"replacement sand for the rich"

Most Aucklanders can get to Mission Bay within an hour or so. Having got there they are all free to swim there.

"Incidentally, does anyone know the reason why port bound trucks, rather than using the expensive motorway built for them, tend to drive up symonds St."

Possibly since Symonds Street is a gentler grade. On very odd occasions I have seen a truck break down trying to make it up the Grafton Gully leg of the motorway.

"why Micheal Luck from the Warriors spells his name that way?"

I believe that Micheal is a Gaelic version of the name.

"The white kid will still find a goodish job I'm sure,"

In relevance to New Zealand 2009, I find the colour bar assumption a little questionable (but it seems to be very fashionable on this group). More questionable still is the assumption of plentiful employment, jobs in fact being extremely difficult to find these days, even for those with qualifications.

Mt Albert's winnability for National: No it was simply not winnable; a thirty-point percentage lead simply cannot be overturned, particularly by a governing party... but yes, it could have been significantly narrowed.

For National: an awful result with no redeeming features, except for still finishing second. ... but Melissa Lee can still live to see another day politically, as Tom S points out.

For Labour: a morale booster? Quite definitely, but as the Mangere byelection 1977 and the Timaru byelection 1985 showed, there were still stones in the road to the next election victory for the respective opposition parties.

"what would in this day and age trigger a sequel to the 1981 Tour?"

Something totally out of the ordinary as I'm not sure if most of us want to go down that path again.

"I remember noting here that Asian passes as diversity in our leafy eastern suburbs.'

The term Asian would imply a fair bit of diversity, in its own right and vis-a-vis Europeans, I would have thought. What other ingredients need to be in that pie?