Dave’s Archives

A friend once told me that he opposed a referendum on Australia becoming a republic. If it were held he would vote "yes", but he opposed holding it. I look back fondly to that nuanced political position, which many without thinking would probably dismiss as a contradiction.

Today I'm not a staunch republican - I am not personally bothered by the monarchy, anachronistic as it is. Had I been pondering the monarchist argument in depth, I suppose I might have imagined a studied discourse on the perils of populism. However, flicking through the articles on the website of Australians for a Constitutional Monarchy (ACM), the points made border on incoherent and the tone is very much that of populist politics.

Take the current poll question on the right of each page: "Should republicans be required to agree on precisely what changes to the Constitution they want before Mr Rudd calls another referendum?"

Potential for bias aside, the question is rather fatuous. Republicans are already required to spell out constitutional changes before they're put to a referendum, because under the Constitution (which the ACM claims to vigorously defend) a referendum is binding. The whole referendum process, and by extension the Constitution itself, would be a sham if this were not the case.

As for the articles themselves, it's equally difficult to follow their logic. Take this one, by one Professor David Flint (apparently the author of most of the site's content): "A plebiscite with the next election? Sen.Brown's irresponsible, wasteful bill".

The premise, as best I can tell, is that Senator Bob Brown is committing an unforgivable sin by proposing a plebiscite (a non-binding pseudo-referendum) on the republic issue. Why would he do such a thing? Well, the Australian Republican Movement (ARM) has proposed holding three plebiscites: one to ask whether we should become a republic, one to ask what model we'd prefer, and one to ask what the head of state should be called (I'd go for "Wizard of Oz" personally, but that's just me). Then, once all the details are sorted out, an actual referendum would be called. ACM wants Senator Brown to have all these details with him before the first plebiscite, and by the way it should be a referendum.

"The only reason Senator Brown and the republicans are not proposing a referendum is that they fear they would lose a referendum," the article jeers cynically.

The logic here gets very tenuous indeed. In the end, no matter how many plebiscites are held, there still has to be an actual referendum before anything changes. If the republicans truly do not intend to hold one, then the monarchists win by default, and Professor Flint should be toasting to the Eternal Glory of Royalty by Birthright. But strangely, no. The point of having multiple plebiscites is to consult with the community on different parts of the issue before any irreversible decisions are made. A referendum based on community consultation is a lot more likely to succeed than one based solely on the whims of a politician. In essence, the people would be asked to confirm what they've already indicated support for.

ACM apparently can't understand why the republicans need to be all democratic about the issue, and it's angry (or, at least, Professor Flint is angry). The article points out, beneath a huge picture of Napolean, that there were "six plebiscites to entrench his dictatorial control over France and occupied Europe". We are led to believe by the advocates of the status quo that plebiscites, which can't change anything in Australia, are evil, but referendums are good. Got that? Thank goodness Napolean was removed and France became a republic. Oh wait, what was the point again?

The monarchist's real problem is that there isn't a terribly cohesive and convincing monarchist argument. All they can do is wait for the republicans to come up with a model and then knock it down with whatever convenient rhetorical devices they can find laying around. There's not much they can do to thwart the general concept of Australia becoming a republic. Moreover, if ARM's second plebiscite is held, I doubt there's any single convincing argument that will hold against all five of ARM's alternative republican models (with the possible exception of "How dare you change the Constitution!"). Professor Flint is agitated at the lack of detail in Senator Brown's proposal not because it's an issue per se, but because his opponent hasn't given him any ammunition.

It's worth noting that the first two plebiscites could be rolled into one. A single plebiscite - with one option for the status quo and five more for the various republican models - would be slightly fairer than two separate plebiscites, assuming that preferential voting is used. Like me, you might prefer only some republican models over the status quo, and you cannot convey this sentiment with two separate votes. But maybe that's just too nuanced.

I am reluctantly on Facebook. For the record, I've never really liked Facebook as a concept. Networking is great, but such online social networking ventures seem like a way to pool vast amounts of sensitive personal information in the hands of private entities that aren't really accountable to anyone. Something is bound to go wrong - maybe suddenly or maybe subtly over time - and we'll have precious little recourse to any higher authority. I don't know when it will happen or exactly what it will be, but we're asking for it.

The other privacy concern, of course, is what you put online for other Facebook users to see. The first thing I did upon creating my account was review the privacy settings, and I was a little disturbed by the sheer number of them. I turned off the display of most kinds of information, and yet it's still not entirely obvious who ultimately gets to see what information. Each of the many and varied contexts in which someone else might gain access your details (which you're encouraged to divulge with wanton enthusiasm) must be configured separately, so it seems.

So why am I on Facebook? Well, basically for the photos, and that took some arm-twisting. I have my own webspace to upload photos, my own blog to post whimsical inanities (no reflection on the comments of others), and my own email account to exchange gossip with my co-conspirators.

The first time I tried to send a message in Facebook, I was immediately confronted with the following error:

Something went wrong. We're working on getting this fixed as soon as we can. You may be able to try again.

It's all about the flow of information, you see.

For those interested, I've uploaded my entire photo collection from New Zealand. (Well, obviously not the entire collection - I had to remove those incriminating shots of Wilson Tuckey doing... well, I'm not quite sure what it is he was doing, but he was certainly hard at work.)

Unfortunately, I have limited web space, which means that (a) I've had to reduce the resolution to 1024 x 768 (or 768 x 1024), and (b) they may removed at some unspecified time in the future when I need to upload something else. But for now, I invite you to peruse my adventures in pictures. If for some reason you'd really like to acquire a higher quality version of some particular photo(s), let me know.

The drive to Christchurch was long, and took us through the middle of the South Island, away from the mountains of the west to the summery east. The wind whipped up an enormous swell on the light, milky-blue waters of Lake Pukaki. The colour comes from the tiny particles of rock (rock flour) suspended in the water. We ate something resembling a picnic lunch at Lake Tekapo (the bakery there sells excellent pies), a little way to the east.

I can't report anything much from my visit to Christchurch, because I only spent one night there. I wandered the streets around Cathedral Square the night I arrived, and also the next morning, but I didn't really see anything. I parted company with my new friends from the Kiwi bus, the night before at Queenstown, then en route to Christchurch, and finally as I left the hostel for the airport.

My final act in New Zealand was to spill a large cup of soft drink all over the floor and around the cash register at a dodgy fast food outlet inside the airport. I immediately regretted even thinking about eating there, and I enjoyed the pre-packaged in-flight meals considerably more.

Kiwi Experience runs day trips to Milford Sound from Queenstown: five hours on the bus each way, in the middle of which you get a two hour cruise up and down the fjord. One of my friends and I decided this itinerary was a little abrupt given how beautiful Milford Sound was reputed to be. We elected to stay the night somewhere in the area rather that heading straight back to Queenstown.

Organising this meant going outside the normal Kiwi Experience planning, but one of Kiwi's selling points is that you can jump on and off the bus along the way. Owing to a lack of accommodation in Milford itself (the result, I assume, of being in a national park), we sought to stay in Te Anau. Te Anau is about two hours away from Milford, which is hardly ideal but still a lot closer than Queenstown. We would travel with our companions from Queenstown, do the cruise around Milford and get off the Kiwi bus at Te Anau in the evening, and get back on the following day at the same time. After a night in Te Anau, we would enlist the services of Rosco's Milford Kayaks to get a more close-up view of things. Fortunately, Rosco's runs its own bus service to and from Te Anau, but I was worried throughout most of the trip that we would miss our Kiwi connection on the way back. We left most of our luggage in Queenstown, me with premonitions of having to chase the Kiwi bus frantically down the road, in which case a suitcase could be a fatal burden.

So that was the plan.

The initial trip to Milford was easy enough, planned as it was by people who know what they're doing. The driver (a different one) obviously knew the route like the back of his hand, and we flew down twisty hill-side roads at speeds that you're just not supposed to do. After passing through Te Anau for a breakfast stop (they make a nice chocolate croissant in the "Pop Inn Cafe") we began to make stops to admire the scenery. These get progressively more awe inspiring as you get closer to the fjord, and you begin to realise that the Milford well deserves its reputation.

The cruise begins with a buffet lunch, which is very nice (particularly for low-budget travellers such as ourselves). I felt torn between eating as much as I could and going outside to look at the scenery that was, after all, the reason we'd come here. The latter instinct won out once I was sufficiently stuffed with spring rolls and samosas. The low cloud cover and light rain creates a mystical effect inside the fjord, which rises on both sides to seemingly impossible heights, well above the lower cloud levels. Dozens of waterfalls of varying sizes cascade down cliff faces that look almost imaginary. Every time you look up and try to locate the top of a hillside covered in vertical rainforest emerging straight out of the water, you see another, even more massive shape behind and looming over it in the clouds. The entrance to the fjord gives you a taste of this, but the view from the decks of the cruise ship was simply unreal, and unfortunately photos don't do it justice. Most of the group ended up quite wet, from the rain and spray from some of the enormous waterfalls as we went for a close-up look.

The ship eventually emerged into the Tasman sea, where the calm of the fjord disappears. On the way back, we were dropped off for a few minutes at the Milford Deep Underwater Observatory, where you can see sea creatures only eight metres down that are normally only seen below 40 metres. This is made possible by the blanket of dark freshwater on the surface of the fjord that blocks much of the sunlight from entering the salty water beneath.

Our accommodation in Milford was the Lakefront Backpackers Hostel, which was possibly the best of all the hostels I've stayed at, and made me regret not being able to stay longer in Te Anau. Our dorm "room" had a kitchen, bathroom, dining table, arm chairs and a balcony large enough to host a barbecue. We met up with an Israeli guy from who we learnt a little of the news of the outside world - specifically that Israel was now in a pitched battle with Hamas. We also engaged in a short discussion of theology.

My friend from the Kiwi bus and I were to wake up at 5:15 the next morning, in time to be picked up by Rosco's minions. We woke up alright, but my friend, who'd been feeling a little sick the previous day, decided that she couldn't do it, so it was just me. Rosco's bus came right on time and took me and three Texans down to the waterfront at Milford, where we geared up in all manner of colourful clothing, and were instructed in the art of kayaking. This time I announced that my primary goal was to not capsize.

As in Mercury Bay, I once again was in the back steering. The going was fairly relaxed, though my left leg kept complaining about being in an awkward position. Unlike in Mercury Bay, the only stops we made were on the water, where we "rafted up" by collectively holding all the kayaks together as a raft. To be honest, the Milford Sound experience had actually been a lot more compelling on the cruise ship the previous day, perhaps because that had been my first exposure to it. The scale of the place, I think, is much more impressive when you're moving through it at an appreciable speed. Nevertheless, looking up at the hillsides from the kayak is still unreal. Imagine a perfectly ordinary piece of rainforest, and then imagine that someone has tipped it up at 80 degrees. Once again this effect is very difficult to capture in photos. Every now and then we spotted a seal, but unfortunately it was the wrong time of the year for penguins.

The timing worked out fine in the end. I arrived back in Te Anau with 90 minutes to kill, but in my paranoia I spent much of this within sight of where the bus makes its scheduled stop, eating another chocolatey Fiordland delicacy.

Queenstown is a moderately-sized town that (as mentioned in the Lonely Planet guide) feels like a small city. There are far more people walking around the streets at night than you would expect, most of whom I imagine are tourists.

We were hammered with information about all the activities you can do in Queenstown, including bungee jumping, canyon swinging, sky diving, river boarding, jet boating, etc. ad infinitum, and this is essentially what the town is all about. Its main street is lined with companies that will arrange anything that involves almost colliding with something at high velocity. That's not the reason I came to New Zealand, however, and for me Queenstown was more of an opportunity to relax than to get the adrenaline pumping. Indeed, Queenstown is a very nice town to relax in if you resolve not to almost collide with things at high velocity.

We were told that we should face our fear, by jumping off a bridge at the original commercial bungee site. I accept that I have a fear, and that given the safety precautions taken it's technically an irrational fear. But there's just something missing from the argument. Why must we face our fear? Sure, if you're into that sort of thing then go for it. But this particular fear (of jumping off things) isn't something that presents a barrier to leading a healthy and fulfilling life. The only door that opens for you is the one where you fork over large sums of money to do it again.

Queenstown does have an underwater observatory, for which you pay $5 to see the really ugly fish that inhabit Lake Wakatipu a few metres below the surface. This is probably the cheapest thing you can do in Queenstown (bar simply walking around), but I'm not convinced it was worth the money.

On the walking side of things, the climb up to the inspiringly-named Bob's Peak gives you some great views. There's also a gondola that will take you to the top in far less time, but that's cheating. The path up the hill is marked with signs pointing to several downhill mountain bike tracks, which are practically vertical in places and will probably take you a little further than almost colliding with things at high velocity. At the top there's a cafe, a restaurant, a shop or two (I wasn't really paying attention), a bungee jumping platform and a pair of luge tracks.

The Base hostel in Queenstown does have an irritating policy of locking both the kitchen and laundry at 10pm (in practice, earlier), and any food or clothes you may happen to have in there at the time will be inaccessible until the morning. Thus, on my last night in Queenstown, unable to cook my own food, I popped over the road for a Fergburger. Everyone (almost) raves about Fergburger, and I can report that it was quite nice, but then I'm not a connoisseur.

The trip to Wanaka on New Year's Day was fairly uneventful. We stopped off at Lake Matheson for a bit of photography, but we weren't given enough time to do the full walk, which (as I learnt later) would have shown us a fairly amazing view. We also stopped over at Thunder Creek Falls.

Our driver informed us, on the way into the township of Wanaka, that we could feed the dolphins if we waded out into the lake. Remembering the Christmas lunch in Wellington, I was rather sceptical of this suggestion. We went down to the lake anyway to check out the scenery, but it was freezing. The hills and mountains around Wanaka are picturesque, but there's a large ridge rising just to the west of the town, which must cut short the daylight throughout the year.

Entertainment for the evening for some of us consisted of watching a German dubbing of Drop Dead Fred, but only briefly before we were all fed up.

The following morning, on our way out of Wanaka to Queenstown, we stopped off at Puzzling World, which includes a museum of optical illusions and the Great Maze. We ran around the maze in the light rain like headless chickens. I did eventually manage to find all the corners of the maze, followed by the finish, which was the "standard challenge".

Fabio made us all scrambled eggs and bacon on toast for breakfast before we left Lake Mahinapua, even though he was apparently still drunk from the night before. And then we were off to the tiny town at the base of Franz Josef Glacier.

We stopped for an hour or so at the Bushman's Centre on the way, to learn of the valiance of those who used to jump from helicopters to tackle deer (I'm not making that up), which were then bred and farmed. Deer were among a number of species introduced to New Zealand that have wreaked havoc. They were culled and sold for their meat, but when both the culling and the venison business proved successful, they had to be farmed instead. You can also get a possum pie at the Bushman's Centre, but I can't comment on how it tastes.

I expected the Franz Josef glacier hike to be the South Island equivalent of the Tongariro Crossing, at least as far as my particular trip was concerned. Walking over a glacier requires more expertise and specialised equipment, though.

Some of the group balked at doing the full-day hike, and chose instead to do the "heli-hike". This apparently involved being helicoptered to a point high up on the glacier and walking around there for a couple of hours, as opposed to walking to and climbing up the terminus. Unfortunately for them (as I discovered later), the heli-hike was cancelled due to bad weather, and those people were taken on a normal half-day hike instead.

Unfortunately for the rest of us, the bad weather at the top of the glacier was still bad at the bottom of the glacier. Nonetheless, we set forth from the carpark in multiple layers of clothing, as advised. These included boots, jackets and overtrousers supplied by the tour company. The first part of the walk took us through the rainforest near the base of the glacier, and before long I had to take off two of my three layers.

Our guide showed us how to fix our crampons onto our boots, and then we were clambering over the dirty front-end of the glacier. The dirt and rocks piled up on part of the ice were apparently the result of a "jökulhlaup", where (as far as I understood the guide's explanation) an eruption of water from beneath the glacier brought the rocks to the surface. We past this debris after a few minutes, but the glacial ice had particles of dirt throughout it anyway.

I replaced one of my layers - the jacket - when the weather started to close in, and close in it did. The jacket kept out the cold, but we all eventually realised it wasn't exactly waterproof. After a short time on the glacier, we were all soaked. In parts of the walk we were actually inside the cloud. In other parts we were being rained on, but there were stretches that offered us spectacular views. The cloud blew around and off the surface of the ice. The ice itself was covered in rivulets - some combinations of rainwater and melt water - which converged and eventually disappeared into holes that (as I understood it) led right down through the ice to the river underneath.

We stopped for quick meal breaks three times on our way up the glacier. Unfortunately, each time it was pouring with rain.

Crampons make walking on ice fairly straightforward, but there's still a risk of twisting your ankle, which I almost did on a couple of occasions. Our guides hacked away at the ice with picks to try to prevent this, and to construct stairways to get us around and over large obstacles.

As the guides promised, coming down was easier than going up, and for a time the weather seemed more favourable. As we approached the terminus, though, the weather really closed in, and we battled through heavy showers and paths turned to rivers all the way back to the car park. All the things in our bags were as soaked as we were. We celebrated the New Year back at the hostel in the Monsoon bar, whose slogan (doubtless appreciated by many) is "It rains, we pour".

Along the West Coast we were dropped off at Cape Foul Wind and the Pancake Rocks to have a walk and a look around. The former has a nice (short) walking track, but it wasn't all that spectacular. There were a few seals visible on the rocks, but my camera and/or photography skill were insufficient. The latter reminded me a little of the Twelve Apostles rock formation that lies along the Victorian coast, but more interesting and photogenic, and predictably the path was crammed with other tourists.

We were warned on the way to the Lake Mahinapua "Poo Pub" (where we would spend the night) that we would be expected to participate in the nightly fancy dress party thrown by the owner - 84-year-old Les. The theme was anything starting with a P, and our driver took great delight in the alliteration involved the P-Party Piss-up at the Poo Pub, or some permutation thereof.

Living out of a suitcase and/or backpack isn't conducive to the construction of a fancy dress costume, but everyone managed to pull off something or other. We had quite a few pirates, two presents, a pool party, a pimp and a prostitute, the pink panther, a couple of plastic bags, a pop star, a princess, two pregnant princesses and probably some others that have slipped my mind. Determined not to be sucked into the trap of buying things I wouldn't need once the party was over, I spent a grand total of $1.50 on sticky tape and improvised myself a penguin outfit. I made a beak from a small part of a disused plastic water bottle, a yellow plastic bag and the elastic straps from the luggage tags from our trip over the Cook Strait. I turned my rain jacket inside out (it's black on the inside) and taped a white T-shirt to the front, fashioned into an oval. I rounded this off with a beanie, gloves, dark trousers and more yellow plastic bags taped over my shoes.

This came off fairly well, so I was told, but after about 45 minutes I was feeling the heat from my waterproof clothing, and my stomach (the white T-shirt taped to my front) had dislodged from the sticky tape. I took a breather for an hour or so, and then put everything back together and came back for the last of the group photos. The next morning on the bus I learnt that I'd won the best costume prize, which turned out to be a canyon swing voucher that I immediately resolved not to use, much to the dismay of everyone else.

Earlier in the night we'd been treated to an enormous dinner by Les, with the help of our driver. This involved a large steak, potatoes and a buffet of pasta, curry and salad. Had it been a restaurant, our $10 meal might have cost us $40 or more, though of course I couldn't finish it.

A somewhat agitated and embarrassed part of my brain is now telling me: "Voting! That means you, Dave, you prat."

On May 16 we will have the right obligation to vote for or against daylight savings in Western Australia. I see both side of the argument, but on balance I'm happy with it. It does remain slightly hotter later in the day, and of course it's darker in the early morning. However, I'm not up that early, and I'll cope with an extra degree C if it means I don't cycle home in the dark, and that we're not left three hours behind the rest of the country. Doubtless others will disagree, and an overall "yes" result is hardly in the bag.

The trial process has been a little cynical in its implementation. This will be the fourth referendum on the same issue, and one gets the distinct impression that the pro-daylight savings forces are grudgingly putting a democratic spin on what some may believe to the inevitable march of progress.

For my own part, I'll be happy if I make it to the polling booth, unlike the state election last year on September 6. I can tell you that date because it's written on a letter I received from the WAEC entitled "Apparent Failure to Vote Notice". I'm not in the least bit proud of this, especially since I was and still am a supporter of compulsory voting. However, it allows me to confirm that a penalty of $20 does indeed apply for not voting (not $50 or $120, as I've heard other people mention), unless you have a "valid and sufficient reason". I figured that "I forgot because my brain was full of software engineering research" was probably not on the list of acceptable excuses, and paid my debt to democracy via B-Pay. (I'd been finishing off a paper for submission to the 2009 International Conference on Software Engineering that day, which was unfortunately later rejected as most submissions to the ICSE are.)

I've set my phone's alarm to spring into action this time around, in case my brain doesn't.