June 18, 2011
A Nelson man's curiosity about a relative's wartime death in a faraway land has led to the forging of some strong bonds between New Zealand families and a small Dutch town. Geoff Collett reports.
There are hundreds of thousands of graves like these, neatly and carefully tended, laid out in orderly rows across swathes of the European countryside.
These 20 or so stand in the pretty setting of a small Dutch town called Markelo and mark the final resting place of, among others, four New Zealanders, two Englishmen and a Scotsman: seven comrades who died together on a midsummer's night in 1943, returning from a bombing run over Germany.
Perhaps their stories wouldn't stand out from all the other war dead similarly commemorated with a tidy plot and well-maintained headstone. All across Europe – and certainly all across Holland – the people of towns like Markelo have long prided themselves on tending to those Allied fighters who paid for the defeat of Nazism with their lives.
On the other side of the world, when Darryl Robertson was younger, he occasionally reflected on how lonely and sad it seemed, that his father's cousin and close friend, Andrew McEwin, had died so young and so far away.
When he headed out on his own OE, his father, Don, urged him to pay a visit to Holland, to track down the grave marked in the name of Flight Sergeant Andrew McEwin.
Mr Robertson didn't get there, but nor did he abandon the memory of a relative he never knew.
He remembers one of their last conversations before his father died 20 years ago, when they discussed family history, the older man pondering how, "when you're young, you don't have the time to find out about these things".
For Mr Robertson – by then settled into life as an artist in the countryside near Mapua – another decade was to pass until he decided to find the time.
Among all that he subsequently learned was that, whatever the sadness of their deaths, however distant the men were from home, perhaps their end wasn't as lonely as it might have seemed. And that as easy as it might have been for memories and connections to fade as the decades drifted past, the opposite has proved true.
As another anniversary of the deaths rolls around next week – the 68th – Mr Robertson has helped to close the gap of both time and distance, and changed some lives along the way.
For Keith Burbidge, the phone call from Mr Robertson came from out of the blue. While he had some vivid memories of his older brother, Ken, he knew little of the circumstances around his death.
"We knew that he had been shot down in this town called Markelo," Mr Burbidge says from his Richmond home. He remembers a woman from Markelo corresponded briefly with his mother, including some assurances that Ken had landed in a place where the people had cared for the dead.
Beyond that, he never expected to know more, and now in his 80s, never expected to visit the place where Ken's life had ended.
And yet suddenly came this phone call from a stranger who happened to live not far away, telling him that he had information about how Ken and his fellow airmen had died and been cared for in death.
Within hours, Mr Burbidge was on his way to Mr Robertson's studio to learn the full story.
The men had been part of a massive bombing run that night, Mr Robertson had learned with more than 500 allied aircraft flying from England, among them a Stirling bomber, EF399, part of the 75 RNZAF Squadron, with a crew of seven.
Ken Burbidge, 22, from Otago was in the pilot's seat; Andrew McEwin, 25, from the West Coast gold-mining settlement of Waiuta was bomb commander; Donald Martin, 26, from Auckland the wireless operator/gunner; Walter Wilcockson, of Christchurch, the navigator; Cameron Gibson, 23, of Scotland, the forward gunner; Gordon Lockey, of England, the flight engineer; and Kenneth Shaw, 22, also of England, the tail gunner.
The raid left something like two-thirds of the German city of Mulheim destroyed, but as they turned for home, the Stirling's well-recognised flaws – its slow, lumbering form – made it a sitting duck.
It was apparently hit by flak, making it even slower. Probably, the crew never saw the German night fighter attack, crippling the plane before vanishing back into the darkness.
Flight Sergeant Burbidge managed to keep control as he attempted a crash landing until, with seconds to go, the aircraft broke up, crashing and burning; two of the crew had time to jump for safety but not to activate their parachutes.
All were found dead by villagers. Burial arrangements were quickly made to spare the dead any further indignities, the locals saying the Lord's Prayer over the graves.
In time, as news of the crash reached their loved ones, the occasional letter from afar would arrive in Markelo, seeking some news of what had come of the men.
There were those in the town who took it on themselves to write back, providing what assurances they could: that the men had died in a caring, pretty place, that their graves were tended, candles lit and flowers left for them regularly, the children of the town also taught to continue the devotions.
Mr Robertson's research into Andrew McEwin's death started slowly, but grew rapidly, particularly when he made contact with people in Markelo to see if anybody could help him. A key moment came when he contacted New Zealand's ambassador to Holland, David Payton, "who was amazing – he pulled out all the stops".
That included visiting Markelo, where the ambassador went out of his way to draw attention to the town's Kiwi connection.
He met a keen audience. A flood of information came to the surface – as Mr Robertson puts it, the project got a life of its own.
Subsequent New Zealand ambassadors continued to nurture a relationship with the Markelo people. In 2010, Defence Minister Wayne Mapp made an official visit. Prime Minister John Key wrote to the small group there who drive the effort to honour the memory of dead airmen, to thank them; they were also invited to lunch with Queen Beatrix in recognition of their work.
Mr Robertson, meanwhile, continued his research, including the story of the Luftwaffe pilot who had brought down the Stirling – a member of the Austrian aristocracy, Prince Egmont Zur Lippe Weissenfeld, a night fighter ace and highly decorated member of the Luftwaffe.
Fascinated by what he had learned, Mr Robertson felt a responsibility to share it with others who had relatives on the plane – even though he had no idea where to start beyond the phone book.
He began with the most distinctive name among the crew, Walter Wilcockson, tracking down just one Wilcockson in the country, up in Tauranga. He called the listed number and discovered the man who answered was Walter's son, Ian, who was just six when his father died.
Mr Robertson admits he was dumbstruck to have made such a quick, easy connection. It turned out Mr Wilcockson's health was failing, but on the strength of what Mr Robertson shared with him he decided to arrange a visit to Markelo to see for himself where his father's life had ended, before he himself died.
For Mr Burbidge, the experience proved at least as poignant. Mr Robertson tracked him down in similarly random fashion, simply by ringing people of the name Burbidge in the phone book. By chance, Mr Burbidge was living in Richmond. The consequences of that phone call have been profound for him.
After discovering so much about his brother's death, he and some of his family determined that they too would visit Markelo. In November last year, they made the pilgrimage – Mr Burbidge accompanied by his daughter and son-in-law, Linda and Owen Feary, and their two daughters.
As Mr Wilcockson had also experienced, they were treated with enormous respect by the Dutch.
Perhaps the most moving moment came shortly after they arrived. Mr Burbidge recalls how the family were taken to a museum that specialises in recovering the parts of wartime aircraft; the museum was opened specially for them. A Stirling cockpit was nearing the final stages of reconstruction, "so we could see exactly where the pilot and navigator and everybody was situated in the awful damn machines".
Then, he was presented with a Stirling fuel gauge. "It was very, very emotional," Mr Burbidge says. "I'll be honest – I fell over, I let go, I couldn't hold it.
"As I said in Markelo, if Ken had walked out in the street and been killed, knocked over by a car or something, that would have been final. But buried over there, there was never a closure. But this represented a closure to me."
He is in awe of the Dutch, their kindness and determination; but he adds that in Markelo he encountered "absolute admiration" for Mr Robertson's efforts in making sure the story is known.
The experience, Mr Burbidge says, has brought his whole family closer. His grandchildren have started attending Anzac ceremonies, with their older relatives' medals. "That's a big thing for us. They're proud. Very proud."
Ironically enough, Mr Robertson hasn't yet made his own trip to Markelo, although he's contemplating it. He's not entirely finished with his research efforts.
Survivors of the other four men on board were not so easy to trace; he eventually found relatives of the fourth Kiwi, Donald Martin, and Cameron Gibson from Scotland, but the other British connections have proved more elusive.
He has, however, tracked down the two sisters of Prince Egmont, the Luftwaffe night-fighter ace who himself died in the war and, at the urgings of people in Markelo, has put them in contact with the town.
In two years time, they may even travel to Markelo themselves, to join what will be the 70th anniversary of the night the Stirling crashed.
Perhaps, Mr Robertson says, he'll be there too.
And Mr Burbidge hopes to be as well. He and his family are already tentatively planning for the trip. "I feel I owe it to them [the people of Markelo] for what they've done, and I owe it to myself."
But surely the deepest debt he owes is to the man who phoned him out of the blue to ask if he was related to a Kiwi airman who died in Holland in June, 1943.
"Without him we would never have found out what we have found out, and I would never have got to Holland to pay my respects to my brother," Mr Burbidge says.
"Without Darryl, we would have had nothing."
Thursday, July 7, 2011
Saturday, May 14, 2011
Setting sail yet again for Clifford Bay
Nelson Mail editorial, May 10, 2011
With roughly the same sort of predictability as the ebb and flow of the tides, so talk of shifting the South Island ferry terminal from Picton to Clifford Bay comes and goes. That the idea is such a hardy annual reflects both its logical appeal, but also the dubious economics which have dashed previous proposals.
What's different – and surprising – this time is that it's the Government reviving the debate. Transport Minister Stephen Joyce has asked officials to look at the "high level" issues around a Clifford Bay terminal, to build on work done by the state-owned rail and ferry operator, KiwiRail. Mr Joyce points to the argument which has been heard ad infinitum down the years: that Clifford Bay offers shorter travel times, both on the water and on the road from Christchurch. Crucially, it would also allow the ferries to avoid the Marlborough Sounds and their speed restrictions which have severely hampered ferry operators in recent times.
As appealing as such benefits might seem, they have not necessarily stacked up for investors before now. The last two private operators of the ferries, TranzRail and Toll, walked away from the Clifford Bay option, TranzRail despite spending millions on the possibility. It's not just that the costs and scale of the work needed to turn an arid bay into a major freight and passenger terminus are significant. Many of the advantages of reduced travel times would accrue elsewhere in the economy than on the operator's balance sheet. The advantage the established port at Picton enjoys should not be under-estimated either, however constrained its facilities might be. Port Marlborough has clearly been adept at putting up compelling cases against the Clifford Bay option, and will surely seek to do so again.
But if a private operator has not been able to make the sums work at Clifford Bay, the involvement of the Government changes the perspective. It obviously has to be fiscally responsible, but it can also justify bringing wider considerations into the mix – the benefits of shortening the journey from Christchurch to Wellington, for instance. Then again, its talk of involving a private sector partner – a politically contentious idea, given the chequered history of private-public ventures – underlines the full scale of the project, one which the Government (or KiwiRail) is patently not in a position to carry alone.
The uncertainty a revival of the debate causes in Picton – and the huge disruption which would follow if a shift to Clifford Bay ever did happen – will trouble many in the Marlborough community. Mr Joyce promises they will be part of the consideration. Yet as time goes on, it is hard to see that Picton's interests will continue to withstand the logic of a better-sited hub for the South Island's vital inter-island link. Future efficiencies surely lie in shortening the distance and providing for larger, faster vessels than Picton and the Sounds can handle.
With roughly the same sort of predictability as the ebb and flow of the tides, so talk of shifting the South Island ferry terminal from Picton to Clifford Bay comes and goes. That the idea is such a hardy annual reflects both its logical appeal, but also the dubious economics which have dashed previous proposals.
What's different – and surprising – this time is that it's the Government reviving the debate. Transport Minister Stephen Joyce has asked officials to look at the "high level" issues around a Clifford Bay terminal, to build on work done by the state-owned rail and ferry operator, KiwiRail. Mr Joyce points to the argument which has been heard ad infinitum down the years: that Clifford Bay offers shorter travel times, both on the water and on the road from Christchurch. Crucially, it would also allow the ferries to avoid the Marlborough Sounds and their speed restrictions which have severely hampered ferry operators in recent times.
As appealing as such benefits might seem, they have not necessarily stacked up for investors before now. The last two private operators of the ferries, TranzRail and Toll, walked away from the Clifford Bay option, TranzRail despite spending millions on the possibility. It's not just that the costs and scale of the work needed to turn an arid bay into a major freight and passenger terminus are significant. Many of the advantages of reduced travel times would accrue elsewhere in the economy than on the operator's balance sheet. The advantage the established port at Picton enjoys should not be under-estimated either, however constrained its facilities might be. Port Marlborough has clearly been adept at putting up compelling cases against the Clifford Bay option, and will surely seek to do so again.
But if a private operator has not been able to make the sums work at Clifford Bay, the involvement of the Government changes the perspective. It obviously has to be fiscally responsible, but it can also justify bringing wider considerations into the mix – the benefits of shortening the journey from Christchurch to Wellington, for instance. Then again, its talk of involving a private sector partner – a politically contentious idea, given the chequered history of private-public ventures – underlines the full scale of the project, one which the Government (or KiwiRail) is patently not in a position to carry alone.
The uncertainty a revival of the debate causes in Picton – and the huge disruption which would follow if a shift to Clifford Bay ever did happen – will trouble many in the Marlborough community. Mr Joyce promises they will be part of the consideration. Yet as time goes on, it is hard to see that Picton's interests will continue to withstand the logic of a better-sited hub for the South Island's vital inter-island link. Future efficiencies surely lie in shortening the distance and providing for larger, faster vessels than Picton and the Sounds can handle.
Thursday, May 5, 2011
World-famous in the Collett family
In the lead-up to Anzac Day, Nelson Mail journalists are sharing their family war stories. Today, Geoff Collett writes about a World War I flying ace.
My great, great uncle Clive killed Germans in the war. He lined them up in his sights and shot them, mostly using a couple of Vickers machineguns attached to his Sopwith Camel biplane, high above the hellholes of the European battlefields of the Great War.
Sometimes, they nearly killed him. A couple of times he nearly killed himself. And once – that's all it takes, of course – he did, accidentally but inexplicably.
I've never been one for family history and always been ambivalent about war stories. I was vaguely aware of the various feats which had made Captain Clive Collett world-famous in the Collett family, but when I started reading through my father's Clive Collett file, I have to say awe was the over-riding feeling. His was a war fought at the very edges of technology and risk.
He was a flying ace, downing 12 German aircraft in combat within the space of about six weeks – three of them in one 45-minute burst. He had the dash, the daring and the big balls that made the fly boys of that war the stuff of so much legend.
His story is filled with scrapes and near things, various accounts of his flimsy biplane coming to one form of grief or another – perhaps shredded and crippled by Hun shells, or blowing a valve after he overdid an attacking dive on enemy aircraft, usually forcing him to nurse it back to safety and an emergency landing.
One of his combat reports tells of how he and his foe were so close that they nearly collided as he emptied his Vickers into its fuselage. Another recounts following a stricken German plane until it landed; Clive finished it off with a long burst until it exploded into flames. Then he fled home with a badly injured hand, keeping to 30 feet above the trees of Houtholst Forest to prevent the other pursuing Germans getting a fix on him with their guns.
Sometimes he didn't quite make it. He smashed his face up badly in one crash, removing him from combat duties for most of a year. Instead, he did experimental stuff including becoming the first man under British command to jump from a plane with a parachute.
The story of that tells how he drolly noted the presence of ambulance and fire tender on the airfield below just before he jumped, pointing out what a fat lot of use they would be if things didn't work out.
He got a medal – the Military Cross, and then its Bar. His citation talked of gallantry, devotion and dash, and his habit of single-handedly taking on large formations of enemy aircraft.
In a weird way it seems almost inevitable that he died pointlessly, miles from the nearest enemy gun.
He was flying a captured German Albatros off the coast of Scotland a few days before Christmas 1917 when for no known reason the plane crashed into the water.
Some speculate a part broke lose and hit him, knocking him out or worse. He was 31.
He left, apparently, a young widow (although the record is contradictory as to whether they had ever married) and a baby daughter.
I've never known anything of his offspring. We're a big and widely-scattered family. My great uncle, also a Clive, accumulated plenty of material on him, however, and made sure the legend lived on in our branch of the family tree.
Clive Franklyn Collett's grave is somewhere in Edinburgh; a memorial plaque stood for some time in his hometown of Tauranga. He has a section devoted to him in the website on Collett genealogy.
Someone has given him a Wikipedia page. My brother, also a military man, advises that the RNZAF museum holds material on him. I read somewhere that Peter Jackson, the film-maker, modelled his replica Sopwith Camel on Clive's.
Such are the ways we remember our war dead.
My great, great uncle Clive killed Germans in the war. He lined them up in his sights and shot them, mostly using a couple of Vickers machineguns attached to his Sopwith Camel biplane, high above the hellholes of the European battlefields of the Great War.
Sometimes, they nearly killed him. A couple of times he nearly killed himself. And once – that's all it takes, of course – he did, accidentally but inexplicably.
I've never been one for family history and always been ambivalent about war stories. I was vaguely aware of the various feats which had made Captain Clive Collett world-famous in the Collett family, but when I started reading through my father's Clive Collett file, I have to say awe was the over-riding feeling. His was a war fought at the very edges of technology and risk.
He was a flying ace, downing 12 German aircraft in combat within the space of about six weeks – three of them in one 45-minute burst. He had the dash, the daring and the big balls that made the fly boys of that war the stuff of so much legend.
His story is filled with scrapes and near things, various accounts of his flimsy biplane coming to one form of grief or another – perhaps shredded and crippled by Hun shells, or blowing a valve after he overdid an attacking dive on enemy aircraft, usually forcing him to nurse it back to safety and an emergency landing.
One of his combat reports tells of how he and his foe were so close that they nearly collided as he emptied his Vickers into its fuselage. Another recounts following a stricken German plane until it landed; Clive finished it off with a long burst until it exploded into flames. Then he fled home with a badly injured hand, keeping to 30 feet above the trees of Houtholst Forest to prevent the other pursuing Germans getting a fix on him with their guns.
Sometimes he didn't quite make it. He smashed his face up badly in one crash, removing him from combat duties for most of a year. Instead, he did experimental stuff including becoming the first man under British command to jump from a plane with a parachute.
The story of that tells how he drolly noted the presence of ambulance and fire tender on the airfield below just before he jumped, pointing out what a fat lot of use they would be if things didn't work out.
He got a medal – the Military Cross, and then its Bar. His citation talked of gallantry, devotion and dash, and his habit of single-handedly taking on large formations of enemy aircraft.
In a weird way it seems almost inevitable that he died pointlessly, miles from the nearest enemy gun.
He was flying a captured German Albatros off the coast of Scotland a few days before Christmas 1917 when for no known reason the plane crashed into the water.
Some speculate a part broke lose and hit him, knocking him out or worse. He was 31.
He left, apparently, a young widow (although the record is contradictory as to whether they had ever married) and a baby daughter.
I've never known anything of his offspring. We're a big and widely-scattered family. My great uncle, also a Clive, accumulated plenty of material on him, however, and made sure the legend lived on in our branch of the family tree.
Clive Franklyn Collett's grave is somewhere in Edinburgh; a memorial plaque stood for some time in his hometown of Tauranga. He has a section devoted to him in the website on Collett genealogy.
Someone has given him a Wikipedia page. My brother, also a military man, advises that the RNZAF museum holds material on him. I read somewhere that Peter Jackson, the film-maker, modelled his replica Sopwith Camel on Clive's.
Such are the ways we remember our war dead.
The long-awaited death of a terrorist
Nelson Mail editorial, May 5, 2011
In life, Osama bin Laden was first and foremost a propagandist par excellence; a murderous, twisted hater for sure, but principally an expert at disseminating his anti-Western bile, exploiting and harnessing the resentments of radicalised Islam, and helping to engineer and inspire some spectacular and awful displays of the power of terrorism. So there is a fitting symbolism that his death at the hands of US special forces at the weekend has delivered his most-hated enemy a giant propaganda coup of its own.
Like all the grand propaganda gestures, Monday's presidential pronouncement of his death sounded spectacular, but is of uncertain substance. Its meaning beyond providing the Americans with an excuse to celebrate their righteousness is anybody's guess. Nevertheless, the demise of one of modern history's most unpleasant creatures is welcome and overdue, and a much-needed strike back against his noxious creed.
Much of the torrent of commentary in the past couple of days has focused on bin Laden's waning significance in the scheme of things; of how the al Qaeda network he founded has been sidelined as Arab people have looked to a new future of freedoms and democracy. Some have wondered what practical significance he still held. From once being portrayed as the civilised world's Public Enemy No.1, he was increasingly dismissed as a caricature, a mad, bad, self-styled prophet, supposedly living in a cave and ranting to the converted.
None of this should be allowed to diminish his revolting legacy. Bin Laden had long since done his damage, and it is profound. He was the manifestation of a perverted distortion of Islam which has reshaped the world in the decade since his most grotesque crime, the September 11, 2001 attacks on America. He tainted the place of Islam in the West, provoked far-reaching constraints on ordinary liberties, triggered wars, and reshaped the political landscape of the United States, the Middle East and beyond.
The power of his myth, his status as the bogeyman of George W.Bush's War on Terror, was graphically displayed on the streets of Washington DC and New York on Monday as the crowds gathered to celebrate news he was dead. Some may argue that investing so much symbolism in one man is ridiculous. It is true that one of the new cliches of the post-bin Laden era – that the world is a safer place without him – sounds like a stretch. But the display left no doubt that the grief and anger of September 11 has never sunk far below the surface in America.
That country's intelligence agencies and special forces will also enjoy the rare opportunity to brag of a high-profile success. It was clearly an extraordinary operation and one which raises among many questions the one about Pakistan's role in bin Laden's fate – a murky business which seems bound to never come clear, but can only feed suspicion about that country's on-going contribution to the volatility of one of the world's most unstable regions.
But that too is more speculation. For those who seek something definite, perhaps the best that can be taken for now is that while bin Laden's death may not in itself deliver any gains beyond the symbolic, the world has most certainly suffered no loss.
In life, Osama bin Laden was first and foremost a propagandist par excellence; a murderous, twisted hater for sure, but principally an expert at disseminating his anti-Western bile, exploiting and harnessing the resentments of radicalised Islam, and helping to engineer and inspire some spectacular and awful displays of the power of terrorism. So there is a fitting symbolism that his death at the hands of US special forces at the weekend has delivered his most-hated enemy a giant propaganda coup of its own.
Like all the grand propaganda gestures, Monday's presidential pronouncement of his death sounded spectacular, but is of uncertain substance. Its meaning beyond providing the Americans with an excuse to celebrate their righteousness is anybody's guess. Nevertheless, the demise of one of modern history's most unpleasant creatures is welcome and overdue, and a much-needed strike back against his noxious creed.
Much of the torrent of commentary in the past couple of days has focused on bin Laden's waning significance in the scheme of things; of how the al Qaeda network he founded has been sidelined as Arab people have looked to a new future of freedoms and democracy. Some have wondered what practical significance he still held. From once being portrayed as the civilised world's Public Enemy No.1, he was increasingly dismissed as a caricature, a mad, bad, self-styled prophet, supposedly living in a cave and ranting to the converted.
None of this should be allowed to diminish his revolting legacy. Bin Laden had long since done his damage, and it is profound. He was the manifestation of a perverted distortion of Islam which has reshaped the world in the decade since his most grotesque crime, the September 11, 2001 attacks on America. He tainted the place of Islam in the West, provoked far-reaching constraints on ordinary liberties, triggered wars, and reshaped the political landscape of the United States, the Middle East and beyond.
The power of his myth, his status as the bogeyman of George W.Bush's War on Terror, was graphically displayed on the streets of Washington DC and New York on Monday as the crowds gathered to celebrate news he was dead. Some may argue that investing so much symbolism in one man is ridiculous. It is true that one of the new cliches of the post-bin Laden era – that the world is a safer place without him – sounds like a stretch. But the display left no doubt that the grief and anger of September 11 has never sunk far below the surface in America.
That country's intelligence agencies and special forces will also enjoy the rare opportunity to brag of a high-profile success. It was clearly an extraordinary operation and one which raises among many questions the one about Pakistan's role in bin Laden's fate – a murky business which seems bound to never come clear, but can only feed suspicion about that country's on-going contribution to the volatility of one of the world's most unstable regions.
But that too is more speculation. For those who seek something definite, perhaps the best that can be taken for now is that while bin Laden's death may not in itself deliver any gains beyond the symbolic, the world has most certainly suffered no loss.
Time for Mr Miccio to seize the moment
Nelson Mail editorial, October 11, 20102
Aldo Miccio has won a predictable, convincing and, on balance, deserving victory to become Nelson's new mayor. In a weekend of election results from Nelson and Tasman which were largely unsurprising and unexciting, Mr Miccio's success is the stand-out.
He is youthful - perhaps Nelson's youngest-ever mayor - and has some good ideas. He campaigned shrewdly, has wasted barely a single opportunity to boost his name recognition, and has demonstrated energy, enthusiasm and determination which has won him a legion of admirers. He has also shown a capacity for embracing divisive issues and for courting criticism. Such a willingness could be turned to a strength but it is also an area where his mayoralty will be vulnerable.
Perhaps the weekend's biggest loser was the incumbent mayor, Kerry Marshall, who suffered a drubbing. Mr Marshall might profess some relief that he can step down, but it is a sorry end to a long and noteworthy career in local government. If the scale of his defeat was surprising, the fact of it was not. His heart did not seem to be in the campaign. Various factors could have hobbled him, including that he might have been singled out by those wanting to punish the last council's under-performance - he was the only sitting city council member seeking re- election who failed to be returned.
Rachel Reese's performance in the Nelson mayoralty contest was also in line with the campaign. She struggled to match Mr Miccio's big-spending, attention-grabbing and rather slicker, marketing- influenced approach. She should, however, take satisfaction from her massive share of the vote as a councillor - a role which there can be no dispute about her capabilities for.
That aside, it was a mostly unremarkable poll. Both councils remain stacked with established names. There is the usual sprinkling of newcomers, including those who seem to have won through on a mixture of name recognition and good fortune.
In Tasman, there is nothing to indicate anything but a business-as-usual approach. The most significant result there was in the Richmond ward, which has two newcomers, neither of whom could be expected to be boat-rockers.
Tasman electors showed no interest in returning the old, old guard - the likes of former mayor John Hurley, tossed out in 2007 and not wanted back as a councillor this time. With all due respect to Mr Hurley and others of his ilk, that is reassuring. Fresh blood is preferable to the recycled variety. So the return of three warhorses in Nelson - including former mayor Paul Matheson and veteran Green activist Mike Ward - should be regarded cautiously. The challenge for them will be to adapt to the new order and to set their expectations accordingly.
Mr Miccio, meanwhile, has his plate full. Just as the arrival of Hands Up three years ago raised expectations of a new dawn in the city, so he comes to office carrying high hopes - and an urgent need to get the council on to a more efficient, productive track. Some large and deeply divisive issues await. He could well be the man for the moment. But such moments have a tendency of passing quickly. He deserves good wishes as he attempts to seize it.
Aldo Miccio has won a predictable, convincing and, on balance, deserving victory to become Nelson's new mayor. In a weekend of election results from Nelson and Tasman which were largely unsurprising and unexciting, Mr Miccio's success is the stand-out.
He is youthful - perhaps Nelson's youngest-ever mayor - and has some good ideas. He campaigned shrewdly, has wasted barely a single opportunity to boost his name recognition, and has demonstrated energy, enthusiasm and determination which has won him a legion of admirers. He has also shown a capacity for embracing divisive issues and for courting criticism. Such a willingness could be turned to a strength but it is also an area where his mayoralty will be vulnerable.
Perhaps the weekend's biggest loser was the incumbent mayor, Kerry Marshall, who suffered a drubbing. Mr Marshall might profess some relief that he can step down, but it is a sorry end to a long and noteworthy career in local government. If the scale of his defeat was surprising, the fact of it was not. His heart did not seem to be in the campaign. Various factors could have hobbled him, including that he might have been singled out by those wanting to punish the last council's under-performance - he was the only sitting city council member seeking re- election who failed to be returned.
Rachel Reese's performance in the Nelson mayoralty contest was also in line with the campaign. She struggled to match Mr Miccio's big-spending, attention-grabbing and rather slicker, marketing- influenced approach. She should, however, take satisfaction from her massive share of the vote as a councillor - a role which there can be no dispute about her capabilities for.
That aside, it was a mostly unremarkable poll. Both councils remain stacked with established names. There is the usual sprinkling of newcomers, including those who seem to have won through on a mixture of name recognition and good fortune.
In Tasman, there is nothing to indicate anything but a business-as-usual approach. The most significant result there was in the Richmond ward, which has two newcomers, neither of whom could be expected to be boat-rockers.
Tasman electors showed no interest in returning the old, old guard - the likes of former mayor John Hurley, tossed out in 2007 and not wanted back as a councillor this time. With all due respect to Mr Hurley and others of his ilk, that is reassuring. Fresh blood is preferable to the recycled variety. So the return of three warhorses in Nelson - including former mayor Paul Matheson and veteran Green activist Mike Ward - should be regarded cautiously. The challenge for them will be to adapt to the new order and to set their expectations accordingly.
Mr Miccio, meanwhile, has his plate full. Just as the arrival of Hands Up three years ago raised expectations of a new dawn in the city, so he comes to office carrying high hopes - and an urgent need to get the council on to a more efficient, productive track. Some large and deeply divisive issues await. He could well be the man for the moment. But such moments have a tendency of passing quickly. He deserves good wishes as he attempts to seize it.
The campaign to save a rest home
Nelson Mail editorial, September 15, 2010
In the two weeks since the death knell was sounded for Golden Bay's only rest home, two things have happened: an impassioned community has started mobilising to try to save the Joan Whiting home; while those who have the power over its future have given every impression of sitting on their hands hoping to ignore the mounting anger and anxiety.
It is time to move the campaign to keep the home open up another gear, and it is time for those who hold the Joan Whiting home's fate in their hands to do the right thing. Today, the Nelson Mail is adding its voice and weight to the community's effort to stop the closure and ensure that the handful of elderly people living in the home are able to see out their years in Golden Bay.
We are joining those demanding the intervention of Health Minister Tony Ryall, for it appears that the inertia and buck-passing which has led to the Joan Whiting's predicament will only be broken with intervention from the highest level. We hope that all our readers who recognise the injustice and folly the Golden Bay community faces will join the effort to convince the decision makers to intervene.
The community's wish to keep Joan Whiting open - at least until new rest home facilities are available in the district - is hardly unreasonable or preposterous.
The argument is not about propping it up indefinitely against the odds (as much as that scenario might have its sympathisers within the Golden Bay community). It needs a lifeline - bridging finance - to ensure it can keep operating and so continue to be home to a dozen or so elderly people until the Bay's much-talked-of integrated health centre, including a new rest home, is open for business in Takaka.
Before now, all parties seemed to have accepted that aim was desirable. It is worth recalling that the Nelson Marlborough District Health Board previously provided the Joan Whiting trust with bridging funding on the expectation that the home would be incorporated into the new health campus.
The problem seems to be that the plans to get that campus off the ground have slowed to a crawl. The DHB has long since withdrawn its funding (which it has been at pains to argue it was never obliged to provide); other sources have also dried up; and the community-based Joan Whiting trust has found itself high and dry.
But really, the financial question - as pivotal as it is to the current circumstances - is secondary to the real issue, that of the simple humanity at stake. There is no sound justification for the scenario now faced, that when the money finally runs out at Joan Whiting - expected to be at the end of November - its remaining residents will be shipped off over the Takaka Hill and beyond to a new rest home. All are frail, some in very poor health. The prospect of uprooting and transplanting them to a foreign environment, because in essence the health bureaucracy can't get its act together, is scandalous. If ever there was an unjust problem with a straightforward solution simply begging for some sensible leadership, this is it.
We look forward to Mr Ryall filling the vacuum.
In the two weeks since the death knell was sounded for Golden Bay's only rest home, two things have happened: an impassioned community has started mobilising to try to save the Joan Whiting home; while those who have the power over its future have given every impression of sitting on their hands hoping to ignore the mounting anger and anxiety.
It is time to move the campaign to keep the home open up another gear, and it is time for those who hold the Joan Whiting home's fate in their hands to do the right thing. Today, the Nelson Mail is adding its voice and weight to the community's effort to stop the closure and ensure that the handful of elderly people living in the home are able to see out their years in Golden Bay.
We are joining those demanding the intervention of Health Minister Tony Ryall, for it appears that the inertia and buck-passing which has led to the Joan Whiting's predicament will only be broken with intervention from the highest level. We hope that all our readers who recognise the injustice and folly the Golden Bay community faces will join the effort to convince the decision makers to intervene.
The community's wish to keep Joan Whiting open - at least until new rest home facilities are available in the district - is hardly unreasonable or preposterous.
The argument is not about propping it up indefinitely against the odds (as much as that scenario might have its sympathisers within the Golden Bay community). It needs a lifeline - bridging finance - to ensure it can keep operating and so continue to be home to a dozen or so elderly people until the Bay's much-talked-of integrated health centre, including a new rest home, is open for business in Takaka.
Before now, all parties seemed to have accepted that aim was desirable. It is worth recalling that the Nelson Marlborough District Health Board previously provided the Joan Whiting trust with bridging funding on the expectation that the home would be incorporated into the new health campus.
The problem seems to be that the plans to get that campus off the ground have slowed to a crawl. The DHB has long since withdrawn its funding (which it has been at pains to argue it was never obliged to provide); other sources have also dried up; and the community-based Joan Whiting trust has found itself high and dry.
But really, the financial question - as pivotal as it is to the current circumstances - is secondary to the real issue, that of the simple humanity at stake. There is no sound justification for the scenario now faced, that when the money finally runs out at Joan Whiting - expected to be at the end of November - its remaining residents will be shipped off over the Takaka Hill and beyond to a new rest home. All are frail, some in very poor health. The prospect of uprooting and transplanting them to a foreign environment, because in essence the health bureaucracy can't get its act together, is scandalous. If ever there was an unjust problem with a straightforward solution simply begging for some sensible leadership, this is it.
We look forward to Mr Ryall filling the vacuum.
A predictable lesson for building owners
Nelson Mail editorial, September 8, 2010
The immediate aftermath of a disaster is hardly the time when anybody wants to hear a "told you so" message, but the early lessons to be taken from the Canterbury earthquake are too severe to ignore - and exactly what we have long been warned of. One of the most glaring aspects of the quake's toll is that it has been hardest on exactly those buildings which everybody knew would be most prone to serious damage in a significant shake: old, unstrengthened masonry structures, ranging from house chimneys to large commercial buildings. They were, in other words, disasters waiting to happen and a legacy of the failure of building owners and local authorities to be adequately prepared.
It could, and probably should, be considered a travesty that New Zealand as a whole still has so many old brick and stone buildings which would not withstand even a moderately-serious quake. In Nelson alone, the city council estimates there are 240 buildings and structures which are potentially "earthquake-prone" and may need strengthening - but with "very few" getting the necessary attention to date.
Nelson MP Nick Smith hinted at the seeming laxity with which the issue has been regarded with his comments this week about the reluctance some building owners have shown to their obligations. Obviously there is no way any community could bring all such buildings up to contemporary standards overnight, especially given that those standards have been something of a moveable feast in recent decades. But the deadline of decades set by some local bodies to allow building owners to get up to code would look ridiculous if a significant earthquake strikes in the meantime.
It may be that the Government will need to consider a system of incentives to encourage speedier progress, but the sight of hundreds of destroyed and badly-damaged old brick and stone buildings in Christchurch should have provided all the evidence needed that dragging heels and hoping it will never happen is a fool's course.
As has been repeatedly pointed out since Saturday, hundreds or thousands could have been killed and badly hurt if the Christchurch quake had happened during the height of a working day. If that had been the case, building owners would have surely faced some of the responsibility. Even without a human toll, the destruction of so many pieces of the Christchurch cityscape is a deeply upsetting and traumatic element of the whole tragedy, one which no town or city should now be prepared to countenance.
The Nelson City Council's own building manager has acknowledged that events down in Christchurch are a "wake-up call". A team of her staff are in that city helping with the recovery efforts. They will surely bring back to Nelson some newfound urgency to share with the community at large - and particularly with building owners - about the need to make haste on the most basic of precautions: ensuring that the built environment and its inhabitants have a fair chance of surviving a significant tremor, if and when it is this city's turn to face such disaster. After all, it is more than ever the case that nobody can say they haven't been warned.
The immediate aftermath of a disaster is hardly the time when anybody wants to hear a "told you so" message, but the early lessons to be taken from the Canterbury earthquake are too severe to ignore - and exactly what we have long been warned of. One of the most glaring aspects of the quake's toll is that it has been hardest on exactly those buildings which everybody knew would be most prone to serious damage in a significant shake: old, unstrengthened masonry structures, ranging from house chimneys to large commercial buildings. They were, in other words, disasters waiting to happen and a legacy of the failure of building owners and local authorities to be adequately prepared.
It could, and probably should, be considered a travesty that New Zealand as a whole still has so many old brick and stone buildings which would not withstand even a moderately-serious quake. In Nelson alone, the city council estimates there are 240 buildings and structures which are potentially "earthquake-prone" and may need strengthening - but with "very few" getting the necessary attention to date.
Nelson MP Nick Smith hinted at the seeming laxity with which the issue has been regarded with his comments this week about the reluctance some building owners have shown to their obligations. Obviously there is no way any community could bring all such buildings up to contemporary standards overnight, especially given that those standards have been something of a moveable feast in recent decades. But the deadline of decades set by some local bodies to allow building owners to get up to code would look ridiculous if a significant earthquake strikes in the meantime.
It may be that the Government will need to consider a system of incentives to encourage speedier progress, but the sight of hundreds of destroyed and badly-damaged old brick and stone buildings in Christchurch should have provided all the evidence needed that dragging heels and hoping it will never happen is a fool's course.
As has been repeatedly pointed out since Saturday, hundreds or thousands could have been killed and badly hurt if the Christchurch quake had happened during the height of a working day. If that had been the case, building owners would have surely faced some of the responsibility. Even without a human toll, the destruction of so many pieces of the Christchurch cityscape is a deeply upsetting and traumatic element of the whole tragedy, one which no town or city should now be prepared to countenance.
The Nelson City Council's own building manager has acknowledged that events down in Christchurch are a "wake-up call". A team of her staff are in that city helping with the recovery efforts. They will surely bring back to Nelson some newfound urgency to share with the community at large - and particularly with building owners - about the need to make haste on the most basic of precautions: ensuring that the built environment and its inhabitants have a fair chance of surviving a significant tremor, if and when it is this city's turn to face such disaster. After all, it is more than ever the case that nobody can say they haven't been warned.
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