Committee: Colleen Hughes, James Ayers, Jeremy Agar, John Ring, Murray Horton (Secretary/Organiser), Paul Piesse and Terry Moon. We had one resignation in 2018 - Brian Turner did not stand again at the Annual General Meeting. Brian had been on the Committee since 2012. This is what I wrote in my Report for that year: "... for the first time in maybe 20 years, a new Committee member was nominated and elected from the floor" (of the AGM).

"We've known and worked with Brian for decades. He's been a member since the 90s'; he was a Roger Award judge in 2006, 07 and 08, which included the period when he was national President of the Methodist Church. He had a long history with Trade Aid and was its national manager in the 90s. He has been a Methodist minister virtually all his adult life and (was then) on the Board of Christian World Service. Having him join the Committee is like old times for me, because from 1996-98 inclusive Brian and I worked together on the Committee of the Philippines Solidarity Network of Aotearoa (PSNA)".

"That ended when he left Christchurch to take up a church posting in Nelson where he became a key figure in the local progressive movement. When I accompanied the late Crispin Beltran, a very high-profile Filipino trade union leader, to Nelson in the course of his 1999 national speaking tour (organised by PSNA), we stayed with Brian and his wife Jody. When I visited Nelson in the course of my 2002 CAFCA national speaking tour, Brian invited me to speak to his congregation from the pulpit of his central city church (the first and only time I've done that on behalf of CAFCA. There is no truth in the rumour that the church had to be reconsecrated)".

"After several years Brian and Jody returned to Christchurch, and he plunged back into the thick of things here. We're delighted to have him on the Committee; he is a definite asset to it". Throughout his six years on the Committee, Brian remained a definite asset to it, and we were sorry to see him go. But he remains an active CAFCA member, he and I still work together on the Committee of Keep Our Assets Canterbury (KOA) and he is still very much the activist, being the Convenor of West Papua Action Canterbury, for example. The reason he resigned from the Committee was because he is too busy with other commitments.

So, the Committee is now down to seven members, having had ten not so long ago. But that is not as alarming as it might sound - the three who have left in recent years (Bill Rosenberg, Lynda Boyd and Warren Brewer) were all "distance" members i.e. they had not been attending meetings for years. In the case of Bill, he has not lived in Christchurch since last decade (he missed the whole earthquakes shemozzle, although he has experienced a few decent Wellington quakes in his decade in that city). Each of the seven current members are present and correct at nearly all Committee meetings, and all are active members.

Membership: It is at 350+, which is down from where it was when I wrote my previous annual Report, when it was at 370+ (and this is being written before the annual purge of non-payers). It has definitely dropped over the last few years (460 is the highest it has reached in recent years; it is quite a few years since it threatened 500; 550+ was our absolute zenith, many years ago). As I've said for years now in these Reports, the overall membership trend is stable to declining.

Every year we remove non-payers but only after they have ignored two of the dreaded red slips and final, e-mailed, reminders. And every year we pick up new members, or former members rejoin, so that we make up some, but not all, of the number lost. For example, in 2018, two former members who live overseas rejoined. Overseas postage rates are more than we charge for an overseas membership of CAFCA but in both cases those people included a generous donation, so we came out on the right side of the ledger.

We lose members for a variety of reasons - death, old age, retirement, financial reasons, or simply deciding not to renew. That reflects the aging demographic of our membership. There are other reasons - in 2018, one member resigned in protest at Watchdog's articles critical of Donald Trump (the same person resigned from the Anti-Bases Campaign for the same reason)! And, in 2019, another member has resigned in protest at Watchdog articles critical of Jacinda.

On the other hand, one member paid new subs for four of his friends. And several members have responded to our request for donations to pay the subs of members who can no longer afford it. Members are very generous - falling membership does not equal falling finances. Quite the opposite (see below).

In my previous Report I mentioned that our most loyal retail outlet for Watchdog was a hipster barber shop a few minutes' walk from my home. It was staffed by the sort of young guys who definitely don't fit the mental image of "CAFCA supporter". The owner, who is decades younger than me, was always happy to have a chat about the national and global political scene. Sadly, in 2018, that shop closed and currently sits empty. But we did very well out of it in the few years it was in business. And it was living proof that CAFCA's appeal is not confined to those on the downhill slope of life's mountain.

Finances: between them, our operating cheque account and three term deposits hold $73,000, in round figures, which is considerably more than at the time of my previous annual Report. This is a very good result, considering that we're not a business seeking to make a profit. Basically, CAFCA is financially independent. We continue to be in a very healthy financial situation and don't have to devote any energy or time to fundraising beyond our own ranks, being entirely financed by the annual subs and donations of our members.

The substantial increase in our funds is largely (but not exclusively) due to the very generous bequest we received in 2018 from the estate of Max Wilkinson, a former Wellington member (Max actually died in 2016). In two bites, CAFCA received over $14,000 from Max's will (he had also been very generous to us during his 20 years of CAFCA membership). You can read Max's obituary (by several people, including himself) in Watchdog 149, December 2018. A very big posthumous thanks to Max.

Our single biggest cost every year is the postage for Watchdog. Every year NZ Post increases the price of the pre-paid big envelopes we use, so we stockpile a large quantity and lock in the current price, to keep our costs down for as long as possible. In 2018 we bought several thousand dollars' worth of envelopes, which will last us until well into 2019 (when the price is due to go up again).

Over and above the costs involved in running the organisation and publishing Watchdog, CAFCA paid all costs incurred by the stillborn Aotearoa Independence Movement campaign from when it was announced in 2017 until its demise in 2018 (it lasted a year. You can refresh your memory about AIM here.

We make a regular donation to the Anti-Bases Campaign for the Waihopai spy base protests; and in 2018 we also paid the cost of the domain name registration of Keep Our Assets Canterbury, which enabled KOA to keep its Website operational (it is administered by former CAFCA Committee member Warren Brewer).

CAFCA/ABC Organiser Account: The Account has increased by a thousand dollars since the time of my previous Report, with approximately* 50-60 regular pledgers and $20,000 (in round figures) between two bank accounts in two different banks - one account is used to pay me; the other one is a term deposit, with a different bank. *I say "approximately" because it's hard to get an exact number of pledgers. Most pledge fortnightly or monthly but a few do it quarterly, half-yearly or annually.

The healthy state of the Account is almost entirely attributable to one very generous $10,000 donation from a CAFCA member in 2018. It was not a bequest but s/he wrote to say that s/he had been told s/he was dying, had to immediately resign and made the donation. I have heard no more and don't know whether s/he is still alive. But heartfelt thanks have already been sent to that donor. Later in 2018 a pair of members sent $3,000 - over the years this couple have donated tens of thousands of dollars to the Organiser Account.

Without those two very big donations (plus plenty of smaller donations from other people) the Account would have followed its trend in recent years of a slow but steady decline. In 2018 the trend continued of a number of pledgers (some of whom had been doing it for many years) advising us that they were having to quit because of changed financial circumstances, such as retirement, and could no longer afford the pledge. Some pledgers have been doing it since the Account started in 1991.

Actually, the Organiser Account has now been going so long that it has outlived the bank branch where it is held. Westpac's Sydenham branch was closed for years after the 2010/11 Christchurch earthquakes - it then got the building repaired and reopened the branch. Only to permanently close it in 2018. It kept the ATM in the lobby as a stand-alone facility but, by the end of 2018, that was gone too.

This has no effect on the Organiser Account - only the actual branch building has gone. But Westpac's Sydenham branch now has only a "virtual" existence. The fact that the Organiser Account is with Westpac never fails to piss off some people, who write to tell us so. There is an explanation, which you'll find in Watchdog 135 (April 2014 "Why Is The Organiser Account With A Foreign Bank?", Murray Horton).

A couple of blocks down the same street, Christchurch's main one, stands the building that used to house my closest Postshop and Kiwibank. I'd sometimes do the CAFCA banking and mail Watchdog there. That branch never reopened post-quakes (although, unlike Westpac, Kiwibank has left its stand-alone ATM there). As for the building, it now houses - Christchurch's first cat café, which affords me endless entertainment from the footpath when I'm passing by (I'm too mean to pay the entrance fee).

Recruiting new pledgers is a permanent project and we do succeed in attracting some new ones (so there is what is called "churn" between existing pledgers quitting and new ones joining). Again, I'd like to single out the late John Case who, uniquely, is still posthumously pledging to the Account several years after he died. And my annual thanks to James Ayers for being the Organiser Account Treasurer. He does a very good job of it.

In 2013 we launched a project to attract more pledgers and donors in order to be able to increase the Organiser's pay rate to that set by the Living Wage Movement. I'm pleased to report that since 2015 I have been paid the current Living Wage rate (it was increased to $20.55 per hour in 2018). To show our practical support for that Movement CAFCA belongs to it, as a supporting organisation. Brian Turner was CAFCA's representative on its Christchurch Committee, until he resigned from it at the same time that he resigned from the CAFCA Committee in 2018. Colleen Hughes has replaced him.

Any further increase in my pay is, as always, dependent on the health of the Organiser Account. Once again, I would like to thank the incredibly generous members and supporters who pledge or donate to the Organiser Account (donations range right up to thousands at a time). Without you I literally could not do my job - and I've been doing it now fulltime for 27 years, funded entirely by pledges and donations, which never ceases to amaze me.

I also get the old age pension (and pay secondary tax). I continue to work fulltime as the CAFCA/ABC Organiser, and getting the pension every fortnight is a very welcome financial buffer, effectively adding several dollars per hour to what has always been a low paid job. I must say that the Government's new Winter Energy Payment (which tops up the pension for several months every winter) was very much appreciated also. One of the downsides of being self-employed is that my annual tax return is too complicated to do by myself (which I used to do when I had "real" jobs). I have had to pay for the annual services of a tax accountant since I became self-employed in 1991.

Watchdog: I am the Editor; it is our flagship, our "face", our voice to our members and the world at large. To use the jargon, it is our "brand". It looks the best it ever has. The three 2018 issues were, respectively, 84 pages, 80 and 92, which made each of them smaller than their 2017 counterpart. There was no particular reason for the reduced size - and nobody complained about it!

Thanks to Layout Editor Leigh Cookson, who had to finish the August issue on somebody else's equipment, after her laptop irretrievably died (68 pages into the 80-page layout, which had to be restarted from scratch). For the December issue Leigh changed from using InDesign layout software to trusty old Publisher, for the first time ever. Both she and I were happy with the result.

Thanks to Ian Dalziel, whose wonderful quirky cover graphics have been a distinctive feature of every issue for many years now. Thanks to my Committee colleague, Jeremy Agar, who is the Reviews Editor and whose reviews have attracted regular praise (and some criticism). Ever since Donald Trump became President, Jeremy has also been writing about him in every issue (this proved too much for one pro-Trump member, who resigned in protest).

Being Editor keeps me very busy but, depending on time, I also do some writing for each issue, ranging from political analysis to obituaries. Thanks to our regular writers such as Linda Hill and the prolific Dennis Small. The variety and sheer number of writers is very high (for example, we had 14 for the December 2018 issue). The quality is very high: among the people who regularly write for us are Bryan Gould, Mike Treen, Jane Kelsey, Mary Ellen O'Connor and Maire Leadbeater. And none of them get paid.

And being Editor involves a lot of behind the scenes work to make sure it all happens. To give one very recent example - the obituary of Penny Bright (Watchdog 149, December 2018). It's no secret that Penny was a very polarising figure, and not just to those on the other side of the argument (having said that, I never had any problems with her. But, then, I don't live in Auckland).

I asked two nationally prominent activists, both of whom I personally know, if they would write her obituary - both said no. So, I had to take the unprecedented step of sending an appeal to all of CAFCA's Auckland members and supporters. That resulted in one lengthy "anti-Penny" message and a couple of offers to write her obituary. I went with one of them and it was duly written and published.

Journal Of Analysis, Not Newspaper

Watchdog is a journal of analysis; it is not, never has been, and never will be, a newspaper. It is also freely available online but we have no plans to abandon the hard copy edition. Members want something they can hold in their hands to read and to keep in their bookcase or on their coffee table. We do sell a few copies of each issue to one Christchurch bookshop (and they regularly sell out there).

That's our very last retail outlet anywhere in the country (there used to be a few more). Plus, a number of libraries have stocked it for decades. If we were serious about retail outlets, we'd need to get a national distributor, which costs serious money. Watchdog is 95%+ only available to sub-paying members, as well as being freely available online. It is a vital part of the CAFCA package deal.

In my previous Report I detailed how our printer of 20 years standing (1997-2017 inclusive) became unavailable and we had to find a new one. The problem was speedily resolved - we simply gave the job to the local firm where CAFCA has had photocopying and printing done - but never previously including Watchdog - since the 1980s. They printed all three 2018 issues and did a very good job. I've worked with these guys even longer than with our previous printers and, likewise, regard them as friends. We parted company with our old printers on good terms and I've been back there a couple of times for a coffee and a chat.

Watchdog's membership of an endangered species - hard copy progressive publications - was brought home to us by the 2018 closure of New Internationalist's New Zealand office (in Christchurch). CAFCA had a publication exchange deal with NI going back to the 80s, and on occasion we'd included flyers in each other's publications during those years.

The excellent hard copy magazine still exists but its NZ distribution is now handled directly from the UK head office (which dates back to the 70s. I had the pleasure of being hosted by them when I visited Oxford in the 80s). I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of hard copy publications that CAFCA now receives - they've either ceased to exist or now publish online only.

Online Edition: Sadly, we have had to farewell Cass Daley, who was in charge of the Watchdog Website from 2010 until the beginning of 2019. Throughout those years she has done an excellent job but has been forced to chuck it in because of a wrist injury (and it is an actual injury, not computer-induced RSI. In cricketing terms, she has had to retire hurt).

Here's what I said in my 2010 Report: "Cass had already put in an enormous amount of voluntary work a couple of years previously setting up our new membership database - plus ones for the Anti-Bases Campaign and Philippines Solidarity Network. She volunteered to take over the Website for the indefinite future. One immediate issue was what title should she have? For obvious reasons she didn't want to be called the Webmaster, and definitely not the Webmistress. We settled on Web Content Organiser".

Cass was the Watchdog Webperson throughout the worst of Christchurch's 2010/11 seismic reign of terror. On the worst day - February 22, 2011 - she was in the central city, where she and her daughter, Lynda Boyd (a CAFCA Committee member at that stage) were both caught up in the chaos, as constant aftershocks tore open the street around them, immersing them knee deep in liquefaction and sewerage as they tried to walk through town (Cass wanted to get to her very old mother who was in a central city retirement home).

Three times a year - most recently in January 2019 - Cass and I worked together very intensely on the online issue. Firstly, I'd get her the copy, then I'd have to proofread and correct her electronic draft. Once that was done, she would upload it, and I'd publicise and distribute it. Yet it was all done at a distance, we very rarely saw each other, despite living in the same city. Indeed, the last time we did so was at Jim Anderton's January 2018 funeral in the Addington Catholic church. Many thanks for all that work, Cass, and get well soon.

Our online-only readers receive each issue as a PDF but the actual online edition on the Website is a plain, text-only affair. We get free Web hosting for both Watchdog and CAFCA but the trade-off is that there is a size restriction on the total amount of cyberspace we can have free of charge. Courtesy of Warren Brewer you can read online the most recent issues as PDFs, on Watchblog. Watchdog is the sole survivor of the old school Left publications (certainly in hard copy) and I believe this is a big reason why we have no trouble getting people, including big names, to write for us for no pay.

Overseas Investment Office: Linda Hill has now been writing up the OIO's monthly Decisions, both for Watchdog and CAFCA's Website, since 2017, and is doing an excellent job. Courtesy of a deal brokered a few years ago between CAFCA and the Ombudsman (to eliminate the need for us to appeal every deleted detail of every Decision), the OIO now routinely sends us the previously suppressed details of individual Decisions - the price paid, invariably - after a set period of time has passed (one year).

I have checked with business journalists with two major daily papers, namely the New Zealand Herald and the Press, who confirmed that the OIO does not also send these fully released Decisions to the media (I'm not even sure that the OIO uploads them to its own Website). So, CAFCA has discovered that there is definitely news media interest in our steady supply of these Decisions. In a small way it's a throwback to the days, decades ago, when CAFCA was the sole source of the Decisions from what was then called the Overseas Investment Office (OIC).

We now routinely forward these to the media, which has resulted in several mainstream news stories. But we do insist on being credited as the source. And for the first time ever Linda is itemising those released details so that we can get them inserted into the appropriate OIO Decisions on the CAFCA Website. Since the 2017 change of Government the OIO now specifies on each Decision who gave the approval i.e. whether it was the OIO itself or the Minister/s in charge of it. And it now routinely draws attention to Decisions which it knows will be of major public interest, such as high country station sales.

My analysis of the new Overseas Investment Amendment Act (which came into effect in October 2018) is in Watchdog 148, August 2018 ("Is Control Of Foreign Control Within Our Grasp? If Only That Was More Than Wishful Thinking". It has imposed some restrictions on foreigners buying residential property (which CAFCA never got very excited about) and on buying farmland - which is significant.

But it comes with an awful lot of exemptions, which really waters it down. And it says nothing about transnational corporations (TNCs) taking over New Zealand businesses, which is the single biggest, most important aspect of foreign control. That will have to wait for the Government's stage two review of the Overseas Investment Act, which is happening in 2019 (see the Relations With Government subsection, below).

Our conclusion about the amended Act is that it is better than nothing - which is what National did during its nine long years in power - but not much. Plenty more needs to be done. In November 2018 I was rung by RNZ to comment on the fact that Green MP, Eugenie Sage, the Minister for Land Information (i.e. the Minister in charge of the OIO) had approved all but 30 hectares of the 60,000 ha of land sold to foreigners in the first nine months of 2018.

"Campaign Against Foreign Control of Aotearoa spokesperson Murray Horton said the approval rate made a 'mockery' of the Government's promises to curb foreign investment. 'The Greens need to be a bit bolder, frankly. They're in Government for the first time ever. They have a mandate from their members and the people who vote for them to actually establish a point of difference'" (RNZ, 13/11/18, "Green MP Eugenie Sage Accused Of 'Rubber-Stamping' Land Sales To Foreigners").

The reporter started: "Would you say that Eugenie Sage is a hypocrite?". I was not prepared to play that game and have words like that put into my mouth. I told him that CAFCA was "disappointed". But we're not surprised. On more than one occasion when she approved a foreign land purchase in 2018 - including the notorious Otakiri Springs water bottling plant extension approval - Eugenie has said that her hands are tied by the Overseas Investment Act. The Greens are in Government now and need to be changing and improving the law, not merely administering it. They need to kick back against being captured by vested interests, whether bureaucratic, corporate, political or ideological.

One thing has changed in our dealings with the OIO - in 2018 they actually, and for the first time ever, did something about one of our many "not of good character" complaints that we've made to them (and their predecessor, the Overseas Investment Office [OIC]) since the late 1990s. One of the few "checks and balances" in the Overseas Investment Act is that the persons owning and/or controlling the applicant transnational corporation have to be of good character (this only applies to individuals, not the actual corporation/s).

In December 2016 we made a complaint about the people owning and/or controlling Agria, which had taken over PGG Wrightson, and we supplied evidence, as we always do. Despite asking the OIO several times for its decision, they always told us they hadn't reached one yet (there is no time limit for such complaints). But, in December 2018 - without having told us - they announced that they had investigated the good character of Agria's owners/controllers, and had taken punitive measures against one individual. CAFCA is happy to take the credit and hopes this starts a trend. There is an article about this, elsewhere in this issue. You'll find the details there.

Website & Other Means Of Electronic Communication: Committee member Terry Moon has now been in charge of the Website since the beginning of 2018. She's doing a good job of it, although she's found that it involves more work than she expected (most of it involves keeping the OIO Decisions page updated, which involves a lot of detailed work). Our Website is a vital resource and the first point of contact with CAFCA for many people, including the media.

Watchdog has its own, separate, site. Lynda Boyd set up, years ago, the separate (again) Historic Watchdog site. That involved her scanning and uploading the first quarter of a century of Watchdog's hard copy issues (from the mid 1970s up until 1999 when the actual Watchdog site started). I find this site invaluable and regularly cite it (including in this issue). Nor am I the only person to do so - Dennis Small and Maire Leadbeater are among Watchdog writers to have used it in recent years. In 2019 it started to have a few technical problems, so Lynda has set about reformatting it, which is a lot of work. Thanks again, Lynda.

Warren Brewer runs the Watchblog site, which is separate again from the CAFCA and Watchdog ones. Watchblog is the only site where you can find Watchdog issues as PDFs, complete with all illustrations. Warren also administers our Twitter account. Colleen Hughes administers our Facebook group, which has several times more members than our "real" membership but, of course, they don't pay membership subs. Warren also administers the Keep Our Assets Canterbury (KOA) site.

Our Internet Service Provider (the only one we'd ever had since we went online in 1996) went out of the connectivity business, as of March 2018, and we accepted its offer to be transferred to another ISP that they recommended. It involved no change to our e-mail address; to our bulk e-mail distribution system; or to the free Web hosting for the CAFCA and Watchdog and ABC Websites. Our new ISP, an Auckland-based company, does a professional job. Our old ISP has only got out of the phone and wi fi side of things; it still provides our e-mail service and, as mentioned, free Web hosting. It was a seamless transition.

Roger Award: In 2018 we made public the fact that the organisers had decided to end it because, basically, it had had its day and run out of steam. The last Award given was for 2016 and that was announced at the last ever Roger event, in Auckland, in 2017. When we announced its finish, we received many spontaneous messages from members and supporters throughout the country (and one from an Australian activist) expressing both sadness at its demise and appreciation of what the Roger Award did during its 20 years of existence (1997-2017). You can read those messages in Watchdog 149, December 2018.

The Roger Award produced a considerable body of lasting work, marked by very high quality research, namely the annual Judges' Reports. Rest assured that has not been lost - it comprises a fantastic resource, which can be accessed here.

That left just the hideous trophy itself, inside its specially built travel case.

Bill Rosenberg suggested we offer it to Te Papa. We duly did so, the relevant person was very keen to accept it. But, in November 2018, she conveyed the sad news that Te Papa (which she described as "a complex institution") had decided that "it is not considered a collecting priority at present". She had been overruled by those higher up the food chain.

She suggested that we offer it to Canterbury Museum, which would keep it in its home town. Once again, we duly did so and once again the relevant person was very keen to accept it. The difference this time was that the Museum actually collected it and took it in for evaluation, to decide whether to accept or reject it. I'm very pleased to report that, in February 2019, the Museum officially accepted it. So, the trophy now has a much grander home. Whether it ever sees the light of day there is another question. It certainly deserves to be seen by as many people as possible and to, hopefully, make them think about what the Roger Award was all about.

For most of its life the trophy sat in its display case in our garage, which serves as the props' museum for both CAFCA and the Anti-Bases Campaign. It never suffered the ultimate indignity of joining the obsolete props dumped out into our semi-derelict, wide open and utterly non-weatherproof back shed (which, nevertheless, survived 18,000 earthquakes in considerably better shape than many much grander Christchurch buildings).

I had a crew of hard case chainsaw boys working for two very noisy days in late 2018 to remove some big old gnarly trees and we all had a lot of fun. While they were getting rid of the big elderberry tree hard up against the back shed, one was working inside the shed and I heard him ask: "What's this thing I'm standing on? Is it a water feature?". I was puzzled, because I've never had such a bourgeois affectation and had a look and then laughed. "No, that's a cast of John Key's head".

They looked incredulous, so I told them the story and pointed out the actual object (a giant wearable John Key puppet head which ABC commissioned for a recent Waihopai spy base protest). The one who had first asked about it then looked at me and asked: "So, not a fan then?" I had dumped "John Key" in the shed, to free up room in the garage and because he's now yesterday's man, even in puppet form.

I also pointed out the "Afghan Child" coffin in the rafters to the arborists and told them the September 2010 quake story about that i.e. that it was the single solitary thing which fell down in the shed in that biggest of all the quakes, the one which started the whole 2010/11 seismic reign of terror. One looked at me and asked: "You haven't got an actual Afghan child in that, have you?"

Keep Our Assets Canterbury (KOA): I am the Convenor, and a number of other current or former CAFCA Committee members are also very actively involved with the KOA Committee (namely, Paul Piesse, Jeremy Agar and Brian Turner. Former Committee member Warren Brewer was a key figure in KOA right from its birth in 2012 until he permanently left Christchurch at the beginning of 2018. Although he now lives in Hastings, Warren remains in charge of KOA's Website).

Others on the KOA Committee are John Minto, Denis O'Connor (a former CAFCA Committee member himself), Steve Howard, Dot Lovell-Smith, and Mike Newlove. KOA was CAFCA's major project in 2016. And KOA's major project in 2016 was running John Minto as our candidate for Mayor of Christchurch. John got a very respectable 15% of the vote. I reported on all this in detail in my 2016 Report (Warren Brewer, who was then a CAFCA Committee member, was John's Campaign Manager and did an excellent job).

I seriously thought that KOA might finish up in 2017, its work done. But, no, it didn't and I'm glad it didn't, because there's still work to be done. In 2018 KOA questioned the prioritising of one yet-to-exist public asset - the covered stadium or "multi-event arena", to use its official title - over an existing public asset, namely the Christchurch City Council's extensive stock of public rental housing, which is in a sorry state.

The Council has committed hundreds of millions of dollars to the half-billion-dollar stadium (the Government is paying the balance). By contrast the Council is lending a measly $30 million to the community trust to which it has contracted out its housing portfolio (and which has been embroiled in a number of scandals, from overcharging rents to the poor condition of the flats it is managing).

KOA has regularly corresponded with the Mayor and Councillors about this, I have put out press releases, done media interviews and made public speeches. I headed a KOA delegation which met with Megan Woods, the Minister in charge of the Christchurch rebuild, to discuss this stadium versus public housing question. I've met with plenty of MPs before and, in my 2017 Report, I detailed my (CAFCA) meeting with Eugenie Sage. But Eugenie is a Minister outside Cabinet - so, the KOA meeting with Megan was my first meeting with a Cabinet Minister for longer than I can remember. It was possibly my first ever such meeting.

KOA is keen to be involved in the ongoing discussions about the rebuild. We applied to have a speaker (Steve Howard) at the November 2018 Government/Council symposium about lessons learned from the quakes. Steve would have spoken about disaster capitalism. But the symposium was an intensely political exercise and the Mayor, Lianne Dalziel, and the Minister, Megan Woods, had to sign off on the speakers. Guess what - they didn't approve KOA, despite us having had plenty of experience and analysis to offer on disaster capitalism (or "shock doctrine").

In my 2017 Report I said that KOA detected a sea change in the Christchurch City Council - "there is no more talk of asset sales". This turned out to be premature. Despite the Council not having included any assets sales policy in its Long-Term Plan which it signed off in 2018, the Mayor and one or two Councillors keep raising the subject, hoping to resurrect just such a policy. And the Tory bloc on the Council has announced that it will run only pro-asset sales candidates at the 2019 local body election. So, KOA won't be going out of business just yet.

And "public assets" covers a wide spectrum - Steve Howard spoke on behalf of KOA at a rally against a Chinese-owned water bottling export plant (water is definitely a public asset). Steve and I carried the KOA banner at the thousands-strong March 2019 march and rally against water bottling exports. I wrote to the Council on KOA's behalf protesting the effective privatisation of a heritage asset by the catering company to whom the Council had given the contract (not only is it publicly-owned but the public paid for its post-quakes repair. It has now been reopened but on a restricted basis).

KOA has always said that democracy is our greatest public asset. Since 2010 Canterbury has had an unelected regional council (ECan reverts to being fully elected at the 2019 local body election). Steve Howard and others spoke in person to ECan on various issues in 2018. In December 2018 Lianne Dalziel announced that she will stand for Mayor again at the 2019 local body election. That led to the media asking John Minto if he will stand again as KOA's candidate. Neither John nor KOA has yet made any decision about whether we will be involved in the election in any way. That decision will be made later in 2019.

But things are different from 2016 - John ran as Keep Our Assets' candidate against a Mayor heading a Council which had a policy of selling assets (which it later reversed; KOA played a role in that reversal). No such policy has emerged, so far, in the run up to the 2019 election. So, at the time of writing, the only answer I can give to the question - is KOA going to be involved? - is, I honestly don't know. Watch this space.

Relations With Other Groups: In my previous Report, I wrote, at length, about the stillbirth of the Aotearoa Independence Movement (AIM), which CAFCA tried, and failed, to get off the ground. So, I won't go over all that again. You can refresh your memory about AIM at its archived page on the CAFCA Website. There's some very good stuff there.

The only thing that I will repeat about AIM, from my previous Report, is this: "But AIM was certainly ahead of the times, in that Trump and everything he stands for are not going away anytime soon. Indeed, if he is re-elected in 2020, he will very likely be coming to a town near you - specifically Auckland, in November 2021, when NZ next hosts the APEC Leaders' Summit (our last US Presidential visit, by Bill Clinton, was in 1999, when NZ last hosted an APEC Leaders' Summit)".

"Then, if there is a call for a broad united front to protest Trump, the bright orange figurehead of the battleship US Imperialism, and people are scratching around for a name, we have one to hand. We even have a banner - it has been 'archived' in our garage - the Museum, of the Revolution! - along with many other past and present props".

One thing that came out of the stillborn AIM campaign was the need for CAFCA to do more work on Treaty of Waitangi relations and tino rangatiratanga. The upshot was that the Committee held two meetings in 2018 with Committee members of Network Waitangi Otautahi. Special thanks are due to Network Waitangi's Katherine Peet (who is also a longstanding and active CAFCA member) for the work she put into this. The now former CAFCA Committee member, Brian Turner, was instrumental in making it happen from our side (you can read Brian's "The Treaty of Waitangi And Foreign Control Of Aotearoa" in Watchdog 142, August 2016).

Those two meetings with Network Waitangi Otautahi were both instructive and useful. Which is not to say that we agreed on everything - discussion was robust and there was a free and frank exchange of views. We agreed that our common ground is that we're both dealing with foreign control but different aspects of it: Network Waitangi with the consequences of colonisation; CAFCA with transnational corporate recolonisation.

At the Committee's 2018 annual strategy meeting, one thing we decided was that we need a campaign. The lesson we learned from the AIM exercise was that we need to work with other groups on existing campaigns of mutual interest, rather than trying to create a brand new one ourselves. Of course, for many years, we have worked closely with the Anti-Bases Campaign (I'm the Organiser for both). Our work, over several years, with the campaign against the TPPA is a recent example (and an ongoing one - we're still involved with fighting the toxic effects of "free trade").

In 2018 we reached out to a number of existing groups and asked how CAFCA could work together with them. We only got a response from one but it's a biggie - Aotearoa Water Action (AWA), which is fighting the Chinese-owned water bottling export plant in Christchurch. I had a very productive meeting with its spokesperson, Peter Richardson. Our two groups exchanged information - AWA had secured the Overseas Investment Office's complete file on the Chinese-owned water bottling export plant in the Bay of Plenty and they were happy to share it with us.

The two lead articles in Watchdog 149, December 2018, were about those projects - Linda Hill on Otakiri Springs (Bay of Plenty) and Peter Richardson on the Belfast plant (Christchurch). You can read them here and here respectively. And Peter has a brief update in this issue.

CAFCA has had a long and ongoing productive national relationship with a number of unions and individual unionists. We have an ongoing very friendly relationship with FIRST Union, which is the only union to regularly pledge to the CAFCA/ABC Organiser Account. Not only that, it is the single biggest pledger. Dennis Maga, FIRST's General Secretary, sought out Becky and I for a very pleasant restaurant dinner when he was in Christchurch on union business in 2018.

We've known Dennis since he arrived in the country last decade as a Filipino political refugee. Other unions we work, or have worked, with are the Maritime Union of NZ (MUNZ), Rail and Maritime Transport Union (RMTU), E Tū and Unite. In some cases, such as with the former Seamen's Union, now the Maritime Union, those relationships go back to our very beginning, nearly 45 years ago.

Relations With Government & Political Parties: In my previous Report I said: "Once the new Government was announced I wasted no time in meeting, in late 2017, with the new Minister of Land Information, Green MP Eugenie Sage, to discuss, in detail, the Government's new regime for foreigners wanting to buy NZ farmland, plus various other aspects of the Overseas Investment Act.... She is the Minister in charge of the Overseas Investment Office. We take heart from the fact that Eugenie is the first Minister of Land Information ever prepared to meet with CAFCA and seek our views on a subject on which we have acquired decades of knowledge and expertise".

"You can read a fuller account of my meeting with Eugenie in my lead article in Watchdog 146, December 2017, "Putting A Human Face On Capitalism: What's That Old Saying About Pigs And Lipstick?", specifically in subsection 'Tightening Up Farmland Sales Rules Welcomed'. I haven't heard from Eugenie again - beyond receiving a 2018 Greens' Christmas card, with a handwritten message from her to CAFCA - but that's to be expected, she's a busy Minister, albeit outside Cabinet.

But something unprecedented happened in October 2018. Treasury - which has never contacted CAFCA about anything in our 40+ years of existence - contacted us and asked if we'd like to be consulted as part of the "engagement process" of the Government's second stage review of the Overseas Investment Act (Stage 1 became law that same month).

I refer you to our press release "New Overseas Investment Amendment Act. CAFCA Says Don't Expect Much And You Won't Be Disappointed", 16/8/18. The initiative came from Treasury (and the Government, I'd imagine), not from CAFCA. It came to us.

Before we get too excited here, it's stating the obvious to say that Treasury and the Campaign Against Foreign Control of Aotearoa have radically different views on foreign investment. Nor is the Government proposing anything too drastic, certainly nothing to make the chronically nervous business sector in need of a lie down. The tone of the material announcing the review is that the aim is to make the Overseas Investment Act easier to use - CAFCA considers that it's too easy already and needs significant tightening up. And I have no illusions about "consultation". I was a railway worker during Rogernomics and was one of the many thousands "consulted" out of a job.

Nonetheless, CAFCA was happy to be consulted, (for the sheer novelty value, if nothing else) and I spent 30 minutes on the phone with several Treasury people. We were all on our best behaviour and not once did any of them succumb to exclaiming: "You want to make the country like North Korea, don't you?" (they'll happily leave that to Mike Hosking and his ilk). For full details of what I told Treasury, refer to our press release: "Hell Freezes Over. Treasury Consults CAFCA On Government's Review Of Overseas Investment Act", 2/11/18.

CAFCA has always been fiercely independent and unaffiliated to any party, whether Parliamentary or extra-Parliamentary. We reserve the right to criticise all of them, and do so. That doesn't stop us productively working with political parties. We regularly work with people from a variety of them. We've long had dealings with all sorts of MPs and Party Leaders (e.g. the Greens' founding Co-Leader, the late Rod Donald, was an active member of both CAFCA and the Anti-Bases Campaign). But those dealings had always been when those politicians were in Opposition or not in Government (e.g. all our dealings with the Greens up until 2017).

When the Clark Labour government came to power in 1999, we briefed both the caucus of the former Alliance (Bill Rosenberg did that) and the Greens (me). With the exception of one MP, Labour did not respond to our offer of a briefing. And our dealings with that Government, during its nine years in power, were minimal to non-existent. It was Labour's Minister of Finance, Michael Cullen, who amended the Overseas Investment Act to make it even more friendly to transnational corporations. So, what little dealings we've had with this Government represents an improvement - we have no illusions that they will do anything to implement a CAFCA-friendly foreign investment policy.

Wearing my Keep Our Assets Canterbury hat, I've already reported (above) on heading a KOA delegation in 2018 to meet Megan Woods, who is a fair dinkum Cabinet Minister and a senior one at that. Of course, KOA has had dealings with Megan for years, when she was an Opposition Christchurch Labour MP. CAFCA's history with Megan goes back even further, predating her election to Parliament - we were actively involved in her unsuccessful 2007 Christchurch Mayoralty campaign.

Wearing my Anti-Bases Campaign hat, ABC has had a close working relationship with the Greens since they first entered Parliament, in 1996. Green Co-Leaders to have spoken at ABC's Waihopai spy base protests are: Rod Donald, Jeanette Fitzsimons, Russel Norman, Metiria Turei and, in 2019, Marama Davidson. Green MPs to have done likewise include Keith Locke, Steffan Browning and Golriz Gharahman.

It is significant that, in both 2018 and 19, we've had an MP and a Co-Leader of the Greens speaking at an ABC protest that is against a policy of the Government of which the Greens are part (Labour is committed to keeping Waihopai; NZ's membership of the Five Eyes spy alliance; and staying an active and loyal junior satellite of the US Empire).

Media Profile & Public Speaking: For a small Christchurch-based group CAFCA has had a high national mainstream media profile for decades and 2018 was no different. Indeed, we got a lot more interest from the mainstream media than usual. Some of that was in response to press releases that I put out. Most of them are ignored but the odd one does get picked up. If CAFCA is expressing an opinion, the press release is usually ignored.

But if it contains some otherwise unobtainable facts, they'll run with it. A classic example was the press release I've cited above ("Hell Freezes Over. Treasury Consults CAFCA On Government's Review Of Overseas Investment Act", 2/11/18).

I was rung almost immediately by a Press Business reporter and the result was this rather quirky feature ( Stuff, 2/11/18, "Long-time Foreign Buyer Opponent Pleased With Treasury's Phone Call Over Law Changes", Chris Hutching). It appeared online only. When I told Chris - with whom I've long had what could be best described as a love/hate relationship - that I considered the photos rather cringeworthy, he cheerily told me that he'd asked for the worst ones the Press had.

In relation to the OIO now routinely sending us fully released Decisions a year after they were partly-released, we now regularly forward these to the media, which has resulted in several mainstream news stories (some by the self-same Chris Hutching). Some media approaches are quite unsolicited and come out of the blue - and some with loaded leading questions. I've already mentioned one, above ( RNZ, 13/11/18, "Green MP Eugenie Sage Accused Of 'Rubber-Stamping' Land Sales To Foreigners"). The reporter started: "Would you say Eugenie Sage's a hypocrite?".

In my previous Report I mentioned that I was contacted, unsolicited, by a number of overseas media outlets, interested in the change to foreign land ownership rules brought in with the change of Government. Nothing came from any of these contacts but the fact that they were made at all was significant in itself. The most recent foreign media contact - in 2018 - was the most intriguing of those. It was a request for a live radio interview from an English language Russian international network. I had to turn it down because I had a clash and I've never heard from them again.

I must not forget to give credit to Craig Wills of Hamilton's Waikato Community Radio, who has regularly interviewed me for many years. And, in Christchurch, Martin and Lois Griffiths of Plains FM, have done studio interviews with me for their Earthwise programme for decades now. As for public speaking, I didn't do much of that in 2018. A couple of small CAFCA speaking gigs; one KOA one; and, in my ABC capacity, I spoke at the January 2019 Waihopai spy base protest.

CAFCA Priorities: CAFCA has no special projects or events of our own on the go, for the first time in a long time. But we will continue to network with likeminded groups on campaigns, events and issues, as we have done for decades, on a whole raft of things. For example, as I've spelled out (above), KOA still has battles to fight, which may - or may not - include a role in the 2019 local body elections. And, again as I've already detailed (above), we now have a working relationship with Aotearoa Water Action. Water, in all its aspects, is a major issue that is becoming more and more critical.

We have our own fish to fry - both Watchdog and our OIO work are major projects in their own right. We need to get our message out to more people, using both traditional media and social media (we've picked up new members from both). We have an aging, indeed aged, membership, so recruiting new - hopefully, younger - members is a constant project.

There have been some changes in the political environment since the 2017 change of Government. This one recognises that foreign control is not just an issue, it is a problem for New Zealand and they have to do something about that. In contrast, the previous Government did not see it as an issue, let alone a problem, and did nothing about it during its nine years in power. What that "something" is that the Government plans to do, doesn't amount to very much but it's better than nothing and it presents CAFCA with a window of opportunity. We've got plenty to keep us busy.

Anti-Bases Campaign: I am, of course, also the Organiser for ABC. I co-edit Peace Researcher, with Warren Thomson (and Becky is the Layout Editor, so it's a family business. But she only laid out one 2018 issue - she couldn't do the other one, because she was overseas. Not in the Philippines this time but the US, where she spent several months helping to look after her oldest sister who got very seriously injured by a hit and run driver whilst on her way to work in Los Angeles one night).

So, that issue was laid out by Leigh Cookson, the Watchdog Layout Editor. Leigh had to teach herself the Publisher layout programme on the job - and, based on that, decided to use it also for the next Watchdog (which has used a different layout programme for more than a decade). We publish two issues a year ( Watchdog comes out three times a year). ABC's major project in any year is the Waihopai spy base protest. See my report on the 2018 one in PR 55, June 2018. And you can read the most recent (November 2018) PR online here.

PR shares some features with Watchdog - e.g. Ian Dalziel covers, articles by me and Dennis Small, Jeremy Agar is also its Reviews Editor. But there is also material that only appears in PR, such as Warren Thomson's regular Spooky Bits series. The November 2018 issue's lead article was by former Green MP and veteran anti-bases activist, Keith Locke.

PR has much more international material than Watchdog. It is the nature of ABC's issue. Also, in 2018 ABC published a new leaflet "New Zealand Should Not Follow Donald Trump", which can be downloaded here. Greg Waite, who lives in Whangarei does a good job as ABC's Webmaster.

My ABC work is not all deadly serious. Waihopai protests are a lot of fun (albeit with a very serious purpose). Sometimes the fun is unintended and self-inflicted. In 2018 the joke was on me. When our rental van pulled up opposite the spy base's outer gate immediately prior to the protest, all of its occupants sprang into action. In my case, that meant opening the back hatch and getting out various items. Except that something unique happened this time - there was suddenly a "whoosh" and the air filled with dry white powder, covering me and everything in the back of the van.

It was the bloody fire extinguisher that I have faithfully brought from home year in and year out in case of emergency. Somehow the pin had been pulled and it duly discharged once pressure was applied on top of the box it was in. So, there I was, looking like an extra from a silent movie's big flour fight in a bakery. And, within seconds, I was required across the road to MC, to speak, and talk to the media.

Not to mention dealing with a cop who had the classic line: "Who's in charge here"? It was an "interesting" experience and I'm sure it will be on the highlights reel when my life flashes before my eyes when my number's up. We've got one fire extinguisher left at home - I took that to the 2019 protest, without further incident.

Philippines Solidarity Network Of Aotearoa: I work for this on a voluntary basis. In this Report I usually say: "It is basically just ticking over". And such was the case in 2018. But not entirely. When I was in Auckland in 2017 for the last ever Roger Award event, I took the opportunity to meet with Auckland Philippines Solidarity (APS), a mixture of Filipinos and Kiwis, to discuss ideas and suggestions for projects.

I proposed that PSNA & APS work together to tour a progressive movement speaker through NZ in 2019 to report on the Philippines under President Rodrigo Duterte (this year is halfway through his single six-year term, which is all that Philippine Presidents are allowed). That tour is going ahead, a speaker has been invited and accepted, and will be touring the country in the last quarter of 2019. I last organised a Filipino speaking tour in 2015 - the difference in 2019 is that I won't be organising it (which is a lot of work). APS will be doing that and PSNA will be playing the supporting role.

The Philippines remains in the international spotlight for all the wrong reasons. Duterte has continued his rule by death squad under the pretext of a "war on drugs". Tens of thousands have been killed in an overt State policy of mass murder, one in which the murderers operate with total impunity (the Philippines has always had death squads that operate with impunity but Duterte has ratcheted it up by a considerable order of magnitude).

Duterte started off by making some progressive noises and he did some positive things - indeed, our upcoming 2019 speaker was a short-lived Minister in his Cabinet, before getting dumped out, along with other progressive movement appointees. Duterte soon reverted to being just another Philippine President. He ended the peace talks that he had reactivated with the Communist underground (which has been fighting a war of national liberation for nearly 50 years) and recommenced that war and joined all previous Presidents in a policy of murdering, disappearing, imprisoning and torturing activists of the legal, unarmed, progressive movement. Duterte makes Trump look like a sensitive new age guy.

Quake Aftermath: I'd like to pay tribute to Jenny Macdonald, who died of cancer, aged 68, in August 2018. At the time of Christchurch's 2010/11 seismic reign of terror, Jenny was the manager and co-owner of our local café (actually, pre-quakes, Becky and I split our patronage between two local cafés. The other one - which I had booked as the venue for my March 2011 60th birthday party - didn't survive the February 2011 killer quake. The party went ahead, on our back lawn).

In my 2011 Organiser's Report I wrote: "Special thanks to the Boyd sisters, Lynda and Jenny, who brought us a boot full of water bottles (survival hint - have a bath in your house; it's a great storage repository for water). Thanks to our local butcher who stored all our freezer contents in his shop freezer, so we didn't lose any food. He also supplied a barrel of fresh water outside his shop every day for people to help themselves - that's the first time I've ever had to carry buckets of water home".

"I felt empathy with African women, except, of course, that I didn't have to do it every day, or walk for many kilometres or carry it on my head. Thanks to our local café who gave me, free of charge, three big slices of carrot cake when I called in on the afternoon of the killer quake (as they had no power or water, they were going to have to chuck them out). We lived on that, plus canned food cooked on our gas stove, for several days".

In my 2012 Report I was able to take that further and nominate all of the above for Christchurch City Council's Earthquake Awards. "And I'm delighted that they were awarded both to my local butcher (who had the framed photo of him and Mayor Bob Parker displayed in his shop strung up on a meat hook, a setting in which lots of Christchurch people would like to see Bob); and the Boyd sisters, both of whom are on the ABC Committee, with Lynda also on the CAFCA Committee".

"But some wanker on the Council rang me to say that they refused to accept my café nomination because it was 'frivolous. We don't care if you like carrot cake and cappuccino, Mr Horton'. What's more, he told me that if I didn't withdraw that nomination, the Council wouldn't accept the other two. How's that for blackmail? So, I take this opportunity to publicly thank Jenny the manager and the staff of Oddfellows Café, Disraeli Street, Addington for their kindness on February 22nd, 2011. Stuff the Council!".

I later learned that, in the immediate post-quake period, Jenny and staff had set up a barbecue and distributed free bacon sandwiches - with no power or water, they would have had to chuck out the bacon otherwise. Instead, they put it to good use. Nor did her kindness stop there - when we went there for lunch on their last day open in 2011, she gave us (and other regular customers) a complimentary glass of bubbly to help calm our shattered nerves after another huge and damaging quake had hit Christchurch the day before (2011 was a very "interesting" year).

Jenny stayed on at Oddfellows until she turned 65 and retired, in 2014. She was always very good to me and Becky, and we regarded her as a friend. Politically, she and I were polar opposites, but we didn't let that spoil a good friendship - we simply didn't talk about it. She brought it up on one memorable occasion - I booked a table for a group, including Nicky Hager, when he was in town in 2014 at the height of the "Dirty Politics" shitstorm (Jeremy Agar reviewed it in Watchdog 137, December 2014).

Jenny said to me: "I knew the Hager family when my family lived in Levin. Nicky wouldn't have realised that it was my kids who were putting National Party leaflets in his family's letterbox". She made a point of coming out to greet Nicky when our group arrived (later that year the staff teased me that I must be "disappointed" that I'd missed John Key in there that day. Ironically, he was in our neighbourhood to open a new complex of Housing New Zealand homes - ironic, because his Government did its damnedest to flog off State houses).

Life can be cruel. No sooner had Jenny retired than the cancer she'd first had years earlier came roaring back and spread to a terminal extent. We continued to see her on the regular occasions that she came into the family café (her sister and brother-in-law own and operate it now), and we witnessed how she faced death with the same calm and dignity that she lived life. She deserved to have a lot more of it. Rest in peace, Jenny. I have never forgotten the carrot cake she gave me on that most dreadful of days (and I make sure that I still eat plenty of it, which is the best in town).

Rebuild Brings Back Memories

I remain fascinated by the new city that is emerging from the rubble of the old. Becky and I were among the crowds that toured the Town Hall during the public open days of its first weekend in February 2019. The last time that either of us had set foot in that building was in 2010. Going there again brought back many memories - not only of all the shows and concerts I've been to there (Carlos Santana said that his 1973 Christchurch Town Hall concert was the best ever in his life - I was there) - but also some intensely political memories.

Here's a sample: in 1972 I, and several others (including my then partner) were arrested for "disrupting" the Leader's Rally of the National Prime Minister during that year's election campaign (he lost and that arrest marked the only time I was ever acquitted during my action-packed years as a "criminal". It's also the only time I've ever been dragged out of a building by my feet).

In 1991 I was among thousands of workers gathered at the Town Hall, spoiling for a general strike to fight the proposed Employment Contracts Act. But, no, the national leadership of the trade union movement, up on the stage, were too gutless and sold out their members. New Zealand's workers are still living with the consequences of that treacherous capitulation.

CAFCA has held several public meetings there - at a 1995 one in opposition to a Bill liberalising the Overseas Investment Act I shared the speakers' table with Winston Peters and Jim Anderton. The other speaker, on behalf of Forest and Bird, was Eugenie Sage, who is now the Minister in charge of the Overseas Investment Office. Small world.

Likewise, the ongoing demolition of Lancaster Park brings back many memories. Not only of the innumerable sporting events that I attended over nearly 50 years (the last time I watched the All Blacks play there was in 2010) but also of various mega-concerts. And some really vivid political memories - obviously the 1981 Springbok Tour protests at the park but also anti-apartheid protests many years before that.

For example, in 1970, a group of Progressive Youth Movement activists climbed through the barbed wire at the top of the fence and into the park the night before a major domestic game and sawed down a goalpost (with a two-handed bushman's saw) in protest at that year's All Blacks' tour to racist South Africa. We had one bloke with us who was disappointed we didn't go further and set fire to the commentators' box - he was a self-proclaimed nihilist who had written to PYM from prison saying he wanted to join us (even though we were mere anarchists). When I last heard of him, many decades ago, he was a barman in a small rural town.

Mosques Massacre: This appalling atrocity happened just before I was about to finish this Report. After the wonderful rally in Cathedral Square, with thousands of young people (part of the global schoolkids' strike to demand action on climate change), Becky and I were having a post-rally coffee in the Library cafe in the Square with two ABC Committee colleagues, when a security guard told us that we (and everyone else) had to go upstairs "now!" because the Library was being locked down immediately.

The friends took off upstairs; Becky insisted we give another friend (a veteran CAFCA and ABC member) a hand to get her wheelchair-bound husband out of the building (the nearest door was still open) and into their car parked immediately outside. So, we escaped the lockdown and I was able to get to the central city Kiwibank to do the ABC banking I'd set out to do (with some very jumpy bank staff). Driving home, Becky had a unique experience on a neighbouring street - being forced to drive along the bike lane as a result of having to get out of the way of a cop car screaming towards us on our side of the street and us having nowhere else to go.

Our street runs off a very busy highway - Brougham Street - (it is the arterial route to the port at Lyttelton, so umpteen trucks bearing containers come and go on it all day and night, along with many thousands of cars). Several blocks of it adjacent to our place were closed down on that Friday afternoon and it was very eerily quiet for the next day or so.

Late that Friday night Becky and I went for a walk up the deserted highway to see what was going on. One block from home we found the intersection blocked by several Police vehicles and quite a number of rifle-toting cops - a very unusual sight in this country). Beyond them we could see a crime scene tent. Then Becky put two and two together -"this is where they caught the guy!". So, that video footage, which has been endlessly replayed, of the cops dragging the mass murderer at gunpoint out of his rammed car - that all happened very close to home (quite literally).

Like tens of thousands of others, we went to the impromptu memorial wall outside the Botanic Gardens, and Becky made a beautiful little bouquet of roses from home to add to the mountain of flowers (she's had practice, having done the same in recent years at the National Earthquake Memorial here). That site was crawling with international TV crews, reporters and photographers.

Even I got contacted by international media - I've mentioned, above, that I was contacted, in my CAFCA capacity, by several overseas media outlets in late 2017 when Labour came to power and made some changes to the overseas investment regime. One of those journalists, a Tokyo-based reporter for papers in Germany, Switzerland and Austria, contacted me to ask my view on the atrocity. I duly answered, in a purely personal capacity. She sent me the resulting article a few days later but it was all in German, and my 1960s' high school German is not up to translating it, I'm afraid.

My Ancient Past: There's always something that comes back to haunt me, and my long-ago role as the face of the Christchurch Progressive Youth Movement (PYM) is a hardy perennial. In 2018, I learned more about the State spying on me during that period (from when I joined PYM, in 1969). I attended a public meeting and as soon as I walked in, I was approached by a nationally prominent activist, who said: "Hello Murray, your name came up today".

He'd spoken to a local business group and had been approached by one of the attendees, who volunteered the information that back in the day he'd come out of the military and had been recruited by the Security Intelligence Service (SIS) as a surveillance agent. Guess who was among those he was spying on? The guy said they followed me around in a van. Jokingly, I asked: "Did it have 'Acme Plumbers' written on it?" Apparently not, but it actually was disguised as a plumber's van. "He said they had a really big camera, and got lots of photos of you riding your bike". Well, that was taxpayers' money well spent, wasn't it?

Back in the 70s I was told about SIS and Police surveillance of me (I wrote some of it up in Canta, the University of Canterbury student paper, when I edited that in 1974). In the 80s the Christchurch cops inadvertently sold 800 "noting files" in a surplus filing cabinet to a Kaikoura fisherman, who alerted a reporter for a national weekly paper. Mine was one of them - that was a big media story at the time.

I wrote that up, in detail, in Watchdog 54, November 1986, "Follow That Bike! Christchurch: Home Of The Big Noters". (Scroll down to page 12). And last decade I received my heavily redacted SIS Personal File (the much less redacted SIS file on CAFCA was much more revealing).

I've reached the age where I get mentioned in books. For example, John Wilson's excellent "Local Lives", the history of Addington (the suburb where I've lived for 37 years), under the subheading: "Working-Class Militancy": "Later, two figures prominent in Leftwing politics in Christchurch, Les Arnst and Cyril Walters, lived in Addington. So, from 1982 until the second decade of the 21st Century, did Murray Horton, the mainstay of the Campaign Against Foreign Control in Aotearoa New Zealand (sic). The Foreign Control Watchdog, with a national circulation, was printed for a time by a Lincoln Road firm, Addington Print".

"But people like Arnst, Walters and Horton were not representative, in their radicalism, of the bulk of Addington's population". I knew Cyril Walters 50 years ago, when he was manager of a long-gone Leftwing bookshop. I've known a lot of grumpy old men in my time and I can confidently say that Cyril was the grumpiest. He definitely didn't like me - he'll be turning in his grave to be mentioned in the same sentence as me. As for John Wilson, you can read his: "'The Boodle Will Go To America': The Campaign Against Foreign Control Of Addington, 1926", in Watchdog 144, May 2017, .

And this from Jenny Chamberlain's "Constant Radical: The Life And Times Of Sue Bradford", describing a 1990s' speech I gave at the former Auckland People's Centre: "When Christchurch-based Murray Horton from the Campaign Against Foreign Control of Aotearoa (CAFCA) was speaking on foreign investment and control, an elderly man had a heart attack and trained paramedic Caroline Hatt, together with the People's Centre doctor, worked frantically and successfully to keep the man alive".

"'Murray dined out on this for years to come', jokes Sue" (I did too, although Sue asked me not to mention it the next time I spoke at the People's Centre, because the old bloke was in the audience again). Jeremy Agar reviewed Sue's biography in Watchdog 146, December 2017.

My Health: My only health "drama" in 2018 was a non-event and dated back to my ancient past. I decided to avail myself of the free shingles vaccine for the over-65s. I'd had shingles in 2016 and have no wish to do so again, if at all possible. You have to answer questions in advance and I answered "yes" to: "Have you ever had an adverse reaction to a vaccination?". My first overseas trip was on a 1973 student delegation to China and smallpox shots were compulsory in those days. I got a funny reaction (it showed up in my eyes, which was rather alarming).

Each subsequent time I went travelling overseas in the 70s and 80s this remained an issue, which was only resolved when smallpox was declared globally eliminated and the shots were never needed again. But, in 2018, having declared this, my GP quite correctly decided to check it out with the ominous sounding Infectious Diseases. In the meantime, I did something that I'd never done in the intervening 45 years and researched the subject.

I discovered that my 1973 adverse reaction could have been fatal and that smallpox shots should never have been given to people with eczema (which had caused the reaction). Nobody had told me either of those things in 1973! My shingles vaccine was delayed but, eventually, Infectious Diseases (whoever and wherever they are) gave my GP the all clear, I had the shot and lived to tell the tale.

I've always said that I will keep on as the Organiser as long as the members want me to continue, and subject to my health continuing to be good. People ask me when I plan to retire. Look at it the other way around. I actually got "retired" (via redundancy) in 1991 and have been getting paid to do my retirement hobby ever since. I'm both a worker and an old age pensioner. I get a great kick out of seeing my peers' reactions when I describe my occupation as a Gold Card bludger. "Beneficiary" is too pussyfooting - if the gay community can reclaim "queer", I reclaim "bludger".

2019 marks 50 years since I first became a political activist (I joined PYM in my first year at the University of Canterbury. From memory, I was one of very few students in it. In those bygone days of real "full employment", the great majority were young workers. Everyone had a job). I'm now 68, which was the age at which my only sibling quite literally dropped dead (from a brain haemorrhage). My tribute to my half-sister, June Tennant, is in Watchdog 102, May 2003. Our mother only made it to 60 but my father got to 86, so my next family milestone is some way off yet.

Work/Life Balance: this is the buzz phrase; I practise it on a daily basis. I'll give the example of one specific August 2018 weekend. On the Friday night I attended the Christchurch launch of Maire Leadbeater's book "See No Evil: New Zealand's Betrayal Of The People Of West Papua" (reviewed by Jeremy Agar in Peace Researcher 56, November 2018). I was invited to join Maire and co for a restaurant meal afterwards.

On the Saturday afternoon, ABC had its first ever General Meeting. It was an experiment to see how many people would turn up - the answer was very few and I don't know that ABC will repeat it. CAFCA is an incorporated society and thus legally obliged to hold an AGM and publish annual accounts - ABC is under no such obligation.

On the Saturday night I (along with Jeremy Agar and another friend) went to my first ever Super Rugby Final. Christchurch's rickety old temporary Addington stadium (best described as "being held together by scaffolding and beer") is walking distance from home. I went to several Crusaders' games in 2018 but this was my first ever Final. When they were winning titles like clockwork (they've won it nine times and have lost more finals than other teams have played) I got blasé and never went to any of the home finals in Christchurch. So, when it transpired that the 2018 Final was going to be played in Addington, I wasn't going to miss it. It was a great night.

Come Sunday morning I attended the annual Hiroshima Day commemoration at the Peace Bell in the Botanic Gardens. It was at this that Christchurch's Mayor, Lianne Dalziel, suddenly collapsed unconscious and had to be taken to the neighbouring Christchurch Hospital by ambulance. I've known Lianne since she started out as a union official around 30 years ago. We're not friends and I've crossed swords plenty of times with her in my KOA capacity. But we're on speaking terms, so I sent her a personalised "get well soon" e-mail (the first personal message I've ever sent her). She immediately replied with a touchingly personal message of her own.

On the Monday morning, I was part of the small crowd who braved the rain for the Crusaders' central city victory parade. It was a wonderfully Kiwi affair - they all arrived squashed into one of the city's ridiculously dinky trams; there was no security bullshit, you could freely wander around among these legends of world rugby (and it's only when you get close that you realise what big buggers they are). It was an action packed and memorable few days.

I usually get to a movie every week. Sometimes the drama is not just on the screen. At one recent daytime arthouse movie, where I comprised 50% of the audience, it felt like a big wave passed under the cinema and my seat. Cantabrians have had plenty of experience of this, so everything carried on as normal and it wasn't until I got home and checked the news that I learned that there had been a "huge jolt" hundreds of kms away in the central North Island. It was hundreds of kms deep, so it did no damage and there were zero aftershocks. But it was felt across a huge area of the whole country. It wasn't one of "ours".

I also check out exhibitions at the city's galleries and I went to my first night time Buskers' Festival show in a big tent for several years (which got even more exciting when a norwest gale struck the tent halfway through the show. It stood the test and the show went on, uninterrupted). I bike or walk on a routine daily basis. I have an active social life with friends, both local and from out of town. In short, life and work remain both stimulating and interesting. Not to mention that the work is very important. So, I have no plans to chuck it in the foreseeable future. Why give up something that is both immensely worthwhile and enjoyable