This year I’m thankful that this vision has been shared by a team of writers in a multiversity, which to my mind is becoming increasingly commercially oriented. These writers have described the abhorrent way the government treats refugees such as Ali Panah, the loopholes of the Work and Income system, the contradictions of American foreign policy, the waste of taxpayer money on organ donation incentives, how to invest your student loan, the democratic implications of the Electoral Finance Bill, how the economy is designed to enslave us, why VSM is a bad move, how television is the drug of a nation, and why coolness is the new conformity. I’d like to think we have contributed to meaningful debate on campus. For at least one who considered the editor “a bit of a dick who’s always crusading against the world” at Motel bar last month, I know that’s the case.

The role of the editor is not easy, and at times I’ve felt like I’ve been tramping up steep terrain. While that’s produced some great views, I’m looking forward to taking a break from it all. Being on the inside is a dangerous place. Exploiting the editorial independence of Salient, I’ve tried to make the magazine the refuge of fringe ideas, ones that can’t be published in the likes of the Dominion Post. I am indebted to all of the writers, illustrators, lawyers, artists, and grammar nazis who have contributed to this. You deserve recognition for the thousands of words, ideas and countless hours contributed, and probably a lot more cash than Salient ever paid some of you.

I’m going to start with my recognition with the guy who pays me, Geoff da boss. Thanks for your professionalism and respect for Salient’s editorial independence.

Perhaps worthy of most mention is (Saint) Nick Archer, Salient’s unofficial office manager and general workhorse. Nick was the brains behind the watershed SalientTV, the Visual Arts Editor and New Media Columnist. Nick wrote features, film, book and music reviews and subsequently has produced over 89 articles, never missed a deadline and spent over 60 hours a week, working in the office, for no pay. You are made of gold.

The next most important person in the Salient crew was the designer Tony, or Antonio Bandarias as I affectionately called you. Your positive attitude and relaxed nature was essential to the demands involved with the job. I don’t need to go on about how important you have been, you hear it all the time.

Other thanks must be provided to the members of the publications committee – Chris Bishop, Aaron Packard, Geoff and Mary Jane, who have been instrumental in providing me with a supportive environment to work and develop the magazine. In particular, Chair Alexander Nielsen has been a resource par excellence, and his institutional knowledge with matters concerning the constitution has been essential.

To the team of feature writers – Rob Addison, Tristan Egarr, Jenah Shaw, Nicola Kean, and Duncan McKinlay – thank you for providing excellent ideas and damn hard work. It’s been a pleasure to work with such talent. Thanks for putting up with my at times demanding suggestions. Special ups to Tristan, who has the remarkable ability to pull out excellent features with sometimes just one day’s notice.

The columnists were varied and quite an eccentric lot. I really enjoyed my chats with Gonzo the news mole’s Ben den Ouden, and of course the real Becci, whom I never met in person, and her replacement, Matt Proctor when she bailed on us. I can only guess she got hitched. Ali’s renting column was always excellent. Robbie Neilson was probably the most strange of the columnists with his obsession with getting naked and showing me the pictures and drawings. Robbie started Salient Speed Dating too, which is kind of worrying. Thanks also to the idiots – Chris Dawson and Mark Scott, your column got funnier as the year went on. Michael Oliver’s sports copy was always on time, and Neil Miller’s beer column received some of the best feedback of any column, particularly among young males. Eleanor Bishop’s theatre pages were also superbly written. Thanks Laura, Pachali, Gabrielle and Ali too.

In the opinion department, I’d like to thank Perigo, but of course that would mean that I’d be labelled an islamofascist supporter. I only censored you once, last week when you got sexist on me. Freedom of speech has its limits. To the Brothers in Anarchy, cheers for your arguments, always insightful and less of a headache. Thanks also to the guests who occupied “Counterpoint”.

Laura was pretty cool, and her team of news writers were cool too. Your headlines were always a source of wonder. To your team Seonah Choi, Jenah Powell, Laura Malcom and James Ramsey – mucho gratsis.

Stacey – Thanks for your commitment to the scene, massive effort, putting up with our screw ups, and big ups to Tom Baragwanath for being consistently solid.

To the subbies Charlotte Whitelaw, Alix Walles, Jennifer Hutchinson, Peter Wolodzo, Alby, Tim and Laura, Emma Kuperus and Nic Dowell – Thanks for remaining motivated after being drip-feed book vouchers.

Dave Crampton’s wild and eccentric ideas were always a wonder to behold on Monday morning when he would storm into the office, down a coffee and bombard us with his personality. Your attitude, insight and advice was highly valued. Thanks for remaining friends after I gave your articles misleading headlines.

I loved the way Stephen Hay would allow working party ideas to creep into the films section. The topical film of the week was a great idea.

Martin Doyle and Michael Botur’s ability to conceptualise feature content and turn them into illustrations on a weekly basis transformed the pages of Salient into raw visual creations. Thanks to Emma Cullen, Arlo Edwards and Brent Willis for your contributions too.

Legal – Cheers to Steven Price and Graeme Edgler. Graeme’s incredible knowledge of the constitution and legal advice was second to none, and free.

Thanks to Tim McKenzie, David Newton, Sean Paurini, Tracey Dent, and the Nicoll whanau – Janina, Louise and Richard- for the emotional support. The coffees, kind words and dinners gave me strength. Cheers to the distributors Stubbs, Sophie and Jamie Palmer.

Mary Jane- it was a pleasure to work on the Te Reo issue with you.

Jon McQueen – Thanks for your reliability, exceptional ability at your job, and iPod playlists.

Finally, thanks heaps to Michael Langdon, an exceptional volunteer subbie who served his time deep in the trenches of Salient, when the pizza had run dry and morning sparrows started to sing. At 3am, with just Langdon, Tony and Nick around, we bonded like brothers.

-Steve

At today’s meeting the council plans to pass a motion that the university will increase by the maximum amount possible every year until fees are brought into line with other universities.

Since 2004, Victoria University has applied for exemptions of the Annual Fee Movement Limit (AFML), with requests for a ten per cent increase. The AFML limit was set to ensure affordability of study and certainty of fees while allowing Victoria some flexibility in fee setting to maintain their income in real terms. Increases of less than five per cent have become the exception rather than the rule, and so in August Labour reversed rules that made institutions decrease fees when course costs were higher than the allowed fee maxima. This means that institutions with high fees can shrug their shoulders at the government, stick it to students, and do what they like. Victoria wants to use the AFML of five per cent as the minimum percentage increase for your fees every year starting 2008. Under the rules of the Tertiary Education Commission (TEC), universities have to meet “more than one” of the following three principles to be eligible for an exemption;

a) That the cost of providing the course was not being met by income from the course;

b) The facility was unable to cross-subsidise courses from its total surplus and be financially viable, and;

c) Not increasing fees would compromise education priorities or severely restrict students’ access to study.

In other words, they have to be in such financial shit that they have to be bailed out. Which is why the last bid to qualify for these exemptions was rejected by the TEC. The comments made by the TEC at the time concerning Victoria’s attempts to avoid the fee maxima are similar to those made last year when they commented along the lines that “This is an example of exactly the type of application that will never be approved.” This reveals the desperation of Victoria University to use students as a cash crop.

Why doesn’t the university look towards expanding its nearly $5.5 million investments, as a preferred option to using students as a revenue gathering exercise? And why does Victoria insist that fees have to increase more than the rate of inflation? The University of Canterbury Students’ Association successfully used this argument in August to negotiate a lower increase.

Quoting the Bank of New Zealand’s consumer price index forecast for 2008 (3.3%), the proposed amendment won enough votes (9-8) at a council meeting to prevent the original proposed increase of 4.5% from going through.

This year the response from VUWSA and the Education Action Group (EAG) was Box City and debt day demonstrations. The next attempt naturally occurs when they attend the council meeting today.

The university is taking no chances over this protest. A leaked document I received last week outlines its policy and restrictions. These include limiting the number of students admitted to the council chamber to 50. The intention of these measures is undoubtedly to limit disruption as much as possible, but according to one source at VUWSA they will not prevent direct action being taken.

While making the council aware that students are unhappy with the current increase in fees, the arrows for change are probably best directed at the government. After all, they provide the meager 2.1 per cent government funding increase each year, which is below the rate of inflation.

If recent moves of the National Party last Tuesday are anything to go by, then we should be more alarmed. At the Auckland University of Technology, John Key announced that his party plans to scrap the fee maxima policy and the AFML effectively, promoting fee hikes and increasing student debt like in the ‘90s when fees rose by over 180%.

Considering National’s favourable results in recent polls, then we could all be facing a dire financial situation. Perhaps Green Party Education Spokesperson Metiria Turei is right when she says that while the current fee maxima situation is far from ideal, removing all barriers to wholesale fee raises would be disastrous.

Salient doesn’t apologise. Whatever your views on the A-Team, it cannot be denied that they were news. When someone credibly alleges that members of the A-Team are racist, it’s news. When the leaders of some of the largest rep groups on campus band together to raise their concerns over A-Team policies, it’s news.

Much of the election was the A-Team acting, or their opponents and opposition reacting to them. No one should be surprised to see that our news coverage focused on them – they were the VUWSA election. And this sort of news about them is something you’re entitled to know when you cast your vote.

The concerns reached fever pitch Sunday the week before, when the A-Team’s campaign manager Jordan Williams threatened me with defamation action if material allegedly defaming members of the A-Team was included in last week’s Salient. In addition, the leader of the A-Team, Lukas Schroeter, explored the possibility of the publications committee prohibiting Salient from being released.

The action was obviously not pursued, and on Monday morning Salient was delivered to you as usual (see page 10 for our reporting of these events). The arguments of the A-Team and the returning officer were that the VUWSA election rules prohibit any person from printing, distributing or delivering anything to influence voters during the election. Salient has always brought Vic students news during election week – we like to think we’re an important source of information for our readers on all things VUWSA. The argument that Salient falls within constitutional limitations on the “conduct of electors and applicants” is new to us, and has chilling implications for your right to know and our obligation to keep you informed.

Salient’s view has always been that this section – important to ensure that candidates don’t exercise undue influence while voting is ongoing – doesn’t prohibit us keeping you up-to-date with news developments, and that the exception in the rules for other things authorised by the Constitution encompasses just about everything we do. The Salient Charter, also incorporated in the Constitution, begins with the following:

1. The Editor shall determine the form and content of Salient with complete freedom from political interference.

2. The Association has the right to expect reasonable coverage of the year’s priority goals. The Editor retains control of the form that this coverage takes.

Salient is – and should be – free to publish literally anything at all, whether during election voting time or otherwise. We hope you, your elected representatives, and those (like the A-Team) who purport to advance the cause of freedom wouldn’t have it any other way.

Our coverage was also mentioned on David Farrar’s kiwiblog. Here Farrar accused Salient of being grossly unfair by carrying an avalanche of negative stories during the period where candidates are banned from being able to publicly respond. While it’s true that the candidates were banned from distributing public statements (Schedule 2, clause 54 of the constitution) we actually allowed all candidates who had negative allegations against them to respond at the time of reporting.

Balance is extremely important in the publication of news articles – particularly so close to an election. Salient’s obligation to keep you informed was tempered by our desire to be fair to all those involved. For every allegation or criticism against a candidate, we sought and printed their response. You heard both sides of the story and should have had the information to help you cast an informed vote.

The events we covered were important to the VUWSA elections, and had we failed to cover them – even if they cast candidates in a negative light – for sake of perceived interpretation of the constitution, we would not have served the public interest. Farrar also makes reference to an opinion piece by Council representative candidate Chris Bishop, which Salient did not publish. This was because the article brought to light that Bishop was involved with the A-Team (in his own words: “having minor involvement in their campaign”) and in my judgment was a partial account, commending the A-Team with sentences like: “It’s the additional things they’ve done that are so impressive,” and “If these guys can organise VUWSA as well as they’ve organised their campaign, then we’re in safe hands,” and “When was the last time you saw candidates publish an alternative budget for the forthcoming year?”). The tone of writing is persuasive, not informative like our news coverage that week – and, as a candidate, Bishop probably would have contravened clause 54(b) himself.

The comments by Farrar are all the more understandable in light of his personal politics, himself a supporter of voluntary student membership and a member of the National party. In a posting made on September 19, Farrar bats for the A-Team – talking up some of their policies, concluding that they are “what may save VUWSA”. Farrar here justifies one of the A-Team’s “most significant” policies – electronic referenda, so that all students on campus can participate in VUWSA decision making – on the basis that it will increase student participation. Farrar overlooks policies by other candidates which also increase participation such us those by Cosgrove, to provide more support to class representation.

Other policies which are beneficial to students, such as free Internet services, clubs support, and universal allowance advocacy (as espoused by Hayward and Cosgrove) are also overlooked. Is that “fair and balanced”?

Steve

In our career driven society, it increasingly feels like Mailer is right. That we are “jailed in the prison air of other people’s habits, other people’s defeats, boredom, quiet desperation, and muted icy self-destroying rage.” In other words I get the sense that psychologically our only valid meaning is increasingly derived from our jobs; like cogs in a machine where individuality is akin to personalised number plates. The rest of our time we spend addicted to television (just under two hours a day according to Statistics New Zealand) processing and memorising how to “fit in”. This malaise is undoubtedly a result of our daily routine; 9 to 5 jobs, high accomodation costs, and the domination of new media. In the words of another writer, this time from New Zealand:

“Those peaceful New Zealand towns, centred upon a post office, a grocer’s store, a petrol station and a war memorial, are strange places to sleep in, if you stretch out on a bench in your oilskin, before the dawn shows itself above the scrub hills like a terrible unhealed wound. Nowhere have I felt more strongly the atmosphere of the graveyard… The young ones feel it too, though they do not know its origin… Perhaps their demonstrations and protests are an effort to regain communal sanity, to take on their backs the guilt of history which the elders have tried to bury beyond the reach of the spade.”

If James K Baxter is right then our zeitgeist is banality. In 2007, New Zealand has become an anti-adventure. In today’s society many of the most popular and mainstream ideas paradoxically don’t fit what many of us are whispering.

Take drugs, for example. While nearly 13 per cent of National Drug Survey respondents in 1998 stated that they had tried hallucinogens at some time there is little mainstream coverage of this topic. In a similar vein many of the popular and widespread ideas about sexual behaviour were completely irrelevant to what was really going on before Kinsey released the watershed Sexual Behaviour in the Human Male in 1948. After extensive interviews Kinsey showed that many sexual practices that were considered social deviancies were in fact quite popular. In a similar vein, I’d argue that much of what is going on in the clubs, flats and streets of Wellington is out of step with the status quo presented by the mainstream press.

In this issue, on page 16, I’d like you to journey beyond the bell curve to our article on drugs. I’ve made no attempt to detract from the authenticity of the writer, himself a seasoned drug user, who has been to rehab for substance abuse. Maybe I’ll get into trouble with the mainstream press.

Perhaps this issue will serve to demonstrate that there is no longer a freedom of the press that really means very much. Perhaps we will come to understand why so many are leaving these shores for the idea of a world beyond the smothering of the matronly ‘Godzone’ – and why they will probably not find that freer world.

If George Harrison is correct then The Beatles saved the world from boredom. Maybe we need a new Beatles.

Next year the exec will liaise with Victoria University and the Union to determine how best to spend the proposed total cost of $60 million for redeveloping the Quad area. The exec through the VUWSA trust will contribute over $10 million towards the project. In this regard, the ability to work as a unified team and to integrate with the university bureaucracy will be essential.

Successful development of the hub project therefore favours candidates with institutional knowledge of Victoria’s culture. When I asked the University Council candidate from the A-Team, Jordan Williams, what he thought of the Campus Hub project, he didn’t know what it was. I am concerned that this naivety is not isolated, with the A-Team unaware of some of the implications of their policies. These include possible staff redundancies, a result of the notion of removing all affiliation and funding for clubs. This will undoubtedly also lead to payouts, which may end up being considerable due to redundancy payout requirements in the collective agreement.

Perhaps more of a concern to me is the ideological underbelly of the A-Team. There is no doubt in my mind that they are silent proponents of Voluntary Student Membership, with close ties to the far right. If you consider what happened at Waikato University after they changed from compulsory membership to voluntary, then our association may find themselves in a situation where they can’t perform even basic functions.

That’s exactly what happened at Waikato University in 1999, three years after they become voluntary. With only 124 members, Waikato Students’ Union had been reduced to nothing more than a small club. Compulsory membership resumed in 2000 after 80 per cent of students voted ‘yes’ to a referendum asking whether membership should become compulsory again.

The A-Team also extinguish my romantic and perhaps also naïve vision for student politics- that as a watchdog over the powerful and often unchallenged forces in our lives. Next year’s students will still be living in a country where we have some of the most extreme flatting costs in the world, where we have enormous student debts and where our government hardly seems to care. Do we want to be represented by people who challenge this or who are complicit in the increasing dictation of market forces? After all, the A-Team state on their website that “the A-Team is committed to an a-political VUWSA.”

There are further concerns with this non-stance. How, for instance, will the executive be able to have a relationship with NZUSA, the overtly national lobby for students’ associations? Just a few days ago the A-Team stated that they are going to review their membership with NZUSA, indicating a possible relationship. This is a marked departure from their statement last week that they would immediately quit ties with NZUSA. Further, the exec will be called to consult with Victoria University as student representatives for the implementation of the TEC initiative, which begins next year. And do we really want a student body which says nothing in an election year?

Non-representation extends to students on an individual level too, with significant changes to the advocacy role of paid VUWSA staff members.

These are of course just my opinions and hopefully this issue allows you to judge the issues surrounding this election for yourself. Our cover story compares the policies of the three presidential candidates nominated and the foldout centerfold on page 32 contains information about each candidate the way they want to describe themselves. The pullout section contains important information about voting times and booth locations. Also check out SalientTV for campaign profiles and election highlights as they come to hand. Happy voting,

Steve

Are you open minded, creative and verbose? Do you have an eye for detail, a feel for students’ interests and low overheads? Would you like a real, tangible, paper and ink proof of a year’s hard slog?

Apply to edit Salient 2008!

This is a full time, salaried position beginning in February 2008. A complete job description is available from Julie McKiernan, VUWSA Office Coordinator. To obtain one, email Julie.McKiernan@vuwsa.org.nz or pick one up from the VUWSA office, ground floor, Student Union Building.

Applications will include a cover letter outlining your vision for Salient 2008 and a CV with at least two referees’ contact details.

Applications close at 12pm Thurs September 27, and should be sent to:

Julie McKiernan
VUWSA
PO BOX 600
Wellington
or Julie.McKiernan@vuwsa.org.nz

Alternatively they can be dropped off on the ground floor of the Union building at the VUWSA Offices.

The job includes:

Overall editorial responsibility for Salient 2008 and the VUWSA Handbook Diary and Wall Planner 2009
Coordinating material from rep groups on campus
Planning issues on a week-by-week basis
Management of paid and unpaid staff
Oversight of news and feature writers
Management of the budget

The successful applicant will:
Have mainstream or student journalism experience
Have excellent communication skills
Have excellent financial planning and organisational skills
Have excellent attention to detail
Preferably have experience with Mac desktop publishing
Have ample leadership skills, and preferably some management experience

Universities, in my mind, seem increasingly like Bloom’s description of places where “the point is not to correct the mistakes and really be right (but) rather not to think you are right at all.” Perigo as deliberate charlatan, flipping inflammatory ideas and prejudices between bouts, understands this. And the reactions from many of you may be symptomatic of the drifting role that universities have ended up adopting. Nowadays, the only crime in the modern student’s mind is that of intolerance to other people’s belief systems, no matter how whacky these may be. Socrates, as quoted by Plato, famously claimed that “the unexamined life is not worth living.” Where would the university be without Plato and Socrates? Has it in fact, as Bloom states, become merely “a centre for the training of highly qualified specialists” – a multiversity? In today’s academic environment, the university has no obligation to point students toward quiet contemplation of the permanent questions, such as those concerning the route to follow in order to live a good life, or those about the nature of justice. “Technical education assumes that these problems are solved, generally, by an acceptance of the status quo. This is not a particularly disturbing situation for the great majority of young people who are content to make careers and do not feel called upon to reflect generally about themselves or the whole of society. But for that most interesting few who can become leaders, pathfinders and revolutionaries, this is a great source of dissatisfaction. The various specialities do not add up to a general overview, and the best students must turn elsewhere to truly educate themselves and satisfy their cravings.” Bloom argues that the university has been transformed into the ‘multiversity’, and that something vital has died at the heart of liberal democracy. Meanwhile, the bureaucratic powers that lie at the soul of Victoria, along with most universities in New Zealand, operate in a cultural environment where relativism has replaced open enquiry – even open enquiry on “scandalous” ideas such as islamo-fascism.

Some of the criticism generated by Perigo reflects this by being more concerned about whether he has the right to criticise other people’s belief systems rather than whether his ideas are correct in themselves. This demonstrates another prominent multiversity cliché: that you create your own reality, and your opinion needs no external validation. This extreme postmodernism, with its focus on the “I”, only leads to narcissism: “It’s true, because I said so.” Obviously, the whole university enterprise collapses if it is not possible to say that someone knows more than someone else, i.e. that knowledge actually exists.

Some of you reading this may be thinking that I am siding with Perigo, but publishing is different to being in agreement. The purpose of this editorial is to explain why Perigo has been selected to sit on page 28 each week. Opinion columns are meant to create debate and, by that process, inform. Perhaps someone made of university anti-matter was required to bring more debate to Salient than it has had for the entire year. As a publication with little commercial obligations, I believe Salient has a responsibility to open debate wider than mainstream media. There are, of course, limits. But consider the words of Chomsky: “Goebbels was in favour of free speech for views he liked. So was Stalin. If you’re really in favour of free speech, then you’re in favour of freedom of speech precisely for views you despise. Otherwise, you’re not in favour of free speech.”

The value of debate concerning Perigo has lead to a new column being introduced in this and subsequent issues. Counterpoint aims to provide balance to the state of current debates. The process in which to do this is explained on page 29.

Even more important than freedom of speech is the situation facing Ali Panah (pg 16), an overstayer to whom this issue is dedicated. By the time you read this he will have been on a hunger strike for 53 days, a reaction to our government’s decision to expel him back to Iran where he faces certain death for his conversion to Christianity. If this issue does anything, I hope that it alerts you to ring Immigration Minister David Cuncliffe and tell him to care about Ali. His number is 04 470 6667 and his email is dcuncliffe@ministers.govt.nz. You could save Ali Panah.

Steve

We wrote an article on benefits and entitlements that students, beneficiaries and people on a low income can access through Work and Income and StudyLink. My headline was chosen for it’s saliency and didn’t portray the article correctly – in any case WINZ is the former name for Work and Income. It was later called the Department of Work and Income, and now simply Work and Income.

There was no intention to mislead regarding what assistance low income people can get through Work and Income, but there was an intention to advise what entitlements and assistance they can get – and as most of that is online at the website of the Ministry of Social Development, it’s nothing new.

The only thing that could be seen to be misleading was the insinuation that some could get some free clothes solely for a job interview. Job interviews should lead to a job. While that was not clear in the opening part of the paragraph, when the writer wrote, “get $125 worth of clothes and get the rest either before the next interview or when you start work”, the intention was of securing a second interview for a job or starting work.

Wellington Regional Manager Mike Byant has said that while a lot of the information in our article is right, it was taken out of context.

He’s right. For example, if you want your power bill paid because you think you have an immediate and essential need, you actually need a disconnection notice, something we didn’t disclose. Yet you won’t find that bit of information on any policy or legislation.

In addition to our article a fortnight ago, we thought we’d briefly advise of other entitlements you can get through Work and Income. You can get up to $1000 for glasses, hearing aids, or contact lenses. If you have a fire or burglary, are uninsured, and have a low income and bank balance, you could get up to $1000 for essential items such as fridges and washing machines. If you need to attend a funeral, you can apply for expenses of up to $200 and even koha costs – and if you are stranded, provided you meet the criteria you could walk into your nearest Work and Income office and apply for travel costs of up to $200 to get home. If you have a birthmark you want to remove, and a registered medical practitioner certifies that it is disfiguring, you may be able to get a $300 grant towards laser therapy removal. If you need to have a telephone installed, you may be advanced $200, but you’ll have to pay connection fees. Many were surprised as to what they could apply for through Work and Income and StudyLink. We got many letters. Here’s a letter from Hana, who’s on the Domestic Purposes Benefit.

I am a young single parent on the DPB, but I also study full time and will end up in a government job. In the four years that I have been on the DPB I have not known about dental care, medical care or eye care grants, all of which have been needed at one time or another, yes I am guilty of not asking, but I have never heard these mentioned, and yet now I know they are there. I have struggled to pay bills, but have not known that there are grants available to help me. I have paid bills and then lived on bread and noodles for the week because I haven’t known about food grants.

Well done in getting this article out there, no one on a benefit really enjoys being there and for many you will have made life just a little easier. It is people like Hana whom we had in mind with this piece.

Work and Income and StudyLink need to advise people of their entitlements and, if Hana’s situation is not an isolated incident, it is not doing so. It is not easy living on a student allowance, low income or benefit, less so if you don’t know what additional assistance you can be eligible for. Salient is doing some people a service in advising low income people of their entitlements.

While I’ve commented on housing prices in an earlier article, at an average weekly cost of $112 in Wellington, they remain the highest they’ve ever been. The third Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey listed New Zealand as the second highest in the world for housing unaffordability after Australia. It’s a nationwide trend, with Massey University figures showing the current average weekly rental across the country at $280 in February this year, compared with $265 a year ago. This trend looks set to stay, and is largely a consequence of having some of the highest housing costs in the world.

So why is this important (and what does this have to do with sexuality)? To explain that, some context needs to be provided: in the past 10 years the baby boomer generation has been snapping up low to middle priced houses, creating high demand for such properties. While the benefits for the boomers are obvious, it’s made it more expensive to purchase new houses, and increasing aggregate demand for housing has driven up rental costs for students.

Public debate on the matter has been steadily rising to include front page coverage declaring that little is being done. This snowballing effect has led to warnings from those holding the strings of our monetary policy, with Reserve Bank Governor Allan Bollard addressing the crisis with a call for a capital gains tax on investment properties to correct the market.

While that may be good news for students, Labour’s response to Dr Bollard’s sentiments seems impervious. This lack of response will further exacerbate the numbing effects of debt, which, when combined with the student loan system, has led to the new certainty of debt for all. While never before have so many of us faced a financial slavery arguably worse than the loan system, housing prices have until recently been of minor focus to the student activist movement. Personally, I think that’s a shame. If you compare how much high flatting costs impact on students compared to the loan burden, I’d argue that flatting costs deserve equal attention, and are just as important. Renting costs continue long after study, and over time add up to be a significant burden of debt.

It is with gratitude then that this Wednesday our student association is highlighting this issue. This protest however doesn’t involve placards or banjos; just cardboard. In an illustrative example, students will be creating a type of cardboard utopia, called Box City.

Symbolically representing the plight of modern day students with the stated aims of increasing awareness about student hardship, showing concern about rising accommodation costs, and to advocate for universal student allowances, I would like to believe that Box City is the beginning of an attempt to show our government that renting costs are becoming intolerable. There is a lighter side to all this – while raising awareness of flatting affordability, Box City offers the chance to have a sleepover with random strangers. This leads me to the current themed issue of Salient – sexuality. Contributors to this week’s issue include members of UniQ. It’s a celebration of human sexuality along all divisions of the Kinsey scale. Enjoy.

Steve

Box City, The Quad, Wed 12pm, BYO box.

Karam liked the idea of Bain as social commentator and, after emails clarifying what questions would be asked, a date was set for the interview. However, the interview would never eventuate after Bain accepted a stocktaking job that week. Several unanswered phone calls to Karam led to the inevitable: the story would be canned. Karam said that they were too busy with retrial preparations, and that now he thought the original idea would be uninteresting as the changes in society had still affected Bain behind bars with the influence of the media and technology. I wondered if Karam had changed his mind for more profit driven reasons, after he acknowledged that he had recently received offers to produce books about Bain. That seems likely, considering Karam’s comment to me: “Why should we give you that information when, after Bain is acquitted, we could charge for interviews?” Regardless of the reasons, Joe himself consented to an interview. On the same day, an article in The Press appeared, describing Karam’s re-release of his book on the Bain killings (David and Goliath: the Bain family murders) – despite the Solicitor-General’s warning that any public discussion could prejudice David Bain’s retrial.

Salient: What are your core beliefs and how have they influenced your decision to be an advocate for Bain?

Joe: I have always had an abhorrence for bullies, which I think mixes in with a great belief in fairness. Life, I suppose, often isn’t fair. There is unfairness which is unjustified, as opposed to those things that just go wrong for us all from time to time. I can illustrate with a little story. I remember a particular bully at school who was in a group of hard nuts. He was giving an unfortunate kid a hard time, and it wasn’t affecting me in any way, but I stood up for this kid and eventually I got picked on. So I got this guy and gave him a hell of a good hiding. It’s the only fight I’ve ever had in my life and the authorities at the school said it was the best thing that could have been done to him. So that goes back to when I was a young guy. Maybe that stems from my family upbringing and the fact that I had five sisters. I was the only brother and the oldest one in the family, so it was just a sense of responsibility that people should have a fair go. And I suppose at the core of what I’ve done for David, leaving everything else aside, is that what’s now been proven is that David did not get a fair go. That’s been the driving force. And again, David was in most unfortunate circumstances – it was [through] no fault of his own that he got treated like he did. That’s really been the driving force behind what I’ve done.

Salient: How do you think others would describe you?

Joe: The perception from people close to me is quite different from that of those in the media. I’m a reasonably hard taskmaster. I have high expectations that people will deliver on their word. But, at the same time, I think I’m a very generous person for people in need. I think those would be two overriding things.

Salient: How is Bain feeling at the moment?

Joe: He’s feeling very good, he’s really ready to move on in life. He has ambitions, obviously. He’d like to make a career for himself. He’d like to meet a lady one day and have a family of his own. So leaving aside the fact that he can’t really pursue either of those endeavours until his trial is over, he’s in great heart.

Salient: In terms of the way the media have portrayed Bain – I mean, one of the headlines at the time of his conviction was “Paperboy delivers death to father”, then he was almost ignored for a number of years, and now there’s been a resurgence in interest – how do you view that?

Joe: I think it’s entirely understandable. I think one of the peculiar and exceptional circumstances of this case, which is that by any standards, the slaying of an entire family, bar one, is an extremely gruesome and disturbing thing to happen. In a place like Dunedin, which is quite conservative and moralistic (except for the Scarfies), that was an intense shock. So within a couple of weeks of the event, the house was burnt down – in what many people have described as a kind of exorcism of evil. David was only ever photographed once, really, and that was on the day of his arrest. He didn’t realise that he was even being arrested and, after four days, was still suffering the trauma of discovering his dead family. That one brief clip of David in the striped jersey looking extremely forlorn, frail, distraught and possibly withdrawn has been the way that he’s been depicted for all these years. I think it’s entirely natural that the media have been enchanted by the fellow they’ve met 12 years later. I’m not surprised by that – in fact, I’ve personally said for years that the single greatest reward would be the day that David did get out, so that New Zealanders could see what he’s really like. I think it’s entirely understandable that there has been a focus on the person that we now know.

Salient: Was there any kind of consideration for Bain’s image when he got released?

Joe: Absolutely – you see he’s had no clothes except prison clothes for 13 years, and I certainly wasn’t going to have him go to court in a striped jersey! I mean, he never went to the hair dressers or had anything done of that nature. But you know, I went and purchased a nice suit and shirt for him. I wanted him to look smart and to feel proud, and I think he did.

Salient: How does Bain feel about the cliché about his jerseys?

Joe: Oh, he thinks it’s a great joke! He laughs, no, he really does. His mother was a very good knitter, like many mothers are. She used a whole lot of leftover wool from various things she had done and she knitted him a striped jersey to keep him warm in Dunedin, which I’m sure he’s very grateful for. David actually thinks it’s quite a hoot, really. I mean, he probably doesn’t realise just how much it’s impacted on the psychology of the nation. I mean, for example, when he got out, one of the radio stations in Christchurch presented him with a red and black Canterbury striped jersey. He thought that was very amusing and played along and enjoyed the fun of it.

Salient: Have you had many offers for autobiographies of Bain?

Joe: There’ve been quite a lot of discussions going on at the present. They were moving forward really quickly until the retrial was ordered, and now everyone’s sitting back taking stock of the situation to see what pans out, really. The general feeling was that there wouldn’t be a retrial, and I think the general feeling in New Zealand is that there shouldn’t be one – but at this stage, there’s going to be one. The movie, book, documentary type people…again, I’ve got probably 20 letters at home and I’ve just replied to them all and said, “Look, we’re just too busy at the moment – we’ve got a trial to get through!”

Salient: How has your perception of natural justice changed from this whole process?

Joe: I don’t think my perception of natural justice has changed at all. My perception of the justice system has changed dramatically, but I think those are two different. Justice is about the law and not about justice. The justice system administers the law, as opposed to necessarily pronouncing justice. Another one that people often talk about – the only winners in court are the lawyers. And so it goes on.

Salient: Should the public still have faith in the system?

Joe: No, I don’t think so, actually. I think it’s in need of dramatic overhaul, and I’ve written about that, particularly in the second book I wrote, called Bain and Beyond. My thoughts and beliefs have actually advanced, even since then.

Salient: How have the trials changed how you relate to people?

Joe: I think it’s affected the way people relate to me, more than the way I relate to people, I think.

Salient: In what way?

Joe: Sad to say, the justice system is the same for everybody, but the people who can afford justice tend to get a much better result. What I think has happened is that the people of the upper socioeconomic cluster don’t appreciate the pitfalls in the system, and view me as some sort of renegade who is having an unwarranted slash at the establishment. Whereas the general public applaud me for standing up for what they know happens to them and their ilk when they get caught up in this thing. It’s a strange thing in a way. I don’t want to sound self-congratulatory but, I mean, there’s an overwhelming warmth towards me from the vast majority of ordinary people. And, unfortunately, an almost equivalent rejection of me by the people who could actually make a difference.

Salient: What made you want to do this? You’ve given up so much of your life for one person. It’s a rare thing. It’s a remarkable thing.

Joe: What I’ve really been driven by is an absolute certainty that David Bain was railroaded – that he never got a fair go. That’s what’s kept me going really, that there’s been a police inquiry, a police complaints inquiry, a Ministry of Justice enquiry, there’s been two Court of Appeal hearings and three Privy Council hearings. It’s taken till the last one of those to get the truth on the table. I haven’t been prepared to allow what I would loosely describe as a cover up of the previous ones, and that’s really been the driving force of it. Get the facts on the table and this man cannot possibly be convicted. I’ve said that hundreds of times. I said it 12 years ago.

Salient: How would you react if Bain was found guilty?

Joe: Well, I would be astonished, because I think it’s impossible. I have no doubt whatsoever that that won’t happen, so I’ve never really considered it.

Salient: You’ve never considered it at all?

Joe: Not a possibility, no.

Salient: How do you get away from the case? Do you watch a DVD in the evening or drink a glass of merlot?

Joe: Yeah, I enjoy cooking, at an amateur level. I enjoy my wine; I like to cook sort of like Jamie Oliver. I love getting in there and chopping things and making things up that aren’t in recipe books, and having a glass of wine while I’m doing it. I enjoy a lot of the international sport we’re able to get now on television.

Salient: Of course, the rugby (Joe is a former All Black).

Joe: And some of the rugby, too. Though rugby itself, no, I don’t like the game – to be honest, the rules have destroyed it. I’m tired of seeing teams being congratulated for having gone through 40 phases in seven yards. And I find it terribly boring – at least with league, every six tackles the other team gets a crack. I play golf and tennis. I’ve got a little kind of garden at home, I think it’s a very good sort of thing to keep you grounded and clear the cobwebs out of the brain.

Salient: Assuming Bain gets acquitted, five years on, what will you be doing?

Joe: I’ve actually been harbouring a belief that I might be able to make a living out of writing, and contribute to other people’s enjoyment by having them read my books. And I’ve got some ideas, but the case has been such that I’ve never really had time to sit down and sort of let the pen flow, if you like.

Salient: Would you consider writing for Salient? Because we’d take a feature from you.

Joe: Oh good, yeah, let’s do that, yeah! I’ve got some quite good ideas for some light-hearted sort of stuff. But I also now have got a very good understanding, I could almost do a script for a CSI programme, you know – I’ve been in DNA laboratories and a part of the criminal investigation world, and so I’ve got ideas of becoming a modern day John Grisham, or whatever.

Salient: Great, I look forward to reading your novels.

Joe: Well, it’d be nice if I can achieve it. One has to have dreams.