Colin James to Australasian Study of Parliament Group seminar, Wellington
[Adapted from paper for ASPG conference, Brisbane, 17-18 July 2018.]
Wellington 12 September 2018
“Trust in Parliament in a post-truth world” was the title for Australasian Study of Parliament Group’s annual conference in Brisbane in July. It is a pertinent question at a time when populism has been rising in liberal democracies and may rise more…
ASPG NZ version 18Sep12
Category: Speeches, Papers & Briefings
The wisdom of crowds vs the madness of crowds
Colin James to Australasian Study of Parliament Group conference on
Trust in Parliament in a post-truth world
Brisbane 19 July 2018
This talks of three tensions. One is between the impact on citizens of rapidly developing digital technology and citizens reactions to that impact, including through Parliaments. The second is between liberal democracy and autocracy which a growing body of commentary worries democracy is losing. The third lies under those two tensions: between the wisdom of crowds and the madness of crowds.
What is this phenomenon Jacinda Ardern?
Talk to U3A Christchurch 8 May 2018
What is it about our Prime Minister that excites unusual reactions? And will this star fix in the heavens or be a shooting star back to earth?
The first post-baby-boomer election
Background notes for Victoria University post-election conference
Colin James, 6 December 2017
This was the election the “losers won”, the National party and its devotees, apologists and puppets grumped when Winston Peters and his New Zealand First party decided to coalesce with Labour. National got 44.4% of the vote to Labour’s 36.9%.
The Mark Twain syndrome – why cities might rule (sometime)
The Mark Twain syndrome – why cities might rule (sometime)
Colin James to Masterton branch, New Zealand Institute of International Affairs
29 November 2017
Mark Twain quipped that a report of his death was an exaggeration. The same is often said of the sovereign nation-state. But Mark Twain did die, 13 years after the exaggerated report.
Death reduced Mark Twain to putrefaction and sustenance for creatures of the dark. His words live on, a disembodied testament to our human need and yearning for ways to knit belief that we have meaning and are distinct from and superior to all other living things in this temporary, 10-billion-year habitat whose sun will one day go out.
We invest similar belief and hope in our governing constructs. But, like Mark Twain, they are not immortal. Multiple empires and multiple lesser satrapies and realms have disintegrated and dematerialised through the past three of four millennia…..
Oh to be 24 again to see where all this goes
Talk to U3A, Queenstown 10 April 2017
This talk scanned the rapid and deep changes in the world in the 2010s, where they might lead and the implications for New Zealand. A book of this is scheduled to appear in August.
Green is the new blue. Can blue be the new green?
[Comments to Bluegreens forum with environmental organisations]
Green is the new blue. Or will be for those who want to be politically relevant in the 2020s.
When the Green party started out as the Values party in 1972, green was a “nice-to-have”. It was local. It mostly didn’t get in the way of expanding gross domestic product – except when tweed-jacketed conservatives joined with radicals to block the high dam on Lake Manapouri in 1970, as they did again in 2010 when Gerry Brownlee wanted to dig up conservation land for minerals and metals.
Keep the revolution rolling? Or bring back the cardigan?
Colin James, Australia New Zealand School of Government seminar, Wellington,
5 August, 2016
This is work and thought in progress. Constructive comments welcome to ColinJames@synapsis.co.nz.
A public service serves the public, or should. It is, or is supposed to be, the instrument of the collective public will and interest. When the public changes, or changes its mind, so logically does, or should, the public service.
Revitalising Maori culture
Lives are local
Colin James sum-up comments to Inspiring Communities conference
Wellington 22 June 2016
You are doers. I am a be-er/talker. You are insiders. I am an outsider. So I should stop now and let you get on with the “messy” business you do, as Nichola Brehaut put it.
But perhaps I should pick up Nicola’s “messy” point. “Messy” is democratic and your disparate actions in response to the people around you are the essence of democracy. Doing things democratically, as you do, may, as Nicola also said, take a little longer but it leads to better outcomes – “hoods” can become “goods”, Stone Soup told us.