In Porirua the Mayor (my tour guide Nick Leggett) is 31 years old and the Deputy Mayor Liz Kelly is tangata whenua. A quick glance at local government statistics will show how unusual this is. Porirua City Council is an active partner with some great initiatives such as three I visited: Trash Palace, Pacific Health Services, and Pataka Gallery.

Trash Palace is adding 30 years to the life of the Porirua landfill, employing a range of people with illnesses and disabilities, and educating the next generation about resource recovery. Their Manager Elizabeth Caluzzi (‘Queen Elizabeth’) is a wonderful advocate for the multiple benefits of valuing ‘trash’, and valuing people.

'Queen Elizabeth' at Trash Palace

Pacific Health Services trustees with Porirua Mayor Nick Leggett

Pacific Health Services is facing cuts from the PHO, which is false economy as they have the people and the skills to reach a vulnerable population and inspire then to be healthy. I don’t believe the hospital model can achieve the same success they have.

The Pataka Gallery is a world class art gallery and as well as a lively and valuable community venue.

Its no wonder Porirua has won several ‘International Liveable Communities’ awards. It’s not like they’ve got no issues but at least their Council and communities are talking the same language about community-led development.

In Nelson, I spoke with the large community of practitioners working on disability support who make up the New Zealand Disability Support Network, at their first ever national conference. Their challenge to the politicians is clear. They want a coherent plan to ensure the New Zealand Disability Strategy is properly resourced and implemented. I couldn’t agree more.

I also met with Penny Molnar, a community development leader and nurse who is part of the great work at Victory Village. Victory Village is an example of how to combine a Health Centre and a Primary School to build a stronger community. Their innovative practice has been recorded in a very interesting report called Paths of Victory and a national forum is being held at Victory Village in April.

These two days reminded me that despite cuts and catastrophes we have some exceptional strength in the flaxroots and the grassroots and we need to back them up with both resources and respect.

The special lights and sirens can be ordered from the United States for about $US300 ($NZ520), but police had rigged their own up for about a 20th of the cost.

The siren was more like an air horn than those found in police cars, and would definitely grab people’s attention, Mr Bernards said.

Seven officers have been through the required training and two are expected to be out on their bikes in the Nelson area at any given time.

Mr Bernards said police involved with school groups on bicycles had already nabbed two offenders – in one case a policeman had been able to come up on a drug dealer without him hearing, and a shoplifter had been chased.

He hoped the idea would eventually spread around the country.

Me too. And the article also answers the first question to my mind.  Will they go for American-style shorts or British-style long trousers?

The riders will have special uniforms, the shorts arrived yesterday, and helmets are also decked out in police livery.

So the answer is CHiPs. Good ol’ sunny Nelson, eh?

Photo credit: bcbeatty and mondogogo

Russel was also in Nelson this morning. Is that him under all that fur, taking a break from being the face of the campaign?  It looks like his satchel to the left of the photo, but I suspect he’s more likely in the caravan having a cuppa tea.

Meanwhile the Greens are polling over 10 percent in Nelson according to the Nelson Mail, much to Labour Party candidate Maryan Street’s chagrin:

She expressed concern that the Green Party was “cannibalising” some of Labour’s party support, saying that while she wanted to see the Greens get over the 5 percent threshold, too much support for them risked Labour not getting enough votes to form a government.

That’s a false explanation of MMP from Street.  Voters know the only way to get a strong Green voice in government (or more Green MPs into Parliament) is to party vote Green. If Labour are prepared to take on enough of Green policies then we will consider helping them form a government. We won’t form a government with National. 

On current polling Labour won’t be able to govern without us.  That means voters have the choice of Labour-NZ First or Labour-Greens.  Given Labour’s current relationship with NZ First a party vote for Labour is more likely to lead to the first option and party vote for the Greens is the best way to get the second option. No wonder then the Green vote is growing. 

Green candidate Diana Mellor was “absolutely delighted” with her party’s showing and was optimistic of it finishing well above the 7.7 percent it won in Nelson in 2005. She said that at over 10 percent, it would return some excellent candidates, including West Coast-Tasman’s Kevin Hague and possibly former Nelson-based MP Mike Ward, number 14 on the party list.

She made “no apologies” for trying to boost party votes, even at the expense of Labour, saying it would be “even more crucial to get Green people into Parliament if National becomes the government”, to keep the environmental flag flying.

Case in point – a story that No Right Turn highlighted earlier yesterday about the campaign in Nelson. The first half of the story is about Labour and National MPs abusing each other. (Mostly, in this case, National’s Nick Smith lowering the tone by talking bout Michael Cullen’s sexuality, but it’s unsurprising given the example the Prime Minister is setting on the campaign trail so far.)

Then, at the very end of the story a brief mention of Nelson Greens candidate Diane Mellor, who tries to talk about important issues for the Nelson region such as water quality and pollution. From what I know of Diane I doubt she’s the type of person to move herself to the front of that story by accusing Nick Smith of being straight and possibly even in a heterosexual relationship. But that could well be the lesson she took away from that story.

And of course opinion polls are the biggest game story of all. Who is winning? Who is losing? How is the head to head battle shaping up?

There has been some good discussion among blogs recently about opinion polls and their value or not following the Prime Minister’s ‘fairies in the garden’ comment. There is a legitimate question about the accuracy and efficacy of opinion polls and especially the way that their mathematical meaning is distorted through media coverage that tries to shorten and simplify the message.

But in the end it’s very rarely that media coverage of polls is not in or about the right range for the election result come polling day. Until that changes we are probably stuck with them.

More interesting I think is this post at World Changing that looks at media more generally and suggest that traditional media is not working as it used to:

It’s not so much the journalism that’s broken, but a scarcity-based, ad-supported model that’s broken. Publishers wake up in the middle of the night asking, “How do I not end up like the record companies?”

And that bloggers are not the answer (thankfully!)

Participatory media are louder, faster, funnier, but not necessarily likely to fix the problems with professional media. As professional media does less and less “difficult” journalism – international and deep investigative work, in-depth reporting in certain areas – blogs aren’t necessarily picking up the slack.

As the story suggests I think part of the answer lies in investing in public service journalism so that it can provide the in depth investigative issues based journalism that other media outlets and new media can then feed off.  Otherwise we can probably continue to expect more and more ‘game’ coverage.

Interestingly the Nelson Mail article reports that the time wasting journey was probably about 12 minutes as a fast bike ride but the cyclist in question probably went slower than that.  If Nelsonians really think 12 minutes (or slightly more) is a long travel journey and waste of time they might want to keep very quiet before they have too many Aucklanders, Wellingtonians and Cantabrians racing to join them in their hamlet.

Photo Credit: TravelJunkieOz