|
Here we are in the middle of December - but if you're like me you're not quite in holiday mood yet!
However, one place that I guarantee will get you and your family into the Christmas spirit is the Dannevirke Fantasy Cave. This musical and visual feast is the work of local Dannevirke artists and craftspeople and I guarantee it is something your children will remember forever.
The interactive experience includes storybook figures in fabric art, moving against beautiful painted backdrops. And the very reasonable $2 entry fee goes back into expanding the project for next year. I loved it at my last visit and my electorate agent Jo Seddon has already been this year with her mother. They were so impressed they are going back again with more friends and family. Congratulations to everyone involved for your commitment and dedication in adding a bit of magic to Christmas in the region.
Another creative Wairarapa resident deserves to be congratulated. Norsewood writer Lyn McConchie last week won the Muse medallion for the fifth time - it is awarded to the writer of the best short story of the year from members of the International Cat Writer's Association.
Her entry "Chasing China Cats" has already been published in several international magazines. Lyn also heard on the same day that her 15th book had been accepted for publication.
Good news, especially after some of the recent family tragedies in the Wairarapa, is the announcement that Government is to provide an additional $12.184m this financial year to Child, Youth and Family.
The Government will also increase the baseline by $13.164m in future years to enable the department to respond to increased demand for its services, Cabinet has agreed to the additional funding following advice that demand for its services is now above the top of range the department forecast in its 2002/03 Purchase Agreement.
This Government assigns a high priority to the care and protection of at-risk children and young people and the additional funding recognises its determination to properly resource Child, Youth and Family to keep children and young people safe.
Wairarapa wine-makers now have a new weapon against the devastating "dead arm" fungal disease, thanks to North Shore company Chemcolour Industries and the assistance of Industry New Zealand.
Chemcolour has devised a two-pronged attack on the disease, officially named Eutypa lata, and Industry New Zealand has supported the work with a Business Growth grant of $100,000.
Innovative ideas from New Zealanders have solved another industry problem and this may result in increased income and further jobs in an industry which continues to grow in importance for our region, as well as for New Zealand.
Chemcolour has developed a bioactive herbicide, Vitae, to help infected plants fight off the disease and stop it taking hold. The herbicide matches a fungus-fighting substance produced naturally by the vines themselves, but in insufficient quantities. Chemcolour has worked with Crown Research Institute Hort Research to devise a unique stem injection system capable of pumping the herbicide directly into the plant's "veins".
Parliament passed legislation last week establishing the Tertiary Education Commission paving the way for the Government's reforms to New Zealand's entire post-school education system.
The Tertiary Education Commission (TEC) will be established on 1 January 2003 to take responsibility for regulating and distributing $1.9b annually in taxpayer subsidies for post-school education.
It will have new mechanisms available to it (charters and profiles) to ensure that in its funding negotiations with universities, polytechnics, colleges of education, wananga, ITOs, private training establishments and adult and community education providers, the training and research needs identified by industries and communities and recorded in a new five-yearly tertiary education strategy are being met.
The first Strategy was launched in May and covers the period 2002 to 2007.
Some of you may have been disturbed by recent reports from the Paul Holmes programme implying that Māori were declaring pieces of land wahi tapu and interfering with the rights of landowners to develop their land. The programme turned out to be very unbalanced and to be withholding many relevant facts. Following that programme and Paul Holmes' radio show, eminent historian Dame Anne Salmond made some important points that we should all observe. Dame Anne explains that it should be noted that of 6000 registered historic places, only 63 are wahi tapu. The national register has 502 churches, 38 chapels, four monasteries and 13 graveyards, and other sacred sites. By comparison, 63 wahi tapu registrations hardly seems excessive.
Secondly, says Dame Anne, it is wrong to claim, as Paul Holmes did on News TalkZB last week, that wahi tapu registrations are "a land-grab being used cunningly to disrupt, obstruct and interfere that can tie old whitey up a bit ... it is spiritual mumbo-jumbo".
The registration of a wahi tapu has exactly the same status as that of a church or graveyard, a country homestead or a historic area. It does not strip owners of their rights.
The sort of sensationalist reporting that we saw from the Holmes show, which creates misunderstanding and tension between Māori and Pakeha with very little regard to the facts, is the real "mumbo jumbo" in my opinion.
If you'd like to read Dame Anne's article in its entirety, you can find it here.
|
|
|
