Welcome to Middle Earth

Well, it's finally happened.

New Zealand has been sold.

The details were resolved late last night in a multi-billion dollar deal between Warners, Disney, John Key and the Green Party.

As soon as the Rugby World Cup is finished in 2011, New Zealand will no longer exist, but will become known as Middle Earth.  The plan has the complete support of the Greens, as one of the conditions of the sale , which turns Aoteroa into the world's biggest theme park, is the removal of all high-tech machinery.  The rules are as follows.

• New Zealand renamed Middle Earth.(Aoteroa is retained as a secondary name, because Warners reckon it sounds sort of Elvish)
• North Island becomes The North Shire
• South Island becomes the South Shire
• All cars to be scrapped and replaced by horse/donkey drawn transport
• Tourist buses can remain, but ONLY for tourist use.
• All Electricity Transmission pylons to be torn down.  Individual houses may use water-wheels and/or wind turbines, but only if they look rustic and home-made.
• All roads to have their tarmac scraped off.  They can be cobbled or left metalled
• All factories, Malls, High Rise (over 2 stories) buildings to be demolished, and replaced with either cave-homes or crude shacks.  The organisers have agreed that as most of the houses in Aoteroa are crude shacks anyway, they can stay.
• All inhabitants of Middle Earth to be re-classified:
• Adult males under 5' 2", Females under 4' 6"are Hobbits
• All Maori are now Orcs
• All Males and Females over 6' 2" and less than 90kg are now elves
• Everybody else stays Human
• Orcs can eat Hobbits and Elves
• Everyone can kill an Orc on sight, but only if a tourist can observe.
• John Keys is renamed as Gandalf, Hone Harawera is renamed Sauron, Lord of the North.
• All Air NZ planes to be sent to Weta Workshops, where they will be changed into Dragons
• Free Ears and Feet will be distributed appropriately, until the plastic surgeons can complete their work
• Marijuana plantations to be set up around Hawkes Bay, and the plant is to be known nationally as Pipe Weed.  A free allowance of 2kg per adult per week is to be given, but must only be smoked in pipes.
• The proceeds of the sale, plus the estimated tourist income will allow every inhabitant of Middle Earth to receive $50,000 each in annual benefits. 

The organisers hope that everyone will enter into the spirit of the agreement, and embrace the forth-coming transformation.  They also added that all hospitals would be demolished and the health system would be closed, to let everyone experience nature in a pure and Green way.  "Your lives may be shorter, but they will be much fuller" the spokesperson said.  "Anyway, you'll all be stoned on the Pipe Weed, so you won't really care"