that the weather here in Taipa is perfect. We are having continual blue sky and warm temperatures of around 28 degrees but we have to watch out for the UV rays which are showing as ‘Extreme’ at the moment.
Nevertheless, we are putting up with it quite well.
Today we needed to replace a few things in the larder and so went shopping in Kaitaia. Most important was the need to buy some more sunscreen as we are running out and you defiantly need it here.
We also called in to the car hire company to give them copies of our driving licences for them, no doubt, to check them out.
We shall be getting a Mitsubishi Diamante Saloon car, this has not been sold in
I have found this web site which gives a good overview on this area where we are staying and also some history of the place. It’s a good site with plenty of interesting stuff.
http://www.doubtlessbay.co.nz/index.htm
Jennifer made cottage pie for dinner last night and that was excellent as the mince we got from the butcher was really good.
We also tried a bottle of Oxford Landing Cabernet Sauvignon & Shiraz which was really quite good.
We tested the water in the Spa for a while and then headed for an evening of TV etc
We are also trying to assist Brian (our host) to get some of house repairs on track but the builder is very unreliable. I think his fishing rod may get in the way of work. Builders here have a terrible reputation, most of the houses are made of wood and there are thousands of homes with leaky roofs, so much so, that the government is now reviewing building procedures
The Maori people seem to like keeping their old cars, although they don’t work and are rotting away in their gardens. I thought at first it was down to laziness or cost, but I have been informed that it shows a type of wealth where you can see the previously owned car’s and the later most expensive and bigger model which is the one they now use. It’s not unknown for some families to have as many as six cars rotting away in the garden. It does not look good to our European eyes but here is a little different.
The Maoris are also waiting for the proposed ‘disagreement settlement’ which in their eyes means ‘loads of money’ and therefore schooling and working are not important. The figure being banded around right now is between one and two billion
Recently, in the North part of NZ there was a Maori township of about 40 people which had to drive over two hours by bus to get to a local health centre. They campaigned for a health centre and the government awarded them a chunk of money to pay for it. The money was received and instead of building the health centre which was sorely needed, each family purchased a top of the range 4x4 car so that they could drive the two hours to the original health centre that they used before. Needless to say there was a lot of upset over this
Please see the following article published in a NZ paper.
Why are so many Maori not doing so well compared with other New Zealanders?
Why do so many Maori smoke? More than double the % of European New Zealanders that do.
Why do Maori have almost twice the prevalence of obesity of European New Zealanders?
Why are so many Maori on benefits and not working? Maori account for approx 14.6% of the population but make up 41.7% of all Domestic Purposes Benefit recipients (aged 18–64 years), at the end of September 2008 from a total of 98,473 on the DPB?
Why do so few Maori attain an upper secondary, let alone a Tertiary education? Is it really a cultural thing? If that’s the excuse then why do new Asian arrivals have an even higher educational attainment rate than even European New Zealanders and 4 times that of Maori %?
Why are so many Maori in gangs and in jail (approx half the jail population are Maori and yet they make up only 14.6% of the
And do I even need to mention Nia? What’s happening in the Maori family unit as a whole that causes so many cases like Nia's?
Why so much under achievement? and why is everyone afraid to tackle this? Why is it that anyone that brings up these facts is so quickly called a racist?
Note
Nia’s case is all about a father who continually beat his daughter whilst his wife was drinking down the pub. The father then got his two sons (19 and 17) to kill the three year old to shut her up. They did not do the job right and so they took her to the hospital and the nurses and doctors went mad trying to save the little girl’s life whilst the mother left the hospital and went to a night club.
This apparently is not an unusual case.
Clearly it is a big problem here which the successive governments cannot seem to resolve but do they think that paying large amounts of benefits will help reduce the problem??? I don’t think so.
