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Today is a day for New Zealanders to reflect on the society we have, and what we want it to be like. On 06 February 1840 the first signatures were made on Te Tiriti o Waitangi (The Treaty of Waitangi). Representatives of the British Crown met leaders of Maori, and agreed to a partnership. The treaty was drawn up, and Captain Hobson and some of the Maori leaders signed it that day. It established a partnership which was more honoured in the breach for the first nearly 150 years; by the Crown and its representatives in New Zealand. Resolution is under way, but Maori still experience greater obstacles to achieving realisation of Nussbaum's ten basic capabilities than do others in this country. It is heartening that in recent years we can talk about these issues bluntly and openly, although bureaucrats still wish to hide behind obfuscation.

This morning on the Marae at Waitangi Prime Minister Jacinda Adern spoke eloquently and with her heart, and that is so obviously the way this has to be. I have on a few occasions been one of the speakers for the manuhiri (visitors to a marae). I have no Te Reo (Maori language) for speaking and and I had to speak in English (when Tsuken was small, he called our language New Zealandish, and could not comprehend why it was called English). I spoke without notes, and with due regard to the context, and to what had been said before. I was accepted for how I spoke as much as for what I said. Our Prime Minister achieved that this morning; in spades.

This afternoon (after three hours of sorting the planters on the deck following all the storms) I went along Ponsonby Road. Looking down an alley, I saw Component's stencil of a child with a teddy bear and a smart phone. The unpainted wood of the door has been tagged, although the taggers have avoided the image. 

Taggers leave their mark in paint on surfaces that do not belong to them; does anything belong to them? Perhaps they achieve some degree of visibility through leaving their sign. At the least, other taggers note their passing; who else does? A little Lord Fauntelroy has no need to tag to be visible, to be recognised, to have status. His smart phone will allow him to do that in the virtual world also.

To the side of the door, is a sign placed on the bricks by the owner (or lessor) of this space down an alley off Ponsonby Road. Essentially telling every other New Zealander that no matter what reason they may want to put their car there, when no one else is using it (as on a day like today), they cannot. If they do, their car will be towed away by someone other than the person who placed the sign, and that someone will charge that car owner, illegal parker, as much as $200 to get her or his car back. No wonder that the wall has been tagged.