The Clue Is In The Name.

Truth In Advertising? The Nats do best when they take the “National” part of their name seriously,

WHEN ITS FOUNDERS christened New Zealand’s newest anti-socialist party “National”, they had two objectives. The first was largely cosmetic. The second, and much more important objective, was ideological.

In 1936, the year in which the New Zealand National Party was formed, the “Mother Country” – as a great many New Zealanders still referred to Great Britain – was under its third “National Government”. Although dominated by his own Conservative Party, the new Prime Minister, Stanley Baldwin, saw no reason to dispense with the fiction that he was leading something very similar to the government of national unity that had been formed to fight the Great Depression in 1931.

Essentially a “grand coalition”, the first British National Government had contained a substantial chunk of the British Parliamentary Labour Party. Indeed, the first leader of Britain’s first National Government was the Labour leader, Ramsay MacDonald.

It isn’t difficult to understand why the men who drew together the defeated Reform and United Parties into a new and permanent coalition decided to call their creation “National”. By consciously referencing its British namesake, and the example it set of bringing together all “responsible” political actors for the sake of the nation; New Zealand’s conservatives hoped to borrow a little of its lustre.

But, more important by far than referencing the Mother Country was the deeper, ideological objective behind the “New Zealand National Party” name. Its founders were determined to differentiate the new party’s purpose and principles from the class-driven imperatives of the Labour Party.

Except for the most socialist of its followers, Labour’s name has always been a problem. It speaks unashamedly of the class conflict lying at the heart of New Zealand’s capitalist society, and of its founders’ avowed determination to put the interests of the working-class – Labour – ahead of those of the employing-class – Capital. Unsurprisingly, Labour’s enemies never tired of accusing Labour of sowing conflict and division. Years after the Great Depression, Labour leader Norman Kirk still fretted about the party’s name, confiding to his private secretary, Margaret Hayward, his wish to drop the word “labour” altogether, in favour, simply, of the “New Zealand Party”.

Had National’s founders been as recklessly honest about their political goals as Labour’s socialists, they would have called their new party “Capital”. Given the numerical paucity of the country’s capitalist elites, however, such forthrightness would have been ill-advised. In New Zealand’s parliamentary democracy, such ideological candour would have condemned the new party to permanent opposition.

Hence the bid to equate the interests of all those who belonged to, and/or voted for, the National Party with the national interest per se. In sharp contrast to the Labour Party, which it portrayed as sectarian, divisive, and disloyal, National presented itself as the great unifier, open to all New Zealanders, and dedicated to the nation’s continuing progress and prosperity.

In a strictly practical sense, the new party was correct – it did represent the preponderant interests of New Zealand. United under its moniker were the rural-based interests of the country’s principal income earners, the farmers; along with the principal generators of New Zealand’s economic activity, the owners of private enterprises large and small. The poet and broadcaster Gary McCormick spoke more truly than he knew when, many years ago, he quipped: “The National Party stands for all New Zealanders – farmers and businessmen alike!”

It is this curious, almost contradictory, combination of political motives: seeking to advance and unite the whole nation, while simultaneously protecting the private and special interests of its farmers and businesspeople; that has dogged National ever since its formation.

In times of prosperity, when farmers and businesspeople, along with the rest of the nation, are doing well, the National Party’s expansive and inclusive political rhetoric finds a ready audience. When times are hard, however, and a choice must be made between looking after everyone, and making the welfare of farmers and businesspeople the National Party’s No. 1 priority, then New Zealand politics can turn decidedly nasty.

Christopher Luxon, National’s ninth prime-minister, has assumed office in times that look set to grow increasingly hard. True to National Party form, he and his colleagues, egged on by their party’s coalition partners, Act and NZ First, are aggressively prioritising the claims of the farming and business communities over those of the rest of the New Zealand population – most particularly social-welfare beneficiaries. Under the rubric of “Tough Love”, Luxon is brazenly playing social and economic favourites.

Historically, this class oriented strategy has not turned out well for the National Party. The last time it turned nasty, during the first and third terms of the Fourth National Government (1990-1999) it set the scene for nine years of Labour-led governments. National only recovered power on the strength of John Key’s wink-wink, nudge-nudge, commitment to pick up where Helen Clark left off.

Luxon could do himself and his party a power of good by studying closely the strategy of National’s fourth prime minister, Rob Muldoon, who, in spite of holding the prime-ministership through some of New Zealand’s most challenging and tumultuous years, won three general elections on the trot. The secret to Muldoon’s electoral success lay in his decision to take the “national” part of National’s name seriously.

His 1975 slogan, “New Zealand the way YOU want it” indicated clearly the populist path Muldoon was determined to follow. Three years later he insisted that his government had pulled off an “economic miracle” and counselled against doing anything rash (like voting for Labour or, yikes, Social Credit!) that might undermine it.

In 1980 Muldoon refashioned the economic-nationalist policies formulated by the 1957-60 Labour Government – policies he had won his political spurs opposing back in 1960-61 – and presented them to the country as his own “Think Big” national development strategy. With these, and having demonstrated, with “batons and barbed wire”, his party’s unflinching commitment to New Zealand’s national game, Muldoon eked out a third consecutive electoral victory in 1981.

Critical to Muldoon’s destruction of Labour’s 23-seat majority in 1975 was his populist promise to outdo Labour’s contributory New Zealand Superannuation scheme. Seldom has so much been offered to so pivotal a voting bloc! Muldoon’s “National Superannuation” promised what amounted to a universal basic income, equivalent to 70 percent of the average wage, to every New Zealand citizen over the age of 60 years. The elderly would remain National Party loyalists – “Rob’s Mob” – for the best part of the next decade.

According to University of Auckland economics professor, Tim Hazledine, a similar opportunity exists today for a politician with imagination and daring to dramatically reconfigure the delivery of state support. Excluding the over-65s, there are more than 600,000 New Zealanders in receipt of transfer payments from the New Zealand state. Noting that many of the recipients of these benefits will remain dependent of the state’s charity for more than 10 years, Hazledine correctly observes that our social welfare system has morphed into something its creator, Labour’s Michael Joseph Savage, would struggle to recognise.

The Professor’s solution? Redirect the $10 billion currently being spent on state transfer payments into a non-means-tested Universal Basic Income of $300 per week for all citizens currently receiving state support.

“Yes, that is somewhat less than what beneficiaries get now,” writes Hazledine in his NZ Herald op-ed piece, “but not a lot less, and it would liberate the productive energies of several hundred thousand able-bodied citizens.”

It might also do for Christopher Luxon what New Zealand’s original UBI did for Rob Muldoon: demonstrate that National is, as it says on the tin, a party committed to the welfare of the whole nation; and, as an added bonus, cement-in the support of a hitherto unresponsive voting-bloc for the best part of the next decade.

This essay was originally posted on the Interest.co.nz website on Monday, 26 February 2024.

“Lord, give us Democratic Socialism – but not yet!”

Not Now, Not Ever, Never! The problem with Labour's leading activists is that there is never a good time for democratic socialism. Never. They are like Saint Augustine who prayed to the Almighty: “Lord, give me chastity and self-control – but not yet.” In the case of Labour's "junior officers", however, the prayer is a little different: “Lord, let the Labour Party give New Zealand democratic socialism – but not yet.”

IT PAINS ME to ignore the Prime Minister’s advice, but it’s time to kick some Labour Party butt. As the saying goes: “Sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind.” And, no, I’m not talking about putting another boot into the tragic posterior of the Minister of Health. My beef is with the junior officers of Labour’s army. These are the folk who should be the most aggressive in the fight for social justice. The ones willing to take the risks necessary for victory. The ones with their eyes firmly fixed on the democratic-socialist prize. Unfortunately – and frustratingly – this is not what we’ve got.

On display is the sort of military prowess that saw a gaggle of chinless, baggy-panted British toffs hand over Singapore to a near-exhausted, numerically inferior and utterly astonished Japanese army in February 1942. Rather than delighting Labour’s allies and supporters with bold and imaginative contributions to the debate on how best to wrestle down the looming Covid-19 recession, Labour’s junior officers are offering nothing but orthodoxy and caution. Even worse, they are expending what little energy they can summon-up on upending buckets of cold water on every radical idea that comes forward.

Why do they always do this? How did dreary pragmatism become Labour’s default-setting? A full explanation would require a book-length answer. Suffice to say that once a party embraces the fundamental tenets of neoliberalism, anything other than orthodox and cautious policy responses will be treated as the political equivalent of upending a can of petrol over your head and striking a match. To be considered a credible contender for bigger things (an electorate seat or a high position on the Party List) requires constant proof that one’s hands are nothing if not “safe”.

Hence the following snippy little comment from lawyer, Greg Presland (The Standard’s “Mickey Savage”) responding to my criticism of his casual dismissal of the suggestion that Kris Faafoi should’ve rescued the best of New Zealand’s magazines by accepting Bauer Media’s offer to sell its entire stable to the Crown for $1.00:

“Gee Chris. In the middle of a pandemic when the country’s collective health and economy are under major threat and possibly a third of businesses are going to the wall do you really think the Government should be sweating about saving the Listener?”

Yeah, Greg, I do. I really do. Because even Blind Freddie (and The Spinoff’s Duncan Grieve) can see that Bauer’s ruthless cutting of its losses is about to be replicated across the entire media industry, and that only the Crown has the resources (not to mention the responsibility) to keep our news media alive and kicking against the pricks. Unless, of course, Greg’s desired outcome is actually the more-or-less complete collapse of this country’s independent media – with an all-powerful state media monopoly the last man standing. That there is absolutely nothing “social” or “democratic” about such a “solution” should surprise no one.

And lest any reader feel tempted to nod in agreement with Greg’s heartfelt concern for “possibly a third of businesses” poised to go “to the wall”: please, just stop and think it through. Is he suggesting that while the Government cannot afford to “sweat” about saving this country’s magazine publishing industry, it can afford to – and fully intends to – save all the others? Can the nation’s small and medium-sized enterprises now breathe a huge sigh of relief, secure in the knowledge that the same ministers who refused to lift a finger to shore-up the foundations of our democracy will nevertheless work like Trojans to rescue their little businesses?

Isn’t it more likely that the only New Zealand businesses with any reasonable hope of being bailed-out by the Crown will be the ones which are, in that memorable phrase from the Global Financial Crisis of 2008-09, “too big to fail”. Remember that Newsweek cover proclaiming “We are all socialists now”? Published the same week Barack Obama nationalised the auto industry.

Now, don’t get me wrong. Obama was right to take over General Motors. Nationalisation is what you do in a crisis – especially when the industry your saving is vital to the future of your country. And that’s the amazing thing, Greg. That you still don’t get that. But don’t feel too bad, because no one in a position to make a difference in the Labour Party has had an intelligent thought about the New Zealand media since the government of Norman Kirk!

So, if the Government is not going to be in a position to rescue every small business in New Zealand, and if up to a third of those small businesses could “go to the wall”, in Greg’s none-too-felicitous phrase, then wouldn’t this be the very best time to introduce a Universal Basic Income? Especially when the ability of the MSD to process and monitor tens-of-thousands of additional beneficiaries promptly, efficiently and sympathetically is just a teeny bit questionable?

Nope. Wrong again. According to Andrew Little’s former Chief-of-Staff, Neale Jones:

“I cannot think of a worse time to implement a UBI than in the middle of this economic crisis. Some of us are doing fine. Others need unprecedented government support just to stay afloat. UBI would spread that support thinner, or quickly spend 10s of billions we may need later.”

Meaning Neale has no grasp at all of Keynesian economics. No understanding of the crucial importance of keeping up the level of aggregate demand. No historical grasp of the crucial role spending plays in lifting a nation out of an economic slump. Nor does he understand the practical and moral efficiency of universal, as opposed to means-tested, state support. The massively positive effect of telling every Kiwi: ‘You are important in your own right, not because you’re in need of charity but because you are a citizen of New Zealand.’ Everyone keeps telling us that “we’re all in this together” – a UBI would prove it.

But, no. Neale says that being in the middle of a once-in-a-lifetime economic crisis is actually the worst time to consider a payment to every citizen to keep them and the economy afloat. The worst time.

The problem is, Neale, there is never a best time for you guys. Never. You and Greg remind me of Saint Augustine who prayed to the Almighty: “Lord, give me chastity and self-control – but not yet.” In the case of you two junior Labour officers, however, the prayer is a little different:

“Lord, let the Labour Party give New Zealand democratic socialism – but not yet.”

Not yet.

This essay was originally posted on The Daily Blog of Thursday, 9 April 2020.

The Universal Basic Income: A “Barking Mad” Idea Whose Time Has Come.

The Fourth Industrial Revolutionary: The Universal Basic Income is an inevitability. Not only because ordinary people all over the world are daily growing more determined to end inequality through a fairer distribution of wealth, but also because the more-than-human intelligence of the super-machines destined to manufacture our future will recognise what capitalists have always struggled to acknowledge: that people are at their most human when they work at their own pace and for their own purposes.

 

“THE FUTURE OF WORK” was the name Labour gave to its recent conference. All very forward-looking, I’m sure, but a much more appropriate title would have been “The Future of Capitalism”. Because, at this present point in the long march of human civilisation, work and capitalism remain inextricably intertwined. One cannot consider the future of one, without examining the future of the other.

 

The reaction to Labour’s conference from the two political parties most dedicated to capitalism’s defence – National and Act – would suggest that the free market’s future is not very bright. Strangely, capitalism’s least effective defenders appear to be the capitalists themselves!

 

Take the Prime Minister’s reaction to the concept of a Universal Basic Income (UBI). “Barking mad!” was John Key’s response to an idea that is already being trialled in a number of overseas jurisdictions. (Including the “barking mad” nation of Finland, whose GDP per capita ranking, at 22, was five places ahead of New Zealand’s in 2014. Source: World Bank.) Is it really asking too much to expect our Prime Minister (and the leader-writers of our largest newspaper) to keep abreast of international thinking on income distribution?

 

Apparently so.

 

Our Prime Minister would also, presumably, hurl the “barking mad” epithet at the founder and executive chairman of the World Economic Forum, Professor Klaus Schwab. Earlier this year, at Davos, Professor Schwab told the gathered One Percenters that “we are at the beginning of a revolution that is fundamentally changing the way we live, work and relate to one another”. This “Fourth Industrial Revolution”, said Professor Schwab, is “fundamentally different” from the previous three industrial revolutions:

 

“It is characterized by a range of new technologies that are fusing the physical, digital and biological worlds, impacting all disciplines, economies and industries, and even challenging ideas about what it means to be human.”

 

Now, ordinary New Zealanders, whose future employment prospects will likely be put at risk by technological, economic and social change on this scale, are probably assuming that the Government, no less than the Opposition, is doing its best to ready the country for the onset of this Fourth Industrial Revolution. That the Prime Minister is already asking himself how a population becoming increasingly incidental to the processes of production, can possibly continue participating in the processes of consumption? And whether the creation of purchasing power, currently the near monopoly of the international financial system, might not, more sensibly, be restored to the democratic nation state? Because, surely, securing the future of Capitalism – and hence the future of work – is their Prime Minister’s Number One priority?

 

Apparently not.

 

Then again, according to business journalist Fran O’Sullivan, the Prime Minister is seized with his own vision of New Zealand’s future. Apparently, we are to become the Switzerland of the South Seas: a bolt-hole for free-floating capital and capitalists; a secure refuge for those with the resources to escape a world teetering on the brink of irreversible chaos. Quite where New Zealanders fit into this world of hunkered-down plutocrats is left rather vague. Perhaps those of us not employed to satisfy their every whim, will be deployed to keep out less disreputable refugees.

 

Who did the Prime Minister say was “barking mad”?

 

Casting a backward glance over modern history, it is relatively easy to see that what has saved capitalism from its own internal contradictions is not the impetuous avarice of the capitalists, but the determination of ordinary people to share in the bounty which capitalism’s long-term love affair with technological innovation inevitably generates. Generally, this has taken the form of extracting a greater share of the surplus than the capitalists, unprompted, would have felt obliged to give them. Without this forced redistribution of wealth, the capitalist system would not have progressed much beyond William Blake’s “dark, satanic mills”.

 

If Professor Schwab is correct about the unprecedented character of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, then the UBI is an inevitability. Not only because ordinary people all over the world are daily growing more determined to end inequality through a fairer distribution of wealth, but also because the more-than-human intelligence of the super-machines destined to manufacture our future will recognise what the factory-owners and bankers have always struggled to acknowledge: that people are at their most human when they work at their own pace and for their own purposes.

 

Anything else is barking mad.

 

This essay was originally published in The Waikato Times, The Taranaki Daily News, The Timaru Herald, The Otago Daily Times and The Greymouth Star of Friday, 1 April 2016.

The Future Of Work And The Future Of Labour Are Closely Linked.

Future Focused? Can Labour's finance spokesperson, Grant Robertson, shrug off his reputation for caution and embrace the sort of policies that would signal to voters that Labour has ceased to fear Neoliberalism and is now ready to challenge it? This week's "Future of Work" conference will offer the beginnings of an answer.

 

WHILE COVERING last December’s COP21 climate change conference in Paris, American broadcaster, Amy Goodman, made an alarming discovery. Climate scientists, the people the world relies upon to tell them the truth about global warming, were pulling their punches. Interviewing Kevin Anderson, of the Tyndale Centre for Climate Change Research, for the current affairs show Democracy Now! Goodman elicited the following admission:

“So far we simply have not been prepared to accept the revolutionary implications of our own findings, and even when we do we are reluctant to voice such thoughts openly… many are ultimately choosing to censor their own research.”

When asked why he and his colleagues were self-censoring, Anderson replied:

 

“What we are afraid of doing is putting forward analysis that questions the paradigm, the economic way that we run society today… We fine-tune our analysis so that it fits into the economic reality of our society, the current economic framing. Actually our science now asks fundamental questions about this idea of economic growth in the short term, but we’re very reluctant to say that. In fact, the funding bodies are reluctant to fund research that raises those questions.”

 

So absolute is the hold of the neoliberal economic paradigm on the minds of the professional classes that not even an existential threat to human civilisation can loosen its grip.

 

Anderson’s last sentence is particularly chilling, because published research is the royal road to advancement in the twenty-first century university. No academic can afford to have his or her research funding cut off. If a research proposal questioning the long-term viability of “the economic way we run society today” causes those holding the purse-strings to raise their eyebrows, then researchers will very quickly learn to ask less dangerous questions.

 

But, if neoliberalism (a.k.a the free market system) is going to be be the death of us, how do we explain the success of neoliberal political parties around the world? Why: when neoliberal policies are driving the spectacular growth in global inequality; when the real incomes of even middle-class workers are stagnant or declining; when high levels of personal indebtedness – especially among young people – have barricaded the road to a secure future; and when the capitalist economic system, itself, is in the process of triggering abrupt (and probably irreversible) climate change; is the global electorate so willing to re/elect neoliberal politicians such as David Cameron, Tony Abbot and, yes, even John Key, to office?

 

The answer would appear to be the general failure of “mainstream” opposition politicians to conceptualise a credible alternative to “the current economic framing”. Rather than use their sojourns in opposition to formulate such a challenge, the parties of the centre-left have tried to come up with ways to temporarily blunt the sharper edges of neoliberal policy. Providing short-term relief from neoliberal pain takes precedence over constructing long-term alternatives.

 

This refusal to challenge neoliberalism at a fundamental level leaves the primary purveyors of the ideology in the political box seat. As National demonstrated with such force at the last general election, the defenders of “the way we run society today” will not hesitate to present their “neoliberal-lite” political opponents as, quite literally, a ship of fools.

 

This week the New Zealand Labour Party has given itself a grand opportunity to demonstrate its willingness to move beyond the neoliberal paradigm. Its “Future of Work” conference is being held on Auckland’s AUT University campus and will feature presentations by former US Labor Secretary, Robert Reich, and Guy Standing, author of the best-selling book The Precariat: The New Dangerous Class.

 

There are two political guarantees that would undermine neoliberalism fundamentally: guaranteed work, and a guaranteed income. The former could take the form of the state establishing (and ensuring) a minimum number of hours to be worked by its citizens over the course of their lifetime. The originator of this idea, Andre Gorsz, set the number at 20,000-30,000 hours. In return, the state would guarantee every citizen a universal basic income – not huge, but sufficient to maintain a dignified and secure existence.

 

These two guarantees would, necessarily, entail a radical redistribution of wealth from the richest 1 percent of citizens to the remaining 99 percent. Equally radical political and social changes would follow in its wake – but no more radical than the political and social upheavals that followed the imposition of neoliberalism in the 1980s.

 

If Labour is willing to embrace these two guarantees, then it will be well-positioned to stake its claim to the new political territory of the twenty-first century. If it fails to be bold, and continues, instead, to court the “respectability” that comes with paying fealty to the dominant neoliberal paradigm, then its “Future of Work” initiative will founder.

 

Like the self-censoring climate scientists exposed by Amy Goodman, Labour will have sacrificed its long-term survival for short-term safety.

 

This essay was originally published in The Press of Tuesday, 22 March 2016.

Little Expecting A Lot

Great Expectations: Labour's new leader, Andrew Little, is expecting a lot more from his Shadow Cabinet than the standard neoliberal commitment to keeping the books in the black. He will not be judging the worth of Labour’s economic policies by the level of praise emanating from the business community.

 

ANDREW LITTLE’S Shadow Cabinet reflects his assessment of where Labour is, where it needs to be, and how quickly it should move in that direction.

 

With Grant Robertson’s faction currently wielding extensive influence in both the caucus and the wider party, Little has taken the precaution of seeding the Opposition front bench with at least three of his rival’s closest supporters (Jacinda Ardern, Chris Hipkins, Phil Twyford).

 

In accepting Little’s offer of the finance spokesperson’s role, Robertson himself has shown considerable courage. Throughout his parliamentary career, the Wellington Central MP’s political decisions have (mostly) erred on the side of caution. That will now have to change, because the incremental strategies of his mentors, Helen Clark and Michael Cullen, are no longer equal to the task of halting the relentless decline in Labour’s vote.

 

What’s needed in the finance portfolio is creativity and daring. Already, Little is making encouraging noises about a Universal Basic Income (UBI) the radical income support guarantee popularised by the economist-turned-philanthropist Gareth Morgan. Will Robertson be bold enough to transform New Zealand’s fiscal and welfare landscape by making the UBI policy his own? Or will he, instead, hold fast to the orthodox Treasury line?

 

Prior to last week’s wide-ranging interview between Little and Radio NZ’s Kathryn Ryan, the only political party bold enough to take the UBI seriously had been the Greens. Simply by broaching the subject, Little is sending out a number of important messages.

 

To the Greens he is saying: “You might want to taihoa on that shift to the centre you lot are so obviously contemplating because, unlike David Cunliffe’s, my radicalism tends towards the practical and specific.

 

To the rank-and-file of the Labour Party he’s acknowledging, firstly, the years of patient UBI advocacy put in by Lower Hutt stalwart, Perce Harpham, and his supporters; and secondly, that in spite of the time spent at the helm of the notoriously conservative EPMU, Andrew Little, as Labour’s new leader, is not afraid to debate radical ideas.

 

And, finally, to his caucus colleagues he’s saying that spouting left-wing rhetoric is no longer going to be enough. Labour needs to advance a practical programme of reforms that aim to do a lot more than just tinker around with the existing system.

 

The message to the man he defeated by a single percentage point could not be clearer.

 

Little expects a lot more from his future Finance Minister than the standard neoliberal commitment to keeping the books in the black. He will not be judging the worth of Labour’s economic policies by the level of praise emanating from the business community. For Little, looking after the One Percent’s funds cannot be Labour’s first priority. The critical challenge confronting Labour’s next Finance Minister will be funding the changes so desperately needed by the other Ninety-Nine Percent.

 

In other words: how does Labour make sure that a rising tide of economic growth lifts more than just the luxury yachts?

 

Little has strongly hinted that the answer to that question does not lie in the introduction of a Capital Gains Tax, or raising the age of eligibility for superannuation from 65 to 67. New policies, based on the electorate’s most urgent needs, is what Little has asked for, and his promise to review the Shadow Cabinet’s performance in 12 months’ time strongly suggests that he means to get them. Little’s colleagues would be wise to assume that his threshold for failure is set a lot lower than his predecessors’.

 

Little cannot afford to let Labour drift any longer. Either its Shadow Cabinet will convince the electorate that it possesses both the will and the talent to take New Zealanders where they want to go, or it will be reshuffled within an inch of its life. Either its MPs will make themselves the conduits for new ideas and bold initiatives, or they will be replaced. Labour will either, once again, become the party of progressive reform, or it will die.

 

And, if Andrew Little aspires to being something more than just the latest person to pass through Labour’s revolving door of leaders, then he will not only use the next 12 months to introduce himself to the voters, but also to recruit the best and the brightest Kiwis he encounters to Labour’s cause.

 

Time is not on his side.

 

This essay was originally published in The Waikato Times, The Taranaki Daily News, The Timaru Herald, The Otago Daily Times and The Greymouth Star of Friday, 28 November 2014.