Today we had morning tea with John and his wife who have been Waikanae residents since the beginning of the year; previously they were residents of Island Bay in Wellington.  They said their Waikanae house, built in 1977, is the youngest that they have lived in; most have been over a century old, constructed with native timbers.

His take on NZ’s history is not without controversy and he isn’t afraid to confront establishment stances — he readily agrees that this makes his views, or at least some of them, “politically incorrect.”

Although you would expect that to put him out of favour with the establishment, including the Wellington City and the Kapiti councils, he said he has also been turned down by the Otaki historical society for that reason.

Concern about the general obsession with economic growth simply for its own sake — well entrenched in KCDC thinking — and degradation of the environment caused by overpopulation, not only in the Third World, but also in countries like NZ, motivated him to write his first two books, Excess Capital and A Plague of People.

As those who read this blog will know, we are concerned that we now have a forthcoming excessive population problem here in Waikanae, most notably as a result of the massive Maypole company development.

He has also written books on the interactions among and between Maori and Europeans in the early days of contact: as he calls it, “revision of revisionism.”

This year he has contributed articles on that subject for the Kapiti Independent News website which are archived here.

Most recently, he has written a piece for the KIN entitled “This racist New Zealand.”  He read former National Party leader Don Brash’s controversial speech to the Orewa Rotary Club on 27 January 2004 three times, and says there was nothing about it that he could fault.

We hasten to add that his views on political economy, however, are rather different to those of Don Brash.

Locally, he is concerned, as are we, at the central and regional government’s ongoing massive purchases from the poison industry — he has fallen out with both Royal Forest and Bird and the Green Party over that, and the disruption to both people and nature caused by vehicles being allowed — via council permits — to drive along the sand spit on the north side of the Waikanae River mouth.  (We are too, and will do a post on it soon.)

It’s good to see thinking people willing to challenge prevailing establishment notions: particularly when they live in Waikanae. 🙂