Guilford Grant
Collector’s Edition
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27/09/2021
A history of Grant Guilford Exclusive Interviews The Auckland City Conspiracy
Salient Magazine
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03
Editorial
04
Letters and Notices
06 - 11
News
12 - 15
Legacy of the VC
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Grant Guilford Said
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The Auckland City Conspiracy
19 - 21
Artist Profile / Centrefold
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Living Wage for Our Cleaners
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In Defence of my BA
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Defining Sex & Gay Sex
30 - 35
Culture
Book Review (31), Ludus (32), TV Review (34)
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Entertainment
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Sink your teeth into it!
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Editorial The Vice Chancellor Isn’’t Paid Isn Enough In 2018, Prof Guilford discussed his salary with Salient’s then editor. The Vice Chancellor (VC) said: “yeah, it’s not so much about wanting to get paid that much, that’s the going rate for people with my level of responsibility. The salary is paying for the accountability that we have, also, from a business sense, the Chief Exec earns that salary, many times over. Generally for professionals you’re looking to earn three times your salary. All of the Vice Chancellors I know in NZ–none of them are driven by their salary, that’s just what you get paid when you are at that level.” He was then asked if he would “take a pay cut to give the university more money.” He replied, “I wouldn’t… because it’s a bad look–it would look like I was worth less compared to other people in similar roles.”
provider, and the third-largest health provider. It’s got over a billion dollars in property. You need a VC who has the business acumen and experience to keep it all afloat, which comes at a high price. It seems to me that the functions of a university are at odds with the business model they operate within. I’d say the fundamental functions of a University are to carry out research and educate students. The university’s motto translates to “wisdom is more valuable than gold”. Sometimes it feels like the University prioritises commercial interest at the expense of academics and students alike.
A lot of the University’s students are young people who face significant financial and personal hardship in order to be here. Rent, food, student loans, mental health issues, relocation… it goes on. So we feel like But then on 6 May, 2020, in an unprecedented year, we’re in constant struggle, and then the person who Chancellor Neil Paviour-Smith confirmed that Grant makes the decisions that affect our education makes Guilford had taken a 20% pay cut for the remainder of more in a month than some of us live on in an entire the year. The money was donated to staff and student year. So while it’s really nice that Grant Guilford owns hardship funds. A little bit of wealth redistribution. a couple blocks of land he can plant with native trees to ~unwind~, it makes for an incredibly unrelatable Grant Guilford has been paid less than VC’s at our leader. competitor education providers according to “Chief Exec Renumeration Disclosure” data available via VCs were once students just like us (minus the publicservice.govt.nz. VC remuneration at University student debt HAHA) and maybe in 30 years some of of Auckland was $768k, the University of Otago rate us will be earning half a mil (adjusted for inflation) a was $656k, and VUW’s was $599k in the same 2019year. The VC isn’t paid enough according to market 2020 period. In an interview with ^Salient this week, rates. This could even be a case of don’t hate the Neil Paviour-Smith said the VC’s salary might not player, hate the game. But at the very least, we are be appealing enough for international candidates. allowed to critique leadership decisions, get mad, and So the question of salary is important for keeping reflect on how they impact our education. I’d really up with the market and attracting the best possible like to see someone who is not a white man get that candidates. 6-figure paycheck. This VC job is a big one. Universities are public sector organisations with a public function but they also happen to be very big businesses. VUW is the second-largest employer, the largest accommodation
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Sally Ward (she/her) and Matthew Casey (he/him)
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NOTICES & LETTERS There’s at least two Tom Andrews at Vic Dear Salient, I was surprised when a friend congratulated me on my last piece in Salient. I had recently had (another) letter published in the Dom Post, but have sadly not yet contributed to Salient. (Obviously I should). So I looked you up on line and read a very good article on problem gambling by my namesake Tom Andrews (https://www. salient.org.nz/features-2020/when-the-solution-is-your-problem?rq =andrews&fbclid=IwAR3jnjMsfpgdHn7EtxZ54AajDGGXCdyN2yhJ9f sRt417ej0sEa14pYqhAYQ). Not wishing to steal Tom Andrews’ plaudits for his article, but also because I know absolutely nothing about gambling, never having done it, perhaps Tom’s next article could show his department/ degree? So that he doesn’t get confused with- or confuse - the old man in OGB doing Law. Many thanks Tom Andrews
Faculty of Humanities and Social sciences student assessment showcase Curious about what kind of assessments other students in FHSS submit? Keep an eye out from the 4th to 8th of October as work from sociology, classics, history, politics, and more will be presented! Running both online and in person, this is an exciting opportunity to get a sense of the content studied within the faculty. Make sure to support your fellow students as they share their creations with the wider university community by coming to the hub or exploring the exhibition virtually.
Medea Production The Victoria Ancient Theatre Society (VATS) is putting on its 2021 production of Medea from the 6th-8th October, in the Memorial Theatre, at 7:30pm. This year’s production is a new adaptation from Euripides and Seneca by our directors Rebecca Drummond and Rebecca Scholtz. Medea charts the revenge of Colchian sorceress Medea on her former husband Jason, whose remarriage sets off a chain of violence and bloodshed. Tickets are $15 full and $10 concession and can be booked at vatsbookings@gmail.com. There will be limited door sales if COVID restrictions permit.
Correction - Issue 21 In the last issue of Salient (published 20.09.21), errors were made in an article titled “New Ngāi Tauira Executive Elected” in regard to Mason Lawlor’s name and iwi affiliation. This should have been picked up prior to publishing but was not. We would like to apologise for this and congratulate both Kelly Mitchell (Ngāti Māhanga) and Mason Lawlor (Ngāti Pāhauwera, Ngāti Maru) for their appointment to the role of Co-Tumuaki.
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Letters and Notices
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New Vice Chancellor / Broadcasting Sector / “AUKUS” Frank Kitts Park Slide / Hipkins Reacts
How Will They Decide the New Vice Chancellor? Salient spoke to VUW Chancellor Neil Paviour-Smith about the appointment process.
Matthew Casey (he/him) and Niva Chittock (she/her) VUW Chancellor Neil Paviour-Smith describes the VC role as being made up of three parts: an overall institutional leader, a chief executive of a large organisation, and delivering an academic mission (research function, study areas, etc.).
“[P]art of the Council’s consultation is how we engage Māori networks with this process. We have Te Aka Matua committee of the Council, which is effectively like a Māori Advisory Committee. They will play an important role [in the proess]”, commented Paviour-Smith.
“It’s a big job, it’s a very visible public role. It’s also a big organisation.”
The results from the group’s findings will help inform the job application and advertising.
In the Wellington region, VUW is the second-largest single employer, the largest accommodation provider, and the third-largest health provider. It also has over a billion dollars in property, which makes VUW one of the largest property owners in the region. Not to mention all the stakeholders and the 23,000 or so students.
Mr Paviour-Smith predicts this initial consultation will take a few months, and it will be overseen by specialist agency, Perret Laver, appointed by the University Council.
Mr Paviour-Smith then lays out the appointment process into two steps: consultation, then the formal appointment. An advisory group will be created to consult with the University community. It will be made up of academic and professional staff and both groups of staff will have the opportunity to think about those they may suggest to be appointed to this group. Mr Paviour-Smith describes this groups’ role as: “assisting the University Council with the consultation process around the University, such as discussion around specific attributes, qualities and the leadership style the University would like to see in the new VC.” This includes the student body and key University stakeholders.
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Perret Laver’s website describes them as a “leading international executive search firm,” that finds “outstanding leaders”. Paviour-Smith believes their expertise in making appointments in this sector around the world will be a great “benefit” and keep the process “organised and consistent”. They will also be assisting with the formal side of the process. “There are no defined timeframes because we need to ensure the process is effective [...] There will be a closing date inevitably. But it’s really up to the Council to decide how it chooses to move through a phase of shortlisting and interviews”, Said the Chancellor. Paviour-Smith stressed that part of the consultation process was about encouraging discussion of the role with anyone who could be interested.
When asked about interest in the role, Paviour-Smith was optimistic.
are other universities where you don’t have to be a professor to be the VC.”
“We would expect there to be interest from internal, domestic, and international candidates for the role. This is a very significant role in the university sector in New Zealand, so we think it will attract a lot of interest”.
The Chancellor did note that it would be up to the University Council and the recommendations of the advisory group to decide on any prerequisites for the role.
Paviour-Smith confirmed that the VC role at VUW is normally held by a professor, despite there being no formal requirements.
“It’s a big role. But it’s a very exciting opportunity for someone that really is inspired to lead an organisation like this and change people’s lives as part of it.”
“I believe that, typically, Vice-Chancellors have been professors at Victoria and that’s been the case for quite some time, though I couldn’t tell you why [...] There
The University Council will appoint an Acting VC while the process is carried out.
Aotearoa/New Zealand’s Public Broadcasting Sector, Explained Niva Chittock (she/her)
For the past two years, there’s been a lot of talk about a proposed Radio New Zealand (RNZ) and Television New Zealand (TVNZ) “merger”. Current Minister for Broadcasting, Communications and Digital Media, Kris Faafoi, has confirmed the proposal is for a new public service broadcaster (PSB), not a merger.
sold off all the other radio stations that were carrying commercials.” Unsurprisingly, politics has greatly influenced the course of our public broadcasting sector. Dr Thompson describes the distinctive tone set by governments since 1999.
VUW Media Studies Professor, Dr Peter Thompson, who specialises in public service broadcasting, comments that RNZ and TVNZ started off as the same entity.
“Labour comes in in 1999, the first of three Helen Clark governments. Straightaway they say, look, broadcasting mass media is a big part of our democracies, a big part “In the 1980s, we had a ‘state monopoly’ on broadcasting of our culture, we don’t want to leave this to the market. So they approach TVNZ and RNZ and said, right, you’re in the form of BCNZ. Then with the Rogernomics getting a charter.” reforms from the late ‘80s through to 1990, BCNZ becomes TVNZ and RNZ…[and] of course in 1989, you’ve Yet it didn’t happen, and Dr Thompson details why. got [the creation of] NZ On Air”. “TVNZ was then set up for sale in the late 1990s. RNZ had already been privatised. A lot of people don’t realise this, but they kept Concert and National as our independent public service broadcast channels [...] [and]
“There was nothing wrong with the [charter] document. The big challenge was that they wanted TVNZ to still be profitable while serving as a public service broadcaster […] www.salient.org.nz
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they’ve got a public service entity in RNZ, and a commercial entity that’s publicly owned in TVNZ, and they wanted these two very different cultures and functions to fit together nicely.” This is the same issue faced today. 2008 saw a change of Government and the Global Financial Crisis. This resulted in the freezing of RNZ and Māori TV’s (another PSB established in 2004) funding and insufficient money to keep the new public service channels, TVNZ 6 and 7, running. A cash-strapped public broadcasting sector was what faced the new Government in 2017, though Dr Thompson says it has been further exacerbated by online media. “The problem now is that TVNZ is a slowly declining business model. There are some people who say television is dead. I mean, if you go and look at the data, it’s certainly not [...] probably half the nation watch it every day […] the idea that everything’s gone digital is a little bit premature. But there’s absolutely no doubt a lot of younger people might still be watching TV, but they’re watching at home on phones or laptops.” The then Broadcasting Minister, Clare Curran, turned to ^RNZ instead. Her idea was to create ‘^RNZ+’, diversifying it by increasing its online presence and branching out into video content. Yet she received just half of the required funding from Cabinet and then resigned from her role over an unrelated controversy. The current Minister, Kris Faafoi, took over. A former BBC journalist, Faafoi went for a different approach. In 2019, he got confirmation from Cabinet that public broadcasting needed more support.
Coupled with the pandemic, Dr Thompson believes this has created a heightened awareness of the importance of public broadcasting and public service media. “I think people have realised that we need to have an alternative to fake news, particularly in a global crisis. There’s got to be some investment in public journalism”. “This year, [the government have] just started the public interest journalism fund, which is $55M over three years. [...] Quite a lot of that is dedicated to what they call incremental or additional news. It isn’t just propping up what the news media does already. It’s there to provide the resources for news media to go the extra mile. A lot of it is focused on Māori media, for example. In the first round, iwi radio has got a chunk of funding, which I think is a good thing as it has been chronically underfunded historically.” In March 2021, Minister Faafoi also announced an oversight group to formulate a business model and realistic charter for the proposal. Chaired by former New Zealand First MP Tracey Martin, the group is comprised of eight individuals with in-depth media, communications, and journalism experience. Former MediaWorks CEO Michael Anderson; the Chief Executive of the Broadcasting Standards Authority Glen Scanlon; and Bailey Mackey, a TV producer, former reporter and a member of Prime Minister’s Business Advisory Council, are included. So are broadcasting and technology consultant William Earl; Sandra Kailahi, a former journalist and producer at TVNZ’s “Tagata Pasifika”, “Te Karere” and “Fair Go”; John Quirk, former chair and director of state-owned transmission company Kordia; and VUW’s own Leading Media Academic Dr Trisha Dunleavy. The group has presented their findings to Minister Faafoi, and a Cabinet decision is expected by the end of the year.
The Strengthening Public Media Report produced three possible options for Cabinet to consider. These were to merge TVNZ and RNZ’s newsrooms; put more money into NZ On Air, or disestablish both RNZ and TVNZ and Dr Thompson remains optimistic about the proposal but create a completely new public service broadcaster (like knows there is still a long way to go. the BBC in the UK). “We had a mixed funding model before and it didn’t In a Cabinet discussion document from February 2020, work. So I’d really, really hope that the Government Faafoi confirms the latter was chosen, saying the has learned from the mistakes of the Helen Clark proposal’s aim is to: “establish a new public media entity government.” and ultimately disestablish Radio New Zealand Ltd (RNZ) and Television New Zealand Ltd (TVNZ).” “I don’t think it’s impossible [...] It’s a matter of cultural priorities.” The proposal should also “confirm NZ On Air’s continued role in providing contestable funding for public media content and services in a way that complements the new entity and supports the wider media sector.”
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Two out of Five Eyes missing from AUKUS security pact Maia Ingoe (she/her)
On 15 September, United States President Joe Biden announced a new trilateral security pact between the US, the UK, and Australia, to be called “AUKUS”. But the new alliance has some countries feeling left out—France, Canada, and New Zealand. The move reflects a deepening of the divide in US-China relations on the back of unfruitful diplomacy over successive presidencies. AUKUS (pronounced awk-us) is part of Biden’s intention to refocus forgein policy efforts into the Pacific. The new Indo-Pacific alliance enables the three countries to share defence capabilities with their first move to help Australia develop nuclear-powered submarines. This puts Australia’s neighbours across the ditch, New Zealand, in a tricky place; being left out of the alliance despite being a strong Pacific player, and their nuclear-free policy putting them at odds with Australia’s development of nuclear-powered defenses. The Australian submarines will not be allowed to enter New Zealand waters up to 12 nautical miles, just over 22 kilometers, off the coastline. RNZ quoted Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern as saying, “I anticipate absolutely no change in our already strong relationships with the United States, the United Kingdom and of course Australia.” She emphasised that she didn’t expect New Zealand to be approached about the alliance, and that our nuclear free policy would still apply; continuing the tune of New Zealand’s independent forgein policy approach led by Forgein Minister Nania Mahuta. While New Zealand insists their relationships are still strong, yet not alliance worthy, other countries are more offended at their exclusion. The announcement of the AUKUS alliance has led Australia to scrap a multibillion dollar deal with France for French-developed submarines that has been in place since 2016. France, a significant ally for both the US and the UK as well as Australia, has said the alliance goes against spirits of cooperation. On Friday, 17 September, France pulled its ambassadors from all three alliance nations, demonstrating the seriousness of the situation.
Photo: Biden, Morrison, and Johnson at AUKUS Announcement Source: NDTV.com
New Zealand, Australia, and Canada, in place since 1941. The alliance tightens the UK, US, and Australia inner circle with the sharing of defence capabilities. The US’s move to focus its efforts into Pacific alliances has been seen as a step backward in US-China relations. The deal itself has been touted as a defence technology alliance targeting China. In a Newshub article, Chinese embassy spokesman Liu Pengyu is quoted saying countries “should not build exclusionary blocs targeting or harming the interests of third parties. In particular, they should shake off their Cold-War mentality and ideological prejudice.” New Zealand has stuck to a wary path with it’s relationships with China, at times condemning it’s treatment of Uyghur people and crackdowns on democratic movement, and at other times choosing to stay out of statements concerning their actions, such as the difficulties faced by the COVID-19 investigation in Wuhan. Speaking to Parliament on September 22, Nania Mahuta warned against sanctioning nations, preferring diplomatic discussions. “In the New Zealand context, we need to consider this element of how a sanctions regime might impact on our economy and emporting community,” She said.
Despite New Zealand’s insistence that relationships with the world’s most powerful nations are still strong, With Canada also left out of negotiations, the AUKUS the AUKUS reliance signals a new turn in forgein policy alliance signals a tightening of the Five-Eyes circle. The for three of those nations, and threatens to cause more Five-Eyes is an intelligence alliance between the UK, US, divides between the US and China. www.salient.org.nz
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Less Broken Legs, More Cultural Celebration: Big Changes Coming to Frank Kitts Park Lily McElhone (she/her) The redevelopment of Frank Kitts Park has been on the Wellington City Council’s agenda for nearly a decade, and was budgeted at $40m in the 2021-31 Long-Term Plan. This month, the Council urged a decision be made quickly, specifically regarding the future of the underground car park beneath Frank Kitts Park. Talks began on Thursday, 23 September to discuss the future of the car park, with demolition on the cards. The unstable nature of the reclaimed land on which Frank Kitts Park is built makes strengthening the structure a costly process. The car park previously hosted events such as the Wellington Underground Craft Market and Homegrown Festival, but after an engineering report revealed the structure was earthquake prone, these events ceased to be held in the space in early 2020. The Council have been working with the Wellington Chinese Garden Society on plans to erect a Garden of Beneficence on the site, but the foundational seismic work needed will push the garden’s budget beyond the previous cost estimate of $7.6m. In February, Mayor Andy Foster received criticism from the Wellington Chinese Garden Society after he pulled $6.5m from the Council’s budget for the Frank Kitts redevelopment. The Society, who had previously committed $1m towards the project, said the mayor’s sudden decision to reduce funding and lack of communication with them, was “destroying” the Council’s credibility with the public, according to Stuff. Foster said the $6.5m was only “a drop in the bucket in terms of doing the work that needs to be done with Frank Kitts Park.” After years of advocating for a fale malae (a Pasifika cultural hub and meeting house), the Fale Malae Trust secured funding from the Government’s 2020 budget and Victoria University—totalling $20m—to build a fale in the parliamentary precinct, and Frank Kitts is a favoured location for the project. Trust Chair Adrian Orr told the Ministry for Culture and Heritage the project
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would “recognise the accomplishments and diversity of our Pasifika communities, and better connect and support them with tertiary education and civic engagement.” Passers-by may have also noticed a recent change to Frank Kitts; the iconic slide was removed on September 3 after two reports of small children breaking their legs on the slide were made to the Council. Construction on a $6m upgrade to the park is set to begin in January, and will include a refurbished lighthouse structure and a brand-new, tubular slide, featuring a loop to inhibit speed. VUW is ranked in the top 300 Universities in the world according to the QS World University Rankings 2022.
Minister of Education Reacts to Vice Chancellor’s Retirement Chris Hipkins lets us know how he really feels, or does he? Matthew Casey (he/him) When Minister of Education Chris Hipkins was asked to comment on the retirement of Vice Chancellor Grant Guilford, he said that he “would like to thank Grant for his work as Vice-Chancellor at Victoria University over the past seven years.” Hipkins, a former VUWSA president himself, has had multiple interactions with Guilford in the media and an at times strained relationship. Reasons for tension between the two have been the Minister’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as Hipkins’ vetoing of the University Council’s decision to change the name of the University. Hipkins has taken the approach of leaving on good terms. He said that Guilford “has helped the University to grow and continue to be one of New Zealand’s high performing tertiary institutions. I wish him well for the future.” VUW is ranked in the top 300 Universities in the world according to the QS World University Rankings 2022.
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An Unauthorised and Incomplete Look at the Legacy of Grant Guilford Salient Staff
Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington’s Vice Chancellor (VC) Grant Guilford announced his retirement on September 10 of this year, and he will be retiring on 4 March, 2022. In a statement, Guilford said “After my more than two decades in senior leadership roles, my wife and I are looking forward to putting more time into our native forest restoration projects”, Eight of those twenty years have been spent at the helm of, in his words, “Wellington’s University”. So, we’ve looked back across those eight years and put together an unofficial history of Guilford’s tenure based on Salient archives and other journalistic sources. For background, William Grant Guilford was born in Christchurch on September 10, 1957 (according to prabook. com)—which would mean that he announced his retirement on his 64th birthday. His education included Bachelor’s degrees in Philosophy and Veterinary Sciences
Sustainability Last week, Guilford told us that one of his points of pride is the “great progress towards carbon neutrality”. This is a part of the University’s commitment to plan for a 20% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, with a goal of net zero carbon by 2030. He leaves a very strong legacy in the sustainability space. In 2015 he was awarded a Green Gown for leadership. These are awarded for excellence in sustainability within tertiary institutions, something that he upheld throughout his time as VC. Despite the University’s growth, it’s CO2 emissions have gone down. In 2015 they had reduced by 12%, compared to 2007. In 2018 the University had two Green Gown winning projects—Sustainability Week and the Victoria Plus Programme,
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Feature: Look at the Legacy
from Massey University. His postgraduate studies saw him earn a PhD in Nutrition from the University of California, Davis, in the United States. His University profile reveals that earlier in his career, he undertook teaching, research, and clinical and leadership roles at UC Davis, the University of Missouri, and Massey University. He was Massey’s first ever head of the Institute of Veterinary, Animal, and Biomedical Sciences for a decade, and then in 2009 became the Dean of Sciences at the University of Auckland. In 2014 he became the vice chancellor of this hallowed institution, taking over the role from Pat Walsh. According to a Salient article published on 14 October, 2013, he was labelled “a candidate with a strong history in research and commercial ventures”. The article quoted him as saying “It will be a privilege to contribute to Victoria’s continued national and international success.” which at the time Guilford said “Victoria University of Wellington is a leader in sustainability in the university sector in Australasia and it is wonderful to have this recognition [...] It’s particularly pleasing that both winning projects showcase the commitment of our students to sustainability.” According to the 2020 Sustainability Report, the University is in the world’s top 100 for Earth and Marine Sciences as well as other subjects such as Psychology and Law. The University is ranked in the top 40 universities in the world for social impact and commitment to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Other areas of the University’s sustainability focus has been through projects like the upcoming Living Pā, and
the University’s land in the outer green belt, where they plant native trees to offset their emissions.
Professor Higgins stated the Living Building Challenge “forces us to consider a better approach to sustainability, that looks at non-toxic materials, water use The Living Pā is the sustainable and care, energy creation, health and redevelopment of 42 to 50 Kelburn Parade, wellbeing, equity and the importance of the site of Te Tumu Herenga Waka (The place.” University’s Marae) and the buildings in front of it. According to the Living Pā website, it represents “a fundamental shift in the way we live and work, and the way we care for the natural world around us”. It is a part of the Living Building Challenge, the aim of which is to encourage regenerative ways of building. As reported in Salient earlier this year, the Living Pā “will provide students with an opportunity to connect and engage with mātauranga Māori and sustainability practices.” Source: University
Name Change and Staff Cuts In September 2018, Guilford’s legacy changed forever. This was when the University Council voted in favour of changing the name of the University from Victoria University of Wellington to University of Wellington. At the time, Guilford said that it was “To strengthen our global reputation, we must have a distinctive name that stands on its own in the more than 100 countries from which we recruit our staff and students, and in which our graduates work.” Notable critiques were that it was simply unwanted, and people believed it took away from the institution’s history. Otago Daily Times reported that “More than 2000 submissions were received, with 75 percent opposing the change.” In 2018, Salient had advertisement space purchased by Nicolla Willis to protest the proposed change, and Pat Gower said the name changd was “one of the most breathtakingly stupid ideas I have ever seen”. The “Stick With Vic” campaign Facebook page has over 4000 likes at the time of writing.
At the launch of the “Growing our Future” tree planting this year, Guilford said that “As part of the University’s Carbon Zero initiative we have committed to planting 100,000 trees over the next 10 years.”
Source: Stuff
In Stuff’s article about the name change being rejected by the Minister of Education, Guilford mentioned that he could push the ‘Wellington’ agenda, without an official name change. And so the project became a “name change by stealth”. This included new signage, lanyard branding and changing social media handles. Not even the University’s wifi was safe:
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Another critique of the name change saga is the sheer amount of money spent. The University spent $466,367.87 on a brand ‘refresh’ in early 2020. Despite cost cutting, there has been a continuation of the money spent on rebranding. In December 2020, Salient reported (quoted below) that at the Vice Chancellor’s Staff Christmas Party, Guilford said that as the “international student pipeline empties further”, there would need to be a $15 million turn around for the University to be in a sustainable position in 2022. “For that to happen, Guilford outlined three things that need to occur before February 2021: 1. “An open heart by the government” regarding the borders and their access to international students, or the funding rates for domestic students. 2. A very significant increase in domestic enrollments. 3. A “strong uptake of the voluntary redundancy programme” offered to all permanent staff a few months ago.
He stated that “at present, none of those three things are looking particularly promising.” Early the next year, just before Grant’s proposed February deadline to turn this around, Stuff reports:
Source: Stuff
In this article, Tertiary Education Union (TEU) branch co-president Dougal McNeill said this was “bizarre territory” due to prioritising branding over staff, continuing on that “Staff cuts now would hurt students, the university, and the community, and wasteful decisions like this latest plan underline that there is no case for cuts.” On 1 March, 2021, RNZ reported that 100 staff put their hands up for voluntary redundancy.
Academic Management There are a lot of academic changes that have happened under Grant’s watch as Vice Chancellor. As the head of administration, he can be seen as the person who gave the final thumbs up to most changes at the University, alongside the University Council. Ngā Hoe a Kupe scholarships Last week Guilford said that he was most proud of “the creation of the Ngā Hoe a Kupe scholarships [...] established in 2020 from endowed funds derived from the heavily contested sale of the Karori campus. They are aimed at growing the participation and success of Māori and Pasifika students, and those from refugee and low socio- economic backgrounds in Wellington.”
Academic staff, general staff, and students alike strongly opposed the plan. TEU VUW Co-President Dougal McNeill commented that it had strained the relationship between University management and the wider University community. “Trust has been an issue at Victoria for some months now and the relationship is very badly damaged.”
Music His first year as vice chancellor saw the New Zealand School of Music transition from a collaborative effort with Massey to an entirely Victoria University-owned school. Three quarters of Drax Project are NZSoM Alumni. In 2019, on behalf of the NZSoM, the University, the Council, and the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra signed an agreement which would see the This is made up of up to ten scholarships, at a value of approximately Municipal Office Building in Civic Square refurbished and leased for 25 years as a $50,000 each, for year 13’s at a list space for the National Music Centre. of local schools. This scholarship is definitely something to be proud of. The Whiria Project 2020’s Whiria Project included 15 specific proposals to change the way the University operates. According to John Gerritsen, RNZ’s education correspondent, the most controversial part of this was the proposed amalgamation of VUW’s 26 schools and nine faculties into four divisions.
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Artist impression of National Music School. Source: WCC
In the Stuff article announcing this, Guilford said “The state-of-the-art teaching, rehearsal, research and performance spaces that it will offer will enable an outstanding education for the next generation of musicians.” Tertiary Education Union As evident with the commentary on the $69,000 sign, Guilford and the TEU have not had the smoothest of relationships. In the issue of Salient published on 19 September, 2016, it was reported that TEU had gone on strike. Deputy Secretary Nanette Cormack highlighted three reasons for this:
2020 and COVID-19 Last year, the world was faced with the unprecedented effects of COVID-19. This affected everyone, and may have had a reasonably large effect on the legacy of the VC.
Reason one—“For the general staff obviously [the dispute] includes their pay scales”. Reason two—“For the academic staff and their research assistants and fellows, the dispute is around things like the salary increase and some other matters”. And the third and final factor that led to the strikes was that the University had advertised jobs (librarian positions, for example) at a sustainably lower rate for Union members than for those who weren’t. Those who were a part of the Union’s collective agreement were being offered a salary difference, with “$4,850 between the highest offered salaries and $15,406 between the lowest offered salaries”. The TEU at the time felt that this “favours people who aren’t in a union”. Level 3. This was not well received. As the article says, “What ensued after was a rent-strike movement, led by a number of VUW students, supported by many public figures. Come May 1st, the University backed down, announcing they’d delay hall fees until May 11 (when the country went down to Level 2).” This was handled differently during this year’s lockdown, where the decision was made not to charge students accommodation fees if they were prevented from returning.
Real quote In an article titled “2020 In Review: How VUW Fucked Us”, Salient wrote about the events of last year. We think it does fairly represent student opinion on the ground. Here is a selection from the piece: International students International students believed they should be refunded the difference between theirs and domestic fees. The article said that “Course fees for international students are roughly four times that of domestic students. Part of paying increased fees is access to education students may not otherwise have in their home country and the opportunity to engage in New Zealand culture.” No one was able to get this experience throughout a large portion of the year. Despite asking for equitable fees, the University did not reduce them. The halls fiasco Students were only given 48 hours notice that their halls were closing over lockdown. They either had to leave or be moved to another hall that was still open. Those in Halls had been told they were going to be charged a discounted $150 a week for their empty rooms under Alert
No grade bump Last year, Otago and the Auckland Universities scaled up Trimester 1 grades because of COVID-19. Despite a petition launched by VUWSA with 7000 signatures, the University stuck to their guns and didn’t follow suit. Salient wrote that “The University reiterated their decision, noting their approach to assess scaling grades against previous cohorts of students taking the same course. They note that this may lead to some courses being scaled up more than 5 points. All academic transcripts now include the line ‘students studying in 2020 were impacted, in a variety of ways, by the COVID-19 pandemic’, which undoubtedly makes up for the GPA disparity between VUW students and students from Universities who scaled up grades.”
Conclusion
Trying to recount the last eight years of the vice chancellor’s tenure is an interesting endeavour. There were countless events that couldn’t make it, including the controversial sale of the Karori campus, the opening of the new science building, or even the time Guilford awarded Bill English an honorary Doctorate. Whatever students and staff deem to be Guilford’s legacy, there is no doubt that he has left one. www.salient.org.nz
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Grant Guilford Said: VUW Is as Good, If Not Better, than Harvard Sally Ward (she/her)
A chat with our soon-to-retire vice chancellor At the start of the year, Matt and I met with Professor Grant Guilford. We wanted to know what to look out for this year, and to understand the complex operating structures within this institution from someone who knows a lot about the University. We couldn’t get another interview with him at this time. But luckily we recorded 30 minutes of the meeting, which took place on February 9. We talked about reputation, the idea of a global civic university (what on earth?), funding models, and what the VC thinks it means to have “marae at the heart” of this place. Vice Chancellor Professor Guilford is the Chief Executive of Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington. He tells us his job is to “keep the University ticking over, my staff paid, you guys taught, the research programmes undertaken”. We start by discussing University rankings. VUW is still number one for humanities and also has very strong programmes in natural sciences. We ask who measures these rankings.
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Feature: Grant Guilford Said
“We rely heavily on performance based research fund assessments which give you an assessment of the quality of your academic staff. The University came out number one in that for the second time in a row”, Guilford tells us. From time to time the University also does “specific brand work” and contracts a firm “to ask the people of New Zealand” where VUW ranks. I hope I never hear someone say “performance based research fund assessments” or “specific brand work” ever again. It reminds me that VUW is run like a business when I would prefer to think of it as a community-focused learning environment that speaks truth to power. Matt asks if the quality in teaching equals the quality in outcome, and the discussion very quickly becomes about reputation. “The quality of teaching is directly related to the quality of outcome for students. But it isn’t directly related to reputation. So very unfortunately a University’s reputation, particularly an international reputation, is driven largely by research and the outcomes of research, and the great new things that are contributed to society, and also by an established identity.”
“So if you take a Harvard and compare it to us, I would bet my bottom dollar that the quality of education you get here, is the same if not better than you would get at Harvard—with the exception that you don’t carry that brand of Harvard in your back pocket which people then utilise for networking and all those other things”. Obviously reputation and branding is important, given that Government funding is supplied per bum on seat. Yet I find Guilford’s chat around reputation and branding icky. I don’t really care about the “reputation” of VUW for networking purposes. I think degrees are valuable because of the students who earn them and the teachers who support them, not a brand. Matt’s next question is “What do you believe the basis of a government-funded university should be, in terms of producing for its own society?” Guildford explains that universities are in a competitive environment as public sector organisations, which is a strange place to be in. I agree. “[...] we burn through about a million dollars of salary a day in a working week, so about five million a week. And so we’re very strongly dependent on revenue and that revenue largely comes in a bums on seats funding model from the Government.” He continues, “we’re forced into a competitive model to keep our people and our jobs and you taught.” Guilford says that COVID-19 “has taught New Zealand about community again”. He believes it has accelerated a move away from a “self-centred neo-liberal economic model” which is necessary if we’re going to have a sustainable planet. This “brings this model of a global corporate university into further question”, he adds. “Global corporate” is defined by the Cambridge Dictionary as a large company that operates in many different countries. It seems to me to be the peak of a global capitalist society and I don’t like it. It seems like Prof Guilford doesn’t like it either: “There have already been questions, but all of a sudden [during COVID] you are more concerned about community, about belonging, about inequality, about sustainability that the corporate university model sticks out more and more like a sore thumb.” He thinks we’re heading toward a “global civic” university “where you are part of your community, engaged with your community, try to serve the community’s needs and in so doing you thrive as a university, so it’s a virtuous cycle [...]”. On the VUW website, there is a page dedicated to the definition “global-civic ”, which I recommend reading because Guilford basically repeated the whole page to us. Basically it describes a university that values its local community within a global context.
He then talks about how VUW is born in the Western tradition, but in a place that honours its Treaty. It’s not enough to be a global civic university in the Western tradition—“we’ve got to have this idea of having a marae at our heart, and that fed into the name change.” Guilford says VUW was “struggling to maintain an identity”, and therefore unable to build a reputation. “Reputation is good for graduates when they’re looking for jobs and also impacts the ability to recruit new students”, he states. We’re back talking about reputation. “We wanted a Māori name that we could utilise equally with the Western name, so Te Herenga Waka became our name. But we now want to take that to another level. What does it mean to have a marae at our heart? Well part of it means a new building complex over there so that’s called the sustainable Pā.” Work on this has now begun. “From there we’re interested in academic structures that lead out from that so every student in our university is exposed to Māori world view, mātauranga maori, te reo, tikanga, and we help play our role in the decolonisation agenda in this country. Rawina Higgins will be leading that.” Finally, we ask if Guilford is satisfied with his level of engagement with the student body. “My main interface with students is through the student’s associations, particularly Ngāi Tauira and VUWSA.” He says some of his communication is delegated to Wendy Larner and Stuart Brock, as Provost and Academic Vice Provost respectively, who work very closely with the student assembly and representatives of the students associations, and this is passed on. “I do have a reasonable feel for what the students are feeling”, he says finally. I wonder if he checks the internet. I’ve been hanging around this campus only one year less than Guilford. I started at VUW in 2015 and spent six years completing a conjoint undergrad before taking this job, which requires constantly listening to what people are saying about the University and how students are feeling. I have witnessed the name change saga, the Living Pā development, the tree planting, and unresolved tensions between senior leadership and students and staff (which you can read about on the previous page). I wouldn’t want his job. I have no doubt he is passionate about his work and cares about our education. It was chilling to hear Prof Guilford throw around all that business jargon, because at times it can feel like students are just numbers, here to balance the ledger. Whether that’s due to Guilford’s leadership or Government settings or both, I’ll leave for you to ponder.
www.salient.org.nz
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The Auckland City Conspiracy
Matthew Casey (he/him)
Debunking the myth that GG lives in AKL A whispered rumour around the institution that some may call “The University of Wellington” is that the departing Vice Chancellor, Grant Guilford, lives in Auckland. What a preposterous idea, he is literally the leader of ‘Wellington’s University’. When asking around Pipitea campus about this theory, student Joel said “Who’s Grant Guilford?”, and another, Olivia, said “I’ve heard about that before, like Remuera or something”.
between Wellington, his family’s farm near Drury, and his conservation blocks in Nelson Lakes and the foothills of the Hunua Ranges.” Answer review: The myth is reasonably busted. It could be concluded that he has spent 71% of his time as VC in Wellington.
History to this claim: A satirical piece published by Auckland’s student magazine Craccum reported that:
On one hand, Drury was a part of the Level 4 lockdown, thus Auckland. It is also very close to the Hunua Ranges, like it is less than a 25km drive away.
“Grant Guilford lives in Auckland and commutes into Wellington. Urban-legend says he created Wellington’s Terrace Tunnel on his first visit to the city, when he refused to drive around a hill and instead ploughed straight through it.”
Drury is so ‘Auckland’ that in our youth, my mate Indy and I once caught the South Train from Central Auckland to sneak out to a party in Drury, a bit reckless but very, uh, Auckland.
Some of my mates have deadset told me that Guilford does live in AKL. I tried to tell them that it’s just from a wind-up article from Auckland. Maybe I am wrong though, and they know something that I don’t.
Despite Guilford’s travel between Wellington and his two properties in Auckland during his time as VC, he definitely has spent his time working in Wellington, in Wellington.
Theory: Guilford will definitely have property in Tāmaki Makaurau, as he was previously at University of Auckland as Dean of Sciences before he came to Victoria University in 2014.
Verdict: He is a Wellington resident.
As VC, Grant Guilford lives in Wellington and spends some We stopped fluffing around and asked the University comms time within the Auckland region, as well as the South Island. team if Grant Guilford does in fact live in Auckland. But is he a true Wellingtonian? We wonder if he has ever Here is the University’s response: had a craft beer at a cricket test match down at the Basin, “No, the Vice-Chancellor doesn’t live in Auckland. He spends in a pair of Doc Martens while listening to local froth rock the working week in Wellington and splits his weekends band DOONS. I guess we’ll never know.
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ARTIST PROFILE
Matt Fretwell Kia ora, I’m Matt, a 25 year old Pōneke based artist from Whakatāne (Aotearoa’s Olympic powerhouse). I recently finished my studies at Yoobee Colleges, focusing primarily on graphic design, before being gifted a ‘free year of study’ due to a large portion of the course residing in lockdowns, where I decided to give film and animation a go. I’d always wanted to learn how to bring my art and characters to life, and loved cartoons and movies so couldn’t think of anything better. I’m now on the hunt for a job in motion graphics or animation, but have started doing a bit more freelance commission work through my Instagram where I upload random doodles and custom commissions ranging from tattoos designs, to animations, and illustrations. If you like what you see you can find me, and a little Gif of this weeks centrefold - ‘Go with the flow’ on my instagram @doods.byfretty. Cheers geeza’s. www.salient.org.nz
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Una Dubbelt-Leitch (she/her)
A Long-Awaited Living Wage for Our Cleaners While lockdown brought an increased awareness towards the role of essential workers, in reality, little has changed in their wages, conditions, and wellbeing. For VUW however, lockdown encouraged a reconsideration of cleaners’ pay, which will move to Living Wage in November of next year. There is still a way to go but this is an incredibly welcome and hardearned change that marks a huge step in the right direction for essential workers at VUW. Since 2013, students, staff, VUWSA, TEU, E tū members and community leaders from across the Wellington region have consistently been working towards ensuring a Living Wage be implemented at VUW. Forums have been held annually since 2016, each time securing zero agreement from the University. Due to the lockdown, we were unable to hold a forum in 2020. On May 26 this year, the Students for Living Wage network organised a campaign and a forum in the hope that this one would be the last. The message “THANK YOU CLEANERS” was painted onto a banner that became the backdrop for this event along with hundreds of signatures and messages of support and solidarity from students and
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Feature : Living Wages
staff. The event was attended by Chief of Operations Officer, Mark Loveard, who is responsible for all contracted staff at the University. Our asks of the University were: to ensure that all cleaners would be paid a Living Wage and that the University would regularly meet with a delegation from the Living Wage network to ensure ongoing accountability be held. Loveard agreed to both of these. This was only possible due to a collective decision made nine years prior. In 2012, over 200 community groups, faith-based and union organisations agreed to commit to an incorporated society (a bunch of people doing paperwork to become legally recognised), following this statement: “A Living Wage is the income necessary to provide workers and their families with the basic necessities of life. A living wage will enable workers to live with dignity and to participate as active citizens in society. We call upon the Government, employers and society as a whole to strive for a living wage for all households as a necessary and important step in the reduction of poverty in New Zealand.”
The cleaning roster currently includes a split shift. A split shift means starting at 7 p.m., working until 11 p.m. and then starting again at 4.30 in the morning, until 8.30 a.m.—by which time most students have slept and are waking up for their day of classes or procrastination. One of the cleaners on a split shift is Ema Leo, who was a key speaker at this year’s forum. Ema lives in the Hutt with her husband Vao, their four children, and grandchild. Ema began cleaning at VUW back in 2013, around the time that the Living Wage campaign was launched here. The minimum wage was then $12 an hour, not enough for food as well as topping up rent. Eight years later, the minimum wage has been raised by $8, and is, unsurprisingly, still not enough given the enormous increase in Wellington house prices, with a 39% rise in the last year alone And so the Living Wage Movement Aotearoa New (according to the Real Estate Institute of New Zealand was born. The rate is calculated annually by Zealand). Ema is still working here on the split night independent research economists based on market shift and Vao also works at VUW as a cleaner on the prices and the cost of basic needs. As of September 1, day shift. Working the night shift is not easy and not 2021, the rate sits at $22.75 per hour. The concept of many people can do it. Much like the other cleaners, Living Wage is simple. The movement meets regularly, Ema tries to sleep when she can. Fitting in chores, listens to workers and leaders, supporting them with errands, and time for caring for her family around people power in a civic society. This of course is only these shifts is “very tiring, sometimes when you get achievable through collective strength. An accredited home and try to put your eyes down you can’t!” employer agrees to pay all of their staff a Living Wage; there are currently no tertiary institutions in Ema moved to Aotearoa from Savai’i in 1988, and Aotearoa that are accredited. met Vao shortly after—they married in 1993. Ema would not return to Samoa until 2018 and when she In 2013, Ibrahim Omer, now Labour Party MP, and reunited with her mother, despite their continued Lyndy McIntyre, LW Wellington regional organiser at communication over the phone, it was a shock to see the time, launched a campaign at Victoria University each other again. Ema would love to be able to have Te Herenga Waka that would run up until this year. a weekend away, out of the city with her family. They Ibrahim left his home country of Eritrea in 2008, and are hoping to go back to Samoa at the end of this year was working up to 60 hours a week as a cleaner here. for their son’s 21st birthday. He dreamed of studying in these lecture theatres, and saved up enough money to enrol in a Politics By the end of 2022, Ema and Vao, and all cleaners will and Development Studies degree in 2014. Ibrahim be receiving a Living Wage. There is still a way to go. sat down with four cleaners and told their story for For VUW to become accredited, all tutors and security Salient in 2017. While some of these cleaners have guards would have to be paid a Living Wage. The left, for those who remain, the working conditions morning shift must be abolished—this is something have barely changed. we can present in the delegations. Students for Living Wage are currently discussing where students at All 89 cleaners at Te Herenga Waka are currently Massey and Weltec/Whitireia can focus their support contracted by an external, multinational company, OCS for Living Wage and potential campaigns on their Limited (Office Cleaning Services). This means they are campuses. Living Wage Wellington has seen its most not directly employed by VUW, although the University successful years recently with this win marking still holds decision-making power. In light of the monumental progress for the movement, for VUW, for lockdown last year, VUW offered OCS a wage subsidy Aotearoa, and most of all, for our cleaners. top-up for cleaners who were receiving 80% of their pay. OCS declined the cleaners this opportunity. Una is a campaigner for Living Wage at VUW. www.salient.org.nz
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In Defence of My BA
Back me up here!
Janhavi Gosavi (she/her)
My name is Janhavi and I’m a BA student. Confused with standing for “bugger all”, a BA is a three-year undergraduate degree in the Arts. I major in History, Cultural Anthropology, and Theatre, and liken studying my courses to receiving a warm academic hug. But the value of my education is constantly questioned. A BA isn’t a vocational degree geared towards a specific job. It’s an open ended question with no right answer, and this fluidity scares onlookers. In defence of my BA, what I study makes me want to get out of bed in the morning. I understand the worry—I’ve second guessed myself too. I spent a chunk of Year 13 binging the legal drama Suits. A little girl who dreamed of a life on the stage, I was now a 17-year-old swayed by the spoils of the corporate world. I adored the women of Suits, who made profound proclamations while sashaying around their firm in well-tailored gowns. I felt inclined to drop my artistic pursuits in favour of those that would make me more money. That was until I embarked on a school trip to the US, designed for Arts students to immerse themselves
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Feature : Living Wages
in some of the best art and culture the world had to offer. When I arrived in New York, the skyscrapers seemed cold and the men with briefcases felt stagnant. What stole my heart was The Met. What made me feel alive was Broadway, street art, fringe theatre, and gospel choirs. All the disgusting cliches were true. I enrolled in my BA later that year, and never looked back. Except now… I need to look forward. Like many of you, I’m finishing my undergrad this year with no plans of immediately jumping to post-grad. Which means I need to apply for jobs, pronto. In defence of my BA, I gained more than just ‘transferable skills’. Logically, I attended the Careers Expo earlier this trimester in The Hub. What differentiates an event like Clubs’ Day from the Careers Expo is that clubs need students, but students need employment. Charming third years, enthusiastic fourth years, and desperate fifth years simultaneously tried holding the attention of recruiters. They didn’t have to hand out bowls of candy or distribute free pens, we all wanted to be there—badly.
I started from one end of the expo and trawled to the other, my eagle eye looking out for any relevant stalls. There were consultancy firms, tech companies, and government ministries galore. After making an entire loop around, I returned empty handed. The only conversation I had was with Fulbright NZ, a programme which offers scholarships for postgraduate study in the US.
or a LinkedIn conversation. The panelists encouraged initiative and tenacity, hallmarks of Arts’ students. “Ask potential employers out for a coffee”, was one of the biggest takeaways.
Let me rephrase: at an expo intended to find me employment, I only learned how to keep being a student. A pattern I had noticed throughout the University’s marketing. VUW’s website boasts that QS World University Rankings places our BA as the best in the country, and within the top 1% in the world. Yet when you finish an undergrad in the Arts, you’ll mainly be implored to attend post-grad information sessions. It’s advantageous to the University; the higher the level of study, the higher the course fees. No wonder that, despite having three different majors, I couldn’t find a single stall at this expo that catered to my ambitions.
Tanya, who studied International Relations and Philosophy, emphasised being mindful of the environment we put ourselves in, because “a workplace will change you more than you will change it”. Kaeden, who studied Geography and Environmental Management, told us not to settle for the first job we got by “taking an admin role in a sector you don’t care about”. But he also made it clear that your first job will never define you because it’s a stepping stone, not a destination. And don’t just apply for explicit “grad roles”, they all said. Fresh BA graduates fight tooth and nail for those jobs, but there’s a chance you’re qualified enough for roles that aren’t just at the entry level.
Disappointed, but not surprised, I made my way over to the Careers and Employment booth. I told the staff there what I studied and what fields I was interested in, wondering if they could direct me to any recruiters I had missed. They instead informed me, time and time again, that a BA equipped me with amazing “transferable skills” that corporate employers found very desirable. I had made it abundantly clear that I wanted to work in the arts. I could have handled the truth: sorry, we can’t help you. I could not handle being talked out of my passions, and being redirected to generic HR roles. Fucking HR.
No one approached employment with a scarcity mindset. Instead, we were reminded to stay true to our values.
In defence of my BA, I was never in this for the clout. Feeling secure in my BA identity, the following month I pulled up to the Law Ball as a plus one. I discovered Law students comparing the firms where they clerked during the summer. The most striking conversation I had was with a second-year student, who told me this was the first year she had been eligible to attend the ball. “And I’ve got four more of these to go”, she candidly said. It took a second to sink in. Degrees like an LLB have a legacy attached to them. The prestige combined with the longitude gave students an opportunity to carry on traditions and form pockets of tight knit communities.
In defence of my BA, I’m employable as hell. The BA doesn’t have formulaic clout. My social The Arts Society took matters into their own hands, calendar isn’t filled with cocktail evenings and wine by hosting an event called “What the fuck do I do with and cheese nights where I can rub shoulders with all a BA?” Tickets booked out quickly to listen to a panel of the ‘right’ people’. I do most of my networking at of five BA graduates who had all forged successful potluck dinners and over Instagram. My Arts degree career pathways in the arts. has taught me innovation. To think outside of the box, and take up space. So whether it’s rebutting family We were hit with honest advice: there’s thousands friends, or picking fights in the comments section of of people with BAs, so make yourself stand out. VUW Meaningful Confessions, I’ll defend my BA to the Suggestions included volunteering, seeking out ends of the earth. internships and mentors, and building genuine professional networks—even if it was a Zoom meeting www.salient.org.nz
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Defining Sex and Gay Sex:
Who Gives a Fuck? Jamie Clarke (he/him)
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When is fucking an ass gay? The answer is more complex than you may think. Straight, cisgender people love to divide sex into two catagories: sex and gay sex. You’re either a man and a woman having regular ol’ sex, or you’re a man having gay sex with another man—or, a woman sleeping with another woman (scissoring only, of course). But, just as there is so much more to gender and sexuality than the binaries of man and woman, and gay and straight, there is so much more to sex than what goes in what hole. How people have sex is incredibly diverse, and often does not fit into these ‘straight’ vs ‘gay’ boxes. Restricting sex to these rigid categories is not only arbitrary, but it stems from a place of homophobia. By grouping all sex that isn’t ‘straight’ into one category, it implies that there is a normal way to have sex, and everything else is different (and scary ooOooO). Of course, queer people like me do have sex differently than cishets—but exactly how this goes down is dependent on each individual and their preferences, desires, and yes, anatomy. This is not to say that describing sex as either straight or gay is an inherently bad thing, rather that it is crucial to recognise that we should not be restricting our language and understanding around sex to these labels. Even just the term “gay” can have a wide range of meanings depending on who you’re talking to—for
many of us in the rainbow community, the word “gay” is often a stand in for “queer” or the community as a whole, while many of those who may not be as familiar with rainbow indeities still have a more binaristic view of the word, or reserve it just for a relationship between two men. Our bodies are not just dicks or vaginas. I’m a trans guy. I identify as a man, get testosterone injected into my butt cheek every three months, and I’ve had my tits chopped off. But to many, because I was assigned female at birth, the sex I have with my boyfriend is still ‘straight’. While I can assure you it is anything but that, I have found myself wondering at what point my butt became a gay butt, and so on. I’ve come to recognise that there isn’t a correct answer to that question, because what our heteronormative society perceives as ‘straight’ and ‘gay’ is socially constructed—just as what we consider a ‘man’ and ‘woman’ is. This stigma and misunderstanding around queerness and sex is even worse for those who do not fall within the sex and gender binaries, where their very existence is often denied, let alone the legitimacy of their sex lives. Intersex people are as common as those with ginger hair, yet society acts as if they simply do not exist. In addition, those who identify outside of the gender binary face constant erasure at a social and legal level. The decision to separate people into binary categories is a Western, colonial construct that is used to perpetrate racist and sexist stereotypes and erase indigenous cultures. Gender identities that exist outside of, or in addition to, the binaries of male and female were present in many cultures throughout the world for thousands of years before colonialism spread it’s poisonous ideas. *B, who is Māori Pasifika and non-binary, spoke to me about this: “Pre-colonial sexuality has acted as a template for a Utopian future for Takatāpui across the Pacific, spurred on by stories of fluidity, Fa’afafines, and Wairua defining the person, not the genitalia. If I am to believe in my Whakapapa, my body is ethereal, human, but I spent a large majority of my adolescent life with that (too familiar) sense of inherent wrongness. It made my mother happy when I wore pink. It made her upset when I would use different names for myself, Male and Female. This refers to the reality of these solidified colonial myths, as they have left no protections for Takatāpui, only the practice of condemnation, for protection.” www.salient.org.nz
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The idea that all sex that isn’t between a cis man and a woman is gay is also, in a large part, tied to the media—especially porn. Gender diverse people, in particular trans women, face fetishisation in the porn industry. This porn often puts a great emphasis on the genitals that the people in these videos have, with the implication being that this is not normal. Even though, of course, this content is meant to portray these people as ‘hot’, the othering of trans people like trans women as simply a category on porn sites is incredibly dangerous. By sexualising trans people in this way, it purportrates the narrative that we are nothing more than our anatomy.
new relationship, “it feels good to enjoy sex more, now I’m more in tune or knowledgeable about my gender and identity. I think a lot of discussions around sex as a trans person focus on dysphoria and the negatives. But it is important to know you can still enjoy sex and enjoy your own body, even if it’s not totally congruent with your mind’s conception of what you should look like.”
Another gender diverse friend of mine pointed out how during sex “it’s necessary to give yourself the space and acceptance to no longer enjoy things you used to as your relationship with your body and identity changes.” I’ve certainly felt trans panic and A man sleeping with a trans women can have a guilt because, pre-transition and pre-top surgery, different experience than if he were to sleep with a cis my boobs bouncing around during sex didn’t really woman, yes, but that doesn’t inherently make it ‘gay’. phase me like they did once I began to understand Of course, as we’ve established, defining sex by these my gender better. On a more positive note, gender categories is ultimately pointless. However, the fact euphoria during sex can present itself in weird and that we keep defining sex in this way is due to the fact wonderful ways as we discover our identities—that many straight people are terrified of becoming victims same friend pointed out that “looking at my grownof the homophobia that is perpetuated. Trans women out armpit hair makes me horny x”. face unprecedented levels of violence against them, often by men whose masculinity is so unbelievably The sex I had with boyfriend before I transitioned fragile that they’re afraid that the very act of being used to be ‘straight’ (*shudder), and now it’s not. attracted to a trans women would somehow make But that really is besides the point. Gayness and them be percieved as ‘gay’. straightness are labels that work for some, but are unhelpful and even harmful for others. Queer and At the end of the day, trans women are women no gender diverse people having sex doesn’t have matter their anatomy, or the stage of their transition— to be a seperate category to the sex that straight same goes for trans men like me, of course. And no, people have. So, no matter how you have sex, keep JK Rowling, I’m not saying that straight people need doing you—as long as it’s legal and consensual, to sleep with trans people or they’re transphobic—I’m it really doesn’t matter how you bone. It’s time to just saying that for those who do, we need to stop fuck and let fuck. trying to figure out whether this makes them ‘gay’ or not. It not only erases the identities of the trans people they’re sleeping with, but also heavily implies that if this sex were gay, that would somehow (negatively) change something about that person and their relationship. I like to fuck and be fucked, I just don’t want to be someone’s fetish. Everyone deserves to be able to feel sexy, no matter their gender identity. I think there’s a massive misconception about trans people, even among the trans community, that we have to hate ourselves and want to hide our bodies at all times. This stems from the fear of not being ‘trans enough’; shoutout to the bullshit narrative of transmedicalism—the belief that trans people need to experience dysphoria and medically transition in order to be trans—for that one. One of my friends pointed out that since transitioning and entering a
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Feature : Defining Sex and Gay Sex
Everyone deserves to be able to feel sexy, no matter their gender identity
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Summer Media Internship Are you... •
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Then put your name forward for an MPI Summer Media Internship.
This is a paid opportunity for 14 weeks between 22 November 2021 and 25 February 2022 and is intended for students who are about to complete their tertiary studies or have a year of study left. Applications close 15 October 2021. For more information about the internship and how to apply, please check out: https://careers.mpi.govt.nz/jobs/MPI21-1564286 If you have any questions please contact Alex MacKay from the MPI HR team at alex.mackay@mpi.govt.nz or 04 894 0651
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Review
Book
Small Bodies of Water Shanti Mathias (she/her)
Nina Mingya Powles dives into a fluorescent chlorine pool in Borneo, the cool shadowy water of the Ladies Pond at Hampstead Heath, the exposed coves around the Miramar Peninsula, the green depths of a river pool in England’s Lakes District. These are her small bodies of water. In her new essay collection Small Bodies of Water (Canongate, 2021), Powles immerses herself in water over and over again, as a way to orient herself across continents: “a woman’s body is a small body of water.” These essays are encounters with many forms of belonging. Powles, who is Malaysian-Chinese and Pākehā, has lived in China, Aotearoa, and England, and in all these places she seeks homes between the boundaries of her skin and the world of air and light. Home, she says, “is a question with an impossible number of answers”. It is easy for me to understand Powles’ writing in terms of generosity. I discovered her work this year, reading Tiny Moons, a book that charts the way that food anchored Powles to China in the year she lived in Shanghai. I swiftly followed that book with her poetry collection Magnolia 木蘭. In the anxiety of belonging, Powles’ voice collects all who share her experience: “there are so many of us whose skin, whose lineage, is split along lines of migration.” My own family has arced between Aotearoa and India for several generations, and in my pale brown skin and chipped nails, I am, like Powles, learning to notice the mechanisms of belonging, and find a grace within that. In Small Bodies of Water, there’s a sense that Powles researches her interests obsessively: her writing about the histories of Chinese characters, the work of artist Agnes Martin, or the British appropriation of kōwhai trees is fluidly incorporated into writing about her own period pain, homesickness, or love of tofu. There’s an arbitrariness to this, but in the way of non-fiction writing where personal experience is given the space of a wider context. While each essay can stand alone, they circle around each other: Powles has a longing to return to places she’s been before, to see how the place has changed, and how she has. I was particularly struck by the final
essay, where she thinks about the island of Borneo, where her grandparents live. She links her time in Borneo as a child and an adult to the life of her scientist grandfather and the journey of English botanist Lilian Gibbs to the top of Mount Kinabalu. In doing so, Powles contemplates all the ways to encounter the violence of colonisation, and how the natural world is subjected to ideologies of order and control. That final essay, “In the Archives of Waterfalls”, borrows a structure from one of Powles’ poems in Magnolia 木 蘭, where each section is named after a precise colour. One particular section caught me tearful: “mountain rhododendron red, the bright petals of the burans flowers that blanketed the paths each March in the Himalayan forest where I grew up.” Powles’s seasonal attention, oriented by senses and memory but tangled with worlds of art and literature and poetry, gives every essay a moment like this, a window into a home you might not have noticed, a place you thought you left behind. Seven years ago, Powles was the editor of Salient’s books section; she has a Master’s from the International Institute of Modern Letters. I mention this partially because of some hometown pride, but more to note that she’s qualified in the art of attention, twining the vines of her writing among the many others whose land and stories she walks through. Small Bodies of Water is exactly what non-fiction writing should be: wide-eyed and wondering, graceful and revelatory, inviting its readers at all moments to be at home in their worlds. www.salient.org.nz
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Questions and Answers with Ludus Words by Oli Cheyne (he/him) Photos from Elise Lanigan (left) and Stella Gardiner (right)
As the recent lockdown kept me inside my bedroom, I found myself turning to the depths of Bandcamp to find some soothing and focused tunes. It turned out I did not need to look too far from home, as I dived into the world of Ludus, the project of Emma Bernard, which explores downbeat and ambient electronica. Emma joined me from home in Whanganui over Zoom for a yarn about the dance and electronic scene, experimentation in music, and the pathways that have shaped Ludus.
You are quite heavily involved with Strange Behaviour, how did that start up and where is this taking you? It’s a record label, event planner, and radio show, and I first got involved by doing a guest mix on their radio show. One of their co-hosts left and they asked me if I wanted to come in and host so I did. You come in and do a mix every week, and you can choose whoever you want, get some crazy people in and play their music. From there I started playing some live gigs (some really terrible live gigs!) with them when I was first starting to make dance music, but they kept me on! My first album, Two of the Same, was the first release on the label. I’ve been doing the mastering with the label and helping to find different artists. It’s called Strange Behaviour so anything goes, you know. We can find some really interesting people to bring on board and put out some new stuff!
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Q&A with Ludus
What was your pathway into making electronic and dance music? The dance music came later. Ludus used to just be ambient music, and I’d get asked to play a dance gig here and there, so I just kept at it and got better at mixing for those types of gigs. Originally I’m a pianist; I’m super obsessed with piano music from people like Nils Frahm and Hania Rani, and NZ artists and collectives like Kerosene Comic Book and Kedu Carlo were pretty inspiring. Being a pianist and listening to these artists made the crossover into electronic quite easily. All the software is set up like a keyboard, and I got really interested in exploring sound—what you can do with it and building things up from top to bottom. I struggled a bit with what a song could be, so that’s what I love about ambient music, and I can think more conceptually with stuff like that. The piece I have on Ambient Maladies was originally from a contemporary dance show. The whole idea was about a woman being underground, and I loved the idea of following that concept to show her slowly breaking through to the surface and portraying that sonically.
The Ambient Maladies compilation came out in July this year, what was working on that like? So I mastered that whole album, and put a track in there as well. There are so many amazing electronic artists here so I think something like an ambient compilation gave us an opportunity to try something different as an electronic artist. Some of the artists we have known for a long time, and some others, like Japes, I went to uni with. Others we don’t know personally but it’s a real pleasure to work with a diverse range of people and get to know them through their music. Most artists on the album are from Wellington but there are some from up and down the country. With your approach to dance and ambient music, is it a mindset you need to switch between? I have no idea! I try so hard to make some absolute stonkers and in my head everyone is vibing, but it’s more me just playing around seeing what it can do. Some people can just get it and it works straight away, but it’s kinda trippy! It’s quite exciting to have a purpose to write tracks with a live performance in mind and imagine what it would look like live. Anything goes and it’s about experimenting on the fly, and from that you get more confidence playing live and stretching the boundaries a bit more, which I love.
How do you see yourself and your music fitting within the electronic scene in Wellington and NZ? When I was starting out I would be playing some gigs and it would be me and like four cis white guys, and it would seem like that was all there was. I didn’t align with that but now there are lots of amazing collectives that are putting on gigs with lots of different people that are doing really cool and diverse things with their music. There are so many good groups, DJs, and artists that are up and coming and doing amazing things, like Filth, Frills, Practice, and MESH, so having these inclusive and diverse groups and gigs are key to growing these scenes. What’s next for you? I’m on the lineup for the Sound Valley Festival with some legends like King Kapisi and Pātea Māori Club, playing on the Runners Club stage. Runners Club is this party set up by a woman called Coco. She wants to bring Berlin to Whanganui so has been putting on crazy shows in abandoned buildings and big warehouses filled with art so it’s amazing playing shows like that. I’ve got a new project coming up that is more of a harsh electronic sound with live drums which is pretty fun, but there are always things happening up here and lots of good creative energy. Moving to Whanganui has been good to focus on making stuff and changing my headspace in order to slow down and get involved in more projects that I’ve wanted to be doing for a while.
You can tune in and drop out to Ludus’ debut album, Two of the Same, and the Ambient Maladies compilation on Bandcamp at strangebehaviour.bandcamp.com and explore her work at ludus-music.bandcamp.com.
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Review
TV Series
We are Lady Parts Ronia Ibrahim (she/her)
Ok, so I’m one of those people who you might describe as “prudish”, or “conservative”. “Frick” is an unironic part of my vocabulary, and I struggle to say the word “sex” or “boyfriend” without flinching. R16 movies make me weary, and I still have never tried a V. So how did I end up watching a TV show about an all female Muslim punk band, titled We Are Lady Parts? Well, the honest answer is embarrassing (TikTok; a period of misandry-related grief), but let’s just say in this state of the things I decided to cheer myself up by consuming some edgy content. Also, if the world is ending I may as well not be ashamed of trying to be woke, dammit. But perhaps I wasn’t being as indie as I thought? This show was recently nominated for Best Comedy Series at the Edinburgh TV Festival. It’s also got a 100% Certified Fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Weird… because to me, We Are Lady Parts seems like such a niche show, with an ensemble of BIPOC actors and a pitch that feels very unconventional.
bashing each other (women in particular) for how religious/non-religious we present ourselves, or are represented. For a faith that is already so heavily misrepresented/missing in the media, our appearances can be taken as blasphemy, even when it’s just us.
All that considered, the moment I realised that this was going to be a good show was in one of the show’s featured songs, “Bashir with a Good Beard”. The The premise of this seemingly edgy show is about an lyrics leading to the pre-chorus shockingly expose all Muslim-female punk band called Lady Parts, who and challenge the misogyny that exists within our are trying to make a name for themselves in the music community: “Are my clothes too tight? Do I laugh scene. Going into it, I was apprehensive for two reasons. too much? You I say I’m not polite, I say fuck you very Representation of hijabi/Muslim women in Hollywood is much!” Hearing this line, I found myself exhaling with already infamously abysmal. Sad girl takes off her hijab a mix of relief, nervous laughter, and empowerment. for the aggressively mediocre white boy, as she struggles The show leads with a fearless acknowledgement of to connect with her strict religion and ruthless immigrant the internal conflicts and issues within the Muslim parents (who are like, always forcing her to get married, or community, addressing the elephant in the room. While something). The last time I had hope was watching Apple it was shocking at first, I realised how refreshing it felt TV’s Hala, which made me cry with disappointment at its to watch a narrative that finally felt authentic. Like, they rehash of this terrible character trope. really said that, huh? The second reason I was apprehensive is that this show’s premise is almost deliberately provocative. I mean, “Punk” and “Muslim” are basically opposing identities. The former is seen as violent, profane and unhinged—the latter, a religion that highly regards values like modesty, peace, and prayer. Furthermore, the show features and discusses music, queerness, dating, smoking, and tattoos—all big taboos in Islam, so I’m wary of how it might be represented and the potential response from Muslim viewers. We don’t like to admit it, but Muslims can be really superficial. There’s a troubling problem within our community of cyberbullying and
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Review : We are Lady Parts
Plus, it was written by a Muslim-Pakistani woman, Nida Manzoor, which really makes sense when you look at just how rich and real the characters feel. Manzoor manages to challenge the idea of being a Muslim woman in 21st century Britain, and execute it without being overtly #girlboss about it. The band is made up of a diverse set of women who come from different ethnic, career, and family backgrounds, and each of their identities feel specific and authentic. Saira, my favourite, is the mega-angsty but secretly soft-hearted leader of the band; Bisma is Nigerian, a mother and zine-maker; Ayesha—the drummer—sharp-tongued, crazy eyeliner;
In an interview with Vanity, Manzoor, who has also written episodes of “Doctor Who” and “Star Trek: Enterprise”, reflects on her experience writing the characters. “I realized [...] I can only speak from my truth and represent the women I know.” She cites that most of her character inspiration came from real life, from “art collectives, poetry readings, or musicians.” Finding inspiration from real women provided a sense of freedom to really develop an authentic narrative and voice for the show, despite not everyone relating or agreeing. “In a way, having that slightly mixed feedback”, Manzoor reflects, “made me realize that I couldn’t possibly represent everyone, and what I have found so much joy in doing is speaking my own truth and connecting with the people who this does speak to.”
Momtaz—the band’s producer—a niqabi (see: someone who wears a niqab or “burqa”) who vapes, which I find both hilarious and badass. The show’s protagonist, though, is Amina, the lead guitarist. Geeky, a hopeless romantic, and a little bit socially awkward, Amina just wants to be the good Muslim girl her peers expect her to be, which means to settle down and marry a good Muslim guy. Her determined pursuit to find a husband was hilarious to follow; an all too familiar ordeal of falling for disappointing men, glorifying connected beards, and obsessing over Muslim dating apps (I could do a whole feature on this can of worms but I’d risk embarrassing myself). When she joins Lady Parts, however, her life becomes a balancing act as she struggles to maintain an undercover punk identity with the expectation of being a “good Muslim girl”. I’ll be honest, I’ve never encountered any of these types of women in real life. All the same, I was easily invested in the stories of each of them, who each prove to me that the Muslim experience, especially the Muslim woman’s experience, is extremely diverse, and much of our stories are yet to be told. Perhaps many viewers aren’t going to be happy with these representations or the premise of the show, but perhaps many are going to feel seen for the first time. Just as the show is bound to spark criticism from being not properly “Muslim” or “Islamic”, the band and its members deal with external backlash and internal dilemma of managing faith, identity, and societal pressure. It’s lowkey real meta.
While we often think of representation as a matter of being seen, I think there’s also room for conversation around the importance of seeing. It’s so easy for the criteria of representation to be superficial, but this has got guts. I mean, I was surprised that a show with so many inside jokes could appeal to a mainstream audience, but here we have people like Kate Rodger raving about it on Newshub. I know it’s appealing because it occupies both the spaces of marginalia and mainstream, but I almost want to gatekeep this show for its wonderful characters and stories that feel so rich and personal. But it just goes to show that telling authentic stories will always generate an appreciative audience. Watching these different characters on screen reminds me that not all Muslim women carry their identity the same. Though we come from different places and pathways, our common thread is always sisterhood. The sitcom is only around six, 25 minute episodes long, but is jam-packed with stunning performances, fun set designs, a snappy plot line, and cool editing. Also the songs—my personal favourites being “Voldemort Under My Headscarf” and “Ain’t Nobody Gonna Honour Kill My Sister But Me”—are hilarious and just genuinely really good. Head banging to these anthems has also taught me that “Punk” is more than just an edgy music genre, but a medium for self expression. It’s got the guise of being anarchic, while actually being really fun and woke. In a way, We Are Lady Parts also has a guise of potential anarchy and cringe, but thankfully, is just super fun and wholesome. Some of the millennial humour and slightlyexaggerated acting did throw me off at times, but most of the time I couldn’t stop grinning at my screen. We Are Lady Parts is currently available on Neon (and shh! YouTube too). I think you should stream it. It’s fricking good.
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Crossword: Growing Up
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ACROSS
DOWN
1. It’s seen with heat-sensitive goggles (7,5) 9. Mary-Kate, Ashley and Elizabeth, for example (7) 10. Marc who painted ‘La Mariée’, which features a goat playing the cello (7) 11. Permits (6) 13. Mexican masked wrestler (8) 15. With 16-Across and 18-Across, nation with the Sango motto ‘Zo Kwe Zo’... or a feature of three other Across entries in this puzzle (7,7,8) 16. See 15-Across 18. See 14-Across 20. Babylonian goddess of love and war; Dustin Hoffman film considered one of the worst movies ever made (6) 23. Vaccination site? (7) 24. Baseball player who wears a mask (7) 26. 2Pac single, released after his death, which samples Elton John (6,6)
1. Car manufacturer that offers the models S, 3, X and Y (5) 2. It follows delta, in the Greek alphabet (7) 3. ‘The Simpsons’ bartender (3) 4. ‘The Simpsons’ vegetarian (4) 5. Culkin of ‘Home Alone’ and ‘American Horror Stories’ (8) 6. They watch over kids and nannies (9) 7. Difficult; unyielding (4) 8. Astronaut Buzz (6) 12. Surface for carpentry projects and amateur robotics (9) 14. Least ornate or flavourful (8) 15. Cadaver (6) 17. Snag; give a recap to (5,2) 19. Country whose flag is the same as Austria’s, rotated (4) 21. Opposite of urban (5) 22. It follows delta, in the Nato alphabet (4) 25. Number of syllables in each word of 1-Across or 26-Across (3)
Puzzles
Word of the Week Skuxdoku
“Victoria University” Te Reo Māori Te Herenga Waka New Zealand Sign language
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D Aries
Taurus
Gemini
It’s been an absolute year for you— you’ve done so well to get to where you are despite any adversity you’ve faced. The stars are proud of you and your hard work. Keep it up, summer work will be a reprieve but you’ve got these last few weeks.
It’s a rough patch for you, and uni might not be lining up exactly how you want. Just remember that you’ve just gotta do what you can. As a stubborn Taurus, I know that you’ll get through this. You’ve done good this year, keep it up!
As a Gemini who loves either books or music, remember some of your favourites and revisit them this week. As you can be indecisive, my recommendations are “Rachel’s Holiday” by Marian Keyes the Moana soundtrack.
Cancer
Leo
Virgo
I think you need to take time to appreciate those around you, and yourself. As a Cancer, self care is a strong suit and self care is needed. Maybe go to the cinema or something. The more you care for yourself, the more love you have to give.
Kia ora Leo, as a loyal person, you need to make sure you are taking time to uphold that, while also jumping in the deep end. It’s no fun sitting on the side of the pool. Make a splash!
It feels like a good time to diversify what you invest in, whether that’s stocks or a decent feed. It feels as though a change would be good for you. This Thursday is the prime time to act on this change.
Libra
Scorpio
Sagittarius
It feels like the year may’ve been rough so far. It’s time for a change, whether that’s dream jobs or toothpaste. It’s better to take that risk than not try at all. The year’s almost expired.
You’re bringing the energy to every room this week just like you have been this whole year. You have the gift of the gab but with exam period you need to stop talking 19 to the dozen. Use your energy to take in all that information and to finish off your awesome year awesomer!
This week you are banned from being hard on yourself. Self improvement is always good, but acknowledge how far you’ve come and how far you’re going to go. The race isn’t over but you’re further ahead than you think.
Capricorn
Aquarius
Pisces
You might not be in Auckland, but you’ve been feeling locked down. Like those in Auckland, I know that motivation might be hard, but I had a special conversation with Venus, the moon, all the stars, and even Greg Inglis; you’ve got this week and you’re going to do so good in the assessment period!
Macca’s Monopoly has begun— do not engage with it. Save your money and save your tummy. Go somewhere like Vic Books or the Hunter Lounge, they’re pretty good spots! This isn’t an anti-Maccas horoscope, this is just suggesting alternative outlets.
Last week’s crap weather is the last of your worries, however the NRL grand final this weekend should be a great way to procrastinate and forget about all the stress weighing you down.
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Columns : To be Frank Horoscopes
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