Salient 05, 2013 - Communication by Salient

THE communication issue

monday 8th april 2013

E I L N A T S 1938

victoria university of wellington student magazine

VOL 76 ISSUE 05

media mogulS Editors: Stella Blake-Kelly & Molly McCarthy editor@salient.org.nz Designer: Laura Burns designer@salient.org.nz News Editor: Chris McIntyre news@salient.org.nz Arts Editor: Philip McSweeney arts@salient.org.nz Chief Reporter: Phillipa Webb News Interns: Sophie Boot & Alex Lewin Film Editor: Gerald Lee Books Editor: Alexandra Hollis Visual Arts Editor: Sharon Lam Music Editor: Philip McSweeney Theatre Editor: Diana Russell Feature Writers: Henry Cooke & Patrick Hunn Chief Sub-editor: Nick Fargher Web Editor: Laetitia Laubscher Distrubition Specialist: Joanna Judge

Contributors Morgan Ashworth, Todd Atticus, Hilary Beattie, Harry Chapman, Caitlin Craigie, Matthew Ellison, Freddie Hayek, Jonathan Hobman, Elle Hunt, Dylan Jauslin, Eve Kennedy, Alex Lewin, Bing Lou, Carla Marks, Rory McCourt, Miranda McGregor, Duncan McLachlan, Eleanor Merton, Ngai Tauira, Pasifika Students' Council, Alice Peacock, Puck, Josh Radnor, Cam Price, Sam Northcott, Sofia Roberts, Carlo Salizzo, Emily Watson Contributor of the Week: Miranda McGregor

Contact Level 2, Student Union Building Victoria University P.O. Box 600. Wellington Phone: 04 463 6766 Email: editor@salient.org.nz Website: salient.org.nz Twitter: @salientmagazine Facebook: facebook.com/salientmagazine

Advertising Contact: Ali Allen Phone: 04 463 6982 Email: sales@vuwsa.org.nz

About us Salient is produced by independent student journalists, employed by, but editorially independent from, the Victoria University of Wellington Students' Association (VUWSA). Salient is a member of, syndicated and supported by the Aoteroa Student Press Association (ASPA). Salient is funded by Victoria Univeristy of Wellington students, through the Student Services Levy. It is printed by APN Print of Hastings. Opinions expressed are not necessarily representative of ASPA, VUWSA, APN Print, Ian Fletcher or Justin Bieber, but we of Salient are proud of our beliefs and take full responsibility for them.

Other Subscriptions: Too lazy to walk to uni to pick up a copy of your favourite mag? We can post them out to you for a nominal fee. $40 for Vic Students. $55 for everyone else. PWWlease send and email containing your contact details with ‘subscription’ in the subject line to editor@salient.org.nz this issue is dedicated to:

Print MediA #FOURMOREYEARS

“

"While historians bemoan how little record we have of ancient civilisations, far too much of our time will survive. Our throwaway conversational moments are now digital, and thus, permanent, however worthless."

”

how i facebooked your mother (from what i can remember) - page 20

E I L N A T S 1938

An Organ of Student Opinion Since 1938

arts features

18 weekly content

EDITORIAL 5

DInocop TOP TEN 6

NEWS 14

POLITICS 16

CAMPUS DIGEST

Constitutional Transformation

37 columns

VUWSA NGAI TAUIRA PASIFIKA

how i facebooked your mother (from what i can remember) 32

22 Honesty really is the best policy

BOOKS FILM theatre 40

BENT SECRET DIARY

visual arts

music

FIXING YOUR LIFE

The SubText of Cellphone Usage

salient <3 you

faces to deface SCIENCE

"We Need to Talk"

weekly rant

origami: pass it on

FOOD & DRINK

NOTICES

PUZZLES LETTERS

Emoji quiz

VBC GIG GUIDE ○○●○ 3 ●○●●

 EDITORIAL 

EDITORIAL #f ood por n

od #pr

nig tion

# b f f ls

#hawt

#stacks

#YOLO

onstack

#r ese rve ban k

# T G IF

M: OMG are you there?! I did something reaaally embarrassing last night

[Seen 11.23am] S: So... What are you going to do?

M: ! Good sign! You can probs get away with not talking about it now?

S: Hey! Lol, where did you wake up?

M: Urgh, I dunno. *Molly buries head in hands and vows never to leave house again.* Probably just ignore him every time I see him, stay offline on Facebook, and hope that something went wrong with his phone so he never gets the messages?

S: Sweeet, sweeet. Have you spoken to that douchebag about last weekend yet?

M: No! I just looked at my sent messages from last night... S: Lolll. Shit. M: Yeah. “Cum meet me I have a surpise ;)” S: Aaahaha, seductive! Did he ‘come’ back at you with anything good?

S: You should probs talk to him, so it’s not awkward at the next tute? M: Hmm...

M: No... He didn’t answer, so I said: “I meant to spell CUM that way!”

S: How many times have you already checked your phone this morning to see if he’s replied?

S: ...

M: I’ve hidden it in the corner of my room. You can have it if you want—I know you’ve always wanted an android...

M: Don’t ‘...’ me! S: Sorry! Just... Wow!

S: OMG! !!!! He just favourited my tweet about being really hungover !!! !!!

molly

& stella ●●●○ 4 ○●●○

M: Not exactly... We’re gonna have coffee this week to “clear the air”. I fucking hate talking about this stuff. Wish he would just fav a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ tweet or something to minimise potential embarrassment haha M: Yeah... I guess it’s best to do this in person though, eh. I mean, a favourited tweet? How ambiguous is that? *Molly puts on wise hat* I think we both just need to suck it up. S: Yeah, I guess you’re right. We didn’t develop mouths for nothing! Well, apart from what you were after last night ;) (lolol)

rlo

u lo -@ salizzo

h ts

ug ho

top ten

Reliabl eC o

sation Top er ic s nv

10 First years these days

9 “Did you take the Pill today?”

8 community quotes

7 Using hashtags properly

6 “What’s the female version of a hustler?”

5 The Damn Commies

4 Fucking StudyLink

3 “Is a foursome an orgy?”

2 Footy

1 Just start singing 'Bohemian Rhapsody'

BY SAM NORTHCOTT

♦ NEWS ♦

news

News? Tips? Goss? Whisper sweet nothings into the ear of Salient:

news@salient. org.nz

"Partner-Ship" hits Student Forum Iceberg Student Representation Last in Line for Lifeboat Stella Blake-Kelly

Student representation seats within the University continue to be left empty, as the omnishambles that is the well-meaning but ultimately disastrous Student Forum continues to go unresolved. The University has been slow to act following the withdrawals of VUWSA, Pasifika Students' Council and Ngāi Tauira from the Forum as announced at last month’s first informal meeting. These departures have effectively left the University-forced Forum’s representational legitimacy in tatters. Concerns and confusion about the intention and purpose of the Forum have been raised repeatedly since its inception in 2011, both amongst the Forum’s members and to members of the University Council and management. Despite this they have never been adequately addressed as members of both the Council and management have repeatedly shown different interpretations and intentions for the body’s standing and purpose within the University. Management, headed by Vice-Chancellor Pat Walsh, are responsible for implementing how the governing Council wants the University to operate. The University’s handling of the flummoxing Forum has been criticised by those involved in the body’s development, with 2011 VUWSA President Seamus Brady saying what has eventuated falls short of what was initially intended. “From the beginning of this process Victoria seemingly struggled to understand student representation and now seem to be confused as to what the Student Forum's purpose is—despite a commitment that it would be consultative, not representative,” Brady told Salient. “While the Student Forum has an identity crisis, students are losing out, their collective voice is being restricted and their say in decisions that affect them at every level is weakened. I am disappointed the concerns I raised in 2011 have gone unheeded. It’s time for the University to

recognise real student voice again.” When it was approved by the University Council following the passing of Voluntary Student Membership, documents prepared by management and changes to statutes showed intention for the Forum to be the representative body of students. However when pressed by councillors at a Council meeting, management’s Deputy Vice-Chancellor Penny Boumelha said that was a “typo” and would be corrected. University Council Student Representative at the time, Max Hardy, told Salient that he and other Council members were under the impression that documents, statutes and implementation of the Forum would change accordingly, with the Forum being treated as a consultative body not as the primary representative body of students. (The two concepts are easily hard to understand, and Salient will have a feature explaining them next week.) Rosemary Barrington, Council member and former Chancellor at Victoria raised concerns about why a consultative body, that was supposedly not intended to be the primary representative body of students, was to be given the responsibility of appointing students to representative positions within the University. However the aforementioned concerns don’t appear to have been addressed, with statutes still defining the Student Forum as “the student representative body formally recognised by the University”. “An undemocratic consultative body like the Student Forum should have no place appointing student representatives to any positions at Victoria,” Brady said. “Despite VSM kicking in and with the Student Forum trying to replicate its functions, VUWSA remains the biggest democratically mandated and accountable representative body of students on campus and should be recognised as such by the University.” 2013’s VUWSA Executive passed a motion ○●○○ 6 ●●●○

it would leave the Forum at a meeting on 27 February, however they embargoed the decision preventing Salient from reporting on it. “We've said the Student Forum isn't the place for accountable, democratic student representation. The Forum members themselves have admitted that. The concerns we raised repeatedly in 2011 and 2012 haven't been addressed, they've been confirmed,” current VUWSA President Rory McCourt told Salient. “That's why we, along with Ngāi Tauira and the Pasifika Students' Council, won't be attending Forum meetings, and we urge all student groups to sit out until this mess is sorted out through the representation review this year, which we'll be part of.” As, for reasons unknown, not all the statutes outlining who appointed student representatives were changed from VUWSA- to Student Forumappointed, VUWSA has continued to appoint a number of lower-level representative positions. “We’ve been happy to be work in constructive partnership with the University to make sure there is student representation on boards like the Hardship Committee, Academic Committee and the Learning and Teaching Committee. It’s vital that there are legitimate student voices at these tables, and we’re pleased the University management is taking a common sense approach,” McCourt said. See page 46 for information on the first official meeting of the Student Forum, which is intended to appoint a Chair to send to Council and student representatives for other boards and committees. However Salient suspects quorum won’t be met, as management is struggling to find students who want to be involved. “If any meetings do not attract the minimum number of attendees (quorum is 20 members), then we would propose that the occasion be used to explore informally any issues of concern raised by the representatives that are present,” said a University spokesperson.

♦ NEWS ♦

Govt Kills Students’ Bonus April Fools’ joke not very funny Phillipa Webb

Anyone repaying a student loan may find their pay packet has shrunk, as the Student Loan repayment rate for borrowers living in New Zealand has risen to 12 per cent. The changes, announced by Minister for Tertiary Education, Skills and Employment Steven Joyce as part of the 2012 Budget, took effect on April 1 and also include cutting the ten per cent Student Loan Voluntary Repayment Bonus. The minimum repayment rate for student loans has now increased from ten cents to 12 cents for each dollar of income that student loan holders earn over the $19,084 threshold, and students will no longer receive a further ten per cent of any extra repayments they make. In Australia, students only have to make repayments when their income is over $48,000 and even then it’s only four per cent, rising to a maximum eight per cent as incomes rise. Joyce said the repayment-rate increase would mean that graduates and ex-students will pay their loans off more quickly. “Increasing the repayment rate will increase

the rate at which people pay off their loans and provides savings of $184.2 million over four years that the Government is investing into the next generation of students,” said Joyce. “We are looking to bring that cost down further over time.” The change will only affect borrowers with income over the repayment threshold, currently $367 a week or $19,084 annually. It will not impact people who receive income-tested benefits. Borrowers who are unable to meet their obligations due to financial hardship may apply for relief under hardship provisions. The ten per cent student loan bonus for repayments beyond the compulsory amount was aimed at speeding up slow payers and reducing the Crown's borrowing costs. The scheme backfired when it became evident that students were gaming the system by claiming the bonus while they were still studying. Rather than changing the rules so that current students could not receive the bonus, the Government has opted to axe the bonus completely. These changes are just another scheme in a long

An Outcome On Income Loan default rates to Peter out, Dunne hopes Chris McIntyre

A deal Dunne in Parliament last week will crack down on student-loan defaulters using new methods, effective immediately. The Student Loan Scheme Amendment Bill (No 2) passed under the watch of Revenue Minister Peter Dunne, and will allow Inland Revenue and Customs to share data to identify and locate defaulters. “This will ensure greater fairness by including income that is currently outside the current definition—such as income from trusts,” said Dunne. “We have one of the most generous student support systems in the world, but it needs to be fair for taxpayers, and this bill helps achieve that.” The Bill also synchronises the definition of income used for students’ loans with those used for tax credits and other social policy

programmes. These changes will take effect from April 1 2014. The broadened definition of income will save $3.1 million dollars over four years. It is unclear which specific groups will be affected by the changes. These legislative changes are the latest of Dunne’s ongoing efforts to increase repayment rates. The Member has previously proposed using repo men to collect student debt, and tried to sweet talk students to not be scared to come home. Two years ago, Victoria’s late Sir Paul Callaghan launched the Heroic Educated Kiwi Expatriates (HEKE) scheme, to encourage overseas debtors to repay their loans. There were 97,392 overseas-based borrowers at the start of 2012, 47,036 of which had defaulted and owed over $300 million.

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running cost-cutting venture by the Government, which has reduced the cost of lending under the Student Loan Scheme from 48 cents in every dollar to 37 cents. Other changes rolled out in previous years have included cutting the repayment holiday period for people overseas, refusing loans for living costs to those aged over 55, and freezing the repayment threshold at $19,084 until 2015. One student Salient spoke said she had a friend whose parents paid off her $28,000 loan to take advantage of the $2,800 discount before the bonus disappeared. However, the new reality for most students repaying their loans themselves is that it’s better to put extra money in the bank to earn interest, rather than pay off an interest-free student loan promptly. There is a total of $13 billion in student debt and about 82 per cent of full-time students take out a student loan. This total rises by approximately $1 billion each year.

Student Loan Good-Times Happy New Year: Jan 1 changes  The Student Allowance is no longer available for postgraduate study, except Bachelor degrees with Honours.  Exemptions to the 200 week lifetime limit for Student Allowance were removed.  Student Loan borrowing limited to 2 EFTS of study each year.  People aged 55 and over only eligible for the compulsory fees component of the Student Loan. April Fools: April 1 changes  Repayments for income over $19,084 increased from ten per cent to 12 per cent .  Voluntary repayment bonus removed. OMG Can’t Wait: future changes  The Student Loan repayment definition of income will be broadened to include a wider range of income types from 1 April 2014.  John Key will ‘forget’ about a further repayment scheme mooted by Peter Dunne.

♦ NEWS ♦

Interest Captured How much is the Government making from your bond money? Chris McIntyre

Nearly $20 million earned from your bond money is going straight to a Government department, new figures show. Data obtained by Salient, from an Official Information Act request by VUWSA VicePresident (Welfare) Simon Tapp, show the financial state of the Residential Tenancies Trust Account (RTTA). A total of $367,311,000 is held in bond, an average of $1140 for over 430,000 individual bonds. The RTTA earned over $18 million in interest in the last financial year, all of which is paid to the Department of Building and Housing, now part of the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment. RTTA revenue is gathered solely

from interest on investments. All investments are held in Westpac, ANZ, BNZ, ASB and National Banks, and all revenues of the RTTA are exempt from taxation. The effective interest rate on the bank deposit holdings is slightly more than five per cent per annum. The stated aim of the Department of Building and Housing (DBH) is to improve building quality and housing availability in New Zealand. Tapp said he would like to see dialogue around using the money to help meet the aims of the DBH. “[The money could] fund a smart loan scheme to help expand the Warm Up New Zealand programme, or [it could be used] to help

landlords bring their properties up to a certain minimum standard for rental properties. “That's a huge sum of money that won't all be drawn down simultaneously, so you can afford to be a bit innovative and progressive in helping to improve New Zealand's housing stock, which we know would really help students,” said Tapp. Bond is held to cover unpaid rent, tenants’ damage to the property, or any other claim by the landlord. Landlords are legally bound to lodge bonds with the Department of Building and Housing, to prevent cavalier or illegal practices with bond money. Tenants with bond or other rental issues can appeal to the Tenancy Tribunal. For more information, visit dbh.govt.nz/tenancy-tribunal.

$367,311,000 $18,913,000 total value of bondholder's funds

431,897 the total number of bonds in nz

the interest earned on those funds last financial year

$1,140

the value of the average bond in nz

$36 dollars of interest gained per min

The value of total bond held equals:

half the GDP of samoa

the budget of pirates of the carribean 3, the most expensive film ever made ●●●○ 8 ●○●● ○○●○ ○●●○

25% of houseHOLDs IN NZ pay bond

♦ NEWS ♦

Adam and Steve

ready for equality Amy Adams and Steven Joyce, that is Sofia Roberts

New Zealand is one step closer to marriage equality as the Marriage (Definition of Marriage) Amendment Bill passed the Committee stage on Wednesday 27 March. This means that it has successfully passed through the penultimate stage without being changed to include the proposed amendments. The amendments excluded from the Bill included Winston Peters’ proposal whereby a marriage equality referendum would be held at next year’s election, as well as an amendment proposing greater religious protection for those opposed to marrying gay couples. Campaign for Marriage Equality Convener Conrad Reyners was pleased with the outcome. “This was another strong vote for family, love and commitment. It clearly showed that, once again, MPs have voted with the majority of Kiwis and boldly stood up for marriage equality. They have voted for love over fear,” he said. On the night of the Committee of the Whole House stage, hundreds of people gathered outside Parliament to protest against the Bill. The antiBill protest had been organised through social media and featured prayer, hymn-singing and glow-stick waving. A counter-march was also organized, with hundreds of people turning up to show their support for the Bill. The Third (and final) Reading of the Bill will be held at Parliament on Wednesday 17 April. “We are tremendously excited about the Third Reading of the Bill. A successful third-reading vote will give Kiwis the ability to marry the person they love, in front of their family, whānau and friends,” said Reyners. If the Bill passes, New Zealand will be the 11th country to have legalised same-sex marriage nationwide. ○○●○ 9 ●○●●

♦ NEWS ♦

Foreign student revenue rises They come over here and take our knowledge! Chris McIntyre

Foreign students are cashing up New Zealand tertiary institutions with recent figures showing international tuition revenues have increased to their highest level since 2004. Minister for Tertiary Education, Skills and Employment Steven Joyce released the Ministry of Education’s 2012 Export Education Levy data in late March. The data show international tuition revenues increased by two per cent to $745.7 million in 2012. International students, or ‘full-fee’ students, often pay as much as six times the fees of domestic students. Of the 2012 budget spend, $2.82 billion went into the provision of tertiary education. The revenue gained from international students is equivalent to over a quarter of this budgetary allocation. Joyce hopes revenue streams from international

students will continue to grow, despite a 31 per cent drop in students in Canterbury after the earthquakes, and a three per cent drop across the rest of New Zealand. “Institutions in all of our major cities have played an important part in making New Zealand an attractive destination for international students and these latest figures give a strong platform for continued growth,” said Joyce. Victoria had 814 international students at the start of the 2012 academic year, according to University Council documents. This is seven per cent fewer fullfee students than at the same time last year. The 2012 Export Education Levy data can be accessed at educationcounts.govt.nz/statistics/ international.

Drinking disgust discussed Wellington youth hold forum on alcohol strategy Bing Lou

Wellington’s youth have voiced their opinions, views and ideas on how alcohol should be managed in the city, during a recently held Youth Alcohol Workshop. The Wellington City Council’s Alcohol Management Strategy is currently being drafted in response to the Government’s Alcohol Reform Bill, aiming to look at the conditions of liquor stores and licences, as well as looking at general alcohol-related behaviour. The aim of the workshop was to get young people involved in local decision-making, and being the change they wanted to see in the city. Around 20 young people aged between 15 and 25 attended the workshop on Saturday 23 March, held at Te Papa. Discussions included underage drinking and preloading in the suburbs, the roadblocks for change, social attitudes towards binge drinking, and possible

solutions and incentives to promote safe alcohol consumption. Ideas were floated for ‘safe houses’ in town, where people could have a place to sober up; smartphone apps that could inform people how intoxicated they were; and a particular need for youth education on social drinking and alternatives to binge drinking. VUWSA Vice-President (Welfare) Simon Tapp, who attended the forum, was impressed with the Council’s engagement with youth. “I was also hugely impressed with the eloquent, rational and informed youth present, from Year Nine through to uni students. “It's not just a youth and student issue [and] any alcohol policy needs to try to fix New Zealand's culture and attitudes towards alcohol,” he said. The workshop was hosted by the Wellington City Youth Council and Link, a group from the Wellington Boys’ and Girls’ Institute.

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Judge, Jodie, and Asher-cutioner 15 years straight for Victoria ‘sports’ team Sophie Boot

Princess Diana was still alive the last time Victoria DebSoc lost the New Zealand University Impromptu Debating Championships (Easters), with their 15thsuccessive victory coming in Dunedin last week. Vic 1, comprising Asher Emanuel and Jodie O’Neill, beat Auckland 1 in the final, negating the motion, “This House regrets that monogamy is the expected norm in our society”. Both O’Neill and Emanuel also made the New Zealand University Debating team, with O’Neill named Best Speaker of the tournament and Emanuel Captain of the team. In winning the last three NZU Impromptu Championships, Emanuel has taken 27 judges out of 30 in the break rounds. He has been to seven NZ University debating tournaments, and has won five of those. Vic 1 did not drop a single judge across ten debates. They were the first team since 2005 to go unbeaten at the tournament. To get to the final, Vic 1 had had to defeat their own—Vic 3, consisting of Duncan McLachlan and Nick Cross—in the semifinal, with Vic 1 negating the motion “This House believes that the state should refuse to tolerate sexist indigenous cultural practices”. Vic 3 was ranked fourth out of 22 teams overall, and both McLachlan and Cross also received Highly Commended awards. Victoria also did very well on the adjudicator front, with five Victoria judges selected to adjudicate the Grand Final. Two of them were unable to judge the final due to conflicts of interest (namely current and prior coital relations with speakers debating in the final). Udayan Mukherjee, a Vic alumnus, won the Centennial Cup for best adjudicator of the tournament, with perfect feedback. If Vic wins the next three Easters tournaments, they will have won Easters for the entirety of any first-year debater’s lives.

♦ NEWS ♦

Get ‘Em While They’re Young (Not like that though) Sophie Boot

“More money, more problems” is not typically a student worry, and is even less so now that university students seeking employment have been disadvantaged by new Government legislation. The Government’s Minimum Wage (StartingOut Wage) Amendment Bill passed its Third Reading last week, meaning that on May 1 the ‘starting-out wage’ will be introduced at 80 per cent of the minimum wage, or $11 per hour. The minimum wage was raised 25c to $13.75 an hour on April 1. The new legislation means that university students are less attractive as prospective employees than those under 18, as adults must be paid 20 per cent more per hour. The current New Entrant wage, which is 80 per cent of the minimum wage, applies to 16-

and 17-year-olds in their first 200 hours or three months of work, whichever is shorter. From 1 May, this will be re-named as the Starting Out Wage and will apply to 16- and 17-year-olds in their first six months of work, 18- and 19-year-olds who have been on a benefit for six months or more, and 16- to 19-year-olds training in a recognised industry course. The Government has supported the Bill on the basis of creating jobs for young people, of whom 90,000 nationwide are currently not in employment, training or education (NEETs). Last year, youth unemployment (15- to 19-year-olds) reached 30.9 per cent. Labour Minister Kate Wilkinson says the Bill is aimed at making a tight labour market a little less so for NEETs. “The new starting-out wage will help some of

Democracy under threat Governments Put The NGO in ‘missing out’, SAY VIC ACADEMICS Miranda McGregor

A recent report published by two Victoria academics has criticised successive New Zealand governments for ignoring and restraining information that doesn't fit their agenda. The report, undertaken by Victoria University academics Dr Sandra Grey and Dr Charles Sedgwick, details government constraints on public debate, and highlights a heavy-handed approach on the part of successive governments. The conclusions are sourced from 153 non-governmental organisations (NGOs), and clear failings of both National- and Labour-led governments are identified. Agencies say these failings have led to a culture of fear and mistrust. Recent UK-based findings show charity organizations in the UK are reluctant to spread views about institutional injustice, particularly

against minority groups, for fear of having funding removed by the government agencies who support them. Similar fears exist in New Zealand, as public policy increasingly seems to ignore public opinion and restrict the independence of such organisations. A Government official involved in NGOfunding allocations believes the views of NGOs are being sidelined. “[The Government] seems increasingly to see these organisations as...'service providers' [rather than] 'civil society' organisations with a right to their own view,” said the source, who wishes to remain anonymous. Grey and Sedgwick suggest the Government is improperly guiding the voluntary sector into decisions, and it is important to challenge this. This echoes similar findings in Australia, ○○●○ 11 ●○●●

our youngest and most inexperienced workers get a much-needed foot in the door, in what is currently a tight labour market,” she said. The Opposition has labelled the move discriminatory, and Labour’s Tertiary Education spokesperson Megan Woods has decried the Bill’s “impact on the incomes of working students”. “This Bill is another kick in the guts for students,” she said. The New Zealand Union of Students’ Association’s 2010 Income and Expenditure Survey found that 65 per cent of students were employed in regular or casual work during the academic year, significantly down from 90 per cent in 2007

suggesting that the arrangement is a widespread problem for democracies. This report suggests that implementing a system in which grievances can be fairly heard is not only preferable but necessary. Governments have consistently promoted certain policies for NGOs to follow, ignoring referenda and blocking unwanted information from being released. Grey and Sedgwick hold that it is important to publicly question government agendas in order to not bestow power in the hands of any single group, and to protect the rights of minorities within the community. NGOs have a strong role to play in this aspect of civil society. “Speaking up in unforgiving times is never easy,” the academics say. “It is more important, now than ever before, to illustrate how governments are constraining, cajoling and capturing the voice of the community and voluntary sectors.” The report, titled ‘Fear, Constraints, and Contracts: The democratic reality for New Zealand’s community and voluntary sector’, can be found on the University website at victoria. ac.nz.

♦ NEWS ♦

eye on exec End of Summer Special Molly McCarthy & Stella Blake-Kelly

14th January: Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed for their first meeting of the year, the Exec started as they meant to continue; bourgeois style. As they handed around camembert and floated the idea of having meals provided for their future meetings, President Rory McCourt announced that “[Association Manager] Mark has ordered our iPads.” Unfortunately the meeting went into committee before any context could be given to that statement. As much of VUWSA’s activities rely on the University for funding in the post-VSM environment, any discussions that relate to these funding contracts are confidential for reasons of commercial sensitivity, so must take place ‘in committee’, which means Salient can’t report on it. Moving out of committee, Wellbeing and Sustainability Officer Rick Zwaan gave a progress report on the Fairer Fares campaign, somewhat worryingly admitting that he wasn’t “really sure what the numbers mean” in reference to the quotes he’d received for advertising in bus shelters. Fairer Fares, one of VUWSA’s major campaigns for 2013, is supported by a number of environmental groups and Wellington City Council councillors. The meeting finished on a high note, with Education Officer Gemma Swan exclaiming, “I love this job!”, to which Equity Officer Matt Ellison responded, “We don’t know if you’re being sarcastic or not.”

30th January: McCourt had been busy networking across campus, while Zwaan still waiting on an accurate quote for the bus shelter ads (upon reflection, $500 in total for a number of ads in shelters across Wellington just seemed too low...). The Exec, in particular Campaigns Officer Harry Chapman, felt uncomfortable on granting $5000 to this aspect of the campaign; they settled on $5000 as an upper limit (which could be spent but didn’t have to be) for these communications.

13th February: Given the extremist political leanings of past Execs, an ongoing concern for 2013 is to avoid seeming too aligned with any particular political

party’s policies. Up for discussion was whether VUWSA should throw their weight behind the Green Party’s ‘Everyone Needs the Right Help’ campaign, which highlights the need for better support and services for rape survivors. McCourt pointed out that this was an initiative that VUWSA should be supporting. These questions will continue to arise throughout the year, and VUWSA will have to decide on a case-by-case basis how they are working to their values. As the meeting ended with a gripping powerpoint tutorial by Ellison on how to access work emails from home, Salient noticed that McCourt was using his not one, but TWO (2) iPhones to support the projector. So that’s why they call him the bougie monster...

27th February: Another meeting, another large amount of time spent in committee leading Salient to question why we even bother coming when VUWSA.Inc seems to spend more time thinking about the moneyz than the honeyz. Even VUWSA’s representation of its members is under a contract with the University, due to participation in the Student Forum, so they moved into committee to discuss issues of a democratic nature. There was a painfully long discussion about whether or not VUWSA should have their logo on the University’s Smokefree Campus posters, which advertise Victoria becoming smokefree from April 29. Eventually the Exec voted against it, as they didn’t want to be associated with something that takes something away from students, and thought the implementation date not being at the start of the year was disruptive. Pandering to non-existent student opinion, all bar VicePresident (Welfare) Simon Tapp showed they didn’t really get the logic of ‘messaging’ and ‘impact’ in enacting changes to ‘attitudes’. The advertising for the change—supported by the majority of students who submitted—promotes it as positive change towards a “healthier campus” and “cleaner air”, not an oppressive measure that will punish rule breakers as the University won’t even really be enforcing it.

13th March: Committee: 20, Salient: 0.

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27th March: Just to make sure everyone had really earned their Easter break, the Exec met for over three hours this time around, by the end of which a number of Exec members were holding each other for support in the face of seemingly endless bureaucracy. Language surrounding the Student Forum in the March 13 minutes had to be changed, as “VUWSA has withdrawn from Student Forum. No faith in Student Forum,” was deemed “quite frank”. Treasurer and minute-taker Jordan McCluskey said he was just recording what had been said. It was agreed that McCourt would “touch up the language but not the intent”. Vice-President (Engagement) Mica Moore had been talking to VicIDS, who want Victoria to be New Zealand’s first Fair Trade University. Members of the Exec who seemed reluctant to support the project were soon reminded that VUWSA already committed themselves to Fair Trade way back in 2009. Someone pointed out that the coffee in the meeting room wasn’t fair trade, while McCluskey offered, “I don’t want to start a massive shitfight, but... it’s a giant crock.” McCluskey opted to abstain from voting to grant $200 to the campaign as, “It’s fucking ridiculous”. Salient wonders whether the Fair Trade commitment was considered when VUWSA opted to have their 2013 wall-planners and diaries produced cheaply in China. Tensions rose when the Exec had to pass a motion to pay international speaker Hördur Torfason, whose recent visit to Victoria cost the Exec $200. The Exec had not been consulted by McCourt on the cost before Torfason spoke at the University, and a number of Exec members questioned what would happen if they simply didn’t pay. McCourt explained that he had got the price reduced from $2000 to $200, so had decided to go ahead with booking the speaker. Zwaan said that he was uncomfortable about VUWSA undertaking activities he didn’t even know about (like the recent Easter Egg Hunt) and it was decided that McCourt will come to the Exec with an “up to” spend limit for future costs such as guest speakers. The Exec have also finally set a date for their IGM, which will be held on Wednesday 17 April.

♦ NEWS ♦

Standby for expensive flights Students’ wings clipped as Air NZ ends popular scheme alex lewin

Students have been left grounded, as Air New Zealand has announced the popular standbyflight service it offers will be axed in five weeks. Standby seats, which typically cost $69 to fly domestically, are a popular way for students to fly home cheaply from university. One angry University student spoken to by Salient summarised Air New Zealand’s decision as being “worse than a slap in the face with a cold fish”. “I mean, it’s ridiculous: I’m now too poor to afford flights home to see my family and friends as much as I want to. “And what about those people who need to be able to [be] somewhere in short notice but just can’t afford to pay $400? Grabaseat is just plain

annoying; I can never click the little button in time,” the student told Salient. Air New Zealand said the ability to buy standby flights was being axed in order for customers to be “able to purchase confirmed seats at great prices”. Spokeswoman Marie Hosking said standby flights were not going in an attempt to make more money, as there were “already cheaper flights available than standby ones”. The company did not comment on how many people used the standby-flight service. Cheap domestic flights throughout New Zealand will continue to be available through grabaseat offers, with some being less than half the cost of a standby ticket.

stay classy, world North Korea continues to get uppity, declaring an end to the Korean War armistice, cutting ties with South Korea, and openly threatening the U.S. with nuclear war. U.S. forces have been moved across the Pacific, and Kim Jong is very Un-happy about it. Michael Jackson is to blame for his own death, according to the promoters of his comeback show testifying in the star’s wrongful death trial. The ongoing court case is set to be a thriller. 70 years after being dropped, an unexploded bomb was found in central Berlin and promptly defused. The impotent WWII-era explosive was a surprise to locals, who did Nazi it coming. Saudi Arabia has leapt into the future with women now able to legally ride bicycles, an activity previously banned. However this is only allowed in restricted, recreational areas and only for entertainment—not for transportation, lest Muhammad get mad.

LOL NEWS CHROFLIS MCLOLNTYRE Kony “kidding around”; U.S. Govt. not. Facebook celebrity Joseph Kony is in the sights of the U.S. State Department, who have offered US$5 million for information leading to his arrest, transfer, or conviction. Kony runs the Lord’s Resistance Army, and is thought to have up to 42 children, 88 wives, and 30,000 child soldiers. The rewards represents an upping of the ante for the U.S. Government’s Kony search, after they both liked and retweeted the KONY2012 video last year.

international flights. According to the World Health Organisation 59.6 per cent of Samoans are obese—the fourth-highest rate in the world. As such, Salient suggests Samoan Air stocks are currently a wise investment.

A thing has been found to cause cancer, research shows. “This is very important and we need to change our behaviour accordingly,” said one expert. Other experts hold that more research is necessary to fully determine causality. “Everything causes cancer,” commented someone.

German customs not Mally-able to Bieber’s needs Justin Bieber’s pet monkey has been detained by German customs, and will be given to a monkey shelter if Bieber does not sort the necessary paperwork in the next month. Yes, that is a real actual news event. Mally, a 14-week-old capuchin monkey, was “disoriented” according to officials, after being monkey-barred from the Deutsch state.

headlines that weren't Confused man sets cock back one hour; prematurely ejaculates. Chihuahua stolen: “It’s a doggone mess,” say police.

Weigh up high

Policeman’s phone dead, charged with battery.

Last week, Norwegian economist Bharat Bhatta suggested “pay as you weigh” airline pricing would bring health, financial and environmental dividends. Quick to take off on the idea was Samoa Air, who will become the first airline in the world to charge passengers by weight. Passengers will pay NZ$0.68 per kilo for domestic flights, and NZ$1.24 per kilo for

Student takes break from looking for self on VUW Cupid; stalks others “too see if they’re hot”. Derivative magic trick “just an allusion”.

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P O L I

left Don't You Forget About Ian By Carla Marks I'm worried for our Prime Minister. My maternal instincts reach out to the lost little rich boy leading our fair nation. Has he remembered to wear a singlet? Did he eat breakfast this morning? Are his car keys sitting lost in the refrigerator? The problem is that he seems incapable of remembering anything. So many times during this term (and the last), John Key has used the "I forgot" excuse and, quite frankly, I’m beginning to fret that he’s forgotten his credibility. There was the time when he forgot his stance on one of the most divisive events of the 20th century in New Zealand. Sure, the Springbok Tour isn’t a pressing policy matter these days but it is definitely important culturally. I wonder if Key is more afraid of offending the middle class liberals brought onside by tax cuts or the “But rugby’s different!” crowd who associate the blue of the All Black’s Powerade with Key’s party banner? Either way, claiming to have forgotten what he was doing during the 1980s is just silly when we all know he was earning the GDP of a small nation and playing squash with his T-shirt tucked in. There was the Dotcom saga where he claimed at first that he didn’t attend the meeting, then he couldn’t recall the meeting, then he couldn’t remember what was said in the meeting. Then he forgot his vote on the drinking age. And who was in the CIA plane at Wellington Airport. And how many Tranz Rail shares he owned. And that he owned a vineyard. And what was said over a cuppa with John Banks. Then, last week, to top it all off, he forgot that he called his mate Ian, and told him to apply to be New Zealand’s top spy—a job which the PM then made sure Ian got. Perhaps there is something in the water at Parliament. Maybe a liquid amnesia agent? John’s mate, John Banks, has had a nasty case of forgetfulness in the last year: not only forgetting the helicopter trip to a fat German’s mansion, but also the $50,000 donation—which he asked for. Of course, it might not be an accident. All these forgotten meetings, memory lapses and brain fades aren’t just a colossal case of coincidence, but rather the deliberate covering up of a government that has a culture of lying, leaking and cronyism. Maybe, just maybe, the way that this Government thinks they can get away with their dodgy dealings is to feign forgetfulness. The matters to which these memory lapses relate are far from trivial. They involve spying and serious stock trading. Even if these lapses are unintentional, should we really trust a man this forgetful to run our country? And worse, if intentional, how can we trust any politician if a precedent is set that forgetfulness is a legitimate excuse for impropriety? After all this, one thing is for sure: by the end of 2014, New Zealand will be wishing they could forget this National Government.

Minimum Rage By Cam Price Kia ora koutou, Those exchanging their time, skills and effort with employers at the governmentmandated minimum price for labour may be forgiven for thinking Minister of Labour Simon Bridges was having a laugh on April Fools’ Day, when the minimum wage officially rose by a measly 25 cents an hour, up from $13.50 to $13.75. The Australian equivalent is NZ$19.80. Yeah, happy Easter to you too, Mr Bridges. The economic concept of an imposed price-floor on the dollar amount employers are permitted to pay their workers is one of the most hotly contested political footballs in the sport of politics. Some economists say it’s too high. Others say it’s too low. The public doesn’t bother for economists who can look at the same data and draw totally different conclusions from them and finds it suspicious that nobody seems to ever say the level is just right. Most people’s opinions are formed on the basis of a gut moral feeling. The political reality is that a minimum exists in New Zealand, and it rises from time to time by modest amounts. Most people are prepared to accept that increasing the price of a good or service will decrease the quantity of that good or service demanded. Put in common terms, if it costs me more to employ more workers, I will employ fewer of them. Common sense. However, the decrease in job opportunities when wages rise seems to be an acceptable and fair sacrifice in order for workers to be paid a decent and dignified wage, as governments can assist those who miss out on work until they are able to find a job at the higher wage. The centre-right National party is stuck ●●●○ 14 ●○●● ○○●○ ○●●○

between a rock and a hard place. On the one hand, they accept the above reality and implement increases to the minimum wage. This allows them to look like a centre party. But on the other, they reject the argument for minimum wage rises and have passed the Minimum Wage (Starting-out Wage) Amendment Bill, which will decrease the wage for 16- and 17-year olds to $11 an hour, 80 per cent of the adult minimum. This is so they look like a right-wing party. But Simon Bridges can’t have his cake and eat it too: either raising the minimum wage is a good thing, or it is a bad thing. Doing both just makes you look like a tool. “Oh no,” he implores, “having a starting-out wage will mean that employers will now be more able to employ young people and thus create more jobs for the youth of today.” Yes, maybe he’s right that more 16-and 17-year olds will get jobs, but he’s failing to look at the group most affected by this policy: older, low-skilled workers. If an employer can hire a 16-year old to do the same job as me but pay the little punk 20 per cent less, I’m as good as fired. A starting-out wage discriminates against one of the most vulnerable groups in society by preventing unskilled older workers from being able to offer their skills at a price which can compete with under-18s. Who would we rather out of a job? A young 17-year-old still living at home with mum, or a 35-yearold mum with 3 kids to feed? The minimum wage in an economy speaks volumes about a nation’s attitude to the dignity of its people. National insults that dignity by offering measly increases for some and huge decreases for others. In the end, the only people laughing are those smart enough to move to Australia. Yours, Cam.

T I C S

RIGHT Communication Breakdown (With apologies to Led Zeppelin)

caption me!

By Freddie Hayek Expanding on my theme from the last Salient of New Zealand politicians having really terrible memory, it appears that most of them are really shit at communicating too. Though in the Prime Minister's case, it might be being a bit too good at communicating, judging by the events of the past week. Labour has accused the Prime Minister of corruption, of personally ringing Ian Fletcher (a family friend) about a job going as the head of the GCSB, and telling him to apply for it. Mr Fletcher was the successful candidate. The Prime Minister had seen a shortlist submitted to him by the State Services Commission for the job, vetoed it and rang Mr Fletcher instead.

Send us your best caption for this picture to editor@salient.org.nz, subject line: 'Caption Contest', by 5 pm Thursday for your chance to win a free coffee.

LAST WEEK'S WINNER

"Forced Labor at the Abbott-oir" WINNER: thanks chris! we'll be in touch about that coffee

Mr Fletcher is evidently qualified for the role, but not in a conventional way. All previous GCSB Directors have been military leaders or intelligence experts; Mr Fletcher’s background is in diplomacy and public service. Labour does not take issue with Mr Fletcher’s skill set, but with the fact that it appears the Prime Minister personally chose the new spy boss who reports to him and him only. If you were a conspiracy theorist, you could connect some serious dots if you felt like it, given the recent series of clusterfucks around Kim Dotcom involving the GCSB When it comes to political scandal in New Zealand, I favour incompetence over malice. New Zealand is a very small country. In all fields of professional life, whether it be law, accountancy, medicine, economics or public service, it is highly likely you will know (or know of) most people in your field once you are qualified. Take for example the judiciary: most of our judges went to Law school with the people over whose arguments they preside and decide on. Just think, that moron in your Torts lecture who reeks of Lynx might be a High Court judge one day! So is Labour correct when they say John Key is a corrupt, crooked, Richard Nixon-style, executive power-abusing dictator? Of course not, Labour are wrong about most things. What the Prime Minister might be a bit foolish. As for those commentators saying that the gloss has come off Key, they have been saying that for every minor kerfuffle over the last five years. Ignore them. Because in the words of Omar Little from The Wire, if you come at the King, you best not miss; Labour continues to.

they said what!?

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~  CAMPUS DIGEST  ~

CAMPUS DIGEST Campus Diary Cold, Moist, and you have to pay for the service Let’s be honest: flatting’s a bit shit. Whether it’s finding your best clothes covered in mould, blurring the bros/hos line with your flatmates just to keep warm, or discovering a mushroom lurking in the corner of your living room, $150-plus seems like too much per week to live in a flat that’s colder and damper inside than it is out. Fortunately, addressing New Zealand’s rental property issues is in political vogue at the moment, and here’s your chance to get involved in the discussion! Hosted by the University of Otago’s Centre for Sustainable Cities, ‘Making Houses Affordable: a public discussion’ is taking place at Thistle Hall, 293 Cuba St, Monday 8 April. Featuring speakers Charles Waldegrave from the Family Centre, and Joel Pringle of Australians for Affordable Housing, the talk begins at 6 pm with refreshments from 5.30 pm.

How many firefighters does it take to put out a smelly light bulb? Pipitea Campus got hot under the collar last week when the Old Government Buildings had to be evacuated for a fire alarm. The fire, which occurred just after 1 pm, was reportedly caused by an electrical fault in the form of a “smelly light bulb”. Salient hopes that the New Zealand Fire Service will respond with a national advertising campaign of equal calibre to 2012’s ‘Don’t Drink and Fry’ campaign—we’re sure Hamish the

ask the magic 8 ball

Turkey Gobbler would be prepared to front up on the topic of dirty bulbs.

Hair and there Massey University Students’ Association President Ben Thorpe lost his signature ‘fro last week, raising $850 for the annual Shave for a Cure campaign. As reported in the O-Week issue of Salient, organisers Leukaemia & Blood Cancer New Zealand proposed that VUWSA President Rory McCourt take on Thorpe in a ‘Shave Duel’. McCourt has still failed to confirm whether he intends to follow Thorpe’s lead, and when the magazine went to print McCourt was still sporting a full head of hair. Salient suspects that McCourt’s Young Labour roots might have something to do with his reluctance to sell his assets.

Calling all Fully Bright Students The closing date for the FulbrightHarkness New Zealand Fellowship has been extended until May 1, which means more opportunities for you to apply for free $$$ to study in the United States. Fulbright New Zealand and the New Zealand Harkness Fellowships choose a fellow annually, and are looking for an emerging New Zealand leader in any field of study or vocation (other than healthcare) to study or research at any US university or institution for a minimum of six weeks. The successful fellow will receive $15,000 to help in their pursuit of the American Dream. See www.fulbright.org.nz/awards/nzscholar/ fulbright-harknessnz to apply.

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My flatmate's a babe, should I go there? OUTLOOK NOT SO GOOD

my intox inbox Me: Are you coming? Other: Yes, but not on you.

Send your best Texts From Last Night to editor@salient.org.nz.

RE@L T@LK

Tell them how you really feel about them: like, retweet, and respond to ALL of their interactions on social media.

~  CAMPUS DIGEST  ~

RE@L T@LK

Let them down lightly: FB msg “You’re dumped :(“ then appear offline for as long as you need to.

Let your ex know you’re totally cool with their new squeeze: Like and favourite all of the lame things they say on the internet.

Getting

amongst " the best" Overheard @ Vic: Georgia Taylor Overheard in CLAS lecture: Girl: What if Vic was really the NZ version of Hogwarts? Guy: Surely we'd know then? Girl:What if we were muggles, and some of the law papers or something were actually wizarding papers? Guy:...I'd probably want to start taking Law then. Anna Mckenzie-Pollock Overheard in the dairy section of new world metro: "so basically it's just like scrumpy hands but with 1kg blocks of cheese" Jack Winter Overheard: Guy walks past me and a mate chilling on a couch, eyes us up. Comes back five seconds later - "Bro, this is a mean spot to get blazed. I'll be back later with a joint." Richard James Overheard Guy (pointing at pigion): I could get two meals out of that Holly Neill Overheard in GEOG/ESCI 111 "I don't know why you're complaining, you had sex this morning. You were on the phone to me at the time." "Yeah but that was ages ago!" Pardon? Kate Mountcastle Overheard in the Hub, some guy singing 'What makes you beautiful' to a girl, and then just walking away...

Vinko Florence Kerr-Harris Overseen in the Kirk Cafe: Guy behind the counter putting something wrapped in a shitload tinfoil into the microwave for 7 minutes. Wish I had stayed to watch the show unfold :(

an apple a day

Exercise with friends, it will help motivate you to maintain a fitness regime and also allow you to catch up on gossip! - Physiotherapy NZ Weekly health advice provided by the staff at Victoria's Student Health, Student Counselling and

OMG VUW confessions: #413 instead of going to class today, my girlfriend and i spent the day high in bed eating mac and cheese and watching 90s movies. i have no regrets. #411 Pretty sure I designed the new hub building about 10 years ago, out of Lego, in my bedroom...

Physiotherapy Services.

GOING UP Tensions on the Korean Peninsula Justin Bieber’s “street-cred”

VUW Cupid: #521 Kate in CRIM211 I can't stop looking at that fine ass of yours, especially when you pinch out your wedgie and your skirt jumps just high enough for me to get a peak of those sweet cheeks. I'd take a bite of that ass if I could. Keep up the skirt wearing it makes lectures worth going to

Your power bill, find a winter spoon fast if you don’t want to pay the big dollahz

Twitter: @mitchyyyyy "A guy in this class is using a scrumpy bottle as a water bottle." @mitchyyyyy "The worst part of University is when they make you talk to people." @bloodispure Lying in bed thinking about how @ VicUniWtgn's new sculpture, outside the hub, looks like synchronized swimmer's legs.

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GOING DOWN The number of Parliamentarians with functioning memories. Cypriot bank balances Vic students cigarette intake.

 FEATURES 

NEWS FEATURE

Constitutional Transformation New Zealand's constitution is currently under review: Should we be a republic? Do we want US style Supreme Laws? What is STV? These questions dominate the discourse but push out more pressing matters. Maori, who have been historically either forgotten or actively oppressed, should be an important group in any constitutional change. Moana Jackson, a prominent New Zealand academic on Maori and the law, discussed his vision for a constitution with Salient. Muffins were served. Interview by Duncan McLachlan

In light of the upcoming constitutional debate series, what is your vision for a New Zealand constitution? Three years ago at a national hui of nearly 2000 Maori people, it was decided to revisit the work done in the mid 1990s to discuss constitutional issues. A working group was set up. I had been appointed co-chair. I think the terms of reference of that group give a sense of the starting point from which Māori are coming, from which is quite different than that of the crown. Part of the crown task is to see whether the Treaty of Waitangi can fit within the existing constitutional arrangements. The brief given to us is to see how we can fit a constitution within the Treaty of Waitangi. A constitution is really just the way in which people to choose to make rules to govern themselves. But if those rules are to have any value them they must be based on a set of values. What are the things we would like to preserve; what are the things that are worth protecting? So for me, a legitimate constitution is one that comes from the land of the people it is there to serve and it enables people to live well together. You have written about the Bolivian constitution. Do you agree that there are lessons that can be learnt from the environmental basis on which it operates? I don’t think that it is transplantable here. Just as I don’t think the Westminster system is. But I do like the fact that it is values-based, and that those values reside in the land and caring for

the land. They acknowledge what they call the sacredness of the individual. They position the individual always within a wider collective. What has become clear in the hui we have had around the country is that there is a similar desire among Māori people, and I would guess among many Pākehā people. If you recognize the sacredness of every individual, and position that individual within whatever social or community group they belong to, then you have a values base on which good law will be made. If you focus on the individual, then the debate about gay marriage would not be a debate. The moral base on which Māori viewed gay relationships was not one of good and evil or sin or purity, it was based on whakapapa and cherishing the sacredness of people. So if the relationship was a respectful, loving, caring one then it was all right. There was no issue. Now if you extrapolate that from beyond the debate about gay marriage, and you have a constitutional system, which similarly respects that preciousness then I believe you will get better law. It is that issue that our people are really keen to talk about. although it seems very compelling to have a values based constitution, in New zealand where we have so many cultures and beliefs that people subjectively hold it would be very difficult to reach agreement as to what those values should be? I’m not sure that that is true. I think there is a set of fairly common shared values: most

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people want to do their best by their kids; most people want to love and be loved; most people actually do care about what they now call the environment. The trick is not getting agreement on the values. The trick is how you give effect to them in a constitutional sense. You have written about selfgovernance for MĀori: how would you see that selfgovernance operating in New zealand? You have jumped straight to the system rather than the values. You are asking how it would work, where I begin with the values and the values are clearly sourced within the Treaty. The values base for me is to go back to what was actually agreed in 1840, and what was not agreed was that you can come from somewhere else and govern us. And part of the debate we are about to have in this country is not whether grievances should be settled, but whether the overarching grievance of colonisation can be settled. And underpinning all the discussions in all the hui we have had, the debate always comes back to the values and Te Tiriti, and they are inseparable. I am not suggesting that that debate will be short or easy, but until we have that debate we will not get to the point of determining the ethical values that should underpin a constitution. So how it should work is less important than what we want it to do. And my experience is that once people begin to discuss values then the model becomes easy. the way in which The modern judiciary has interpreted the treaty, in say the Lands case, has been to invent certain principles

 FEATURES 

rather than treating the treaty as a more pure contractual agreement. Do you support that approach? It’s rather like taking the Magna Carta and inventing a set of Magna Carta principles rather than looking at what it actually says. I guess the judges have had to deal with these perceived intractable disputes between Pakeha and Máori as to what it means. Do you think that was a bad move and they should just look to the Maori interpretation? I think the principles have been unhelpful. I am always reminded of Sir James Henare. When the principles were first discussed he said at the time: “Our ancestors did not sign a set of principles. They signed words. The mana is in the words.” I have difficulty with what has happened to the relationship because of the principles. I don’t want to deny that there have been really quite profound changes in this country in the last 30 years in terms of the Treaty relationship but we are not there yet. I just prefer we celebrate the good things but know we are not at the end of the journey yet. There are some pretty damning statistics with regards to MĀori and their under-representation at the ballot box, and then their over-representation in prisons. Do you think the current way we consider the constitution and our perspective of the criminal justice system which focusses on the individual, play a role in those statistics? Yes. We have an aphorism in Māori: “You cannot understand the present without understanding the past." And so you cannot understand, say, a young man in prison without knowing what has shaped him. The prison figures are the same for any indigenous people. That suggests either that indigenous people must be inherently more criminogenic or there is something in the shared history of those indigenous people that has had an effect. The commonality is the dispossession of those people by colonisation, which is historically, culturally, emotionally a traumatic process. All the Maori I know in prison, and some have done really unacceptable things, but

something has happened to all of them that led them to do all those things. The commonality is the trauma and its various manifestations of dispossession. The way in which the criminal justice system functions is part of that trauma. The resolution on the prison population won’t be achieved unless we look to those broader affects. If Māori had not been dispossessed in all sorts of ways then there would not be as many Māori in prison. I actually think that is an uncontestable argument. Are the police responsible? I was once told that something like 20 per cent of marijuana consumption is by MĀori but something like 60 per cent of those caught are Maori.

will happen, and what I am hoping will come out of this current debate is that a starting point will be established. That little baby there is my first great grandchild and she will live to see it. I may not, but the New Zealand she will inhabit as a young woman will be as different from today as today is from 1980. The challenge in those sorts of changes is to get it right. You make mistakes along the way, but if we can find common ground in the values then we will get it right. In 1980 it was unrealistic to think that a little Pakeha boy would learn a little about how to say his Māori friend's name properly. Reality changes. I ask our people just to imagine what might be and then see what happens.

I often tell a true story here. A young Māori boy and his Pākehā mate have a few drinks and were then staggering home. They had a few small cartons of Steinlager and one of the boys tripped and the bottles fell and broke. They tried to clean it up. A police car came along. He exercised his discretion to arrest. The police then exercised discretion to prosecute. They charge the Pākehā boy with depositing litter. They charged the Māori boy with possession of a dangerous weapon. It’s illustrative of that biased use of discretion. If you were a student and wanted to get involved in shaping New Zealand’s constitution and discuss the way Maori play a role in New Zealand’s constitution. What would you do? I think it is really important that they start from the point that there is always more than one side of a story and they are open enough to listen to each side. They may not agree or like some of the sides but unless we listen to each other then we can’t have any sort of relationship let alone a Treaty relationship. I think we are at a similar point now in the constitutional debate that we were in the 1980s with the treaty debate. The only solution I can see is that we just have to keep talking and try to show people that just because something is there now, that doesn’t mean that it is fair. But change does not come without dialogue. Our view is that this change won’t occur overnight. But we wouldn’t even be having a constitutional discussion if, 30 years back, there hadn’t been a tentative, nervous, even angry sometimes, attempt to have a discussion about the Treaty. It ○○●○ 19 ●○●●

Want to learn more? Victoria’s Centre for Public Law is hosting a series of debates about issues raised in the Government’s Constitutional Review. Supported by the New Zealand Law Foundation and broadcasted on Radio New Zealand National, the debates will be moderated by Victoria Law lecturer Steven Price, and will take place every Monday starting at 6.30 pm, April-May. 8 April: “What’s the problem?” Speakers: Prof. Bruce Harris, Moana Jackson, Dame Claudia Orange, Dr Matthew Palmer. Hunter Council Chamber, Kelburn Campus. 15 April: “Reforming our democratic institutions” Speakers: Dr Maria Bargh, Colin James, Professor Elizabeth McLeay, Sir Geoffrey Palmer QC. Hunter Council Chamber. 22 April: “Māori aspirations for constitutional change” Speakers: Tai Ahu, Dr Rawinia Higgins, Veronica Tawhai, Valmaine Toki. Te Herenga Waka Marae, VUW Kelburn Campus. 29 April: “Human rights in the constitution” Speakers: Prof. Andrew Geddis, Jack Hodder QC, Stephen Whittington, Prof. Margaret Wilson. Hunter Council Chamber. 6 May: “Time to be a Republic?” Speakers: Jim Bolger, Prof. Janet McLean, Michael Mabbett. Hunter Council Chamber.

 FEATURES 

How I Facebooked Your Mother

(from what i can remember)

The revolution in how we communicate isn’t happening; it’s happened. Both letters and email are already completely irrelevant. We are talking to each other more than ever, using a plethora of different tools, but has it become too easy? Did the arduous process of actually writing a letter let us display our thoughts in full, or just let us hide them with elegance? Is a Facebook chat message any less ‘real’ than ink on paper? Should we be saving our favourite @replies in a shoebox? By Henry Cooke

I have never written a letter. I’ve written thousands upon thousands of emails, over ten thousand tweets, and more Facebook Chat messages than would be considered healthy. All of these messages, made up of electromagnetic pulses rather than ink on paper, are indexed and stored somewhere, in a system far more intricate and organised than any letter writer’s shoebox; but I never revisit any of them. They just don’t seem worth the effort.

Letters have dominated long-distance person-to-person communication for much of human history. Persians developed the first formal postal system—for tax reasons—around 500 BC, but hand-delivered written messages have existed since around the invention of writing. While the largest, the internet was not the first disruption to rock traditional letterwriting. The fax’s era was cut short by the internet, but the telegraph and the telephone both made some impact. Of course, the telegraph was far too

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cumbersome (STOP) and the phone far too immediate to really change things, so letters remained dominant right up until the turn of the millennium. Humans hate change, and you can see that in our early email patterns. We clung to artifacts from the letter-writing past, from the "Dear" to the "Yours". While the medium has slowly began to inform the message, our email software remains trapped in the past, complete with an 'inbox', envelope icons, and of course the word: 'email'. But email was just the start.

 FEATURES 

I now use email for work. Pretty much just that. I suspect many of you are the same. I can talk to my friends in about a million other ways, from the post-ironic teen-speak of Facebook chat (“suu bored”) to the scribbled-over selfies of SnapChat. These services all cater to different needs, of course: Twitter is for violently agreeing with a whole lot of people at once; Facebook is for killing time at work, GChat is for panicking about assignments; and Snapchat is for selfies. However, there is one common theme. None of these messages feel important. They certainly don’t feel ‘considered’. Only a special type of perfectionist spell checks their IMs. Although (mostly) written, these exchanged messages generally feel much more like a conversation, a form of communication that has nearly always remained ephemeral, very much of-thetime. Conversations feel very different from letters—much more natural and unrestrained, with mistakes and asides aplenty—while the carefully constructed letter keeps us within the artificial bounds of traditional prose. Letters require one to sit back and consider a little, even involuntarily, given the time it takes to compose them. Conversations are instant, much older than letters, and much more suited to how humans actually think. Letters require the organisation of thought into concrete sentences, some kind of a basic structure and the effort to go through with all this. Conversations are mostly impulsive: one’s thoughts, free of planning or much in the way of syntax. Hemingway’s letters to Fitzgerald are incredibly illuminating and beautiful, sure, but just imagine their IMs. So are we actually losing something, or is this reversion to conversational forms just a needed course correction from the millennia-long aberration that was the written letter? It isn’t like long form is dead. Whenever the word 'letter' enters the modern day media vernacular it is usually preceded by the word 'open', as in, intended for broadcast. You are reading “long-

form” content right now—it’s just addressed to the several thousand people who read Salient, rather than you specifically. Such forms of communication feel worth keeping, worth going back to, while the 31,639 Facebook messages between my best friend and I that mostly consist of “how’s werk? gd.” should probably fade into digital death. But they won’t.

will probably have more photos taken of it in its first year than its grandfather had in their entire life. The three framed photos my family have of my greatgrandfather are all I have to construct an idea of him from—my grandchildren will have access to gigabytes of data I have produced, from photos to tweets to random comments, but they probably won’t care. Sure, knowing a few things your grandfather said at age 13 would be kind of cool, but scanning through thousands of tweets about long-dead politicians? Boring, and not revealing in the kind of transcendent way one would like. Does the sheer tonnage of content we will all leave for future generations mean none of it will be seen as relevant? It’s pretty hard to seperate the wheat from the chaff here; even the best tweets usually need some context, and I’m not sure my kids will care about the thousands of text messages their parents exchanged finalising dinner plans.

Hemingway’s letters to

Fitzgerald are incredibly illuminating and

beautiful, sure, but just imagine their IMs. In mid-2011, Facebook radically redesigned its users’ profiles, and drew more than the customary amount of ire. The ‘profile’ became the ‘timeline’, and suddenly jumping years back into someone else’s life was as easy as checking your email. Granted, you could still only jump back to ‘public’ content, but it was certainly jarring, to say the least. I typed differently in 2008. I’m still friends with many of the same people, but we are all talking about stuff none of us remember, using words and sentence structures that look completely out of place beside our current profile pictures. The one saving grace of this new feature? Nobody really gives a fuck what I was saying in 2010. Herein lies the problem. While historians bemoan how little record we have of ancient civilisations, far too much of our time will survive. Our throwaway conversational moments are now digital, and thus, permanent, however worthless they may be. We are producing digital content—not just messages, but photos, blogs, tweets, videos—far faster than ever before. A baby born into the Western world today

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Change never happens as fast as we would like. A watched kettle never boils, a watched superpower never bans assault rifles, and a watched civilisation never evolves. I may have never written a letter, but I’ve grown up in a world where letters were still a ‘thing’; where they permeated pop culture and postal slots the world over. More ephemeral communication methods are definitely changing the way everything works— from the ease with which a company or politician can respond to a citizen, to the fact that saying “hi” to my friend who lives in England is as easy as saying it to my flatmate—but increasing the efficiency and convenience of longdistance communication can hardly be a bad thing. Every technological movement seems suspect for a while, before it becomes, well, boring. If it isn’t your thing, you can always appear offline.

 FEATURES 

Does someone like you? yes

Are you sure?

Read this anyway. It’s stupidly relevant-perhaps you’re the one that’s madly in love?

yes

Do you like them back?

Okay, you got me.

Pay more attention

yes

Are you close friends?

Sorted.

Have you made it clear?

yes

Is retaining the

We salute you for dating outside your immediate friend group.

friendship important to you?

yes

Just pash and run, I guess.

State clearly and unequivocally that you don’t want a relationship with them.

Fuck off.

Do so. How’d it go?

Well.

Disappear off the scene for a while.

●●●○ 22 ●○●● ○○●○ ○●●○

Disaster.

“Unclear”.

Don’t feel bad for being a statistic.

Been there.

 FEATURES 

Honesty really is the best policy How to be a decent human being in the face of unrequited love Very few feelings are worse than liking someone who doesn’t like you back. But, if you’re the object of another’s affections, you have the ability—and the responsibility—to put them out of their misery in the quickest, kindest way possible. Salient’s scorned women reflect on how to be a decent human being in the face of unrequited love. By Hilary Beattie & Elle Hunt

One day, you will have the opportunity to break someone’s heart. They will want to be with you, and you won’t want to be with them. As friends, yes, as classmates, yes, as colleagues, yes—but you won’t be able to reciprocate in the way that they desperately want you to. And one day (not the same day. This isn’t Coro), you will be the vulnerable party with your heart on the line. And you will want the object of your affections, in the absence of reciprocation, to respond in the way that’s least likely to leave you crying on your way home from parties for the next six months. You will wish either that they act in the same selfless way you did when you were in their position—or that they will be kind to you in the way that you weren’t to someone else. The importance of communication in successful relationships is common knowledge among even the most commitment-shy, but it’s even more crucial in the lead-up to a potential union, when the two parties are circling each other and smelling the air and asking “What are we?”. At that juncture, clarity and comprehension of intent, on both sides, is crucial—because if you’re not interested in someone, it’s easier for you to tell them “no” than for them to infer it. Being madly into you has hideously diminished their powers of deduction. A special kind of senselessness is reserved for those whose feelings are unrequited. “To want to be with someone so badly that you are willing to, either consciously or subconsciously, disregard

all expressions of their not being that into you is a form of irrationality, and it can become self-fulfilling,” says Haimona, 24. “You care deeply for this person while ignoring the fact that no relationship could sustain such unrealistic expectations of perfection.”

or fall back on excuses like “being in a weird headspace” to avoid that awkward conversation.

In short, people in love aren’t rational. They can’t be expected to expose empty promises and white lies for what they are, or have the presence of mind to gracefully extract themselves from the ambiguity in which they are mired. They are like drunk people, or horses, or dogs: you’ve got to really spell it out.

Veronique, 21, recalls being told “things [were] unclear” and that “if it were anyone, it would be you”. “I didn’t want to abandon the prospect, so all I could really do was wait around to see if he changed his mind,” she says. “It was a time-suck—I spent six months in what to me was uncertainty, but to bystanders was clearly never going to happen.”

It could be argued that, before any kind of commitment has been made, you’re under no social obligation to do good by the other person. But as the party in the position of power, in full command of your emotional capacities, you have a responsibility to put them out of their misery— and if an appeal to your moral conscience isn’t enough, it’s in your best interests to do so. If you tell them, clearly and kindly, that you don’t want to enter into a relationship with them and then act accordingly, you are being a decent human being, and the most shade the rejected party can throw at you is that you didn’t want them—not that you fucked them over, strung them along, or decimated their ability to love.

Though the desire to “let them down gently” often stems from empathy, giving someone a reason to maintain hope when you have no intention of following through serves no other purpose than prolonging their misery. If they’ve asked you out on a date, or confided in a mutual friend who has gone on to tell all your other mutual friends, or it’s hideously obvious to everyone and requires no elaboration, you need to address the matter head-on, clearly, directly, and in a way that cannot be misconstrued. Because people in love are, at heart, optimistic: they’ll read hope into anything.

Being clear and consistent is the easiest way to escape this emotional quagmire with reputation, dignity and friendship intact—but being clear and consistent is hard. We understand. Your feelings may well be ambiguous; you probably do feel conflicted by your desire to remain friends and keep bridges intact. You will be tempted to gesture towards “some time in the future...”

○○●○ 23 ●○●●

Don’t. Your not liking them ‘in that way’ is the only relevant circumstance. Strategies designed to minimise harm will only exacerbate matters.

You’ve got to be cruel to be kind, and in the right measure, so the 10 Things I Hate About You soundtrack goes. Do it in person, if only to save your 'just-friend' hours of reading way, way too much into your choice of the 'lonely whale' emoji. And seize whatever opportunity you get to clarify your position—for example, if they use the word 'date', even in a joking way (and it’s always in a joking way). pto

 FEATURES 

Incidental heartbreaker Jessa, 22, was once told she was “hard to read” by a man after he tried to kiss her, several months after they’d slept together. “Instead of explaining that I wasn’t interested, I said, 'Am I? I’ve always wanted to be a woman of

“Sorry, pal. I’m on the love

train but this carriage is platonic, now entering the Friend Zone.”

mystery!' and walked away. That was a mistake, as the opportunity for me to clear the air was on a plate.” In terms of rejection strategies you can pursue any number of tactful, endearing options. There’s charmingly flustered: “Oh! Did you mean ‘get dinner’ as in, ‘go on a date’? If so, I don’t want that kind of relationship with you! If you didn’t mean it like that, BRB burying my hand in the sand.” Blunt but affectionate: “Oh, you muppet, I don’t feel the same way—now let’s go get a kebab.” Deadpan: “Sorry, pal. I’m on the love train but this carriage is platonic, now entering the Friend Zone.” If you’re feeling especially benevolent, you might try a compliment sandwich (not to be confused with a neg), in which the crushing blow of rejection is offset by delicious, if superficial compliments: “You have the best hair of any girl I know. I’m not interested in a relationship with you. Your eyes are so pretty when you cry.” Humour can cushion the blow, too. Armchair psychologist Haimona champions a quirky variation of paper-scissors-rock: on the count of three, both parties “blurt out what they think their relationship is in as few words as possible, then they either make out or go their separate ways”, depending on the outcome. “The obvious silliness creates a levity which can make the situation easier to deal with, and if the break is clean from that point, hurt feelings can be reduced,” he says. However it unfolds, both parties need to be on the same page before the discussion concludes. Hopeless romantic Miranda, 20, spent most of 2012 “flogging a horse that I thought just needed mild chivvying—turns out it was dead the whole time.” She recalls having conversations with said dead horse that supposedly clarified where she stood, but still being unable to give a “definitive answer” when she was asked what was going on

by friends. “By the time I could give a definitive answer, I had indignantly endured a week-long sexless mini-break and more than one stressinduced stye.” The ultimate test of character and self-restraint, and the hardest part of this process, is ensuring that your actions reflect your words. Once you let them down, the dynamics of your relationship change—for a while, if not for ever—and you can’t spend as much time with them as you did before. You can’t ask after their parents or post on their siblings’ Facebook walls or cook dinner together or watch movies in the same bed or make jokey references to questionable judgment calls they made while in a lovestruck haze. If you do, you are creating the illusion of intimacy on which you can’t deliver, amounting to implicit acceptance of the new terms of your friendship: an inherent imbalance of power that's an ego trip for you and an emotional shitstorm for them. Being of such high moral fibre requires resolve. When asked how she responds to someone who likes her but she’s not interested in, Shoshanna, 21, gave two responses. “Good Shoshanna tells them that she’s not interested, or avoids them; bad Shoshanna takes advantage of free dinners out and wine.” The ultimate test of this is in whether you sleep with them, or continue sleeping with them after an inequality of emotion has become clear. They’ll urge you to; they’ll say it’s “just sex”, but if you give in, you are taking advantage of their feelings for you, no matter how you inevitably excuse it in your mind, and will only compound their confusion and misery. Carrie, 22, recalls being told by a boy, by whom she had been strung along, that he loved her “as a friend”. “But people don’t sleep with their friends” she said, confused. “I do” was the reply. “The thing to remember is that human beings have feelings,” says Hector, 21. “Life isn’t really like a sitcom. If you don't want to be a total jerk, don’t try to manipulate people. Don't say ‘the right thing' because you think it will get you what you want. “You need to be clear, honest and above all frank. People will appreciate it... We can get hurt pretty easily, but we're also pretty tough.” The dismal outcome is that, in most cases, dispelling someone’s hopes changes the dynamic

●●●○ 24 ●○●● ○○●○ ○●●○

of your relationship forever, and you will never be as close as you were before. But suffice it to say that this whole scenario is worse for them than it is for you, and you need to be selfless. If you don’t love them, let them go. And if they come back, you weren’t fucking clear enough the first time.

Do  Be clear  Keep your actions consistent with your words  Give them time and space to get over you  Take opportunities to reiterate the message. As in dog training, repetition and consistency are key

Don't  Revel in the hyper-emotive unfairness of it all; they’re the ones in pain  Purport to keep your friendship intact; no equal friendship is built on unrequited love  Use ambiguous language or make excuses in an effort let them down gently  Talk about other people you’re scoping out or “entertaining the possibility of ” and assume they’ll take the hint: they won’t  Sleep with them, or continue sleeping with them if it’s clear there’s an inequality in feelings  Get with mutual friends at liberty and put on a bashful face every Monday, as much fun as it reportedly is being an “object of destruction”

And for the love of God and all that is good, don't say  “It’s unclear how I feel”  “I would like nothing better than to go out with you”  “You make me a better person”  “I couldn’t lose your friendship”  “I love you as a friend”  “I make no promises as to the future”  “I don’t understand my emotions”  “You deserve better than me”  Any and all references to “head space”, “mindset” or a “weird place”

 FEATURES 

The SubText of Cellphone Usage Body Language in the Modern Era We've all heard the statistics about how most of us say more with our bodies than we do with our words. Body language is nothing new, but with changing times come changing technologies, and we here at Salient thought it was high time that someone explained the subtleties of body language when a phone is thrown into the mix. By Eleanor Merton

The subject is playing crappy music on their crappy phone crappily. Possible explanations: The subject is a crappy person.

The subject is having an embarrassing conversation. Possible explanations: The subject’s mother is asking them if they’re using contraception.

The subject has fallen asleep, facing directly downwards in a lecture, while distracting themselves from the monotony with their phone. Possible explanations: 100-level major requirement. ECON130. 8 am lecture. Hungover. Vicbooks coffee line was too long.

The subject with their phone is struggling as hard as they can to find an excuse to leave this situation. Possible explanations: Subject is realising that they had a physical connection, not an emotional one, as blood alcohol levels reduce too rapidly.

The subject recently dropped their phone into a toilet. Possible explanations: The subject is fucking stupid/cruuunk/was trying to take selfies in the bathroom.

Subject is either taking selfies or using their screen as a mirror. Possible explanations: Subject thinks people in vicinity are cool or attractive; is checking that they look okay.

The subject really wants to make it clear that they are reading The Guardian and not playing Tetris. Possible explanations: Subject thinks people in vicinity are cool or attractive; is trying to come across as a cool and attractive liberal intellectual.

Subject, realising they have found themselves awkwardly alone, is straining to appear as though they are meeting someone. Possible explanations: Subject thinks people in vicinity are cool or attractive, and doesn’t want to seem like a loser.

The subject has found an unwelcome reminder on their phone. Possible explanations: The subject is going over their sent-messages folder following a night of heavy drinking/has just received a Snapchat dick-pic.

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 FEATURES 

"We Need to Talk" By Alice Peacock Brainteaser of the week: if a girl eats brunch and no one is there to Instagram it, did it even happen? For many of us, Instagramming before eating something delicious has become almost second nature. To fail to do so would be a waste of food; how else are you going to give your friends FOMO?* We are a generation obsessed with our own lives, spending excessive amounts of time documenting and communicating about every unimportant aspect of our daily lives. With those in our close circles, the question "How was your day?" has come to hold little value. If something interesting has happened, you’ve probably already texted your friends about it. Along with a cheeky Facebook post. Stories and events become old news hours, even minutes, after they occur as technology allows us to talk to anyone, anytime. But are we spending too much time documenting and communicating about our lives, and not enough time actually living them? According to comScore, an online research site that uses mobile measurement reports, the average Instagram user spent just over ten minutes each day accessing the photo-sharing site last year. As entertaining as other people’s shameless ‘selfies’ are, this is surely the perfect amount of time to have a quick catch up with a real-life friend. The same source estimates that 15 minutes of any given day are typically consumed by mobilephone calls for the modern-day person, along with a further 22 minutes taken up by texting. Imagine how good your abs would be looking if you focused on them for this time instead? Furthermore, the average Facebook user spends between 20 and 60 minutes online every day, and that doesn’t take into account increased usage during procrasti-Facebooking sessions before assessments are due. Take the time we spend emailing, Snapchatting, and on sites like Tumblr and Twitter; multiply this by 365, and suddenly we have frittered away days, even weeks per year on our phones and MacBooks. Multiply this by 80, and you can say adios to years of your life wasted in front of

a screen. Social media has become a massive part of our lives, almost taking the place of a cat, or a boyfriend. We feel the need to check into Facebook as soon as we get home from any given place, despite the fact that many of us have notifications constantly delivered to our very own smartphone, which is practically glued to our hands anyway. Student Sophie** talks about her friend who spent the majority of summer overseas: “We talked most days, both talking about what we were doing, and me spilling gossip about what was happening back here. When she came back I felt completely up to date; it was like she had never left.”

Next time you Instagram a picture of your delicious lunch #foodporn, consider which you enjoyed more, your fresh BLT, or the amount of likes you got from your post. #priorities. Our ease of communication means that we are practically never isolated from our social circles. We can be virtually connected with our friends and family at any given time, able to text our families for flatting recipes or Chat our friends during that painful two-hour lecture. At some point however, this surely becomes overkill. Our obsession with knowing what everyone is up to at every moment of the day leaves less room for focusing on reality, let alone living it to the fullest. ●●●○ 26 ○●●○

So is the ‘YOLO’ generation all talk? Since rapper Drake first coined the term, we have been using YOLO to justify every little questionable move, often hash-tagging or texting it from the safety of our own houses. Search #yolo on Instagram, and one of the first results on the ‘Insta-feed’ is of girls doing tequila shots. Another tequila shot? “Yeah, let’s live life to the fullest!”, said no one, ever. Today’s generation of teenagers seem to spend almost an equal amount of time living our lives as we do communicating about them over technology. Next time you Instagram a picture of your delicious lunch #foodporn, consider which you enjoyed more: your fresh BLT, or the amount of likes you got from your post. #priorities. If we only live once, then why are we spending our lives living through our gadgets? Is the birth and growth of communication technology gradually leading to the death of actual communication? Technology is undoubtedly useful in terms of keeping us together, but it is equally skilled at keeping us apart. The way in which we can be physically with someone while virtually connected with someone else means that the world is getting increasingly lonelier for those that do not gel with our ever-changing technology. The Huffington Post’s Zion Lights describes this bridge between virtual and real life as “virtually insurmountable”; those who cannot keep up will undoubtedly get left behind. Communication today never stops. We can talk to virtually anyone, anytime, while the new findmyfriends app for iPhones lets us literally track our friends’ progress on their walk to Uni. But maybe it’s time that we revise the way in which we use technology. It’s not that we’re using it, it’s how we’re using it. Which is way, way too much. These forms of communication are great when used reasonably, so long as you don’t forget to enjoy the Fidel’s waffles that you just snapped. #moderation. *Fear of Missing Out, for those of you behind the times with your acronyms. **Not her real name.

 FEATURES 

cut it out

Pass This On

W a pa n sh na y /n ?

Make your tutorial a little less awkward. just cut, fold, and pass it on!

(pick one) O - i'm bored o - did i meet you in hope bros? o - want to get coffee?

Y lo ou i h iii ok 're a ne in n ve . c g o a te yo n s? ur

o - other:

○○●○ 27 ●○●●

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COSMICNZ.CO.NZ

○○●○ 29 ●○●● answers: 1. Les Miserables 2. Miss Congeniality 3. HIgh School Musical 4. Fight Club 5. Tangled 6. The birds 7. 27 dresses 8. Sound of Music 9. moulin rouge 10. alice in wonderland 11. little miss sunshine 12. snakes on a plane 13. babe 14. singing in the rain 15. the bourne identity 16. mean girls 17. brokeback mountain 18. supersize me 19. single ladies 20. love on top 21. countdown 22. halo 23. video phone 24. bow down 25. call me maybe - carly rae jepsen 26. trouble - taylor swift (goat version) 27. touch the sky - kanye west - 28. suit and tie - justin

timberlake 29. same love - macklemore & ryan lewis 30. 9/11 31. holocaust 32. occupy wall street 33. women gaining the right to vote

33.

18. 17.

32.

16.

31. 30.

15. 4.

Guess these Emoji-world events

29.

13.

28. 3. 2.

12.

27. 26.

11.

25.

Guess these Emoji-songs

10.

24. 23.

22. 21. 20.

19.

Guess these Emoji-movies

Guess these Emoji-Beyonce songs

emoji quiz  FEATURES 

YOUR STUDENTS’

ASSOCIATION

your students' association

THE McCOURT REPORT VUWSA President Rory McCourt Treasury Reveals Heart: Calls Unfair Loan Changes Unfair On April Fool’s Day, the National Government introduced changes to the student loan scheme that make life for graduates a hell of a lot harder, despite everyone saying it’s a pretty stupid move, including their own Treasury. From Monday the Government will take 12% of a graduate’s income for loan repayments on top of tax, a 20% increase from the previous rate, for everyone in work earning over $367 a week (so pretty much everyone). You might think ‘good, people should pay back their debt faster’. And if that was the only thing you cared about, you might be right. But the expected reductions in loan repayment timeframes aren’t significant. VUWSA requested documents under the Official Information Act that show the Treasury, often accused as the secret hide-out for right wing nut-jobs and economic flagellators, said the changes would only speed up repayment times by 4 months over the life of the loan, a goal they said wasn’t worth the unfairness of the policy. Surprisingly, the documents show good ole Treasury actually came up with some pretty decent ideas to get the cost of the interest free loan package down in a fair way; like a progressive repayment scheme so you only pay back a larger proportion of your income as it rises. So if you earned $70,000+ you’d pay 15 cents of every dollar earned above that amount, and only 10 cents for everything below it, a bit like our income tax system. That’s how Australia does it, where you don’t pay a cent until your weekly pay reaches $944. That’s $577 more than in New Zealand. Even then, it’s only 4% of your income you pay back. In contrast, the current kiwi scheme works like a flat tax, making a millionaire graduate and a supermarket worker both pay 10 cents in the dollar of their paycheck to the taxman.

ability to make higher repayments. Remember, this is on top of tax. Under the new 12% repayment rate if you were a teacher recently out of Vic on $48,000 a year, you’d have a whopping $19,200 deducted from your pay before it even touched your bank account. That’s an effective marginal tax rate of 40%. Treasury said that’s BS. Tertiary Education Minister Steven Joyce ignored them. Instead, the Government took our already unfair system and made it more unfair by lifting the flat rate and not addressing the regressive nature of the repayment scheme. That’s stupid. Not according to me, but according to Treasury. When Minister of Tertiary Education Steven Joyce put his foot down and told his advisors to get over their progressive repayment pipedreams, the guys from Treasury tried suggesting an increase to only 11%, saying the negative impact would be less than his preferred increase. Joycey ignored them again, and ploughed ahead with 12%. Treasury was highly critical of the rate hike, calling it “poorly targeted”, unfair on graduates with “generally good repayment histories, rather than focussing on those that don’t repay”. It was a poor policy that did little to address the problems the Minister wanted to fix, and created more hardship in the process. With this year’s Budget coming up, the Government has a chance to fix this policy and adopt some common-sense Treasury advice. Labour and the Greens too have an opportunity to craft an alternative vision for what do with a fundamentally unfair system. I hope both sides take up the challenge; our graduates deserve a fair go.

Long-time quality housing advocate and Wellington City Councillor Iona Pannett declares her support for VUWSA's Fairer Fares campaign and improved flats

Flat repayment rates are unfair because lower income earners spend a proportionately higher amount of their income on necessities like food and rent than higher income earners, who have more disposable income and

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NGAI TAUIRA

Campaigns officer By Harry Chapman, Campaigns Officer

Hey everyone! Hope you are back in the swing of things after the Easter break! I'm writing to let you know about the Warmer Flats campaign we're going to be running this year at VUWSA to make sure that everyone has a warm, dry and safe place to call home. If you followed the VUWSA Election last year, you will have noticed that pretty much everyone had something to say about housing—it's an issue that's close to everyone's hearts. Even if your flat isn't cold now (and I've talked to a fair few people whose houses are already freezing!), chances are when winter approaches your place will become frightfully cold and you'll cry frozen tears of anguish every night. The benefits are so obvious that it's hard to see why rental housing isn't being insulated already. Warmer flats mean cheaper electricity bills and healthier living, so you can take fewer days off university. Installing proper ventilation in bathrooms stops the growth of dangerous mould and prevents damage to the house. The cost-effectiveness of improving the quality of housing has been thoroughly proven through research, and subsidies for insulation are already available to landlords. All that's needed now is a bit of political willpower. Previous years' Executives have worked hard on this issue, but this year we're planning a really big push to get the Wellington City Council to do something. We want minimum standards for rental accommodation in Wellington so that students—and renters more generally—don't have to gamble with their health when finding a place to live. The scales are tipped too far towards landlords at the moment; when you look for a flat you have no idea how warm it's going to be. It shouldn't be a guessing game. It's not unrealistic that everyone should be able to move into a new place confident in its warmth and dryness. We don't have to tolerate the status quo anymore—we need to remember that the current state of affairs is not 'natural', rather it's a product of a deliberately 'hands-off' approach. Wellington can be better. We can serve as a model for the rest of the country, and show that common-sense regulation can produce huge benefits. We'll be asking for your help when the campaign gets off to a proper start. In the meantime feel free to contact me at: campaigns@vuwsa.org.nz

Nāu mai hoki mai anō. Welcome back from the first half of the first trimester break. Why the University has decided to split the break over the month we don’t know, but hopefully you’ve had time to catch up with family or assessments/class work. The Ngāi Tauira office has moved! Having spent most of the last decade in the Student Union Building alongside the other student associations, Ngāi Tauira are making a move to be closer to the marae. After packing up our gears last week, we’ve finally shifted to Rooms 102 and 103 at 42KP, in the office space between the waharoa and the bus stops. We’ll be packing down our gears over the next week or so but our current plans for the space are for it to be a casual hangout/relaxed study place for tauira to utilise, so don’t be a stranger. If you’ve got 5 or 10 minutes until your bus comes and want to wait in a warm space, we’ll be there with tea and coffee available, or if you just want to kick back for a bit after a full-on kauhau make yourself at home in the lounge space. We welcome any feedback or ideas on how you’d like to use the rooms! So drop in and check it out.

PASIFIKA STUDENTS' COUNCIL Welcome back to Uni! Hope you had a well-deserved rest and managed to have an actual break lol! A few reminders about events happening around campus. God bless and have a fabulous and productive week! Loto Aho Study Session Kirk Building (room next to Ema’s office)Wednesdays 4pm-6pm (No need to sign up, feed provided after session) Ema Sanga's Critical Thinking Workshop Tuesdays and Thursdays from 12-1pm, Pasifika Haos. (No need to sign up) Tivaeae-Making Session Tuesdays, 5 pm at Pasifika Haos VUSSA (VUW Samoan Students’ Association) Practices Tuesdays, 5 pm at SUB 217 and SU218 Thursdays, 5 pm at Tennis Pavilion Hula with Te Kura Wednesdays, 7.30 am at Dance Room, VUW Rec Centre FHSS Drop-in Course Advice Friday, 1 pm at Pasifika Haos Text: 021 207 4733 Phone: (04) 463 6242 Email: pasifika@myvuw.ac.nz Website: http://www.victoria. ac.nz/vicpasifika/ ○○●○ 31 ●○●●

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bent By Matthew Ellison

You may have noticed in the last week that your Facebook feed is full of people changing their profile pictures to one of those red equals signs. Perhaps you were confused at first about what they meant, but a little asking around led to the realisation that they are to show support for marriage equality, made topical worldwide by the issue reaching the Supreme Court in the US in relation to both Proposition 8 in California (which abolished marriage equality soon after California gained it), and DOMA (the Defense of Marriage Act, which denies federal benefits to same-sex couples) nationwide. But do you know where that logo comes from? It’s a self-promoted adaptation of the logo of an organisation called the Human Rights Campaign (HRC). By adopting and promoting the logo, we lend the organisation legitimacy, appointing them by committee as the voice for the entire queer-rights movement. The entire queer rights movement, though, is about more than just marriage equality. The

entire queer-rights movement includes trans* rights and the rights of people of colour. It includes queer women, and homeless youth (a group which is disproportionately queer). These are groups that need more than just marriage equality. As queer people, we are diverse in the races, classes, and genders with which we identify, and we need to represent that when we’re campaigning on a popular issue like marriage equality. More importantly we can't let ourselves or anyone else think that our job stops at marriage. The HRC has a pretty well-documented history of ignoring the rights of some groups in favour of others. One of their worst offences was when during a recent rally outside the White House in support of marriage equality, they asked people to stop waving a trans* flag because, in their, opinion, marriage equality wasn’t a trans* issue. Don’t let this be Kony 2013 (albeit without the public masturbation). Take a little time to look up where the photo you’re sharing on Facebook came from, and what it

represents. I support marriage equality, and I fight for marriage equality, but I don’t do so at the expense of the marginalised. Or at least I try not to—privilege is a tricky thing to have. As a community, the queers have not historically been good at including minorities. Queer spaces worldwide and in New Zealand are heavily male-dominated, cis-dominated and white-dominated. Those of us who are privileged (and I am using the word privilege here to refer to an institutionalised advantage or set of advantages, not having a nice car, though that can be part of it) have a duty to ensure that, in campaigning for our own rights we are not trampling over the rights, of others like the HRC does. If you have any questions, comments or feedback, please feel free to email uniqvictoria@gmail.com, visit us on

Facebook

at facebook.com/uniq.victoria.9, or at our website: uniqvictoria.co.nz. like to see here

Tell us what you’d - we’d love to hear from you!

secret diary of officious first-year Secret Diary of Officious First-Year 2: Authority I think the hardest thing about university is that people don’t tend to respect my authority. I was a prefect at school (that’s because I’m an exemplary student) and so I’m unfamiliar with people not realising that I’m quite an important person. It’s a shame they don’t have prefects at university—a lot of people in my hall are really naughty sometimes and it would do them good to have a few people keeping things under control. I guess the closest you get to being a prefect at university is being a Class Representative. People like me call them “Class Reps” for short, because we know what’s going on. I ran to be Class Rep for all of my subjects, with mixed success. For Law, about ten other people ran, which is a bit silly really because they should have realised I was going to blow them out of the water. I was so annoyed that I intentionally lost, because it’s not cool if you try too hard. I’m the Class Rep for all my other classes, which is great because it’s a really neat way to get involved in student politics at a grassroots level.

I wear my Vic Uni lanyard everywhere to let everyone else know I’m important. It’s also super-handy for keeping my keys and student ID on. It’s a shame that lots of other first-years seem to be doing it—maybe they don’t realise that I started the trend and they should probably have been in on it before it was cool. I think I might run for VUWSA this year too. I know I’m young, but in my experience, younger people always make the biggest difference. I’m sure VUWSA would love to have someone like me on board, to stand up for students from all walks of life. It’s all part of the smart, green university plan. I don’t know what I’ll run for: I’d be great at all of the positions! Thanks to everyone who contacted me expressing their sadness that I was homesick last week. It’s great to be part of the Vic Uni whanau. I’m still a bit sick though so make sure you send me food: C/- Weir House. Admire me on Twitter - @GMo4lyf.

As if it isn’t already clear from my authoritative body language, ●●●○ 32 ●○●● ○○●○ ○●●○

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e f i L r u o Y g n i x i F

[BECAUSE OURS ARE WRITTEN OFF]

Politics—what even—I DON’T—can you fill me in? Sincerely, ‘Alex’ who ‘prefers INTP’

Janet My understanding is that you’re asking for a broad indicator of how to approach understanding and discussion of national politics. I’m far better versed in social politics, but perhaps if I expose my own idiocy, you’ll feel better. I’ll try not to make this a reflection of every youth winger I’ve ever met. There are obviously more than two political parties in New Zealand, but I enjoy oversimplification and thus have oversimplified. (Pro tip: if your friends mishear your chanting of FPP as FTP, don’t correct them: it’ll just get weird.) National: Currently in power. Would like nothing more than to sell you hydro-dams at market value. Best feature: Joyce, hands down. They fuck up every now and again to surprisingly little public retribution. Generally err on the side of farmers and employers. They’re also really stoked that our exchange rate floats, but they’re not responsible for Rogernomics. Additionally, the 2012 Young Nats ball featured a giant frame for posing with the John Key. Rumour has it there was a ballroom-length cycleway to the bathrooms. Labour: Better looking than the Nats with a worse sense of humour (isn’t that always the way?) Generally have better and more palatable ideas that unfortunately cost lots and don’t adequately incentivise Chinese investors. It seems to me that the main difference between Labour and National is this: if you see a Labour candidate that lost at the last election on a bus, they look like a passionate everyman on their way somewhere useful. If you see Paul Foster-Bell* on a bus, it’s the best laugh you’ll have this side of ultrafast broadband.

Unless you just wanted some generally agreeable phrases that you really hope someone doesn’t ask you to explain? I promise these are generally agreeable.  “Farmers don’t need subsidies, they just need the price of land to go down.”  “I’m torn between wanting New Zealand to become a republic and wanting us to instate Roger Douglas as King.”  “The Government doesn’t have any money.”  “Edward Cullen was based on Michael Cullen, amirite?” “I think the way they do it in [insert Scandinavian country here] would work.” You want my real advice? Fuck all this— go do the Myers-Briggs: http://www. humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/JTypes1.htm

Hector I remember reacting exactly the way you are once. I long for those days when I could sit around blissfully ignorant of everything to do with politics. Not that I know any more nowadays, but my ignorance is no longer blissful because I have to pretend to care about the silly little details so I don’t seem like an idiot. I mean, come on, one party is in power until we get sick of them, and then we switch. What’s to care about? Sadly, we live in Wellington, and the bloody Young Neighbours are everywhere (that’s Young Nats + Young Labour, two houses alike in ‘dignity’). Most of them are either Economics students who want to be Politics students, vice versa, or worse still, Law students. Half your friends will get jobs in the public sector, and the other half will be taking public money. Even our Students’ Association seems to be turning more and more into a lobby group. If the fun-loving student is to survive in times like these, then he or she will have to be smarter than the

Janet and Hector are our resident advice columnists for 2013. If you've got a problem you'd like them to solve, send your queries through to editor@salient.org.nz, subject: 'ADVICE'.

politics crowd—hey, I never said it was going to be difficult. Firstly, you’ll want to make sure you appear to know everything about politics. The advantage of that over, say, overstating your ignorance, is that nobody will try to educate you, for fear of being ruthlessly eviscerated in a blur of rhetoric. You can spin that in a couple of ways, either by taking on an extreme and frankly ridiculous fringe viewpoint, such as veganism, or perhaps by converting your already-honed sense of cynicism from the arts to the political sphere. You should also keep tabs on the major scandals going on, which really isn’t that difficult around here. It involves a little reading, and thankfully very little policy analysis. Salient and websites like thecivilian. co.nz are useful here. If you can shoehorn anecdotes about the party leader with a memory full of holes into what would otherwise be an offensive joke about blondes, you’re set. Otherwise, just go for the easy targets. NZ First is a good one, as is anything to do with John Banks, be it his lack of cinema experience, or his outrageous conflict of interest in contracting Talent2 for Novopay. On that note, never shy away from bashing the libertarians. I mean, their policies are no worse than anyone else’s, and they’ve got a great economic track record, but some of their ideas are just so batshit crazy that you can’t help but laugh. When all else fails, have two or three economics terms up your sleeve to throw around. My personal favourites are: “Why don’t we just let the free market decide, eh?” and “Can’t wait for THAT to trickle down!” I may have no idea what any of that means, but that’s fine. If I’m wrong, people will just assume I’m being ironic.

*National’s unsuccessful Wellington Central candidate

If you have issues or concerns that you wish to discuss privately and confidentially with a professional, rather than Hector and Janet, Student Counselling Service can provide a safe place to explore such aspects of your life. The service is free and confidential. Phone (04) 463 5310. Email counsellingservice@vuw.ac.nz. Visit Mauri Ora, Level 1, Student Union Building.

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mad science I get by with a little help from my friends...

By Caitlin Craigie You’ve been through the dramatic and cut-throat elections for Class Rep, the distribution of the sacrosanct course outline, and the underlying psychological warfare that goes into guarding ‘your seat’ in tutorials. But alas, you have underestimated how quickly the swarm of assignmentrelated deadlines would creep up on you. Let science evaluate four common coping mechanisms: Coffee Number one sign you’re addicted to coffee: you suffer déjà brew. Researchers have spilled the beans on caffeine, finding that the alertness caffeine addicts experience is actually just the reversal of the fatiguing effects of acute caffeine withdrawal. Furthermore, even if you cut back on the cream and sugar, your coffee still isn’t 'guilt-free'. A Marine Pollution Bulletin study found that elevated concentrations of caffeine in the Pacific Ocean are causing mussels to exhibit cellular stress. Luckily, scientists are coming to the rescue, with a strain of caffeine-addicted E. coli bacteria having been recently developed in order to break caffeine down into friendlier compounds. No news as to whether the bacteria are brewding due to withdrawal yet. Nocturnalism A Thinking and Reasoning study found that people who were tested during their least optimal time of day (when they were most tired) were more effective at solving puzzles that required creative thinking and insight than when they were most alert. So for most people, becoming a temporary night owl is something you should give a hoot about, as it could be the key to obtaining the perfectly acceptable grade you deserve. Alternatively, those of us who have discovered the internet may be better off sticking with 10 am ingenuity. Obsessive Tidying Obsessive tidying competes with the internet and procrastibaking as the preferred method of student procrastination. If you have a sufficient amount of mess to warrant obsessive tidying, congratulations are in (dis-) order! Anecdotal Yahoo! Answers evidence overwhelmingly suggests that this is a sign that you are more intelligent and creative. If you think you’ll study better in tidy surroundings, you’re gonna have a bad time. German researchers found, in a series of linked studies, that people thought more clearly when surrounded by visual and mental clutter. Group Study A Brigham Young University study found that people were worse at solving problems in groups with those they felt the most comfortable, and instead found groups that contained a “socially distinct newcomer” made better decisions. So make sure to invite a random to your clique. ●●●○ 34 ○●●○

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Weekly Rant

Arms Trade Treaty By Emily Watson Last Tuesday, whilst the first year-Law students were moping about in their pyjamas feeling vaguely sick from too much chocolate and too few constitutional conventions, the politicians and diplomats at the UN headquarters in New York (well, most of them) were excitedly giving each other high-fives and applauding the successful adoption of a landmark humanrights treaty. The Arms Trade Treaty will be the first of its kind to regulate the multibillion-dollar arms trade. With an estimated one person falling victim to armed violence every minute as well as countless others enduring great suffering, there is no denying the significance of a treaty to regulate the global trade in conventional weapons.

to adopt the Treaty. These states had previously blocked the final negotiations which ended five days earlier, resulting in the vote being put forward to the General Assembly. 23 countries abstained from voting in the Assembly, among them Russia and China, two of the world’s biggest arms exporters. While the US did support the Treaty, after having opted out of negotiations last July for want of more time for consideration, they refused to support strict restrictions on the sale of ammunition. Since the Treaty was passed by the Assembly and not adopted by consensus, it will be non-binding and states will have the ability to withdraw. This is certainly not the 'bulletproof' treaty which civil-society groups envisaged.

So how exactly will the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) work? The treaty seeks to implement and enforce strict guidelines regulating the export of conventional weapons—basically everything apart from biological and nuclear weapons: think missiles, small arms, combat vehicles etc. This won’t altogether ban the export of weapons but rather it will prohibit such exports if there is a significant risk that the weapons will be used to violate international humanitarian and human rights law. When exporting arms, states will have to ensure that they will not be used to undermine peace and security in the recipient country. The aim is to get weapons out of the hands of criminal groups, terrorists and warlords who could use them to commit atrocities such as genocide and war crimes.

However, I believe the Treaty marks an important milestone in addressing the great suffering caused by the corrupt arms trade. It is by no means perfect, but it was voted for by an overwhelming majority of member states despite fierce resistance from some and the countless complexities posed by the issue. It is reassuring to know that world powers such as the US, Germany and UK, who have much to gain financially and politically from exporting arms at whatever cost, have the courage to back a treaty which would inconvenience their own states but further the interests of vulnerable people on the other side of the globe. If a country sees advantages in helping other states and establishing a good international reputation, then surely this can only be a good thing.

This all sounds ideal. Ban Ki-moon seemed pretty chuffed when the Treaty was adopted, stating that the ATT is “a historical diplomatic achievement—the culmination of long-held dreams and many years of effort… a victory for the world’s people.” Without wanting to dismiss the opinion of the United Nations Secretary-General—surely the dream career of every second Weir House student counts for something—can we truly pronounce the ATT as a victory? After all, North Korea, Syria and Iran— states whose human-rights records are dire to say the least—refused outright

The Treaty can also be heralded as a success for global civil society, for without strong public backing it would never have taken off. Originally proposed by Nobel Laureates, the idea of an ATT was pushed forward by the global civil society alliance Control Arms. Control Arms was formed to represent millions of people from religious, political and non-governmental organisations such as Amnesty International, Oxfam, Caritas and Parliamentarians for Global Action. Organised petitions and successful campaigns resulted in UN member states

'Weekly Rant' is a space for one-off opinion pieces. Want to write your own? Contact editor@salient.org. nz to let loose.

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agreeing in 2006 to work towards an ATT. Seven years of UN negotiations followed, during which time civil-society groups continued to drum up public support and lobby governments. In New Zealand, over 9000 signatures were collected, the Treaty was given unanimous support in Parliament, and we made good progress in convincing our Pacific neighbours to show their support for the Treaty. You may remember Amnesty on Campus giving out banana guns in Kirk last year to draw attention to the fact that there are more regulations on the global trade of bananas than that of arms. (Amnesty on Campus - Victoria University, check out our Facebook page.) So although the Treaty has failed twice to achieve consensus, we have succeeded all the same in adopting a Treaty. As Brian Woods, Head of Arms Control at Amnesty International explains, “as in all treaty negotiations, we did not get everything that we wanted. However, since this Treaty can be amended and since it has many strong rules, it provides a firm foundation on which to build an international system to curb the flow of arms to those who could commit atrocities.” Allison Pytlak, Campaign Manager for Control Arms, agrees: “at last, the murky world of arms dealing has come under the spotlight of the international community.” Although it may be cold comfort for those suffering in Syria and elsewhere, victims of armed violence should have hope in the knowledge that the international community does not condone this murky trade, and seeks instead to put an end to irresponsible arms trading which destroys the lives of so many. But the work has not finished yet. Control Arms is now urging governments to sign and ratify the ATT as quickly as possible so that it can be speedily implemented. The treaty will come into force 90 days after ratification by the 50th signatory. Since last July’s negotiations, more than 325,000 people have been killed due to armed violence. There is no time to lose.

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FOOD & DRINK

NIGELLA LAWSTUDENT

Cheese rolls aka Southland sushi aka the real 'Southern Gold'

Being back in the dirty South for Easter has meant two things: i) a renewed distaste for 'scarfies' and ii) cheese rolls. Food is a religion in my family, and a Sunday lunch of cheese rolls is our weekly form of worship. To me, they epitomize rural New Zealand—a mainland specialty that the sophisticated capital desperately lacks. Even better, they’re cheap, quick, and perfect hangover food—cheese and bread! You can alter the mixture to suit your taste; some people include 'kiwi dip'—reduced cream and onion soup mix combined together with lemon juice, if you want to add yet more dairy into the fray. This recipe will make heaps of rolls, but that’s a good thing (and if it’s not, you don’t deserve to enjoy the heavenly combination of crunchy bread and oozy cheese anyway). Some recipes call for the crusts to be chopped off, but this is optional. I don’t do it, but I can see the pragmatic justification—they will roll easier and nearly everyone pulls the cooked crusts off while eating these delightful beasts (although you can cake more butter onto the toasted crusts and eat them as their own special treat if you do this).

beer'd

Eve Kennedy

1 loaf of white bread (traditional, but if you’re particularly health conscious a) don’t eat cheese rolls and b) multi-grain will suffice at a push) 2 cups grated Colby/Edam/Tasty cheese 4 tablespoons cream cheese (can replace with kiwi dip) 2 tablespoons margarine, or softened marge (to soften the mixture) 2 teaspoons cumin seeds (optional, and not traditional) 1 onion, finely chopped (could be replaced by chives, or onion soup mix) Salt and pepper, to taste Mix everything except the bread together in a large bowl. Spread each slice of the bread with margarine (this will make the process of sticking of the roll together easier). Take a tablespoonful or two of mixture, spread it along the middle of the bread, and then roll it up. Repeat. Spread margarine on the tops and bake in the oven at 180oC for 15 minutes until golden, or use a sandwich press. Just before they’re ready, add some butter to the tops of the rolls. Mama Jude’s two pieces of advice: don’t undercook the rolls, and there can never be too much butter.

Where to drink in Wellington

By Dylan Jauslin

Where can you drink good beer in Wellington? For students on a budget, it’s usually best to drink at home, with a bottle or rigger, picked up fresh from the brewery, or from Regional Wines & Spirits. On the other hand, if you’re not utterly crippled by student debt, you might like to drop into one of Wellington’s numerous craft beer bars. These days there are too many of them for me to give you the full rundown, but here’s a brief list of where to drink a good beer: Starting with the newest kids in town, if the sun is shining, check out The Rogue & Vagabond. It opens out onto Glover Park and has a resident bulldog. If you find yourself on Courtenay Pl, you should drop into The Malthouse. It’s Wellington’s oldest beer bar, and good

for introducing your less geeky friends to beer. If you want to hang out with all the cool people, go to Little Beer Quarter. LBQ is tucked away on Edward St and is probably my number-one pick for a casual beer of an evening. If you feel like drinking beer where it’s actually brewed, or want to see an actual brewery (because you have a stainless-steel fixation), then your best choice is to head to the Fork & Brewer on Bond St. To immerse yourself in complete beergeekery, your number one destination has to be Hashigo Zake on Taranaki St. Billing itself as a ‘Cult Beer Bar’, it’s loaded with the best of local and international craft breweries. Now in the interest of full disclosure: I used to work there, but it’s still my number one bar for

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all things beer. If you want good food with good beer, there’s really only one choice: The Hop Garden on Pirie St. If you want, you can just pop into the bar for a beer, or you can sit down in the restaurant area for some seriously excellent food. Finally, if you find yourself in Newtown, head to Bebemos on the corner of Riddiford and Hall Streets. Bebemos is vaguely South American in theme but the beers are locally focussed and they do daily specials (Cider Wednesdays are my favourite). There are quite a few more, with at least one more on the way, but those are my favourite spots around Wellington. The beautiful thing about Wellington is that many bars and even licensed cafes are carrying good beer. Sooner or later you’ll find your own favourite places.

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BOOKS

ARTS

Poetry TEACHING PLACEMENTS BY Alexandra Hollis

The first day in many I had not got this eyelash out of my eye was yellow-eveninged and not so wise that it did not become night in a matter of days which turned into a season, darkness trapped in forests growing amass of humanity, a plethora of eyelashes. My new sheets were not made of skin I do not think – trees, most hopefully trees, growing awash with gas, drowning. There are more atoms in the brain than stars in the sky but, in terms of binary coding, how much porn? “A Philosophy graduate gains great honours in government.” I bought new sheets in a second-hand store. Contradicting laws state that there must be contradictions somewhere or there must not.

White Russians flock from across the world to play online poker in condensed Birmingham hotels. My brand-associated, brand-proven new sheets still smell of hotels and grown-ups, which maybe I am. A shelf of stuffed animals, laddered tights; 100% proof. A Martini in the Fleming in my hand. I am an authority on almost everything, my tenuous application quivers. Gasses flood their containers; suffocation can occur in vacuums, or when encased in solid blocks of concrete. My eyelashes scratched the Egyptian cotton, so I removed them all. Only Thatcherite readings of history include the price of a bottle of milk, but the cost of a yearly diary is universally known. Movement is possible, if you have time and a spare set of sheets.

BY Eleanor Merton

I am indisposed. I am interposed. I am composed I am centralised and conventionalised and my soul is half sized I have been commercialised and

compartmentalised and alphabetised and chastised but one day I’ll be prized.

Li twit ure: Wuthering Heights @heathcliff1845: @cath_earnshaw sup cathy. how u?

#leadingmeon #friendzoned #niceguy

@heathcliff1845: @cath_earnshaw are you ignoring me cathy #dontignoremecathy

@issylinton: @heathcliff1845 not all of us tho! #lol #hey #cute #funny

@lintonT: @cath_earnshaw hey I just met you and this is crazy but want to marry me and leave heathcliff behind forever?

@heathcliff1845: @issylinton youll do. @heathcliff1845: @lintonT hey did you hear im banging your sister? #suckonthatmofo

@cath_earnshaw: @lintonT really, don’t. SO overplayed. #notheathcliff

@cath_earnshaw: introducing @cath_linton! #cute #baby #ouch #my #sides #weakening #now pic.twitter.com/qJwIGH56BTY

@cath_earnshaw: @lintonT you’ll do though. #highborn @heathcliff1845: @cath_earnshaw cathy. i know ur off with that linton dick. its fine. #friendzoned

@cath_earnshaw's account has been deactivated @heathcliff1845: CAAAAAATTHHHHHYYYYYYYY

@heathcliff1845: girls can be such assholes sometimes. ○○●○ 37 ●○●●

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FILM NO

events in a fashion closer to a public service than entertainment alone.

energises their political broadcasts with his outlandish commercial acumen.

Given enough time, most events will offer themselves as perfect analogies for contemporary reflection. Filmmakers are as acutely aware as historians of the resources of the past, but the wisdom in claiming them is not without conditions.

And so it is with No. The relative vintage of the '80s would appear to provide Chilean director Pablo Larraín far safer terrain. It is therefore surprising that the success of No is not located in the forgiving buffer of two decades, but in the unnerving parallels it draws to recent political upheavals.

The whole film is shot on low-definition videotape to seamlessly blend archival footage with the new. The effect is a glorious nod to the washed-out aesthetic of '80s Latin American advertising, and a humorous counterpoint to the technological preening of modern Hollywood.

Director Oliver Stone spectacularly misjudged the worth of revisiting 9/11 after only five years. His vacuous blockbuster World Trade Center proved that in the quest for profundity, timing is important. Not that the waiting game necessarily requires the dust to settle, as Kathryn Bigelow has twice proved now; The Hurt Locker and Zero Dark Thirty both offered new texture to current

In his most sincere role since playing Che Guevara, Gael García Bernal leads an uncommonly earnest cast of ad-men and politicos in the run-up to Chile’s 1988 referendum on retaining General Pinochet’s rule. Disappointed by the official ‘no’ campaign’s promotional material, René (García Bernal)

review

Directed by Pablo Larraín Review by Todd Atticus

No is a thrilling political drama with an important point to bear, albeit one filtered through the humour of 1980s fizzy-pop commercials. Oliver Stone take note: here is a history lesson that is ripe for modern appreciation. Verdict: 5/5

What’s On

LIBERAL ARTS LIBERAL ARTS review

Directed by vReview by Annabella Gamboni

I was really looking forward to Liberal Arts, Josh Radnor’s second directorial feature, after a glowing round of reviews that promised a clever indie rom-com that would make me lust after my own oedipal trajectory for more than four seconds. Unfortunately, it’s just a Garden State for the Peter Pan generation—that is to say, a fun, but mechanical and transparent coming-of-age film. Radnor is one of those irritating people that doesn’t really understand the concept of collaboration in the arts, and so directed, wrote and starred as Jesse in this piece focussing on a thirty-something intellectual who hides his infantile emotional age in dust jackets. After visiting an old university professor, Jesse meets 19-year-old Zibby (Elizabeth Olsen). The two spark up a relationship based on handwriting and Mozart, shaking

Jesse out of his office monotony and back to the intellectual wonderland that is university—and here we reach the high point of the film. Olsen lends Zibby a depth and honesty and magic that almost belies her role, leading to a desire on my part to see her in every movie from now on. So far, so good—until about halfway through the film when you realise that this is really not as self-aware as you thought it might turn out to be, and that’s when it starts getting a bit trite and ridiculous. In stripping Jesse of his selfinvolvement and intellectual snobbery on-screen, Radnor is presumably trying to debunk the myth of the sensitive modern man-boy. However, when every character in every scene of the last halfhour only exists to teach Jesse a lesson, Liberal Arts becomes even more self-indulgent than its protagonist. Verdict: 2/5

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Rust and Bone: The effervescent Marion Cotillard received considerable praise for her performance in this tale of a killer whale trainer who suffers a horrific accident, with Time pointing out that she “demonstrates again her eerie ability to write complex feelings on her face without grandstanding her emotions". Trance: Danny Boyle returns to the silver screen with this ambitious thriller that’s apparently as complex and confusing as Inception. Critical reaction has been mixed, with views ranging from “a tolerable distraction” to Film.com’s scathing appraisal that it is “a propulsive mess of pop psychology and poor drama”. Hyde Park on Hudson: President Franklin Roosevelt hosts the King of England at his Hyde Park estate, or, to be more accurate, a bunch of famous actors chew the fat in an attempt to hide the fact that the movie itself, gorgeous scenert aside, is a shambles. The AV Club noted that “the slapdash manner in which it’s assembled is genuinely shocking". G.I Joe Retaliation: Hollywood once again turns to a toy brand to help them rake in the cash. Former Salient Arts Editor Adam Goodall described it as “the kind of surreal mélange that is fascinating to film students and stupid to everyone else—a grab-bag of conservative power fantasies, liberal satire, broad-strokes characterisation and pop-culture deification that's fun because of its messiness.”

ϟ• ARTS•ϟ

THEATRE Indian Ink’s Jacob Rajan

Krishna’s Dairy is a pretty popular show, but what can audiences new to Krishna’s story expect?

INTERVIEW

By Diana Russell

An interview with theatre company Indian Ink’s founding partner Jacob Rajan, writer and actor of upcoming shows Krishna’s Dairy and Guru of Chai showing at Downstage Theatre.

Where did the original concept for Krishna’s Dairy come from?

The exercise at drama school was a monologue ,but I wanted to get away from the monologue to actually portraying conversation on stage as realistically as possible. The end result is a couple that are drawn to each other. The mask changes are so quick—less than a second. I developed a system where I could actually change masks seamlessly from one character to another. So the illusion is of more than one person on stage basically. I heard you’ve showed all around the world?

Krishna’s Dairy was an exercise at drama school (Toi Whakaari) and part of the course requirement was to come up with a 20-minute self-devised piece of theatre.

We took it to Edinburgh, won a French festival award. We’ve been to Singapore, Australia and the US.

I researched dairy owners and about five dairies in Wellington and sort of stumbled across a story. Prior to that I had been introduced to mask, half-mask in particular, by a guy named John Bolton—I was desperate to use mask in my work and so I found a way of doing this. The end result was a 20-minute piece that was really well received by my tutors who encouraged me to extend it when I left drama school. I later got together with my director, who I’ve been working with ever since Justin Lewis [another founding partner of Indian Ink] and we extended that to 60-minute run. It was one of those plays that became more than the sum of its parts, and it’s pretty much had a fairytale life ever since.

Let’s flip over to Guru of Chai, how does that fit in with Krishna’s Dairy? If you saw both of them you would see the arc of our metaphor over the years. Guru of Chai is still a solo piece with a live musician. In a way it’s far more sophisticated than Krishna’s Dairy. Sophisticated and simple as well—the masks have been reduced down to a set of teeth.

a host of characters [about 17] within the story that he’s telling. So Guru of Chai somewhat developed from an old Indian folktale right? We stumbled across an Indian folktale. But it was a rambling thing that went on for far too long. However, there was something within it that really appealed to us. It has this really dark morality. Things happen in it that as a fairytale I really wouldn’t be telling my children. We worked with Murray Edmund [associate professor of Drama Studies at University of Auckland], brainy dude, who said that the story, as it is, is about princesses, kings and queens and doesn’t have much cachet with a modern adult audience. So he said: “Why don’t you take the parts that you like, deconstruct it and reassemble it in modern India?” When we did that it started to take off. So the seven princesses that were abandoned in the jungle by their father now become seven sisters abandoned at a railway station.

Essentially it’s a story-telling piece that takes you on an epic generational trip through modern India, and I guess we’ve ended up with a romantic thriller at the end of it, but told by one person—our Guru, our storyteller, and he plays

Jacob Rajan ●○●○ 39 ○●●○

The Salient Arts Rating Guide: 5 Stars - Gengar 4 Stars - Pidgeot 3 Stars - Pikachu 2 Stars - Zubat 1 Star - Magikarp 0 Stars - Missing- no. deleting your game

ϟ• ARTS•ϟ

VISUAL ARTS It’s The Little Things: Saskia Leek at the Dowse

ARTICLE

Morgan Ashworth

Desk Collection is a retrospective of Saskia Leek’s paintings currently at the Dowse in Lower Hutt. The name comes from the fact that every painting included in the exhibition could have been made at a desk; they average A4 in size. The paintings are intimate in subject as well as scale. Leek’s early paintings recall her teenage years, populated with small figures dotted across a painterly ground. They combine seemingly unrelated symbols and snippets of text that encapsulate the roving, unsure imaginations of teenage girls. This is a deliberate: in an interview she explains “The way I make work is a little idiosyncratic, in that I don’t really know what I am doing before I start.” The unconscious nature of these paintings endears them as more open and authentic, if sometimes a little naïve. The later paintings in this exhibition show a distilled focus that Leek’s earlier works lack. Pastel yellows, blues and pinks assert themselves as the dominant palette, giving muted form to the landscapes and buildings which make

games

journey

review

jonathan hobman

You’re trailing through a landscape of tumbling hills and crashing mountain faces with bag of Scroggin, a fanny pack and the dirt road for company. You spot a fellow traveller coming toward you on the otherwise uninterrupted, outdoor panorama. Your eyes meet theirs. You squint-smile joyously at each other with a sense of mutual understanding. The wilderness has its way of making total strangers connect in a way that you simply don’t get on the street; the more isolated we are, the more we treasure company. It is this sensation that the developers of Journey were trying to capture, and in doing so, managing to rake in a hefty handsome haul of 2012 Game of the Year awards. Journey is the final installment in Sony’s three game contract deal with developer ‘thatgamecompany’ (TGC). Despite their cringe worthy meta-title, reminding me, regrettably, of our own sausage man ‘that—New Zealand television personality Leigh Hart—guy’, TGC have made themselves three very alluring games, each more beautiful than the last. The beginning of Journey is set

up the subject matter before disappearing into abstraction. The strongest paintings here combine delicate muted backgrounds with linear detail, in one case juxtaposing an industrial structure against the pastel. Saskia Leek has also experimented with the frames of some of these later paintings, extending the rough, unfinished strokes on the borders of the paintings out across the white wooden frame. The Cubist tendencies in these later paintings evoke the amateur or the school project, bringing naïve art into the ‘high art’ setting of the art museum. While this exhibition is centred around the smallness of Leek’s paintings, it could perhaps have benefited from a less spacious system of display. The paintings are so widely spaced across at least four or five rooms that they lose connection to one another. Against a white wall the pale palette becomes even more washed out. While within each single painting this tells of intimacy and vulnerability, the combined effect causes the entire exhibition to lack visual impact. Such a generous commitment of space for a contemporary New Zealand artist is very welcome, however. Leek’s exhibition is fresh, and forces the viewer to turn their attention to the small -- reminding us in the process that small does not always equal minor.

Really Slow Sunday by Sharon Lam Saskia Leek: Desk Collection is on at the Dowse Art Museum until April 14.

in a golden desert, littered with the ruins of a mysterious past civilization, inhabited only by strange cloth creatures and yourself. You play as an androgynous, poncho-laden pilgrim, whose only apparent goal is to head to a large, light spewing mountain on the horizon. This minimalist concept is accompanied by an equally minimal storyline, which is pieced together by the tapestry-style wall art you’ll uncover on your way.

Play this game alone.

If you're not much into video games, I’d certainly prescribe it as a first endeavor. Along with it the fact that it is bite sized, Journey will at no point present you with any real challenge; this sounds like a negative, but it means that you can happily go at your own pace, tinkering with the world as you go. You can’t ‘die’ in Journey, and an ever-growing or diminishing scarf serves as your motive for avoiding mistakes and encouraging exploration. The music, winning Best Original Score at last year’s VGAs, and a Grammy nomination, accompanies the already dazzlingly pretty scenery. It all comes together in a nice pretty package that you can sit down and get comfy with.

Some say it isn’t a necessity, but considering what the developers had in mind when making the game, you’d be missing out on a whole bunch of juicy artist intention if you don’t, not to mention all of the sweet online cooperation and subsequent flirting.

I won’t jabber on much further as the game’s mystique does a lot for its charm. I’ll conclude only with a few instructions for you, in the event that you are interested in trying it on: ●●●○ 40 ○●●○

This is imperative. Although powerful, Journey is delicate; it will not survive a casual play amongst alcohol and jeering friends. While receiving rave critical acclaim unanimously amongst those paid to have opinions, it will receive negative reviews all round in such a context. The uncultured oafs. Play it online.

All three of TGC’s Sony titles are downloadable from the PlayStation Network. Alternatively, you can issue it from the Design Campus library. (Yes, you can issue games from there. Blew my mind too.) Don’t have Playstation Tres? All of the aforementioned games can be played at Game Masters, Te Papa. Go during school hours and take a significant other, it’s quite a charming wee exhibit. Game Masters, featuring over 100 playable games, showcases 40 years of gaming history, and is on at Te Papa until 28 April.

ϟ• ARTS•ϟ

MUSIC

philip mcsweeney

With these week being the 'communication' issue, your humble music editor thought it high time to introduce you the inz and outz of the phenomenal instrumental jazz genre, which expertly communicates a full spectrum of emotions. Note that the Big 4 (Kind of Blue, A Love Supreme, Mingus Ah Um, Time Out) have been omitted because A: even those with a cursory interest in the genre have probably heard them, so canonized are they already and B: Salient thrives on uniqueness/hipsterdom. Leave all preconceptions of 'inaccessibility' and 'wankiness' at the door with your coat.

Start Here Poifect! Charles Mingus – The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady

Miles Davis – Bitches Brew

Fuck this entry-level shit: take me to the Extreme. Plebeian

Kaoru Abe – Solo 1971

Too much!

Sunshine Has Blown – Sunshine Has Blown

John Coltrane – Blue Train

Eric Dolphy Out to Lunch

Play that funky music, white boy! Miles Davis – A Tribute to Jack Johnson

Oh God, it hurts! Wayne Shorter – Night Dreamer Dizzy Gillespie – Dizzy's Spells

Jazz-Hop? Madlib – Shades of Blue

Awesome! Anything like this but with a twist of 'world'?

Antony Shakir – Frictionalism

I'm glad you asked! Take me deeper down the rabbit-hole plzplzplz.

Sun Ra Lanquidity

Ornette Coleman – The Shape of Jazz to Come

John Coltrane – Meditations

What about women? Check your goddamn privilege. Alice Coltrane – Journey in Satchidananda

Paul Dolden – The Threshold of Deafening Silence 'Interesting, thanks! How about Jazz combined with other genres?'

You call this 'deep'? m8 u r a laugh and a half u cheeky fuck

Weather Report – Mr. Gone

I warned u dawg...

Mulatu Astatke – Ethiopiques Vol. 4 Yusef Lateef – Eastern Sounds

Jazz-Punk? Deep Turtle – There's a vomitsprinkler

'I bow before your superior wisdom and knowledge' 'Shaddap! Aww Shucks'

Niechec – Smierc w miekkim fukurtu

This is all very well but; it don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing!

Chet Baker – Live in Tokyo [DVD]

Benny Goodman – Live at Carnegie Hall 1936

Sweet! Now gimme something spiritual.

Nujabes – Metaphorical Music

in my liverriver

Jazz-Hardcore? Off Minor – The Heat Death of the Universe

Post-Jazz? Jesus, Grandpa! Give me something modern you coot.

Pharoah Sanders – Karma

Matana Roberts – Coin Coin Chapter One: Gens de couleur libres

McCoy Tyner –

Enlightenment

Colin Stetson – New History Warfare Volume 2

Talk Talk – Laughing Stock

Bark Psychosis – Hex

'Post Avant-Garde Jazz Core?'

'I am tremendously obliged you are the pinnacle of millennium's worth of human evolution.

○○●○ 41 ●○●●

 ϟ puzzles ϟ 

PUZZLES "explorers" - difficulty: HARD

47. Mess with a company's finances 50. Be a tightwad 53. Blouse or vest 54. “Under the Net” author Murdoch 55. Email from a Nigerian king, e.g. 59. Marty in “Madagascar” is one 63. Singer of “Thank You” and “White Flag” 64. Their riders carry mallets 66. Look at suggestively 67. Paragon 68. Salt Lake City's state 69. Makes a mistake 70. Unpleasant 71. Fille's father DOWN

ACROSS

22. Request for mercy 23. In the style of 25. Singer Ric of The Cars 27. Fidelity Group's actively managed investment 33. Rhyme scheme of terza rima 34. Drowning in the heat 38. Sensational, as a description 41. Female sheep 42. Vocal part for a man 43. Subtitle of Five for Fighting's hit “Superman” 46. Foo Fighters hit

1. “___ oui!” (“But, of course!”) 5. It's on the “Dark Side of the Moon” cover 10. Search thoroughly 14. Linen colour 15. With 6-Down, massive flat fish 16. Finished 17. It's awarded in the NHL 19. Cob or tom 20. One of 940 million in India 21. ____ serif

1. Netting 2. It opens a Broadway play? 3. It was Persia before 1935 4. Ice cream treat 5. Affliction of one who came too soon (abbr.) 6. See 15-Across 7. Empire whose language was Quechua 8. “Set phasers to ____” 9. Draws a plan for 10. Spanish godfather or friend 11. Racetrack shapes 12. Disorganised fight 13. Snap 18. Quiet period 24. Reverend Sharpton and namesakes 26. Creator of tv.com and upload. com 27. Bamako's country 28. Sit next to

29. Long-jawed fish 30. “Eight Days ___” (Beatles song) 31. Not yet used to 32. Edible part of an animal 35. Prefix for -China 36. Cosy spot 37. Mardi ___ 39. Front teeth 40. First-person shooter game 44. Force applied to some balls 45. So far 48. Idiot, slangily 49. Instruction to someone behind a locked door 50. Edge (up to) 51. Shouter with a bell 52. Flynn ___ (“Tangled” hero) 56. End of a piece of music 57. Drinks in taverns 58. Castle fortification 60. Use one's 39-Down 61. ____-wheel drive 62. 1975 Wimbledon champion 65. Thickness of paper

Quiz 1. Homichlophobia is the fear of what? 2. What colour is the "black box" in an aeroplane or helicopter?

ISSUE 04 SOLUTION

Sudoku

7. Who is currently the third-highest goalscorer in this season of La Liga (the Spanish national football league)?

8. True or false: babies can breathe 3. What is the name of the narrator in and swallow at the same time. Jean-Paul Sartre's novel Nausea? 9. What kind of creature was Sam 4. What is the former name of the from The Muppet Show? Indian city Chennai? 10. Which is the sixth-largest country 5. By what name did the band The in the world by area? Quarrymen become better known as? 6. What does the abbreviation SIM (as in SIM card) stand for? striker). 8. True. 9. An eagle. 10. Australia. Identity/Identification Module. 7. Radamel Falcao (Atlético Madrid's Colombian ANSWERS: 1. Fog. 2. Orange. 3. Antoine Roquentin. 4. Madras. 5. The Beatles. 6. Subscriber

variety puzzles & CROSSWORD by puck — ANSWERS NEXT ISSUE ●●●○ 42 ●○●● ○○●○ ○●●○

difficulty: medium

 ϟ puzzles ϟ 

Target

o e n

e t l h p e

Lost in Transmission

Each of the following communication forms has been encoded for safe travel. Your job is to decode them. The same code is used throughout, so if you find out what one letter stands for, that will be the same all the way through the puzzle.

difficulty: easy

ESKIMP YSKIMP

KQJUWSMKPF

YPKPBWQXP VSKK

BQXD PABFPZZ

KQLP KPYYPF

BQZYVSFU

YPKPHFSBW

ZPAYMXH

VSFFMPF BMHPQX

ZPGSBWQFP

ZMHX KSXHJSHP ZGQIP ZMHXSK

SOLUTION FROM LAST WEEK: Mathematical exponents believe in a higher power.

Target rating guide: 0-15 words: do you even go here? 16-25 words: alright 26-35 words: decent 36-50 words: PRO 50+ words: free drink

YEAR LONG PUZZLE: 5. Rearrange SARDINE CAN into an ancient drought-relief method (4,6)

difficulty: easy

○○●○ 43 ●○●●

difficulty: medium

SALIENT ♥ YOU

SALIENT LETTERS POLICY 2013 Salient welcomes, encourages, and thrives on public debate – be it serious or otherwise – through its letters pages. Write about anything you like: Beyoncé, puppies, or the metaphysics of space-time. Send us love mail, send us hate mail,

letters WE FEEL THE SAME WAY ABOUT HUBSIDE

Letter of the

week

win a $10 voucher for the hunter lounge

‘DITTO’ Dear Greenlient, As much as I adore the genetic engineering department and have much respect for their work, I feel they need to be working harder to combine animal genetics to produce G.E imitations of Pokemon. Fuck the dirty greenies, this is why we need to allow people to experiment with genetic modification openly. Because everyone knows that this produces pok’emon and dragons and shit. Whilst we are on the subject of genetics, We should clone soldiers, put them in shit white armor and invade Disneyland to steal back the Star wars movie rights before any more shit Starwars movies come out, They should have stopped after Revenge of the Sith, Episode 4, 5 and 6 are such turds, I mean look at the crappy CGI, I could shit out better explosions with a nice hot curry. Shits. Also whilst we are on the subject of clones, why hasn’t anyone though of the idea of cloning humans who don’t have sentience and shit because they are like brain dead and shit, and farming them. I mean, Humans are like pigs right? And everyone likes bacon right? So whats the problem? To conclude, Down with greenie scum. Up with the advance of Genetic engineering technology and Pokemon and Dragons and Clones and people bacon! Kind Requard’s, Prof Palpatine

BUTT OUT Dear um..can-you-not-lient, It's none of your business (vuwsa) whether I want to sit in the open air and puff on my B & H rich 20s. I pay a whole $19 to indulge on the smooth taste and uni should at least nominate ONE tiny area where we can be antisocially social. If people can touch face and exchange bodily fluids anywhere on campus, distracting me while I'm "studying", then there should be one small space for me to puff on my cancer stick in peace. Take a leaf out of mighty's book and insert a little dungeon where we can hipster out with our rolled up chinos and way-to-expensive shoes. Also, people that take the elevator up one floor, can you just not. It's rediculous nonsense. From its my future.

I am writing to advise anyone thinking that the Tomato, Basil and Feta pie from louies would be a delicious treat. I imagined a tomato rich filling with large chunks of Feta. What I received was a shitty pie filled with chunks of fucking carrot in a tasteless gravy, I struggled to find any feta. Poor Effort sort your shit out. Yours Sincerely Felix WHERE-OUS STATIONERY THAT’S WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU HALVE YOUR STATIONERY ORDER Dear I’mAboutToHaveARage-lient. To set the scene; If planning skills were an unborn foetus, It was killed with VUWSA’s 2013 abortion. I apologise if that was graphic. It was necessary. Because when you run out of student wall planners 2 days into the trimester, you’re gonna have a bad time. And by you, I mean me. What really grinds my gears is that I have a suspicion this was not just some accident. I went elsewhere to spend what little money I have on a substitute and found that all three Whitcoulls in the CBD were completely sold out, as was the Warehouse Stationery, and OfficeMax only had ugly A3 options for nearly $20. Nice try OfficeMax, but no. The obvious explanation is that these retailers paid VUWSA off so they could increase sales of overpriced planners to desperate students. For realsies. Seriously, it sucks enough that there’s shitall student life at Vic, with no student fares, expensive rent for crappy flats and an increasing amount of sweaty, seedy old men in town. But having a prostitute for a student union is just not on. VUWSA; You are a whore. Sort your shit out. Regards, NoIDoNotWantAnotherDiaryAsshole. P.S. To the guy at Plumbing World who stole his manager’s only planner and gave it to me for free. Thank-you. I wish upon you and your children many happy returns. P.P.S We’re all loving the extra sudokus and puzzles Salient, so thank-you to you too xoxox. WHY DOES IT ALWAYS REIGN ON ME? Dear Praylient, it was great to read your Religion issue, particularly the article about faith and politics. We at the Student Christian Movement (SCM) Victoria believe every Christian's faith should directly influence their politics so that our society looks a bit more like the Reign of God that Jesus describes in the gospels. This

Reign of God is not a place where churches have special privileges or where there is forced religious education in schools or lipservice prayers in Parliament. The Reign of God is a place where no child goes to school hungry and no one is mistreated for being female or queer or Maori or Asian or Muslim or poor or mentally ill or anything. We meet every week on campus, this week at 1pm on Friday at Kohanga on Kelburn Parade. Email heidi.boulter@gmail.com for more information or find SCM Victoria on Facebook. Heidi Boulter no Dear Salient, Are you screwing the crew? You should try it. Fills in the time between jumping on decadeold bandwagons and rehashing done-to-death themes. - Your pals at Critic PS - Have you thought about having a drugs issue? Also a Travel issue could be pretty sweet, maybe even an Environment issue. Just thoughts. WITTY TITLE ON HOLD Dearest Salient, I’ve noticed in the past weeks there’s been quite a lot of ranting going on about Studylink. Of course it’s to be expected around this time of year, a resounding “I haven’t got my student allowance yet” can be heard throughout the halls of our university. We’ve all heard the stories, if not been subject to them, a student sends in their forms, to find more is required, or something needs to be sent again, if not this there are a myriad of other issues that result in postponement of receiving student allowance/ loan. This horror show is repeated every year with students new and old, and it seems nothing is done. Sure, calls left unanswered this year have dropped compared to last, but you wouldn’t be far off if you attributed this to the fact that they also reduced operating times compared to this time last year. I’m not proud, but I’ve worked for Studylink, and have discovered that these problems are largely related to the environment set for the employees. The focus of Studyink’s customer service branch, is to serve as many students as possible, if this results in each employee talking to 80 students a day (and helping none), then we have succeeded. This environment is strengthened by managerial pressure to “keep service times low” a fast call is a good call, who cares about student issues? This coupled with inadequate training and an uninhibited

●●●○ 44 ○●●○

send us party invites. We want it all. Letters must be received before 12pm on the Wednesday for publication the next week. Letters must be no longer than 250 words. Pseudonyms are fine, but all letters must in

selection process produce employees who are rushed, providing incorrect advice and shying away from action due to time constraints. As the echoes of dissatisfaction boom through this place of higher learning, i think it’s time we asked ourselves: “Is this good enough?” Sincerely yours, Parents earn too much. THAT DEPARTMENT ALWAYS SMELLS OF DEATH Dear Salient, Although I am thoroughly pleased with the new hub building, I feel Victoria University have not made enough preparations for a possible “Zombie” (Or “The Undead” as more intellectual members like to refer to this probable threat) Apocalypse. For example, there are not enough places to hide from these monsters, not enough shotguns readily available on campus and quite frankly, there is not enough awareness of what a zombie attack is. Just last tuesday, a foul zombie attempted to gorge on my hot bods as I left my thrilling media studies lecture. Luckily for my atheist soul, the only thing that saved me from getting a fatal bite was my thick Maybelline mask and my brunette hair extensions. These held the zombie at bay until a courageous security guard rushed to my aid and ripped off its arm. There are far too many of these ghastly creatures and I feel the university is not taking these fiends seriously. If the university does not act immediately to eradicate this threat, we will soon find ourselves without any media studies students at all, I have already noticed that some of my other classmates have begun to rot and this pestilence can only spread unless we put all the undead on an island, were they can rot out their days in solitude. Yours Concerned, Ria H Brown

HATE MAIL Hey Salient I have a question. Last week I was reading the “Belief” issue and noticed that the only writers accepted in were self-professed atheists or near-atheists. Why? Obviously good journalism would take sources of every opinion to present a well-rounded, representative and informative magazine. Whether your writers be Atheists, Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, etc, that’s cool! But this was not the case. Despite talking to multiple people of faith who submitted pitches to you, the articles you selected to go forward in that issue weren’t about beliefs, were they? Rather, they were shoving unquestioning unbelief in reader’s faces. This biased tactic doesn’t make me lose belief in any religion, it makes me lose belief in the hope of good journalism. It shouldn’t matter whether you, as editors, are the most hardout of

God-haters, or the most “spiritual” Buddhists out there. You should aim to publish a magazine that showcases the wide range of opinions of the people you claim to represent. I’d much rather hear the wonderful and varied thoughts of your writers, instead of the onslaught of unbelief that made me question whether there were any publications that weren’t one-sided anymore. A girl that misses proper journalism. Dear Sillyent, I enjoy your magazine about as much as I enjoy finding someone I know on Mario Kart 7 online - mildly. I tend to save picking a copy up until Wednesday morning, so I have something to read during the mind-numbing tedium that is STAT 292. However, I felt that this week's edition was a little silly. I would agree that a theme is necessary, and religion is as topical a topic as any, but god damn. There was a lot of god. And damnation. A slight overkill, it has to be said. It's saying something when the articles in Salient almost make me want to pay attention to stats. Might I suggest some different varieties of columns/ articles? I've yet to see any sports in Salient. I wouldn't mind something on gaming either. It might help me come to terms with the fact that I'm still just a 12 year old stuck in a tall body. Or then again, maybe not. Yours long-windedly, Ken Sugimori. P.S. Don't reply to Cruz Johnson. He gets plenty of attention on Overheard. Dear Salient, Unbelievable. For a publication that claims to be an organ of student opinion and to represent a wide range of views, you sure didn't in the Belief issue. Where were the articles which display belief in something other than the sum total of human knowledge? You know, from the 65% of us who didn't tick 'no religion' at the last census. There are many of us whose belief in God does not begin at the limit of human understanding, but underlies our understanding of what it means to be human. That knowledge is part of the reason why we study, to better understand God's world, God's people, and ultimately, God himself. Yours in hope, Matthew Dear Salient, I think you killed the Easter Bunny!! But, that's ok. Isn't Easter a crazy thing for religious nuts? Isn't it all just about easter eggs and hot cross buns.... oh and Salient issues that try convince us all that religious belief is something every thinking person gave up on decades ago? Yes? What a time to celebrate! What good news! Somehow I doubt it. We live in a world saturated by hopelessness and I don't know if it's gonna get much better any time soon. Henry Cooke wants us all to believe that ' we all seem

to navigate life's big questions without too much stress.' Really? If we all have so much purpose in life, why are our societies so obsessed with being busy? Why binge drinking? Why pathological search for riches, honour and success at the expense of all else? I think Ashleigh Hume sums it up much more nicely when she admits candidly 'I'm still not sure how the Earth was created, or why humans were made, but quite frankly, I still don't give a flying fuck.' We immerse ourselves in pleasure seeking, hedonistic behaviour and/ or hyperactive altruism trying to validate the emptiness of the fact that we search for something bigger.. But what about when that runs out? When you wake up with that next hangover, or realize that you actually can't fight City Hall, all by yourself. What advice do you have for us then, O all-knowing Salient? We all hit those moments, I know them well. And hope is hard to come by in our postmodern paradigm. Which is why I think the story of Easter is powerful. Salient, might not accept it, but's it's about more than eggs and hideously bad bunny parodies. And it's relevant- today. It's the story of a God who loves you and wants to have a personal connection to you. A God who is not some judgmental, overbearing dictator, but a God who desires the best life for you. A God who sent his son to die to let you come to know God, because all your hedonistic behaviour and altruistic endeavours couldn't bring your life meaning. Belief may be less trendy and less a part of our culture, but that doesn't make it obsolete. It's intellectually defendable and relevant.... because even in this postmodern age we search for meaning. If, Salient, you too want meaning feel free to email me on zacarey42@gmail.com. In hope, 21st century truth seeker Dear Student Journal, I am quite frightfully opposed to the ghastly and despicable smut which is published in your so called magazine. Just last week I saw mention of the act of fornication in a perfectly nice article about surviving in a first year hall of residence. There is just no need for this kind of filthy material. Are you on drugs? You also need to acquire a new puzzle creator. Your current puzzles are unsolvable and it really cheeses me off. Also you need to print the puzzles in a much larger form, I can barely see them. Finally, who are these dirty degenerates who write into your letters section? The letter of the week was about some “homosexuals” wanting to get married. I mean, how preposterous! Probably some drug-taking Greenie. And they don’t know how to speak properly! Ppl is not a word! And the most revolting of all, the letter entitled “4th Year Reich” had the utterly unredeemable c-word in it. This is supposed to be place of learning that you are corrupting with your filthy smut. You sicken me. Yours disgustedly, Roderick Fellatio

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nclude your real name, address and telephone number, these will not be printed. Please note that letters will not be corrected for spelling or grammar.The Editor reserves the right to edit, abridge or decline any

letters without explanation. Letters can be sent to: Email: letters@salient.org.nz Post: Salient, c/- Victoria University of Wellington Hand-delivered: the Salient office, Level 3, Student Union Building (behind the Hunter Lounge)

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NOTICES Victoria University TaeKwonDo Club (WTF style) Interested in Taekwondo? New to Taekwondo? Learned Taekwondo before? Come along and join us! Great way to keep fit and have fun! Training times: Tuesday 6.30pm - 8.00pm Long Room, Victoria University Recreation Centre Saturday 3.30pm - 5.00pm Dance Room, Victoria University Recreation Centre What you need: Drink bottle, comfy trousers/ shorts, t-shirt Contact us: vuwtkd@hotmail.com We are affiliated to the TaeKwonDo Union of NZ (TUNZ)

Vic OE – Vic Student Exchange

Programme – Upcoming Host Uni specific info sessions! Host Uni specific sessions @ Easterfield Building, Level 2 Tuesday April 9th – 1.30pm Universidad de Monterrey (Mexico) Monday April 29th – 10.30am Universite de La Rochelle (France)

Victoria International Development Society VicIDS DVD Screening: Stori Tumbuna. CO304, 5.15-6.45pm, 8/4/13 This film provides a glimpse into one of the most isolated and unique corners of the earth. Paul Wolffram spent over two years living among the Lak people in the rainforest of Papua New Guinea. As his relationships with the people grew he began to glimpse a hidden reality, a dark history that loomed over his host community. Over time the sense that something is amiss grows. As his curiosity deepens Paul brings to light dark secrets that set in motion a compelling and deadly set of events. VicIDS Speaker Event: Refugees - facts, solutions, challenges. CO304, 5.15-6.45pm, 15/4/13 Following recent changes to refugee policy in New Zealand, Tim O'Donovan will speak

to us about the work of ChangeMakers. The presentation will cover New Zealand's international commitments, the cost of and solutions to crises that create refugees, and our role in accepting displaced people and their families.

CAREERS AND JOBS

Victoria University Women's Thirds

Organisations

Details on CareerHub: careerhub.victoria.ac.nz

Applications closing soon:

Macquarie Group Inland Revenue

Victoria University Women's Thirds is urgently seeking a coach for the season. If you have played footy before and know your stuff, we would love to hear from you! The team is a mix of friendly and fun uni students/professionals who are wanting to keep fit and improve their skills. No experience is required however you will need to be available on Thursdays from 7.30pm and Sundays. This is a volunteer position. If you are interested and would like to know more please contact the team manager, Tessa, at tesshaigh@gmail.com.

VUW Digital Histories Conference

Closing

Reserve Bank of New Zealand

April 9 April 10 April 11

Staples Rodway Morrison Kent Lawyers

April 12

TimePlan Education Anglo American Metallurgical Coal

April 14

John Deere The Treasury New Zealand Defence Force

April 15 April 20

TaxTeam Asia New Zealand Foundation (Japan, Taiwan, China)

April 30

Careers in Focus Seminar

Date

Come and give a ten minute presentation at the VUW Digital Histories Conference! Spots are available for all students at 300-level in the humanities and social science departments (e.g. history, sociology, media studies, politics and international relations). The theme is “Digital Histories of War and Witnessing: Challenges of New Media”, which encapsulates the challenges posed to and by social media in the representation and witnessing of war, violence, atrocity, genocide, and so forth. Abstracts of 200 words in length are required, of which the deadline for is 01/05/2013. Information and contact details can be found at the conference blog: victoriadigitalhistories. wordpress.com.

Law: Working in the Public Sector

April 9

Law: Working in the Corporate World

May 21

Student Forum Meeting

free film screenings

The Student Forum is open to all students On the agenda: electing representatives, Student Forum Review and other items of business.

Free Film Screenings at the Language Learning Centre

Where: AM101, Alan MacDiarmid building, Kelburn Campus When: Tuesday 16 April, 5–7pm For more information, or to submit an agenda item, email studentforumadministrator@vuw.ac.nz

Employer Presentation

Date

Intergen

May 2

Palantir Technologies Xero

May 17 May 20

Careers Expo

Date

Campus Careers Expo

May 16

ICT Careers Expo

May 17

This Week: Bon Voyage (2005) directed by Jean-Paul Rappeneau 5:00pm, Thursday 11th April | Language Learning Centre | vz003 Notices Policy: Salient provides a free notice service for all VIctoria students, VUWSA-affiliated clubs not-for-profit organisations. Notices should be received by 5pm Tuesday the week before publication. Notices must be fewer than 100 words. For-profit organisations will be charged $15 per notice. Send notices to editor@salient.org.nz with 'Notice' in the subject line.

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fri 12

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8pm ($10) Penny Dreadful's Boylesque Peepshow! ($20-30) John the Baptist EP Release 9pm

puppies

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SANDWICHES

Re:Fresh 10pm (free - $5 after midnight) ○○●○ 47 ●○●●

Kitty Daisy & Lewis 8pm ($53.55)

Himmerland 8pm ($20)

What Happened... 10pm (free before midnight)

IN CINEMAS APRIL 11