#BLOG4NZ SEDUCTION OF THE SOUTH 4 - IT IS PEOPLE

We have a saying in New Zealand and its about what is most important to us as a nation - its a Maori proverb and its this.. "what is the most important thing?" It is people , it is people , it is people.

He aha te mea nui? He tangata. He tangata. He tangata.

So we need you to come to New Zealand – its already full of good people. People who are open, friendly, keen to tell a yarn, have a laugh, find out about your world, find out what you do.

And we have our share of characters. Crazy mayors like Tim Shadbolt down in Invercargill. Amazing chefs like Fleur Sullivan who created a restaurant on the end of a wharf in Moeraki to guarantee the fish she serves at Fleurs place is as fresh as you can get.

Or head to Te Anau and take a flight with legendary Richard “Hannibal” Hayes.

Meet interesting wine makers and characters like Alan Brady, in Gibbston valley,

Dlont forget the young helicopter pilots who will take you skiing and sightseeing, and the pilots who fly the Stewart Island Air service.

The drovers on the Central Otago Cavalcade - a horse lovers dream ride.

Young Jack Topi who has a flash big boat called the Awesome who takes fishing and hunting charters out of Bluff and around Stewart Island.

The skippers of the Bluff Oyster fleet . Follow the Bluff residents around to the “point” to watch the boats come up the harbour. Follow them back round to the Bluff wharf and watch them unload.

They are all our people, all different and they will all welcome you to our place. Because they know that more than ever, in the wake of the Christchurch earthquake - the answer to the question what is the most important thing?

It is people, its is people , it is people.

JASON WRIGHT

Today Southland will be in mourning for a young man who was making his mark on the local aviation scene.

Jason Wright, 29 wanted to be a helicopter pilot pretty much from the day he could talk.

Now small towns can be pretty hard to get out of sometimes, the lifestyle can be quite seductive. Jason was the only son of Liz and John, both born and bred Southlanders of Ngai Tahu descent. They are great parents and did all they could to help Jason realise his dream of being a helicopter pilot and its a huge credit to them that he ended up doing the thing he was born to do - fly.

Our son is a helicopter pilot too, so we know just how expensive it is and how hard a career it is to crack.

He and my son shared botha passion for flying and of the south.

Jason was good looking young man who was unfailingly polite and he was single minded in the pursuit of his dream.

He started flying around the age of 18. He flew both here in New Zealand and in places like Cambodia where he was involved in animal recovery. He could have set up shop anywhere in the world, but he chose to go back to the place of his heart - Bluff. It was home and like most of us who hail from those parts - we have a bond with Stewart Island that can never be broken.

This year he took us to our Muttonbird Island. He looked after his passengers like they were his own whanau - muttonbirders are really one big whanau anyway. Jason understood them and they loved him for it.

In fact, I suspect that for many years the hard money that Liz and John earned from muttonbirding, would have gone to help Jason realise his dream.

He was on our facebook page. We shared stories on there from time to time and the photos he took showed his passion for Stewart Island was probably as strong as his passion for helicopters.

He soon established himself as a trusted and popular pilot and as a young Bluff businessman. Bluffies were so very very proud of him. He was the role model many parents suggested to their kids that they could do well to emulate. He was the epitome of the small town boy doing good.

Today they found his body and that of the chap he was flying with - Allan Munro, another man who was obviously a lover of aviation, in the cold waters of the Bluff Harbour.

It is so hard when good men die young. So hard to fathom the reason for it all.

But we will remember the Jason who sucked the juice out of the fruit of life every damn day. He didn't waste one second of his time. He was still in awe at the beauty of the places he got to visit every day and he understood the people of the south and he loved sharing both with those from other places. His was not just a life well lived -it was a life lived best.

BLUFF FISHERMEN MAKE ARSES OF THEMSELVES

Only the UNPC capital of the world - Bluff. The local school has done a calendar of fishing fellas in the buff. Nothing hugely new in that. Tastefully done nudie calendars are are bit last decade . The new twist Bluff has come up with is a competition - guess the arse.

We lived in Bluff for 3 years..

Trouble is if you entered the competition and correctly guessed the most number of arses - well questions could be asked.

We wont be entering....

TELL IT LIKE IT IS

We think that this is a great idea. Someone has hit on the idea of using Marae to host cultural accomodation packages for the 2011 Rugby  World Cup. They story reads great until they suggest that they are not in it to make money. What is the shame in saying that they are in it for the money? None. Its a great idea with potential to provide short term employment and works experience as well as some cash flow for some cash strapped marae. So making money is good.

 Tanenui said some marae stood to earn $100,000 from the plan, but their main motivation was to offer overseas guests some Maori hospitality.

If I was still on our Marae committee in Bluff I would be dead keen to have the community involved.

So all you Marae commiittee members out there  - get into it - host some tourists  - show them a hell of a time and make some money well you are at it.
UPDATE :  Cactus has a another take on this story..

BACK TO TIKANGA

We have been in Hamilton this weekend - a world away from Wellington and two worlds away from the South Island and Ngai Tahu.

We have had time to take stock and we think we have set out to achieve what we wanted to do - get Ngai Tahu focusing on their leadership and the tribes performance and make people think and act on who they want to represent them - and we have already seen the signals , with the election of Wally Stone and Tahu Potiki, that the people want a change of direction.

We have come under fire for moderating the debate on various posts - its simply because both the supporters of Mark Solomon and his detractors have indulged in some personal mudslinging the likes of which we have never, ever seen before on any issue we have ever run on this blog.

We reckon that we have done a good job of stoking the fires of a very important issue for Ngai Tahu rank and file. We think that we were pretty well known for plain speaking on the Marae so we have taken that approach on this blog. We have done what we have done here on Ngai Tahu issues on Roarprawn, with the help of many from one end of the country to the other. We thank them. For many Ngai Tahu, Roarprawn is not something that ends up in your puku - it a noisy little fish that embeds in your brain and makes you think.

But now it is time for the focus to shift from the virtual marae we have created here to the real one.

It is now the turn of the people, face to face, to sort these issues through.

So until the Hui A Tau which is being held at Oraka Aparima Colac Bay Riverton, on the weekend of the 20-22nd of November is over, we wont mock, prod, slap, dig, cajole, criticise or praise anything or anyone in relation to the elections.

We think that this way everyone can take a breather and think very, very wisely about the best part they can play in the future of the tribe that will serve the best interests of us all.

That sort of talk is best done without heat in quiet rooms.

It's time for all the tribe to turn up to the Hui A Tau and voice their concerns and support for the people they want to lead the tribe.

It is time to take the business back into the House of Tahu for a while. There is going to have to be an orderly transition in leadership - as Ngai Tahu is not just important to its people, it has an important role to play in the South Island economy. Ngai Tahu can also join with other iwi to get the economies of scale required to advance new business ventures to benefit all Maori.

And for those who have contacted us and asked if we are interested in being involved in the elections down home in Awarua, Bluff. Yes and no. We have no interest in standing as a representative. We are fervent devotees of Ahi Kaa. That is - that those who are at home are the best to manage the home affairs. But maybe we will put our hands up to be on the panel to select the local delegate. We will consider that option in due course.

We walked away from active involvement in tribal affairs 10 years ago, when we moved to Wellington, after being heavily engaged in runanga, marae and runanga business and the titi committee. The only tribal business we ever really wanted to be actively involved in was the management of fisheries but that opportunity never came our way.

Many of the skills we learnt at home have stood us in good stead all these years.
We have run our own successful little business without a drop of financial support from anyone, so that has been pretty satisfying.

And its good to look back and see that a lot of what we help initiateback home has survived today. So we look back with some pride. And its those experiences and understanding that has kept us forever interested in tribal politics - albiet at a distance.

So to you , leaders and followers all - it is time to put aside the egos, the family disputes, the jealousies and for humility to reign and for The Table to serve up the feast of social and economic riches for all us to share.

So for now we will stay quiet and concentrate on other things.. Just for a while mind you, just for a while..

RED BOTTOMS NEED SMACK DOWN

We were doing a little blog cruise when we spied upon this interesting little post from the enigmatic Alf Grumble who has a lovely take down of Clare Curran pious little wank post on Red Alert about the new British cross party Blog - Lord of the Blogs deigning to mention the Antipodean Red rantings.

Anyway Alf kindly pointed out that Ms Curran is a geographic dyslexic.

Alf is surprised there has been no thundering of outrage from the Busted Blonde at Roarprawn. BB – of course – comes from Bluff, which is roughly 200 kilometres below Dunedin South.

It’s not that much further away as the crow flies, sure, but Dunedin is sitting at around 45.50S and Bluff Harbour is at 46.36S.

We know Labour is prone to take a bit of latitude with its debating style, but this much latitude …?

Nah. Clare has been caught spouting bullshit.

So she tells the Brits that she hails from the bottom of the South Island.

I am an electorate MP from the seat of Dunedin South, at the bottom of the South Island. I am one of the new Labour MPs. And I’m the spokesperson for communications and IT, so Red Alert is a bit of project for me.
Kia pai to ra (Have an awesome day)

What a load of shite .. And this woman made a living out of being a spinner.

Now BB is from the Deep South. Originally from Invercargill and Bluff. That is the bottom of New Zealand - the roundy bit. Dunedin, just up the track aways , is the place affectionately known by deep southers like us as the arsehole of the country...

So no wonder that Curran is an "awesome" tutae spouter..

OBSERVER PROGRAMME ENDANGERED?

We blogged on the silliness of the three year observer programme for Hectors dolphins that has landed two southern fishing boats in hot water.
Its a safety issue and the two skippers in question have made a stand. No dolphins were caught the first season. The word is that if there are no dolphins caught this year then the third year of the programme could be scrapped.

What a bloody good idea that would be.

FLOUNDERING AROUND IN A SEA OF SILLINESS

We got a call from Bluff last week from some good old boys who were at a funeral for a bloke we had grown up with - he wasn't much past fifty - so our mortal coil tightened up a bit at the news. RIP Manuel.

Anyway the boys who were at the wake started talking about the fact that one of the captains of the fleet was in a bit of bother, as reported in the ODT

Fishermen have been ordered to carry observers on board their boats to check to see if they are catching Hector's Dolphins in their nets. A couple refused to comply and now they are facing court action.

We reckon our old mate and CE of the Federation of Commercial fishermen, Pete Dawson sums the issue up succinctly ( Pete is the king of succinctness)

Federation of Commercial Fishermen chief executive Peter Dawson said the ministry's move to prosecute was "bloody minded" given the letters instructing fishermen to take observers failed to explain fishermen's rights or address safety concerns.

"As a consequence [these fishermen] stuck to their guns and face getting a criminal conviction."

Observers spent 963 days at sea and did not see a Hector's dolphin death, yet the ministry was going ahead with prosecutions, he said.

All it did was raise the levels of antagonism between the ministry and fishermen and put fishermen already facing hard times in an even tougher position.

"Education is far better than putting the boot in."

We agree, now the Bluff vessel in question is neither big nor flash - its about 50 feet and while observers on big mid size trawlers need to take a cut lunch and a compass to get to the aft end of a boat - on the seized vessel in question, the net drums are within spitting distance of the focs'le. ( the little house bit where the skipper spends his day. )

So this is going to be an argument about safety.

Now we love Hectors - they look a lot like Tuna so its a fair guess they taste pretty good but we have in our relentless battle to protect all Charismatic Mega Fauna, given these cute wee guys more protection than we give kids from sexual predators.

That's just daft. And for boats like the one MAF has seized, having someone on board, purely so they can have a "look see" when you are in heavy southern seas would be a bloody nightmare.

We reckon that these fishermen, if paid a smallish bounty for every Hectors dolphin they see and photograph or video ( remember they can plot their exact location), would give us a far better idea of their population and their habits.

Costs are high enough for these particular fishermen and we agree with Pete - education would be far better than this silliness.

MAF has far bigger fish to fry - like rooting out the organised crime that is pillaging our coast of paua but hell it is easy to pick off a couple of small time trawlermen than gang members isn't it? And the environmental and economic damage of paua poaching is quantifiable while there is no hard evidence that these trawlers are having a disastrous effect on the southern Hector dolphin population.

These two boats have dared to do what the rest of the fleet wanted to but were too scared to because of the financial consequences. It is time for some intervention and a new way of thinking. That way we might just take some sensible steps to protect these tasty wee marine flyers instead of making a small human segment of the seafood industry an endangered species.

CAPTAIN ERIC AWASH WITH CASH

While generally the Seafood industry is doing very well in the international arena Sanfords is leading the pack. Company CE Eric Barratt has been a champion of the Korean market for quite some time and now it is paying off.

We did hear a rumour that they were selling their mussels a bit cheap though, much to the chagrin of the rest of the market. Does this mean that Sanfords is looking to buy some mussel farms here in good old NZ?

It is good to see some fleet rejeuvenation as well. In the last few years there hads been a , sell down of, at sea assets across the NZ seafood industry.

Rock Lobster is another market doing ok as well.

Some very big shiny new boats in the Bluff fleet.

AWARUA HUI - REPORT

This post is from one of the Ngai Tahu Wahine Toa who attended the Bluff Hui organised by the locals to get Mark Solomon to address some of their concerns.He first said he would visit any marae that asked for him to attend , then he backed off , then he agreed but only at a time when many of the whanau were at the muttonbird islands.

I didn’t hear a lot of anger apart from Anthony Fowler and a couple of terse responses directed by members of the audience against one of the fishers but I did hear a lot of distortions of truth, word games and outright fabrications from the member from Kaikoura, some very clear facts backed by documentation from Wally Stone, some sadness and disappointment from whānau members who had hoped, I think, to hear an admission from the Kaiwhakahaere that HE could have done better in his management of the NTHC / TRONT relationship.

Note from Editor BB : "We think that this still strikes to the heart of the matter. The amount of people who have worked for Te runanga O Ngai Tahu and been pushed out or sacked would have a listed company's shareholders baying for blood. As we have repeatedly said Solomon has been at the helm of an organisation that has been in turmoil for over a decade."

Instead they heard that Wally Stone was sacked because he did not supply ONE report even though the Kaiwhakahaere,Solomon, was present at the NTHC meeting and approved it, only to vote against it at the TRONT meeting. According to one of the involved fishers, it was also presented to TRONT in person by Colin Topi, Tahu Potiki and NTHC. The Kaiwhakahaere was apparently absent that day and TRONT was being chaired by the Deputy. Perhaps the Kaiwhakahaere didn’t read his papers or the minutes?

The meeting at Awarua ( Bluff) was orderly, well run and tikanga was observed at all times. The difference between the previous meetings and the Awarua meeting would appear to be that the mana remained with the ahi ka at all times. All who wished to speak were allowed to have a say but they were required to stick to the question of the moment rather than divert to other matters.

There was some "you said, I said" which was probably only to be expected but there was also some very pointed questions to the Kaiwhakahaere that he seemed unwilling or unable to answer in a direct fashion.

The meeting was well attended with the representatives from Oraka and Puketeraki present to support the Kaiwhakahaere while the Kaikoura whanau came to support the whanau from Awarua. However of the approximately 140 people present, about 120 were Awarua whanau, a very good result and well on a par with Rehua and Kaikoura.

MILLION DOLLAR CATCH

We were delighted with the Million Dollar catch programme last night. BB's son used to crew on the X-S. and BB has been on boats in most of the places that were screened last night. Vaughn Fisher is my cousin and a tough but good bastard. Johnny Hawkeless used to crew for my father. And Rewi Bull is part of one of the biggest muttonbirding families of the south and his crew Storm is the son of another one of my cousins and a hellava cool kid.

So we thought that last night New Zealand got a glimpse of just what sort of crap these men work in. Its the toughest place to fish in New Zealand apart from perhaps the Chathams.

We liked that there is actually a story emerging and there are 10 episodes to go. While Vaughn and Johnny own their quota, Rewi does not. He has a tough row to hoe to make a buck. So the programme has featured a good spread of the types of fishermen the Southern Rock Lobster Fleet is made up of.

Ayway you can watch the programme here

MILLION DOLLAR CATCH

The Cuzzies are getting all excited - TV3's Million dollar catch starts inthe next couple of weeks It promises to be an eye opening, funny and irreverent fly on the wall glimpse of life on one of the toughest stretches of water in NZ and arguably the world.

And the Herald has a word with Vaughan Fisher skipper of the X-S

SEAFOOD PORN

Ahh - more oysters ... Bliss. Ecstacy!

REALLY BAD EDITING

This is from Bob from the Bluff

Gordon Brown gets called a very bad name in one of the great editing bloopers.-

MORE ON MILLION DOLLAR COUSINS

Quite a few people have asked when Million dollar catch on TV3 will screen
I've just had an email from Tv3 - its at the end of February. Other boats will include the Kay Reece - Skipper Johnny Hawkless - ( who used to crew for my dad) and Rewi Bull who skippers the Shangri - La with my delightful young cous Storm as his crew.

There will be others from the Bluff Fleet as well - I sure hope that the Bluff community gets behind their local good ol boys - I can see Mayor Tim getting some mileage for the deep south from the programme.

MILLION DOLLAR COUSINS

I have always been very proud of my cousins on both sides of the family tree. However Dad's fishing family side from Bluff and Stewart Island are about to become media stars.
The FV X-S ( pronounced excess) owned by my cousin Vaughn Fisher, is a magnificent vessel. The FV Shangri - La is another great workhorse skippered by Gordon Wardrop whose wife is another cousin. Both fish with their sons as crew. Many times when I watched the Deadliest Catch about the Alaskan Crab fishermen, I wondered how long it would be before someone would do something similar with the Southern Rock lobster fishermen. TV3 have done just that with Million Dollar Catch due to screen soon.
Most places Gordon and Vaughn fish are a salty, wet, heart stopping kinda hell. My son was crew for Gordon for a short time before he joined the X-S as crew for Vaughn for a couple of years, before embarking on his dream of becoming a helicopter pilot. He learned well under arguably the top lobster skippers in Bluff.
Various members of our family have been fishing for 6 generations. In fact the crews on both the X-S and Shangri- la are the 7th generation to take to the sea. It is a hard, uncompromising way to earn a living , they earn every big dollar they make and it is exponentially tougher to fish in the South than anywhere else in New Zealand. So if there is one programme you cannot miss this year it is Million Dollar Catch on TV3. The boys will tell it like it is - they know no other way.

The last time I was at my cousin Vaughn's place after the very sad occasion of the funeral of our uncle Peter Topi and our cousins who were drowned when the Kotuku sank in Foveaux Strait coming back from the muttonbird island. In fact up until that terrible day - in the course of 80 years, 14 men in dad's family died at sea.

The boys in Million Dollar catch have a great sense of humour, bawdy and black, honed after many, many hard years at sea. Like many people who have held the stare of the cold hard eyes of death, they embrace life like there may be no tomorrow. So watch Million Dollar Catch , and witness the salt crusted warriors of the southern seas at their outrageous best. And remember they are not larger than life , they just live large lives.

update Rewi Bull bought the Shangri La last year so will be one of the stars of the show. Good bloke and great whanau.