Suchergebnisse

The principal purpose of this paper is to contrast the present rate support grant system that applies to local authorities in England with the revenue support grant system that will apply from 1 April 1990. The paper begins by describing the two systems briefly and then seeks to show how much grant receipts per head might change if local authorities maintained their present spending levels after 1 April 1990. At collection-fund level, there would be gains exceeding £150 per head in some areas and losses exceeding £150 per head in others. In the paper the factors causing these changes are analysed. In general, areas gain if they have high multipliers, overspend, and have high rateable values. Finally, the point is made that the people in any area also stand to gain or to lose if they end up paying less or more in nondomestic rates. It seems likely that changes in these amounts will do much to offset the changes in grant receipts.

Abstract. This paper builds upon earlier work that argued the information and experience contained within the knowledge-practice-belief complex of Mātauranga Māori [Māori knowledge] is a valuable and neglected area of information and understanding about past catastrophic events in Aotearoa/New Zealand (A/NZ). Here we map Māori oral traditions (pūrākau) that relate experience with extreme environmental disturbance (in particular, tsunamis) around the A/NZ coast, compare the findings with geo-archaeological evidence, and discuss the scientific benefits to be gained by considering pūrākau as legitimate perspectives on history. Not surprisingly, there are both differences and complementarities between traditional Māori narratives and the available geo-archaeological evidence on extreme coastal disturbances. The findings presented here raise new and important questions about accepted geographies of tsunami risk, the causes and sources of their generation, as well as reasons for the relative paucity and abundance of information in some regions. Ways in which Mātauranga Taiao [Māori environmental knowledge] and contemporary science can be combined to produce new narratives about extreme environmental disturbance along the A/NZ coastline will require not only acceptance of other ways of knowing but also open engagement with Māori that respects their rights to tell their own histories. These efforts are encouraged to revitalise and ground-truth the interpretation of traditional stories, corroborate and/or question previous scientific deductions, and improve our collective understanding of the recurring impact of tectonic, geologic and meteorological-based events across A/NZ.