Blog Archives

Best of all possible worlds? Stephen Levine

Posted on November 29, 2019 by NZ Books

Promises Promises: 80 Years Of Wooing New Zealand Voters
Claire Robinson
Massey University Press, $60.00,
ISBN 9780995109544

When Jacinda Ardern stated in 2017 that, if elected, Labour would move to “abolish child poverty”, this resonated as an ambitious goal, enlightened, compassionate and long overdue. It is among the many strengths of Claire Robinson’s book that we are able, with perspective (and evidence), to see that the first Labour government had accomplished this task – and more – over 70 years earlier.

Tagged with: Claire Robinson, Issue 128, Massey University Press, Stephen Levine, Summer 2019
Posted in History, Non-fiction, Politics & Law, Review

Articulating an alternative, Julienne Molineaux

Posted on May 26, 2019 by NZ Books

Government for the Public Good: The Surprising Science of Large-scale Collective Action
Max Rashbrooke
Bridget Williams Books, $50.00,
ISBN 9781988545080

This is an optimistic book that aims to re-set the narrative on collective action and, in particular, how we discuss the role of government in our economic and social life. Author Max Rashbrooke’s previous books were on inequality (an edited collection) and on wealth in New Zealand (a BWB short text). Government for the Public Good: The Surprising Science of Large-Scale Collective Action continues Rashbrooke’s concern with how New Zealand can be a more egalitarian, fairer country. As with his previous books, Rashbrooke mixes his critique of the status quo with suggestions for policy improvements, but the main goal here is to present solutions. His confidence that there is an alternative infuses the book; his critique of what is essentially neoliberalism (a term he rarely uses) is countered in every case study chapter with examples of alternative, successful approaches to problem-solving, many sourced from overseas.

Tagged with: Bridget Williams Books, Issue 126, Julienne Molineaux, Max Rashbrooke, Winter 2019
Posted in Economics, Non-fiction, Politics & Law, Review

A study of politically enforced self-restraint, Janet McLean

Posted on September 11, 2018 by NZ Books

In Search of Consensus: New Zealand’s Electoral Act 1956 and its Constitutional Legacy
Elizabeth McLeay
Victoria University Press, $40.00,
ISBN 9781776561841

As I write, the sitting president of the United States of America is reported to be seriously contemplating the use of his powers of pardon to pardon himself. Such proposed conduct illustrates just how much all constitutions, written or unwritten, require large measures of self-restraint on the part of officials and politicians in order to work properly. Constitutional lawyers, political scientists and pundits tend to focus on these and other incidents in which politicians test the limits of their powers. In her new book, In Search of Consensus: New Zealand’s Electoral Act 1956 and its Constitutional Legacy, Elizabeth McLeay does something which is much more original. She makes a study of the voluntary and wholly politically enforced self-restraint by New Zealand politicians in the Electoral Act 1956 and its successor legislation.

Tagged with: Elizabeth McLeay, Issue 123, Janet McLean, Spring 2018, Victoria University Press
Posted in Non-fiction, Politics & Law, Review

Gloomy agreement, Tom Brooking

Posted on November 29, 2017 by NZ Books

The New Zealand Project
Max Harris
Bridget Williams Books, $40.00,
ISBN 9780947492588

New Zealand: Paradise Squandered? Reflections on What We’ve Lost and Where We’re Heading
John Hawkes
John Hawkes, $40.00,
ISBN 9780473375553

Two New Zealanders at either end of their writing lives have set down their diagnosis on what is currently wrong with New Zealand and suggest some possible solutions that might be implemented to rid us of their rather lengthy list of ills.

Twenty-seven-year-old Max Harris is a law student and holder of a prestigious Examination Scholarship from All Souls College Oxford; John Hawkes is a retired rheumatologist who worked in the United Kingdom and France for several years and is now in his 80s. Despite the generational gap, they are pretty much agreed on what is wrong with New Zealand.

Tagged with: Bridget Williams Books, Issue 120, John Hawkes, Max Harris, Summer 2017, Tom Brooking
Posted in Non-fiction, Politics & Law, Review, Sociology

A prime ministerial primer, Simon Upton

Posted on September 10, 2017 by NZ Books

New Zealand’s Prime Ministers: From Dick Seddon to John Key
Michael Bassett
David Ling Publishing, $50.00,
ISBN 9781927305294

New Zealand’s Prime Ministers is a very large volume. It is also an extremely ambitious one that is challenging as a through-read. Twenty-four prime ministers (PMs) dispatched chronologically, from Dick Seddon to John Key, is not an easy assignment. Many will, I suspect, explore this celebrated roll call randomly. You might pick out a shadowy, short-lived incumbent of whom you know little (like Thomas Noble McKenzie, whose three and a half month reign in 1912 brought the curtain down on the great Liberal era that began in 1891); or ferret in the (voluminous) footnotes to tie down the manoeuvrings of a contemporary survivor like Michael Moore or Jenny Shipley.

Tagged with: David Ling Publishing, Dick Seddon, Issue 119, John Key, Michael Bassett, Simon Upton, Spring 2017
Posted in Non-fiction, Politics & Law, Review

Changing times, David Grant

Posted on May 28, 2017 by NZ Books

>The New Zealand Labour Party 1916–2016
Peter Franks and Jim McAloon
Victoria University Press, $50.00,
ISBN 9781776560745

Researching a history of conservative political parties in New Zealand would be relatively straight-forward. The Reform/National Parties have, from their early beginnings to the present day, varied little ideologically – from centrist, to centre-right, to right – leaving the “far-right” tag essentially to those on that fringe, such as the Democrats in the 1930s, and ACT in more recent years. The same cannot be said of the New Zealand Labour Party, which veered from doctrinaire socialism under its first leader Harry Holland to, at the other extreme, unabashed neo-liberalism under David Lange (but led essentially by Roger Douglas) in the mid-to-late 1980s.

Tagged with: David Grant, Issue 118, Jim McAloon, Peter Franks, Victoria University Press, Winter 2017
Posted in History, Non-fiction, Politics & Law, Review

Treaty flows, Alex Calder

Posted on March 8, 2017 by NZ Books

Treaty of Waitangi: The Land is Our History: Indigeneity, Law, and the Settler State Miranda Johnson Oxford University Press, $41.00, ISBN 9780190600020 Reconciliation, Representation and Indigeneity: “Biculturalism” in Aotearoa New Zealand Peter Adds, Brigitte Bönish-Brednich, Richard S Hill, Graeme…

Tagged with: Alex Calder, Autumn 2017, Brigitte Bönish-Brednich, Graeme Whimp, Issue 117, Miranda Johnson, Oxford University Press, Peter Adds, Richard S Hill, Universitätsverlag
Posted in History, Māori, Non-fiction, Politics & Law, Review

Resource and recreation, Andrew Erueti

Posted on March 8, 2017 by NZ Books

The Struggle for Māori Fishing Rights: Te Ika a Māori Brian Bargh Huia, $45.00, ISBN 9781775501961 Te Matau a Maui: Fish-hooks, Fishing and Fisheries in New Zealand Chris Paulin with Mark Fenwick fishHook Publications, $50.00, ISBN 9780473328696 Māori have ownership…

Tagged with: Andrew Erueti, Autumn 2017, Brian Bargh, Chris Paulin, fishHook Publications, Huia, Issue 117, Mark Fenwick
Posted in History, Māori, Non-fiction, Politics & Law, Review

New ways of looking at the Treaty, Therese Crocker

Posted on March 8, 2017 by NZ Books

The Treaty on the Ground: Where We are Headed, and Why it Matters Rachael Bell, Margaret Kawharu, Kerry Taylor, Michael Belgrave and Peter Meihana (eds) Massey University Press, $40.00, ISBN 9780994130051 New Treaty, New Tradition: Reconciling New Zealand and Māori…

Tagged with: Autumn 2017, Carwyn Jones, Issue 117, Kerry Taylor, Margaret Kawharu, Michael Belgrave, Peter Meihana, Rachael Bell, Therese Crocker, Victoria University Press
Posted in History, Non-fiction, Politics & Law, Review

Chalk and cheese William Brandt

Posted on June 10, 2016 by NZ Books

The Many Deaths of Mary Dobie: Murder, Politics and Revenge in Nineteenth-century New Zealand
David Hastings
Auckland University Press, $40.00,
ISBN 9781869408374

The Scene of the Crime: Twelve Extraordinary True Stories of Crime and Punishment
Steve Braunias
HarperCollins, $37.00,
ISBN 9781775540830

Tourism has certainly come a long way. When in 1878 Mary Dobie made the trip from England to New Zealand, travelling in the company of sister Bertha (has that name ever been fashionable?) and mother Ellen, it took her three months. Not surprisingly after such a big investment of time and effort, the women planned a stay of three years – time to attend the wedding of émigré brother Herbert and still fit in a tour of the North Island, taking in, among other places, the fabled Pink and White Terraces of Lake Rotomahana. In special travel outfits of their own design (“a stout dungaree petticoat and a loose blouse bodice of thin cotton stuff”), the intrepid trio even visited Fiji and Samoa. “No white woman had ever been there,” journalled Bertha, with some pride, of a caving expedition to the Yasawa Islands.

Tagged with: Auckland University Press, David Hastings, HarperCollins, Issue 114, Steve Braunias, William Brandt, Winter 2016
Posted in History, Non-fiction, Politics & Law, Review, Sociology