Work | Issue 22

Salient Issue 22

Work

Vol. 79

Work USA Exclusive visas to work in the USA for NZ students & recents grads!

To learn more visit www.iep.co.nz or call 800 443 769

FINISHING YOUR DEGREE? BECOME A JOURNALIST! Massey Wellington is currently accepting applications for the 2017 intake of our highly regarded postgraduate journalism programme.

We welcome graduates from all disciplines and our course’s employment rate is 100%. Applications close October 31.

To learn more, go to www.massey.ac.nz and search for ‘Journalism’.

POSTGRADUATE INFORMATION EVENING ► Find out about part-time and full-time postgraduate study in a range of subjects at New Zealand’s number one university for research quality* ► Learn about programmes for working professionals at Victoria Business School, one of the world’s top-ranked business schools 5.30pm, Tuesday 4 October Rutherford House Pipitea Campus 23 Lambton Quay, Wellington * 2012 Performance-Based Research Funding Quality Evaluation

victoria.ac.nz/postgraduate

Contents Features

18

YO PRO POST-BENDER MONDAY MONSTER SURVIVAL GUIDE 3.8

22

Nannies and mannies: my life as Fran Drescher

26

The Young and the Agitated

Opinion 16

News

I, Daniel Blake and the Welfare State

7

Vic group launch their Reclaim-munist Manifesto

8

Tell us about Talis

10

Interview with Justin Lester

Regular Content 14

One Ocean

33

Token Cripple

14

Māori Matters

35

Food

15

Gee Mail

36

Visual Arts

15

VUWSA Exec

38

Music

12

Notices

40

Film

30

Single Sad Postgrad

42

Games

31

Women’s Space

43

TV

31

Dr Feelgood

44

Books

32

Reaching Out

45

Theatre

32

Being Well

46

Puzzles

33

Brodie Helps You Figure It Out

Editors: Emma Hurley Jayne Mulligan

Editors' Letter The personal development movement is promoting this “love what you do” mantra, embedded within privilege, assuming you have ultimate power over your employment situation. While you have power to apply for jobs, there’s little to be done if your experience and qualifications (or lack thereof) don’t meet the expectations of the employers. What if all you keep getting hired for are jobs you hate? At a certain point selective job applications is a luxury not all of us can afford. And it’s not like cover letters and CVs are an accurate or robust representation of you as a person. But what should your job give you in terms of self-worth? What can a job give you in terms of self-worth?

There is so much pressure for your jobs to have a ‘purpose’ or for people to find a ‘purpose’ for living through their job. Why should your job signify anything about your person? Not to mention that this ignores the fact that someone needs to build roads, someone needs to clean, someone needs to provide food, someone needs to build shelters—the do what you love movement is kind of bullshit and is often chiefly accessible to the most privileged, or lucky.

When you’re overworked and underpaid you quickly lose motivation, you start to feel like a tiny cog in a massive machine, and feelings of irrelevance sets in.

Ethically focused employment works to treat employees with respect as humans, rather than as parts of a larger machine. Good employers empower the people who work for them and they ensure their quality of life is enhanced by the job they’re paid to do.

When the amount of work you output is disparate to the amount of money you earn, you begin to question your worth. You begin to resent your employer. No employer should work on the assumption that you are willing to work more than you’re paid—no employer should assume you will happily put your life, mental health, study, whatever else lies in the way, on hold in order to do your job.

“It’s my work he’d say and I do it for pay”—Bob Dylan “There is power in a factory, power in the land / Power in the hands of a worker / But it all amounts to nothing if together we don’t stand / There is power in a union”—Billy Bragg “Is it worth it, let me work it / I put my thing down, flip it and reverse it”—Missy Elliot Overworked and underpaid. Overworked and underpaid.

Overworked and underpaid. Overworked and underpaid.

Overworked and underpaid. Overworked and underpaid.

How many people does this sentiment resonate with?

We are tired AF because we work two jobs and don’t get paid nearly enough to do this job. At VUWSA people are incredibly underpaid and overworked because they are underfunded by the university. Most students need to work part-time while they study to make ends meet, while also accruing mountains of debt, usually in shitty retail and hospitality jobs that pay so little. It’s not very good for our mental health, to say the least.

Then there are the cleaners, who make sure that we study and work in an environment that is clean and safe.

Most of them aren’t earning a living wage, even though their jobs are literally indispensable and their work is exhausting and often unpleasant. Some people argue that they should get a higher earning job, but all that means is that someone is going to replace them and continue to be paid the same rate.

Jobs can be both positive and negative for your identity. They can limit you, define you through stereotypes, and serve to simplify you as a person. That cringe moment when someone asks: so what do you do? It’s both a question about you as a person and the occupation (which is in its purest form just something you do to occupy your day) you partake in. Sometimes there is no correlation between the two. You might work in a job that you hate, for an institution whose values completely clash with your own, but we (mostly) all have to work to survive at this stage in history.

Emma & Jayne xoxo 05

Going Up

*Interview* with Colin Craig

• Daylight savings.

• Dusting off the barbecue.

• Rediscovering mid2000s pop-punk.

• Linen pants.

• LEISURE announcing a Wellington show for October 23.

Do you miss being the leader of the Conservative Party?

Yes, but I miss lying in the grass seductively even more.

Do you think you will go to jail for harassing your staff member?

Maybe, which is super awkward considering how long I’ve advocated for harsher punishments. Lol! What’s it like being so repressed?

Ignorance is bliss, but it is hard to walk with this big stick up my ***.

Going Down • The summer job hunt.

• Julia Sloane from RHOAKL. • People hounding Jennifer Aniston.

Kanye or Kendrick?

Hillsong.

Are you gutted you never made it into the Beehive?

No, actually I’ve got a perfectly good beehive in my garden ;). *laughs hysterically*

Humdingers

• Looming deadlines.

• Landlords that don’t allow pets.

Christchurch-based taxidermist Claire Hobbs has copped flack from the nation (and the world) after listing a taxidermy cat handbag on TradeMe. Described as: “A very stylish handbag. For the girl that has everything a one off purse that will grab attention wherever you go.” Hobbs has now requested that people stop contacting her.

Stuntman Eddie Braun has successfully completed the Evel Knievel canyon jump. Braun was propelled at 400mph in a custom-built rocket, before the parachute was released and he landed safely on the other side of the canyon.

06

26.09.16

Bye Bye Little Karori (in two years time)

News

Alex Feinson

Student activist group Reclaim Vic last week launched their manifesto.

The manifesto proposes an “alternative vision” for the university.

They stated that VUW campuses are built on “stolen Māori land” and propose, in their list of demands, to return the for-sale Karori campus to the “hapu of Te Whanganui a Tara.”

Reclaim Vic called for more action on the establishment of a safe space for queer students on campus, more gender-neutral bathrooms, and more support for sexual assault victims on campus.

The group also called for staff be paid the living wage, the lowering of tuition fees, and a lunch break to be reintroduced from 12.00 to 12.50pm.

Reclaim Vic have a further list of demands for the government which include implementing free tertiary education and an annulment of all existing student debt.

Ror-ing Success

Alex Feinson

Over 150 Karori residents and education sector representatives recently gathered at the Karori campus to question Victoria University and the Ministry of Education on the sale of the site.

The university wants to sell the entire campus for profit.

VUW and the ministry were criticised by Campbell Kindergarten, Karori Kids childcare centre, and Karori Normal School for wanting to sell the entire site. All three education centres claim that if they lose access to the community resources at the campus they will struggle to attract families to their centres.

Wellington region Director of Education Suze Strowger acknowledged these concerns and said the ministry is assessing whether to recommend a full or partial sale of the site.

Wellington Mayoral Candidate and Karori resident Andy Foster said the response to residents and schools by the Ministry of Education had been “inadequate” and that the Wellington City Council (WCC) was currently in the process of finding possible options for their response to the campus sale.

Labour MP for Wellington Central, Grant Robertson, asked VUW, WCC, and the Ministry of Education to have further joint discussions about the future of the site. Each institution agreed.

A decision on the future of the site is set to be reached in 18 months to two years time.

Vic group launch their Reclaim-munist Manifesto

Young Voters: Waking the Sleeping Giants

VUWSA’s 2017 President will be Rory Lenihan-Ikin, who won with 1901 votes to the next closest candidate Jacinta Gulasekharam’s 1255 votes.

The 2017 VUWSA Executive were also announced.

Former Wellbeing and Sustainability Officer Anya Maule will be next year’s Welfare Vice President, with 2938 votes.

Isabella Lenihan-Ikin won the role of Academic Vice President with 2173 votes.

Engagement Vice President went to Nathaniel Manning for another year in the position, a close win, with 1606 votes to Tom Rackley’s 1429.

Treasurer-Secretary went to current TreasurerSecretary George Grainger, with 2973 votes.

Raven Maeder was announced as Campaigns Officer, the Clubs and Activities Officer will be Marlon Drake, Education Officer will be Lauren Daroux Grieg, Equity Officer will be Tamatha Paul, and Wellbeing and Sustainability Officer will be Beth Paterson.

The Student Representatives on the Student Media Committee will be Zac Klavs and Robbie Coutts. Despite running for multiple positions Dayle Vavasour was not successful.

“To everyone that supported my campaign I couldn’t have done it without you. It meant the world to me and this is as much your win as mine,” Rory Lenihan-Ikin said.

Votelocal.nz has been launched with the hopes of engaging young voters in local body elections.

Visitors to the website are asked a variety of questions relating to their political views and are then given suggestions about which local candidate is most compatible for them.

The web tool was launched on September 5 and was accessed by 14,000 people during its first ten days.

Project Director Karl Kane believes “a lot of young people do not vote at local body elections because they don’t know how the council impacts on their lives, because they don’t know the people, and they don’t know it’s on.”

He referred to young people as “sleeping giants,” with regards to the impact they could have on elections.

The 2013 local body elections had an average national turnout of 37 per cent for voters aged 18 to 24. Overall, 41 per cent of enrolled voters took part.

Wellington mayoral candidate Helene Ritchie acknowledged the difficulty faced in getting the general population involved in the local elections, “not just young people, but people in general just don’t understand that this could be very meaningful in their lives.”

07

Jessica Morris

Salient

news@salient.org.nz

26.09.16

Tim Manktelow

Tell us about Talis

CLL, who hoped their proposal for the new licence would be deemed reasonable.

The case appeared before the High Court of New Zealand in 2014, was appealed in 2015, and the resulting Pilot Licence Agreement 2015-2016 (PLA), between CLL and VUW, appeared as a compromise.

The PLA, acquired by Salient under the Official Information Act (OIA), allows for a single article from a periodical publication (or more than one from an issue of the publication if the articles cover “the same subject matter”), ten per cent or one chapter from a work other than a periodical publication (e.g. a book), up to 15 pages of a single work contained within a collection, and the whole of an artistic work (e.g. illustration) to be reproduced in hard copy or electronic form and be provided to students for educational purposes.

The licence also stipulated that the university implement a “pilot e-reporting scheme” (Talis) to record the “bibliographic details and volume data” of copyrighted material to “enable CLL to distribute the licence fee to the appropriate copyright owners in a cost-effective way.”

Talis was introduced to some university courses in the first half of 2016, with the university needing to have implemented the solution fully by the end of Trimester Two.

In late 2015, Victoria University adopted the digital copyright management system Talis-Aspire in accordance with the terms of their most recent licence from Copyright Licensing Limited (CLL).

The official line for the implementation of Talis is the benefit it has for staff and students, summed up in the ITS Course Materials Programme: Project Charter 2015 as “improvement in management of reading lists for staff” and “improvement in visibility and planning of reading for students.”

Despite this, Salient can reveal that Talis instead emerged from a legal compromise, with its predominant function being to ensure VUW is copyright compliant.

Talis is a “pilot e-reporting scheme” and monitors the volume of copyrighted material used by the university, providing it to CLL. Students and staff alike have expressed frustration with the new model saying that not only was communication poor prior to its introduction but that it is difficult to use and incredibly time consuming.

Salient dug a little deeper to figure out exactly what went down leading up to the overhaul and what it means for those engaging with it on a regular basis.

CLL and copyright at the university CLL, a non-profit copyright licensing body, acts on behalf of owners of copyright (e.g. publishers) from New Zealand and overseas, negotiating licences with Universities New Zealand (UNZ).

A licence obtained from CLL allows the university to reproduce and distribute copyrighted material for educational purposes in accordance with the Copyright Act 1994.

VUW’s previous licence was to expire in February 2013, but was extended as negotiations for the new one reached an impasse after CLL proposed a $6 increase to the per Equivalent Full-time Student (EFTS) licence fee, as well as further annual increases in line with the Consumer Price Index (CPI).

The previous licence fee was $20 per EFTS and the proposed increase would have meant VUW would have to pay an extra ~$126,000 per year.1 UNZ deemed the fee increase unacceptable and CLL refused to negotiate unless the universities accepted it.

The dispute was brought before the Copyright Tribunal by

What is Talis? Why is it causing difficulties?

The function of Talis is to ensure that the conditions of the PLA are not broken and that the university remains copyright compliant.

It replaces the manual survey that the university was required to complete every five years under the previous licence. According to University Librarian Janet Fletcher, it will “provide a substantial increase in the accuracy of information provided to CLL.” Course-readers are being phased out in favour of digitised readings that are distributed to students through the Talis software and in this respect a lot of its functions overlap with those already provided by Blackboard.

Talis offers improvements to course reading lists which are elaborated upon on the university website: staff are able to “reuse reading list items easily on several courses” and “collaborate on reading lists with other staff,” while also being given “easy real­-time access to update and add to reading material for students.”

08

26.09.16

Students have also reported concerns with the Talis agreement. As mentioned, University Librarian Janet Fletcher said there was no consultation with students.

The shift to digitised readings requires students to have consistent access to the internet and a computer, and if students wish to print readings they have to pay the library printing fees.

Emily Tombs, a fourth year law student, told Salient she found the system a “nightmare” to deal with.

Referring to a LAWS 350 course, she stated there were major issues; the system failed in the first weeks of the course and students could not access readings.

1 This figure is an approximate, calculated on the basis of VUW having a student population of 21,000. It does not include GST or CLL’s proposal for CPI adjustments.

09

Tim Manktelow

The way that readings are uploaded to Talis, on a week by week basis, meant she has been unable to read ahead when her assignment load is low.

Tombs also has concerns regarding the phasing out of course-readers in favour of digitised readings on Talis.

She suggested this was a particular issue for law courses as lecturers frequently refer to specific pages numbers and case points, exams are often open-book and require students to work off of readings, and Tomb said “the way I annotate my readings” is no longer possible under Talis.

Wider implications The issues with CLL and Talis raise a number of questions about copyright generally in the university environment.

In a 2012 email from Grant Wills (an executive officer at the University of Auckland) to Paula Browning (CLL’s chief executive) rejecting the proposed increase to the licence fee, it is stated: “If there is any interruption in the availability of copyright materials staff will stop using the CLL materials and direct students to electronic database services we already pay for. If this happens the role of CLL will quickly vanish.”

Wills exposes the somewhat precarious ground beneath CLL. In the digital age students have access to a wealth of academic material through the library and the electronic databases that it hosts—CLL is able to survive as not all material is digitised and a large amount exists only in hardcopy.

More generally, the free-sharing of academic material and a collaborative approach to study and research are restricted by copyright as it protects property rights and incentivises research for the economic gain of the institution in which it is produced.

UNZ, when rejecting the increase to the licence fee, never challenged the underlying system of copyright. They were concerned with being charged too much as they benefit from the same system. Under NZ law “employers are the first owner of intellectual property created by employees during their normal course of employment.”

While copyright seems an entrenched system, there are alternatives. Creative Commons Aotearoa (CCA) emerged from the Creative Commons movement of the US, with a goal to “promote an intellectual commons of participatory culture, in the face of increasingly restrictive copyright laws.”

CCA offers a number of licences for owners of copyright and in 2014 Waikato University became the first New Zealand university to implement an open access mandate which means “academic staff can disseminate their research as widely as possible, bringing research results out from behind the subscription paywall to be accessed by all.”

However staff and students have raised concerns over a number of issues with the system and the copyright compliance requirements.

A Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences (FHSS) staff member who wished to remain anonymous said there had been “frustration and confusion” from staff who have failed to receive a unified message from university management as to the exact function of, and intention behind, the Talis software.

They said the system had been implemented from the top down and that staff were frustrated due to “a lack of coordination between the library, the university management, and the academic staff.”

When asked whether staff or students had been consulted regarding the implementation of Talis, Fletcher said that students and wider university staff “were not consulted.”

This comes despite a 2015 memo from from Stuart Haselden (Director of ITS) and Noelle Nelson (previous University Librarian) to the Information Technology Strategy and Oversight Committee (ITSOC) stating “it is important that staff understand the reasoning and need behind the change so they are engaged with the project.”

The ITS Course Materials Programme: Project Charter 2015 stated a ‘critical success factor’ to the installation of Talis is that “the VUW user base expresses satisfaction with implementation, training, communication and support activities undertaken during the project.”

The FHSS staff member said they had attended several meetings about Talis and were given slightly different information each time. They found there was not a clear interpretation of what material could be provisioned under the new agreement.

They said Talis has been “a roadblock” for some courses and that some of their colleagues had spent “several days getting their readings on Talis.”

The university, arguing “quality control” reasons, stipulated that only library staff were allowed to copy readings for upload to Talis. The staff member said library staff have been helpful but have been overwhelmed with digitisation requests and have had limited knowledge as to what material can and cannot be provisioned under the licence.

26.09.16

Interview with Justin Lester We asked mayoral candidate and current Deputy Mayor Justin Lester the hard hitting questions, from “How does local politics work?” to “What’s your worst pest?”

Emma Hurley and Jayne Mulligan

Why are you running for mayor?

Good question. *general laughter* Because I’ve been deputy for three years and it’s either up or out. I’ve also been frustrated at, I guess, the leadership of the city and I’m not one to speak out publicly against or criticize it so I thought I’m just going to run. I’ve been on council six years, I don’t want to be a career politician.

you have to do something innovative.

What is the council’s role in increasing social housing?

We’re the second largest landlord in the country; those houses didn’t magically appear they were built by council.

There is no reason the council can’t build more houses, housing is a form of infrastructure and ultimately one of the most important because it determines so many social outcomes, education, health, corrections, and has societal costs. I think we can build more, facilitate development, work with community housing providers—we don’t have to do it long term necessarily. If council and central government builds them it takes the profit margin out of it, it’s more affordable, you can build dwellings that are warm, dry, double glazed, well insulated and we know we’re getting good quality housing.

You’ll be taking the arts portfolio if you become mayor.

Could you tell us about what you’re hoping to do?

We need to get some money into the arts so that people who are graduating from here and from Massey are getting jobs here and that comes down to accessibility to venues and funding. We spend about 45 million dollars a year on economic development and only a small portion goes to the arts. I think it needs greater prioritisation because it’s one of the huge advantages Wellington has, we are the arts capital but increasingly a lot of the work’s going up to Auckland so we are losing a lot of young talent. For example there’s a Mayoral Discretionary Grants pool and I’ll prioritise that for three years, 80% of the funding into the arts and arts organisations for people to get projects up and running. Arts have suffered from eight years of no investment and Creative NZ funding is going down because money from pokie machines has gone down.

What about the Rental Warrant of Fitness, VUWSA has strongly campaigned for this, what power does council have to make this decision?

We’ve got a voluntary one already, being run by Philippa Howden-Chapman from the University of Otago based here in Wellington. But a voluntary scheme is never going to be enough for those landlords who don’t want to do it. The idea is with a local bill through parliament you create a regulatory tool that’s enforceable and you’d have requirements for landlords to have properties at a certain standard before they can rent them out. You could enforce it through a tenancy tribunal or have a requirement for annual checks.

Tell us about your idea for the 'wet house'. How did this come about?

There’s been an awful lot of talk about homelessness in Wellington and it’s an issue that’s pretty dear to my heart.

I’ve been talking to people like Stephanie McIntyre from DCM, the Soup Kitchen, and the Wellington City Mission about what can we do differently, because if we just keep doing the same thing we’ll get the same outcomes. We have things like the night shelter which takes in 40 of the most vulnerable men every night. The problem with the night shelter, while it’s great, is it provides them a home for the night but they have to get out in the morning.

They don’t have a home, they’ve got a bed. 90 per cent of people on the streets have a drug or alcohol addiction and so with the wet house the idea is people come in and you wrap the support services around them, try to moderate their consumption, get them into accommodation, on benefits, and living independently. There’s 1000 people that are homeless a year, and in order to break the cycle

What about fairer fares, that just has to be passed by the regional council right?

Yes, the mayor has such a huge stake and sway with the regional council, that’s why I’ve teamed up for this with Darryn Ponter, a regional councillor. With city council it’s hard to ignore us if we’ve got full support and if we’re going to contribute funding to it. The biggest impediment to fairer fares was the previous regional chair who was simply opposed to it, whereas Chris Laidlaw is in favour but has concern around the cost.

What’s your living wage policy?

Well it’s largely been implemented. So that’s for all council employees and for all council controlled organisation employees like museums, and the zoo.

10

26.09.16

We’re going to ask some local politics questions so we know what to do with our voting papers. There’s mayors, wards, the DHB, Regional Council… please explain.

So choose your favourite candidate and vote for mayor.

The ward is really important as well… because you’ve got to do the makeup of who sits on council. It’s important to get a good council because you don’t want councillors who aren’t going to do that job well and if you want a majority on council you’re going to have to look closely to find out if they support the same values you want in your mayor. So you rank first the one you think will do the best job, then the second, then the third, and then if there are some others you want there just incase.

Is that for contractors as well?

We’ve started with some contractors: cleaning staff and security. They could effectively work for the council but over time those services have been contracted out. I think we should bring them back in. The reason they get contracted out is to save money but what that really means is lower wages. A good example is parking wardens, they were contracted out, we brought them back in, and we’re saving money, paying a living wage, and getting a better service. It just makes sense.

Are you inclined to encourage employers around Wellington to pay a living wage, for example the university?

I lead by example. I’ll show them our experience as a council and how it’s been beneficial in terms of reduced turn over, higher productivity, improved customer service, and savings. So leading by example… because most people want to pay people well, they want to support people, it’s just a question of finding out how they can do it.

And the District Health Board? The Regional Council?

The DHB is slightly convoluted in that it’s quite separate.

It’s got nothing to do with us. But to save money and make it all sensible they do it at the same time. And the Regional Council, likewise, it’s quite a separate institution, but because it’s part of the local government sector, they get in at the same time.

You’re on the SPCA board, why?

I love the fact that Wellington is a biodiversity capital… I’m on the SPCA board because I love the work they do and they have an awfully hard job that they do. They have to fundraise every year, so I can help them to do that through my networks.

What do you think about four lanes to the planes? *Laughs* It’s not a slogan I would adopt. I think we need to improve congestion, in and around the basin reserve, but I think you need a balanced transport system. I’m really proud of the fact we’ve got the highest public transport usage in the country by a mile, and you need walking and cycling too… we want to create dense urban forms for more people to do that. We want people living in and around the CBD. We don’t want big massive sprawl.

Can you tell us your favourite animal, and do you have any pets?

No pets, because my six year old daughter is terrified of animals. My favourite animal is just our local animals, so the birds. The highlight of my day is seeing a kaka. I saw a falcon the other day come screeching in and picking up a pigeon. I love tuis, we’ve got a resident tui at home called Thomas Tui.

So you’re happy with the standard amount of lanes to the planes?

I think in time there will need to be a second tunnel in Mount Victoria because it’s a massive congestion point and a detriment to the Eastern suburbs. And it’s been designated since 1945, there’s a pilot tunnel—they started drilling and then they stopped. But I’m not campaigning on it because it’s not my be all and end all. I want balance.

And there’s more to a city than just roads.

What’s your least favourite pest?

Rats. We had a rat and caught it. Not a big fan of possums either. They do more damage to nature: possums would be the worst. Also stoats—they’re quite cunning and quite strong. And also do a lot of damage.

11

Emma Hurley and Jayne Mulligan

What is the separation between the Regional Council and the Wellington City Council?

The Regional Council does things that spread across the entire region: transport planning, they contribute to the state highway network planning, waters across the regional water planning and environmental aspects.

Things that basically flow across air pollution, air quality, water quality. The WCC is basically everything you see in Wellington, and in our borders, but they [Regional Council] do run the public transport service because, again, that connects with the whole region. So we do waste, water, and roads here, except the state highway network because that’s central government. We do everything else: the playing fields, the libraries, the swimming pools, the economic policy for the city.

So the runway extension, is this a good idea?

Well we don’t know yet if it is a good idea. I’m more in favour of having the information. What is the business case, where’s the benefit, the environmental affects, the climate change impacts? What we’re doing is collating that information and going through the environment court, so you’ll have independent judges that will determine if the business case stacks up. Intuitively, I think, it’s something we need to investigate. We’ve had extensions in the past and if you have an international airport you’re going to be more connected, look at Christchurch, at Auckland, we can’t have all our growth in Auckland. They don’t have the infrastructural capacity to keep allowing for all the growth across the country. So we do need to spread it out and I hope Wellington can be one of those outlets...

I need more information to make that decision but I am certainly not scared of doing the analysis.

26.09.16

Students seize opportunity to rant at Grant

Quiz 1. How many TVNZ employees earn more than $1 million per year?

2. True or false: Queenstown is further north than Dunedin?

3. In snooker, how many red balls are there?

4. When did New Zealand get its first female MP? 5. True or false: a Bellini cocktail contains vodka?

6. Which is New Zealand’s oldest university?

Meriana Johnson

Students last week gathered in the hub to discuss fee increases and other such issues with Vice-Chancellor Grant Guilford, at an event marketed as “Have a rant with Grant.”

Following a budget breakdown, Guilford spent time pointing the finger at the government for fee rises but, when asked if he would be putting the pressure on the government to get more university funding, he then rattled off something about his belief that the private vs. public debate didn’t matter.

Hot topics during the open floor were the living wage, international student fees, and the ongoing degradation of Fairlie Terrace facilities.

One international student gave Grant a grilling on what extra services international students actually received, highlighting hardships that they faced financially.

Grant responded saying there was no “sensible argument” to charge less for international fees and that the price VUW charges was comparable to other universities.

“If you are seen as giving a cheap education, people aren’t likely to come,” he added.

Guilford was asked why investment wasn’t being put into fixing the Fairlie Terrace campus which suffers from mould, as well as air filtration and structural issues.

“We do not consider it injurious,” he replied.

Despite the aforementioned grievances, class feedback survey results state that 88% of students rated university services and facilities as good or above average.

Binge drinking is still a bit bad for you

7. In which city did Hillary Clinton suffer a health-related incident?

8. Who was the host of the 2016 Emmy Awards?

9. True or false: Lydia Ko was born in Australia?

10. How old is All Black Ardie Savea?

1) One. 2) True. 3) Fifteen. 4) 1933. 5) False. 6) University of Otago. 7) New York City. 8) Jimmy Kimmel. 9) False.

10) 22.

12

Jennie Kendrick

New data released by the Crown on teenage drinking habits shows more than 25 per cent of teenagers aged 15-17 chugged eight or more bevvies the last time they got wrecked.

The Health Promotion Agency surveyed more than 4000 teenagers and asked about their alcohol consumption “during their last drinking occasion.”

The survey found that over half of the respondents reported consuming more than five standard drinks, with 27 per cent drinking eight or more.

Alcohol Healthwatch Director Rebecca Williams said of teenagers consuming more than five standards: “They are not in a safe space to take care of themselves. They are immediately vulnerable and if they continue drinking they are also risking being injured or poisoned.”

Last year the government launched its National Drug Policy 2015-2020 which warned that individuals who begin drinking earlier in life are more likely to engage in heavy to regular use of alcohol. This early onset then increases the rates of violence, unprotected sex, and suicide.

They are also more likely to experience drinking problems later in life.

Like J-Kwon warned us in his 2004 hit single “Tipsy”— “Teen drinking is very bad.”

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Not angry, just disappointed.

Salient, I have a gripe to raise with you. I understand that the VUWSA elections are dismissed by many as merely banners being raised in the Hub and POLS/IR students trying to fill their resume for their future as a backbencher, but it is an integral part of our university experience.

VUWSA is our advocate within the university, are responsible for ensuring that we have the best possible university experience, and have a significant amount of money with which to accomplish this. As such, the elections are hugely important to determining and ensuring our student lifestyle at university, and how the following year will progress.

Phone: +852 2771 2181 (7am-7pm, HK time) WhatsApp: +852 6627 4870 WeChat: +852 6627 4870 Email: mentor.guru@mail.com FB: http://www.facebook.com/mentor.guru.zhang Careers and Employment Check www.victoria.ac.nz/careerhub for booking events, appointments and searching jobs Who is recruiting right now? GovTech Talent Graduate Programme 2017; OMD Media Agency Graduate Programme; Callaghan Undergrad Internships; Become an Enterpreneur (VicLink summer bootcamp for final year students); and more…

Yet, Salient this year has failed in my opinion to properly cover the elections. Just re-printing what candidates have written themselves, and a two page interview with the presidential candidates, is not enough to hold these people vying for public office democratically accountable. Where are the scathing reviews of their speeches at the Forum?

Where are the charts analysing the policies of each candidate against one another? Why is there not an easy reference guide, for students who just want a quick summation of everything each candidate is campaigning on, so that at least their vote is informed and not just based on whoever is the hottest?

Need a CV check? Drop-in available at Pipitea and Kelburn What’s on Events: Careers in Focus – Employment options for Building Science students Wed 28 Sep 5.45pm Te Aro campus

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Salient in the past has done a great job of analysing the elections, allowing me to make a more informed choice. This year, I feel like I did not receive the same understanding. Next year, please return to being the analytical journalism source we may not deserve, but do need.

Anon.

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Maori Matters

One Ocean

Mihi Parata Gardiner

Laura Toailoa

There are moments in everyone’s lifetime where they are put in an uncomfortable or difficult situation, whether that be personally, culturally, sexually, or racially.

This can be particularly difficult in the workplace.

Reactions range from frustration, anger, and disbelief to determination, perseverance, and optimism. I, myself, tend to opt for the prior. Once when I was working as a waitress I wasn’t able to get time off for a tangi. It blew my mind that my boss wasn’t able to recognise the cultural and personal importance of a tangi, even after I tried to explain. Difficult work situations occur regularly.

Last week I was lucky enough to attend an event hosted

by Ngā Taura Umanga where five speakers spoke on this exact topic.

Heather Skipworth founded Iron Māori after experiencing how difficult it was for her clients, and herself to feel comfortable in a non-familiar environment. She spoke about how that discomfort and anxiety spurned her and her clients to do and be better.

Travis O’Keefe saw immense success as an entrepreneur, then intense defeat following the recession. Despite losing millions, his businesses, and even some personal relationships what hurt most was losing his identity. He emphasised the importance of staying true to who you are, no matter the circumstance.

Taaniko and Vienna Nordstrom started a business at their local market using a sheet from their Nan’s house and a bit of home-grown determination. They have since travelled the world with their business and believe that without daily challenges they would not be where they are, who they are, and be able to give back today.

Te Kahu Rolleston entered a Slam Poetry competition that was predominantly Pākehā and was powered by his passion, charisma, and strong sense of self. He constantly challenges not only himself but the status quo, as he enters new and unfamiliar environments and encourages us to do the same.

What these speakers imparted to me is that with a strong sense of self, and the ability to take risks and face challenges head on, adversity can be overcome.

Ngāi Tauira AGM: Te Herenga Waka Marae at 5.30pm, Wednesday, October 12.

I’ve backspaced several attempts at writing something related to work. I started writing about how we imagine our future not simply as a pursuit of a desired career, but also as what will benefit our families (especially financially). I then started writing about how easy it is to devalue certain jobs because they’re not as glamourous or “world-changing,” but are the backbones of our first world luxuries. I then started writing about our hardworking parents who are so diligent and dignified in their jobs, no matter what they do, because it meant we would have a home, food, and an education. I then started writing about how hard it is to take that education and apply it in a way that makes money, but also doesn’t act against some fundamental beliefs.

Constantly backspacing these ideas was a disheartening experience. Many of you reading this have read other pieces (shout-out to my friends who make me feel famous by sharing it on Facebook) I’ve written over the year and I was trying to find ways to top them, to wow you more than any other piece had. I’d write something and think, “nah, that sounds cliché,” or “now you’re just preaching to your audience,” or “no one will like this as much as your other stuff so what’s the point in stressing about making this one good?” I’ve put an insurmountable amount pressure on myself to only ever be great and that anything less is a failure. When something is (inevitably) less than great, I have no way to deal with it except crawl in a hole and struggle to ever do anything again.

I’ve recently watched several YouTube videos (vlogbrothers, for the nerdfighters out there) of people talking about how they feel the same way. I’d heard a million times (mostly through Instagram quote-photos with clouds or sunsets in the background) that failure is just a part of the journey, but to hear people I thought were successful talk about very real failure showed me that not only am I not alone in this stress and disappointment cycle, but that failure shows that there’s still more to learn. This simple and obvious truth finally sank in for me. I’m only 21 and there’s a billion things I have not learnt yet, and I’m still growing, and I’ll still be growing at 30, and I’ll still have things to learn at 50, and I have a lot more failing to do so learning to cope with it now will help me later in life (this is all under the assumption that I won’t die in terrible and tragic accident… but that’s how we always imagine our futures).

NT Exec Nominations Open October 3 and close at 5.00pm on October 7.

14

Gee-mail

VUWSA Exec

Jonathan Gee VUWSA President

Annaliese Wilson Education Officer The following content contains material about sexual violence that might be triggering.

Last week I hosted the annual “Rant with Grant” student fees forum. Historically this event has been a discussion between Victoria’s Chancellor, Vice-Chancellor, and its students on the issue of fee-setting. Since the introduction of tuition fees in New Zealand our predecessors have had a long history of colourful debate around fees and the burden they have on student lives.

Fast forward to 2016 and fees are still a hot topic and this forum has become one avenue in which our senior leaders open up the books and show us how our money is spent.

Universities are legislated by parliament to be the critic and conscience of society. In turn students often act as the critic and conscience of the university. It was great to see that in practice last week with some robust discussion on a range of topics including domestic and international fee rises, an international student-fee cap, a need for the Living Wage, student loans, and more.

The sense I got at the conclusion of the forum is that students are looking for a university that cares, and is compassionate towards its students and staff. We sense some sort of injustice that many of our support staff aren’t paid a Living Wage. We feel that it’s unfair that an international student pays five to six times the fees of a domestic student. We feel forgotten and left out when we have to leave a class on Fairlie Terrace when the AV system is falling apart.

The sense I got leaving the forum is that, while we love studying at Victoria, we want to be at a university which lives out its values of fairness and integrity. We want to hear from our leaders more.

We want a Victoria that values all of us.

Growing up in a rural town in the South Island, where the rugby culture is very real, sexual violence is so normalised you don’t even know that what is occurring to you is sexual violence.

When I moved to Wellington in first year I was shocked. Wellington seemed like a safe haven. It took me a long time to adjust to the respectful culture. For example, throughout my whole first year my ass was grabbed only once in a club. In contrast to home where I got put in a headlock for consistently refusing to go home with a guy. However now that I know what sexual violence is and know that it is obviously a disgusting, sickening thing to happen to someone, I implore the need for trigger warnings.

This year I feel like sexual violence and people’s experiences have been talked about every day and I find it quite confronting. This triggers me. I get upset and verge on panic attacks at the mention of someone’s experiences. It takes me back. So when I see a Facebook post with no trigger warning I get upset. However I do not want to silence anyone. Obviously everyone has / knows someone who has been a victim of sexual violence so it is important to be aware of what you are saying. By just putting the words “trigger warning— contains sexual violence” at the start of the post you are saving me, and a whole lot of others, from upsetting, panic attack material.

15

Opinion

I, Daniel Blake and the Welfare State

Alex Rossiter

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-34666282 Children under the age of 14 or over 14 and of the same gender.

3 https://www.gov.uk/government/policies/welfarereform#bills-and-legislation 4 http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/homenews/more-than-1700-people-apply-for-just-eightjobs-at-costa-coffee-shop-8501329.html 5 http://www.daily-sun.com/printversion/ details/159913/New-Zealand-jobless-rate-downbut-data-changes-muddy-waters 6 https://www.msd.govt.nz/about-msd-and-ourwork/publications-resources/statistics/benefit/ latest-quarterly-results/jobseeker-support.html 7 Introducing Underutilisation in the Labour Market, 2016 report by Statistics NZ. 8 King (2016) in The Interregnum: Rethinking New Zealand.

9 http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/70405113/ Beneficiaries-increasingly-failing-drug-testsnumbers-show 10 https://www.msd.govt.nz/about-msd-and-ourwork/newsroom/media-releases/2011/welfarereform-fact-sheet-information.html 11 King (2016) in The Interregnum: Rethinking New Zealand.

12 King (2016) in The Interregnum: Rethinking New Zealand.

1

2

Recently at the NZIFF I was fortunate enough to see Ken Loach’s I, Daniel Blake, this year’s winner of the Palme d’Or at Cannes. By the end of the film nearly everybody seemed to be in mourning and most of the people seated around me were sniffling and wiping their eyes.

I, Daniel Blake made me think about the ongoing WINZ reforms implemented in New Zealand, particularly since National’s 2008 election. It echoed my current experiences navigating the welfare state and, most of all, it reminded me of Liverpool—the city where I was born—and the hardships my family have faced particularly since the Thatcher era.

The film’s protagonist is Daniel Blake, a British widower suffering from a heart condition. He can no longer work and needs to access the state welfare system, however a ‘health professional’ declares him fit for work. From there Daniel enters a bureaucratic labyrinth of paperwork, struggling with technology and human indifference in order to eat and survive. In the course of his visits to the Job Centre (the British version of a WINZ office) Daniel befriends struggling single mother Katie and speaks with a handful of other characters, most of them being Job Centre officers, beneficiaries, or lowincome workers.

Katie has had to move a long distance from London to Newcastle in order to access state housing—a detail reminiscent of New Zealand’s current housing crisis. Nearly 500km north of London, Newcastle is one of Northern England’s “low wage high welfare” towns. Loach takes particular interest in Northern England and the Midlands, areas that he describes to be “built on struggle and hardship.”

His earlier films include Kes, about a young boy from a working class family who befriends a falcon, and Cathy Come Home, centered on a young mother’s struggle to find shelter during a housing crisis.

I, Daniel Blake carries a tone of desperation and helplessness, but the characters remain resilient and determined. Their casual interactions 16

and acts of mutual care feel strongly political against the backdrop of an increasingly neoliberal state. At the core of the British state is the Tory government, which, under austerity measures, is attempting to push people out of welfare without addressing the systemic issues that drive people to it in the first place.

Some critics have called the film a “welfare state polemic” as Loach highlights the need for welfare in modern times. But he also sheds light on the need for community, support, and solidarity amongst those who bear the brunt of crisis capitalism and austerity measures.

On my last visit to Liverpool I sat around the television in my mother’s apartment and watched the popular British reality show Benefits Street with my extended family. Set on a street in Birmingham where 90% of residents are beneficiaries, Benefits Street has received plenty of backlash from conservative viewers. A recent article in The Mirror called one of the street’s residents, a bipolar unemployed woman, a “feckless thief” and “dole wallah,” rhetoric that is fairly common throughout British media.

My mother’s apartment in Liverpool overlooks rows of abandoned factories and warehouses along the Irish Sea. Occasionally ships arrive out of the winter fog and unload containers at the docks.

Once Liverpool was described as the “New York of Europe” due to its transatlantic traffic (and, unfortunately, slave trade). It had booming industries during the Industrial Revolution and the local economy was relatively busy up until the 1970s and 80s when the ‘Iron Lady’ came about. Under Margaret Thatcher, my grandfather and his siblings were made redundant within a few years, along with hundreds of thousands of other working class people across the UK. The Tory strategy was to dismantle huge chunks of British industry, import cheaper resources and manufactured goods internationally, and gradually privatise what remained. In the late 80s my grandfather died. He died

Opinion

young, sick, and on benefits.

A short drive out of Liverpool is Kirkby, a small town where my father grew up. Established for Liverpool’s “overspill,” nearly 10,000 of Kirkby’s 40,000 residents claim benefits.

Today the streets where my father’s family once lived are adorned with tall steel poles harbouring caged surveillance cameras. At least one camera is available for every five or six state homes. During my visit last year, a man at the end of the cul-desac noticed me taking photos and emerged to yell in a scouse accent: “What the fuchk are ya doing taking photies here lad?”

I apologised and we had a chat.

The man was out of work and had recently returned from Afghanistan.

He knows that Kirkby is in a dire state and he really doesn’t like the Tories. For many in this area, war is the only means of escape from life on the brim of poverty. During my father’s teenage years he (and many other young men) was sent to occupy Northern Ireland under the guise of “fighting terrorism’. In recent years, it has been Iraq or Afghanistan.

Destitute areas such as Kirkby are scattered across Northern England, with people living under state surveillance, on state money, inside of state housing. Abandoned factories border subdivisions in Kirkby as they border the sea in Liverpool. Tories and their conservative mates are quick to label these people useless criminals, up until they need their bodies to engage in state-sanctioned imperial warfare.

In recent years the Tories have implemented numerous benefit reforms under austerity programmes.

The Tory government’s goal is to cut welfare and public spending by over £12 billion annually.1 Their reforms include: cuts for people whose homes aren’t small enough—children are required to share rooms;2 greater caps on benefits; higher risk of incarceration for beneficiaries who commit fraud or error; the exclusion of 18-21 year olds from housing benefits; more rigorous “working ability” tests for disabled persons.3 In the film, Daniel Blake is subjected

to such a test and is sent to find work despite his heart condition.

“I’m looking for non-existent jobs, and all it does is humiliate me.”

—Daniel Blake The Job Centre orders Daniel to attend an employment workshop. The camera fades into a classroom setting where 10-20 beneficiaries are seated before a whiteboard. A confident and sterile looking ‘job-coach’ is teaching them the importance of a fancy-looking CV. He tells them that they must make their CV stand out amongst the crowd, citing that a Costa Coffee café recently had eight job positions available for which 1700 people applied. As baffling as it sounds, this actually happened in Nottingham three years ago.4 Daniel cannot use a computer, all of his CVs are handwritten, and his potential for employment is beginning to look increasingly slim.

Here in New Zealand the unemployment rate has fluctuated in recent years,5 and it currently sits just over five per cent, with ~35% of beneficiaries being Māori and ~38% Pākehā.6 This may not seem very high, yet the current underutilisation rate is around 12.8%.

The underutilisation rate represents the unemployed along with the underemployed; i.e. those who are in part-time and / or precarious, casual employment.7 Over the past few years, our own Tories, the New Zealand National government has enacted a series of similar welfare reforms. In 2014 the dole became “Jobseeker Support,” requiring 48 pages of paperwork to be filled in and resulting in what Labour has deemed a “paper war.”8 Harsher drug testing has been required for beneficiaries,9 widows and soloparents with children over 14 must actively seek full-time employment, and beneficiaries with outstanding debt or fines now receive harsher punishments.10 In March 2015, 11,693 people on Jobseeker support had their assistance cancelled.11 Of these people, less than one third had found work and nearly 5000 had dropped out due to the huge amount of paperwork.12 17

“A movie isn’t a political movement, a party or even an article.

It’s just a film. At best it can add its voice to public outrage.”

—Ken Loach One the most poignant moments in I, Daniel Blake comes when Katie, her two young children, and Daniel visit the local food bank, lining up amongst rows of hungry people. By the time they get in Katie is so starved that she hastily cracks open a can of baked beans and eats them cold with her fingers. The volunteers approach her and she begins to cry.

Another memorable scene is when Daniel stages a political protest outside the Job Centre, spraypainting the following upon a nearby building: I, Daniel Blake demand my appeal date before I starve—and change the shite music on the phones!

Local people stop to cheer, take pictures, and express their support for Daniel Blake—a key moment of solidarity in the film. Such solidarity is what Loach is trying to encourage and facilitate, urging the economically disadvantaged to unite and revolt. For the lower classes of British society, the state controls and regulates so many aspects of their lives, yet consistently ignores and detracts from the systemic nature of poverty. Granting ongoing tax cuts to the wealthy, whilst pulling welfare from the poor.

Through filmmaking Loach adds his voice to public outrage. In an interview at Cannes this year he stressed the importance of stories that are informative; stories that resonate and serve as microcosms.

Although I, Daniel Blake focusses only on a few characters, their daily visits to the Job Centre and the food bank, their hunger and rage, and their ongoing struggle for necessities are microcosmic. They allude to class struggle, structural injustice, and the state’s ongoing attacks upon the poor.

In a time of huge wealth inequality and a neoliberal induced crisis, I, Daniel Blake testifies to the necessity of the welfare state.

I, Daniel Blake will be released in New Zealand cinemas in October.

Faith Wilson

YO PRO POST-BENDER MONDAY MONSTER SURVIVAL GUIDE 3.8

Anyway, my experience has shown me that you can do your post-bender Mondays zen or nasty. You choose.

Sometimes you need a combo of both. Zenasty. Basically you have to decide whether you’re going to combat the blues with a full of health blast green smoothie kale salad wheatgrass bomb, or you’re go down the McD’s, BK, hot chips road. I ain’t judging. Sometimes I start with the smoothie and then I’m like HELL, what was I thinking?

It goes beyond just what you put inside you though.

That is something you can control. What you can’t control is how your co-workers are going to be, the kind of work you could get asked to do, (if you’re lowly like me, it could be anything). What you can do though is employ those fifth form acting skills and LIE THROUGH UR FUCKIN TEETH AND PRETEND U R SUPER ON TO IT AND THAT YOU’VE NEVER TOUCHED ALCOHOL OR DRUGS IN UR LYFE. Here are my top handy tips for this convincing af person you’re going to develop: Set your alarm earlier than you think you need to.

Sounds counterintuitive? And ugly? Because you need that sleep right. Wrong! You need to get your arse up and jump in the shower and make it a looooong shower. Wash your hair and shit. Shave your legs. Do those things that make you feel fresh. Or you know, don’t shave ur legs.

Hairy is attractive af. Point being—get up early man! Let the power of water invigorate you.

Have a coffee. If you don’t have any at home you got up early so you’ve got time to muthafuckin get one before work don’t you? Don’t get V. That shit’s nasty and your

Most of you are students and don’t have to worry your pretty little first year heads about committing to shit on a Monday. You can skive off your lectures, eat mi goreng in bed, and be a general lout. This is a lesson for those of you that are eventually going to end up having to work on a Monday. A Monday after a massive weekend. And yes, buddy, you’re hauling that ass out of bed.

Monday at work after a bender isn’t so much hell as it is purgatory. It’s like someone’s taken half your brain away and you’re working without a frontal lobe. The day is long, finding the right words is like…. is like… really hard, and conversing with people on a level deeper than “hi, how are you?” is my idea of a cruel joke. You’ll definitely survive it. You’ll come out on the other side. But… but how? You start questioning yourself. Can you hang in there, can you convince those around you whose weekends consisted of fish and chips with the family, a rugby game, maybe even a few beers around a bbq, that your weekend was practically the same? Party this weekend? Oh no, a few wines with the girls but that’s about it. Sunday? Pottered around the house, did a few loads of washing, even cooked a Sunday roast. The answer is yes. Yes you can.

Hang in there, because it’s not worth wasting a sick day on this.

I’m basically an expert because this is me every Monday. Literally. I should probably have asked for my name to be anonymous but I realised no one reads this anyway so it doesn’t matter. That’s a joke. Might I tell you it’s Monday as I’m typing this so, yeah, I’m a snotty bitch.

Don’t fuck with me.

19

Unless your body is literally screaming at you saying HIGH CARB HIGH FAT then try the green shit first. There’s no reversing them nasty KFC quarter pack feels.

Think about this before you visit the colonel. I will say I told you so.

stomach is already raw. Also very important is orange juice. In fact, get orange juice before coffee. Drink them.

Not at the same time. Especially if you have milk. Cos that shit curdles. Wait like half an hour or something.

Eat something. Eat toast. Or as I said a smoothie. Or a pie. Whatever ur vibe get that fucking food in you. It’s fuel.

It’s what is gonna get you through your day. Idgaf if ur on a diet. This is cheat day 2.0. You have to eat whatever will propel you til 5pm.

If you have painkillers, take them. But be careful that they’re not gonna fuck you up more. Don’t take valium.

You won’t work. You will sleep.

Get to work on time. You should always get to work on time anyway, but today in particular this is important because you don’t want to start the day getting in trouble.

People will question you. Also your powers of persuasion will probably suck. You don’t want extra attention because you have puffy eyes and dry, fucked up looking skin and you look 90.

Try keep to yourself. Head straight to your desk. If someone says hi, say it back, don’t be a rude bitch, but try limit the conversation to that. Also being quiet can make you look stressed and busy, so play that card if someone asks.

Now that you’re at your desk open a word document.

Type. Type anything and you’re already one step towards appearing as the master of productivity. Literally type random shit. Like the lyrics to your favourite song. Or the same word over again. Or all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. This piece of writing was literally penned doing this savvy af trick. You look productive. If someone comes too close to your screen, or stops to talk to you, have an actual work related document already open that was finished last week that it appears you’re editing. For best effect use a spreadsheet as no one can fucking understand those.

Send emails to your friends to help you get through the day. Helping ease the slow-burning pain and boredom with feel sorry for me I feel worse than you stories and, again, appear productive… emails are the number one sign of productivity. If someone asks you what you’re busy with you are not lying when you say you’ve got a fuckload of emails to get through. Find funny af memes to send when you know no-one’s looking. Don’t get caught laughing. Smiling is probably okay, because it looks like you’re a normal human, not a zonked out freeq.

Meetings. If at all possible avoid like chlamydia. But if you can’t it’s easily cured with a course of antibiotics.

But yea, meetings. Just try say nothing. Under the radar is your mantra for the day. Nod all the time (slowly though, too vigorously and your head won’t stop spinning), especially at whoever’s chairing the meeting. Open your mouth at important seeming comments and, when discussion occurs, make gestures that appear as if you’ve got something to say, but never say it. You’ll look engaged, but considerate. If there comes a point that you need

20

My go to is fucking around on social media or online quizzes, or looking up takeaway menus for my nasty gorge fest after work that WILL eventually happen, or looking up “how to get over a comedown / hangover” even though I’ve read all possible blogs re: that topic and they give worse advice than I do. If you’re going to do this, you need to have some open tabs that are clearly work related that you can quickly switch to. And maybe like rear vision mirrors in case anyone decides to creep up on you.

Mundane and monotonous tasks like stuffing envelopes are indeed, THE SHIT. They literally take forever and require zero effort. Help out the awesome administrator who is probably the only understanding person in your entire office and tell her you can do some paper folding or paper cutting or anything that you can mong out for an hour or two doing.

There are going to be times when you don’t think you can last another two hours. You so can. Think about how proud you will be when you go home. You did it! Now you can do anything! You’re the shit! But that’s two hours away.

Don’t celebrate yet. Spend a while planning the rest of your evening. Think about what movie or TV shows you’re gonna watch. Snacks you’ll have. If you’ve got a fuck buddy invite them over. If not, hard luck. Invite another friend over who is undoubtedly enduring the same shit as you. The end of the day is the entry to heaven. But you’re in purgatory remember.

You have to earn that shit. The good thing is that you KNOW you’ll get there. Because I’m telling you. And I am God. So if you’ve successfully been able to fuck around for the rest of the arvo, I’m proud. I’m really tearing up here guys. If you’ve actually been forced to work well that sucks, it really does, and welcome to the school of hard knocks. You clearly FAILED at diversionary tactics. You DON’T get a certificate as queen of looking busy while up to fucks. But I’m not a cruel God so I won’t rub it in too much. This is for you to LEARN. And if you keep up your partying ways I can guarantee many many more lessons are coming for you. By the end of it I could even hire you as my new St Peter. But don’t get too cocky. Peter’s a lush. He won’t be stopping anytime soon.

And then the magic hour hits—it’s five o’-motherfuckingclock. Hallelujah! I know that you’ve already packed your bag, shut down your computer, and are ready to go before I have to tell you. At five o’clock you have no obligations to sit on that squeaky fucking desk chair any minute longer. Jet out that door, who gives a fuck about saying goodbye, get your tired ass home and you’ve MADE IT! You have survived a Monday at work after one of the biggest weekends of your life. The points gained are massive. While your other suckful friends couldn’t handle the jandal and called in sick, YOU pulled through and now you can save that sick day for when you’re literally heaving bile and are still hallucinating. Or are you know, genuinely sick…. Eat some pizza babes. Netflix.

Chill.

to speak then keep it to a minimum, citing the potential onset of a cold if need be. Or a headache. Or the huge workload that is sitting at ur desk positively screaming for u to get back to.

The grey state of ennui; the fatigued downward turn of the mouth that grinned incessantly 36 hours ago: make them work for you. If anyone comments on your unhappy, pained look—you’re concentrating. There’s a bitch of an email you’re writing. There’s a deadline. Your cat is dying.

THERE IS ALWAYS SOMETHING. I don’t care if you’re “not a good liar.” That’s bullshit. Everyone is a mutherfucking good liar when they need to be. It’s part of being human… we’ve evolved to lie because it makes life easier. I have no scientific research to support this claim, but listen to me anyway because you’re despo. If someone has the cheek to say you’re not very talkative today—“yes motherfucker that’s right I took a lot of pills and hallucinogens on the weekend and my brain is still recovering from the flip” is what you will NOT say. Instead you’ll nod and mention one of the above or other crafty excuses that I KNOW you can make up. Having a heavy workload is pretty safe though as no one wants to hear about your workload: their workload is always bigger, more important, or worse.

It’s hopefully midday by now. I pray for you that it is.

The holy hour of lunch. Use this time wisely. It can make or break you. Firstly gtfo of the office. Go. Even if you have to sit on the mall toilet for half an hour across the road (yes, I’ve done that), leave that prison of glaring LEDs and maybe try get some fresh air or a change of scenery. Go to the fucking park. And eat. Eat again. Drink. Quench your thirst. Remember choice is important. It’s tempting to chow down on a burger. This is temporarily satisfying but if you plan on staying at work the entire day there are better options. I hate to preach (lies, I love to preach) but fresh fruit, juice, and smoothies, all that high fructose stuff, makes you feel way better. And it’s yum. Go to Tank or something. Or Burger King. You choose. Again, zen or nasty. Zenasty. Unless your body is literally screaming at you saying HIGH CARB HIGH FAT then try the green shit first. There’s no reversing them nasty KFC quarter pack feels. Think about this before you visit the colonel. I will say I told you so.

If you’re feeling up to it, take a little stroll around the block. But like if you cbf who cares. You’re coming down.

I’m just here to recommend what will likely make you feel a bit better but if your thighs are still fucking sore from getting low boys and girls, sit the fuq down. Heal. Breathe in the fresh air. Wait until the very last minute to get back from lunch. Don’t be late because you don’t want any excuse for trouble. And then prepare for the worst part of the day.

Yes. Post-lunch is like trying to finish the rest of a marathon when you just broke your leg, but you’re like it’s all good guys, I’M FINE. It’s hard. And the hours tick by sloooooooooowly. The good thing is that EVERYONE slacks off post-lunch. They just hide it better than you do.

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Nannies and mannies my life as Fran Drescher

Eve Kennedy

needs: one family, a nanny I talked to worked for, had a young primary school child go through a severe mental health episode which was stressful for the nanny who had to manage that child, as well as other children’s needs, and was in nearly constant contact with the parents to arrange the best way to handle the situation.

Nannies tend to be with the children they look after for at least a few afternoons each week. The sheer time spent in sole custody means guardian relationships with children develop quickly. In the two years I worked for a family I watched one of their children go from nappies to school, helped her learn to read and write, talked with her about kindness and healthy ways to act, among so many other meaningful and menial things. Almost every afternoon she used to run to me from the school gate and grin, hug me and tell me she loved and missed me. She would ask me where I had been in the weekend and why wasn’t I at her house on Saturday reading her stories and giving her cuddles. It was beautiful and heartwarming, but heartbreaking when I remembered that there would come a time when I had to give nannying up and say goodbye to her. She probably won’t remember my name in five years’ time. Nannies are responsible for deciding what the children do and how to manage their behaviour.

We are given power to punish (or instructed not to punish even if we feel we ought to), to love, and to care. Children and young people can see when their caregiver is upset, angry, or not giving them attention. We are paid to be smiling, organised, friendly, and loving when we don’t feel like it, even when one of our charges has called us a “stupid B-Word!” and told us they hate us. Clearly these experiences aren’t limited to nannies. Parents have to demonstrate that they love their children dearly even when they frankly can’t be bothered dealing with their shitty nappy or toddler tantrum, but the element of payment for these services adds another layer to the

Paid childcare isn’t a new occupation. Governesses, and other paid childcare providers, became more common throughout the 18th and 19th centuries as the uppermiddle class were able to afford to pay others to look after their children. Governesses were more like in-home teachers than babysitters, often required to teach their charges additional languages, reading, writing, arithmetic, history, and geography. Older children would also be instructed in drawing, piano, dancing, and etiquette, as well as how to attract an eligible suitor in a crowded marriage market. The term “babysitter” wasn’t coined until 1937 and attracted a meaning distinct from that of the governess. Babysitters are more informal arrangements, with babysitters visiting either occasionally or on a regular basis but not living at the house with the children. For high school students, babysitting the neighbour’s children on an occasional evening was a relatively low-stress way to make good pocket money. Fran Drescher’s eponymous (and fabulously stylish imo) character in the hit 1990s sitcom The Nanny demonstrates that “the nanny,” as a cultural figure, had been embedded in popular psyche and vernacular for some time. I dream of being as well dressed as Franny Drescher.

Nannying jobs vary wildly, depending on the family.

I spoke to a number of Wellington nannies who all had variations of this schedule: school pick up, take home (often by car, either the nanny’s or the family’s), prepare afternoon tea, unpack school bags, assist with homework, arrange activities for children to keep them occupied, cook dinner, bath children, and complete household cleaning / laundry / dishes.

Although these are the same tasks that parents or caregivers do for their children normally, nannying adds a different element of stress. There is an expectation that tasks will be done a certain way, and in a timely and appropriate manner. Each family has particular wants and

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(in hand at least), rostered hours are more certain as families need to be able to plan their childcare in advance, and nannies are only dealing with a family’s worth of children rather than a group of 8-10 (per person).

A quick perusal of job websites (Student Job Search, TradeMe) reveals that there are plenty of listings for families wanting nannies. Some listings specify that they want women caregivers, some don’t. What almost all listings mention (particularly those with younger children) is someone who is nurturing / caring / kind / loving; traits typically considered “feminine.”

One of the nannies, who has worked for four years as a nanny or caregiver and has only met one male nanny, said that she thought mostly women worked as nannies because “women are considered to be more nurturing / caring. Caregiving work is seen as a women’s role and we’re socialised to fit these roles so to be honest we probably are better at them.” The only man nanny that was known to this nanny was chosen because the children’s father died recently and the mother (employer) felt that the boys needed a male figure in their lives. I asked the almost nine year old I look after (who has had five nannies, all of whom were women) why he always had women look after him and he said “I don’t know. It’s not because boys aren’t allowed to do it. I think maybe women are nicer to kids. They might have children or maybe they want children.” Then he got bored of talking about gender issues and returned to playing minecraft.

The work that nannies do is often seen as being a “second mum.” When working as a nanny I was often mistaken for the children’s mum and quite often the preschooler I look after would call me Mum by accident— although perhaps this was more due to my prematurely aged face than anything else. Between my experience as a nanny and the experiences of the women I’ve talked to, I’ve heard of two men working as nannies: one was the man referenced above and the other was a man who used to work with a family before I did. He was called a “manny” by the family. A nickname signalling, perhaps, that they recognised it was strange for men to be nannies and thus needed a jaunty portmanteau, or perhaps I’m over analyzing a family joke.

Nannies are often women because they do what society has historically considered “women’s work.”

Hopefully this expectation is changing, but this article isn’t clever or broad enough to examine that. Nannying involves not only care for children but also cleaning, cooking, and other household tasks. It’s fascinating [to me] that the rise of nannies in modern homes was necessitated by middle class families needing someone to care for their children as the mother went out to work, but the person who replaced the mother for those hours was almost always a woman.

Nannies I spoke to mentioned how childcare is still not considered valuable work; it’s relatively low paid considering you are literally responsible for the lives of children. Perhaps this is linked to parenting not being

complex situation.

Reconciling a nanny’s childminding style with a guardian’s parenting style is not always simple. Some nannies I spoke to also mentioned that it’s difficult to know how to best deal with troubling behaviour from children as you have to parent the children the way their parents want them to be parented. Parents have expectations about how their children will be cared for, and thus how the nanny will fulfil their employment obligations, that are often extremely specific. It makes sense; parents care about their children and worry about what they’re doing when they are not around to parent them. It creates intense pressure for many nannies though as parents tend to be more invested in nannying outcomes than normal employers are invested about their employment outcome.

Your manager at Briscoes probably cares less about you being five minutes late to work than a children’s parent does if they are left outside the school gate (although who knows, customer service managers are often power hungry anyway).

Most nannies are needed to work in the afternoons, after school, or until the parents get home from work.

Because of these hours, nannies are either people who work part-time (or multiple part-time jobs as nannying is rarely a full time job) or are studying. The nannies I spoke to had babysitting experience from high school and online advertisements often note that applicants need nannying experience.

All of these requirements mean that nannying is a popular job for students who can pick and choose classes to fit with their afternoon work. Many have graduated from night-time high school babysitting to a nannying job with more responsibilities.

Nannies I spoke to gave differing reasons for doing their jobs. One said she was attracted to nannying because she “loved children and wanted to be around them… [she] also needed a job while at university so [it was] logical to do something that didn’t feel like too much work.” The same nanny noted that the pay from an individual family was better than pay from organisations that hire students to work at after school programmes, where the pay for standard workers (i.e. not supervisors) is normally minimum wage. Even if individual families do pay minimum wage, it is extremely rare for PAYE / kiwisaver / etc. to come out of the nanny’s pay as most work is done under the table. More formalised childcare employment can be found at approved OSCAR after school care programmes (Out of School Care and Recreation, under the MSD) which receive government funding.

However these organisations have to fulfil strict employer obligations and employees are hired under contracts. Two of the nannies I spoke to previously worked for OSCAR programmes and noted how the casual contracts meant that there was no certainty of hours, very little pay or sick leave, and expectations that workers would work any hours assigned to them. Comparatively, nannying for an individual family seems like a dream job. The pay is better

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It’s fascinating [to me] that the rise of nannies in modern homes was necessitated by middle class families needing someone to care for their children as the mother went out to work, but the person who replaced the mother for those hours was almost always a woman.

considered real work: thus the debates over paid parental leave, continued stigma for stay at home parents, those receiving domestic purposes benefits, etc.

The increase in nannies has been attributed to an increase in women returning to work. One would expect the strides of feminism that resulted in more women working after children would have a flow-on effect of equality in the home, but overseas research suggests that is not the case. Even though women have been re-entering the workforce after having children for decades now, employed mothers are still spending an average of 15 more hours a week performing housework and childcare than husbands, even when women contributed as much or more income to the family than their spouse. A study from the late 1990s noted that: “Husbands with wives in the paid labour force do not do much more at home than those with wives who are homemakers, younger men do not contribute more than their older counterparts, and men who work fewer hours do not do anymore work at home than those working longer hours. Even at higher socioeconomic levels where women are able to purchase domestic services (e.g. child care and cleaning services), they remain responsible for managing the home (e.g. shopping, paying bills, making dentist appointments).”

Arguably it’s also responsible for the relatively low pay that primary teachers receive—their base pay rate is $31,820 and the maximum available is just shy of $75,000.

That’s the highest pay available, even to someone with a PhD in teaching or education. A census of teachers in 2015 indicated that almost 74% of primary teachers were women and it would be remiss to not make the conclusion that perhaps gender has something to do with the low pay, although many much cleverer people have already discussed this in literature. The same 2015 census also recorded that there are more principals who are men than women.

In no uncertain terms nannying remains an industry dominated by women. Nannies are low paid jobs with high responsibilities and a high degree of varying job expectations. There is no union for nannies and no collective bargaining powers (that I can find, anyway… if anyone wants to create one get in touch with me). In most situations there is no contract and holiday, sick pay, and annual leave are either nonexistent or limited, not to mention the absence of job protection. It’s a precarious situation for young people who deal daily with cleaning random children’s pooey nappies and calming tantrums, with varying levels of support from the parents. Although nannying requires high degrees of responsibility and care, and pays poorly, many young people still do it.

It is undoubtedly rewarding and all of the nannies mentioned their love for children being a driving force in their continued work as a nanny or childcare giver. It is unfortunate that the informality and flexibility of the job, which are two perks for both employer and employee, often lend themselves to allowing an attitude of laissezfaire employment standards and conditions for employees.

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Finnius Teppett

Finnius Teppett

whether there’s actually anything more to the New Zealand obsession with the US election cycle than a weird sycophancy (the “the actions of the American government affect us” argument is tangential at best and, even if it’s true, I don’t think keeping up to date with #Trumpfest16 is likely to help us prepare for a slight increase in import levies seven years down the line).

Whatever it is that does it, we, for some reason, care about it.

It’s hard to argue then that we millennials are an ignorant or apathetic people. We might not have actually donated money to Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis research, but we definitely knew ALS was a thing, because lots of people poured ice on themselves about it. We have our finger on the pulse of the world, for the most part, occasional unaccountable priorities aside. One of the most confounding mysteries then is the one giant issue that we millennials statistically don’t care about, even though it’s something that affects basically every New Zealander at least once in their lives: work. That boring shit of a chore, that crappy cafe or store that we have to show up to every week and donate to it our time like blood, that we waste a big part of our lives at so we can afford to live indoors and buy packet curries. We don’t care about it because young workers have the lowest rate, by far, of unionisation in the whole New Zealand workforce. Not that it’s a New Zealand issue alone—board rooms in union offices the world over are basically carpeted with hair ripped from the heads of anguished union leaders fretting about the low numbers of youths who are signing up. And it’s a mystery because we do give a shit about a lot of other things, things that take up way less of our weekly schedule and, on the whole, are a cause of considerably less grief and stress in our lives.

Working rights were one of humanity’s Original Causes. Ever since the idea came about that we would all have jobs, we’ve been trying to make those jobs less shitty. It’s easy to take for granted a lot of the things that the early labour movement sorted out for us—eight-hour work days, weekends, breaks, holidays, etc.—because most of them now are protected by law (for the moment). We also take them for granted because we know now that, without those rights, it just wouldn’t be possible to work at a job and also live a life where happiness was a possibility. To the people who originally ran the steel mills and the mines, though, workers were basically a cheap, naturally occurring, resource whose energy and time was there to be wrung out to the last drop.

Our generation has no shortage of causes. It’s probably because of the internet, which makes it easy to know about a lot of shit things that exist and also to register some kind of opinion about them, be it a like-comment-share or, if you really believe in it, the lending of the weight of your email address to an online petition to try oust some media jerk, or hold a smarmy misogynist accountable, or get a nifty clip-on bike lane fastened to the underside of the Auckland harbour bridge. It’s never been easier to express our allegiance to and our sympathy for and our disappointment in whatever cause we choose to give a shit about, whether it’s performing ironic grief for Harambe, or shitting on Lena Dunham, or getting riled up about the sexist idiots who represent us in grunting boysports. Some of our causes are closer to home than others. There are local ones (housing crisis, flag crisis, Chloe for mayor, whatever Massive has done lately) and global ones (sexism, inequality, global warming, war), as well as weirdly specific and far away ones that no one would know anything about if it wasn’t for their speedy beatification into meme-hood—the one true universal language.

(On that note: has anyone heard from Kony lately? I hope he’s OK. Or not OK, I think he was the bad guy. Also, supposedly the Ice Bucket Challenge actually worked! Crazy.) I still wonder

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Finnius Teppett

respectable $18.26 NZD.) But while the power of unions has faded in recent history, the need for unions certainly hasn’t. Over the years since the ECA came into force (the effects of which the union movement never really recovered from, even though Aunty Helen replaced it in 2000 with the current Employment Relations Act which protects the rights of unions to enter into workplaces to recruit and enshrines good-faith negotiation, among other things), workers have had to deal with a bunch of attacks on the conditions of their jobs. There’s the shitty concept of ‘split shifts’ (where you’re basically away from home for like twelve hours, but only get paid for eight), supercrap ‘youth rates’ (which, on a personal note, was why I only got paid $6.50 an hour when I worked at Pandoro as a fourteen year-old), and, more recently, all this zero-hour-contract bullshit (where even if you do have a job, in certain industries your boss isn’t actually obliged to give you any work and so could make your life a lot harder by withholding hours or just being useless and not rostering properly). Twenty-nine miners lost their lives at Pike River because the mine boss didn’t give enough of a fuck about their health and safety. And remember that time when Warner Brothers asked the government to change our labour laws so that they could legally fuck over the people who worked on The Hobbit and the government actually agreed to do it? And that’s to say nothing of our minimum wage, which is a full four dollars an hour short of a living wage.

And while most people on the minimum wage are too busy trying to make it work than to sit around moaning about the state of contemporary market economics, the fact is that our jobs—and our lives—could be a lot better for all of us. Back in 1930, pro economist John Maynard Keynes predicted that by now we’d all be working fifteen hours a week and spending the rest of our time hanging out with our 1 families and writing The only reason that we can’t now get by on fifteen hours a week is that, in the poetry and just battle for the modern economy, Keynes generally enjoying was edged out by a friendless jerk called 1 being alive . It’s easy Friedrich Hayek who got a stiffy whenever he thought about the free market. Supply to lose sight of the and demand is great when it produces alternative future cheap toilet paper but, when it’s used we could be living against workers, it’s a race to the bottom.

If there is too much labour for too few jobs in. We probably it becomes a question of how little money have the technology you are willing to earn for your time and it needed to work 15 quickly gets shit for anyone who needs a hours a week but job in order to live. Needless to say, Hayek’s model was attractive to people who were the problem is that a) rich or b) powerful or c) both, because it employers tend gave them free rein to do whatever it took to only bring in for them to stay that way. technology when

That basic dynamic has largely stuck around since then, with the people who run companies seeking to find how much they can get away with (how little they can pay their employees, how much work they can squeeze out of them), and the people working for the companies trying to make their working lives better (arguing for more money, fairer hours, better conditions).

Interestingly the best case scenario for a business (i.e. the scenario where the most money is made for the shareholders) often arises from the best case scenario for the employees too. This is the idea that if you make your employees happy, by paying them a decent wage, giving them regular hours, giving them free coffee to drink or music to listen to, whatever, then they will happily be good employees. They will be more productive, more efficient, and they also quit less, so not as much money has to get sunk into retraining new employees. They might even stay late every so often to see something through because they feel like their work is meaningful. If workers have a good relationship with their job they will be better workers. And, historically, workers have the best relationships with their jobs when they are part of a strong union.

Unfortunately for pretty much everyone the days of the traditional union supreme are behind us. There are many reasons for this and most of them are directly or indirectly political.

The introduction to 1980s New Zealand of the latest political fashion sweeping the world, neoliberalism, with its blind faith in the free market and its maniacal deregulation, saw the loss of most of the country’s manufacturing industry to cheap offshore megafactories and, with it, the vanishing of thousands of decent, stable, blue-collar jobs. More recently technology and automation has swooped in to clean up even more work in the manufacturing sector, meaning that fewer and fewer jobs exist in what was previously a union stronghold, decimating membership numbers and union resources. In the early 1990s the official unemployment rate was 11.2% and for Māori it was a devastating 30%. For those lucky enough to have jobs the unionisation rate—and with it workers’ ability to argue for better conditions—went from around 65% of the working population to more like 20%, largely due to something called the Employment Contracts Act 1991 (ECA), a tricksy bit of National Party legislation that overnight made it a lot harder to be in a union, and to be a union. (And, while correlation doesn’t equal causation, this was basically the time where the trajectory of our minimum wage stalled and parted ways with Australia’s, which is why theirs is now a more 28

Finnius Teppett

like fast food shops and cinemas. Their modus operandi is action-based and they rely heavily on the publicity of canny staged protests (They have a six-metre tall inflatable rat that they lug around and drape in banners like “Don’t be a rat! GIVE WORKERS A FAIR DEAL.” And once at a picket of Reading Cinemas in 2004 they gave away free popcorn to people going into the movies and, haemorrhaging money from the concession stand, the management quickly capitulated and opened negotiations.) It’s usually pretty effective and it’s Unite we have to thank for the end of zero-hour contracts, but they have an understandably massive turnover and have to recruit like maniacs to keep themselves going.

For another one of their campaigns, “Super Size My Pay”, the Unite leadership had to max out their credit cards and refinance their homes.

When we have them, young people’s opinions on unions are usually pretty positive. The problem is that most young workers just don’t have opinions on unions. The union movement, it seems, needs to work on its image. The language of previous generations of labour activists— the marxist vocabulary of class, of bosses vs. workers, of industrial struggle—sits awkwardly with the current crop of young people, it feels passé. And even if they do manage to join, unions are often hierarchical organisations and young members can find themselves struggling to have their voices heard in a meaningful way. More fleet-footed unions like FARSA (who cover flight attendants) are finding ways to maximise the input of their younger members by promoting them to leadership positions and harvesting their ideas about how best to communicate with their generation, but many other unions are still working off clunky, old-school frameworks.

Maybe the union of the future will be a multiheaded beast, one which uses collectivity to address more of the challenges facing our world—inequality, exploitation, climate change— as well as sticking up for good old-fashioned labour rights.3 It must be tempting for unions to invest in a ‘union app’, or something, as a onesimple-trick to regain their young membership, but really, the only way to have a shot 2 The ninety-days thing is just one aspect of the current government’s erosion of the at returning to ERA, John Key being not much of a fan of the glory days of New Zealand workers, see his comments on us being too lazy and on drugs to be decent union relevance employees, etc. is to listen to those little voices 3 The author wishes to recognise Ed Miller, the from below—or Asia Pacific Regional Campaigns Officer for the Building and Wood Workers’ International risk young folks (BWI), for his insight regarding this and other beating unions to included thoughts. the punch.

they want to make more money, not when they want to improve the lives of their employees (for example, by having them work fewer hours for the same weekly pay). You can trust the unions though to keep the dream alive.

But one of the biggest concerns of the union movement now is their ageing membership base.

In 1990 half of young workers were in unions, since Y2K though that level has hovered around the 10% mark. A few ideas have been floating around to account for the massive drop and a fair bit of research has had a go at cracking the case. The notion that generations X and Y are complete narcissists who have no interest in being part of a collective was found not to in fact hold water (and it does have that familiar whiff about it of aggrieved middle-aged grumpiness), but there does seem to be some evidence that supports the idea of union membership as an “experience good” (i.e. it’s a “try before you buy” kind of deal—young people are way more likely to join if they’ve had good union experiences before or their friends / family have). But by far the best explanation is simply that the nature of work is changing. We young folks don’t stick in our jobs for very long and certainly not for the 20+ years that was standard a couple generations ago. And when you’re switching jobs every one or two years it’s hard to give much of a shit about wherever it is that you currently happen to spend your waking hours. There seems like less of a point in paying union fees to try to improve your job if you’re quitting in a few months anyway.

And, unfortunately, this casualisation of the workforce mostly benefits employers (as was seen in a few cases regarding the “ninety days bill”2—for some employers the ideal situation is where they churn through employees on threemonth cycles, getting rid of them before they build up the nerve or the leverage to ask for more money).

Unions and young people are a natural fit in a lot of ways. The unions could really do with the members and for a few bucks a week the young people could be part of a cause that would have a positive, tangible effect on their daily lives.

Clearly though, as that 10% shows, unions still need to do something major to attract young members and secure their future. Not that they aren’t trying. The Young Workers Resource Centre is an organisation that goes around informing high school kids about their working rights—using that “experience good” argument to introduce young people to unions early on in their working lives. There’s also the Unite union which is actually managing to organise members in what are generally considered youth industries, 29

Single Sad Postgrad Sharon Lam

Eulogy For My Love Life

your mcms again but, for now, please just let me wallow in unenthusiastic silence.

So goodbye to my love life, it has been nice knowing you. It’s all for the better really, it was about time you were put out of your misery. In fact I’m pretty sure you actually died long ago and I have just refused to accept it. I’ve been Weekend At Bernie’s-ing all this time, dressing up your corpse in sunglasses and Hawaiian shirts, hoping to fool myself there were still signs of life by fooling others first.

But now that you have been laid to rest, I can begin to move on. The prospect of a love-life-free life seems full of promise. Does a bear watch Sleepless in Seattle over and over and cry because they cannot fly like a bird? No, of course not! That would be silly. It’s simply impossible for a bear to fly. Bears do not fuss over the impossible. Does Sharon watch Sleepless in Seattle over and over and cry because they cannot get a text back? No, of course not!

That would be silly. It’s simply impossible, her love life died long ago. I will learn to not fuss over the impossible. By simply accepting the fact that I will never find love ever again, perhaps I can finally live my life like how we should perhaps all be living our lives—like a strong, carefree, non-flying bear.

As I opened a fresh word document and thought, “hmm, which fleeting encounter with a boy should I grossly exaggerate for my column this week?” I drew a blank.

Tumbleweeds rolled across the vast, dry, wasteland of my heart. No unattainable crushes, no texts, nothing that could pass for even a pathetic excuse for a romantic prospect. I knew my condition had not seen any improvement for some time, but this moment seemed crucial. I had been coughing up blood. I knew the end was near. I glanced up at the ECG hooked up to my phone with its phone numbers, dating apps, and Facebook friends.

No notifications. Medical equipment started beeping and the cast of the first season of Grey’s Anatomy suddenly rushed into my apartment. Ellen Pompeo looked worried.

Despite my crippling loneliness I was still starstruck. I tried to sneak a photo with Sandra Oh. I looked on helplessly as the trembling line flattened. It was all over. On September 16, 2016, at 11.09pm, my love life was officially declared dead.

It is with great sadness that I have had to write this, but acceptance is the first step—acceptance that there is absolutely no hope left for me. To my friends, I know you’re all in what you think is love and having a lot of sex because you won’t stop telling me about it, but in this time of mourning I beg you to please refrain from your dick-brags. In time I will be able to pretend to care about

30

Like a Virgin Jesus’s Mum

Women's Space

Virginity is a stupid term that should be discarded for many reasons. The term implies a boring and restrictive definition of sex (e.g. penis-in-vagina is the legitimate way to fuck), it is tied up with conservative and misogynistic beliefs about women’s purity, and it ties people’s worth to their sexual experiences (e.g. have you lost your virginity yet?).

We’re told that “losing your virginity” should be a grand narrative; a significant event. But maybe you just fucked someone in the backseat of your car and it was mundane and awkward. Maybe you didn’t love the person, but they were in the right place at the right time.

Let’s scrap the term virginity and call it your first sexual experience—whatever that means for you. If it hasn’t happened yet you are probably feeling some kind of anxiety and pressure. It sucks and it’s hard to avoid, but here’s a Q & A in the hopes of alleviating your fears: What if you don’t know how to do it? You might not be great at first, but you will be able to do the sex stuff and it will get better with time.

What if you don’t like it? What if you’re not straight? Great! Then you’ll learn more about yourself and your sexual preferences, to make it better next time.

What if it’s really awkward? You’ll get over it and you’ll learn to laugh it off. It will get better.

What if the person judges you for your inexperience? Then (don’t) fuck them. Seriously, if someone is judging you for this they are likely not worth your time.

What if the sex is bad? Maybe they’re not a good sexual partner, so find a new one. Maybe it will get better with time.

Is there something wrong with you because you haven’t done it yet? There is no deadline to meet, there are many more people in your position than you’d think, and the only thing that matters is whether you feel comfortable and ready.

What will happen afterwards? It’s best to communicate beforehand about what your expectations are: is this a one off or is it something more?

How will you feel after? Hopefully a lot less anxious and keen to do more of this sex stuff, and with a better idea about what you’re looking for.

Who should I have sex with? Someone with whom you have mutual trust and respect. Someone who is going to listen and be attentive to you.

Kahu Kutia I’ll be honest here and say that one of life’s greatest satisfactions is undoubtedly the moment I get to cross something off a to-do list. Dorky, I know, but there just really isnt anything that can match the moment you conquer some small mountain and remove some niggling task from your mind.

Unfortunately its not so easy to cross “destroy patriarchal power structures and facilitate spaces for individuals to inhabit that are free from all forms of discrimination” off a to-do list. This leaves me thinking about the feminist movement and if feminist work will ever be ‘done’. It seems to me that the work feminism must do is always changing and so too, then, must feminists themselves change.

Although it can often feel like absolutely no progress has been made in the last century, we must also acknowledge that the goals and pursuits of sufragettes is very different to conceptualizations of feminism in 2016. For me one of the big points of modern feminism is intersectionality. An ~intersectional feminist~ understands that people are oppressed in intersecting ways and so fighting for womens rights is more than just fighting for white women to get paid more.

As a feminist, the work that I want to do has changed in its focus. With all of my actions, which ones are specifically feminist and which ones are just me?

Will I ever be able to remove the patriarchy from my list and move on to other worthy pursuits? I think I’m asking good questions, but unfortunately I can’t see answers being realised any time soon.

Asking these questions is tiring, but so is fighting for the basic human rights of individuals in our communities and across the globe. I’d like to shout out to all my people who are soldiering on with the endless and tiring stream of work to be done within feminism and associated realms. This is a reminder to look after yourselves too. Much love. <3 <3

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Being Well Mark Bernard

Reaching Out

“Do something you love and you will never do a day’s work in your life” is phrase you will hear often, and I am not aware of any evidence that this is true. I am lucky enough to do a job I truly love and one which offers real meaning and value. I have friends who have some of the best jobs you would ever imagine: professional musician, artist, helicopter display pilot! They all love what they do and reap great rewards, but the fact remains that for all of them it is still work. Of course there are far worse things than working and not working is amongst the worst of them, as they say the only thing worse than paying taxes is not paying taxes.

So work is essential for the vast majority of us: it offers financial security, self-esteem, meaning, a place in society. It is also very demanding and difficult. We know that work can be hugely prohibitive for our mental health and it is also one of the most common causes of stress.

Many students come to talk about the end of their degree and what they are going to do for work when they leave. Very few attend wanting to talk about what their lives will hold in store when they leave, the range of other important domains that are essential for making a rich meaningful existence. This is understandable as the pressure of society and economics force work to the forefront of people’s minds, but it is not the only thing to focus on.

Balance is key. To reap the reward of a working life and manage the pressures it puts on you it must be balanced with other priorities, like those of family and friends. One significant risk work poses is that it can come to define you as a person, when our work esteem and identity forms the whole of our identity. We must all ensure that it forms a part of our lives and this is something best achieved from the outset, even as you study for your degrees. The temptation to make work everything starts even before we leave.

Often the key factor in student distress is that they have lost balance, as they strive for success academically in the pursuit of the dream job they lose sight of all of the other things that have made them a rounded person. If we are unlucky the other ingredients of life can seem secondary to work, but we all need to remain mindful that these are in fact the essential ingredients in forming lives we can enjoy and sustain for the long term.

Amalina Amran The annual V-ISA International Week recently concluded and it was aimed at celebrating diversity on campus.

The week-long event introduced cultures from different countries, helped address and fight for issues related to international students, and created a stronger bond among the international students.

The week kicked off with International Sports Day which helped to strengthen the bond between people through a hearty game of futsal and ping-pong.

We continue the week with International Food Day which promoted cuisines from different countries around the world. Delicacies that were available include Singaporean curry and Vietnamese spring rolls. V-ISA also opened a stall selling traditional Thai tea and one of the executive members provided a henna service. It was heartening to see a group of students raise funds to tackle human trafficking in Asia.

Issues Night was a rare chance to bring students’ suggestions directly to the university. This conversation aims to consider whether the needs of students have been well met. We discussed five main themes including academic services, health services, financial support, student support, and career development guidance and opportunities.

We also had a Speaker Event that addressed the issues of employability, safety, and the social and academic needs of students. The guest speakers were VUW graduates, which made their experience more relatable to international undergraduates.

We ended the International Week with a closing event that was held specially for students to showcase their talents. There was a traditional Joget performance and a Dikir Barat by representatives from Wellington Malaysia Students’ Organisation (WMSO) and a street dance from Vietnam Student Association of Wellington (VSAW).

V-ISA thanks all international students for their support this year! All the best for the rest of the trimester!

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Brodie Helps You Figure It Out Brodie Fraser

Token Cripple

Trigger Warning: This piece discusses suicide and mental health.

Henrietta Bollinger

We’re approaching the time of year where stress levels are building. Burnout sets in and we often end up questioning our choices and why we decided to put ourselves through this stress. One of the easiest and perhaps more common ways we deal with this is to have a bit of a rant and vent our feelings. If I’m anything to go by, this can include a lot of groaning, wishing for naps, and loud exclamations of “this f--king assignment is the worst, shoot me.” We often make jokes about wanting to die, or killing ourselves, rather than face the reality of uni and it’s quite toxic.

Suicide is no joke. Not when you’ve been suicidal for real, not when the majority of the funerals you’ve been to have been due to suicide, not when a large portion of your friends and whānau are also battling mental illness.

Normalising it with jokes that aren’t even funny has to stop. It’s exhausting having to try and get through each day when mental illness sets in, let alone dealing with the same insensitive jokes. Our well being is not something to laugh over! Yes, jokes can be a coping mechanism, but there is a point where jokes do more harm than good.

Joking about suicide is crossing the line.

I’m guilty of doing this, but am trying to make a conscious effort to stop. So what can we say instead? I quite like humour that’s as harmless and silly as possible.

So here’s a list of silly alternative ways to complain about university: • “I’d rather burp slugs for the rest of my life than write this essay.”

• “This assignment is an immediate cure for my insomnia.”

• “I’d rather teach Irish ducks to read Jivanese than study for this exam.”

• “This assignment is worse than trying to explain why a meme is funny to your parents.”

Having a disability has meant that since before I was born it has been the place of others to label, define, and interact with it. This has come mostly from the necessity of defining it for others. Labeling my body as disabled has made it recognizable to professionals so that I can get the support I need to live an ‘independent’ life. I have a love-hate relationship with these labels and the support they purchase. My body is not a very private thing, as someone who needs support to get up, dress etc. Privacy is the thing I exchange for the ability to move in the world. Sometimes this feels like a small thing and sometimes bigger. It generally depends on the circumstances, who I am working with and the ease with which they can navigate this weird line between work and being in my home: the job being me, my body.

There seems to be a huge emphasis in the working world on economic self-sufficiency. For me to even consider accessing this world requires some enabling in the form of care.

Since I first began using the support of people who were not my family it has puzzled me that this kind of intimate work can possibly be considered low skill or minimum wage work. It requires a level of social dexterity that is simultaneously imperative to the work and at the same time not appreciated as skills.

Negotiating boundaries between what is a home and a workplace and what is a private task is skilled work. As it is the first interaction of my morning it has the power to change the tone of my day. I can either feel empowered or transgressed by such interactions and, luckily, it has lately been the former, mostly because I am working with people I know well. But how do we talk about this kind of body work when in anyone else’s life—as babies, as elderly people—this kind of work is seen as a familial duty and completely altruistic; the labour of love?

I’m sure there are better options out there—get creative!

Perhaps your next form of procrastination could be to come up with as many harmless and effective insults for your assignments.

For mental health support, you can contact Student Health or call YouthLine on 0800 376 633. For support with assignments, you can contact Student Learning Support Services. Take care of yourselves!

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The Arts Section 35 Food 36

Visual Arts

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:

Baked eggs

2 tbsp oil, for frying 1 red onion, chopped 2 cloves garlic, diced 1 red chilli, thinly sliced (you can leave this out if you’re spice-averse) 1 tsp cumin 1 tbsp smoked paprika 1 can chickpeas (or black beans, lentils, kidney beans—use what you’ve got) 4 big stalks kale, washed, de-stemmed, and roughly chopped 1 can chopped tomatoes 1 cup tomato passata (or another can of chopped tomatoes + two tbsp tomato paste) 4 eggs 150g feta, crumbled Salt and pepper to taste Crusty bread and fresh parsley to serve

Preheat the oven to 190°C. Heat the oil in a big pan (one without a plastic handle!) over a medium heat, then fry the onions and garlic until they start to brown. Add the chilli, spices, chickpeas and cook for a couple minutes.

Add the kale and cook until the kale begins to wilt. Put in the tomatoes and cook for a few more minutes. Make a few wells in the pan, crack the eggs in, crumble over the feta, and bake in the oven until egg is cooked and feta has started to melt. Serve with fresh parsley and some toast.

Kate Morten 35

Food

I’ve saved my favourite recipe for last. The joy of this dish is threefold. It’s cheap, it’s delicious, and you’re guaranteed to have the majority of the ingredients loitering in your pantry from the last time Pak’nSave had a sick deal on canned goods. It’s also a dish of infinite possibilities. Don’t have chickpeas? Literally any other canned legume will be all good. No feta? Use some yogurt. Got some mushrooms / capsicums / cherry tomatoes in varying stages of sogginess lying round? Put them in too. You’ll probably never make the same baked eggs twice, but they’ll always be bloody good.

They can be breakfast, hangover brunch, lunch, or an easy throw together fuckthere’s-nothing-in-the-cupboard dinner. Not a week went by that neither me nor my London flat mates pulled this recipe out. In short, these eggs are a lifeline. Grab hold.

You’re sussed for life now.

HEY MEANWHILE! Lucy Wardle

Callum, Jesse, and Jordana are three emerging artists who run MEANWHILE, a new artist-run initiative located in the CBD on 35 Victoria Street.

I first met Jordana when she came over to my flat in Aro Valley after the series of earthquakes that hit Wellington in 2013. She was friends with my flatmate Yvette and living in a single apartment. Together we comforted each other during the aftershocks. Callum and I became friends in a sculpture paper in my third year at art school. He made an artwork with balloons, I made a readymade with objects from friends and ex-boyfriends.

I met Jesse in studio class as we shared the top studio in block two. He helped me mix concrete for the first time.

Callum:

Hi, could each of you tell me a little bit about yourself and how you all met: Hello, my name is Jordana Bragg: 5’1, Aries Sun, Pisces Moon, Gemini Ascending.

I moved to Wellington in 2012 at the age of 17 to pursue a BFA (Hons) degree at Massey University Wellington, studying alongside Callum and Jesse, and graduating last year having developed an on-going video based performance practice. I currently work at City Gallery Wellington as a front of house host and audio-visual technician.

My first vivid memory of meeting Callum is walking with him down the middle of Tasman Street at 2am on my way home from a house party in second year, and his offering to buy me chocolate at the petrol station.

I don’t remember the specifics of meeting Jesse but remember admiring him from afar for a very long time in studio class.

Last year in our fourth and final year at art school (2015) we collaborated as an exhibition group, alongside Samuel Jackson, on an exhibition titled Stay On. Pdf (8 Egmont Street, Wellington).

Jesse:

Hello, I’m Jesse Bowling.

I’m currently working full time at MEANWHILE and on my own art projects. I do part-time art installation and other stuff.

I started a BFA (Hons) at Massey when I was 21. I walked into the museum building for the first day welcome and was late. I sat through the first year group photo and then joined a “get to know your peers” thing. I was paired in a group with Callum and we hit it off, <3.

Like Jordana, I don’t remember the specifics, but I remember she was in my second year studio group and I used to work at night in the studios. She would also be there making heaps of art and I always thought to myself who is this girl constantly here late like me. She was killing critiques and always had great conversation.

Visual Arts

Jordana:

My full name is Callum Alexander Devlin. I am a twin. According to Myers Briggs I am an ENFP which means I’m basically doomed romantically speaking. I work for CIRCUIT Artist Film and Video Aotearoa New Zealand. I make art about myself.

I moved to Wellington from Christchurch in 2012 to study Fine Arts at Massey. Jesse and I did meet on day one and I like to mention that when I introduce Jesse to people. He’s the only one who has properly kept up with my absurd artistic practice so I trust his opinion before anyone else’s.

I remember Jordana and I being awkwardly interviewed via an iPad in second year about our experiences at Massey (that video is probably buried in the deep web somewhere). Jordana and I first worked together on an exhibition in third year, a hyper-conceptual rule-based art experiment where we met at 8am every day for two weeks to try and make ourselves better people.

I have made all of my closest friends through working with them, and I trust these two deeply both professionally and personally.

What is MEANWHILE and how did the name come about?

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Jordana:

Established July this year, with support from Club Mirage (Auckland), MEANWHILE is an artist-run initiative based out of 35 Victoria Street, Wellington, New Zealand.

Jesse:

MEANWHILE has come after many conversations we have had about wanting an ARI (Artist Run Initiative) in Wellington that supported contemporary emerging art projects and that’s run by emerging artists.

We were contacted by a fellow ARI organiser, Sam Thomas (Snake Pit, Club Mirage), from Auckland about the space we are operating out of. Meetings etc. happened and now we are MEANWHILE, with a window space, a gallery to be opened shortly, and artist studios which currently house nine artists.

How do you balance the managing of a space as well as maintaining your own art practice?

Callum and I were brainstorming names for the window space as we didn’t know if we were going to be secured with a full gallery space. The name needed to be temporal enough that it fitted the circumstances. But also funky fresh.

Jordana:

I don’t really. I don’t see anything as a balance because nothing is completely separable to me, although I do make lists to process and compartmentalise. I’m a pragmatist in many ways. I suppose I spend most of my time visualising completing things, which helps, if I can’t see myself doing something I just won’t do anything.

Also: plunger coffee, red wine, pop music, good conversation, and cigarettes.

Callum:

Balance is hard. There are always emails or messages to respond to. I have four Gmail accounts which is a pretty efficient strategy for avoiding getting any real work done. I spend all of my time talking to people, which is simultaneously a distraction and a big part of my process. I just know that when I’m taking minutes I’m on the clock.

Artist run initiatives are organised as non-for profit, temporal spaces often showing, experimental based works. Why is it important for artist run spaces to exist?

Jordana:

I think the answer is in the question.

MEANWHILE, like many other NZ based ARIs, is here first and foremost to facilitate and promote emergent and experimental writing, curation, and contemporary art practice, in all forms, on and offline.

We developed out of a need to nurture and support the exceptional work of contemporary New Zealand and international artists and to challenge current understandings of the potential for contemporary art spaces, writing, curation, and artistic practice.

Can you tell me about a current project / upcoming project?

MEANWHILE has exhibited three shows so far this year.

What are the preparations behind running the space, exhibiting artists, and the curatorial processes?

To date we have hosted three Wellington based artist exhibitions: Josephine Jelich, Works in Town; The Welcoming Party, Free Time; Elijah Winter, The Horror of Nothing To See.

Jesse:

Paint a wall white, invite your friends and community, have a few VBs. We want to show killer work. We are engaged with the community in Wellington so we have approached artists who we think, to our mind, show a broad array of mediums and concepts to fill the window space with.

Callum:

Finally, what are your hopes and dreams for MEANWHILE?

At the moment we’re right at the top of this project. We’re broke, we don’t have a proper website or walls or any sort of sustainable infrastructure. The artists who we chose to work with are people that we trust, and trust us. And that’s a big deal for us. We’re also artists, so we want to work with artists in the way that we’d wanted to be treated, represented, and respected. So we’re figuring that out.

Our process so far has involved a lot of meetings, plunger coffee, and ginger nuts.

And talking about our feelings.

Jesse:

What’s wrong with our walls Callum?

Callum:

Needs at LEAST one more coat of paint mate.

Jesse:

True.

Opening this month (September 28, Wednesday), MEANWHILE will host the first of many exhibitions / projects / events to appear around Wellington from SeptemberOctober 2016 as part of Cyber Nectar, a four month collaborative project between multidisciplinary artist Hana Pera Aoake and I (founded by the art initiative Lokal Stories, and funded by WCC and CNZ).

The exhibition will feature new works by Audrey Baldwin (Ōtautahi), Katherine Botten (Melbourne), Sophie Cassar (Melbourne), Quishile Charan (Tāmaki Makaurau), Klien (London), and Ayesha Tan-Jones (London).

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Jesse:

In November we will be opening our doors officially as a gallery space so that’s real exciting. I know we are going to make a positive impact in the current Wellington art scene and that’s what excites me the most about doing this. I don’t really have hopes, I am confident, and dreams? This is pretty much a dream at its most basic level.

Jordana:

I am both logistically and blindly optimistic about what MEANWHILE is and what it can and will be, but I prefer to keep hopes and dreams out of it for now as it is a day by day, step by step thing.

Callum:

I have big plans.

Like MEANWHILE on Facebook: https://www. facebook.com/MEANWHILE.wgtn/ Follow MEANWHILE on Instagram: @meanwhile.wgtn Get in touch: meanwhile.wgtn@gmail.com

Visual Arts

Jordana:

Jordana:

Skiptracing Mild High Club 4.5/5

Music

Review by Oliver Clifton

Club songs and Brettin’s ability to stray from convention without overcrowding the mix is probably one of his most under appreciated skills.

“Carry Me Back” plays out like a dreamy waltz and slow guitar lines are followed along by Brettin’s soothing vocals and slowly pumping synthesizer chords.

“Tessellation” is another highlight, a rhodes driven 70s jazz fusion style track with a beautiful jazzy guitar solo at the end.

The track “¿Whodunnit?” is a strange, droning, percussive instrumental that signals the introduction of the more experimental final third of the record. Vocals begin to warp and echo in the super smooth track “Chasing My Tail”. “Ceiling Zero” is a quick interlude that sounds like a cross between a Beach Boys’ track and a nostalgic orchestral film soundtrack. Brettin uses layered vocals to voice chords while a couple of saxophones jazzily harmonise over the top. It acts as a brief intro to the next track “Chapel Perilous” which borrows small fragments of melody and lyrics from the song “When You Wish Upon A Star” from the 1940 film Pinocchio.

For anyone getting a little tired of the lack of musicality in indie rock music at the moment or anyone wanting a less technical, smoother take on modern jazz, Skiptracing is the perfect record.

Skiptracing is Alexander Brettin’s second album released under the Mild High Club moniker. His first album Timeline came out on Stones Throw Records in 2015 and was an exciting glimpse into Brettin’s familiar but unique style of psychedelic songwriting.

Mild High Club is often mentioned in the same breath as many of Brettin’s indie rock contemporaries and collaborators such as Mac Demarco, Silk Rhodes, and Ariel Pink. However Skiptracing sees Brettin carve out his own, very special, musical niche. If Mac Demarco is the Billy Joel of this new wave of low-fi indie rock artists, Mild High Club is more like Steely Dan. Brettin’s love (and study) of jazz shines through the indie rock aesthetic and more complex chord progressions, voicings, extended melodies, jazzy solos, and licks set him apart from his peers.

The album opens with the title track “Skiptracing”. A bossa nova style drum machine counts in some chorused out guitar chords. New background melodies and percussion tastefully slide into the mix melding cleanly and subtly with the other instruments. Every sound introduced is nearly perfect. Synthesizers are beautifully warped and analog sounding; guitars are just jangly enough; the drums are recorded cleanly and dryly. Also worth noting is Brettin’s skill at writing basslines. It is often the bass that carries the mood / grove of Mild High

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blond Frank Ocean 5/5 Review by Hamish Clark

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Music

There’s social comment, sonic textures, dulcet tones, radio static, thought-provoking lyrics, strained voices, patched together samples, and guitar strings. A huge number of artists produced / contributed / are sampled and it’s fun to try and pick them out after a few listens. blond is expertly crafted—lush, but with fuzzy, rough edges that bite. I think it’s as good as Channel ORANGE, but the two are difficult to compare. Channel ORANGE was tightly produced, almost scripted, whereas blond is more a series of sketches divided into a reluctant tracklist: a kind of atmospheric, meandering odyssey through different demographics of a city. blond therefore plays far better as a whole than individually. Synergy is the descriptive that springs to mind and I remember specific moments as opposed to tracks: for example, the shout of “I’m not brave!” in “Seigfried” and the transcendent last 90 seconds of “Self Control”. I still don’t really know what I think of the album but I really enjoy listening to it and if longevity is the true judge of quality, I suspect blond will go down a winner. In some ways, I hesitate to say too much: if the ‘spoiler’ tag can ever apply to music this is the album that deserves it.

Discovering it for yourself is essential and, empirically, opinions on blond vary wildly.

It is ultimately ironic that Ocean, so successful in his evasion of the spotlight, has produced a fascinating, unexpected piece of work and only become an even greater subject of intrigue. He’s lived up to his own hype (unbelievably) by somehow making an album as interesting as the circus that surrounded it. blond could’ve been a collection of “Lost” / “Super Rich Kids” / “Thinkin Bout You” clones, ready to sit atop the charts for the coming months, and nobody would’ve complained.

Instead Ocean shunned his own party and gave us something much more precious: a surprise.

Blonde? blond?

Even though we’ve finally heard it, we still don’t know exactly what the title of Frank Ocean’s new album is.

Which is fitting: the mystery is a nod toward the infamous silence and absence of certainties that built blond (let’s pick that one) into the 2016 pop-culture phenomenon. On the back of 2012’s critically acclaimed and commercially blockbusting Channel ORANGE, Frank Ocean ditched his record label and attempted to marry creativity with boxoffice in his own way. He developed a strategy where he played hard to get, banking on near-unprecedented hype to ensure that whatever he produced would see success.

It worked, and the successful marriage of the commercial, creative, and social elements of artistry evidence, even more so than the music of blond might, Ocean’s genius.

Alongside blond Ocean released a magazine (Boys Don’t Cry, the rumoured title for the album) and Endless, a rough visual album. The theme across this latest body of work is one of publication-like curation and refinement, and a depth that seems intentionally at odds with the insta-feeds that oversaturate our personal space. Ocean hasn’t deliberately set out to make something we want to hear (read: you might not like blond because it definitely isn’t Channel ORANGE) and he totally shunned the audience desire for instant gratification he might have been tempted to exploit—four years is several internet lifetimes. Depending on your point of view he’s a blessing or a curse in these respects, but there’s more behind the silence. Ocean became a modern-day Gatsby—inches away from transcending into myth—and the apparent hatred of his own party guaranteed that no impending release in the world right now can claim anything like the anticipation we had for blond.

It’s fitting and cathartic, given the exhaustive wait, that listening to blond is a unique and rewarding experience.

Film

Blood Father

Sully

Director: Jean-François Richet 2.5/5

Director: Clint Eastwood 3.5/5

Review by Finn Holland

Review by Finn Holland

This movie has flown so far under the radar that even the person who served me at the cinema didn’t know it existed. A minute later the guy that took my ticket looked over it with an equally perplexed look. Rest assured, I found my way into a theatre where it did exist.

Earlier this year I listened to a podcast that proclaimed “the movie star is dead.” The podcast was brought on by the fact that Money Monster, starring George Clooney and Julia Roberts, bombed. Maybe the concept of movie star is dead, or maybe it’s the previous generations movie stars who are being slowly abandoned, but it does seem like films these days are being sold on brand rather than star power.

Enter Mel Gibson’s latest film, Blood Father. As an unabashed Mad Max franchise fan, and if Mel Gibson is involved and there’s a vehicle nearby, I’ll be in that theatre. Mel Gibson plays an ex-convict who, alongside his estranged daughter (Erin Moriarty), is on the run from her drug-dealer boyfriend (Diego Luna) and his vicious cartel.

In the Mel Gibson area the film certainly doesn’t disappoint and he gets plenty of opportunity to curse and bellow. Unfortunately the movie disappoints in the director’s approach to plot and pacing. Gibson plays a trailer park ex-con who is suddenly reunited with his missing daughter and who must protect her from vicious gang members who are after her blood.

There’s a lot of screen time between Link (Gibson) and his daughter Lydia (Erin Moriarty) but it often doesn’t quite land and the sympathy that the film sends Lydia’s way seems thoroughly undeserved. Furthermore, at 88 minutes, the film has some slow spots, which is unforgivable considering the fact that they are being chased by seemingly all-powerful, all-knowing, and murderous hit-men.

Everyone knows Clint Eastwood as the badass ‘Man With No Name’ (from the likes of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly) and from his many outings as ‘Dirty Harry’ (The Enforcer), but in the decades since his time as a western and action star Eastwood has established himself as a directing force to be reckoned with.

Million Dollar Baby, Gran Torino, and Unforgiven are all well-weighted films with deeply impactful themes and a reserved directing style to compliment them. And although I found Hereafter mediocre and fell asleep in J. Edgar, I’m always keen to see whatever the man has cooked up.

Well, I certainly did not fall asleep in Sully. The film follows the real life tale of the 2009 “Miracle on the Hudson.” Dealing with the event and aftermath of a fateful forced water landing (not a crash) that left all 155 passengers and crew alive, the film centres on Captain Sullenberger, a distinct everyman, who is at odds with the media circus surrounding him as well as the scrutiny he faces from investigation of the incident.

It should come as no surprise that Tom Hanks nails the character perfectly. The man’s an acting legend and seems to excel at “Captain” roles (see Captain Philips and Saving Private Ryan). Hanks, with subtle attention to detail, expertly brings the anxious psyche.

Every sequence is well handled, with many difficult scenes in the cockpit and boardrooms coming across excellently, but somehow the film fails to add up to something grander. Perhaps it was the non-linear storyline, as from scene to scene it did not often feel like progress was being made or that the story was building to something greater. It was the miniscule moments that made some of the material shine and I guess that can be admired, even if it maybe wasn’t the approach I expected.

There is something to be said for the fact that this movie has all the preliminary signs for Oscars bait. It’s “based on a true story” about a “real life American hero” and stars a recognised older Hollywood actor, with an even older Hollywood heavyweight behind the camera. It even does that thing where the title is the last name of the character. But instead of “having that one scene where he loses it” or “putting on so much weight for the role” or “not breaking character for the whole film shoot,” Hanks is far more subdued and so is the film. In the end it boils down to a story which praises a small group of people’s heroics in response to a crisis which could turned out far worse.

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War Dogs Film

Director: Todd Phillips 3.5/5 Review by Dana Williams

Girad (played by Bradley Cooper) who seemingly sticks them over and causes the breakup of the now billion dollar company, AEY. What follows is the pair’s attempt to get themselves out of the sh*t.

War Dogs is probably the most bizarre cinema representation of America’s involvement with the war in Iraq I’ve seen to date. However the film fulfils its purpose as a funny and cleverly constructed Hollywood blockbuster. Hill’s character is hilarious and is only rivalled

by Teller’s level-headed performance. I even found War Dogs to be quite informative about the undercover arms dealings that are conducted by non-US Government contractors.

However despite all the film’s “funny” moments and a pretty good performance by both Hill and Teller, I felt that the climax of the film never quite got there for me.

The later half was spent resolving conflicts that I just didn’t really care about. Efraim, although funny, was not a very relatable character and his actions (and reactions to problems) were pretty ridiculous (think firing a machine gun in a LA ghetto because he couldn’t buy weed). Maybe it just wasn’t my type of humour. After all, it is a movie— why shouldn’t characters be able to shoot-up local suburbs in the name of humour? It’s America right?

An accurate summary of War Dogs is: good, but not excellent. Despite this, I would still recommend the film for an easy watch on a lazy weekend.

Based on Guy Lawson’s novel Guys and the Dudes, War Dogs was remade for the screen as an American comedydrama directed by Todd Phillips. Starring the hilarious Jonah Hill as Efraim Diveroli (loaded arms dealer and perhaps the world’s biggest douche), and baby faced Miles Teller as Efraim’s accomplice, David Packouz, the film follows the pair on their journey as they “hustle their way to the American dream.”

David, a poor and washed-up masseur who has recently discovered that his partner is “knocked-up,” needs to find cash quickly. After spending his life savings on a failed plan to sell high thread count sheets to unsuspecting old folks’ homes, he is left with no plan and a baby on the way. Enter Efraim, a seemingly well-to-do high school friend who represents his fortune through copious amounts of bling and self-tan. Running into each other at a mutual friend’s funeral, Efraim takes David under his wing and gives him a job at his own company AEY, which questionably fills orders for arms placed by the US government due to the ongoing war in Iraq. Their job is to find small orders that larger arms contractors do not bother with and place bids on them. After making a fortune from these “small” deals, David and Efraim close in on the deal of a lifetime—a $300 million US Government contract to supply the US armed forces with millions of bullets. Scrambling to fill the order and place their bet, the pair enlist the help of shady and bizarre arms dealer Henry

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Is this a real console war now?

Games

By Cameron Gray

competitor and subsequently was rewarded with higher sales, so the competitor had to change their ways in order to gain back that lost ground.

It’s therefore almost unbelievable to think that Microsoft screwed up the launch of the Xbox One so badly in 2013, what with the always online DRM and restrictions on used games that ultimately weren’t implemented, and did enough damage that they’ve only just recovered.

Sony have essentially been coasting on the PS4’s lead and appear to have stopped caring about keeping their customer base happy, opening up opportunities for the boys in Redmond. As an example, thanks to Sony’s nonsense you won’t be able to install mods for Fallout 4 and Skyrim Legendary Edition, even though support was promised by Bethesda. I’m pissed off about that since mod support has been and will be a major selling point for those games, even with them coming to consoles, and as a PS4 owner I paid full price for a product which is incomplete and inferior to every other version. Xbox One owners have had mod support since May and they have every right to feel a little smug about it.

There’s a lot of bullshit in the gaming industry but the thing that no-one should lose sight of is that games exist to make us happy, to allow us to take a break from our stressful lives and immerse ourselves in a virtual world. If you want to be a smart consumer you should be happy to part ways with your hard-earned cash, not feel obligated to. It’s big business and the big console manufacturers will do anything to hold your attention, because that gives them opportunities to take your money. This kind of competition can only be good for gamers, so get informed and make your choice.

After something of an inconspicuous start it seems that this console generation is starting to pick up some steam, courtesy of the two biggest names in the business. The PS4, dominant for much of this first part, has had some serious missteps, while Xbox under Phil Spencer seems more determined than ever to win back the hearts and minds of the gaming public. There are iterative hardware upgrades coming for both systems, and while the PS4 Pro has nearly a year long head start on Xbox’s Project Scorpio it won’t be quite as powerful. Sony have said no to game mods while Microsoft is embracing them. PSVR is real and looking fantastic while Scorpio may well have support for the major VR headsets, possibly Oculus Rift. And, of course, Nintendo is quietly chugging along, doing its own thing as it always has.

It shouldn’t matter what side you’re on. Because whoever loses, we win.

I like to think of myself as something of a dedicated leftie: generally I’m distrustful of large corporate entities, especially those responsible for the services we need to live good lives, since they probably don’t have the best interests of their customers at heart. There’s a lot of bullshit about the free market society we live in, particularly when the system is gamed to suit the wealthy few. Yet I’m not so cynical as to deny that a free market has its benefits; it’s just a matter of what kind of market you’re entering and what the competition is like.

The gaming industry is probably one of the few areas in which I’m happy the market is open because the recent fronts opening up in the console wars are showing us how we’ve been told free markets are supposed to work for years. One company put out a better product than its

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Atlanta S1E01 “The Big Bang” and S1E02 “Streets on Lock”

5/5 Review by Justin Kim

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TV

Keeping it real; maybe that’s the most important thing about Atlanta—that it provides a quality portrayal of a non-white perspective on television. Atlanta’s hardly the first show to do this, but it’s still an honest premise. Much like all of Glover’s other works to date, it’s business and personal. Henry bemoaned that people tend to pick and choose how others view their lives, but praised Glover for showing his perspective on the hip-hop scene—warts and all. Glover himself noted that he “wanted to show white people, you don’t know everything about black culture.”

The show has an all-black writing team and Glover’s own experiences in the hip-hop scene are put on full display.

The Paper Boi song you hear in the first episode sounds like Royalty-era Childish; it doesn’t help that his brother provides the rap vocals.

Yet Atlanta isn’t inherently political. It isn’t meant to be. Glover grew up in the projects with comedy, and said that he “never wanted this shit to be important… all that shit is wack to me.” Although Atlanta introduces a side to hip-hop culture that we don’t know about very well, it is first and foremost ridiculous, raw, and pretty. I grew up in suburbia but I’m also a first generation Korean immigrant; it’s great to see some different faces through Atlanta, but the show is more humour than history.

So is Atlanta a comedy or a gritty and conscious cultural work? Despite Glover’s comments above, it does an excellent job portraying both. This is perhaps the upside to growing up with multiple cultures—perspective.

If that’s not really your thing, these episodes at least show a promising premise for a fun show to come.

Rapper, actor, writer, and now showrunner Donald Glover was raised on two cultures. On the one hand, Glover was known for his writing on 30 Rock and his acting on Community. Casts and writers for both shows were predominantly white, and both shows attracted young, white audiences. On the other hand, Glover raps under the moniker Childish Gambino. His 2013 album Because the Internet (accompanied by a short film, Clapping for the Wrong Reasons) was met with critical acclaim.

Atlanta is a natural step forward. The show introduces Earn Marks (Glover) and his cousin Alfred “Paper Boi” Miles (Brian Tyree Henry). Paper Boi had become one of the hottest new rappers in the Atlanta hip-hop scene overnight. Earn, wanting to enter the hip hop scene himself, offers to manage Paper Boi. The first thing you notice about Atlanta is that it looks like a Childish Gambino music video. It’s no surprise that both episodes were directed by Hiro Murai, who also directed the music videos from Because the Internet. The result is pretty. Music videos from this decade tend to be overly artsy and only have about three colours, but it kinda worked for Clapping for the Wrong Reasons (Murai directed that too); it only gets better in Atlanta.

However, Childish Gambino music videos aren’t really funny. Atlanta is. It isn’t a laugh-a-minute-show like 30 Rock or Community; rather, it’s very situational and surreal. Characters often end up in ridiculous situations and aren’t afraid to call each other out on their bullshit.

Earn confronts a local white jock-type radio DJ in the first episode and finds himself in a hyper-aggressive police station in the second. None of those situations are ideal in real life, but they still end up being funny while keeping it real.

Shrill Author: Lindy West Publisher: Quercus 5/5

Books

Review by Cassie Richards

The Argonauts

Every so often a gutsy, vital book comes along that insists to be read, shared, and discussed. Shrill, a collection of essays by Lindy West, might just be that book for 2016. West is a writer best known for her part in the fat acceptance movement and for taking on the ugliest, most woman-hating parts of the internet. While many of these essays are political in nature, what shines throughout the book is her whip-smart sense of humour.

West tackles controversial, sensitive topics—being fat (her preferred descriptor), abortion, rape jokes—with fierce intelligence and unswerving honesty. In the essay “When Life Gives You Lemons” she writes of becoming pregnant while in an unhealthy, unstable relationship and the ways in which navigating an abortion is still so difficult for so many women. She writes: “The fact that abortion is still a taboo subject means opponents of abortion get to define it however suits them best. They can cast those of us who have had abortions as callous monstrosities, and seed fear in anyone who might need one by insisting that the procedure is always traumatic, always painful, always an impossible decision. Well, we’re not, and it’s not.”

But West has suffered for her forthrightness—the important thing is that she hasn’t allowed that to silence her. When she was mercilessly attacked online after appearing on a television debate about the effect of rape jokes on our society’s prevailing attitude towards rape, she responded by videoing herself reading out dozens of threats and insults, turning the tide back on her attackers.

Or when a vile troll made a Twitter account pretending to be her deceased father and she succeeded in getting the troll to realise the error of his ways.

All that considered, it would be hard to believe that West started out as a comedy writer (she’s in awe of this herself). She is almost effortlessly funny, even when down in the muck with a subject that makes you question your faith in humanity. I laughed out loud throughout Shrill and that’s not something I would embellish. This book would be an enlightening and entertaining read for anyone— provided you don’t still think rape jokes are funny and not problematic at all!

We are all lucky to live in a world which has Lindy West in it.

Author: Maggie Nelson Publisher: Graywolf Press 5/5 Review by Jayne Mulligan I picked this book up, knowing it was meant to be the thing, and read a few random pages. The wide set margins, paragraph breaks, and names in the margins unnerved me—there was something going on, and this something was a thing I wouldn’t be able to understand.

I acquiesced that it wasn’t for me. When I was gifted it, however, I took it as a sign and gave in, my curiosity getting the better of me. 50 pages later I still felt trepidation (the book is only 180 pages long), and I told people I felt slightly scared of the book I was reading at the moment. But the last 50 pages were the ones that reached out, grabbed me by the collar, and pulled me in.

The Argonauts is non-fiction, memoir, prose poetry, creative writing, psychoanalysis, and everything in between. This book feels smarter than you do, or maybe just than I am; I don’t know Lacanian psychology and many of the references to people and books and philosophers were, to me, empty markers of intelligence. I didn’t understand exactly what the reference to Argonauts meant, but now I look it up it’s something about changing as you grow—which is the essence of the book.

Once I pushed past this, once I let myself be vulnerable to the author’s intelligence, I began to be emboldened by the book. For all the names, the theories, and the philosophers, this book is a book about life. About humans and about love. Maggie Nelson is her own vehicle, her own tool, to analyse life.

By the last pages I was crying (very likely due largely to the bad day I was having) while Nelson wove the narrative of the birth of her son with that of the death of her partner’s parents. I’ve also never read someone writing so honestly about pregnancy before, and I sort of feel less frightened and more frightened all at the same time.

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An Interview with Jennifer O’Sullivan (Queen of Improv) Review by Adeline Shaddick

How would you describe NZIF in a couple of sentences?

Jennifer: To a general audience I would say it’s five nights of shows where you can see some of the best improvisors in the country alongside new improvisors, who are all really passionate about improv. You can see them get up on stage and do shows! If I am talking to improvisors, you just get to hang out with your tribe for a whole week—it’s really fun!

There are workshops, right? What do these NZIF workshops entail?

Jennifer: Okay, so, in other years we would showcase work and companies would pitch shows with their casts. But this time we decided to make the programme full of shows where people meet and hang out and improvise together and perform with people you don’t usually perform with, throughout that week. So for the Spontaneous Showcase, there will be six workshops for the six different shows. You sign up to be a part of these workshops and you get the chance to be cast in that show.

The directors will then choose the cast at the end of the workshop. So it’s going to be interesting to see a range of people on stage having a go at something.

How has the festival changed over time?

Jennifer: The first one only had six shows and four improv companies. Some of those early shows that came along toured for years and were sellouts. There are people who started teaching here and carried on teaching. I like it being a place where if you haven’t ever taught a festival workshop before, but you want to, I’m gonna give you a go.

What does it take to organise a festival like this?

Jennifer: I’ve got a decent team of people! The festival is managed by a trust and the trust is currently myself and Christine Brooks, and we have just added three people to it, who are all women. But yeah, one of our key things is delivering the festival. There’s other things we could do. I’m really interested in doing some sort of teaching conference or like a summer camp, which is really exciting.

Are those workshops available for anyone?

Jennifer: It is recommended that you at least have an introductory level of improv. The workshops assume that you know the basics. Some assume you are a bit more experienced, and when you sign up for them they will say.

I feel like actors do have a basic understanding of improv even if they don’t know it.

Last question! What is the furthest someone has travelled to attend NZIF? Jen: This year we have someone from Sweden!

Could you give us a brief description of the variation throughout the festival?

Jennifer: The Spontaneous Showcase contains six shows / workshops and they each have their own subject matter.

Check out the NZIF website & Facebook page for updates!

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Theatre

These include an improvised trial; the audience are the jury and get to vote, and at the end get to see what actually happens (Nothing But the Truth). We have a show about relationships, sex, and intimacy—but keeping it fun (In Bed). One uses objects that you have left over from relationships (The Museum Of Broken Relationships).

And then we have one basically all about death (Death Who Comes To Us All). And then Kiddie Time, a late night children’s show, but we want people to come along in onesies and pyjamas and watch a kids show. The last show in that showcase is Circle of Sound Story, which will use soundscape and music. So, yeah, there is quite a range of stuff… This showcase feels kind of lifecycle-y to me. Improdome is just gonna be a great excuse to do fun, short-form work, but not necessarily all comedy.

This One Time and Grab Bag... Grab Bag is where everybody who wants to can put their name into the grab bag—audience members, improvisors, anyone! Then the directors will pull names out of the hat and they will be the actors.

I met with Jennifer O’Sullivan, the Festival Director for the New Zealand Improv Festival (NZIF), at her office last week. The festival runs from October 4–8 at BATS Theatre and each night there will be a bunch of improv shows for a range of people. Jennifer is probably one of the coolest people I’ve met in the theatre community. She offered me tea and in exchange I offered to help fold the NZIF flyers as we chatted.

Crossword: 'Gridlock'

Puzzles Made by Puck

Medium Crossword answers from last week

Target goals

DOWN

Good: 16 words

1. Yanked suddenly (6) 2. A bit upset, but not quite 10-Across (6) 3. Late-night host Fallon or Carr (5) 4. Line over some letters in Spanish(5) 5. Fall Out Boy's singer Pete (5) 6. Fall Out Boy's 'American Beauty/ American Psycho', for one (5) 7. 'Wind in the Willows' character who gets sentenced to twenty years in prison for reckless driving (4) 12. Medieval employment collective(5) 14. Peru's historical capital, where the 'Emperor's New Groove' emperor got his name (5) 15. Leader of a Comedy Central roast (5) 16. Imperial measurements of land (5) 17. Gift mentioned in the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 2 (5) 18. Pokemon protagonist (3) 21. Greene who wrote 'Our Man in Havana' (6) 22. U.S. President Johnson (6) 25. Asian capital city with the really peaceful-looking Turtle Tower (5) 26. Aaron played him on 'Breaking Bad' (5) 27. When repeated, start of some jokes (5) 28. Alternative to 'abort' and 'ignore' in some old computer error messages (5) 30. Gooding Jr. of 'American Horror Story' (4)

Great: 19 words Impressive: 21 words

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ACROSS 1. Aircraft with aisles * (5,3) 5. Evil spirit (6) 8. Make over, as legislation (6) 9. Viking ship * (8) 10. Furious (3) 11. Enthusiasm (6) 13. Skin condition for which you might take steroids (6) 19. Deal with spilt milk, maybe (3) 20. Legacy or Accord, for example * (3-4, 3) 23. Place for a piercing (3) 24. Asian capital city with the really cool-looking Kingdom Centre (6) 26. Cards introduced during the American Civil War (6) 29. Tool that loses its last letter in America (3) 31. It's collided at CERN (6) 32. 2006 comedy film that starts with an autofellation scene * (8) 33. Motorcycle that doesn't look like a grown person can fit on it, let alone you, Uncle Warren * (8) 34. Place to input a PIN (6)

Contributors

About Us Salient is published by, but remains editorially independent from, the Victoria University of Wellington Studentsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; 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.

Salient is printed on environmentally sustainable paper, and with vegetable ink, and is completely FSC approved.

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 Bronwyn Curtis Georgia Smith Matty Reeves Distributor Joe Morris News Reporters Alex Feinson Charlie Prout Jennie Kendrick Jessica Morris Meriana Johnson Tim Manktelow

Read Salient online at salient.org.nz

Feature Writers Eve Kennedy Faith Wilson Finnius Teppett

Contact Level 2 Student Union Building Victoria University PO Box 600, Wellington 04 463 6766

Opinon Writer Alex Rossiter

Section Editors Cassie Richards (Books) Dana Williams (Film) Ophelia Wass (Theatre) Ruby Joy Eade, Lucy Wardle, Louise Rutledge, Robbie Whyte (Visual Arts) Cameron Gray (Games) Katie Meadows (TV) Contributors Jesusâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; Mom, Brodie Fraser, Kate Morten, Annaliese Wilson, Jonathan Gee, Mark Bernard, Mihi Parata Gardiner, Kahu Kutia, Sharon Lam, Thomas Croskery, Henrietta Bollinger, Laura Toailoa, Hamish Clark, Finn Holland, Adeline Shaddick, Amalina Amran, Justin Kim, Olly Clifton, Puck.

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