Cam Slater: Big Tobacco, and a Push for Monopoly Profits.....

Exposed: The Hypocritical Nexus Between Otago University Academics and Big Tobacco, and a Push for Monopoly Profits in New Zealand’s Tobacco Wars

This leak exposes a rotten core in New Zealand’s tobacco control scene, where hypocrisy reigns and public health takes a back seat to agendas.

Matua Kahurangi: Pae Tata exposes the University of Otago's real agenda

Race-based control dressed up as reform

Just as I was about to grab lunch, Ani O’Brien flicked me a DM on X. No message, no context - just an image of what looked like a poster titled "Pae Tata Strategic Plan to 2030." It caught my eye immediately. Only a day earlier, I’d written about official OIA documents showing that Māori and Pacific Island students can get into the University of Otago’s medical school with grades as low as 65 percent, while non-Māori need to hit around 91. You can read that below.

Matua Kahurangi: Apartheid has no place in New Zealand

University of Otago must end its racial discrimination

In New Zealand, we pride ourselves on fairness, equality, and opportunity. We are told that success comes from hard work, merit, and commitment. However, at Otago University’s medical school, one of the country’s most “prestigiously woke” institutions, that fundamental promise is being betrayed.

Dr James Kierstead: A new approach to neutrality

Last week, the University of Otago came out with its new statement on institutional neutrality – a statement that was not only new, but that also forged a bold new approach to the whole concept of neutrality.

Institutional neutrality, the statement declares, ‘means that University leaders will not communicate institutional positions on controversial political topics except where such issues directly impact the University’s role or functions.’ So far, so neutral – and nothing much that’s new.

David Farrar: Otago Uni votes for institutional neutrality

Otago University announced:

The University of Otago – Ōtākou Whakaihu Waka Council has accepted the recommendations of the Working Group on Institutional Neutrality to adopt a statement on institutional neutrality, and to develop ethical investment and ethical procurement policies. …

“Our University upholds free speech and academic freedom as essential values. By not taking a University wide position on political issues not related to our core roles and functions, we ensure that our community can freely explore, discuss and engage with critical issues,” Mr Robertson explains.

Professor Robert MacCulloch: Robertson's First Task as VC of Otago University.....

Robertson's First Task as VC of Otago University: stop competition & defund doctors by lobbying in Wellington to prevent Waikato getting NZ's third medical school

Former Finance Minister Grant Robertson officially became the Vice Chancellor of Otago this past 1 July. No longer does he need worry about homelessness along with his friend, Jacinda Ardern, who is similarly entrenched in gilded halls - in her case at Harvard, funded by America's billionaires. Robertson can now enjoy his $629,000 pay package, including a stately home thrown in for good measure. As a symbolic gesture of the total takeover of the University by the Labour Party, the Opposition Leader & former PM Hipkins attended his mate's swearing in ceremony. Asked what is his priority, predictably Robertson replied it was getting the University's finances on track. Not research, not teaching - its all about the cash. How's he going to do that?

David Farrar: Well done Otago University

The Otago University statement on free speech is stunningly good. The drafts from VUW, Massey and Auckland are full of weasel words that will allow universities to suppress unpopular views. But the Otago one is so good, it should be a template for the other seven universities. Some extracts:

Ele Ludemann: Otago stands up for free speech

Otago University’s decision to hold a discussion on free speech in private was somewhat ironic.

But the discussion itself had the right outcome with the Free Speech Union calling it gold standard:

Professor Robert MacCulloch: False advertising - Otago University

When will Otago University and its new Vice Chancellor, Grant Robertson, take down the False Advertising that says it is ranked in the "top 1% of World Universities".

The latest 2024 edition of QS World University Rankings features 1,500 institutions across 104 locations, and ranks Otago in 206th place (https://www.topuniversities.com/world-university-rankings) Yet Otago University explicitly claims that these QS rankings put it in "the top 1% of universities in the world". They certainly do not. When will Otago withdraw its false advertising claim? The top 1% of universities according to QS are as follows:

Dr Hylton Le Grice: God save the New Zealand that we once knew.

1. Recently – Otago University – the oldest in NZ, and founded with pure Scottish history by new immigrants – my ‘Alma Mater’ for my 6 years undergraduate study in Medicine, and where 2 grandchildren are recent graduates and 2 are presently attending there – has recently – ‘wait for it’ -unbelievably announced a name change to that of the invented M?ori title of ‘Otakou Whakaihu’. Of course, Māori had a lot to do with the foundation of Otago University in 1869 – like ‘zilch’!!!

Garrick Tremain: Appointments

 Here is Garrick Tremain's cartoon commentary on Grant Robertson's CV for Otago University appointment! 

David Farrar: Grant goneburger

As I commented on four months ago, Grant robertson succeeded in his application to be Vice-Chancellor of otago university.

It is in one sense an unusual appointment. Normally VCs come from academia and have been Professors. Almost all the other VCs have PhDs:AUT – PhD (Oxford)

Bruce Moon: Racial Privilege at Otago University

“Ethnicity is not shaped in the womb but in the head.”
- David Miles, The Tribes of Britain, 2005, p.178  

The current active discussion on policy for selection of entrants to the University of Otago Medical School reveals much of the accelerating racism which blights our once fair democracy of New Zealand.  

That policy as it stands grants preferential entry to students who claim Maori or Pasifica ancestry and the first question that it raises is just what in fact that qualification may be?  

Who, in short, is a Maori?

Mike Butler: Covid-19 model warnings flawed

The decision to lock down all “non-essential” workplaces was an overaction to a claim by modellers that between 8560 and 14,400 could die over the next year and that claim was not supported by evidence, Ian Harrison of Tailrisk Economics said today.

One model was built by the University of Otago Covid-19 Research Group and the other by Te Punaha Matatini, which is a cluster of researchers from Landcare Research and the Universities of Auckland and Canterbury.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern warned of 14,400 deaths after shutting down all “non-essential” workplaces for four weeks.

Karl du Fresne: No one's forced to eat junk food

When I think of Otago, I’m inclined to think of it as a place of solid, practical people – people like Henry Shacklock, who made cast-iron coal ranges, the original Sir James Fletcher, founder of the construction company that bears his name, and Bendix Hallenstein, a 19^th century businessman whose name lives on in a national menswear chain.

Dunedin today still has an aura of Presbyterian sturdiness and self-reliance (although Hallenstein, of course, was Jewish). The Otago Daily Times is the last of the traditional New Zealand daily newspapers, still family-owned, still concentrating on what it does best – which is local news, delivered on paper – and faring pretty well compared with digitally focused papers elsewhere.