A singular lifestyle on Quarantine Island
Kathy Morrison, left Quarantine Island in 2009 after 12 years as caretaker.
SEASWEPT: TWELVE YEARS IN QUARANTINE
Kathy Morrison
By DAVID BARNES
For 12 years, Kathy Morrison and her family lived on Quarantine Island in Otago Harbour. Morrison was the keeper on the island, a unique mix of Christian retreat, conservation project, historic site and lifestyle block.
Farm tasks, boating challenges and interacting with the wide variety of visitors to the island, human and wildlife, provided her with a large store of anecdotes which now fill this book. Although these, augmented by diary excerpts, are arranged somewhat thematically, the lack of a narrative structure makes this a book that is suited to dipping into, rather than reading end to end.
That said, the tales are well told and certainly give a good impression of the challenges and joys that come from living in such a semiremote spot.
An undoubted highlight of her tenure was the restoration of the 19thcentury quarantineera married quarters building, which had been under threat of collapse or demolition.
David Barnes lives in Lower Hutt and is an avid tramper and armchair mountaineer
Not that many political biographies are published in New Zealand, more’s the pity, and there certainly are not that many biographies of minorparty politicians out there.
For Gareth Hughes, telling the story of Jeanette Fitzsimons was a labour of love: the Green party coleader was his boss, a mentor, and after stepping aside from her role as an MP, the gateway via which he, the next person on the Green list, got in to Parliament.
Despite the immediate perspective that vantage point offered Mr Hughes (until recently resident on Quarantine Island), he rarely drops in personal insights, barring the poignant revelation that he was one of the last people to speak to Fitzsimons before she died.
In fact, he almost defensively comments several times in Gentle Radical that his subject was fiercely private and that several aspects of her life remain shrouded in mystery.
Hughes need not have been so worried. He has produced a wellrounded portrait which offers plenty of the personal as well as the political.
Although in 1970s New Zealand it would have seemed odd, by Hughes’ telling it is a surprisingly natural transition for the Mosgielborn, Epsom Grammareducated daughter of farmers to end up in Switzerland and join the fledgling Values Party via post in the early 1970s.
Hughes deftly references the totemic environmental works of the time, such as Silent Spring
AJeanette Fitzsimons makes her valedictory speech at Parliament on February 10, 2010. and The Limits of Growth and shows how the bookish
Fitzsimons was influenced by them to make environmentalism her life’s work.
Values eventually faded from the political scene to be replaced by the Green Party, an evolution in which Fitzsimons played a reluctant but pivotal part.
Although having run for Parliament several times, actually becoming an MP was something of a shock to Fitzsimons and her party colleagues, who had to rapidly adapt to the strange new world in which they found themselves.
Having worked in the Press Gallery during Fitzsimons’ time as Greens coleader, Hughes’ depiction of a driven, policy
focused, nononsense politician rings true. Fitzsimons had her triumphs as a politician but also many trials. It is with the voice of experience that Hughes relates how difficult it is for a minor party to drive change through a recalcitrant Parliament.
There were also tribulations: Hughes sensitively tells the story of the sudden death of
Fitzsimons’ political soulmate, coleader Rod Donald.
That moment was a turning point in Fitzsimons’ life and career. The determination to achieve change was still there but some of the old spark had gone.
Fitzsimons left Parliament five years later, but she is far from forgotten: the next generation — Hughes and the foreword author Chloe Swarbrick — know that without Fitzsimons’ achievements it is very unlikely they would have made it in to Parliament.
Although the 5% threshold is always uppermost in the Greens’ thoughts, for now hers is a lasting legacy, and one well worthy of this solid, respectful assessment.
Otago Daily