Good morning, and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Government ministers and iwi leaders in Waitara for commemoration, open letter to Greens over GE, and Hamilton’s leading public servant calls for election reform. Government ministers, iwi leaders and other dignitaries have gathered in Taranaki this weekend to commemorate a foundational period in New Zealand’s … Read more
Later this month, the national commemoration of the New Zealand Wars, known as Te Pūtake o Te Riri, is to be held in Taranaki. Local community activist Vivian Hutchinson looks at how a history of conflict has shaped our sense of citizenship and describes how some people in Taranaki are now turning up to a … Read more
Compulsory New Zealand history in schools is an exciting opportunity but it’s crucial we’re critical of the stories we tell ourselves, writes historian Aroha Harris, co-author of Tangata Whenua: An Illustrated History. History is not simply an assemblage of facts and evidence. History is also the interrogation of those things. This may be unsettling news … Read more
Finally, New Zealand history will become a compulsory school subject. So what’s so good about that? New Zealand history will be a compulsory primary and secondary school subject within the next three years, Jacinda Ardern announced today. The decision has proved popular to campaigners and academics like Vincent O’Malley who have battled for years to … Read more
The only published and available bestselling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington. AUCKLAND 1 Toll by Luke Wright (Penned in the Margins, $32) “Part Essex wide boy, part dandy fop, he writes from the sidelines … Read more
Right about now, Vincent O’Malley is delivering a mighty Michael King Memorial Lecture at the Auckland Writers Festival. In this startling extract from his new book, The New Zealand Wars Ngā Pakanga o Aotearoa, O’Malley explains how the decimation of Māori in Tūranga (Gisborne) “completely eclipsed” the country’s losses in Gallipoli. Actual fighting may have … Read more