Submarines or social housing?

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One of our readers commented that on the same day the media were banging on about the Federal Government’s $368 billion submarine plan, a lone SBS panel programme focused on the national housing crisis. It is tempting to compare spending on affordable housing with the capital cost of up to five nuclear-powered submarines. The Federal Government’s (annual) commitment to affordable housing (currently $1.6 billion), equates to about 13% of its annual submarine budget (ie if…

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A dystopian view of contactless travel

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Amidst the airport’s security cameras, facial recognition technology and contactless check-in, it took a dog (and a human) to catch me out. We were about to exit customs in New Zealand when a customs officer with a beagle on a lead passed us by. The beagle tracked back, put his front paws on my trolley and sniffed at my black shoulder bag. “Have you had food in that bag, Sir?” the Customs Officer asked. “I…

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Squeezed between inflation and interest rates

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I just happened to be reading a novel set in the Edwardian era at the same time as the media was going bonkers (again) about the Reserve Bank raising interest rates by 0.25% to 3.6%. In Louis de Bernieres’s* book, The Dust That Falls from Dreams, one of the characters is holding forth about the sudden rise in the bank rate and subsequent collapse of the share market in 1914. Hamilton McCosh, a daring entrepreneur…

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New Zealand’s under-reported cyclone

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A Pakeha (Non-Māori) friend in Auckland, who has been studying Te Reo Māori language for some years, thinks all New Zealanders should know at least 100 words. On our visit there between February 9 and 24, I began to realise how many Māori words I do know, and this time I learned a few new ones including Huripari. This is Māori for storm or, if expressing the extremity of a cyclone, hurricane or tornado, you…

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