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The Otago Boys' High School Foundation
PO Box 11,
Dunedin, New Zealand
Tel +64 3 477 2546
Fax +64 3 477 5468
Jim Mora (1967-71) is well known as a radio voice and a television face in New Zealand. Elspeth McLean, from the Otago Daily Times, caught up with Jim recently.
Jim Mora |
Jim Mora is so practised at putting people at ease, when you interview him you half expect to hear yourself later on Radio New Zealand National. Or, better still, arrive home to find the wilderness of the alleged back garden has been tamed and transformed by Television One’s Mucking In team.
By the end of the telephone interview, I find I have probably answered more questions than he has.
Still, it is early December, just summer and just the time for a relaxed ramble.
He suggests the thought of a treasure trove of southern summertime memories might be lean pickings, although he is quick to recall in his early days in radio at 4XO in the 1970s, sun-bathing on the roof of Radio House, at the corner of Moray Place and Stuart Street, when the temperature was 15degC.
He remembered thinking that was warm, but in Auckland, where he lives now, that would be regarded as a ‘‘mite chilly’’.
He does remember guaranteed hot Februarys in the South, however, and the cadets at Otago Boys’ High School keeling over on the parade ground in the sweltering temperatures.
Such days seem a long way away in early December when, on the day of our interview, the mercury is expected to struggle to reach double figures.
He is still fond of Dunedin, where he spent about 20 years of his life, taking in secondary school, university and the beginning of his media career.
His first job in the early 1970s was at the Chief Post Office in Princes Street, a place he remembered as a ‘‘great big intimidating building’’ and an experience which opened his ears to what went on in the workplace — men telling dirty jokes and swearing like troopers.
His task was to sort the mail for Clutha and Waiwera South, but he ‘‘lost that job because of a lack of competence’’ after a few weeks.
He puts it down to a ‘‘kind of mail dyslexia’’ (or should that be male?).
‘‘In the end they were not that happy with my efficiency in the mail sorting room.’’
‘‘ . . . I remember being slightly chagrined that my genius was not recognised in terms of mail sorting.’’
A career in the postal service was not what he had dreamed of, however.
His desire was to be a professor of English literature. Someone in the mould of J.R.R. Tolkien or C.S. Lewis.
‘‘I envisaged myself as a kind and solicitous teacher of admiring students. By 40 I’d be cruising. I’d have tenure in the university and I wouldn’t be working very hard. I would be writing amusing and witty books.’’
Such occupations seemed to get a lot of respect in the media and gave great joy to children the world over.
‘‘That seemed to be the ticket to me’’.
It was not ‘‘that sharp’’ an ambition, he says. If he had considered his options more carefully he might have gone for a career in medicine, perhaps choosing opthalmology or treating people’s skin ailments — situations where patients would keep coming back. He has often asked people he has interviewed if they would change anything about their lives if they could be 18 again and a surprising number said they would not. His professorship plans foundered when he struck Middle English.
‘‘I only scraped through Middle English.’’
He also found Beowulf, from an earlier period, impenetrable.
Such a career would have meant he would have missed hosting Mucking In, the television programme which began in 2000 and in which he aids and abets communities from around the country to make-over the gardens of much-loved people in their midst who are too often too busy caring for others to have much time for their own back yards. Nine years on Jim still loves doing the show.
‘‘I know it’s a bit of a cliche, but I do meet the best people in New Zealand.’’
It is ‘‘just a magic time for a couple of days’’, working with cheerful people who loved being able to help.
Despite having an impressive curriculum vitae which includes a variety of roles in radio and television, column writing, writing children’s books and the creation of a successful cartoon series Staines Down Drains, with animator Brent Chambers, Jim says he never feels that he has achieved much and is not smug about what he has done, thinking that he could have done more.
‘‘Sometimes I get the feeling that I haven’t really started.’’
He would like to do more cartoons — he feels the need to create something his children could be proud of later on. (They ‘‘quite like’’ the cartoons and books he has completed, he says.)
‘‘It’s not like writing The Time Traveller’s Wife or War and Peace — it’s a little contribution.’’
He and Brent have completed three cartoon series and are trying to make a couple more.
He had plenty of ideas, but it was a hard business and much more labour intensive than people might realise, despite changes in technology.
Much of broadcasting work seemed ephemeral and it was the outside of people’s lives which were shown.
It was a privilege meeting people, but they were only met in a certain context and for a short time.
Jim Mora and Mucking In |
He would be interested, he explained, to make a documentary series about the end of people’s lives
when all the artifice would be stripped away, leaving whatever wisdom and insight they had.
If someone had proclaimed a philosophy, how did that reconcile at the end of their lives?
It was not a subject usually dealt with in biographies which generally only gave a short passage about the subject’s last illness.
He doubted anyone would commission such a show and he accepted approaching possible subjects had the potential to cause offence.
Asked if he is ever likely to consider returning to the South to live, he says it would be difficult unless he changed jobs.
He often thinks of Dunedin, but says wistfully that when he visits now instead of it feeling like ‘‘putting on a pair of slippers it now feels like new shoes’’.
It was inevitable that the city and the university, where he was once editor of Critic, had changed much in the past few decades.
He said he still got excited coming to Dunedin and has visited with his three children, now aged five and seven, pointing out all the landmarks and showing them the houses in which he used to live.
The older he got, the more important those formative years in Dunedin seemed.
‘‘Maybe if I got back more often I would still feel I belonged — it would still feel like home. I don’t feel I belong as much as I used to. I am slightly sad about that.’’
‘‘. . . I would have to break-in Dunedin if I ever lived there again.’’
I could have suggested the process might start with the Mucking In team attempting to break-in my 2000sq metre paradise (despite my unworthiness) but thought it would be cruel when I arrived home to drink in its fashionable splendour — a transformation from a combination of overgrowth, bare dirt and weeds. Even a batch of my freshly made scones could not compensate for inflicting such torture.
When Judge Bruce Robertson (1957-61) received recognition in the New Year’s honours for services as a judge of the High Court and the Court of Appeal, he also became the second milk monitor from the 1954 standard 3 class at Wakari School and the Otago Boys’ High School intake of 1957 to be knighted.
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His classmate and fellow milk monitor and judge, Sir John Hansen (1957-62), received a knighthood for services to the judiciary in 2008.
Sir Bruce, who lives in Wellington, said he felt humbled and honoured to receive a knighthood, and considered it was a way of the community acknowledging and affirming the importance of the rule of law in a free society.
In accepting the knighthood, he felt he was doing so on behalf of a team and that it was an acknowledgement of the role played by all court staff.
He described his 22-year career as a High Court judge as exciting, but while he had presided over high-profile cases including that concerning the death of Peter Plumley Walker, such cases were not the most important or the most satisfying.
‘‘I think the great challenge of law is that it doesn’t become an end in itself.
‘‘It is merely there to help people deal with problems they can’t deal with. It worries me when the law starts to get feet of its own and a life of its own.’’
He was known among his colleagues for insisting on reality checks when hearing cases, he said.
The highlights of his career as a judge had been those cases which were not terribly high profile.
In civil cases, they were the occasions when he had been able to help parties reach an outcome both could live with and, in criminal cases, those when at the end of a trial ‘‘everybody feels they got a fair crack of the whip’’.
Sir Bruce said the law was not easily accessible to people and ‘‘none of us should run away from the fact that the current system is too expensive, too slow and operates at a level people feel unfamiliar and uncomfortable with.’’
In his time as president of the Law Commission, between 2001 and 2005, he had spent much time looking at ways to improve access to justice, although he noted that many judges and lawyers were not ‘‘terribly keen’’ on changing.
There had been a revolution in the criminal area where, instead of crime being considered an offence against society, there was a focus on issues of victims’ rights.
Sir Bruce will retire from both the High Court of New Zealand and the Court of Appeal at the beginning of February, but he anticipates continuing judicial duties in the Pacific. He said he felt a real obligation to help the rule of law there, which was ‘‘pretty fragile’’.
He has served as president of the Court of Appeal of Vanuatu since 1996 and has also sat on the Court of Appeal of Samoa.
He would also be keen to be involved in any efforts to break the impasse in relations between New Zealand and Australia and Fiji-.His first Pacific involvement was teaching with Volunteer Service Abroad on a remote Samoan island at age 20.
In his ‘‘retirement’’, he also intended to return to some of his other interests, including education.
When he was 38, he became the youngest University of Otago pro-chancellor and he spent 20 years on the university council. It had been a long journey from milk monitor to knight, but he had been fortunate with lucky breaks and some wonderful mentors, including the late Very Rev Dr Jack Somerville (1925-28), Sir Bruce said.
He had come from an ‘‘unbelievably supportive’’ family, and had grown up in a similarly supportive and encouraging community.
After attending Otago Boys’ High School, Sir Bruce graduated from Otago University with both a BA and an LLB.
At 23, when he was the Otago University Students Association president, he came to the public’s attention by organising a sleep-in for 1500 at the student union building to protest about a fellow student being expelled for living in a mixed flat.
Sir Bruce furthered his studies in 1972-73, when a Harkness Fellowship took him to the University of Virginia, from where he graduated with a masterate in family law and was much influenced by the university’s founding president Thomas Jefferson’s commitment to principled freedom and liberalism.
Sir Bruce’s life since student days included a career with law firm Ross, Dowling Marquet and Griffin, part-time law lecturing, and serving as a session clerk at Knox Church.
He has strong views about people making the most of the opportunities offered them.
In a small country such as New Zealand ‘‘we have to be careful we aren’t so busy chopping down tall poppies that we become grey and dour and boggy’’.
New Zealanders had enormous potential which needed to be exploited and harnessed in all fields.
If people had the ability to do something they should always do it to their ‘‘absolute best’’, as this was the only way the country would survive, he said.
Sir Bruce is a Fellow of the Foundation.
Sir Bruce’s recognition completes a high profile year for Otago Boys’ Old Boys – at the late-August investiture at Government House in Wellington no fewer than four Old Boys became Knights – Sir Lloyd Gerring (1931-35), Sir David Mauger (1953-57), Sir John Hansen (1957-62) and Sir Russell Coutts (1975-79).
As noted in the September newsletter, Otago Boys’ High School enjoyed high profile at the late-August Government House investiture of New Zealand Knighthoods with no fewer than four Old Boys kneeling before Governor-General Sir Anand Satayanand.
With the current National government reinstating titles, which were abolished between 2000 and 2008, recipients of the Principal Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit (PCNZM), Knight Grand Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit (GNZM), Knight Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit (KNZM) and the Distinguished Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit (DCNZM) were given the option of taking up the titular designation of Sir or Dame.
Accepting the titles were internationally respected theologian Emeritus Professor Sir Lloyd George Geering (1931-35); visionary paediatrician Sir David Charles Mauger (1953-57) who performed the first bone marrow transplant in New Zealand; retired High Court judge Sir John William Hansen (1957-62); and the world’s best match racing yachtsman and former Olympic champion Sir Russell Coutts (1975-79).
Sir Lloyd Geering |
Over the next few months we’ll profile each of our new Knight, starting with Sir Lloyd Geering, who is an Associate Fellow of the Foundation.
Sir Lloyd was born in Rangiora in 1918, educated at Otago Boys’ (where he was Dux in 1935 and awarded a Junior University Scholarship) and Otago University, and holds Honours degrees in Mathematics and Old Testament Studies.
Ordained as a Presbyterian minister, he served in Kurow, Dunedin and Wellington.
He held Chairs of Old Testament Studies at theological colleges in Brisbane and Dunedin before being appointed as the foundation Professor of Religious Studies at Victoria University of Wellington.
He was married to Nancy McKenzie (deceased 1949), to Elaine Parker (deceased 2001) and to Shirley White of Christchurch in 2004. He has three children, nine grandchildren (one deceased) and five great-grandchildren.
Since his retirement in 1984 he has continued to lecture widely throughout New Zealand and overseas. He was a Regular Columnist on religious topics: Auckland Star (16 years), New Zealand Listener (four years). He was awarded an Honorary DD by the University of Otago in 1976, a CBE in the New Year Honours in 1988, made a PCNZM in 2001, and admitted to the Order of New Zealand in 2007.
Sir Lloyd’s chief publications have been God in the New World, Resurrection: A Symbol of Hope, Faith's New Age , Tomorrow’s God, The World to Come, Christianity without God, Wrestling with God, which served as his auto-biography.
Dr John Troughton, MAgSc, PhD, DSc, FRSNZ (1952-56) has walked an interesting pathway since leaving Dunedin.
A New Zealand National Research Fellow (1966-69), Carnegie Fellow (1973), Eisenhower Fellow (1984) and Member of Australian National University Council (1968-69), John is currently a director of Guntonia Investments, Business Associates Networks, HomeNet Pty Ltd and The Management Practice.
Dr John Troughton |
Based in Sydney, John specialises in design and implementation of Performance and Conformance Management Systems that deliver value to all constituents in the enterprise, and assure its competitive performance.
These systems allow directors, managers, suppliers and staff of small and large companies to generate future value as determined by the stakeholders. This is achieved by a clear statement of purpose, integrated through planning, people, processes and technology, into a company-wide system, that of itself adds value to the company. Measures of personnel capability, performance and accountability are built into the systems.
Interest in the ‘Fundamentals of Business Management’ started as a result of a project nvestigating the factors influencing the transfer of knowledge to businesses with less than 200 staff. A study was made comprising visits to 200 businesses and associated surveys to investigate the needs of business. The primary cause of difficulties in these businesses was the inability to access, cost effectively, the professional services that could not be justified to maintain in-house capability. This related primarily to technology, HR and business management advice. The average small business manager cannot be expected to be an "expert in all areas" but does not have the financial resources to source external advice.
As a result John developed the Action Management System.
Through research at the DSIR’s Physics and Engineering Laboratory in New Zealand and through exposure to a variety of international projects John developed a professional background in food processing, agriculture, horticulture, biotechnology, biophysics and ecology.
His training was at Canterbury University, the Australian National University and Stanford University in the United States. He has produced over a 100 papers and books, and lectured and consulted internationally in fields as diverse as energy, biology, information technology and business management. Corporate management experience has been gained in both public and private institutions such as the DSIR NZ, Goodman Fielder Wattie, and as a director of eight companies in the food (fresh and processed), information technology, management and high technology sectors.
These companies have been spread through New Zealand, Australia, Asia and the United States and have involved production and marketing for both domestic and export markets.
Over a quarter of a century, John has developed expertise in Conformance and Performance Management Systems. Initially this was as a lecturer at the New Zealand Institute of Management College (1975-85). New techniques that have been developed relate to the management of complex systems, such as integrating international markets, logistics, processing and production systems, integrating technology, people and processes. This has been applied initially to the dairy, meat and kiwifruit industries and subsequently to the mining, manufacturing and service sectors. The Value Engine is the most recent development.
John’s consultancy expertise has been utilised by domestic and international companies in Australia and Asia, that work also seeing him involved with the United Nations, PA Management Consulting Group, Drake International and as an Independent consultant.
Projects have involved public – the likes of New South Wales Cabinet Office, Malaysian Government, Public Trustee (NSW) and Sydney Water; listed - BHP-Biliton, Bankers Trust, Bank of Queensland, Telstra, CIG; and a number of non-listed companies.
Away from the boardroom, in his younger days John was a gifted hockey player, representing Otago and New Zealand Universities through the late 1950s.
It made sense for Grant Cochrane (1982-86) and his wife Andrea to work with the South Otago environment rather than against it.
The Glenomaru Valley deer farmers could have taken to the bush with chain saws, ignored the impact on water quality of their deer, and tried to make every square metre of the farm productive.
Winning deer farmers - (from left) Totara Hills deer farm manager Adam Whaanga, owners Grant and Andrea Cochrane and children Andrew and Sophie. Totara Hills, near Owaka, won the 2008-09 Deer Industry Environmental Awards. |
But they wanted to live in an environment of which they were proud and which was enjoyable, and that did not mean it had to be in conflict with production and the property’s viability.
Grant said 80% of the farm had a northerly aspect and had a mix of shelter and native bush, exotic tree plantations and steep gullies which lent itself to running deer. The Cochrane’s efforts and approach have been recognised with the couple being awarded the Elworthy Environmental Award, the premier prize at the 2008-09 Deer Industry Environmental Awards.
Rather than focus solely on maximising the productivity of their land, they have also looked to manipulate other aspects, such as having greater control of their returns by marketing their own product while also matching production and land classes.
The general policy was to have low-density grazing during fawning, from October to January to alleviate stress and therefore fence pacing. Stock management during weaning and the roar was aimed at reducing stress and therefore the impact on the environment. Nanny hinds were selected to run with newly weaned fawns for several weeks after weaning, with the fawns put back into paddocks they had just come from.
They were fed barley and effort was made to ensure people and other deer were kept away. Three weeks before weaning, fawns were tagged and drenched to minimise stress at weaning but also to reduce pacing. During the roar, velveting stags were grazed at low stock rates on free-draining paddocks away from mobs of mating hinds and other velveting stag mobs.
The paddocks had plenty of cover to reduce the need for them to be shifted, which can cause fighting, and to lessen stress and the impact on the environment. Stags were wintered on crop, but Grant said crop paddocks chosen were well away from waterways. If that was not possible, a buffer was left in vegetation adjacent to the waterway.
He had goals which centred around the aim of farming with the least environmental impact, while maximising animal welfare and performance. Specifically, those goals were to maintain and improve water quality; protect existing native bush; provide shelter for stock in all paddocks; create an aesthetically pleasing environment; and to achieve these goals in a timely manner while working within the confines of economic sustainability.
The area had a high rainfall and since the farm was bought in 1998, 3.6km of waterways had been double fenced and vegetation planted and 18 ponds installed which also acted as sediment traps. Testing proved the developments had improved the quality of water.
In addition, about 36ha in two blocks of native bush had been fenced off and another small area of rare plants was in the process of being set aside as a QEII covenant.
Since 2001, they had deer fenced 375ha, installed 5.8km of lane and rocked 4km of lanes. Deer were east European bloodlines with the focus on venison, but they also run 500 velveting stags. Six hundred of the 1100 hinds were part of a DNA-based breeding programme to find those which produced high 12-month growth rates for venison.
This was part of a major push to improve the genetics, which had seen Grant source the best stags he can afford to maximise the genetic performance of his stock.
‘‘Simply, the ability to grow grass is a finite resource, so it is important to convert it as efficiently as possible with maximum growth or velvet growth rates.’’
While 80% of the stock was deer, sheep and cattle were used to control pasture which lessened the need to spray for weed control and also reduce the worm burden. Hinds were wintered on a self-feed silage pad which was designed so runoff could not enter the waterway.
Grant said that self-feed systems could impact on the soil structure in the paddock in which the pad was sited, but overall there was a net benefit to the amount of degradation to the rest of the farm and to the amount of winter supplement feed needed. They had reduced the baleage requirement from 800 bales to 250.
Deer were kept in age-group mobs to allow a social structure to develop, which also reduced stress. Fawns were wintered on the paddocks with the most shelter and fed barley. Sheep were extensively grazed rather than break-fed and mixed-aged cows run at low stocking rates on hill blocks.
While cattle remained a key part of the business, Grant said they caused environment issues — soil pugging and waterways — and he has changed his cattle policy to selling calves as weaners. Drench efficacy tests were done regularly to ensure the drench families were still operative and he had been gradually reducing the use of nitrogen in the past two years, applying less than 5kg a ha of urea and only then strategically on crops.
Nutrient budgeting had halved the volume of fertiliser applied in the last year.
Biosecurity was a major issue and they carried out their own pest control for possums, hares and ferrets, operated a quarantine drench system and blood tested yearling hinds for johnnes.
In addition to efforts to improve farm productivity, Mr Cochrane had also taken steps to have greater control over his income by marketing his own venison under the Totara Hills brand and involvement in addressing issues to improve velvet returns.
Venison was exported, and sold locally at the Otago Farmers Market.
In the occupation line of his Foundation profile Doug Eckhoff (1954-55) lists himself as ‘retired’.
That is far from the truth.
As well as being the co-vice chairman of the New Zealand Council of Victim Support Groups, Doug is also the Lower Hutt group’s chairman and has been closely involved with the organisation for the past 16 years. He also serves on the national Board’s Finance and Audit Committee.
Doug Eckhoff |
As a member of the national Board, Doug is a strong advocate for the recognition of the community partnership function of lower group committees and their role as the key stakeholders of Victim Support.
Doug is a member of the Hutt Council for Social Services and works on a voluntary basis with the Refugee and Migrant Service, assisting in the re-settlement of refugees in the Lower Hutt region.
He is a Paul Harris Fellow and a Past President of the Rotary Club of Eastern Hutt, as well as being one of the founders of the New Zealand Film Archive in Wellington. He has been a member of its Board of Trustees since its inception in 1981. He is also on the committee of the National Press Club.
Doug has worked in all facets of the media as a journalist, editor and film producer – both in New Zealand overseas.
After being part of the library and drama committees while at school, Doug worked for the Otago Daily Times in 1956, the Clutha Leader in 1957 and for Kensley Newspapers Ltd in England from 1958 to 1962. That was just the beginning.
Prior to ‘retiring’ in 2003, Doug had been the Head of Communications for both the Department of Justice and the Electoral Commission (1990-2003), he was a former Chief Executive of the New Zealand National Film Unit (1980-90), and the Head of News and Current Affairs for the Television One network (1974-80).
He is the author of a number of publications, including ‘Reflections of Campbell House’, and was the Executive Producer of the New Zealand feature film ‘The Scarecrow’.
Doug also spends part of each week working as a voluntary tutor in reading with children at a primary school in Lower Hutt.
Mike Groves (1958-62) was recently inducted into the TVNZ/Marketing Magazine Marketing Hall of Fame.
Currently the Director of Operations, Graduate Programmes at the University of Auckland Business School, Mike is credited with being largely responsible for the competency of a large number of New Zealand marketers – this due to his teaching on the Postgraduate Diploma in Business programme for seven years and his subsequent work as the Director of Short Courses, which he set up in 1996.
Mike Groves - marketing leader |
Mike built this division of the Business School into a multi-million dollar business providing high-quality learning to the business and professional communities, including marketing.
Under his leadership, Short Courses developed the vision ‘to lift the competency of the nation’. This is supported by the one word mission statement ‘incomparable’ which is the standard to which Short Courses aspires in all of its activities.
Mike joined the University of Auckland in 1989 as a senior marketing lecturer. Not long afterwards he took up the role of director of the Diploma in Business and led that programme successfully prior to establishing Shorts Courses.
Prior to joining the university, Mike had enjoyed 22 years of business experience working in marketing and general management for Cadbury Schweppes (now Cadbury Confectionery), Unilever, New Zealand Meat Producers Board, Healtheries, Bluebird and as a self-employed marketing consultant.
Mike’s qualifications include MA (Otago) and MPhil (Auckland).
Andrew Geddis (1985-89) is an Associate Professor of Law at the University of Otago.
Andrew completed his undergraduate work at the University of Otago, studying law and political studies. In 1996 he was awarded a Fulbright scholarship to Harvard Law School, where he completed his LLM degree. In 2000 he returned to Otago to take up a lecturing position. He was appointed an Associate Professor in 2007.
Associate Professor of Law Andrew Geddis - "the politicians have had their turn at making rules for New Zealand's elections. It's time for the voters to have theirs." |
He currently teaches Public Law at the 200 level, as well as the 300-400 level papers “Law and the Democratic Process” and “Bills of Rights: Theory and Practice”. In addition, he is the coordinator for the second year course. His research interests lie in the field of public law, rights jurisprudence and democratic theory, with a particular focus on the legal regulation of elections.
Andrew is a member of the Legislation Advisory Committee, and has provided advice on several occasions to parliament’s Justice and Electoral Committee and Privileges Committee. He is also a regular contributor to the opinion pages of the country’s newspapers.
In the latest edition of the University of Otago alumni magazine, Andrew contribution a thought-provoking article, entitled ‘The Electoral Finance Act and knee jerk legislation’. It makes for fascinating treading and, with Andrew’s permission, is reproduced here:
New Zealand's electoral law is like the knee. When it works, you do not even notice it is there. But damaging it can seriously disrupt your every day life. Unfortunately, if I may extend the metaphor, this country recently has suffered the equivalent to a torn ACL. The Electoral Finance Act 2007, enacted in response to perceived problems with election funding at the2005 election, has become the focus of much public angst.
Political parties trade accusations over who has breached the law on a weekly, if not daily, basis. Media organisations, most notably the New Zealand Herald, are campaigning actively against the legislation. Every decision on how the law applies is scrutinised and critiqued from all corners. Of course, the Electoral Finance Act always was going to be controversial.
The balance it attempts to strike between the important democratic values of freedom of participation and general equality of influence is open to reasonable dispute. Furthermore, politicians have a vested interest when it comes to designing election rules, so their motivations in this area always are questionable.
Nevertheless, the level of current dispute, as well as its acrimonious nature, is concerning. First, it indicates that a significant portion of those directly involved in the election process (as well as the voting public more generally) do not believe the basic ground-rules the Electoral Finance Act sets for our election campaigns are fair.
Belief in the fairness of the election rules is a necessary prerequisite for accepting the final election result. It is why the losers at the polls consent to the winner gaining public power, even though they may violently disagree with the winner's substantive policies and goals. When this belief is threatened, it undermines the whole point and purpose of elections.
Second, unhappiness with the rules contained in the Electoral Finance Act is leading some to question the actions of those charged with overseeing and administering them. In particular, the Electoral Commission’s actions have been challenged repeatedly, with an underlying message that this agency is either partisan or incompetent.
Such messages, although demonstrably untrue, undermine public trust in the way our election process is run. Losing this trust would be a disaster. A society that does not think its elections are conducted in an honest and fair fashion ends up in a situation like Kenya or Zimbabwe find themselves in today.
Of course, any claim that the Electoral Finance Act is going to destroy New Zealand's democracy is silly. Even the opponents of that legislation’s limits on third party election expenses would not put them in the same league as stuffing ballot boxes or beating up rival supporters. But the Electoral Finance Act has caused damage to our electoral process that now needs fixing. How we might now undertake that restorative project depends in part on how the damage was caused in the first place.
A good portion of the blame for the present situation lies with the legislation’s authors. While the actions of the Exclusive Brethren and like during the 2005 election campaign gave the Labour-led Government legitimate reasons to consider changing our electoral laws, the way it went about enacting those reforms was ill-considered and overly rushed.
The normal parliamentary process for considering and enacting law misfired with regards the Electoral Finance Act. This failure has important flow-on consequences.
For one thing, it is hard to see how Parliament alone can now put the matter right. The level of vitriol that Electoral Finance Act has attracted means any replacement legislation promoted by any political party likely will be attacked as equally partisan.
It is questionable whether even a set of measures recommended by outside experts could now generate broad respect and agreement. The selection of those experts, and the terms of reference given to them, would be subject to intensive scrutiny and questioning.
Given this situation, the best way forward may be to put the issue of election funding directly to the New Zealand public. Canada’s recent use of citizens’ assemblies to address issues of electoral reform provides a model for how this could be done. A randomly selected, representative group of voters from around the country would be charged with deciding how to regulate the issue of electoral financing. Over a series of weeks, they would engage in a process of education on the topic, as well as hear submissions from interested persons or groups, before collectively deciding on the best way forwards.
Their recommendations then would provide a signal as to how ordinary, fully informed New Zealanders want their electoral processes to work. It would then be a brave, or particularly mendacious, government that would dare ignore such a message.
Simply put, the politicians have had their turn at making rules for NewZealand’s elections. It is time for the voters to have theirs.
Stephen Guest (1962-66) is the Professor of Legal Philosophy at University College, London.
Stephen graduated with honours in both Philosophy (1971) and Law (1973) from the University of Otago and taught logic for two years for the Philosophy Department while still an undergraduate before studying with Ronald Dworkin at University College, Oxford.
He currently chairs with Dworkin the distinguished and internationally well-known annual Colloquia in Legal and Social Philosophy at UCL. He is also staff editor of the UCL Jurisprudence Review, the annual student law journal he founded in 1994. A barrister and solicitor of the New Zealand High Court, and barrister of the Inner Temple, he wrote significant opinions for the defence in the Privy Council of the David Bain murder case and for the Public Defender in the Pitcairn Island sexual abuse case.
Professor Stephen Guest, Professor of Legal Philosophy, University College, London |
Stephen’s research is in legal and political philosophy, particularly on the question of justification in legal reasoning and the relationship between justice, interpretation and laws. He has a strong belief in the academic importance of legal education, particularly its interdisciplinary content, and the effectiveness of distance learning. His well-known book Ronald Dworkin appeared in its second edition in 1997. Amongst other work, he has published in Public Law on constitutional problems of legal revolution, the Law Quarterly Review on hearsay evidence, the Journal of Medical Ethics on the rights of the subjects of medical research, Revue Internationale de Philosophie on the idea of law as justice, to which Dworkin has published a reply, Acta Juridica on equality and legal reasoning, and the University of Queensland Law Journal on judicial policy-making. He has recently produced work shortly to be published on objectivity in value, the implication of moral theory for political stability and environmental sustainability, legality and Fullerian reciprocity on Pitcairn Island, and his father's experience as a POW lecturing on the University of London External degree programme in Stalag IVB in Muhlberg, Germany, and Campo 52 in Chiavari, Italy.
In August 1998, Stephen gave his father's 30th anniversary lecture (the FW Guest Memorial lecture) at the University of Otago entitled 'Freedom and Status Revisited: Where Equality Fits In' which is published in the Otago Law Review 1999. His inaugural lecture, ''Why the Law is Just', was published in Current Legal Problems 2000 and received a spirited but unsuccessful attack from Paul Johnson in The Spectator. In 2004, he delivered the Sir Frank Kitto lecture in Armidale, NSW, at the University of New England. He also has been on Radio 4's Unreliable Evidence with Clive Anderson and Lord Bingham. In 2001, UCL awarded him the distinguished teaching award for the Faculty of Laws.
In 1987, he was Visiting Scholar at New York University Law School and Visiting Researcher at Harvard Law School. He was again Visiting Scholar at NYU for 1996. In both 2005 and 2006, he was Visiting Professor in Jurisprudence in the Faculty of Law at the University of Otago. At UCL, he was Sub-Dean and Faculty Tutor (1980-85), Secretary to the Bentham Committee (1982-87), Vice-Dean and Deputy Head of Department (1993-1995), Convener of the MA in Legal and Political Theory (1995-2000), Director of Research Students (2004-2006), and Legal Member of the University College & Hospital Research Ethics Committee (1985-1999). For many years he was the Convener of the internal UCL LLB and the internal federal University of London LLM programmes in Jurisprudence & Legal Theory, and the Convener and Chief examiner for the London External LLB and LLM in Jurisprudence & Legal Theory. For over ten years, he was the Convener and Chief Examiner of the Law of Evidence for the London External LLB, and he published study guides in that subject for the University of London, as well as in Jurisprudence & Legal Theory for the LLB and LLM.
He plays the violin and was formerly a founder member of the Dunedin Civic Orchestra, a violinist in the New Zealand National Youth Orchestra for seven years, an active member of the Dunedin Opera Company, and was twice a finalist in the New Zealand Chamber Music Federation competition. He was President of the OUSA Music Union 1968-1971 and Board member of the Dunedin Chamber Music society. He was also a violinist in the Oxford University orchestra, the Univ. orchestra, UCL opera and orchestra, and others. He has performed many times at the UCL & Hospital Chamber Music Society. His other main interests are painting, for which he won a prize at the New Zealand Universities Arts Festival in 1968, and hunting deer in the South Island.
