Eamon Sloan

  Luxon Waitangi Day + Hosking Interview A lot has been made of the Hosking and Luxon interview. Headlined as a “Train Wreck”. True it was something of a revealing spectacle. I don’t know how many long form interviews he has given in recent times. Maybe not many as his weaknesses should have been revealed before today. Three weeks ago he gave a speech to the Ngai Tahu gathering on Waitangi Day. I tracked down a copy of the speech and was appalled at the grovelling salesman type language used. It turned out to be collection of overblown clichés and slogans. Obviously the speech writer knew inside out the type of language preferred by Luxon. This prompted me to write to Luxon, to get a point across that he needs to come down to earth. Maybe he needs a new speech writer. I listed the clichés for him. Here is what I sent in the email. Copied to Winston Peters, David Seymour and Shane Jones. No responses yet, apart from the standard Thank you for contacting etc…blah blah blah. ...

  Petone, New Update + Place Names The name Petone remains, as it should, and is probably safe from hereon in. The Minister of Land Information made the decision after having the issue referred to his office by the Geographic Board. At a guess the Board may have thought changing the name of a well-known area was beyond its remit and if there was to be any flak then the Minister would be the backstop to absorb it. So far there has not been any flak to remark on. A batch of naming decisions has been detailed in the Geographic Board’s latest press release. No detail on which are decisions of the Geographic Board or which are the Minister’s decisions. Many of the decisions should never have become issues in the first place. Along with Petone the name, Takanini also remains unchanged. The original proposal was to rename the area as Takaanini. The name was given for a nineteenth century Maori chief. A difference of one vowel “a” was to be inserted for the name correction. To what p...