James Kierstead: Pay and dismay

Last week it was reported that Queensland public servants have been offered up to five days of paid leave to tend to their ‘social and emotional wellbeing’ in the wake of the results of the Voice referendum.

This is an obvious step in the right direction. After all, Australia’s public servants have been known to need at least a day off when the votes in The Voice (the TV talent show) didn’t go their way, so how much more difficult must the referendum result have been?

James Kierstead: Why we don't need languages

Victoria University of Wellington has defended its plans to stop teaching German, Italian, Latin and Greek and to cease research in Chinese, Japanese, Spanish, and French.

‘It’s not like anybody speaks these languages anymore,’ Ex Nihilo Vice Provost Brenda Boffin told us in an exclusive interview, ‘except for the 1.1 billion or so Chinese speakers, the 559 million Hispanophones, the 310 million speakers of French, the hundred and twenty million or so speakers of German and Japanese, and the almost 70 million Italian-speakers.’

James Kierstead: Why English is the Lingua Franca

Why does so much of the world speak English?

As someone who was born in Canada, educated in the UK and US, and has now been living in New Zealand for more than a decade, the question has always fascinated me. It’s also the question that the New Zealand historian James Belich sought to answer in his classic Replenishing the Earth: The Settler Revolution and the Rise of the Anglo World, which I’ve just finished reading.

James Kierstead: A parallel universe

A few months ago, I stepped into a parallel universe. I was following up a routine administrative task and soon found myself outside a building I’d never seen before, after 10 years working at Victoria University. When I went inside there was an enormous open office filled with administrators.

When I first arrived at Vic, we had an administrator in the Classics Programme. She knew the academics, she knew the students, and she knew what I was supposed to be doing. About five years later, we were told our administrator would be gone, replaced by a whole pool of administrators at the school level.

James Kierstead: NZ Universities and non-academic staff - How many is too many?

As a sometimes absent-minded academic, I’m often very grateful for non-academic staff.

Helping me set up my courses before the trimester begins. Fixing the latest IT snafu. Reminding me of an important meeting I should have been at 10 minutes ago.

There can, though, be too much of a good thing – even university administrators. This year it was revealed that Stanford, where I did my PhD, has more administrators than undergraduates. In fact, Stanford has so many administrators that you could give every undergraduate a personal butler and still have a couple thousand administrators left over.

Michael Johnston, James Kierstead, Dennis Wesselbaum: Policy point.....

.....Victoria and Otago universities employ more non-academic than academic staff

New Zealand’s universities are in crisis. AUT announced 170 academic redundancies last year. Massey is planning to cut a net 36 academic roles. Otago is looking to shed ‘several hundred’ positions, while Victoria University of Wellington plans to cut some 100 academic and 150 professional staff.

James Kierstead: Surveillance is freedom

Last year, Kiri Allan was forced to withdraw the government’s latest ‘hate speech’ proposals, only a year or so after Kris Faafoi was forced to shelve similar plans.

We have no doubt that you were as dismayed as we were by these developments (or lack of developments).

After all, how will we stop authoritarianism without regulating citizens’ speech?

Michael Johnston, James Kierstead: New Zealand's universities face an identity crisis

New Zealand’s universities are in crisis.

Their most immediate problem is financial. Victoria University of Wellington recently announced that it is looking to cut some 160 administrative and 100 academic staff (nearly 10% of total staff). The University of Otago plans to shed “several hundred” academic and administrative positions. Massey University is planning for a net reduction of 36 roles. All this follows AUT’s announcement, in September last year, of 170 academic redundancies.

Karl du Fresne: Three thoughts for today

■ If Michael Wood deliberately sat on his shareholding in Auckland Airport despite knowing it represented a flagrant conflict of interest, he was guilty of ministerial impropriety bordering on corruption.

If, on the other hand, he simply didn’t get around to selling his shares despite being constantly reminded that he should, presumably because he was preoccupied with other things, he was guilty of inexcusable procrastination, rank incompetence and shockingly bad judgment. This should automatically render him unfit for any ministerial portfolio.

So he is either dodgy, hopelessly disorganised, or perhaps both. Either way, the case for Wood’s dismissal is overwhelming. Chris Hipkins is playing for time because he’s running out of cabinet ministers, but Wood’s situation is hopeless. You can hear the Death March playing.

James Kierstead: University challenge

Last week Victoria University of Wellington announced that it was looking to cut some 230 to 260 jobs as part of its plan to tackle a $30 million deficit. The news followed an announcement by the University of Otago that it would shed ‘several hundred’ positions in an effort to fill a $60 million dollar hole in its budget.

As an academic at Victoria, I’m dismayed at the news. Colleagues who have worked long hours fostering students and expanding our knowledge are now in scope for ‘review.’ The university, and in many cases the country, will lose valuable knowledge and skills as highly qualified scientists and scholars are given notice.

James Kierstead: Back to the farm

Spread out over 8, 000 acres (hence ‘the Farm’), Stanford University’s campus is an impressive sight. Palms line the triumphant main drive. Sleek modern buildings ring a historic core of sandstone quads. Sprinklers soothe the manicured lawns.

I was lucky enough to spend six years at Stanford, and a couple of weeks ago I got the chance to go back for a conference. The campus seems as serene as ever.

But all has not been well on the Farm.

James Kierstead: Why Britain is in the Pacific

On March 31st, at a meeting of member-countries, it was agreed that the UK would join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP).

The CPTPP is one of the world’s largest free-trade blocs, accounting for 13% of global GDP, 15% of global trade, and 500 million people.

New Zealand is a founding member of the agreement as well as its depositary – the nation to whom an international treaty is entrusted. New Zealand is also the chair of the CPTPP this year, though its role in helping Britain to the table goes back further, to when New Zealand sent trade negotiators to the UK after the Brexit vote.

James Kierstead: On the spectrum

For all those who were hoping that the state would finally get tough on hate, the government’s dialling down of its ambitious hate speech reforms must have come as a crushing disappointment.

All is not lost, though. Justice Minister Kiri Allan recently issued a legislative statement for a new bill that would still limit Kiwis’ speech, if less comprehensively than the original proposals.

What’s more, Allan’s statement also spelled out some important principles that make clear (if it wasn’t clear already) how important it is that we clamp down on New Zealanders expressing themselves.

James Kierstead: This one takes the cake

Going public with a complaint against your employer is always difficult. But enough is enough. And what better place to do it than in the always-serious Insights 3 column?

Susan Jebb, the head of the UK’s Food Standards Agency, has spoken out against that gravest of office dangers: colleagues who bring cake in to share. ‘If nobody brought cakes into the office, I would not eat cakes in the day,’ Jebb said, ‘but because people do bring cakes in, I eat them.’

James Kierstead: Is the market economy making us less selfish?

If there’s one objection that proponents of the free market are familiar with, it’s that capitalism is anti-social. From Adam Smith to Gordon Gekko – so the objection goes – liberal and neo-liberal economists have been doing little else but reciting a mantra of ‘Greed is good.’

It was with this argument in mind that I found some recent research on markets and pro-sociality so intriguing. The research is reported in Joe Henrich’s excellent 2020 book The Weirdest People in the World. (The WEIRD people in the title are the inhabitants of Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich and Democratic societies, not free-market economists).

James Kierstead: Why I can't quite stop worrying and learn to love the Prime Minister's UN speech

Our Prime Minister is a real star on the world stage. Capable, articulate, and charismatic, it’s no surprise that her latest foreign trip has won her further plaudits.

So, why did I feel more worried than proud when I listened to her recent UN speech?