Four more sleeps!

For those of you people like me, living overseas, you probably should’ve voted by now. If you haven’t, get on to it quick smart!! I dare say it’s too late to post your vote and faxing is pretty damn expensive I hear. So you might want to check and find your closest voting place. All you aussie-based kiwis can get the voting locations here or check the elections website for the full list. I went and voted in Melbourne last week and I was in and out in less than 3 minutes.

And when all that fun stuff is out of the way, you can come party with us on Saturday at Horse Bazaar, featuring The Nomad! And the best news is that we’ve scrapped the door charge. So yes the rumours are true, this gig will be FREE.

Still not sure who to vote for?

Vote Global Vote Green

One of the things that bugs me about not having very much time is that I don’t get to write very much about environmental issues. So I made a video instead!

We’re trying our best to contact each one of the 450,000 New Zealanders living in Australia (and other parts of the world) to let them know about the upcoming election. You can help by sending this video to any expats you know. Make sure you remind them to sort out their enrolment ASAP www.elections.org.nz

A big thanks to Cam for editing this video up for me, and a big chur to frey for the lovely soundtrack!

Flax Roots

The Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand are launching their Australian campaign for the upcoming general election in Melbourne on Tuesday. You should totally come. There’s gonna be dub, yummy food and crafty door prizes. Need I say more?

Nice poster eh? It was made by our cool friends at the Groundswell Collective.

A Fishy Tail

Frog blog has this cool creative competition up to win a copy of “The Last Fish Tale – the fate of the Atlantic and our disappearing fisheries” by Mark Kurlansky.

I thought, ‘yeah I can draw a fish!’ but it turns out I’m quite crap at drawing. I am pretty good at designing cross stitch patterns though so I decided to do one of them instead. So my pattern looks like this:

And I decided that I’d use this pattern to raise funds. So I’m voiding myself from the competition but hopefully you’ll enter instead! (and lend it to me if you win ;) )

I have the epattern up for sale in my Etsy store. It comes with all the colour codes to make this Rooster Fish come to life, and full instructions on how to cross stitch. But I’ll also give a free copy of this pattern and one other from my store to anyone who joins the Green Party and sends me a verification of this (which I will double check so don’t try fakin it).

Authorised by Michael Pringle, 2A Zanda Terrance, Wellington.

Green Jeans

No not those tragic coloured jeans we got to experience in the early 90s. I had a purple pair! Lord please don’t let these come back into fashion..

No I mean putting jeans to a green use. Another Limited Rebellion has a story about how an organisation called Access Cotton is collecting those old jeans that simply can’t be fixed any more and turning them into insulation for homes in needy communities.

In 2006 they collected over 14 thousand pairs of jeans which is enough to insulate about 28 homes. They have been working with Habitat for Humanity and have been focussing on the rebuilding project in New Orleans post Hurricane Katrina.

This is such a fantastic idea. Not only is it a brilliant use of a waste product. Especially since fabric is one of the least recycled materials in our society and also one of the most energy intensive to produce. But also because insulation is such a sound investment.

While I’m on the topic of insulation. A huge well done to the Greens and Labour in NZ for the announcement of the new state housing retrofitting scheme.

A whopping $53.4 million will be spent over the next 5 years renovating the public housing stock to make the houses drier, warmer and more energy efficient. As well as insulating 21,000 homes they will also spend money on draft-proofing windows and doors, wraps for hot water cylinders, efficient shower heads, lagging of pipes and, if appropriate, new energy efficient home heating.

This is absolutely brilliant news for public housing tenants. Not only will it improve their health and well being but it will also make a hugely positive effect on their utility bills. The Greens have estimated that the country will recover this investment four-fold over the next twenty years in energy and health savings.

Chur.

Green it.

So I hope you’ve all seen the new look Greens website. I think it looks really good and it will be fantastic for election year for people coming to the site for the first time. It’s really easy to find what you’re looking for. Well done to the team that sorted that out!

We’ve also been chugging away with some Facebook stuff and we now have a page up for people to become supporters of the Greens. It’s a great way to be kept up to date with major campaign news. Although it’s best to also sign up through the main site so you can get info about events specific to your area.

Because of course in Aotearoa this year there will be an election! Not sure when yet, some time in November probably. So make sure you’re enrolled to vote. Especially those of us living in other lands. If you are a kiwi overseas you can vote in the election provided you have been home in the last 3 years (and meet all the other normal criteria). Check your details and update your enrolment here!

Finally check the new vid the team have made. It’s worth sending on!

More on Poo

This one isn’t quite so fun…

As someone from Aotearoa living in Australia, I get really fired up when I see people back home with such blatant disregard for the future of our environment. Especially in the farming community who KNOW how hard it is for the farming community over here when it comes to water shortages.

I agree that it’s time for Fonterra to get serious about this issue. They obviously understand the importance of a clean environment for the future of their business. It’s about time they started giving the farmers some serious incentives to sort their shit out, so to speak.