For those able to do so, listening to the 15 minutes of interview from RNZ this week is worthwhile (audio link is a few paragraphs in). Otherwise RNZ's text is an okay summary.
For me the most interesting part of this is Geoffrey Palmer's logic for wanting more MPs in Parliament. In short, he's arguing that we need more MPs, but a smaller Cabinet, to protect our democracy from populism and perhaps authoritarian populism. His reasoning is that most of NZ's process relies on the government being accountable to Parliament. Back-bench MPs presently, however, are drastically overworked when it comes to being able to process and understand everything needed for effectively holding the government to account between the other work they have to do.
He thinks we need at least 150 MPs, and that the size of Cabinet should be capped at 20 to increase the ratio of back-bench MPs over Cabinet MPs. (Presently we have 120 MPs but 30 are Ministers.) It'd mean Ministers would hold more portfolios, but also that they'd not be so siloed from each other. It'd also mean that the task of understanding the complexities of legislation that goes through the House, and through Select Committees, would be shared among more MPs.
He's also shared thoughts about Parliamentary process and the electoral system, wants better civics education, and expresses thoughts on misinformation.
For those who don't know him, Geoffrey Palmer is a former MP and Minister known from the 1980s Labour government. He took over as Prime Minister for about a year after Lange stepped down, but left that role shortly before the 1990 election. Apart from the controversies of that government though, he's also an obsessive legal nerd when it comes to constitutional law and Parliamentary process.
Yes. What they found for rabbits, back in the day whilst figuring out how to design it, was that they'd always go right up to the fence and then try to dig. If they hit metal then they'd move sideways rather than backwards, so the skirt goes about 40cm outwards and that prevents all the rabbit incursions.
At the time I don't think they ever imagined the need to design for tuatara burrowing outwards, but probably good that it's only starting to become a question at about the time they've been planning for the fence to be replaced anyway. It'll be interesting to see if and how this affects all the other fenced sanctuaries that have sprung up later.
Another bonus of replacing the fence is that they'll be able to change the mesh, as the original one didn't have small enough holes to prevent baby mice getting through. I'm not sure how the mice inside will be properly eradicated after that's done. The original eradication was (I think) a brodifacoum drop which would no longer be practical unless everything important was somehow cleared out from inside the fence first.