so, 2013 is pretty much over, and what an incredible year it has been. well, for me personally, it has been a year of amazingly wonderful experiences, strengthening friendships and i guess it has also been a time for me to find out a lot more about myself.
i started the year hoping to help out with local body elections, then being asked to stand myself. it took me a few months to lay the groundwork that would lead to my decision to be a candidate. it meant consulting a whole lot of people, persuading a couple, and looking for support.
and i was lucky enough to find a lot of support, sometimes from places i least expected it. but there were so many people who not only believed in me, but were willing to put their time, effort and money into my campaign. it was so incredibly humbling & uplifting at the same time. i've spent many years dabbling in politics, but crippled by a total lack of self-belief and self-confidence. i've never felt i was quite good enough or that i had what it takes. and i know that the confidence has to be built from within, but it sure does help to surround yourself with people who believe in you and won't let you believe anything but the best of yourself.
during the course of the campaign, i strongly felt like it was the right thing for me to be doing and that i was in my element. i loved the experiences, and meeting so many different people, hearing about their issues and the ways they were struggling. it became so clear that the best solutions come from within communities, and that they need the helping hand of government, both local and central, to make those solutions work. it's people who work in a particular field or have lived experiences to bring to the table who are the most valuable in creating change. the job of a good leader is to find those people, bring them together & facilitate their ability to achieve. while remaining quietly in the background. the latter is something not well suited to most people who are attracted to politics, and yet it's crucially important to step back & let others shine when you really want to get results.
then the campaign was over, and i had to learn to deal with failure. not the first time, not at all. but it was certainly a more public failure than any i've had so far. however, it was another opportunity to develop strength & resilience, to keep my dignity and remember that there is still so much to fight for. it was a time to for me to remember that i'd been so lucky to have so much support and so many positive experiences, and if the result wasn't what i was hoping for, well that wasn't the most important thing i'd gained from the process. so i gave myself a few days to mope, then got on with other things that needed to be done.
part of which is work on the central government elections coming up next year. there is so much going on, so many important decisions to be made & a government that must be changed. we need a government that responds to the needs of the marginalised, whether that marginalisation is economic or as a result of personal characteristics like race, gender or ability. we need a government that is prepared to be inclusive of all its citizens, and not prepared to denigrate them to score political points. we need a government committed to ensuring people have jobs, jobs that pay enough to live on; to decent working conditions; to educational opportunities for people of all ages. well, i could carry on, there are so many policies in so many areas i'd like to see put in place, so many things reversed and improved.
so i expect that's where the bulk of my energies in 2014 will be directed. but not solely. as with 2013, i hope to be involved in planning and organising various events, and working on projects. this year, i was lucky enough to be involved in organising the regional interfaith forum, a community iftar, an interfaith service, a silent march against rape culture followed by a public meeting, a regional conference & fundraisers, & public speaking engagements (especially dear to me was the opportunity to speak at the rememberance for nelson mandela at rugby park). on top of that were the regular board meetings for shama, free FM, becoming a trustee of a new trust called the ethnic nz trust, and helping to set up an ECE centre. there were various media appearances, the most memorable of which (for me) was an appearance on 7 sharp to talk about the boston bombings.
most of these activities will be carrying on into the new year. i find that i'm looking forward to 2014, and am expecting it to be as tumultuous, turbulent, challenging, exciting & rewarding as 2013 has been. i hope the year goes well for all of you as well; wishing the best for you in whatever circumstances you're facing.
Tuesday, 31 December 2013
Thursday, 26 December 2013
the spirit of 45: what's missing
ah, it's been too long a break from blogging. a couple of reasons. mostly because my life hasn't really slowed down after the local body elections. i think that's possibly part of a coping mechanism on my part - i cope with life a lot better when i'm busy & don't have too much time to think. i do realise this is an "issue", a problem that i should deal with in some way, but who has the time for that, right?
it's also because central government elections are on next year, and a lot of the preparatory work for that is happening right now. and i find that at the moment, i care too much to just sit quietly on the sidelines and let things happen, the way i did for the 2011 elections. i felt strangely unmotivated at that time, by politics or by very much else. but now, i care and it feels good.
but also, i go through periods of time when the words just don't flow. but now i'm on holiday, and i have a bit of space to write again. so here goes.
a couple of weeks ago, i was involved in a fundraiser which was a showing of a documentary film called "the spirit of 45". it was about the labour government in the UK that took power in 1945 headed by clement attlee, and won another term after that. wikipedia's summary of the film is as good as any:
Relying primarily on archive footage and interviews, and without a narrative voiceover, the film recounts the endemic poverty in prewar Britain, the sense of optimism that followed victory in World War 2 and the subsequent expansion of the welfare state, founding of the National Health Service and nationalisation of significant parts of the UK's economy. The film documents the extent to which these achievements, as Loach sees them, have since been subject to attack in the decades that followed, particularly under the Conservative governments of Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s.
and here are a couple of reviews, one from nz.
it was definitely an interesting film, providing a vision of a different way of organising society and the economy. a vision of equitable distribution and full employment, centralised services that weren't based on profit. an alternative, if you will, of the capitalist model, and particularly the neo-liberal version, that we live in today.
as an accurate portrayal of british history, well i can't comment if it is one. not having any particular ties to that country, nor an particular interest in its post-war history, i'm not in any position to judge. i certainly heard comments from those who came to see it, who do have those ties (one even voted for mr attlee in that election), that many things were left out & that it wasn't entirely a full picture of what happened at that time.
certainly, the portrayal of the depression and the issues of poverty were all too real. i found it pretty sad that the major issues covered by the film are all still major issues we are facing here in nz today. housing. employment (or lack thereof). access to healthcare. decent wages.
there is no doubt in my mind that government has a crucial role to play in these areas. the policy of building houses, of centralising the rail transport system & having a strong public health systems are all policies that are as relevant today as they were in 1945.
however, there was one thing that really stood out for me as i watched this film, which was based on historical footage & modern-day interviews with people who were born in the 1930s. it was the absolute lack of people of colour. there was only one shot of a black man, as part of an audience shot, and no-one of colour who had a speaking role. no-one interviewed, none of the experts, none in the archival footage other than this one unnamed black guy.
i really noticed it, probably because i'm a person of colour, but also because i know that poverty and low pay are issues which affect people of colour. a lot. the lowest paid professions in this country - cleaners & the aged care sector - are dominated by women of colour. they tend to have some of the lowest standards of living, not just because of class but because they are often shut out of better paying jobs due to direct discrimination.
that the voices of people of colour are totally absent makes the rest of the film suspect for me. even though i appreciate the ideas that were discussed, and the real life stories of people who had no safety net. i just can't imagine what would make a person so colour-blind, so oblivious to the fact that there was a whole section of society who was missed out of this telling of history.
which then makes me wonder: perhaps those policies enacted by the attlee government didn't benefit people of colour. those new houses might not have been available for those people, access to health still wasn't as good, access to jobs non-existent. now i'd like to see a black person's telling of that history, to see if that government provided any hope for them, any substantial change.
this disappearing of people of colour struck me as well, because there are many political commentators on the left today who would also like us to be invisible and to stay invisible. any mention of issues around race (as well as gender & other markers of identity) are dismissed as "identity politics", because those issues aren't important & don't affect the lives of the ones who are urging us to be quiet, to sit back and wait for the more important issues to be solved.
it may be coincidental that i found this quote at blue milk today, from martin luther king:
I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to ‘order’ than to justice… who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait.
but it seems so relevant to the idea that identity politics are a distraction and irrelevant. and i can't help but conclude that a film which completely leaves out the narratives of people of colour is hugely incomplete.
it's also because central government elections are on next year, and a lot of the preparatory work for that is happening right now. and i find that at the moment, i care too much to just sit quietly on the sidelines and let things happen, the way i did for the 2011 elections. i felt strangely unmotivated at that time, by politics or by very much else. but now, i care and it feels good.
but also, i go through periods of time when the words just don't flow. but now i'm on holiday, and i have a bit of space to write again. so here goes.
a couple of weeks ago, i was involved in a fundraiser which was a showing of a documentary film called "the spirit of 45". it was about the labour government in the UK that took power in 1945 headed by clement attlee, and won another term after that. wikipedia's summary of the film is as good as any:
Relying primarily on archive footage and interviews, and without a narrative voiceover, the film recounts the endemic poverty in prewar Britain, the sense of optimism that followed victory in World War 2 and the subsequent expansion of the welfare state, founding of the National Health Service and nationalisation of significant parts of the UK's economy. The film documents the extent to which these achievements, as Loach sees them, have since been subject to attack in the decades that followed, particularly under the Conservative governments of Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s.
and here are a couple of reviews, one from nz.
it was definitely an interesting film, providing a vision of a different way of organising society and the economy. a vision of equitable distribution and full employment, centralised services that weren't based on profit. an alternative, if you will, of the capitalist model, and particularly the neo-liberal version, that we live in today.
as an accurate portrayal of british history, well i can't comment if it is one. not having any particular ties to that country, nor an particular interest in its post-war history, i'm not in any position to judge. i certainly heard comments from those who came to see it, who do have those ties (one even voted for mr attlee in that election), that many things were left out & that it wasn't entirely a full picture of what happened at that time.
certainly, the portrayal of the depression and the issues of poverty were all too real. i found it pretty sad that the major issues covered by the film are all still major issues we are facing here in nz today. housing. employment (or lack thereof). access to healthcare. decent wages.
there is no doubt in my mind that government has a crucial role to play in these areas. the policy of building houses, of centralising the rail transport system & having a strong public health systems are all policies that are as relevant today as they were in 1945.
however, there was one thing that really stood out for me as i watched this film, which was based on historical footage & modern-day interviews with people who were born in the 1930s. it was the absolute lack of people of colour. there was only one shot of a black man, as part of an audience shot, and no-one of colour who had a speaking role. no-one interviewed, none of the experts, none in the archival footage other than this one unnamed black guy.
i really noticed it, probably because i'm a person of colour, but also because i know that poverty and low pay are issues which affect people of colour. a lot. the lowest paid professions in this country - cleaners & the aged care sector - are dominated by women of colour. they tend to have some of the lowest standards of living, not just because of class but because they are often shut out of better paying jobs due to direct discrimination.
that the voices of people of colour are totally absent makes the rest of the film suspect for me. even though i appreciate the ideas that were discussed, and the real life stories of people who had no safety net. i just can't imagine what would make a person so colour-blind, so oblivious to the fact that there was a whole section of society who was missed out of this telling of history.
which then makes me wonder: perhaps those policies enacted by the attlee government didn't benefit people of colour. those new houses might not have been available for those people, access to health still wasn't as good, access to jobs non-existent. now i'd like to see a black person's telling of that history, to see if that government provided any hope for them, any substantial change.
this disappearing of people of colour struck me as well, because there are many political commentators on the left today who would also like us to be invisible and to stay invisible. any mention of issues around race (as well as gender & other markers of identity) are dismissed as "identity politics", because those issues aren't important & don't affect the lives of the ones who are urging us to be quiet, to sit back and wait for the more important issues to be solved.
it may be coincidental that i found this quote at blue milk today, from martin luther king:
I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to ‘order’ than to justice… who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait.
but it seems so relevant to the idea that identity politics are a distraction and irrelevant. and i can't help but conclude that a film which completely leaves out the narratives of people of colour is hugely incomplete.
Monday, 28 October 2013
labour day reflections
must be time for another labour day post.
i promised myself that i would do nothing productive this weekend, and apart from a bit of stuff catching up on emails this evening, i've pretty much stuck to that. having had a pretty hectic year, i really needed the break. time to relax, to day-dream, to just not worry about anything much at all. it was lovely.
but i can't let the day go without acknowledging why we have it. 3 news did a nice little clip today, except that it was pretty depressing so few people knew the history behind labour day. so here's some:
Labour Day commemorates the struggle for an eight-hour working day. New Zealand workers were among the first in the world to claim this right when, in 1840, the carpenter Samuel Parnell won an eight-hour day in Wellington. Labour Day was first celebrated in New Zealand on 28 October 1890, when several thousand trade union members and supporters attended parades in the main centres. Government employees were given the day off to attend the parades and many businesses closed for at least part of the day.
i'll leave you to read the rest by clicking through. it's a day for commemorating rights in the workplace, except in recent times it's more appropriate to think about rights that have been lost. we no longer have an 8-hour working day, that went with the employment contracts act back in 1991. at that time we also lost award rates that ensured decent wages across various industries, we lost overtime pay.
the damage done to unions has meant that the rights to collective bargaining have been eroded. there is plenty of evidence that unionised workers have better pay and conditions than non-unionised workers, and that the efforts put in by unions benefit non-unionised workers as well. for example:
Their findings on wage settlements for the last year are startling. For those agreements for which they could calculate an increase from June 2009 to June 2010 (some for example don’t specify a wage rate, or don’t have a preceding agreement to calculate an increase from) adult minimum wages in collectives went up by an "annualised" rate of 4.2 percent – the largest they have ever reported. It compares with an increase over the same period of 1.6 percent in the Labour Cost Index (LCI)and 2.1 percent in the average wage, both of which include non-unionised workers and unionised workers on individual agreements. Given that all collectives are union collectives, that’s a strong message about the success of both unions and collectives. Of course, collectives have other improved conditions too, and help to lock in improved conditions (if explicitly included) despite law changes.
current legislation before the house seeks to further erode those rights. if you want to get details about the proposed changes in the employment relations amendment bill, check out the factsheets on the sidebar of the CTU website. or if you prefer to listen than to read, here's helen kelly explaining the proposed changes:
if you're in for some heavy reading, check out the human rights commission's submission - you can find a link here. and if not, here's a summary from the bottom of a 3news piece:
i promised myself that i would do nothing productive this weekend, and apart from a bit of stuff catching up on emails this evening, i've pretty much stuck to that. having had a pretty hectic year, i really needed the break. time to relax, to day-dream, to just not worry about anything much at all. it was lovely.
but i can't let the day go without acknowledging why we have it. 3 news did a nice little clip today, except that it was pretty depressing so few people knew the history behind labour day. so here's some:
Labour Day commemorates the struggle for an eight-hour working day. New Zealand workers were among the first in the world to claim this right when, in 1840, the carpenter Samuel Parnell won an eight-hour day in Wellington. Labour Day was first celebrated in New Zealand on 28 October 1890, when several thousand trade union members and supporters attended parades in the main centres. Government employees were given the day off to attend the parades and many businesses closed for at least part of the day.
i'll leave you to read the rest by clicking through. it's a day for commemorating rights in the workplace, except in recent times it's more appropriate to think about rights that have been lost. we no longer have an 8-hour working day, that went with the employment contracts act back in 1991. at that time we also lost award rates that ensured decent wages across various industries, we lost overtime pay.
the damage done to unions has meant that the rights to collective bargaining have been eroded. there is plenty of evidence that unionised workers have better pay and conditions than non-unionised workers, and that the efforts put in by unions benefit non-unionised workers as well. for example:
Their findings on wage settlements for the last year are startling. For those agreements for which they could calculate an increase from June 2009 to June 2010 (some for example don’t specify a wage rate, or don’t have a preceding agreement to calculate an increase from) adult minimum wages in collectives went up by an "annualised" rate of 4.2 percent – the largest they have ever reported. It compares with an increase over the same period of 1.6 percent in the Labour Cost Index (LCI)and 2.1 percent in the average wage, both of which include non-unionised workers and unionised workers on individual agreements. Given that all collectives are union collectives, that’s a strong message about the success of both unions and collectives. Of course, collectives have other improved conditions too, and help to lock in improved conditions (if explicitly included) despite law changes.
current legislation before the house seeks to further erode those rights. if you want to get details about the proposed changes in the employment relations amendment bill, check out the factsheets on the sidebar of the CTU website. or if you prefer to listen than to read, here's helen kelly explaining the proposed changes:
if you're in for some heavy reading, check out the human rights commission's submission - you can find a link here. and if not, here's a summary from the bottom of a 3news piece:
The EPMU says the bill will allow employers to:
- Refuse to negotiate a collective agreement with their employees
- Pay new workers less than the rate in the collective agreement
- Opt out of industry agreements in order to undercut their competitors on wages
- Deny workers meal and rest breaks
- Reduce the wages and conditions of vulnerable workers such as cleaners when taking over a new contract
- Dock the pay of workers taking partial strike action
- Impose more restrictions on the right to strike
- Refuse to provide employees the information they need to challenge an unfair redundancy or dismissal.
Thursday, 24 October 2013
freedom
i don't want to be doing another post about burqas. it's not like i haven't written extensively about them. and to put the focus on them again is to reinforce the notion that the only thing important about muslim women are burqas.
but this happened today, and i find that i can't ignore it:
Yuet Rappard, a farm worker, appeared in front of Justices of the Peace in the Dunedin District Court yesterday and was found guilty of offensive behaviour for telling a student to remove her burqa while she was shopping on May 17.
Rappard, representing herself, did not dispute that she told a University of Otago student to take her burqa off at Garden's New World, but told the court she was expressing her freedom of speech.
"I said 'shame on you, you should take it off. When in Rome you should do as the Romans do'."
Rappard, who moved to New Zealand from the Netherlands when she was a child, believed burqas should be banned and felt "intimidated" when she saw people wearing them.
when in rome. a tired old argument that i wrote about a couple of years ago. but let's pretend for now it's a valid one. the burqa is legal in nz, and ms rappard is in nz, so ms rappard should adhere to local culture & accept the fact that we allow women to wear burqas here. maybe she should accept that in this country, we have a bill of rights act that includes freedom of religion, and she should be prepared to live with that.
she might also want to learn about nz history, which involves colonisation and settlement, land theft and institutional injustices by the crown which we are still in the process of resolving. those people who came here at that time did not "do as the romans" (well, actually if you look at the history of the actual romans in their heyday, they pretty much did), they did not adopt the local culture, live a tribal lifestyle, change the way they dressed so they were compatible with the local inhabitants. in fact they did so much the opposite that maori couldn't be spoken at schools, and even today, many maori are shamed or denied employment for following the cultural practice of te moko.
so the burqa-wearing foreign student is following exactly in the footsteps of those who came before her by not changing or adapting her own religious beliefs to her environment. in fact, she isn't quite living up to our history, because she isn't trying to force anyone else to wear a burqa, she hasn't any institutional power to prevent anyone else speaking a language or practising their own culture. she's not in a position to set up land courts and a voting system designed to alienate a people from their land. so that wearing of a burqa is a pretty poor attempt by her, and doesn't come anywhere close to what was going on here in times past.
let's not forget another fact: the burqa-wearing woman is a foreign student. this means that she (or her family or her government) will be paying truckloads of money in order to purchase an education in this country. it is highly likely that she is from one of those countries where nz education is heavily marketed, where there are important and high-level delegations sent to try to persuade said country to send its student here. education is a big income earner, and this country, at an official level, has invited foreign students here so that this country can make money from them.
at the very least, if we're going to behave in that way, if we're going to invite them here and charge so much money for providing an education, the least we can do is make sure they are safe while they are here. that's part of what we're selling when we sell our education. it means we're accepting them as they are when we ask them to come here, because i'm quite sure no-one who is selling nz education overseas is saying "oh by the way, when you come here, you can't wear a burqa, because when in rome..."
then there's freedom of expression argument, and i've written a whole lot about that as well. in fact, i've had a pretty robust discussion on facebook today on that particular freedom & what constitutes censorship. and i'm oh so tired of the people who think freedom of expression is an absolute right that trumps absolutely any other right that anyone might have, in the way that ms rappard so clearly does.
we don't have total freedom of expression in this country because we have broadcasting standards, advertising codes, press council principles. we have a very weak section of the human rights act around hate speech, and i believe it is still a crime in the crimes act to directly incite violence by way of speech.
but we also have other rights. as i've already mentioned above, the freedom to practice one's religion (or to not have to practice one at all). the right to freedom from discrimination. and certainly the right to be free from harassment and intimidation as you go about your daily business. i'd say the last one trumps freedom of expression, especially if you're expressing that freedom by getting into someone's face and shouting your opinion at them. i realise ms rappard denies doing this, but there seems to be more than one witness who is of the view that this is what happened.
so yes, it's a good thing that ms rappard has been convicted and fined. she hasn't learned anything from this experience though, and relies on the old "PC gone mad" to avoid any responsibility for her own actions or any empathy for the woman she harangued. but at least the nz justice system has sent the message that this kind of behaviour is not ok, and that is something to be thankful for.
just to finish off, i'm going to recommend this piece that someone linked to on facebook today. it's pretty long, but very well worth the read. i can identify with so much of it, having migrated here as a child & feeling very much caught between two cultures and not really fitting in with either one of them. i'm extremely lucky to not have the experience of war that this writer does, and she writes about all of it so very well.
but this happened today, and i find that i can't ignore it:
Yuet Rappard, a farm worker, appeared in front of Justices of the Peace in the Dunedin District Court yesterday and was found guilty of offensive behaviour for telling a student to remove her burqa while she was shopping on May 17.
Rappard, representing herself, did not dispute that she told a University of Otago student to take her burqa off at Garden's New World, but told the court she was expressing her freedom of speech.
"I said 'shame on you, you should take it off. When in Rome you should do as the Romans do'."
Rappard, who moved to New Zealand from the Netherlands when she was a child, believed burqas should be banned and felt "intimidated" when she saw people wearing them.
when in rome. a tired old argument that i wrote about a couple of years ago. but let's pretend for now it's a valid one. the burqa is legal in nz, and ms rappard is in nz, so ms rappard should adhere to local culture & accept the fact that we allow women to wear burqas here. maybe she should accept that in this country, we have a bill of rights act that includes freedom of religion, and she should be prepared to live with that.
she might also want to learn about nz history, which involves colonisation and settlement, land theft and institutional injustices by the crown which we are still in the process of resolving. those people who came here at that time did not "do as the romans" (well, actually if you look at the history of the actual romans in their heyday, they pretty much did), they did not adopt the local culture, live a tribal lifestyle, change the way they dressed so they were compatible with the local inhabitants. in fact they did so much the opposite that maori couldn't be spoken at schools, and even today, many maori are shamed or denied employment for following the cultural practice of te moko.
so the burqa-wearing foreign student is following exactly in the footsteps of those who came before her by not changing or adapting her own religious beliefs to her environment. in fact, she isn't quite living up to our history, because she isn't trying to force anyone else to wear a burqa, she hasn't any institutional power to prevent anyone else speaking a language or practising their own culture. she's not in a position to set up land courts and a voting system designed to alienate a people from their land. so that wearing of a burqa is a pretty poor attempt by her, and doesn't come anywhere close to what was going on here in times past.
let's not forget another fact: the burqa-wearing woman is a foreign student. this means that she (or her family or her government) will be paying truckloads of money in order to purchase an education in this country. it is highly likely that she is from one of those countries where nz education is heavily marketed, where there are important and high-level delegations sent to try to persuade said country to send its student here. education is a big income earner, and this country, at an official level, has invited foreign students here so that this country can make money from them.
at the very least, if we're going to behave in that way, if we're going to invite them here and charge so much money for providing an education, the least we can do is make sure they are safe while they are here. that's part of what we're selling when we sell our education. it means we're accepting them as they are when we ask them to come here, because i'm quite sure no-one who is selling nz education overseas is saying "oh by the way, when you come here, you can't wear a burqa, because when in rome..."
then there's freedom of expression argument, and i've written a whole lot about that as well. in fact, i've had a pretty robust discussion on facebook today on that particular freedom & what constitutes censorship. and i'm oh so tired of the people who think freedom of expression is an absolute right that trumps absolutely any other right that anyone might have, in the way that ms rappard so clearly does.
we don't have total freedom of expression in this country because we have broadcasting standards, advertising codes, press council principles. we have a very weak section of the human rights act around hate speech, and i believe it is still a crime in the crimes act to directly incite violence by way of speech.
but we also have other rights. as i've already mentioned above, the freedom to practice one's religion (or to not have to practice one at all). the right to freedom from discrimination. and certainly the right to be free from harassment and intimidation as you go about your daily business. i'd say the last one trumps freedom of expression, especially if you're expressing that freedom by getting into someone's face and shouting your opinion at them. i realise ms rappard denies doing this, but there seems to be more than one witness who is of the view that this is what happened.
so yes, it's a good thing that ms rappard has been convicted and fined. she hasn't learned anything from this experience though, and relies on the old "PC gone mad" to avoid any responsibility for her own actions or any empathy for the woman she harangued. but at least the nz justice system has sent the message that this kind of behaviour is not ok, and that is something to be thankful for.
just to finish off, i'm going to recommend this piece that someone linked to on facebook today. it's pretty long, but very well worth the read. i can identify with so much of it, having migrated here as a child & feeling very much caught between two cultures and not really fitting in with either one of them. i'm extremely lucky to not have the experience of war that this writer does, and she writes about all of it so very well.
Monday, 14 October 2013
poverty is political
it's been a while since i've written. as you know, i've been a little busy with other things. that didn't work out, so i thought it must be time to get back into blogging again.
one thing i wanted to write about was an event i went to last week. it was a competition involving students from the school of management studies. there were 4 groups, and each group presented a media/public relations campaign on behalf of the same client. the client was poverty action waikato, and the campaigns centred around poverty.
i'd come across two of the groups as i was campaigning. the "step up, speak now" was campaigning for the living wage, and tied their campaign to the local body elections. hamilton city council failed to vote for a living wage for all it's employees earlier in the year, and this group based their strategy on a petition and a push for candidates to commit to a living wage. they had an online strategy that was reasonably successful, and they plan to present their petition at the first meeting of the new council. this group was really passionate, and they understand that decent wages are a critical part of poverty reduction.
the ten-17 group did a feasibility study around setting up a youth hub in hamilton. they presented the idea to a meeting a couple of weeks ago, and also used an online campaign. they want to focus on young people between the ages of 10 & 17 who are facing poverty, homeless or disadvantaged in other ways. it's a great initiative, & i really do hope they continue to work on it. they did a lot of work in engaging with these young people & collecting their stories. i felt like they really understood the issues.
a third group was called "not-so-super-annuation". i hadn't come across them, though they did garner a good amount of media attention. they were focused on poverty faced by the elderly. they did a good job of presenting the problem, and they had taken some time to connect with people who were struggling in their retirement.
yet, they didn't seem to understand the underlying causes nor to present a viable solution. their solution was to educate people, particularly in the 45 to 60 year old age bracket about the importance of saving & investing. they said people shouldn't be relying on the government and that there was a need for a change in culture.
wow, did i have some major problems with that. first of all, the retirement commissioner & various others have been doing exactly that. there has been so much information put out, aimed at exactly that age bracket. and while the group have actually received interest from the commissioner and others for the work they have done, the solution just doesn't address the problem.
the problem is that so many of the people facing poverty in their old age just weren't earning enough to save. you can educate them as much as you like, but if they don't have enough income, then saving will not happen. there was no consideration of the issues around unemployment, especially for people who are laid off in their middle age. at that age, it's very difficult to find another job. and it's also hard to retrain, especially when this government has decided that older students can't access the student loan scheme. if you're unemployed & struggling, there is no way you can afford to re-train or re-educate yourself.
but more than that, their solution assumes that the answer to poverty reduction lies in individual action. it's the response of a neo-liberal generation, brought up in a culture arising from the policies of the 80s & 90s, that thinks personal responsibility is the solution to all problems. a generation who hasn't thought about the fact that these problems arise from the way our society is structured and the only way to resolve them effectively is to change the underlying structure.
the thing that worried me most about this group was the fact that they hadn't approached grey power or age concern, because they thought those organisations are too political. that sound you heard was me screaming! poverty is political. it is purely political. there is enough wealth, enough resources for every person in this country to live a comfortable life. the issue isn't that we don't have enough, it's that the resources aren't fairly distributed. the way we choose to distribute those resources, as a society, is a political decision. the economic structures our society uses are as a result of political decisions. the way markets, financing, banks, wages, etc etc work in our society is a result of political decisions. we could choose to do things differently, we could choose to structure our society in a way that neither our children nor our elderly would ever have to struggle for food, decent housing and decent heating. but we don't, and that's a conscious choice, and a political one.
it doesn't surprise me that this group won the competition. the reason for that is because they were being judged on the effectiveness of their PR campaign, not on the strength of their analysis or the effectiveness of their solutions. and there was no doubt that the group had the best results in terms of the reach of the campaign, even if it didn't reach me.
but it was frustrating to watch and listen to. while the other 2 groups had a much better grasp of effective solutions, a much better connection to the problems and the people facing them, it was clear they were never going to win. and that's because of the rules of the competition, the structure if you will, that they were working under. it just shows that how you create the structure and what you develop as your criteria will determine the outcome. that's why we need to change the rules, the structures, so that the people who are currently struggling so much can live their lives with dignity.
one thing i wanted to write about was an event i went to last week. it was a competition involving students from the school of management studies. there were 4 groups, and each group presented a media/public relations campaign on behalf of the same client. the client was poverty action waikato, and the campaigns centred around poverty.
i'd come across two of the groups as i was campaigning. the "step up, speak now" was campaigning for the living wage, and tied their campaign to the local body elections. hamilton city council failed to vote for a living wage for all it's employees earlier in the year, and this group based their strategy on a petition and a push for candidates to commit to a living wage. they had an online strategy that was reasonably successful, and they plan to present their petition at the first meeting of the new council. this group was really passionate, and they understand that decent wages are a critical part of poverty reduction.
the ten-17 group did a feasibility study around setting up a youth hub in hamilton. they presented the idea to a meeting a couple of weeks ago, and also used an online campaign. they want to focus on young people between the ages of 10 & 17 who are facing poverty, homeless or disadvantaged in other ways. it's a great initiative, & i really do hope they continue to work on it. they did a lot of work in engaging with these young people & collecting their stories. i felt like they really understood the issues.
a third group was called "not-so-super-annuation". i hadn't come across them, though they did garner a good amount of media attention. they were focused on poverty faced by the elderly. they did a good job of presenting the problem, and they had taken some time to connect with people who were struggling in their retirement.
yet, they didn't seem to understand the underlying causes nor to present a viable solution. their solution was to educate people, particularly in the 45 to 60 year old age bracket about the importance of saving & investing. they said people shouldn't be relying on the government and that there was a need for a change in culture.
wow, did i have some major problems with that. first of all, the retirement commissioner & various others have been doing exactly that. there has been so much information put out, aimed at exactly that age bracket. and while the group have actually received interest from the commissioner and others for the work they have done, the solution just doesn't address the problem.
the problem is that so many of the people facing poverty in their old age just weren't earning enough to save. you can educate them as much as you like, but if they don't have enough income, then saving will not happen. there was no consideration of the issues around unemployment, especially for people who are laid off in their middle age. at that age, it's very difficult to find another job. and it's also hard to retrain, especially when this government has decided that older students can't access the student loan scheme. if you're unemployed & struggling, there is no way you can afford to re-train or re-educate yourself.
but more than that, their solution assumes that the answer to poverty reduction lies in individual action. it's the response of a neo-liberal generation, brought up in a culture arising from the policies of the 80s & 90s, that thinks personal responsibility is the solution to all problems. a generation who hasn't thought about the fact that these problems arise from the way our society is structured and the only way to resolve them effectively is to change the underlying structure.
the thing that worried me most about this group was the fact that they hadn't approached grey power or age concern, because they thought those organisations are too political. that sound you heard was me screaming! poverty is political. it is purely political. there is enough wealth, enough resources for every person in this country to live a comfortable life. the issue isn't that we don't have enough, it's that the resources aren't fairly distributed. the way we choose to distribute those resources, as a society, is a political decision. the economic structures our society uses are as a result of political decisions. the way markets, financing, banks, wages, etc etc work in our society is a result of political decisions. we could choose to do things differently, we could choose to structure our society in a way that neither our children nor our elderly would ever have to struggle for food, decent housing and decent heating. but we don't, and that's a conscious choice, and a political one.
it doesn't surprise me that this group won the competition. the reason for that is because they were being judged on the effectiveness of their PR campaign, not on the strength of their analysis or the effectiveness of their solutions. and there was no doubt that the group had the best results in terms of the reach of the campaign, even if it didn't reach me.
but it was frustrating to watch and listen to. while the other 2 groups had a much better grasp of effective solutions, a much better connection to the problems and the people facing them, it was clear they were never going to win. and that's because of the rules of the competition, the structure if you will, that they were working under. it just shows that how you create the structure and what you develop as your criteria will determine the outcome. that's why we need to change the rules, the structures, so that the people who are currently struggling so much can live their lives with dignity.
Tuesday, 30 July 2013
housing policy becomes a race debate
i'm once again moved to write about non-local government issues, & the thing that has got me going is the new labour party policy regarding the restriction on property ownership by non-residents.
i'm not opposed to the policy itself. i'd be happy to have such restrictions, to put a curb on speculation by people who never intend to live here. those people come from countries around the world, they often have enough wealth to drive prices up & making owning a home unaffordable for those of us who are living here.
i'd also like to see some restrictions on local speculators as well. a capital gains tax is a start, but won't make much of a difference to house prices. getting to keep 85% of your capital gain is still makes ownership of rental properties a good option. i'd also like to see ring-fencing of losses on rental properties, so that the loss can't be offset against other income. but no party is pushing that as a policy at the moment, at least no that i'm aware of.
no, the thing that has annoyed me about the non-resident ownership policy is that it becomes an excuse to bash immigrants - even though the policy is specifically not targeted at immigrants. and even for those who understand that difference, there is still a tendency to focus on asians to the exclusion of others.
i've written before about the notion of visible & invisible migrants - it's something i became aware of through research conducted by some friends of mine at waikato university. visible migrants are those of a different skin colour, and very often, the terms "immigrant" & "migrant" are used as synonyms for people of colour living in this country, other than maori. and even in that group, the terms are even more specifically used to refer to asians, africans, & those from the middle east.
invisible migrants tend to be white people from europe, canada, america, britain, australia & africa (especially south africa & zimbabwe). when people use the terms "immigrant" & "migrant", they tend not to mean this group of people (not everyone, but many people). and so this policy, though it applies to non-residents, is taken to mean predominantly chinese & other asian people. even though they aren't specifically targeted by the policy.
it doesn't help that there are no concrete statistics so that we can know the parts of the world that current non-resident owners come from. in the absence of actual data, stereotypes prevail. and such stereotypes are exacerbated by an opposition that wants to turn the whole debate into one about race instead of one about housing, to hide the fact that they have very few policies aimed at making housing more affordable.
as a result, what i've seen, particularly on facebook, are comments directed at various asians, be they chinese, japanese, indonesian or thai, & none of those comments are particularly flattering. even if they are neutral, the fact that asian non-resident owners are being identified while white non-resident owners remain invisible, in itself creates a racial dimension that is unnecessary & in face harmful.
i believe facebook pages are the responsibility of the people who created them, & i really do expect politicians to be strong on challenging racial stereotypes and challenging the process of making some non-residents more visible than others on their own pages. to be silent is to be accepting, especially when it's a space that you have total control of. strong leadership can certainly help to reduce some of the nonsense that's coming out as the discussion goes on - it can't be stopped altogether, but it certainly can be reduced.
it's the least we should be expecting.
i'm not opposed to the policy itself. i'd be happy to have such restrictions, to put a curb on speculation by people who never intend to live here. those people come from countries around the world, they often have enough wealth to drive prices up & making owning a home unaffordable for those of us who are living here.
i'd also like to see some restrictions on local speculators as well. a capital gains tax is a start, but won't make much of a difference to house prices. getting to keep 85% of your capital gain is still makes ownership of rental properties a good option. i'd also like to see ring-fencing of losses on rental properties, so that the loss can't be offset against other income. but no party is pushing that as a policy at the moment, at least no that i'm aware of.
no, the thing that has annoyed me about the non-resident ownership policy is that it becomes an excuse to bash immigrants - even though the policy is specifically not targeted at immigrants. and even for those who understand that difference, there is still a tendency to focus on asians to the exclusion of others.
i've written before about the notion of visible & invisible migrants - it's something i became aware of through research conducted by some friends of mine at waikato university. visible migrants are those of a different skin colour, and very often, the terms "immigrant" & "migrant" are used as synonyms for people of colour living in this country, other than maori. and even in that group, the terms are even more specifically used to refer to asians, africans, & those from the middle east.
invisible migrants tend to be white people from europe, canada, america, britain, australia & africa (especially south africa & zimbabwe). when people use the terms "immigrant" & "migrant", they tend not to mean this group of people (not everyone, but many people). and so this policy, though it applies to non-residents, is taken to mean predominantly chinese & other asian people. even though they aren't specifically targeted by the policy.
it doesn't help that there are no concrete statistics so that we can know the parts of the world that current non-resident owners come from. in the absence of actual data, stereotypes prevail. and such stereotypes are exacerbated by an opposition that wants to turn the whole debate into one about race instead of one about housing, to hide the fact that they have very few policies aimed at making housing more affordable.
as a result, what i've seen, particularly on facebook, are comments directed at various asians, be they chinese, japanese, indonesian or thai, & none of those comments are particularly flattering. even if they are neutral, the fact that asian non-resident owners are being identified while white non-resident owners remain invisible, in itself creates a racial dimension that is unnecessary & in face harmful.
i believe facebook pages are the responsibility of the people who created them, & i really do expect politicians to be strong on challenging racial stereotypes and challenging the process of making some non-residents more visible than others on their own pages. to be silent is to be accepting, especially when it's a space that you have total control of. strong leadership can certainly help to reduce some of the nonsense that's coming out as the discussion goes on - it can't be stopped altogether, but it certainly can be reduced.
it's the least we should be expecting.
Tuesday, 23 July 2013
a privileged birth
so it's been a very long while since i posted here, as i was reminded by someone i met at a meeting tonight. it's not that i haven't been writing posts, it's just that i'm writing them at my website. so please feel free to check in over there regularly - almost all of those posts are related to either to local body issues or to my campaign, but there are some interesting wider issues that come up as i work on the campaign.
i'm moved to write here today about how much i'm over the birth of the royal baby. i've been avoiding most media in the last 2 days, particularly any news bulletins on tv & radio. i just can't bear any more of this coverage. while i wish the baby & his family well, i can't get into the hype around royalty & privilege by dint of birth.
as many long-standing readers of this blog will be aware, i do have an on-going campaign of sorts, to become the queen of nz. i can report that two people have agreed to be my subjects. i'm not sure how many more i'll need before i can displace the foreign royal who is nominally our head of state. but i can promise fewer scandals, and there certainly will be no baby-having by me. so you can be a little more confident that your news bulletins would focus more on news than on royal antics, should you accept me as your sovereign.
i think i'm especially annoyed by all of this, because it's happening during ramadan, a time when i've been more focused on the have-nots. to be continually reminded of just how much the haves have just makes that reflection even sadder. we can never create a world where everyone is exactly equal, but we can work towards one where there is a lot less inequality, and a lot more financial security for everyone.
one of the ways we could do that is to stop glorifying privilege by having this kind of blanket coverage in the media - & particularly that part of the media that purports to be giving us the news. a 30-second clip is more than sufficient to let us know the baby is well & all family members are overjoyed. anything more is just free advertising for the commercial enterprise that is the royal family.
if you happen to be one of those people who are of a similar mindset, consider countering all this royal baby news by making a donation to a charity of your choice that deals with issues around poverty. or, if that's not a possibility, you could consider a submission against the latest changes to our employment laws which will further drive down wages, or consider supporting the living wage campaign. concrete action is the only way to counter this kind of hype.
i'm moved to write here today about how much i'm over the birth of the royal baby. i've been avoiding most media in the last 2 days, particularly any news bulletins on tv & radio. i just can't bear any more of this coverage. while i wish the baby & his family well, i can't get into the hype around royalty & privilege by dint of birth.
as many long-standing readers of this blog will be aware, i do have an on-going campaign of sorts, to become the queen of nz. i can report that two people have agreed to be my subjects. i'm not sure how many more i'll need before i can displace the foreign royal who is nominally our head of state. but i can promise fewer scandals, and there certainly will be no baby-having by me. so you can be a little more confident that your news bulletins would focus more on news than on royal antics, should you accept me as your sovereign.
i think i'm especially annoyed by all of this, because it's happening during ramadan, a time when i've been more focused on the have-nots. to be continually reminded of just how much the haves have just makes that reflection even sadder. we can never create a world where everyone is exactly equal, but we can work towards one where there is a lot less inequality, and a lot more financial security for everyone.
one of the ways we could do that is to stop glorifying privilege by having this kind of blanket coverage in the media - & particularly that part of the media that purports to be giving us the news. a 30-second clip is more than sufficient to let us know the baby is well & all family members are overjoyed. anything more is just free advertising for the commercial enterprise that is the royal family.
if you happen to be one of those people who are of a similar mindset, consider countering all this royal baby news by making a donation to a charity of your choice that deals with issues around poverty. or, if that's not a possibility, you could consider a submission against the latest changes to our employment laws which will further drive down wages, or consider supporting the living wage campaign. concrete action is the only way to counter this kind of hype.
Monday, 10 June 2013
on home ownership
i've finally managed to get some time to write about stuff - here's a post over at my website about the hectic weekend i've had.
i was listening to morning report on my way to work & heard this item on home ownership. it's basically a couple of economists trying to convince us that nz'ers should no longer dream of home ownership. instead we should be content with renting, although they do tell us that the rental market needs to change so that people can rent for the long-term. nice of them.
until the rental market changes, what are people supposed to do? and who exactly are they to be renting from? in the world these economists are telling us to aspire to, we would have one class of people who get to own property to rent out, and another class of people who would always be renting. The perpetual tenants are apparently able to build up just as much wealth as the property owners, simply by saving & investing the difference between what they pay in rent & what they would have paid towards a mortgage.
if that's the case, then they would build up enough wealth to buy a house, surely? so they may as well just own the house they live in. this is assuming, also, that there are in a position to make savings. the problem at the moment, the reason why the home-ownership dream is becoming impossible for an increasing number of people, is precisely because they don't have enough left over to save.
but more than that, if you listen to the clip, don't you just love (ie really hate) how they dismiss "emotional" reasons for owning a home. as if emotions have no value, no basis in logic and reason. as if emotion is a thing that is divorced from and inferior to rationality. which is nonsense. if owning a home has some benefits that are based on emotional reasons, then those reasons will impact on your general feeling of well-being, and therefore your mental health.
a paper by charles waldegrave, robert stevens & peter king (which i can't seem to link to, but you can find a pdf via google), makes the following point:
Home ownership often provides an accruing asset which changes people’s perceptions about themselves in positive and independent ways. It also has the extra advantage of providing freehold ownership in later years when most senior citizens are not part of the work force.
home ownership also has the benefits of providing stability, better educational outcomes for children & better health outcomes.
so what would be the purpose of trying to convince people that they should give up the dream of owning their own home? it could be to distract from the fact that one of the main barriers to home ownership is income inequality. it could be to try to get us to accept that nothing can be done to make homes more affordable. there's always that pressure to make more land available to developers, which you will also hear mentioned in the interview, as if big sprawling cities will solve the home ownership problem. if you can't afford the transport to get to your job or to decent schools; if there aren't decent amenities & council services, and the cost of these are added to your house, then more land isn't the answer either.
the whole tenor of this piece, and of the advice given by the economists interviewed, was so defeatist. i found it alarming. it's when we give up hope & stop agitating for change, when believe things can never get better, that's when the already powerful & wealthy become even more so, and when the lives of those in poverty get worse. we can do better than this. it's just a matter of public will, which will then translate to political will.
i've been thinking of bob marley for some reason today, and so i'll leave you with this as inspiration:
i was listening to morning report on my way to work & heard this item on home ownership. it's basically a couple of economists trying to convince us that nz'ers should no longer dream of home ownership. instead we should be content with renting, although they do tell us that the rental market needs to change so that people can rent for the long-term. nice of them.
until the rental market changes, what are people supposed to do? and who exactly are they to be renting from? in the world these economists are telling us to aspire to, we would have one class of people who get to own property to rent out, and another class of people who would always be renting. The perpetual tenants are apparently able to build up just as much wealth as the property owners, simply by saving & investing the difference between what they pay in rent & what they would have paid towards a mortgage.
if that's the case, then they would build up enough wealth to buy a house, surely? so they may as well just own the house they live in. this is assuming, also, that there are in a position to make savings. the problem at the moment, the reason why the home-ownership dream is becoming impossible for an increasing number of people, is precisely because they don't have enough left over to save.
but more than that, if you listen to the clip, don't you just love (ie really hate) how they dismiss "emotional" reasons for owning a home. as if emotions have no value, no basis in logic and reason. as if emotion is a thing that is divorced from and inferior to rationality. which is nonsense. if owning a home has some benefits that are based on emotional reasons, then those reasons will impact on your general feeling of well-being, and therefore your mental health.
a paper by charles waldegrave, robert stevens & peter king (which i can't seem to link to, but you can find a pdf via google), makes the following point:
Home ownership often provides an accruing asset which changes people’s perceptions about themselves in positive and independent ways. It also has the extra advantage of providing freehold ownership in later years when most senior citizens are not part of the work force.
home ownership also has the benefits of providing stability, better educational outcomes for children & better health outcomes.
so what would be the purpose of trying to convince people that they should give up the dream of owning their own home? it could be to distract from the fact that one of the main barriers to home ownership is income inequality. it could be to try to get us to accept that nothing can be done to make homes more affordable. there's always that pressure to make more land available to developers, which you will also hear mentioned in the interview, as if big sprawling cities will solve the home ownership problem. if you can't afford the transport to get to your job or to decent schools; if there aren't decent amenities & council services, and the cost of these are added to your house, then more land isn't the answer either.
the whole tenor of this piece, and of the advice given by the economists interviewed, was so defeatist. i found it alarming. it's when we give up hope & stop agitating for change, when believe things can never get better, that's when the already powerful & wealthy become even more so, and when the lives of those in poverty get worse. we can do better than this. it's just a matter of public will, which will then translate to political will.
i've been thinking of bob marley for some reason today, and so i'll leave you with this as inspiration:
Thursday, 6 June 2013
immigration maths
i've been shifting some of my blogging over to my website, so feel free to check it out. today i've just done a post on the proposed changes to liquor licensing laws in hamilton.
also, i got this from someone on facebook. it's an excellent takedown of some the anti-immigrant rhetoric that's going around:
also, i got this from someone on facebook. it's an excellent takedown of some the anti-immigrant rhetoric that's going around:
Monday, 3 June 2013
how it should be done
i've been trying to take a bit of a break this weekend - not always successfully! - mostly because it's the last long weekend in a long while. and also because i'm going to be incredibly busy next weekend, so am trying to build up reserves. i'll be at a leadership seminar on saturday, and on sunday will the be MC'ing at the regional interfaith forum. if you're able to get along to the latter, please do register by wednesday. it'll be an interesting event, and we will have the race relations commissioner in attendance. i'm looking forward to meeting up with her.
i was watching the political debate on native affairs, maori television this evening. although i can't vote in the by-election, i know one of the candidates reasonably well so i'm quite interested in seeing how the election plays out. the one thing i can definitely say is that i was very impressed with the way the debate was conducted.
not only was the interviewer/moderator well informed, but she asked really challenging questions of all the candidates. mihingarangi forbes has a quiet but very effective interviewing style. unlike the interviewers on political shows that air on tv1 & tv3, she doesn't badger the person she's interviewing, she allows them to finish their answer but she doesn't really allow them to get away with not answering. and when they do evade the question, as the maori party candidate did on the issue of male leadership of the party's political wing, it looked quite bad.
but more than that, i was impressed with the respect the candidates showed each other. they didn't feel the need to talk over each other, they all listened respectfully when it wasn't their turn to speak. they all spoke to the issues and the policies, and didn't feel any need to personally attack or denigrate each other.
this is the way political debating should be, and i can only express my utmost respect for the candidates, the interviewer and for maori television who have once again shown us how it can & should be done. they have also reminded me why i can't bear to watch the nation or Q&A, even though i'm a person who is politically engaged and enjoys watching political issues being debated. i think the only person who approaches this level on the other channels is john campell, who i have been watching more of in recent weeks.
so well done maori tv, and i'm now looking forward to the one-hour debate on june 24.
i was watching the political debate on native affairs, maori television this evening. although i can't vote in the by-election, i know one of the candidates reasonably well so i'm quite interested in seeing how the election plays out. the one thing i can definitely say is that i was very impressed with the way the debate was conducted.
not only was the interviewer/moderator well informed, but she asked really challenging questions of all the candidates. mihingarangi forbes has a quiet but very effective interviewing style. unlike the interviewers on political shows that air on tv1 & tv3, she doesn't badger the person she's interviewing, she allows them to finish their answer but she doesn't really allow them to get away with not answering. and when they do evade the question, as the maori party candidate did on the issue of male leadership of the party's political wing, it looked quite bad.
but more than that, i was impressed with the respect the candidates showed each other. they didn't feel the need to talk over each other, they all listened respectfully when it wasn't their turn to speak. they all spoke to the issues and the policies, and didn't feel any need to personally attack or denigrate each other.
this is the way political debating should be, and i can only express my utmost respect for the candidates, the interviewer and for maori television who have once again shown us how it can & should be done. they have also reminded me why i can't bear to watch the nation or Q&A, even though i'm a person who is politically engaged and enjoys watching political issues being debated. i think the only person who approaches this level on the other channels is john campell, who i have been watching more of in recent weeks.
so well done maori tv, and i'm now looking forward to the one-hour debate on june 24.
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