Mike Grimshaw: Getting MMP to work

While MMP was meant to provide more diversity of parties and peoples represented in parliament, the question is whether it has really succeeded in breaking the old two-party bloc faction as it promised to do?

Was the last time when MMP acted as it could when the John Key National Party invited the Māori party to effectively cross the floor and join the government?

But would any party consider doing so today…in either political direction?

Mike Grimshaw: It’s the (social adhesion) economy, Stupid!

One of the on-going issues of modern life, identified from the rise of industrial and urban society in the early 19th century, is the sense of insecurity, of a lack of cohesion within society. New Zealand prefers not to think with Karl Marx; but if we go to Marx for description, not prescription – that is, go to Marx to get an on-the-ground sense of what was happening with the rise of modernity (not to go to him for answers) – then we can recognize that much of what he declared in 1848 in the Communist Manifesto holds true today…even in New Zealand:

Mike Grimshaw: Is a new Centrist party possible?

Is a centrist party is possible in New Zealand politics? It’s a question that’s regularly raised because of an on-going (and often widespread) disaffection with the oppositional nature of our political system that seems to limit change.

But why doesn’t such a party arise and succeed? Can it arise Ex Nihilo: ‘out of nothing’? That is not as a breakaway from existing parties? Is the real issue the limitations of centrism itself, as – I’d suggest – a recent attempt to create such a party demonstrates.

Mike Grimshaw: Constrained and framed? The limitation of academic freedom by research funding and strategies

While most debate on academic freedom concerns the question of what can be stated, argued, proffered and responded to – and how, such a focus has enabled a more central and insidious attack and undermining of academic freedom to occur via explicit and implicit constraints upon research.

It’s almost a year since the radical reduction, cutting and refocussing of the Marsden Fund that occurred, to our institutional shame, without any sustained or high-level public push-back, critique or challenge from the Universities. Rather, it seemed the universities waited, desperate for any reallocated government funding and ready, willing and able to do whatever was expected, demanded or imposed so as to gather as many crumbs as they could.

Mike Grimshaw: Death to the BA… Let’s try a new Arts degree.

Let’s be clear: Something is not right in the world of the BA and hasn’t been for a number of years. It could be who is teaching into the BA and the way it has become, too often, a degree of demanded, very limited ‘right-on’ orthodoxy in thinking and expression. It could be the limitations of many students who decide to do the BA and then, because of fears of funding cuts if numbers drop, are allowed to progress, often with inflated grades, in a number of departments, rather than being told that, for a number of reasons, they should not be at university.

Mike Grimshaw: All stick and no carrot?

What is it that this government wants school leavers and young people to do? It is becoming clear what it does not want them to do, but it is far more uncertain and unclear as to what it is they wish the vast majority of young people to actually do if current options of study are withheld, withdrawn or made too expensive for many to contemplate undertaking?

Mike's Minute: Bring back the worth of a uni degree

Can I thank Mike Grimshaw for saying what he said?

Mike is at the University of Canterbury, a university by the way with a very good reputation, according to the vast swathes of late teens we currently deal with in our lives. There is great demand among students from all over the country

Anyway, Mike is an associate professor and wants university to return to elitism.

Mike Grimshaw: Books do furnish a mind…

For all the noise and debate about Free Speech that has arisen over the past decade there seems to be a lack of accompanying engagement with the concept of the necessity of a free mind; that is, of free thinking.

One of the things that concerns me with Free Speech – despite being a supporter – is that too often the Free Speech being sought or rather, perhaps demanded, is the Free Speech for the self and not necessarily for others. That is, Free Speech can too easily become a demand for MY RIGHT to ‘say something’ that by extension becomes a way to not only put forward a different viewpoint but in fact demand MY VIEWPOINT dominates, excludes or dismisses the right of the other viewpoint to exist in the public realm.

Mike Grimshaw: She’ll be right…? Is New Zealand stuck in the churn of complacency?

In 1944 poet and critic A.R.D. Fairburn felt moved to write a long essay critiquing and evaluating New Zealand society as it looked toward a possible post-war future. 80 years on it is hard not to read it and wonder how little we have really changed. Is New Zealand actually like the lightbulb in the old joke: how many social workers does it take to change a lightbulb? One – but the lightbulb has to want to change…

Mike Grimshaw: Buggered, knackered, no.8 – and she’ll be right…

The rise of populist politics and the crumbling of the identity and meaning of the traditional parties across the Western world have seen an increasing number of commentators declare that the old political divides of left and right are now increasingly meaningless. This is not surprising if we consider that the status quo is now some form of largely misunderstood neoliberalism of the centre that parties both center-left and center-right jockey to employ or moderate whenever they get into or near power.

Mike Grimshaw: Can’t read, can’t write, can’t comprehend – & won’t think…?

At a time when universities are understandably nervous regarding the establishment of the University Advisory Group (UAG) and the Science System Advisory Group (SSAG) it may seem strange – or even fool-hardy – to state that there are long-standing issues in the tertiary sector that need correction.

Mike Grimshaw: Societies have always been divided – it’s the degree of division that counts…

There’s been a lot of hand-wringing on both the left and the right of New Zealand politics, before, during and after the 2023 election regarding the supposedly recent rise of division in New Zealand society. Dame Anne Salmond has recently – and I must say belatedly – identified this as the rise of identity politics and divisive decision making. I say belatedly because we have been noting the rise of identity politics in New Zealand society for well over a decade (on the combined social-media and academic back of the rise of US identity politics) while divisive decision making is central to the Westminster political system. It would in fact be difficult to identify a time in New Zealand politics and society when there hasn’t been some type of divisive decision making and action by those in power. The issue being, some decisions that at the time seem and are experienced as incredibly divisive soon become the new norm and status quo; homosexual law reform and prostitution decriminalization are two that come easily to mind.

Mike Grimshaw: It’s about critiquing power, stupid!…

Or the societal necessity to support (yet critique) Academic Freedom and Free Speech.

The other day I attended the Free Speech Union AGM and was on the Academic Freedom panel. It was an interesting experience because while I am a committed supporter of Free Speech and Academic Freedom, in many ways this was a field trip into communities who see the world quite differently to how I do. That in itself is not an issue because central to both free speech and academic freedom is the central necessity of allowing and protecting a true diversity of opinions, beliefs, and attitudes.

Mike Grimshaw: The broken system – and broken social contract – of tertiary education in New Zealand

Welcome to the online universities of New Zealand, a significant change in tertiary education that has become the new normal by default, backed up by university policies requiring lecture recordings for students. Of course, as in all bad policies, there are internal consistencies and one of the central ones arises from an idealistic belief in human nature and student behaviour and motivation.

Mike Grimshaw: Critic and Conscience - What should the universities offer – and expect?

Going through a tidy-up (and that’s an aspirational phrase) of my physical papers and files recently, I came across an article I had written for the NBR back in March 2003 on the issues of what is meant by universities and academics being ‘critic and conscience of society.’ That it was written for the NBR may automatically discredit it for some readers, but it was written in response to a column by James Allan, the noted law professor then teaching at Otago University and who now teaches at the University of Queensland – and continues to be a public intellectual.