I’m not talking about the quality of tertiary education in New Zealand or the national skilled trades shortage. Both issues are important but neither will help you, the current or returning student, get the most out of your education at Victoria. Right here, right now, the single most important thing you need to think about is how you’re using university to get where you want to go.

Take me por ejemplo. I was sweet 18, peachy-keen, and I had some real strong ideas about university. I thought university should follow on straight after high school with a gap year option for the particularly daring, and be completed in the recommended three years. After graduation, my options would include a) pursue further study or b) get a real job and pursue a career.

There is nothing wrong with this model, but it doesn’t work for everyone. Common problems include burn-out, drop-out and low grades due to general fatigue and academic disillusionment. Graduates may feel confused, listless and frustrated with an apparent complete lack of ‘real job’ options. Solutions include taking some time off to travel or doggedly trying to penetrate your industry of choice while working whatever doggone job you can find. The best solution is, of course, prevention, and prevention means we need to dump the ridiculous ‘get your undergrad quick’ model pushed onto students by well-meaning peers and parents.

Without further ado, here are a few home truths about university education:

Lesson #1: If you’re creative and motivated, then you may be better off outside the university system.

Find your enemy. When you know what you’re against, you have taken the first step towards discovering what you’re for. —Salman Rushdie

Milo Haigh, 23, started her undergraduate degree straight out of high school after winning a partial scholarship to fund her studies. Her decision was perfectly logical. “It didn’t make sense to waste all that money, I’d already proven myself at an academic level, and it was also about my school and parents and trying to move away. I just felt like I had to.”

After a fruitful first year and less enjoyable second year, Haigh dropped out of her third year to broaden her experience working in theatre.

“I learned a lot at school but not necessarily what I thought I was going to or what I wanted to,” she says. “My courses were really good and put a holistic perspective on what I was interested in, which was great, but at the same time, one of my frustrations was that I couldn’t apply it in the way I wanted. It wouldn’t have worked with the course and it wouldn’t have worked with the lecturers.

“I started working in theatre, which wasn’t encouraged but was a natural sort of free fall from working on university productions. Eventually, my performance work started to take over because I was learning more from people in the industry than I was from school.”

For Haigh, two years of university gave her just enough knowledge, experience, self-awareness and contacts to start doing what she wanted to do.

“University gave me a direction. It made me rebellious, made me a bit kind of self-righteous about my own education. I thought, I can do this myself in a way that’s more tailored to me and my needs, with the knowledge that I had from school and from knowing that school wasn’t the right thing for me. I had to go to know that it wasn’t right.”

She doesn’t believe her uncompleted degree poses a barrier for further education, possibly at art school, or employment in the theatre industry. On the contrary, after two years of industry experience, Haigh knows exactly what she needs to do and has a good idea of how to get there.

Lesson #2: The real value of your degree may be as a back-up plan.

Rodger Fox is New Zealand’s foremost jazz trombonist, big band leader, jazz educator, arranger and producer, and a teacher at the New Zealand School of Music. He gained his musical knowledge and experience “on the road”, in large part because no tertiary options for jazz were available in 1970s New Zealand.

Fox appreciates that the modern music business is a different beast. “When I was the age of the kids coming to the school, there was a lot of work for touring bands. There’s less work now. Musicians need to be a bit more skilled, with a wide base of experience, and coming to university makes that process a bit quicker.”

Fox remains an advocate of “life experience and being on the road,” but points out that a degree can come in handy if full-time performance work doesn’t work out.

“What I try to encourage is for young students to get their BMus, their honours, maybe look at also doing the teaching degree qualification and then they’ve got everything covered. It means they can walk into any high school and get a job, then be free to go on the road thinking ‘I’ve got this in the bank, when I don’t want to do this anymore I can come back and actually get a job’.

“A qualification doesn’t mean anything when it comes to performing. You don’t need a qualification to play well but you do need a qualification if you want to be in the business of music, and that means if you want to write, arrange, compose or teach. You need all of those skills if you want to get work in a teaching role.”

Lesson #3: Fucking with the traditional full-time, two-major, three-year degree model leads to interesting things.

Kristen Paterson, 28, and Matthew Davis, 23, are two of the core founders of Victoria student radio station VBC 88.3. Both took an alternative approach to university study and believe their decisions have set them up well for the future.

Davis began studying in 2006 by “picking up various bits and pieces that interested me”. He completed his degree in English literature over four-and-a-half years rather than the recommended three. “A lot of people cram in as many papers as they can into one trimester, to get in and out of there quickly, whereas I was doing the minimum needed to qualify for full-time study, basically to get living costs because we weren’t earning while running the station.”

He wishes that more university students would act on their creative and entrepreneurial dreams while still at uni. “People have great ideas but then when you go ‘sweet, go ahead and do that’, they’re like ‘oh, nah, I’ve got to finish off my degree and then I want to basically get a job’. What’s the rush? University isn’t going anywhere.”

Paterson studied English and Media Studies part-time for two years, then dropped out in 2006 to start work on the station, which launched at the start of 2007.

“There were all these papers I had to do that bored the hell out of me and they conflicted with papers that I was really interested in doing. I became very disillusioned with the whole thing. I wanted to just go straight into actually doing something, not just writing and theorising about it.”

She argues that her work with the VBC is worth far more than a completed degree.

“The reason you graduate and feel like you’ve got nothing, is that universities have this weird attitude of ‘let’s get rid of the practical stuff because we want to be high-brow,’ yet most jobs aren’t high-brow things.

“If you want to be a journalist, then you need to know how to write a bloody article. If you want to work in radio, you need to know how to work all the bells and whistles down at the station. Why do you actually need the three years of theory? If it’s just critical thinking that employers are looking for, you can get that out of first and second year and not need to go straight to third year.”

While Paterson respects the value of a university education, she points out that extra-curricular activities like internships, apprenticeships and self-starter initiatives like the VBC are much more impressive to prospective employers.

Lesson #4: University is not for everyone.

Education is not going to get in the way of my career. —G. K. Chesterton

David Cohen, veteran New Zealand author and journalist, is an expert on higher education and academic affairs. Over the course of his career, he has visited an estimated 60 or 70 universities around the world. Cohen’s decision not to enter into tertiary study may seem somewhat ironic, given his area of specialty interest, but is a simple sign of the times.

“The massification of higher education is something that’s really only occurred over the last 15 or so years in New Zealand. It’s now pretty normal for almost any young person to contemplate and pursue an undergraduate degree at the very least, but when I came of age, completing an undergraduate degree was like maybe doing a master’s degree today. We had far less of an academic culture, which I happen to think is a good thing.”

His conscious decision not to enrol at university was driven by three factors. First, “university wasn’t the big enchilada it is now”. Second, Cohen’s background was “fairly rough and tumble, so academic concerns figured even less.” Third, and most important, a career in journalism didn’t require a large academic component. “It was considered, correctly, a craft which largely consisted of knowing how to write, establish rapport with people, body language and so forth, and how to hold your alcohol.

“That’s the way journalism was. Sometime in the ‘90s, everyone without a degree got shunted out of the entry-level positions, which were then all filled with middle-class kids, often with theoretical degrees and little else in the way of varied life experiences. Look, theoretical and media studies are great if you want to pursue that as an academic discipline—but they’re completely irrelevant to reporting.”

Cohen holds a rather monkish stance on university education. “My view of university is simply: I’m an elitist. Most jurisdictions should have as few a number of universities as possible. They should be charged with inspiring the minds of the elite for the sake of pure knowledge.”

“Why does every young person fit the university life supposedly like hamburger on bun? It doesn’t follow. Some young people make excellent chefs or retailers or journalists. You don’t need four or five years of college to work that out.”

The advice and anecdotes in this article are not intended for everyone. For many students, completing their degree may be a primary goal, in and of itself, just to prove they can. This is a satisfying and worthy pursuit and I wish you all the best.

For others, for students who are frustrated with their studies, for self-motivated students who have no idea why they’re at Victoria, here are the assorted words of wisdom that I wish I’d known earlier.

Take the time to work out where you want to go and what you need to get there. Have fun and test your abilities in the ‘real world’ before you leave uni. Chop up your degree. Take a year or a trimester off, study part-time. If you’re an arts student, take a few design, architecture, science or music papers, and vice versa. Yes, you can do that if you want. If you ask lecturers nicely, they will let you sit in on courses at honours and even masters level. Yes, you can do that too. Meet people and chase opportunities. Don’t be afraid or ashamed of not finishing your degree if you find something better.

Basically, fuck with your university education as much as you want. Make it your own. After all, you’re the one paying.

Cash crop

Are you a socially and ethically conscious consumer? Congratulations! Catch a ‘green’ cab home, kick off your eco-sneakers, and ask your partner to switch on that renewable energy-powered stove and cook you a couple of organic, free-range eggs.

We’ve never had so many ‘green’ goods and services available. Kath Dewar, marketing consultant, is in no doubt as to why.

“Businesses are looking at the research and seeing what it shows them,” she told bFM’s ‘Sustainable’ Simon in an interview last Tuesday. “Nearly a third of New Zealanders fall into what Moxie Design describe as ‘solution seekers’.”

“These are people who, when they’re making buying decisions, are looking for something that either has better social outcomes, better environmental outcomes, or a little bit of both, so that they don’t get a healthy dollop of guilt with their purchase. They buy things knowing they’ve been made with care for the impact they have around them. That, in New Zealand, is 32 percent of the population with an estimated $2 billion or so to spend every year.”

Globally, the market and consumer base for sustainable products and services is worth US$550 billion per year and counting. With such a lucrative market at stake, many advertisers are willing to mislead consumers in order to nail a sale.

Dewar defines the term greenwashing as “environmental claims that mislead, destruct or exaggerate”. In the UK and US, she says, false ‘green’ claims have “fostered a high degree of skepticism” among consumers, leading to cynicism towards all environmental and social claims and creating “quite a block to progress”.

The seven sins of spin

In January 2009, researchers were sent into major retailers in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and Australia to collect data on every product making an environmental claim.

The results, published by TerraChoice in April, were staggering. In the US and Canada, over 2200 products making close to 5000 ‘green’ claims were recorded. Of these, over 98% were found guilty of at least some degree of greenwashing.

The TerraChoice study broke down the concept of greenwashing into seven sins:

#1 Sin of the Hidden Trade-Off: e.g. ‘Energy-efficient’ technology made with dangerous materials.

#2 Sin of No Proof: e.g. ‘Certified organic’ beauty products with no verifiable certification.

#3 Sin of Vagueness: e.g. ’100% natural’ products that contain naturally-occurring poisons like arsenic and formaldehyde.

#4 Sin of Irrelevance: e.g. Products ‘proudly CFC-free’, when CFCs were banned two decades ago.

#5 Sin of Fibbing: e.g. Products falsely claiming to be certified by a recognised environmental standard like Fair Trade.

#6 Sin of Lesser of Two Evils: e.g. Organic cigarettes or ‘environmentally friendly’ pesticides.

#7 Sin of Worshiping False Labels: Fake labels, when a product gives the impression of third-party endorsement when no such endorsement exists.

Kath Dewar is quick to come up with some local examples. “One example is OnGas, which is part of the Vector Energy Group. They have a big section on their website saying that burning gas is environmentally friendly. Yes, it has a lower carbon footprint than burning oil directly, but to try and claim it as good for the environment is a stretch too far.”

Dewar says the OnGas site leaves them wide open to complaints, not just to the Advertising Standards Authority but to the Commerce Commission, “who have just taken a fantastic strong line on environmental information seeking to mislead the public.”

She cites McDonald’s as another example. “They’ve gone for Rainforest Alliance certification of their coffee supplies, which is all well and good on the surface, but then you look at what most coffee and chocolate suppliers do when they’re looking for certification, they go for the best form of consumer guarantee of good practice that they can, which is Fair Trade.”

The Rainforest Alliance programme, “while they do some good stuff”, does not provide guaranteed income for growers. “They had a massive opportunity to be the good guys and deliberately chose not to, so those full-page advertisements last year about how wonderful they were, it’s kind of like ‘yeah right’.”

The Cadbury palm oil scandal is another recent example. “What totally stunned me was that when they were already getting into trouble in the media, they ran a full-page range of ads in the Herald business pages about how much New Zealand milk they used in their chocolate. They completely missed the point.”

Keeping ‘em clean: use your certs

Victoria University environmental studies lecturer Dr Sean Weaver believes strong third-party endorsement is the key to beating greenwash.

“It’s a wee bit like when you go and buy your eggs in the supermarket. Quality assurance standards are what sorts the battery eggs from the free range organics and everything in between.

“Those third-party labels aren’t always there,” he explains. “One egg company used to call themselves ‘free range’ eggs because Free Range was the name of the company, and that was a real greenwash.

“If you have strong third-party quality assurance standards, if there’s a third-party label like Biogro and you trust Biogro, then you can be confident that there’s not a greenwash there.”

Certification standards can also help drive competition for a slice of the ‘green’ market. Weaver uses Green Cabs and Combined Taxis as an example.

“The taxi situation is interesting because you had Green Cabs start with a whole fleet of hybrid cars and they’re all painted green, then very soon after that Combined Taxis became carbon-neutral. Of the two, the one that has the higher quality assurance is Combined Taxis because they’ve entered into the CarbonZero programme, a very high-quality carbon trading company run by Landcare Research, whereas Greencabs don’t have any third-party certification.

“That said, Green Cabs were very valuable for the industry because, irrespective of whether they’ve got third-party certification, without them Combined might not have done anything. Combined didn’t want to start a brand-new fleet of hybrids. They wanted to do something with their existing fleet. So, to do it in a way that would earn them market-share or regain market share, they had to choose a high-quality standard.

“If I was Greencabs or I was giving them any advice, I would have gone with the third-party certification from the beginning and then there’d be no debate.”

Weaver believes third-party organisations have an important role to play in the monitoring of green marketing. “There are those who claim to be green when they’re not, and that’s a job for NGOs as watchdogs.

“If those watchdogs expose the bullshit, then the companies that get exposed in that way get punished in the marketplace. If watchdogs don’t do the due diligence on these claims, then anyone can make a claim and the consumer won’t know the difference.”

Dirty dairying?

Greenpeace senior campaigner Simon Boxer agrees that NGOs have a responsibility to act as greenwash watchdogs.

“One of our roles is to look behind what is said publicly, and all the fine-tuning of messaging that comes out of a lot of corporations. If you look into it you can find out the real facts and figures, but it takes a lot of work.”

In late August, a Sunday Star Times exclusive linked Fonterra’s importation of palm kernel animal feed to the destruction of Indonesian rain forests. Boxer believes the palm kernel controversy is a serious example of greenwash in action.

“The industry claims that palm kernel products are sustainable but with a bit of research you find out that very little of what’s being supplied is sustained by any measure, and even then the sustainability measures are very weak.

“There’s talk about palm kernel expeller (PKE) as a waste product but that’s just not true,” he says. “If you talk to people in the palm industry, they don’t consider it as a waste product, yet ministers stand up in parliament and spout off the rubbish that they’ve been advised by the dairy industry.”

Boxer is cautious about applying the term greenwash to the entire dairy industry, but suggests that New Zealand dairy’s ‘clean, green’ and efficient image may no longer be accurate.

“It’s a hard one because it’s such a diverse industry,” he admits. “One problem is that Fonterra won’t reveal any real information. They announced the carbon footprint for their products, then, when we got a copy of the report under the Official Information Act, they blanked out all the data so there was no way to independently verify it.

“That said, we know their footprint has risen dramatically over the last five years. On the world stage, we’re getting close to the intensive dairying seen in Europe and the US.”

Reverse spin

Evan Smeath, Hukerunui dairy farmer and former Ballance Farm Environment Award winner, is concerned that some commentators are implying ‘dirty dairying’ is rampant in New Zealand.

“That actually annoys me immensely because their criticism might only be based on one person’s actions, whereas everybody else is really trying their best.”

He says farmers like the Crafar family, who were recently fined $90,000 for environmental offences and accused of allowing over 100 bobby calves to starve to death, “do not belong in our dairy industry at all, they’ve got to shape up or ship out.”

In terms of the palm kernel scandal, Smeath believes Greenpeace’s tactics have developed into harmful media spin of a different kind.

“Greenpeace are trying to get media attention, to get backing on their side, but they’re going overboard,” he says. “If they want to do make a difference, why don’t they put something in about the people who are actually doing a good job? You never hear Greenpeace applauding something; it’s always pulling someone down.”

Smeath says that, while most farmers are genuinely concerned about the environment, the approach currently used by Greenpeace is not effective.

“Too much criticism gets people’s backs up and makes them think ‘stuff you, we’ll do it when we’re ready’. If Greenpeace actually worked with people and said, ‘this is a good idea’, they’d get more credibility and we’d get more change happening.”

Dr Mike Scarsbrook, DairyNZ sustainability development team leader, points out that dairy farmers are as susceptible to ‘green’ spin as any other consumer group.

“In our dealings with farmers we find they are generally very wary of snake-oil merchants trying to take advantage of the imperative to adopt sustainable farming technologies.

“DairyNZ’s role is to show them where they need to invest their time and resources to lower their footprint, and to test new practices and technologies to give them confidence to adopt them on their own farms.”

Smeath agrees. “One of the biggest things is educating and being able to understand a lot of the information that’s out there, and to believe it. With the economic situation the way it is, farmers won’t spend on sustainable practices and technology unless they’re sure it’ll work. We want it to be tried and true by reputable organisations to make sure it’s the way to go.”

He and around 30 other Northland farmers have formed their own watchdog group, the Northland Dairy Action Team, to monitor and facilitate environmental initiatives in the area.

How deep the wash?

A fundamentalist environmentalist observer could argue that a deeper kind of greenwash exists in New Zealand. For example, Combined Taxis may be bona fide carbon neutral but a taxi company can never be considered truly environmentally friendly. Are we cheating our way to a clear conscience? Will hedonistic over-indulgent capitalism never be overthrown? Wouldn’t cycling be better?

Victoria University environmental studies lecturer Dr Sean Weaver disagrees. “If we want people to be cycling more, we should promote cycling but we shouldn’t kick the ass of anyone who puts a voluntary measure in place.”

He points out that our society is not going to stop consuming anytime soon. “It’s taken centuries to get to where we are now and that’s not going to be changed overnight. We can promote the best behaviour as much as we can, carpooling, people getting on their bikes, that sort of thing, but the vast majority of people are not going to do that.”

“Here’s a thought. Say 95 percent of people aren’t going to get on their bikes, but what if they were prepared to change a little bit, and that change was aggregated? One step each for four million people is four million steps. The small steps in the other direction have added up to climate change, so one of the big parts in our toolbox is to help the vast majority to take steps in the other direction.

“Once they’ve done taken the first step, the second step is a little easier, and the third step even easier, so what may look like a token gesture may actually help to shift their sense of self-identity, in which case the next thing they do is more significant.”

Like farmer Ewan Smeath, Weaver is aware of the risks associated with excessive criticism. “Nobody wants to have guilt landed on them. They’ll say ‘Piss off, I’m not playing your game and I don’t like you guys, you’re freaks and I don’t think you should be voted into parliament.’ It’s easy to criticise but if we want to be effective, I would argue very strongly that we’re better off using encouragement whenever possible.”

As the tide of ‘green’ spreads slowly through our consumer options, Weaver offers some final advice to the would-be environmentalist.

“We need to vote with our feet as consumers, which means looking at labels, looking where things come from. If it’s got palm oil in it, then it’s probably come from a rainforest in Indonesia that’s killed orangutans and destroyed rainforests.

“Be a discerning consumer, but also look for quality and only buy things that you really need to buy. If you’re depressed and need some retail therapy, then lie down and do a laughing meditation or something.”

NF: Why were you drawn to working in this particular area [as a sex therapist specialising in male issues]?

PW: I’ve always had an interest and there seems to be a bit of a lack of men working with men in this particular area. I’ve always been interested in myself as a man and in my own relationships.

Sex as an area is such a wide umbrella because I see people for all sorts of issues, from sexual function through to cross-dressing through to desire differences in relationships. There’s a whole wide range so it’s always interesting.

NF: What will your lecture at uni focus on?

PW: The lecture is in two parts. First, it’s about addressing some of the myths around about men and sex. I think we all grow up with a lot of myths and a lot of misinformation about how we are supposed to be and how young men are supposed to be with sex and in their approaches to sex. I go through about ten of the common myths that I come across in my work.

For example ‘all touching is sexual and should lead to sex’. That’s what I’ve seen and what I’ve heard, talking to couples and talking to men, is that there’s a myth that says ‘if we’re hugging and touching and kissing et cetera, then it’s all on for sex. Our conditioning says any kind of physical contact is all about sex, whereas it doesn’t necessarily need to mean that.

One of the things I work on is encouraging men to develop their sensuality. I mean, sex is valid, but so is developing sensuality. Some of the men I see here, they think that ‘she’s giving me a hug or a kiss, so now we’ll be jumping into bed and having intercourse’. And then some women and partners think ‘no, I feel pressured straight away because he wants to take things further and all I want is to be close to him’. I get that a lot where there are desire differences within a couple, when one partner is less interested in sex.

NF: Usually a woman?

PW: Usually but not always. For about 20% of the couples I see, a male is the low-desire partner so that kind of blows some of the standard thinking. ‘Men are always interested in and always ready for sex’, that’s another one of the myths we look at. The guys I see with low desire, they think ‘as a man, I’m meant to be really keen on this, why am I not necessarily feeling that?’ And that can be just the way he is as an individual. It’s about finding out what is important to you rather than thinking, as a man, this is how I should be behaving.

Here’s another myth: ‘sex is based on a hard penis and what’s done with it’. Most guys, at some stage of their life, will have some sort of erection difficulty. They freak out and think ‘this is the most important thing, I’ve got to get it up so that intercourse can happen’. Whereas most women, in terms of orgasm and pleasure in sex, most women will say that they won’t have orgasms through intercourse, yet guys are led to believe that that’s the most important thing for their partner.

We need to question these myths and ask ‘is this what I want, is this what my partner wants?’ Part of my talk is about discussing the impact misinformation has on us, and some of the ingredients towards creating better sex and better relationships. I’ll be talking about some of the things I’ve seen in my work that make a difference.

NF: In terms of exercises and things?

PW: No, not so much! Although I do sometimes give people exercises… [laughs] No, more like having a relationship that’s based on friendship, where there’s respect and affection, where there’s communication so people can negotiate together what they might do sexually and non-sexually. So being able to talk. We talk about ‘oral sex’, but to me oral sex is about talking.

For guys, knowing a bit about their own bodies, knowing what they like and being able to ask for what they want, knowing what their partner wants and she or he being able to ask for what they want. Having accurate information about infections, condoms, pregnancy and prevention. Focusing on pleasure instead of performance, moving away from the idea of intercourse being a ‘top of the mountain’ idea when really the journey should be about pleasure.

NF: That sounds like good life philosophy. ‘It’s not the destination, it’s the journey…’

PW: Right. [laughs] I also talk about images of women. Pornography is so accessible so, for many of the young men I see, I get them to really question the messages that they’re getting about the way women are, or the way women are supposed to be.

Most women don’t fit that perfect body type, most women aren’t sitting there just dying for sex. It’s that whole thing about ‘this is all that she wants…’

NF: ‘And therefore if I can’t give it to her…’ then that leads to performance issues?

PW: Yeah, definitely. Some of the guys I see say ‘oh, I’m worried my penis isn’t big enough’ and, of course, they’ve been looking at pornography where there are these men with these big, huge penises… It’s about getting guys to question what they’re looking at and what messages they’re getting.

NF: What’s the goal of all this? What do you see as good sex?

PW: That can be different for each person and each couple. Some people think good sex is having sex three times a day, others three times a week, others once every six months. I’m a great believer in losing the idea of the maths of sex, that there’s not some standard for us to live up to.

NF: What advice do you have for students who aren’t in long-term relationships and are still experimenting?

PW: Experimenting is a key thing we do when we’re young. Nothing is going to change that but I do think that we need to minimise risk. So, being clued up about STIs and pregnancy, those are the bottom lines that need to be in place. We need to experiment, that’s the way we find out what we do and don’t like, but I believe in doing that in a way that minimises some of the risks.

NF: Emotional risks as well.

PW: That’s right. To go into those situations with our eyes open, knowing about risks and knowing that once we start breaking down some of those barriers of having sex with other people, we open ourselves up to being hurt and rejected. And again, that’s all good learning even if it doesn’t feel like it at the time. Do you know what I mean? It’s a painful thing that we go through as young people. Do you see that around you?

NF: I think people kind of stumble around and that it can take a long time to work out.

PW: Yes, and there’s no quick way around that. There’s no book that tells you how to get where you want to be in terms of a good relationship. We just have to learn it ourselves.

NF: I think that’s quite a good point to end on.

Today, barriers of entry to the modern nation-state are paper thin. Immigration is an industry and passports are gold. Visas, work permits, residency and citizenship applications must be duly filled in, paid for and processed. Governments have the right to set quotas, target desirable groups of migrants and reject those they don’t like.

I leave the country in two months. Many of my friends are doing the same. We’re young, educated, alert, and we were born with a ticket to ride. New Zealand has a working holiday scheme with 15 European Union countries, seven countries across the Americas, and several through Asia. The ability to teach English opens up the borders of most of the rest.

There is no necessity behind our movements. I have no disadvantaged background, no war-gutted or corrupted country to leave in search of a better life. Once my overseas experiences are done, I’ll return home and settle, pay back my student loan and aim for my slice of the rapidly re-inflating New Zealand property bubble.

For a growing number of would-be New Zealand citizens, migration is a much more serious game. I have many friends who entered on student or working holiday visas and now want to make a permanent home here. The reasons vary. One friend fell in lust with, yes, our verdant scenery and clean environment. I have listened to others rave about our low levels of crime and corruption, and relative ease of employment. Several of my friends and a few of my taxi drivers felt as though they had no opportunities in the country of their birth.

PASSPORTS ARE GOLD

From 25 July 2002 to 31 July 2009, the Department of Labour prosecuted 216 individuals for immigration-related fraud. Two hundred of these led to convictions, in relation to 1,125 offences.

Some particularly juicy examples have been produced in recent months. In August, former Labour MP Taito Phillip Field was awarded ‘first NZ politician convicted for bribery and corruption charges as an MP’ after accepting free labour from Thai tradesmen in exchange for immigration assistance.

Gerard Otimi, the leader of a South Auckland scam, was convicted after he allegedly offered to adopt thousands of Pacific Islanders into his hapu and sold false immigration certification at $500 a pop.

In an alleged scam in Ashburton, recruitment agencies offered farm placements to immigrant workers then confiscated their passports and a percentage of their pay on an ongoing basis. Similar allegations have been made by a Filipino nurse, and allegations of human trafficking have been laid on behalf of at least two Ukrainian sex workers in Auckland.

If the media is to be believed, immigration fraud is on the rise and the recession is to blame. As jobs dry up, pressure is placed on bosses to fire migrant workers first and residency approvals close off. The government has said that the current annual residency target of about 45,000 will not change, yet 3376 people were approved residency in July compared with 4442 in July last year.

SHAM SHAGGING

Residency can be granted to foreigners if they prove they have been in a stable and genuine relationship with a New Zealand citizen for at least 12 months.

Married, civil union and de facto relationships are all eligible, though the latter is more difficult to prove.

According to Department of Labour spokesperson Rowan Saker, a total of 82 allegations of ‘false marriages’ were received between 1 November 2008 and 30 June 2009. Fifteen allegations are still being investigated, and of the remaining cases, no prosecutions were undertaken. ‘False marriage’ is not a specific offence under the Immigration Act 1987, but falls under section 142 of the Immigration Act—‘false or misleading information’.

There are scams and then there are scams. While some ‘fake marriages’ are set up as exploitative mass scams, I know several people who have agreed to a sham relationship for more altruistic reasons.

I asked Sarah*, 26, a New Zealand-born ‘sham wife’, to explain how her particular arrangement came about.

“Basically, through a friend of a friend,” she says, “I didn’t know the person at all. He wanted to stay in the country but wasn’t able to, and I was asked if I’d be willing to do something to help. They were just casting about for someone and I basically thought, why not?”

She was inspired by the experiences of others. “I’ve had other friends who’ve been studying here in similar situations. These are people in work, people who are contributing to the community. They want to stay for further study or for work but don’t get their visas granted, so have had to find another way in.”

Sarah prefers not to reveal the exact amount of money exchanges as part of the deal, but says it was “probably in the same sort of realm” as the payment for a visa application. She and John*, a student and part-time worker, are not living together, despite official statements to the contrary. As far as proof of the relationship goes, “I don’t handle the evidence side of things, that’s up to him.”

“The way I justify it to myself is that people working for the right kind of employer are able to get their employer to sponsor them. In this case, I’m a sort of personal sponsor. I’m vouching for that person in a personal rather than professional capacity.”

She doesn’t know why John’s visa was declined. “Something to do with where he’s from, the amount of money, and how long he was able to stay here on a student visa.”

Sarah believes the current immigration system is inconsistent. “The situation seems kind of dumb,” she says. “We’re not overpopulated yet, and I can see why we’d want to prevent that from happening, but there just seems to be little common sense or consistency in the way the service selects who gets to stay and who is denied.

“Money shouldn’t be the only measure. To move halfway across the world, you’ve got to be an overachiever to start off with, and I think if someone’s motivated enough for this, then they’ve obviously got lots of energy and drive and should be allowed to stay. Everyone in New Zealand came here as someone who wanted a better life, or is the descendent of someone who did. It just seems logical, really.”

SCI-FI MORALITY ROMP

Illegality should not be encouraged, but what if the rules are wrong? In 2002, Helen Clark formally apologised for the institutionally racist Chinese poll tax, an integral part of immigration policy in the late nineteenth century. Current immigration policy may one day be subjected to similar scrutiny.

In terms of service provision, the Government has admitted that Immigration NZ has major problems. In a 4 June press release, Immigration Minister Jonathon Coleman acknowledged that the “mess left by the last government is even worse than anyone thought”.

“Basically it’s a picture of a siloed organisation where people don’t talk to each other, the management practices are poor, and there’s a lack of standardisation in the way things are done across the service.”

As this article goes to press, parliament has remained under urgency to debate new immigration policy. Potential areas of concern are the degree of control given to immigration officers to decide on individual cases and the existence of review panels to which a migrant or refugee can appeal if they have concerns about a decision.

In a wider sense, the morality of the entire immigration system deserves a challenge. I’m no philosophy student, but two recent sci-fifilms raise some worrying questions.

In BBC production Code 46 (2003), starring Tim Robbins, intercity and international travel is restricted to the healthy, wealthy elite. The central government-cum-insurance agency only dishes out travel permits, or ‘papelles’, in exceptional circumstances.

In Alex Rivera’s Sleep Dealer (2008), impoverished Mexicans are implanted with telerobotic ‘nodes’ so they can work 12-hour shifts controlling robot workers inside foreign cities. Developed nations are able to enjoy all the benefits of a cheap migrant workforce without the nuisances of health care and education provision.

Neither film requires much of an imaginative leap. Global immigration policies already heavily favour the healthy, wealthy elite and the use of cheap foreign labour in offshore facilities is widespread. Migrante Aotearoa, a Filipino workers’ group, has recently raised concerns about the ‘disposal’ of migrant workers during the recession. Like the node workers in Sleep Dealers, workers were enticed to New Zealand while their labour was needed then dropped as soon as they became a potential burden.

Unless we are willing to accept fundamental inequality, it may be time to reconsider the way we view our immigration system. Unless change occurs quickly, altruistic acts of immigration fraud may be the only way forward. Kia ora Sarah, kia ora.

“A lot of people who are trans experience body dysmorphia,” says Max, from across a table in one of Wellington’s finest bagel establishments. “I don’t personally feel that. Perhaps that has a lot to do with both my politics and the fact that I have been able to access transitional therapies easily.”

“For me, being trans is an identity, not an illness. I definitely see myself as genderqueer as opposed to a traditional transsexual. That said, I’m having surgery to remove my breasts.”

Max Prendergast, 23, is a genderqueer Maori Honours student, has a killer set of glasses frames, and loves his body. He began his transition this year, with the help of a doctor at Student Health.

“I just rocked up there, super nervous,” he remembers. “It was probably the first time I’d said ‘I’m trans’ to a person in authority. It’s not so bad saying it to friends or family, but a medical practitioner has power over you. So to have the courage to sit there and say it, that took me a while.”

Max is glad he did. “My GP was amazing, really friendly and amazing. She admitted to me that she’d never seen a trans student before and had no idea what to do, but in a way that was kind of great because we got to do it together.”

As part of his transition, Max has taken out a $16,000 loan to pay for his ‘top chop’, has outed himself to his employer, friends and family, and now faces the physical and emotional turmoil of what is essentially a second bout of puberty.

He says he has it easy. “I haven’t got any problems accessing trans therapy. I started hormones within two months of asking, and I’m having my chop surgery in another two months.”

Max has no illusions about the reasons for his easy transition. “I’m white. I come from a good family. I’m on my second degree, and I’m articulate. I’ve got a good job so I can manage my debt repayments.”

And the less fortunate, those who lack the resources to transition to their chosen gender?

“If you’re experiencing hardcore gender dysphoria,” explains Max, “if you’re really upset and depressed and you can’t access hormone treatment or surgery, that’s like every time you leave the house you do it without clothes, without shoes. That’s what it feels like when we deny trans people the therapies that they need to transition.”

An Invisible Minority

In 2006, the Human Rights Commission launched the Transgender Inquiry, the world’s first inquiry by a national human rights institution into the discrimination experienced by transgender people.

This was an ambitious assignment on several levels. Not only was there no template for the commission to follow, but the trans community in New Zealand is incredibly diverse. Around 200 people made submissions over the 18 months of the Inquiry: farmers, business-people, tradespeople, academics, artists, sex workers, health professionals, economists, managers, parents and grand-parents.

The people who made submissions referred to themselves as transgender, Male-to-Female (MtF) and Female-to-Male (FtM) transsexuals, cross-dressers, intersex, androgynous, genderqueer, takatāpui, fa’afafine, fakaleiti, whakawahine and others.

A trans student at Victoria, who asked to remain anonymous, pointed out that the sexuality of trans people is equally varied. “You can look at it like a graph with two separate axes, gender and sexual orientation,” she said. “You can be anywhere on that graph, anywhere you want. You can be as straight as they come, or completely genderless and asexual.”

Culture could be considered the third axis on the graph. Elizabeth Kerekere and Peri Te Wao help run the Tiwhanawhana Trust, and are acutely aware of the additional decisions faced by takatāpui, a reclaimed term used to describe gay, lesbian, bisexual, trans and other genderqueer Māori.

“One of the reasons we set up Tiwha-nawhana,” explains Kerekere, “is the issue of takatāpui always having to choose between being Māori and following some quite strict roles in terms of male and female roles, particularly in performance and protocols. If you want to be queer and your gender is fluid, how do you express your sexual and gender identity inside the Maori community?

“We try to get out and about so queer youth know there are takatāpui out there living their lives, and that we’re available to help out.”

Te Wao knows that he and other takatāpui advocates are the minority. “It’s a small community and hard to gauge, because we don’t have that box that we can tick and identify as. Not all of the trans community would want to tick that box, even if they could.”

Kerekere agrees. “I find with younger people that, more and more, they’re not wanting to identify as trans. They’re more likely to call themselves genderqueer. They’re not wanting to transition from the physical body they’ve got now but want to be able to present as the opposite sex without having to change it, to be a bit more fluid about it. It’s quite difficult for older people to handle that.”

Identifying Abuse

After two years of research, the findings of the Transgender Inquiry were published as a 100-page report entitled ‘To Be Who I Am/ Kia noho au ki toku ano ao’. The report identified four areas for urgent attention: increased participation of trans people in decisions that affect them; stronger legal protections against discrimination; improved access to health services; and simplified processes for change of sex on a birth certificate, passport and other documents.

Many of the stories shared in the Inquiry report are harrowing. Trans youth reported being harassed by teachers and students and being afraid to ask for health or social support. Many trans people find it close to impossible to gain and keep employment, even when they possess all the appropriate skills, qualifications and experience.

“One restaurant fired me because a customer complained I could give them AIDS by touching their plate (my HIV status is negative),” wrote one trans woman. “They didn’t fire the out gay maitre d’, however.”

“I have been punched in broad daylight on a busy street with no one coming to my aid,” said another. “I have been called names and put up with staring and people talking about me behind my back, often within my hearing.”

Access to health services and barriers to changing sex and gender information on legal documents is often effectively one and the same. Until recently, the only way to ensure a sex change on a birth certificate was to have had full gender reassignment surgery. Not all trans people want to have surgery and, for those that do, the financial and medical barriers can be huge.

Trans men felt particularly hard done by. “We can’t get [‘lower’ surgery] done in New Zealand,” wrote one, “most of us don’t have the $50-$100K needed to do it overseas, it can involve as many as five risky operations with a variable outcome, and many of us will never choose to have it.”

Thankfully, the barriers to a sex change on a birth certificate have been relaxed. In a major victory for the Transgender Inquiry team and trans advocates, a June 2008 Family Court decision set a new precedent for interpretation of section 28 of the Births, Deaths and Marriages Registration Act 1995. Each application will now be judged subjectively. The degree of permanent physical change required now depends on the circumstances of each applicant.

Getting to the point of any permanent physical change is difficult. In somewhat of a vicious cycle, without documentation that matches their chosen gender, trans people are forced to out themselves each time they apply for a job or enrol in a tertiary course. Without an appropriate level of income, paying up to $300 per hour for a psych assessment may be an insurmountable barrier. Without a psych assessment, access to hormone therapy is difficult, and a positive Family Court ruling to get new documentation is unlikely.

Trans On Campus

The Inquiry report identified discrimination in tertiary education as an area of concern. At least three trans people struggled to gain entry to tertiary courses due to staff concerns that they “wouldn’t fit in” or would not cope with study while transitioning. Others complained about their inability to change their gender details on student records. After constant harassment, one trans student took bed-wetting medication so he wouldn’t need to use the toilets at his polytechnic.

Post-graduate student Max has not personally experienced problems as a trans person at Victoria. “As a whole, my experience has been quite positive. It depends on who you are and how confident you feel.”

He doesn’t feel the need for a separate representative group for trans students. “I really don’t think you can lump trans people together and provide one service for all. I think what we need to do is break down barriers across the board so that trans people can access services that they want to.”

Max admits that the curiosity of the general public can become a burden. “My body has become public property now that I’m transitioning. People think it’s okay to come and ask me really personal questions.

“I can see why people have that morbid curiosity, I did before I transitioned, but people expect you to answer their questions all the time. You’re an ambassador, like it or not… I struggle with that quite a lot.”

Another trans student at Victoria, who preferred not be identified, liked the relative anonymity of campus life. “The university is a brilliant place to be because most people just don’t care, so you can get on with being yourself.”

Lifting The Burden

The Assume Nothing project is an ongoing body of work about gender diversity founded by Auckland-based artist Rebecca Swan in 1995, published as a book in 2004, developed into a feature documentary by Kirsty MacDonald in 2008, and currently in the middle of a two-year exhibition tour of New Zealand galleries.

Assume Nothing aims to reveal the “extraordinary and often very ordinary worlds” of the New Zealand trans community. One of the most famous images from the project features activist and educator Mani Bruce Mitchell, born with both male and female genital tissue, the words ‘I am not a monster’ scrawled across her chest.

“I’m drawn to [gender diversity as a subject] because gender androgyny or fluidity is almost a spiritual thing for me,” explains Swan, over the phone from Auckland. “I feel our souls are androgynous, so when somebody embodies both male and female elements, there is something quite magical about it for me. There are other reasons, political and everything else, but that’s what sustains it for me.”

The Human Rights Commission offers three workshops in tandem with the exhibition, run by Transgender Inquiry project manager Jack Byrne as panel discussions with a focus on trans diversity, trans youth and trans creativity.

Free copies of the Inquiry are available for people to take and read at home or at the workplace.

Swan has embraced her partnership with the Commission. “One of the intents [of the exhibition] was to create social change around gender diversity and this felt like the most appropriate way to harness it.”

“I read the comments books every time we go to a gallery,” she says. “The people who’ve been photographed and filmed are very open with the intimate details of their lives and, because of that, people really respond.”

Swan is awed by the generosity and perseverance of the trans and genderqueer participants in the exhibition. “They’ve got a strong motive to make a difference, and telling their stories or being photographed is a great way to do that.

“I’ve been blown away by how generous and giving they are of themselves. Mani [Bruce Mitchell] comes to every show, every venue. She’ll do anything to get other people talking about gender issues, and she’ll be there on the front line because she has a strong motive for change.”

The stories shared by the Assume Nothing exhibition help to break stereo-types and lift the burden of ‘morbid curiosity’ often experienced by trans people who just want to get on with their lives. Swan, aware that not everyone is happy to be ‘outed’ in every city, checks with participants every time a show goes up.

A Work In Progress

“We’ve seen huge leaps and bounds in the last 20 years,” says Joanne Clarke, president of national support group Agender and host of radio show TransSister Radio. “People have started to stand up and be counted, and people can see that we’re a diverse community with a lot of talent.

“There are so many people out there who you wouldn’t even know are trans,” she points out. “We’re everywhere but it’s still very hidden, a very hidden journey.

There’s a lot of guilt and shame. People have got to realise that you’re born like this, you can’t help it.”

She feels that the Inquiry set an important benchmark for trans rights. “[The Inquiry] tried to be as thorough as possible in the consultation process and a lot of our community felt as though they had been heard for the first time.”

Clarke also appreciates the ongoing nature of the Transgender Inquiry project.

“Three of us [from Christchurch] went up for a national hui last March up in Wellington, and people came from all over the country,” she says. “I’ve interviewed Joy [Liddicoat, Commissioner], Rosslyn [Noonan, Chief Commissioner] and Jack [Byrne, Project Manager] on TranSister Radio, and we talked about how things were going and what’s happening, how to keep moving forward on the Inquiry recommendations. It’s a document that hasn’t just been produced and left.”

The discrimination and human rights abuses identified by the Transgender Inquiry will take a long time to address. The Human Rights Commission does not have the authority to simply step in and pass their recommendations into law, and the long-term impact of the Inquiry remains to be seen. For now, at least the discrimination faced by trans and genderqueer people in Aotearoa is finally, and firmly, out of the closet.

Justice Minister Simon Power has asked the Law Commission to consider the introduction of a European-style inquisitorial justice system for sexual offending and child abuse cases. The Law Foundation, one step ahead, has already announced an $85 000 parallel study. Salient feature writer Nina Fowler asked three Victoria academics to explain the difference between the inquisitorial and adversarial justice systems, and why change is being considered.

Both systems of justice go back hundreds of years, says senior lecturer Grant Morris.

“The inquisitorial system was associated with the approach used by the Catholic Church, not always with positive results, while the adversarial system developed from the dispute resolution process used at local moot courts in England.

“In the early modern period, continental Europe moved towards a civil law system and the inquisitorial approach. England kept a common law system and the adversarial approach. There’s nothing to say that civil law has to use an inquisitorial system and common law has to have an adversarial system, but that’s the way history has panned out.”

The adversarial justice system was passed on from England to New Zealand, Australia and the US. In contemporary criminal courts, legal advocates present their cases to an impartial third party, usually a jury. The presiding judge acts as referee and sets the sentence.

In the inquisitorial system, currently used in South Africa and many European countries, the presiding judge controls the investigation. She or he supervises the collection of evidence and questions witnesses. Unlike the adversarial system, the defendant does not have a right to silence. Lawyers have a more limited role and a jury is not used. Instead, the verdict and sentence are voted on by a group of professional magistrates.

The relative merits of both systems are hotly contested. Opponents of the inquisitorial system argue that the state may be biased against the defendant, and that trial by a jury of one’s peers is a fundamental right. Supporters argue that the inquisitorial system is quicker and less expensive, and that a jury can not always be relied on to reach a just verdict.

New Zealand has a notoriously low rate of conviction for sexual offences. Nearly a quarter of the population experience sexual violence at some point in their lives, yet under 10% of sexual offences are reported to police, and an even smaller percentage make it to the courtroom.

A discussion paper published by the Ministry of Justice in mid-2008 acknowledged that the adversarial justice system was not doing sexual abuse victims any favours. Victims told researchers and social workers that they were intimidated by the criminal justice system, and felt as though their behaviour was examined during the trial process rather than the actions of the accused.

The Ministry concluded that social assumptions made by the jury affected conviction rates. Jury members had preconceived ideas about how ‘real’ victims should behave before, during and after an alleged sexual assault. As the Ministry put it, a “vicious cycle” has been created: concerns about fairness stop victims and witnesses from coming forward, and low rates of reporting and conviction breed new concerns about fairness.

Child abuse trials are not doing that well either. Similar concerns have been raised about the fairness of exposing a vulnerable victim to cross-examination in front of a jury, while the accused is allowed the right to silence.

Speed and efficiency are an even more pressing concern. Last Friday, the head of the Wellington police district apologised for ‘unacceptable’ delays in processing over a hundred child abuse cases in the Wairarapa.

In mid June, Justice Minister Simon Power announced that the Law Commission would consider an inquisitorial justice system as an alternative to trial by jury in sexual and child abuse cases.

Just prior to Power’s announcement, the Law Foundation announced that Victorian academics Elisabeth McDonald and Yvette Tinsley, along with Jeremy Finn from Canterbury, would be funded to lead a 21-month study into the various inquisitorial models which might work in NZ. The group hope that recommendations based on their research will be used by the Law Commission and Cabinet to change trial process.

McDonald and Tinsley were not able to give their opinions on the relative merits of the inquisitorial and adversarial approaches, though McDonald predicted that “some versions of inquisitorial process may be easier on the complainant.” Tinsley said she believed the tools and assistance made available to jurors were the key to good jury-decision making, rather than the “‘innate (lack of) ability of jurors.”

Senior lecturer Grant Morris is more open about his preferences. While he thinks some aspects of the inquisitorial system that could work well, Morris opposes “whole-scale” changes for sex and child abuse cases.

“I’m happy to be down on record as someone who wants the jury system to remain,” he said. “Having the judge as the neutral arbitrator, being able to have your advocate take a much active role in gathering facts and presenting your case… I do have faith in the jury system, being judged by your peers, and especially in matters of fact.

“There’s nothing to suggest that judges, although they are trained professionals in matters of law, are necessarily the best people to make judgements in matter of fact. For example, whether someone accused of murder is innocent or guilty of the crime—that’s a matters of fact. Then there’s that whole argument of whether the judiciary is representative of the population.

“[Another] thing the adversarial system does pretty well is protect the rights of the defendant to due process and a fair trial, no matter how unlikeable the defendant is.”

Morris is more concerned about the effect of jury dodgers than the integrity of individual jurors in sexual abuse cases.

“My main worry is that the representative nature of the jury is undermined by the fact that so many people, and particularly certain groups, manage to get out of jury service. It’s too easy, even though efforts have been made to tighten it up, and that raises questions about the effectiveness of the jury system.”

He concedes that a more inquisitorial approach could increase the speed and cost of trials.

“With the Bain trial, you can see the huge cost of the research involved on both sides. If more control is given to the judge, if we apply management theory, there might be efficiencies in the [inquisitorial approach].”

South Africa’s move to a more inquisitorial approach resulted in increased conviction rates for sexual assault. Similar changes have been introduced in Victoria, Australia. Are the NZ Law Foundation and Law Commission enquiries likely to turf up similar recommendations?

Researcher Yvette Tinsley thinks “whole-scale” changes to sex and child abuse trials are unlikely, as a move to a purely inquisitorial system would “undoubtedly be expensive and time-consuming”. She emphasises that a complete move is not the only option available.

“Over recent years, there has been a willingness for countries using both systems to utilise good initiatives—i.e. an adversarially based process could utilise initiatives from an inquisitorial system and vice versa. So, it is not necessarily all or nothing.”

Grant Morris points out that some New Zealand courts already contain aspects of the inquisitorial system.

“The Waitangi Tribunal is easily the best example. Tribunal members, as historical researchers, take an active role in gathering information. The court is supposed to be neutral and objective, and advocates bring evidence, but the court is also able to direct further research.”

Even within regular courts, he adds, judges occasionally take a more investigatory approach. “[Judges] do have some ability to comment and ask questions, it’s not as though they sit back the whole time and just listen.”

He agrees with Tinsley that a hybrid between the adversarial and inquisitorial approaches may be the best option for reform.

“There’s always room for impro­vement, but we’ve got to look at the positives that we have, and not just throw aspects away.”

Cut to 31 July 2009, Westpac Stadium. The Wellington Lions faced off against the Highlanders for the Ranfurly Shield. A cursory bag check was made to see if Salient was packing knife, gun or hip-flask, security guards prowled and a medical station was clearly marked. None of these precautions were needed. The under-capacity crowd had enough trouble mustering a decent cheer, let alone a skirmish in the stands.

A comparison between post-coup Honduras and wintry Wellington is extreme, but the behaviour of the fans in the stands follows a wider trend. Central and South America, most of Europe and the UK have serious problems with sports riots; Australia and New Zealand do not.

Riots around the world

Legendary German football coach Sepp Herberger once said “after the game is before the game”. Although his comment was directed at players, he may as well have been addressing a certain group of supporters known as ‘hooligans’. The term refers to gangs of obsessive fans who come to games as much for the post-match scrap as the match itself.

Hooliganism was first associated with violent, trouble-making football fans in 1960s England. At first, hooligan violence was fairly spontaneous. By the 1970s, gangs of hooligans had organised into ‘firms’. Footy riots got serious, a trend which has spread around the world.

As a general rule, major footy-mad countries have more serious hooliganism issues than smaller ones. Argentina declared football violence as a national crisis in 2002, after realising an average four murders occured at matches per year. In 2007, Italy suspended all matches after a policeman was hit in the face with an explosive during a riot. Even relative small-fry like Bangladesh, Ghana, Poland, Sweden, Turkey and Wales have their regular share of tear gas, stabbings, death threats, murders, injuries and arrests.

The Sunday Times interviewed a gang of Polish football hooligans ahead of the 2006 World Cup in Germany.

Lukasz Pawlik, a 26-year-old Cracovia fan, described his hatred of rival club Wisla Krakow.

“To say I hate [the Wisla fans] is not enough,” he said, while pulling on a balaclava and reaching for a knife shaped like a miniature axe. “This equipment is now a part of how I fight and it will taste the blood of a Wisla dog tonight.”

A second Polish hooligan, who allegedly carried a knife with a five inch blade and a rubber hosepipe filled with sand, told Times journalist Bob Graham to “tell the English fans we are coming to Germany to hunt them down.

“We will come for them silently and quickly,” he warned. “We hate the Germans and we will fight with them. We admire the English because of their reputation. That’s why we will fight with them. We want to take their reputation as the best fighters.”

The worst riot at the 2006 World Cup turned out to be between English and German fans, the day before the England vs. Ecuador game in Stuttgart. Over 400 English hooligans were taken into protective custody. Police estimate each rioter consumed or threw about 17 litres of beer.

Back in Aotearoa, our one and only claim to sports-riot fame is the 1981 Springbok Tour. Over 150 000 people took part in 200 demonstrations over 56 days, leading to 1500 arrests and numerous injuries. Two pitches were invaded, two matches cancelled, and All Black prop Gary Knight was hit by a flour bomb dropped from a hired Cessna. Quite a good effort, but the extraordinary circumstances of the tour are unlikely to happen again..

Recipe for riot

In June 2005, National Geographic reporter Brian Handwerk asked several leading sports psychologists and researchers to explain why sports riots occur. What he got was a three-step recipe for riot, an insight into the mind of a fanatical sports fan. Salient took a look at how well NZ rugby crowds fit the mold.

Step number one: the fan becomes passionate and identifies personally with the success of the team. Check. Just take a listen to sports talkback, or talk to the battered women who, according to the NZ Herald, experience an increase in domestic violence when the All Blacks get a loss.

Step number two: major sporting events create an ‘anything goes’ environment. Check. The Lions vs Highlanders match at Westpac had face paint, excessive colour coordination, promo boys in boiler suits, promo girls in tiny shorts (in winter), Tui in plastic bottles, a man in a lion suit, bizarre bursts of music and swarms of children. For further proof, refer to the Rugby Sevens. Anything goes.

Step number three: strong group identity makes supporters want to fit in, whether by wearing the right colours or by throwing a bottle. Check. Westpac may have been under capacity, but All Blacks matches draw tens of thousands and bring out the lurking national pride in all of us.

If personal identification with the team, an ‘anything goes’ environment, and the support of a group are all it takes, then every major sporting event in NZ has the potential to become a full-scale bloody riot. In practice, NZ rugby crowds are nearly always well behaved.

Depends on your footy

Association football (aka soccer) is a gentleman’s game played by hooligans, and rugby is a hooligan’s game played by gentlemen, or so the saying goes. Perhaps the chances of a footy riot depend on what type of footy you call footy.

Sports blogger Dave Warner has a theory that physical violence on the pitch prevents physical violence off the pitch.

“Those rugby gentlemen simply take out their frustrations on other players – something that can’t be done in soccer, a game which can often be about frustration,” he writes. “Some teams may try and try to score a goal and come up short, leaving fans so frustrated that they feel the need to vent on something or someone around them.”

Rugby News editor Dave Campbell disagrees. He thinks the culture of rugby in NZ helps prevent hooliganism rather than the nature of the game itself.

“In my experience, rugby is a game which creates a good breed of person. If you’re born into rugby and you play through school, then for clubs, in that environment you become quite well versed in the etiquette.”

“People come together for the love of the game. They don’t get sucked in by the race issues or provincial affiliations [which make people fight]. There’s a degree of respect for the game itself, so you can sit in the crowd with whoever.”

Westpac Stadium marketing manager Steve Thompson suggests that group dynamics also play a part.

“Football competitions overseas attract large groups of males of a certain age that congregate in gang-like situations, like the ultras in Milan,” he says.

“[In NZ], crowds are a bit older, and young people go with their parents so there’s a lot more social control built into the situation.”

Thompson does not think a tradition of hooliganism or sports riots would occur in NZ, even if the fan demographic was similar. “Rugby just doesn’t incite the same intense identity passions as you get with crowds overseas, where people live and die with the performance of the team.”

“It might be our Scottish heritage,” Thompson jokes. “We’re a bit more reserved. We hate losing, but we’re not going to burn down the stand.”

Rise of the boofheads?

The June 2009 test between the All Blacks and France nearly smeared NZ’s hooligan-free record. The alleged attack on French centre Mathieu Bastareaud in Wellington turned out to be a false alarm, but the bottle throwing after the All Blacks’ 22–27 loss to France in Dunedin was not.

“At the end of the game, the French did a victory circuit,” says eyewitness Jamie MacKay. “The whole crowd gave them a standing ovation, until they got to the Terrace and bottles started flying. We’re talking plastic bottles, but some were full so still quite serious missiles. Half of the French team buggered off, but the rest carried on.”

MacKay, a long-standing rugby supporter and the host of Newstalk ZB’s Farming Show, is worried that footy hooliganism is creeping into the rugby crowd.

“You always get a few dickheads in a sports audience but I’ve never seen it to that degree. Hundreds of people were throwing stuff, judging by the amount of missiles thrown out there. Something else I was disappointed with,” he adds, “was the way the crowd viciously booed the French goalkicker.”

“We’re starting to see that sort of thing get more intense in recent years, and it’s a reflection on changes in NZ society. We’re possibly moving towards the British soccer ‘yobbo’ element, though I hope I’m wrong.”

Dunedin Police Inspector Alistair Dickie reassured Salient that the 35 arrests made after the Dunedin test were not a sign of rampant hooliganism.

“It’s not unusual to have a range of people arrested for a range of offences on a Saturday night. Indulgence and alcohol, just a normal Saturday night after a game.”

He admits that “sometimes, after a loss, there is a trend for people to become a bit bitter, to get a wee bit punchy and aggressive.”

‘It doesn’t occur every time, but [we can] see an increase in offences, especially in terms of assaults. On match nights, we usually put extra staff on to monitor behaviour around the city. That can account for the extra arrests, because we’ve got more staff around to see what’s going on.

“On this occasion, the arrests were basically the norm.”

Blessing in disguise

Looks like NZ is fairly set in our quiet, relatively non-hooligan ways. Radio Network rugby commentator Nigel Yalden points out that the culture of association football hooliganism in the UK has taken generations to develop. “It’s life or death for those guys, they’re born into it. If you’re born into a family that supports Manchester, you’ll die as a fan of Manchester. It’s almost a degree of brainwashing,” he says.

Event organisers may wish they could brainwash a few more supporters into buying a ticket, but Yalden believes that our lack of obsession with the national footy is a blessing in disguise.

“I don’t think think [NZ rugby fans] are as passionate as we sometimes claim to be and that’s sometimes a good thing, when you look at the violence overseas.” For wannabe hooligans it seems their only option is the Phoenix.

FINA have belatedly banned full‑body polyurethane swimsuits, the innovation blamed for Michael Phelps’ shock loss to unknown German Paul Biedermann. Banning dodgy technology used by able‑bodied athletes is relatively straight forward; banning athletes who use technology to help them adapt to a disability is more complex.

In January 2008, the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) banned Oscar Pistorius, a double‑amputee sprinter from South Africa, from competing in the Beijing Olympics. IAAF were worried that Pistorius’ prosthetic legs, j‑shaped carbon blades known as ‘Cheetahs’, would give him an unfair advantage over competitors using their natural legs.

The IAAF ban was eventually overturned, but the controversy about Pistorius’ landmark case lingers. Supporters argued that the science behind the IAAF ruling was negligible and, if anything, Pistorius had managed to overcome quite a serious disadvantage. Opponents insisted that the Cheetah prosthetics qualified as ‘techo‑doping’ and affected the ‘purity of sport’.

NZ archer Neroli Fairhill, the first wheelchair athlete to compete at an Olympics, came up against similar accusations. After winning gold at the 1982 Commonwealth Games, her rivals at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics suggested that Fairhill’s wheelchair gave her extra support while shooting. “I don’t know,” she allegedly answered, “I’ve never shot standing up.”

Wanaka golden boy, 21‑year‑old Adam Hall, took out all three slalom ski events at last week’s NZ Adaptive Snow Sports Festival. He is the world number two for slalom, was named the 2009 Snow Sports New Zealand Athlete of the Year, and is gunning for gold at the 2010 Paralympics. Hall prefers to be known as an adaptive, rather than disabled, athlete.

“Everyone is ‘disabled’ in one way or another. If you pick someone from the general public and throw them out on the snow, they’re not going to do that well compared to me; [in that situation] they’d be disabled. It’s more about how well you adapt.”

For Hall, adaption means tying the tips of his skis together and using outrigger ski poles to compensate for his spina bifida. He trains alongside able‑bodied athletes at Cardrona and has clocked up some “pretty similar” slalom times to members of the NZ Development Squad.

“I can get a licence to race in able‑bodied competitions if I want, but I think reaching world-class level as a disabled athlete is my focus right now. I guess that if I could get my times up far enough, it’d be pretty cool to be world-class at both levels.”

Not many athletes make it to world-class level, and an even smaller number of disabled athletes make it to world-class able‑bodied level. Those that do, like Oscar Pistorius and Neroli Fairhill, will probably have relied on some form of technology to help get them there. Accusations of ‘techno‑doping’ may run rampant, but the difference between Pistorius’ prosthetics and Biedermann’s swimsuit should be obvious. The former required a lifetime of training; the latter, a changing room. As Hall points out, it’s all a question of adaption.

The world is facing arguably the greatest crisis in human history. No, not the recession, not the boy racer pandemic… climate change. Remember climate change?

Slow kid in the schoolyard

NASA scientist Jim Hansen believes humanity has ten years to either bring global carbon emissions under control or face the possibility of apocalypse. Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries are currently approaching the third round of climate change negotiations at Bonn, aimed at replacing the Kyoto Protocol and establishing national emissions reduction targets by 2020. National targets must be set and international negotiations completed before governments can put domestic policies in place and avert aforementioned apocalypse.

Unfortunately, little ‘green’ New Zealand is shaping up as the slow kid in the schoolyard. At the first round of negotiations in late March and early April, all developed countries except for Japan, Iceland, Russia, Switzerland, Belarus, Ukraine and New Zealand set an emissions reduction target for 2020. At the second round, Japan stepped forward to set an admittedly weak target of 8% of 1990 levels by 2020. After a moment of silence, the NZ delegation was asked to explain why they hadn’t yet set a target.

Long-standing environmental activist and current Greenpeace political advisor Geoff Keey was in Bonn to hear the response of Climate Change Ambassador Adrian Macey.
“He said NZ would bring a target to the next meeting but they were still waiting on some forestry data, and they were going to run a public consultation process and this was the reason for the delay.

“At this point, because [the NZ target] was so overdue and the way it was announced, the person sitting next to me turned to me and said ‘is NZ trying to take the piss out of the negotiations?’”

Blame it on the recession

Back home, climate change seems to have slipped from both the front page and the National agenda. Since winning the 2008 election, the National Government appears to have taken more steps backwards than forwards in terms of climate change policy.

On 16 December 2008, Energy and Resources Minister Gerry Brownlee scrapped Labour’s ban on traditional (and inefficient) incandescent lightbulbs.

On 16 November 2008, National halted implementation of the newly passed Emisssions Trading Scheme pending a full review of climate change policy.

On 22 December 2008, National made good on pre-election promises to repeal the ten-year ban on new thermal power stations. Genesis Energy is now planning a gas-fired power station northwest of Auckland.

In February 2009, National announced plans to ‘streamline’ the Resource Management Act. This will fast track sustainable energy projects but also makes it easier for all other developments to get resource consent.

Public transport services funding has been cut by 23% and infrastructure funding by 89%. Funding for the state highway network, however, will receive an extra billion over the next three years.

In fact, the one solidly positive environmental policy that National has announced—the $323m national home insulation scheme—was negotiated as part of a memorandum of understanding with the Greens.

Keey thinks National’s inaction or backward action on climate change is an attempt to set them apart from Labour.

“There’s a lot of positioning around what the government is doing with regard to climate change. That phase out of incandescent lightbulbs made tremendous sense but they pulled it, mostly just to be seen to be different to the previous government.”

Keey believes National’s refusal at Bonn to set an emissions target by 2020 is driven by the same psychology.

“The new government didn’t want to be seen to be implementing the previous government’s climate change strategy. To be honest, there isn’t a huge amount of difference at the international level between the current and previous governments on climate change policy. It’s at the domestic level where there’s a lot of difference. What they want is to have a break between governments so it seems like a fresh start.”

Open mic nights with the Hon. Nick Smith

Last week, the first of the promised public consultation meetings was chaired by Environment Minister Nick Smith in Wellington. As the Government has not set even a preliminary emissions target, all the public meetings will be able to gauge is whether the public want a ‘strong’ or ‘weak’ target.

Keey attended the Wellington meeting. He says most people at the meeting supported a 40% reduction in emissions from 1990 level by 2020.

“There were 350-400 people at the Wellington meeting and pretty much 80% wanted that target.”

Phil Barker, co-leader of Victoria University environmental group Gecko, confirmed Keey’s observations.

“[Nick Smith] is hearing strongly in those meetings that people want a 40% reduction in emissions. His response was, and I quote, “You can go for 40% if you only care about the environment like the Green Party’. That triggered groans across the audience because that’s not even the framework for the debate.”

“Smith was saying, ‘I can hear what target you’re asking for, it’s 40%, it’s clear, but you need to tell us where that’s going to come from, where we’re gonna make the reductions’. Gareth [Hughes, Green Party candidate] was able to respond by saying ‘you’ve got Treasury, you’ve got the Department of Internal Affairs, you’re the government’. The metaphor is like having the CIA at your feet then asking where the details are.”

Admittedly, National is in an extremely difficult position. Crying ‘recession’ may not be an adequate excuse for inaction or backwards action on climate change, but rising unemployment and national debt hardly help the situation.

Geoff Keey thinks the public consultations process may be an attempt to bridge the gap between international expectations and certain domestic lobby groups.

“At the Wellington meeting, people were asked to stand up if they supported an emissions target of 10% or stronger, then to sit if they didn’t support 20% or more, and so on up to 40%. Two of the business representatives there, one from the Major Electricity Users Group and one from the Greenhouse Policy Coalition, weren’t even prepared to stand for the 10% target. Whereas internationally, New Zealand are being pushed to set at a target of at least 25%. There’s a large gap there, so the government need a whopping amount of public support to even get to 25% and survive the backlash they’re going to get from business.”

Battleground Bonn

National is expected to set an emissions reduction target before the August meetings in Bonn. Failing to set a target could have serious consequences. According to Keey, the international community is starting to link climate change and trade negotiations together.

“New Zealand is getting a bit of a hard word put on it, particularly in Europe. Other leaders are making it clear that when New Zealand goes knocking on doors for trade access then, quid pro quo, what you do in one area influences how you get treated elsewhere.

“New Zealand has basically got to bang down doors to sell what we produce, to markets where consumers have plenty of other options and where governments are a bit reluctant at times to let our products in. We can’t afford to tell the rest of the world to piss off [at the Bonn negotiations]. It’s that simple. If we do that, then we’re likely to create an economic impact that’ll make the current recession look like nothing.”

“All the taxi companies will have to do it sooner or later”, he said. “Whole lot cheaper for us to do it now. Plus we’ll get to build up a reputation because we did it first.”

A growing number of groups and individuals on campus believe that Victoria University should do the same. Both Gecko, one of the largest student clubs at Victoria, and the University’s Environmental Committee are committed to working towards a carbon neutral campus.

Why go carbon neutral?

Phil Barker, Gecko co-leader, believes Victoria has an ethical and social responsibility to commit to carbon neutrality.

‘As a public organisation, university is meant to be the critical conscious of society and step forward on leading issues [like carbon neutrality]. Perhaps in the current economic climate, there’s a pressure towards far more short-term thinking, but in terms of social issues and the environmental impact of running such a large organisation, the university needs to demonstrate long-term thinking.”

Former Gecko leader and VUWSA Environmental Officer Tushara Kodikara used his Environmental Studies masters thesis to explore the potential for carbon neutrality at Victoria. In an article published in the 12 May 2008 issue of Salient, Kodikara argued that becoming New Zealand’s first carbon neutral university also makes commercial sense.

“[Carbon neutrality may create] marketing and branding opportunities, opportunities through voluntary activities with the avoidance of any future government regulation, leadership benefits and environmental benefits. These benefits could save the university considerable amounts of money.”

How big is Victoria’s footprint?

Going carbon neutral usually has three steps: assessing carbon footprint, reducing emissions as far as possible, then offsetting the emissions that remain.

The first step in the process has already been completed by the university. The estimate for Victoria’s total carbon footprint for 2008 is approximately 16,151.228 tonnes.

Victoria’s carbon footprint can be split into three main areas, or ‘scopes’. The first ‘scope’ is the direct emissions produced by business operations, for example, the fuel used in Victoria University’s boilers.

The second ‘scope’ is the indirect emissions produced as a result of business operations, like the offsite generation of the electricity used at Victoria.

The third ‘scope’ is the indirect emissions which are not necessarily produced as a result of business operations, but are still connected to the organisation. For example, commuter travel to and from Victoria.

According to Kodikara, the major problem with implementing carbon neutrality at Victoria is that most of our emissions come from ‘scope three’ and are not easily reduced.

“The university’s biggest carbon emissions are through travel, particularly academics who go overseas for conferences and there’s no way you can reduce that. If you try to tell academics ‘sorry, you can’t go to that conference, maybe do a video conference instead’, they’re probably going to refuse.

‘A lot of people think that carbon neutrality is all about reduced emissions, which is a big component, but you just can’t reduce the emissions from big things like travel.”

Carbon neutrality at Vivian st.

Last June, Victoria University’s Faculty of Architecture and Design became the first certified carbon neutral architecture or design school in the world. It was hoped that the faculty could be used as a pilot study for the rest of the university, with a report due to be presented to the Vice-Chancellor at the end of this year.

The faculty’s initial year of certification was made possible by Meridian Energy, who donated 201 tonnes of carbon credits to help offset emissions. In addition, the faculty purchased another 135 tonnes of credits and set up an emissions reduction plan. 

Unfortunately, the faculty’s carbon neutral status has now expired and, despite international attention and positive student feedback, senior management have decided not to re-apply for certification. 

Faculty of Architecture and Design Dean and Deputy Pro Vice Chancellor Gordon Holden says the decision not to re-apply was difficult.

“We deeply regret that we cannot proceed on the path that we had entered. However, the cost to renew CarboNZero status is beyond what can be supported in the current environment of reduced government funding and rising costs for the university.”

The estimated cost of re-certifying the Faculty for the next 18 months is approximately $28,000, made up of $12,000 for measurement, auditing and registration by Landcare Research and an estimated $16,000 for carbon credits. Faced with National Government cuts to higher education funding and no free Meridian credits, Holden was unable to justify re-certification.

“It’s a very tough time and, as committed as we are, we can’t afford the certification.”

Despite this setback, the faculty continue to work on reducing their emissions. Since the Emissions Reduction Plan was introduced in June 2008, waste at the Vivian Street campus is down 16.3% and energy use has reduced by 4.7%. A digital conference studio was installed a few months ago to help reduce emissions from air travel.

Holden says the faculty will “continue to watch the situation carefully” and hopes to reclaim their carbon neutral status “sometime in the future”.

Prospects for the future

The Victoria Environment Committee was founded in November 2006 and is made up of an academic representative from each campus, two student reps (Gecko and VUWSA) and Finance and Facilities Management reps. While most day-to-day work environmental management at the university is carried out by Facilities Management, the Committee responsible for the university’s long-term environmental strategy.

Andrew Wilkes, chair of the Environment Committee, says that carbon neutrality for the entire university is not feasible.

“Fundamentally, we want to be—and are—working towards reducing our carbon emissions [but] to reduce all of our emissions to nothing will take ages, and require technological advances and massive culture change in society. That might never happen, and I have no idea how much it would cost.”
The only way for the entire university to get carbon neutral status is to purchase carbon credits created through reforestation or renewable energy projects. Using an average carbon price of $25/tonne and excluding electricity and commuter travel, buying carbon credits to offset emissions would cost the university about $200,000 each year plus an extra $10,000–$20,000 for the carboNZero auditing and verification process.

This cost is not one that the university are willing to pay. Wilkes says that the university has decided against purchasing carbon offsets due to the “current financial pressures facing the university”. He says that purchasing carbon offsets remains an option for the university but “not in the near future”.

Wilkes emphasizes that, while official carbon neutral certification is off the cards, the university is making steady emissions reduction progress.

“If a sound business case can be made for an initiative, then we [the Environment Committee] can get it implemented without much fuss… it is fair to say tha the Senior Management Team are supportive of our work.”

Environmental highlights over the last three years include a 40% reduction in standard office paper consumption following the introduction of default double-sided printing, the introduction of recycling facilities to all campuses, and the inclusion of sustainable design principles in all future construction projects. Energy efficiency initiatives have been launched across the university and are estimated to have already saved the university $139,000 per year. These projects mainly involved improvements to the efficiency of heating, ventilation and the university air-conditioning plant, along with some lighting upgrades.

One of the next Environmental Committee projects will be to work on promoting environmental leadership among Victoria staff. Gecko leader Phil Barker hopes that video conferencing will become more popular as the environmental awareness of staff is raised.

“Academic researchers need access to the international community of academics. Traditionally and commonly that means attending conferences, that’s a need of their role, but there are alternative systems that can help get more efficient results out of that.

“Victoria actually holds a world leading video conferencing suite in the basement of the library. Gecko used the suite to hold a simultaneous video conference between five NZ universities and the Berkeley campus in San Francisco. It really is a world class facility, the quality of communication is like being right there in the room with the other person.”

Environmental club Gecko and the Environmental Studies department are working to increase environmental awareness within the student body. As part of ENVI 114, students are asked to investigate ways to improve sustainability on campus. Gecko, with membership currently at over 400 students, has put several of these projects in place and also run annual environmental weeks and climate action festivals.

While Barker applauds the university’s progress over the last five years, he believes students need to continue calling for carbon neutrality on campus.

“[The university] are taking steps in that direction, in large part through the voices of students and as a result of student activism. We’re the ones that are going to be living into the future and our children will inherit it, so the management at University need to hear that voice and that advocacy.”