Forgetting their valuable property holdings, I wonder what value a professional insurance/superannuation would actuary would estimate for the public-funded future super, travel and other benefits of Lee Rhiannon for example?

What is it, not one but two whopping golden handshakes, State and federal, courtesy of both NSW and Australian taxpayers?

It must be mega millions. All gold-plated and guaranteed too.

However the burning issue, Shoebridge too, is the hypocrisy in taking so handsomely from the system she despises.

So Paul1405, are you a prospect in your own mind for a leg in on the game? Fat chance, the Greens elite have it all tied up.

The Greens, with their visceral hatred of democracy, are staring down the barrel of the cannon that blew the Australian Democrats' feet off - concentration of power away from the lay membership into the hands of pollies and appointed organisational officials.

E.g. the people of WA had voted in four successive referenda to reject the imposition of daylight saving, yet in the Legislative Council the Greens did not once proclaim that this was a direct democratic instruction that had to be followed but simply argued the pros and cons of daylight saving. A parallel is the uproar over Brexit with the spivs and insiders and papers like the Guardian continuing to demand that the direct popular vote to junk the EU be sidestepped with delays and amendments so that the Brussels mandarins remain in charge of Britain.

Bring on democracy - Binding Citizen-Initiated Referenda (BCIR) on all major or controversial decisions governing the lives of the people as a whole.

In the case of daylight saving the Liberal State Government (even the Libs FFS) finally took heed of public referendum decisions and abandoned daylight saving.

BTW there was another referendum result at the same time rejecting extensions of retail trading hours but that unexpected result came too close to the commercial interests of the Libs' sponsors so they overrode it.

Yes Joe, American whalers were very active in the South Pacific in the 1840's. The US had an official representative based at Okiato at that time. You are right about the French, the British were extremely suspicious of French activity. Like the Americans the French also had a large whaling fleet stationed in Aotearoa, both nations were not considered particularly friendly to the British. When a Frenchman Jean-Francis Langlois purchased i think 10,000 acres of Maori land in anticipation of establishing a French settlement at Akaroa in the South Island, the British become very alarmed. They beleived a possible French annexation of the whole South Island was at hand, Two months after the treaty was signed at Waitangi the British had the same treaty signed by many of the South Island chiefs, May 30th 1840, to counter the French, who's land was resold. One of the conditions of the treaty was all Maori land sales would only be to the British Crown. The French settlers ended up at Akaroa, but on British controlled land. One thing to put this into context the European population in New Zealand in 1840 was only about 2,000, Maori were 20 times that number. In 20 years the Europeans outnumbered the Maori.

My partner learned as a child weaving flax with her great grandmother that there is an American sailor, name unknown, in her ancestry, she also has a Chinese ancestor, the only two direct non Maori in her genealogy which includes a few paramount chiefs. No such royalty in my line.

LeoW, did you say something?

Hi Paul,

Thanks for all that history: fascinating. I should have known about the Yanks, because there were many down this way on Kangaroo Island long before official settlement in 1836, perhaps as far back as 1803. They even built a sea-going ship at, of course, American River.

There may have been some whaling stations on the mainland too, before 1836, along the south coast. Aboriginal women were taken to KI from the adjacent mainland, and from Port Lincoln, south-western WA, and from Tasmania, maybe even from New Zealand (I've read about a couple of Aboriginal women who were taken across to whaling stations in NZ, in the far south-west.) Two of my wife's gr-gr-grandparents were born on KI, both of their mothers were from the mainland nearby, from Kaurna and Ngarrindjeri country. History can be so interesting, truly amazing, can't it ?

Cheers,

Joe

Hi Joe, history id truly fascinating. A story my partner "T" learned from a local Aboriginal chap, was of a large raft that washed up around present day Coogee long before the time of Captain Cook. On this raft or "mokihi", as I've just been told, were very large men, some women and children, most in poor condition, some died. They did not speak a language that resembled any local dialect, their dress and appearance was also rather strange. In time they assimilated into the local tribe and proved to be good hunters and fishermen. Were they Polynesians or Maori, possibly, who knows.