Environment | Issue 06

Salient Issue 6

Environment

Vol. 79

Contents Features

14 Milkshakedown

18

Coffee Casts no Shade.

22

How to Not be a Dick to Earth

26

The Climate Needs to Chill.

5

Student graduates running scared

5

Nicola Young hates beggars

6

Eye on Exec: Special IGM edition!

10

Fishing for better flats

News

Content Regular

12 Māori Matters

12

One Ocean

13 Gee-mail

34 Postgraduate Connection

35 Food

37 Visual Arts

38 Music

14

VUWSA Exec

30

Single Sad Postgrad

31

Stress, Depressed and Well-dressed

31

Breathing Space

43 TV

32

Miss Demeanour

44 Books

32 “Sports!”

45 Theatre

32 W.W.T.A.W.W.T.A.S.

46 Puzzles

46

33

Queer Agenda

40 Film 42 Games

Letters & Notices

Editors: Emma Hurley Jayne Mulligan

Editors’ Letter “Our economic system and our planetary system are now at war. Or, more accurately, our economy is at war with many forms of life on earth, including human life. What the climate needs to avoid collapse is a contraction in humanity’s use of resources; what our economic model demands to avoid collapse is unfettered expansion. Only one of these sets of rules can be changed, and it’s not the laws of nature.”

—Naomi Klein, This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs.

The Climate

That’s why extreme weather events feature, but not the harsh realities that climate change is having. It’s a crisis that is happening at a slow pace, and it can be so hard to conceive of the realities that the words imply.

It can be hard to visualize how we and future generations will be impacted. As Tom Scott of Homebrew once said, “as the world’s heating up I don’t even give a fuck I’m just sitting here under the shade.”

Being environmentally friendly seems like a sport for the privileged. The cynic in all of us can so easily disregard ‘eco’ options as a fashionable label or trend: it becomes a way to improve your own personal brand and an exercise in guilt reduction.

It seems like an annoying Wellington trend carrying around a keep-cup, and having tote bags for the market.

But, it needs to become the norm. It’s an exercise in maintaining perspective of the macro and micro—you have to keep perspective of how profoundly important each small decision you make is, because it’s a cumulative thing.

We both work in cafés on the side, it’s insane how much waste we go through each week. With products that are needlessly packaged, bottles of drinks, straws, receipts, leftovers being thrown away, hundreds of takeaway coffee cups and hundreds of milk bottles.

Businesses, as well as consumers, need to take responsibility for the waste that they produce.

Ask more of your workplaces, your university, your local businesses, your friends and family. Don’t use plastic bags, minimize your waste consumption, and think carefully about every purchase. Learn all you can about recycling and compost. Protest, join campaigns, and vote for representatives that care.

All you need to do is watch David Attenborough’s episode on the polar bears, and you’ll see how important this is.

It can seem like our changes are nothing in the face of a huge system that depends on manufacturing endless amounts of waste, and short-lived products that will soon become waste.

It can seem infinitesimal to use a keep-cup when no matter what we do in our daily lives, factories will continue churning out billions of cheap commodities that will be used briefly and then cast away, polluting the environment as they do so; and fossil fuels will continue to be integral to the functioning of the economy and our systems of transport.

While we can probably all understand that the temperature is rising, steadily, sometimes all the graphs, statistics, and scientific jargon turn this very real problem into something that is “over our heads,” and best left to those better educated on the subject.

For example: What the fuck is the difference between carbon credits, and carbon tax? Why do airlines keep asking if you want to “offset your carbon emissions?” And surely if this problem was that serious, our government would be doing something about it?

Environmental news is often relegated to the back pages because it’s all based on the future, scientists interpreting the trends of increasing global temperatures, and making projections—and news doesn’t always consider what might happen in the future, but focuses on now.

Emma & Jayne Xoxo

03

Going Up

*Interview* with Paul Henry •

Holiday romances.

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Rhodia orange notebooks.

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The lady who looks after the tuatara.

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Reusable sandwich bags.

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Hunt for the Wilderpeople, obviously.

Going Down What’s the best part of your job?

Laughing at peasants.

What’s the worst part of your job?

Pretending to empathise with people.

So what do you actually do?

Drink red wine and laugh at peasants.

Do you feel sad that lots of people think you are a dick?

No, never. I’m like a robot that doesn’t feel pain. Y’know, y’know, y’know that ah, the Tin Man from that old film, yeah him.

That’s me.

Kanye West or Kendrick Lamar?

Justin Bieber, did you not watch my interview with him?

We are bros.

Shit-yarn-dingers Two Auckland students have been hospitalised after actually having their throats slit during their high school’s production of Sweeney Todd. Audience members were unaware of the accident, with one audience member saying there were no announcements made that the blood on stage was infact real…

Eleven million documents, referred to as the Panama Papers, were leaked from one of the world’s most secretive companies, Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca, which sets up companies in offshore tax havens. This is being referred to as the world’s biggest leak, with 72 current or former heads of state being implicated in the dodgy dealings, with many of the companies being linked to illegal purposes, including fraud, drug trafficking, and tax evasion.

04

•

Shoe laces used as belts.

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Excessive packaging.

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Catcalling. Seriously. No one likes it ever.

•

When the lettuce from your krishna food gets blown away.

•

Wind.

Keen to kōrero “Mahia to mahi!”

“Do your work!” mountain—maunga river—awa tree—rakau forest—ngahere flowers—putiputi

11.04.16

news@salient.org.nz

News Nicola Young hates beggars Mayoral candidate, and current Councillor, Nicola Young has incited controversy by suggesting she would introduce a bylaw to ban begging from Wellington’s CBD if elected mayor.

The comments emerged in response to a recent report commissioned by the Wellington City Council (WCC) exploring the issue of begging, its causation, and potential solutions to alleviate the problem.

In a post on her Facebook page on April 4, Young suggested “begging has become rife” and that, “it’s a terrible look for a city marketing itself as the events capital of the country.” Her solution was to “introduce a bylaw banning begging in the CBD and near cash machines.”

Young has been heavily criticised for her suggestion, with critics saying this implies begging is a lifestyle choice, and it denies the real existence of poverty.

Mayoral candidate, and Deputy Mayor, Justin Lester responded to Young’s suggestion and stressed he opposes the proposal.

“A bylaw would treat begging as primarily a criminal rather than a social issue—and there is no evidence from cities with such bans to suggest that this is an effective means of ending or significantly reducing begging.”

Wellington Mayor Celia Wade-Brown, said a ban would not address the roots causes of begging, such as people leaving prison or mental health services with inadequate continued support.

The WCC report, “Begging in Wellington: An exploration into our community’s issue”, stresses that begging is “a symptom,” which stems from a diverse range of causes, including poverty and mental health. It said begging is not a lucrative form of income, “most said they get about $60.00–$80.00 per week.”

The report stressed that a ban “does not stop begging from occurring elsewhere, and indeed may channel the need for disposable income into petty crime or other harmful activity.”

A 2014 national quality of life survey, which provided comparative data across six New Zealand cities, showed concerns about begging by the people of Wellington were significantly higher than the national average, with 75% of those surveyed saying it was either “a bit of a problem” (53%) or “a big problem” (22%).

On, RNZ’s Morning Report (April 7), Young stuck steadfast to her anti-begging line despite the evidence of the council report, “I want to move the beggars away from the very lucrative areas so it’s harder for them to earn money.”

Colder than a Wellington winter.

The first two months of 2016 have seen $29.7 million in student debt from overseas borrowers being repaid. This figure is seven million dollars more than this time last year, a 31 percent increase.

The spike follows the January arrest of Cook Islands man Ngatokotoru Puna for failing to repay his $130,000 student loan. (which has now been reduced to $30,000 following a giant fuck up on Inland Revenue Department’s (IRD) part).

IRD has seen correspondence rise since the arrest, with a 62% increase in emails, and a 55% increase in phone calls over January and February.

This has been welcomed by Tertiary Education, Skills and Employment Minister Steven Joyce, and Revenue Minister Michael Woodhouse.

“There was definitely a much higher level of activity at the start of this year, with Inland RevenueIRD receiving over 20,000 additional repayments compared with last year,” Joyce said.

Joyce went on to say the IRD will “continue to target” overseas-based borrowers who default, and that “Inland Revenue believes that the publicity around the first arrest at the border has contributed to the increased activity.”

The government introduced a law in 2014 that allowed the police to arrest student loan defaulters at the border as a result of the high number of people overseas failing to pay their loans.

Of the more than 112,000 overseas-based borrowers, 70% are currently in default. Following Puna’s arrest, IRD has their sight set on other defaulters.

“Around 20 people are currently being actively monitored by Inland Revenue for possible arrest when they return to New Zealand,” Joyce said.

Despite this increase in repayments, some think it a harsh course of action, Tax Hub director Kristina Andersen said: “I think it’s harsh. We don’t arrest people for other types of debts so I’m not sure from a moral point of view how you can justify doing it for student loan debts. But I guess from the government’s point of view it’s quite successful and because it’s been successful I expect there’s no impetus to change their strategy.”

Labour has also seen the government’s move to arrest people at the border as punitive, with Labour leader Andrew Little saying it was creating a barrier to study, and putting off other life opportunities like owning a home.

According to the New Zealand Union of Student Associations, at the beginning of last month student debt was estimated to be over $15 billion.

05

Tim Manktelow

Charlie Prout

Student graduates running scared

11.04.16

Eye on Exec

Special IGM edition!

Renters of the world unite Renters United!, the Wellington tenants lobby group, recently held a conference on renting at Victoria University with the aim of pushing tenant’s rights onto the radar for this year’s local government elections.

Around 30 student politicians, unionists, and campaigners met in the Student Union building for an afternoon of planning and workshops on renting in New Zealand.

Conference convenor, Robert Whitaker, began proceedings, and spoke of the need to end the perception of renting as a “temporary stage of life” in NZ, and the right of all tenants to a “healthy, safe and secure home.”

Keynote speakers—Max Rashbrooke, editor of Inequality: A New Zealand Crisis; Lucy Barnard, Senior Research Fellow in the Department of Public Health at Otago University; and Mark Bennett, Senior Lecturer at the VUW Law School—covered the economic, health, and legal issues facing renters in Wellington.

Participants gave anecdotes of their renting experiences, with one describing the “mould growing in my dehumidifier,” while another spoke of the time she “came home to find the landlord had added an extra floor to [her] house.”

The significance of the local body elections later this year was emphasised as a key point for the group, and participants were encouraged to discuss ways in which Renters United! could make an impact on the polls.

“The local body elections this year present a huge opportunity for us to get a rental warrant of fitness in Wellington,” said Whitaker, pointing to the success of the living wage campaign’s effort to make WCC a living wage employer.

Whitaker pointed out work already done by others in Wellington, noting that “VUWSA has already done a lot of the groundwork” on campaigning for a rental warrant of fitness, and praised Lucy Barnard’s efforts in getting a trial programme set up in Wellington and Dunedin.

VUWSA Welfare Vice-President Rory Lenihan-Ikin, commented that a key focus for VUWSA this year will be a rental warrant of fitness, and expects this will make a “dramatic improvement” to the quality of flats in Wellington.

“VUWSA’s been campaigning for a WOF for a number of years, and hopefully Renters United! will add another voice to the chorus.”

Renters United! was established in May 2015 with a seven-point manifesto for improving rental housing.

06

Alasdair Keating

Last week VUWSA held their annual IGM (Initial General Meeting). If you’re struggling to figure out which VUWSA meeting this is, it’s the one where the exec pen students in like sheep and bribe them to stick around with a promise of pizza at the meeting’s conclusion.

VUWSA president Jonathan Gee was looking casual in a navy quilted bomber jacket, letting the attendees know he was hip, cool, and one of us.

Following formalities, Gee said it has been a “successful year of VUWSA.” Such successes included launching the fruit and vegetable market, rolling out of the Know Your Rights campaign, providing 16,000 meals during stress-free study week, and helping provide a bajillion jobs through Student Job Search—a website VUWSA helped fund and still contribute to.

When asked about the 2015 net profit loss of $231,000, VUWSA said it was kind of Vic Books’ fault. In response to a question on the projected $50,000 deficit for 2016, Jono said it could have been bigger, and that no cuts to services had been made.

Regarding “the next chapter for VUWSA,” the implementation of a new strategic plan is being put on hold until 2017. The 2011–2015 strategic plan expired at the end of last year, but with major structural changes occurring since the last plan—primarily the introduction of voluntary membership—VUWSA will be taking some extra time to figure this shit out properly as they are currently “at a crossroads.”

Questions from the audience took us through to the meeting’s conclusion, with Jono responding to some curly questions with the grace and ease of a seasoned diplomat.

From these questions we learned: 1. Nap rooms were a Zwaan policy, and were not Gee’s election promise. The Bubble is the closest we’ll ever get to a nap room. To be fair they have free fruit, cups of tea, bean bags, and lots of fun activities.

2. VUWSA are firmly standing by their pro-choice stance.

3. VUWSA is well aware of the lack of a queer space on campus and are continuing to push for this, but said it was likely to be more of a “long-term” thing...

The IGM then closed and students were let loose on the pizzas. Player of the day goes to Engagements Vice President Nathaniel who went above and beyond not only as a mic runner who hurdled furniture in The Hub like a college track athlete, but also for being the only exec member to seem genuinely concerned about locating the gluten-free and vegan pizzas for those with dietary requirements. You go Glen Coco.

11.04.16

On Thursdays we wear black The Thursdays in Black (TIB) campaign was officially launched by several speakers at VUWSA’s IGM last Wednesday.

Ella Cartwright spoke about the background of the campaign, as well as its resuscitation and importance (it was initially spearheaded in the 1980s by Jan Logie).

Cartwright said VUWSA had been very supportive of the campaign; and talked about TIB’s plans, which focus on consent education and support services for survivors.

Rory Lenihan-Ikin encouraged men to break their silence on the issue by speaking up and questioning other men, wearing black on Thursdays to show their support, and for issues around sexual violence to no longer be deemed a “women’s issue.”

Tamatha Paul, first year student and Weir House resident, said she was drawn to the university because of the activism on campus. She spoke of sexual violence issues facing students and encouraged first year students to get behind the cause.

Chrissy brown, VUWSA Equity officer, said students and staff wearing black out of solidarity would make sexual violence survivors feel empowered, and called on students for their input towards the campaign.

Izzy O’Neill, Tertiary Women New Zealand National Women’s Rights Officer, encouraged involvement from not only students, but faculty and staff as well.

“I’m going to be the next mayor of Wellington,” said Justin Lester at his recent campaign launch on the Wellington waterfront.

Lester made promises of a rates rebate of $5000 for first home builders, a rental warrant of fitness (WOF), and investment in social housing—with more studentfocused policies to be announced further into the campaign.

Painting a family-friendly picture, he told the story of meeting his wife in a German literature class 19 years ago, before apologising to her for pursuing a career in politics.

Lester has spent six years as deputy mayor of Wellington, under current mayor Celia Wade-Brown, and is the co-founder of local food company Kapai.

He spoke of his upbringing in Invercargill, where he was raised by his single mother in a state house. His family did not have a car or a lot of money, but “the community was always there for us.” He wants to ensure that “everyone has the same opportunities” as he had growing up.

He wants to address the gender disparity and ingrained sexism within the council, including a gender pay gap between council members, as well as the fact that there is only one woman on the council’s senior leadership team.

He made a policy promise of free swimming pool entry for children under five years old in the Wellington region, and said it was unacceptable that seven out of ten kids in New Zealand can’t swim.

He said rental housing standards in Wellington are “not up to scratch.” Lester grew up in a cold, damp, and mouldy house, and said that “in 2016 no one in this city should have to do that.” He said he would send a local bill to parliament to secure a rental WOF throughout Wellington, to ensure that homes are warm, dry, and safe before they can be rented out.

“We don’t want to be another Auckland,” Lester said, raising the issue that Wellington is becoming particularly attractive to potential homeowners for its affordability.

This was followed by a policy promise of the “$5000 rebate for first home builders.”

He also supports the airport runway extension, saying it will mean “thousands more jobs, students, tourists, and millions more for our local economy.”

Salient was impressed with the Kapai catering on offer, a spread which included brownies, energy slice, kumara hash, and kebabs. There was also face painting, but Salient resisted the urge to join the kids becoming sparkly cats.

Jayne Mulligan

Kate Robertson and Emma Hurley

Justin ‘Trudeau’ Lester launches campaign

Students rally for a safer city

07

Kate Robertson

Hundreds of Auckland students and residents have rallied in Albert Park, a park close to the university campus, demanding that measures be put in place to make the city safer at night.

The rally took place in response to the attack of two University of Auckland students in the park by a group of unknown assailants.

University of Auckland Students’ Association (AUSA) president Will Matthews said he “didn’t think it was acceptable anyone should be so at risk in public places.”

He added that, “while everyone has to exercise a degree of personal responsibility, we have the right to feel safe in Albert Park.”

AUSA’s Women’s Rights Officers Aditi Gorasia and Diana Qiu said people needed to start looking at the “root cause” of the problem, rather than just “victim blaming” those who walk through the park at night.

AUSA’s petition calling for Auckland Council to “take action to address the unacceptable safety risks in Albert Park” has almost reached its goal of 2500 signatures.

The petition states that at minimum the park needs to be more well lit, have access to security phones, and a physical security presence.

11.04.16

This is a fun quiz Kate Robertson

1.

Which Kardashian recently had their tv show cancelled?

7. Which Charlie’s Angels (film) star is divorcing from her husband?

2. At season 15, American Idol has wrapped for the final time. Who made up the judging panel in season one?

8. What time is The Salient Hour on Salient FM?

3. One Direction band member Liam Payne is currently dating which X-Factor judge?

10. Do you understand the Panama Papers?

9. Who is the current creative director at Fendi?

4. Is Lukas Graham a band or a person (singer/s of ‘7 Years’)?

6. Which Salient editor was a model for Urban Angel back in the day?

1) Khloe 2) Paula Abdul, Simon Cowell and Randy Jackson 3) Cheryl Fernandez-Versin 4) Both. The fourpiece band is named after frontman Lukas Graham Forchhammer 5) Chuck Bass 6) Emma Hurley 7) Drew Barrymore 8) Streaming on air and online 5-6pm Mondays. Plz listen 9) Karl Lagerfeld 10) No.

5. Name the Gossip Girl character whose OG signature look involved a scarf and a pocket square?

11.04.16

Yaaaas kween—Aunty Helen might run the UN On April 5, Prime Minister John Key officially nominated former Prime Minister Helen Clark to become a candidate for the role of United Nations Secretary-General (UNSG).

Clark is currently Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

In Clark’s official press release announcing the nomination, she called it a “great honour” to have the “full backing of the New Zealand Government.”

The selection for the new UNSG will take place in December when the current UNSG, Ban Ki-moon of South Korea, retires after serving two terms in the position.

Key called Clark an “immensely credible candidate,” and said it “was about time” there was a female UNSG, as there has not been one in the 70 year history of the role. Key also said Clark would be perhaps the “strongest Secretary-General they have ever had.”

Clark stated in her press release that being “tolerant, pragmatic, and fair,” are key elements of being a New Zealander, and that she would bring these skills with her to lead the UN. Clark also said she is “deeply committed to the ideas of the UN Charter,” and wants to give “a voice to seven billion people.”

Clark has bipartisan support from National, Labour and the Greens. Current Labour Leader Andrew Little has called her a “trailblazer.”

Clark also has support in Australia from former Prime Minister and onion-enthusiast Tony Abbott. The Australian Government would most likely also support Clark if Kevin Rudd does not want to run.

There are currently seven declared candidates, three of whom are women. Front-runner for the role is UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization DirectorGeneral, Irina Bokova of Bulgaria.

Six of the seven candidates are from Eastern Europe, so Clark’s candidacy would diversify the pool of nominees to include someone from the Asia-Pacific region.

Clark is seen as somewhat of a compromise candidate, as the election of the UNSG can be vetoed by one of the permanent five members of the UN security council (US, China, France, Russia, UK). It is highly likely that the US, the UK, and France would veto the selection of a candidate from Eastern Europe, as they would not want an Eastern-European UNSG that is pro-Russia, after the international fallout over the annexation of Crimea in 2014.

As the third highest ranking official in the UN, Clark will be a serious contest for Bokova going into the deliberation process in July.

More than 50 world leaders including Prime Minister John Key, have attended the fourth and final Nuclear Security Summit in Washington D.C. This summit, Key pledged a further $150,000 to the US nuclear security programmes in Iraq, Jordan, and Cambodia; and $148,000 to the International Atomic Energy Agency’s Nuclear Security Fund.

Despite New Zealand’s nuclear-free status, Key said it’s an important issue for the country. He cited the summit as “an opportunity to address nuclear terrorism threats at the global level,” reaffirming New Zealand’s commitment “to the goal of securing vulnerable nuclear materials worldwide.”

Key’s sentiments were echoed by Labour party foreign affairs spokesperson David Shearer, who said “proliferation around the world, the unstable nature of the world, means we have to keep a strong eye on it.”

This year New Zealand has ratified two key nuclear security conventions: the 2005 Amendment to the Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material, and the International Convention for the Suppression of Acts of Nuclear Terrorism. The government has also passed the Radiation Safety Act 2016 which further regulates the use and management of radioactive or nuclear material.

Russian President Vladimir Putin chose to boycott the summit, a decision that stemmed from Russian criticism of the US refusal to accept suggestions from other countries.

Green Party foreign affairs spokesman Kennedy Graham agreed with Russia’s objections about the US central role during the Summit. Graham argued that the work should continue, but within the International Atomic Energy Agency instead, and cited the Brussels and Paris terrorist attacks as an indication that the ability of governments to prevent them is limited.

According to Ploughshares Fund—a global security foundation trying to reduce the number of nuclear weapons in the world—Russia is believed to posses more nuclear weapons than any other nation.

The summit was first established in 2009 by US President Barack Obama, with the aim to advance international cooperation to address and combat the threat of nuclear terrorism.

09

Alex Feinson

Grace Carroll

Nuclear Security Summit 2016

11.04.16

Charlie Prout

Fishing for better flats

several political groups have identified substandard and overpriced rental properties as a serious issue.

Labour has stressed the need for affordable healthy homes for students. March saw Labour traveling around the country hearing stories and promoting ways to improve housing for all New Zealanders.

Wellington’s Housing Forum was held on March 7 with 75 people in attending. Grant Robertson, Wellington Central MP, relayed one of the key stories from the night, that of an Otago Medical School of Wellington student.

“He had moved here last year and he and four friends taken out rent on a five bedroom place for around $800 per week. The flat was beset with problems—leaks, draughts, and structural issues. They fought with the landlord who said these were all new problems and little was fixed before they moved out. As he said, his suspicion was that the problems were long-standing and that the landlord relied on having students only in there for a year and never fixed them up.”

There is currently a positive change on the horizon with amendments to the Residential Tenancies Act in the process of passing through Parliament. The new Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill includes provisions such as the requirement for smoke alarms in all residential rental properties from July 1, 2016; plus new requirements for ceiling and underfloor insulation in residential rental properties by July 1, 2019. The Bill will be introduced to Parliament by October and is currently being discussed in select committee.

However, Labour and local start up website Flatfish view the potential law change as just the start. Grant Robertson told Salient about the proposal Labour has suggested for warmer and more affordable housing for students. These include a rental warrant of fitness that includes requirements not only for ventilation and insulation, but also minimum heating and basic safety, a stronger regime to protect and enforce the rights of tenants, and more affordable housing to be built.

A recent survey by Flatfish, a website specialising in renter rights, found that 79% of renters have lived in “crappy flats.” Housing continues to be a prominent issue for students, with many forced to live in mouldy, substandard flats with rents above what student allowance or living costs is able to cover.

Lucy McMaster (a Victoria University design graduate) and Emma Ross (an education student) told Salient about the flat they lived in last year. Both paid up to $180 per week each.

“My third year flat was particularly memorable with rat infestations that were apparently our responsibility to sort. Holes in the wall directly leading to the outside world were a chilling feature in our non-insulated flat. We did have a heat pump which provided heat in the kitchen/ living room area, but even when we had that going full blast there was a serious problem with condensation and ventilation of our place during winter. Three out of the five rooms had a serious amount of mould.”

Lucy went on to say how she was forced to work 15-20 hours per week on top of her studies in order to cover her cost of living. “I found it financially difficult to get by as a middle class New Zealander with a strong financial network, so therefore for people with no financial backing university could be, I imagine, on the brink of impossible sometimes. This shouldn’t be what tertiary education should be like.”

However, Emma’s situation was worse, while on education placement she was forced to take on work shifts on top of her 45 hours a week at schools. “Because my student allowance would not cover my basic living expenses for those six weeks [while on placement] I was working between 50-55 hours a week as well as doing lesson plans and organising for school in the afternoons and weekends at home,” Emma said.

These are just two examples of a varied and concerning increase in poor living standards for students.

Lucy and Emma are not alone in their issues, and 10

11.04.16

Flatfish can be found at https://www.facebook.com/ flatfishapp or http://flatfish.co.nz/

11

Charlie Prout

to light the reality of pre-existing flats, and educating flatters on what suitable and healthy living standards are, we aim to elevate the overall quality of flats and landlords for New Zealanders in the long term.”

Like Labour, Flatfish see the solutions to the current housing crisis as multi-faceted. The crisis is linked to supply and demand issues as well as the lack of accountability of landlords by the government.

“Every year the number of tertiary students increases, but rental property numbers stay pretty much the same. Many landlords rent exclusively to professionals or families, intensifying the problem by reducing the number of available properties for students. Of the remaining students who can’t find a flat, many become desperate because of the lack of options available and end up moving into whatever property they can get their hands on, regardless of it’s quality. This in turn, allows the existence of grotty flats to continue, if not grow,” Tim stated.

Flatfish wants to see a rental warrant of fitness and stronger legislation surrounding rental properties is needed in order to improve the state of housing for students.

“The National government has decided not to embrace any real solution to the housing crisis, and while the Wellington council is trialling a warrant of fitness solution, it will be many years until we see any real improvement. The local and national legislation surrounding rental property quality is not adequate.

The government considered rolling out a nationwide property warrant of fitness, which would have required all properties to be inspected, and potentially fine landlords that couldn’t get their properties up to standard. Although it was decided that it was too expensive and dubbed an extreme measure.”

“We also want to have a focus on growing and improving state housing, supporting the WCC to maintain and upgrade their accommodation and providing adequate emergency housing so that we can end homelessness,” Robertson said.

Labour also wants to look into student allowance and living costs in relation to cost of housing. “We want to re-examine the adequacy of accommodation and living support for students, especially with a recognition of the costs in places like Auckland and Wellington.”

At a local grassroots level there has been movement on this issue. Flatfish is a website (about to be launched) that describes itself as a “start-up that helps students find quality flats… building a web platform that lets users search for available properties and filter them by the quality of the property and the landlord.”

Tim from Flatfish told Salient about the organisation’s goals to educate and elevate tenants’ rights, and develop communication between landlords and potential tenants.

Flatfish aims to educate tenants about their rights and the warning signs of unhealthy properties which make it difficult to call out careless landlords.

“One of the biggest issues is that many flatters don’t know what they should look for when viewing flats. Water damage, black mould, lack of insulation—these are not obvious issues to someone who doesn’t know what to look for, and so landlords are able to get away with substandard care.”

Their website aims to be a hub, with information from past renters about properties that are advertised on the site. “Naturally, landlords, and sales agents are going to up talk their property, focus on its merits instead of its downfalls. This is why we ask current flatters, rather than the landlords, questions surrounding quality. Who better to get an honest perspective from than someone who has just lived where you are about to live?”

Flatfish aims to “use market forces to raise the bar on what is deemed an acceptable place to rent. By bringing

Maori Matters

One Ocean

Rakai Parata Gardiner

Laura Toailoa

Kaitiakitanga can be loosely translated to mean guardianship. As Māori, we often use this term to describe environmental protectors, whether that be interpreted as human or animal guardians.

Kaitiakitanga, in a historic context, referred to care and protection of the land, which, we as Māori respect and affiliate very strongly with. We used the guiding principles of kaitiakitanga to look after the world around us, by applying traditional practices to the way we hunted, gathered food, and farmed.

This includes concepts such as rāhui, where a temporary ban is put on an area of land or sea to allow for repopulation, so that total depletion of kaimoana is avoided. A rāhui can also be put on a place where someone has died recently. An example of this is if someone has drowned at a beach, a rāhui is put in place and you must avoid swimming there until it has been lifted properly.

Although the way we relate to kaitiakitanga has changed somewhat as our people have adjusted to a different time and context, though the key tenets of contemporary kaitiakitanga have remained the same.

Down south, in the dominant tribe of Ngai Tahu, they have become the kaitiaki of pounamu. Māori have a strong affinity with water as well, this has been a highly controversial and topical issue in the media lately within the context of ‘ownership’ of waterways. Many iwi across the motu have taken it upon themselves, or banded together, to keep their rivers, lakes, and streams clean and pollution free—this is a modern form of kaitiakitanga.

It’s such an intrinsic part of our Māori culture and a role that I hope our people will continue to uphold and cherish. Our past has always informed our present and future and this is one part that we must never lose.

During my ‘experimental’ first-year of university, I took a lot of papers that didn’t end up counting towards my degree. I scroll down myQual and look with sadness at the thousands of dollars of “Additional Courses” I have to repay in my not-too-distant ‘real-world’ adult life due to my indecisiveness.

However, almost all of these additional papers changed the way I saw the world; particularly, a 100-level geography/environmental science paper. I didn’t enjoy the calculations or the technicalities of measuring temperature, and I certainly struggled with the different terms in “deep time” (what does 500 million years even mean? The 90s feels like a decade ago so my conceptualisation of time is super warped). A major idea this paper taught me was the interconnectedness of nature. The land, sea, and sky interact so intricately and allow for our humble third rock from the sun to be habitable for us. When it rains and makes my walk to uni a nightmare, I’m reminded that the Earth has been cycling its water long before I could even walk. I now see rainy days, earthquakes, and cyclones as small parts of much bigger processes that I don’t fully understand.

From simply inconvenient to utterly devastating, the Earth will continue to do its thang, and if we don’t understand and respect that, we cannot live in harmony with our planet.

In old school Samoan culture, it was said that true peace is only possible once a person had established harmony within themselves, harmony between other people, harmony with the cosmos, and harmony with the environment. Samoans didn’t see their environment simply as the backdrop of their lives—it was an integral part of identity and daily life. Myths and legends drew heavily on the surrounding landscape, as people saw the rocks, mountains, and eels as a part of their world, rather than a world they’re a part of. In many other Pacific cultures, the environment is something to show utter respect to for. It is the provider of sustenance and tools we need to survive. It was not something to be exploited or ignored. We cannot afford to ignore our effect on our planet’s natural environment, the cost is too big.

We must see the environment as ours, as a part of us, to really be prompted to make moves to help care for it.

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Gee-mail

VUWSA Exec

Jonathan Gee VUWSA President

Anya Maule Wellbeing and Sustainability Officer

I’m writing this column post Initial General Meeting, which we held in the Hub last Wednesday. I’m still on a buzz from all the awesome questions that were asked by you, our members. I also really enjoyed having my voice booming in the Hub for a good 45 minutes (lol).

For those who couldn’t make it, one of the highlights for me was the opportunity as your president to talk about what your students’ association will do for you in 2016.

This covered three broad themes:

When considering the word environment, it is unfortunate that the first things that spring to my mind are the all the environmental issues that we are currently facing.

There is an overproduction of substances and products which are harmful to nature, and to the wildlife (as well as to us). A vivid image that sticks out for me is that of an albatross carcass with a belly full of plastic, or a turtle whose shell was unable to form properly due to being stuck in a plastic six-pack ring.

I feel a great sadness for all the inhabitants of Earth, and for the natural environment. I feel that we as sentient and rational beings are shirking our duty as custodians of the planet.

Although it can feel at times overwhelming, it’s not all doom and gloom. We as individuals, and as a collective, can make changes, and even the smallest change in the right direction can make a difference.

There has been a groundswell recently in the number of environmental initiatives and ways in which students (and staff members) can get involved around campus.

The Victoria branch of the Plastic Diet is aimed at reducing single-use plastic waste and consumption.

They are holding their initial meeting this Wednesday, April 13 from 5.00–7.00pm in room SU217, in the Student Union building. Come along to find out how you can get involved.

Another initiative on campus is run by Gecko, the established environmental group on campus. They run a low-waste, organic food co-operative, and are about to get started on some other initiatives.

These are only two examples. There is also a Climate Change Clinic, a group of students based at the Pipitea Campus. Also, a range of other clubs are always looking for ways to create a more environmentally-friendly campus. If you’re interested in any of these groups, or want to know other ways you can get involved, flick an email to wellbeing@vuwsa.org.nz for further info.

The next ‘chapter’ of VUWSA VUWSA is at a crossroads. Our Strategic Plan 2011–2015 has now expired (RIP), and we are moving into the next chapter of VUWSA. In my last column I talked about our recent history which included the need for us to adjust to the post-Voluntary Student Membership environment.

Over the last five years we have been in the preparation stage. The 2016 executive has now been tasked with crafting a plan for the next five years. We’ve decided to delay the launch of our Strategic Plan until 2017. The reason for this is to ensure we get the process right and have a conversation with you, as our members, about what you think the next chapter of VUWSA should be.

Student-Friendly Wellington With the local body elections coming up, we will be campaigning for candidates to champion studentfriendly policies. We’re a significant part of Wellington, and VUWSA will be working hard to ensure that your voice is heard by whoever leads this city.

Stronger Student Voice We want to build our engagement with you. You might have noticed a few changes this year, such as our monthly newsletter, new office at Pipitea, going into halls, and being the student voice in the media—this is all so that we can have more opportunities to connect with you and represent your needs as best we can.

We’ve had a big three months already and we’ve started as we mean to go on. The exec and I are really excited to engaging with you more throughout the rest of 2016!

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Finnius Teppett

Finn takes a look at the sorry state of our rivers, how they got to be this way, and whether New Zealand could ever do justice to its claim to be ‘100% pure’. It turns out when you talk about rivers you talk a lot about dairy.

Milkshakedown our charming tradition of feeding our cows and sheep on grass year-round) that you’ll hear about. When I was in Peru and I mentioned New Zealand, a guy who was trying to sell me something started saying “Milk! Milk!” (Actually his English wasn’t that great, and he wasn’t pronouncing the “k,” so it sounded more like “mill!” but when he mimed massaging a teat into a glass and then drinking it, I got the message).

But the reality is it’s all too good to be true. Our environment is in a truly shocking state, particularly our incredibly vital freshwater stocks, and it’s basically all the fault of that thing that the man from Peru knew us for— dairy.

However you like to think about this weird country that most of us live in, whether it’s as a land of too many vain, idiot prime ministers; or not enough weed; or with heaps of really good rugby players; or with heaps of kids living in poverty; the one thing that seems to be at the bottom of everything is the idea that at least we’re living in clean, green New Zealand. The mentality of those dirty colonisers has stuck with us. Escaping that sooty shithole of London back in the day, they sat through months-long boat rides in hopes of arriving somewhere with some space and maybe a bit of nature. Onboard, other depressed Britons would be carking it left right and centre, so the alive ones would close their eyes and hug their knees, muttering “land of milk and honey… land of milk and honey…” until they vomited themselves to sleep.

When they finally got here, they were unwilling to let go of the clean, green dream that had got them through, even as they promptly went about turning as much of the land as possible into civilised, London-style settlements. They probably said stuff like “hey, maybe we shouldn’t cut down all the trees, wouldn’t it be nice to save a few to remind us how beautiful nature is?” Meanwhile the Māori who had already been here for hundreds of years, and had figured out early on that you can get literally everything your body and soul needs from living with the land, were in for a very rude awakening and a stern lesson in classical economics.

If you’re overseas and anyone finds out you’re a New Zealander, it’s the backdrops from the Lord of the Rings that they’ll get really excited about. “I’ve always wanted to go there,” they might say. “It’s so beautiful.” If you want to be real for a second, you might reply “yeah the American film versions of the English fantasy novels really got to the core of what New Zealand is all about,” but they probably will just think you’re a wanker. Even in the last few enclaves of the world where the slimy tendrils of that nerdgasmic trilogy haven’t reached, it is New Zealand’s reputation as a high-end producer of dairy and meat products (thanks to the “clean, green” thing, and

In more recent years, the colonists’ pride was translated into a much pithier, catchier slogan, that has been used to market us as a tourist destination since 1999: 100% Pure New Zealand. (Except the slash in the % sign is replaced with the islands of New Zealand, which have roughly the same shape. Clever, eh?). It has taken heat a couple of times since it was implemented, from anyone curious enough to dig into it. A few years ago a Daily Mail feature ran under the headline “New Zealand’s green claims are pure manure.” Sparked by the botulism scare at Fonterra that caused a wide-scale product recall, the writer of the article took the opportunity to pick our reputation into tiny little pieces, calling us out on our terrible record of preserving and managing our natural environments, and our desperate pandering to the dairy sector (though, being the Daily Mail, the general sentiment in the comments is something like “well maybe if they stopped handing out benefits to the lazy poor, there’d be more money to clean up the environment with”). A couple of years before that, back when half-man, half-diseased-eel John Key used to play along with the idea of political accountability, he appeared on the BBC interview show HARDtalk for twenty-five minutes of hard talk with BBC hard man, Stephen Sackur. Sackur puts it to Key that maybe, in spite 15

Finnius Teppett

Soon, the idea of being able to pop down to your local watering hole for a quick splash without contracting salmonella will be a nostalgic daydream

of the emphatic marketing slogans, New Zealand isn’t literally one hundred percent pure after all. The hard man brings up claims from Massey environmental scientist Dr Mike Joy that our rivers and lakes are considerably more polluted than we like to say they are, and that more and more of the animals that live in those rivers are at risk of extinction, but Key displays an infuriating misunderstanding of how science works, and remarks “well that might be Mike Joy’s view, but I don’t share that view.” When Sackur does a double take and points out “yeah, but… he’s a scientist,” Key informs him that, actually, “he’s one academic, and like lawyers I can provide you with another one who can give you a counter view.”

Interestingly, five years on from that interview, there is still no sign of this fabled “other” academic, who is prepared to put their name to something that counters Joy’s thoroughly researched claims, and assert that, somehow, things aren’t actually dying faster than ever. Key’s denial reeks of the induced blindness of climate change nonbelievers, who are willing to dismiss a huge expanse of scientific proof in order to protect the interests of say, the oil or mining companies that they depend on.

Key’s fear is for our $13.7 billion dairy industry. Taking up around 20% of our exports, dairy is a big chunk of our GDP and an increasingly shaky part of our economy (one of the only things the government wanted to get out of the TPPA was lower tariffs for dairy exports). So not wanting to rock the economic boat or upset the agricultural voting bloc, Key and his ministers have steered well clear of finger pointing, in spite of the shit heap of evidence. But, dairy has never been a particularly profitable industry, with farmers kept in a basically constant anxiety about wildly fluctuating milk prices, on top of droughts, and floods, etc. Though farmers here don’t receive cash subsidies anymore, the government subsidises them in another way: by picking up the tab for the extensive environmental damage that farms cause (or, more often, legislatively ignoring it). Key has an interest in playing down the state of our lakes and rivers, because if the burden of the environmental clean-up was placed on those actually responsible for the damage, the dairy industry would dry up overnight.

Dr Joy’s book Polluted Inheritance (BWB Texts) is a plainly written but powerful overview of our current freshwater crisis, detailing the many problems dairying causes in our environment. There is the familiar cows-shitting-in-theriver complaint (a major contributor to New Zealand’s world-leadingly high rates of bacterial infection), as well as the cows-pissing-on-the-land point (they drop so much urine into such a small area that the ground can’t take it all up, and it seeps down into the water table). Another major problem is the heavy use of fertiliser to grow enough grass to feed stock in an intensive dairy operation. Much of the fertiliser runs off the land and drains into rivers, where it encourages algal blooms and the growth of smothering

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Finnius Teppett

salmonella will be a nostalgic daydream; and not only is the government not that concerned with turning that around, but they flat out reject the idea that anyone could expect to swim in a river and not get sick. Key called the idea “aspirational.” The current legal rules only say that you should be able to wade in a river, or sit in a boat on it.

Which seems crazy (who wades?), but unfortunately the guy in charge, environment minister Nick Smith, has said “I do not think a legal requirement for every water body in New Zealand to be swimmable is practical.” (As reported in this magazine, a petition organised by Choose Clean Water NZ was presented to parliament last month, calling for stricter guidelines. No word yet on how it went.)

As well as the pleasant summer afternoons that rivers can provide us (if you go far enough upstream), they hold enormous importance for Māori. Historically, big rivers like the Waikato provided everything for the local iwi: fish and plants for food, flax for weaving, and a whole network for trade and travel and communication. They also had important spiritual powers, and were used for ceremonies of healing, blessing, and cleansing. But according to the Waikato Regional Council, as the river has grown more and more polluted, and fish stocks have dropped or become contaminated with heavy metals from farm runoff, marae along the Waikato have found it harder to actually feed people, and the river’s spiritual power has waned in its sickness. Iwi elders talk about a time when they could drink straight from the river without fear of getting ill, but now the risk is too high.

Sooner or later, hopefully, the economic cost of dairy ruining the place for all of us will catch up to them. At this rate, it will soon become impossible to keep using the “100% Pure” slogan with a straight face, and our giant tourism sector will take a hit. The dairy industry might also come to see how it’s shooting itself in the foot for shortterm gains, by eventually losing the international selling point of NZ milk as “clean, green” dairy. In the meantime though, the rest of us have to live with the steady degradation of our rivers that is the Mafia-style economic protection money demanded by the dairy industry. I actually like the idea of being clean and green, and it’s sad that we increasingly have to qualify the phrase. “Most of our rivers are clean,” to “some of them are clean,” to “well I think there are a few left in the mountains that are still OK.” Until we get some serious protective legislation, and have a ground-up rethink about basing our economy on nature-hating cows, then that’s what we have to live with.

aquatic flora. The blooms can give rise to mats of cyanobacteria, which were the cause of some recent dog deaths in New Zealand and could be equally dangerous to adventurous kids. The accelerated plant growth destroys the food supply of river animals, and soaks up dissolved oxygen making it hard to live underwater. 44% of monitored lakes have just got too much nutrient run-off to deal with, and they’ve turned murky and brown and inhospitable to life (“eutrophic” is the term). Since the early 1990s, the percentage of native freshwater species that are threatened with extinction has risen from 20% to 74%. The book goes on with depressing numbers like this.

For years Joy has been an outspoken advocate for New Zealand’s river health, and a vocal critic of the complacency of government and industry, regarding freshwater protection. (“Some dairy farmers regard me as the devil” he said in a recent interview. Apparently some dairy farmers are touchy about being total environmental monsters.) A paper he published last year, excellently titled “New Zealand Dairy Farming: Milking Our Environment for All its Worth”, detailed a costbreakdown for restoring environmental damage caused by dairy farming. The projected cost was $15 billion, a.k.a. more than the industry is actually worth. This economic angle, putting actual figures on environmental harm done, is maybe the most effective argument in Polluted Inheritance.

Joy puts prices on all manner of environmental atrocities. If the normal human argument for saving waterways doesn’t sway you, then Joy’s numbers frame the argument in terms available to even the most basic of accounting algorithms. The agricultural services provided for free by healthy waterways, work like nutrient stripping, flood mitigation, and water storage, is lost when they are drained or polluted. A hectare of wetlands (“the kidneys of our waterways”) provides about $40,000 worth of these services every year just by doing normal wetland stuff.

When wetlands are drained to make room for farmland (which has been the case for an astonishing 90% of our original wetlands), that’s $40,000 a year that someone has to pay to get those same services. Joy also describes a trial in Rotorua where the cost of removing a tonne of nitrogen from the lake was compared with the cost of lost revenue if a farmer used one less tonne of nitrogen fertiliser. It was thirty-seven times cheaper to not use the fertiliser in the first place. Even economics wants to save the rivers.

The moral/aesthetic argument for protecting waterways is obvious. It goes something like “it is nice to hang out at rivers and lakes, and maybe have a paddle if you brought your togs and it’s not too cold.” But, rivers are quickly becoming too toxic to swim in—already 60% of all New Zealand’s rivers are unsafe to swim in because of pollution.

Soon, the idea of being able to pop down to your local watering hole for a quick splash without contracting

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18

Haylee Read

Coffee Casts no Shade.

The grey dawn lifts and you can see the afflicted everywhere. The 5:15am train commuters, 6:00am traffic jammers, all members of the collective whole. We are the coffee-toting weekday warriors. We brave the wind, weapon in hand. The coffee cup: our must-have accessory. It is the common brand of the busy and the important. Made just way we like it, our coffee fits us— it is an extension of who we are.

The world coffee market has an annual retail value of over $70billion (NZD). Our morning fix is the second most traded commodity worldwide after oil. But, in a city of pop-up markets and beatnik eloquence, boutique coffee culture has failed translate into an environmentally friendly industry. How ethical is your weapon of choice? Consider what makes up an iconic classic: The Flat White.

family income earner is exploited, whether by forced labour or considerable underpayment, education is abandoned for basic survival. UN reports show that “a child born to a mother who can read is 50 per cent more likely to survive. Every year of education beyond grade four that a woman receives reduces the risk of her child dying by 10 per cent.” Sadly, many rural children who survive beyond infancy are forced into coffee plantation work rather than school to assist with the daily living costs of their families. World Vision defines child labour as “any kind of work that deprives a child of their childhood, their potential and their dignity.” Child labour practices run rampant in the coffee industry.

A child’s physical and mental development is affected when they are required to complete often dangerous and exhausting work, especially that which is necessary in plantation work: e.g. heavy lifting in extreme heat.

Many children are at risk of poisoning due to unsafe exposure to pesticides, as well as disabling injuries. Other environmental hazards include fatalities due to snakebite.

Child workers are not legally employed which means they lack even minimal employee protection. Their living conditions are often basic, with little or no running water.

When there is a lack of price stability for a commodity, such as coffee, there is no guaranteed return on labour for manufacturers or producers. To maximise profits, producers attempt to reduce expenses by reducing wages.

Families have little choice but to work in exploitative or dangerous conditions to earn a basic income. Living conditions on exploitative plantations are dire. Migrant workers sleep in rows of bunks in derelict shelters. Often, the same water source will be used for cooking, drinking, and bathing. When consumers purchase a coffee that uses beans supplied by exploitative plantations or with no clear origin, your dollar encourages these practices.

So how can you make an ethical choice on campus? Ask where your chosen café sources it’s beans. In Wellington, every coffee brand promotes its own roast varieties, blends, and origins. Self-proclaimed “coffee geeks with a big conscience,” People’s Coffee have been supplying coffee to Wellingtonians since 2004 and pride themselves on avoiding convoluted supply chains. This is achieved

The Coffee From humble beginnings in Africa, coffee farming spread east and west along a latitudinal strip known as the Coffee Belt. According to National Geographic, the best yields require moderate sunshine, rain, porous soil, and steady temperatures. This tropical belt offers ideal conditions and is the reason the world’s coffee is produced in equatorial countries such as Guatemala, Mexico, Ethiopia, Vietnam, Northern Australia, and Indonesia. For the people of these countries, coffee is a means of earning a wage and provides economic stimulus as an exported and traded commodity. For consumers, coffee has two major realities—it is farmed by people, and produced by the land.

Abhorrent labour practices are the norm in rural communities where income and basic food supplies are scarce. In rural areas across the globe, women (compared to men) are disproportionately affected by poverty due to traditionally instilled roles as carers rather than financial earners. Human Rights Watch reports that in rural Peru, one of the highest coffee yielding countries in the world, 33.7% of women are illiterate compared with 10.9% of men, in part due to the remoteness of their homes and a lack of access to educational resources. When the sole

19

According to legend, Ethiopian shepherds first discovered the caffeinating effects of the coffee berry when they noticed their goats “dancing.”

The name for coffee comes from the Arabic ‘qahhwat al-bun’ meaning ‘wine of the bean.’

Farming had far less impact on local ecosystems. As consumer demand rose, modern farming methods were developed to increase and accelerate production. Vast deforestation enables mass production. Shade growing requires more effort. Workers handpicked berries in the undergrowth. Modern practices employ full-sun growing where harvesting can be managed with machinery and fewer migrant workers are necessary. Coffee production is now no different to monoculture crop farming in that it uses methods such as those employed to produce more controversial crops such as soy and corn. The ultimate issue with sun cultivation has little to do with taste and everything to do with profit maximisation through mass production. For example, coffee management has played (and continues to play) a critical role in the disturbance of forest in southwestern Ethiopia who produce with a share of 20-25% of the total foreign exchange earnings of coffee worldwide. The Smithsonian Institute has identified industrial coffee production as one of the major threats to songbirds in the Coffee Belt. In the Amazon, sloths are being relocated by locals to ensure the viability of the species in much the same way orangutan are being wiped out due to the farming of palm oil.

A successful Kiwi childhood is dependent upon the local river. Learning to swim, summers with friends, returning year after year to the water sources of our youth has benefits both nostalgic and cathartic. In South America, pulp waste is choking the river systems. The process of separating the beans from the coffee cherries generates enormous volumes of pulp waste that are mixed with residual water, parchment, and chemical contaminants. Fish and aquatic plants are denied oxygen and suffocate. Soil and water sources are severely degraded by chemical pesticides and herbicides. Workers on exploitative plantations drink contaminated water, and families’ dependant on the water source for cooking, drinking, and bathing are forced to ingest harmful poisons.

Traditional shade coffee systems typically relied on much lower chemical inputs than industrial plantations because planting coffee among natural vegetation, or among trees planted for shade, fruit, or timber, can reduce

by cutting out the middle man and dealing directly with grower co-operatives. 25 million smallholder farmers produce 80 percent of the world’s coffee, and the forming of co-ops gives farmers the opportunity to be visible and to profit from this market share.

People’s philosophy is reinforced by their website’s manifesto. “By pooling their resources, growers [sic] can access the market with an export license, and through mutual profits, can buy and collectively own coffee infrastructure. As a coffee community, they can share a vision and have the means to develop it.” What does this mean in practice? Traceability. When a brand works directly with co-operatives they know exactly who grew their coffee, where it was grown and how much the growers were paid. People’s Coffee bear the Fairtrade Alliance Certification. When you buy from cafés who use Fairtrade Certified beans, you are making the best possible effort to ensure no human suffered for your purchase.

But what of the land? As consumers, we must also consider the environmental implications of coffee farming.

Coffea is a genus of flowering plants, the seeds of which resemble red berries or cherries. These cherries are picked, shelled, and dried in the sun to be reduced to the beans that we import and roast for sale: as a whole product or grind for our preferred delivery system— espresso, plunger, or filter. The trees themselves grow to a height of approximately three metres, bear fruit after three to five years, and will continue to produce cherries for 50 to 60 years. Its flowers are highly perfumed. The cherries can take nine months to ripen. Traditionally, coffea was grown in the undergrowth of a forest canopy.

Farmers would use sustainable agricultural techniques including composting their coffee pulp, rotating the crops, and avoided chemicals and fertilizers. They would cultivate other food sources. By intercropping with other plants such as nut trees and bananas they would provide food security for their families, as well as generating additional sources of income if necessary. Growing coffee in the understory beneath a diverse range of much taller trees ensured habitat protection for native wildlife.

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If you buy one coffee in a disposable cup per day, as an individual you will personally create around 10kgs of waste per year.

All coffee is grown within the Coffee Belt, a latitudinal band that follows the equator.

separately. Typically the lids are simply separated out as contaminants at the recycling plant and head straight for landfill in favour of the more valuable compounds from the bottles.

Tired of such wastage, Lyttleton Café made headlines when they posted a sign informing customers that they do not serve trim milk. By making the change to reusable stainless steel vats of fresh milk sourced directly from a farmer in Oxford, they limited their stock to one kind of milk and cut waste markedly. Silo in Melbourne employs this system and goes a step further. As a zero waste café they process all food scraps through a waste dehydration machine. The compost it produces is given back to the farmers who supply their fruit and vegetables.

susceptibility to pests.

So what should consumers be looking for? Use beans endorsed by the Rainforest Alliance. By promoting “shadegrown” certified coffee—coffee grown under a canopy of trees—your dollar is helping to prevent habitat loss, water contamination, and soil degradation.

But, Fair Trade? Or Rainforest Alliance? Which is the correct choice?

The Organic Consumer’s Association believe Fair Trade, Shade/Bird Friendly, and Organic labelling initiatives to be symbiotic, because what is good for the workers is good for our shared environment. There are coffee brands that are dually certified (both Fair Trade and Rainforest Alliance), but a purchase of either is considered to be mutually beneficial and a better option than those brands that offer no protection to the people who farm the coffee or the land that yields it.

But what of your accessory?

The Cup

The Milk You only have to walk around Wellington CBD for five minutes to find a bin full of discarded paper coffee cups.

The paper, while perhaps completely biodegradable is coated in a wax or plastic veneer to repel liquid; so, much like milk bottle lids and bottle labels, coffee cup pulp is separated from more valuable compounds and discarded.

What can you do? Bring your own cup. Bring your favourite mug from home. Buy a KeepCup—the best are BPA Free, glass, or ceramic. Carve yourself a wooden chalice. Your coffee cup is an extension of you. Make it unique. VicBooks incentivises the use of your own cup with discounts on every coffee. If you are buying paper cups you are charged extra, consider it a worthy waste tax.

Make small changes. Think before you drink. Perhaps the only benefit of capitalism is the one person one vote system. Know where your dollar goes. Choose Fair Trade certified or Rainforest Alliance (or both). Expect more of the industry that keeps you caffeinated and supplies a basic living to 25 million small producers globally. Demand more of your favourite café. Cast your vote knowing that the purchasing power is yours. Choose your own weapon and use it wisely.

Dairy cows and their by-products (manure) produce greenhouse gas (methane) and other carbon emissions which contribute to climate change. Much like the production of coffee, poor handling of waste, the use of fertilizers on dairy farms, and bacteria runoff can degrade local water sources and soil. Unsustainable dairy farming (including the production of cow feed-including grains and monocrops such as corn) reinforces degradation of ecologically important areas such as prairies and forests.

Soy drinkers are no less impactful. Soy is cultivated and produced with similar waste issues that continue well into the factory stages of production; non-recyclable cartons and factory carbon emissions.

Agricultural waste aside, consider the waste practices of your chosen café. How many milk bottles do they throw away? Lyttleton Café in Christchurch were sending 200–300 bottles away per week for recycling, but milk bottle lids are made of polypropylene. The melting level of the lids and the bottles are different because the chemical compounds of the plastics differ. The polypropylene has to be sorted out, washed, and then shaved into flakes 21

Sophie Sharp

How to Not be a Dick to Earth Earth. When we’re alone in our darkest hours it always pulls through. It feeds us, keeps us warm, gives us shelter, keeps us breathing, and provides our minds with endless wonder. It is without question, our oldest and best mate and it’s in serious trouble. Sadly this time not even Clark Kent can save it. So it’s up to us! The little people, to do everything we can to help it out.

I spoke to some students about whether they felt they should be doing more to lend a hand towards the planet’s current situation. The general consensus appeared to be that most people did feel, to differing degrees, compelled to do something about climate change. However, they felt a little helpless and saw climate change as too big an issue for their day to day actions to have any impact. Hopefully, I can alter this by sharing with you simple ways to not be a dick to the earth, which will make a difference. Every change must begin somewhere no matter how small that beginning might be, and as the inheritors of Earth’s resources I say we give it a good go.

Clean up your transport This is kind of a biggy; transport is the second biggest cause of greenhouse gasses in New Zealand. So driving the three hundred metres from your flat to the Four Square in your cheap crappy car would be reasonably high on the dick-o-meter. Fortunately, Wellington is a seriously condensed city and most students live in close vicinity to the university.

Clean transport is easy and doesn’t have to disrupt the efficiency of your daily life. Walk! Hop on your bike! Although an electric bike is initially a bit of a financial setback, they are perfect for tackling those gnarly hills and a smart long-term investment. Otherwise, your standard bike will suffice.

Adding things like mud guards, and hanger bags to avoid the oversized awkward backpack look will make your ride that little bit sweeter so you can truly enjoy the satisfaction of knowing you’re a half decent person, while experiencing the liberating feeling of the wind in your hair. Combine train and bike for longer distances. If the on foot / bike life is not for you, lap up that public transport. If you must use a gas-guzzler at least try car-pooling. Aside from the fact that you are doing the earth a solid, smart transport options are good for the body, soul, and the pocket.

Go veg! Or go partly veg!

Thirty percent of Earth’s, and over a third of New Zealand’s, landmass is used for grazing livestock—and I can tell you Earth does not view them as favoured tenants. Animal based agriculture takes out the number one spot for New Zealand’s biggest producer of greenhouse gasses. I’m not asking you to cut meat completely, or to travel down the dark complex path of veganism, but only having meat once or twice a week is a good start and once again easy it’s on the pocket.

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Cut the crap!

The out of the ark, unoriginal placing of rubbish in a large hole till it rots trick is terrible for the earth. It produces a potent greenhouse gas called methane, and it creates leachates and emissions which pollute waterways. Every single year we dump an estimate of 3.2 million tonnes of crap into our landfills, an estimated one third of which could have been recycled.

Recycling is awesome because it not only cuts down the crap in the hole, but it also cuts out a whole lot of emissions and energy used to create new materials. So keep up the recycling! And since the current council thinks we are too simple to get it right, let’s show them that the tax payers money is not being put to waste on our tertiary education by putting the glass in the glass bins, and clean plastic, cardboard, and tins in the green bins. Use reusable bags and coffee cups—which are stocked in many local cafes and can be purchased from idealcup.co.nz.

Sophie Sharp

Get involved!

Heaps of students I spoke to were keen to do this, and there was a huge interest in volunteering for organisations that are campaigning for the environment, but what does this actually involve? And how you go about it? Well, you can sign up online to the Green Party or become part of the Young Greens at Vic. You can then receive information about volunteer activities and events on their websites.

Wellingtons’ Green’s branch is currently running a specific campaign around climate friendly cities, with a real focus on transport, and they are planning to undertake door knocking and phone calling to build support. If that’s not for you, the Greens also need people for data entry and event promotion on social media. Kaibosh, a Wellington based organization that redistributes leftover food from local business to community groups like the Woman’s refuge, is also calling for volunteers. Signing up online with youth driven NGO’s like Generation Zero is also a great start.

Show your support!

We need to vote for candidates and support campaigns that support low emissions in New Zealand. There are always public campaigns to support. Generation Zero are currently collecting signatures on their website for a campaign to stop WCC from replacing our electric trolley buses with diesel ones. Or you could get behind the protests against increasing the extraction of fossil fuels in New Zealand.

Save energy!

This is pretty simple and I’m sure you’ve heard it before. Buying energy efficient light bulbs; switching that washing machine to a cold wash; and like the great T-Pain once said “turn all the lights off.” Although New Zealand is lucky in that not much of our power comes from emission producing generators, reducing your use of electricity will keep this proportion even lower.

Feed the dirt!

Another way to empty the landfills is composting!

After all the grazing, general destruction, and chemical pollution, the earth is in dire need of a nutrients top up and composting is a great way to do this. To some, however, this is not as simple it seems. One student I spoke to, whom wishes to go unnamed, claims they may have accidently single-handedly destroyed the Aro Valley community garden compost by including meat in their compost for an entire year. Not to worry though it’s the thought that counts; and we can get it back on track by only including fruit and vegetables, tea bags, egg shells, and coffee grinds. After all, the dirt supports the growth of vegetation and vegetation cleans the air of greenhouse gases by chewing up carbon dioxide.

Get informed!

For those of you who are still siding with ol’ Donald some hard-cold scientific information should sort you out. climatechangetracker.org is a goodie for keeping you updated on both New Zealand’s and the global climate change situation. We need to get informed and inform others of the real dangers of climate change. Bring up conversations about climate change in different settings. When I spoke to Green party MP Julie-Ann Genter, she made a really good point about the importance of not being judgmental when communicating to others about climate change. People shut down when they feel criticized or judged, so keep the conversations positive.

Shop for the earth!

Buying locally grown food is a win win situation for everyone.

It takes less energy and transport to produce, is fresher and therefore more nutritious and delicious, and it supports the local economy. So your hung-over wander round the Sunday morning fruit and veg market is well worth it. There is also a very cool app called Conscious Consumers which locates environmentally friendly businesses in your area, and awards them badges for things like recycling, buying local, and using eco containers. Our very own Vic Books and Milk and Money both boast an impressive five badges each.

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There are a huge variety of things we can do to not be a dick to the earth. Things that not only help out the earth but are also helpful for your finances and balmy for the soul. Although, compared to the effects of things like oil extraction and the agricultural industry, the decisions you make in your day-to-day life may seem insignificant, every little bit does count. Humans are imitators: by showing others that living a green lifestyle can be both practical and fun we can inspire them to do the same. So never think too little is not enough and keep it positive. Let’s start the green revolution!

Haz Forrester

The Climate Needs to Chill.

2

2¡C Limit Limit 2ºC

1.5 1 0.5

James Churchill

0

Preindustrial Level 1800 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

the temperature increase to 2.0 °C was thought to be adequate for preventing the most harmful effects of climate change. However, more recent evidence suggests that even a 1.0 °C rise in temperature could lead to significant harm. Climate scientists, like Kevin Anderson from the UK based Tyndall Centre for climate change research, have begun to say that avoiding harmful effects of climate change in the conventional sense has become impossible. That is not to say we should throw our hands up in the air and say we have lost. The effects of increases in temperature are exponential; a 2.0 °C increase in temperature will be much more harmful than a 1.0 °C increase, especially to developing nations. When you start to reach increases of 4.0 °C the climate will become unstable and could spiral into chaos.

Paris’s goal is therefore quite ambitious and very important. Green MP Julie Anne Genter who attended the conference credited the Pacific Islands and the host nation France, for creating momentum and pushing for more ambitious targets. The statement that we will pursue limits to keep global temperatures below 1.5 °C is something we can be proud of. However, there is still a question about whether or not the goals will be met.

The agreement functions by impelling its signatories to submit “intended, nationally determined contributions” or INDCs. These are to be submitted every five years and the first were sent in in the lead up to Paris. INDCs should be ambitious and constructed with a view of keeping to the 2.0 °C limit. However, they are not enforceable. INDCs are more like an expression of a country’s intention rather than a binding commitment. There is a review mechanism in which each country’s success or failure in achieving their INDCs is analysed, but the UN cannot force countries to adhere to their INDCs as they said they would. It’s more about naming and shaming. Having a system where governments choose their own contribution can enable greed. Climate change is affected by the aggregate of all countries emissions, and if we are achieve the targets set by the Paris Agreement then the aggregate emissions need to be reduced. However some countries have

On November 28 last year about 7000 Wellingtonians marched on parliament demanding action on climate change. Hundreds of thousands more marched across the world: in Beirut and Barcelona, in Mexico and Melbourne. The timing was designed to put pressure on heads of states and diplomats from across the globe who were attending the Paris Climate Conference. Similar conferences occur every year, but in recent times they have been unproductive due to conflicting agendas and lack of consensus. Paris needed to break this trend. After two weeks of rigorous discussion an agreement was finalised to a cacophony of applause and self-indulgent slaps on the back. But did they do enough?

The Paris Agreement was quickly hailed as a major success. Our then Minister for Climate Change Tim Groser described it as “a huge and historic step forward.” Barack Obama described it as “the strong agreement that the world needed.” Other commentators have been more reserved. In an article for the Guardian, George Monbiot was ambivalent in his characterisation of the agreement: “by comparison to what it could have been, it’s a miracle.

By comparison to would it should have been, it’s a disaster.” Paris gives us a place to start, it provides us with the framework that we need to move forward. But, Paris is limited. It is just the beginning and there is so much more that we need to do.

The most widely celebrated achievement of the agreement is the commitment to limit the increase in global temperature. 2015 marked a significant global temperature increase, reaching the milestone of 1.0 °C above pre­industrial levels, and the trend is only going up. Pre­industrial levels refers to the average temperature taken between 1850 and 1900. The Paris Agreement is endeavouring to limit further increases, ambitiously aiming for an increase that is “well below 2.0 °C above pre­industrial levels,” and hoping to limit the increase to only 1.5°C. It is more than most could have hoped for in the lead up to the talks, especially in light of the mess that was the Copenhagen summit in 2009. Whether it will be enough is another question. In the past limiting

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The effects of increases in temperature are exponential; a 2.0 °C increase in temperature will be much more harmful than a 1.0 °C increase, especially to developing nations.

When you start to reach increases of 4.0 °C the climate will become unstable and could spiral into chaos.

decided, and some surely will decide in the future, that their transient fossil fuel fueled growth is more important than the targets. Other countries must then pick up the slack. We can name and shame these countries as much as we like, but some world leaders won’t care. An organisation called Climate Action Tracker has analysed all the INDCs that were submitted in the lead up to Paris and rated them based on whether they are in line with the 2.0 °C threshold. New Zealand’s submission to reduce emissions to 30% below 2005 levels by 2030 was placed in the inadequate category, alongside the submissions of nations such as Saudi Arabia, Russia, and Australia. The organisation projects that current climate pledges will lead to about a 2.7 °C increase in temperature.

The Paris Agreement also goes some way to addressing what’s called the “common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities” of different nations. This mouthful of an idea highlights that we all have a common responsibility to address climate change, but the way that different countries take this responsibility can be quite different depending on their capacity and capabilities. New Zealand, for example, contributes significantly to researching ways to minimise agricultural emissions. However, the main dichotomy that illustrates this idea is that between developed and developing nations. It is hypocritical for developed nations who built their economy on fossil fuels (but now have the wealth and infrastructure needed to cut emissions) to impose strict limits on developing nations that are only now industrialising in order to grow and improve the quality of life for their people. But, we also can’t sit idly by, as developing nations now contribute about 63% of emissions and this number is climbing. Every country on Earth has some kind of responsibility.

One of the major ways that the Paris Agreement addresses this is by compelling developed countries to provide money, or “climate finance,” to developing countries so that they can both mitigate and adapt to climate change. There is a collective goal that developed countries should be providing developing countries with $100 billion (USD) of climate finance annually by 2020.

While the general obligation to provide money features as a binding part of the Paris Agreement, the $100 billion target is just one of the many “decisions to give effect to the agreement.” These decisions are important but do not have the same binding character as the agreement itself; they are more like decided upon guidelines on how to achieve the goals formally set in Paris. Regardless, providing climate finance is important and this is a step forward. Over 500 million Africans do not have access to electricity. African heads of state have launched the African Renewable Energy Initiative which seeks to triple the African energy capacity by 2030 through the use of renewable energy like solar, wind, and hydropower. As well as reducing emissions, this investment will help meet growing demand from a growing population as well as improving health and sustainability. It serves as a good reminder of the way so many global issues are connected.

Combatting climate change can be done in a way that also combats poverty and social injustice. The problem is that

27

The recent cyclone Winston destroyed over 9000 homes in Fiji and it is estimated that it caused $250 million (USD) in damages. Increasing global temperature will lead to increasingly violent storms, rising sea levels, floods, and desertification—and who is supposed to pay?

Act was passed in 2002 we were world leaders and maybe if more had followed our lead the planet needn’t have risen even 1.0 °C. But that is not the reality. New Zealand’s Emissions Trading Scheme, our main tool for moderating carbon emissions, is currently under review with the aim of ensuring it is fit for the purpose of achieving the goal to reduce emissions to 30% below 2005 levels by 2030.

This review will provide an interesting insight into the government’s attitude towards climate change.

In 2018 we are going to have prepare our next set of INDCs. I hope that whoever is in power takes climate change seriously, and I hope they respect not just 2.0 °C limit but the 1.5 °C goal as well. But, we must remember that climate change is not just an issue for politicians.

When I spoke to Julie Anne Genter, she reiterated the importance of everyone becoming invested in this issue.

We should not feel powerless; there are so many small things you can do whether it is using public transport or talking to your conservative parents about the reality of what we are facing. One of the powerful things about the INDC system is that it gives grassroots organisations a legitimate role in pressuring the government to set ambitious goals and to keep them. Genter pointed out that inaction on climate change is just benefitting a few vested interests in the short term, while we all stand to lose.

These groups are influential. In Paris there was a lot of talk about limiting consumption of fossil fuels, but not about limiting their extraction. Combatting climate change can feel a bit like rowing upstream, we must all paddle in unison if we want to move forward.

I really do think that Paris was a success and I think that the agreement is ambitious—at least compared to what it could have been. Simon Hillier, a Victoria University student who attended the Paris Conference, described the surreal experience of passing by the Alliance of Small Island States booth on the last day and seeing a group of pacific islanders singing “Don’t Worry, Be Happy”. The Paris Agreement is something we can be proud of, but it is still to be seen what will come of it. It is still to be seen how the countries of this world will act.

Election focused governments struggle to make short term sacrifices for long term gains. Responsibility is then left with the people to make sure that climate change is thick in the public discourse. If we want real action then it must be demanded. T.S Eliot once said that between the idea and the reality there exists a shadow. If we do not start acting soon then that shadow will begin to spread.

if action to fight climate change is too slow, these same issues will be massively exacerbated.

This issue is addressed in another part of the agreement concerning damages. It is unjust that so much of the damage caused by climate change will be done to developing nations who have barely contributed to the problem. Under international law, countries are generally responsible for actions done inside their boundaries that cause environmental damage to other countries.

However, this becomes complicated in the case of climate change where the responsibility is globally shared. The recent cyclone Winston destroyed over 9000 homes in Fiji and it is estimated that it caused $250 million (USD) in damages. Increasing global temperature will lead to increasingly violent storms, rising sea levels, floods, and desertification—and who is supposed to pay? In a last minute compromise “loss and damage” was recognised as an independent and important pillar of the climate regime.

Although no notion of emitters being legally responsible for damage caused by climate change was included, the Paris Agreement suggests that this will be reconsidered at the next conference in November this year. There is also discussion of the need for co­operation to support things like early warning systems, emergency preparedness, and the development of resilient communities. It may not seem like a lot, but this was an important success for the developing nations who pushed so strongly for some recognition of what they stand to lose.

New Zealand’s record on fighting climate change has been on the decline since the National party came into power in 2008. The priority has been strengthening our economy through things such as agricultural intensification. As such, our environmental record has suffered. In the lead up to Paris, John Key said that we don’t “need to be and shouldn’t be a leader in climate change.” Some will argue that this was the responsible decision, that we should focus on growing our economy so we can deal with issues like poverty and unemployment.

But, the time is coming when we must start to seriously look who we are and what we stand for. In the days following the flag referendum Key talked a lot about the importance of having a discussion about the nature of our nationhood. For me, being a leader on important global issues should be axiomatic in our identity. New Zealand was thefirst nation to give women the vote. New Zealand told the American’s that they can fuck off with their nuclear submarines. When our Climate Change Response

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Single Sad Postgrad Sharon Lam

Not Having Sex and the City struggle between a Charlotte and a Samantha. So now you know.

But what makes 90s-00s media about rich white women who are obsessed with men just so alluring? I am aware of the ‘superficialness’ and that there are real people with ‘real problems’ who would happily have the lives of the unsatisfied characters, yet I can’t help but love consuming episode after episode. Perhaps it’s their milieu of second wave feminism that makes them feel dynamic, perhaps it’s simply the clothes, perhaps it’s the lifestyles different enough to my own to consume as escapism. Or, perhaps in my most recent previous life I was one of these rich white women, who died waiting for a call from an investment banker in my lonely but beautiful brownstone apartment.

Penises and parties aside, lies something universally relatable—the special bond found in all strong female friendships. Above all, this is what the show celebrates. It’s a quality that isn’t celebrated enough in media even today, as the Bechdel test and Broad City remind us. The fact that Sex and the City spawned six seasons and two movies is a beautiful testament to how audiences connect to this theme. And as I had my own Charlotte and Miranda over to gleefully watch the movie with me, it was clear: Sex and the City is really Friendship and the City.

Thesis year—the final hurrah. Not since Year 13 has there been the feeling of being the respected senior around campus. So many perks—your own cute little desk, no timetable, no lectures, no exams. A year to really hone your interests, to study largely for yourself, about something you truly care about. Or so they say. I have no idea because I have been using the new-found freedom to stay at home and watch TV, another noble postgraduate pursuit. And so, last week, while my classmates were bashfully flirting with journal articles, I brazenly decided to lose my Sex and the City virginity.

A late bloomer, I had long been adverse to the show.

Partially because of embarrassing internalised misogyny as a teen (I’m not like other girls!! Pink, gross!!), and partially because I am fake deep and pretend my favourite shows and movies are entry-level art-house creations. But as a wise old thesis student I am now above all that—so at 23, I found myself watching my very first episode of Sex and the City. Then the second, the third, the ninety fourth, the movie. I was completely hooked. I also finally understood a lifetime of character references. These four women were defining personalities long before I’d even heard of Myers-Briggs. Although no one in this city will have sex with me, it is fun to pretend I am just like Carrie while writing this column in a soft-lit apartment I live alone in (and Salient is basically the New York Observer). To be accurate however, I’m a Miranda dealing with an inner

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Stress, Depressed and Well-dressed

Breathing Space

Jess Scot

Amber White

There is nothing worse than the heightened self awareness and low-key embarrassment that accompany being abrasively and inappropriately dressed for whatever social situation you find yourself in. Here is a short field guide to maintaining appropriate attire in any scenario: Accidental encounter with man-friend’s parents/ siblings/entire extended family who happen to be drunk at the bar you work at: Even if it is the night before Valentines perhaps don’t be wearing the absolute tiniest red velvet bodycon dress imaginable, especially if it also has removable suspenders...

Meeting (different) man friend’s twin sister and her minister husband: When one sibling is dating a 19 year old and the other is married to a minister, no matter what you wear, you will still look like a teenage trophy girlfriend. You may as well embrace the inevitable and wear a dress so short that there is visible booty at most angles (what is the point of squatting if nobody knows you do?), killer platforms, violet lipstick, and a ton of jewellery adorned with moderately offensive insignias. Everyone involved will be comforted by the knowledge that they’ll never be your in-laws.

Seeing ex-boyfriend (with intention of hooking up): My personal favourite is the “leather crop top, mini skirt, seven inch heels, razor-sharp eyeliner, dilated pupils, running mascara, borrowed men’s jacket to stop shivering” look. Honestly, why am I your ex?

This can later be effective attire for breaking into your own second-storey apartment by climbing through a window via the fire escape the following afternoon.

Seeing ex-boyfriend (with intention of not hooking up): Freshly showered, clad only in a towel, without makeup on. But not in a sexy way, more in a ‘beached goth-hussy mermaid’ manner; hair matted, streaming mascara, smudged eyebrows sort of thing. Show him what he’s missing.

Hungover brunch: Honestly, the fact that you’ve showered and aren’t wearing the previous night’s outfit is a tribute to the capabilities of the human condition. You deserve that $14.00 Prefab muesli.

Before I came to Victoria I never thought much about my environment. I suppose it’s because over my life my environment had had few changes; same friends, same family, and two very small schools. However when I started at Victoria I was suddenly at a massive university with different friends and no family support.

I remember feeling panic in my first week because campus was so busy! I felt like everyone knew what was going on, where to go, and they all had someone to see. Whereas my main priority was trying to find a quiet place to sit for an hour.

The environment at Victoria can affect people differently. It’s important to evaluate what you need for your environment to be positive. For me I found that I needed quiet, small spaces, wellbeing support, tea, and friends. Everyone’s needs are different so spend time finding out what works for you. It can take time to find what you need, so be patient.

If you can’t find what works for you then create what you need! Make a few changes in your flat by adding a few houseplants, buy eco-friendly light bulbs, hang up some artwork, or plant a tree. Simple changes can make a huge difference to your environment. Or if you want to bring about a change on campus come along to the SWAT (the Student Wellbeing Awareness Team) meetings.

The people around you can also have a large impact on your environment, so spending time creating positive social connections will have a positive impact on your wellbeing. You can start by joining some of the groups on campus and meet like minded people. Or you can check out SWAT’s creating social connections week from April 19–22.

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Miss Demeanour Dear Miss Demeanour, So, there’s this guy. And, he’s in my tutorial. I kinda can’t stop thinking about him, and I really want to ask him out but my generation is screwed dating-wise. Like, I don’t want something casual, no fuck-and-run, but how do I put that across without sounding like some psycho. Guys my age just want casual sex, but I want something… more.

GG

Dear GG, Aw button, you’re bringing me back to the days of perving on my own tutorial classmates. Good times… and like you, I didn’t have the balls to rock up to Josh and ask him out. I still occasionally stalk him on FB, because, you know, I CAN. Yeah, there are some slight regrets about not locking lips with him, but really, he never left our home-town and he got kinda fat. So, there’s that. But, I get

what you’re saying about your generation being screwed, because well, TINDER, but seriously, it’s time for y’all to do something about that. And, this starts with you, GG. Let me explain.

Ladies and gents be giving up the good stuff a little too fast these days. I may sound like a nana, but I’m for fucking real here—keep your pants on. People from your generation want it casual because y’all let them have it their way. Fuck-and-run indeed. And, I’m not saying play hard to get, but I am saying, just chill—keep it in your pants, put ice on it, whatever you need to do—until you see that what you’re starting up is going somewhere you want it to.

GG, if you like this guy, grow some labia and walk up to him and ask him out. Babe, things have to start casually before they get serious. If you don’t want to get nasty before things get serious, then don’t. Don’t forget that you may get three dates into your crush and realise that he a drip.

We all get crushed by our crushes at some point. Just ask him out, girl.

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“Sports!”

What we talk about when we talk about science

Joe Morris “Sports!” remit is to delve into the under-appreciated sports around Wellington. This week breaks the rule, exploring the world of New Zealand’s sole fully professional football club: the Wellington Phoenix.

Football continually plays second fiddle to the self-professed national sport—rugby. Phoenix players earn around $60,000 annually. Super Rugby players? $125,000 to $190,000. More to the point, the Phoenix— as of March this year—ranked 1288 out of 2212 clubs around the world. Football then, while not at the back of the bleachers with Ultimate Frisbee and Canoe Polo, is still very much under-appreciated in New Zealand when compared to a global scale.

The history of the Phoenix is topsy-turvy at best: from their flunked Auckland based predecessors the Kings, then the Knights, then to Wellington and the ensuing saga of Terry Serepisos’s bankruptcy-while-stilldriving-Lamborghini’s-and-not-paying-child-support, and now finally to their less than enviable position of 9th on the A-League table.

Despite these trials and tribulations, along with some mediocre football throughout their seven seasons, it seems the Phoenix have found a permanent home in Wellington; being particularly enamored amongst the sweaty, topless, and beer soaked yellow fever supporters. (Let this be a fair warning—or outright endorsement—to go and watch a game in the “Yellow Fever Zone”).

These fans are testament to the fact that sport is more about centering community than about being the best, or even very good. Better quality football is available in abundance the world over, yet the Phoenix still inspires a dedicated supporter base. One of whom recently waxed lyrical over the Stuff headline “Developing quality football Wellington Phoenix’s Goal”, declaring: “Should have worried about this 20 games ago! No good talking about quality when you are second from bottom.” This kind of passive irritation can only be a good thing for the club’s longevity.

I, for one, am glad for the endurance of the Phoenix. Tracksuit clad eye candy will continue their parade around Exodus. And, the Victoria rumour mill will continue to produce classic tales of drunken nights ending at Century City apartments; involving two or five Phoenix players, of which only one’s marital status can be confirmed.

“Sports!” track of the week: Chumbawamba— “Tubthumping”

James Churchill I love bees. There’s something wonderful about the way they organise themselves.

The queen bee is raised from a larvae that is fed protein rich royal jelly. A surviving queen flies out in search of a congregation of drone bees with whom she will mate, often for several days, so that she can spend the rest of her two to seven years laying eggs.

Worker bees are non-queen females and they do the majority of work around the hive. They are the ones who collect pollen from flowers in order to make honey.

Worker bees will regularly fly six kilometers in order to find flowers and they use mind maps to find their way home. Pollen carried on their bodies will often rub off on the pistil of other flowers and fertilize them. Well over 50% of the the world’s food supply is directly or indirectly affected by honey bee pollination.

Worker bees also clean the hexagonal cells in which larvae grow, and nurse bees feed the larvae jelly. Other bees cool the hive by evaporating water and directing airflow. Guard bees stand at the front of the hive to protect it from invaders like wasps. Forager bees scout for sources of nectar or pollen. Mortuary bees carry failed larvae and dead bees away from the hive. A beehive is an incredibly complicated and interesting community.

It makes me sad to say that global honey bee populations are under threat. New research suggests that European honey bees are being poisoned by up to 57 different pesticides; and because they travel so far it is hard to prevent them from being exposed to these pesticides. Even low levels of exposure can weaken bees’ immune systems so they are more vulnerable to viruses and parasites like the varroa mite.

I’m writing this column having just returned from the funeral of a friend. Writing about bees feels like palaver in comparison. Many Victoria students lost somebody they loved on Friday, March 25 when Tristan Hunter came off his longboard. Science isn’t visceral like grief but I think that bees can teach us a lot about what a beautiful thing community is and how powerful it can be when you are faced with adversity. I hope we all do our best to look after the bees and I hope everyone does all they can to look after each other. I will miss you Tristan.

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Postgraduate Connection

Queer Agenda

“Anonymous PhD Student”

Queer people risk legal prosecution in 81 countries. In six of these countries (as well as parts of Nigeria and Somalia), the punishment is death. Imprisonment length in the remaining 75 countries ranges from indeterminate to life. Only 34 countries have legal recognition of some form of same-sex union (ranging from basic partnership rights to marriage equality).* While we are exceptionally privileged to be living in one of these countries that has recognised rights and protections for queer folk (including full marriage equality), the fight for an accepting environment is far from over.

For a queer person, the environment they live in drastically influences the way they are able to live their life. A positive environment, with a loving family, supportive friends, and an accepting society enables us to be who we are without fear of reproach, retaliation, stigma, harassment, or violence. A negative environment, with a homophobic family, prejudiced friends, and an oppressive society breeds contempt, fear, aggression, shame, self-loathing, denial, and hatred.

Most people are familiar with the concept of ‘closeting’, as in being in the closet, or coming out of the closet. One of the biggest lessons I learnt on my own self-discovery journey is that this closet isn’t one that queer people retreat into out of fear or shame. It is built around us through systematic heteronormativity.** The best way to make a tangible positive difference is to make sure the environment you create around you is fully supportive and encouraging of all people. Language use, such as “that’s so gay,” or calling someone a “pussy” or a “f*g” is inherently heteronormative, homophobic, destructive, and hurtful.

Using or condoning this language instantly makes the environment you occupy unsafe and oppressive for queer people, and adds to the culture of fear and hate.

Also, it makes you look like an asshole. It’s [insert current year], being gay isn’t scary or weird any more. Grow the fuck up and do your part to make our environment one that’s safe, supportive, encouraging, and accepting for everyone. <3 UniQ *Source: www.igla.org. **Denoting or relating to a worldview that promotes heterosexuality as the normal or preferred sexual orientation.

Commerce PhD students may have to research in one room that seats 54 people. Instead of having a space that generally sits 12-15 academics in individual offices, the room will have a strong resemblance to that of a callcentre.

A search involving “Call Centre” on any rated employment site in New Zealand yields hundreds of positions. So, fear not, PHD commerce students, your CV can now boast “Call Centre agent, three plus years experience.” You will have a gateway to employment, that portrays commitment, discipline, persistence, resilience, and loyalty. PhD students from Victoria Business School, awaken from your slumber—your employability is about to be generously enriched.

Many years ago the Minimum Resources Agreement (MRA) was created in order to make clear that basic resources that will be provided to all research students. The MRA states that “dedicated space means approximately 4-5m2,” but the agreement also states that this may vary depending on types of research, and that space allotted for students may be independent, or common facilities.

The intention of the MRA is for the university to “provide environments to gather, analyse, develop, create and communicate the products of research.” Coincidently, these are also the core characteristics needed to be successful as a call centre agent. Hopefully you didn’t have a hunger for knowledge and want to become an academic, because it seems you’re just another revolving number.

Upcoming Event Postgraduate Quiz Night: May 11, at 5:00pm in the Hunter Lounge Grab your friends and see how many questions you can get right! Win free coffee, movie tickets, vouchers to stores and restaurants, and much more!

Register your team of four to six postgraduate/staff members, by emailing sue.kelly@vuw.ac.nz. Individuals can also register. (Staff teams are welcome, but at least one postgraduate student has to be on the team.) Cost is $5.00 per person, and all proceeds go to the Child Poverty Action Group.

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Long Dishtance Kate Morten

Nothing screams “WINTER!” like a salad with roasted, spicy, fried, and creamy elements.

As you ease yourselves into a bitter, windy Wellington winter, and I ease myself out of a bleak, grey London one, we can cook this dish simultaneously across the waters and reach an equal peak of salad-induced cosiness. The crispy beans are delightful pillows of joy, and the smoky, spicy cauliflower is like nature’s bloody popcorn, and all combined with the nutty yogurt, you have the dish to soothe winter ills and spills.

Spice roasted cauliflower & fried butter beans 1 head cauliflower, cut into florets 1 tsp cayenne pepper 1 tbsp smoked paprika 2 cans butter beans, drained & rinsed 2 tbsp oil 1 tbsp butter 1 cup greek yogurt 2 tbsp tahini 1 lemon, juice 1 tbsp hot sauce (sriracha is best, but tabasco will be all good too) Salt & pepper to taste Parsley, chopped

Preheat oven to 200 oC. Toss cauliflower florets in cayenne pepper, paprika, salt, pepper, and a drizzle of oil.

Bake for 30 minutes, or until crispy at the tips. Leave to cool a little.

Meanwhile, heat your butter and cooking oil in a pan until sizzling. Add butter beans and cook until they are crisping on the bottom, then shake the pan around, and cook until all beans are crisp and golden on the outside.

Mix with the roasted cauliflower and leave to cool while you make your yogurt dressing.

Mix yogurt, tahini, lemon juice, hot sauce, salt, and pepper in a bowl; and then toss through your roast cauliflower and crispy beans. Scatter parsley over the top and serve—drizzle extra hot sauce over the top if you’re a spice fiend, which I bet you are.

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The Arts Section 37

Visual Arts

38

Music

39 Music 40 Film 41 Film 42

Games

43 TV 44

Books

45 Theatre

The Arts Section is sponsored by:

Thanks to Vic Books for providing copies to review.

Thanks to Reading Cinemas Courtenay for providing two complimentary tickets this week.

Thanks to Gordon Harris for providing a $100 gift voucher for the centrefold submission.

What you bring with you to work

Louise Rutledge

Fiona Connor, What you bring with you to work, 2010, detail. Nine domestic windows. Collection of Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetu 2010

What’s on: Jae Hoon Lee, Blue Screen, April 7–30.

Robert Heald Gallery Contemporary Art Night School with Tina Barton, April 5, 12, 19 from 5.30pm.

City Gallery Wellington

37

Visual Arts

still—to their bedrooms, capturing every part of the original architecture in minute detail. Each crack and stain is represented, the sills are layered with the dust someone didn’t care to clean or was too tired to clean, bars barricading a window belonging to a room that seems barely over a meter wide. The original frames were not perfect nor glamorous, but there is empathy to this humility.

What you bring to work with you imposes private details into public and institutional space. Its title asks us to consider how the struggle and triumphs we face at home may seep into the working hours. Addressing the structure of the gallery, the works test our expectations of who can share information in these spaces and who has the privilege of being listened to. For residents of Christchurch, the dislocated architecture and exposed building structures will mirror a different story, as the difficulties of re-building are an ongoing reality. While the windows tell but a small piece of each individual’s life, it is worth admiring the detail.

It’s the difficult things that linger. A bad night’s sleep, stress, anxiety, responsibility, fanciful obsessions.

Happiness can be a distraction to, romance a guaranteed.

Day dreams alone are often enough to pull our attentions elsewhere.

Fiona Connor’s What you bring to work with you seeks to makes visible the often unseen and unheard labours of the gallery, both physically and by association. Connor, in a beautifully obsessive process, replicated the bedroom windows of nine art gallery hosts. In the upstairs room of the recently re-opened Christchurch City Art Gallery, three of the windows have been recessed into the gallery walls as part of the ongoing group show Above Ground, an exhibition exploring the impact of architecture, imagination, and memory.

Installed, the windows glass panes give a glimpse into the inner workings of the galleries architecture: the construction of the walls and the supporting framework, rupturing the smooth facade white walls seek to uphold. Easily labeled as a work imploring the theories of institutional critique (a term favoured for work and practices that seek to make visible or challenge the underlying structure of art institutions), What you bring to work with you goes beyond this idea, as who and how the work was made tells an important story.

The series of windows replicate and reveal a position of intimacy. It is commonplace for the personal life and opinions of the artists to be made public, through their work or its surrounding discussion. One of the roles of gallery hosts is to learn these details, becoming filters through which this information can be shared to visitors. Connor’s windows reverse this relationship, as she entered the homes of the hosts, and further

Music

Women and Machines

that is the patriarchy. Really though, when a woman’s role was almost strictly homemaker during the economic boom of the 1960s, most emerging industries were being established entirely by men. Advancements in musicrelated technologies and software began emerging around the 1980s and 1990s, during which time second-wave feminism was also in boom. However, the music industry was already very comfortable in serving the perspectives of an ‘all boys club’, therefore making audio engineering an out of reach and intimidating prospect for women. The position we were designated was instead as the pretty face to satisfy the male, voyeuristic gaze.

Before we get the pitchforks out, it’s fair to say we’ve come quite far since then, and things are definitely changing. So what is encouraging females to enter

When looking at the music industry, a couple of archetypes often come into view. In mainstream music we see females like Katy Perry and Taylor Swift, powerful performers supported by the technical knowledge of mostly male producers. But, like most things in our modern world, gender cannot be categorized so easily.

Women are taking more technical roles, taking control of their own ideas and changing our perceptions of gender in the music industry. Though there are challenges when facing a male-dominated world that often resists change, these girls won’t be told they can’t. They’re doing their thing, doing it well, and you can too.

Before I go on to the great empowerment stuff, why has it been so tough in the past for females? Well, as detailed in Feminism 101, it is linked to the hideous evil

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Zoe Claasen

39

Music

really said but you’re very aware of the fact that you’re female.” K2K tells me of various assumptions that are “standard” for girls in the scene, such as assuming she is only the singer, that someone else produces for her, and people even question who the girl in her SoundCloud picture is, because surely it couldn’t be a girl making such good music right? Could you even imagine?

Wellington-based Stephanie Engelbrecht, also known for her experimental electronic project as Altar Elektra, has experienced many similar cases during her time as a producer/percussionist. “I’ve had a few paid jobs where I’ve made music for people and either not been given the follow up work I was promised or not been paid at all after I’ve refused to go to dinner with them, and there’s nothing I can do about it.” She also mentions how often during her solo gigs she’s asked if she received her spot because another act playing was her boyfriend. “It can be pretty frustrating. I’ve got a degree in Sonic Arts and spent thousands of hours learning how to do this. I’m here because I work hard and people like what I do, just like any other act.”

But, please don’t let these stories get you down my friends, because they show just how important it is do something and change the culture for the better! As October puts it, “we need female producers to show we can be just as creative, as technical, and as boundary pushing as men in every aspect of our lives.” By giving it a go, we can deconstruct misconceptions and show that anyone can do anything regardless of what sits between their legs. By creating a more diverse, accepting culture, we create a place that accepts all ideas, that shares and collaborates to create a higher grade of music that expresses a broad range of perspectives. When asked what females bring to production, Altar Elektra makes a great point saying: “it isn’t as clear cut as females can do this and males can’t. We all have unique musical voices based on our experiences, and it’s important that all of these different perspectives receive equal opportunities to be heard.” It’s not just about females, but non-binary and members of the LGBT communities, who need to be represented so that we can connect with their realities and unite for what we are—humans on planet Earth, having a good time dancing together to great bangers.

Sounds great right? So what can we do to get into this utopian nightclub? Well first off, if producing music has always been of interest to you, get on it! If you feel a bit hesitant, find a friend who will learn with you and take inspiration from current badass female producers. It won’t happen all at once, but if you stick at it you’ll definitely see results. Be the change you wish to see in the world, carpe diem, etc. October goes on to say this: “we are all perfectly capable, intelligent, and able enough to teach ourselves… be bold, be fearless, be fervent, and simply dgaf what others think.”

the production game now? Well, we can give a nod of appreciation to the beautiful thing bestowed upon our generation—the internet. With professional audio software only a download click away, and eons of YouTube tutorials about every aspect of the process, we now have as much chance as any dude to sonically express our ideas. Emma Logan, also known as October, has been taking the NZ music scene by storm with her dark synth pop tones. “I had been messing around with GarageBand ever since I was a kid and I was always writing songs on my piano, so I just wanted to translate these acoustic pieces into a more electronic setting.” October could’ve hired a male producer to help with this process, but with the opportunity to do it herself so easily accessible, she took it on for the benefit of her own creative integrity.

“I’m very much a firm believer that females are absolutely capable of sitting at home and teaching themselves… I didn’t see the point of taking my songs to someone else where my initial idea was going to be filtered through theirs.”

It’s also through the support of others that females are rising to the challenge. Katherine Anderson, known by her stage name K2K, makes vaporwave-influenced, ambient house music. At first, she was a little intimidated by the idea of production. “I didn’t start until I was 22 as it seemed so unattainable and unclear how to begin.” But with the help of YouTube tutorials as well as a boyfriend at the time to help her with any added questions, she realized just “how easy it could be.” It might be a bit scary asking others for support, but it can definitely simplify the process. Now K2K has a strong following on SoundCloud and has even gone on to work with the prestigious Red Bull Music Academy in Paris, proving that dedication pays off. “Having someone help you at the early stages isn’t vital, but it does make the process a lot easier.”

On a similar note, an interesting initiative getting popular is all-female introductory production and DJ classes. There have been many workshops like this popping up everywhere, including New Zealand when Misfit Mod ran classes in Christchurch last August. It provides a friendly, informative space that lets females who are a little intimidated by the practice give it a go.

After seeing classes like this across America and Canada, K2K notes that, “so many females want to make music but don’t want to be judged at the early stages of learning… many male producers and DJs can be pretty judgmental and expect you to prove yourself, which is a scary and unproductive environment to learn in.” With such high pressure on girls to be good enough, it’s understandable they might not want to continue something that induces such stress. By providing this space, girls can now relax knowing they will not be judged and can cross initial hurdles with confidence.

Though this is fantastic progress, we still urgently need to change the out-of-date sexism that a maledominated industry perpetuates. “Nothing outward is

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016)

Dad’s Army (2016) Directed by Oliver Parker 2/5

Directed by Zack Snyder 2/5

Review by James Keane

Film

Review by Finn Holland

Dad’s Army is a film adaptation of the popular 1970s BBC series of the same name, and a very limp one at that. The film entails the members of the Walmington-on-Sea Home Guard Platoon (those too old/young/sick to be in active service) during WW2, and their efforts to “protect” the home front of Britain in fear of a German invasion. There is word of a German spy among those in the coastal town of Walmington-on-Sea, and the Home Guard, led by the pompous and self-righteous Captain Mainwaring (Toby Jones), have to locate the spy before it is too late.

In the TV series the appeal stemmed from the Home Guard members’ personalities coupled with the inept leadership of Mainwaring, and the resulting attempt by the unit trying to be taken as seriously as possible.

However, in the film the tropes and qualities of the characters are present, but it definitely feels like it’s trying too hard to evoke the show.

The characters are all imitations, with the exception of Sir Michael Gambon as the doddery yet good-hearted Private Godfrey who is impossible to dislike. The focus on Catherine Zeta-Jones as a reporter, and resulting love interests from the platoon, take up way too much screen time.

While the spy plot is jarring and uninteresting (seeing as the movie spoils their identity 15 minutes in), it would have been better to focus on 90 minutes of pure antics from Mainwaring and his company. I think honestly, the show’s format doesn’t work for a film, and the overall direction is proof. Cutting between a German agent being shot in a confrontation and Mainwaring banging his head on a coffee table definitely shows it.

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. Just by the title, you know what you’re getting in for with this film. Not only is it the story of the two title characters’ titanic clash, it’s also the springboard for the countless upcoming DC films—primarily the Justice League, which is partially set up in this movie. And, that doesn’t even cover the half of it. A more apt title would be Batman v Superman feat.

Wonder Woman and Lex Luthor: Dawn of Endless Sequels.

There you go, a title as bloated as the film it describes.

Yes, at just a smidge over the two and a half hour mark, and stuffed with dozens of characters and dozens of subplots, this thing is bloated. It may sport the two heavy weights of comic book lore, but short of some spot-on casting, occasional flares of writing and action (the kind that should come easy given the source material), this latest entry from DC does not have a hell of a lot going for it. The majority of the film is stuffed to bursting in several keys ways. Visually the CGI is in-your-face and out of place, and will have many longing for the crisp realism and practicality of Nolan’s The Dark Knight. Even outside the spectacle, director Zack Synder drenches every frame in excessive filters, draining the life from most of the drama. The action at best is exhilarating (one of two Batman sequences spring to mind), though it is often bland and weightless, and at worst feels like being cinematically water-boarded. Even the score at times feels overwhelming and supremely over-dramatic despite the film itself having barely a scrape of drama to cling to.

Don’t give me the old “it’s only a comic book movie,” because to be honest some of them rock, and just because this one has Batman AND Superman (and a budget that could economically stabilise at least three impoverished nations) this isn’t one of them.

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The Big Short (2015) Film

Directed by Adam McKay 4/5 Review by Hamish Popplestone

The movie works, firstly because of the acting.

Carrell is convincing as a hedge fund manager with an atypical conscience. Some method actors need months in a character’s environment to evolve into the role, but you can imagine Carrell’s ease of becoming the real Mark Baum as soon as the overgrown hair parting is swept right and the plaid suit comes on. Eccentric, he contrasts Jared Vennett (Ryan Gosling) who epitomizes the Wall Street metonym. Goslings’ character is at all times smooth as he narrates and then administers the plot as a CDO brokering Deutsche Bank subordinate.

The second great thing about the movie is the editing. While the dramatic scenes are sequenced like a documentary, the comedic scenes contain deliberate breaches of continuity. Further spontaneous cutaways with celebrities explaining key buzzwords (as an acknowledgement that Wall Street jargon is not understood by all) help to control the pace. Consequently, Margot Robbie explaining the logistics of collateralized debt obligations while in a bath may extinguish the bitter mood, but McKay compensates by making the next course more intensely anti-Wall Street flavoured.

Go in craving Wolf of Wall Street; come out sticking Sanders’ bumper stickers on your car.

I laughed a lot for a movie about one of the most severe events of our lifetime. Director Adam McKay probably didn’t want to produce something gloomy and prescriptive. But, despite the light-hearted portions, the film has a serious message—and its late 2015 release is surely no coincidence with the impending US election. It flicks between comedy and at times horror, which may seem synthetic, despite the film being based on Michael Lewis’ bestseller book by the same name.

At the centre of the story, Michael Burry (Christian Bale) is a socially awkward hedge fund manager. His analysis of the 2005 debt market finds an extremely high probability of a market collapse in 2007. Pitching the concept of a credit default swap (CDO) on housing to investment banks, who consider real estate to be stable as ever, he is able to ‘short’ the market by 100s of millions. Subplots for the other characters revolve around Burry’s quest to profit from economic disaster. Two fund managers (Finn Wittrock & John Magaro), mentored by Ben Rickert (Brad Pitt), obtain the financing necessary to buy in on the CDO deal; and Mark Baum (Steve Carrel) uses his dealer desk gang to short the market and condemn (with no effect) the banks responsible for the mass loss of middle class wealth and job security.

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Salt and Sanctuary Developer: Ska Studios Platform: PS4 (reviewed), PS Vita, PC (Windows)

4.5/5

Games

Review by Cameron Gray responsive, and is able to chain light and use heavy attacks more effectively than what is possible in three dimensions. Attacks from the air are key to getting the jump on enemies and are among the most satisfying moves you can pull off. The combat overall feels faster and more aggressive, and while by no means easy, is not as tricky as the comparatively slower and more defensivelyoriented combat of Dark Souls. If you’re put off the Dark Souls series because of that, then you may well find a lot to like here.

The key element that makes this less of a rip-off and more of a tribute is the atmosphere. What makes Dark Souls so great is the idea that danger is always lurking in the darkness, and learning not just to anticipate that danger but to overcome it is your overall goal. Salt and Sanctuary is very much a game about exploring and what the game lacks in visual fidelity it makes up for with the sheer amount of areas to explore. It is very easy to get lost in this world and you probably won’t mind, since there’s a few goodies about, but venturing too far into the darkness may well result in your doom.

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and Salt and Sanctuary proves that it understands what makes the very thing it’s imitating so compelling in the first place.

Ska Studios may only be a two-person team, meaning the spectacle and scope is somewhat limited, but they clearly love Dark Souls and had the talent to translate it into a great platformer that had me grinning with masochistic joy all the way to the end.

Don’t get salty about dying though, just git gud you scrub.

This game is Dark Souls. It may be in the form of a twodimensional platformer, but no matter how you look at it, this game is Dark Souls. And I love it.

Dark Souls was developed by FromSoftware, and their series of action role playing games have become one of the most prominent franchises in gaming, highlighted by brutal difficulty, layered combat, and grim atmosphere.

The games are shamelessly hardcore, and there’s only one way to “git gud” at playing them: dying over and over again. Needless to say, it takes a special kind of mindset to appreciate Dark Souls, but anyone who possesses it is going to love Salt and Sanctuary.

Almost everything in the game is a core mechanic of solo Dark Souls play. You start off by picking a character class, a weapon, and an item. You collect salt by defeating enemies and use it to level up and upgrade weapons and attributes. The combat involves rolls, parrying and riposting, while managing stamina levels. When you die, you drop all of your salt, respawn at a sanctuary and must retrieve it. You swear an oath to a creed which gives you certain benefits. At certain points, you fight a tough boss that drops a ton of loot upon defeat. You can even leave messages for other players that give tips on how to progress. There’s even a New Game Plus mode.

Sound familiar? Just replace “salt,” “sanctuary,” and “creed” with “souls,” “bonfires,” and “covenants” and you might get the idea that this is little more than a lazy rip-off.

Except it isn’t.

The translation to a two-dimensional plane and the addition of a jump button, of all things, gives Salt and Sanctuary’s combat a unique edge over typical Dark Souls-like combat, one that may not seem too obvious at first glance. Your character as a whole feels more 42

Five Craziest Reality TV Moments Review by Katie Meadow

to be carried to dinner. Lacey is so drunk that she climbs onto a bar table and smashes no less than eighty glasses.

Dinner is an elaborate seafood spread, and the sight of oysters causes Brandi M. to gag and as she tries to cover her mouth with a napkin vomit sprays out either side of her hands. While vomiting she tells Bret that she loves him which he finds exceptionally emotional, as did I. Liz Shaw’s Audition—New Zealand Idol In 2004 New Zealand took it upon itself to adapt the successful Idol series for our televisions and it birthed a national icon. Liz Shaw auditioned for season one and unfortunately didn’t make it to the next round, but she didn’t go down without a fight. After the judges laughed at her strained rendition of Hole’s “Malibu”, Liz became extremely aggressive, calling Paul Ellis’ black clothes “boring,” and Frankie Steven’s bald head “shiny” before storming out hissing, “thanks, I had fun, fuck you.”

Liz went on to try stand as an Independent MP in the Auckland Central electorate in 2011, proposing a very literal bridge be built between Auckland and Sydney. She has currently blocked me on twitter.

God Warrior—Trading Spouses At it’s core Trading Spouses was just a show about putting together two groups of people with extremely differing ideologies and lifestyles, and watching the chaos that ensued. This worked spectacularly well with Marguerite Perrin, an unstable Evangelical Christian woman who was sent to live with a family who liked New Age stuff like incense and tarot cards, which Marguerite deemed of the occult and “dark sided.” After failing to convert the family to Christianity, Marguerite returned home to her own family to loudly lecture and berate them about the horrible and unholy things she had witnessed, professing herself to be a “god warrior.” It was completely terrifying and you felt sorry for her family. She still took the money.

The Whole Show—The Swan Do you remember Extreme Makeover? Not Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, where a tan man experiencing a manic episode built overly expensive houses for poor families and ruined children’s rooms with extreme themes, but the original one where they gave women with low self esteem entirely new faces to fit into society’s rigid eurocentric beauty standards? That show was horrible but even more horrible was The Swan, where the same sort of fragile women were taken and given new identical faces and then forced to compete in a beauty pageant. When the apocalypse begins, everyone who watched this show will go to hell.

Everyone Gets Wasted—Rock of Love VH1’s Rock of Love saw 20 women compete for the heart of a clump of hair, grease, and raw dough held together with a bandana called Bret Michaels. Lead singer of Poison, Bret takes his girls on a road trip to Vegas to see him in action. After the gig Bret leaves the women with his band backstage to have a drink while he goes off to prepare an elaborate date, but when he arrives back fifteen minutes later everyone is so drunk that they have

43

TV

Pumpkin Spits on New York—Flavor of Love Tiffany “New York” Pollard is the self proclaimed head bitch in charge of reality television. New York created the genre’s trope of the loveable villain, letting nothing get in the way of her and Public Enemy’s Flavor Flav. Very clearly not here to make friends, when her arch enemy Pumpkin was sent home and New York began hurling abuse, Pumpkin turned around and spat in her face. Within seconds New York had lunged forward and grabbed Pumpkin’s hair, dragging her to the ground in a scene more vicious and brutal than any Game of Thrones episode. The fight ended with Pumpkin taken away by security while New York got two (!) spin offs.

Dispatches from Continent Seven: An Anthology of Antarctic Science

In the past few months, two books have been published that pay tribute to the mysterious, beautiful, and inhospitable environs at the bottom of our planet. These books are sure to get you in a wintery mood—all that’s needed is a wicked southerly lashing at your window, and a cup of something hot to fight off any sympathetic chills.

Rebecca Priestley ublisher: Awa Press

5/5

Ocean Notorious

Review by Cassie Richards

Matt Vance Publisher: Awa Press

In this book’s introduction, as editor and science historian Rebecca Priestley writes of the all-encompassing cold of Antarctica, I am overcome with trepidation. “I know that even if there were something seriously wrong with me— Why can’t I breathe?—I would be stuck here,” she writes.

Her words start to explain the isolation and inhospitality of the continent, the same place that nevertheless continues to lure people—scientists, artists, nature enthusiasts— from all over the world. The pull of Antarctica has persisted since before it was first sighted, when people dreamed of what might exist at the bottom of the world.

It is a place that has never really welcomed us, and yet we cannot stay away.

This impressive volume is a collection of stories from all ages of human habitation on “Continent Seven,” focusing on scientific endeavour. After all, harnessing the history of this land is key to understanding the future of our planet. The earliest explorers, such as Captain James Cook, James Clark Ross, and Robert Falcon Scott, made important discoveries that paved the way for future scientists. Today, the game-changing discoveries continue.

In “A page from the ice diary”, Nancy Bertler describes the Roosevelt Island Climate Evolution project, a three-year ice drilling venture aimed at predicting the speed at which the Ross Ice Shelf and the West Antarctic Ice Shelf will deteriorate in response to the earth’s warming climate.

A chilly thought. Kathryn Smith writes of warming ocean temperatures causing the invasion of the king crab on Antarctica’s continental shelf, threatening the vulnerable creatures who live there.

While science is the prevailing subject, the poets get a look-in too: Bill Manhire writes of a leopard seal playing with its penguin dinner; Ashleigh Young imagines the inner life of krill. Looking at scientific events through the eyes of an artist might seem at odds with the whole idea of science, and yet there is more than one way of observing the natural world; the poetry collected here skillfully captures the immensity and wonder of Antarctica.

There is so much to discover in this beautifully compiled book. Some stories will appeal more to others, but with not a scientific bone in my body, I found myself enthralled by even the most jargon-heavy passages. It seems that Antarctica has that kind of effect on people.

5/5

Books

Review by Cassie Richards Matt Vance, like many brave souls before him, felt the pull of the South well before he glimpsed his first iceberg.

When he took a job as a lecturer and Zodiac driver on a ship shuttling adventurous travellers down into the depths of the Southern Ocean, it was the beginning of a lifelong passion for conservation and education concerning the bountiful waters, lands, and species of the South.

Ocean Notorious contains stories of Vance’s encounters with the South, as well as of those who went before him: Scott, Shackleton, and Amundsen racing to reach the South Pole and making extraordinary discoveries along the way; the New Zealanders who kept watch for enemy ships from the Auckland and Campbell Islands during the Second World War; Gerry Clark, a “fearless sailor” whose passion for seabirds lead him into oceanic turbulence time and again. Divided into three sections— “Islands”, “Ocean”, “Ice”—Vance has given us a look at the different aspects of human and animal endeavour in one of the toughest climes on Earth.

Far from a passive observer, Vance tells us of how he took matters into his own hands on subantarctic Macquarie Island, overrun with rabbits that were introduced by early sealers, and which had multiplied to wreak havoc on the ecosystem. He wrote letters to the Australian minister for the environment on his numerous visits to the island. In 2007, thanks to the tenacity of people like Vance, the largest pest eradication programme ever attempted was carried out successfully on Macquarie. It’s a satisfying story to read, and speaks of the urgency we face to respond to the degradation of our fragile planet. As Vance shows, every letter counts.

It’s invigorating to read the words of somebody so enamoured with a place, or several places as is the case here. We follow Vance from towering seas and rocky islands to the frozen continent of Antarctica, standing with reverence in Shackleton’s hut and watching the teeming wildlife—penguins, seals, whales. This book truly is a tribute, and I am filled with respect and awe for these places I will likely never go.

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A Fairytale For Adults Review by Ruby Hansen and Adeline Shaddick

What’s on?

What: Jekyll and Hyde Who: Slightly Isolated Dog (theatre company), directed by Leo Gene Peters.

Where: Circa Theatre When: March 19, to April 16.

How: Book tickets online at www.circa.co.nz, or call 04 801 7992 Filled with jokes, improvisation, and a group of sexy and talented actors. Jump along to Circa this month to find out what Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde get up to in this entertaining and interactive piece of theatre.

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Theatre

tale. In the opening scene we see her smear a blue paint beard across her jaw, which enhances her aggressive facial expressions, erratic movements, and impressive circus ability. We see flinging limbs, crawling and snarling, amalgamating in a crescendo of a jarring howl at the moon on the projector.

The aerial dance and athleticism that Evans brought to the stage were highlights of the show. She performed on the circus apparatus with confidence and ease. Her movement and agility accentuated the spectacle and originality of a circus fairytale. However, without the use of aerial theatricality, Evan’s storytelling techniques and narrative qualities are analogous to thin ice; the audience doesn’t feel very comfortable or safe during her more erotic moments, and some of the dramaturgical elements (such as the teddy bear’s interchanging role) are superfluous to the performance.

Evans has created something truly unique with The Blue-Bearded Lady. Although the moments of explicit and erotic performance were dubious theatrically, her circus performance saved the show in it’s beautiful aesthetic, and bravery. Evans offers an out-of-the-box dynamic solo piece, adding an eclectic zing to BATS’ calendar this year.

The Blue-Bearded Lady, a solo performance by PipiAyesha Evans, hit BATS theatre in March. It is based on the French folktale Blue Beard, a story about a powerful Lord who makes a nasty habit of killing his wives. Evans and her creative team present a subversive theatrical take on a dark, sadistic story. In this version, we follow a woman’s experience of childhood, power, lust, and horror—culminating in an erotic circus spectacle.

Lady Blue-Beard (Evans) welcomes the audience into the dome, while perched high on an aerial hoop, which she dangles and swoops on throughout the show. As she darts from silk tissue to rope and back to hoop, her strange and unsettling story unfolds. Her accompanying characters are symbolically manifested in a nearly decapitated teddy bear, which represents her alter ego, secretive (as well as confident and callous) husband, Blue.

She leads a curiously unconventional life; not wanting the “white picket fence” like the rest of her family. This became increasingly clear as her seductive, mysterious characterisation shifted from playful princess, to taunting stripper, to feral wolf through the show.

The opening scene is particularly enchanting. Evans wears a white linen skirt stretching from her waist all the way to the ground, and underneath a pair of monstrous stilt legs. Sitting in her hoop, slowly turning at an impressive height, Evans hums the tune to Billy Joel’s “White Wedding”, and occasionally glances at the audience through the reflection of her hand mirror, with a mischievous, seductive smile. She evokes an eerie atmosphere in this first scene, which intrigued the audience from the start.

In a particularly climactic moment, Lady Blue-Beard reveals to us her husband’s deepest and darkest secret—a sex chamber filled with blood and carcasses. This content alienates the audience, creating unease and confusion.

Yet she attempts to lure us back in by moving around the silk tissue tantalizingly. Evans is not your typical graceful, feminine dancer. Instead, she gradually becomes animalistic and sprightly, which is fitting of the ghoulish

Puzzles Target Make as many words from the nine letters below as you can.

Each word should be three or more letters, and contain the letter in the middle of the grid.

There is at least one nine-letter word.

Good: 11, Great: 13 Impressive: 15

‘Category Five’ ach of the words or phrases listed below contains a hidden member of a category, missing a letter. Identify the members of the category (each of which is four or more letters long), and figure out what letter is missing from each. The missing letters, in order, spell out the name of the category.

Easy

VARIETY STEGOSAURUS CALIBRE VIGOROUS NATIONAL AQUARIUM NEWS CORPORATION FEMININE ERICA CERRA FIVESPICES Last week’s ‘Category Five’ solution: COLOURS - bla(c)k, (o)range, purp(l)e, indig(o), ma(u)ve, g(r)een, (s)ilver.

Made by Puck

Hard

Letters

Notices

We do have a food column, it’s forknightly!

Yes hi Salient, This is by no means a complaint, only a melancholy request.

Without regret, my favourite part of every Salient each week is/ was the food section. Whether it be a recipe, a restaurant review or literally just pictures of food, I literally lived my life vicariously through it. Reading it brought me almost as much satisfaction as the circa-2015 veggie toasties at Vic Books (RIP).

Therefore, I am petitioning the return of this section to Salient.

I will obviously take on the task of food tasting/reviewing myself if need be.

Thanks haha, Food fan

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Victoria Abroad – Student Exchange Fair April 14!

Why not study overseas as part of your degree?! Join us this Thursday April 14th at the Student Exchange Fair from 11-3pm in the HUB and get all your questions answered about going on exchange!

Contributors

About Us Salient is published by, but remains editorially independent from, the Victoria University of Wellington Students’ Association (VUWSA). Salient is a member of the Aotearoa Student Press Association (ASPA). Salient is funded in part by Victoria University of Wellington students through the Student Services Levy. The views expressed in Salient do not necessarily reflect those of the Editor, VUWSA, or the University.

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.

Editors Emma Hurley and Jayne Mulligan editor@salient.org.nz Design and Illustration Ella Bates-Hermans designer@salient.org.nz News Editor Kate Robertson news@salient.org.nz Chief Sub Editor Tim Manktelow Sub-Editors Ali Kaye Distributor Joe Morris News Reporters Alasdair Keating Alex Feinson Charlie Prout Grace Carroll Olly Clifton

Feature Writers Finn Teppett James Churchill Haylee Read Sophie Sharp

Contributor of The Week Finn - Because of this line “...back when half-man, half-diseased-eel John Key...”

Section Editors Cassie Richards (Books) Dana Williams and Isaac Brodie (Film) Harri Robinson (Music) Ophelia Wass (Theatre) Ruby Joy Eade, Lucy Wardle, Louise Rutledge, Robbie Whyte (Visual Arts) Cameron Gray (Games) Katie Meadows (TV) Other contributors Laura Toailoa, Rakaitemania Parata Gardiner, Hamish Popplestone, Finn Holland, James Keane, Zoe Claasen, Charlie Prout, Anonymous post-grad student, Jess Scott, James Churchill, Uni Q, Joe Morris, Amber White, Kate Morten, Sharon Lam, Miss Demeanour, Jonathan Gee, Anya Maule, Puck.

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Read Salient online at salient.org.nz Contact Level 2 Student Union Building Victoria University PO Box 600, Wellington 04 463 6766 Printed by SMP, Wellington.

Advertising Jason Sutton jason.sutton@vuwsa.org.nz 04 463 6982 Social Media fb.com/salientmagazine T: @salientmagazine I: @salientgram S: salientmag

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You could WIN one of these great prizes: A Samsung Galaxy Tab S2 OR an iPad Pro wifi 128GB!

SS0149

Plus there are 20 x $100 supermarket vouchers up for grabs!

SURVEY CLOSES 9AM MONDAY APRIL 18

For more information go to:

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