John McLean: The eagle has floundered

Labourite Chatham Islands CEO comes a criminal cropper. Where are the coppers?

The phrase “The Eagle has Landed” indicates successful completion of a difficult or important task. Astronaut Neil Armstrong first spoke those words on 20 July 1969, from the moon to Mission Control in Houston, Texas. He did so to communicate that the Apollo 11 Lunar Module, named “Eagle”, had successfully touched down on the Moon.

Neil Armstrong died in 2012 but will be fondly remembered and revered for at least as long as the Western Civilization lasts. Without Western Civilization and the likes of Neil Armstrong, humans would have barely escaped the Dark Ages.

Kineta Knight: Chatham Islands ‘run out of fuel’

Chatham Islands’ residents have no access to either petrol or diesel, with plans to bring a barge with fuel falling through, according to locals.

A Chatham Island resident told chrislynchmedia.com that council-owned pumps ran out of petrol in May, along with diesel at the pump two days ago.

Brian Easton: Governing A Region Far Far Away.

The Chatham Islands may offer insights on to how to govern New Zealand better.

It is said that our first minister of regional development – in the early 1970s – claimed that he wanted all our regions to have above average incomes. Duh! You would expect that there would be some variation in regional incomes. They are probably not large (partly because ours is a small country). They are not measured but we do have estimates of per capita regional domestic production (similar to GDP) which in March Year Ending 2022 ranged from 17 percent above average for the Wellington Region to 34 percent below for Northland. Because of income tax and social security benefits, the income range will be narrower. (Another factor which narrows the income range is that some of the profits of a region will go elsewhere; for instance Taranaki does well on the GDP measure but much of its profits from its hydrocarbon resources do not stay in the province.)

Point of Order: Too much fun is coming out of Otago....

.....so the govt has put $2.25m into a trough for other regions to have a lick

It’s a toss-up to decide which is more unnecessary – the investment of $2.25 million of public money in an industry which has almost doubled its revenue over the past year or the drafting and legislating of a bill to have things done that could be done without a statute.

The investment is in the rapidly growing game development sector. The latest data from the New Zealand Game Developers Association shows the total revenue for the industry is $407 million, compared to $276 million a year ago.

Cam Slater: Ardern Shies Away from Playing Dress Ups

Jacinda Ardern normally rushes for the costume shop as she seeks to curry favour in the aftermath of a tragedy. But after the cruel slaying of an Indian dairy worker, all of a sudden she seems rather coy about playing dress-ups and rushed off to the Chatham Islands on Air Horse One so that she could pander to Maori interests.

Normally she rushes headlong towards a photo opportunity in the aftermath of a tragedy. Strangely, this time she’s bolted for a remote island far, far away.