PREDICT WEATHER.COM

February is much drier than normal, with rain only in the first week. Temperatures will be a degree warmer than the average, with more sunshine.

The first week brings rain each day, but the second, third and fourth weeks are mostly dry. The hottest day is around the 28th, and the coolest night is around the 9th. Atmospheric pressures should average about 1018mbs, with winds averaging southerly.

For fishers, the highest kingtide may be 13th. The best fishing bitetimes in the east are at dusk on 10th - 14th, and 25th - 30th (and in the west around noon on those days). Chances are also good in the east for midday on the 3rd - 5th, and 18th - 20th, (and in the west around dusk on those days). For gardeners, only the 25th and 26th are good days for sowing (waxing moon ascending). Pruning is best on 10th and 11th (waning moon descending). For longer shelf-life for crops, harvest at neap tide days on 6th and 21st.

Allow 24 hour error for all forecasting. (KEN RING)  PN For future weather for any date, and the 2021 NZ Weather Almanac, see www.predictweather.com.

Kia ora koutou Ponsonby, Ngā mihi o te tau hou.

Happy New Year and welcome to 2021. Many things seem to change these days, however, some things remain in place such as the February Pride Festival. We are delighted to again be hosting the PRIDE Poetry speakeasy with Samesame But Different. Join us at Grey Lynn Library on Wednesday 10 February 5pm-7pm. This is the sixth year of this successful, and very popular open mic poetry evening. This year’s special guest speaker is Courtney Sina Meredith, who is a poet, playwright, and fiction writer - the author of Tail of the Taniwha and Brown Girls in Bright Red Lipstick; her most recent book is The Adventures of Tupaia.

On Thursday 11 February 6.30pm - 7.30pm also at Grey Lynn Library The Sisters Gay present... Your Loving Friend: a library event for Pride. Move over Brothers Grimm, Grey Lynn Library’s Sisters Gay present an after-hours story-time. Drawing on the long-standing public library tradition of storytelling for pre-schoolers, our Auckland Pride Festival event combines story, song and silliness – more for grown-ups, though all are welcome. The 2021 literary salon features ardent epistles and juicy journals by ladies (and the odd gent) of letters. Rediscover the lost and loving arts of correspondence, complete with curlicues. This will be the third annual Sisters Gay event, held in association with SameSame But Different, and Grey Lynn Library. we will be hosting two sessions of Wriggle and Rhyme at the Ponsonby Baptist Church Hall (corner of Seymour Street and Jervois Road) 10am and 11am. Bring along your little one for some music, rhymes, bubbles and most importantly fun. Wriggle and Rhyme is targeted at little ones 0-2 years and their caregivers. However, older preschoolers are always welcome. We are thinking of potentially hosting some fun storytimes in our little library, so watch this space.

Every summer between New Year’s resolutions and Waitangi Day I think to myself ‘I wish I knew more te reo’. I must admit I seldom manage to get further than this passing thought. However, thanks to Auckland Libraries my excuses for not pursuing this thought are getting fewer and fewer. With an Auckland Libraries card you (and I) can access an app called Lingogo which is a language learning app with bilingual te reo stories to help you (and I) learn Te Reo Maori. So, if like me you said to yourself over summer ‘I would like to learn more te reo’, Auckland Libraries are here to help with Lingogo and numerous other resources to be found online or in your local (little) library.

Please note that because Waitangi Day is a Saturday the library will be closed on both Saturday 6 February and Monday 8 February (Waitangi Day Observed). Hours: Monday - Friday 9am-6pm, Saturday 9am-4pm.  PN

February brings the return of our regular preschool programming with a slight schedule change. On Wednesdays starting 10 February Chloë – Community Library Manager, Leys Institute Little library, 14 Jervois Road, Ponsonby.

Jacinda Ardern gave herself the child poverty portfolio in 2017, and has retained it this term. There is still much to do to return New Zealand to the world class egalitarian society we once were.

After the Second World War Michael Joseph Savage’s Labour government introduced the “Welfare State” to New Zealand.

Labour governed from 1935 until 1949. Savage died in 1940 and Peter Fraser became prime minister.

Labour expanded state activity until it covered the whole economy and a good deal of social life too. Its members were mainly British socialists who believed in a strong measure of state control, but they never set out to abolish private enterprise. They sought instead to have the state look after the old, the young, the sick and the vulnerable. The test was practicality, not doctrinal purity. They brought in a basic wage, a 40 hour week, a major programme of public works, including state housing, and built up the unions.

Paradoxically, Labour was beaten in 1949 by the National Party which adopted all its leading accomplishments.

Successive National and Labour governments between 1949 and 1984 tinkered with the welfare state but never abandoned it.

The United States of America had adopted a similar welfare state under Franklin Roosevelt, known as “The New Deal”, which guaranteed similar support to vulnerable citizens like New Zealand’s schemes but without free health care, which was only achieved under Obama’s Affordable Healthcare Act.

Then in the 1980s around the world came a new economic philosophy, which became known as “neo-liberalism.” One of its principal protagonists was Chicago School of Economics Professor, Milton Friedman. This caught on like wildfire where western countries had right wing governments; the major two being the United States under Ronald Reagan, and Britain under Margaret Thatcher. Under neoliberalism, the state became a dirty word and its functions and power were diminished. The market, free and unfettered, was the answer to economic success. Everything depended on supply and demand, and would be priced accordingly.

Neo-liberalism ushered in a new era of inequality, with the obsession with wealth creation, the cult of privatisation and the private sector, tax cuts for the rich and the growing disparities between the rich and the poor. The uncritical admiration for unfettered markets, disdain for the public sector, and the delusion of endless growth, were all major parts of the neo-liberal myth.

Ironically, New Zealand’s Labour Party, which had ushered in the welfare state, led in 1984 by David Lange, (no raging right winger), but with Finance Minister, Roger Douglas, along with Richard Prebble and Michael Bassett, launched into neo-liberalism with great enthusiasm. They proposed selling off all state assets, privatising schools and prisons, and letting the market rip. It was carried on in New Zealand by Ruth Richardson in the next National Party Government.

Neo-liberalism has proved a huge failure, but its tentacles have clung on for dear life. Premises like “trickle down” which were an excuse to lower taxes on the rich so they would invest in businesses and staff, have failed dismally. Out of control finance companies, banks, and multinational corporations ran riot. Mantras like “too big to fail, so it was too big to exist,” began to emerge. Billionaires are now two a penny.

In the 1960s a young school teacher could build a new house for three to four times his salary. Now it would take that same young teacher between 15 and 20 times his salary to secure an Auckland home for his family. The gap between the rich and the poor has escalated wildly in the last 30 years. Gated homes and communities are a sign the rich are hiding themselves away from the masses in safe havens. It smacks of fears of the apocalypse, or a peoples’ revolution.

As well known US economist, Joseph Stiglitz says, “inequality at these levels is reversible.” It is not inevitable, although French economist Thomas Picketty in his book Capitalism in the 21st Century points out with a simple equation the inherent fault of capitalism.

This simple equation says that where ‘r’ is the rate of return on capital and ‘g’ is the rate of growth in the economy, the returns on capital, or assets, will always grow faster than ‘g’, which is basically wage income.

Stiglitz, (The Price of Inequality) Picketty (Capital in the 21st Century) Wilkinson and Pickett (The Spirit Level) and in New Zealand The Rt Hon Sir Edmund Thomas, former high court judge, Max Rashbrooke, and many others have been bemoaning the dangers to a fair democracy of rampant neo-liberalism.

In the conclusion to his Bruce Jesson memorial lecture several years ago, Sir Edmund Thomas said this, “this country will not rebuild a just society unless and until, the lingering legacy of neo-liberalism with all its baggage of mantras and myths, is recognised for what it is, rejected as unsound and unfair, and vanquished from our political, economic and social discourse.”

It can be done, and this government has a duty to all New Zealanders to balance the waka, put in place fair taxes, and go back to the mantra expounded by Savage, Fraser and Co. - “We will look after our old, our young, our sick and our vulnerable.”

That, is what a progressive government is there to do. (JOHN ELLIOTT)  PN

The Ponsonby Community Centre is offering some FREE activities at the Freemans Bay Community Hall during the first school term of 2021.

Coming up first is the preschoolers multi sport programme offered by Ready Steady Go Kids. Designed by paediatric physiotherapists and occupational therapists, the classes are structured to children from two and a half to six years of age. Our programme is interactive with parent involvement.

The programme teaches children a range of additional ageappropriate skills including exploration, basic counting, te reo language and colour concepts. Plus, it encourages teamwork and sportsmanship, and helps to build social skills, listening skills and concentration. The programme is free, but as places are limited, registration is essential. The programme covers many sports and is different for each session, so we encourage families to register for the whole term (nine sessions).

Please check our Facebook page @PonsyCommunity and join the Freemans Bay Community FB group as we will add more activities over the coming months.  PN

For more information on any of our programmes and activities please email info@ponsonbycommunity.org.nz

Your regular donation will help connect more school children with nature, empower people all over Auckland with sustainable living choices and develop and maintain a therapeutic garden. Join now at: www.kelmarnagardens.nz/donate

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