Could the Government's push for universities to fuel a prosperous knowledge economy undermine their potential to realise that dream? Steven Joyce says an emphatic no. But not everyone is so sure. Bruce Munro investigates.
Dunedin people played instrumental roles in the eight-hour day movement and the holiday that marks it, writes Bruce Munro.
Labour Day has been our way of celebrating, or ignoring, the successes of united workers for the past 123 years. Now the trade union movement's battle for employee rights has a new front line: precarious work. Bruce Munro takes a look at the ongoing struggle.
Volunteers like Paul Rogers, who this weekend begins his second stint of unpaid work in Africa, typify a central tenet of ''the New Zealand way''. But Kiwi expressions of altruism are undergoing some significant shifts, Bruce Munro writes.
Those at risk are being urged to get eye tests to tackle New Zealand's most common cause of blindness.
Thursday marks World Sight Day, spotlighting the estimated 300 million people globally living with blindness and vision impairment. Bruce Munro talks to That Blind Woman, Julie Woods, and borrows her white cane for a few hours.
New Zealand is trying to find its way back to grassroots community development, with Dunedin's Northeast Valley one of five government-funded trials nationally. It is an exciting but fraught business where not arriving at your original destination means you are probably on the right track, writes Bruce Munro.
Otago can now hold her head higher at any mention of R.A. Lawson. Author and retired architect Norman Ledgerwood has brought to bear a lifetime of Lawson discoveries and thousands of hours of research to create a fuller understanding of the province's outstanding, sometimes controversial, early architect, writes Bruce Munro.
Mark Addy was a heavy-drinking womaniser in Game of Thrones. In The Syndicate he is a womaniser and a drunk.
Whitebaiting is fast becoming a must-do national pastime. But it is just as quickly facing a new, potentially disastrous, threat from an invasive water plant, writes Bruce Munro.
A new study will for the first time quantify homelessness in New Zealand. It comes at a time of surging demand for the Dunedin Night Shelter but takes a broad view of what constitutes homelessness. Some say its findings are sobering and troubling. Others call the definition a nonsense. Bruce Munro investigates.
The time is ripe for a Dunedin energy plan. But will the crucial consensus and support be there to give it wings? Bruce Munro takes a look.
Spies are, right now, in an uncomfortable place - the spotlight.
We appear poised to become a surveillance society.
When Debbie Richards, of Christchurch, emailed a humorous photo to friends in the United States (US) she did not think for a moment it would be intercepted and her email address blacklisted.
If you're feeling paranoid, it could be for good reason, Bruce Munro reports.
The 20ha public reserve in Gards Rd, Waitaki Valley, is so new it is yet to be named. But the limestone outcrop's spectacular scenery, rare and endangered plants, 25-million-year-old fossils and evidence of early Maori occupation mean it will not remain the exclusive preserve of conservationists and researchers for long, writes Bruce Munro.
Most serious crime committed by young people is the work of a small high-risk group. But those at the coal-face say young offenders, and their victims, are on a hiding to nothing until their communities accept responsibility and the Government stops undermining those trying to help, writes Bruce Munro.
In Athol Parks' Dunedin the whole city is an art gallery in which buildings whisper their secrets and footpaths bustle with everyone who has ever lived here. Bruce Munro joined one of Mr Parks' City Walks inner-city tours before next week's Dunedin Heritage Festival.
Internet use and connected devices are proliferating, but so too are the casualties. With internet addiction about to be listed as a probable mental illness, Bruce Munro discovers lessons that could help us all in this brave new online world.
