My earlier (or later, depending on the order this is being read in)comment on nice timing referred to the the State Government's part in buying the land. See, there's a state election the Saturday afer next.
It's interesting in a 'who cars' sort of way.
See, when the last state election, Labor, under Jim Bacon's leadership, were riding high. The Liberal party were in disarray. There was a booming economy & everything was rosy. The main issue was the old fallback of logging in old growth forest. There was a major swing against the Libs in favour of the Greens. Ending up with the Labor govt being returned but now with two opposition parties.
Now though... Bacon died a couple of years ago (lung cancer, funeral was about 16 weeks after he announce his retirement), his successor, Paul Lennon, is let's just say not as popular. The Labor Party, traditionally the more left wing, working man's party, is seen as tied up with big business. Whereas the Liberal Party traditionally the conversative party, is more, well, for the man-on-the-street yet... You don't really want to vote for either "major" party.
Most of the talk predicts a hung parliament, where none of the parties have a majority. That occured a few years ago (late 80s?), when the Green party was new. They formed a coalition government with Labor. It didn't work that well.
So it's interesting in an odd sort of way.
The issues, incidentally, are health funding, read school report (really) & old growth logging (that was a surprise)
