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Not good enough Mr Hide

Posted by Grant Robertson on September 3rd, 2010

(This post is in part by way of explanation to passengers on board Flight NZ410 from Wellington to Auckland this morning, some of whom might have witnessed a somewhat odd exchange between me and Rodney Hide.)

Since Heather Roy was dumped as Minister responsible for special education I have been trying to find out what is happening with the review of Special Education.  Heather had said publicly that it was due out in July or August, and my understanding was that it was before Cabinet the very week she was dumped.  I have put in written questions asking for information about the review which were due for reply on the 26th of August but I have not had a response.

So this morning when I was on a plane to Auckland to visit, among other things, a couple of special schools, it was timely to see Rodney Hide get on the plane.  As we stood up to disembark I asked if Rodney was indeed taking on the special education portfolio (he confirmed he was) and when the review was to be released.  He responded by saying “when the government is ready.”  Before I could go any further he said we could not expect cooperation from him on the review due to his issues about Labour’s approach on the super city. I said I was not asking about the Super City and that the review was important to a large number of parents, schools and students.

What followed was a tirade from Rodney as we walked up the air bridge about the Super City and related issues. I kept saying that I was interested in the review as many others are, and that Rodney really needed to be able to seperate out his portfolio issues.   As he stopped and I walked on his tirade continued.

I would not normally report on an exchange like this,  but his approach is not good enough.  The whole special education community is waiting for the review to be released. As I was told today on my visits, it is holding up planning and development in schools.  Parents and students involved in special education deal with enough stress and pressure as it is. They deserve far better than a Minister who can not deal with his anger about a completely unrelated issue.

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Filed under: Auckland, education
33 Comments

The Treasury Board and the agenda for public services

Posted by Grant Robertson on September 2nd, 2010

Sometimes its hard to get across why some of the more seemingly mundane announcements made by government are important.  The idea that the Treasury has decided to create a Board to help run it might sound good. Get a bit of outside help in to make sure it is doing the right thing. Nothing wrong with that?

But when the Treasury Secretary John Whitehead slipped into a speech ten days ago that he was going to establish a “governance” Board with representatives of the “private sector” alarm bells rang for me.

Firstly, in the context of purchase advisors, politically appointed working groups on everything from tax to regulation, welfare to housing, a review of policy advice  led by Graham Scott, the role of Murray Horn leading the National Health Board, this Board, and Tony Ryall’s enthusiasm that it could be used by the rest of the public sector this is clearly part of  an agenda to fundamentally change our public sector.  That change amounts to a privatisation of advice.

Why does this matter?  It matters because our system of government is based on the idea that the public service will provide free and frank advice to Ministers. They are in effect the taxpayers representatives in making and implementing policy and ensuring the governments get the best advice possible. Privatising advice undermines that assumption of neutrality.  Those Ministers are then responsible to Parliament and the public. Handpicked policy and governance groups can lead to governments hearing what they want to hear and to reducing accountability.  And that will be bad for all of us in the long run.

If people think I am over dramatising this- take a look at the media release from Treasury yesterday.  The role of the Board is described as “setting the strategic direction” for Treasury.  John Whitehead has said he will only veto the group in ‘extremely rare’ circumstances.

Chris Eichbaum has a great article in the Dom Post today on this issue (not on-line as far as I can tell). As he says

We need responsive and responsible public servants. Injecting a new third element into our existing governance arrangements may well be a step too far. It is most certainly the kind of proposal that should be the subject of public scruitiny and debate- not just announced.

As Chris is alluding to, the process for establishing the Board is not good. There are no terms of reference, and we only have the vaguest idea of how they will work.  Again John Whitehead said after his speech ten days ago that  the Board will have “community and private sector” expertise.  No sign of the community sector in the Board members announced yesterday.  No sign of a voice for the vulnerable people who are most effected by Treasury’s policies.

I am certainly not against government agencies getting advice from the community and stakeholders.  In fact I strongly support a closer connection between agencies and the people who use services.  But not when it undermines the neutrality of public services and not when it is used to reinforce the agenda of one political party.

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Filed under: democracy, public services
5 Comments

Further Thoughts on the OIA

Posted by Grant Robertson on August 31st, 2010

Clare’s post earlier today highlighted the excellent job done by I/S over at No Right Turn in analysing the slow response from some Ministers to OIA requests. This is a topic I feel qualified to comment on having played a role in the management of OIA requests in the previous government.

Firstly it is important to acknowledge that Labour in government did not have a flawless track record in this regard, and neither did the National government of the 90s before that. I can remember when coming to work in the Beehive hearing the story of a National Minister who kept a pile of OIAs that were ready to be released beside his desk. If the person who made the request did not keep pestering the Minister’s office the OIAs simply did not go out. Clearly that is not good enough, but it serves to illustrate the point that while a Ministry or Department will often process the request within the timeframe, the blame for its failure to be released on time will often lie with the Minister and their office.

In our time in government the Ombudsmen did highlight a number of deficiencies in processing, and I can recall attending a couple of meetings about that. By the end of Labour’s term the Ombudsmen’s annual reports indicated an improvement in the processing of requests. But that does not mean that we should not be even better when we are back in government.

So, what to do from here? This was a major topic of discussion at the Open Labour event on Saturday. It seems to me that there are some short and medium term things to do

  • In the short term the National Ministers who have been highlighted by I/S need to step up their game. These delays are simply not on, and there needs to be some leadership from John Key on this.
  • Just as we are now seeing increased transparency around Ministerial and MP expenditure, there should be a regular release of information on processing times for OIAs. I am sure sunlight will be a good disinfectant in this case.
  • Looking further ahead I do think we need to move to see more documents pro-actively released, including Cabinet and Committee papers and background documents. This will actually reduce costs and promote efficiency.
  • There are other practical measures as well, such as tightening up on transfer requirements. The idea that a Minister or agency will wait til just before a 20 day period is up and then transfer a request is unacceptable.

I think the solution here is a combination of updating the law and better enforcement of current practice. The OIA still serves us well and gives access to information that other countries are still envious of. But it is not working as well as it could. I am sure a multi-partisan approach is possible, and desirable on this.  Perhaps making use of the expertise of Nicola White and others to lead the work?

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Filed under: #OpenLabourNZ, democracy, public services
14 Comments

Strike One, Strike Two….

Posted by Grant Robertson on August 30th, 2010

The news that secondary teachers are set to strike within the next two weeks sets up an interesting situation. The Ministry of Education do the negotiating on behalf of the government with teachers. My sources tell me that industrial action is looming in the Ministry of Education itself, with pay talks stalled and the mood souring.

Will Anne Tolley soon have on her hands not only the teachers on strike, but her Ministry staff out as well? And will the negotiators for the Ministry of Education be able to come back to the table if there is movement from the teachers, or will they be on strike as well?

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Filed under: education, labour, public services, union
54 Comments

Massey Uni Cleaners deserve a fair go

Posted by Grant Robertson on August 24th, 2010

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Yesterday I visited a group of cleaners at Massey University’s Wellington campus. (apologies for poor photo quality). Along with their colleagues on the campuses in Palmerston North and Albany they are employed by OCS Limited to do the cleaning. OCS took over the contract for cleaning a couple of months ago and are pushing through changes to their employment conditions that are just shocking.

OCS have decided to move the workers from largely full time jobs to new jobs that will guarantee them only 25 hours a week for the 31 weeks of peak university time, and no guarantee of hours for the remaining 21 weeks of the year. The way they are doing this is by making the workers redundant and offering them new contracts with the reduced hours.

This is unfair and unjust. It will equate to a 35% drop in wages. These people are not well paid. They get just above the minimum wage. Many of them travel from Porirua to Wellington to work. While OCS as the contractor has the responsibility for the contracts it is concerning that this is happening on a publicly funded university campus. I have written to Steve Maharey as Vice-Chancellor expressing my concern.

The Service and Food Workers Union are taking the redundancy proposal to court on Thursday, as OCS are offering no redundancy pay. Anyone interested in supporting the workers I understand that some of them hope to be at the High Court in Wellington tomorrow from 9am onwards.

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Filed under: Tertiary education, jobs, labour, union, workers rights
23 Comments

Fairness at Work Rally- Wellington

Posted by Grant Robertson on August 21st, 2010

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Great turnout on a sunny day in Wellington. Strong speeches from a range of people- but the two women who had been unfairly dismissed under the law were the most important for me. Good people, who were doing their best, and fired for no reason. Its just not fair.

Filed under: Uncategorized
22 Comments

Time for “shouty Steven” to get his act together

Posted by Grant Robertson on August 21st, 2010

I had just become Labour’s Tertiary Education Spokesperson when the Budget estimates for Vote Tertiary Education were before the select committee in June. This is the one occasion when committees get to question Ministers. I have a healthy respect for Steven Joyce’s political nous, but I was keen to find out what lay behind that in terms of policy. What I quickly discovered was that when it came to tertiary education his was the accountant’s view- he knew the cost of everything, and the value of nothing.

Our exchange in the select committee was marked by two things. The first was his clear response to the emerging pressure on tertiary enrolments. He said it was a temporary problem and proudly boasted of the limits to eligibility to student loans that would “dampen demand”. That phrase has stuck with me as being one of the most disturbing things I have heard from a government Minister. In a time of high unemployment for the foreseeable future and a desperate need to find new ways to grow the economy, the key strategy of the Tertiary Education Minister was to work on ways of keeping people out of tertiary education. It just seemed wrong.

The second thing I saw was Steven Joyce get angry. I had never seen that. He had spent a year and a half smiling his way through his introduction to being a Minister. But he got angry with me when I started pushing him on the need to lift the cap on enrolments. We have seen quite a bit of “shouty Steven” as opposed to “smiley Steven” lately in Parliament. He is handling a heavy workload, and with problems in terms of the flip flop on the drink-driving limit, the enrolment limits at universities and the roll out of broadband it is no wonder he is less cherry than he has been.

But in the end Mr Joyce’s mood is irrelevant to the fact that we have people in New Zealand who want to be in tertiary education, who will not be this year and more next year. We are not going to catch up with Australia or anyone else for that matter if we do not harness the potential of all New Zealanders. To me the answer here is for a more active role for the Minister to ensure that potential students are catered for. It might be that not every single person who wants to go to a University should automatically go there. It might be that some time in a Polytechnic or Wananga would be a better place, or that a PTE might provide a good bridging course. Whatever, it requires an active Minister to lead the process.

To satisfy yourself that your job is done as a Minister if the bill for student loans is cut a little is not good enough. Mr Joyce should can and should be playing an active role in connecting students to study and people to opportunities. It is vital to our whole country.

Filed under: education, students
21 Comments

Caption Contest

Posted by Grant Robertson on August 20th, 2010

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Keep it clean….

Filed under: Uncategorized, humour
39 Comments

Filling the Prisons

Posted by Grant Robertson on August 16th, 2010

For those that did not see it, this article from the Fairfax papers in the weekend is well worth a read. It explores our appalling imprisonment rate, including some statistics where we dont stack up well at all

New Zealand locks up people at a rate of 199 per 100,000. The European average is about 80. Even Australia, our convict cousin, jails a third less than we do, according to figures from the International Centre for Prison Studies.

As I have said before on this blog, we have to get beyond the response that building more prisons is the answer to preventing crime. Of course keeping the likes of Graeme Burton off the streets is important, but that is not going to deal with the overall issue. I like my colleague Lianne Dalziel’s comment in the article that the basis of questioning around these issues should be “what makes our communities safer”. Continuing to lock people up without addressing the reasons behind how they got to be there will not make our communities safer.

Most would accept that crime is the result of addictions, mental ill-health, a bad start in life, poverty and other social factors, rather than because people are inherently evil, she says. So these are the issues we should be targeting with preventative and rehabilitative measures

There is optimism from those quoted in this article that more people are now prepared to look at the drivers of crime and get beyond the empty slogans and dangerous rhetoric of the Sensible Sentencing Trust/David Garrett types. I hope that is true because another election fought around who can throw out the toughest slogans is not what we need as a country. As Greg Newbold says in the article we need to start thinking in terms of 25 year goals to change a culture of violence, rather than in three year political cycles.

As politicians we have a job to come up with better policies, and that is something Labour is working on, but I also think the time has come for a broad based community grouping that can promote the importance of the long term approach to addressing the causes of crime and breaking the cycle. I for one would help that group in any way I can.

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Filed under: justice, law and order
33 Comments

The way the OIA works

Posted by Grant Robertson on August 10th, 2010

I am just staggered that Steven Joyce has said that he wants to withhold the Cabinet paper on broadband because he is concerned it will be misconstrued as reflecting bias.

One of my jobs as a political advisor in the PMs office was to have oversight of processing Official Information Act requests. We did look closely at the information that was being released, and from time to time we did withhold material. We did this on the basis of the criteria in the Act. If there was advice from officials that was free and frank and its release would stop them from doing it again, that is a reason. If there was information that might prejudice a commercial negotiation or was part of a confidential discussion then that was a reason.

Being worried how a paper will be interpreted is not a criteria under the Act. Steven Joyce is the maestro of the government’s strategy and spin we are told. Well that is well and good, but as a Minister he has to follow the rules of the Official Information Act. He needs to be held to account for this decision.

Filed under: #OpenLabourNZ, internet
19 Comments

GST increase and rates

Posted by Grant Robertson on August 10th, 2010

The GST increase on 1 October is going to have a lot of consequences, from the price of stamps going up, to schools struggling to work out how they will pay for an additional costs. Marcus Ganley, the Labour Candidate for Lambton Ward of the Wellington City Council has drawn another matter to my attention in his recent post.

The Wellington City Council has sent out a note to ratepayers suggesting that one way they can avoid the GST increase is to make their next three rate payments before the 1st of October. A nice idea, but many Wellington ratepayers are struggling to make one payment at the moment, let alone, as Marcus says three payments in the next seven weeks.

Filed under: GST, Tax, local government
52 Comments

Asleep at the Wheel- an English Family Feud?

Posted by Grant Robertson on August 10th, 2010

A fascinating piece (not on-line it seems) in the Dom Post on Monday from Conor English, Chief Executive of Federated Farmers, and brother to Finance Minister Bill English. He asks the question in terms of the New Zealand economy- “are we asleep at the wheel?”.

This sounds oddly reminiscient of what the Labour Party has been telling Bill English and John Key for some time, that there is no plan. Conor English notes the seismic changes in the world economy and raises the resulting need for us to innovate and to grow our capital markets. He says

We need to focus on the strategic issues that matter. Are we asleep at the wheel, like Wellington was when it forgot to extend its runway for long haul planes? Will we only wake up to realise the world has passed us by and a real opportunity lost? Lets not sleep. Lets find a solution so future generations can benefit from our Kiwi ingenuity.

An interesting article, raising interesting issues. Could also be interesting to be a fly on the wall at the next English family get-together.

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Filed under: agriculture, business, economy
17 Comments

Hiroshima Day

Posted by Grant Robertson on August 8th, 2010

DSCF0027I spoke at the annual Hiroshima Day commemoration in Wellington today. It was great to see two former Parliamentarians who have worked hard on this issue, Gerald O’Brien and Graham Kelly, pictured above.

This is the day that reflects on the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945. The scale of both the short term and long devastation in these two cities was horrific. 92% of the buildings in the city were destroyed, between 140,000 and 160,000 people died. The health effects of radiation were felt immediately, killed many over the following months, and the legacy of illness and disability has stayed with descendants over generations.

Hiroshima Day has become not only a day to reflect on the horror of the bombing, but also to mobilise support for ridding the world of nuclear weapons. In my speech today I talked about the hope that many people have for progress towards that goal. In New Zealand we now have cross party support for abolition. Phil Twyford sponsored a resolution in Parliament this year that had support from all parties. Both Ban Ki Moon and Barack Obama have committed themselves to the goal of a world without nuclear weapons. But of course hope is not enough. There are still 28,000 nuclear weapons in the world, and an enormous job to be done to move the major nuclear powers.

NGOs and governments are working together on this. As I looked at the likes of Dame Laurie Salas, Gerald O’Brien and Alyn Ware and some of the younger folk present today, I know that this is a campaign with a huge history and a desire to carry on.

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Filed under: Foreign Affairs, disarmament, international
25 Comments

Where to in Health?

Posted by Grant Robertson on August 8th, 2010

In Wellington we woke to the news on Friday that Ken Whelan, the Chief Executive of the Capital and Coast District Health Board had resigned. In his farewell email to staff Whelan said

there was no more room to cut the district health board’s costs, despite Government pressure to do so. “I cannot see where any more major efficiency can come from without negatively impacting on services.”

Even Sir John Anderson, the government’s appointment to Chair the Board has said that any further savings “would cut into muscle”.

I have had a bit to do with Ken over the last 18 months or so that I have been an MP, and I regard him very highly. He listened, he was honest, and had a very good grasp on what was happening within the DHB. When he sounds the warning he has made on his departure, the government should listen. The two areas where I have the biggest concerns in Wellington are mental health and public health where cuts are starting to have an impact. In Mental Health this will get worse with the closing of the two community clinics in the city and Kilbirnie set to cause significant disruption to service, despite the best efforts of the staff involved.

When we combine what is happening in Wellington, the public uprising over neurosurgery in Dunedin, the at least 80 cuts to frontline services elsewhere across the country, as highlighted by my colleague Ruth Dyson, and the fact we still do not have a Director-General of Health in place, questions have got to be asked about where Tony Ryall is taking Health. It is never going to be easy. Maintaining and developing health services with an ageing population, increased costs and understandable public desire for locally accessible services is a tough ask. But it needs leadership and it needs to get beyond glib answers in Parliament.

A place to start? Of Capital and Coast’s $47 million deficit, $37 million of it relates to the building of the regional hospital. A senior health professional I spoke to on Friday noted that other DHBs with financial issues are also in this state because of costs related to the buildings. A chunk of this is due to the capital charging regime. I think we need to re-look at the capital charging regime. Of course we want DHBs and other government entities to be efficient in their use of buildings and capital, but if it starts to mean cuts into core medical services, we have to question if the priorities are right?

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Filed under: health, public services, wellington
8 Comments

Government by Google

Posted by Grant Robertson on August 5th, 2010

A little bit of light relief for the end of the session. I asked the Minister of Finance ” Does he stand by his statement, ” if you know which websites to go to you can get access to high quality advice?”

This came from Bill English on Radio NZ in the wake of the announcement of the review of policy advice that had come up with a figure for the cost of advice by entering “policy” and “policies” in a search of the title field of Budget documents.

It was a pity that Gerry Brownlee was not chosen to answer. It would have been more fun with him, but still nice to have a bit of a laugh at the end of the session.

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Filed under: internet, policy, public services
5 Comments

Ethical Investment Bill goes down

Posted by Grant Robertson on August 4th, 2010

Well, my first private members Bill is over. The Ethical Investment (Crown Financial Institutions) Bill was voted down 63-58 tonight. Supporting it were Labour, Progressives, Greens, Maori and United, against National and ACT. Check out the debate here if you are interested.

It was not a great surprise that National and ACT opposed the bill, but disappointing all the same. The Bill sought to have clear and consistent criteria for ethical investment in the legislation that govern our major investment funds such as the Super Fund and ACC. The criteria are based on international norms and treaties and emphasise the importance of investing in organisations that have good governance, treat their stakeholders fairly and uphold human rights and good labour standards. From an environmental standpoint the organisations that are invested in should be conscious of their ecological footprint and should not be harmful to resources such as air, water and land.

The opposition was based on the fact that some good progress has been made in ethical investment policies and that “the market” would deal with the issues. I thought this was an opportunity to move from a passive approach to ethical and sustainable investment to a positive one that could re-inforce our image as an environmentally and socially conscious country on the world stage.

Anyway it was an interesting process to go through, and I am the wiser for it. Pleased to extend the support for the Bill across the House, and have agreed with other parties to keep working on the issue.

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Filed under: economy, environment, finance, human rights, labour
22 Comments

NZ crew win World Hip-Hop Championships

Posted by Grant Robertson on August 4th, 2010

The Request dance crew from Auckland has won the Gold Medal in the Adult Division at the World Hip-Hop Dance Championships, held in Las Vegas yesterday. This was a fantastic effort in a competition that includes 200 crews from 28 different countries.

The video above has the routine, a great emotional reaction to winning and a haka from supporters and other NZ competitors. Last year they won the Varsity (Under 19 Division) title, and this year they stepped up to the Adult Division. They hail from Penrose, and are multi-cultural group, featuring dancers of Samoan, Tongan, Rarotongan, Chinese, Japanese, Maori and Pakeha descent.

Awesome effort.

(Hat Tip, I love this, Hamish Keith)

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Filed under: Arts and Culture, music
9 Comments

Just how political is the review of policy advice?

Posted by Grant Robertson on August 3rd, 2010

The government announced a review of policy advice today. Given that they have already asked Departmental Chief Executives to look at every line item to find services to cut, it is hard to see this anything other than a political exercise required the confidence and supply agreement with ACT.

Its perhaps no surprise then that Graham Scott, former ACT Party candidate has been chosen to head the review. Mr Scott has had a bit to say over the years about the state sector, including noting in a paper in 2009 that one of Labour’s failings was we had too many political appointments to advisory bodies! I guess he is feeling differently nowadays, especially as on the 30th of August he will be the guest of honour at what appears to be an ACT fundraiser in Auckland

In all seriousness listening to Bill English today, and knowing Graham Scott’s ideological views, this review does have the potential to be one that pushes the privatisation of advice in the public sector. While from time to time all governments will want to get advice from outside the public service, the value of a neutral public service able to give free and frank advice can not be understated. It is a cornerstone of the Westminster system, and gives taxpayers the re-assurance that someone is undertaking dispassionate and thorough analysis and review of policy. Simply getting advice from those you agree with via the internet as Mr English said on radio tonight will not be good for the quality of public services in New Zealand.

PS. take a look at the question (from about 3.30) on this today. I had a bit of fun with the idea of using figures obtained by the equivalent of a google search!

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Filed under: public services
26 Comments

Reciprocity and the Left.

Posted by Grant Robertson on August 3rd, 2010

Sometimes we on the left of politics are accused of being all about rights, and not enough about responsibilities. More often than not those who espouse this view are coming from a highly punitive stance, often about those in receipt of social assistance, and I have no truck with their arguments.

But I do have a nagging feeling that there is something missing from our promotion of a socially just society. It is encapsulated in a quote I read recently from French philosopher Paul Ricouer.

The unjust man is one who takes too much in terms of advantages or not enough in terms of burdens

Ricouer is really talking about the wealthy not paying their fair share, and that will always be of concern to those of us on the left. But equally anyone who rips off the system can be seen in the same light. Earlier this year Phil Goff in his state of the nation speech talked about his abhorrence of those who cheat their fellow citizens, be they the wealthy financiers or those who game the benefit system.

Labour values have always been based on a fair days work for a fair days pay. We talk a lot, rightly, about the fair days pay, and the importance of fair wages and conditions. But we dont talk as much about the fair day’s work.

My thinking about this was tweaked by an article by Anthony Painter as part of the Open Left project in the UK. He talks about the importance of linking social justice and social responsiblity.

I agree, and I would take the principle of reciprocity a bit further, and to a more positive direction. Rather than just being about obligations to the state or employers, I think we on the left need to emphasise our obligations to each other, as neighbours, fellow community members and residents and citizens of this country.

Driving home the idea that “we are all in this together” as the ad says is a core element of the philosophy of social democratic politics. To me this should be a positive sense of obligation driven by the desire to see everyone able to fulfil their potential.

We also need to recognise the importance of a sense of shared community values, of creating a society that does not allow the lost opportunity, resentment and marginalisation of social exclusion and inequality to take hold.

The left needs to take ownership again of the reciprocity agenda. It should not just be about carrots and sticks but based on developing a shared sense of our common good and the role we all play in creating it.

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Filed under: #OpenLabourNZ, community, democracy, inequality, social democracy
73 Comments

Letting in Riff-Raff- and its great!.

Posted by Grant Robertson on August 3rd, 2010

Riff Raff

Richard O’Brien, creator of the cult classic the Rocky Horror Show appears to have being granted residency in New Zealand, so Sue Moroney and I took a few minutes out in Hamilton today to celebrate with his alter-ego, Riff-Raff who has been immortalised by the city.

He has been granted an exception to policy, and while some people might have concerns, on the face of it seems reasonable. O’Brien lived in New Zealand for about 12 years during his adolesence and early twenties. He returned to NZ often as his parents remained here until they passed away a few years ago. His siblings still live here, and he owns property.

The Rocky Horror Show was a huge part of my growing up. Along with a group of friends we were kind of obsessed with the show, and to this day I can just about remember almost all the words (sad I know). We saw sit live a couple of times in the 80s with Rob Muldoon and Billy T James fulfilling the roles of the Narrator. I also remember a particularly boisterous screening of the film one Friday evening, that culminated in a mass confetti and water fight both inside and outside the theatre.

It is a total classic, and fantastic that it was written by a New Zealander. Richard O’Brien once said it was based on his experiences in Hamilton and Tauranga in the 1960s. Who knew they were that interesting….

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Filed under: Arts and Culture, Hamilton, Immigration, humour
9 Comments

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