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VALUING IMMIGRANTS: Ans Westra’s photographs raise many challenges

Listener: 31 December, 2005.

Keywords: Literature and Culture;

In the 1950s, Maori, then mainly a rural people, began their great migration into the Pakeha cities. Ans Westra, 21 years old when she arrived from Holland in 1957, photographed it.

THE HIGH EXCHANGE RATE: What is the Government Doing? What Can it Do Further?

This note was prepared for a client in mid December 2005

Keywords: Macroeconomics & Money;

DATELINE HONG KONG: What will happen to the Doha Round?

Listener: 17 December, 2005.

Keywords: Globalisation & Trade;

The World Trade Organisation Ministerial Conference, to be held in Hong Kong December 13-18, will be a desperate attempt to get the Doha Round’s trade liberalisation back on track.

TACKLING THE EXCHANGE RATE

This Note was written in early December 2005, to clarify some issues in my mind about exchange rate policy

Keywords: Macroeconomics & Money;

Why is the exchange rate high. The short answer is that the New Zealand economy is badly imbalanced, and the imbalance vents through the foreign exchange market into a higher exchange rate.

A SMALL NEW ZEALAND IN A BIG WORLD

Presentation to the Browning Institute, of Public Affairs forum �The WTO in Hong Kong: Make or break time for neo-liberalism?�, 14th of December, McKenzie Room, St John’s in the City, Wellington.

Keywords: Globalisation & Trade;

If New Zealanders are to do what they say they want to do, the New Zealand economy is going to have to specialise in what it is good at, to obtain the dynamic economies of scale which give the high productivity which can underpin New Zealanders� desire for a rich, sustainable and varied material and non-material life. The New Zealand economy will then have to trade much of what it specialises in, for that which it cannot produce so well. That rules out autarchy and puts us squarely into a world of international economic engagement.

REASON FOR TREASON TO BE FORGOT

A response to a comment by Rosalie Sugrue in Broadsheet: The Newsletter of the Churches� Agency on Social Issues, December 2005 (Issue 105).

Keywords: Literature and Culture;

In my youth, Guy Fawkes was more explicit on the Fifth of November than today, often with a dummy of the guy being pushed round in a wheelbarrow. We sung jingles like �Please remember/The Fifth of November/With gunpowder treason and plot/I see no reason/Why gunpowder treason/Should ever be forgot�.

THE RISE AND FALL OF DEPARTMENT STORES:Why did they come unstuck?

Listener: 3 December, 2005.

Once in the heart of our cities were department stores. Many readers will have visited them as children, accompanied by mother, aunt or grandmother. Perhaps you played in the children’s area while they were shopping. There was the excitement of the lift with its own operator, and one even had an escalator that was so grand to ride. And sometimes � not always, and you had to be especially good � you were taken to the graciously tableclothed tearoom for orange cordial and a generous slice of that very special cake.

ON THE FUTURE OF THE SOCIOLOGY PROFESSION IN NEW ZEALAND

Response to Paul Spoonley�s Paper, SAANZ conference, 27 November 2005

Keywords: History of Ideas, Methodology & Philosophy;

Let me begin by saying that while I welcome Paul�s paper, it suffers from a major deficiency when it claims that sociology should be a core social science discipline, but does not define the subject. When I was at the University of Sussex, the social sciences scrapped vigorously between themselves as to their importance and their relationships. Sociology was one, but even a subject led by Tom Bottomore had difficulties defining what was its core. My observation of New Zealand sociology � say characterised by the subject of papers at this conference � is that it would have considerable difficulties defining a core here too: defining the minimum that a graduate sociologist should know. I may be wrong, but to the outsider sociology often seems social studies, which is a subject, not a discipline.

THE SOCIAL CRITIC IN NEW ZEALAND

Keynote address to the 2005 Conference of the Sociology Association of Aotearoa New Zealand, 25 November, The Eastern Institute of Technology, Napier. [1]

Keywords: History of Ideas, Methodology & Philosophy; Political Economy & History;

In Samuel Beckett�s Waiting for Godot, the tramps abuse one another: �Moron!�, �Vermin!�, �Abortion!�, �Louse!�, �Sewer-rat!�, �Curate!�. Then Estragon says with finality �Critic!�. All Vladimir can reply is �Oh!�. The text says �He wilts, vanquished and turns away�.

BUSINESS VISION: How to get government and business to work together?

Listener: 19 November, 2005.

Keywords: Business & Finance; Political Economy & History;

One might think there is a standoff between government and business. A fortnight before the election, a Business Herald “Mood of the Boardroom” feature showed that many chief executives were antipathetic towards the Labour-led government and willing to say so in public. The impression was reinforced by leaks showing that business and a business lobby group had been involved in the making of Don Brash, leader of the National Party.

Brian Easton