Massey feature news

Wairarapa ag student heads home to the farm

Mon, 12 Mar 2012 00:03:00 +1200

Sam Woodhouse

Armed with a Massey University degree, Wairarapa’s Sam Woodhouse now plans on returning to her Pongaroa home and putting it use.

After three years in Palmerston North studying a Bachelor of Science, majoring in agricultural science and human nutrition, Ms Woodhouse knows exactly where she wants to be – working in the agricultural industry.

“Farming’s in my blood,” she says. “Both my parents are from farming families, so I’ve been brought up on the farm and love the lifestyle. I can’t stand the city at all – I lived in Auckland for a year after I finished school but I hated it so much. There’s not enough grass or trees for me.”

Ms Woodhouse was the recipient of a Sydney Campbell Scholarship for the last two years of her degree. Sydney Campbell farmed Riverside Farm in Wairarapa until his death in 1977. It was placed in a trust to be used for the benefit of farming.

Riverside is now leased by Massey and used for agricultural and veterinary research. Income from the farm, which had been in the Campbell family for 120 years, is used to fund the Sydney Campbell Scholarships awarded to Wairarapa agricultural students each year.

The scholarship was a great help, Ms Woodhouse says. “It meant that I could apply more resources and time to my studies, which I couldn’t afford before.”

She says being a fifth generation farmer came in handy in her studies. ”I found the agriculture degree really good because I could relate it back to what we were doing at home.”

Now, she hopes to return to the Wairarapa and give back to the community that supported her through university. “I’m looking to start a career in the agriculture industry – maybe in pasture and crop agronomy or animal nutrition,” she says. “I really want to work with farmers in the field. That’s where I want to be. And I’m also looking to return to the family farm in the future.”

'Legend' anti drink-drive line is quote of the year

Wed, 21 Dec 2011 00:12:00 +1200

YouTube clip of the Legend advert that has attracted over 1.5 million views.

Communication lecturer Dr Heather Kavan, who organised
the New Zealand Top Ten Quotes of 2011.

A one-liner from an anti drink-drive television advert has been voted quote of the year in a Massey University competition to find the top ten New Zealand memorable quotes of 2011.

"I've been internalising a really complicated situation in my head” from the New Zealand Transport Authority’s ‘Legend’ campaign was voted top in the University’s contest.

Another quote from the same advert – "You know I can't grab your ghost chips!" – was the second most popular. The top two combined received 40 per cent of the voting, which was carried out through the University’s Facebook site.

In election year, it was no surprise that comments from MPs took third and fourth place, with Christchurch Mayor Bob Parker’s poignant post-earthquake speech to the Christchurch City Council in fifth place.

The competition was organised by communication lecturer Dr Heather Kavan, of the School of Communication, Journalism and Marketing, who invited students to submit entries. The best ten – from a variety of sources including movies, comedy and news reports – were selected by academics and put forward for judging.

Dr Kavan was inspired to launch a list after becoming a fan of the list put out by Yale University in the United States and intends to produce an annual student-led list of top ten quotes.

She says as a lecturer in speechwriting she is fascinated by the power of language and always looking for great one-liners.

“A good one-liner is brief, witty and original,” she says. “We recognise a great one because we want to say it ourselves. Delivery is also important, and I think the ‘internalising a really complicated situation in my head’ quote came in at the top because of the amusing phrasing and the actor’s delivery.”

The official advertisement, featuring actor Darcey-Ray Flavell, from the hit movie Boy, has had over 1.5 million hits on YouTube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIYvD9DI1ZA&feature=related

Dr Kavan, who won a prestigious Cicero Speech Writing Award, last year, says in mass communication it is always important to choose words that soften potential resistance to the message. “This is especially important in an anti-drink driving campaign where there is so much at stake,” she says.

Dr Kavan's speech writing paper has received outstanding student reviews. In 2008 Dr Kavan won the Vice-Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching and, in 2009, a National Tertiary Teaching Excellence Award for Sustained Excellence.

The winning quote was submitted by Graduate Diploma in Business Studies student Jacob Ulmer.

The top ten quotes from Massey University for 2011 are:

"I've been internalising a really complicated situation in my head." Actor Darcey-Ray Flavell in the NZTA drink-driving ad where a young man is pondering all the arguments for and against telling his friend not to drive.
"You know I can't grab your ghost chips!" Actor Darcey-Ray Flavell in the NZTA drink-driving ad where a young man imagines his friend dying in a car crash and returning as a ghost who offers him chips.
“Government is not there to make your life a better place necessarily.” National MP David Bennett.
"To have a cell phone, a dog and a ute". Building and Construction Minister Maurice Williamson, on all a person needs to claim to be a builder.
"The real story of what has happened in Christchurch is the heroic story at the grass roots level, which is neighbour working with neighbour." Mayor Bob Parker’s speech to the Christchurch City Council.
"The Government has banned Fijian rugby players with military connections, criminal convictions, or who are competitive at the breakdown." Jeremy Corbett on 7Days.
“If we continue the bankrupt response of just paying young Polynesian, young Maori men in South Auckland, the dole to sit in front of TV, smoke marijuana, watch pornography and plan more drug offending, more burglaries, then we are going to have them coming through our window regardless if we live in Epsom or anywhere else in the greater Auckland." John Banks interviewed by Sean Plunket on The Nation.
"Naturally I finished my set." sales representative Cameron Leslie who was at a gym in Oslo, Norway, when a fatal bomb went off 50 metres away recalls the incident to John Campbell on Campbell Live.
"It’s my heart Craig, not my gonads.” Rhys Darby's character ‘Doug’ in the film Lovebirds.
"These guys have gone from the Stone Age to the space age in 150 years, and haven't said thanks." ACT party marketing director John Ansell speaking about Maori. He later resigned from his position.

'Elections are bad for business'

Fri, 25 Nov 2011 00:11:00 +1200

Dr Alexander Molchanov is one of the authors of a study into
how politics impacts on the business sector.

Elections are bad for business because economic uncertainty increases during political campaigns, according to a newly-published study by a Massey University researcher.

Senior finance lecturer Dr Alexander Molchanov, of the School of Economics and Finance at Albany, was part of a team that studied stock market volatility across 50 countries in the six-month lead up to an election and the year after.

They found countries that hold national elections have more volatile economies than autocracies because investors and businesses are put off by the risks associated with political uncertainty. Furthermore, the study found that markets do not always settle down the year after an election.

“Export-oriented industries in particular, such as we have in New Zealand, show higher volatility when political risks are high,” says Dr Molchanov.

They also found labour-intensive industries had higher volatility when left-wing governments were in power or when labour laws were stricter, he says.

The researchers say the study settles the argument of whether political outcomes influence stock market volatility.

It is believed to be the first paper to analyse the impact of political events on return volatility over such a large set of countries.

The paper Precarious Politics and Return Volatility was co-authored by Artem Durnev of the University of Iowa, Maria Boutchkova of the University of Leicester and Hitesh Doshi of the University of Houston. The findings have just been published in the Review of Financial Studies.

Election 2011 - Lining up the numbers

Wed, 23 Nov 2011 00:11:00 +1200

This is a caption

by Grant Duncan

Although it’s impossible to predict the exact numbers at the election this Saturday, we can at least see some overall trends in opinion polls – and we can speculate about options for forming a government after the votes are counted. Keep in mind that a government rules only so long as it can defeat motions of no confidence in the House of Representatives and pass supply bills that authorise expenditure.

For the past three years, John Key’s National-led minority government has been supported by agreements about confidence and supply votes with three minor parties – ACT, Mäori and United Future. This gave his government some flexibility for getting its overall legislative programme through.

So, given that it’s all about numbers of seats in the House, what are some of the possible combinations after Saturday?

Mr Key’s preferred outcome would be for National to command a majority in the House on its own. If that happens, it’s likely to be a slim majority, and he may choose to include one or more minor parties (especially ACT) in that arrangement anyway. But, under such circumstances, those agreements would be looser than in the previous government. Trade-offs around ministerial posts and policy positions could be made, but it’s unlikely that a National Party in such a commanding position would make any significant compromises.

A National–ACT duet (either a coalition or a supply-and-confidence agreement) was looking likely, but the polls are suggesting that Epsom voters will block that. Mr Dunne’s majority in Ohariu looks risky too, so there is no guarantee that he will be around next time.

If ACT and United Future get no seats and National lacks a one-party majority in the House, then the options get more interesting. There’s no reason why arrangements with the Maori Party could not be renewed, even though the latter has expressed opposition to state asset-sales, a critical policy for National.

There has been speculation about an arrangement with the Greens. This may sound odd, especially if we are talking about Green leaders taking up ministerial portfolios alongside National; but the Greens have been known to support a government (the Clark government) by simply agreeing to abstain from confidence and supply votes.

It’s looking likely that the Greens will finish up with sufficient numbers of seats to make an abstention agreement a back-up position for National – but again, there’d be a quid-pro-quo requirement for the government to adopt some of the Greens’ policies. National and the Greens already had, in the last term, a memorandum of understanding that included some policy actions that the Green Party had been wanting, so a more substantial supporting relationship is a possibility after this election – and that needn’t mean the Greens ‘going into government’ with National.

Much has been made lately about the NZ First Party, including dire warnings from the PM about the destabilizing effect of the leader of that party. These warnings should be taken with a grain of salt. NZ First provided a stable partner for the Labour-led government. Mr Key is really hoping that NZ First will fall short of the 5 per cent threshold and so boost the number of seats allocated to National.

Key and Peters have both made it clear that they are reluctant to work together, and luckily that will probably be unnecessary. Assuming the opinion polls are not completely out of line, it looks like National will have sufficient options to form a credible government after the election. But, if Key and Peters have to negotiate, then surely they will; and an abstention agreement could be a satisfactory arrangement for both parties. That way Mr Peters could tell us he’s being responsible, and preserve his political independence, while Mr Key would get to be PM again.

So, don’t rule anything out. We should not omit to consider the possibility of a Labour-led minority government, too. If there is a strong left-wing voter turn-out and a disappointing result for National and ACT – pushing the numbers leftwards – and if NZ First passes the 5 per cent threshold, then Mr Goff could think about a governance arrangement spanning Labour, the Greens, the Maori Party and NZ First – and possibly the Mana Party.

We should not jump to the conclusion that such an arrangement would be unstable, as stable governments have been formed with unlikely combinations before under MMP. The prospect of power does shape behavior into self-disciplined patterns. But one could predict some difficult negotiations among those parties when it came to sorting out cabinet posts and policy priorities. And many voters would feel cheated that a governing party with the largest number of party votes had been kicked out of the Beehive.

Then again, under the old first-past-post system, there were elections where the party that got the most votes ended up with fewer seats in the House, and couldn’t form a government. No system is perfect.

What New Zealanders often don’t get is that tense and complex negotiations go on within parties just as much as they go on between parties. We don’t notice the internal party wrangling because it happens behind closed doors. Political parties do have rival factions and personality conflicts, however. MMP has made some of the political conflicts and horse-trading more public – like the cuppa-tea fiasco.

No doubt there are post-election governance possibilities that I have not considered here. And the opinion polls could turn out to be inaccurate, making all predictions irrelevant. But, if you think that the results are too messy, blaming the voting system is like blaming the messenger: the politicians have to play with whatever cards that we (the voters) deal, no matter which electoral system we have.

Election Day is the people’s day, after all.

Dr Grant Duncan is an Associate Professor, Politics and Public Policy, at Massey University’s Albany campus.

Election 2011 - Undies, undies, togs: undressing the Epsom talk scandal

Tue, 22 Nov 2011 00:11:00 +1200

By Claire Robinson

Many will be familiar with the Tip Top Trumpet “Undies” advertisement when a man in a bathing suit walks away from a beach into a town, while the question is asked “how far away from the beach do togs become undies?” The answer: “if you can’t see the water you’re in underpants”. Something that is acceptably public becomes private once it has crossed a perceptual dividing line.

It’s a scenario analogous to the Epsom talk scandal that dominated the 2011 election campaign last week. While the camera crews and journalists were inside the café covering the tea meeting between John Key and John Banks they were at effectively at the beach, but once they left to go outside the café window they were in town. The dividing line was also perceptual; a piece of glass that meant the media was still able to see what was going on, but they were not permitted to hear what was being said.

Like the appropriateness of wearing underpants in public, in politics there is a dividing line between what is private and what is public. Another analogy is the theatre concepts of backstage and front-stage: there is politics that goes on behind closed doors [backstage] and there is politics that is presented before a live or mediated audience [front-stage].

Backstage is the area that the public does not enter (either because it is personal, sensitive, unnecessary, unhelpful, boring, impractical or time consuming to do so). Opinions expressed in these spaces are not for public consumption. Backstage areas include the 9th floor of the Beehive, the PM’s home, many corridors in parliament buildings, the Cabinet and other rooms in the Beehive, inside crown cars, bars, restaurants, meeting and hotel rooms. Some of these places are public, in the sense of being perceived in open view, but they are nonetheless backstage in terms of being out-of-bounds to the public (including the news media).

Front-stage includes the lobby of parliament, wherever there is a stand-up press conference, the Beehive Theatrette, the television and radio studios when the cameras are running and the mics are on, the chamber, the campaign trail. Front-stage is the space of the ‘photo op’, the one-one-one interview and the media “stand-up” news conference. The rules and timing of these moments are mutually agreed between political leader and media pack, and access to this area is granted “at the pleasure” of the prime minister. In return the PM relinquishes his right to edit the tapes, frame the news item or control how his image and message is subsequently used.

During election campaigns the media has increased access backstage. This works to benefit both media and politician: political leaders need to be in the public spotlight as much as practicable in order to communicate their message to as many voters as possible, and so they allow the news media to accompany them on the campaign trail day and night. The news media follow them to gather announcements about the campaign which they can frame as news.

Access to backstage is tightly controlled by media managers, private secretaries, diaries, security detail, processes and systems. However, during an election campaign, when politicians are away from their normal office support systems and are found in myriad public spaces, this access is at greater risk of being violated, as it was in Epsom.

John Key’s cup of tea meeting with John Banks was front-stage in the sense that the media was invited along; the setting enabled them to participate, take photos, ask questions. The media was then asked to leave, and once they had left the immediate vicinity (although still outside the window) John Key and John Banks had what they thought was a backstage conversation in accord with the norms and conventions that have been established between leader and media; the type of conversation that would normally be held in any one of the out-of-bounds places listed above.

Many have argued that because the cup of tea took place in a public place and the media had been invited along to a staged photo opportunity, the details of the conversation between Key and Banks should be available to the public turning it, in effect, into a front-stage conversation. However, simply being in a public space does not automatically confer those properties on the conversation. The important question is whether the PM gave them a back-stage pass (or permission to wear their undies on the beach) and he did not.

The situation that has dominated the news is a breakdown between front-stage and back-stage actions. It’s no surprise that John Key has dug his heels in and is refusing to engage. The line between backstage and front-stage, the beach and town, has been shifted. And not at his pleasure.

By not being accommodating in subsequent stand-up interviews Key has sought to shift his own line between back and front-stage. The media stand-up is part of the ritual of an election campaign - a reward for arduously and patiently following political leaders around on the trail. For politicians the interview is one of the primary mechanisms by which they can get their messages used in the construction of news. But it’s also the barrier between beach and town, back and front-stage. To refuse to answer their questions is telling the pack that they stepped too far and he’s going to withdraw some of their privileges for a while.

And not surprisingly the media pack are a bit pissed in return. They are expressing this through the selection of unflattering photographic images to illustrate the story: selection of image being one of the powers they have over the PM’s office. They have also been trying to get Key’s behaviour subsequent to the tea cup taping to form another scandal in itself: in particular the PM’s alleged ability to mobilise the police to investigate the case. Through the vehicle of news stories about ordinary people who haven’t been able to call upon the resources of the police as swiftly as the PM the media is hiding their outrage under the guise of empirical evidence.

As we know from the opinion polls, a majority of New Zealanders accept that there is a distinction between private and public, and that this is media obsession with the story is a sideshow. This is not about public morality but is, like most scandals that become media stories, a manifestation of a struggle over a deeper set of power relations between political leader and the news media.

The media will only be truly happy when John Key wears his undies in public. But this is not a man who is ever likely to do so.

Associate Professor Claire Robinson is the Assistant Pro Vice-Chancellor of the College of Creative Arts and a specialist in political marketing.

This column was first published on spinprofessor.tumblr.com on October 21, 2011.

Election 2011 - Storm in a teacup turns to a tornado

Fri, 18 Nov 2011 00:11:00 +1200

by Grant Duncan

Students of New Zealand politics may look back at the 2011 election and see the so-called teapot tape as the political turning point.

Election campaigns often have discernable moments when fortunes change. In 2002 Helen Clark's opportunity of winning an absolute majority crumbled after the publication of Nicky Hager's Seeds of Distrust book, which alleged that the Government kept secret the accidental release of GE crops.

In 2005 Don Brash's momentum was lost when it was revealed he had secret backing from the Exclusive Brethren, who in turn were mounting anonymous attacks on the Green Party.

This time around it's the political hot-seat of Epsom, where John Key's attempt to steer National voters towards his preferred coalition partner, ACT, has turned from a publicity stunt into an all-out war between the National Party and the news media.

First, let’s recall that it’s an embarrassing, but not uncommon, blunder for a politician to be recorded unawares on a stray microphone while saying something injudicious, thinking he was speaking in private. Obama and Sarkozy did it recently. Gordon Brown has done it. The best strategy is just to tough it out and say as little as possible, except an apology if necessary.

With hindsight, I wonder if the Herald on Sunday would not have done the PM a favour if they had just published the tape's content last weekend without asking anyone’s permission. By now, it might be all over with, and we’d be back to “the issues that really matter".

But what happened instead?

After the Herald on Sunday revealed it had the tape, National's campaign chair Steven Joyce went online in attack mode. The paper had “deliberately arranged the taping, in an unwelcome introduction of UK-style News of the World tabloid tactics", he alleged. This pre-judged the issue as a conflict between the party and the newspaper and it introduced the now-discredited comparison with the phone-hacking scandal in Britain. More seriously, Joyce leapt to the conclusion that the taping was “illegal”, a serious criminal allegation that has yet to be tested in court.

Key tried repeating these lines, but they weren’t convincing anyone except his most loyal supporters. He claimed the moral high ground, saying he was only trying to draw a line in the sand so that reporters wouldn’t think they could get away with “tabloid-style” tactics in future. Allowing the tape's contents to be published would be “rewarding” such undesirable behaviour.

In doing so, he impugned the whole profession of journalism in this country by effectively ignoring the fact that reporters and editors do have ethical standards and are overseen by the Press Council and the Broadcasting Standards Authority.

Next, he offended families who have lost a loved-one due to suicide, by musing about what would happen if a reporter recorded a private conversation between two high-profile parents whose child was suicidal. As if that were a relevant comparison!

He described the taped conversation as “bland” but still wouldn’t publish it. Then he pretended that he didn’t have to answer any more questions on the matter, to the point of turning his back on reporters.

What’s more, to whip this storm-in-a-tea-cup into a tornado, he complained to the police. They began executing search warrants on news media organisations. I am sure that the officers involved have conducted the searches with the utmost integrity, but to the outside observer, this is a very bad look. One week before the election we have police apparently “raiding” media offices due to a complaint by an angry Prime Minister. No doubt the police will have in the backs of their minds the silly and somewhat insulting comment that Key made about them having spare time to conduct the investigation.

The police investigation – now the focus of international media interest – places New Zealand at risk of a democratic credit rating downgrade to “banana republic” B-minus.

The whole issue could have been put to rest by now, if the National Party’s campaign management had taken the “honesty and transparency” line from the start.

Now the tea-party story is out of their control (much to the glee of Winston Peters and the dismay of John Banks), and everyone’s election campaign is in disarray.

And yet we have still to hear the tapes themselves! So far all we have had is a prolonged game of charades, hinting at the contents of the conversation. Once we see the whole transcript (maybe on Wikileaks!) then there will only be further gossip and scandal.

Key should sack his campaign managers and send them off to study Politics 101.

I can’t predict how this will end, or what effect it will have on the big poll next Saturday. But, assuming John Key is still PM after that date, he has set himself up for a miserable three-year term of sniping from all sides by the media.

No more Mr Nice Guy!

Dr Grant Duncan is an Associate Professor, Politics and Public Policy, at Massey University’s Albany campus.

Election 2011 - New Zealand debt and credit ratings

Tue, 08 Nov 2011 00:11:00 +1200

Dr David Tripe

By David Tripe

One of the topics of recent financial news from around the world and New Zealand has been credit ratings. Both the United States and countries in Europe have suffered downgrades, which have sometimes been the subject of complaint by politicians, alleging unfair treatment. New Zealand has also had a credit rating downgrade from two out of the three major agencies (Fitch and Standard & Poors) to AA, although the third (Moodys) has so far left New Zealand’s rating unchanged at AAA. What are ratings, why do they matter, and what are the politics associated with them?

Credit ratings are opinions by ratings agencies as to creditworthiness. In respect of countries, how sound is the economy? Will the country be able to repay its debts? Because it is an opinion, the judgement will sometimes be wrong, but in rating corporations’ debt issues and countries, their judgements are usually vindicated. Particularly if you’re in a different country to the one where you’re lending, you will find the credit rating to be a useful signal.

Because credit ratings look at creditworthiness, or more specifically, at the probability of default (defined as failure to repay the full amount due when it’s due), they will also relate to interest rates. In general terms, the worse the credit rating, the higher the probability of default, and the higher the interest rate will be. Lenders identify a higher risk of not getting repaid, and want a higher interest rate to compensate themselves for this.

So how risky is New Zealand, and is its credit rating appropriate? Could we be subject to further downgrades? Government debt is not a major problem, despite the attention given to it by politicians (gross debt was $65 billion at June 30, 32.5 per cent of gross domestic product, while net debt was only just over 20 per cent of GDP). However, if future governments do not reduce the current budget deficit (which could be $15 billion or more in 2011-12), government debt could become more important.

The major risk in New Zealand is private debt. As at June 30, net foreign investment (debt plus equity) in New Zealand exceeded foreign investment by New Zealanders by $140 billion, equivalent to 70 per cent of GDP. This is large by international standards, and much of it is debt requiring regular interest payments, putting a burden on the balance of payments current account.

The main reason for New Zealand’s debt having grown to this extent has been our continuing balance of payments deficits on current account. We have absorbed foreign funds as both debt and equity to pay for our spending being greater than our income, and this has resulted in the gradual buy-up of our banks, farms and other assets by foreigners. The only way we can stop the buy-up of New Zealand is by increasing our savings, so that we spend less internationally, and that we can then afford to finance the ownership of New Zealand ourselves. This is one of the reasons why the major parties are both looking at extending Kiwisaver contributions.

A change to New Zealand’s pattern of current account deficits is not going to happen quickly, and when it does occur, it will be likely to involve a downward shift in the value of the New Zealand dollar relative to all currencies, increasing the costs of imports (leading to petrol at $3 per litre?). In the short run, the New Zealand economy is likely to face worse conditions, and we might easily face another credit rating downgrade. These are some real challenges for the New Zealand economy.

Dr David Tripe is Director of Banking Studies at Massey University's College of Business.

Election 2011 - On body language

Tue, 08 Nov 2011 00:11:00 +1200

by Claire Robinson

Valid questions were asked on Sunday morning’s Mediawatch about the role of television in political impression formation, and the focus of the punditry (me included) on the presentational style of the National and Labour party leaders in the first televised leaders debate on TV One. The issue: whether the focus on presentation masks attention to the ‘real’ issues, as illustrated by Jeremy Rose’s question to the Listener’s Toby Manhire about the quality of blog coverage of the campaign:

“And let’s look at that analysis because there’s a lot of almost sporting analogies and a lot less experts with kind of insight and analysis of what’s going on. Is that your view? Do you think the mainstream tends to be using pundits who talk about body language and that kind of stuff over experts who have in-depth knowledge of say the economy, or whatever the issue might be that’s being talked about?”

It is true that politics has become increasingly personalised since the introduction of television and other mass media changes, including greater newspaper competition, tabloidisation and the popularity of newer digitised forms of social networking. These have enabled the news media to give greater coverage and scrutiny to the appearance, behaviour, private lives and narratives of political leaders and leadership candidates.

Many observers worry that this phenomenon, labeled as the ‘personalisation of politics’, has become more important than ever before, to the point of taking precedence over principle, policy and the rational deliberation of objective information, in determining the outcome of democratic elections.

What makes the issue of presentation and appearance so challenging for many is that the mediated images people receive of leaders are not ‘political’ but are instead social. Take a glance at any newspaper or television coverage of leaders in a campaign. You will see lots of images of leaders socially interacting with others: be it with a child, a partner, voters, other politicians, celebrities, officials, journalists, interviewers, photographers, competitors, an audience, party members, colleagues, or protestors.

Rather than panic about this being evidence of the dumbing down of politics, it pays to look deeper into what sort of information audiences receive when they are watching these social images, which is information about political leadership.
Judgments about political leadership can and do make a difference to electoral outcomes. New Zealand election studies have found the impact of leadership on election outcomes is between 1-5%. While it is minimal compared to policy and party predisposition, in a close election (which many of our MMP elections have been) this can be the difference between winning and losing. And evidence from overseas research suggests that the impact of leadership on election outcomes is getting more important.

Of course the question then is, how can audiences form accurate leadership perceptions out of images that relate to appearance, kissing babies, walking around shopping malls and pointing fingers in debates. Isn’t leadership meant to be about trustworthiness, credibility, competence and integrity?

The reality is that political leadership today is as much about relating to voters as it is about making decisions, developing policy, articulating vision, managing teams of people and holding political parties together. And it is through tele-mediated images of leaders relating to others that people form leadership perceptions.

As social beings humans are able to intuit leadership traits out of nonverbal behaviours in social interaction settings. Even at a tele-mediated distance audiences process these images instinctively using the perceptual tools they are equipped with as social beings. They relate their understandings of the rules and conventions of social interaction with the character traits they expect effective leaders to possess, and then use this as the basis for developing a judgment about a political leader

Humans are instinctively primed to look for caring body language. We look for this in images communicating a leader’s ability to relate to ‘real’ people. We judge this through observation of their comfort in relating to others at close social distance (hand shakes, pats on the shoulder, smiles, body stance, listening). We use this to assess whether a leader is friend or foe. These assessments translate into judgments of caring, likability, trustworthiness and effective leadership, compassion and benevolence in a leader.

In political debates audiences are instinctively looking to see whether their preferred candidate can be trusted to competently protect against threat to themselves and others. They look for nonverbal signs of how leaders respond to threat from a competitor and how challengers threaten the leader. Audiences read nonverbal signs (such as vocal fluency and tone, hand gestures, eye contact, stance, nervous tics, tight or relaxed mouth, frowns, choice of clothing, interruptions and use of humour) for who is best able to handle a complex and stressful social situation. Presentation of a confident self in relation to competition has been found to directly influence assessments of credibility, strength, competence, character, composure and sociability.

All too often commentators and political analysts look at single leader image events and treat them as a symptom of a wider pathology affecting political culture. Yet such image events are rarely sustained, and peoples’ deeper impression of political leadership is not formed over a single incident, or even a few. To be properly appreciated the expression and impression of leadership needs to be considered as something that builds over time and is experienced in a wide variety of situations, not simply in election campaigns.

Expressions and impressions of a relationship enacted between leader and others are going to become more, not less, important as time and technology march on. With further technological changes in large format, high-definition, 3D and eventually holographic in-home media display systems, relationships that are currently perceived at a tele-mediated distance will soon be perceived through immersion in an experience that realistically and intimately mimics an embodied relationship between political leaders and individual citizens.

This will not enthuse observers who think there is too much emphasis on personality politics already in the media. But the potential for new technologies to further lessen the physical distance between leader and others is far reaching.
Associate Professor Claire Robinson is the Associate Pro Vice-Chancellor of the College of Creative Arts. First published on spinprofessor.tumblr.com

RWC winner says French tactics a risk

Wed, 21 Sep 2011 00:09:00 +1200

Dr Farah Palmer

Three-time Rugby World Cup winner Dr Farah Palmer says she understands why France may want to field an understrength side against New Zealand this weekend, but the ploy could backfire.

The French side will feature a halfback at first five, a move that has led a number of commentators to the conclusion the team may not be serious about winning.

Dr Palmer – who captained the New Zealand side that won the inaugural Women’s Rugby World Cup tournament in 1998, and then again in 2002 and 2006 – is a senior lecturer at Massey’s School of Management.

She says the French management team may be dealing its own players a psychological blow. “They are obviously taking the long view that coming second in the group gives the team the best path to the final,” she says.

“The danger is that they are also playing mind games with their own players. France has a good record against the All Blacks but if they lose this game at the weekend the players might then be at a psychological disadvantage if the teams meet again later in the tournament.”

However, Palmer says the entire French squad is full of experienced, big game players. “They will lift their game and perform well,” she says “But the top combinations will have had limited game time together heading into the knockout phase of the tournament.”

The All Blacks need to keep their focus firmly on their own performance, Palmer says. “They need to lift their game and really start putting teams away. They have played well but need to finish stronger.”

Caption: Dr Farah Palmer.

Election 2011 - Polls suggest contradictory outcome possible

Wed, 07 Sep 2011 00:09:00 +1200

by Grant Duncan

It’s Election year. How boring! National sleep-walking back into office, while Labour has only the hardest of hard-core support to save it from oblivion.

A good proportion of New Zealanders profess disdain for politicians (‘they behave like children’) and disinterest in politics (‘it doesn’t matter who wins, it’s all the same’). And the apparent predictability of the coming election – especially when up against the excitement of the Rugby World Cup – would suggest a relatively low voter turn-out on 26 November.

And many of us won’t have even thought about the referendum on the electoral system. Do you want to keep MMP, or go for an alternative? You can take your pick of four alternatives, but can you even name them all, let alone understand how they work? Probably many people won’t complete that part of the ballot papers.

The pundits are picking that MMP will be retained, as there’s no urgent reason to change. It tends to be conservatives who most dislike MMP or any kind of proportional system. They rather liked the pre-1996 system because it delivered ‘strong government’ (or ‘elected dictatorship’). But, as MMP happens to be working well for the center-right at present, it’s unlikely that the referendum will go against it.

The interesting question for the 2012 election is not whether National will remain in office, but whether they will gain a majority of seats in the House. If they do, and if MMP is retained, then voters will have done two contradictory things: voted for an electoral system that was supposed to prevent one-party rule, and for one party to rule (at least for one term of office).

There may be two distinct thoughts in people’s minds: they want one party to rule so that they don’t have to hear them bickering in public so much; and yet they are also suspicious of handing over the reins to one party on its own. They may like John Key, but he isn’t the economic White Knight they once thought he was, they don’t like asset-sales, they are not happy with progress in Christchurch, etc.

Apathy or wariness among voters could see that promise of an absolute majority for National slip away.

The next big question, then, concerns the smaller parties. Some people complain that MMP gives them too much power, but they have suffered an overall reduction in their total votes. In 2002, the minor parties who actually got seats commanded in total nearly one third of the party vote. In 2008, that proportion was less than 15%.

Elections have almost reverted to a two-horse race, reinforced in voters’ minds by TV debates that feature only the National and Labour leaders, as if we were having a presidential run-off.

The Greens are the only success-story among the smaller parties at present. They have a well-defined brand, and they conduct themselves with high ethical standards. It looks like they will finish relatively well this year, in part due to Labour’s low ebb, and in part due to taking a more centrist stance.

The Maori Party have had a bad year so far, due to a punch-up with Hone Harawira, and the by-election in Te Tai Tokerau. They will have to work hard to establish themselves as ‘the voice of Maori’ alongside Hone’s Mana Party. As in the business world, where iwi corporations are growing fast, we are seeing Maori political parties assert themselves, define their distinctive constituencies, and, in short, become a force to be reckoned with. John Key’s deal with the Maori Party after the 2008 election is just one symptom of this trend.

What can one say about ACT, then? Disaster zone? Grumpy old man zone? It still makes one wince to recall Brash’s brazen take-over of ACT (like a modern docu-drama based on Machiavelli’s The Prince) and his deluded ambition to get 15 per cent of the party vote. John Banks missed out on getting Mayor, but he’ll probably get Epsom, and so he and Don and one or two more will make a party on the far right. Whoever thought that Don Brash would deliver the now-old ‘new right’ from irrelevance was mistaken.

As for Labour, their failure to inspire this term is not as unusual as it may seem. National, under Bill English’s leadership, suffered similarly in 2002, resulting in a humiliating 21% of the party vote. At such moments, up against a popular opponent, nothing seems to work for a party, and then more voters reject them simply because they are low in the opinion polls. It’s the herd mentality.

Let me end by hazarding two predictions. Labour will be back with a vengeance after the Election, once they get a new leader and once National’s policies cause voter-remorse. And Winston Peters won’t be an MP ever again.

Grant Duncan is an associate professor in the School of People, Environment and Planning at Massey University's Albany campus. He co-ordinates papers on politics and public policy, public sector management and law, and contemporary political theory.

All Black coach says teaching more important

Thu, 21 Jul 2011 00:07:00 +1200

Graham Henry speaks exclusively to Massey News.

Rampage - The RWC blog

Rugby World Cup 2011 webpage

Ardent rugby fans with great expectations for the Rugby World Cup may be surprised that All Black coach Graham Henry does not consider his current role as vital as his former profession.

“Being a school teacher is way more important than being an All Black coach,” says the Massey University graduate and former school principal.

Henry completed a Bachelor of Education in 1979 and credits his university and teaching days with giving him the skills to become the nation's premier rugby coach.

“I was involved in education for 25 years. I loved it and got a lot of personal satisfaction out of it,” he says.

Henry is a keen advocate of athletes pursuing an academic career while playing professional sport, and says universities like Massey are making it easy for them.

“The universities are going out of their way to ensure international sports people get opportunities to do that and they will bend the system to enable them to,” he says. “They may sit exams overseas, they may have a longer course rather than a short course, or it may be that they do two papers instead of six a year.”

Finding the right balance, on and off the field, is a skill Henry believes the All Blacks should hone to become better players. Lock Sam Whitelock is a current example, studying agricultural science.

“I think that’s marvellous,” Henry says. “It’s a great balance – the pressures of rugby are alleviated by the pressures of his academic career, and vice versa. Those who pursue those things actually finish up better players.”

And if, or when, the All Blacks hoist aloft the William Webb Ellis trophy in triumph come October, Henry promises to pay kudos to the role Massey University played in his personal success.

Massey University today launches its Rugby World Cup 2011 webpage. Add this to your favourites for access to media experts on a range of rugby-related topics from sports psychology, to nutrition, training techniques, the economics of sporting events, sports betting, and the statistics of winning.

Soldiers' letters tell Gallipoli story in new book

Tue, 29 Mar 2011 00:03:00 +1200

Professor Glyn Harper

Watch the video interview with Professor Harper.

A new book by Professor of War Studies Glyn Harper, telling the story of the World War I Gallipoli campaign through a collection of letters written by New Zealand soldiers, will be released next month.

Letters from Gallipoli, New Zealand Soldiers Write Home gives a unique and personal history of the most significant commemoration of military casualties and veterans in Australia and New Zealand.

Professor Harper is head of Massey University's Centre for Defence and Security Studies and a widely published scholar of military history. He and his wife Susan collected 600 letters over the course of two years, with about a third appearing in the book.

The letters are compiled largely unedited. Professor Harper has kept grammar, punctuation and spelling changes to a minimum, choosing to view them as they are and preserving their imperfections.

“We have included the letters we consider to be most vivid,” he says. “These letters are important historical documents, often written under the most extreme circumstances.”

Letters reveal that living conditions were hard. Soldiers tell of having to shave from a small can of water. Bathing was done at great risk, on the beaches – as was swimming to escape the heat. Though few complained about the food, parcels from home with news and luxury items helped keep spirits up. Among requests was an occasional block of plain chocolate, “as we can never buy any here”.

Writing paper was in short supply and soldiers used anything they could find. Corporal Valentine Neels, of the Auckland Mounted Rifles, used the cardboard base that artillery shells were rested on to write a letter, which is now kept at the National Army Museum in Waiouru.

Professor Harper says more than 300 letters were published in New Zealand newspapers in 1915. “Clearly the New Zealand reading public was hungry for news of ‘their boys’ overseas, and newspapers served their appetite. They are at times painful, sad and frustrating but offer a unique first-hand account of what New Zealand soldiers endured at Gallipoli and a more complete recognition of their place in the nation’s history.”

The book, published by Auckland University Press, will be launched at Massey's Wellington campus on April 6.

Speechless: Does te reo have a future?

Thu, 21 Oct 2010 00:10:00 +1200

Dr Rangi Mataamua

Massey alumnus and former staff member Dr Rangi Mataamua talks to Sonia Yoshioka-Braid.

“If we don’t get this right, we may have no Māori language by 2050.”

We have Māori Language Week and Māori Television and radio stations – what makes you think that the language is in peril?

My doctoral thesis was on language, so I’ve been studying this for quite some time, and I have been working on various language research projects in the past few years, including recent work on the state of the language within Tūhoe. There is a misconception that with the advent of Māori Television and radio stations, the spread of köhanga reo, and the increasing number of bilingual schools, there is a resurgence in the Māori language. True, there are more resources, and more people are able to access them, but the quality of the language is declining. Fluent speakers are dying out, and they’re not being replaced.

What do you mean by ‘the quality is declining’?

I’m pretty hard line on this. I find I need to continually focus on the quality of my own language, and I am always learning. I went through the Panekiretanga o Te Reo Māori language excellence programme. Before going, I thought my language was fine, but I learned so much. I learned the proper grammatical structure of the language and the way it all works in together, and I am still learning. Unfortunately these kinds of resources aren’t available to everybody, and I have heard things on Māori Television and on radio that are not entirely correct. They’ve thought of something in English and translated it into Māori, but it doesn’t work like that – you’re stepping into dangerous territory using one language to explain another language.

Doesn’t that just mean the language is adapting, just as English has?

It is adapting, but it’s not a positive form of adaptation. You’re taking one language, with all its history and culture, and using the crude methodology of another language to describe or explain it. Things get missed – it doesn’t quite match up – and the beauty of te reo is lost in that adaptation. The problem is that people learn that adapted style then teach it to others, so the errors are perpetuated and that becomes the direction the language takes. It doesn’t have to be like that.

But surely the adoption of many Māori words into mainstream New Zealand language is a step in the right direction to bringing Māori language out of the cold and into daily usage?

It is a step in the right direction, but we’re in danger of making it just a party trick. There are three steps in the acquisition of language – the first is status, where people think it is important to use Māori. Step two is acquisition, where people actually learn the language, and the third step is use. That’s where the struggle is. There’s no point in Māori being some ceremonial thing we bring out and dust when we want to show off. It’s got to be used on an everyday basis in the home.

Can that be fixed so that people move from acquisition to use?

There’s no magic fix – no one knows how we make that next step stick, but there’s plenty of research going on. We’re on a tight time frame – I predict that if we don’t get this right, we may have no Māori language by 2050. So far, we’ve been following the examples set by other cultures, and often their native languages are in decline – Why are we following failing models? We need to find what will work for Māori. It’s up to every individual to be responsible for the language.

Is this something all New Zealanders can do?

Definitely. We need all New Zealanders to see Māori as a common second language that can then feed into more language acquisition. It opens those neural pathways to learning, and adding on more languages opens up the world. At the same time, it enables people to learn more about the culture – otherwise cultural wealth will be held by only a few and it will die out with them.

You’re Tūhoe, and your people have a reputation for being pretty staunch – both in language and in attitude towards the outside world. What are you doing differently?

Tūhoe has a reputation of being a bastion of Maori language, but we’re also experiencing a state of decline, and it’s going to get worse. I make a point of speaking Māori at home to my kids, and when the older people call my place wanting jobs done, they speak to me in Māori. The reason we’re seen as hard line is because our people have experienced atrocities that no other group of people in New Zealand had to endure. We don’t forget, and we only want what is rightfully ours.

What are the key components to keeping the Māori language alive and thriving?

It involves the family – it has to. Language is the foundation of culture, and we need to ensure our foundations remain secure by encouraging intergenerational use of the language and asking for higher standards in our tertiary institutions. Universities shouldn’t be doing introductory courses – they need to be stretching our scholars by focusing on a higher level. There are plenty of great people out there who are dedicated to the cause and have been working for many years without a lot of money, even though language is a multi-million- dollar industry.

Now living in Ruatahuna in the heart of Te Urewera, Dr Rangi Mataamua was, until recently, a researcher at Te Pūtahi-ā-Toi in the School of Māori Studies, and he continues to supervise Māori doctoral students across a number of universities, with the expectation being that the doctoral theses will be authored in te reo. Currently he is supervising around 20 students. Dr Mataamua chairs the Mataatua Marae Committee, and runs a consultancy and research business. He is an alumnus of Victoria and Massey universities.

Tiger country

Sat, 01 May 2010 00:05:00 +1200

He’s the Indiana Jones of the School of Economics and Finance, or so some say. The similarities between the Hollywood character and Massey University senior lecturer Dr Brendan Moyle are clear to see. Both university academics by profession – Jones in archaeology and Moyle in economics – their ‘crusades’ take them on exciting adventures in far flung destinations in pursuit of the bad guys. But while Jones’ role is confined to the silver screen, Moyle’s mission to save the tiger species from extinction is very real. It has come with its own perils as he works covertly in China to try to understand the complex black market in trade of tiger products. He has tracked smugglers’ routes and is a rare breed of conservationist, studying the issue from an economic perspective in pursuit of a solution. He speaks to Kathryn Farrow.

Brendan Moyle

“You are wasting your time if you want to
control the poaching with interdiction or
education.“

Tell me about your strategy for saving the tiger species?

I’m a conservationist but economics is my tool to understand how and why the illegal trade in tigers takes place. You cannot fight the black market unless you know how it operates and there has been no analysis of what drives demand, until now.

How serious is the threat to tigers?

The wild tiger population is in deep trouble; there are only an estimated 3500 to 4000 left. When I started my research two-and-a-half years ago, we thought there were 4000 in India alone but 12 months later that had gone down to 1400 tigers. About 300 to 500 tigers a year are poached and the biggest single market is China. In Tibet, the skins are made into costumes (chupas) and the bone is in high demand across China as a traditional medicine to treat severe bone diseases.

Surely poachers face the death penalty – why does this not deter them?

A poached tiger commands a very high price – up to US$50,000 (NZ$78,000) to an Asian smuggler. A lonely hunter who is offered US$1500 (NZ$2350) to shoot a tiger – a hundred times his annual salary – is not going to say no. The death penalty has been handed out but it is no deterrent; it has just made trade in illegal tiger products more secretive.

How did your work with tigers come about?

I’d been working with crocodiles, parrots and butterflies. I was one of those people who stuck to the conservation of the underdogs because no one gives you lavish amounts of money to help these species as they do with whales and tigers. But through my connections with International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) I was asked by the Chinese authorities to look into why the hunting ban was not working.

Why do you think the hunting ban has not been effective?

In 1973 there was an international ban on tiger poaching and in 1993 China imposed a domestic ban after pressure from the West. But tiger poaching hasn’t been stigmatised, is badly enforced and the demand has not changed while supply has been constrained – pushing prices higher. You are wasting your time if you want to control the poaching with interdiction or education. There have been campaigns launched about the traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) shops but they only sell fakes. Tiger bones are highly prized in China for their perceived medicinal qualities and people will pay for this. They order the tigers knowing they are threatening the species and poachers will deliver despite the threat of the death penalty or 20 years in a Chinese prison. That, combined with the fact that poachers come from hunting cultures and resent government restrictions on hunting, paints a very complicated picture. If a wild tiger ate your children or grandchildren you’d have no hesitation in killing it.

Have you always had an interest in wild animals?

As a child I was a member of Hamilton Junior Naturalist Club and I was always fascinated with false scorpions. My grandfather gave me a book on New Zealand spiders by Ray Forster when I was 11. It was a hard cover book with colour photographs, which would have cost a bit in 1977. I think I am the only grandchild who still has their present from that year and now my children are using it. I had lizards, bugs and spiders in my room as a child. Nobody was really afraid of spiders then – well not boys anyway. They were just used to scare girls in the classroom. When it came to doing a degree, I studied a BSc in biology followed by an MSc at Waikato University with my master’s thesis focusing on New Zealand’s false scorpions and then I did a PhD in economics at Waikato. As time has gone on, I seem to have progressed to bigger, more scary animals!
Your research in China was recently published in criminology journal Global Crime.

What did it expose?

I found many myths about the illegal trade in tiger products – lots of stuff is made up by conservationists. To give us a chance of saving the species, we have to try to make sense of the black market and find out how it operates. The issue is about markets, not about zoology. The black market operates on networks that were established long before the ban.

What are the myths?

I guess the first main myth is that there is one homogenous black market, when my research indicates it is actually geographically separate, with different product mixes and subspecies. Second, there is a misconception that tiger bone is marketed through the TCM shop network but it would be very stupid for smugglers to sell through the TCMs because it’s easy to leave a trail. My studies found that there were small conspiracies operating secretively outside formal markets. Third, my work shows that the bans from Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) and the Chinese domestic ban have not reduced demand, as is commonly thought. High prices indicate that demand has been sustained, while supply has been constrained and most of the costs come from the distribution side, avoiding detection, not procurement of the tigers. Lastly, I found that tiger products are not widely available. During my three trips, the closest I have come to a tiger part is in a photograph. Fakes are very widely available but the real stuff is not. The market for fakes becomes confused with the market for real tiger parts.

How did you carry out your research?

Detecting poachers in reserves is difficult because of terrain, corruption and lack of resources, but I interviewed rangers and local people to learn how the market operates. They were happy to give me information. They think it is interesting that people want to know that stuff because they actually haven’t been asked before and these are the people with the knowledge. I was also one of the first people to gain access to Chinese arrest and interception data that has shown that gangs are very small.

What dangers did you face tracking tiger poachers?

I’ve tramped over many miles of unforgiving territory and been arrested and detained by the Chinese army. I’ve had to clear plenty of cockroaches out of my bed and I’ve had to talk my way out of situations when faced with people with guns. But my previous work researching crocodiles was more dangerous – try being in a swamp with a five-metre crocodile. Oh, and in Papua New Guinea I came back from the Highlands in a bullet-peppered landcruiser, but there are some things I don’t want my mother to know. My work is risky, but it’s risky in the same way a fireman has a risky job. I’ve fallen off a cliff face once. When you go into wilderness areas it is physically challenging. I’ve not stared death in the face through my conservation work – that only happens when I’m out cycling on Auckland’s roads.

So, what is the solution to saving the tiger species?

I’m not sure. I’ve been working with the Chinese wildlife authorities who are looking at using captive tigers to reopen the trade in tiger bones and skins. There are two very large tiger farms in China – one in Guilin in the Guangxi province and one in Harbin. It is hard to distinguish something that is a zoo from something that is a farm. They do the same thing – breed animals and show them to the public. The tiger farms don’t kill the animals for trade, because that is illegal. They are stockpiling bodies because tigers do die of natural causes.

Isn’t tiger farming an extreme solution?

Yes, it is controversial but we can’t carry on doing what we are doing – the death penalty isn’t working. People hate the idea of a tiger farm because they see tigers as cute and fuzzy. I am not thrilled by the idea of tiger farms but do not see a reason why we should play nice with the Asian criminals. I was approached to look into this by the wildlife authorities because I have come from a crocodile background as a member of the Crocodile Specialist Group, which is a worldwide network of biologists, wildlife managers, government officials, independent researchers, NGO representatives, farmers, traders, tanners, fashion leaders, and private companies actively involved in the conservation of the world’s 23 living species of alligators, crocodiles, caimans, and gharials in the wild. We managed to suppress poaching.

So you’re from a Crocodile Dundee background….

(Laughs) Yes, there are similarities! Both crocodiles and tigers are huge carnivores, can be turned into high value products and have been involved in human/animal conflict – hence they are hunted. Crocodiles can be farmed and tigers can be farmed; it is just not a popular solution. Farms cannot compete on price but can compete on quality. People do not want crap quality crocodile shoes or belts. Farms offer high quality skins with no scratches. They can also compete on volume. If people want to buy skins, farms can deliver that and these consumers are assisting crocodiles to survive. The danger is that the Chinese people may think that if you can buy it legally it must be fake. But this may encourage some people to leave the black market and opt for legally sourced tiger skin and bone – and tigers are so scarce we have to look at this as an idea. It is not a popular solution and I’m not saying it is going to work but what we have got at the moment is not working.

Where to from here?

I’m hoping my work can leverage into a full research programme and finding out who is buying tiger bone for medicine. I never came close to a real tiger or tiger skin or bone during any of my trips. People who aren’t sick are buying the bone now just in case they get sick. It is not impossible for them to think tiger bone can help strengthen human bones, because bone contains amino acids, but obviously we cannot prove otherwise. We cannot do clinical trials unless it is on tiger bone that is illegally traded – because that is the only way. I want my paper to lead to more research into how the black market works and how Tibet might be different from China. The local culture there is to use tiger skins as costumes (chupas). Similarly, I’m hoping to look at the picture in India, where there are 1400 to 1500 tigers still in the wild. Wild tigers are sliding to the brink of extinction and we have to do something differently before it is too late.

So, are you Massey University’s answer to Indiana Jones?

If I am Indiana Jones, then I’m Indy with more mud and meetings and less gunfire – I’m also not afraid of snakes.

Bookshelf - In print April 2010

Sat, 01 May 2010 00:05:00 +1200

Reviews of recent publications by Massey alumni and staff.

By Skill and Spirit: A history of the Auckland Officers’ Club
New Zealand’s First Airline: Hoki to Haast
Ephraim’s Eyes
Bwai Ni Kirbati: Artefacts of experience
ECO-RANGERS SAVE THE PLANET: Earth-friendly missions for green Kiwis
First to care: 125 years of the Order of St John in New Zealand 1885-2010
Legacy of Occupation: Stories of Occupational Therapy in New Zealand 1940-1972

By Skill and Spirit: A history of the Auckland Officers’ Club

Graeme Hunt, Waddington Press, Auckland, 2009.
Reviewed by Glyn Harper

The history of a club that was a by-product of Edwardian military adventurism and whose members were predominantly conservative serving or retired military officers may have limited appeal for many readers. Yet By Skill and Spirit offers much more than just a group of middle-aged men swapping war stories. It provides a window, albeit a narrow one, into Auckland and into New Zealand’s history.

The club’s Roll of Honour is testament to this. Twenty-six of its members were killed in action in the First World War, nine of whom died at Gallipoli. The Second World War was even more costly, with 36 members being killed in action, including four of the surviving Gallipoli veterans. The turbulent events of the 1930s make interesting reading. Immediately after its election in 1935, the Labour Government demanded the club supply a list of its members who had volunteered to be Special Constables during the industrial unrest that had occurred in Auckland in 1932. A police sergeant was sent to the club on three separate occasions to collect the offending list of names but the club refused to release this information. It should come as no surprise either to learn that two of the Four Colonels involved in the “revolt” of 1938 were members of the Auckland Officer’s Club.

The “passing parade” of members makes fascinating reading. It includes war heroes like the Victoria Cross winners Reginald Judson and Cyril Bassett. A former New Zealand Prime Minister, Major Gordon Coates MC and Bar, was also a member. Then there were senior officers like Sir Harold Barrowclough, Sir Keith Park and Lieutenant Colonel Lawrence (Curly) Blyth. Blyth played a leading role in the liberation of Le Quesnoy at the end of the First World War. He died in 2001, aged 105, having been a member of the club for more than 60 years.

Graeme Hunt, a Massey alumnus, is a former editor of the National Business Review. He has published a number of books ranging from understanding the sharemarket to an examination of spies and revolutionaries in New Zealand. A gaze through the window he has provided in By Skill and Spirit is well worthwhile.

Glyn Harper is Professor of War Studies and Director of Massey University’s Centre for Defence Studies.

New Zealand’s First Airline: Hoki to Haast

by Richard Waugh, Knyaston Charitable Trust in conjunction with Craig Printing Company, 2009.

When it comes to documenting New Zealand’s aviation history, Richard Waugh must be in a class of his own. In the past 20 years he has written 10 books of aviation history, taking variously as his subjects particular aircraft, airlines and notable accidents.

In this book – number 11 – he follows the West Coast’s Air Travel (NZ) Ltd from its founding in 1934; through the era in which, in the absence of roads, it provided a lifeline to the “far-downers” in places like Haast; right up to its final days in 1967 in the incarnation of West Coast Airways.

Like all of Waugh’s books, Hoki to Haast is exhaustively researched and lavishly illustrated with photographs and mementos. Boxed text and short essays (one of them about pilot Brian Waugh, the author’s father) further vary the mix. Magnificent scenery, the romance of early aviation, and a window in the pioneering years of the West Coast: what more could you want?

Malcolm Wood

Ephraim’s Eyes

by Bryan Walpert

Perhaps better known to Massey’s readership as a poet (and creative writing lecturer ), Brian Walpert is also a short story writer.

In fact, in 2007, one of the stories appearing here, 16 Planets, appeared in The Listener after winning the Royal Society of New Zealand Manhire Prize for Creative Science Writing.

16 Planets is a moving if bleakly discomforting story in which it slowly becomes apparent that the narrator’s concern about climate change is masking a more personal, less easily articulated tragedy.

This is not a lighthearted read, and in this, and in the use of first-person and the slow-reveal of circumstance through almost peripheral detail, it is typical of many of the stories here.

Malcolm Wood

Bwai Ni Kirbati: Artefacts of experience

Tony Whincup, Steele Roberts, 2009

There is quote attributed to the science fiction writer William Gibson that runs “the future is already here – it is just unevenly distributed”. It is a statement that can also be applied to the past: still here, just unevenly distributed. Take Kiribati. On the outer islands of Gilbert Island group in the Pacific nation of Kiribati life in its essentials is played out as it has been for hundreds of years. There are compounds to be swept, thatch to be woven, crops to be tended, fish to be caught, all to the ever present soundtrack of waves dashing on reefs. It is a largely self-sufficient existence based around traditional knowledge, with few of the material trappings of modernity in evidence.

Such is the world stunningly documented in Tony Whincup’s recently published Bwai ni Kiribati: Artefacts of Experience.

Tony and his partner Joan went to Kiribati in the mid-1970s, when it was still a British dependency. Tony’s work as a teacher was financed by British foreign aid. “I went there to teach 6th and 7th formers painting and photography, and to do photographic work for the Government documenting skills and traditions, as well as work for posters and postcards,” he explains. Joan taught too.

They were there on July 12, 1979, when Kiribati became independent. In 1984, when they left for New Zealand, they had spent around eight years Kiribati. “It’s a wonderful place if you have something to do,” says Tony. The Whincups had plenty. While there, they authored three books about Kiribati and contributed to a number of others.

The relationship has been enduring. The Whincups – Tony is now an associate professor and head of Massey’s School of Visual and Material Culture – still spend part of each year in Kiribati. Their book Akekeia: Traditional Dance in Kiribati won a Montana book award in 2002, and Tony was awarded with the Kiribati Order of Merit in 2008.

The book is divided into five sections – sense of place, living things, the canoe, traditional dance, and the meeting house – each consisting of an explanatory essay and a sequence of masterfully-composed (in September 2009 Whincup was made an honorary fellow of the Institute of New Zealand Professional Photographers) and lightly captioned photographs. For an understanding of the workings of Kiribati society and culture, you could hardly do better.

From the days of Rousseau’s noble savage, the Pacific has been portrayed as an arcadia, and if you want images of a tropical paradise, many of Whincup’s photographs fit the bill: turquoise waters, peerlessly blue skies, white coral sands, smiling people.

And, as Whincup observes in a poignant afterword, although the subsistence life on the islands is not easy, “no one is hungry, young and old are cared for, and everyone has a role and a contribution to make. Laughter is never far away and there always seems to be time to laugh and sing. Possessions are not the driving force – family, friends and social life are.”

But there is a looming threat. As the world’s climate changes and sea levels rise, Kiribati’s very existence is imperilled.

“No amount of additional technology will combat a rising sea level or an increase in rainfall, There is nowhere for the I-Kiribati to go...”

A land, a people and a culture are at risk. Malcolm Wood

ECO-RANGERS SAVE THE PLANET: Earth-friendly missions for green Kiwis

by Maria Gill, illustrated by Vivienne Lingard

Eco-rangers save the planet is structured around 12 missions (save energy, sustainable living, and global problems being a sample).

It is well pitched for its intermediate-age readership, many of the stories of “eco heroes” it offers up are quite inspirational, the practical projects look like fun, and there are websites to turn to for more information.

Parental warnings: the sections labelled “brain train your olds” might equally well be called “hassle your parents”, and whether an egg, oil, lemon juice and vinegar shampoo will compare to the products of industry... well, I await word. A great book for a school library.

Formerly a primary school teacher, Maria Gill writes children’s books about birds and conservation. She is currently studying towards a Postgraduate Diploma in Journalism.

Malcolm Wood

First to care: 125 years of the Order of St John in New Zealand 1885-2010

Graeme Hunt (2009). Auckland: Libro International
Reviewed by Mary Nash

First to care begins by connecting the Order of the Hospital of St John of Jerusalem in England back to the era of the crusades, when Knights Hospitallers were formed, and forward to the present-day St John Ambulance Brigade in New Zealand. The reader is given to understand something of the Masonic style of the organisation, which, while leading the way in modern first aid facilities, nevertheless preserves its ancient rituals, emblems and historic vestments.

This beautifully illustrated book documents the history of the St John’s ambulance service we all know and depend on, from its beginnings in New Zealand in the 1880s. It depicts people, places and events that form part of our heritage, whether we know it or not. There are charming scenes of monasteries and almsgiving in medieval Jerusalem, followed by the 19th-century dignitaries who helped to establish the Order in England and then New Zealand, and a fascinating collection of illustrations, including such diverse items as the large and small Victorian ambulance hampers, photos of Christchurch brigadesmen demonstrating their ambulance work, and a 1930s photo of the Palmerston North Free Ambulance. From the 1940s there is a photo of St John parcels awaiting despatch to prisoners of war, and we learn that the organisation was responsible for sending more than 1.1 million prisoner of war parcels (a deed often incorrectly attributed to the Red Cross). Photographs of regalia are well-displayed throughout, worn by priors of the Order across the decades. This book preserves the story of how a colonising community brought out from the ‘mother country’ an organised approach to first aid and turned it into a local fixture.

There are nine chapters which proceed in chronological order and end with a discussion of the future of St John Order and the dilemma of whether accepting state funding will result in a public perception that it is part of the welfare state and therefore not an appropriate target for volunteering and donations. The other challenge is whether the organisation, with its colonial origins, can more closely represent modern New Zealand society, including tangata whenua, Pacific island peoples and immigrants from further afield.

There is an impressive collection of informative and useful appendices, including, among other items, the chronology of the Order of St John (c1080 – 2009), statistical information covering membership and motor ambulances, lists of governance and executive officers, officials, lifesaving medals and awards, and different ceremonials.

The book was commissioned by the management of the Order of St John in New Zealand to commemorate the work of many ‘ordinary’ New Zealanders over a period of 125 years. The preface is by the current prior, the Honourable Sir Anand Satyanand, Governor-General of New Zealand.

I recommend this book to anyone looking for a handsome gift or prize. It will be valued by the general public, and anyone who has experienced the services of the St John’s ambulance service will be able to gain a greater appreciation of its history by reading or dipping into its pages.

Mary Nash is a senior lecturer in the School of Health and Social Services. Her doctoral research was in the history of social work education.

Legacy of Occupation: Stories of Occupational Therapy in New Zealand 1940-1972

Researched and compiled by Beth Gordon, Sunny Riordan, Rowena Scaletti and Noeline Creighton, The Bush Press of New Zealand, Auckland, 2009
Reviewed by Bronwyn Labrum

Although there were forays in the interwar period, occupational therapy was established in the wake of WWII as it was realised something should be done about the demoralising effects of long-stay and institutional care in mental hospitals, general hospitals and tuberculosis sanatoria. A landmark in the New Zealand profession was the establishment of the Occupational Therapy Training School at the Auckland Mental Hospital in 1940.
This handsomely produced volume, which centres on the school, is a labour of love. Featuring copious images, archival documents and the memories of occupational therapy trainees, it is both professional and a cultural history,with insights into the mores of the postwar decades, as well as medical history, professional health issues and training. And because for a long time the course was for women only, it is also a women’s history: both of the trainees and their female teachers.

Chapters are devoted to the setting up of the original school and the first principal and teachers; the ‘pioneer’ students and their student days in Auckland – including boarding with ‘character’ ladies and then flatting, and ‘scootering’ everywhere; holidays at Waiheke Island at the hospital bach or at the Chateau at Tongariro; the expectation that students behave ‘like ladies’; and practical experience at the other centres of training in Te Awamutu at Tokonui Hospital, Porirua Hospital, Seacliff Hospital in Dunedin and Sunnyside Hospital in Christchurch. The larger changes in psychiatric care in the 1950s and ’60s form a sobering backdrop. Other chapters focus on the second and third decades of training, working abroad and occupational therapy in people’s homes. One key chapter, ‘Beyond Baskets and Bunnies’, tells the little-recorded story of art and craft from a therapeutic perspective, which emphasised creativity and applying arts and crafts (including weaving, basketry, leatherwork, knotting, netting, embroidery, toy making, hand press printing, book binding, and art and design) as therapies for both psychiatric and general patients. Some beautiful and whimsical examples of art and crafts appear as full-colour images.

The closing of the Auckland school in 1972, when it came under hospital board jurisdiction, is a fitting finale. The final chapter focuses on how training and subsequent work in the profession wrought profound changes in the life of the therapists, as much as the patients.

Perhaps I should end with one of my favourite vignettes from the late 1950s, Beth Bunt recounting her experience of getting in to the course:
I used my dressmaking skills and a Vogue pattern to make a stylish dress with matching jacket to wear. Gloves, hat, matching shoes, seamed stockings and handbag completed the outfit, and I boarded the NAC plane for Wellington. It was a major adventure to locate the street, building, correct floor and use a lift before reporting to the receptionist. I duly waited in silence with three other applicants, all of us from the South Island. Prepared for formal questions from one person, I was confronted instead by a panel of people with the question, ‘What do you think of teddy boys?’ I do not recall my answer.

Editor Rowena Scaletti is a Massey alumna. Reviewer Bronwyn Labrum is a senior lecturer in the School of Visual and Material Culture in the College of Creative Arts.

The joy of sects

Sat, 01 May 2010 00:05:00 +1200

Heather Kavan

Heather Kavan is fascinated by religious experience. She talks to Malcolm Wood.

“I often think that exorcisms are like a game
of spiritual poker: it’s about bluff. Whoever
can bluff the best wins."

“What’s the old saying?” she jokes.
“I love Jesus; it’s his fan club I can’t stomach.”

Though perhaps no saint, Heather Kavan has done her share of suffering for religion. For 11 months, Kavan, constitutionally not a morning person, rose before 6am to join a group of Falun Gong practitioners for half an hour of silent exercises.

Did she find transcendence? Not exactly. For Kavan, who is of slim build, a defining memory is of penetrating cold.

“I was stuck in the lotus position in a temperature below zero when I knew I just had to get my coat. And when I tried to stand up, I found I was paralysed from the waist down. So of course I went crashing down to the ground, and I crawled over to get my coat, and one of them looked at me and said, somewhat offhandedly, ‘If you had been meditating properly you wouldn’t have felt the cold.’”

It doesn’t help that the 6am exercise sessions seem to have gone into abeyance when Kavan stopped attending.

She suspects her presence was the impetus for the sessions all along.

Kavan’s small, corner office on the Manawatu campus is surprisingly pleasant. Long and narrow, with two intersecting rows of windows, it feels a little like the bridge of a ship, and the view, while largely of concrete, is softened by Kavan’s thriving collection of indoor plants.

On the wall is her framed 2009 national award for sustained excellence in teaching, and, alongside, its tongue-in-cheek complement, a Pre-Raphaelite print entitled The Accolade and featuring a kneeling Prince Valiant-like figure in chainmail being knighted by a white-robed, long haired damsel.

So far, so standard. While radiating more order and serenity than most, this is just another academic garret, and the books – Bill Bryson’s Mother Tongue and Lyn Truss’ Eats Shoots and Leaves – are those you would expect to find in the collection of someone who teaches speech writing and the art of writing.

What isn’t in evidence is Kavan’s alter ego: Kavan the investigator of religions, cults and ‘altered states’.

The room is bare of religious iconography, crystals, and uplifting homilies.
Yet here is a woman who professes to be, if anything, more comfortable in a revivalist meeting or meditation group than in the confines of academia.

And away from the university surrounds, Kavan’s clinical remove falls away. “Most of us can suspend reality for a temporary period when we go to a movie; I suspend it when I go to a religious meeting.” She shares the fervour of those around her.

Some things, she says, have to be experienced to be understood.

Take, for example, the case of Janet Moses, the mother of two who drowned during a marathon exorcism session. Were those who forced cold water on her to expel the demons guilty of manslaughter? A jury thought so.1

Kavan, who attended the six-week trial in the cause of research, is not so sure.

“The Moses case hinged on the consent issue. The judge advised the jury that if they believed that the accused had an honest belief that Janet Moses consented to the water being poured down her throat just before death, then they would have to find the defendants not guilty.

“The prosecutor argued, eloquently, – he should have been a writer – how can anyone say they thought she consented; they weren’t thinking at all; there was no thought involved – at least not towards the end. And it did ring true. They were so much in an altered state that they weren’t thinking.

“Similarly, what the defence said rang true, that at times Janet called the shots during the exorcism; she would say ‘the demon is here’ and the defendants would rush to expel it for her; she believed she was possessed. They were trying to help her. They did have an honest belief she was consenting because she declined offers to take her away from the situation.”
There is no denying that the events surrounding Moses’ death were bizarre. Up to 50 people were present at any time in the small lounge where the exorcism was held. The windows were tightly sealed to prevent demons entering. The temperatures rose to “furnace-like” levels. The laundry – which held clothing contaminated by vomit – and the toilet beyond were declared off limits. The room was awash with water. People had taken to relieving themselves in a corner.

“It’s understandable that people who hadn’t experienced [anything like this] couldn’t comprehend the defendants’ responses,” says Kavan.

“Witness after witness testified that Janet had a strange look in her eyes and that was what convinced them that she was possessed: while there were other unusual behaviours, it was this very strange look in her eyes that everyone recalled. I’ve seen that look in people’s eyes, and it is frightening. I don’t interpret it as possession, but I can understand how someone else would.”

How then does Kavan propose to interpret the trial for the purposes of her research?

Her proposal to the presiding judge was that she apply the lens of collective entrapment, a subset of group think2, in which members escalate their commitment to a course of action even though it is obviously failing.

Now she is more inclined to interpret the events surrounding Janet Moses’ death in terms of trance or altered states.

She also finds herself interested in the issue of gender: in most exorcisms it is the woman who is exorcised, the man who is the exorcist.

“Usually that is because the exorcist sees women as easy targets, less likely to say ‘no, what a load of rubbish’. But in this instance the people who were perceived as possessed were often those who fainted under the heat. So they were more likely to be female. The stronger males had a better chance of being able to physically endure.

“If you’re in a group and someone is checking out who has a demon, and they see you as the next target for an exorcism, there are really only a couple of ways of getting out of it. You can’t say, ‘no, I’m not possessed’, because that would just be evidence that you are. You could fake deliverance, which one of the witnesses in the Lee case3 did: he went along with it, and at the first possible moment [he faked deliverance]. And, of course, the other way is to turn on someone else really quickly. ‘Yes, there it is. It’s just flown to you!’
“Whoever is quick-witted enough to put themselves in the position of the discerner [and say], ‘it’s on him’, or on her – usually it’s her – is the survivor.

“I often think that exorcisms are like a game of spiritual poker: it’s about bluff. Whoever can bluff the best wins. However, I don’t believe anyone was bluffing in the Moses case. The family were tragically inexperienced.”

Set out in print – or related to a jury – the events leading up to Janet Moses’ death in fact sound insane. In coldly rational terms, what was to stop someone opening the windows, stepping outside the door, asking for help, simply saying “enough”?

Those caught up in the events – even those who stood accused of her manslaughter – acknowledged that to an outsider how it all played out would seem incomprehensible.

Yet at times during the testimony, Kavan was seized by an almost overpowering sense of empathy: she wanted to approach the defendants and say, “I do understand”.

Similarly, many other religious phenomena can only truly be understood through direct experience.
“When the anti-cult people criticise cult members, I often think that they’ve never been near a cult leader. Because the big-name cult leaders, the gurus, emanate an energy: it’s magnetic, it’s addictive. People let down their guard, all rational thought goes out the window. It’s like falling in love.”

What is the lure for Kavan personally? Part of it is that as a self-described child of the sixties and seventies she comes from a generation of spiritual seekers.

But there is also a certain in-the-moment thrill. “You can feel the adrenalin that goes around the room. Even if you’re a sceptic, the most mundane activity takes on an air of excitement.

“If I go into a room where people believe in spiritual entities, even a simple act like choosing where to sit takes on a whole new dynamic. I could inadvertently sit on a chair that someone believes an invisible entity is occupying. Every move is filled with adrenalin. There’s a whole game that goes on. It’s compelling.”

She enjoys the sense of uplift that revival meetings and meditation groups sometimes achieve. She likes the camaraderie, the moments of transcendence, and the “fantastic stories” they weave. In some groups, she says, the intimacy is closer than you would find in many families.

But unlike the true believers, Kavan does not believe there is only one true path to the divine.

Indeed, you could almost think of Kavan as a spiritual mystery shopper, sampling the range and setting out her insights in academic papers.

It is time-consuming work. Often the face a group of believers presents to the outside world will be at odds with the behind-the-scenes reality.

“With a cult, particularly an extreme cult, you have to spend about six months with the organisation before you even discover the cult. Usually there is a fairly straightforward-sounding religion, which is a front. And after six months you discover that there are other meetings.”

Even for the non-cult-like manifestations of religions, developing an understanding takes time.

To produce her research on glossolalia – aka speaking in tongues – Kavan spent over three years observing the practice in two very different religious groups4 – a Pentecostal congregation and an apocalyptic millenarian yoga-based sect. For her paper on Falun Gong5 there was the 11-month period of rising before daylight to participate in 6 o’clock group exercises.

Her approach to Falun Gong was made when she discovered it was inviting academic institutions to conduct unbiased research.

Kavan immersed herself in her research topic, conducting ethnographic research (part of which was her 6am exercise attendance), analysing Falun Gong leader Li Hongzhi’s speeches and writings, and extensively consulting external courses.

To begin with, her sympathies lay firmly with Falun Gong, but as she became more knowledgeable a shift took place. Though the Falun Gong members she met were “humble and courageous”, Falun Gong itself was less attractive: it was adept at working the media to its advantage, was less than forthcoming about some of the less palatable aspects of its dogma, and was only too ready to bring defamation suits against anyone who published unfavourable material.

Is Falun Gong a cult? It certainly seems to display characteristics that are cult-like, writes Kavan: “An idolised charismatic leader who exploits people by letting them believe he – and it is usually a ‘he’ – is God’s mouthpiece; mind control techniques; an apocalyptic world view used to manipulate members; exclusivity (‘only our religion can save people’); alienation from society; and a view of members as superior to the rest of humanity.”

In her eclectic approach to religion, Kavan may be unusual, but she says the quest for ecstasy – to be outside of ourselves – is one of the most basic human drives.

By international yardsticks, New Zealand is highly secular, but, as seems to be embedded in the nature of being human, many of us hunger for something more.

In a recent survey, 30.5 per cent of New Zealanders agreed with the statement “I don’t follow a religion, but am a spiritual person interested in the sacred or the supernatural”6.

The trouble, says Kavan, comes when the spiritual experience people seek – “which is a state of higher consciousness” – becomes encumbered with other people’s ideas. “The person’s genuine experience becomes interpreted in terms of the group’s ideology, and the leader’s ego and dogmas and rules start dominating the experience.

“What’s the old saying?” she jokes. “I love Jesus; it’s his fan club I can’t stomach.”

And unlike Kavan, who will in the end return to her office to question and analyse every aspect of her experience, many people lose all scepticism, however strange the doctrines they are asked to believe.
“[People] get into the habit of suspending doubt for such long periods it becomes part of their personality; it becomes a way of living.”

Can the benefits be come by without the drawbacks? Imagine.

“One of the things I’ve been looking at, and other scholars have been searching for, is a way that people can have these amazing experiences without having a leader who will manipulate them.”

This is no longer so far fetched. With the neurological basis of religious experience being increasingly well understood, perhaps the day will come when drug- and guru-free spiritual epiphanies will be available on demand.

“If people could have these experiences without being driven by someone else’s ideology and ego, that would be great,” says Kavan. “There would be a lot less religious violence in the world.”

The five people convicted of Janet Moses’s manslaughter were sentenced to a mix of community work and supervision, the latter including the options of counselling sessions and of Tikanga Ma-ori and educational programmes.
A mode of thinking that people engage in when they are deeply involved in a cohesive in-group, when the members’ strivings for unanimity override their motivation to realistically appraise other courses of action.
The death of Janet Moses has a New Zealand precedent: in 2001 Korean immigrant Pastor Luke Lee was convicted of the manslaughter of Joanna Lee, who died during the course of being exorcised. In one of the stranger aspects of the case, following Joanna’s death, Pastor Lee and his congregation were convinced that Joanna would rise from the dead. While serving his sentence, Lee successfully mounted appeal based around the issue of consent. Having served his sentence, Lee was deported to Korea while awaiting retrial. Kavan, H. (2007, Aug.) The Korean Exorcist meets the New Zealand Justice System. AEN Journal. 2(2), 53-58
Kavan, H.(2004, May) Glossolalia and altered states in two New Zealand religious movements. Journal of Contemporary Religion, 19(2), 171-184
Kavan, H. (2008). Falun Gong and the Media: What can we believe? In E. Tilley (Ed.) Power and Place: Refereed Proceedings of the Australian & New Zealand Communication Association Conference, Wellington
The survey was conducted in 2008 by Massey’s Department of Communication, Journalism and Marketing as part of the International Social Survey Programme. 1000 responses were received and analysed. Of the respondents, 40 per cent said they had no religious affiliation, 53 per cent said they believed in God (though half admitted to doubts), and 57 per cent believed in life after death.

Choosing the right track

Sat, 01 May 2010 00:05:00 +1200

“We interviewed luminaries like Bruce
Beetham and the late Trevor DeCleene
for audiences of roughly 50 people each
night, roughly 48 of whom would have
preferred to hear the latest
Joy Division track.”

If you are an aspiring politician, a good biography is useful to have. For a member of a centre right party, Steven Joyce’s biography could hardly be better. He is a self made man. His parents, both of whom left school at 15, were seven-day-week grocery store owners. Joyce is a multimillionaire. Now he is a Minister of the Crown – whose most recently acquired portfolio is Tertiary Education – and a set of trusted hands in a relatively new government.

And it all began at a student radio station. He talks to Paul Mulrooney.

What is it about not-quite-veterinarians? Why do so many do so well? Think cartoonist and all-round renaissance man Tom Scott, former Commissioner of Police Rob Robinson, or actor Peter Hayden. Had their grades been slightly better, or their resolution slightly stronger (Scott chose to switch degrees) they might all have led blamelessly virtuous lives ministering to creatures great and small well away from the public gaze.
Or think Steven Joyce, the horse-owning Taranaki boy, who wanted to be a vet, failed to make the cut, and went on to become a self-made multimillionaire and the Minister of Tertiary Education.

Joyce came to Massey in 1980, did the pre-veterinary year, and missed selection by a whisker. This was no dishonour – veterinary studies was and is famously selective – but Joyce then had to decide on plan B; after dallying briefly with chemistry, he opted for zoology, heeding the advice of the careers counsellor who told him that, so long as he stuck with a major, what it was didn’t much matter. Getting a degree was about learning how to learn. Arguably it worked. Joyce may not have much contact with animal life – except if you count the two cattle he keeps on his lifestyle block and the retrodoodle (a golden retriever -poodle cross) he enlists when rounding them up – but he has turned out to be a remarkably quick study.

In the past 15 months he has had to come to grips with being both a new MP and a Minister of the Crown. He has had to learn the unaccustomed protocols of government and officialdom. Then there are his portfolios and their issues. Road transport: a plane crash in France, the parlous state of the railway system, clogged highways, questions around road rules and driving ages. Telecommunications: the need for national high speed broadband, the failings of Telecom’s XT network, cellphone termination charges. And now Tertiary Education.

All of this he is taken in his stride. So capable is Joyce proving, he is already seen as being something of a successor to Bill Birch, the politician who for a time became known as minister of everything.

But the discipline of university study is in a way the least part of Massey’s contribution to Joyce’s career. It was Masskeradio, the first commercial student radio in New Zealand, that woke Joyce to the passion that would consume him for the next 20 years.

Joyce debuted there as a presenter in 1983, the final year of his degree. As Joyce remembers it, this meant a cursory introduction to the equipment, and then being pointed at the music collection – all of it vinyl in these pre-CD days, and none of it familiar.

“[The departing deejay] said ‘just choose what you like,’ I thought ‘I have no idea, there is nothing here I know.’ I figured that generally most artists put their best songs pretty early on in the album so I thought side one track one and thought I’d work my way front and back, side one track one, and that worked pretty well for a while, till someone helpfully rang up and said that song I was playing probably sounded better on 45 [rpm] given it was an EP not an album.”

Joyce was undeterred. In fact, by dint of hanging around, as he puts it, in 1984 (the year the station went FM) he became the programme manager and, the following year, the station manager.

Joyce took to his new responsibilities with zest. 1984 was the year of the snap election that brought in the first Lange government. As Joyce told Parliament in his maiden speech, “With seriously inferior equipment, a fearless group of us worked 24 hours at a time to bring together the hugely important radio Massey election specials on political issues of the day. We interviewed luminaries like Bruce Beetham and the late Trevor DeCleene, for audiences of roughly 50 people each night, roughly 48 of whom would have preferred to hear the latest Joy Division track.”

As Joyce has said, such experiences could have led him to journalism as a career. But his interests lay elsewhere.

Somewhere amidst those late night sessions he and four other students (one of them comedian Jeremy Corbett) banded together and decided to set up a commercial radio station. Each put in $100, and so, with $500 capital, Energy Enterprises was born.

For the next three summers, Energy Enterprises ran a makeshift radio station, lined with egg cartons as sound insulation, in New Plymouth, putting aside the sum they would need to draw on to apply for a full-time FM licence application. They found shareholders and appointed a board of directors, went through an arduous licence hearing with the broadcasting tribunal, and then waited 15 long months for a decision to be released.
“During that time we lost three of our number – I think they got bored – and gained one more.”

Against all expectation, the bid was successful. “It was this sort of dream we wanted to achieve... It was really cool.”

In mid 1987 Energy FM had a licence to broadcast in Taranaki, and in November of that year it began broadcasting. So it was that Joyce’s ascent in business began.

It helped that in 1989, partly in response to lobbying by the radio industry, the government had, with the passing of the Radiocommunications Act and the Broadcasting Act, deregulated the radio spectrum. In the years 1990 to 1993 the Ministry of Commerce put 234 frequencies up for sale.

As Energy Enterprises prospered, it bought stations in Tauranga and Hamilton, started the Edge and Solid Gold FM and built them and the Rock into national satellite-delivered networks. It bought up lucrative radio spectrum at buyers' prices. “Our best deal was, I think, when we bought three FM frequencies in Rotorua, which at that stage doubled the commercial market [there]. We bought them for $45,000, 15 grand each – it was fantastic!” says Joyce, still exultant.

In 1997 Energy Enterprises and Radio Pacific merged, and at the close of 1998, with further acquisitions, Radio Pacific-Energy Enterprises had 80 stations around New Zealand. In 1999 they merged with Radio Otago and the combined enterprise, now called RadioWorks, continued expanding into provincial markets.
By 2000 RadioWorks had an office in every major town and city and 650 staff across four networks and 18 local radio stations.

It was, says Joyce, an amazing ride – “hard work all of the time and fantastic fun most of the time” – right up until the day it ended.

In May 2000 the CanWest Global group bought out 72 per cent of the NZSX-listed RadioWorks, and, in January 2001, they acquired the remaining 28 per cent. Joyce, who hadn’t wanted to sell up, retired as chief executive on his 38th birthday. His holdings had brought him a windfall of $8 million.

After pouring all he had into RadioWorks and living for the early years as frugally as any university student, he was wealthy, unfit, and without obligation. He joined a gym and, not having run since he was 21, ran two half marathons.

And he joined the National Party – the best philosophical fit with his own values – put his name forward as a candidate, and almost stood in the 2002 general election. Not that his chances would have been good: Helen Clark’s Labour Government was re-elected; and National, with 21 per cent of the vote, had its worst-ever performance.

How had this calamity occurred and what should be done about it? The Party turned to Joyce, who in his RadioWorks ride, with all its mergers, acquisitions and restructurings, learned “about growing and running companies, about organisational cultures and getting the best out of people”.

Taking up an appointment as the National Party’s general manager in April 2003, Joyce chaired the campaign review and then conducted a full strategic review of the organisation. Pre-review, National’s regional offices had largely held sway over both the central office and electorates, one result being worrying national inconsistencies in branding and message. Post-review, power emanated from the centre.

In the 2005 election, for which Joyce was the campaign manager, the party under Don Brash’s leadership increased its share of votes by 18 per cent.

But the vagaries of coalition-building under MMP meant that National ended up once more in the Opposition, and its campaign is remembered more for the issues surrounding the Brethren Church’s funding of an advertising campaign in support of the National Party and the anonymity of party donations than it is for the turnaround in National’s electoral fortunes. In the wake of Nicky Hager’s leaked or hacked e-mail-driven exposé of National’s campaign, The Hollow Men – in which Joyce features – Brash soon resigned.

After the election, Joyce was quick to rebound. He became the director and then chief executive of Jason’s Travel Media and the chairman of hospital bed manufacturer Howard Wright, and there were sea changes in his personal life: he married, moved with his wife Suzanne to a lifestyle block north of Auckland, and the Joyce family soon added baby Amelia and Gemma the retrodoodle to their number.

When the next election came around in 2008, both he and National were ready. This time the stars were in alignment: National won the largest number of seats of any party, formed a successful coalition, and Joyce became, as he has put it, “one of the lesser beasts” a list MP, and something more significant, a cabinet minister, first picking up the Transport and the Communication and Information Technology portfolios, and, in January 2010, Tertiary Education, succeeding Anne Tolley. (He is also the Associate Minister of Finance and of Infrastructure.)

Why such responsibility so early? Perhaps because Joyce is someone Prime Minister John Key likes and trusts. After the election, Key was quick to credit Joyce as the “man who ran the campaign, who rang me every morning at 6 o’clock, who was up at 4.30 in the morning to read every newspaper cover to cover”, and when Key took up residence in Premier House, Joyce was offered the rare privilege of the use of the cottage in the house’s grounds.

In fact Key and Joyce share a lot in common. They are near contemporaries (Key is slightly older). They came to positions of influence in the party at nearly the same time. (Key was first elected to Parliament in 2002; Joyce became general manager in 2003). Neither comes from a particularly advantaged background. (Key was raised by his widowed mother in a state house; Joyce is the son of self employed grocers, both of whom left school at 15.) And, of course, both are wealthy, self-made men.

Joyce also seems a good fit with his portfolios. Who better to be Minister of Telecommunications than a man who has dealt with the intricacies of the allocation of radio spectrum for the past 20 years?

And if he has no explicit background in transport, he has certainly proven willing to grasp some nettles: new highways have been approved and funded; road rules are to be changed; the driving age will be raised. He gets things done. Even in his breaks he is deal-making by mobile phone. As Jeremy Corbett has said, “Steven expects everyone to work as hard as him and nobody does.” And thus far he has proven a safe pair of hands.
So, what of tertiary education? Study after study has shown that economic development hinges around the advantages that university education and research bring. A 2009 report by KPMG in Australia has estimated the real economic return on investment in higher education to be between 14 and 15 per cent. And, as Joyce and Key know, access to tertiary education is one of the key determinants of social mobility: higher level study, particularly at a degree level, brings a significant and life-long wage premium.

If New Zealand is to achieve anything like Australia’s growth in GDP per head – let alone exceed it, as would need to happen for us to catch up – then the tertiary education sector will be pivotal.

But these are straitened times; every week the Government borrows $250 million to support public services. And, perversely, as happens in unsettled economic times, the demand for university education has risen.

But is New Zealand’s tertiary education system so poorly off? Joyce does not think so. New Zealand’s annual spending of $4 billion represents 2.3 per cent of GDP, notably higher than the OECD average. We are, Joyce asserts, “pretty good”. (Though New Zealand’s generous student loan scheme – which, at 0.45 per cent of GDP, stands four times higher than the OECD average – accounts for a large part of the difference. )
“Even if it wasn’t a case of tight financial times for the Government, we [tertiary education] would be struggling to put up an argument we should have more money.”

In the absence of there being more money for tertiary education, Joyce wants better value for what money there is.

Take qualifications. Currently, Joyce points out, there are more than 6000 qualifications on the New Zealand Register of Quality Assured Qualifications; Finland, with a slightly larger population, has 500. This profusion of qualifications – though most are outside the university sector – generates uncertainty, inefficiency and expense.

Or consider students who enrol for qualifications they never complete, either choosing to switch to other perhaps less-taxing qualifications or to remove themselves from study entirely. In 2006, across the university sector, the first-year attrition rate for degrees, graduate diplomas and post-graduate diplomas was approximately one student in four.

Joyce intends to have some portion of tertiary education funding – and, for individual students, of the continuing provision of student loans – linked to student success. Students in tertiary education, he says, may well be “encouraged to more uniformly make academic progress” and institutions told “actually, we’re not going to pay you on enrolments, we’re going to include an element of performance during the year”, encouraging them to take more interest in their students.

Then there is open entry. Currently, once they pass age 20, New Zealanders are – with the exception of some particular courses of study – entitled to entry regardless of whether they have formal school qualifications. Is this an enlightened policy that allows talent to flower? After all, many late entrants do well at university study, bringing with them a depth of commitment and maturity that would be the envy of many a new-from-school entrant.

Or, in a constrained environment, is it better to pick the winners – those who have already succeeded at school – rather than chance matters with people whose abilities are unproven?

Finally, the tertiary sector needs to be cultivating non-governmental funding.

“You’re seeing things like Massey’s Foundation launching a big endowment fundraising effort, you’re seeing I think a greater focus on international students – though we have to get the balance right – and you’re seeing a greater focus on commercialisation on research. These are three potentially big income streams where, in international terms, you would say we are a bit underdone.”

Whatever Joyce does, his approach will need to be carefully judged. A recent Ministry of Education analysis looking at how New Zealand’s universities rank internationally, found them to be well regarded and, measured against GDP, highly efficient.

Which may be the right moment to raise a minor matter to do with Joyce’s own efficiency. Although he accumulated enough papers in his first three years of study to qualify for his BSc (and he would carry on taking papers during his time with Masskeradio), it was not until 2002 that he took the time to have the degree conferred.

In March, attempting to filibuster the passing of legislation, Trevor Mallard moved that Steven Joyce be congratulated for having his degree conferred 21 years after he started it. Joyce took his ribbing good naturedly.

“I’m very proud that I’m possibly one of the few people to have their academic record celebrated by Parliament. It’s a rare privilege.”

Saying when

Sat, 01 May 2010 00:05:00 +1200

The School of Public Health: In March Minister of Health Tony Ryall (at centre) launched Massey’s School of Public Health, an initiative recognising the combined weight of the expertise held within the University. The school encompasses the Social and Health Outcome Research and Evaluation Centre, headed by Professor Sally Casswell (second left, lower row), and its partner organisation Te Ro-pu Wha-riki, headed by Dr Helen Moewaka Barnes (absent); Te Pu-manaawa Hauora, based at the Wellington and Manawatu campuses, headed by Professor Chris Cunningham (far right) and specialising in Ma-ori health; the Wellington-based Centre for Public Health Research, led by director Professor Neil Pearce (top row, second left) and co-director Jeroen Douwes (left, upper row), and internationally recognised for research into cancer and occupational health and safety; and the Sleep/Wake Research Centre, headed by Professor Philippa Gander (left, lower row). Associate Professor Cindy Kiro (third left, lower row), the former Commissioner for Children, is the school’s inaugural head. Also shown: Pro Vice-Chancellor College of Humanities & Social Sciences Professor Susan Mumm (third right) and Assistant Vice-Chancellor Ma-ori and Pasifika Professor Sir Mason Durie (second right, lower row).

In matters to do with the understanding of alcohol and public health, Professor Sally Casswell has a reputation to be reckoned with.

In a June 2009 issue given over to alcohol and public health, The Lancet – the world’s oldest and best known medical journal – ran a laudatory profile of her subtitled “champion for communities tackling alcohol”. A few months later she was appearing in a New Scientist editorial in connection with the drafting of the World Health Organisation’s first global strategy on reducing health damage from alcohol.

And as well as being an eminent researcher, Casswell is the director of the highly successful Centre for Social and Health Outcomes and Evaluation (SHORE) based in central Auckland.

Born in Britain, Casswell arrived in New Zealand in the early 1970s as a postgraduate student, first studying the effects of cannabis for her PhD and then turning her attention to alcohol and public health.

Her interest was timely. The 1974 report of a Royal Commission ushered in the liberalisation of licensing laws – soon there were thousands of licensed sports bars, hundreds of BYO restaurants, and many more licensed restaurants – and further rounds of liberalising reforms followed, freeing up licensing laws, allowing the sale of first wine and then beer from supermarkets, and dropping the minimum age of purchase from 20 to 18. The consequences for public health? A growing consensus seems to be that matters have gone too far.

In 1994 Casswell – who, incidentally, neither abstains from alcohol herself nor moralises about its use – was a coauthor of the book Alcohol and the Public Good, and, in 2003, of Alcohol: No Ordinary Commodity, republished early this year in a revised edition.

Casswell was a member of the WHO’s expert committee that reported on alcohol-related harm in 2008 and has been working towards the drafting and international adoption of global strategy to reduce the harmful use of alcohol.

The strategy will be useful, but Casswell hopes it will not take the place of her larger, long-term goal (the subject of a paper coauthored by her in that same issue of The Lancet): a legally-binding international Framework Convention on Alcohol Control, much like the successful Framework Convention on Tobacco Control.

On the eve of the Law Commission’s recommendations on the reform of New Zealand’s liquor laws, she spoke to Malcolm Wood.

According to legend, you began your career as a researcher with a freezer full of marijuana.

I did. Cannabis was of great interest in the ’70s. When I first arrived in New Zealand I got some Medical Research Council funding and a licence from the Department of Health, as it was then, and for my PhD I measured the effect of cannabis on reaction time, cognitive behaviour and psychomotor skills generally.

Why the shift to alcohol research?

I was interested in recreational drug use and I realised that alcohol was the big one: that was where a lot of the public health issues lay.

So you don’t make much distinction between alcohol and other recreational drugs?

They all have different impacts, and that has to be taken into account when thinking about them and the policy response. But alcohol has an enormous amount of harm associated with its use. It is a historical accident, if you like, that it is a legal drug and widely used. In the work we do I always refer to ‘alcohol and other drugs’ as the topic we work on to reinforce the notion that alcohol is a drug.

In public health terms, how does alcohol compare with that other legal-and-damaging drug tobacco?

Tobacco is responsible for a higher degree of premature mortality. But if you look at disability-adjusted life years – that is not just the years of life lost but the impact on quality of life following things like injury from driving while alcohol-impaired or violence while under the influence of alcohol – then alcohol and tobacco are very similar.

Talking of the comparison, I see the term ‘passive drinking’ is now cropping up in the alcohol regulation debate. What exactly does it mean?

For a long time we have looked at the health of the drinker, but ignored the family, the workmates, the other people around the heavy drinker. These people, even if they don’t drink themselves, are being affected by alcohol consumption. This is sometimes being called ‘passive drinking’.
In one of our Health Research Council (HRC) funded projects we have found a relationship between having a heavy drinker in your surroundings and overall life satisfaction similar to that of looking after people with disabilities.

This is interesting research from a policy perspective because those people who are stuck in a neoliberal individual-freedoms kind of framework don’t argue that it’s not important to respect the wellbeing of other people, and clearly [the concept of] passive smoking made a difference in the tobacco debate.

Where do you think we currently stand in our attitudes to alcohol and its regulation?

I think we are going through one of those periodic long-wave shifts in awareness, and not just in New Zealand. With increases in alcohol consumption and in the harm it does, so, with a bit of a lag, the degree of public concern has risen. Locally you can see expressions of that concern in the current Law Commission review and the submissions it received. Internationally you can see it in things like the World Health Organisation’s work towards a global alcohol strategy.

How do New Zealand’s patterns of consumption compare internationally?

It is complicated. We are similar to Australia; we drink more than many parts of the US and less than Britain. In fact, Britain is a really good example of what not to do. Their policy was very influenced by the alcohol industry. They deregulated matters to do with availability, pricing and marketing and instead relied on retailing a sensible drinking message – and the tactic has conspicuously failed.

The affordability of alcohol has gone right up, they have very high cirrhosis rates, very high rates of alcohol-driven crime, and they are just now starting to look at to how to use policy to control alcohol to turn that tide around.

What about the so-called drinking cultures of the Mediterranean?

France and Italy traditionally had a very high consumption of alcohol – their populations were largely poor and rural, and people would drink wine and brandy during the course of the day. They also had huge alcohol-related public health problems.

Now these countries are starting to display the global patterns. They are becoming more Anglo. Young people are drinking larger amounts than they have done in the past and they are turning to beer rather than wine, which many now regard as old fashioned.

Interestingly, France greatly restricts the marketing of alcohol – you can’t advertise alcohol on television or in the cinema for example – and since 1991, when the so-called Loi Evin was voted in, sales of alcohol have continued to decrease.

So are we different?

You often hear it said that we were a pioneering society with a very high rate of single young men and hence very high and socially unconstrained alcohol use, and that is why we ended up with our cultural drinking patterns. I am sure there is some truth to that; there are always really interesting cultural specificities. But I also know that if you go around the world, everybody says, ‘we’re different really, we have these cultural things around our drinking’.

The reality is that people seem to be very similar the world over. Many people drink too much and those that do experience similar sorts of harms and the people around them experience similar sorts of harms. And if you put in place those controls around price, availability and marketing they seem to have similar effects on consumption.

So I don’t think there is anything very distinctive about us. We are a very good example of the Anglo Saxon pattern. We tend to have groups within society who don’t drink every day or even all that often, but when they drink, if they can afford to, they drink to intoxication. Intoxication is the goal.

What about the patterns of consumption among Ma-ori and Pacific peoples?

Pacific peoples are still abstaining at higher rates [than the general population], but when they drink they tend to drink more. For Ma-ori the pattern is similar, but abstention rates have gone down.

Drinking disproportionately high amounts when there is a drinking occasion is common among colonised indigenous peoples. Alcohol is a means of escaping the pain of the situation they are in.

At what point do the social harms justify interventions that interfere with individual liberties?

I don’t see that as a useful way of framing the debate. I think we are in a situation where a lot of the demand for alcohol is driven by the way in which it is produced and marketed. It is reasonable to regulate where it can be sold, under what conditions, at what hours, and at what price. It is reasonable to regulate the marketing. It isn’t a matter of restricting individual freedoms – that’s the neoliberal rhetoric. No one is talking about any form of prohibition or of oppressive forms of restriction.

You are sceptical about the value of classroom-based education?

Classroom education does some things really well: it imparts knowledge, it may change attitudes. But outside the classroom, where the individual operates in a broader social context and is influenced by many other things, it doesn’t appear to influence behaviour. It’s also expensive if you do it year after year.

I don’t argue against classroom-based education; it is a sensible part of any lifestyle or health curriculum. Tell people about alcohol; tell them about sexual behaviour. Just don’t look at it as a measure to reduce harm, because it won’t work.

Are media campaigns more effective?

There isn’t very good evidence that media campaigns work in isolation when it comes to changing societal norms. You know the sort of thing: campaigns for moderation, calls for people to drink responsibly.

But they do have a place when allied to other measures. A compulsory breath testing regime in tandem with publicity that says ‘you will get caught’ – that will work.

And I suppose that even the lavishly funded campaign is a pittance set against the industry’s advertising spend. Do you think New Zealand should have something like France’s Loi Evin, which severely restricts advertising?

When the Law Commission went out for consultation, at every meeting they were told over and over again, we need constraints on marketing, we need regulation, so I hope that we will see some solid recommendations in their final report.

But the alcohol industry will fight to the death on the issue of restrictions on marketing. They have to replace the drinkers who are dying or who are moderating their drinking as they get older, have kids, get mortgages. And also they can’t afford to have a denormalising process go on. Alcohol advertising helps to normalise the drug as part of our daily life; it shows only the positives, none of the negatives.

And these days marketing doesn’t just mean advertising.

As part of some of the Health Research Council-funded research we are doing, we have been talking to 13-year-olds so as to understand the range of marketing they are exposed to and how they react to it. As an adult you are aware of the presence of alcohol advertising in the mainstream media, but you won’t have seen the screensavers, the [alcohol] branding on the social networking sites.

There is no regulation of this, and the only regulation surrounding advertising in the mainstream media is a voluntary accord.

Can you tell me a bit about how alcohol consumption is affected by price?

In the sense of price, alcohol is a commodity like most others. Higher price means lower demand and reduced harm.

How much it affects demand, what the elasticities are, is complicated by all sorts of factors, but what you can certainly say is that in New Zealand we have a difficult situation where alcohol to take away is being sold incredibly cheaply from a variety of places, and that is definitely contributing to some of the harms.
You’ve got to control the price to the consumer. It doesn’t matter whether you do it using taxation or by putting a minimum price in place.

In the debate that is sure to follow when the Law Commission releases its final recommendations, how is the alcohol industry likely to frame matters?

There will be no surprises. They will raise the usual issue of individual freedom. They will deny the evidence: they will say there is no evidence that price works, that there is no evidence that restrictions on availability and marketing work. They will distract the public by talking about things that don’t make a difference. So, for example, in the marketing area they will talk about the voluntary codes that they have put in place. They will distract by talking about the value of education campaigns and their readiness to help fund them. It happens the world over – and it is going to happen here.

And we may see organisations entering the debate that sound independent and trustworthy, but are less than?

Industry front organisations are common practice where ever there is an issue that involves large amounts of money: tobacco, climate change, pharmaceuticals and alcohol. They are difficult because they are very capable. They push out publication after publication after publication. And the material they put out is very well done, very simplified and, on the face of it, very reasonable. You can see why a policy maker new to an issue might think, ‘that makes sense, that fits with my received wisdom’.

As public health researchers we just have to keep analysing away, pointing out that without fail these sorts of front organisations promote the ineffective strategies and argue against the effective ones.

I can imagine that some of your views may not always be politically palatable. Do you ever find yourself having to pull your punches?

There have been situations where journal editors have been worried about things we have written and had them checked by lawyers.

It is one reason why I have stayed within a university. A university is the critic and conscience of society and it should be a safe place to make these arguments from – and so far it has been.

Finally, as the mother of a well-adjusted university-age son, do you have any advice for the parents of young adults?

I think the credit is his, but probably I would say don’t give them alcohol during their teenage years. The evidence is that the later your child starts drinking alcohol the less chance he or she will have of running into problems.

The rest became millionaires

Fri, 05 Mar 2010 00:03:00 +1200

Comedian Jeremy Corbett

The rest became millionaires

Comedian Jeremy Corbett launched his comedy career at Massey University, he made friends and he missed out on becoming a millionaire. He talks to Kathryn Farrow about his student days and his striking resemblance to Steve Maharey.

Broadcaster and comedian Jeremy Corbett fancies breaking through new frontiers as a geneticist.

He is fascinated by the genome and says if he could have a “brain injection” he would be a research scientist.

“If I was to return to study I’d love to delve into that,” he says. “I like the glory side of it, the exciting side of it, standing on the shoulders of giants.”

He is not yet sure what area he would look into but knows it would have to be pretty specialist.

“Scientists are always looking for the next thing to study,” he says. “Like the colour of pubic hairs of an African whistling moth.”

The son of a doctor and a nurse, it is no surprise that Corbett is interested in genetics, but his academic life took a different path.

He decided early on that he did not want to follow in his father’s footsteps because it “seemed like too much hard work”.

Instead, Corbett took a BA double major in English and computer science at Massey in Palmerston North, pedalling his bike 16km to lectures each day from the family home and completing his degree in 1983.

“I had no particular direction in mind but I had a creative side so I did English. The computer science side was to get a job, plus I have always been a bit of a computer nerd.”

Summarising his academic prowess as, “I passed, I didn’t shine, I was workmanlike”, he says it was outside the lecture theatres that he found his forte.

On his profile for his 7 Days television show he credits the capping revues at Massey as the start of his comedy career.

He says these short sketch shows, which he performed with his younger brother Nigel, an agricultural science student, taught him how to think on his feet.

“When we saw we could goof around on stage, we gravitated towards that. We were the next Monty Python – but without the talent.

“I learnt a valuable skill – how to die on stage.

“One time, I went blank. Nigel just walked off stage leaving me standing there on my own. I suppose that is where I started my improvisation skills.”

Corbett says the audiences in Palmerston North put up with a lot but didn’t shoot the performers down. “That gave us the confidence to continue.”

Nigel is now executive creative director at Sugar Advertising and Corbett went on to enjoy success as a stand-up performer, radio broadcaster, and television funnyman.

He has recently fronted the satirical news quiz show 7 Days, produced by Jon Bridges, his pal from the capping revues, and is hopeful it will soon be back on screen.

He is still enjoying a stint on MoreFM that is 16 years and counting, and his love of radio is also traced back to his student days when he presented on Radio Massey.

Corbett admits he got in by luck and determination. He had failed three auditions “miserably” by his own admission, and was just having a scout round the studio when he saw there were two gaps on the roster.

“The programme director had literally run out of names and I was there.”

Corbett clearly embraced his role on the air, although it was not entirely without controversy.

“I talked nonsense and played whatever songs I liked.” His love of music extended to playing and his university band Dosage B was the first release from the Meltdown Records label.

The band reformed – under a slightly different line-up – and played at his wedding to actor Megan Nicol two years ago.

After he left university, Corbett kept an interest in radio, setting up Energy FM with a group of friends, including Steven Joyce, before pursuing new adventures in Australia.

They bought up several stations and quickly sold them for a huge profit.

“In a nutshell, the story goes that I left and the rest went on to become millionaires,” he says.

Connections to Massey have popped up throughout his career, but there is one last thing that Corbett mentions. He could have been separated at birth from the Vice-Chancellor.

“Kerre Woodham said to me ‘you look like Steve Maharey’ I said ‘you are right – but I am not sure who is prettiest.’”

Reason to stay

Fri, 05 Mar 2010 00:03:00 +1200

Anna Hamilton-Manns

Graduate Anna Hamilton-Manns hit the headlines at the Finance 2010 event when she challenged Bill English, saying his tax policy was not strong enough to stop talented young people from leaving the country.

She was interviewed on TV1, TV3 and by newspaper journalists after she asked the finance minister for a “good reason” to stay in New Zealand.

The following day Mr English invited her for a one-to-one discussion to see what ideas she had to prevent “brain drain”.

No stranger to offering advice, Ms Hamilton-Manns, 33, is on the University’s College of Business Advisory Board.

She returned to New Zealand four years ago after working overseas and runs her own event management company.

“Coming back, I don’t see the opportunities in New Zealand apart from having babies, and maybe that’s not what we all want,” she told Mr English.

“I have my own company but, your proposition, I’m doubting whether it’s strong enough and whether I’m thinking about getting back on that plane.”

Mr English replied that the Government wanted to cut personal taxes to give people “incentives to work hard, to improve their skills, to save, to invest and to get ahead here in New Zealand”. But he said there was no silver bullet solution.

Ms Hamilton-Manns, who had voted for National at the last general election, said it did not go far enough and emailed him the next day. He replied and arranged a meeting.

“I told him I wanted to be part of the solution, not to create a headache.

“I wanted to speak out for the thousands of young, bright New Zealanders out there who want to stay in this country but feel they have to move overseas to find the career opportunities and earn the incomes they deserve.”

Since graduating from Massey in 1998 with a Bachelor of Science (chemistry) and a Diploma in Secondary Teaching, Ms Hamilton-Manns has travelled the world, working in Qatar, Kuwait, Britain, Italy and South Africa for five years as a teacher and then as an event manager.

She is concerned that others would not return.

“We are going to have more and more people leaving for economic reasons rather than just to check out the Taj Mahal and tick off 40 countries in 40 days. This problem around the world is not unique, but we do have it.”

She says she is encouraged that Mr English is prepared to listen.