Signposts - a blog about Te Ara the Encyclopedia of New Zealand

101 Stories, 288,000 words, 2,600 images and 198 videos

Before an enthusiastic audience, the minister for ICT (not to mention Transport and Tertiary Education), Hon Steven Joyce, formally launched the Economy and the City theme of Te Ara in Auckland last night. The guests included some of the Queen City’s leading businesspeople such as Stephen Tindall and some of the city’s movers and shakers such as Michael Barnett.

A view of economists

The economy may not seem the sexiest subject; and you probably share the view, beautifully expressed in Sid Scales’s cartoon, that economists add nothing but jargon to the sum of human enlightenment. But all of us have to earn a living, so it is really important that we get a clear, user-friendly, and perhaps amusing, introduction to subjects such as balance of payments or prices (even the home page of that entry raises a smile).

As Malcolm McKinnon, theme editor for the economy section, said last night, we also made strenuous efforts to enliven the inevitable graphs in the theme. He pointed to two which tell us much about the economy of New Zealand’s drinking habits – the first shows how the amount of beer consumed by New Zealanders rocketed up as the number of breweries fell; and the second showed coffee replacing tea as our non-alcoholic drink of choice.

Motorways as art?

As for cities, New Zealanders are among the most urban people in the world, so, as theme editor Ben Schrader showed last night, the story of how we moved from Queen Street as a dangerous sewer to a home of fashionable streetwear encompasses much about this country’s history. Make sure you see the film clip showing how people adjusted (not very successfully) to the presence of cars on city streets.

The 101 entries in the new theme explore some fascinating subjects. Besides sections on the economy and the city, here are some highlights from other parts:

• Eight entries about Infrastructure and Services which includes a lovely film clip of Wellington’s dusties and a brilliant interactive on the disastrous fire in Ballantyne’s department store in Christchurch in 1947.
• Eleven entries about the Labour Force where you can find a chilling image of two miners’ thumbs deliberately cut off to obtain compensation. There is also a classic film clip about do-it-yourself.
• Twelve entries on Manufacturing and Building. Look for the hero image to the Clothing and footwear manufacturing entry, and the special blanket designed to keep stranded whales cool and moist.
• Fifteen entries in the section on Retail and Commerce which not surprisingly include some classic Kiwi advertisements – such as the prize-winning ‘Dear John’ ad of the 1980s and the Toyota ‘bugger’ ad of 1999 (both found in the Advertising entry) through to the ‘They’re stealing our stuff’ ad in the Insurance entry.
• Another 15 entries about Transport featuring two great interactives prepared by our magnificent team of designers. The first is for those who like bicycles. The second is for those who want to understand how bridges work.

'Dear John' - An example of our new video player

And if you really want to enjoy some of the 198 film clips in the new theme make sure you play them full-screen using our new video-player.

Special thanks to the Te Ara team who as usual have done a wonderful job writing, checking, editing, resourcing and designing the entries, and to all those in the community who contributed words and images. This is truly a team effort and you all deserve a collective bow.

So explore the Economy and the City and don’t forget tell us which is your favourite image or film clip or interactive.

Rainbow Warrior after the bombing

Bombs scares seem to be a regular inner-city event in Wellington these days. After being caught up in one on 3 March – fortunately, only to the extent that my bus home didn’t arrive because it was marooned further down Lambton Quay with the rest of the fleet – I thought I’d take a quick look at the topic.

There’s been a proliferation of bomb scares in Wellington recently –  on 17 February 2010, 11 December 2009 and 9 December 2009. And it’s not just Wellington central – a beeping package was left at headquarters of the New Zealand Racing Board in nearby Petone in July 2009, while Auckland and Christchurch have their fair share too. The provinces are not immune either – a park in Havelock North, Hawke’s Bay, was shut down on 2 March this year when sticks of ‘explosives’ taped to a board were found there.

None of these were real bombs. Most were premeditated hoaxes. The Havelock North scare was traced to a fancy-dress party held nearby the weekend before. At worst, these incidents temporarily disrupt the normal flow of daily events.

Sometimes the bombs are real though.

The most infamous example in New Zealand’s history is the bombing of the Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior, which was sunk by French spies in Auckland Harbour in 1985.

Less well-known and understood is the bombing of the Trades Hall in Wellington in 1984. A suitcase filled with explosives, designed to go off when the suitcase was moved, was left at the building. Unsuspecting caretaker Ernie Abbott picked it up and was killed instantly. Because Trades Hall was a union building it seems likely that the union movement was being targeted, but because police did not solve the case we’ll never know for sure. In the early 2000s police were given new information about the case by members of the public but they did not go anywhere.

Do you know of any other real cases of bombs in New Zealand?

When I first started working at Te Ara my colleagues who sat nearest to me were often bemused by the squeals of delight that erupted from me every now and then. The cause was almost always that I had opened an image to prepare for our Bush theme, and it was cute. Probably it was a baby chick of some kind.

If you search for the word cute on Te Ara you won’t get any results. However, Te Ara is full of cute things.

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Kapa haka group

Over the last couple of months, I have been travelling between Wellington and Pōrangahau to attend kapa haka practices with Tamatea Arikinui. It is one of six kapa haka groups practising for the Kahungunu regionals. The competition will be held on 13 March at Te Aute College and the top two teams will go through to Te Matatini. There are 13 regions, and each are having their own regionals.

The performances consist of seven different types of waiata (songs).

• Waiata-ā-tira - choral singing
• Whakaeke - choreographed entry
• Mōteatea - traditional chants or dirges
• Poi - movement with poi (ball attached to string)
• Waiata-ā-ringa - action song
• Haka - war dance
• Whakawātea - choreographed exit.

The regionals are being held all around the country from now until August. Kahungunu regionals are now only a week away and, with our dress rehearsal over, it’s time for us to rest our voices and bodies to prepare for the big day.

The impact of the 1868 Tsunami on Banks Peninsula

The tsunami alert resulting from the Chilean earthquake of 27 February 2010 is a reminder of the hazard that tsunamis pose to coastal areas around New Zealand.

In the early 21st century we have instant communication around the world. It was very different in August 1868, when one or more large earthquakes close to the Chile–Peru border caused a huge tsunami that spread around the Pacific Ocean. The first anyone in New Zealand knew was when the first wave arrived soon after 3 a.m. on 15 August. Sea-level fluctuations continued for over 12 hours, causing considerable damage, for example around Banks Peninsula.

James Hector, then in charge of the Geological Survey and the Colonial Museum, collected observations from around New Zealand. He wrote three separate reports, as more information came to hand.

On 25 August 1868 Hector was able to produce a graph of sea level changes from New Zealand ports, showing when the first wave arrived and how long the sea level continued to fluctuate. Although the cause of the sea level fluctuation was uncertain, in his first report Hector correctly deduced that it was probably caused by a distant earthquake.

By 1st September 1868 Hector had more information, including reports from the Chatham Islands, where one man was drowned trying to rescue a boat.

In his final report on 1st October 1868 Hector was able to confirm that the tsunami originated from South America, and also had compiled newspaper reports of the tsunami from around New Zealand and Australia.

The 1868 tsunami has considerable historic importance, as it was documented by Ferdinand von Hochstetter, an Austrian scientist who had visited New Zealand in 1859. He charted the progress of the tsunami across the Pacific. It is the first detailed scientific analysis of a major tsunami, but the results are not too different from what is being reported 140 years later.

Were you affected by the tsunami on Sunday?