Brian Rudman: The irony, as Winston sets up in old social hotbed

Now I'll believe anything. Winston Peters, the scourge of unemployed layabouts and scrounging immigrants, is setting up home in central Auckland's Peoples Centre. Sadly, for those of us hoping for a bit of free entertainment, this one-time hotbed of social activism is presently as dormant as the city's volcanoes.

All that remains are the cheap medical and dental services for the poor, with the Tenants Protection Association, a lawyer, a copy centre and a dairy. But advocacy organisations such as the Unemployed Workers Rights Centre and the Domestic Violence Centre have gone.

So has feisty Green MP Sue Bradford, who helped found the Peoples Centre in 1990, after a decade with the Unemployed Workers' Rights Organisation. But even having moved on, Ms Bradford was "taken aback" on hearing of the new tenancy.

Acknowledging the New Zealand First tenancy would help the struggling centre pay the rent on the building, she joked that "exposure to what the Peoples Centre is doing can't do him [Mr Peters] any harm."

True enough, but will it be enough to alter New Zealand First policy that requires training or work for the dole for all unemployed, including "military-type discipline training" for those judged to be "at risk"?

Still, now that he's setting up home next door to the Herald staff's favourite watering hole, he won't have to denounce our "mindless mental meanderings" by press release. Instead, he'll be able to pop in and do it over a nice glass of water.

Talking of new homes, it's fast approaching three years since Te Papa announced plans for a $10 million ship-in-a-bottle Viaduct Basin memorial to slain sailor Sir Peter Blake. After a stormy debate about the grandiosity and design of the proposed tribute, Te Papa withdrew to Wellington to lick its wounds and think again.

Since then there's been several reassurances from Te Papa that revised designs and the naming of sponsors were just round the corner.

On Friday, publicist Paul Brewer was again hopeful the "absolute final design" would be available around Easter this year, and that there would be significant reductions in the cost, and significant changes in the design. He confirmed it would still be alongside the Maritime Museum, would house the yacht Black Magic, and would tell the story, both of Blake and of New Zealand yachting.

Having waited three years, I'm happy to wait another few weeks to see what Plan B brings. However, it's worth mulling over the alternative that most Aucklanders considered a more suitable memorial - the purchase and restoration in Blakes' name of Kaikoura Island, which nestles alongside Great Barrier Island opposite the mouth of the Hauraki Gulf.

We could end up with both.

Aucklanders' enthusiasm for Kaikoura Island as a Blake memorial was the nudge needed to convince Conservation Minister Chris Carter to buy the island regardless, to protect it from foreign ownership. That done, there is still the question of funding the eradication of pests and restoration of native wildlife.

The original Te Papa memorial was to cost $10 million, with the Government pledging $2.5 million, Auckland City $2 million and the national museum organising the difference.

Restoring Kaikoura Island, on the other hand, is going to be a bit like doing up an old villa. One of those "how much have you got?" sort of projects. Eliminating the deer and the rats are top of trust chairman Geoff Davidson's list of chores. After that he's open to proposals that come with cash attached. He doesn't feel renaming the island after Blake is appropriate, but given Blake's post-yachting conservation crusade, he suggests the restoration project could be named after him. As a visible monument, he points to the simple stone cairn mounted on neighbouring Cuvier Island honouring an earlier adventurer, Sir Robert Falcon Scott.

Alternatively, New Zealand is a major nesting habitat for the great wandering seabirds such as the albatross and the petrel, and Kaikoura Island is one of the key sites. "These birds live the same sort of wandering life that Peter Blake led. Why not set up the Peter Blake Pelagic Seabird Research Centre?"

Why not? And this doesn't need to be a contest. With Te Papa promising a smaller budget for its memorial, why not aim for both?