Campaign finance reform
Without which bought-and-paid-for government swamps democracy
Advantage of green pure genius
The concept’s catching on like wildfire. Since Pure Advantage launched on Thursday evening, the number of registered supporters has shot to more than 1000—responding to the call: The greater our numbers, the greater our influence on business…
Paleoclimate implications for human-made climate change
Paleoclimate data help us assess climate sensitivity and potential human-made climate effects. We conclude that Earth in the warmest interglacial periods of the past million years was less than 1°C warmer than in the Holocene. Polar warmth in…
A unique role for Mahurangi and public transport
The public transport needs of the Mahurangi, in most ways, are unremarkable. Warkworth and Mahurangi East have long needed both a local bus service as well as better connectivity to Auckland’s bus system. But what is unique about the…
Much-needed storms of our granddaughters
Dick Smith writes entirely eloquently. Which should mean that Dick Smith’s Population Crisis gets to be read by a usefully broad audience. It also helps that his just-published book, at 198 pages, is not too dauntingly lengthy, given the inherently daunting…
First-past-the-post ‘win’ argument for preferential
It is easily overlooked. Aotearoa may enjoy exemplary proportional representation, but electorate representatives are still elected by the multiply flawed first-past-the-post system. Voters in last Saturday’s by-election were allowed to express…
Regional sea-level rise chapter revisited
North Carolina has gone one better. Aotearoa merely curtailed work on a national environmental standard on sea-level rise, in a calculatedly cynical strategy to oblige each local territorial authority to run its sea-level rise policies by a gauntlet of…
Tāne’s Tree Trust project saving Lake Taupō
Lake Taupō is the largest lake in Aotearoa. With an area of 622 square kilometres, the lake arose in its present form from the Oruanui eruption of 181 ad. It contains an enormous body of exceptionally pure water. The iconic status of the…
National’s Power sets scene to retain and change mmp
Some’ll see it as fiddling while climate warms. And never mind reviewing the electoral system, many see democracy as inherently incapable of responding adequately to avert runaway global warming, and hanker for a benign dictator. Famously James Lovelock…
Dick Smith to Murdoch: Be a Beaverbrook
In a recent book, Terri Irwin makes this perceptive comment: “In a hundred years, what difference is it going to make worrying about two acres of land. We need to focus on the real change that will make the world a better place for our children and…”
Emissions messiah misses agricultural greenhouse gases
On the face of it, New Zealanders have a light carbon footprint. Even Dr James Hansen, in his open letter to the prime minister, says that: New Zealand contributes relatively little to carbon emissions that drive climate change. Per capita fossil fuel emissions from...
Planet doomed but save the sea and sky
The phrase ‘save the planet’ grates for good reason. Nothing that humankind can currently throw at it, greenhouse gases included, can affect the existence of planet Earth. Even if every nuclear weapon were detonated simultaneously for good…
Kinked root underlines open-ground strongpoint
One field day was never going to do it. Five field days might start to do justice to Gary Heaven and Shelley Trotter’s deer farming, farm forestry, riparian restoration, walkway and winery projects and operations. The previous field day, held in February, had left...
Storm sidestepped over fewer grandchildren
In one notable respect, he was not preaching to the converted. With the possible exception of the odd journalist, the 350 people who packed the 250-seat Auckland University lecture theatre on Thursday evening had been ready to hear everything…
Long past time for precautionary principle
Dr James Hansen’s lecture is slated to start at 6.30 pm. Or, if Thursday’s event’s Facebook page is to be believed, 6 pm. In 1988 when Dr Hansen warned congress that anthropogenic greenhouse gases were going to seriously raise average global temperatures, the...
City hall help to crank-up the club
The Mahurangi Club was to meet on the first Monday of every month. That way, attendance of the Mahurangi River Winery gatherings would likely grow, and Mahurangi Action Plan momentum would build. When the odd Mahurangi Forum was scheduled, the plan was to dispense...
Sea-level rise powered by Google
A trillion Google searches gobbles a prodigious amount of energy. But before eschewing online searches, climbing into the car and driving to the library, a little perspective: At 0.2 grams per search, one trillion searches per year has a similar…
Mya’s harbour-saving message on open-ground
I am explaining the importance of open-ground plants, because I think open-ground is the best way to provide plants to plant along the edges of rivers and streams. We need these areas planted to protect the Mahurangi’s benthic community…
Now easier to put an oar in
The concept of comment functionality is consummate. Online publications can routinely provide comments functionality at the foot of every article to allow readers to do instantly what once would have required mailing (or more recently, e mailing) a letter to the...
Sea-level rise means dredging up the future
Writers urging climate action invariably claim that, although the situation is dire, by acting now, warming’s worst consequences can be avoided. But it is probable that it is already too late to prevent total ice-sheet loss and sea-level rise of about…
World’s first city to rebuild beyond sea-level rise
On 29 October 1954, Wellington agreed to build the Auckland Harbour Bridge. Government’s decision had been contingent on Auckland City Council voting to effectively bury its aspirations for underground rail, on the previous day. Not only did…
Not perfect but a field day and a half
The preceding two days’ weather had precipitated a trickle of apologies. However the day dawned as fine as the forecast charts, stemming what otherwise might have become a flood of cancellations, and vindicating the decision to charter a bus. With the…
Dr James Hansen unleashed on Auckland
Schoolchildren will assume that the crowds he addressed filled stadiums. In decades hence, when told Dr James Hansen lectured in Aotearoa in 2011, they will assume it was to Rugby World Cup-sized audiences. Thermal inertia in Earth systems allows the…
Think Mahurangi action act global
Every catchment issue is set to become more acute, despite the best intentions of the Mahurangi Action Plan. Stormier weather will wash ever more soil into the harbour, and higher tides will more vigorously churn and muddy its soft shoreline. Thanks, in…
Loss of holiday highway won’t be lamented
Labour’s Transport spokesperson Shane Jones is welcoming reports that the so-called ‘holiday highway’ from Pūhoi to Wellsford may be delayed, with completion of the $1.3 billion highway possibly pushed back to 2024. “There is no way Labour…
Make existing highway safer, concentrate on Christchurch
Christine Rose is emphatic that Christchurch comes first. Reacting to strong indications by the government this morning that the planned Pūhoi–Wellsford motorway will have to wait for Christchurch to be rebuilt, the Labour Party candidate for Rodney…
Better place for cathedral closer to Alpine Fault
The Alpine Fault doesn’t move 30 millimetres every year. It does on average, but the fault hasn’t ruptured since 1717. If goes anytime soon, nine metres of pent up horizontal movement could be released in an earthquake of a magnitude of more…
Science ‘globalisation’ is the future
The greenhouse gas consortium is the centrepiece of a major New Zealand commitment to take its global citizenship obligations seriously with respect to those issues associated with climate change. It of course has multiple dimensions. As a…
Speaker more than spatially competent
Mostly, the Mahurangi Club is the first Monday of the month. But in March, it will be one week later—the 14th. While Mahurangi River Winery’s Shelley Trotter was relaxed about the gathering being held in her premises in her absence on the scheduled Monday, she was not...
Old Masonic Hall to see new public forum
Local government reform always provokes vociferous reaction. The Royal Commission on Auckland Governance, regardless of how democratically or otherwise it proceeded, was always going to aggrieve a goodly percentage of the region. The semi-rural…
Te Muri acquisition key to coastal trail
It was to have formed part of a scenic coastal road. In 1973, when the regional council secured 63.8 hectares of coastal land at Te Muri for that purpose, such car‑centric thinking went unchallenged. Subsequently, the regional council’s ardour for the coastal road…
Will to ensure Wilma not wasted
There were just nine apiece in Sullivans, Mita and the Pukapuka. Nine, where of a Mahurangi Regatta morning there would normally have been 90 or more vessels in each of the harbour’s weather‑favoured bays. Wilma maintained her tropical…
2011 Mahurangi Regatta programme
Event date Saturday 29 January 2011 High tide 16:02 (0.95 m above mean level of sea) Sailing events Cancelled Shoreside events Cancelled All sailing and shoreside events cancelled! Mahurangi Regatta Generally* held at Sullivans Bay *In the event of strong easterly...
Time to submit to better transport
It can be done online, up until midnight Friday 28 January. Feedback is sought by the New Zealand Transport Agency regarding the indicative route of the Pūhoi–Wellsford motorway. Submissions that a motorway should not be built…
Up with the running sand sculpture rules
It’s right up there with running. Of the perennially popular shoreside events at the Mahurangi Regatta, sand sculpture accounts for nearly as many certificates as the running races—33 were awarded in 2010. Inspired by the creativity of year’s last sculptures,...
For canine crew members, regatta rules okay
Dogs are welcome at the Mahurangi Regatta, just not everywhere. For example, dogs are not permitted at Sullivans Bay at any time. But next door at Mita Bay dogs can be taken ashore to the beach, so long as they are under direct and continuous control, which probably…
Short-handed short term but long-term promising
Most are still in holiday mode. Or if back at work, they are certainly in holiday mode come the weekend, and particularly the long, Auckland Anniversary weekend. Which makes mustering the sixty or so volunteers involved on the day of the Mahurangi Regatta much harder...
New Year’s resolution breeding obvious
By next New Year’s Day, the population will have just reached seven billion, yet propaganda abounds claiming that it’s not the approaching-seven-billion souls currently inhabiting Planet Earth, but the unsustainable lifestyles of a small proportion of the world’s...
Bareboat charter link to Boxing Day tradition
It’s not the first time Rob Thexton has stepped up. The first and only print edition of the Mahurangi Magazine carried a full-page display advertisement that Rob paid for. But rather than advertise his bareboat charter business, Rob kindly elected to promote sales of...
La Niña good for neither regatta nor harbour
Much of the mud results from just a few storms. The quantity of sediment reaching the Mahurangi Harbour annually can range from 13 000 to 136 000 tonnes, reflecting the major rainfall events such as that which accompanied Cyclone Bola. And heavy rainfall events...
Rodney seat shapes up as green transport battleground
Possibly not panning out exactly as the National Party planned. By freeing up the Rodney seat, Lockwood Smith stated he was facilitating more firepower to be directed to the defence of the planned Pūhoi–Wellsford motorway—his position as…
Billion-dollar motorway flyover
Takes just 3.43 minutes to ‘fly’ the preferred route. The New Zealand Transport Agency’s simulated flyover of the preferred route deserves high praise for vividly and dramatically illustrating the magnitude of what is involved in building a motorway…
Part 1 China and the Barbarians
Republished from original PDF I was in China when United States midterm elections caused some people to become more pessimistic about the fate of the planet and humanity. In contrast, I became more optimistic, for two reasons, both related to China. Here I explain the...
Future of Aotearoa is nuclear visits
Blanket-banned for nearly all the right reasons. In 1984, when nuclear warships were banned from visiting Aotearoa, the French military was to continue testing nuclear weapons beneath Moruroa and Fangatafoa for more than 11 years. And the…
Google and the Shweeb sounds of success
The first section would run to the Wilson Cement Works. In time, it could run between Snells Beach and the Mahurangi College. And then form a coastal ‘walkway’ from Waiwera to Warkworth. Largely unnoticed by New Zealanders, the Shweeb is set to…
Salvaging the once-was-smart grid
Once, it was internationally award-winning. Specifically, New Zealand’s national electricity grid was feted for its sophisticated wireless telecommunications control system that facilitated load balancing and real time response to operational…
Second past the post preferred
Another election and another clamour to scrap preferential voting. New Zealanders are wondering why Wellington, for example, would choose a system that makes ’em wait days to hear who they’ve elected mayor. And sifting through interminable…
Prendergast loss somehow pinned on preferential
As mayoral majorities go, it’s one of the slimmest. Because the democratic world is so inured to the deficiencies of first-past-the-post, it mostly goes unnoticed that mayors are typically elected by a minority vote, often a tiny minority. Whereas Celia…
Getting by with a little help from
The reader is paramount. Without the more than 26 000 ‘visits’ received per year, publication of the Mahurangi Magazine could not otherwise be justified. Publication of the magazine is only possible thanks to the help of some very good friends. Some…
Global work party time to toast
Planting 10 October 9.30am–10am start Location Mahurangi West Hall Summertime, and the planting is easy. At least it was on Saturday, in the sand. Two hundred sand-binding plants were established above the wrack line of the beach at Ōpahi, with ease—in marked contrast...
More support for Rose for Rodney
The royal commissioners failed the fundamentals. At the last election, 55% more voters supported Christine Rose for her regional role, than elected the mayor of Rodney. Even Bill Smith, the lowest-polling regional candidate, polled more votes than the mayor. The...
Scientist suggests grass up the beach
It is synonymous with summer at the beach. Swimming, interspersed with luxuriating in the warm, soft, dry sand of the beach. Increasingly though, the reality is hard-packed sand all the way to the seawall. The practice of building near the shoreline was always going...
Captain Jones’ legacy complete at Te Muri
Captain Jones had first tried to secure Ōrewa Beach. But £10 000 was too rich for the government of the day, and so most of the land between the highway sea was subdivided—with a single beach house now fetching the several million dollars that that figure equates to...
Local lawyer helps the Kestrel come home
Where Fairburn Walked Ross Mullins 1987 Ferry me across the shining water Take me home again Rock me rock me gentle on the harbour I will feel no pain Warkworth lawyer Hugh Gladwell is helping revive another regional icon. Mr Gladwell and Peter Thompson were the prime...
Bridging energy chasm the Ayres rock
Most are utterly unrepentant. Free-market high priests appear more than happy for the subprime mortgage market to take the fall for the global economic downturn—all those folk with no business aspiring to home ownership, really! Other economists…
Final approval calls for a little dedication
In the event, it took about two minutes. Thirty-five years ago, the then county council wasn’t interested, when single-term councillor John Male urged it. Nor was Rodney District Council, when, on innumerable subsequent occasions, Mahurangi Action…
Innovation a proud local tradition
The scow builders would have approved. Their only question would have been, how could it have taken so long? The Mahurangi was an early centre of shipbuilding. The vessels built were mostly coasting schooners and cutters—relatively shallow-draft long-keel craft that...
Ultimately successful Māori roll model
Humans are hard-wired for fairness. Which is why so many traditional supporters of the Australian Labor Party abandoned it following the treachery visited on its fleetingly victorious leader Kevin Rudd. The political system of Aotearoa, until joined recently by...
Other than motorway, what $2.3 billion buys
China has 3529 kilometres in use and another 6696 under construction. High-speed rail in Japan, however, with its similarly challenging terrain is probably a better guide for Aotearoa. But even at the relatively high Japanese rates, the cost…
Marcus Shipton says give nuclear a chance
I am not here to convince you Aotearoa needs nuclear power. I honestly don’t know the answer to that question, however I am convinced that the world needs it. The real reason I’m here is to urge you to challenge our dogma, in these challenging…
Ramp renewables but energy efficiency first
It doesn’t seem cheap. Filling the tank seems to cost a prince’s ransom, particularly for older folk who can remember doing it prior to the first oil shock. For a decade before 1973, four dollars would fill the tank of a Mini. But the oil shocks to date are nothing to...
Tuned-up mmp could be ninety-nine not out
First, it was a fateful decision. Then it became a cynical decision, when New Zealand’s parliament ignored the 81.5% of voters who asked for the house to be reduced to 99 seats—the cosy two-party duopoly had no desire to see mixed-member proportional…
Out of all proportional Aussies eat their Greens
Updated 9 September 2010 Grand coalition is the only honourable option. In yesterday’s election, neither major party obtained a mandate to lead Australia. The undisputed winner, out of the shameful defrauding of Kevin Rudd and the Australian people, is the Green...
It’s official, the action plan is half-official
A dozen years would have been an insufferable delay. Three dozen, for some, a lifetime. But as of Tuesday, Mahurangi Action founding chairman John Male’s vision for a Mahurangi plan is formally endorsed by the Auckland Regional Council, in…
Goodbye old motorway, hello new rail
It was an entirely reasonable expectation. That the best features of the constituent local bodies would be melded into the new region‑wide council. Len Brown’s announcement that he would “take onboard the Waitakere eco‑city concept” may…
Climate court-action is delaying the inevitable
Nobody should be above the law. Such platitudes will resonate with folk who welcome the New Zealand Climate Science Coalition’s latest bid to be noticed: Taking legal action against the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research, in the name of the New...
January 2011 to see four regatta firsts
Event date Saturday 29 January 2011 High tide 16:02 (0.95 m from mean level of sea) Sailing events Mahurangi Cruising Club Shoreside events Friends of the Mahurangi Latest update It doesn’t get much better. The Friday night race to Mahurangi. The old-style...
Safety first trumps weak economics
A good deal of sense was talked in Auckland and Wellington yesterday. Auckland Regional Council listened to two options that put safety first, in quickly and affordably upgrading the dangerous highway between Pūhoi and Wellsford motorway, presented…
Political courage not political suicide
It was widely hyped as last chance for planet Earth. Then universally condemned as an abject failure. But the United Nations climate change conference in Copenhagen a year ago was neither of those things. And what it did produce, thanks to Barrack Obama, was the...
Mainstream media missing from wild new frontiers
As threats go, they don’t come much bigger. Asteroid collision, global thermonuclear war, nuclear winter, snowball earth all have the potential to render Homo sapiens sapiens extinct. But these threats have either a low, in some cases infinitesimally low…
On the bus for thorium-powered future
It was a sobering statement. There’s not enough power available to electrify Auckland’s transport. Gary Heaven knows a lot about such things, given that much of his information technology work is for power utilities. The immediate discussion…
Magazine urges agency to build for future
The following submission is that of the Mahurangi Magazine, prepared by Cimino Cole, editor, with the support of John Timmins, publisher. The magazine thanks its many readers who have expressed support for the need to protect the harbourscape, and…
Motorway extension all right for some
Submissions on the proposed Pūhoi–Wellsford motorway close today. Unless the submission is from the pro– Pūhoi access group that met with the New Zealand Transport Agency Friday, which has until 16 August. The agency’s Amanda…
Marvelous place to stop the motorway
It may be a case of joining the wrong dots. Or even a case of joining dots that aren’t there. But the spectre of a motorway snaking up Mahurangi Harbour, to the east of Schedewys Hill, Windy Ridge and Pōhuehue, is threatening to swamp reaction to the potential loss of...
Regional council’s informal position
The Auckland Regional Council respects and commends the NZ Transport Agency’s concern over growth pressures arising from transport infrastructure, and the need to reinforce and recognize the regional growth strategy etc as signalled in the regional policy statement....
Mahurangi may need to take one for the team
It is clearly working. Expectations for increased property demand at Mahurangi West have been dashed. In line with the growth objectives of the district and regional plans, the NZ Transport Agency signalled that there would be no access to the planned motorway between...
Motorway: Think on
The agency has said what it thinks. Headed ‘What we think’, the New Zealand Transport Agency a month ago outlined its broad plans for a Pūhoi–Wellsford motorway, and invited feedback. Since then, the Mahurangi Magazine has published seven pieces on the proposed...
Fossil-fuel solutions stratospheric cost
‘Sofia’ has cost $1.3 billion. If built, the Pūhoi–Wellsford Motorway is estimated to cost $2.3 billion. Nine years behind schedule, the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy has just begun studying the atmospheres of other planets, when the extreme...
Thinking a little beyond 26 July
The motorway consultation process is generating considerable debate in the area. Communities, understandably, are currently focused on what can be done between now and 26 July to influence those making decisions about the design of the proposed Pūhoi–Wellsford...
A healthy dose of overdue democracy
It has huge appeal. Many would love to be lord of their own domain, kingdom, republic or, in the case of Rodney district mayors, unitary authority. Mayor John Law gave it a shot, only to be brought back to Earth by the reality of the cost of delivering the governance...
Never negotiate out of fear; never fear to negotiate
The raison d'être for this publication is the Mahurangi landscape. More specifically, the Mahurangi Magazine’s mission has been to help ensure that recognition of the harbourscape was a principal part of the Mahurangi Action Plan. And it is, although it appeared...
Smarter agency models gagging for it
The New Zealand Transport Agency must be immensely bemused. A community reacts in outrage to the prospect of being denied direct access to a proposed motorway, when it should be erupting in righteous indignation at the absurdity of…
Alternatives to the agency model
Predictably, all the ruckus is over the off and on ramps. An entirely refreshing idea has been suggested by Mahurangi West man Cluny Macpherson. Professor Macpherson contends that bus bays should be provided opposite Pūhoi and Mahurangi West. This would facilitate...
Ransom wine in first Sunday Evening Auction
A plea for 50 donations of $100 has gone out. With a bid somewhat north of $100, a generous contributor to the Mahurangi West Hall mulch fund could come away with a warm feeling and a case of Ransoms’ wine. Tomorrow evening, the Mahurangi Magazine will auction a case...
Anything but the motorway access
The suggestion has been made before. That a Mahurangi Club be established where proponents can socialise and discuss life, the Mahurangi, and everything. And not just at a general-purpose venue, but at some civilised haunt with a bar and hors d'œuvres. And with the...
Job would be done mulch-better by far
We need your help. On Saturday, 14 people turned up at 9am at the Mahurangi West Hall with forks, pitch forks, spades, quad bikes and trailers plus a tractor and tray to load up from where it was dumped on the roadside on to the trailers and cart down to the...
Planning for the new coast road
For most of its 4.5 billion years, Planet Earth has been ice-sheet-free. Ice ages, on the whole, have been kind to humanity. The last interglacial has heralded the era in which humans have prospered, and built civilisation after civilisation. But there’s…
As seen at the Matakana Cinemas
The Craig V Powell animated cartoon that advertised, for a little too long, the Mahurangi Magazine at Matakana Cinemas:
Yes-we-can clean energy ministerial
The green stars of the show are set to be the Arabs and the Koreans. South Korea is spending a greater percentage of its economic recovery stimulus on green initiatives than any country in the world. And the United Arab Emirates is investing heavily…
Mahurangi Harbour might dodge another bullet
Mahurangi’s first near miss was being by-passed by the Great North Road. To avoid being bogged down, early road builders preferred, where possible, keep to the high ground. By electing to run the highway along the Windy Ridge, the harbour was put just out of sight of...
Plan for Mahurangi a million miles away
For the first time in more than 150 years, the Mahurangi is about to have a plan. But it won’t much resemble the last one, which was essentially a subdivision to form ‘Mahurangi Township’. Charles Heaphy vc supervised the survey, and such was his enthusiasm for the plan…
Fossil fuel addiction Gulf of denial
Fully one-third of the Oval Office speech is about America’s addiction to fossil fuels. But while that is undeniably courageous, given the unforgiving mood of the wounded United States electorate, the reasons that President Barack Obama gives for that addiction being...
Link Waiwera with coastal cycle trail
It’s just what the heart surgeon ordered. Infrastructure for a healthy citizenry and a healthy tourist industry: The New Zealand Cycle Trail—that refreshing, if belated, large-scale antidote to the arrant nonsense pedalled for decades that Aotearoa…
Plan only draft but lookout for action
The Mahurangi Action Plan is in action already. Despite being only in draft form, publication has boosted one of the projects proposed in the Mahurangi Action Plan. Mahurangi West farmer Mike Neil was catching up on some reading during a period of physical idleness enforced…
As a name for the region, Auckland is wrong
The sloppy language slipped in at the beginning. Whereas its terms of reference diligently referred to the Auckland region, that key word was omitted from its very name: Royal Commission on Auckland Governance. Then the commissioners themselves were careless of the...
Mahurangi Magazine open letter to Labour
Darien Fenton and Phil Twyford Members of Parliament Dear Darien and Phil Regarding Rodney District Council’s private member’s bill. The Mahurangi Magazine has worked assiduously to encourage involvement of its readers in the process of devising new governance...
A launch a première and call that a celebration
The venue could not have been better. It had location. The Mahurangi Magazine e-mailed a last-minute heads up that the bar was opening at 5.30pm. (This was later amended further to 5pm but a second email might have sent a message of unseemly preoccupation with drink!)...
Global warming too late to stop now
The reality is slowly dawning. Everything that made the timely warnings difficult to accept, now makes it impossible not to. The awe personified in the prayer ‘my boat is so small and your sea is so wide’ made preposterous the notion that…
Draft plan partly there in black and white
It is partly symbolic. Copies of the draft Mahurangi Action Plan that are pawed over, on Monday night, will not have been printed in colour. While printing in black and white reduces cost and conserves non-renewable resources, the main motivation was to send a strong...
Last-minute changes cause to plan for celebration
Aucklanders are Mahurangi Harbour’s best friends… …and, potentially, its worst enemies. Individually, Aucklanders would turn Mahurangi into Mangawhai. Collectively, with regional governance, they will protect that value they and the locals hold dear: The sense of...
District council desperate bid for self-preservation
Essentially Auckland Regional Council media release 26 May 2010 Rodney District Council is currently calling for submissions on a private member’s bill to become a unitary authority, even though the bill is struggling to find a parliamentary sponsor. Previous...