scholarly journals Kiwisaver, who is really reaping the benefits?

2014 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 12
Author(s):  
Bart Frijns ◽  
Alireza Tourani-Rad
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Low Cost ◽  
Poor Performance ◽  
International Standards ◽  
International Competition ◽  
Individual Investors ◽  
Fund Industry ◽  
Portfolio Investments ◽  
New Zealanders

New Zealand KiwiSaver fund industry enjoys a near monopoly situation, with no exposureto international competition. Annual fees that KiwiSaver funds charge New Zealanders(which are now close to $350 million p.a.) are far above international standards and notjustifiable given their relatively poor performance since inception. We believe that allowingself-managed retirement portfolio investments by employees, expanding the menu ofinvestment choices including low cost international ETFs, and opening the industry tointernational competition will be beneficial for individual investors and the country as whole.

Editorial

2017 ◽  
pp. 2-3
Author(s):  
Peter Hoar
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
Editorial Team ◽  
Local Market ◽  
Design History ◽  
Recorded Sound ◽  
The Arts ◽  
The World ◽  
1960S And 1970S ◽  
New Zealanders

Kia ora and welcome to the second issue of BackStory. The members of the Backstory Editorial Team were gratified by the encouraging response to the first issue of the journal. We hope that our currentreaders enjoy our new issue and that it will bring others to share our interest in and enjoyment of the surprisingly varied backstories of New Zealand’s art, media, and design history. This issue takes in a wide variety of topics. Imogen Van Pierce explores the controversy around the Hundertwasser Art Centre and Wairau Māori Art Gallery to be developed in Whangarei. This project has generated debate about the role of the arts and civic architecture at both the local and national levels. This is about how much New Zealanders are prepared to invest in the arts. The value of the artist in New Zealand is also examined by Mark Stocker in his article about the sculptor Margaret Butler and the local reception of her work during the late 1930s. The cultural cringe has a long genealogy. New Zealand has been photographed since the 1840s. Alan Cocker analyses the many roles that photography played in the development of local tourism during the nineteenth century. These images challenged notions of the ‘real’ and the ‘artificial’ and how new technologies mediated the world of lived experience. Recorded sound was another such technology that changed how humans experienced the world. The rise of recorded sound from the 1890s affected lives in many ways and Lewis Tennant’s contribution captures a significant tipping point in this medium’s history in New Zealand as the transition from analogue to digital sound transformed social, commercial and acoustic worlds. The New Zealand Woman’s Weekly celebrates its 85th anniversary this year but when it was launched in 1932 it seemed tohave very little chance of success. Its rival, the Mirror, had dominated the local market since its launch in 1922. Gavin Ellis investigates the Depression-era context of the Woman’s Weekly and how its founders identified a gap in the market that the Mirror was failing to fill. The work of the photographer Marti Friedlander (1908-2016) is familiar to most New Zealanders. Friedlander’s 50 year career and huge range of subjects defy easy summary. She captured New Zealanders, their lives, and their surroundings across all social and cultural borders. In the journal’s profile commentary Linda Yang celebrates Freidlander’s remarkable life and work. Linda also discusses some recent images by Friedlander and connects these with themes present in the photographer’s work from the 1960s and 1970s. The Backstory editors hope that our readers enjoy this stimulating and varied collection of work that illuminate some not so well known aspects of New Zealand’s art, media, and design history. There are many such stories yet to be told and we look forward to bringing them to you.

Racism and silencing in the media in Aotearoa New Zealand

2021 ◽  
pp. 117718012110154
Author(s):  
Liana MacDonald ◽  
Adreanne Ormond
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Media Industry ◽  
Racial Discourse ◽  
European Descent ◽  
Aotearoa New Zealand ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Subject ◽  
New Zealanders

Racism in the Aotearoa New Zealand media is the subject of scholarly debate that examines how Māori (Indigenous Peoples of New Zealand) are broadcast in a negative and demeaning light. Literature demonstrates evolving understandings of how the industry places Pākehā (New Zealanders primarily of European descent) interests at the heart of broadcasting. We offer new insights by arguing that the media industry propagates a racial discourse of silencing that sustains widespread ignorance of the ways that Pākehā sensibilities mediate society. We draw attention to a silencing discourse through one televised story in 2018. On-screen interactions reproduce and safeguard a harmonious narrative of settler–Indigenous relations that support ignorance and denial of the structuring force of colonisation, and the Television Code of Broadcasting Practice upholds colour-blind perceptions of discrimination and injustice through liberal rhetoric. These processes ensure that the media industry is complicit in racism and the ongoing oppression of Indigenous peoples.

The Origins of New Zealand Speech

1998 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 61-85 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Gordon
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
The Past ◽  
Written Comments ◽  
New Zealanders

New Zealand English has evolved in the past 150 years, at a time when it is possible to find both written and spoken evidence of its development. This paper takes evidence gained from an analysis of written comments on early New Zealand English and compares this with data taken from an analysis of spoken New Zealand English obtained from recordings collected in the 1940s of old New Zealanders born in the 1850s-1890s — the period when the New Zealand accent was developing. By putting the written data beside the spoken data it is now possible to assess the accuracy of written records as a basis for the reconstruction of the earliest form of New Zealand English.

scholarly journals Costing the cold: Connecting fuel poverty & supplier switching in Wellington, New Zealand

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Sam McLean
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Electricity Market ◽  
Low Cost ◽  
Colonial History ◽  
Electricity Prices ◽  
Energy Services ◽  
Poor Households ◽  
Competitive Prices ◽  
Supplier Switching ◽  
Equitable Outcomes

<p>Fuel poverty describes the inability of households to afford adequate energy services, such as space heating. In New Zealand, where 25% of households are estimated to be ‘fuel poor’, high electricity prices in a restructured electricity market have an important influence on fuel poverty. However, the ability of the New Zealand Government to regulate these high electricity prices is constrained. Consequently, there is a strong reliance on consumers to switch energy suppliers, which promotes competitive prices and in turn regulates the price of electricity. In contrast to energy efficiency improvements, switching offers fuel poor households a low-cost opportunity to improve the short-term affordability of energy services. Yet, switching is suggested to not benefit fuel poor households who are in most need of affordable energy.  This thesis explored the relationship between fuel poverty and supplier switching in Wellington, New Zealand through a geographic lens. First, a new approach to identifying fuel poverty in New Zealand was applied. Using geographic information systems (GIS), a fuel poverty index was calculated to identify fuel poverty in Wellington at meshblock level. Spatial analysis of the index revealed the complexity of identifying fuel poverty and the extent to which the spatial distribution of fuel poverty in Wellington is shaped by the city’s colonial history. The index was then used to identify survey participants through which a survey was conducted exploring Wellington households’ switching behaviours. In a competitive market, consumers are expected to switch according to economically rational behaviours. However, switching behaviours in the survey sample were influenced by factors other than these economically rational behaviours. Integrating the findings of this thesis supports suggestions that switching is not benefiting the fuel poor. Finally, this thesis sheds light on the extent to which an understanding of the geography of fuel poverty can be applied towards improving the effectiveness of policy and equitable outcomes for fuel poor households.</p>

scholarly journals Costing the cold: Connecting fuel poverty & supplier switching in Wellington, New Zealand

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Sam McLean
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Electricity Market ◽  
Low Cost ◽  
Colonial History ◽  
Electricity Prices ◽  
Energy Services ◽  
Poor Households ◽  
Competitive Prices ◽  
Supplier Switching ◽  
Equitable Outcomes

<p>Fuel poverty describes the inability of households to afford adequate energy services, such as space heating. In New Zealand, where 25% of households are estimated to be ‘fuel poor’, high electricity prices in a restructured electricity market have an important influence on fuel poverty. However, the ability of the New Zealand Government to regulate these high electricity prices is constrained. Consequently, there is a strong reliance on consumers to switch energy suppliers, which promotes competitive prices and in turn regulates the price of electricity. In contrast to energy efficiency improvements, switching offers fuel poor households a low-cost opportunity to improve the short-term affordability of energy services. Yet, switching is suggested to not benefit fuel poor households who are in most need of affordable energy.  This thesis explored the relationship between fuel poverty and supplier switching in Wellington, New Zealand through a geographic lens. First, a new approach to identifying fuel poverty in New Zealand was applied. Using geographic information systems (GIS), a fuel poverty index was calculated to identify fuel poverty in Wellington at meshblock level. Spatial analysis of the index revealed the complexity of identifying fuel poverty and the extent to which the spatial distribution of fuel poverty in Wellington is shaped by the city’s colonial history. The index was then used to identify survey participants through which a survey was conducted exploring Wellington households’ switching behaviours. In a competitive market, consumers are expected to switch according to economically rational behaviours. However, switching behaviours in the survey sample were influenced by factors other than these economically rational behaviours. Integrating the findings of this thesis supports suggestions that switching is not benefiting the fuel poor. Finally, this thesis sheds light on the extent to which an understanding of the geography of fuel poverty can be applied towards improving the effectiveness of policy and equitable outcomes for fuel poor households.</p>

scholarly journals Mutual Fund Performance and the Impact of Superannuation and Financial Regulation

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
James M. Cooper ◽  
Russell Gregory-Allen
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Mutual Funds ◽  
Open Economy ◽  
Mutual Fund ◽  
Financial Regulation ◽  
Positive Impact ◽  
Small Open Economy ◽  
Fund Industry ◽  
Mutual Fund Industry ◽  
The Impact

Financial innovation such as a new superannuation scheme can allow for broader participation in retirement savings by individuals, but might also impact existing investments. On the other hand, mutual fund regulation involves a balancing act between protecting investors, and allowing fund managers to exercise their skills. Some recent changes in the fund environment of New Zealand allows an examination of the impact on performance from those changes in a small, open economy. Using a sample of New Zealand mutual funds, we compared performance before and after the introduction of two significant changes in the financial environment of New Zealand. In 2007, a state-sponsored investment scheme called KiwiSaver was introduced, providing significant incentives for more and more New Zealanders to save. Participation was substantial, and by 2015 KiwiSaver funds under management had exceeded traditional open-end funds. At the time of KiwiSaver’s introduction, mutual fund regulations was quite lax, particularly in the area of financial disclosure. However, in 2013 a new law was introduced, substantially increasing the disclosure requirements for those funds participating in the KiwiSaver scheme. First we examined, the impact on the New Zealand mutual fund industry upon the introduction of KiwiSaver, and then on the introduction of the increased KiwiSaver regulations, in order to determine if these harmed the overall New Zealand mutual fund industry. We found that the New Zealand mutual funds which focused on New Zealand or Australian equities experienced some negative performance after the introduction of KiwiSaver, but the impact on the overall industry was not significant. We also found that the increased regulations had some positive impact on performance, particularly for those funds emphasising global equities.  

scholarly journals George French Angas and the Creation of Colonial Knowledge in New Zealand

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Catherine Falconer-Gray
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Vital Role ◽  
The Body ◽  
Middle Ground ◽  
Cultural Encounter ◽  
The Creation ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
Natural Historian ◽  
British Culture ◽  
New Zealanders

<p>In 1844, George French Angas, the English traveller, artist, natural historian and ethnographer spent four months travelling in New Zealand. He sought out and met many of the most influential Maori leaders of the time, sketching and recording his observations as he went. His stated intention was to provide a ‘more correct idea’ of New Zealand and the New Zealanders. In Australia and then Britain he held exhibitions of his work and in 1847 he published two works based on this time in New Zealand: a large volume of full-colour lithographs, The New Zealanders Illustrated and a travel narrative based on his journal, Savage Life and Scenes in Australia and New Zealand. These exhibitions and publications comprised the nineteenth century’s largest collection of works about Maori and Maori culture. This thesis is a study of the ‘more correct idea’ that Angas sought to provide: his creation of colonial knowledge about Maori. Angas is most commonly described in New Zealand as being an unremarkable artist but as providing a window onto New Zealand in the 1840s. This thesis opens the window wider by looking at Angas’s works as a record of a cultural encounter and the formation of a colonial identity. The works were shaped by numerous ideological and intellectual currents from Britain and the empire, including humanitarianism and the aesthetic of the picturesque. Ideas about gender and the body form a central part of the colonial knowledge created in Angas’s work. Particularly notable is what this thesis terms ‘sartorial colonisation’ – a process of colonisation through discourse and expectations around clothes. Angas also travelled and worked in a dynamic middle ground in New Zealand and Maori played a vital role in the creation of his works. Angas represented Maori in a sympathetic light in many ways. Ultimately however, he believed in the superiority of the British culture, to the detriment of creating colonial knowledge that placed Maori as equal partners in the recently signed Treaty of Waitangi. This thesis also examines the ways in which Angas’s body of work has been engaged with by the New Zealand public through to the present. As a study of the products of a British traveller who spent time in other parts of the empire as well as in New Zealand, this thesis contributes to histories of New Zealand, and British imperial and transcolonial history.</p>

scholarly journals Over the Barrel of a Gun?

2021 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kate Prickett ◽  
Simon Chapple
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Political Ideology ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Meaningful Change ◽  
Gun Ownership ◽  
Unique Data ◽  
Gun Laws ◽  
Political Actions ◽  
New Zealanders

The Christchurch attack on 15 March 2019, when 51 Muslims were murdered by a right-wing extremist carrying half a dozen semiautomatic rifles and shotguns, brought the nation’s relaxed gun laws to light. Prior attempts to pass gun safety legislation have been thwarted by groups purporting to represent New Zealand gun owners. However, the swift and decisive political actions in the immediate wake of the attack signalled greater political appetite for meaningful change. Using unique data collected immediately in the wake of the Christchurch attack, this study examines who gun owners are, New Zealanders’ trust in gun owners and the pro-gun lobby, and whether trust differs by gun ownership and political ideology.

scholarly journals Priorities and approaches to investigating Asian youth health: perspectives of young Asian New Zealanders

2015 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 282 ◽  
Author(s):  
Agnes Wong ◽  
Roshini Peiris-John ◽  
Amritha Sobrun-Maharaj ◽  
Shanthi Ameratunga
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
Health Services ◽  
Service Development ◽  
Culturally Competent ◽  
Access To Health Services ◽  
Youth Leaders ◽  
Asian Youth ◽  
Study Participants ◽  
New Zealanders

INTRODUCTION: The proportion of young people in New Zealand identifying with Asian ethnicities has increased considerably. Despite some prevalent health concerns, Asian youth are less likely than non-Asian peers to seek help. As preparatory research towards a more nuanced approach to service delivery and public policy, this qualitative study aimed to identify young Asian New Zealanders' perspectives on best approaches to investigate health issues of priority concern to them. METHODS: Three semi-structured focus group discussions were conducted with 15 Asian youth leaders aged 18–24 years. Using an inductive approach for thematic analysis, key themes were identified and analysed. FINDINGS: Study participants considered ethno-cultural identity, racism and challenges in integration to play significant roles influencing the health of Asian youth (especially mental health) and their access to health services. While emphasising the importance of engaging young Asians in research and service development so that their needs and aspirations are met, participants also highlighted the need for approaches that are cognisant of the cultural, contextual and intergenerational dimensions of issues involved in promoting youth participation. CONCLUSION: Research that engages Asian youth as key agents using methods that are sensitive to their cultural and sociological contexts can inform more responsive health services and public policy. This is of particular relevance in primary health care where culturally competent services can mitigate risks of unmet health needs and social isolation. KEYWORDS: Asian; minority health; New Zealand; youth

New Zealand Vegetarians: At Odds with Their Nation

2008 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 336-353 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mandala White ◽  
Annie Potts
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
Qualitative Study ◽  
Cultural Heritage ◽  
Meat Production ◽  
Animal Farming ◽  
Everyday Lives ◽  
Nonhuman Animals ◽  
New Zealanders

AbstractThis qualitative study, conducted between August and December 2006, explored the opinions and experiences of New Zealanders who challenge orthodox attitudes to the use and consumption of nonhuman animals. To date, New Zealand (NZ) has under-investigated the perspectives of those who oppose animal farming, the eating of nonhuman animals, and the exploitation of nonhuman animals. Agriculture substantially influences the economy and cultural heritage of the nation. Given that national identity in New Zealand strongly associates with farming and meat production, this paper investigates how vegetarians living in this country experience and challenge prevalent imagery and ideas about New Zealand. In particular, the paper examines the ways in which “kiwi” vegetarians are disputing the dominant image of New Zealand as “clean and green” and a land of "animal lovers" and how they are experiencing mainstream (meat-loving) kiwi culture in their everyday lives. The paper also examines some of the more positive aspects for vegetarians of living in New Zealand.

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