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Assessing Parliament’s Response to the Covid-19 Pandemic
Parliament had to discharge its constitutional role in unprecedented conditions following the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic. How did it fare? This article assesses Parliament’s response to the pandemic across its core constitutional functions of legislating, scrutinising, financing, representing and providing a government. It argues that Parliament’s response was remarkably effective and resulted in meaningful permanent changes to the legislature’s operation. Nonetheless, the response also highlighted opportunities for further institutional strengthening regarding Parliament’s role in a national emergency
Power in Civil Litigation
Blindfolded Lady Justice represents the ideal of justice – a system that has no regard for the parties’ power and is attentive only to the justice of a case. The reality, however, is that power does influence the course of civil litigation in Aotearoa. This article considers the dynamics of power in civil litigation, including the types of parties involved in disputes. It then surveys and evaluates potential areas for reform, including suppressing lawyers’ fees, equalising the legal spend between opponents, removing lawyers from disputes, increasing judicial control, conglomerating claims, and involving the public in procedure reform. It concludes that the most promising areas for reform to be pursued in concert are: regulation of legal fees, increasing judicial control and involving the public in civil justice reform
Regenerative Agriculture: farmer motivation, environment and climate improvement
Regenerative agriculture has become a social movement in farming. It embraces the environmental basis of farming. Land, water and nutrients are viewed as an ecological whole. This includes bacteria and mycorrhiza as essential to soil health and plant diversity, and mob stocking and no-till farming above ground. Regen ag, as regenerative agriculture is often called, is a paradigm shift for farmers, who are often perceived as resistant. There is a mismatch between academic and policy interest focusing on the scientific need for and value of regenerative agriculture, and the social and human motivating benefits of regenerative agriculture. This crucial willingness, not simply the turn away from denialism, is the signal significance of this new form of farming. In New Zealand and globally, climate change and environmental degradation can be addressed much more quickly, more thoroughly and less contentiously if regenerative agriculture is supported and extended, even as science documentation is achieved over time
Trust in Government and Covid-19 Vaccine Hesitancy
The long-term success of New Zealand’s Covid-19 elimination plan and the re-opening of fortress New Zealand rests on high population uptake of the Covid-19 vaccine. Understanding factors that contribute to vaccine hesitancy – and potential inequities in access and uptake – are consequently essential for the efficacy of the national immunisation programme which began rolling out to the general population in July 2021. Prior research on the New Zealand context has documented socio-demographic disparities in Covid-19 vaccine hesitancy (Horizon Research, 2020; Prickett, Habibi and Atatoa Carr, 2021; Thaker, 2021). However, little research has been undertaken to examine how psychosocial elements – such as people’s trust in institutions – might be associated with people’s vaccine intent and cast some light on the reasons underpinning their intent
The Weapon Beneath the Woodpile: A Tribute to Dick Scott
This article is a tribute to the late Auckland historian Dick Scott, whose 1954 The Story of Parihaka became one of the most influential historical works published in this country. Scott’s other best-known works are left-wing exposés of historical events, such as Would a Good Man Die? Niue Island, New Zealand and the Late Mr Larsen (1993). Others are local histories, including Seven Lives on Salt River (1987), an account of the watery district of Pāhi on the Kaipara Harbour. The remainder are industry or company histories, and particularly histories of New Zealand’s wine industry
Faustian Politics
Review of David Renton, The New Authoritarians. With the intellectual exhaustion of conservatism and the mainstreaming of far-right ideologies, how should the Left respond
Landlord Neutral 2030
With the housing crisis continuing to punish renters, we call for the abolition of private landlordism
Mission-Oriented Capitalism
Review of Mark Carney, Value(s): Building a Better World for All. Stakeholder capitalism as a line of flight from our uninhabitable earth
"And ... the dazzle continued inside ...": New Zealand interior and landscape architectures of the 1930s
The Depression began in the late 1920s, but was not simply triggered by the October 1929 crash in Wall Street. In the two years between 1928-29 and 1930-31, "export income nearly halved. ... The government ... slashed expenditure," including severe cuts to public spending in health and education. As Ann Calhoun notes:[t]he effect of the 1930s Depression on [Schools of Art] students and instructors alike was massive: salaries were reduced, the school admission age was raised, overscale salaries were limited, grants for sewing and science were withdrawn, administration grants were cut back, training colleges in Wellington and Dunedin closed and student allowances decreased, and grants to kindergartens were withdrawn.A proposal for a town-planning course by John Mawson (the Director of Town Planning)) and Cyril Knight (Head of Architecture, Auckland University College) likewise failed due to "lack of numbers and Depression cutbacks." Helen Leach also notes the impact of cuts to education more generally, writing that: "[m]others of young children who expected them to start school at four or five learned in May 1932 that the age of entry would be raised to six.