Of ports and neurosurgery

Between the recent proposal to centre South Island neurosurgery services in Christchurch and now the report that the New Zealand Shippers' Council favors Lyttleton over Port Chalmers, one gets the impression that for many in positions of influence anything below the Waitaki River does not really exist. But while their maps may be based upon those of old seafarers, carrying the label: "here be dragons", if they listen closely they will note that it is not the dragon's roar they hear. Rather it is the combined voices of 300,000 angry New Zealanders who are tired of being treated as irrelevant.