I’m sitting in the Hamish Hay Theatre listening to a 12 year old asking me to take action on the climate crisis. It reminds me of something.

In 1982 when I was 10 years old, I wrote a letter to the Mayor of Christchurch asking him to step in and help with the nuclear arms crisis. The possibility of global nuclear war kept me awake at night. But rather than just worrying about it, I chose the highest political authority could think of and asked for Hamish Hay’s help.

There is a lot of talk at the moment of the role of children as activists in the global climate crisis. People marvel at their precociousness, and they truly are inspiring. But there is an element of surprise in why children are getting involved in these issues. I’m not surprised. If we take time to educate our kids about what’s going in the world around them, many of them are ready and willing to wade into the debate, and to do something about the issues we are facing.

As a child, I remember feeling frustrated that I couldn’t do more. Writing letters, painting protest banners and marching in the street was the most I could do. I was a kid, it was the 80s and no one was listening to me. Now I am an adult and I have the power to do more. You can read my last blog post about one of the things I’m doing to reduce my ecological footprint.

Tonight, I realise there is one more thing that I can do to help – empower the children around me to be informed and actively involved in the issues and their solutions. Watch out grandkids, I feel a lecture coming on!

Last night I stayed up past midnight (very late for me!) watching the Governance and Administration Select Committee submissions from East Lake Trust and Regenerate Christchurch on the issue of the inclusion of a flat water facility (technical speak for a massive rowing lake) in the Otakaro-Avon River Corridor Regeneration Plan. You can watch that HERE.

The background to this hearing is long and convoluted, but the short version is that when Regenerate Christchurch was first established by Gerry Brownlee at the closure of CERA, East Lake Trust was encouraged to believe that a 2km lake would be a likely contender for inclusion in the Regeneration Plan. In the two years following, it became clear that this wasn’t going to happen, and they were not happy. The hearing is the outcome of the ongoing fight they’ve been having.

Here’s my take. I can understand the argument that some are making, which goes something like this:

The lake is good for east Christchurch – it provides a regeneration opportunity that we desperately need. It’s good for rowing. The community want it. There is only a moderate risk that it won’t be swimmable. It will only cost about $160 million dollars to build, and only take three years.

I don’t agree with any of this. I can see that there is a potential economic benefit to the lake, but I think the bad outweighs the good by a long way. If economics was the main driver for our decision making, then we should pave over Hagley Park, and close all our libraries. But from where I stand, it looks like the ecological and social benefits of NOT building a lake vastly outweigh the economic ones of having it there. I am not sure most people truly understand how big the proposed lake is, and the impact the lake will have on the people of East Christchurch. And not just my little suburb of Dallington. The proposed lake would close New Brighton Road, which is a main through-route from the Inner East to New Brighton. This would be hugely detrimental to communities that are already struggling with the loss of large parts of their suburb, and just beginning to adjust to having a green zone right through the middle of them. A gigantic lake is only going to exacerbate already existing issues of social isolation and feelings of being cut off from the rest of Christchurch.

Just to understand the scale of what is being proposed, here is my very crude attempt to fit the proposed 2.2km lake into Hagley Park – it’s a green space most people in Christchurch can bring to their minds eye.

The blue blob is HUGE! I get the impression that a lot of people in Christchurch think of the Red Zone as a vast empty space that they can do anything with, and forget that it’s surrounded by communities that need to live with whatever is built. Not to mention that the lake proposal would necessitate the removal of MORE housing in Dallington to accommodate it. If you lived in Merivale, how would you feel about this? It would be massively impactful, as will this proposed lake for the east.

Why has no one asked if there has been a social impact assessment to go with the ecological and economic ones? Why is social benefit not given the same weight as other benefits? I am skeptical of those that argue that the lake will be beneficial for the east – that’s what we were told when they closed our local high schools and moved them. It hasn’t worked out well for us – we now have NO schools in Dallington. It was a sneaky trick, and I suspect this would be too.

And don’t even get me started on the idea that a small group of rowing enthusiasts can waste many thousands of dollars of public money arguing about this, and casually note that the lake will “only” cost $160 million, give or take 10%. Putting aside the estimate of $200m+ from Regenerate Christchurch, do we really want to spend this much on ANOTHER sporting facility for our city. We have Metro sports, we already have a rowing lake, and now we need another one? Can we rebuild our lost social housing first? The Christchurch City Council has run out of money to replace the housing stock that was lost in the earthquake, much of it in east Christchurch. I would like us to focus on the basics before we build more monuments.

And finally, if you’ve made it this far through the rant, Garry Moore recently posted about this in his Tuesday Club – he sums up the issue quite well I think:

During the week I made a submission to the Christchurch City Council’s Annual Plan. I sat through Annual Plans and Long-Term Plans 15 times as a Councillor, and then as Mayor. I always enjoyed the exercise. It goes like this; the staff produce a budget which more or less is around what the Council table finds acceptable; then submissions are called for; then every person/group come to the table and ask for the earth, without suggesting what should be replaced to pay for their excessive demands; then the Council finds that the staff have discovered additional costs which were not known when the budget was proposed; then prima donna Councillors play to whoever they think would be impressed with their excellent understanding of finances, adding items to the budget and standing strong that they would not support any rates increases which are above the rate of inflation; then the horse trading begins, and somehow the rates increase is around what was announced in the first place.
As I sat at the end of the table on Friday I wondered if we have the wrong process, and that the exercise is a complete waste of time. The Council politely listens to all sorts of decent people who care about the City and the groups they work with, and for. People are not challenged to see where their demands fit into the grand scheme of things. They are not asked to consider that there might be other groups with a better call on the resources of the City. Instead they present in good faith what they expect, and then get disappointed when nothing arrives in the mail confirming that they have got everything they demand.
I’ll give an example. One group before me was the East Lakes Trust. This group want us to fund a lake for them to enjoy rowing, at our expense. I have heard the most preposterous claims from these guys. “It will enable schools like Aranui to participate in rowing” etc.  Yeh right. Look who these low decile schools are up against. Christ College, St Andrews, Villa Maria, St Bedes. All schools with bottomless pits of money. I listened, when they presented their case to the Tuesday Club, to one of their prominent promoters (where are these guys when a group want to promote sporting facilities at Aranui, or Hornby?) advocating that the course could be built “within existing Council resources”. I rang up a Council engineer I trusted, and asked him was this possible. His response was not polite but he suggested that some of the major infrastructure of the City passes through the area where this lot propose us to construct their play pool. The cost of shifting it would be eye watering. It took one phone call to find a major hole in the East Lake Trust’s argument. Regenerate Christchurch did an excellent job in sinking this proposal. Despite this, here were these guys in front of the elected reps last Friday pleading for more public welfare for their expensive sport which already has two world class rowing courses in the South Island.
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In my Year Ahead post, I alluded to the fact that Stephen and I were both looking to change things up a bit in our work lives. I can happily report that this has now happened. A few weeks ago, Stephen stepped up into a much more senior role within Gough Group. It means that he’s much busier and more stressed, but I can see that he’s also really loving the challenge.

And on Friday last week, I said goodbye to my colleagues at Regenerate Christchurch and moved on to a new role at Pegasus Health. There were lots of reasons for wanting to make this change – the main one being that the organisation has significantly shifted its focus since I arrived. Most of the people I was working with on delivering regeneration planning have now left, the work we were doing has wrapped up, and the future work programme for the organisation has not yet landed. It seemed like a good time to exit. Added to this, the Council recently voted to reconsider its funding of RC, with a proposal to cut its financial contribution by 75%. Based on the work we’ve completed and the likely work ahead, this seems entirely reasonable. And lastly, it has become increasingly clear to me that the voluntary work I do in my community with the Dallington Residents Association, coupled with my future plans, are incompatible with my work at RC. I have regularly found myself in potential conflict of interest situations which mean that I am not able to fully contribute to conversations taking place at work and in my community. And if you know me, you’ll know how much that bothers me. I like to have an opinion about everything, and I am always happy to share it!

So my time was up at RC and it was time to move on. 

It’s Day 2 in my current role as a Senior Project Manager at Pegasus Health. So far it’s been busy and confusing – to be expected. But the people seem hardworking, and the work looks like it will be really interesting. It’s a new role and still being defined, so there will be scope for me to make it my own, which is just what I like. I’ll report back on how it’s going once I’m less confused!

Man it's been a busy few months. I feel like I have barely had time to breathe, let alone write anything. So this blog post is rather overdue!

Megan and I went to see Green Day in May. It was amazing. It's hard to find the words to describe what it means to me to have been there together, singing at the top of our lungs. For me, there is music, and there is music. Most of it I don't care that much about, but some music really means something. It's not just because the band is cool and the lyrics are good, but because of what it connotes. 

I started listening to Green Day the year I started university – 1995. It was a watershed year for me. I separated from my husband and made a decision that I needed to get serious about this growing up business – I had a 3 and 6 year old after all. Every day I would drop the kids off to school and pre-school, and then my day would be my own. I'd catch the bus to uni, and on the way, I'd plug into my Discman and switch my brain from Mum to independent young woman / student. The bus was like my transition zone, and Green Day was my companion in that transition. Green Day was the soundtrack to my changing life. 

Later, Green Day accompanied me while I struggled to get fit and lose weight – at first treadmill running with my Discman and then with my cherished iPod brick. It was always my go-to music to lift me up when I needed a boost. 

And of course my kids grew up listening to Green Day. It's something Megan and I had in common when she was an emo teen. It must have been horrifying for her to share her (very uncool) mother's taste in music. 

Being at the Vector "Spark" Arena together, singing along to every word, was powerful. It moved me to tears. And it was a really great concert – so epic to hear them live … I'd say one of the best times of my life.

Next post … all about the good riddance part…

This week I did something I never thought I would ever do – hire a cleaner. We had a cleaning service come and give our whole house a spring cleaning – windows, sills, skirtings, dusting, fridge, oven, floors, bathrooms, the full noise. Our house is gleaming!

They are coming back on Tuesday to do a regular clean, and then every Tuesday after that. It feels so luxurious to pay to have someone do my chores – I’m totally embracing it.

The cleaning service comes hot on the heels of the gardening and mowing services we employed last year. This all feels extravagant, but also really awesome. It’s so nice to come home on a Monday and see what work our gardener has done – she moves things around, plants things here and there, and obviously has very green thumbs (unlike me!).

I understand now what people mean by the phrase money-rich, time-poor. I am happy to pay people to do things for me so I have time to do other things instead. I actually don’t mind cleaning at all – I find it soothing and satisfying. But I’ve been finding it increasingly difficult to fit into my week – I feel like I’m always cleaning and tidying, because I have to do little bits all the time to keep up with it.

It’s not like I’m using my new spare time lazing around. The reason I have so little time is all the unpaid work I do for derby and hockey. I do this work joyfully and with gusto. Both these sports have expanded my world, taken me to new and interesting places, stretched my skills (and my patience at times) – they give back to me as I give to them. But the reality is that giving my time to others leaves less time for cleaning the loo. It seems like a fair trade to me.