North & South

You may be doing a double take - who is that on the opening pages of North & South? It’s been an enormous privilege and pleasure to sit in for editor Susanna Andrew for the September issue. North & South is a respected heritage title, with an enviable and enduring reputation for attracting some of the very best in the business - journalists, columnists and photographers - and for speaking truth to power. And as this issue is themed on finance, who better to talk with than the one who holds the purse strings - Finance Minister Nicola Willis. While eviscerating banks last month for a sense of cosy entitlement, post a Commerce Commission report on the “big four”, Willis indicated New Zealanders might start to see some economic relief…

You may be doing a double take - who is that on the opening pages of North & South? It’s been an enormous privilege and pleasure to sit in for editor Susanna Andrew for the September issue. North & South is a respected heritage title, with an enviable and enduring reputation for attracting some of the very best in the business - journalists, columnists and photographers - and for speaking truth to power. And as this issue is themed on finance, who better to talk with than the one who holds the purse strings - Finance Minister Nicola Willis. While eviscerating banks last month for a sense of cosy entitlement, post a Commerce Commission report on the “big four”, Willis indicated New Zealanders might start to see some economic relief with…

Timothy Giles Has two life passions, wine and loss. A wine enthusiast he assists Auckland hospitality, training service staff in wine knowledge, love and confidence, creating profitable lists that delight diners. When not enthusing about wine he is a grief counsellor and funeral celebrant. You can hear his podcasts on his two life passions; Full of It, a wine pod and At a Loss, conversations on living with grief. Scott Hardy I’m a mostly French photographer who has been living in Aotearoa for the last seven years. Even though that sounds like a long time, I still feel as though I’m seeing things through the eyes of someone who has arrived only very recently, and I like that. My photographic interests, the things that inspire me, are really quite varied,…

Timothy Giles Has two life passions, wine and loss. A wine enthusiast he assists Auckland hospitality, training service staff in wine knowledge, love and confidence, creating profitable lists that delight diners. When not enthusing about wine he is a grief counsellor and funeral celebrant. You can hear his podcasts on his two life passions; Full of It, a wine pod and At a Loss, conversations on living with grief. Scott Hardy I’m a mostly French photographer who has been living in Aotearoa for the last seven years. Even though that sounds like a long time, I still feel as though I’m seeing things through the eyes of someone who has arrived only very recently, and I like that. My photographic interests, the things that inspire me, are really quite varied, from editorial and…

Letter of the month The Battle for Literacy - Fighting the ‘unseen’ issues No matter what the curriculum is, it will not succeed while politicians ignore so many barriers to learning. When a five year old starts school, there is estimated to be a 5-10 percent chance that child will have an unrecognised or untreated sight problem. Optometrists expect this to get worse over the next decade. There is about the same possibility of unrecognised or untreated hearing disability. Both of those conditions affect learning unfavourably. Some children start school with very little language development, unable to speak a full sentence, or with a very limited vocabulary. Others do not know colours or shapes. Add to that a wide range of neurodiverse conditions, some of which are not widely understood. Then there is the issue of…

Letter of the month The Battle for Literacy - Fighting the ‘unseen’ issues No matter what the curriculum is, it will not succeed while politicians ignore so many barriers to learning. When a five year old starts school, there is estimated to be a 5-10 percent chance that child will have an unrecognised or untreated sight problem. Optometrists expect this to get worse over the next decade. There is about the same possibility of unrecognised or untreated hearing disability. Both of those conditions affect learning unfavourably. Some children start school with very little language development, unable to speak a full sentence, or with a very limited vocabulary. Others do not know colours or shapes. Add to that a wide range of neurodiverse conditions, some of which are not widely understood.…