Planning Wellington's international airport

Maurice McGreal discusses the tender process in the mid-1960s to ready Wellington's Rongotai airfield for DC-8 jet services:

The Minister of Civil Aviation at this time was the Hon Peter Gordon, who had been a trainee pilot during the last days of the war, and he was eager to settle the long-standing problem of Wellington's international connection, once and for all. The Civil Aviation Planning Unit was put to work identifying possible sites and proposals were put forward by all and sundry. Perhaps one of the most bizarre was that put forward by a Singapore engineering organisation (Tse Corporation) which proposed a runway along the top of the ridge running to the north from Pencarrow Head. A direct connection to the city of Wellington would then be via a bridge spanning the harbour entrance. Another proposal was to flatten Mana Island from end to end and connect it by a causeway to the mainland just south of Porirua Harbour.

The two rational alternatives that were considered for further study were the extension of Rongotai or the creation of a new runway at Paraparaumu...

- Maurice McGreal, A History of Civil Aviation in New Zealand, Auckland, 2003, p.152.

See also:
Blog: SFO timelapse, 17 June 2016
Blog: Tower of power, 1 April 2010
Blog: Shanghai Pudong, 9 February 2009

Te Kuiti

Northland Rd

Ross Taylor emerges to bat in his 100th test

Ross Taylor, Basin Reserve, Wellington, 22 February 2020

The dogma of survival in early colonial New Zealand

In the first six years of formal colonial rule [from 1840 to 1846] the New Zealand governments cut their teeth on state bankruptcy, war, sometimes virulent settler opprobrium, and widespread Maori apathy. Living through this period, it must have felt like the colonial administration was bouncing from crisis to disaster. When Grey took up the reins to govern for the second half of the decade he had the appearance - and within a year, the reputation - of a colonial crusader. But to interpret this part of the decade - as others have been tempted to - as the time when the British imperial fist removed its velvet mitten in order to thump the country into shape requires a substantial misreading of events. Grey abhorred having to depend on force, and was not indifferent to its consequences for the country's teetering race relations. He kept his eyes focused on potential trouble spots, and was armed with extraordinary (though intermittently fallible) diplomatic instincts. Moreover, he was driven by the same basic urge that pulsed through the veins of his predecessors in the post: the need for British rule to endure in the colony - at any cost.

The real leverage behind this dogma was the fact that policy on New Zealand was being made primarily in New Zealand. All that the British Government could or would do was to give the occasional nudge in the right direction, and keep a fatherly watch over the shoulders of the colony's governors in the unlikely event that there was some excess requiring correction. There was never an imperial master plan to which the country's rulers had to conform; no grand design or iniquitous conspiracy to seize the nation and add it to the already flourishing collection of imperial dependencies that Britain seemed to be amassing. As far as overworked colonial officials in London were concerned, provided British law applied to its subjects (and if possible to Maori as well), then it would be satisfied that the 'New Zealand problem' had been resolved, and their attention could then revert to the demands of the Indian subcontinent, which was where the 'real' business and challenges in this period of Britain's imperial history lay.

- Paul Moon, The Newest Country in the World, Auckland, 2007, p.211-2. 

See also:
Blog: An enemy whose hostility was to be unabated, 1 March 2017
Blog: Wellington Anniversary Day 1850, 22 January 2015
Blog: Colenso's grave, 12 January 2015

A fallen angel has been canned

Joaquin Phoenix's mention yesterday in his pro-vegan Oscars speech of his brother River's lyrics reminded me that I owned one of his tracks. River Phoenix was the lead singer for Aleka's Attic, a hotly-tipped and very young Californian band that ultimately struggled to compete with Phoenix's burgeoning movie career. The band contributed their 1989 track Across The Way to the 1991 PETA charity album Tame Yourself, which I picked up (probably from the Marbeck's discount bin in Queen's Arcade) because it featured a collaboration between Indigo Girls & Michael Stipe, the excellent I'll Give You My Skin. But Across The Way also stood out as an impressive effort, featuring pleasing hints of psychedelic pop and an ambitious lyrical structure.