Red Rik Returns-Combating Capitalism, Cow Cockies

The local body elections have brought some old faces to the fore.


In my neck of the woods, Richard Tindall is standing for Environment Canterbury on the the anti-dairy farming, Save Our Water ticket.


Canterbury aquifers are being emptied and contaminated with excessive animal waste. The public will be asked to pay for water treatment and supply, on the present course of dairy farm expansion, unless we say No! - by voting SOW.

City, farm, public and tangata whenua all share a positive future within a healthy environment, if this becomes conscious Council strategy. Save Our Water is the electoral campaign to bring that balance into play.

A computer services company manager and history honours graduate, with forebears in Canterbury for 135 years and a production focus, I promise you the communication necessary to bring your voice to local government.

Richard might be Green and caring now, but when I first became aware of him several years back, he was a raving red.

Rik Tindall as he called himself then was involved in student politics at Canterbury University in the early '80s.

In 1982 Rik was elected onto the UCSA exec for '83 but did not serve. Instead he travelled overseas, visiting Europe, the Balkans, Egypt and China. He claims that his experiences influenced his ideas in the direction of socialism.

in 1986 Rik returned to NZ to complete a BA in Pol Sci at Victoria University.

By the ealy '90s Rik was back at Canterbury, waving placards and wearing a Trotsky cap and goatee.

For a brief priod Rik was Christchurch rep of David Bedggood's tiny Trotskyist sect, Workers Power.

In the mid '90s Rik was Canterbury Uni's resident radical. No demo was complete without Rik and his placard.

In November 1993, Rik was spokesman for the Canterbury Uni Education Action Group mob who occupied the universty council chambers at General Election time in protest at higher tuition fees.

Rik was also involved in the Maoist leaning Campaign for Peoples Sovereignty and the Trotskyist leaning Campaign for Student Democracy and Canterbury University Progressive Left club.

In 1994 Rik was involved in the Marxian Research and Communictions Co-operative, the University Mens Education Network and the Canterbury University Marxist Society.

That year he was also paid by the Students Association to co-ordinate student protest activity. UCSA also commissioned Rik to write a history of Canterbury Uni student protest-"Generations in Dissent"

In 1995 I saw Rik at the Hiroshima Day rally in cathedral Square carrying a "Committee for International Workers Revolution" placard.

In 1996 Rik was studying at Christchurch Polytech and still leading the revolution. He took part in a student bus convergence on Welligton in yet another protest at student fees.

In recent years Rik has been working in the open software movement, another hobbyhorse of the left.

Clearly, cow cockying is incompatible with communism.