I’m grateful to my former North Shore MP, Hon Wayne Mapp, whose electorate chairman I was for most of his time in Parliament, for reminding me that the remit I suggested in last week’s column here at The BFD was over-complicated by trying to cover too many points
Matthew Tukaki is a Maori activist who uses divisive rhetoric. He is a polarising figure who is agitating for Maori separatism and apartheid in New Zealand, fomenting racial discord while accusing those who oppose his agenda of being the ones causing a racial divide. While he is quick to accuse
As part of our drive to keep our comment section the best in New Zealand we showcase each week an example of a top-notch comment that adds value to The BFD. Today’s comment was written by MarcWills . Thank you MarcWills for taking the time to craft such an interesting
Hobson’s Pledge Trust Will Tikanga law, that a High Court justice cited in a coastal area ruling, include inter-tribal warfare, cannibalism, slavery, and other primitive customs, or will it just be a modern version, historian Dr John Robinson asked this week. Dr Robinson, who wrote Dividing the nation: the
When we think of Ancient Rome, we invariably think of togas, names ending in -ius and Victor Mature in a jockstrap, battling lions in the Colosseum. We also tend to imagine Julius Caesar, Augustus and Nero chilling out at the Games in the Colosseum. But the Colosseuem wasn’t actually
Naomi Braithwaite Nottingham Trent University Naomi is a Senior Lecturer in Fashion Marketing and Branding.In 2012 Naomi achieved a doctorate from Nottingham Trent University in the discipline of material culture, titled: ‘Shoe Design: an Ethnographic Study of Creativity’. The empirical focus of the thesis centred on the creative practice
Ever since Rousseau fondly imagined “noble savages”, it’s been fashionable among certain types of people to imagine that primitive peoples wafted about like hippies with flint tools. Surviving paleolithic cultures are patronised as “at one with their environment” and peaceable and “Zen like”. The truth is brutally different. As
Phyllo, philo, filo pastry: the Eastern Med pastry Phyllo means leaf in Greek and is the healthy person’s version of the French mille feuille. The Greek version of puff pastry, unlike its Francophone cousin, contains no fat or butter and is made from flour, water and a little bit
Dr Muriel Newman nzcpr.com In their report Towards a Better Democracy, the 1986 Labour Government’s Royal Commission into the Electoral System, not only recommended changing our voting system to MMP, but they raised a number of other important constitutional matters. One that is particularly relevant to our present
Josh Van Veen Victoria University Of Wellington – Te Herenga Waka democracyproject.nz Josh Van Veen is former member of NZ First and worked as a parliamentary researcher to Winton Peters from 2011 to 2013. He has a Masters in Politics from the University of Auckland. His thesis examined class voting
Lindsay Mitchell lindsaymitchell.blogspot.com Lindsay Mitchell has been researching and commenting on welfare since 2001. Many of her articles have been published in mainstream media and she has appeared on radio,tv and before select committees discussing issues relating to welfare. Lindsay is also an artist who works under
Graham Adams Victoria University Of Wellington – Te Herenga Waka democracyproject.nz Graham Adams is a journalist, columnist and reviewer who has written for many of the country’s media outlets including Metro, North & South, Noted, The Spinoff and Newsroom Jacinda Ardern has offered herself as a hostage to fortune
The National Party agrees that teaching New Zealand history to our kids should be a core part of the curriculum, but we have serious concerns around elements of the current proposal, National’s Education spokesperson Paul Goldsmith says. “Aotearoa New Zealand’s Histories is designed to be taught every year
Free Press ACT Party ACT’s Education spokesperson, Chris Baillie, has prepared a submission on the Government’s proposed history curriculum. He’s inviting as many people as possible to sign it. The curriculum is one of those documents that forms a wider tug of war for the soul of
Dear Editor On Sunday’s RNZ show Media Watch there was an item about an article on a Waffen SS volunteer who lied to Immigration when he came to New Zealand after the war. The item was talking about the article in the June edition of North and South magazine.
