| BALCLUTHA – Bryce Soper, chairman of the South Island Self-Govern Today Party, issued a statement yesterday calling on all South Islanders to be patient in their bid for autonomy from the remainder of New Zealand.
In a moving sermon in front of representatives of the thirty-three Scottish clans of the South Island, Soper revealed that while the current democratic environment in New Zealand consistently stifles the idea of self government, natural geographical movement of the Earth’s tectonic plates will eventually free the South from the shackles of the Northern dictatorship. "The relative motion of the two plates, westward for the Pacific plate, and northward for the Australian plate, results in collision and compression of the plate edges. In the north the contact zone is located at sea east of the North Island, and forms the Hikurangi Trench, where the Pacific Plate is dragged underneath the Australian Plate. In the South Island the contact between the two plates is different and forms the Alpine Fault. There the two plates move sideways relative to each other, with a total displacement so far of 480 kilometres. The motion has also been more compressional in the last ten million years, giving rise to the Southern Alps," said Soper. ”This movement of the two different plates means the North and South Islands of New Zealand are separating at a rate of 100 millimetres every year. Therefore, in another twenty million years, the North Island will be as far away from us as Auckland is currently from Sydney,” Soper told the cheering crowd. The largely peaceful rally was not without incident. One suspected Aucklander in the town, thought to be buying up lifestyle blocks, was charged by an angry mob and forced to flee in his RangeRover. Spokesperson for the South Island United Clans, Angus McGonnicle, said that South Islanders were happy with what Soper had to say. "We’ve been bled dry by those bloody Aucklanders taking our wool and milk products and turning them into fancy coffee and Gucci sunglasses. Now at last we have an end in sight." The clans then retired to a bbq with locally produced draught beer to contemplate a name for their new nation - largely tipped to be 'Island' - and vowing to see out the dark years and re-emerge when the South Island would bask in the sunlight free of oppression. |
| SISGT Party urges faithful to wait |
Sunday, 31 July 2005 13:08
