Beyond the HuttRiver - New Zealand today..

Friday, November 9, 2012

The Pride of the Hutt Valley - and the Melbourne Storm NRL club...

The home jersey of the Melbourne Storm. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Upper Hutt College (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Pride of the Hutt Valley - and the Melbourne Storm NRL club...
By Peter Petterson
First published at Qondio
The photographs attached are of my 15 year old grandson, Pride Petterson - Robati, from the Hutt Valley in Wellington, New Zealand. who has been signed up for a six year contract with the Melbourne Storm NRL professional rugby league club in Melbourne, part of the Australian National Rugby League competition.
The talented rugby league player has had a great season locally. His Upper Hutt Tigers club Under 15 side won their competition. His Wellington Orcas U15 rep side finished second in the national competition. He was top try scorer and points scorer. Once this competition was completed, he was called into his Upper Hutt College school team for the play-offs of the Wellington Secondary Schools competition. They won the final for the third successive year.
Last year Pride competed in school athletic events, being placed in the Wellington representative shot put and javelin finals. He was awarded the Top Sportsmen of the Year award at Upper Hutt College, and was a member of the champion rugby league team as well, at the age of 14 years. He was discovered by the Melbourne Storm at a bootcamp trial in Lower Hutt late in 2009.
He has competed at the provincial level in rugby league for many years. He was also nominated in the NZ Merit Team this year. This is a non-playing side to recognise those players not eligible for The New Zealand Junior Kiwis rugby league team.
Pride is a very modest young man who is a dedicated player and trainer. His fitness is unparalled by other players of his age grade. His manager described him as the best player of his age in New Zealand. Obviously the Melbourne Storm thinks so very highly of him to contract him for so many years - an investment for the future. He is a tall, powerfully built, extremely fit young footballer of huge potential.
Playing football is only half of the deal; young players also have to prepare for life after football. The Melbourne Storm will finance Pride through one of the top schools in Melbourne during 2011, to do an accountancy course. He actually did well at school back in New Zealand during 2010.
He will live with a local family, will be paid living expences and an allowance in future dependant on his age and playing grade. He will be flown back to his family regularly. He is at present on holiday leave with the club - returning to Melbourne on Jan 10 2011.
Barring injuries and unexpected circumstances, this young man should be ready for the top level in about five years. We all wish him luck. The Pride of his family, his friends his football club and his country. He is and will for ever remain our little Pride. Good luck!
This story was published a couple of years ago as Pride was moving to Melbourne to join his new professional rugby league club. The youngster identified in a boot-camp/trial as a 14 year old was on his way. Two years on, has he achieved as much as he was expected to? On the field definately - he has played two seasons in the Storm SG Ball Under 18 team. He was awarded the Player of the Year 2012. Last year he played in a number of rep teams creditably. He has had the odd scrape or two off the field and has been educated about what is expected of a professional player. He has learned that it is also about being developed as a "person" as much as a rugby player. He has learned what is expected in his six year contract. He was very young, away from his family for the first time, and has gradually matured as a young man.My grandson hasn't done too badly at all. Next year he will be looking at being developed in the Storm Under 20 team. He had a couple of games off the bench this year, and actually scored a try in his first game.

Tuesday, November 6, 2012

Working- Class Boy - by the late Norman Kirk...

English: Norman Kirk, New Zealand Prime Minister 1972-1974 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Working-Class Boy: In a vivid essay, bashed out on a typewriter in June 1972, Norman Kirk recalled his early life in the working-class Christchurch suburb of Linwood during the 1930s.

IT WAS A SHORT STREET. Short and drab. There was no beauty. The corrugated ribs of the road stuck out through its thin skin of stones. Weary rows of drooping poles clutched sagging and fraying wires in blackened finger-tips. A sulking ooze lay in the bottom of the gutters.

Smoke-grimed houses stared vacantly through the half-shut eyes of drawn shades. Here and there a small flower struggled for life, an abandoned orphan among the clods and weeds.

The footpaths were never walked for pleasure. They led to school, to the shop; or for the lucky to work. Only for children was the road a pleasure. They played there not because they liked it, but because it was forbidden. It was not a bad street. It was not a good street. It did not lead somewhere. It led nowhere.

It did not brood. It had no character. Instead it conformed. The people were drab. The street was drab. The people were poor. The street was poor. It was there because it had to be. It had nowhere else to go. Neither did the people. It did not inspire. It was a sponge. It soaked up hope. And at night it counted its people like a warder counts his prisoners.

As a street it was not exceptional. There were hundreds like it. They criss-crossed and cut into unimaginative rectangles that filing cabinet of humanity – the working-class suburb. Each street garnished with the name of a duke, a poet, a land speculator of earlier times, a city father, a publican or some other nobility, bestowed in a moment of parochial statesmanship by a body that found it easier to name than number.

It was here in such smothering, dulling and joyless circumstances the working men and their families lived.

In these streets they begat children, acquired mortgages, landlords, illnesses, fought among themselves and with others, saw their children grow to be a mirror of themselves, and then weary of it all slipped quietly away almost unnoticed. They came into the world unknowing, when they went out they went unsung. When a house was left empty it quickly filled. The names changed, the people remained the same.

Sons followed their fathers into industry. Daughters their mothers into matrimony. Their station in life was preordained. Time passed in weeks. Monday was for washing. Friday was pay-day – if you worked. Saturday afternoon was for the back garden or the pub. Sunday was for silence – partly because the religious liked it that way, but mainly because the thought of another week was enough to intimidate even the hardiest soul.

As the sapling is bent – so grows the tree.

http://bowalleyroad.blogspot.co.nz/2012/11/norman-kirk-in-his-own-words.html

Acknowledgements and thanks to the author, Chris Trotter.

Monday, November 5, 2012

A moment of truth - the Royal Commission report

A moment of truth. The Royal Commission report on the Pike River coalmine tragedy on the West Coast of New Zealand's South Island, near Greymouth, has been released. Twenty nine mine workers lost their lives on the 19th of November, 2010 after a succession of explosions in the mine over a period of days. Experts claim the men would have been dead after the first explosion.
The Minister of Labour, Kate Wilkinson has resigned her portfolio, effective immediately, because the tragic and fatal accident happened on her watch. The mine company has been accused by the Prime Minister, John key,of being more interested in extracting coal and making profits, than about ensuring the mine was safe to work in. Local manager, David Whittle, has been charged with twelve offences and will appear next year.
The bankrupt Pike River Ltd company has been sold to state owned Solid Energy, who have agreed to assist any body recovery. The Prime Minister, John Key, said after the accident that they would guarantee to get the boys out of the mine - money was no object. But since then he has said it was too dangerous to mount a body recovery operation. There have been no other discussions with families of the dead mine workers. They have had to pay the costs of any expert and legal advice concerning any possible recovery.
And so to the report and public reaction to it:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10845309
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10845209
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10845311
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10845147
http://huttriverofnz.blog.co.uk

Saturday, November 3, 2012

Queensland State Govt discriminates against kiwis...

Coat of Arms of Queensland (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

NZ Foreign Affairs Minister Murray McCully is concerned proposed changes to legislation in Queensland could be seen as directly targeting New Zealanders.
The state government there wants to strip tens of thousands of New Zealanders ‘‘temporarily’’ residing in Queensland of protection from state discrimination after it nearly lost a battle to refuse help to a disabled Kiwi.
In a statement, McCully said that while the proposed legislation did not refer specifically to New Zealanders, he was concerned that the amendments could be seen as targeting them.
‘‘I have asked officials to follow up with the state government to clarify the intention of the proposed amendments,’’ he said.
If the bill were to pass, government agencies could deny support based on someone’s residency status and it would no longer be considered discriminatory. The amendments are part of a broader bill which passed its first reading on Thursday.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/world/australia/7905153/Queensland-bill-discriminates-against-Kiwis

Thursday, November 1, 2012

Old Christchurch railway station turns to rubble..

English: The Pyne Gould Building following the , , New Zealand. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

CHRISTCHURCH, NEW ZEALAND - MARCH 18: Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard (R) and Australian Governor General Quentin Bryce stand outside the remains of the Christchurch Cathedral on March 18, 2011 in Christchurch, New Zealand. Prime Minister Gillard flew to Christchurch today to attend the National Christchurch Earthquake Memorial Service, meet wiht Australian police and paramedics and tour the red zone. (Image credit: Getty Images via @daylife)

English: Logo of The Press (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

English: Christchurch City (New Zealand) from the Port Hills. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Little remains of Christchurch's old railway station in Moorhouse Ave.
The building, which housed Science Alive! and a Hoyts multiplex cinema, was damaged in the Canterbury earthquakes.
Ben Dormer, of Dormer Construction, said demolition was "right on schedule", with the last of the structure pulled down on Wednesday.
All that remained to be removed was the basement, he said.
He expected this would take until the end of the year.
A proposed $52 million redevelopment to replace it includes a piazza, an eight-screen cinema, a nine-storey, 80-room hotel, a playground, a rooftop restaurant, a bar, shops and a gymnasium.
Developers hope to complete the entertainment precinct by November next year, with the hotel tower completed in 2014.
The plans are for the 11,000 square metres of the site owned by Lisa Abbot and do not include the 6000sqm owned by Science Alive! on the eastern corner.
Science Alive! is eyeing a possible move to the city centre but has not ruled out a return to this site.