New Zealand Conservative

If you turn your lights off for an hour, you can end global warming. I'm turning mine off just as I go to bed, and have decided to leave them off the whole night. Call me greener than green. Related Link: Save the world, AGW worshiper style

Chris Trotter's interesting, that's why we keep commenting on him. He's like an indicator of where the left could go, given half a chance in NZ, and he does have an uncanny political nose. So, here's his piece (Dom Post, March 20, 2007, From the Left) telling Sue to withdraw her bill because the of the damage it will do to the Left. Withdraw your failed bill, Sue We have failed. The opinion polls released this week confirm that fact with crushing finality. It is now indisputable that four-fifths of the electorate is opposed to Sue Bradford's "Anti-Smacking Bill". No one's really surprised. The poll results were just another couple of stalks in the veritable blizzard of straws in the wind that has been blowing for weeks on this issue. The Left already knew the voters weren't convinced. Why? Because it simply hasn't bothered to convince them. Consider the last great successful battle against against ingrained public prejudice: the legal ...

On at Murray's tonight.

I watched Casino Royale again the other day, and one of the things that struck me is how Bond stood up when his female acquaintance left the table. I think it happened twice in the movie. Do you think this is old fashioned and that women still like these kinds of things? Do you do them? What kind of response do you get? Or, if you're a woman, do you like this kind of thing? Sorry that I've started posting with these light kind of topics, but I'm all "smacked out" on discussing that bill for now :)

According to the Reuters video story HERE , Madrid in Spain have introduced new unisex 'cross now' figures at the traffic lights of their pedestrian crossings; apparently, women were complaining that the figures on the signs were only men. The police chief notes, "It doesn't require a lot of expense to not discriminate in traffic safety". A Madrid town resident (obviously female) says on the video, "It's fantastic, but there's still a lot to fight for. There are many things that need fighting for so women can finally be valued for what we are worth." I'm not sure what to think about this; I've never seen hordes of women waiting to cross because the sign said only the men could go or who felt they weren't valued enough because of the signs. It doesn't looks as clear as the 'stick figure' to me: what do you think?

It's not often you get quality AND quantity, but NZ Conservative delivers on both by welcoming Fletcher to our author list. And though he tried to look properly severe for his students, Fletcher Seagull suddenly saw them all as they really were, just for a moment, and he more than liked, he loved what he saw. No limits, Jonathan? he thought, and he smiled. His race to learn had begun. --JLS, Richard Bach. I'm sure Fletcher can help us find our inner seagull. And perhaps remind our government that they only hurt us more when they clip our wings.

It seems that three National MPs (Paul Hutchison, Simon Power and Jackie Blue) who previously supported Sue Bradford's 'anti-smacking' Bill have now changed their minds because of the views of their constituents. Wow! MPs who actually listen to the people?! Good on you guys! So keep on writing and phoning your local MPs and let them know how you feel! In related news; I heard on the 9am news on the radio that Gerry Brownlee has come out and said that National would not overturn the smacking bill if it went through. He said they would "see how it lay" for a while before deciding. This seems to me to be a bit like shooting yourself in the foot; If you have 80% of the country against a Bill going through, is it really smart politics to say you won't do anything to change it if you have the chance?

Well, according to the Herald this morning, the Ministry of Health has some new guidelines that will be 'launched in June' to say that it is recommended that children are only able to eat pies once a term. Yep, that's right, once a term. This also has the support of the New Zealand Educational Institute, the country's largest education union. Whatever next?

Well, I attended the protest yesterday. Yes, the s59 one. The DomPost this morning spent most of its space characterizing this as a march of "right wing Christian fundamentalists". That old bogeyman. The protest was fairly peaceful, but the paper reported one arrest, an anti-smacking protester. The anti crowd that heckled were very rude and obviously had little in the way of manners regarding people's right to protest. Some were beyond abusive - one elderly women calling a grandparent a disgusting child-beater - spending a good 2 minutes in his face saying the most vile things. Manners is obviously not high on the list of the self-righteous "non-force" zealots, who prefer verbal abuse to tolerance of different opinions. Criminalising a smack for the purposes of discipline is perhaps not much different than decriminalising homosexuality. The right of one adult to stick his dick into the poo-hole of another consenting adult is no longer a criminal offense. ...

It's official, the Section 59 Repeal is now a Government Bill . To be debated and passed whenever the Government wants. Yet, apparently this bill is not important to the Labour , according to Michael Cullen a couple of days ago. Helen Clark has also compared the outrage New Zealanders feel over this to the opposition over homosexual law reform and then the civil union bill. I think she hopes to continue her line that Christians are the only people outraged and are whipping everyone else into a frenzy. The only problem with this type of comparison is that both the homosexual law reform and civil union bill only impacted directly upon a minority of people. While as the Section 59 Repeal will impart directly upon the majority of New Zealanders. It's no longer one of those things that only affects people out there - it's going to affect all of us. Any parent who smacks will be committing a criminal offence. The first two laws were also liberalisation laws, while as the S...

Bomber Bradley, the man who has taken over Tim Selwyn's blog while he's in the slammer, bemoans the fact that the right dominate NZ talkback radio. With all the talkback stations going for the same right wing listeners, ratings can’t expand – get someone to take the liberal road and try something different – why must talkback be so f****ing right wing? I can tell you why, Bomber. Most New Zealanders are conservative. Which you interpret as right-wing. They don't like change for the sake of change - not like liberals. Liberals are noisy and give everyone the impression that there are hoardes of them everywhere, waiting to fill talkback radio with their incessant chatter, but the reality is very different. Must be why liberals are so desperate to change things, to create their Utopia on Earth - they find normal people very scary indeed. Related Link: Tumeke!

ZenTiger has just participated in the Anti-Repeal S59 March in Wellington today. When he gets a chance later tonight, he'll be filling everyone in on how it went. What was most interesting to me, and I'm sure he'll elaborate on this, was the behaviour of the small number of Pro-Repeal protesters that tried to disrupt the march. They were quite verbally abusive to the marchers. There were a number of TV cameras there, so I hope that it's pointed out that the marchers were well-behaved, despite provocation, and that those who want Section 59 repealed were quite verbally abusive in general. They'll be the types who don't believe in smacking a child, yet will most likely belittle and verbally abuse their children instead - and see nothing wrong with that.

You scored as Roman Catholic . You are Roman Catholic. Church tradition and ecclesial authority are hugely important, and the most important part of worship for you is mass. As the Mother of God, Mary is important in your theology, and as the communion of saints includes the living and the dead, you can also ask the saints to intercede for you. Roman Catholic 100% Neo orthodox 86% Evangelical Holiness/Wesleyan 86% Charismatic/Pentecostal 46% Fundamentalist 43% Classical Liberal 36% Reformed Evangelical 25% Modern Liberal 21% Emergent/Postmodern 7% What's your theological worldview? created with QuizFarm.com Though, I am a little surprised I got 100%. That's a bit of a fluke. I had to also lookup Karl Barth , because I had no idea who he was. I was pleased to see he annoyed Hitler, but in the end had to disagree that his theology was that important for today. Related Link: A Servant's Thoughts

An anonymous commenter on Not PC's blog has this to say about parents who smack. I am involved with Barnadoes and confirm that anyone who works at the coalface in social services supports Bradford's bill. Children should never be smacked, hit, whatever you want to call it. If you cannot teach, guide and discipline your child without resorting to hitting or other acts of violence, you are not fit to be a parent . Given that most New Zealanders support smacking, and of that percentage I would guess a significant amount do use physical discipline in the raising of their children, then this Bernados worker considers most New Zealanders not fit to be parents. Nice. Considering that Bernados needs public support in the form of donations, I would have thought that this level of contempt for the New Zealand public would have been best to keep under wraps. I know I will never donate to Bernados again because of the S59 campaigning that they are involved in.

"It's not important to Labour" Now, that's not an exact quote, as I can't quite remember what Michael Cullen said, word for word as I was putting dinner on the table at the time, but it looks and sounds like back-pedalling to me. A spokeperson for Michael Cullen has now confirmed that Labour is now longer seeking urgency on Repeal of S59. Could it be that Labour has realised this whole issue is sinking them? Look at the poll results which Helen Clark attributes to John Key's "honeymoon period" . Ha! More like Labour's disastrous trampling over the parents of NZ causing your average Labour voter to wake up and smell the coffee! The latest political poll has seen support for Labour slip, while National holds steady nearly ten points ahead. Now all we need is National to promise to repeal the repeal when they get into power, should Bradford's legislation be passed. Why are they not doing this? Trying to hold the higher moral ground on le...

Christchurch, Wellington, Nelson and Fielding will each have a Public March To Protest Anti-Smacking Bill this week. Visit www.politik.co.nz for details. --via a comment left by Andy Moore .

Chris Trotter blames the middle class in this week's Sunday Star Times. His homework was to write an intelligent article on the NCEA debacle. He failed. If Trotter bores you, the article can be summed "The middle class ate my homework". So much for a state education. According to Chris, it seems that parents who take a great deal of interest in their children's education can be labeled as possessing "overweening conceit which assures them everybody else is far too stupid to see through their spurious self-serving arguments" . This is typical Chris Trotter - he thinks any concern shown by parents as to a lack of faith in the NCEA system indicates the worst, because, naturally, the state and all its bureaucrats always do better than concerned parents. Chris Trotter then asks a question that only a communist and their socialist wannabes would ever ask: Has there ever been a more blatant educational "con" than the one which insists that ranking s...

Looking at left blogs is really bad for my health. The other day I had a quick look at Spanblather's Linky Love , to find a link to abortion and the hypocrisy of the Catholic Church , the author of which is really "hearted" by Span. Ok, I thought, let's have a look as to what this supposed "hypocrisy" is. It was just the same old tired argument that abortion ought to be legal because if it isn't legal, then women are going to do it anyway, and if they do it illegally it's more likely to be dangerous and therefore kill many more women than if it were legal. The Catholic Church is being hypocritical in opposing abortion, because they are supposed to be about protecting life - and look, women getting illegal abortions are dying! Doesn't the Catholic Church care? It's the biggest load of crap ever. Apply the same argument to organ harvesting. People are dying because they can't get organs. If we allow organ harvesting of the unwanted, t...

Farrar reminded me of another Cullenism today, with the arrogant finance Minister announcing " You can't eat a house ". Yes Michael, you can't eat a house. But you can't live in a ham sandwich either. People do think beyond their house when thinking of retirement. It's just the government has been pathetic at helping them save - more concerned with taking too much tax, increasing government spending by 33%, and holding onto surpluses rather than hand some money back. Don't take away shelter just to provide food.

"If four basic conditions are met, a crowd's 'collective intelligence' will produce better outcomes than a small group of experts, Surowiecki says, even if members of the crowd don't know all the facts or choose, individually, to act irrationally. 'Wise crowds' need (1) diversity of opinion; (2) independence of members from one another; (3) decentralization; and (4) a good method for aggregating opinions." —Publisher's Weekly Well, that argues against Chris Trotter's propaganda somewhat. I reckon a referendum on the question: "Should smacking be banned" might work if we can hold it before mass propaganda advertising from the government and Greens telling us how to think. To this, we add the requirement of at least a 60% turnout to get a good sized crowd.

Leave Referendums to Dictators says Chris Trotter. [Hattip: Lucyna] He then sets out to explain why direct democracy is bad. At a general election, the electorate merely decides who shall decide he says, and given that he argues how stupid people are, he considers once you've fooled them into voting for you, they should accept that any decision, no matter how painful, is for the best. That's why he explained how important is was for Labour to act corruptly to win the last election. All this to justify why the repeal of s59 should not go to referendum (where it would undoubtedly fail based on many poll results). When Chris Trotter is spinning this desperately, you know he sees this as an important step to supplanting the family with the state. The will of the people doesn't enter into his slanted argument. To make out dictators love referenda, the purpose of which was obviously to imply that a referendum isn't democratic, is ridiculous in the extreme. And how co...

I'm re-posting this review of an earlier article by Chris Trotter. It reveals his thoughts on the "typical" family perfectly. It's relevant to how hard he is spinning to justify pushing through the repeal of s59 - and especially trying to avoid "the will of the people".

Chris Trotter reacts to the attacks on his column last week , where he basically said that citizens cannot be trusted to decide important matters in a referendum. This week, he's decided that those people that believe in referendums are all ex-social-credit party members. I kid you not. There's no link to the original, because I typed all of this out myself. What a peculiar little country this is sometimes. The image we present to the world is one of easygoing, can-do friendliness. But the face we show to one another - ah, well, that's a very different story. Last week in this column I took a swing at United Future MP Judy Turner for attempting to kick the so-called "Anti-Smacking Bill" into political touch by forcing it to a referendum. I might just as sensibly have taken a large stick to a wasps' nest! Suddenly I was being assaulted by Helen-haters, social creditors (yes, they still exist) and the sort of landlords who prohibit their tenants from hanging...

Last week, on Friday March 16, 2007, Chris Trotter had a delightful piece published in the Dominion Post manly how the average pleb in the street cannot be trusted with deciding the fate of such important pieces of legislation such as the Repeal of Section 59 of the Crimes Acts - aka the Anti-Smacking Bill. I'm sure ZenTiger will have something to say about it, so I'm saving it here for posterity - just in case it vanishes from the Stuff website sometime in the future. Leave referendums to dictators The Dominion Post | Friday, 16 March 2007 FROM THE LEFT - CHRIS TROTTER Judy, Judy, Judy, as Cary Grant apparently never said to Rita Hayworth in Only Angels Have Wings. Not to worry. If the impossibly suave Mr Grant never actually delivered his most memorable line, I will. Not to Rita Hayworth, of course, but to United Future MP Judy Turner. Because what Cary did or did not say isn't really the point. The point is how he didn't say it: which was in a sort of descending glis...

Plug in the headphones, turn off the lights and just get into the groove...

Open chat thread. I'll turn on anon comments for a while for this.

Now Helen Clark and co want to force the banning of smacking through under urgency. What an inspiring parliament we have. Forcing through legislation which is supposedly sending a message that use of force is always unjustified. And we are told that parents will not be prosecuted for breaking the law. Except that a man was fined $500 for hitting his son (DomPost today). Obviously, some-one somewhere decided the force used was unreasonable, and he didn't get off using s59. Because the reality is very few people do, and those few that do (7 people in 15 years?) experience long court cases where the issue is weighed very carefully. So, here's a government ramming through legislation to ban smacking that assures us we don't have to follow it (how that will change once it is passed) if it is only a light smack, because breaking the law is OK and the police wouldn't bother enforcing their laws anyway, but by the way, they don't mind passing retrospective legislatio...

Now for something completely different and possibly light-hearted, depending on how you feel about the kilt. SCOTS heading to Poland for stag trips are being warned not to lift their kilts - or our national dress could be banned. The good burghers of Krakow and Warsaw are sick of the sight of boozed-up "men in skirts" flashing their bits in the street. And the authorities in another popular stag night destination, the city of Wroclaw, have become so fed-up with the badly behaved minority of Scots they are seriously considering outlawing the kilt. My feeling is, just because you are wearing a skirt doesn't give you a right to flash everyone. I certainly wouldn't want dangly bits flashed at me when I least expected it. Might react and use the handbag as a weapon before I had a chance to think. Related Link: KRAKDOWN

Here we go. The European Parliament is going to look at whether or not Poland's proposed new law to ban discussions of homosexuality in schools violates human rights. "The disturbing proposals to outlaw discussion of homosexuality raise serious concerns about the commitment to fundamental rights in Poland," said MEP Kathalijne Buitenweg, a Green party member from the Netherlands, in a statement. "It is shocking that the government of a modern European country would even consider such draconian legislation. The promotion of gay hatred is the antithesis of EU anti-discrimination rules and the Polish government must publicly reject this approach," said Buitenweg. Well, considering the first "human rights" group started in Germany in the late 1800's to promote "gay rights" (then called "homosexual rights") and "gay rights" is also promoted under the umbrella of "human rights" today, I'd say Poland's prop...

If we could reduce carbon emissions from aluminium production by 90%, you'd think Greenies would be pleased. Nope. Winge winge winge . And it's not even using nuclear power. Somewhere, there is an insane greenie cooking up a killer virus to wipe out 90% of the world's population to save the planet. Our only hope is that one of the lab rats infected with the test toxin bites them and they mutate into "Ratman" and terrorize the neighbourhood before the SPCA finally catch them, and mistaking them for some kind of imported attack dog, put them down for not being properly chipped. Just let them build the damn dam.

If you read nothing else of the article below, know this. Russia spends 7 times more today than it did 5 years ago on military procurement and modernisation. Russia has also recently deployed several batteries of S-300 missiles near Poland's border and has warned Poland not to allow the missile defence system to be set up on her soil. Things are heating up between Central Europe and Russia and almost no one is noticing. WARSAW -- The U.S. proposal to place radar and interceptor sites for a new missile defence system in Central Europe -- respectively, in the Czech Republic and Poland -- may generate a new security partnership with the countries of the region. Or it could provoke a spiral of misunderstanding, weaken NATO, deepen Russian paranoia and cost the United States some of its last friends on the continent. Early omens are worrisome. Some genius at the State Department or the Pentagon sent the first official note describing possible placement of the facility with a draft re...

I have wanted to comment on a number of blogs from at least before the weekend, and I haven't been able to because of the visual verification thingee that does not appear. It took me a day or so before I realised that people might not be commenting here because of this problem, so, it's turned off for now. So, a message to other blogger bloggers. Please turn the visual verification thing off! Of course, I'll have probably forgotten what I wanted to say on your blogs anyway.

NZ food Nazis really need to do more research. A study released (and reported on in the Dominion Post) earlier this month showed that women that consume low fat dairy products are at increased risk of infertility. Yet, the Food Nazis are now calling for people to limit the amount of butter they put on their hot cross buns to a thin scraping*. Butter is an essential food. Back before just in time deliveries to the supermarket, in winter he ownership of a cow could mean the difference between life and death for people. The cow produced little milk compared to today, but what she did produce was made into butter. Butter that was essential for survival in harsh winter climates. Today butter is much maligned by Food Nazis in their War Against Obesity. They would have us forget the very existence of butter, but the next time you coat your Hot Cross buns (buns to remind you of the coming of Easter and the Risen Christ) in lots of real butter (not margarine, never margarine), pause for a...

Does it really matter who I am? Who are you? You only live for a finite number of days. What are you exchanging for a day of life today? Art by Wellington artist Julian Knap

Bank of New Zealand are offering what I think may be a world first: the ability for individuals and families to link their accounts together, and then the interest payments be calculated based on the combined pool. Even better, the pooled money can be used as a mortgage offset along the lines of typical mortgage offset accounts to reduce mortgage interest. This is a no-risk way for families to help each other out, where say grandparents maintain high cash deposits and their young children are busy trying to start a family and struggling with a mortgage. Well done BNZ. A very interesting concept.

There is this really horrible programme on TV3 right now harassing this poor woman for - get this - turning the heater on when it's cold and using hot or warm water to wash clothes. How on earth did the Environmentalists take over reality TV? I just can't watch anymore.

In EU right now we have on the one hand Britain experimenting with teaching very young children about gay relationships and making it illegal for religious schools to teach that homosexuality is immoral , and on the other, Poland to be making any discussion of homosexuality in schools completely illegal. The Polish government is to ban discussions on homosexuality in schools and educational institutions across the country, with teachers facing the sack, fines or imprisonment. Poland's education minister, Roman Giertych, has said he hopes to introduce a similar ban across the entire EU. Mr Giertych, the leader of the ultra-conservative League of Polish Families, a junior coalition partner in the government of prime minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski, said the aim of the proposed law would be to "prohibit the promotion of homosexuality and other deviance". ... The European Commission has condemned the Polish government, whose motto is "moral renewal", for its homophobic...

Well known NZ investment firm ACC has taken a 25 per cent stake in privately-owned firm NZLSAT which hopes to launch a Russian built satellite into space. As a government monopoly, they have a statutory obligation to take money from employees and employers and either spend it on novel investment schemes, tv advertising (to get across the idea that government monopolies are a really good thing) or lawyers, trying to either slow down payment rates , take payment money back of the victims , or argue that they shouldn't have to pay compound interest interest just because they took nine years to settle a claim. In space, no-one can make a claim. Related Link: Satellite Investment - an Accident Waiting to Happen

Isaac Asimov wrote: What is intelligence, anyway? When I was in the army, I received the kind of aptitude test that all soldiers took and, against a normal of 100, scored 160. No one at the base had ever seen a figure like that, and for two hours they made a big fuss over me. (It didn't mean anything. The next day I was still a buck private with KP - kitchen police - as my highest duty.) All my life I've been registering scores like that, so that I have the complacent feeling that I'm highly intelligent, and I expect other people to think so too. Actually, though, don't such scores simply mean that I am very good at answering the type of academic questions that are considered worthy of answers by people who make up the intelligence tests - people with intellectual bents similar to mine? For instance, I had an auto-repair man once, who, on these intelligence tests, could not possibly have scored more than 80, by my estimate. I always took it for granted that I was far mo...

A couple of years ago we thought we'd replace our old battered 17 year old Phillips vacuum cleaner with a new Electrolux. Now, just over 2 years later, the "floor tool" broke at what looks like it's weakest point. I've already put up with the thingy that comes down to pick up dust and fur breaking last year, but now the entire thing is useless. So, after a bit of ringing around, some one has finally got back to me on how much it will cost me to buy a new floor tool - one hundred dollars! That much to get a new floor tool that will probably only last only two years! That's one fifth of the whole cost of the original purchase price of the vacuum cleaner! I'm just flabbergasted. If they didn't make their stupid floor tool so weak that it breaks after two years, then I wouldn't have to try and replace it. I'm never buying Electrolux again.

When Helen Clark announced we live in a benign strategic environment, we didn't know we were going to discover oil off the south island . I wonder if our Defence Forces are re-evaluating any scenarios where Foreign Forces do decide to relocate a few hundred thousand troops?

Two leading UK climate researchers have criticised those among their peers who they say are "overplaying" the global warming message. The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) were quick to dismiss this viewpoint. "When we said that the entire planet was doomed, and we would all perish in a variety of painful and excruciating ways, that were all virtually irreversible, we advanced this on the basis of scientific fact. These guys will be under 4 metres of water by next Wednesday, so I'd take no notice of them whatsoever. Instead, you should be out there paying your Kyoto taxes. That is the only thing standing between you and oblivion." Related Link: We are all doomed. Panic is appropriate. Hattip: Adolf - BBC Back Pedals on Gorebull Warming

Dr Kiro has a master plan for every child. The Children's Commissioner has created a document expressing the plan: TE ARA TUKUTUKU NGA WHANAUNGATANGA O NGA TAMARIKI: WEAVING PATHWAYS TO WELLBEING – AN INTEGRATED FRAMEWORK FOR CHILDREN AND THEIR FAMILIES The government norm is to have a Maori name for everything. Such tokenism makes us all feel good that we are supporting our cuzzies achieve cultural independence by establishing cultural interdependence. Thus, we have to put up with long Maori names for such reports. I'm not sure it really matters. What does matter is that Dr Kiro's name should feature in the report's Title so history knows who to judge. So I'm taking the liberty of renaming Te Ara Tukutuku Nga Whanaungatanga o Nga Tamariki to Kiro's Master Plan In a nutshell, the plan is a weak justification around profiling every child in New Zealand, and having a reason to intervene. It would be easy to dismiss my points as paranoid, but this is unfai...

There will be those who only know St Patrick's Day as the day their local pub serves green beer. But, St Patrick's Day is named after a man, a man born in Scotland, taken as a slave to Ireland, who escaped after being told to by an angel, who eventually sent back to Ireland by the Pope in order to convert the Druids to Catholicism. Here is St. Patrick's Breast-Plate, a prayer composed by St Patrick in preparation for victory over Paganism. A prayer very relevant for NZ today. Note what St Patrick says about everyone that thinks of him , as I'm sure many will be, even slightly as they drink their green beer. I bind to myself today The strong virtue of the Invocation of the Trinity: I believe the Trinity in the Unity The Creator of the Universe. I bind to myself today The virtue of the Incarnation of Christ with His Baptism, The virtue of His crucifixion with His burial, The virtue of His Resurrection with His Ascension, The virtue of Hi...

If you only ever listen to anything news related as you drive into work in the morning between 8 and 8:30am with your dial tuned to NewsTalk ZB, you could be forgiven for thinking that National is quite happy to ban smacking. That is certainly the impression I'd get if I read or listened to nothing else. Katherine Rich, a National MP has been on-air, applauding the coming Repeal of Section 59 and letting the listeners know that those mothers whose children misbehave in supermarkets are going to have to find some other way of rebuking their off-spring rather than the time-honoured smack on the behind. Ever since my comment on DPF's blog on farm girls growing up to be wannabe totalitarians (referring to Helen Clark and Cactus Kate), I wondered if Katherine Rich was a farm girl, too. Likely, she was as in her bio it says she grew up on the Taieri Plains. Could it be that there's something about growing up on a farm that makes NZ girls a little socialist. Could that be why ...