Colin James to Australasian Study of Parliament Group seminar, Wellington
[Adapted from paper for ASPG conference, Brisbane, 17-18 July 2018.]
Wellington 12 September 2018
“Trust in Parliament in a post-truth world” was the title for Australasian Study of Parliament Group’s annual conference in Brisbane in July. It is a pertinent question at a time when populism has been rising in liberal democracies and may rise more…
ASPG NZ version 18Sep12
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What is this phenomenon Jacinda Ardern?
Talk to U3A Christchurch 8 May 2018
What is it about our Prime Minister that excites unusual reactions? And will this star fix in the heavens or be a shooting star back to earth?
What’s in an Age? Opportunity
Colin James to Age Concern conference, 16 April 2018
The word “concern” in your name is a concern for this conference. Many people read “concern” as a “worry”. If so, there is going to be a lot more worry because there are going to be many more people “of an age” and they will be a larger proportion of the population with a smaller proportion of people of “working age” to provide for them.
But I read your “concern” as an expression of “care” or “value” in the “wellbeing” of this expanding cohort of ageing people, generating “opportunity”, not just for those people but for the whole of society.
Where will Aotearoan/New Zealanders choose to fix our focus through the 2020s? Fixing a problem? Or realising opportunity? ……
Chris Hipkins’ plans for the public service and Parliament
This appeared in the February issue of Policy Quarterly, published by the Institute for Governance and Policy Studies this week. It is a very brief scan of what State Services Minister and Leader of the House Chris Hipkins proposes for what is now known as the state sector (but for which there is growing pressure to rethink it as a public service) and for Parliament.
The first post-baby-boomer election
Background notes for Victoria University post-election conference
Colin James, 6 December 2017
This was the election the “losers won”, the National party and its devotees, apologists and puppets grumped when Winston Peters and his New Zealand First party decided to coalesce with Labour. National got 44.4% of the vote to Labour’s 36.9%.
The Mark Twain syndrome – why cities might rule (sometime)
The Mark Twain syndrome – why cities might rule (sometime)
Colin James to Masterton branch, New Zealand Institute of International Affairs
29 November 2017
Mark Twain quipped that a report of his death was an exaggeration. The same is often said of the sovereign nation-state. But Mark Twain did die, 13 years after the exaggerated report.
Death reduced Mark Twain to putrefaction and sustenance for creatures of the dark. His words live on, a disembodied testament to our human need and yearning for ways to knit belief that we have meaning and are distinct from and superior to all other living things in this temporary, 10-billion-year habitat whose sun will one day go out.
We invest similar belief and hope in our governing constructs. But, like Mark Twain, they are not immortal. Multiple empires and multiple lesser satrapies and realms have disintegrated and dematerialised through the past three of four millennia…..
Oh to be 24 again to see where all this goes
Talk to U3A, Queenstown 10 April 2017
This talk scanned the rapid and deep changes in the world in the 2010s, where they might lead and the implications for New Zealand. A book of this is scheduled to appear in August.