Issue 08 | The Dark Underbelly

Issue #8

Volume 81

The Dark Underbelly

Waikeria Prison: The Implications of Expansion – Pg 14 Anti-Social Media – Pg 20 What the Shit? – Pg 26

CONTENTS EDITOR'S LETTER 3 NEWS News 4 Opinion 8 Political Round-Up 9 *News* 10

LETTERS & NOTICES 12 FEATURES Waikeria Prison: The Implications of Expansion 14 They Are Watching You 20 What the Shit? 26 POEM 19 CENTREFOLD 24 COLUMNS Presidential Address 30 VUWSA 30 Philosoraptor 31 Te Ara Tauira 32 Access Denied 32 From the Archives 33 Dancing With Suzy, and Other Shit Chat 34 Mauri Ora 36 Postgrad Informer 36

REVIEWS Films 37 Television 38 Art 39 Music 40 Book 41 Podcast 42 Food 43 ENTERTAINMENT Horoscope 44 Distractions 45 Triggerfin 46

2

EDITOR'S LETTER BEING AN IMMIGRANT IS NOT IMMIGREAT A bunch of people in NZ end up getting paid less than minimum wage. You’ve got under-the-table cash jobs in hospitality and agriculture. You’ve got people working at doorknocking or selling stuff on the street, usually for charities, who get paid per sign-up, and can earn zero dollars from working all day if they don’t make sales. And you’ve got Uber drivers, who are paid per-ride and end up with way less than minimum wage. I’ve worked some of these jobs before, and so have my friends. It feels unfair, but when everyone there kind of just accepts that it’s normal, it’s quite easy to just go with it. There’s this sort of tacit understanding that this is the best job we could get, and that’s just how it is. When my Taiwanese friends weren’t paid when working orchard cash jobs, it was easier to move on, and take the loss. Who could we complain to? Who would believe us when there was no evidence?

campaign. Less of those English skills needed to write press releases. Less understanding of what would work, and what could change.

So we’ve got this group of people who have a harder time getting a job, end up with a job with poor working conditions, but are afraid to speak out because they might lose what employment they have.

So I’m sorry, but not surprised, when Rideshare Drivers New Zealand told us that a lot of Uber drivers will be scared to say anything publicly.

Mostly, people don’t want to get in trouble. They don’t want to have bad relationships with those in power. They don’t want to lose their jobs. I can understand that fear; without a job you don’t have money, and without money you’re in a lot of trouble. When you’re in New Zealand on visas are especially vulnerable, as they don’t have the security of the dole to fall back on, and risk being deported.

A lot of Uber drivers aren’t white. The thing is, non-white immigrants to New Zealand have a harder time finding employment. Some of it is the English skills, but some of it is racism. (Don’t shit me, when I was a recent grad on the job hunt, I was told I should change my name to sound more “normal”. I was seriously considering it too. Unemployment sucks.)

Unfortunately, the people who feel least comfortable speaking out are the ones most at risk of being exploited. It’s shitty.

If you’re not from NZ, you know way less about the employment laws and what rights you have. You’ll have way less knowledge about how to organize a

LOUISE LIN Editor

3

The News MONDAY 7 MAY 2018

Queer Coverage: Local, National, and International LGBTQIA+ News JOHNNY O’HAGAN BREBNER, UNIQ COMMUNICATIONS Paula Bennett Supports PM’s Refusal to Identify Folau Comments as Hate Speech Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has refused to identify homophobic comments by Israel Folau as hate speech, despite campaigning on the protection of LGBTQIA+ communities.

Folau, a prominent Australian rugby player, had said on Instagram that God’s plan for gay people was “HELL”.

“I'm very careful around how I categorise someone's speech,” Ardern told Newshub in April.

Deputy National Party leader Paula Bennett expressed concern that strengthening hate speech laws might be “a step too far”.

Ardern’s Labour Party campaigned on LGBTQIA+ rights in the 2017 Election, spearheaded by prominent gay MP, Grant Robertson. Robertson’s rainbow policy platform set out that a Labour Government would seek “inclusiveness and dignity for all Rainbow New Zealanders”.

Part of the policy included “strong” engagement with United Nations Human Rights bodies.

The UN Free and Equal campaign obliges nations to, amongst other things, “promote empathy and respect” for queer people.

Public and sporting figures have spoken out against the harmful comments. Among them are Hurricanes Halfback TJ Perenara, All Blacks’ coach Steve Hansen, and director Taika Waititi.

Chiefs players and the All Blacks have both made rainbow additions to their uniforms in solidarity.

Majority of Americans Support Same Sex Marriage, Study A recently released study from 2017 has shown that 61% of Americans now support same-sex marriage (SSM).

30% of Americans strongly support SSM, while only 14% strongly oppose it. In 2007, 13% strongly supported and 24% were strongly opposed.

The Public Religion Research Institute study also identified a

“Declining Religious Resistance” to SSM, with most denominations having majority support for SSM. The study found most states (44 of a possible 50) also had majority support for SSM. Findings also revealed wide-ranging support for protections against discrimination and refusal of services based on LGBT identities.

The study has a margin of error of +/-1.2%, and is based on 40,000 telephone interviews.

Success for The Queer Muslim Project The Queer Muslim Project, an online support space for Muslim members of the LGBTQIA+ community in India, has announced its first offline event.

Wanting to reflect the vibrancy of communities he saw in the United States, Rafiul Alom Rahman started the project as a way to support queer Muslims in India to reconcile their identities.

“People either let go of their religious identity or they repress their natural sexual orientation because they believe both of them cannot go together.”

The project has spread to a number of platforms and has just announced its first offline event for 13 May in Bengaluru. The event has almost reached its RSVP capacity at time of writing.

Planning Underway for VUW Pride Week 2018 UniQ Victoria has started preparations for Victoria University Pride Week 2018.

Running throughout week two of trimester two, VUW’s queer representative group is excited about their annual event.

Event details will be finalised soon, and promotional material will be released by the end of May. The week is a celebration of LGBTQIA+ identities for the university’s students, and features a special edition of Salient.

Restructuring of Bachelor of Arts at Auckland University

major and a minor, or with a double major.

The University of Auckland has said that the aim of the new BA structure was to “give students a degree with greater academic depth and focus, and to enhance preparation for employment or postgraduate study”.

A student at the University of Auckland has criticized the change for not being widely publicized. While the new degree structure is visible on the University of Auckland website, the student said that “I wouldn’t say the knowledge is widespread”.

The new degree structure does not immediately affect students who have already begun their studies, as it applies to students starting a BA in 2018. Students who had chosen to take a double major in the hopes of having an advantage over others will no longer have that potential advantage.

BA students were consulted about the decision, with more than 300 current students completing an online survey about the degree structure.

VITA MOLYNEUX Following on from the proposed closure of various specialty libraries at the University of Auckland, more changes are being put in place for students studying a Bachelor of Arts in 2018.

All students who choose to pursue a Bachelor of Arts from 2018 at University of Auckland must now undertake a double major, while still studying a third subject, although this third subject will not be counted in their degree.

Previously, students could choose to complete a BA with either a 4

NEWS

MONDAY 7 MAY 2018

Eye On Exec

M

LOUISE LIN commitments would not be able to be kept. Marlon mentioned that Paul Eagle, Labour MP, was keen to have the signing done in Parliament.

Paddy (Equity Officer) held a meeting with the Equity and Diversity committee, which was “great”. Highlights include: Victoria International Students’ Association (V-ISA) are launching a campaign against international student exploitation in the workplace, and are planning to run a workshop about legal rights.

Victoria Feminist Organization (VicUFO) are teaming up with the Feminist Law Students’ Society (VUWFLS) to submit on abortion law reform.

Marlon motioned to end Chat in the Hat. The motion did not pass, with one in favour and four against. It was revealed that Marlon was the one who started Chat in the Hat. “I’ve created a monster,” he said. The topic of discussion was Calibri font. Some members didn’t know what Calibri was, Jack (Treasurer/Secretary) was in favour of Wingdings, Simran (Academic VP) voted Comic Sans, and Marlon liked Algerian.

Ella noted that Marlon had stolen her muffin, and had denied accusations as technically he had only stolen half the muffin. When asked to return the muffin, Marlon eventually gave Ella half a muffin, and ate the other half.

Marlon also asked us to shout out the Salient FM radio show “Two Sheilas Talking It Out”, which is on every Sunday 4-6pm.

arlon (VUWSA President) and Connor (Clubs and Activities Officer) went on a trip down to Otago and Canterbury, to look at how the unis there run their clubs.

VUWSA is thinking of changing up how we run ours.

The Rental Tenancies Act campaign was launched last Thursday.

The campaign will have an on-campus presence in Kelburn this week, and will be on other campuses next week. The intention of this campaign is to encourage students to have a say on the laws around renting, either by making a submission or making a video of themselves talking about renting. By participating, students can win a “flat pack” prize pack which contains a dehumidifier, an oil heater, and hotties.

The exec watched Dancing With the Stars together. Beth (Welfare VP) voted for Suzy, Marlon voted for David Seymour.

VUWSA are in the midst of discussions about increasing the student services levy. The student services levy goes towards things like student health, VUWSA, the crèche, and student media. The draft proposal will first be shown to various committees and rep groups before being opened up for wider consultation.

VUWSA are planning to re-sign a Memorandum of Understanding with Ngāi Tauira. The exec discussed how the two groups could work together, including sharing resources for event promotion, leadership training, and campaigns. The updated MoU was not to have any financial commitments, because the state of VUWSA finances fluctuate year to year, and any binding

Uber Drivers To Stop Work for Day EMMA SIDNAM Uber drivers around New Zealand are planning a “Uber Driver Day Off ” for Monday 14 May 2018, to raise awareness about unfair work conditions and bad management. This is unable to be referred to specifically as a “strike”, as Uber drivers are not unionised.

According to Ride Share Drivers Network NZ (RDN NZ), many issues are affecting New Zealand Uber drivers, including lack of job security, lack of communication from management, low pay, and lack of trust in drivers.

Drivers have apparently been taken off the app mid-shift because of a customer complaint, without having a chance to tell Uber their side of the story. “Uber looks after the riders more than drivers on every angle” said an anonymous Uber driver.

Uber has long been under scrutiny for tax-evasion and “under the table” dealings, and Uber drivers through the platform RDN NZ are rallying for change. RDN NZ has also said that Uber does not give drivers enough guidance around how to pay tax, which leads to inadvertent tax fraud through drivers’ ignorance about tax protocol.

Drivers’ pay is often well below minimum wage, after costs. Drivers have to cover all of their own costs such as petrol, while 25-28% of their earnings go to Uber.

Uber has also made it unclear whether or not they provide commercial insurance to drivers. Uber has said to drivers that they only need personal insurance policies, which RDN NZ has called

“encouraging insurance fraud”.

They said, “organising has been a challenge… a lot of drivers will be scared to say anything publicly”.

The Uber driver has said customer disrespect was another difficult aspect of the job. “We get very rude, selfish, and abusive kinds of people… mostly uni students… what the hell are the teachers teaching these students”.

One Victoria University student was asked if the “strike” would affect him.

He said “yeah probably, I use Uber so much”. He also said that he wouldn’t consider using a taxi or Zoomy as an alternative to Uber. “Taxis are cold… it’s like sleeping with an ex. I might just stay at home that day.”

Zoomy is a New Zealand-based and owned ride share application similar to Uber, that started mid-2016, and operates in Auckland and Wellington only. According to a spokesperson from Zoomy, their drivers are charged up to 45% less than Uber drivers, and the organisation is “currently working on a partnership with another exciting local start-up to assist drivers with their tax obligations, as we understand this can be an area of confusion for them”. The spokesperson told Salient that Zoomy’s motto is “happy drivers, happy riders”.

Uber has not responded to a request for comment by the time of publishing.

5

NEWS

MONDAY 7 MAY 2018

TRUMP'S AME RICA Team Treason, Go!

T

TORI BRIGHT

he New York Times has obtained and published a list of questions related to a 5 March meeting with Donald Trump’s legal counsel. These questions arose from Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s attempts to negotiate a meeting with Trump, relating to specific subjects prosecutors are seeking to discuss with the President.

Revealing this line of inquiry is the first indication of the exact charges the office of the special counsel could pursue in their probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

A number of questions echo concerns from Congress regarding the President’s desires to prematurely end the investigation. They address previous attempts to bring the inquiry to an end, including Trump’s decision to fire former FBI Director James Comey. Subsequent questions then attempt to discern the level of knowledge Trump had in key correspondence with Russia when he made this decision. This includes his closest advisors meeting with a Russian lawyer embroiled in antisanction activism so as to obtain “dirt” on presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. Another question: “What knowledge did you have of any outreach by your campaign, including by Paul Manafort, to Russia about potential assistance to the campaign?” reveals previously undisclosed communications with Russia.

Obstruction of justice appears to be the central charge the President could face. While the inquiry ultimately aims to determine if a crime was committed, it is another crime altogether to attempt to obstruct such an investigation. Prior to the leak, Trump announced that he would “love to” meet with Robert Mueller. A week and a half after hearing the proposed questions the counsel would ask of the President, John Dowd resigned as Trump’s lead legal counsel.

Trump has taken to Twitter to address the leak, stating “So disgraceful that the questions concerning the Russian Witch Hunt were ‘leaked’ to the media”.

It was revealed soon after that another member of Trump’s legal counsel, Jay Sekulow, had compiled the list himself. This means that the questions were provided to The New York Times by a person, or persons, from within the White House.

While the inside leak appears to have been an attempt to deter the President from speaking to the special counsel, Mueller has raised the possibility of issuing a presidential subpoena to compel Trump to appear in front of a grand jury, regardless of his wishes.

Trump went on to tweet “No questions on Collusion. Oh, I see… you have a made up, phony crime, Collusion, that never existed...”.

13 of the 49 questions obtained by the Times directly relate to possible collusion with Russia.

Not Above the Law: Update #1 BETH PATERSON NZLS also invited the student reps to participate in a series of stakeholder meetings that they are hosting in order to better understand the culture of sexual assault and harassment in the legal profession, and to develop a best practice response. The first stakeholder meeting took place on 11 April, and was attended by representatives from law firms and other key people in the legal community, as well as by student reps.

On 19 April, the student reps hosted the re-launch of the campaign — now titled “Not Above the Law”. This campaign is split into four strands: (1) law firms, (2) Law Society, (3) Government, and (4) mobilising the law school community.

The student reps met with Wellington Central MP and Minister of Finance, Grant Robertson, on 27 April to discuss the Government’s procurement policy. This meeting involved discussing how procurement might be changed to ensure that only firms with ethical practices, particularly regarding sexual assault and harassment, advise the Government.

In February 2018, the media reported on allegations of sexual assault/harassment of five female summer clerks at the Russell McVeagh law firm in 2015/16. In March, Victoria University of Wellington Students’ Association (VUWSA), Victoria University of Wellington Law Students’ Society (VUWLSS), and Victoria University of Wellington Feminist Law Society (VUWFLS) organised the “March on Midland”. The march saw hundreds of law students and allies rallying outside the Russell McVeagh offices in Midland Park, demanding safer workspaces with zero tolerance toward sexual assault and harassment. Russell McVeagh’s external review, led by Dame Margaret Bazley, is now underway and is investigating the firm’s response to the allegations.

As a result of the March on Midland, VUWSA, VUWLSS, and VUWFLS (“the student reps”) were invited to speak with the President of the New Zealand Law Society (NZLS). At the meeting, NZLS’s handling of the 2015/16 reported incidents at Russell McVeagh was discussed. NZLS said in that regard, there were things they could have done better.

6

NEWS

MONDAY 7 MAY 2018

Milkgate: Vic Books Staff Unhappy With Change in Milk Brand

Parallel: Vic Students Pioneer Parking Start-Up

LOUISE LIN

CALUM STEELE

Last Tuesday, Vic Books cafes changed the brand of the milk they use in coffee, from Zany Zeus to Meadow Fresh Organic.

The decision was made by board and management, in order to give them the “best chance of running a viable business in a competitive environment,” stated manager Juliet Blyth.

Vic Books staff are unhappy with the decision, criticizing it as a cost cutting measure and a move away from ethical business. While both brands of milk are organic, Zany Zeus is a local company, based in Wellington. They source their milk from Marphona Farms, and the Organic Dairy Hub. Meadow Fresh, which is owned by Goodman Fielder, sources their milk from farms all around New Zealand.

One barista mentioned that the quality is different, and that the new milk is "not as satisfying to pour". They said that the business's ethical decisions was part of the reason they were attracted to this particular role. "They're making it harder to want to be here... [it] definitely doesn't feel like baristas are appreciated."

Blyth stated “we have talked to staff and listened to their concerns. Fortunately, the challenges we face as an organisation are well understood”.

A staff member said customers don't seem to have spotted the difference. "We're at this socially aware university, it just blows that people don't seem to notice."

"This is what we spend most of our week doing. Little things add up."

A new start-up, founded by three Victoria University students, aims to match unused parking spaces with those who need them.

The founders hope that the start-up, called "Parallel", will make more parking spots available which might otherwise be inaccessible, and that it will help to get people involved in the shared economy where they can lease out their property’s spare car parks.

Kirstin Smith, Conor Grice, and Keagan Kuhn are the pioneering students behind Parallel, which is being billed as a “parking collective”. While it is not the first of its kind in New Zealand, it is the first in Wellington, and is already proving popular, with demand outstripping supply.

Smith explained where the idea for Parallel came from and where she sees the company going in the future.

“We just saw the hit parking in Wellington took after the earthquakes. In terms of cost to park and lack of available parks.

However, we could see there isn't actually a lack of carparks but a lack of them being available. We wanted to open those up to those who need them.”

At present Parallel operates through their website, but they aim to release an app within the next 6 months.

Fairer Fares Part of Wider Transport Changes SHANTI MATHIAS that,” said Natasha Polglase, another Victoria University student. “[The discount is good] because students probably use public transport a lot.”

According to VUWSA, the stakeholders in the program (including the council and Victoria University) are still figuring out the details of how the fare discount will be rolled out.

There are already some public transport systems designed for students. Currently, VUWSA and Victoria University are partnered to provide free bus passes to students who have classes at both Kelburn and Te Aro on the same day. Seccombe says however that she and others she knows do not use these, because it involves filling out a form online, which is one of those things she never quite gets around to.

These public transport revisions were incorporated into the GWRC’s annual plan last year. Some of the changes will also involve making transport more sustainable. According to the GWRC, buses will be fitted with bike carriers (as is already done in Christchurch), so that bike travel is easier. Justin Lester, Mayor of Wellington, said that “separate to [fare and public transport changes], Wellington is investing $70m over 10 years for improved walking and cycling facilities”. Some of the new buses will be electric, creating an overall 68% decrease in harmful emissions.

From 15 July 2018, full time tertiary students will receive a 25% discount on public transport services across Wellington. This is part of a greater reworking of the public transport system which is being phased in over the next few months.

The overall upgrade to the public transport fares system will cost $7.8 million dollars, $700,000 of which will be used for the student fares. The cost will be covered by the New Zealand Transport Agency, the ratepayers of the Greater Wellington Regional Council (GWRC), and a 3% increase in overall fares price.

VUWSA has been advocating for the discount since 2013, saying that public transport costs can make education inaccessible for many students.

Caprice Seccombe, an architecture student who lives in Upper Hutt, said “every single weekday [I] take the train from Upper Hutt to Wellington [and then bus to campus]. It gets a bit ridiculous really”. She found out about the upcoming change in fares through a flyer being handed to her in the train station, and has been anticipating it ever since. Public transport is essential for her to be able to study, and she added that “I have my Snapper card on me all the time”.

“I have to really limit the amount of times I go Kapiti to see my family, because it’s really expensive. [...] I have to carefully budget 7

Opinion MONDAY 7 MAY 2018

TRUMP EYES KOREAN PEACE CALUM STEELE

L

et’s admit it, the Korean saga is the herpes of world tension — it just won’t go away, and is unlikely to now, even with Mr Trump’s scintillating deal making skills.

Punggye-ri. The fact that it’s reported to have collapsed after his last test in September 2017 makes this gesture merely symbolic, not to mention he could simply reopen it if and when he chooses.

Despite the favourable noises emanating from Pyongyang right now, I for one would like to call bullshit on the idea that North Korea will in any way, shape, or form give up its nuclear weapons.

It is a dangerous delusion to imagine that a regime such as Kim Jong-un’s would give up its only claim to fame and arguably the only thing guaranteeing its continued existence.

The promise to “denuclearize” the Korean Peninsula — something Kim and Moon committed to in a joint statement — should also be treated with scepticism. From the North’s point of view, denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula means the United States removing its nuclear forces from Korea and Japan as well – something that is a tad unlikely, due to just how so supremely mendacious North Korea has proven to be in the past.

On 27 April, in an historic meeting in Panmunjom, North Korea’s Kim Jongun crossed into the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) and hobnobbed with Moon Jae-in of South Korea.

In the words of Trump as he delivered a speech in Michigan on Saturday, “very good things are happening in North Korea folks”.

A sentiment I’m in two minds about, frankly.

While it is good that the Koreas are talking and entertaining the idea of a peace accord — something that has eluded them since the 1950s — it would require some Olympic level mental gymnastics to assume that anything concrete will come of this.

The North’s promise for an end to nuclear and intercontinental ballistic missile tests is, in principle, an excellent development, and one which should go some way to cooling tensions in the area.

However, this can also be read in a somewhat darker way, in that Kim has successfully demonstrated that he has the bomb and a missile that can reach the US. He thus feels no need to continue the provocations when instead, with a little word play and finger crossing, he can extract concessions from the US et al. in the forms of sanctions relief, aid money, and so on.

Naturally, Trump humbly accepted all the credit for these developments in his rather comical Saturday monologue – “What do you think President Trump had to do with this? How about everything”. I kid you not, I have pulled the muscle that controls eye rolling.

By this I’m referring to North Korea giving up its nuclear program — an idea that has been bandied around in the press recently — which would be a truly insane thing for Kim to do. That isn’t to say one doesn’t hope he would wind up his weapons programme, but it is nonetheless a touching idea to think he will, especially for the flimsy promises offered to him.

All in all, while it is good that the two parties are talking, I remain dubious that this will end in anything but a majestic home run for North Korea, who now not only have a credible nuclear deterrent but are set to gain de jure recognition of themselves as a nuclear power and the respect that entails – one of Pyongyang’s key policy aims.

National Security Adviser and super-hawk John "I've never seen a country I didn't want to bomb" Bolton has even toyed with the idea of a “Libya style” denuclearisation arrangement for the North.

Libya’s former leader Gaddafi agreed to dismantle his nuclear weapons program in 2003 in return for sanctions relief… needless to say, this did not end well for him, and this is something that is unlikely to have escaped the notice of Pyongyang.

It is hard to say where this flirtation will take the parties, but it is worth treating the North’s sincerity with the deepest scepticism — after all, we’ve been down this road before.

Possibly one of the most amusing ironies of this is that one of the “key” promises Kim has made is to close his nuclear testing site at 8

Political Round-Up MONDAY 7 MAY 2018 MFAT Praises the Koreas on an Official End to the Korean War Leaders of North Korea and South Korea have planned to sign a peace treaty to recognise the official end to the Korean War. North Korean Chairman Kim Jong Un and South Korean President Moon Jae-in engaged in a summit that began on 27 March in which they agreed on the denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula and the official end to the Korean War. Tensions remained between the two nations, with the peninsula still divided since the ceasefire in 1953.

Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters has welcomed the move by the two leaders, saying that it is still a very complex and difficult issue to move toward the full denuclearisation of both countries.

“We should not lose sight of the significance of the announcement, which will further reduce tension on the Korean Peninsula, and in the Asia Pacific region more broadly. New Zealand will do all we can to support this peace process.”

In 2007, Peters was heavily involved with peace talks between the two nations.

Labour Promises Extra Funding Toward Veteran’s Pensions The Government has promised an extra $1.1 million in grants to Veterans over the next four years.

These extra funds, granted to the Returned and Services Association (RSA) and No Duff Charitable Trust, will see better support for veterans and allow these organisations to modernise and cater for the younger generation of veterans in New Zealand. Minister for Veterans Ron Mark says that this extra funding will make treatment for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder accessible to some 41,000 veterans returning from armed conflict zones.

The RSA and No Duff Charities offer “first responses” to veterans in need, are both registered charities. The newly sworn in Ron Mark promised government funding to these charities in 2017.

“As Minister for Veterans I’m focused on ensuring we have the right support in place for service people when they come back from operations,” Mark pledged.

First Kiwibuild Homes Under Construction The first 18 homes of the Government’s Kiwibuild scheme are under construction in Papakura, says Housing and Urban Development Minister Phil Twyford.

These first homes are being constructed on Defence Force land and are part of the 100,000 affordable houses promised by the Labour Government over the next ten

years.

Twyford said that there will be 18 homes constructed in the present lot and overall, 1,000 homes will be built in the 2018/19 financial year.

“We are delivering on our promise of affordable starter homes for families.

While the average Auckland house costs over a million dollars, these standalone homes have an expected price of $579,000 for a three bedroom home and $649,000 for a four bedroom home,” said Twyford in a Beehive press release dated 28 April.

National spokesperson for Housing and Urban Development Judith Collins was critical of the Kiwibuild programme, saying that their way of developing affordable housing was nothing new.

National has remained sceptical about whether the Government will deliver on the 100,000 homes that they have promised.

“We welcome any new houses but for the Government to claim the credit those 100,000 need to be over and above what was happening already and so far they’re not,” Collins said.

Under construction, these homes will be available for families to purchase by August this year.

- Thomas Campbell

THE PARTY LINE Should the Government intervene to halt the closure of specialist libraries at Auckland University?

VICNATS No. Universities operate as independent crown entities and are free to make their own choices about how they best use their assets. The Young Nats believe that if the Government intervened at the University of Auckland, it would be a dangerous attack on academic freedoms and the abilities of Universities to teach what they see fit. This kind of intervention would just be another time the Government overstepped their mandate, much like Shane Jones did with Air New Zealand.

- Grahame Woods VICLABOUR What we are seeing in this situation, is the effect of nine years of a National Government running a free market tertiary education system. Resources are going towards the faculties that will make the universities the most money. The Labour 9

Party wants to fund education in a more equitable way, they are just trying to figure out how at the moment. Hopefully, we’ll see something promising in this term so the current defunding of the Arts does not continue to happen to universities around the country.

GREENS AT VIC Yes. The closure of these libraries will have a detrimental impact on the education of the students. Those whose libraries are being shut will be funnelled into already cramped study spaces, which will affect other students – their access to resources will become limited.

Not only will the closures mean taking away valuable knowledge and resources, but it will also mean taking away support for the students. One such student at Auckland University told me that they were outraged at the closures because for them it takes away qualified legal librarians who are able to help and support law students. By reducing students’ resources this closure is violating students’ rights to get the most out of their education (which they are paying for).

Greens at Vic urges the Government to intervene to stop the closure of specialist libraries. The Government should be trying to protect students’ rights. Green MP Chlöe Swarbrick is supporting the Auckland University Students’ Association’s campaign against the closures.

- Jessie Dromgool ACT ON CAMPUS Act on Campus understands the importance of libraries on campus, in particular special use libraries are important for the knowledge that they contain and also as a space to encourage learning and creativity such as the Elam library. Judging on the protests we’ve been seeing and the feeling around campus, students want these libraries to stay open and they should continue to use their freedom of expression to rally the university to keep them open.

Ultimately the students make the university and it is within the UoA’s interest to do the best by students so students should make their voices on this matter known. The power is in the students’ hands to keep the libraries open and it is not a government issue, it’s a university issue. I personally hope that the university listens to the students and does the right thing by them, from talking to students in Auckland they really value these libraries.

- James Allan

News

*

*

ALL THE NEWS THAT'S UNFIT TO PRINT

WHO WROTE IT BETTER: AI PREDICTIVE TEXT BOT OR MIKE HOSKING? VITA MOLYNEUX life, which is about 50 years.”

4. “Learning Maori doesn’t add up to much. And if you forced kids to learn it, they would learn at the expense of what you would call ‘sensible realistic prospects’.”

5. “He simply can't afford to be a wide boy.”

6. “Ideology will kill them because they can’t have a look at what the government is delivering. Jacinda essentially does the same thing today that I said yesterday.”

7. “Is it deception to work out of their depth? Probably. The reality is that this country has always been in trouble. We’re solid contenders for agriculture, and there aren’t many objectors to be implemented into believing idealistically.”

8. “So... what to do? Well if the Government were of a mind (and thank God it's not) it could make every kid learn it.”

9. ”The Greens have form. But that would take money, and the new Government needs the way of the future.”

10. ”The Greens are the big losers. Yes they're in government, but only just.”

Mike Hosking has long since been a blight on the face of New Zealand media – his controversial comments have made him notorious throughout the country. Now, a budding young entrepreneur named Josh Drummond has created possibly the best thing ever – he has fed Hosking’s columns through AI that will recreate the spew of vitriol that Hosking believes constitutes journalism. The future is now, old man. But the question is, can you differentiate between what was written

by Mike, and what was written by the AI? Cause lord knows, I can’t.

1. “I quickly worked out that unlike the theory of what it was possible to be in terms of wit and levity, it was in fact largely a cesspool of misery and angst.”

2. “Ineptitude essentially does the same thing today that I said yesterday. Look, they have got hold of papers that show they are making recommendations. It’s been an entire million years since they’ve been in office.”

3. “Which is the other irony of it... Is it really a story? Is a language in trouble a story if it's been in trouble pretty much as long as I can remember, which would be most of my

IS IT A BIRD? IS IT A PLANE? NO IT'S AN INGENIOUS (NO, REALLY) AMALGAMATION WITH A SAFETY SUB-PLOT BY AIR NEW ZEALAND SHANTI MATHIAS Air New Zealand has released a feature length safety video, appearing on aeroplanes and in theatres.

Initially the film was just shown to airline customers. However, some were so blown away that Air New Zealand was inundated with requests to make it accessible on the ground.

The short film tells the story of a young kiwi, called “Kiwlet”, who stumbles upon a filming location for a generic fantasy film which is definitely The Lord of The Rings. She befriends the cast and crew of the movie, teaching them how to play rugby while they inexplicably show Kiwlet how to survive in the wild, which involves a lot of info-dumps about the natural history and edgy beauty of New Zealand for no apparent reason.

The video stops in four places when the plot is most exciting to display still images of aeroplane exits, oxygen masks, and life jackets,

which are identical to the ones in the pamphlet in the seat pocket.

Safety with Kiwlet opened in theatres on 2 May 2018 to rave reviews. The New Zealand Herald said it was “an enthralling celebration of New Zealand values,” and a representative from Stuff lauded it as “an incredible example of capitalising on shallow stereotypes about New Zealand”.

On some of Air New Zealand’s shorter flights, such as the Wellington to Nelson service, customers have been forced to stay onboard the aircraft for up to an hour after landing to finishing watching the video.

Safety with Kiwlet is rated PG for “mature themes” (Kiwlet has a tragic backstory involving her parents being eaten by a swarm of rats, which look only somewhat like miniature orcs), and is in theatres now.

10

*NEWS*

MONDAY 7 MAY 2018

GIFT CARD EXPIRATION DATE APPARENTLY A POLITICAL ISSUE

VUW PROCRASTINATION STUDY OFF TO A SLOW START

VITA MOLYNEUX

EMMA SIDNAM

Middle-aged women everywhere are rejoicing this week, following Waitaki MP Jacqui Dean’s proposal to extend the expiration date on all gift cards to three years. Dean looks exactly how you might expect her to – although her face is smiling, her eyes scream “I need to speak to a manager, because this is not good enough!”

Every day at least half of New Zealand’s retail workers face off with women just like Dean, who clutch three-year-old gift cards in their wizened talons and shriek abuse because the system won’t take it. But today, that system may be coming to an end. According to Dean, “many Kiwis use gift cards as a convenient option, but the gift can turn sour if the card is not presented by its expiry date. One in five recipients lose out when they don't redeem the full value before the card expires”.

Upon further investigation by Salient it may not, however, be the gift turning sour, but rather the angry old bitch who is determined to force the minimum wage worker to redeem it, even if it causes the manager to cut the workers hours next week for going against company policy. With Dean’s proposal, maybe we would all be better off. The She-Witch gets her discount, and the worker gets to go home unscathed from the trauma of having a woman with dead eyes and a gold tooth yell at them for no reason.

After a period of inactivity, the Victoria University School of Psychology has advertised for research participants for its study “Procrastination – a state of being or a mind-game?”

Salient first noted this study in October 2012 when the school announced their intention to observe student procrastination behaviours over a long period of time. To best understand the project, those conducting it agreed to observe their own procrastination habits as well. At the time, Salient reporters agreed that this could be a highly informative and useful study. However six years later, little has been achieved.

“It has come to our attention that, while we’re aware that procrastination is in a way part of our work, it’s too easy to get nothing done.”

Salient reporters asked if the fact that nothing has been achieved could be considered a result in itself, and if the non-outcome could be considered itself an outcome. Those reached for comment, however, are determined to properly complete the study. Anyone around Wellington in the next few months/decades who would be interested in taking part can contact the Victoria School of Psychology for further information.

ACT PARTY FUNDRAISER GIVES TANTALIZING GLIMPSE INTO NEOLIBERAL HELLSCAPE

EATING AN ENTIRE WHEEL OF BRIE IS NOW SELF-CARE VITA MOLYNEUX Following an announcement from The Mental Health Foundation of New Zealand, new potential methods of coping with mental illness have been revealed.

At the top of the list is “eating an entire wheel of brie,” closely followed by “putting on a cheap facemask and smoking ten cigarettes”. Also mentioned in the list is “drinking an entire bottle of wine at 11am” and “crying into the pages of your 2007 journal”.

The new coping mechanisms have been publicized following months of intensive research, interviewing hundreds of New Zealanders suffering from depression and anxiety. Alternative coping mechanisms are one of the most popular ways for young people to self soothe in the midst of their struggles with mental health, and the list reflects the changing attitudes held by young people towards their struggles.

JOHNNY O’HAGAN BREBNER An ACT Party press release dated 12 March has revealed that “if it were legal, David Seymour would sell blood to fundraise for ACT”.

Political commentators are all in agreement the curious line gives an insight into the Purge-esque neoliberal nightmare that Seymour and his party advocate for.

It appears the release is an attempt by the ACT Party, best known for its infinitesimal influence over government, to promote its ideal “society”: that which best facilitates the “free and open trade” of human organs.

Wellington’s singular local ACT party supporter, David Seymour Snr., defended the policy. When asked for comment, he said “what could possibly go wrong?”.

It is not entirely clear if the release referred to Seymour’s own blood, or that of unwary travellers who cross the privately funded bridge the ACT Party leader calls home.

UPDATES ON KYLIE JENNER'S BABY In the wake of Hurricane Maria, Kylie Jenner has weighed in on how she chose her daughter’s name: “I feel like there were a lot of other names that I might have even liked better to be honest, but I feel like Stormi picked her own name, like it was just her name."

Truly insightful stuff, can confirm Salient still doesn’t give a rat’s ass.

Mike Hosking or AI? Answers 1. Mike 2. AI 3. Mike 6. AI 7. AI 8. Mike

4. AI 9. AI

5. Mike 10. Mike 11

LETTERS Hey Salient, Over the course of the last year and a half, Salient has become somewhat of a weekly ritual among my friends. Regardless of any dabbling in time-travel or dark magic, Monday morning always finds us, usually holed up somewhere on campus passing around copies of the latest issue. A few particular articles will prompt important discussions, the horoscopes will be performed aloud by the resident theatre-student, and then an undertaking of the puzzle page will begin.

Ah, the wonderful puzzle page with its sudokus, its word find, and above all- the crossword. I have yet to find a better Mondaymorning way of avoiding all responsibility and assessments.

Unfortunately the last six weeks have been a tumultuous time for my puzzle page, often leaving me angrily blacking out the entire page, or sobbing quietly into the *News*.

There is no need for me to list the shortcomings- they have been well chronicled both in the student rant-mill, and your inbox (if the Letters to the Editor are anything to go off ).

However, this week’s distractions have been utterly glorious, and I feel that it's important that you know this. Great job. I particularly enjoyed the wittiness of 7-Down. Honestly, this week was awesome work. You should be very proud.

Sincerely, Eight-letter word for ‘overwhelming happiness’

Dear Salient Kudos to the incredibly brave and thought-provoking writers who opened their hearts and minds to their experiences of how crippling mental health diseases can be in New Zealand.

Katie Meadow’s piece had me nearly crying on the 8.10 train into Wellington this morning, but it almost felt cathartic in a way.

In 2016, I had two friends on separate occasions (aged 24) commit suicide. It was the first experience into the foray of managing the grief of such unexpected deaths for myself and many of my other friends, and it was probably the hardest, strangest, saddest thing we’ve ever had to go through. In fact it lead to a kind of breakdown of my own, where I realised how unresolved my own mental health issues were which lead me to seeking such much needed help.

I hope that the friends of Kit Taylor are able to grieve and reflect in time, and eventually leave the many unanswered questions alone so they can remember how brilliant a person he was, and not for how he died. It will get better, it does get better.

Kia Kaha to all those on their own mental health journey.

Love, A mid-20s post-grad student, who is supposed to have her shit together, but still struggles on frequent occasions.

Hi Salient, As I'm an international student and English is my second language, reading Salient is the best way not only to improve English but also to know about the way other people think.

Moreover, Salient contains a lot of information from Vic Uni and entertain. I wait for Salient every week. And I often solve Sudoku before going to bed.

Keep going.

Thank you for your effort every week.

Cheers Jenna

Dear Salient people, I love your work - keep it up! I was wondering if you knew anything about changes in bus fares. Currently I have to travel in from multiple zones away and I'm currently paying $7.26 per day (on my snapper card) as I live three zones away from the city. If I wanted to get to the uni instead of climbing the hill I'd have to pay another $3.32. I doesn't sound like much, but it adds up quickly! I've been hearing rumors that the system change and soon be cheaper for those of us who don't live conveniently nearby...Or is there already a secret student discount that I don't know of ?

Warm Regards, Broke Bus Boy Hi Broke Bus Boy, Fairer Fares (25% off the Snapper fare for full time students) is rolling out in July.

LETTER OF THE WEEK* Dear Editor, I would like to rename our Chancellor Sir Neville Jordan to Chancellor Palpatine, because I keep getting him confused with Neville Longbottom. Neville seems to forget that we are an educational institution, not some think tank that helps the Mark Zuckerberg's of the world do their thing.

The university is not just a 'brand', it's an ideal, an ideal of bettering yourself, discovering yourself, I sincerely believe that this name change to 'The University of Wellington' breaks the spirit of who we are. I know we may not all be patriotic to Vic as an institution, but I believe that this is part of a wider problem at the university. This problem is the commercialisation of our education. It is in fact the dehumanisation of our knowledge.

I don't know if you know, but the Chancellor 'Palpatine' has grand plans for wellington. He wants it to be 'Integrated into every part of Wellington's fabric', 'among the best in the world', and other lines like 'highest quality research in New Zealand'. I feel that he'd sooner stage a coup against Justin Lester and declare "I AM WELLINGTON", than remember that he is meant to be the head of an educational institution.

Yours very angrily on a Tuesday night, Paul Send us letters to editor@salient.org.nz otherwise we are just over here playing with ourselves. Your feedback and opinions are valid (maybe). *Letter of the Week wins a double day pass to Zealandia

NOTICES CAREERS EVENTS CPA PROFESSION SESSION Tue 8 May, 5:30 p.m. to 8 p.m.

RHMZ06 and Rutherford House Mezzanine Foyer, Pipitea Campus 2018 CAMPUS CAREERS EXPO Thu 10 May, 11:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m.

Level 2, the Hub, Kelburn Campus CODE WITH XERO Thu 10 May, 5:30 p.m. to 8 p.m.

MCLT101, Maclaurin Building, Kelburn Campus 2018 ICT CAREERS EXPO Fri 11 May, 12:00 p.m. to 2:00 p.m.

Alan MacDiarmid Foyer, Kelburn Campus FAST NZ PRESENTATION Fri 11 May, 4 p.m. to 6 p.m.

AM101, Alan MacDiarmid Building, Kelburn Campus CAREERS IN FOCUS - WORKING AS AN IN-HOUSE LAWYER Tue 15 May, 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.

Salmond Room, Level 2, Law School

SUSTAINABILITY WEEK Are you passionate about the environment, climate action and sustainability in our everyday lives? Sign up to volunteer in a range of roles of Sustainability Week 2018 ( 28th May-1st June) - we're planning events, activities and more on the theme of "Change your Habits, Change the world!!!" Email vuwsustainabilityweek@gmail.com for more info!

WORLD FAIR TRADE DAY Victoria Development Society would like to extend a warm invitation to the students of Victoria University to join us in celebrating World Fair Trade Day (Friday 11th of May)!

Come along to MCLT102 at 5:30PM for a documentary screening of The Dark Side of Chocolate, a guest speaker, and a free chocolate tasting!!

We'll also be in the hub from 11-2PM so don't forget to put your name in the

Earn an extra $100 after you complete your first 5 deliveries in Wellington.

Sign up as an Uber Eats delivery partner and you can earn money connecting people with the local food they love.

FOR MORE INFORMATION VISIT T.UBER.COM/EATSWELLINGTON 5 deliveries must be completed within the Wellington area by 30 August 2018 to qualify.

draw to win a raffle filled with Fair Trade goodies! Follow along on social media with #LiveFair!

Follow Victoria Development Society on Facebook for more events!

WELLINGTON HELP NEEDS YOUR SUPPORT! HELP works with survivors of sexual abuse and their whānau – of any age or gender.

We provide a 24 hour crisis line as well as social work and counselling services.

This year we are on track to see 700 people, more than twice the number we are funded for. As a not-for-profit organisation, we need to fundraise in order to deliver these vital services – so between now and the end of June we are running a fundraising appeal.

Visit bit.ly/appealforHELP for more information on volunteering and other ways you can give to HELP.

Waikeria Prison The Implications of Expansion

Faun Rice

Waikeria Prison: The Implication of Expansion

Some 800 years ago, Tainui people navigated the waterways from Kawhia to Te Awamutu and made homes in the region known as Waikeria. This land, in the northern King Country, is now filled with dairy farms — and a prison. About 56% of New Zealand’s total prison population is Māori, even though Māori people only make up about 15% of the whole country.

the people sent to them, and that right now, there are too many.

Talking about overcrowding may be a political tool, but the problems are real. There are more prisoners than there are spaces to hold them humanely in New Zealand. Liam told a story about the Arohata women’s prison, where “there isn’t a single space for new prisoners, so they’re using the abandoned buildings at the Rimutaka men’s prison and housing women there, in spaces not fit for human habitation”. The space in Rimutaka was repurposed in February 2017, and is now referred to as the Arohata Upper Prison. It has been improved, but the Chief Ombudsman raised concerns about double bunking and small cell sizes in March 2018.

Waikeria Prison is old; it was constructed about 100 years ago. The Government of New Zealand has been debating either rebuilding or expanding it, potentially adding 3000 beds to a prison that already houses 650 residents. This decision has been postponed several times, but a final verdict on Waikeria is expected soon. Regardless of what the government decides, the conversation has unearthed serious questions about New Zealand’s criminal justice system.

Amending Bail Laws: A Short Term Solution

In the midst of the Waikeria debate, a group of Māori speakers, including Julia Whaipooti of JustSpeak, have gone to New York to talk to the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues about criminal justice in New Zealand.

Julia kindly invited me into her home for coffee a few weeks ago. Her space features a wall-size open window; the lounge seating is casually oriented around the view. As we spoke her flatmates wandered in and out of the room, adding insight to the conversation while doing their laundry.

One of the causes of today’s overcrowding is a 2013 change to bail laws. The legislation followed a highly publicized tragedy, the death of Christie Marceau, a young woman in Auckland who was killed by a man on bail. The young man was later found to be suffering from schizophrenia.

an Act taking land for the public good and then using it to build prisons was a “conscious act of ongoing colonization”.

The Sensible Sentencing Trust (SST), an organization that lobbies for tough-on-crime legislation as the best way to protect victims, were part of a high-profile campaign in 20112013 to toughen bail laws.

Garth McVicar is the founder of the SST, and was recently criticized for a Facebook post applauding a fatal police shooting in Auckland as “one less to clog the prisons!”

Julia has said that Waikeria prison is sitting on Māori land taken by the New Zealand Government under the Public Works Act. The Public Works Act allows the Crown to acquire land to use for public benefit. When we spoke, Julia added that an Act taking land for the public good and then using it to build prisons was a “conscious act of ongoing colonization”. She spoke firmly: “I have just named how wrong that is. Taking Māori land for the benefit of the public, but that public use is to build a prison that will be filled with Māori.”

Following the lobbying campaign, the 2013 Bail Amendment Act was passed to stop violent offenders from getting out on bail. Among other things, the Act introduced more situations in which the accused has to prove that they deserve bail, instead of the prosecutor having to prove that they do not (guilty until proven innocent). Today, organizations like JustSpeak argue that the law has been overused. The Corrections Department reports that 1 in every 5 prisoners are being held on remand, or before they have received a sentence.

Liam Martin, a criminology lecturer at Victoria University, feels that the current Labour government does not want to build the new prison, but is feeling trapped. Liam used Kelvin Davis, the first Māori Minister of Corrections, as an example. Davis was “very vocal” as a member of the opposition, but as a Labour minister, he has been quiet on the topic of prison reform. As a Minister, Davis has “really been sucked into this thing of overcrowding,” said Liam.

Corrections has been using the line that it just manages

Julia added that some people held in remand are stuck simply because they “don’t have an appropriate address” to be given bail. This is true for the homeless, and also for people who need electronic bracelet monitoring. To qualify for electronic monitoring, you need a long enough lease, adequate utilities, your own bedroom, proximity to shopping centers, and 15

Waikeria Prison: The Implication of Expansion

other factors that would surely disqualify a huge number of, for example, VUW students.

The interviewer interrupted him several times to ask what he would do “if we had no prisons at all”. You could hear Jackson growing frustrated, asking to simply be given the space and time to answer the question, but he still managed to make his point: New Zealand needs to have a “meaningful conversation” about prisons, and about their eventual replacement with “other more rehabilitative and effective ways of dealing with those who cause harm, and protecting those who are damaged by the harm”.

Julia, Liam, and others have called for further amendments to the Bail Amendment Act instead of new prisons. If the 2013 Act were repealed, it would cut the number of people being held in remand in half.

New Zealand criminal justice researchers came forward with an open letter in February, proposing “a moratorium on all new prison construction”. The Prime Minister’s Chief Science Adviser has argued that “we keep imprisoning more people in response to dogma not data”. Prisons are not working as a space where people can heal, and building more prisons only leads to more prisoners to fill them.

In his writing, Jackson has argued for a different criminal justice system for Māori, by Māori. When I asked Julia about a future without prisons, she made the point that communities should get the opportunity to put forward their own models for defining and delivering justice.

Labour has the goal of reducing the prison population by 30% over 15 years. When we spoke, Julia Radio NZ’s interviewer is probably not the only person suggested just buying a motel for excess prisoners in New Zealand to be troubled by the idea of ditching to stay in as an affordable short-term solution. This prisons. It is easy to panic at the idea of no prisons might give the government without having any idea of time to develop a long-term what a real alternative looks the evidence is clear that [a plan. She laughed, adding like. that “the Waikeria prison new prison] will incarcerate expansion wouldn’t happen Dr. Martin pointed me even more Maori until 2025 anyways,” so towards Scandinavia, a in many ways, emergency place that is rethinking what motel living would be a much more pragmatic use of “prison” means. A 2013 Atlantic article described an taxpayer money than a far-off mega-prison. open prison in Finland. Fewer than 100 prisoners live there, and they leave daily for work or study, returning The Long Game: each evening. They are able to visit close family, when Reforming Structurally Racist Institutions given electronic monitoring bracelets.

Before we began speaking, Julia asked what my whakapapa was. As a Canadian settler visiting Aotearoa, or a settler twice over, it was clear to me that my understanding of the impact of prisons here or anywhere would only ever be intellectual at best. I have only ever experienced the benefits of structurally racist systems. I volunteered in a Canadian women’s prison when I was in my first two years of college, and met a huge number of Indigenous women there. I was always the white volunteer with library books, board games, and the power to walk right out the door.

Now, I am the person with the opportunity to write about issues I won’t ever feel the consequences of.

Sweden is closing prisons, and the percentages of prisoners who reoffend in Denmark and Iceland have been low, compared with the rest of the world, over the last few decades. Inmates are often able to keep family and friend support networks because they live in smaller, local prisons.

Moana Jackson, a Māori activist and lawyer, has been saying that prisons are structurally racist systems since his 1987 work on Māori in the criminal justice system.

In a recent interview with RadioNZ, Mr. Jackson held that “the evidence is clear that [a new prison] will incarcerate even more Māori, in fact one predicted estimate is that a 3000 bed prison will ultimately, in the next 30 years, lead to nearly 80 000 more Māori prison sentences. That is simply unacceptable”.

Julia had a few words to share with VUW students passionate about criminal justice. Her first point was that it’s always tempting to start your own group, but that it is better to “follow JustSpeak, PAPA (People Against Prisons Aotearoa)” or other pre-existing organizations than to begin from scratch. She thought for a while and added, “influence the spheres that you can influence… I believe in advocacy around your kitchen table. Changes come with cups of tea”.

Whether or not Waikeria is expanded, New Zealand is facing a decision about whether to take on the short term problem of overcrowding, or embrace the challenge of reforming its system for the long term. This government has the opportunity to start answering the question “what is an alternative to prisons?”

16

YHA 101

Join at yha.co.nz, use the code VUWSA18, SAVE $10

5 Reasons why staying at YHA is your BEST option 1. It’s cheap - beds from $29 2. Clean, comfortable, quality facilities (and free wifi*) 3. Private ensuite for shy types, shared dorms for more social travellers.

4. Central locations, you can walk to the pub!

5. $10 off membership, then keep saving 10% on direct bookings at YHA.co.nz *2GB of Free WiFi per day at all YHA Managed hostels

VIC BOOKS MAY SALE Kelburn & Pipitea

All are welcome!

Annual May Sale May 7th — 11th

www.yha.co.nz

Student Art Exhibition 16 - 18 May Opening night - Tuesday 15 May Be a part of our first ever, all student art exhibition running right in the middle of Kelburn Campus (MC 201) Art of all shapes and sizes welcome. All pieces of work will be for sale, with the profits going directly to you, the artist. All you need to do is set your price.

VUWSA is taking submissions up until Monday, 14 May at 4pm at the VUWSA Kelburn Office (Student Union Building) Email events@vuwsa.org.nz for more details.

VUWSA will apply discretion for what artworks are chosen for the show. VUWSA will not accept liability for damage or theft of work.

Wo Man So I extract myself Wo from man Fe from male.

Down to my very signifier I have no freedom.

So call me a lady, I think But in that assertion I become a primrose.

I must remember to cross my legs.

What they want Is a certain style of the skin, The word

Pretty

Hot Nice Embodied through flesh.

Bones bent in bows.

But I am undefinable.

I don’t exist on paper And sometimes I feel as transparent As the air.

An unwritten wo man.

- Millie Godfery

submit poems to poetry@salient.org.nz 19

Scenes of Debauchery at Laneway 2018

They Are Watching You

You probably use social media. You probably procrastinate on social media. You probably talk to a lot of people on social media. You probably read most of your news on social media. I do.

thing. Terms and Conditions are so dense, so full of impenetrable legalese, that it’s hard for non-experts to make sense of them. We know that we should read them, but who really has time? Companies know that the people signing up for their service aren’t going to read the Terms and Conditions, and take advantage of that.

Social media, and more specifically Facebook, have become part of the fabric of society over the last fifteen years. At least two billion people have a Facebook account, including 2.9 million New Zealanders, or 62% of us. Social media consumes increasing amounts of our lives. The six people I interviewed for this article all use Facebook and Instagram (which is owned by Facebook). All but one also used Snapchat, and half of them had Twitter accounts. “I check [social media] every half hour or so. Maybe fifty times a day?” said student Tiani Mataia. While they struggled to estimate the time they spent on social media daily, all interviewees guessed that that it would be upwards of one hour.

Issues of privacy on the internet spike every few years.

There are the conversations prompted by every revision Google makes to its privacy policy, or Snowden's NSA whistleblowing. Cambridge Analytica is 2018’s latest privacy controversy. Cambridge Analytica is a company based in the UK which gathers information about people online, usually through apps, and sells that information as “communications strategies” to election campaigns. This includes the Brexit election and the 2016 American presidential race. The Cambridge Analytica revelations are, at heart, about what people will agree to in ignorance.

“I feel like I always need [social media] when I’m bored. I don’t think I could easily stop, maybe if I was forced, if there was no wifi,” said Joana Pulepule. “I think everyone should have a Facebook [account],” said Harris Findlater, media studies student, explaining how when he makes a new connection, he immediately adds them on Facebook so he can find them again.

When people used their Facebook account to download a certain app called “thisisyourdigitallife”, which had been contracted by Cambridge Analytica, and signed the user agreement, they gave the company the ability to access not just their information, but the information of all their friends. So while comparatively few people downloaded the app (only ten did in New Zealand), thousands of users had their information taken. That's legal—but what wasn't was CA then sold the information to various third parties, which has implications that we may never fully grasp. Facebook has known about the files since 2015, but did not inform users that their data had been sold (which they’re beginning to do now), taking Cambridge Analytica on its word that it had destroyed the information. This has led to Mark Zuckerberg testifying in front of the American Senate and House of Representatives to answer to his responsibility in protecting privacy of users. If you’ve seen a post saying “We care about your privacy!” when you’ve logged into Facebook recently, this is why.

These revelations barely factored into my interviewee’s behaviour. Only two of them knew about Cambridge Analytica, but all were aware that using internet services involved a sacrifice of privacy. “You can’t really trust any website,” said Findlater.

Facebook even becomes part of academia; most courses have Facebook groups which are occasionally somewhat useful. “It takes extra effort to know what’s going on in the course [without Facebook],” said Ikmal Borhan, and electronics and computer science student.

Extra effort is something that few people are willing to expend.

Social media takes up a great deal of space in our lives. What happens there—the information gathered, the connections made—is therefore fully significant.

When you signed up for the social media accounts you use, you probably ticked a few boxes. One of them would have said something to the effect of “I have read and agree to the Terms and Conditions”. Was that the truth?

When I asked Findlater if anyone reads the terms and conditions, he laughed. “No,” was his definitive answer. “Even with everything that’s going on I couldn’t be bothered [to read user agreements],” he said. “In a sense we should just read the terms and conditions, but we’re just too lazy to,” said Mataia.

“They use really technical language so I wouldn’t understand what really they’re trying to tell us [if I did read them].”

There are a lot of different conceptions about how much information Facebook could access about you.“[Facebook knows] my personal network: who’s my friend, who I chat most with, and where I go because they have access to my location,” said Jackie Shaw, a Masters of Education student. “There are my public posts,” said Jesika Hermez, an Early Childhood Education student. “I wouldn’t be surprised if they do [have access to] other stuff that you don’t put up there.”

Anyone who has ever attempted to read the agreement they make with a website has probably faced the same 21

They Are Watching You

She has high privacy setting on all of her accounts. “I feel like it’s dangerous [to be too public].”

journalistic convenience?

Over the past few weeks, while interviewing and researching for this article, I have continued to use Facebook, though I look more at individual pages and groups rather than my newsfeed. I still use a Gmail account, and a lot of other Google services. I still spend far too much time teaching Twitter about my interests. I’ve made some changes, too. I haven’t read the Facebook privacy policy, but I did read a plain English summary of it (try tldrlegal.com). I’ve switched to using a private search engine. I put tracking protection onto my browser. Above all, I’m trying to remember that Facebook’s benign blue benevolence belies its desire to take every part of me I give it the right to (and maybe some more besides) and use it for profit. Facebook (and all the other services which have become entwined with my existence) is about capitalism, not connection.

“[Facebook shouldn’t access my chats] because that’s a violation of privacy,” said Borhan. “[But] if it was a really private message, I would just call them and talk.” Facebook has never said explicitly if they can read your private messages, but they do seem to use the content of chats to help nail down what you’re into.

“It’s a little invasive, not gonna lie, but I think there are benefits to [Facebook accumulating personal information]. For advertising and stuff they need that data to market towards you, and Facebook needs the money,” said Findlater. He accepts the data breaches as an inevitability. Events like Cambridge Analytica are just “the price to pay”, Borhan said.

Findlater found Facebook ads “scarily relevant”. Shaw said “I don’t like reading ads, but sometimes it’s good that it can recommend you a good restaurant, a good deal, a good place to go”.

I showed several people how to access their ad settings on Facebook (go to Settings>Ads), so they can see what “interest categories” Facebook has them pegged as, and which advertisers have information about them. No one is surprised. There’s an overall sense that it’s Facebook’s right to know this, when they give us so much. My own interest categories include “journalism” and “books” (very accurate) as well the more obscure “dragon” and “secretary”.

I could tell you a thousand anecdotes about Facebook in my life: the confessions over Messenger, the glee of likes, the nuisance of advertising. But Facebook could tell you ten thousand anecdotes about me, and therein lies the problem.

Six Things Facebook *Probably* Knows About You 1.

How many devices you own.

This is based on the IP addresses of the devices you most frequently access Facebook with.

They know whether you’re using a smartphone, tablet, or laptop, and what operating system it runs.

Most of the people I interviewed characterized Facebook, and social media more widely, as positive spaces. They agreed that the amount of information big companies had about them was not really concerning to them — as Shaw put it, “I’m not an important person”. There was no reason for any company to use the information which has surely been gathered about them. The power of advertising on a societal level was more worrying for my interviewees, however.

2. Your socioeconomic status (based on the number of devices you own, whether you own a house, and similar indicators).

I tried to contact various people who didn’t use Facebook to write this article. None of them responded to my requests (usually done through an interim person, because people without an online presence are exceptionally difficult to contact). I couldn’t help resenting them: why had these paranoid people not joined modern society, if merely for my

5. Where you’ve been (even if you don’t share your location, they can approximate based on IP address).

3. All the contacts on your phone (if you let it access contacts when you downloaded the app) and possibly the calls you make on your phone as well.

4. The files you download, send, or are sent.

6. Which GIFs and stickers you use (this seems kinda pointless, but the information is out there).

22

Host a Show with Salient FM

Talking & playing music

Monday 8:00am 9:00am 10:00am 11:00am

Ürümqi Hot Pot Club

1:00pm

3:00pm 4:00pm 5:00pm 6:00pm 7:00pm 8:00pm Late Night

Wednesday

Thursday

Friday

Saturday

Is This Thing On?

Out Da House

Sunday

Breakfast with Jasper Hutt Valley High School

Māori Matters

12:00pm

2:00pm

Tuesday Breakfast with Jasper

Talk shit, donʼt get hit

Koko with Mo

Same Same But Different

Celeb Goss

VUWSA/ Off the Record

PMO Tuesdays

Afternoon 3

Office Hours Golden Showers

Kamikaze Pilots

Sounds Gay

Aggressively Annoying

Rubes Tunes

Fresher Flavour

The Week-Edge

Billy Bowdens Big 6

Two Sheilas Talking Out

Late Comers

Reel Music

2Girls 1Aux

Label Radio

2 Girls 1 Aux

Beers, Boots & Bunch of Bastards

Happy Endings

Hi Fi Hour

Salient Sports

Citizen Kane

The F Word

true crime w/prncess & friends

88.3FM // www.salient.org.nz/fm // fm@salient.org.nz

Roos FM

Benji Hartfield, Traffic lights at Willis Street. Man w

washing car, Film Photograph, 1758 × 1232, 2018

What the Shit?

WRITTEN BY DANIEL SMITH PHOTOGRAPHED BY BENJI HARTFIELD

Primary Settlement Tanks

CW: nauseating content, don’t read post-meal if you have a sensitive stomach Two hours and 10 km away from the Moa Point Wastewater Treatment Plant and I keep getting whiffs of that smell. I’ve washed my hands twice, given my clothes a thorough sniffing, checked my notebook and backpack for rogue splatterings, and have come up with nothing. There is no reason for me to be smelling of anything other than myself. But every so often I will turn my head and a whiff will take me back. Back to standing in the centre of a room surrounded by the seething slosh-piles of Wellington’s bodily refuse. I have an intense headache and my stomach is hurting.

At the time of my visit my nose was pretty blocked in one nostril and well on its way in the other. But since the student media had put their trust in me as correspondent, I leaned wide over the protective banister, sniffing loud breathy inhalations to be able to faithfully report the stench. I leant over stool and slime, the gas hitting a primo sour tartness at the back of my throat.

In hindsight this may not have been the wisest move.

The MPWTP crouches sinisterly atop a hill overlooking both Lyall Bay and the Airport. The industrial structures look like a nuclear/chemical weapons plant one

What the Shit?

would expect to see in an evil villain’s lair. The only villain to be found in this wasteworks is the strange stench which hangs like a grim spectre over the plant.

squeezed out of your ass, and are merely encouraged by the pumping of oxygen into the waste to do their god-given duty of getting the nasty stuff out. If I have this right, your shit pretty much cleans itself (shame to all those people wasting their time wiping their ass).

From there the effluent is pumped through clarifiers, which are tanks where solids (or “activated sludge” – what a name) settle out from the final effluent. The last stage is that the effluent is blasted by UV light, which kills the microorganisms, before being jettisoned out into the ocean, 1.8 km into Cook’s Strait. The MPWTP handout claims that the discharged effluent meets the standards for swimming beaches, which says more about the standards than anything else. The whole process is largely automated and takes about 2 hours.

Back in the conference room, I did not even have the tentative grasp on the process that I have now and sat blank-eyed and confused staring at a poster of a gigantic wave (possibly of treated sewage) with the caption, “clean effluent, clean ocean, clean environment”. Because I was so lost I was forced to put complete and total trust in my tour guide, Frank the Tank. (Disclaimer: Frank never referred to himself as Frank the Tank, I heard it from another employee and thought it was too good not to put in the article. I hope to god that Frank doesn’t mind the name because I would be very upset if I was inadvertently hurting his feelings by using it, on second thought maybe I will hereby just call him Frank.)

I am greeted by the friendly staff who allow me to sit in the conference room while I wait for the Salient photographer and eat a peanut butter and feijoa jam sandwich (I can understand how certain readers may be revolted by this combination but I was hurried for time in the morning and didn’t have a lot of spreads to choose from. I also think the reader’s understanding of the contents of my stomach, as I spent 2 hours looking at what was previously in other people’s stomachs, is an integral element of the narrative). As I waited for my guide, who another employee had referred to as “Frank the Tank”, I read the various infographics that lined the walls, trying to get a grip on the wastewater treatment process.

Disclaimer: The following paragraph is the result of my reading of the above-mentioned infographics, Frank (the Tank)’s explanation, and a perusal through the MPWTP employee handout courtesy of VeoliaTM. Having read all this information, I still am very confused as to how the process truly works, so please take my amateur explanation with a generous pinch of salt.

These tulips are already present in your shit when it is squeezed out of your ass

Raw sewage enters the plant through the Inlet Pumping station at a rate of about 750 litres per second.

Sewage is described by the Wellington City Council website as “waste from all sinks, toilets, laundries, kitchens and bathrooms”, but is probably more aptly put as everyone in Wellington’s shit, piss, vomit, cum, and greywater all mixed into one juicy concoction.

The sewage is first filtered through a series of step screens where the grit (or to use Frank’s much more emotive term, “ragging”), which consists of the largest inorganic matter, is removed from the slosh.

The sewage is then moved into the primary settlement tank. This is an Olympic sized swimming pool of bodily waste where for some reason the sludge, (aka “nonliquid effluent”, defined into two types; 1. Primary (scum, fat) and 2. Biomass (faecal matter, vomit, bodily discharge)) must be separated into floatables and sinkables. The sludge is then pumped 9 km away to a de-watering station in Carey’s Gully, where the liquid is pumped back to Moa Point and the sludge is buried god knows where. The sewage is now effluent (non-solid wastewater) and is pumped to biological treatment tanks where micro-organisms Frank calls “tulips” remove the contaminants left in the solution.

These tulips are already present in your shit when it is

Frank is somebody who you can’t help but have the utmost respect for. He is an expert in his field and has an impressive breadth of knowledge about everything to do with the plant. He has a great sense of humour and was an incredible tour guide. I could gush about the man for hours.

Frank suited me and Benji (the Salient photographer) up in a hi-vis vest, powder-free disposable gloves, and wrap-around splatter-protection shades. With a final instruction not to touch your face inside the plant, we were off.

The tour started at the Lab, where currently absent scientists did mysterious tests on things. The most notable part of the room was not science related at all. It was a series of photos on the back wall of days back in the 90s before there was a pipeline taking the sludge to landfill and the job had to be done by truck.

One day an absent-minded truck driver had forgotten to properly secure his load and had driven off, causing a literal truckload of semi-dehydrated shit to fall on 27

What the Shit?

the driveway. The photos were quite detailed, and the shit reminded me a lot of the dinosaur poo that Jeff Goldblum sticks his hand into in Jurassic Park 2. From the Lab we enter through caution marked doors, up some stairs, through a death-star-esque control room, and into the plant proper. The first room is a gigantic steel warehouse that smells like shit. Frank takes me over to a large steel box and lifts open a panel and we take a look at the step screens.

combination of all. I asked Frank what the craziest thing he had found in the tanks was, and he told me that one time he found 10 bucks. And apparently that same Kate Sheppard currently hangs in the break room for anyone brave (or desperate) enough to put the shit stained tenner back into circulation.

It would be disrespectful to the smell to use a single catch-all word such as “pungent” as a description.

The smell was such a myriad of differing scents and stenches in constant kaleidoscope, creating an olfactory sensory onslaught. The smell of one end of the platform was a mix of syrupy sweet-smelling diarrhoea, while the other of thick alcoholic booze poos. Along the intervening spectrum I smelt offmilk, undercooked sausages, monster energy drinks, Cheezels, imitation crab meat, cool ranch doritos, McD’s Filet’o’fish, salsa, garlic yogurt, flat Fanta, and eggs, lots of eggs. I left the room light-headed and dazed. I told Frank how I was feeling and he laughed, saying that we were here at the quietest time of day and that we should smell it at peak flow (morning, which makes a lot of sense in coffee-obsessed Wellington).

Have you ever seen an escalator? Okay, cool, same. Now imagine that same escalator covered in everything that you have ever flushed down a toilet.

Alright, so we are looking at quite a lot of shit and piss, a bit of vomit, some snotty tissues, and the odd used condom. Now, times that by 100,000, cuz that’s the amount of people’s waste that the MPWTP caters for at any given second of the day. Let me tell you the image is striking. Stools big and small, healthy and doctor’s appointment inducing, line the screens, and they are janked up the conveyor belt in sharp “steps”.

The stools and other bio-waste get carted off to the primary settlement tanks, while the non-biological stuff (like trash, toilet paper, semenfilled latex, lolly pop sticks), called “ragging”, is separated, cleaned, and sent dumpward.

The main take from a solid minute of my face within an arm’s reach of this ragging is that it’s a nobrainer that corn is in season. The next room we head into is the primary settlement tanks. Frank prefaces our entrance with a warning that the smell there is as bad as it gets in the plant.

The smell of one end of the platform was a mix of syrupy sweet-smelling diarrhoea, while the other of thick alcholic booze poos.

As we are walking from industrial cesspit to industrial cesspit, Frank pointed out that in every room we were in, large green pipes lined the walls. These pipes varied in size but were seen snaking along in every room that smelt bad. Frank said that the pipes are called scrubbers, and their role is to remove odour from the plant. One of the council appointed concessions that the MPWTP must abide by is that no discernible odour is to be smelt at the plant boundary. Not even the whiff of a stray fart is allowed. How the scrubbers achieve this is rather interesting. First, all the stank air is collected by the green pipes in every room and moved to the odour treatment area. This is the deepest point of the plant, some 20m below ground level. There the stank air is passed through three sets of chemical showers. Firstly, sulphuric acid is used to remove amine and ammonia-based compounds (the fishy smells). Secondly, sodium hypochlorite is used to remove acid-based gases such as hydrogen sulphide (rotten egg, fart smells). Lastly, the sodium hydroxide removes the chlorine smell, before the treated air is discharged from a tall stack to be dispersed by the Wellington wind straight into your lungs.

If they weren’t filled with shit, the tanks would be awe inspiring. The size of an Olympic pool and divided into lanes. We walk out onto a steel walkway and out over the open tank to get a better view of the sewage.

You would be hard pressed to find a worse spot to be in when an earthquake happened. Although the tank is only 1m deep, you can’t see the bottom through the gloopy liquid that sloshes in the lanes. It is here that biomass sludge (shit) is divided into floatables and sinkables. From our point of view I could only observe the floatables. There were many stools floating languidly in the filth, remarkably held together through the rigmarole of the step screens. There was a thick yellowy white layer of unknown substance coating the surface of half of one channel — it could either be semen, fat, pus, or more likely an unholy 28

What the Shit?

The ragging

The (almost) drinkable sewage effluent just before it is piped out to sea

The final stop of the effluent’s journey before it is launched out to sea is the Ultra Violet Disinfection chamber. This room is small in comparison to the cavernous chambers seen in other parts of the plant, and it houses a large sci-fi like contraption that hums aggressively. Underneath the hum is that sound of a large waterfall. This sound gets a visual counterpart when Frank removes a steel panel from the platform we stand on and we both peer down into the gaping maw of thundering whirlpool. This is the treated effluent, all 750 litres per second of it, cascading toward the pipe that will take it to sea. The water is glowing green from the UV light being blasted at it.

It is clear/ish. About as clear as a public pool water, water that you know has probably been pissed in but are okay with jumping in because at least it smells like chlorine instead of urine.

I asked Frank, “Why is the water green?” Frank said, “It’s cuz a couple years back when they were filming the Green Lantern at Weta Workshops the cast and crew had a day off so they came here to the plant to have a look around, and to impress them when they came, and to commemorate the occasion, we changed the water to green”.

“Really?”

Somewhere in this statement is the key to all that is reportable in the MPWTP. We have Frank, an image of human decency, braving things that few people would dare to for his daily work. He, and people like him carry the weight of our whole society on their shoulders. So often people just flush the toilet without sparing a thought for the tireless workforce that make the safe disposal of waste possible. So, next time you are hunched sourly over the porcelain throne, spare a thought for Frank and the team at the MPWTP. Those silent heroes working at the centre of societal filth, making sure no one has to see your disgusting stomach bacteria but you and the depths of Cook’s Strait.

I ask Frank if you could drink that water. Frank says, “I could, but you couldn’t”.

“How’s that?”

Frank thinks for a second before responding with, “I’m immune to the stuff, you get sick once in this place and then you are good”.

Frank just laughed at me, and I knew I had been duped by a master trickster.

Frank then attaches a small plastic container to the end of a rod, dunks it into the water and pulls it out.

29

Columns

PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS

VUWSA

MARLON DRAKE

RHIANNA MORAR

My friend Cole is a good pal. We’ve known each other since year 9 in high school. Instead of going straight to uni, he decided to take a gap year. We stayed in touch a little, but really left each other very much to our own plans. At the end of that first year, we met up in London and had some beverages. It was great, as I had really missed him, and despite having taken very different paths we still linked up in an awesome way.

He then spent another year in Auckland before finally moving to Vic. We barely saw each other during that time except the odd visit.

My names Rhianna and I’m single me.

I could never articulate how my last relationship changed me, until I was introduced to the term “gaslighting” on 27 February 2018.

Gaslighting is a form of persistent manipulation and brainwashing that causes the victim to doubt themselves and ultimately lose their own sense of perception, identity, and self-worth.

Toxic relationships fucking suck. They suck up your friends. Family. Eventually they swallow you up whole. I always imagined my ex-dude sitting on a throne, something out of a Vikings TV series, and he was bestowed on some moral fucking high ground I could never reach. It was a climb. And with every step I had to leave something behind.

First it was your “whore” friends who encouraged you to flirt with other dudes in town.

Second it was your “whore” clothes because godforbid other dudes might see your curves.

Thirdly it was your best dude friend because you always flirt with him.

Fourthly it was your beliefs because you can’t take a simple joke. And finally, you reach the top and realise — what a fucking wasteland. Empty. Everything is so empty.

When we broke up, I felt exactly that — broken. I was nothing. I had nothing. For months, I searched for the answers at the end of bottles until I remembered something. My tattoo. Under my heart, the quote reads “I am not searching for my other half, for I am complete”.

Fuck this. And fuck that dude for making me suppress every single thing about what makes Rhi, Rhi. Three fucking years of my life I spent climbing.

Climbing to meet someone else’s expectations at the top. I love my friends. I fucking love my curves. Every day I am consciously making decisions that embody everything Rhi. My names Rhianna, and I am 6 months me.

Now that he’s here though, we’re chilling again.

I really think a good friend is one that you can go months without seeing, and then when you’re back together everything falls right into place. Being originally from Auckland, you can see how this has become clear to me since I’ve moved to Wellington. I have a lot of mates back home who I don’t get to see that often, and even some in Wellington because of different schedules, but it always feels like picking up right where we left off when we meet. We exchange messages every now and again too, and I think it’s really important to let your friends and loved ones know that you’re there and you still care.

So anyway the point of this week’s column is to take a breath, take a step back, look at the people in your life that you love. Strip back the dramas and the bullshit and send them a wee message, or better yet give them a call, because the time we have with our friends and family is actually very special.

And Cole, love you mate!

Marlon xo

30

We can reject theories about morality for many reasons. One potential reason is that it produces results which conflict with strong intuitions that we have. For example, many philosophers reject the moral theory of utilitarianism, which says that we ought to do whatever maximises total happiness, because it provides very counterintuitive answers to a variety of moral dilemmas. For example, utilitarianism implies that we are morally justified in torturing an innocent child to save two other people’s lives, which is a result that conflicts with our commonsense intuitions.

But commonsense intuition is, on some level, an unsatisfying reason to reject a theory. After all, there will always be people whose intuitions disagree with ours — are we really so sure that our intuitions are the correct ones?

Fortunately, there are stronger tools available to the moral philosopher. Another reason to reject a theory about morality is to argue that the theory is internally inconsistent or self-defeating. If we can show that a theory fails “on its own terms”, then it seems like we can safely reject that theory.

The philosopher Derek Parfit uses this strategy to argue against two popular theories, one of morality and one of rationality. He first takes aim at what he calls “commonsense morality”: the cluster of commonsense moral beliefs that most people in society hold. Among the tenets of commonsense rationality is that we ought morally to care more about people proximate to us – like our children, family members, or close friends – than about complete strangers.

Parfit points out that this principle, if adopted collectively, is self-defeating. If everyone in society focuses selfishly on caring for their own children, at the expense of other people’s children, then almost everyone’s children will end up worse off. This would be a society much like the one in which we

live — where resources were unequally distributed, and many children are denied basic goods due to the selfishness of other children’s parents. It would be better for almost everyone’s children if everyone acted impartially, without a special regard for their own children.

Of course, the fact that a certain principle is self-defeating when adopted collectively does not necessarily mean that the principle is internally inconsistent.

Consider standard theories of individual rationality, which tell us to do whatever maximises our expected individual benefit. In certain cases, these principles are collectively self-defeating. One example is the famous case of the Prisoner’s Dilemma: there are two prisoners who cannot communicate with one another. They are each given two options, to betray the other person by confessing, or to remain loyal to each other by staying silent. If one betrays and one stays silent, the one who stays silent is imprisoned for three years and the one who betrays is set free. If both betray, each serves two years, and if both stay silent, each serve one year. The fact that standard theories of individual rationality give collectively self-defeating advice does not mean that that those theories are flawed.

But there is a difference, Parfit says, between the example of the Prisoner’s Dilemma and the case of commonsense morality. Theories of individual rationality only seek to advise one person about how best to pursue their individual goals. By contrast, moral theories purport to be collective standards of behaviour. It is therefore problematic for a moral theory if the advice it gives is collectively self-defeating, which gives us a reason to reject commonsense morality, or at least to revise some of its principles.

31

Columns

NT: TE ARA TAUIRA

ACCESS DENIED

ARIEL MCLEAN-ROBINSON

LILLI STREET

Racial Imposter Syndrome

Now that the mid-trimester break is over, exams and assignments are starting to pile up. It's daunting, but it doesn't have to be. As a disabled student, I've found that the assignment crunch can not only affect my work, but also my wellbeing. Here are my tried and true tips for managing assignments.

We’ve all heard the joke about that white girl: the one who thinks she can say and do whatever offensive shit she wants to just because she’s “1/16th native”.

People shouldn’t get away with that. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t white/white-passing and mixed race indigenous people out there. I’m one of them.

And it gives me pretty bad racial imposter syndrome.

Blood-quantum, where one’s indigeneity is determined by the percentage of indigenous blood that one has, is a concept that most Māori are fairly familiar with.

Fortunately, it’s not really something that we are expected to define ourselves by on an institutional level, like it can be for a lot of other indigenous peoples, and most of the Māori people I’ve talked to about my insecurities about being a very white Māori person have insisted that blood quantum is bullshit. But I still feel guilt over calling myself Māori while receiving all the benefits of being white. Identity shouldn’t be based on oppression, but since I don’t experience that oppression in the same way, and at a much lower level, do I get to take part in the measures created to counter that oppression?

Get cosy with the content!

Looking at your notes is a great way to prepare yourself for your assignments. Identify what you need to know and simplify it. This is best done when you get the assignment brief!

2. Think about it!

Engage with the content by thinking about the assignment. Answer the questions in your head, work through them. You can do this anywhere and I find it helps to reduce stress by reinforcing familiarity.

3. Make time.

This is the hardest part. It's really easy to leave an assignment to the last minute and then do it all in one go. However, by knowing your timetable and your needs you can plan out time to work on chunks of the assignment. Remember that referencing will take longer than you think!

The fact of the matter is, if these measures aren’t used, they go away. The more they are used, the more likely they are to continue and improve. If we start to get into the identity politics of who “deserves” to take part, the more we question how we define who is and isn’t Māori. How do people perform indigeneity in the “right way” when there isn’t one? If somebody isn’t raised with their tikanga they’re still Māori. If somebody doesn’t look like what we want Māori to look like they’re still Māori. There is no one right way to be Māori, and despite what all the mean girls in kapa haka and the nasty voices in the back of my head try to tell me, I’m still Māori.

4. Be honest with yourself.

Know your limits, and know your needs. In the end, your wellbeing is more important than any assignment, no matter the percentage.

5. Be responsible.

YOU are the one in charge of your study. If you need help or an extension, it's your responsibility to get in touch with your lecturers and tutors. They are here to help, but you have to take the first step. As scary as that may be, it's not a weakness to ask for help.

Hopefully these tips help as the trimester workload starts to increase. Remember to get in touch with Disability Services if you haven't already — the sooner the better!

32

FROM THE ARCHIVES MAX NICHOL Salient gets a lot of its funding through VUWSA, but the rest is made up in ads – creating and printing a magazine isn’t cheap. Given the demographic, it’s unsurprising some of that ad space would go to advertising alcohol in the past. I find the artwork of old beer ads incredibly charming, and I want to share that enjoyment by providing a sample of the beer ads from Salient.

#1 – Waitemata Breweries, 1949 If we’re talking beer, we better be talking barley malt, hops, and yeast — otherwise we ain’t talking. This ad assures us that the fine products of the Waitemata Brewery have got ‘em all. You can be certain that when you spend your hard-earned shillings on a can of Double Brown, it will technically contain all of the things that a beer conventionally contains. That’s a promise that’s as true today as it was in 1949. What more can you ask for?

#3 – Lion Brown, 1970 In a tried and true advertising technique, this ad preys on the easy target of masculine insecurity. It quickly establishes a potent cultural trifecta of “birds, Beatles, [and] poker”. Sgt. Pepper on the record player, cards on the table, and a bird on the arm – buddy, you’d best believe me and the lads are ready to neck some shit beer. The message is reinforced by the subtle interplay of the three archetypal beer ad characters: the Alpha, the Beta, and the Hot Woman. The Alpha character is who you want to be: he wears a suit, he has a good haircut, he eats singular saveloy sausages off a plate with a toothpick. Most crucially, he drinks Lion Brown. The Beta character does none of these things. He meekly proffers a plate of pickled onions, for which he is privately ridiculed by the Alpha and the Hot Woman. We can only presume that this man has never had a sip of Lion Brown in his life – just take one look at his moustache.

#2 – Cascade Ale, 1938 A pale ale of Australian origin, Cascade currently boasts a dismal one-star average on the world’s pre-eminent beer rating website, ratebeer.com. Its downfall may have coincided with the decision to ditch Jim Gentry as its mascot. This handsome gentleman projects an air of civility which is sorely lacking from the genre these days. Beer, we are left to deduce, is the thinking man’s drink. A hearty “cheers” to that Mr. Gentry.

33

Once upon a time I trained in ballet and jazz, I watch too much RuPaul’s Drag Race, and I tend to have a robust opinion on everything. It makes sense then, that I am an intolerable person with which to watch Dancing with the Stars. Who on God’s green earth are 70% of these kiwi “celebrities”? Why is the entire introductory dance so fucking uncomfortable?

MARAMA FOX WEARING SILVER LEOPARD PRINT WIELDING A PATU FUCK MY SHIT RIGHT UP? Without further ado, 50 thoughts I had watching the second episode of Dancing with the Stars New Zealand: Episode 1: Robert Rakete, Jess Quinn, Chris Harris, Gilda Kirkpatrick, Marama Fox, Shav Ruakere, Sam Hayes 1.

Fuck me I love/hate NZ television.

2.

OK so Dai Henwood is the host that makes sense he’s one of approx. (3) household names in NZ but who tf is his co-host? How is she relevant? Why do I care?

3.

I googled her: Sharyn from The Edge, sis, fire your stylist. Naomi Campbell herself couldn’t pull off that shapeless metallic monstrosity.

4.

Who tf is Robert Rakete??

5.

Robert Rakete: The Brown Wiggle. Is this a nickname he’s given himself?? Is NZ that chill with a bit of casual racism???

6.

Ohhh he literally was a Wiggle who wore a brown jumper. I still have so many questions.

7.

Ahhh yes, how else would DWTS in NZ start other than with a samba to a god-awful Ed Sheeran cover?

8.

I can honestly say I don’t give a single fuck what these judges have to say. Why are they here?

Suzy Cato could split her costume, fall on her ass, be shredded by the judges, and we’ll still vote for the absolute legend.

9.

Who tf is Jess Quinn??

10. “A social media influencer” fuck me fuck right off social media influencer my asshole goddamit I hate my own performative bullshit generation.

11.

O SHIT SHE HAS ONE LEG AND SHE’S DANCING ON NATIONAL TELEVISION?? Fuck my

shit right up I take it all back, sis is a certified badass.

12. “Must be good if we’re getting sweaty,” girl, mood.

13. JESS QUINN JUST CAME FOR OUR THROATS WITH THAT RUMBA fuck it I’m calling it I’m a Jess Quinn Stan™.

14. Who tf is Chris Harris??

15. Oh god, he’s an ex-cricketer, oh dear god, “I work in a cool office in Canterbury and make up really cool ads for the people of Canterbury and all over New Zealand” the amount of secondhand embarrassment I am experiencing right now is off the charts this has hardly started and I need it to end.

16. Forget Rakete, Harris looks like he’s been trained in dancing like a Wiggle all his life: all disconcerting smiles and no talent.

17. Gilda Kirkpatrick is here to break competitors’ ankles and generally fuck shit up. Pretty weak tango, pretty strong resting bitch face, all in all sign me the fuck up for future updates.

18. Gilda on her rehearsal timetable: “one hour is just me sitting there feeling sorry for myself,” SIS, MOOD. 19. Gilda didn’t look like she tried that hard in the tango and is looking salty about not getting three 10s??? Also a very big mood.

20. ONCE MORE FOR THOSE IN THE BACK: FUCK, ME, UP, MARAMA. 21.

Marama on seeing her partner: “A skinny white guy… but I told them I didn’t want you!!” haaahahahahaha adopt me Marama, please, I’m begging you.

22.

No fucking way she’s wearing a bedazzled denim cap that says BOSS my skin is clear my anxiety is cured Marama you win let’s pack up and go home.

23. WhatNow alum Shav Ruakere is gonna kill this, I feel it in my bones. Damn this coupling is fire I really hope they’re boning on the side.

24.

FUCK, THAT COSTUME, FUUUCK WHAT A BABE, my basement is well and truly flooded, damn girl indeed.

25. Sam Hayes looks like an actual angel. If I died right now and by some administrative error went to heaven I’m pretty sure there’d be a choir of Sam Hayes clones at the pearly gates to greet me.

34

Columns

Episode 2: Naz Khanjani, Roger Farrelly, David Seymour, Suzy Cato, Zac Franich

12. (Call me, Zac) 13. I’m late to this party apparently but ZAC IS DATING ERIN SIMPSON WHAT THE FUCK? I totally forgot who she was, they’re both totally beige and kinda a perfect match?

14. Disclaimer: I am very much on Team Naz. We love a Queen who’s her own biggest fan.

15. I figure all the dances have to be to covered songs because of copyright or something but this slowed down rendition of Shakira’s “Waka Waka (This Time for Africa)” is truly fucking horrific and I’m loathe to say it but the dancing isn’t much better. Get it together, Naz, we’re all (???) rooting for you.

16. David Seymour is making notes on his dances oh god he’s trying you have to give him that much.

17. Can’t give him much more than that though. I don’t even know where to start.

Trying to dress him up like an extra on Grease? The highlight of the routine being an awkward shuffle spin around the d-floor?

18.

Wow. Just, wow.

Old Daddy Davey really fucked the pooch on this one huh.

19.

VUWSA President Marlon Drake has picked a three-legged horse in this race with Big D. Actually I think a threelegged horse could do a better jive than Daddy just pulled out.

20. IT’S OUR TIME, KIA ORA, TALOFA, IT’S OUR TIME, A SPECIAL TIME OF DAY. 21. FLAWLESS, WE LOVE A DANCING QUEEN WHO MADE AN EFFORT TO PRONOUNCE TE REO CORRECTLY BEFORE IT WAS COOL. 22. SUZY’S SON CROSSING HIS FINGERS IN THE FRONT ROW? PURE. 23. FUCK ME UP, SUZE. 24. Judges? Middling reviews. Judges? Wrong, and also stupid.

25. Text SUZY to 3333, don’t ask questions.

1.

SHARYN FROM THE EDGE, SIS, FIRE YOUR STYLIST. Trying for a Lorde look with that pantsuit but ending up in reality with the exact costume my mum made for me once when I was 10 for a competition tap dance to “Everybody Wants To Be A Cat”. I literally fell into a garbage can on stage at the end of that dance.

2.

Wow ok let’s break down these entrances.

Naz: cheerleading outfit, she’s hot as fuck and capitalising on that, nice, can’t fault her.

3.

David, mate, that was the most uncomfortable three seconds of spinning I’ve been subject to in my life, and being a borderline alcoholic that is not a low bar.

4.

Suzy Cato: talented, brilliant, incredible, amazing, show stopping, spectacular, never the same, totally unique, completely not ever been done before, unafraid to reference or not reference, put it in a blender, shit on it, vomit on it, eat it, give birth to it.

5.

Zac Franich off The Bachelor I………am so wildly uncomfortable with and attracted to your entire being.

6.

Who tf is Roger Farrelly and why is he wearing a mesh singlet with his nips saying a cheeky hello??? If he was going for leather daddy realness though, he nailed it.

7.

Farrelly’s dance partner apparently won DWTS in 2005 – you know shit is bleak when you’re reminiscing on 2005 as a better time.

8.

Farrelly isn’t really good enough or bad enough for me to invest in. Next.

9.

Zac Franich is going to be the hottest mess of the season, mark my words.

10. I know Zac is trying to look passionate in this tango, but it kinda just looks like someone just asked him to recite the nine times tables and he’s really struggling with it.

11.

He just has the personality of cardboard packaging which is such a shame cos he’s quite nice to look at. From a distance. If you squint, and like your men inarticulate and lacking in common sense.

35

Columns

MAURI ORA

POSTGRAD INFORMER

CATHERINE NELSON

ROYA JABAROUTI

Get your flu shot now.

Influenza, or “the flu”, can make you very sick, leaving you unable to get out of bed, or care for yourself or others. Symptoms include sore throat, body aches, high fever, shivering, headaches which can be severe, as well as potential complications such as pneumonia. Symptoms usually last at least one week and often longer – causing difficulty if you have study, work, or family commitments. Being fit and healthy won’t stop you getting the flu.

Each year one in four people in New Zealand catches flu.

The flu can be anywhere. It is easy to catch through coughs and sneezes. Influenza is much worse than a cold. Many people don’t know they have had the flu as they do not feel ill. But they can still pass it on and make other people very sick. Some people with flu are admitted to hospital. A few people die from flu.

Some people are more likely to get very sick when they have the flu including people who have ongoing illnesses like asthma or diabetes.

The best protect against influenza is to have a flu vaccine every year. You protect yourself, your family, and people around you if you have a flu shot. You can’t get flu from the vaccine.

Flu shots are FREE for current students at Victoria University of Wellington.

Free flu shot clinics will be held in May. Clinics will be held in May between 11.30am and 2pm at the following locations:

Do you think we write enough?

“Writing” is an indispensable practice of our postgraduate lives. Every day we run our fingertips across the keyboard, whether it’s long before sunrise, amid the bustle of our favorite café, or when our cat’s heavy breaths become the only desirable soundtrack of our hectic scholarly moments.

In my third year at VUW I still believe I do not write enough, and that I do not write enough of what affects my intellectual journey. Like everyone else here, I write on a daily basis, but I write “according to” him or her, or just in passive voice, bringing ideas from the long-forgotten layers of history or the dark, dusted corners of an archive, onto the freshly emerging pages of what I hope to be a monumental contribution to the global knowledge.

Yet, alas! I do not put the peaks and valleys of my personal journey on paper; I do not bring out thoughts and feelings from the depths of my heart and my head. I do not claim my voice; I do not “write myself”.

I hear you say that we write about ourselves, in a good variety of ways, from a short bio note in the cover letter of a job application, in our CVs, to the bottom paragraph of a scholarly article or a conference abstract we have just sent for consideration, with the intention to impress.

The kind of writing we’re missing does not intend to display a perfect image of us. It is not concerned about judgements and approvals of a prospective reader. The kind of writing I’m advocating here, instead, simply transcribes that tiny moment at which we smiled, got excited, boiled, felt low, or even cried.

So, grab your pen and paper, cuddle your needy kitty, and sit to jot those moments down! Don’t worry about the time you spend on “writing yourself”, and remember only once those thoughts and feelings get out of your head and heart will you find the space to read more articles, and the peace of mind to write your thesis better.

Roya Jabarouti PGSA Executive Member

Monday 7 May Pipitea Te Taunaki, Rutherford House Tuesday 8 May Kelburn HUB Wednesday 9 May Te Herenga Waka Marae Kelburn Thursday 10 May International Students Mauri Ora, Level 1, Student Union Building Kelburn Thursday 17 May Te Aro

36

FILMS DOC EDGE FILM FESTIVAL REVIEW: EMMA MAGUIRE “LET’S TALK ABOUT SEX” DIRECTOR — LISA BURD

“BELIEVER” DIRECTOR — DON ARGOTT

Julia Sloane (Real Housewives of Auckland) throws us into a world of sexuality in New Zealand. It’s bizarre to sit down and watch a documentary on diversity helmed by the very woman who called someone the n-word on national television, but I set aside my misgivings and continue watching.

From exploring sex shops, to discussing homosexuality with her vaguely-conservative parents, Julia takes us on a journey of discovery around several sexual communities within NZ that I didn’t even really recognise. Admittedly, I’m not super fond of the shocking amounts of homophobia that her parents exhibit (that is cast aside as a product of “their time”), but that is quickly challenged by the diverse nature of the guests that speak within the piece itself.

In a vignette closer to home, Julia visits Wellington’s most elite brothel, Funhouse, and speaks to owner Madam Mary, as well one of her escorts. It is an insightful look into the world of legal sex work in New Zealand, and definitely challenges misconceptions about the industry that I’ve personally held.

And yeah, it is an arousing piece. A lot of this documentary is about finding pleasure and pushing oneself to treat sex as more than just a mindless fling — to find eroticism in the simplest things and to challenge our own boundaries. It feels good to see this sort of content discussed openly on screen.

In all, Let’s Talk about Sex is a fascinating documentary, utterly lascivious, and a damn good watch.

Let’s Talk about Sex screens as part of the Doc Edge Film Festival in Wellington on the 16th and 19th of May.

Believer is a fascinating look into the Mormon Church and its struggles to accept LGBTQIA+ people. Dan Reynolds (the lead singer of Imagine Dragons) and Tyler Glenn (the lead singer of Neon Trees) attempt to reconcile their faith with their acceptance of LGBTQIA+ people — and in Glenn’s case, his own sexuality.

This documentary follows several months in Reynolds’ life as he facilitates the creation of a new music festival in Salt Lake City — the LoveLoud festival — designed to bring together people of all faiths and sexualities to learn about each other, and hopefully change for the better. The suicide rate in Utah is quite high, and that is thought to be because of the prevalence of Mormons and the limitations within their faith.

Reynolds discusses his own journey to acceptance, from being a Mormon missionary as a youth and openly preaching hate against the LGBTQIA+ community, to meeting his partner, and then coming to recognise the amount of sway and influence he has to his LGBTQIA+ fans because of Imagine Dragons.

It becomes obvious that one of the things that helped him grow as a person was the love and care he found for his fans.

As a member of the LGBTQIA+ community and a fan of both Imagine Dragons and Neon Trees, a lot from this documentary resonated with me. It’s heartfelt, heartbreaking, and set to a rad soundtrack of Imagine Dragons songs.

You’ll cry. A lot.

Believer screens as part of the Doc Edge Film Festival in Wellington on the 13th and 18th of May. 37

TELEVISION TRUE DETECTIVE: A COMPARISON REVIEW: CONALL AIRD & GEORGE BULLEID SEASON 1 SEASON 2

True Detective’s first season is a strange and compelling crime tale that thrusts a pair of detectives on the hunt for a serial killer. While TD is about many things, the show stays grounded by focusing on two lead detectives, Martin “Marty” Hart and Rustin “Rust” Cohle, played expertly by Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConaughey. Utilizing non-linear storytelling, the show bounces between two time frames featuring quite different narratives, one set in 1995 following their attempt to stop a murderer at large, the other in 2012 where they are interviewed about the case.

The strained relationship between our two flawed main characters becomes a major theme in the series.

As they drive through the South together, Rust often spouts nihilistic musings to his partner Marty, who is quick to dismiss them. It’s a good representation of their characters; Rust is a brooding alcoholic, Marty an unfaithful family man. The two personalities clash, and it only serves to make both their personal and work relationships more intriguing. Season one manages to interweave the conflicts within its characters’ personal lives into the wider story, managing to elevate them to a level of equal importance as the ongoing murder mystery.

Along with the characters, the first season’s setting and style plays a big part in its success. Largely set in Louisiana, TD’s version of Southern USA is a lonely, decaying world. Gothic horror creates an unsettling environment, which only seems to devolve as Marty and Rust descend further into the mystery.

Season one’s highest point comes at the end of episode four, in a brilliant scene featuring a shot that lasts for six minutes. The characters must escape an undercover mission that has gone horribly wrong, in what could be the most tense and exciting segment of television ever. While the show is sometimes sedate and hard to follow, viewers who tolerate the show’s slow-burn nature will be rewarded with satisfying payoffs, both subtle and action filled.

Following season one, expectations for what the second season of True Detective could bring were

immeasurably high. Unfortunately, season two proved unable to reach its predecessor’s heights, failing to win over fans and critics alike.

The non-linear, dual narratives which gave season one such an edge to its storytelling are no longer present. Viewers are instead treated to a story which played it straight, following events as they happened.

What the audience saw is what they got, and what they got was cramped, dull, and confusing. Almost from the get-go, the series seemed bogged down in its own self-seriousness and angst. The character arcs (and portrayals) were nowhere near as satisfying, with many of the second season’s protagonists ending up feeling like people you’d barely met. This misguided focus on its generally unlikeable characters, mixed in with an overly-complicated plot which forced viewers to connect the dots a little too often, made the show suffer.

The mystery of first season was further propelled by the Louisiana setting, incorporating it to the extent that it felt like a character in the show. The dry and concrete-heavy LA-styled setting of the second series traps the show in a generic American cityscape. The style and tone generated in season one is clearly lacking in the sophomore season, the primary reason being the disappearance of powerful collaborative role of Cary Fukunaga (who helmed the director seat for the entirety of season one). Left to his own devices, show creator Nic Pizzolatto’s weaknesses and strengths were not handled effectively, causing his vision for the second season to feel both rushed and flat, and leaving viewers waiting for the narrative to fulfil its potential.

With season three reportedly being set across multiple timelines and moving to an Ozarks setting, and Pizzolatto being given the time to craft his narrative, the series seems to be hinting at a return to form.

38

ART NEW THINGS FOR MAY / SOME OF THE SAME PLACES REVIEW: JANE WALLACE

If you miss me, let me know at MEANWHILE, until 19 May, free entry Natasha Matila-Smith, Talia Smith As MEANWHILE have noted in their press release for this show, there is a sense of isolation that tends to characterise the contemporary experience.

Natasha Matila-Smith and Talia Smith’s exhibition will interrogate how sociopolitical factors influence this, and how absence of intimate satisfaction is seen as a failure within capitalist framework. Matila-Smith’s text Waiting for love in library aisles in Enjoy Public Art Gallery’s online Occasional Journal supports the premise of this exhibition, and echoes the confessional style of If you miss me, let me know.

Super Design at Embassy Theatre, 28 May, 30 May and 4 June, student price $15.50 + booking fee This is part of the annual Resene Design and Architecture Film Festival programme. Super Design, directed by Francesca Molteni, is set against a backdrop of 1960s terrorism and political violence in Italy. Despite the tumultuous social conditions, this was a fruitful period for Italian design, where the energy of political unrest could be transformed into creative innovation. Super Design focuses on the 19 members of the Italian Radical Movement of Architecture and Design, and their role in propelling Italy towards the design reputation it is know for today.

Cavewoman at Hopkinson Mossman, until 26 May, free entry This is only the second exhibition that Hopkinson Mossman’s Wellington space has hosted, showing Milli Jannides’ painted works. They are immensely vibrant, with thin washes of paint layered over the top. These washes seem to behave more like silk or gauze than paint though, spilling across the image unpredictably. It’s some sort of internal dream world that is caught on the canvas. These are paintings that are not distinctly contemporary in their aesthetics, but contain a very current urgency.

Rooms found only in the home at Adam Art Gallery Te Pātaka Toi, until 24 June, free entry Somehow, love and loss are often counted among less important things in contemporary art, and someone told me that this is because contemporary art is meant to be prickly and uncomfortable and precarious. In Rooms found only in the home, Marie Shannon forms a deeply intimate environment, where her relationships with her partner, her son, other artists, and friends are navigated through thoughts of distance and hypothetical ideas. There’s an ache that you get in your jaw when trying not to cry, and I found this feeling on the bottom level of the exhibition, because love and loss demand to be counted among the most important anyway.

Art, Craft and the AIDS crisis: a panel discussion at The Dowse Art Museum, 26 May at 2pm, free entry This panel discussion will be held in conjunction with Simon Gennard’s Sleeping Arrangements, which considers the intersection of queer intimacy and identity with the 1990s AIDS crisis. This panel will look at creative responses to the epidemic which challenge mainstream perceptions. It will be a really valuable discussion, especially for understanding the motivations and contexts that the artists implicated in Sleeping Arrangements were working within.

39

MUSIC MY DESIGN, ON OTHERS’ LIVES

BY ESTÈRE REVIEW: JOSH ELLERY

My Design, On Others’ Lives is the eagerly awaited first full-length project from Kiwi artist Estère, and it’s really bloody good.

going on sonically. Vocally, Erykah Badu strikes me as an influence throughout the album, and I feel that influence here in a more prevalent sense.

This record — some of which was previewed in an EP released at the back end of last year — follows her 2015 self-titled EP, and a series of performances throughout New Zealand and abroad. Her selfdescribed “electric blue witch-hop” draws from facets of neo-soul and jazz, among other genres, and is pulled together by a magnetic voice and an ear for quirky, earworm-esque melodies.

The album concludes with “L’ouiseau dans l’etoile” (a French-language track, honouring her father) and “Guilty”, both of which continue the stream of unpredictable, yet catchy, tracks delivered through Estère’s confident and quirky vocal delivery. Sonically, this album somehow maintains a coherent vibe despite drawing from everything from 90s R&B through to techno or jazz. Largely, I think Estère’s vocal delivery aids this process, but the brave choices in the production always seem to marry up with the melodic choices as well. I just find this to be an immensely rewarding album — on face value, you’re presented with earworms galore, while repeated listening leads to finding something new in the arrangements every time.

My Design, On Others’ Lives begins with the concise “Vietnam”, before a series of seemingly faultless tracks take us through the first half of the record. Of particular mention are the Ibeyi-like “Grandmother”, stone-cold banger “Pro Bono Techno Zone”, and “Ambition” — the hook from which has been stuck in my head for the last week. These songs see Estère delving into facets of her heritage, and discussing her family, while having her say on the difficult global political landscape we’re all finding our way through at the moment.

I’ve been raving about My Design, On Others’ Lives to my mates, and I reckon you should too. This is an idiosyncratic, sprawling delight, tied together by honest and confidently delivered lyrics. In a year that is already proving to be strong for New Zealand music, Estère’s debut might just be the best of the lot so far.

The second half of the record builds on this in a sense, placing a microscope on these facets of Estère’s experience. “Rent”, again featuring a massive chorus, is probably a track that could resonate with many student-types, as she discusses the all-too-common experience of having to being satisfied with one’s residential situation, while seeing paying rent as an achievement. Topical and relatable, as well as super catchy. I especially love the octave jump in the chorus, which really highlights the power in Estère’s upper vocal register.

“Nomads” follows, and is definitely one of the best songs I’ve heard this year. Everything, from the effortlessly cool vocals, through to the swagger of the arrangement, ties together brilliantly — every element of the track compliments the rest of what is 40

BOOK FOREIGN SOIL

BY MAXINE BENEBA CLARKE REVIEW: EMILIE HOPE

Maxine Beneba Clarke’s brilliant 2014 short story collection Foreign Soil is centred around the idea of African diaspora. The stories follow a diverse range of characters as they journey through life, either interacting with or from the perspective of someone of African descent. The diversity of people and places through their age, gender, and ethnicity, is what made me fall in love with this collection.

I think this story is particularly clever because it starts off as a classic romantic comedy set up but ends sharply steeped in reality. Clarke does not feed us our expectations.

Each story is unique and stands in its own strength, but together they are a cohesive text. You could easily read one story, put the collection down and come back to it in a month, even though you probably won’t want to. The first five stories focus on young people’s experiences — children, teenagers, and young adults.

The following six are more focused on adults — wives, husbands, widows, and single mothers. The overall tone is thoughtful and purposeful, even in the more playful stories, calling us to reflect on how we think and interact with race throughout our lives.

Throughout Clarke’s stories, there is an abundance of rounded characters that you cannot help but be invested in. You desperately want them to achieve their goals and succeed, but not all stories end in a happily-ever-after, which leaves the reader jarred and disappointed, but in the best way possible.

My favourite story was "Gaps in the Hickory". The story follows Delores in New Orleans, and mother and son Jeanie and Carter in small-town Mississippi.

It starts off slow, and you are drip fed little points of information, making you feel almost like a detective trying to figure out how these points of view connect.

This story touched me because it described real danger, yet this fear within the family did not stop two women from protecting their loved ones, not only their own family but from the small-town and smallmindedness that surrounded them.

Clarke is a master craftswoman and a fierce storyteller, and I highly recommend this work for anyone who’s tired of reading stories about middle class white people. This book has both quenched my thirst for post-colonial literature, and simultaneously fuelled the fire to read more.

Another highlight in the collection was the story “Shu Yi”, which followed a biracial girl, Ava, trying to escape being bullied by her peers. The perfect decoy arrives: Shu Yi, an Asian girl with poor English. It is strongly suggested by the Ava’s mother and teacher that she should befriend Shu Yi. It reminded me of my primary school days, when all I wanted to do was fit in, and being an exchange student’s buddy is not part of that. I felt ashamed as I remembered those feelings, and my heart broke.

The titular story “Foreign Soil” is another gem: it starts off as a love story between a biracial couple, Ange and Mukasa, who relocate from Sydney to Uganda.

41

PODCAST THE JOE ROGAN EXPERIENCE – EPISODE 1021 REVIEW: JASPER MARSHALL

In this episode of The Joe Rogan Experience, Joe Rogan and Russell Brand attempt to unpack some dense subjects such as finding spiritual well-being in western capitalistic society, mindfulness, and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.

particular, they mull over whether the centralization of power, not just in politics, but from the Agricultural Revolution to industrialization, has benefited people en masse. (There is of course a debate nested in here about whether the individual was better off in the hunter-gatherer state, and how to quantify this). Both men postulate that perhaps humans are inhabiting systems that they cannot handle. Brand pays lip service to the hackneyed Marxist idea that capitalism will reduce people to cogs in a machine and chisel the souls of workers to dust. The fact that communism has failed in the vast majority of nations that have experimented with it is brought up by Rogan. Brand, like many a student socialist in the prosperous corners of the world, parries these legitimate case studies with the line: “they didn’t do it properly”.

While listening to this conversation I was in a perpetual double take. Brand’s latest pursuits such as meditation, writing a book on addiction “Recovery: Freedom from Our Addictions”, and hosting his own podcast entitled Under the Skin, differ from the rock star image he has been well known for. The conversation does discuss some worthy questions.

After my first listen, I recall thinking that this was one of the best podcasts I had heard. However, upon my second listen, I realised I didn’t think much of the content.

Brand and Rogan navigate their conversation effectively and entertainingly, however there is a lack of clarity in some of the terms used, such as “the system(s)”, “oneness” and “current structures”.

For the first-time listener, endeavour to always think critically about what is being said — even if you find yourself nodding and grinning while it is being spoken. Brand’s heart is in the right place I’m sure, but I could not help but think after my second listening that he has come quite late to the party. It is helpful to know that Brand is currently at university and seems to be only now discovering Jung and Marx.

I think I was taken in by it initially because both host and guest are good communicators and are quite eloquent — Brand exercises a large vocabulary and has a knack for knitting his sentences together. Yet, the topics that arise are oldies and I am reluctant to say that Brand’s perspectives are goodies. For instance, he notes that global capitalism has allowed for mass human cooperation, however he vehemently criticises the underlying incentives — those being humans’ most primal desires, that of survival and avarice. He imagines an alternative world where the spiritual side of existence is incentivised; a society in which human cooperation strives for some kind of spiritual bliss, similar to (so we are told) what one may experience on a DMT trip — what Brand calls “oneness”… which starts to sound a bit lava lamp, dungaree, bowl cut, and perhaps not very well thought out.

The podcast is grounded to some extent by Rogan.

He acknowledges that he and Russell are “clubbing at the world’s problems”. The conversation’s real value is of course that it will spark reactions — like writing reviews.

The conversation inevitably moves onto Trump.

Apart from the usual criticisms audiences have come to know and love and be bored with, Rogan is led

by Brand into a critique of the political systems that are in place in America and Britain at present. In 42

FOOD HALAL SNACK PACK REVIEW: SHARIFF BURKE

Last summer I was fortunate enough to spend some time in Sydney. One evening, rehabilitating from another 40-degree afternoon, my body still drenched in beer (no, not VB), my friends and I decided to make a trip to the kebab shop down the road. Earlier on, we had discussed the issues of the day and the surprise resignation of a promising Labor Senator called Sam Dastyari. One of the highlights of Sam’s career, I was told, was his taunt of the racist politician and villain Pauline Hanson, by offering to treat her to a Halal Snack Pack, to celebrate her Senate seat win the day before. To this Pauline politely replied, “Not happening, not interested in halal, thank you”. Since that night, the Halal Snack Pack has come to represent something more than just a drunken gobble, — it has become a symbol of tolerance and multiculturalism in Australia. Seen in another way, the Halal Snack Pack or HSP broke ground by incorporating something distinctly Muslim into mainstream Australian pop culture.

An HSP consists of juicy kebab meat layered over a bed of hot chips, with cheese tucked between them, finished with an array of sauces on top, classically chilli, BBQ, and garlic yoghurt. This sauce combination is known as the “holy trinity”. Some have come to see the HSP as a fusion dish, due to the inclusion of chips which represent the West. “Halal” means permissible in Arabic, and in this context denotes the meat, which comes from an animal who has been slaughtered according to rules laid out in Islamic law.

The shop is bustling, with a large outdoor seated area. The bright fluorescent lights and wide-panelled mirrored interiors struck me sharply. The mirrors reminded me of my sorry state, and I felt an acute selfconsciousness of appearing disrespectful, or worse still, seeming a bad drunken Muslim in the watchful eyes of those around me. Nervous, I quickly assessed the situation. The patrons of the shop seemed young, healthy, and wholesome. Many of the men sporting Drake-esque beards; thin with clean lines. Nonchalant and convivial, it was also undoubtedly multicultural, not only with various types of Muslims; Arabs,

Africans, but also other Asians and of course not forgetting white folk. A remarkably positive impression of Australia began to form in me. Already fizzing with excitement at the thought of being active in a unique cultural exercise, it was time to eat.

Boy, as I opened the un-environmental polystyrene package, I was greeted by what looked like a literal hot mess. Moments later, sauce in my beard, eyes glazing over, I was in paradise, or jannah. It seems that what makes a good HSP is first, solid chips, then a decent proportion of quality meat on top(most people enjoy the lamb-chicken mix), melted cheese snug between these two, and lastly a good amount of sauce to keep things wet but not soggy.

Since that night, I have done more than just pay lip service to the dish, by keeping up with HSPs through a Facebook appreciation society, which now has a large following. Here in Wellington, HSPs can be found in most kebab shops under the heading “meat on chips” or just “snackpacks”. Wondering why the “halal” was dropped or never picked up, I pressed for an answer from a kebab shop owner recently, who later reluctantly replied “we think it might scare people off”. Sigh. Interestingly, on another note, the Halal Snack Pack is a dish that isn't necessarily Muslim either, with Christian Arabs, Turks, and Greeks having similar dishes in their canon.

Besides it being a wonderful feed late into the night (I really do think it’s right there up on the list), the HSP’s existence in pop culture is one where its inclusion is premised on multiculturalism — not assimilation. Which is to say, if Muslims were to assimilate (into the dominant culture) there could be no “halal” in a Halal Snack Pack.

Look for “meat on chips” at your regular kebab shop.

43

Aries (March 21 - Apr 19) You may have encountered a foe last week. Blood may have been spilled. Try not to panic. There's no evidence linking you to the crime. Play it cool and lie low this week.

Libra (Sep 23 - Oct 22) Woah, nice. You win the lottery this week.

Taurus (Apr 20 - May 20) Your luck has not run out. You may still be stuck down in the sewers, but a ray of light will reveal a chocolate bar that someone dropped down there.

Nice.

Scorpio (Oct 23 - Nov 21) Shredders shred more than paper. Appreciate your fingers.

Gemini (May 21 - June 20) Prison will take some getting used to.

Sagittarius (Nov 22 - Dec 21) If you don't believe in yourself, you cease to exist.

Cancer (June 21 - July 22) You may have found yourself in hospital with a forkrelated injury. Don't worry, though. No one's ever died in a hospital.

Capricorn (Dec 22 - Jan 19) You aren't known for having a moustache. Keep it that way.

Leo (July 23 - Aug 22) The ritual must go ahead.

Aquarius (Jan 20 - Feb 18) Things will get wild. Bring a change of trousers.

Virgo (Aug 23 - Sep 22) Once it has opened, please enter the portal.

Pisces (Feb 19 - March 20) You may have discovered you have a fondness for fire after the incident with the orphanage. Don't do anything crazy. You don't want to end up like Gemini.

LARRIKINS

Larrikins and horoscope by Anton Huggard, Sudoku by Nathan Hotter, Boggle by Joanna Li, Crossword by Corey Fuimaono, Triggerfin by Gus Mitchell

SUDOKU

CROSSWORD: YOU’RE NOT YOU WHEN YOU’RE HUNGRY

FUN

ACROSS 4 Cut; you tear up. Emblem for dodgy darkweb browser (5) 5 Ya like ‘em curly or french-fried? (5) 11 Ice Cream brand, local to Wellington Region (6) 12 Seafood. Think of it together as this/2D/5A. (4) 14 Keep that tar away from my fucking toast! (7) 16 Always blow on this. (3) 18 Meringue beast and bits of fruit. (7) 13D/19 See 13D for clue.

23 Sinful bite; fell, ’it me ‘ead. (5) 24/22 Eskimo candy in this; chilled.

Ruined by coconut shavings. (5, 4)

LITERAL MURDER

BOGGLE

S

E

L

Note: words must be at least three letters long, and cannot be proper nouns, abbreviations or contractions.

Meh: 28 words Wow: 33 words Wtf: 38 words

A

T LAST WEEK'S CROSSWORD ANSWERS ACROSS 1. Iris 3. Circa 5. Elon 9. Heroine 10. Magenta 11. Bunsen Honeydew 14. The Shape of Water 17. House on the Rock 21. Da Vinci 22. Blanket 23. Musk 24. Melon 25. Maya

45

DOWN 1 Staple flavor; 16A. (5) 2 Connecting words of the same part of speech, clauses or sentences (3) 3 Catchin’ 12A? Use this.. maybe. (4) 6 Large, thick, flat piece of stone.

7 Cheap fried food. Usually 17D, but can be 10D/3D in this too (7) 8 British 5A. (6) 9 Name joins with 4A to make this kiwiana accompaniment to 8D. (3) 10 #FFFFFF (5) 13/9A All you need is $2 for this Bunning pop-up stall. (7, 6) 15 Fuck oysters. This shellfish is waay better. (7) 16 6D, chocolate and Porirua. (6) 17 What 5A are made from; usually. (6) 20 21D/23A; not made here, anymore :’( (5) 21 Evergreen-type, that reminds Americans of christmas. (4)

DOWN 1.Inhabitants 2. Spouses 3. Conan 4. Coming Out 6. Longest 7. Noah 8. Ugly 12. Hypnotize 13. Krakatoa 15. Evolves 16. Acronym 18. Sink 19. Helen 20. Adam

Television

46

Editor Louise Lin Designer/Illustrator Ruby Ash News Editor Sasha Beattie Sub Editor Sally Harper Distributor Danica Soich Chief News Reporter Angus Shaw Feature Writers Faun Rice Shanti Mathias Daniel Smith Section Editors Conall Aird & George Bulleid (TV) Josh Ellery (Music) Alex Feinson (Books) Hannah Patterson (Podcast) Emma Maguire (Film) Jane Wallace (Arts) Tom Hall (Food) James Brown (Poetry) Centrefold Benji Hartfield @benji.hartfield

News Writers Johnny O’Hagan Brebner Emma Sidnam Vita Molyneux Tori Bright Beth Paterson Calum Steele Shanti Mathias Thomas Campbell Contributors Grahame Woods, Jessie Dromgool, James Allan, Millie Godfrey, Marlon Drake, Rhianna Morar, Shakked Noy, Ariel McLean-Robinson, Lilli Street, Max Nichol, Catherine Nelson, Roya Jabarouti, Emilie Hope, Jasper Marshall, Shariff Burke, Anton Huggard, Nathan Hotter, Joanna Li, Corey Fuimaono, Gus Mitchell FM Station Managers Kii Small & Jazz Kane TV Producers Elise Lanigan & Lauren Spring Social Media fb.com/salientmagazine T: @salientmagazine I: @salientgram S: salientmag

Contact editor@salient.org.nz designer@salient.org.nz www.salient.org.nz Level 2, Student Union Building, Victoria University PO Box 600, Wellington Printed By Inkwise Advertising Josephine Dawson advertising@vuwsa.org.nz 04 463 6982 About Us Salient is employed by, but editorially independent from, the Victoria University Students’ Association (VUWSA).

Salient is a proud member of the Aotearoa Student Press Association.

Complaints People with a complaint against the magazine should complain in writing to the editor at editor@salient.org.nz and then, if not satisfied with the response, to VUWSA. Contributor of the Week Shanti Mathias Read Salient online at salient.org.nz