force, forming a republic. Rajendra Prasad was sworn in as its first President.

1952  Black Saturday in Egypt: rioters burnt Cairo’s central business district, targeting British and upper-class Egyptian businesses.

1955  Eddie Van Halen, Dutch musician (Van Halen), was born.

1957 Bubble wrap was invented by Alfred Fielding and Marc Chavannes.

1958 Japanese  ferry Nankai Maru capsised off southern Awaji Island, 167 killed.

1958 Ellen DeGeneres, American actress and comedian, was born.

1961 Janet G. Travell  becamethe first woman to be appointed physician to the president (Kennedy).

1962  Ranger 3 was launched to study the moon.

1965  Hindi became the official language of India.

1978  The Great Blizzard of 1978, a rare severe blizzard with the lowest non-tropical atmospheric pressure ever recorded in the US, struck the Ohio – Great Lakes region with heavy snow and winds up to 100 mph (161 km/h).

1980 – Israel and Egypt established diplomatic relations.

1984 Floods devestated Southland.

1988  Andrew Lloyd Webber‘s The Phantom of the Opera had its first performance on Broadway at the Majestic Theatre.

1991  Mohamed Siad Barre was removed from power in Somalia, ending centralized government, and was succeeded by Ali Mahdi.

1992  Boris Yeltsin announced that Russia would stop targeting United States cities with nuclear weapons.

1998 Lewinsky scandal: On American television, U.S. President Bill Clinton denied having had “sexual relations” with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky.

2001 An earthquake in Gujarat, India, killed more than 20,000.

2004 President Hamid Karzai signed the new constitution of Afghanistan.

2004 – A decomposing  whale exploded in Tainan, Taiwan.

2005 – Glendale train crash: Two trains derailled killing 11 and injuring 200 in Glendale, California.

Sourced from NZ History Oline & Wikipedia