Mike Butler: Don’t forget the old pioneers

The Pioneers – Makers of New Zealand, a new book by writer-publisher John McLean, reminds us of those who built New Zealand, tells how, and explains why their contribution should not be forgotten.

McLean descends from an unusual pioneering family of Scots who did a double migration, first to Nova Scotia in 1793, and then on to Waipu, in Bream Bay, Northland, in 1854.

The people behind contractors John McLean and Sons also descended from this group. This company built bridges, railways, most of Wellington’s wharves, the entire Auckland electric tramway system, as well as the early stages of the Otira Tunnel under the southern Alps, starting in 1907.

Graham Adams: Three Waters - Voters don’t know the half of it

When the public grasps just how much power is being handed to iwi, opposition will skyrocket.

Car company magnate Henry Ford once said: “It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning.”

The same might be said of Nanaia Mahuta’s plans to confiscate the nation’s water infrastructure assets — paid for by generations of ratepayers and taxpayers — and to hand disproportionate control of them to iwi.