S.S.S Poll Tax.

During the gold rush of the 19th century in New Zealand, The government thought that too much people were coming into New Zealand, and even though there were people coming from all over the world, they seemed to target Chinese families, they bought in “The Chinese Immigrants Act of 1881” which introduced a “poll tax” of £10, which back then was worth nearly around about $1,700, equal to about 10 years of their hard work. And they even lowered the Chinese people being able to enter even more by restricting the number of people coming each boat ride, about 1 person to every 10 tons of cargo. You would think that that was the worst they would see. It wasn’t. In 1896, this was changed to 1 person to 200 tons, and the tax was increased to £100 (nearly $19,000). They finally ended it in the 1930’s and Helen Clark apologized for it in the 12th February 2001.

Social Study Slam. Teachers Strike.

It started at Ali’s cafe, town square, to Damien O’Conner’s office, and all the way back into town. The aim was for a few different reasons. Part of it was for a pay rise for teachers, as they deserve it and more experienced teachers to a less amount of kids. In some schools and classes, there are 60 kids to only 2 teachers. I think that they deserve much more than they have. We are lucky at our school, because the biggest classroom in our school only has about 25-26 students, though now that our classroom teachers are leaving, we couldn’t find a suitable replacement. In my opinion, teachers deserve everything that they striked for.

The Vietnam war.

The war went from 1955-1975. During the Vietnam war, only about ⅓ of soldiers in America were hand picked to fight, and about ⅔ volunteered. The average age of soldiers were only 21. Over 3,000 New Zealanders military and civilian people served in Vietnam between 1963 and 1975. About 3 million people died in this war. the Vietnam War started because of the U.S.’s way of “containment” during the Cold War, which aimed to stop the spread of communism throughout the world. This was the first war that New Zealand did not fight with its traditional ally, England. In the end, it turned out that it was nearly completely useless and no one really won. You can thank the former President John F. Kennedy for that. President Kennedy approves sending 400 Special Forces troops and 100 other U.S. military advisers to South Vietnam. This war was also known as the second Indochina war. The US never really declared war against Vietnam, it should really be called the Vietnam conflict instead of the Vietnam war. During world war 2, there were reportedly 40 days of combat in 4 years, though in the Vietnam war, there were 240 days of combat in one year on average.

Nuclear Free New Zealand

Nuclear Free New Zealand

You all know that New Zealand's nuclear free, right? But do you know how it happened? In the 1984-1989, David Russell Lange was the Prime Minister and, to put it simply, he HATED nuclear power.

So what he did was, first get his word out to the public and there was a huge debate on it. Many people have said that the debate was like the “David and Goliath story. New Zealand I David and the USA is Goliath. Everyone was surprised when we won and we became nuclear free.You might be thinking that, without nuclear power, we can’t defend ourselves if there is a WWIII, but we can. Even though the USA did not at all agree with us going nuclear free, they are still our allies and they will protect us if we will be attacked. I am really glad that New Zealand has no nuclear power. We don’t like it that much, that if a USA ship comes near us, even if it has only a little bit of nuclear power, we have to send them straight back.

I hope you believe me that it is good that we are nuclear free.

The Haast-Hollyford road

The Haast-Hollyford road

Before I start writing, I would like to say that I do not agree with the supporters of the road and I am taking the perspective of another person with another view. I would also like to say that I only got a really short time to do this.

Everyone loves the view of the Fiordland park, right? Well now lots of people want a road to go through it. There are good things about this like-

• We will be able to get to it easier.
• More tourists will come to see it and we will get much more money.
• Everybody will be able to see the most beautiful place in New Zealand.

Of course, there will be some bad things like it like-

• It’s more accessible so more people can go and throw rubbish in it.
• It could ruin the view.

Sure, it might be bad in a few ways, but if you don’t think that you will want or need it now, in the future, you might find yourself on it. It is a possibility. It is estimated that 98 km of new road will be constructed through wilderness and the Fiordland National Park.

I hope that you will take my point of view as the road could be very useful to you in the future.

The Rainbow Warrior Bombing

The Rainbow Warrior Bombing

Before I start writing, I would like to say that if I was alive when it happened, I would not have been supporting the French Government but for this task, my name was called out to support them.

At just before midnight, July 1985, at the Mururoa Island, the French decided that they wanted to test a nuclear bomb just in case the WWIII (nuclear war) came and they wanted to be prepared. They thought that just because they owned the Mururoa Island, they could set up a nuclear bomb, but there were some people that stood in their way. The Rainbow Warrior from New Zealand didn’t like that idea so whenever they wanted to test it, they ship would sail over to disrupt them. Why would they do that? It was not their place to stand in the way.

In my opinion (as a French agent), the Rainbow Warrior should not have done that as it led to the bombing of the ship and the death of a Portuguese crew member. It was soon discovered that two French Secret Services agents were the two people that bombed them. Dominique Prieur and Alain Mafart were arrested on 24 July. Both were charged with murder and pleaded guilty to manslaughter and were sentenced to 10 years in prison which led to the embarrassment of the French Government. It was not their fault that they killed the man but they did mean to bomb them so they would have no choice but to leave.

One of the reasons that the Rainbow Warrior was so mad about the bombing of Mururoa Island, was because New Zealand owns an Island near the soon-to-be-blown-up Island. The radiation from the explosion lead to many people getting sick from eating the contaminated fish.

Just remember, was it really the French fault for all the people getting sick?