This evening 50 “emerging leaders” of the coming generation will assemble to muse on this nation’s shape in 2020. Tomorrow afternoon they will join 400 local and foreign notables in the second Knowledge Wave talkfest.
Their designation as “leaders” suggests qualities which destine them to lead us to that 2020 nation. Indeed, nation-building is the theme of the conference, which itself is called a “leadership forum”. A formidable amount of international and local brainpower will be on display.
Imagine you are 24 and Labour. What do you most want of your party and government? Not lower student fees; you are past that. Not revolution or radicalism; that’s for the failed Alliance. A creed, a “project”.
Now imagine you are a 50-something cabinet minister. You will listen respectfully to Helen Clark’s dull annual Prime Minister’s statement to Parliament today, pleased she has settled the country down, is making your sorts of changes at the margin and runs a popular and commanding government. But is that what fired you up in the 1970s?
The Treaty of Waitangi signifies for some the establishment of a nation of “one people”, under one set of laws. It signifies for others the entrenchment of anterior Maori indigenous rights.
Bill English has put National unequivocally in the first camp. That was the purpose of his forthright — and to Maori offensive — speech two weeks ago. It will destroy the fragile Maori renaissance in his party but will please his core conservative vote.
Stop thinking about Maori in the economy, which can be depressing. Start thinking about the Maori economy, which has been doing well and has lots of potential.
That is the essential message in a report by the Institute of Economic Research (NZIER) released today, [Tuesday 4 February] which radically rethinks the stereotypes.
This month poses to the government two challenges it must meet to make a memorable second term. On February 6 the Treaty of Waitangi is commemorated. On February 19 Helen Clark will open a followup conference to the mid-2001 Knowledge Wave talkfest.
Indigenous rights and a richer society: for 15 years these have been gnawing questions. Unless Clark and Co can make real progress on both, the equitable society, which is the point of classical social democracy, will elude them.
The main street “pavement” in the old English town of Chester is a venerable, spacious gallery, one storey up. (At least, it was in the 1970s.)
The logic is strong: separate walkers from drivers. But it is unusual.
Wellington’s Cuba Street, a shoppers’ and clubbers’ street, is cut twice by heavy, stinking through traffic going east on Ghuznee Street and west on Vivian Street. Transit once suggested sinking the two cross-streets but the local politics were too difficult so there ensued a long argument. The alternative, a ground-level bypass farther south through properties and walkers, is still two years away.
On Thursday 100,000 are expected to gather in Porto Alegre, Brazil, to plot to save us from global capitalism. Next week the United Nations weapons inspectors report on Iraq, with war in the offing. Global events won’t leave us in peace.
Globalisation of business is the dragon to be slain at the third World Social Forum in Porto Alegre. Globalisation of people is the weapon they will use, reaching through national states’ borders to unite people who share their fears and ambitions.
One test this lucky government has not had to face is lengthy economic slowdown, still less a recession. Might this be the year of that test?
Economists tell us this year will be slower than last but still right up with the 1990s average. Then, they say, growth will pick up again as the world lifts out of its current soft patch.
Care to ride into the “valley of death” with Pete Hodgson? The Minister for Research, Science and Technology wants more new science-based business ventures and that valley is in his way.
Hodgson has a raft of initiatives, including possibly more tax changes, on his agenda as research, science and technology (RS&T) policy increasingly emphasises getting more economic return.
Last year ended with much harrumphing about taniwha and wahi tapu. The National party, retreating into the depths of Southland, made fun and bogeys of these intrusions on progress.
That put culture at the centre of the power debate — which is where culture always is, as the government is finding out. Culture is its biggest issue by far for this year and for its second term.