"On present form, Luxon is looking like a watered down version of John Key, and Willis a watered down version of Bill English."

"The Prime Minister was elected on the basis that his previous career as CEO meant he had a much greater business acumen than Labour's leaders. ... However, yesterday it was revealed .... that the builder of the now cancelled new ferries ... has put in a claim stemming from the terminated $551 million contract ... [and] KiwRail don't know what will be the size of the claim that the NZ taxpayer will ultimately end up paying. ... [I]t's not up to Kiwi Rail's lawyers to decide what is "fair" - it depends on what HMD's lawyers also believe what is fair - and should the two not agree, it ultimately must be decided in court. Furthermore, the government cannot tell anyone what will be the cost of smaller, scaled-down ferries.
    "The crux of the matter is ... the question ... how could PM Luxon & Finance Minister Willis pull out of a billion dollar deal with no idea of the legal consequences?
    "With no idea of the costs of the claims that will arise?
    "With no idea of the price of a replacement deal?
    "PM Luxon talks a big game but has he ever done a three-billion dollar deal before? No. Has he ever pulled out of a billion dollar deal before? No. Elon Musk tried pulling out of a multi-billion dollar deal to buy Twitter. It was a nightmare - so costly that he ended up going ahead with it.
    "If Luxon and Willis don't smarten up and prove they know how to do deals ... show they know [for example] how to do a quality-enhancing health-care reform (rather than pretending abolishing the Māori Health Authority is a reform plan) then we will know in quick order that both are not the real deal.
    "On present form, Luxon is looking like a watered down version of John Key, and Willis a watered down version of Bill English. Labour were so bad that anything is an improvement. But these two are so far looking like not much of one."

~ Robert MacCulloch from his post 'Who, with an ounce of business sense, pulls out of a deal with no idea of what legal claims will arise, and with no idea of the price of a replacement deal? PM Luxon and Finance Minister Willis.'

Privatise rail

I see complaints from the chattering classes that plans to sell TranzScenic or to partner with another company “would be privatisation by stealth.”

Who are they kidding?

The true value of KiwiFail has already been found on the open market: zero.  Even the Finance Minister knows this. It is a company that absorbs more value than it produces, generating insufficient business even to pay for its capital; a “business” only able to survive by sucking off the state tit.

That said, there are around seven lines in the KiwiRail portfolio that could turn a profit, according to Liberty Scott, lines with real value that could be sold off.

Let’s hope they will be.  Soon.

No spending? More spending. [updated]

Helen Clark said a week ago there's no more spending to be promised in this campaign.

Yesterday however she promised to spend $150 million of your money on some train tunnels on the Kapiti coast so Wellingtonians can get their imports into the city by rail, and Otaki voters can get into Wellington by rail 3 to 5 minutes faster.

Liberty Scott has the details: Vote Labour for your taxes to subsidise importers.

UPDATE: And more spending just promised from "no new spending" Helen on more middle class welfare:  "Labour says it will give workers who are made redundant during the recession a job search allowance for up to 13 weeks... Labour estimates the policy will cost no more than $50 million a year."

Is anyone keeping score of all these "not spending" promises?

Their ambition, your money

"Regional governments and large customers have ambitious wish lists for a renaissance in rail if the Government buys back all the rail assets and ferries it sold in 1993," reports National Business Review.  This despite there being at best only five existing lines that have even a hope of paying their way -- in other words, these are plans whose ambitions are political, for which you and I will be picking up the tab -- and these only with some very specific customers.

Liberty Scott puts the "ambitious wish lists" in perspective, points out which lines would be likely to remain economic if split off, and who the best buyers of these lines would be.  And it's not you and me.

What's a railway worth?

Here's a question that's launched a thousand dinner parties: how much is your house, car or railway line worth? Well, maybe the first two questions anyway.

The short answer to "How much is something worth?" is "As much as someone is willing to pay for it on the open market" -- "someone" in this case being the willing buyer who reaches agreement with your willing seller. That explains why your house is worth less than your friend's house in a more popular area, and why your other friends' rarer and more sought after car just sold for a higher price than your run-of-the-mill old bomb.

All things being equal, the value of things on the open market is the price that a willing buyer is prepared to pay a willing seller.

This explains why the government was able to buy back the railway lines from the previous owner for the princely sum of one dollar: on the open market, that was all the rail lines were really worth as rail lines.

In fact, the lines would have been worth far more as real estate, but as a network of steel rails carrying near-empty trains around the place it's likely that the lines were worth even less than one dollar, and reinforcement for this view comes from the fact that only a government was even interested in picking up the tab for them -- since governments have a sure eye for a losing proposition, it's a fair bet that we're talking about something that's worth less than nothing.

So government bought back the rail lines. And now the Government is talking to the owner of the rail rolling stock about buying that back too -- all lock, stock and rusting old rolling stock of it. Why are they interested when no other buyer is? Simple. As Liberty Scott said when these negotiations first began, "it's a dud investment. Something socialists are good at finding."

Rail owner Toll Holdings wants seven-hundred million of our dollars in return for handing over the whole train set. The government has offered half-a-billion dollars of the money they've stolen from us. No one else is likely to offer one cent, which is a sure sign the whole train set isn't worth even that much. So what happens to half-a-billion dollars of the money that's been stolen from us if the government does 'invest' it in rail? Answer: within a very short time the whole railway -- all lock, stock and rolling stock of it, will be worth less than one cent, which is what our investment will then be worth. Only a government or Hugh Fletcher could destroy so much value in just one investment.

Half-a-billion dollars is roughly the amount New Zealand's sheep farmers earned last year for exporting sheep meat. Half-a-billion dollars invested productively could be worth roughly double that in ten years time -- that's what free enterprise can do, and it's how country's make themselves rich. Instead, in ten years time, the government will have turned the equivalent of New Zealand's entire sheep meat revenue into something equivalent to the value of a rotting carcass -- which I'm afraid pretty much describes New Zealand's railways.

Whether the whole operation is nationalised or not, the taxpayer will still lose either way. We're already paying to subsidise a failing operation, and renationalising it won't stop it losing money. Renationalising rail will simply make the socialists in cabinet feel good, and pose yet another problem for John Boy's will-they-wont-they non-policy makers, but it won't for a second change the all-too transparent fact that this is going to be a dud investment.

There's a point to make here that should by now be obvious to all but the most braindead socialist, and which even supporters of privatisation seem to have overlooked. When the NZ Rail dinosaur was hocked off the argument used was that private business would run rail more "efficiently." This was the justification at the time for all the morally necessary privatisations done in the late eighties and early nineties. This was in all truth utter nonsense. In truth, "efficiency" is only ever one part of the economic story of privatisation; only one of the strings in the privatisation bow.

The full economic argument for privatisation includes the urgent necessity to discover what government-run industries are really worth -- something that can only be established by private ownership in an open market -- and then to invest industry and capital to make them worth that, and more. In the case of rail, the real value of the rail network was less than a dollar, and on the open market the rest of the train set looks to be worth little more. In fact,without the ongoing subsidy courtesy of the taxpayer (ie., money thrown straight down the rail corridor), rail operations would have ceased long ago, except perhaps for the three or four lines able to keep their heads above water -- indicating that in this day and age the real business of rail is not transporting things and people, it's farming subsidies from governments, and that the country's 'rail network' is far from being "vital infrastructure" -- more like an expensive, arthritic and completely futile waste of precious resources.

UPDATE: Naturally, when the discussion is on planes, trains or automobiles, one needs to check out what Liberty Scott has to say today. He's not just better informed than Jeanette Fitzsimons, he's better looking as well.

Don't save rail

There's talk that after buying back the rail track some years back for the princely sum of one dollar -- yes Virginia, excluding salvage value that was all the country's extensive network of steel tracks were worth -- the Government might now also buy back the whole operation from rail operator Toll Holdings. Herald story here.

The threat to buy comes about through negotiations over the "track access fee" -- that's the toll Toll pays to use the Government's track -- and in what looks like a backroom bid to have the whole operation renationalised, the Government has been playing hardball. They want to charge more; Toll wants its subsidy increased.

Whether the operation is nationalised or not, the taxpayer loses either way. We're already paying to subsidise a failing operation, renationalising it won't stop it losing money. Renationalising rail will make the socialists in cabinet feel good, but it won't change for a second the transparent fact that, as Liberty Scott points out, "it's a dud investment. Something socialists are good at finding."

There's a point to make here that should by now be obvious to all but the most braindead socialist, but which even supporters of privatisation seem to have overlooked. The argument used when the NZ Rail dinosaur was hocked off was that private business would run rail more efficiently. This was given as the justification at the time for all the morally necessary privatisations done in the late eighties and early nineties, but in truth efficiency was only ever one part of the economic story; only one of the strings in the privatisation bow.

The full economic argument included the urgent necessity to find out what these industries were really worth -- something only able to be established by private ownership in an open market. In the case of rail, the real value of the rail network was found to be abut a dollar. Without the ongoing subsidy courtesy of the taxpayer (ie., money down the drain), looks like the rail operations might be worth about the same. Hardly what you'd call "vital infrastructure" -- more an expensive, arthritic and completely futile waste of precious resources.

Liberty Scott has more analyis here. And No Right Turn keeps the red flag flying.

Cue Card Libertarianism - Socialism

SOCIALISM: Socialism is just Communism without the courage of its convictions.

ORIGINALLY CONCEIVED BY Karl Marx as a transitional stage between Capitalism and Communism, during which the working class would exercise a dictatorship over the dispossessed capitalists and their flunkeys, Socialism (said Marx) would allow certain features of Capitalism to linger-–wage-labour, inequality of earnings, profit-making (by the state) etc.-–before class divisions spontaneously disappeared and the state eventually withered away.

After constant experimentation on every continent and in every decade of the twentieth-century however, we can now say confidently that no Marxist state ever just ‘withers away,’ and nor did Mark himself ever explain the mechanism by which this delightful apparition would all of a sudden appear from the dictatorship so firmly created by his proletariat.

Conceived in its non-Marxist guises as an end-in-itself, with the state assuming a dominant role in the economy--usually by owning everything–-Socialism has come to mean the nationalisation of the means of production, distribution and exchange. Such an end was once the stated goal of the Labour Parties in both Britain and New Zealand. Such is the sorry history of nationalised industries, however, that the effects of nationalisation are now widely known, and nationalisation itself frequently disavowed--publicly at least. Tony Blair for example fought a courageous battle to remove the commitment to nationalisation from the the constitution of the British Labour Party, but local Labourites have shown recently with full or partial renationalisations of the rail lines, Air New Zealand and Telecom's lines (and barriers being quietly put in the way of the sale of Auckland Airport to a bidder from Dubai) that this destructive stupidity is sadly still not dead.

Blatant nationalisation is still espoused by modern-day socialists even in the face of the evidence of the poverty it creates, as can be observed with the cheerleaders for the modern-day destruction of Venezuela. 

But while nationalisation of the physical means of production was once a defining characteristic of Socialism, it was not always a necessary one. Hitler’s National Socialists, it's worth noting, saw nationalisation as crude and unnecessary. “Why need we trouble to socialise industry?” Hitler asked. “We socialise human beings.” The partial nationalisation of NZ's children by the Bradford/Key anti-smacking bill would seem to be an example of this more subtle form of nationalisation.

SOCIALISM WAS ONCE promoted by its adherents as being an engine of production. The ‘Socialist Calculation Debate’ between Ludwig von Mises and Oskar Lange exposed the fallacy in this view; the final collapse of the Berlin Wall and the misery previously hidden by lies and deception showed that Mises was right: Socialism when introduced produced nothing but misery.

SOCIALISM IS OFTEN characterised as being a system that involves the ‘redistribution of wealth’ in an attempt to make everybody equal – an expression of egalitarianism perhaps best characterised as one of theft based on Envy, in which human liberty is sacrificed on a ‘Procrustean bed’ of equality. Indeed, students of envy have noted its close links with the egalitarianism of Socialism, and agree on one fascinating conclusion: the desire of the envious is not so much to have themselves raised up to the level of those whom they resent, but to bring the achievers down to their own level.

As Ayn Rand said of collectivists everywhere, they begin by trying to raise everyone to the mountaintops, and end by razing the mountains.

Whatever its guise, Socialism is a form of Collectivism, with all the denial of freedom that entails. One would like to believe that, because of its history, it is indeed history – but while collectivism remains the mind-set of most people, Socialism is never far away.

This is part of a continuing series explaining the concepts and terms used by New Zealand's libertarians, originally published in The Free Radical in 1993 and being progressively updated for republication now. The 'Introduction' to the series is here, and the archives for the series so far can be found here, and down there on the right-hand sidebar.

"Walking does more than driving to cause global warming..."

Another paean today to the Law of Unintended Consequences, or as I've said it before: It Ain't Easy Being Green. The gentleman saying it here today is Dominic Kennedy who noted in last week's Times that "Walking does more than driving to cause global warming, a leading environmentalist has calculated." How 'bout that! Here's the argument behind the calculation:

Food production is now so energy-intensive that more carbon is emitted providing a person with enough calories to walk to the shops than a car would emit over the same distance. The climate could benefit if people avoided exercise, ate less and became couch potatoes. Provided, of course, they remembered to switch off the TV rather than leaving it on standby.

The sums were done by Chris Goodall, campaigning author of How to Live a Low-Carbon Life, [described by New Scientist as "the definitive guide to reducing your carbon footprint"] based on the greenhouse gases created by intensive beef production. "Driving a typical UK car for 3 miles adds about 0.9 kg of CO2 to the atmosphere," he said, a calculation based on the Government's official fuel emission figures. "If you walked instead, it would use about 180 calories. You'd need about 100g of beef to replace those calories, resulting in 3.6kg of emissions, or four times as much as driving.

"The troubling fact is that taking a lot of exercise and then eating a bit more food is not good for the global atmosphere. Eating less and driving to save energy would be better."

Mr Goodall, Green Party parliamentary candidate for Oxford West & Abingdon, is the latest serious thinker to turn popular myths about the environment on their head.

Catching a diesel train is now twice as polluting as travelling by car for an average family, the Rail Safety and Standards Board admitted recently. Paper bags are worse for the environment than plastic because of the extra energy needed to manufacture and transport them, the Government says.

Fresh research published in New Scientist last month suggested that 1kg of meat cost the Earth 36kg in global warming gases. The figure was based on Japanese methods of industrial beef
production but Mr Goodall says that farming techniques are similar throughout the West [although obviously not all the west].

What if, instead of beef, the walker drank a glass of milk? The average person would need to drink 420ml - three quarters of a pint - to recover the calories used in the walk. Modern dairy
farming emits the equivalent of 1.2kg of CO2 to produce the milk, still more pollution than the car journey.

Cattle farming is notorious for its perceived damage to the environment, based on what scientists politely call "methane production" from cows. The gas, released during the digestive
process, is 21 times more harmful than CO2 . Organic beef is the most damaging because organic cattle emit more methane.

Michael O'Leary, boss of the budget airline Ryanair, has been widely derided after he was reported to have said that global warming could be solved by massacring the world's cattle. "The
way he is running around telling people they should shoot cows," Lawrence Hunt, head of Silverjet, another budget airline, told the Commons Environmental Audit Committee. "I do not think you can really have debates with somebody with that mentality."

But according to Mr Goodall, Mr O'Leary may have a point. "Food is more important [to Britain's greenhouse emissions] than aircraft but there is no publicity," he said. "Associated British Foods isn't being questioned by MPs about energy.

"We need to become accustomed to the idea that our food production systems are equally damaging. As the man from Ryanair says, cows generate more emissions than aircraft. Unfortunately, perhaps, he is right. Of course, this doesn't mean we should always choose to use air or car travel instead of walking. It means we need urgently to work out how to reduce the greenhouse gas intensity of our foodstuffs."

Simply cutting out beef, or even meat, however, would be too modest a change. The food industry is estimated to be responsible for a sixth of an individual's carbon emissions, and Britain may be the worst culprit.

Interesting stuff, no? Kennedy finishes up with a grab bag of eco-myths that he takes to with relish:

• Traditional nappies are as bad as disposables, a study by the Environment Agency found. While throwaway nappies make up 0.1 per cent of landfill waste, the cloth variety are a waste of energy, clean water and detergent.
  
• Paper bags cause more global warming than plastic. They need much more space to store so require extra energy to transport them from manufacturers to shops.
• Diesel trains in rural Britain are more polluting than 4x4 vehicles. Douglas Alexander, when Transport Secretary, said: “If ten or fewer people travel in a Sprinter [train], it would be less environmentally damaging to give them each a Land Rover Freelander and tell them to drive.”
  
• Burning wood for fuel is better for the environment than recycling it, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs discovered.
  
• Organic dairy cows are worse for the climate. They produce less milk so their methane emissions per litre are higher.
  
• Someone who installs a “green” lightbulb undoes a year’s worth of energy-saving by buying two bags of imported veg, as so much carbon is wasted flying the food to Britain.
  
• Trees, regarded as shields against global warming because they absorb carbon, were found by German scientists to be major producers of methane, a much more harmful greenhouse gas.

The moral of the story? It's not easy appeasing Gaia. Or trying to.

Helen's ten-cent totem tax

Government floats idea of another ten-cent petrol tax to pay for electrification of Auckland's rail for the several dozen people who use it. Dick Hubbard says "make it 60c!" Barry bloody Curtis says it's "obvious." Sue Bradford says, "Bring it on!" John Key says, "Um, ah, ask me later," and he left to talk to his press agent.

North Shore's mayor George Wood was the only politician to talk sense, predicting "dire consequences" should anyone be stupid enough to make already high petrol prices even higher. Liberty Scott, who knows about these things, calls it "really stupid," but he always language that's far too mild for the circumstances. You should read his full analysis of this fatuous stupidity.

This idea is going ahead despite official advice [he says], because Helen Clark wants to electrify Auckland rail – it’s like a toy, a big expensive toy she wants to leave for Auckland and be remembered for it... This is about totems – Helen Clark and Michael Cullen are building a electric network of totem poles in Auckland, paid for by a stupid tax that is probably going to be paid for by all petrol motorists, but not paid for at all by around 15% of Auckland motorists who don’t use petrol.

"By the way," he concludes, "you already pay a 0.66c a litre tax to every territorial authority in the country (it's the same for them all making it easy to distribute), you might ask Auckland City Council and all of the others whether they spend their share on transport?" What do you think?

Thundering through France at 357mph

Ben Webster (the Times journalist, not the great saxophonist) reports from a speeding train -- and this was a train that set a new world speed record: a French TGV thundering through eastern France at 574.8kph! That's about 150 metres per second! As Webster's report says, "blink and you miss it." I wonder what Sue Kedgley and her Green train-lovers would make of that.

Just imagine being in the cab as this machine sped like a great steel arrow through the countryside . . .

Things streaked past -- a water tank, a tree, a shanty, a grain silo. They had a windshield-wiper motion: they were rising, describing a curve and dropping back. The telegraph wires ran a race with the train, rising and falling from pole to pole, in an even rhythm, like the cardiograph record of a steady heartbeat written across the sky.

She looked ahead, at the haze that melted rail and distance, a haze that could rip apart at any moment to some shape of disaster. She wondered why she felt safer than she had ever felt in a car behind the engine, safer here, where it seemed as if, should an obstacle rise, her breast and the glass shield would be first to smash against it. She smiled, grasping the answer: it was the security of being first, with full sight and full knowledge of one's course -- not the blind sense of being pulled into the unknown by some unknown power ahead. It was the greatest sensation of existence: not to trust, but to know.

Perceptive readers would recognise that quoted passage from Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged. What an experience that must have been; Rand the railway-lover would have eaten it up.

UPDATE: Not a bird, and not a plane -- and not exactly a train -- but as one commenter in Webster's piece points out, the Chinese Maglev achieved 580kph over four years ago, and regularly touches 430kph in service. Talk about a Shanghai surprise!

LINKS: Aboard the fastest TGV in the world - Ben Webster, Times Online
Dagny Taggart answers Kant - Peter Cresswell, SOLO
Excerpt, Atlas Shrugged, 'The John Galt Line' - Monart Pon

RELATED: Heroes

Nature worship bursts its banks

The reaction of politicians, conservators and sundry minor bureaucrats to the weekend's semi-spectacular and thankfully disaster-free lahar has been, to summarise: "Phew!"

This is the measure of their relief, that -- thank goodness -- no one was killed by the unpredictable wall of water, mud and boulders that flooded down the mountain and (just) under road bridges and rail bridges and on down the Whangaehu River and out to the sea. That is, no one was killed by the risk that politicians, conservators and sundry minor bureaucrats took with other people's live in choosing not to intervene earlier, to drain the lake for example.

Thank goodness no one was killed -- older New Zealanders may remember the 151 people killed in 1953 when a similar event swept away the Tangiwai rail bridge -- but no thanks at all accrue to those who made the decision this time to let this natural process happen without doing anything to protect human life beyond setting up a rudimentary monitoring system. The irrational nature worship that values "intrinsic natural processes" like lahars above the lives of human beings who are put at risk by nature's potential destructive power is endemic, fashionable, written into law in the Resource Management Act -- and has all the character of religious belief.

It's not good enough. Rather than cowering pathetically in the face of such a natural process and putting human lives at risk, a rational approach would have been to take proper measures to control and protect against disaster -- human intervention to drain the lake is just one type of prophylactic measure that could have been undertaken.

Such measures would reflect that it's entirely natural for humans to shape the environment for our ends and for our own safety -- that's exactly what human beings do -- and they would have meant that the reaction this morning would have been characterised less by reactions like "Phew," and more like, "We knew."

RELATED: Ethics, Environment, New Zealand

Cheaper to buy rail-riders an apartment close to work

Rail religionists are crowing over the announcement that the rail line to Onehunga will be re-opened, thirty-four years after it closed due to lack of interest. LibertyScott has run the rule over the numbers, and he's worked out

you're gonna be made to pay $374,000 up front to shift one person from car to train, and subsidise 60% of that person's trips, whereas before you didn't. You could always buy them small apartments next to work instead.

You can read his working here. And before you get even more excited about extending the line to the airport, Scott suggests you should take a deep breath:

Remember the city-airport rail service in Sydney isn’t economically viable, and Melbourne looked at it and couldn’t justify it, developing an express bus service instead (which was introduced after the Citylink tollway was built, greatly reducing travel times to/from the airport).

Hmmm. Not really a goer here either, then. Won't stop the rail religionists though, will it?

LINK: The railway religion - LibertyScott

RELATED: Auckland, Economics

Stadium still to cost us $200m

Sense at last?

Govt confirms downgraded Eden Pk for Cup
The Government has confirmed the upgrade of Eden Park will involve a new South Stand and temporary seating.

The bloody thing is still costing us $190 million and counting. What's wrong with just the temporary seating for goodness's sake? That could be paid for out of the proceeds of the damn Cup!

UPDATE: To help put the costs in perspective, here's a comparison of stadium costs I posted previously, based on estimates announced in the press:

1. Eden Park -- temporary stands only (about $45-100m)
2. Jade Stadium -- additions to a seating capacity of 60,000 ($80m)
3. North Harbour -- additions to a seating capacity of 60,000 ($226m)
4. Carlaw Park -- new stadium and Domain renovations (say $750m, minus Eden Park's sale)
5. Wiri - new stadium and rail lines (say $750m, minus Eden Park's sale)
6. Telstra Stadium, Sydney -- (you could buy ownership for just A$200m -- Stadium New Zealand in Sydney!)
   
7. Waka Stadium -- what cost?
   
8. Eden Park -- gold-plated option ($385m plus)
9. Bedpan -- new stadium, plus new facility for Ports ($1 billion plus)

It's also worth remembering that the Eden Park Trust Board helped bring this whole farce about when they saw their chance at piles of government money coming their way, and they went from what was a proposal for essentially temporary stands (agreed to by the IRB when the World Cup hosting rights were won) to the bout of grandomania over the last few months that will apparently deliver them a tax-paid South Stand.

RELATED: Stadium, Politics-NZ

NZ's 101 Must-Do's

The AA have released the results of their '101 Best Places in NZ to Visit' survey which are listed below, and like DPF, I've emboldened my own conquests -- which just to clarify means visiting Mt Cook and Mt Ruapehu rather than climbing them.

1.Mitre Peak and Milford Sound
2.Doubtful Sound
3.Bay of Islands
4.Fiordland National Park
5.Abel Tasman National Park
6.Aoraki Mt Cook
7.Coastal Kaikoura
8.Hanmer Springs
9.Camping
10.Tutukaka/The Poor Knights
11.Marlborough Sounds
12.Fox and Franz Josef glaciers
13.Ruapehu, Ngauruhoe and Tongariro
14.Waitomo Caves
15.Travelling the Southern Scenic Route
16.Otago Rail Experience
17.White Island (marine volcano)
18.Stewart Island
19.Arthurs Pass National Park
20.Tongariro Crossing
21.The Blue Pools of Haast Pass
22.South Westland
23.Waipoua Forest
24.Mt Taranaki
25.Lake Tekapo Observatory and Church of the Good Shepherd
26. Ulva Island (Stewart Is bird sanctuary)
27. Otago Peninsula
28. Canterbury Plains
29. Punakaiki (Pancake rocks)
30. Cape Reinga
31. Auckland Gulf Islands - Waiheke, Great Barrier, Rangitoto and Tiritiri Matangi
32. Kicking the autumn leaves (walking Outlet Track along the Clutha River, Wanaka)
33. Akaroa and Banks Peninsula
34. Glenorchy and Dart River
35. Farewell Spit
36. Queenstown (adventures)
37. Hokianga (Northland’s west coast)
38. Whanganui National Park
39. Cape Kidnappers
40. Lake Waikaremoana, Te Urewera National Park
41. Fine wines and fabulous foods
42. The Queen Charlotte Track
43. Lake Matheson (Fox Glacier)
44. Arrowtown
45. Orakei Korako (geothermal attraction, near Taupo)
46. TSS Earnslaw (vintage steamship)
47. Rotorua
48. Night skiing and riding at Coronet Peak
49. Dunedin City (architecture)
50. Mt Maunganui
51. Karangahake Gorge
52. Eastland SH35 (scenic coastal road journey)
53. Getting up close and personal with marine and wildlife
54. Hollyford Valley (and the Hollyford Track, Fiordland)
55. Hot Water Beach
56. Auckland’s west coast
57. Rotorua Luge, Skyrides, Skyswing
58. Kapiti Island
59. Marlborough wine trail
60. New Chums Beach, Coromandel
61. Christchurch City (beat that Auckland & Wellington!)
62. Mt Tarawera
63. Te Papa Tongarewa museum
64. The Bridge to Nowhere (Whanganui National Park)
65. Coromandel Township
66. Lake Taupo’s water attractions and Tongariro River
67. The Pinnacles
68. Te Mata Peak (Hawkes Bay)
69. Rotorua rafting
70. The Forgotten World Highway (between Taumarunui and Stratford)
71. Lake Wanaka maze
72. Moeraki Boulders
73. New Plymouth’s coastal walkway
74. Seafood City
75. Castlepoint (old seaside town)
76. Wainui Beach (Gisborne)
77. Ahipara and Shipwreck Bay
78. Buller Gorge
79. Taranaki Gardens
80. Cape Palliser (southernmost tip of the North Island)
81. Auckland War Memorial Museum
82. Raglan
83. Takaka Hill: Rameka Track Mountain (Abel Tasman National Park)
84. Whakarewarewa traditional Maori village, Rotorua
85. Waitangi Treaty Grounds
86. Rere Rock Slide, Gisborne
87. Spa and well-being (Nelson)
88. Auckland’s Sky Tower and Skyjump (not the jump)
89. Devonport and North Head
90. The Interislander
91. Auckland volcanoes
92. Central Otago
93. Port Waikato
94. Golf in an Alpine Amphitheatre (Queenstown Golf Club)
95. Hundertwasser toilet (Far North)
96. Wellington Writers’ Walk
97. Cross-country skiing (Lake Wanaka)
98. Stonehenge Aotearoa (marking the winter solstice Downunder)
99. Rugby Museum (Palmerston North)
100. Beehive and Parliament buildings
101=. Attend a Must-Do Event, North Island
101=. Attend a Must-Do Event, South Island

What a great bloody country this is. Personally, I'm a little concerned about the Karangahake Gorge (left) ranking so highly -- I'd quietly hoped that one was a closely guarded secret. Damn.

And I'm frankly appalled to see Te Papa ranking at all. In a country with so many special places, what kind of person votes for that hotbed of mediocrity as a must-do unless they're marketing the place!

LINK: 101 Must-Do's for Kiwis - Automobile Association

RELATED: New Zealand

A debate on taking property for the public good

The pylon battle in the Waikato and the taking of Suzette Kelo's Connecticut home so a developer can build a shopping mall have between them raised the issue of what the Americans call eminent domain, or what we might call taking private property for 'public' use.

Anyone who has ever seen the film The Castle will know what I'm talking about: taking someone's property, or a portion of their property, on the basis that you have the legal force to do so, and that compensation 'on just terms' is provided for the 'taking' of the property.

In The Castle, of course, the issue was what exactly those 'just terms' would be. For Daryl Kerrigan, the owner of the house being taken for development of the neighbouring airport by a private company, no terms could be considered just. "You can't buy what I've got," he wails. No value anyone else could offer would replace what he's already got.

In the American context, of course, the Constitution actually protects the taking of private property for public use - "nor shall private property be tken for public use without just compensation" says the so-called 'takings clause' of the Fifth Amendment -- but in the submission of some people (which list includes me) inclusion in that Constitution doen't make it right; and given the experience of history (which as I explain in this post, shows that routes for rail and pipelines and the like can and have been put together voluntarily, without any need for public theft) it's not true that it's even necessary.

However there are people who think that eminent domain is marvellous. Many of these people are developers. Many of them are politicians. One of them recently agreed to debate Yaron Brook from the Ayn Rand Institute on this issue. Yaron is not in favour of eminent domain. Not in any way whatsoever. His opponent is. His opponent is a leading advocate of taking private property for public use, and he used to head the department that some have called The Federal Bulldozer, a department that spent years throwing people out of their homes against their will in the name of 'urban renewal' (the slums his department built are now know as 'The Projects,' and are more like urban sinks than examples of renewal). This prick still thinks he was justified in everything his department did.

You can listen to the debate between Yaron Brook and this advocate for public theft here, at the Principles in Practice blog. Yaron is a lot more polite than I would have been in the circumstances.

Listen here. And come back and let me know whom you found the most convincing.

LINKS: Eminent domain: To preserve or abolish - Principles in Practice
ACT protecting property rights? - Not PC
Pylon pressure ignorant and unnecessary - Not PC
Political plundering of property owners - James Bovard, Freedom Daily

RELATED: Property_Rights, Objectivism

A random walk through the blogosphere

A ramble this morning through sites and sounds I've been meaning to mention in posts, but haven't yet had a chance.

• Bernard Darnton confirms that his case against the Clark Government in Darnton V Clark is on the skids, "a victim of Labour’s egregious retrospective legislation." Says Oswald Bastable, at DPF's: "Darnton proved beyond reasonable doubt that the labour government is indeed corrupt and devoid of all moral worth. He won." Well, sort of. Says Bernard:

  My initial premise, when I filed the case in June, was that a constitutionally limited government was not above the law. What this case has done is disprove that. There are no limits. The government is above the law. We are entirely reliant on the character of the people who populate Parliament. And if that thought doesn’t momentarily lower the temperature of your blood, it should.

  And of course the taxpayer still hasn't been paid back the money stolen to buy the bloody election. Apparently, for that, we have to rely on the "honour" of parliamentarians...
  LINK: Case Withdrawn - Darnton V Clark
  
  
• Need an online guitar tuner? Here's just the thing to make sure you're always in tune when strumming (or trying to strum) 'Sweet Jane.' LINK: Online Guitar Tuner.
  
  
• Having a few drinks under a coconut tree on a white sand beach one day, Cactus Kate and a colleague "came up with the conclusion that NZ family trusts were in the main a complete and utter crock of shite." As she says, "It was a quite large call to make for such a pair of novices" -- especially cosidering the number of NZers relying on them as a way to keep the grey ones from the door. Test out her reasoning: The Great NZ Family Trust Sham.
  
  
• Check out that satellite picture of the border between Haiti and the Dominican Republic.
  
  On the right you have the relatively developed and reasonably politically stable Dominican Republic, in which property rights are moderately secure and the rule of law is reasonably respected. On the left is Haiti.
  
  The difference, in short, is not due to geography, but to politics. Notes ecologist Josh Roshenau in Seed Magazine, "Despite its higher consumption of electricity, greater rates of employment, and heavier industry, the Dominican Republic is the nation that has preserved its forests." How 'bout that. More development = More forest cover.
  
  As PJ O'Rourke once observed, when you can see a political problem from 150 miles up, then you know that it's a serious problem.
  
  LINK: Political instability threatens rainforests more than industry does - Josh Roshenau, Seed Magazine
  
  
• One of my favourite Auckland urban beach houses has turned from bright and lively into camouflage mode. The formerly delightful and formerly pink art deco house at the east end of Mission Bay is now an unattractive "dung olive green." Bugger. As Mrs Smith says acerbically, "Owners Barry and Diane may have done us all a favour. Auckland has a dire shortage of olive and beige-toned houses..." LINK: Landmark House No Longer in the Pink.
  
  
• Leftists, nationalists and other scum have all sorts of great songs to sing around the fire. How come libertarians don't? New Years Eve around the camp fire we were singing the Marsellaise, the Star Spangled Banner, Billy Bold (a noble exception to the rule), and assorted Irish rebel songs, because there are too few rousing anthems to "how the world is better if there are secure property rights, and people make mutually advantageous contracts, etc., etc." What's the solution? LINK: Leftists always have great songs. Which is a problem.
  
  
• Trevor Loudon concludes his series on Drug Freeland with Part 5: Rebuilding the Welfare Society. Good reading.
  
  
• It seems "controversial" Australian columnist Andrew Bolt would almost turn for new Bond Daniel Craig -- a new Bond for a new age. We've "become too rich, worldly and healthy for the old Bond," says Bolt, "One for the women and the men, who now like them strong, with brains," and his women beautiful, intelligent, and "with the cash to buy the whole damn beach." LINK: Shaken and Stirred - Andrew Bolt
  
  
• And while I'm linking to Andrew Bolt, if you haven't yet read his specatcular demolition job last year of Al Bore's celluloid horror. "Is healthy scepticism and fidelity to facts dead in this country?" If they are, then at least they still exist in Bolt's columns. LINK: Bulled by a Gore - Andrew Bolt
  
  
• Still in Australia, I was sent a link to what I was told is Australia's "only libertarian party," the Liberal Democratic Party. I haven't yet had a chance to check out those credentials myself, so maybe you lot can have a look and let the rest of us know how the LDP stacks up. LINK: Liberal Democratic Party.
  
  
• A "rational Christian" tries to take on Ayn Rand's "non-theistic and self-centered philosophy and arguments against Christian altruism. I am quite familiar with Ayn Rand's philosophy," says the "rational Christian, but the pity is that his critique shows he isn't. Still, it's good to see someone trying. LINK: Rational Christian Answer to Ayn Rand. The crew at Noodle Food offer the briefest of responses. "Ayn Rand's ethics depends upon the theory of evolution"? Um, not exactly.
  
  
• Jason Roth at Save the Humans offers A Little Iraqi Historical Re-Revisionism. Worth a good read.
  
  
• And finally (at least for the moment) Randal O'Toole explodes the much-touted myth by ecologists and planners that Portland, Oregon, is "an example of how good transportation planning can create a city 'where the car is not king'." "Bollocks!" says Randal.

  In fact, Portlanders recently learned that their much-praised transportation plans were really nothing more than a scheme by what local reporters call the "light-rail mafia" to separate taxpayers from their money and enrich themselves. Far from relieving congestion or getting people to stop driving, Portlanders are so angry at the congestion and other problems resulting from the plans that they have repeatedly voted against light rail and other projects.

  LINK: Portland as a Model of Transportation Planning - Randal O'Toole, The Commons Blog

RELATED: Darnton_V_Clark Politics-NZ Music New_Zealand Environment Property_Rights Auckland Libertarianism Welfare Victimless_Crimes Films Global_Warming Politics-Australian Religion Objectivism Politics-World War Urban_Design

Stadium choice: Two false alternatives

Three events today will see chances for the waterfront behemoth advance, or recede.

• A meeting to protest the waterfront stadium and the railroading through of the waterfront option will be held in Auckland's Aotea Square at 12:30pm, with speakers from Rodney Hide to Keith Locke.
• The protest meeting is in advance of the Auckland City Council's meeting this evening to vote on their preference.
• That vote may be delayed by the court hearing this morning seeking an injunction on any vote, on the basis that councils are acting illegally by allowing insufficient time for consultation.

And it's worth reminding readers that the short time for a decision isn't the only railroading going on here: cheaper and better options were peremptorily ruled out by Minister Mallard in order to oppose as two false alternatives one expensive white elephant with another in order for the Bedpan to be the favoured choice.

Because it's clear if you list the stadiums in order of preference (my preference) based on either quoted costs (or estimated costs of $9,000/seat) and their long-term potential for actually being used regularly and contributing to the city, neither the full Eden Park option nor the Bedpan would figure highly.

1. Eden Park -- temporary stands (about $45-100m)
2. Jade Stadium -- additions to 60,000 ($80m)
3. North Harbour -- additions to 60,000 ($226m)
4. Carlaw Park -- new stadium and Domain renovations (say $750m, minus Eden Park's sale)
5. Wiri - new stadium and rail lines (say $750m, minus Eden Park's sale)
6. Telstra Stadium, Sydney -- (you could buy ownership for just A$200m -- Stadium New Zealand in Sydney!)
   
7. Waka Stadium -- what cost?
   
8. Eden Park -- gold-plated option ($385m plus)
9. Bedpan -- new stadium, plus new facility for Ports ($1 billion plus)

It's also worth remembering that the Eden Park Trust Board helped bring this whole farce about when they saw their chance at piles of government money coming their way, and they went from what was a proposal for essentially temporary stands to the current bout of grandomania.

RELATED: Stadium, Politics-NZ, Auckland

Another look at Carlaw's "problems''...

Trevor Mallard, that lame duck from Wainui to whom expertise has always been a stranger, is now offering expert advice to Auckland architects and designers to whom expertise and local knowledge is considered fundamental to their work.

Never one to see ignorance as a barrier to pushing other people around, Trevor tells us we have two weeks to respond to his decree of last Friday, and tells Carlaw Park promoters to stop flogging a dead horse.

But the problem here is that the promoters of the Carlaw Park option, many of whom have joined together as the Domain Stadium Promotion Group, have both expertise and local knowledge, and unlike Mallard they see what a Carlaw Park option can do for the city and park surrounds and realise that it's good -- or can be good. The 'expert advice' of Mallard, ignorant of everything but the magnitude of his own ego, is as shallow as he himself.

The problems with Carlaw Park, he says, are:

• a private developer already has a contract for the area;
• three hectares of the domain would need to be used and several hundred trees felled;
• roading runs too close to the proposed area for the park, leaving inadequate space for people filling a 60,000 seat stadium to spill out on to afterwards.

Let's deal with each in turn.

• A private retirement-home development is a barrier for using Carlaw park, he says, but disprupting New Zealand's biggest port, a five-billion dollar a year operation, is (he maintains) no barrier to building a bedpan on the port. To state the point is to see its stupidity. It is not beyond the wit of man to either relocate or renogotiate the retirement-home scheme -- it will however be enormously difficult to either relocate or reconfigure new Zealand's export-import gateway. You would think even a braindead bureaucrat could see that -- a sharp enough negotiator could see it and solve it in an afternoon.
• Yes, three hectares of a little-used and rather seedy domain edge will probably be used for a Carlaw Park stadium -- though careful design can certainly minimise this -- and done properly, it will regenerate this domain edge and its linkages to the city, Newmarket and Parnell. It can be transormed from backwater to a vital part of the inner city. Now, Mallard claims this to be a problem (a view not shared by nine out of
  the twenty Auckland councillors, including chairs of three key Auckland City Council committees – responsible for Environment, Urban Design, Transport and Recreation , all of whom might be expected to know the area a little better than either Mallard or his Wellington-based advisors), but even so it is hard to take as any kind of serious criticism when he apparently does not see any problem at all in inserting an enormous bedpan out at sea, right at the very centre of central Auckland's interface with its harbour.
• The roading he talks about has an immediate link to a motorway system heading to almost every point of the compass, surely an asset rather than a problem. Furthermore, there is no problem whatsoever with 60,000 people spilling out of a Carlaw Park stadium onto this roadway since there is absolutely no need for them to do so. If egress is properly designed, perhaps along the lines I suggested the other day, then upper-level concourses to north, east and west can allow people to spill out in almost every direction, with links to the east to new rail stations and Parnell, to the north to a new Stanley Circus precinct, and to the westacross an over-road western concourse to Albert Park and (via travelator in existing tunnels) to the city beyond. Together this will easily absorb and painlessly disperse the spillover, without most not even touching the ground at Stanley Street level at all. However, how 60,000 people including vehicles will spill out easily from Mallard's bedpan onto Quay St is another story altogether, one which fine talk of a "boulevard" that can be "shut down" just doesn't even begin to solve ...

It seems to me that these 'problems' raised by the lame duck are neither problems nor thought through -- they are (as so much of Mallard's commentary frequently proves to be) convenient excuses by which to shut down debate. I would suggest either the Sports Minister or his advisers have another look at the Carlaw Park option so cursorily discarded and at the problems of the bedpan so easily overlooked. A good look.

RELATED: Stadiums, Politics-NZ, Sports, Auckland

Auckland's RWC Stadium: Another pitch for Carlaw Park

We will today be told by our betters where they intend to spend our money on a stadium for Rugby World Cup 2011. The signals given by the politicians -- 'signals' being all we peasants deserve at this stage -- suggest that the bedpan on the waterfront is the preferred option. What a nonsense.

Said Geoff Vazey of Ports of Auckland about a waterfront stadium:

• it simply cannot be constructed in time. He says the risks of pushing it through would be overwhelming.
• He says before any land could be set aside for a stadium, the port would need an alternative site to conduct its business and it would be 2009 before building could even start.

And Sky Tower architect Gordon Moller said "it would wreck the waterfront." He's right. And Institute of Architects president Ian Athfield says it is is "important it fitted into its environment." That can't be done if it's put between city and harbour.

I still maintain that if you're going to spend this much of our money -- about a thousand dollars per taxpayer -- then we're entitled to have a say in what's going on. I don't think that's unreasonable. And I still maintain that of the options we know about, the Carlaw Park option is by far the best. (Pictured above is just one quickly-sketched example of what might be done there, and how it might appear from Grafton Gulley. )

Richard Simpson provided an excellent argument of the benefits of a Carlaw Park stadium, which I excerpted here a few weeks back. [See his powerpoint presentation here -- go on, take a good look], and it really is worth considering seriously (the site is pictured below, looking from Parnell towards the city).

Done right, a new stadium should enhance the city on a much wider scale than just its immediate location, and a good Carlaw Park stadium offers the following benefits and opportunities which are good for both the stadium, for its surrounds, and for the long-term benefit of the city (you can see at the top of the page and just below an example of how it might be done):

• there is immediate access to motorways north, south and west, with ample provision for parking under the stadium
• immediate access also to rail lines north and south, with stations developed as part of the stadium, and an easy walk to a Kingdon St station for trains heading west -- all up easily twice the capacity of Britomart can be added with ease
• the stadium can be accessed on up to three sides through large concourses, as shown in the plan above
  
• few noise or residential problems
  
• superb views from the stadium itself out to the city, to Rangitoto and the inner harbour -- a great advertisement to broadcast to the world
  
• opportunity to link domain, Stanley St Tennis, new Stanley Circus precinct, and new Vector Arena into one sports and entertainment precinct -- an exciting new part of the city
  
• the Carlaw Park site is already in a natural bowl, so there is no blocking of existing views, and it offers the opportunity to produce something spectacular rather than something that needs to be hidden
• there is an opportunity to enhance and develop all areas around the stadium to the long-term benefit of the city: the university edge; the 'armpit' of Grafton Gully, which with the development of a new 'Stanley Circus Precinct' makes this a destination rather than an eyesore; the 'backside' of Parnell, which by linking up with the domain makes this area the 'front lawn' of Parnell
• opening up Parnell to the domain by bridging the rail line, and developing domain-edge cafes
• opens up the university to the domain, and to domain-edge cafes, and brings the lower domain back to the city by making it more easily accessible
• linking Parnell and the city through the stadium by bridging the rail line, offering a new footbridge and stadium access
• introduction of a travellator in existing tunnels under Albert Park and Constitution Hill from the end of the footbridge to Victoria St, in the heart of the city, works for both easy game-day stadium access and, with the addition of ample under-stadium parking, allows for easy everyday 'park-and-slide' access to and from the city right at the foot of a convenient motorway connection
• a city stadium, rather than a suburban one, offers all the pre- and after-match pleasures pleasures we already associate with the already successful Cake Tin in Wellington -- pleasures which would be made even more local by development of a new Stanley Street Circus Precinct, and enhancement of the links to Parnell and city as described.
  

As I've suggested before, despite the history of Eden Park it's time to recognise that as a severely constricted suburban stadium it no longer fits the needs of a world-class city. Other cities have realised when it's time to let historic stadiums go in order to create something truly worthwhile in a better location. Time to bite the bullet and use its assets as financial fertiliser for something truly world class that enhances the city for the long term. Carlaw Park is the place for that, not the waterfront -- a waterfront stadium is a short-term solution with too many attendant and expensive difficulties.

If that is given as today's answer, which we all now expect to the case, then the wrong questions are being asked. And whichever location is chosen, there is still time, albeit briefly, for a competition to choose a design. This is too important, and too bloody expensive, to rely simply on the closed group of designers presently being talked about behind closed doors.

UPDATE 1: Cullen's comments yesterday about the stadium decision provide some of the only details to date that anyone outside the elect has to go on. Says the Herald, "He dismissed the Carlaw Park option as affecting the Domain..." I think it's clear enough from what I've shown above that any affect on the Domain can only be positive. Maybe that's why it's being dismissed?

UPDATE 2: David Farrar highlights the problems with the decision-making-by-Nomenklatura currently being imposed on us. As he says, given the secrecy and he attendant concerns, "the potential for disaster seems high."

I think about this stadium proposal, developed in secret by politicans, and look at what is missing:

* There is no agreement with the sporting codes on whether they would use the stadium
* There is no agreement with the local authorities
* There is no agreement with the owners of the land
* The exact location seems to change by the day
* There is no owner (such as the Trust in Wgtn) and manager for the stadium!!
* There is no agreement on who will pay
* There are no sponsors
* There are no planning consents

As far as I can tell, and I await the official announcement, every single pillar necessary for a sound decision is absent.

He's right you know. Read on.

UPDATE 3: When Keith Locke and Peter Dunne both talk sense you know something's up.

United Future Peter Dunne said today he was "seriously alarmed at what is looming as a complete shambles over the location and funding of the new national stadium."

No one knew who the experts were the Government kept referring to and many people who should have been consulted had not.

And Keith had this to say about the notion of the waterfront bedpan:

We do have concerns... that it might end up like a blot on the seascape and undermine the good work that's been done along the Auckland waterfront to make it more people-friendly...

And, gosh-darn it, both Dunne and Locke are right -- and given that under normal circumstances both would be needed to vote for the Clark Government's solution, it would suggest McCully has already sold out on behalf of his party.

UPDATE 4: Just so you know, Parnell and Newmarket businesses are right behind Carlaw Park:

Parnell Mainstreet Inc, Newmarket Business Association, Parnell Community Committee and Friends of the Domain believe rebuilding Carlaw Park is a better option. "We've got an existing derelict downtown venue, a landowner that hasn't ruled such a proposition out, and the ability to claim a fraction of the Domain for public use.

"So as far as we're concerned it's a no-brainer," groups spokesman Cameron Brewer said. "It's in a natural amphitheatre, a motorway runs to it and the main trunk line runs past it. "It has all the CBD advantages the Bledisloe option has. In fact it's better because it's even more strategically located and is not to be a 35-metre high giant box on the water's edge."

UPDATE 5: And cost?

Newmarket Business Association spokesman Cameron Brewer said the Government should reconsider redeveloping Auckland's Carlaw Park, which was located at the bottom of the city's domain. A proposal three years ago put a $100 million pricetag on building a 25,000 seat stadium there. A 60,000 seat stadium would cost more, but significantly less than the $700,000 touted for the waterfront.

UPDATE 6: (2:25pm) It's the Bedpan: And now they "want your say." They say. From the Herald report:

• The Government said today it strongly prefers a new $500 million-plus stadium on the Auckland waterfront for the 2011 Rugby World Cup.
  But Sports Minister Trevor Mallard has also called on Aucklanders to give it a clear indication whether the city wants a new stadium or whether Eden Park should be upgraded.
• The preferred waterfront site is over Marsden Wharf between Captain Cook and Bledisloe wharves
• The Government has been advised by a technical panel led by Ken Harris the chief executive of Wellington's port [my emphasis]
• [They want] building work on the stadium underway by December 2007 and are prepared to rewrite various laws to clear the way for the development.
• ...architects Warren and Mahoney ... envisage a translucent 37 metre-tall structure, similar to the Allianz Stadium bult in Munich, Germany, for this year's soccer World Cup (ie., the bedpan).
• ...the Eden Park Trust Board has an assessment from its own quantity surveyors that says a new waterfront stadium could cost more than $1 billion...
• Mr Mallard wants Aucklanders and local bodies to have their say on which [of either Eden park or bedpan] they prefer within two weeks...

UPDATE 7: (3:25pm) Government's full announcement including 'Fact Sheet' is here at Scoop: Waterfront Stadium is Government Preference.

LINKS: Hang on, what about Carlaw Park? - Richard Simpson, Public Address
Carlaw Park: Rugby World Cup Stadium [Powerpoint presentation] - Richard Simpson, Public Address
A site for a Rugby World Cup stadium - Not PC (Oct, 2006)
Mallard ready to go with stadium - NZ Herald

RELATED: Stadium, Politics-NZ, Auckland, Sports

ARCHITECTURE DEBATE: Summing up

[A summary of a recent debate at my blog 'Not PC' on architecture, art, and architectural favourites]

Here first up is the post that started it all:

**POST: Con-art in Kaipara

I posted a field full of rusting steel posing as art (that's some of it below), and suggested the buyer had been conned. I'd suggested it is possible to objectively determine that one thing is art and another is just a pile of craftless tat, and Den disagreed. I'd suggested that individual taste is certainly subjective, but that what we like is nonetheless able to be analysed objectively to tell us something about ourselves and the way we see the world -- to which Den disagreed. I'd suggested that art is a shortcut to our philosophy ... and Den suggested I was talking nonsense.

Said Den: "Objectivity does not exist in art. You are a poor arbiter of taste if said taste is to be measured against the art you post (as 'the only true art')... I am incredulous that someone working in a field such as architecture would ever claim to be able to identify objective standards in art - to loftily pronounce that something 'is' or 'isn't' art based on what I see as fairly dubious credentials." And I replied here, including the invitation which began this debate.


Here's some related posts and threads, giving my own arguments on art and architecture:

**ARTICLE: Who needs great art? You do.

EXCERPT: Painting, movies, literature, sculpture, music, architecture ... all have the ability to make us cry, to make us laugh, and -- just occasionally -- to make us feel ten feet tall. Why is great art so powerful? -- why does it have this profound ability to affect us? Simply, because it speaks personally to each of us. It is our shortcut to our very souls. When we experience art that truly touches us, we don’t just feel, “I like this;” if we have souls we feel “This is Me!”

Why do we need art to see the world when we’ve already got eyes and ears and fingers and hands with which to experience it ourselves, and a brain with which to organise those experiences? Answer: We need art precisely because of the nature of that brain, and because of the way it organises the experiences.

**ARTICLE: Art: there's more to it than just meets the eye.

EXCERPT: Our crucial need for art comes from the nature of our human consciousness, and by virtue of the way we hold and form our ideas. Our conceptual form of consciousness means that our view of the world and our place in it is represents the very widest abstractions our minds are asked to hold, and the integration of those judgements with our emotional assessment of them are visible to us only through art -- it is only art that allows us to see our most fundamental view of the world and our place in it as a single mental unit, and what could be more important or profound than that!

**ARTICLE: 'The Scream ' has been found. Two cheers.

EXCERPT: Here's an example of something that is good art -- very good art -- that I don't like at all. If anything better expresses the dis-ease and dislocation expressed by twentieth-century 'thinkers' -- of the nausea and helpless angst and the "blooming, buzzing confusion" of Jean Paul Sartre; of A.E. Housman "a stranger and afraid in a world [he] never made"; of William Butler Yeats for whom "things fall apart, the centre cannot hold"; of Dostoyevsky's Underground Man*, whose "irritability keeps him alive and kicking"; etc; etc. -- then it is this piece.

How much sordid meaning to pack into one piece of canvas: in it we can see almost the whole of the tortured twentieth-century.

**ARTICLE: What architecture is all about

EXCERPT: “Architecture,” as Aldo van Eyck once said, “is about making a ‘home for man’.” The space we build is space for human life, for us to inhabit, and from which we can emerge to 'do battle.' It is a place that expresses what a home for man looks like, smells like and sprawls like; it is here that we begin to find the meaning in architecture: and the meaning resides in how it makes its home for man.

In the act of making and placing our buildings in the world, we make decisions about what’s important in the world. What values need to be 'built in' and made concrete. What should we include from around us? What should we keep out? Early morning sun is good; later afternoon sun isn’t. Gentle breezes are good inside the house, heavy rain is not; views of the lake and the trees and the beautiful hills about us are wonderful – views of the local slaughterhouse are not..

**ARTICLE: What is architecture?

EXCERPT: "Architecture ... does not re-create reality, but creates a structure for man's habitation or use, expressing man's values," identified Ayn Rand in The Romantic Manifesto. Architecture is primarily about making spaces for human beings to inhabit, and in doing so expresses what it means for man to inhabit this earth.

The work is utilitarian, but not primarily so - in the words of the late New Zealand architect Claude Megson: "The architect is creating, not merely an object, but a whole universe for ourselves to inhabit." The architect creates an integration of structure, function and ornament according to the architect's own implicit values in order to make a home for man. The stuff with which the architect works is space - human space. To paraphrase Protagoras, man is quite literally the measure of all architecture.

This is an important and overlooked point, and much criticism concluding that 'architecture is not art' arises when architecture is considered only in a two-dimensional fashion, as being only a simple skin-deep armature made up of more or less elegant facades and gorgeous surfaces. It is not; it is a space for man to inhabit. Architecture is more than just the raw materials that make up a building - what is crucial is what those raw materials delineate.

**READING LIST: So you'd like to study architecture

EXCERPT: So you want to study architecture?

You want books and readings I might recommend for someone beginning architectural education?

Here’s a ‘top twenty’ list to get you started...

And here's all ten posts in the 'Not PC: Architecture V Architecture' debate:
What Den and I have posted here is not "the ten best examples of architecture from all human history" -- they are our own personal favourites.

PC 5: House for an artist, Wairarapa - Organon Architecture

"So in this case then for my own personal NZ favourite I not so humbly submit one of my own sketch designs, as yet unbuilt, for an artist's house in the Wairarapa. It largely follows my own ideas on the promise of the New Zealand house."

PC 4: John Soane House, London - John Soane

"He was perhaps the pre-eminent Architect of the Enlightenment -- using reason, ingenuity, the limited materials and technology of the day and what was known about the nature of architecture to develop a totally new conception of stylised space, with man at the centre."

PC3: Taliesin West, Sonora Desert, Arizona - Frank Lloyd Wright

"In one of the most inhospitable habitats known to man, in the desert north of Phoenix and sitting just beneath the McDowell Mountain Range. there we find a heightened sense of life writ large; a life built in a particular context that fits SO WELL it could be nowhere else. Whereas with Fallingwater one gets the sense that there man has completed what nature had just suggested, at Taliesin West we realise that in this place man has produced something that make an oasis out of what was before only raw desert; a place with "a view of the rim of the world."


PC 2: Price Tower, Oklahoma - Frank Lloyd Wright

"Here tonight is Wright's only completed tall building: the Price Tower, or as so he often called it, 'the tree that escaped the crowded forest'."

PC 1: Bavinger House, Oklahoma - Bruce Goff

"Goff's best work is this house pictured here, the Bavinger House. Built in 1955 for a young family in Norman Oklahoma, it brings together locally quarried 'ironrock,' mine tailings, coal rejects, glass cullets, airplane wire and a used oil-rig drilling pipe for the mast..."

Den 5: Jewish Museum, Berlin - Daniel Libeskind

"To return to the original point I made, that this building demonstrates architecture's power to speak, think about what Libeskind has done. By taking themes of absence and presence, and working these into the design in a concrete, tangible way, the architecture moves beyond something which must be explained - a piece of art that you have to read a pamphlet before you can sagely nod, grasping your chin - and into the realm of 'speaking' architecture: one forms one's own opinion, but is forcefully guided by powerful, masterful narrative."

Den 4: Peregrine Winery, New Zealand - Architecture Workshop

"The building is sits in an exquisite natural setting, and it resonates with the Murcutt project I posted earlier, in a number of ways. The twisting, translucent blade which is the most striking feature of the architecture, is seen to float over the countryside, forming a visual break between what is 'natural' and what has been 'grafted' on to the site. The relationship between the groundplane and the hovering translucent element is dynamic and uneasy - and exciting."

Supplementary post: Tropical architecture in Darwin

"I'm posting these pics here partly because they help to understand the context of the 'shearing shed' that Den posted below. These are photos of one of Darwin's few remaining original, pre-air-conditioning tropical houses, restored after Cyclone Tracy. I took them about ten years ago. As you'll see, many of the features are replicated in Murcutt's own tropical house."

Den 3: Marika-Alderton House, Northern Territory, Australia - Glen Murcutt

"The above is an Aboriginal phrase used as a design credo by auteur Aussie architect Glenn Murcutt, and one can see the direct translation from principle to built form in his entire body of work. This house combines a sensitivity to local culture and heritage..."

Den 2. Fallingwater, Bear Run, Pennsylvania - Frank Lloyd Wright

"This is probably not far from the top five buildings of anyone interested in architecture. Gotta be quick! It was designed as the private holiday house for Edgar Kaufmann, in a sum total of three hours..."

Den 1. Rail Switchtower, Basel, Switzerland - Herzog + de Meuron

"This building demonstrates that 'architecture' is not simply for the elite - that there is no distinction between 'architecture' and building. True inspiration can spring from the most banal and mundane requirements."

Tell us what you think. Which are your favourites, and why?

RELATED: Architecture, Art, New Zealand, Philosophy, Objectivism