Last June contributor Christopher Ruthe pointed out in an article headed The Queen of Rates Increases into Parliament? that KCDC Cr Janet Holborrow is a parliamentary candidate on the Labour Party’s list — presently ranked at number 69.
Earlier this year she had sought the Party’s candidacy for the Otaki electorate and because she had not been a party member for the required length of time, had to get special dispensation from the Labout Party Head Office to do so. She failed in this attempt and, as we reported, the nomination for the seat went instead to Terisa Ngobi.
About this time last year we criticised her grandstanding over David Scott’s candidacy for re-election to the KCDC, during which she and friend Cr Buswell went to the media and claimed that they would walk out of any meeting he attended. Interestingly, he and she were both speakers at the WCB meeting of 11 August 2020 and did she walk out? No.
In the Stuff report of that meeting, Holborow is quoted as saying that media in Kapiti are “mainly balanced, measured and respectful, but this publication is an exception”.
We take that to mean we are the only current affairs website in Kapiti which is willing to expose the deviousness, deception, duplicity, misrepresentation and blatant untruths uttered by politicians like her, and accordingly consider that comment a tribute.
While her departure from the KCDC would be welcome by Kapiti’s Ratepayers, her presence in Parliament would not be welcome by the people of NZ, and frankly we suspect many Labour Party members would feel the same.
For a change from the many such scenes we’ve posted taken around Waikanae, here’s an example on Maui from 2018. A combination of two hedges, a low sloping curved wall and flowery shrubs. The concrete sidewalk looks to have a brown tint, rather than the ubiquitous grey.
Last night Don Brash gave his speech to a handful of people at Victoria University. I say a handful because the University limited those who could be in the room to just ten!
Other events, the University are fine with much larger numbers. But for some reason COVID is much more a concern when it is Don Brash, or when his speech is about Free Speech…
History is an endless negotiation between the past and present. –Simon Sharma
In this issue —
Feedback on Wendy Huston’s talk in August
The upcoming September session – Anthony Dreaver on the History of the Otaki Health Camp on Tuesday, 22 September
Connections: Wrecked ship on Waikanae Beach and the Mahara Gallery
Sessions for the remainder of 2020
Thanks to our August speaker: Wendy Huston
Some 30 people braved wet weather and Government’s Covid-19 restrictions to hear Wendy Huston speak about the Kapiti Retirement Trust and the history of Seven Oaks, Midlands and Muriwai Court. Wendy’s interesting talk was illustrated with an excellent PowerPoint presentation. She not only gave an impressive coverage of the history, but also gave a comprehensive coverage of what the three parts of the retirement village are like today. Everyone enjoyed the session.
Coming up soon —
The September speaker – Anthony Dreaver
“I’ll talk about New Zealand’s health camp movement and the social conditions that it sprang from, how Otaki became the site of the first permanent Health Camp, and what children experienced there. I’ll also touch on public perceptions, from the Health Stamps glory days to changing ideas that led to the camp’s decline.
“I will also show the interesting range of architecture, especially the fascinating Rotunda building for which the Friends of Otaki Rotunda Trust was formed. And of course I hope to gather support for our work, and invite members to guided tours of the complex.”
Anthony has a background in education and history writing. He has written books ranging from school texts to histories related to the Horowhenua. His masterpiece is probably the biography of the amazingly versatile Leslie Adkin entitled An Eye for Country. He is well known as a local historian and promoter of Kapiti Heritage, and is also a trustee on the Kapiti US Marines Trust.
The Pleione was on its eleventh trip from London to Wellington and with just 84 days at sea this was the quickest. But two days out of Wellington, Captain Cuthbert mistook Kapiti Island for the northern-most island in the Marlborough Sounds. It was not the first time the error had been made, as both islands are on the same latitude.
With hurricane force winds blowing, the cargo ship with six passengers, was driven onto Waikanae Beach about 3 kilometres north of the river mouth. According to The Evening Post of 17 March 1888 it was one of the worst gales ever experienced in this district for some time… It was the seventh ship to run aground at Waikanae within a few years.
To follow the connections to the Mahara Gallery, see here.
Speakers and topics for the last three months of 2020 —
October 27 – Hari Jackson on his Kapiti heritage.
November 17 –Bruce Taylor will speak on “A History of the Wellington to Manawatu Railway with particular reference to the impact on Kapiti, 1870s to present.”
December 15 –David Hadfield on a topic related to his Kapiti heritage.
Suggestions for topics and speakers are always very welcome. Next year we will definitely have sessions on Gallipoli and Parihaka.
A commentary by one of our supporters on the savage attack on us — particularly on Geoffrey — last month by Cr Prvanov backed by the present Kapiti mayor, his deputy Holborow and KCDC Chief Executive Mr W. Maxwell. We’re not stating who the author is because of the likelihood of the person being put on the Council ‘hit list’ for reprisals — we know they happen from accounts of the saga of the Osbournes of Waikanae in 2017.
It marks one of the saddest days in New Zealand”s proud history of a free press when a local council so demonized a co-publisher of an online magazine that he had no choice but to resign as an elected member of a Community Board. The Council’s mayor and senior legal advisor sat in approval at the front of the crowd, like Madam Defarge in Dickens’ Tale of Two Cities as French revolutionaries were guillotined near the Bastille.
It is particularly disturbing as this publisher [us] was the only one in NZ willing to publish an article by NZ’s leading Civil Rights campaigner, Tim McBride. The NZ Herald refused to publish. Why? Because it pointed out serious civil liberty issues raised by the Government’s approach to Covid-19. It apparently would upset some in the “Team of 5 million”. Waikanae Watch’s commitment to press freedom meant it was the only responsible magazine publisher willing to give an expert a voice.
It is quite clear from the facts that for the same reason Waikanae Watch published a satire by a contributor in which certain male councillors were identified as political eunuchs every time voting for the Mayor’s ideas and the female councillors who had for 7 months given the Mayor 100% support were described as political concubines. The satire went out to suggest that they all liberate their minds and exercise their own minds.
The immediate Mayoral reaction was to express outrage at what he alleged was racism [possibly because of the reference to the ‘Taj Mahal of Kapiti’?] and sexism [both genders were actually satirized, but facts don’t matter to this Mayor and to Cr Prvanov]. A motion for the removal of the member was filed. When told that wouldn’t work, another motion required him to be publicly humiliated.
It gets worse.
As soon as the publishers were made aware that no women on the Kapiti Coast District Council understood what satire was, and that it had purportedly caused the deepest of all offensiveness to a female councillor, the article was quickly deleted, and an apology sent to the offended party. But this was not enough. By now the bevy had come together to demand this democrat be gone: the defender of freedom of expression was slaughtered by those opposed to democracy.
Given the enormous fuss that this government has put on the Covid-19 virus, it’s clear from the number of hospital discharges alone that it is nowhere near the problem that Influenza and Pneumonia are, so why the incredible over-the-top reaction to Cv-19? Even Tuberculosis and viral Meningitis get more hospital admissions.
Hi,
Your request has been passed on to me to respond to.
It takes several years for cause of death information to be determined, reported, coded and loaded. I’d expect 2020 cause of death information to become provisionally available in December 2022 though it is dependent on the number of outstanding coronial cases.
All our data is coded using the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems. As such, we are limited by how this system classifies various conditions. I ran a query looking at publicly funded hospital discharges in 2019/20 for you where the primary diagnosis (i.e. reason for admission) was one of the following codes:
A00 Cholera
A08-A09 Other gastroenteritis and colitis of viral, infectious and unspecified origin
A15-A19 Tuberculosis
A22 Anthrax
A33-A35 Tetanus
A37 Pertussis
A39 Meningococcal infection
A82 Rabies
A87 Viral meningitis
A92.8 Other specified mosquito-born viral fevers
A97 Dengue
A98.3 Marburg virus disease
A98.4 Ebola virus disease
A98.5 Haemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome
B03 Smallpox
B05 Measles
B20-B24 Human Immunodeficiency Virus [HIV] disease
U04.9 Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), unspecified
U06.0 Suspected COVID-19 – testing performed – negative test result
U07.1-U07.2 COVID-19
Some notes about this coding:
The coding system codes Staphylococcus aureus without identifying whether it is methicillin-resistant or not. As such, I’ve not included a code for this.
For infectious diarrhoea, I’ve used two codes, Viral and other specified intestinal infections, and Other gastroenteritis and colitis of infectious and unspecified origin
With meningitis I’ve separated the viral and bacterial types, and added meningococcal infection which is often referred to as meningitis.
Zika would be coded to Other specified mosquito-born viral fevers
MERS is coded to Coronavirus infection, unspecified site. Some COVID cases were reported with this as primary diagnosis so I think that these are more likely to be COVID than MERS.
Hantaviruses are coded in various places, e.g. Hantavirus disease with kidney manifestations are coded to Haemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome
There are no events reported with COVID-19 as the primary diagnosis. This seemed odd to me so I had a look at events where it was a secondary diagnosis and they’re mostly coded to things like pneumonia, respiratory infection, or cough.
The number of publicly funded hospital discharges in 2019/20 with these primary diagnoses were:
A08-A09 Other gastroenteritis and colitis of viral, infectious and unspecified origin = 12087
A15-A19 Tuberculosis = 237
A37 Pertussis = 60
A39 Meningococcal infection = 120
A87 Viral meningitis = 362
A97 Dengue = 55
B05 Measles = 574
B20-B24 Human Immunodeficiency Virus [HIV] disease = 8
B34.2 Coronavirus infection, unspecified site = 13
B50-B54 Malaria = 21
G00-G03 Bacterial meningitis = 188
J09-J11 Influenza = 3468
J12-J18 Pneumonia = 15565
U06.0 Suspected COVID-19 – testing performed – negative test result = 1
I hope this helps. Please contact me if you have any questions.
