Russell Norman

“A Sustainable Economy for New Zealand”
Conference at Legislative Council Chamber, Parliament, Wellington
Friday, 12 November 2010

Sorry about the late notice about this, but it’s been around the internal networks, so excuse me if I just give a brief overview, then I’ll try to report back on how it went.

This has been organised by Dr Russell Norman and Dr Kennedy Graham, with a keynote speech by Dr David Suzuki, as part of his australasian tour.

There are 4 sessions covering Global Sustainability, A Sustainable National Economy (in two parts, Business, agriculture & labour, then Monetary & fiscal policy; Trade & investment policy; & Energy & climate policy) and Political Perceptions of Sustainability. These have panels of speakers including academics, politicians and industry representatives.

Kennedy has blogged about it here on Frogblog.

Edit:

Due to my sloppy energy recovery levels, Kennedy Graham and the Frogblog team have beaten me to a good overall review of the Conference, so I’ll just link to their posts:
Ken’s post is here, and video of Suzuki’s speech is here, credit due to excellent filming by Jackson Wood of the frogblog crew.

It’s been a busy week here in Wellington; in fact, it’s been a busy month, there seems to be something happening on Parliament lawn almost every day that Parliament has been sitting.

Today, it was a cross-party gathering launching the Campaign to Save Radio NZ, with the catchy title of Hands off our dial. The petition can be found here.

Labour MP Grant Robertson started the speeches off, supported by a swathe of his collegues including Charles Chauvel, Marianne Street, Carol Beaumont, Steve Chadwick, Winnie Laban, and former press journo Claire Curran, who also spoke.
Green co-leader Russell Norman followed Grant on the megaphone, and was supported by Sue Kedgely, with Keith Locke, Cath Delahunty and Gareth Hughes. The very crowded ground in front of the Seddon statue was further addressed by Ohariu MP Peter Dunne, completing the treble of opposition parties represented.

As might be expected, the media were out in force – Radio NZ having no fewer than three journalists present, TVNZ supplying one cameraman, several press photographers snapped away, and quite a lot of keen writers had their notebooks out. Even VUW’s own radio, the VBC, were there to support their fellow radio journalists.

Here’s a few piccy’s to prove we get the odd fine day in the grounds of Parliament….