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

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.

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.

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.

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.