Seddon and the Beehive

Back blipped as we had a late night watching the rugby final - sadly not England's day but South Africa were extremely effective and played the game they wanted to play without letting England get a grip on things.

We spent the day in Wellington and saw the city in very atypical sunshine and without much of a breeze, sun hats and sunblock were very much the order of the day. We have a couple of hundred images to process, mostly of the Botanical Gardens which we really enjoyed, and a walk down into the city, through the delightful Bolton Street Cemetery to see the parliament building. The tours were all booked up so we made do with a look around the outside.  The New Zealand government system is not like ours - more like Germany?  They have two votes, one for the party a voter wants to form the government and one for their local representative.  There is then a form of proportional representation, and no upper house, so bills are debated in the one chamber with three readings. At the second reading, voters have an opportunity to comment. I don't suppose it is perfect, but it does sound far better than our current omnishambles.