Compiling the best reading from your friendly local website.
Madeleine Chapman: A harrowing report from the Max Key VIP experience
“’You paid to be here? That’s crazy.’
The young man laughed as I hurriedly explained that no, I hadn’t paid $59 for a VIP ticket to Max Key’s DJ gig, my work had. It didn’t matter to him, the damage was done.
‘All you had to say was ‘I’ll hook up with you’.’”
“We definitely didn’t want it to be like a serious wanky art film. I wanted to be able to tell these stories in a very palatable way, and there’s a fine line between making fun of it and also making it light enough for someone who isn’t as open-minded to accept it. We couldn’t think of a better way to do that than through animation. People are really scared to be confronted by a victim, I think.”
Tao Lin: No more excuses: Why your attempts to deny the gender pay gap just won’t wash
“In New Zealand, many of the highest paid roles are in the IT industry, which is male dominated. Senior leadership and governance roles are overwhelmingly filled by men: NZX figures show just 17% of publicly-listed company directors are female, a number that failed to improve between 2015 and 2016. There is one female CEO in all the companies on the NZX 50.”
Emily Writes: Dispatches from a long night featuring vomit
“I turned the light on in the baby’s room to see my husband catching spew in his hand. I was still waking up so it took me a second to grab a towel as the vomit dripped through his fingers. I scooped up the baby and pulled off his top which was now covered in puke. My husband’s back gave out as he tried to get up from the slippery vomit-covered bed. He lay groaning in the sick as the baby began to giggle. A sleepy Eddie turned up at the door – ‘Why’d you do sick out your mouf?’ he asked me.”
Simon Wilson: Why does government want to push a new expressway through Auckland without proving the need?
“Besides, perennial agitator Penny Bright got in early to help focus their minds. She’d been denied speaking rights, so she jumped up and made a speech about how she had called the police to arrest Darby because he was breaking the law in not letting her speak, and she had also called in the Serious Fraud Office because the council had allowed a $600 million investment in Tamaki to disappear.
Darby adjourned the meeting and they went to get a cup of tea, except Cr Greg Sayers, who is new and was sitting near Bright and didn’t know to get away quickly. She talked on, he listened, nodding and nodding. Eventually she sat down quietly and the meeting started again. The police didn’t come. Nor did the SFO. We’ll watch that space with interest.”
The Spinoff: A 2am Facebook Messenger conversation between comedians Rose Matafeo and Alice Snedden
“Like, if I hear another fucking dude talk about how his influences are Louis or Hicks I will genuinely blow my brains out. When do you ever hear men who do comedy talk about any of their influences being women?”
Ben Thomas: Bill English’s super shift is a minor triumph – and lights a fuse for the ages
“It’s no surprise politicians have concluded the exact right time to turn off the spigot to the current retirement age is about the same time the biggest cohort of voters doesn’t need it any more. And a future government can always reintroduce stoats and rats if millennials need protein between the ages of 65 and 66.”
Eva McGauley: ‘This is what it’s like for us’ – a teenager on Wellington College Facebook comments and rape culture
“For teenagers, rape culture is inescapable. It is normal to see boys watching or distributing porn in the back of the classroom at school. It is normal to be scared walking down the street. It is normal to walk into a cafe and see a bunch of college boys and leave to avoid being harassed.
This is normal but it should not be.”
Martine Udahemuka: Why are we afraid to even talk about performance pay for teachers?
“New Zealand has too many schools that have failed to meet minimum performance benchmarks, some for more than a decade. The New Zealand Initiative uncovered this uncomfortable truth in our previous work.
So as a parent, how can you be sure that your child is not in one of these schools? Or better yet, how do you know if your child’s teacher is effective? Surely teachers reading this can too think of a peer or two who could do more to pull their weight.
But for some reason juxtaposing teachers and performance rewards seems to always get people’s backs up.”
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