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SPECIAL The South Korean doomsday sect REPORT that’s doing big business in Fiji AUGUST 13-19 2022 RETHINKING ADOPTION Tens of thousands of Kiwis were adopted at birth. Now they’re speaking out. PRINCESS DI ANTARCTICA HAPPY PILLS The doco that turns Did Māori really New thinking on drugs the cameras back on us get there first? to treat depression

CONTENTS ISSN 2381-9553: Vol 281, No. 4259. August 13-19, 2022 Te Kaiwhakarongo Aotearoa COVER IMAGE: GETTY IMAGES GETTY IMAGES FEATURES mātauranga and “Western” scholarship. 43 | Psychology Drugs for treating by Yvonne van Dongen depression work on the chemical imbalance COVER STORY theory, but scientists have called that into 34 | Beautiful things question. by Marc Wilson 16 | The ties that bind John Saker remembers Lindsay Missen, Adoption law is in for a major overhaul the man behind many of Aotearoa’s most 44 | Science Kiwi mathematicians have but some argue the reforms still don’t noteworthy graphic designs. produced some astonishing medal-winning go far enough in freeing up information or performances over the years. by Bob Brockie helping heal old wounds. by Sarah Catherall LIFE BOOKS 22 | Grace & favour 36 | Health More evidence is needed before we A controversial South Korean doomsday can say definitively how medical cannabis might 46 | Tenor of the times Best-selling sect has had a warm welcome in Fiji, where be effective in end-of-life care. by Nicky Pellegrino The Miniaturist gets a gripping sequel, it now has significant business interests. a US Quaker town simmers with tension, 38 | Nutrition Weight loss can be a real and a young woman fights for intellectual by Aubrey Belford, Hyein Kang & Myungju Lee danger for elderly people, worsening existing freedom in renaissance Florence in the health problems and increasing the likelihood latest popular fiction. by Gill South 28 | The power of story of needing care. by Jennifer Bowden At 80, science fiction writer and former 48-53 | Books Patrick Radden Keefe’s theatre director Phillip Mann is publishing 40 | Food Gatherings and celebrations true stories of grifters, killers, rebels and a new novel, drawing on his life-long love are made easier with this selection of large crooks; a memoir by Sheila Hancock; of mythic themes. by Sally Blundell cakes, tarts and sides from Julia Busuttil David Duchovny’s novel of ideas; short Nishimura. cuts; novels by Michael Bennett and Luke 32 | A chilly reception Elworthy; and a book that looks at the role Did Māori reach Antarctic waters centuries 42 | Wine Although it’s among our smaller of oil in allowing petrostates to become before Europeans? Opposing views on wine regions, Nelson has a history of quality. engaged in conflicts the issue have reignited the debate over by Michael Cooper COMMENTARY 14 | Politics Jane Clifton ENTERTAINMENT 94 | The Good Life 3 | Upfront Greg Dixon 60 | Film Russell Baillie 62 | Film Festival Russell Baillie 4 | Letters Plus Caption Competition, DIVERSIONS 64 | Music Graham Reid 66-70 | Television Russell Baillie, Russell Brown Quips & Quotes and 10 Quick Questions 56-59 | Diversions 71-91 | TV programmes & Puzzles 8 | Bulletin Jonathan Kronstadt p48 92-93 | Radio programmes 93 | Classical Elizabeth Kerr 9 | Diary Charlotte Grimshaw 11 | Life Bill Ralston 13 | Reality Check Helen Cruse p46 Editor KARYN SCHERER Senior Designer RICHARD KINGSFORD Chief Executive Officer JANE HUXLEY Classified Sales KIM CHAPMAN Chief Subeditor FRANCES GRANT Subeditor NICK RUSSELL General Manager STUART DICK classifi[email protected] Political Columnist JANE CLIFTON Editorial Assistant REBECCA ZHONG Editorial Manager SARAH HENRY Subscriptions Email [email protected], Books Editor MARK BROATCH Editorial Office 317 New North Rd, Kingsland, Senior Account Manager CHLOE JORDAN magshop.co.nz or phone 0800 624 7467 Entertainment & Arts Editor RUSSELL BAILLIE Auckland 1021 [email protected] The NZ Listener is published by Are Media Ltd, Television Editor FIONA RAE Editorial postal address PO Box 52122, Commercial Brand Manager MAE KELLY Level 1, 317 New North Rd, Kingsland, Auckland 1021. Art Director DEREK WARD Kingsland, Auckland 1352 [email protected] Printed by Webstar, 114 Swanson Rd, Henderson, Assistant Art Director SHANE KELLY Editorial contact [email protected] Sales Director CLAIRE CHISHOLM Auckland 0610. © 2022. All rights reserved. 2 LISTENER AUGUST 13 2022

UPFRONT Biofuel blunder Well-intended legislation to mandate biofuels in petrol and diesel will not help to mitigate climate change, writes David Keat. This time next year, cars and trucks in this are too small and there are concerns over false certification by country will run partly on plant-derived suppliers. Today, about 40% of the US corn crop goes into making fuels, commonly known as biofuels. biofuel. Government subsidies incentivise growers to divert from From April 1, 2023, domestic fuel sup- food to ethanol production. This has created global corn shortages pliers will be legally required to add a and soaring prices, exacerbated by the war in Ukraine, which has percentage of biofuel to petrol and diesel. disrupted global grain supplies. This might sound like great news – that the government is doing something tangible to So why, since biofuel mandates have demonstrably not reduce our dependence on fossil fuels and reduce carbon-dioxide worked overseas, is our government planning to adopt emissions. Sadly not. The sustainable biofuels mandate, however them? Biofuels feature in the national emissions reduction well intentioned, will worsen climate impacts and further increase plan. The Climate Change Commission is pushing the man- food and fuel costs. date, believing biofuels will reduce New Zealand simply doesn’t have short-term emissions pending more enough sustainable biofuel sources significant initiatives. The biofuels (food waste, wood, tallow) to make the obligation Cabinet paper, presented to quantities needed each year to satisfy the Cabinet environment, energy and the mandate. Pine forest slash digestion climate committee in October 2021, is a mirage; it’s new technology with no outlines all the negative impacts the plants operating anywhere. mandate could have and acknowledges We would have to import biofuels that New Zealand will have to import from global suppliers. At these volumes, biofuels to satisfy it. But the Cabinet the likely biofuels are ethanol (for petrol) signed it off, insisting that only sustain- and Indonesian and Malaysian palm oil able biofuels are used even though they (for diesel). Over the past 30 years, about don’t exist in anything like sufficient 19 million hectares of mostly virgin rain- quantities. forest in these two countries have been New Zealand can’t simply ignore the cleared for plantations. For comparison, Forest destruction: a man-made peat fire in Riau, European Union’s ongoing difficulties New Zealand’s total area is about 27 Indonesia, to clear land for palm plantations. with sourcing ethically sound, non- million hectares. Each year, plantation food-based biofuels, or do better. As burning of unproductive trees produces global citizens, we can’t turn a blind eye about 1% of global greenhouse emis- to the unacceptable environmental and social costs of producing unsustainable A biofuel mandatesions. For ethanol, the only large-volume biofuels just because it isn’t happening sourcesarefoodcrops,mostcommonly maintains the status quo corn and sugarcane. within our borders. Growing food to feed engines rather in which people continue Sadly, focusing on a biofuel mandate to drive mostly fossil- than people drives deforestation and maintains the status quo in which destroys the habitats of species such fuel-powered vehicles. people continue to drive mostly as orangutans, and the livelihoods of fossil-fuel-powered vehicles and avoid indigenous peoples. Once the emissions political or personal decisions about from clearing land for crops and from the fertiliser, water, trans- changing their behaviour. The truly climate-friendly changes portation and processing are counted, biofuels have higher global urgently needed are for us to generate more renewable electric- greenhouse-gas emissions than using fossil fuels. ity; drive less, even in electric vehicles; and to walk, cycle and use Biofuel mandates in the US and Europe have caused untold public transport more. Biofuels defer such changes, contribute havoc and misery. Since 2011, the added demand for land to grow to traffic congestion and living costs and divert money from the crops to satisfy the EU’s legal requirements for biodiesel has infrastructure required. Time is being lost and time is the one destroyed forests the size of the Netherlands and increased global thing we don’t have. l GETTY IMAGES emissions massively, compared with having done nothing. Europeans are trying to shift from food-based to waste-based David Keat is part of a recently formed advocacy group, Don’t Burn biofuels – mainly sourced from China – but available volumes Our Future. SUBMISSIONS for Upfront should be approximately 600 words long and should be sent to [email protected]. Full contact details must be provided. AUGUST 13 2022 LISTENER 3

LETTERS The climate won’t wait Much column space has been their concerns. It’s a strategy Europe had wildfires ripping In the week after the vote, given to the ousting of Green summarised decades ago by through France, Spain and Bill McGuire, emeritus profes- Party co-leader James Shaw US president Lyndon Johnson: Portugal. UK temperatures sor of geophysical and climate (Listener, August 6), but very “It’s better to have him inside reached a new record (40.3C) hazards at University College little has been written about the tent pissing out, than out- and 40 properties in London London, observed, “It turns the concerns of the naysayers, side the tent pissing in.” were destroyed by wildfires. out the climate is changing for or the extent of their concerns. In the US, 100 million people the worse far quicker than pre- (I hasten to add I am not a The Labour/Greens Co- in over 20 states were under dicted by early climate models. member of any political party, operation Agreement states: heat alerts, while 73% of New That’s something that was but I do share those concerns.) “When speaking within Mexico was suffering from never expected.” portfolio responsibilities, they extreme drought. A dozen The major political parties will speak for the Government Chinese cities issued the This situation requires regard Shaw – and the Greens representing the Govern- “highest possible heat warn- action, not by 2030, not by – as patsies; potential elec- ment’s position in relation to ing” – affecting 900 million 2050, but now. And that action tion deal-makers to be kept those responsibilities.” people – while dozens died requires a loud political voice onside by throwing them a and millions were displaced by to counter the entrenched few bones of appeasement. In Unfortunately, the climate landslides and severe floods in narrative that eternal growth return, the Greens agree not won’t be appeased. large areas of southern China. within a finite system is the to make too much noise about only answer. Anyone who In the week before the vote, record-breaking heatwaves in GETTY IMAGES WINNING CAPTION So, you’ll give the signal Bob Richardson, Christchurch when you want us to take our FINALISTS hands out of our pockets? Ian Foster: “Apart from our defence and our attack, I thought we played really well.” – Bill Grant, Napier Caption competition Roger Tuivasa-Sheck: “Big one coming, mate, so you’d better think outside the ’Boks now.” – Dean Donoghue, THIS WEEK’S PICTURE Papamoa Beach Tuivasa-Sheck: “Told ya.” – Ann Nichols, Levin Tuivasa-Sheck: “So, Fossie, what are you, coach or bus?” Foster: “Bloody Kirwan!” – Conal Atkins, Nelson Tuivasa-Sheck: “Shall we run for it?” – Trish Bishop, Hamilton Tuivasa-Sheck: “Hey, boss, I could put in a word at the Warriors. They’d die for your record!” – Robbie Blair, Snells Beach Caption Competition UK Conservative Party leadership contender Rishi Sunak reacts as he meets supporters at a campaign event. {[email protected]} TO ENTER Send your captions for the photo at right to [email protected], with “Caption Competition No 473” in the subject line. Alternatively, entries can be posted to “Caption Competition No 473”, NZ Listener, PO Box 52122, Kingsland, Auckland 1352. Entries must be received by noon, Tuesday, August 16. THE PRIZE Sustainable Kitchen is a positive, practical handbook on how to shop, cook and eat in an ecologically sustainable way. 4 LISTENER AUGUST 13 2022

believes that 2032 will be like 2022, just with more electric cars, is woefully deluded. Geoff Palmer (writer) (Mt Victoria, Wellington) Bill Ralston’s pessimism over “Buying an electric car has made me feel a lot better about James Shaw’s leadership seems myself. Now, people can see that I really am rather wealthy.” somewhat misplaced (Life, August 6). Far from being and long-term planning. So school classrooms. It’s disap- air-purification system for doomed, Shaw’s “miraculously far, more than 16,000 Kiwis pointing that the very next day, its buses is a classic case of the managed” consultation (why have done the course, with 95% RNZ also revealed that “Cost benefit being privatised and is that miraculous?) with the reporting that it has helped concerns scupper fresh air the costs socialised that bedev- party membership may well them with their finances. In plans for Auckland buses”. ils much else in our public give him reason for optimism. particular, it has helped more health system. than 2000 Kiwis to go from We know that expecting Warren Lindberg, MNZM The 32 delegates voting hardship to living debt free. individual responsibility to (Hobsonville, Auckland) to open nominations may rescue us from any infectious include delegates who simply The courses and the disease is never sufficient; a LETTER OF THE WEEK want to open the question to website are funded entirely public health response is also the membership; it’s that sort by donations from support- required. In this case, Auck- WEALTH BY STEALTH of party. When they peruse ers. It is run mostly through land Transport’s financial the available alternatives, they churches. Anyone interested cost-benefit analysis is seri- Unless you have lived on will very likely retain Shaw. can go to the website to find a ously inadequate. another planet for the past three-session training course, 70 years, you have witnessed As for Chlöe Swarbrick’s so that they can get started, The cost falls not only on the the greatest growth in reluctance to stand, she is either online or in person. bus company and Auckland worldwide income and the probably keeping her powder Cliff Studman Transport, but also on pas- greatest decrease in world- dry for a tantalising long-term (Island Bay, Wellington) sengers who become infected wide inequality in the history goal of becoming a future and a health system struggling of human civilisation: the Labour prime minister. DON’T HOLD YOUR BREATH to cope with the epidemic’s growth of incomes across Asia Petrus van der Schaaf incessant demands. alone since World War II has (Te Arai Point) Thanks, Bill Ralston (Life, contributed to that. July 23), for drawing attention Auckland Transport’s THE TRUTH ABOUT MONEY to RNZ’s study of locations decision not to fund an The problem for Thomas where breathing “backwash” – The article on Sam Stubbs someone else’s exhaled breath Letters to the editor {[email protected]} (“Raising our money smarts”, – risks the likelihood of Covid August 6) was insightful. His infection. Unsurprisingly, The Editor, NZ Listener, PO Box 52122, Kingsland, Auckland 1352 “8 Golden Rules of Money” are the most risky locations are straightforward and easy for where a lot of people occupy a ● Letters must be under A phone number can be helpful.  PARRY JONES anyone who is reasonably com- confined, unventilated space – 300 words. Preference is ● Pen names or letters submitted petent with basic mathematics. notably, public transport and given to shorter letters.  elsewhere are not acceptable.  But for many, the basic maths ● A writer’s full residential ● We reserve the right and the money-organisation address is required on all to edit or decline letters skills required to achieve letters, including emails. without explanation. these rules are a challenge. Fortunately, there is an excellent free web-based programme that enables people to manage their money very much in line with Stubbs’ rules. This is the CAP course (capnz.org). It enables people to control their money in a simple yet effective way. Through this website, volunteer coaches help people prepare budgets and then implement them, so they are able to pay off debts and save better. Once people get started, they can continue to use the website to do their monthly AUGUST 13 2022 LISTENER 5

LETTERS 10Quick Questions byGABEATKINSON Quips& Quotes 1. Which film includes the 4. Which of these birds is not a 8. In 1970, after the break-up quote: “Absolutely not! member of the ratite group? “We have been forced to I’m a businessman. I love of the Beatles, which former fight for our own health money, I love power, I love ❑ Bittern care when we got let capitalism. I do not now and ❑ Cassowary member released a best- down by the government. never will love children.” ❑ Emu Shame on the government ❑ Kiwi selling solo album titled for letting us down again.” ❑ Annie ❑ Wall Street 5. What is the correct name All Things Must Pass? – Erik Bottcher, a New York ❑ The Social Network for the limbs of an octopus? councillor whose district ❑ Jerry Maguire ❑ Ringo Starr includes neighbourhoods hit ❑ Arms ❑ Paul McCartney hard by monkeypox 2. Which Australian Prime ❑ Tentacles ❑ John Lennon Minister went for a swim ❑ Fronds ❑ George Harrison “You never realise how in the ocean and vanished ❑ Tendrils long a minute actually without a trace in 1967? 9. Which novel is set in a is until you’re exercising.” 6. Which New Zealand ❑ Robert Menzies volcano produced the totalitarian state called – Seen on Twitter ❑ John Curtin Oruanui supereruption? ❑ Harold Holt the Republic of Gilead? “Proud people breed sad ❑ Malcolm Fraser ❑ Mt Ruapehu sorrows for themselves.” ❑ Rangitoto Island ❑ Brave New World 3. In 1902, the American ❑ Mt Taranaki ❑ The Handmaid’s Tale – Emily Brontë engineer Willis H Carrier built ❑ Taupō volcano ❑ Fahrenheit 451 the first modern … what? ❑ Nineteen Eighty-Four “Reality is easy. It’s 7. True or false? General Motors deception that’s the hard ❑ Helicopter made a coal-powered car in the 10. In which city might work.” – Lauryn Hill ❑ Air conditioner 1980s to address rising oil costs. ❑ Computer you visit the High Line, an “Resilient people aren’t ❑ Space rocket ❑ True the people that keep ❑ False elevated 2.3km section of going, they’re the ones that know their railway that was converted boundaries and stay within them.” – Ashley Bloomfield into an urban park? “All animals are equal, ❑ Paris Answers on but some animals ❑ London page 58. are more equal than ❑ New York others.” – George Orwell ❑ Sydney “An idea isn’t responsible Piketty (“Wealth by stealth”, is what policy should focus on. pages of the NSU website. for the people who believe July 23) and his supporters Piketty’s proposals (for Those wanting to under- in it.” – Don Marquis is relative rates of growth in wealth and income. The lowest progressive wealth taxes) stand the rationale for setting “I just wanted a normal (generally non-Western) were famously advanced by the threshold for this country’s life. There was a big part deciles have had a massive the Ségolène Royal/François programme at twice that of of me that needed to increase in income and that Hollande-era French socialists. Australia’s, and more than break free and I wanted drives the decrease in inequal- The total failure of this twice that of the Waitematā a partner to love. That ity. The highest decile, who approach should be another Bowel Screening Pilot, can was really all.” – Former include those who move capi- reason for lay readers to be find that information buried tal around the world, have also wary of Piketty. in the bowels of the Ministry Black Cap Heath Davis on enjoyed massive growth. The Paul Chrystall of Health website. Essentially, being the first openly gay middle to upper deciles (gener- (Epsom, Auckland) it was set at 200 nanograms Black Cap and wanting ally, this includes workers and of blood per millilitre of solu- to live his life as freely as the middle class of the West) SCREEN TIME tion, together with raising possible have not increased as fast. the starting age to 60 years, to Not before time, AG Talbot manage colonoscopy demand. “People didn’t like the So, inequality has decreased (Letters, August 6) lifts the lid It was the best bang for the idea of the tower. People when properly measured on how positive and negative buck, so to speak, as it reduced hated it. People thought it worldwide, but not every results are determined in the the number of unnecessary looked like a sewer pipe.” decile is happy with their rela- National Bowel Screening colonoscopies being done. tive growth rate, and this leads Programme (NBSP) — – Architect Gordon Moller to angst in the West regarding something the National However, it was acknow- reflects on the Sky Tower, 25 inequality. Screening Unit fails to do ledged that more bowel years after it opened in the information readily cancers would be missed. Real growth increases available to consumers on It seems reasonable consum- wealth – we use less to its Time to Screen website. ers receiving a negative achieve more. How wealth result may want to see their so created is spread does It also doesn’t direct con- numerical result. It could not principally depend on sumers wanting more detailed be vital for GPs to have this redistribution. It depends information to “How a test information when assess- mostly on participation. That result becomes positive or nega- ing relevant symptoms. tive” on the health professional 6 LISTENER AUGUST 13 2022

At the very least, a transparent and GHOST IN THE MACHINE READER PROMOTION easy process should be made available for participants to request their numeri- Dumping enormous amounts of data WIN A cal result, as is their right, which should into machines through deep learning has DOUBLE then be provided within a timeframe produced some amazing results (Technol- PASS TO that complies with the Health Informa- ogy, July 23). But this is not the way we GLORIAVALE tion Privacy Code. The present ad hoc will find an artificial general intelligence arrangement is untenable. (AGI) that we can comfortably commu- The Listener is giving Barbara Robson nicate with. A working AGI brain for a readers the chance to (Feilding) robot is already available from the inter- win tickets to Gloriavale net and it needs to be put into the head When did faceless and politically sup- of an adequate robot body. That will take Gloriavale is an observational ported IT systems gain such control of time and a big research effort. documentary examining allegations of health care, and where have all the clini- widespread abuse inside the infamous cians gone? However, if the robot is then given an Gloriavale Christian Community and education like ours, and with us, in the the institutional failures that have AG Talbot notes limitations of the real world, we can expect a human-like allowed it to continue. rationed-care bowel screening pro- individual that understands the world gramme. It is ironic that neither the as we do with common sense, free will, Exploring the secretive community patient nor their doctor knows the empathy and self-awareness. Such a through never-before-seen home actual level of blood in a screening test robot could be a useful assistant, inter- video footage, the film-makers follow sample that is deemed negative (ie, does esting companion or competent carer. the Ready family as they mount a not meet the high colonoscopy thresh- John H Andreae ground-breaking legal case against old). Yet the lab, which is not a day-to-day (Avalon, Lower Hutt) the sect’s powerful leaders. carer, has this information. An increas- ing occult blood level could be occurring UNPOPULAR REFORMS Along with allegations of sexual with each further “negative screen test” and physical abuse and human but no one seems to have responsibility I agree with Bill Ralston (Life, July 16) rights violations, the documentary for doing anything about this. How will that more than one of the government’s explores what life is really like in any reported symptoms be clinically reforms are both unnecessary and Gloriavale as the Ready family risk acted on meantime? unwanted. First, the Three Waters bill is losing their home, their community complicated. As for abolishing the role of and those they love for a chance to The process for requesting a specific the Children’s Commissioner, when all bring positive change to the West numerical result is like blood – mostly of our Children’s Commissioners have Coast community. hidden – and requires endless weeks of done splendid jobs, and replacing this waiting for a legally available action that position with a board of up to six, one WE HAVE 5 DOUBLE should be readily accessible, although it must ask why? Change for the sake of PASSES TO GIVE AWAY still may not materialise. change is what Labour is guilty of. To enter, email listenergiveaways@ What happened to patient-clinician Would it not be better to extend the aremedia.co.nz with GLORIAVALE partnerships and transparency in health our Parliamentary term from three to in the subject line. care? How will this blind-siding across four years, as suggested by Sir Geoffrey care options help reduce inequity and Palmer and Andrew Butler in their book increase consumer/whānau confidence A Constitution for Aotearoa New Zealand? and participation? Brian Collins (Petone, Lower Hutt) No worries, we are told, any service variability now depends on the coding, MIST OPPORTUNITY and there’s no crisis. Of course, we haven’t seen any real-time monitoring To stop his glasses from misting up, may report yet. I suggest Bill Ralston smear a little wash- Barbara Holland ing-up liquid on both sides of each lens (Karoro, Greymouth) (Life, July 23)? Then just polish off with a soft cloth before he puts on his mask. DÉJÀ VU James Eaton (Whangārei) Jane Clifton advised (Politics, July 30) that “the government has funded Letter of the 1000 business consultants to help week prize restructure the health system”. In other words, after several major Adopted, by Jo Willis and reports, it has no clue where to go Brigitta Baker, is the powerful or what to do. Oh dear, the 1990s and honest account of two health reforms live again. of the thousands of children Nick Nicholas affected by closed adoption (Greenlane, Auckland) in Aotearoa New Zealand from 1950 to the mid-1970s. AUGUST 13 2022 LISTENER

BULLETIN FROM WASHINGTON DC JONATHAN KRONSTADT A second civil war? A coupleof preconditions and well-worn fear and resentment to swell battles. Instead, Walter argues, months ago, patterns nations have taken their profits and influence? it’d be loosely affiliated groups we met some to internal armed conflict. For No thanks, we’re full up here. like the Oath Keepers and friends at a example, countries least likely 3) Urban-rural divide, where Proud Boys using violence to winery in to experience civil wars are at urbanites embrace change destabilise, well, everything, Antietam, Maryland, site of the extremes: full autocracies, and multiculturalism, and while Trump and his minions one of the last and certainly like North Korea and Saudi rural residents value stabil- set fire to the Constitution. bloodiest battles of our Civil Arabia, and full democracies, ity and tradition? I reckon so. But her subtitle isn’t War. Driving its rolling hills, like Sweden and yes, good on 4) Threat accelerants, such as there just because all I was reminded why I don’t ya, New Zealand. The trouble climate change, 400 million popular non-fiction ever visit any of the Civil and lies in the uncertain, poten- guns, and the twin towers of Revolutionary War books need subtitles. battlefields that dot this We can get off, or at area: because thinking least derail, this train about war is depressing, to consistent chaos. and since there are more We just need to restore than enough present the public’s faith in armed conflicts to fully government, something bum me out, I see no the January 6 com- need to dip into the past mittee is making solid for a sadness booster. progress on; convince A few weeks later, enough Americans to I found myself in a put the good of their discussion about the community right up future of our ever-so- there alongside their deeply divided nation, Bloodbath: the 1862 Battle of Antietam was the deadliest one-day battle in American own; and dial down the and two genuinely military history. national fear factor. And disturbing possibilities everybody who’s eligi- were raised: cleaving ble needs to vote. Walter the United States into two We can get off, or at least derail, was very clear about that. countries along the fault line this train to consistent chaos. For the record, I see the US of political identity, an idea dismissed for being as practi- moving back up the scale to a more complete democracy. cal as space exploration on a We’re not paying enough pogo stick; and a second civil tially chaotic middle, where turning molehills into Molotov attention yet to the true threat, war, also dismissed, but mostly the US is at present, a democ- cocktails: cable news and social but we’re more aware and because we were on holiday racy trying on some seriously media? Hey, we invented both. motivated today than yester- and people wanted to go autocratic attire. (FYI, a recent Before Facebook, apparently, day. And our history is filled swimming. survey found half of Ameri- the world’s violently aggrieved with productive national This second notion stuck cans expect a civil war in the had a hard time finding each navel-gazing, from Watergate with me long enough that “next few years”.) other. 5) Systemic racism, to Iran-Contra to January 6, when I found Barbara F Wal- I wish my bucket list was ethnic nationalism, a once that has kept us from going ter’s How Civil Wars Start: and as fully checked off as the US’ dominant group on a down- over the edge into autocracy. how to stop them on a nearby optimal civil war precondi- ward power trajectory? See It may take a while and it bookshelf, I read it. And, in a tions checklist, to wit: 1) #1 above. certainly won’t be pretty, but word rarely found in serious Factionalism? Check. We’re It’s a well-trodden path from I remain convinced that the literary criticism and there- as tribal as ever, with identity the former Yugoslavia to the bad guys won’t win. l GETTY IMAGES fore totally appropriate here, “Trumping” ideology for most Philippines, Syria to North- yikes! In decades of civil war Americans. 2) Opportunistic ern Ireland. And it certainly Jonathan Kronstadt is a research, Walter and others leaders in politics, business, wouldn’t be two opposing freelance writer working in have discovered consistent and religion eager to amplify armies fighting traditional Washington DC. 8 LISTENER AUGUST 13 2022

DIARY CHARLOTTE GRIMSHAW Winter falls W inter sur- out, to the shops. As we grap- and soon we had three para- Every few minutes, a stretcher prised us, pled and herded and shouted medics in the house, crowded was wheeled past, with a patient coming at him, the dispatcher asked around N, who sat in his robe gasping into an oxygen mask. over politely, “Do you need the arguing, his hair sticking up the dull police?” in spikes. They said, “Believe A doctor used her autumn streets with a shower us, we wouldn’t take you if you phone camera to of rain. After the drought, we The paramedic’s name might didn’t need it, with Covid the show N his swol- welcomed the downpour, even have been Sam or Cam, and way it is.” len forehead and distorted as it went on and on and began he arrived in a nifty SUV. He pupils. “Does that look to flood sections and parks, marched in and opened a large I threw some clothes for N normal to you?” N replied Nature increasingly having black suitcase. N, who was in a shopping bag and we rode with dignity, “Perfectly only one mode, it seemed: now detained in an armchair, in with the paramedics, who excess. Then Covid arrived unleashed a string of defiant and laid us low and left us with clichés. He was right as rain, Every few minutes, a stretcher strange, lingering ailments: las- he was fit as a fiddle, he was a was wheeled past, with a patient situde, inflammation, vertigo. box of birds. Good-looking Cam gasping into an oxygen mask. or Sam (we all stood around I fell over walking the dog silently admiring him) made managed amid the rain and normal, good as gold,” while in the mangroves and lay soothing, non-committal noises the arguing to be unfailingly behind him I went into a sprawled in astonishment on and began fixing wires to N’s charming and kind. The ED at silent semaphore of denial. the muddy path. P skidded on chest. N looked at him nar- midnight was all hard, bright This doctor, who, like all the a large bulldog clip at work rowly. Cam shone a torch in N’s light and bustling activity. We others, was weary but caring and crashed to the office floor. eyes and said, “Your pupils are were told to stay in our alcove; and conscientious, said, different sizes and your heart there was Covid everywhere. “We’re concerned you have One night, we woke to a reading is abnormal.” heavy bang downstairs. N was a quiet brain bleed.” staying with us and after He summoned an ambulance After the CT scan, a moment’s confusion I said, “He’s fallen over.” after the stunned hours ANDY TRISTRAM amid the miasma of He’d struggled up and Covid, after generous I hurried downstairs and civilised treatment to see him sway and by doctors and nurses, fall again, smashing his we emerged from the ED forehead against the into the dreamy Auck- bathroom sink. He lay land dawn. N rode home immobile on the floor, in the Uber, clutching unseeing, eyes wide his pamphlets and open. I heard in my head referrals. He said, “You the solemn words, “N has can write about this, but passed away. In our bath- only after waiting a bit. room.” I leaned down to And if you swear never try for a pulse and his to identify me.” fingers closed around my ankle. I screamed and “Deal,” I said. nearly kicked him. Who He did not complain knew a person could be that the shopping bag unconscious with open I’d packed for him con- staring eyes? tained two left shoes. l He subsided and lay “Denial, anger, bargaining, depression and Charlotte Grimshaw is insensible while I called acceptance — the five stages of waiting for a bus.” an Auckland author and for an ambulance. Then critic. he got to his feet and announced he was off AUGUST 13 2022 LISTENER 9

Heather du Plessis-Allan Drive. 4PM – 7PM WEEKDAYS

LIFE BILL RALSTON One for the bucket list R ussiarecently This is probably because remain embattled former US$750 billion ($1.18 trillion). published a list of New Zealand- I have never written about US president Donald Trump. The only good news is that ers banned from entering Russia and Ukraine. I can There, that should have if Russia is brought to the the country. It included former Labour stalwart and Stuff fix that right now. done it. I eagerly await my negotiating table on the back columnist Josie Pagani, and NZ Herald columnist and former Russia is ruled by a murder- inclusion on the list. Although foot, Vladimir Putin is toast. National Party apparatchik Matthew Hooton. It’s probably ous authoritarian president, I would ask officials in Moscow A recent media report said that, the only time those two have ever been linked as being on with the support of a clique one favour. I note that they if ousted, the Russian leader the same side on any issue. of multibillionaire oligarchs published Goff’s banning order could end up exiled in Belarus, Labelling the blacklisted Kiwis as “Russophobic”, the who have taken control Russian Foreign Ministry warns it will continue to of the country’s assets to Heaven knows what the state of update the list with the names wildly enrich themselves Russia’s once modern, now somewhat of those New Zealanders who at the expense of the down- are banned from entering Russia “indefinitely”. This trodden Russian people. antiquated nuclear arsenal is like. adds to an earlier blacklist that featured the names of Prime It’s no longer regarded as a Minister Jacinda Ardern, Governor-General Dame superpower, and its military is Cindy Kiro and Parliament’s 120 MPs, as well as key defence a rusty shadow of what it was with what they thought was his Syria, Myanmar or Venezuela. and security personal, in response to sanctions under communism. Heaven full name, “Phil Bruce Goff”. In my estimation, he is more imposed against Russia. knows what the state of its Please don’t give away my likely to end up like so many of Phil Goff will be delighted to see he is once modern, now somewhat middle name. Thank you. his opponents in Russia: dead. now banned, as it will head off any attempt antiquated nuclear arsenal Seriously, though, the Oh, dear. How sad. Never mind. by the government to is like. Its army has shown unprovoked war in Whatever Putin’s fate, the make him Ambassador its gross deficiency in being Ukraine is a tragedy. to Russia as a reward thwarted in its territorial question is how Ukraine can following his retirement recover once the devastating as Auckland’s mayor. land grab by the Ukrainians Reuters estimates there have war grinds to a close. Presumably, the inclusion of newspaper (albeit with the loan of a been at least 20,000 deaths and Too often, the US and the columnists in the list is designed to mute criti- Western arsenal of weaponry). at least 52,000 injured, with 14 West, once they have won cism of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. I am, of Worse still, Russia’s biggest million people displaced and a conflict at arm’s length, course, chagrined to find my name is not on ally in the West seems to damage amounting to some proceed to ignore the fate the list and that I have been gazumped instead of the victorious by Hooton and Pagani. client state. In 1989, Afghanistan’s mujahideen fighters, with financing and weapons from the West, forced a Russian withdrawal from the country after a long and bloody conflict. But in the aftermath, the US and allies couldn’t prevent Afghanistan’s collapse into civil war and radical Islamist government. This time, the West needs to give every assistance and massive aid to Ukrainian leader ALEX SCOTT “And the cream pie?” Volodymyr Zelensky in the restoration of his shattered country. l AUGUST 13 2022 LISTENER 11

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REALITY CHECK HELEN CRUSE A moment of truth New Zealanders online platforms are fuelling reluctant to accept something some of the current downsides. have raised a misinformation. as fact without checking other As Emeritus Professor red flag about sources, recognising, as one a rising tide of The results form part of our participant put it, that “even John Burrows wrote in his misinformation annual “litmus testing” survey, the smallest opinion can make independent review of BSA and the increasingly tough task which this year explored such a big difference to a wide accuracy decisions: “The they face in finding the truth. public views on accuracy. variety of people”. This under- freedom to express opinions, The fears it revealed over web- lines the value of having access and the richness of debate it The rise of less-trusted news based information sources to multiple information and can engender, is an important and information channels and come just as social media and news providers. ingredient of a democratic misinformation over Covid-19 online video platforms such society. It must be preserved. are bringing these worries into sharp relief, accord- “Seldom … have we been confronted Even more important, ing to new research by the with events where falsity of though, is the freedom Broadcasting Standards information can cause such harm.” to supply and receive Authority (BSA). information. as YouTube overtake free-to- A s for the risks GETTY IMAGES As the regulator of this air TV as our most-consumed presented by “To be good citizens, it country’s airwaves, the media in this year’s survey. some of the newer is essential that we know BSA has seen first-hand an information providers, what is going on around us. upwelling of interest in the Happily, not everyone is change is under way. The Without the media, it has accuracy of programmes on easily fooled. People told us government’s review of been said, we would live TV and radio. the source of information media content regulation in an invisible environ- is key to whether they trust seeks to introduce a ment. But there is a crucial Accuracy is the most what they’re told. They are modernised, coherent qualifier. The only useful complained-about of the more trusting of media that approach across platforms. information is accurate broadcasting standards check their sources than social information. False facts overseen by the BSA, whose platforms, such as Facebook, This should go some way are not only not useful, job it is to decide such Instagram and TikTok, and to addressing the misinforma- they can be harmful; in complaints. Over half of all worried that evolving technol- tion and disinformation risks, some contexts, they can complaints we determined ogy is making it harder to allowing Kiwis to benefit from be extremely damaging. in 2020/21 involved accu- monitor or judge accuracy. access to the multiplicity of new racy issues – led by objections information sources without “Seldom in living to coverage of Covid-19 and Many also say they are memory have we been con- elections here and in the US. fronted with events where falsity of information can Of these, only about 5% cause such harm. Pre-eminent were upheld. This suggests among those events is the complaint levels are more Covid-19 pandemic.” a reflection of increasingly polarised perspectives than The content regulatory the factual accuracy of what’s review should help ease aired – but also that our co- concerns highlighted by our regulatory system is working survey participants, facilitat- and (traditional) broadcasters ing access to timely, accurate understand and generally meet and trustworthy information their accuracy obligations. – wherever it’s encountered. Then, if we aren’t all able to Our research suggests be “kind” through our next similar practices cannot nationwide or worldwide be expected of all platforms. challenge, we can at least Although 83% of participants be accurate. l agreed with recent BSA deci- sions involving the accuracy Helen Cruse is the acting chief of TV and radio programmes, executive of the Broadcasting many are worried alternative Standards Authority. AUGUST 13 2022 LISTENER 13

POLITICS JANE CLIFTON Political vivisection An inquiry into the government’s response to the pandemic would be instructive, but it’s a matter of timing. The trouble blame combative politicians the world over – because so political gutters like so many with political for this. The media rewards many pandemic actions went hacky-sacks. post-mor- conflict with more airtime wrong through blameless and tems is that and column space than it does unavoidable ignorance, rather Clear-sighted experts would they’re never iterations of common sense than the more usual cause: distil useful lessons from the done on and best practice. Social media incompetence. wash-up, but it’s always politi- corpses. Those being dissected provides a ceaseless clamour cians who decide the policies, are very much alive. from members of the public It’s easy to forget that to an inevitable soundtrack of for heads to roll, in all conflict- public support for those gloating and catastrophising. The real purpose of any poli- ing directions. seat-of-the-pants efforts was tician who advocates a formal overwhelming at the time, CUT-PRICE PANDEMIC review of how important issues and crises have been It’s easy to forget that public support The horizon for a post-mortem handled is to inflict on those for those seat-of-the-pants Covid on the Reserve Bank is scarcely who did the handling as slow efforts was overwhelming at the time. rosier. Although a country’s and painful a public torturing monetary stance is a sovereign GETTY IMAGES as possible. The government has to the point of fan-mania. right, few countries are even accepted the need for a formal The fact that a frightened close to being masters of their Still, it’s hard to contradict public inquiry into the pan- population grew a little too own destiny. Global currency, National’s call for inquiries demic response, but remains starry-eyed about being commodity and capital inter- into both the government’s understandably evasive about “saved” by the government and plays are especially beyond the pandemic stewardship and when it should happen. It bureaucracy is now causing influence of the central bank the Reserve Bank’s fielding fairly argues that with new reflexive embarrassment of a country of five million. of the downstream monetary Covid variants raging and and a will to lash out. Not a challenges. The pandemic was other winter ailments made constructive environment Monetary policy has become not only an unprecedented extra severe as a result of for devising a sober charter a form of religion to certain experience in modern times, lockdown-depressed immu- of how to do better next time. people – some qualified, others but one which, epidemiolo- nity levels, this isn’t the time. prone to quackery. The more gists assure us, we’d better get Most experts are still too busy The alternative of having we’ve refined our legislation used to having more of. As for with the crisis to review and the formal inquiry after the to codify and set parameters inflation, it’s such a destruc- reflect. election is equally unedify- around liquidity, the more tive global affliction, the more ing. If National defeats the backseat drivers have queued expert analysis of what’s Another way of putting government, it will be one to boast that they could do working to conquer it and this is, “For pity’s long stomping dance on it better. These savants now what isn’t, the better. sake, not before Labour’s grave. If Labour nearly outnumber armchair the election.” hangs on to power, many in All Blacks coaches. Trouble is, we can no Labour would get the public will feel the exercise longer trust ourselves comprehensively to be cynically post-facto. We’ve even got former to treat such inquiries kicked around Reserve Bank governors Don as important learning on its Covid Even with the strongest Brash and Graeme Wheeler tools. Rather, they’ve response record – arm’s-length approach of weighing in with belated become shrill blame- as would most other a judge-led royal commis- advice, which is almost fests. We can’t just administrations sion, the eventual findings unseemly – a bit like a chorus would be booted around of former pontiffs chipping Reserve Bank governor in to correct the sitting Pope. Adrian Orr. This writer pretends to zero expertise on liquidity 14 LISTENER AUGUST 13 2022

management, but can confi- and lives, and the social fabric? during past episodes, not least exporters, but their joy was dently make this assertion: Should National get its “The One About Anzus” and short-lived, because then we whatever the bank did, when- “The One About Helen Clark’s got “The One Where Nancy ever it did it and whenever it Reserve Bank inquiry, one Non-Aligned Foreign Policy”. Pops In”. US House Speaker stopped doing it, it would have finding is guaranteed: there’s Though Prime Minister Nancy Pelosi just went and been subject to fair criticism no such thing as a cut-price Jacinda Ardern tactfully romanced Taiwan. Although that it had got it wrong. There pandemic. pretended not to have heard not sanctioned by her govern- were no “right” answers during the pandemic, and the IN THE FRIEND ZONE House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s chances of getting consensus trip to Taiwan was taken as a on which responses were more Meanwhile, New Zealand’s hostile intervention by China. wrong than others are pretty endless recalibration of its slim. relationship with China is Peters at the time, China’s ment, her advances were CHRIS SLANE beginning to resemble the subsequent heavy petting of taken as a hostile interven- Again, it’s easy to forget that, old Friends sitcom. Thanks to the Pacific nations this term tion by China, which insists during 2020-21, experts feared the previous Labour govern- recently prompted her to make Taiwan belongs to it. Cue massive business and employ- ment’s ground-breaking free a similar suggestion. China ostentatious military hover- ment collapse almost as much trade deal, we became an then became very emotional ing from China, and a new as grave illness and death. item. Under National, which with us. So last week, Ardern seam of geopolitical dread. Monetary and fiscal measures couldn’t get enough Chinese clarified that we’re still BFFs, cushioned economies world- investment, we were practi- and that will never change, US diplomats are now trying wide. The subsequent invoice cally married. even though we do want to see to configure something sooth- of crushing inflation seems other people. ing out of two classic Friends steep, but hindsighted smug- Last term, the then foreign lines: “It was only one night, ness needs to consider the minister, Winston Peters, This was met with huge and it didn’t mean anything,” counterfactuals. What would decided we’d grown over- relief by the foreign affairs- and, “But we still have feelings looser lockdowns and flintier dependent on China and speaking community and for Taiwan.” l monetary and fiscal responses should go on a break. He have cost in businesses, jobs thought we should see more of our old American sweetheart, whom we’d rather snubbed AUGUST 13 2022 LISTENER 15

ADOPTION The ties that bind Adoption law is in for a major overhaul but some argue the reforms still don’t go far enough in freeing up information or helping heal old wounds. bySARAHCATHERALL GETTY IMAGES F or 40 years, Jan Parker Ministry of Justice public consultation pro- states now also allow adoptions to be dis- kept her child a secret. In cess, as part of the first overhaul of adoption charged, or unravelled in legal terms – an August 1968, she gave birth law in more than 60 years. In 2020/21, 125 option some argue should happen here. in a Salvation Army home babies were adopted in New Zealand, a far in Dunedin to a girl she cry from the 1970s, when about 4000 a year CONFLICTED FEELINGS hoped would be named Bri- were given new homes. gitta. She was on her own at the time. Her Parker’s daughter, Brigitta Baker, is one parents were in the North Island, unaware The proposed law reform has been wel- of those who is critical of New Zealand’s their 22-year-old daughter was pregnant. comed as it attempts to make adoption proposed adoption reform, arguing it They thought she had simply moved south child-centred and more in line with modern doesn’t go far enough. Baker shares her for work. family life. However, critics say it doesn’t story about being adopted in a book, go far enough. Some even argue the word Adopted: Loss, Love, Family and Reunion, For the first 10 days of her daughter’s “adopted” should be wiped from our vocab- which she co-wrote with another adoptee, life, Parker was with her in the home for Jo Willis, and which will be published by unmarried mothers. She got the chance to “I was a stranger and I Massey University Press this month. hold her, to feed her with a bottle, and to would never completely spend time with her. On day 10, the baby was fit in because we didn’t About 13 years ago, Parker and Baker taken away to her adopted family. Parker have a shared history.” finally met, and the poignant account of had one request – that her child would grow their reunion is in the book. It was only up with siblings. ulary because it is too tainted, and replaced around the time of Baker’s impending 40th with “long-term guardianship” — a form of birthday that she thought she might search “I wanted her to have a family. That was all guardianship available in some countries for her birth mother. I was told – that she would get that. I wanted that does not result in a permanent change her to have a happy life. I wanted her to have to a child’s legal status. Others would also One thing Baker had heard a lot grow- the opportunities that I felt I wouldn’t have like to see some of the changes applied ing up was that adopted people should feel been able to give her,’’ she says. retrospectively. grateful. She was lucky a family had taken her in. In fact, her adoptive mother was Now aged 76 and living in Hawke’s Bay, Some have been lobbying for decades difficult – she had bipolar disorder and Parker is one of thousands of New Zealand for an investigation similar to one that struggled to parent her biological sons and women who gave their babies up for adop- took place in Australia, which resulted in a her adopted daughter. Photographs of her tion – a practice encouraged for single government apology in 2013 to thousands adoptive family’s ancestors hung on the mothers at the time. of unwed mothers forced to give up their walls, and her name was recorded on their babies for adoption from World War  II family tree. She reflects: “If this happened today, my through to the 1970s. After the Senate baby wouldn’t have been adopted. There inquiry, A$5 million in funding was set But if you think this story might end was no financial support or places for aside for support services. Some Australian happily ever after, it’s more complex than young single mothers like me to go. I had no that. Baker writes about the regret she felt savings and I didn’t have a job when she was when she met her birth mother and her born. Adoption was the only option unless wider, extended family. The reunion with you had parents who could raise the child Parker was like a honeymoon, but it was as their own.’’ tinged with loss and sorrow. Baker moved to Hawke’s Bay for a while to be closer Many similar stories have been told to a 16 LISTENER AUGUST 13 2022

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ADOPTION to Parker. They were able to develop a 1 relationship and get to know one another, along with Baker’s two daughters, Zoë. and Jade, and her husband, Andrew. She tells the Listener she felt it was a bit late finding her birth mother at 40. “You don’t get to 40 and go back to being 10 days old. A lot of these reunions do not work. I wanted to give it every chance. But I couldn’t be natural.’’ Baker, who now lives in Wellington, writes in the book: “But I was a stranger and “There are all sorts of strange things in there [the old law]. Families have evolved over 60 years. Also, it needs to be child-centred.” I would never completely fit in because we 23 didn’t have a shared history. I would never know the grandparents they spoke of so 45 fondly or get the family in-jokes that made up the rich fabric of their lives … I would and provide opportunities for children to and 500 people apply to the Department of always be an outsider.’’ participate in decisions affecting them.’’ Internal Affairs each year to access their adoption information, but for adoptions Zoë also offers her perspective: “I defi- The ministry points out that cultural con- that took place before March 1, 1986, those nitely think that dealing with emotions cepts and practices relating to the care of who have been adopted can place a “veto” about both her adoptive and birth families children, including Māori practices such on their information. So can their birth has been really difficult for Mum.’’ as whāngai, are not in the 1955 Adoption parents. Act. The other issue is that Oranga Tama- Parker’s life changed when she met her riki oversees adoptions, but there is no As of December 2020, there were 201 daughter, but she was reluctant to push the government funding for adoption support vetoes, mostly placed by birth mothers. relationship forward too quickly. “It’s an services. Adoption support is also volun- Between 2016 and 2020, six adopted adults unusual situation. I wanted it to be driven tary rather than mandatory. who tried to get their original birth cer- by Brigitta so that what she wanted, I would tificates weren’t allowed to as a parent had go along with. But I want the best for her A controversial proposal is that an vetoed their right to it. and her family. adopted child should get two birth certifi- cates – one showing the birth and adoptive The ministry’s deputy secretary, policy, “At the back of the mind for anyone who parents’ names, and one with only the birth Rajesh Chhana, says its findings will be pre- has given up a child [is that] you can’t walk parents listed, so adopted people can choose sented to the government by the end of the in and take over. If mothers can keep their which birth certificate they wish to use. year. Officials will also engage separately child if they’re able to, I think that’s the best with Māori about whāngai arrangements. solution. The bond with the birth mother is The ministry is also considering whether “The real question is how do you want what is most important.’’ the veto system should change to make it the law to treat whāngai … How do you easier to access birth records. Between 400 ACCESS VETOED In the adoption reform discussion document, the Ministry of Justice writes: “Given its age, the Adoption Act is becoming increasingly disconnected from international best practice, and from adoption practice in New Zealand. Many similar jurisdictions, such as the United Kingdom, most Australian and most Canadian states, territories and provinces require a child to consent to their adoption once they have reached a specified age, 18 LISTENER AUGUST 13 2022

6 recognise it in law if there are challenges, Chhana describes the adoption law as 1. Brigitta Baker, aged 4, on a parade float BAKER FAMILY COLLECTION and also how about recognising health and archaic and out of step with modern living. in Gore. 2. Brigitta at her wedding with her social welfare benefits? “It’s based on a monocultural view of the adoptive dad. 3. Brigitta’s daughters Jade world and breaking all ties with the birth and Zoë with Jan Parker. 4. Jade and Zoë “At the moment, it is iwi and tikanga family is the basis of it. It is also discrimina- with their adoptive grandpa 5. Brigitta with tory in terms of who can adopt. We want her birth father, Bob. 6. Zoë, Brigitta, Jade “Take away welfare a modern, relevant law which recognises and Jan at Ocean Beach. and the purpose of ethnic communities. There is a need for it adoption is to circulate to be brought up to scratch. apology, Chhana says that would be children to meet adult something for the Royal Commission of family-building needs.” “There are all sorts of strange things Inquiry into Abuse in Care to consider. in there. Families have evolved over 60 which guide whāngai. With whāngai, it is years. We have stepfamilies, blended fami- REMOVAL OF IDENTITY often a more dynamic relationship, where lies now. Also, the legislation needs to be a child will be whāngai for a while and then child-centred.’’ Baker is one of those who would like to return to the birth family. Other cultures see the word “adopted” removed from our have their own approaches, too.’’ While some want the word “adoption” vocabulary. “It’s [repeating] the old rubbish banned outright, Chhana says not all agree. rather than designing something that is fit Some adoptees have had traumatic expe- for purpose and suited for modern society.” riences, but there are also those who have been happy with their adoptive families. There are also circumstances where children aren’t safe to stay in their family Asked about a possible government of origin, she notes. “We need something AUGUST 13 2022 LISTENER 19

ADOPTION In search of a lost identity Many Māori adoptees have suffered a painful cultural disconnect. A nnabel Ahuriri-Driscoll Annabel Ahuriri-Driscoll: “I It was her passion to find out more describes her adoption as remember it feeling like a about the 8973 Māori babies officially a positive one, but she has physical pain that I didn’t adopted between 1951 and 1981 that spent her academic career know my birth origins.” inspired her to complete her PhD investigating the adoption on Māori adoption experiences. of thousands of Māori children, many at that. In the early days of meeting my Ahuriri-Driscoll says the total is likely to of whom have been traumatised by the birth parents, I realised that I absolutely have been much higher, as ethnicity was experience. was their daughter, so like them in very not consistently or accurately recorded. many ways. I could now see where I Light-skinned Māori babies were some- The senior lecturer in Māori health and came from, and importantly, why I felt times passed off as Pākehā ones, as the wellbeing at the University of Canterbury like a square-peg adoptee in a round- parents adopting them were typically was born in 1976 to a Pākehā mother, Pākehā. In 1970 – the only year that an Nicola, who got pregnant to a Māori man. “Our Māori identities, official survey was done – Māori babies whakapapa and classified as “quarter-caste or more’’ made Ahuriri-Driscoll was four months old relationships were up 16.4% of all legal adoptions. when she was adopted by a Pākehā couple literally erased who picked her up from a Karitane hospi- under the law.” For her PhD, she conducted in-depth tal. Two years later, her adoptive parents interviews with 15 Māori men and women adopted another daughter, and then had hole adoptive family. I came from totally adopted in closed stranger adoptions two biological daughters of their own. different people.’’ between 1960 and 1976 and found many Throughout her life, Ahuriri-Driscoll struggled with the impact of “being was always described as part-Māori. Her birth father died in 2017, and adopted and Māori”. Many talked about “My adoptive mother was very careful to she remains close to his other children “floating’’ – being disconnected from both emphasise the ‘part’,’’ she tells the Listener. and whānau. “That was 27 years ago, their birth parents and their whakapapa. and I’ve been through a lot since with In her doctoral thesis, she used the term As a teen, Ahuriri-Driscoll struggled my birth family – my 21st, marriages, “legalised cultural genocide’’. with a sense that she didn’t belong, and deaths, and the births of my three boys. was the “wrong choice’’ for her adop- Reunion was certainly sweet, but there “Māori adoptees were doubly colonised, tive family. Her mental-health struggles were parts of post-reunion reality I was as members of whānau and generations were so severe that she was admitted totally unprepared for.’’ who were subject to colonisation on a for a period into Sunnyside Hospital, in Christchurch, at 17. “I remember it feeling like a physical pain that I didn’t know my birth origins,’’ she recalls. Two years later, she set out to trace her whakapapa and find her birth mother. The only information she had was on a little orange card from the Department of Social Welfare. She found her birth mother, Nicola, after tracing her birth grandparents on the electoral roll. They became close. She also became close to her birth father, David Ahuriri, and decided to take his surname. “I had a name, and a Māori one 20 LISTENER AUGUST 13 2022

macro scale, but also as individuals Barbara Sumner: managed to get her birth where our Māori identities, whakapapa files opened via the courts. and relationships were literally erased under the law,’’ she wrote. to accommodate those rare circumstances.” She also believes the idea that birth par- In a 2000 Law Commission review of the 1955 Adoption Act, closed stranger ents have a natural right to “own” their adoption was described as “alien” and as offspring is outdated. “Security comes from “an affront to Māori culture” by Māori knowing you’re loved, that you are at the submitters. Two specific aspects of the centre of the world of adults around you.’’ law were attacked by Māori: the “clean break principle’’ (which ensured Māori As for the ministry’s proposal for two children were treated as if they were birth certificates, she is concerned that it born to their adoptive family, com- still enables a degree of secrecy. “It should pletely wiping their legal relationships with their original whānau); and the “All documents are held prohibition of whāngai, or “the adoption as state secrets, with no of any child in accordance with Māori guarantee this central custom”. issue will change.” Ahuriri-Driscoll wants whāngai be so open and naturally talked about and Like others, she is pushing for long-term children to have the same legal benefits discussed.’’ guardianship as the only alternative to as adopted or biological children, and adoption. She is also concerned that the cur- says their voices are generally being Although adoption practice is being rent round of law reform consultation will heard. “It looks as though the legal fic- included as part of the Abuse in Care inves- create new adoption legislation for future tion will be removed, birth parents will tigation, Baker believes its remit is not wide generations without first resolving histori- retain legal parentage, and there will enough. “I wasn’t raised in a state-run care cal discrimination in the current law. be mechanisms to ensure birth whānau facility, nor was I abused. However, I do remain part of the adopted child’s life.” feel that I, other adopted people, and birth “Take away welfare, and the purpose of families were the victims of state-inflicted adoption is to manage a system that circu- The law reform process is ground- trauma. This experience deserves its own lates children to meet adult family-building breaking, she says, because Māori are process, and even though adopted people needs,” she argues. “By forfeiting identity, being given the chance to collectively have been invited to contribute to the this enables adults to create a ‘fictive family’ discuss the issues. Abuse in Care proceedings, I’m sure there to experience a form of parenting that are many like me who do not feel this is the mimics the biological family.’’ Although she is not opposed to the appropriate forum.’’ She would prefer a sep- word “adoption” being replaced with arate inquiry “so everyone has the chance to While the ministry says birth documents “enduring guardianship”, she would have their voices heard’’. could be accessed under the proposal, like to see more discussion on whether Sumner says this will not include all docu- adoption offers the additional benefits STATE SECRETS ments currently held by the ministry. of permanence and security. As well as an apology for the harms caused Barbara Sumner, a Napier author, is investi- “This is the heart of the issue for adults by closed adoptions, she would also gating adoption as part of her PhD. Sumner adopted under the current statutes. The like to see some of the changes applied was 19 when she set out to find her birth [ministry] says it will seek future advice retrospectively. mother, an experience she wrote about in from the judiciary about this central issue her raw and compelling memoir, Tree of – the opening of all files held on adopted The current Adult Adoption Informa- Strangers. people. All documents are held as state tion Act eases access to the original birth secrets, with no guarantee this central issue certificate and some non-identifying Sumner is one of very few New Zealand- will change.’’ information. But many adult adoptees ers who managed to get her birth files believe that’s insufficient. opened via the courts. She found out she Sumner also argues that our current has three birth dates – her official one on welfare system cares for children who She says it’s very common for the her second birth certificate, another in the can’t be raised by their parents. If a child birth father not to be named on a birth files held by Oranga Tamariki, and a third has an unwilling or dysfunctional parent, certificate and has met a number of on a document that the Salvation Army they should not pay for that by losing their Māori adoptees who can’t trace their scrawled down. “Hundreds of people have identity. Māori father, and subsequently their applied over the years, and almost all have whakapapa. “This is incredibly painful been declined,’’ she says. “Even if they know their biological family, for them.’’ this relationship has no legal ties. Identity She describes adoption as state-medi- covers everything from ancestors, name, Ahuriri-Driscoll knows some Māori ated maternal separation, the removal of siblings, extended family, culture, language who would like to legally reverse their a non-consenting person’s identity and the and entire history. Adoption is not and has adoption, allowing them to be legally random allocation of a new identity. never been about welfare.’’ l connected to their birth parents. “From what we understand, the changes being considered are primar- ily to future adoptions, which is of concern.’’ AUGUST 13 2022 LISTENER 21

SPECIAL INVESTIGATION Religion and violence: the LISTENER AUGUST 13 2022 Rev Okjoo Shin, above, delivering a sermon, and, right, in a screenshot taken from an SBS documentary showing her slapping one of her congregants. 22

Grace & favour A controversial South Korean doomsday sect has had a warm welcome in Fiji, where it now has significant business interests. byAUBREY BELFORD OCCRP,HYEIN KANG&MYUNGJU LEE KCIJNEWSTAPA I n August 2018, a team of 17 South controlling the movements of its adherents. Korean police officers flew to Fiji But, almost immediately, the operation fell on a secret mission: to take down the leaders of a Christian doomsday apart. Within days, a Fijian court blocked the sect accused of taking away its adher- church members’ deportation to South Korea. ents’ passports and subjecting them Fijian police then called their Korean counter- parts and told them they would take over the to ritual beatings. investigation. The roughly 400-strong group, known as the The Grace Road members were released, and the Grace Road Church, had moved to the Pacific Korean police flew back to Seoul empty-handed. island nation from South Korea several years “When we heard from the Fijian police that earlier. Under the charismatic leadership of the they had to release the suspects, I didn’t under- Rev Okjoo Shin, they came to stand what was going on,” said believe the world was heading one South Korean officer who for nuclear war and that Fiji’s Church adherents took part in the operation, but tropical islands would be a safe came to believe declined to be named because haven where they could carry the world was he is not authorised to speak to out their “unprecedented bib- heading for the media. lical reformation” to revive nuclear war and Christianity. A WARM WELCOME Just a few days earlier, as she The failed attempt to decapi- arrived to visit her homeland, that Fiji would tate the sect proved to be a turning point. In the ensuing Shin – who styles herself the years, Grace Road has not only be a safe haven.“Spirit of Truth” – had been arrested at Seoul’s main airport thrived as a religious group but on charges including assault, also flourished as a commer- child abuse and imprisoning church members. cial juggernaut. While Shin now sits convicted Now, having assembled in Fiji, the South Korean in a Korean prison, her son Daniel has built the officers teamed up with local law enforcement church’s businesses into a rare bright spot in Fiji’s and began combing through the sect’s prop- pandemic-hit economy, though he remains the erties, starting with a night-time raid on its subject of a Korean arrest warrant to this day. sprawling green farm on the south coast of the He has done so thanks in part to a warm wel- country’s main island. Over two days, the joint come and financial support from Fiji’s repressive force arrested six members, including Shin’s son government, headed by long-serving Prime GETTY IMAGES; SBS and second in command, Daniel Kim. Minister and former armed forces chief Frank In one room on the farm, they came across a Bainimarama. That support includes at least drawer containing dozens of passports – what FJ$8.5 million ($6.15 million) in loans from the seemed like clear evidence the group was Fiji Development Bank, a state-backed institution AUGUST 13 2022 LISTENER 23

SPECIAL INVESTIGATION set up to develop the country’s economy, a joint investigation by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) and the Korea Center for Inves- tigative Journalism (KCIJ-Newstapa) has found. The bank ultimately reports to Fiji’s second-most-powerful politician, Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum. Often called the “Minister for Everything”, he is the second member of an unofficial governing tandem with the Prime Minister, serving as the country’s Attorney-General and holding several other ministerial portfolios. Thanks in part to the government loans it received, Grace Road’s businesses are ubiquitous in Fiji. The sect now operates the country’s largest chain of restaurants, controls roughly 400ha of farmland, owns eight supermarkets and mini marts, and runs five Mobil petrol stations. Its businesses also provide services such as dentistry, events catering, heavy construction and Korean beauty treatments. EDIN PASOVIC AND JAMES O’BRIEN / OCCRP ‘PROTECTED SPECIES’ the sect, but few details have emerged. this is not a good look for the country. Why Support from Fiji’s powerful Prime are these people being allowed to do what Grace Road’s business empire depends in they’re doing?’ And the answer that he gave part on the unpaid labour and financial Minister and Attorney-General makes the me was to brush it off and say, ‘Well, they contributions of its hundreds of devotees, sect a “protected species” in the country, make good ice cream.’” some of whom have sunk all their wealth according to Graham Davis, a long-serving into the church, according to former mem- Prime Minister Bainimarama, Sayed- bers and Korean authorities. Other abuses The sect operates a Khaiyum, Fijian immigration, Fiji’s have also continued, including restrictions chain of restaurants, investment promotion agency, the Fiji on followers leaving Fiji and regular ritual 400ha of farmland, eight Development Bank, and the Fijian police beatings for transgressions. supermarkets and five did not respond to questions sent by Mobil petrol stations. OCCRP and KCIJ-Newstapa. Fiji’s government has assured the South Korean police and the people of Fiji that government spokesman who recently left Grace Road Church and ExxonMobil, it would pursue the case, but it has not Fiji and became a critic of its rulers. which controls the Mobil brand worldwide, pressed any charges against Grace Road also did not respond to questions. Church. Although they travelled to South “The real reason they were being allowed Korea as part of a joint investigation fol- to stay there was because they were a THE ‘PLEASANT LAND’ lowing the 2018 arrests, police did not find principal form of economic activity in enough evidence to justify prosecution, the country,” said Davis, who now lives in In Grace Road’s own telling, the group’s relo- Fiji’s independent director of public pros- Australia. “[The government] didn’t seem cation to Fiji in about 2013 was motivated by ecutions, Christopher Pryde, told OCCRP. to have any concern about the fact that, their belief that a global famine would be unlike local businesses, these people had, an inevitable part of the coming cataclysm. However, OCCRP and KCIJ-Newstapa effectively, slave labour. According to the group, Fiji’s verdant isles were able to establish that, on their trip to are the “pleasant land” foretold in the Bible South Korea, Fijian officers in fact spoke “I specifically went to the Attorney-Gen- that will serve as “the throne that God has to key witnesses – who described beatings eral, Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum, and said, ‘Look, established for judgment”. The group’s and other abuses they allegedly suffered Fijian businesses would prepare to feed a at the hands of some of the very same sect starving world. members who had been arrested and let go in 2018. In keeping with this vision, Grace Road established a farm in Navua, about 45 Although Grace Road is a prominent presence in Fiji, criticism of the group is often muted as a result of laws that stifle free speech and encourage self-censorship in the media. Opposition figures and inde- pendent outlets have raised concerns about the government’s perceived closeness to 24 LISTENER AUGUST 13 2022

Remarkable support: Daniel Kim, the de facto leader of Grace Road Church (second from left), receives the Prime Minister’s International Business Award. Fijian Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama stands to Kim’s left. minutes west of the capital, Suva, in 2014. The only discordant note in their sunny ‘YOU GET HIT RELENTLESSLY’ PRIME MINISTER’S INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS AWARDS It soon opened a network of restaurants branding can be found in a corner at many and stores that is still expanding today. In a stores, where English-language pamphlets Grace Road’s businesses employ several country where the food sold in stores can be proclaim “judgments” issued from prison hundred Fijian workers who are paid reg- of poor quality, Grace Road has become a sig- by the Rev Shin. While enjoying a cappuc- ular wages. But the sect also owes at least nificant purveyor of organically grown rice, part of its success to countless hours of vegetables, fruit, dairy and meat. Today, the Five former sect unpaid labour performed by its members. church makes products ranging from arti- members described an sanal soaps to frozen chicken nuggets, fresh austere life of unpaid We spoke to five former sect members bread and custom cakes for special events. work, limited freedoms who described an austere life of unpaid and regular violence. work, limited freedoms and regular In public, Grace Road presents a friendly violence. Their accounts match the picture face – and one that is everywhere. Grace cino and a croffle (a sweet combination painted at Shin’s trial in South Korea, in Road’s stores and dozens of restaurants of croissant and waffle), customers can which a court found widespread abuses, have become a mainstay of Suva’s shop- read about how the Covid-19 pandemic including ritual beatings of acolytes that ping centres. Its businesses are now studded represents God’s punishment for Shin’s happened “almost every day”. around the main southern road of the larg- persecution by Korean authorities, or about est island, Viti Levu, and in the western the “7-Year Great Tribulation” that will soon “We just sleep, eat, work and go to the tourism hub of Nadi. Recent developments strike the Earth. toilet,” said Yong-rin Kim, 62, who managed include a hangar-sized hypermarket near construction work for the church in Fiji its Navua farm, and another large super- Citing the Old Testament’s Book of Zech- between 2014 and 2020 before deciding to market in Veisari, closer to Suva. ariah, one pamphlet warns: “Their flesh flee after undergoing a ritual beating. will rot while they stand on their feet, and The sect’s stores are usually clean, their eyes will rot in their sockets, and their Grace Road acolytes typically live modern and brightly lit. Its new business tongue will rot in their mouth.” together on the sect’s farm or on its other openings regularly receive glowing write- properties around Fiji. In Kim’s case, that ups in pro-government media outlets. The involved being separated from his wife staff inside typically comprise a mix of and sharing a room with six or seven other ethnic Korean church members and Fijian men. He and the others typically woke at employees. dawn and worked until the early hours of the following morning, six days a week, the labour broken up by evening worship. AUGUST 13 2022 LISTENER 25

SPECIAL INVESTIGATION AL JAZEERA Stepping out of line could easily lead to Threshing: footage of spokesman, said. “In the entire running of “threshing”, as the group terms its practice a Grace Road Church the country.” of ritual punishment by public slapping member being slapped, and beating. from an investigation by Grace Road has offered support to Fiji Al Jazeera’s 101 East. and its government in return. In 2016, the “When you do something wrong, if you sect rebuilt homes destroyed by a tropical even make a slip of the tongue, you’ll get officially remains under police investiga- cyclone. The following year, its construc- in trouble. If you rub the leader the wrong tion in both Fiji and South Korea. tion arm renovated the official residences way, you get hit relentlessly,” he said. of the prime minister and president, “Your enterprises are of uniform high projects for which FJ$6.78 million ($4.91 Grace Road has defended threshing as quality and appearance, in operation and million) was budgeted. It is unclear how “spiritual warfare for the salvation of efficiency, and I believe you are raising the much Grace Road earned from the pro- souls” that is set forth in the Bible. standard for local retail and restaurant jects. The Fiji Procurement Office did not establishments,” Bainimarama said. respond to written questions about the Money contributed by devotees has also tender process. been key to the church’s ability to establish Such public shows of support carry a lot itself in Fiji. of weight in Fiji, where the Prime Minister Rival business people grumble privately that, while they struggle with onerous On paper, many of Grace Road’s mem- Since the beginning, planning and approval processes, the sect’s bers are investors in its Fijian business Grace Road has businesses seem to sail through with ease. empire and are listed in Fiji’s company benefited from loans registry as shareholders in at least nine handed out by the Grace Road’s relationship with the gov- locally established companies. state-backed Fiji ernment is “on a totally different level”, a Development Bank. senior executive at a major retailer, who Former members say they had no control declined to be identified out of fear of gov- over how their money was spent and often wields vast executive authority. ernment retribution, told OCCRP. “They’re did not even know in which companies Since coming to power in a 2006 coup, on the highest level you can get. There’s no they were shareholders. other company that’s treated like them. A Bainimarama has held onto the role lot of people in Fiji don’t like them, but “No one knows which company is theirs,” thanks to a system that combines regu- they’re scared to talk about it. Everybody’s said Yoon-jae Lee, a former member. lar democratic elections with episodes of scared.” repression. He directly oversees foreign By examining company documents, we affairs, immigration and a board that But though complaints of preferential were able to determine that at least 339 controls the leasing of indigenous land, treatment have circulated, it has not been Grace Road members have been listed as including where some of Grace Road’s reported until now that, virtually since shareholders in the church’s Fijian com- farming operations are located. As a the beginning, Grace Road benefited from panies – bringing at least FJ$22.53 million former armed forces chief, Bainimarama loans handed out by the state-backed Fiji ($16.3 million) into the country’s economy is also widely believed to closely control Development Bank (FDB). as capital investment. The ownership of the police, which falls under the defence each of the church’s nine companies is ministry. Starting in 2015, the group’s agricultural typically split among several dozen mem- arm has been loaned at least FJ$8.51 mil- bers, each contributing at least FJ$50,000 “The PM’s instructions are the instruc- lion ($6.16 million) by the FDB, according ($36,200). One person is listed as a direc- tions of the Almighty. What the PM wants, to mortgage and property documents tor for every company: Daniel Kim, the the PM gets,” Davis, the former government church’s de facto leader. This unusual arrangement had the happy effect of enabling Grace Road to obtain investor visas for scores of its acolytes, allowing them to settle in a country where obtaining work per- mits and residency can otherwise be an arduous process, former government officials and sect members told OCCRP and KCIJ-Newstapa. “Being a shareholder doesn’t mean any- thing at all. It is just a tool to get working visas,” former member Lee said. SPECIAL TREATMENT Grace Road’s dream run in Fiji is also down to a remarkable level of support it has received from the government of Prime Minister Bainimarama. In 2017, he shared a stage with Kim to hand him the “Prime Minister’s International Business Award”. Last October, the Prime Minister spoke at the opening of a new Grace Road super- market and cut the ribbon with Kim, who 26 LISTENER AUGUST 13 2022

Coming cataclysm: Grace since the alleged offences took place on down in Shin’s trial. Grace Road’s Kim also OCCRP Road Church’s vision of a Fijian soil, they should be investigated and took part in the confiscation of one of the post-apocalyptic future charged there, Pryde said. victims’ passports and restricted his move- sees its Fijian businesses ments while in Fiji, the court found. feeding a starving world. He said he pressed the Fijian police to provide more evidence of alleged mistreat- Two of the victims, Yoon-jae Lee and reviewed by reporters. Since such docu- ment, but they have not found any that another man who asked to be referred to ments only show loans made with real would justify charges against sect mem- by his last name, Jung, told reporters they estate as collateral, the total amount of bers still residing in Fiji. had described to Fijian police having been money loaned by FDB may be higher. abused by some of those sect members “Look at the police docket. There’s simply while on Fijian soil. Former government spokesman Davis said such loans would have had to be Serious shortcomings Lee said he told Fijian police that he had cleared with his former boss, the Attorney- in the Fijian police been beaten, had his passport taken away, General, to whom the FDB reports. “There investigation have been and was made to work without pay. Backing is no way in the world the Fiji Development identified, following up his claim, he provided us with a photo he Bank would be lending money to Grace the earlier arrests of six took together with two Fijian police offic- Road without the official imprimatur of the Grace Road members. ers in what appears to be a Korean police AG [Attorney-General] Sayed-Khaiyum. interrogation room. He said he was ready No way.” not enough evidence” he said. to testify at a Fijian trial if asked. As a result, though the case against the VICTIM STATEMENTS IGNORED “[The Fijian police] came to check the sect members remains open, no charges Korean police investigation, the things that Apparent serious shortcomings in the have been filed, he said. we had already told the police in Korea,” Lee Fijian police investigation into the group said. “They were checking if these things have also been identified, following the However, OCCRP and KCIJ-Newstapa were true and met the victims again … they earlier arrests of six Grace Road members, were able to determine that Fijian police even recorded it. including Daniel Kim, in August 2018. did speak to key victims who provided statements on alleged abuses. “But then they went back to Fiji, and they According to local media reports, they decided there were no grounds for suspi- were released after a local court temporar- According to South Korean police, the cion,” he said. “Please ask them strongly: ily blocked their deportation. five Fijian police, who were sent to South why did they ignore my victim statement?” Korea in December 2018, interviewed four But in written responses to questions, alleged victims of Grace Road abuses. South Korean police told reporters they the South Korean police said that the had also furnished their Fijian counter- Fijian police had released the Grace Road Reporters were able to confirm the iden- parts with additional evidence, including members after a high-level meeting that tity of three of these people. All three were a translation of Shin’s conviction. included Fiji’s late immigration chief, beaten by sect members who were later the Prime Minister’s personal private arrested then released in Fiji in August When OCCRP went back to Fijian pros- secretary, the solicitor-general, and the 2018, according to the conviction handed ecutor Pryde with this information, he country’s top prosecutor. Such a “release maintained that Fijian police had not been through a high-level bureaucratic meeting told by these witnesses of any offences com- is unusual,” the South Korean police said. mitted by Grace Road members still living in Fiji. Pryde, the public prosecutions chief, told OCCRP there was no political pres- “The ones that left Fiji have complained, sure behind the church members’ release. but the ones that remain in Fiji have no “That’s not the way it works here,” he said. complaints and say they are happy with their living conditions, their work, and Fijian law enforcement concluded that, they told us they are contributing to the Grace Road Church and are satisfied with their lives,” he said. “There is no conspiracy or cover-up here,” Pryde said, adding that Fijian author- ities were moving ahead with another case in which four Grace Road members allegedly assaulted a pastor from another Korean denomination. The South Korean Embassy in Suva declined an interview, citing “the sensitive issues of the matter on Grace Road Church and ongoing Korean-Fijian law enforce- ment co-operation”. l OCCRP and KCIJ-Newstapa are part of a global network of investigative journalists. You can read more about this story on their website (OCCRP.org). AUGUST 13 2022 LISTENER 27

PROFILE The power of story At the age of 80, science fiction writer and former theatre director Phillip Mann is publishing a new novel, drawing on his life-long love of mythic themes. bySALLYBLUNDELL Halfway through “The ideas come been somewhat heightened to Chevalier & pouring over me, make it vivid.” Gawayn, the 11th sometimes faster novel by retired than I can write.” For 40 years, Mann’s academic, theatre imagination has coursed director and writer Phillip Mann, arts manager Nonnita Rees, have lived through New Zealand’s one of its characters issues a for 52 years. “[Today] we can be virtually small output of speculative dire warning. “Either humanity immune from dealing with everyday real- fiction, lacing tropes of science adapts,” says health officer Ziga ity. But remember this is a story that has fiction – apocalyptic storm Wardle, “or we go the way of the clouds, autocratic oppression, dodo.” the perils and possibilities of new technologies – with the brio In this speculative fable, whose of Greek tragedy, the morality of full title is Chevalier & Gawayn: Arthurian myth, the emotional The ballad of the dreamer, the heft of Shakespeare and a fine future is not looking good. The knife-edge of political satire. birdlife has disappeared, there are no pets (an illegal trade in Now, as the 80-year-old writ- taxidermied animals is flourish- er’s health declines, Chevalier ing), nature is limited to movie & Gawayn serves as a paean to projections of autumn foliage, life-preserving creativity and a and rail passengers hang in childhood shaped by the power harnesses “like sides of meat on of story. a butcher’s hook”, their “hel- masks” wired into virtual-reality Mann was born in 1942 in the programmes. market town of Northallerton, close to the North York Moors. The impact of climate change, His father died before he was pollution and fear of contagion born and, as a solo parent, his stalks the land. A raft of new mother imbued in her only zoonotic pandemics has driven child a love of reading: mythol- a politically prescribed norm of ogy, theatre, spiritualism, and disposable suits, random health literature. checks, restrictions on “physi- cal contact leading to the transmission of A scholarship enabled him bodily fluids” and increasing government to go to Scarborough College, in North surveillance. Yorkshire, where a tradition of annual Shakespeare productions gave him Remarkably, the plot predates our the opportunity to perform roles such recent history of pandemic lockdowns. as Macduff, Bolingbroke, Antonio and Mann had the story in mind two decades Hamlet. His acting skills took him to the ago and began writing it well before Covid- Royal Central School of Speech and Drama 19 appeared. in London and from there to Manchester University, then Humboldt State Univer- “It is not far from present reality,” sity in California, where he stayed for he agrees, in an email interview from three years, working as a theatre technical the house in the Wellington suburb of assistant. Brooklyn where he and his wife, actor and 28 LISTENER AUGUST 13 2022

1 1. Phillip Mann, right, with Vincent O’Sullivan working on Shuriken in 1983. 2. Mann teaching drama in California in 1967. 3. Directing Belcher’s Luck with English playwright David Mercer at Humboldt State University. 4. A 1970 production of The Bacchae 2 3 at Downstage Theatre, starring Sam Neill and Ray Henwood 5. Aged 3, in Yorkshire. 4 5 PETER PALMQUIST; MANN FAMILY COLLECTION 29 AUGUST 13 2022 LISTENER

PROFILE In 1969, he and Rees moved here. He including work by Brecht, Dario Fo and, and student theatre-makers on new work took on work as a director and actor with in 1977, a memorable performance of Jean – usually working with them to free up Downstage Theatre and the NZ Opera Genet’s The Balcony. imaginative and practical possibilities.” Company, before being appointed lecturer in the new drama studies programme at “It is a powerful modern classic with a Like the classical myths recited by his Victoria University of Wellington. large cast, rarely performed. I persuaded mother when he was a child, there is an Tony Taylor [then artistic director of epic sweep in Mann’s speculative novels “It was sheer chance that just at the time Downstage] to programme this unique of love, survival, social inequality and I began my theatre work here, Victoria play at a time that was high financial risk environmental degradation. planned to introduce drama studies, and for the theatre,” Mann writes. “Raymond I designed and taught the first courses. Boyce designed it to explore all of the stag- They are imbued, wrote retired profes- Drama studies combined practical theatre ing possibilities of the Hannah Playhouse sor of Italian language and culture David skills and academic studies and it was and there was a powerful cast, includ- Groves in his review of Volume 2 of A always happily complementary to the Land Fit for Heroes in the New Zealand NZ Drama School [Toi Whakaari], which There is an epic sweep Review of Books, “in the belief in the ability opened its doors at roughly the same time.” in these stories of love, to change yourself and thereby change survival, inequality the society in which you live – or build a By this time, Mann had been supple- and environmental new one”. menting his income by writing short degradation. stories for Radio New Zealand, but the Leading the change in Chevalier impetus for his first novel came in 1978, ing Sherril Cooper, Lorae Parry, Helen & Gawayn is tax inspector John when he took on a two-year role as a Moulder, Anne Budd, Donna Akersten, Chevalier, an unassuming bureau- subeditor with the Xinhua News Agency, John Callen, Jeff Thomas, John Banas and crat reminiscent of Sam Lowry in Terry in Beijing. The Cultural Revolution had Lloyd Scott. As Raymond once wrote to me Gilliam’s 1985 dystopian comedy film, ended; Mao Zedong was dead; it was a about our collaborations, ‘The Balcony – Brazil. Chevalier’s investigation into the time, he later wrote, for coming to terms that shocked ’em.’ It was full of surprises.” disappearance of taxidermied creatures with the immediate past, celebrating from the Palace of Animals takes him into new-found liberties and “turning back the Mann also directed more recent works, the dark, degraded, lower depths of a city, cultural clock”. such as Bent by US playwright Martin a place euphemistically called Primrose Sherman (1979), about the persecution of Valley – “the last refuge of the destitute The Eye of the Queen, the story of a first gay prisoners in Nazi Germany, and the and defeated”. encounter between a retired linguist and debut of Vincent O’Sullivan’s Shuriken alien inhabitants of distant Pe-Ellia, was (1983), about the 1942 killing of 48 Japa- As he discovers, this maligned under- turned down by a local publisher, which nese prisoners-of-war in Featherston. world is a place of learning and an said it was not interested in “speculative appreciation of heritage and nature. “We philosophy”. But the book was snapped up But always he returned to the Greek are actually the last vestige of civilisation,” by British publishing house Gollancz, the dramatists: Aeschylus, Euripides, one of its inhabitants assures him. “We name behind a lofty catalogue of award- Sophocles. As he told John Davidson, read, mark, learn and inwardly digest.” winning authors, including Philip K Dick, emeritus professor and Greek drama Ursula Le Guin, Stephen Baxter and New expert at Victoria, in a recorded interview But it is under threat. The government Zealand writer Nalini Singh. in 2016, “We need their intelligence and is using the latest pandemic as an the capacity of their art to dissect and face excuse to close down “the cesspool The Eye of the Queen was well reviewed unflinchingly the reality of our Comédie called Primrose Valley”. Compulsory in the UK – “Rarely have I been made Humaine.” evacuation is in progress. Residents will aware so credibly of creatures so utterly be rehoused in a new development, “safe unlike us,” said the Times reviewer – and In 2013, after a 17-year literary hiatus from the wind, the wildest of weather established Mann’s reputation as a master spent between Wellington and a con- and the flood of an unruly river”. of speculative fiction. verted barn in a small French town in the Basically, refurbished caves. Loire Valley, he published The Disestablish- More books followed, including the ment of Paradise, about the banishment of “Get them all living in the same place, quartet A Land Fit for Heroes, set in an humanity from a once-pristine Earth-like and underground,” Chevalier is told. alternative universe in which the Roman planet. Shortlisted for the prestigious “Then, if they get troublesome, we simply Empire never fell and the “forestlands”, Arthur C Clarke Award, it can be seen as lock the doors. You will never hear their home to an indigenous British community, a speculative U-turn from the amplified screaming.” are under threat. drama of Greek tragedy or, as he likes to see it, as a logical transition. Some themes seem remarkably familiar. In 2010, he was awarded a Sir Julius He writes, for example, about “normal Vogel Award for services to science “Basically, I love ideas,” he says. “I push life” being akin “to a slow and fearful walk fiction, but it was his contribution to the borderline about perceptions. Bear down a narrow, and darkening, corridor”. theatre as well as literature that saw him in mind, though, in my theatre work, in There are also references to virtual-reality made a Member of the New Zealand Order addition to the classics, I have also worked programmes, health checks and strange, of Merit in 2017, nearly two decades after with many other writers and community lingering viral symptoms. retiring from his university post. But he has also created a fantasy world He directed Shakespeare plays – two of chivalric romance and heroic defi- Macbeths, three Julius Caesars and an ance, where Chevalier is Gawayn, hero of Othello – and also modernist plays, Arthurian legend. He falls in love, beheads villains, rescues Arthur’s kidnapped niece. 30 LISTENER AUGUST 13 2022

Mann in 2017 with then-Governor-General Dame Patsy Reddy after being made an MNZM for services to drama and literature. As the threat of destruction grows, a moorland path, a flashback to the moors of over me, sometimes faster than I can write, virtual-reality programme called CIRCE his youth. and I have to hold on to images so that I can (Cerebral Interface and Referencing retain continuity.” Circuit Encoder), melds into that of Cheva- “It is a magic landscape. I have camped lier’s present. out on the moors alone and I have heard These days, Mann’s landscape is domi- the mysterious winds howl in the hills. It nated by the broad sweep of Wellington The wisdom and courage of the ancient is quite frightening and carries one back Harbour. In his study, a single window stories become the key to survival in this to an earlier age. It is also exhilarating to looks out at a magnolia planted in 1970. It increasingly dystopian reality – CIRCE is is already in bud. “I actually turn my back more than fiction, we’re told: “It is reality, “It is a magic landscape. on the window when I am working. I am but perceived by metaphor.” I think the moors more conscious of being surrounded by are a borderland my books and memorabilia. I take breaks The programme itself takes its name between reality and in the garden.” from the Greek deity Circe, the goddess of an imaginary state.” transformation, who “introduces people Ailing health, however, may demand to the hidden world of Nature” – is this the be so close to nature. I think the moors less time in the garden and at his desk. “I promise offered to users of the platform? are a borderland between reality and an have always thought of myself as strong imaginary state.” and healthy, though I have lived with a “Sometimes when I am writing, I have diagnosis of polycystic kidney disease for to be careful that I do not become too Mann originally wrote the story in two 25 years. It has now reached end stage and extreme or overstretch the imagination,” parts, but changed it in the final draft to it is hard to do the things I used to. I would writes Mann. “The virtual reality of CIRCE one complete story, and experience. like to finish the work provides a launchpad for the quest for the I have set myself, but truth. Circe provides the pole of reality and “As a story comes alive in my mind, I see beyond that, I have shut we can use her in a contemporary form.” the events and their consequences. I often up shop. I don’t want see things very vividly through the imagi- more ideas.” l Just as the Greek goddesses and nation. It is quite exciting to me when I sit Arthurian heroes have roamed Mann’s down to write and the ideas come pouring Chevalier & Gawayn, imagination since he was a boy, so, too, the by Phillip Mann (Quen- wild landscape of CIRCE is drawn from tin Wilson Publishing, memories of childhood. $37.99) When we first meet Chevalier-as- Gawayn, he is ambling along a darkening AUGUST 13 2022 LISTENER 31

EXPLORATION A chilly reception Did Māori reach Antarctic waters centuries before Europeans? Opposing views on the issue have reignited the debate over mātauranga and “Western” scholarship. byYVONNEVANDONGEN I t was hardly surprising that a appeal of the new. New claims in science in approach in his paper. But the issue research paper which claimed and scholarship typically receive a great again highlights academic debate over Māori may have voyaged into Ant- deal of attention, he says, while responses mātauranga and “Western” scholarship – arctic waters at least 1000 years challenging such claims tend to be ignored. a debate that burst into the public arena before Europeans made headlines with a letter to the Listener by seven profes- around the world last year. The explosive The two papers used totally different sors in July 2021, questioning how Māori claim, published in the Journal of the Royal research methodologies. Wehi is director knowledge should be taught in secondary Society of New Zealand, meant Maori would of Te Pūnaha Matatini, a Centre of Research schools. have shattered the previous record set by a Excellence in complex systems, and an Russian ship in 1820. associate professor at the University of Anderson joined the debate with his Otago. She and her team looked at oral his- own letter to the Listener, arguing that At the time, the report’s authors tories as well as “grey literature”, described mātauranga is a different form of knowl- expressed surprise at the media attention, edge and understanding than science. The saying they did not intend to popularise New claims in science two could not be mixed, he said, because what they saw as an imperial narrative of typically receive a “modern mātauranga emphasises inte- people discovering new land. Lead author great deal of attention, gration over separation of knowledge Dr Priscilla Wehi said it wasn’t about while responses categories, received over hypothesised which humans were in Antarctica first, challenging such claims interpretations and experiential over but about “linkages that have gone on for tend to be ignored. experimental practice”. many hundreds of years and will go on into This does not mean mātauranga should be the future”. as “research, reports, technical documents dismissed as historical evidence, and in fact and other material published by organi- quite the contrary, he says. He acknowledges Wehi and her research team went on to sations outside common academic and that traditional iwi histories linked to whaka- write a paper arguing for a stronger case commercial publishing channels”. papa have been shown to be consistent, for for future indigenous management of Ant- example, with radiocarbon chronologies of arctica, and this, too, received considerable Wehi declined to speak to the Listener, cultural change and responses to long-term attention. but in an email wrote, “Our articles take climatic change. narratives of connection as their starting What never made global headlines was point. The key aims were, therefore, to But according to Anderson and his the response a few months later, also in the detail the content and nature of these co-authors, Wehi’s research placed unex- RSNZ journal, of a group of distinguished narratives of connection, and to (most amined narratives of early Polynesian Māori scholars, including Sir Tipene importantly) understand the role these voyaging, or stories based on them, along- O’Regan. The article was titled: “On the narratives of connection have for shaping side records of historical Antarctic voyaging Improbability of pre-European Polyne- collective values, policies, and practices “as if the two sources have the same histo- sian voyages to Antarctica: a response to (both locally and globally).” riographical status”. In other words, “as if Priscilla Wehi and colleagues.” traditional stories can be regarded without Anderson acknowledged the differences qualification as historical records”. This The lead author was archaeologist, method, arising more than a century ago, and emeritus professor at the Australian has already been comprehensively criti- National University, Atholl Anderson. He cised in modern Māori scholarship, they attributes the lack of media interest in the subsequent paper to the disproportionate 32 LISTENER AUGUST 13 2022

Practicality: canoes designed for tropical conditions would have risked foundering in the heavy seas of the circumpolar westerly wind belt. argue. They therefore adopted a modern team calculates that given Hui Te Rangiora Island/Rakiura, and Snares Islands/Tini GETTY IMAGES analytical approach to the stories Wehi occurred in Rarotonga whakapapa 48 gen- Heke as well as Enderby Island, the north- presented. erations before the late 19th century, that ernmost of the Auckland Islands. An would place him in the fifth century AD, absence of archaeological evidence further Wehi’s account accepts narratives that about seven centuries before the initial colo- south, however, suggests Polynesian explo- describe long voyages in the Pacific by Hui nisation of New Zealand. Thus, he could not ration did not reach the southern limits of Te Rangiora and his crew on the vessel Te have been Māori, or even East Polynesian. the subpolar zone. Iwi-o-Atea, likely in the early 7th century. They sailed between islands and further Other references, such as the canoe being ‘UNSCHOLARLY PROCESS’ south and “in doing so they were likely the built out of men’s bones, indicate the story first humans to set eyes on Antarctic waters was more likely to be a mythic or legend- Although the publication of the article by and perhaps the continent”. Wehi’s paper ary origin story than a historical voyaging Anderson and his colleagues met with little finds supporting evidence in the name “Te resistance, he believes the RSNZ journal’s tai-uka-a-pia” for the sea, meaning “after the The research placed initial response to the work was unusual. manner of pia or arrowroot, which when unexamined narratives Instead of sending it out to external refer- scraped looks like snow”. of early Polynesian ees, the editors referred it to Wehi, then voyaging alongside asked that it be cut in half and resubmitted Other Māori repositories of knowledge, records of historical as a letter to the editor. such as carvings depicting voyages and Antarctic voyaging. navigational and astronomical knowledge, After Anderson and his co-authors are also cited. As well, Wehi writes that Ngāi narrative, they say. They believe te tai-uka objected to what they saw as an unschol- Tahu, the largest tribal group in the South refers more plausibly to white caps or sea arly process, the paper was reviewed and Island, and other iwi “also cherish other foam than to sea ice. accepted by another member of the edito- oral repositories of knowledge in relation rial board. to these early explorers and voyagers”. The They also believe it is impractical to sail paper suggests that further evidence of a double-hulled canoe with fragile woven In contrast, another paper on the same Māori exploration is likely to become public pandanus-leaf sails 5000km from Raro- subject by the same writers was accepted as tribal researchers share these narratives. tonga and back. Canoes designed for tropical “enthusiastically” by the prestigious Cam- conditions would have risked foundering, bridge academic journal Polar Record, says EXTRAORDINARY CLAIMS breaking up or overturning in the heavy Anderson. seas of the circumpolar westerly wind belt, Anderson, who is himself Ngāi Tahu, says andtheircrewshadnoadequate protection A spokesperson for the Royal Society his team was astounded by the claims made against polar weather. Te Apārangi says when it came to the in Wehi’s paper and did not find the evi- Anderson article, the independent edito- dence convincing. “As we say in academia, There is also a lack of archaeological rial board and the programme manager extraordinary claims require extraordi- evidence for the claims, they say. There are followed normal and robust processes. nary evidence.” early Māori archaeological sites on Stewart “There was no departure from best prac- Wehi’s account of pre-European Polyne- tice. The process was transparent to both sians sailing to and from Antarctica stemmed parties. The Editorial Boards and Society from translations of Rarotongan traditions provide a forum to facilitate and encour- written down in the 1860s. Anderson’s age a well-mannered debate between researchers.” l AUGUST 13 2022 LISTENER 33

DESIGN Beautiful things John Saker remembers Lindsay Missen, the man behind many of Aotearoa’s most noteworthy graphic designs. BRUCE CONNEW It’s almost impossible today accompanies Kate Sheppard. (Finding the final say on the look of the notes. The not to have some contact with right camellia proved tricky, as the exact company had to make changes, it said, in the graphic design of Lindsay variety given by women to MPs support- order to “banknotise” Missen’s designs. Missen. That’s down to money, ing the 1893 female suffrage legislation Images were moved around, colours were mainly. Missen, who died at home changed. Missen was stung by both the in Paekākāriki earlier this year, was He was masterful high-handedness De La Rue displayed charged with overhauling the design of in managing the and what he felt was an adulteration of this country’s banknotes in 1991. That important relationship his work. There have been more changes was when Her Majesty’s head got the between type and the since, though the core elements of his chop on every note except the $20, and in empty space it colonises. original designs remain. her place, we were treated to portraits of famous New Zealanders. had fallen out of favour with gardeners Through the 1980s and early 1990s, and become extremely rare.) Missen’s work was ubiquitous. The Missen assembled a team of experts, Missen Design studio in upper Cuba St, who researched every detail of every De La Rue, the world’s largest com- with its atmosphere more redolent of a design element he wanted to include in mercial supplier of banknotes, had the Cistercian monastery than a capital city the new notes. He made the final selection design shop (Palestrina and Monteverdi of all the images, from the uncombed, always seemed to be playing), quietly everybloke rendition of Sir Ed Hillary churned out a stream of significant work. on the $5 note, to the white camellia that In his role as officialdom’s chosen 34 LISTENER AUGUST 13 2022

designer, he was asked to “Aotearoa-ise” passed on from both parents. His father double-sash window filled one wall. the New Zealand passport. As a result, was a wharf carpenter, constantly making “That window is so beautiful,” Missen some of us learnt a new te reo noun things from wood; his mother was an remarked, almost to himself. – “uruwhenua” – and our visa pages Ilam graduate who taught art and made a were subtly illustrated with shells and significant contribution to pottery. Some That was how he approached graphic indigenous fauna. He also redesigned the of her watercolours hung in his office. design. Concern for function – the mes- citizenship documents, supplied the then- sage – ruled. Form and proportion, still National Art Gallery with sophisticated There was a physical, outdoors important, brought up the rear. There branding and signage, redrew a dimension in there as well, typical of was no place for ego or crowd-pleasing version of the Coat of Arms for use by Government House, cre- visual pyrotechnics. ated new visual identities for the There was a timelessness Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade and Victoria University of to what he brought to bear on Wellington, and conceptualised a design. He was particularly a new set of activity symbols for masterful in managing the the Department of Conserva- important relationship between tion. All that alongside a flow of type and the empty space it private-sector clients as large as colonises, the graphic design Fletcher Challenge and the ANZ equivalent of Debussy’s remark Bank and as small (though no less about music being the silence important, in Missen’s view) as between the notes. Parsons Books. Missen had a complex Books and book design When Missen, left, redesigned relationship with type and RESERVE BANK OF NEW ZEALAND held a particular fascina- our banknotes in 1991, the faces typefaces. He valued legibility, tion. It was in this area of famous Kiwis were used. restraint and elegance above all. that Missen did the work of Right, another Missen design. As digitalisation took hold in which he was most proud. His the industry, ushering in hun- collaborations with several pub- a provincial upbringing. dreds of new fonts, he’d shake lishers, including Alister Taylor He was a teenaged surf his head at the silliness he saw Publishing, Oxford University Press and lifesaver at Castlecliff and in most of them. Bridget Williams Books, produced some acquired a confidence around landmark volumes, many of which won water, boats, fishing and hunting He even voiced disdain for awards for their design. Among them: that never left him. Helvetica, the sans serif font the first volume of the Dictionary of New that’s the most widely used in Zealand Biography, Contemporary New He departed Whanganui in 1964 at 18, Zealand Painters, Craft New Zealand, moving to Wellington, where he found the world. And yet one of smaller non-fiction titles such as The work at the communications titan of that his preferred fonts was Quiet Revolution by Colin James and The time, Ilott Advertising. Then, several Méridien, a serif type- Sugarbag Years by Tony Simpson, and formative years were spent in Christch- face he used on both novels such as Plumb by Maurice Gee. urch, learning from the Englishman his passport design Duncan Firth, an influential designer and and the original 1991 Missen found the photograph of the typographer. notes. Méridien was man that featured on the cover of Plumb designed by Adrian (a cover that has become something of a Firth was impressed by Missen’s abili- Frutiger, of the same classic) blowing down the street some- ties. “But you have to leave. You must go 1950s Swiss school that where in small-town New Zealand. He and work overseas,” he urged his young said he recognised Plumb instantly. apprentice. Missen chose to stay. created Helvetica. The digital age in general did not Missen’s last book project was a big H e sought and found beauty in one. Working New Zealand was a compen- the everyday. I remember once enthral Missen. By the end of his career, dium of profiles of a range of employers, sitting with him in a recently he had become a throwback to another their stories largely told by the people in renovated room, where a specially made age, continuing to work with pen and each workplace. He not only designed it, paper at a wide, screen-free desk. And but also conceived, managed, published he was curmudgeonly, humorously and distributed it. so, about what his craft had become. “Hairdressers with computers” was His was a distinctively New Zealand life. his description for a new generation of He was the only child of Leon and Connie graphic designers. Missen of Castlecliff, near Whanganui. Creativity and an aesthetic sense were Over the last few years of his life, in the Paekākāriki house he shared with his wife, the accomplished painter Gerda Leenards, he continued to create beauti- ful things. There had been a change of medium, however. He made jewellery. l AUGUST 13 2022 LISTENER 35

LIFE HEALTH by Nicky Pellegrino Final stages More evidence is needed before we can say definitively how medical cannabis might be effective in end-of-life care. GETTY IMAGES Controlling pain and other distressing Studying cannabis partly because it is available symptoms is a challenge in palliative as a treatment is in so many forms and strengths. care and the search is ongoing for new challenging because therapeutic strategies to ease the it comes in so many “There are liquids, stuff you can final stages of a person’s life. forms and strengths. smoke, plant extracts, pills, pharma- Consequently, there has been a lot of ceuticals, synthetics and then there’s interest in medical cannabis symptoms, a recent review the plant itself,” she says. “We talk and its potential to help not from the Medical Research about it as medical cannabis, but actu- only pain but sleeplessness, ally it’s a variety of different things.” nausea, fatigue, depression Institute of New and anxiety in termi- Zealand (MRINZ) Another complication is that end- nally ill patients. has found very limited of-life care involves treating people evidence of usefulness for patients with very different conditions. In the The marijuana plant in palliative care. studies that Doppen examined, there contains numerous Researcher Marjan Doppen were a lot of cancer cases but also chemicals that have differ- explains that studying cannabis as patients suffering from conditions ent effects on the body. Exactly how, a medical treatment is challenging, such as dementia and Aids. “So, we and even whether, medical canna- can’t just say that it does or doesn’t bis works remains unclear. While work in a palliative setting,” she says. there are plenty of anecdotal reports from people who have had success controlling various The MRINZ team pulled together 52 studies on end-of-life care. Positive effects were seen for pain, nausea and 36 LISTENER AUGUST 13 2022

would expect from a recreational drug. HEALTH BRIEFS There continue to be claims that marijuana EFFECTIVE ANTIVIRALS is offering a better quality of life to people with serious health conditions and Doppen says it is Two antiviral treatments can frustrating not to be able to find good evidence prevent hospitalisations if they are to back them up. “People will report that it helped given while Covid-19 is still mild, for their pain so we’ll take a large group and try according to research published to show the effects, but then we don’t find it.” in the Canadian Medical Associa- tion Journal. It combined evidence A 2018 study by the University of New South from 41 antiviral trials focusing on Wales looked at 1500 patients who had been patients with non-severe Covid-19. prescribed opioids for chronic non-cancer Compared with placebo or stand- pain and found that when using cannabis they ard care, Paxlovid likely reduced actually had greater pain and anxiety, were hospitalisations by 46.2 people coping less well, and the pain was interfering per 1000 treated, and molnupiravir more in their life. may have reduced hospitalisations by 16.3 people per 1000. Many More than 40% of of these trials focused on unvac- those who had used cinated Delta patients and more marijuana were self- research is needed on how vac- medicating to treat pain cinated Omicron patients respond or other conditions. to the treatments. fatigue, but the quality of the research Some of the strongest scientific evidence so PREGNANCY ISSUES LINK GETTY IMAGES was far too low to draw reliable far is for medical marijuana’s effectiveness conclusions. Some studies were for multiple sclerosis patients with Women who experience complica- judged as biased, others had tested moderate to severe spasticity (muscle tightness) tions during pregnancy, such as limited dosages. and for reducing seizures in some forms of high blood pressure, pre-eclampsia, childhood epilepsy. There is also interest in or gestational diabetes, are two to “At this stage, as a doctor, I would its potential to treat everything from panic three times more likely to develop be very reluctant to prescribe it to disorders to alcohol abuse, dementia, eczema cardiovascular disease than other large groups of people in a palliative and menopause symptoms. women. However, they are often not care setting,” says Doppen. “But every aware of their increased risk, accord- patient is different and if an individual Except for a medicine called Sativex, medical ing to Australian research published thinks it’s worth a try, then I don’t cannabis products are unapproved in New in PLOS One. Researchers conducted think it’s a bad thing to prescribe it, Zealand. Cannabidiol (CBD) medicines that in-depth interviews with 26 women so long as they have considered the have been verified as meeting quality standards and found that the majority did not possible risks and harmful effects.” can be prescribed by doctors for a range of know about the link. conditions, but since there is no Pharmac The main side effects of using medi- funding, the cost may be prohibitive for some. TICK FOR BOOSTER TOPUP cal cannabis – at least those reported in the studies that Doppen reviewed Meanwhile, a survey has revealed up to 15% A fourth dose of the Pfizer vaccine – were that it made participants feel of New Zealand adults report having consumed in adults over 60 boosts Covid nauseous or vomit. Some patients marijuana at least once in the previous 12 antibodies at about two weeks experienced the sorts of highs you months and, of those users, more than 40% were after the vaccination, with no major self-medicating to treat pain or other conditions. adverse events, according to new data out of Israel published in JAMA Doppen says the main takeaway message Network Open. The small study from her review is that looked at antibody levels in people medical cannabis may before and after their third and have some benefits fourth doses of the Pfizer vaccine. in end-of-life care, we just don’t have enough They found that antibody evidence yet to say levels increase signifi- for sure what they may be. cantly after the third dose, then drop off More and by the five-month better-quality mark and are research is restored to needed. l the peak levels by a fourth dose. AUGUST 13 2022 LISTENER 37

LIFE Question: My husband, now in his eighties, is eating NUTRITION less and less. He is pretty fit and generally keeps good health; all our meals are by Jennifer Bowden home-cooked. Should I be concerned about it? IAnswer: f our food intake doesn’t meet our energy needs, there’s also a good chance it is not meet- ing our nutrient needs. And among older adults, there is a risk of undereating, leading to malnutrition. So the critical question is whether your husband’s eating less leads to unintentional weight loss. If so, this indicates a real problem. Unintentional weight loss is common among elderly people and is a serious problem as it can worsen existing medical conditions and increase the risk of muscle loss, illness and depression. In turn, this increases the risk of falls, hospitalisa- tion and institutionalisation, a poorer quality of life and increased mortal- ity. Baggy clothes and loose rings are simple warning signs of weight loss for older adults. A significant proportion of older people in the community are at risk nutritionally. GETTY IMAGES Losing your Weight change is a significant appetite indicator of health risk among older adults, so it is frequently included in Weight loss can be a real danger for elderly nutrition risk screening. Heightened people, worsening existing health problems nutrition risk precedes malnutrition and increasing the likelihood of needing care. and its myriad dangers to health. In New Zealand, a significant propor- tion of older people living in the community are classified as being at risk nutritionally (and thus at peril of developing malnutrition), while others already meet the criteria for malnutrition. For example, a study published in 2017, in the Australasian Journal on Ageing, reported that 23% of older adults living in the north-west of the Auckland region were malnourished, while a further 35% were at high risk of malnutrition. And a 2011 study in the Journal of Nutrition, Health and 38 LISTENER AUGUST 13 2022

Aging found that 52% of surveyed TIPS: NUTRITION BITES GETTY IMAGES New Zealanders aged 75 to 85 had a high nutrition risk; many of these Eat more snacks – eat five to six times CAN’T OUTRUN A BAD DIET people were widowed or lived alone. a day rather than three main meals only. Every bite counts – half a cracker New research affirms that high Elderly people are particularly is better than nothing. levels of physical activity do not at risk of developing malnutrition; Try a cooked breakfast – older adults counteract the adverse health this can increase their hospital stays, often eat more in the morning. effects of a poor diet on mortal- lengthen wound-healing time, and Prepare porridge with milk, not water, ity risk. The study, published reduce their ability to complete day- and add skimmed milk powder (it’s in the British Journal of Sports to-day tasks after being in hospital. easier to mix in than whole milk powder) Medicine, assessed the diet and to breakfast porridge or cereal, milk- physical activity of more than Finding the real based drinks, milk desserts, yogurt, 360,000 British adults. It found cause of weight mashed potatoes, sauces and casseroles. while physical activity reduced loss is essential Add dried fruit, chopped nuts and seeds the risk of cardiovascular disease before focusing on to porridge, muesli, salads and desserts. and selected cancers, it could not regaining the weight. Add boiled eggs to salads, sandwiches, entirely negate a poor diet. Instead, soups, pasta and casseroles. emphasis must be placed on both Some changes that occur with ageing Grate cheese on sandwiches, potatoes, improving levels of physical activ- can promote decreased food intake, vegetables and casseroles. ity and diet quality to optimise weight loss and malnutrition, such as Add avocado to sandwiches and salads. long-term health. reduced taste and smell, deteriorat- Splash olive oil over salads, cooked ing dental health, declining physical vegetables and brown rice. DIABETES IN KIDS activity, isolation and loneliness, and Always have snacks on hand – yogurt, inability to shop or prepare food. nuts and seeds, cheese or peanut butter Researchers from the University and crackers, veggies with dip, or a small of Sydney are launching a However, as you have pointed sandwich with egg, grated cheese, lean new national screening pilot out, your husband is well meat, chicken, tuna or salmon. programme for identifying fed with home-cooked Drink fluids in-between meals, not type 1 diabetes in children. meals. And the fact he has you as with them – so there’s more room for Currently, detecting type company should also remove the food. For example, try smoothies or 1 diabetes in children happens too health risks associated with isolation milkshakes during summer and a cup late, with one in three Australian and loneliness. If he is also still active, of soup in winter instead of low-energy children not diagnosed until they this is a good indicator, too. fluids such as tea or coffee. require emergency care. If the pilot Enjoy regular milk or fruit-based desserts programme is successful, Australia But if your husband is losing – rice pudding, custard and fruit, fruit might become the first country weight, then action is needed. And crumble with ice cream, dairy dessert to implement routine screening finding the real cause of weight loss or fruit yogurt. for type 1 diabetes in children. is essential before focusing on regain- ing the weight. A visit to his GP in living on their own to eat with others – the more COUNTERS FOR SALT the first instance would be required. people present at a meal, the more we eat. Women who eat plenty of potas- The most common causes of unin- Malnutrition and weight loss are not inevi- sium-rich foods such as bananas, tentional weight loss in older adults table side effects of ageing; many older adults avocados and salmon could are depression, cancer and gastro- are fit, healthy, and active. The solution is to reduce the negative effects intestinal disorders. Other chronic find ways to help at-risk older adults eat greater of salt in the diet, according diseases, psychiatric disorders, side quantities of nutritious foods, while honouring to a new study published in effects of medication or simply a their happiness and health. the European Heart Journal. decline in functional abilities with Potassium is known to help the age, such as an inability to drive to the Nothing will be gained by forcing them body excrete more sodium in shops or cook meals, can also cause a to eat foods they do not like. Instead, use the urine. And notably in this drop in weight. the tips to find enjoyable ways to boost study, involving nearly 25,000 energy and nutrient intake. l adults, potassium-rich diets Once the cause of this loss is identi- were linked to lower blood fied and remedied, many healthful Email your nutrition questions pressure, particularly in ways exist to regain it and promote to [email protected] women with high healthy weight maintenance in older salt intake. adults (see box, above). We can also encourage the elderly to eat more by offering a greater variety of foods at meal times and creating opportunities for those AUGUST 13 2022 LISTENER

LIFE FOOD From left, chocolate olive oil layer cake, walnut & cinnamon coffee cake, leek & feta tart. Crowd saucing Gatherings and celebrations are made easier with this selection of large cakes, tarts and sides from Julia Busuttil Nishimura. This is the cake I always make for birth- 250g unsalted butter, softened Pour the batter into the prepared days and celebrations. This recipe can 150g icing sugar cake tins and transfer to the oven. also be halved for a more modest cake, 150g dark chocolate (70% cocoa solids), Cook for 50-55 minutes, until a skewer making it a great option for smaller inserted into the centre of the cakes gatherings, too. melted and slightly cooled comes out clean. Some crumbs are okay when testing. Allow the cakes CHOCOLATE OLIVE OIL LAYER CAKE Preheat the oven to 180°C. Grease and to cool in their tins, then turn out on line two 23cm round cake tins with to a flat plate or tray, ready to cut and 600g (4 cups) self-raising flour baking paper. assemble. 200g Dutch-process cocoa powder 700g caster sugar Sift the flour and cocoa powder into To make the chocolate cream cheese pinch of sea salt the large bowl of a stand mixer fitted frosting, place the cream cheese and 10 eggs, lightly beaten with the paddle attachment. Add the butter in the large bowl of the stand 500g sour cream sugar and salt and mix on low speed mixer, this time fitted with the whisk 400ml olive oil until combined. Increase the speed attachment. Beat on high speed for 3-4 2 tsp vanilla extract to medium, add the eggs and beat for minutes, until very smooth and aer- 300ml boiled and slightly cooled water 30 seconds. Add the sour cream, olive ated. Reduce the speed to medium-low, 500g raspberries, plus extra to top oil and vanilla extract and beat for sift in the icing sugar and continue to roasted hazelnuts, to top another 30 seconds or until just com- whisk. Stream in the melted chocolate flaky sea salt, to top bined (the batter will still be rather and increase to the highest speed. CHOCOLATE CREAM CHEESE FROSTING stiff at this point). Pour in the hot Whisk for 3-4 minutes, until the frost- 200g cream cheese, at room temperature water and mix until just incorporated, ing is very airy and voluminous. taking care not to overmix the batter. 40 LISTENER AUGUST 13 2022

batter around too much to create an even layer. For the streusel topping, combine the sugar, flour, cinnamon and walnuts in a bowl. Toss through the butter and rub it into the dry ingredients to create a crumble consistency. Scatter over the cake batter, then transfer to the oven and bake for 45-50 min- utes, until a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean. Cool in the tin for 10 minutes, then turn out on to a wire rack to cool completely. The cake is best eaten on the day it is made, but will keep in an airtight container for 2-3 days. Serves 8. Trim the tops off the cakes with STREUSEL TOPPING LEEK&FETA TART a sharp knife, to give them a flat top. 80g caster sugar Carefully slice the cakes horizontally 100g (⅔ cup) plain flour 2 tbsp unsalted butter in half, so you now have four cake 1 tsp ground cinnamon 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil layers. Place one of the cake layers 60g walnuts, finely chopped 4 leeks, white and pale-green parts only, sliced on a flat plate or cake stand. 60g cold unsalted butter, cubed lengthways into eighths, then washed and drained Use a palette knife to spread one- Preheat the oven to 180°C. Grease 3 garlic cloves, roughly chopped quarter of the cream cheese frosting and line a 20cm square cake tin with 3 thyme sprigs, plus extra to serve on to the top of the cake layer, spread- baking paper. sea salt and black pepper ing it to the edge. Top with a third 100g marinated feta of the raspberries. Repeat with the Place the butter and both sugars in cream, for brushing remaining cake layers, frosting and the large bowl of a stand mixer, fitted FLAKY PASTRY raspberries, finishing with a layer with the paddle attachment. Cream 250g (1⅔ cups) plain flour, plus extra for dusting of frosting. Decorate the top layer together on high speed for about 3 pinch of sea salt with some roasted hazelnuts, extra minutes, until pale and fluffy, scraping 125g cold unsalted butter, cubed raspberries and a scattering of flaky down the side of the bowl as needed. 1 tbsp white vinegar sea salt. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating 100-125ml iced water well between each addition. Mix in Serves 10-12. the vanilla seeds and sour cream and To make the flaky pastry, mix the flour and salt finally the flour, stirring until just together in a large bowl. Rub the butter into the WALNUT&CINNAMON COFFEE CAKE combined. Spoon half the batter into flour, using your fingertips or a pastry cutter, until the prepared tin, spreading the top the mixture is pebbly. You want to rub the butter 12g unsalted butter, softened of the batter to create an even layer. into flatter pieces rather than into something that 100g brown sugar resembles breadcrumbs. Drizzle in the vinegar and 150g caster sugar Combine the coffee cinnamon sprinkle over enough iced water to just bring the 3 eggs layer ingredients in a small bowl, dough together. It will still be shaggy and should just 1 vanilla pod, split and seeds scraped then evenly scatter the mixture over hold together when pressed. If there are still dry or 170g sour cream the batter in the tin. Top with the floury spots, sprinkle over a little extra water. Flat- 250g (1⅔ cups) self-raising flour remaining batter, being careful not ten into a disc, wrap in plastic wrap and chill in the COFFEE CINNAMON LAYER to disturb the coffee cinnamon layer. fridge for at least 1 hour. 40g brown sugar The best way to do this is to dollop 1 tbsp ground cinnamon spoonfuls of the batter into the tin, Meanwhile, warm the butter and olive oil in a 1 tbsp instant coffee so that you don’t need to drag the large frying pan over medium heat. Add the leek, 80g walnuts, finely chopped garlic and thyme and season with salt and pepper, cooking in batches if necessary. Gently fry the leek for about 10 minutes, until tender. If the mixture begins to dry out, add a few tablespoons of water and continue to cook until the water has evaporated. Allow the leek to cool briefly, then transfer to a bowl with the feta. Mix until the leek is mostly coated in the cheese and set aside to cool. Preheat the oven to 190°C. Line a 32cm oval baking dish with baking paper. Remove the dough from the fridge and let it sit at room temperature for 10 minutes, to make it easier to roll. Dust your work surface with a little flour, then roll the pastry dough into a 38cm oval, about 3-4mm thick. Drape the pastry dough over the prepared tray. Spread the leek filling on to the pastry, AUGUST 13 2022 LISTENER 41

LIFE WINE Roast carrot salad. by Michael Cooper leaving a 3-4cm border. Fold the overhanging Top of the South pastry towards the centre of the tart, pinching the joins as you go to seal in the filling and form Although it’s among our smaller wine a galette. Brush the pastry with cream and bake regions, Nelson has a history of quality. for 45 minutes or until the filling has puffed a little and the pastry is golden. Top with extra Nelson has less than intensity and poise. (11% alc/vol) thyme leaves, then serve. 3% of the national (375ml) $29 vineyard, but has been Serves 4-6. producing wine since Neudorf Rosie’s Block Moutere the mid to late 19th century. Today, Chardonnay 2020 ROAST CARROT SALAD the region’s 35 wineries are the Refined and very ageworthy, source of many classy, characterful this invitingly fragrant, fresh 1 kg carrots, trimmed and halved lengthways whites, rosés and reds. and vigorous wine has penetrating (or quartered if large) peachy, citrusy, slightly biscuity Abel Tasman Chardonnay 2020 flavours, appetising acidity and a 3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil lingering finish. (14% alc/vol) $45 sea salt and black pepper This highly distinctive wine was handful of parsley, leaves picked and roughly handled in large French oak cuves, Old House Vineyards Falcon Hill Nelson rather than small barrels. It has Pinot Noir 2019 chopped vibrant, searching flavours, citrusy This impressive, finely structured 50g dry-roasted hazelnuts, roughly chopped and slightly appley, with racy acidity. Upper Moutere red is sturdy, HONEY DRESSING An energetic, chablis-like wine. generous and sweet-fruited, with 1 heaped tsp honey (13.9% alc/vol) $30 concentrated, very ripe cherry, 1 garlic clove, finely grated plum and spice flavours. Complex 2 tbsp sherry vinegar Blackenbrook Nelson Pinot Gris 2021 and savoury, it should have a long 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil life ahead. (14.5% alc/vol) $45 Full of youthful vigour, this mouth- Preheat the oven to 200°C. Line a baking tray with filling wine has strong peach, pear, Rimu Grove Nelson Pinot Gris 2019 baking paper. Place the carrots in a large bowl lychee and spice flavours, a touch and toss with the olive oil and a good pinch of of complexity and an off-dry finish. This classy wine was grown in the salt and pepper. Arrange in a single layer on the (13.5% alc/vol) $25 Moutere Hills and partly oak-aged. A prepared tray and roast for 30-35 minutes, until mouthfilling, fleshy wine, it has peach tender and beginning to caramelise. Brightwater Vineyards Lord Rutherford and pear flavours, showing excellent Nelson Sauvignon Blanc 2021 delicacy and richness, and an off-dry, Meanwhile, whisk the honey dressing ingre- Grown on the Waimea Plains, long finish. (13% alc/vol) $32 dients together in a small bowl or shake in a jar, this full-bodied wine has very then season well. Trans- good intensity of vibrant melon, Seifried Winemaker’s Collection Sweet fer the roasted carrot to passionfruit and green capsicum Agnes Nelson Riesling 2019 a bowl and toss with the flavours, crisp and persistent. Delicious young, this is Seifried’s parsley and dressing. (13.5% alc/vol) $28 most celebrated wine. Lively and Scatter over the hazel- intense, it has rich, peachy, citrusy, nuts and serve. Greenhough Hope Vineyard Nelson gently honeyed flavours, sweet, Pinot Noir 2019 crisp and harmonious. (10.5% alc/ Serves 4. l Certified organic, this full-bodied vol) (375ml) $29 l Extracted from AROUND wine has rich cherry, red berry THE TABLE, by Julia and spice flavours, notably complex, WINE OF THE WEEK Busuttil Nishimura savoury and harmonious. A “com- (Pan Macmillan, $49.99). plete” wine, it’s already delicious. Flaxmore Moutere Nelson Rosé (13.5% alc/vol) $50 2021 Bargain-priced, this distinctive Moutere Hills Nelson Moutere Ice 2021 wine was made from pinot noir. It is a mouthfilling, dry style, This lovely dessert wine was made pink/slight orange, with strong from chenin blanc. It is fresh, sweet peachy, spicy flavours, hints and crisp, with a rich surge of of strawberries and unusual lemony, slightly appley flavours, complexity. It’s drinking well showing excellent delicacy, vigour, now. (13% alc/vol) $22 42 LISTENER AUGUST 13 2022

PSYCHOLOGY might be caused by a relative lack of these chemi- cals. In which case, the treatment is obvious – find by Marc Wilson substances that promote the availability of these chemical messengers. Ta-dah, antidepressants. Happy pills Most of the antidepressants listed by healthnavigator.org.nz share the same Drugs for treating depression work general mechanism – they interfere on the chemical imbalance theory, but with the process of reuptake or recycling of differ- scientists have called that into question. ent neurotransmitters, so there are more of these chemical keys to happiness floating about and able Hundreds of thousands “keys” (neurotransmitters) that float to unlock unopened cupboards of joy. GETTY IMAGES of New Zealand- around until they find the lock they ers are prescribed fit. Happiness ensues. Because our Tricyclics and monoamine-oxidase inhibitors antidepressants, and brains are tidy Kiwis, they reuptake have gone a little out of fashion because they’ve the number appears the keys left lying around, to be recy- been superseded by more targeted drugs, called to have been climbing. cled and stored for next time. serotonin-norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors and selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, which Healthnavigator.org.nz tells me Depression isn’t a date back to the late 1970s and early 1980s. They’ve that there are four broad families of single “disease” – it’s played a starring role in the popular rise of the antidepressant drugs. These include a set of symptoms that chemical theory of depression – that the condition tricyclics and monoamine-oxidase may have their roots is the product of a chemical imbalance in the brain inhibitors. Though they work dif- in different causes. – promoted by their manufacturers. ferently, these two groups of drugs date back to the 1950s, which saw a Since the middle of last century, And this is a long-winded preface to one of the dramatic increase in the development this kind of working model of how science headlines of the month – an “umbrella” of medications for psychological the brain gets stuff done has been a review led by Professor Joanna Moncrieff, a distress. handy shorthand for understanding professor of psychiatry at University College how depression happens. There are a London, drew the conclusion that “there is no Ironically, the first monoamine-oxi- bunch of neurotransmitters that convincing evidence that depression is caused by dase inhibitor antidepressants grew appear important for mood, serotonin abnormalities”. Moncrieff and colleagues out of attempts to make a treatment including serotonin and came to this conclusion by reviewing the history of for tuberculosis. I don’t know if they norepinephrine, so it research looking at whether depressed people have worked for that, but patients were makes sense to hypoth- less serotonin floating around. notably more cheerful and active. A esise that depression “happy little accident”, as American One challenge of answering this question is artist and TV host Bob Ross would say. Professor Joanna Moncrieff: that it’s not easy to monitor, in real time, how making headlines. much serotonin you have. Some of the research Our brains produce and use a they consider, therefore, looks instead to compare various chemicals as messengers to the amount of serotonin byproducts people have get stuff done. Need to bolster happy in their bodily fluids. Or whether feeding people feelings? That requires unlocking the a diet that reduces serotonin production makes neural cupboards that regulate mood them sadder. by releasing a bunch of the relevant This is a big headline, but not really surprising. First, the studies the researchers review already showed, individually, that there’s limited evidence. Expert commentators have noted that pretty much nobody argues that depression is solely caused by chemical deficiencies, and also that the thing we call depression isn’t a single “disease” – it’s a set of symptoms that may have their roots in different causes for different people. It’s also the case that we’re now developing the tools to look at serotonin in the brain, and in real time, which might reveal differences in levels. But, as the study authors caution, don’t stop taking your fluoxetine or venlafax- ine just yet (and definitely not without medical advice). As Michael Bloom- field, another UCL psychiatrist, notes, “Taking paracetamol can be helpful for headaches, [but] no one believes that headaches are caused by not enough paracetamol in the brain.” l AUGUST 13 2022 LISTENER 43

LIFE SCIENCE ₈algebraic groups called E .Dazzled mathematicians by Bob Brockie say her discovery gives them a key to many areas of maths and physics and could lead to many more Fields of gold discoveries. Apart from the packing breakthrough, Viazovska has made big advances in the theory of Kiwi mathematicians have produced wave functions. some astonishing medal-winning performances over the years. The other three Fields Prize winners this year are James Maynard, Hugo Duminil-Copin and June GETTY IMAGES Nobel Prizes are Ukrainian woman, Professor Maryna Huh. Maynard, a University of Oxford professor, dished out annually Viazovska. She works in Switzerland has distinguished himself in the field of prime to medicos, research and has surprised the maths world by number theory. He explains gaps between groups chemists, physicists, discovering the key to a long-standing of prime numbers. At the Institut des Hautes economists, writers, maths problem – finding the densest Études Scientifiques, near Paris, Duminil-Copin and peaceniks. Nobelists win a gold works on the statistical flow of fluids passing medal, a diploma, get to shake hands New Zealander Sir through porous media. His equations can be used with the King of Sweden and take Vaughan Jones won in settings as diverse as explaining the way water home 10 million kronor ($1.5 million). the Fields Medal runs through coffee grounds, how diseases and in 1990, having forest fires spread, or how rumours circulate. There is no Nobel Prize for math- revolutionised several ematicians. Instead, mathematicians fields of maths and Huh, of Princeton University in New Jersey, have other prizes – notably, the Abel quantum physics. won his medal for proving the Dowling-Wilson Prize and the Fields Medal. conjecture in matrices, for bringing Hodge theory way to pack spheres in a space. The to combinatorics, dealing to the Lorentzian polyno- The Abel Prize was set up by the usefulness of packing cannonballs or mials, which have long puzzled mathematicians, and Norwegian government to acknowl- oranges in a pyramidal shape the proof of the strong Mason conjecture. (Don’t ask!) edge notable lifetime achievements in has long been known, maths. The presentation is based on but Viazovska solves A New Zealander, Sir Vaughan Jones, won the Nobel ceremony, so winners get a the problem of pack- the Fields Medal in 1990. While a professor diploma, shake hands with the King ing electrons in eight at the University of California, Berkeley, he of Norway, and take home 7.5 million or 24 dimensions using combined von Neumann algebra with knot theory kroner ($1.24 million). to produce an equation known as the “Jones polyno- A revolution in knot mial”. Jones’ discovery revolutionised several fields Another prize is the Fields Medal, theory: Sir Vaughan Jones. of maths and quantum physics. It is of great value which the International Math- Above: the Fields Medal. in untangling DNA molecules, mixing fluids and ematical Union awards to up to four the design of nanoelectronics and nanorobotics. winners under 40 years of age every four years. The winners have usually The Fields Medal is considered the most cracked a big problem in math- prestigious of awards in mathematics, but its ematics. This year’s winners in the recipients take home a comparatively miserly Helsinki ceremony were three men, $15,000 Canadian ($18,800). from the US, Britain and France, and a Apart from these big maths prizes, there are many more in Asia, the US and Europe. Among them is the Kyoto Prize, which is worth 100 million yen ($1.2 million) and a gold medal made of actual gold. Then there’s the American Millennium Prize, which pledges US$1 million to anyone who can solve one of six well-known complex mathematical problems. (There were seven problems, but one was solved in 2010.) In 2016, New Zealander Roy Kerr shared the Swedish Crafoord Prize, worth six million kronor ($956,000), for solving Einstein’s equations of general relativity and developing the geometry of space-time round a black hole. The “Kerr metric” is now a landmark in astrophysics. Maths is the lingua franca of the scientific world. A glance at a recent newsletter of the New Zealand Math- ematical Society reveals its international character, with mathematicians from all over the world working in our universi- ties. It’s only a matter of time until one of them hits the jackpot. l 44 LISTENER AUGUST 13 2022

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BOOKS Tenor of the times Best-selling The Miniaturist gets a gripping sequel, a US Quaker town simmers with tension, and a young woman fights for intellectual freedom in renaissance Florence in the latest popular fiction. byGILLSOUTH HARRY BORDEN; NOEL MCLAUGHLIN THE HOUSE OF FORTUNE, by Jessie end of the last book, are back. Thea is Thea desperately consults with friends in Burton (Picador, $34.99) now a vibrant young woman of 18, the a search for other options that could offer The House of Fortune is a sequel to Jessie object of some interest (having a black the Brandt family another way out. Burton’s huge-selling 2014 debut The father and white mother) in a society that Miniaturist, a tale set in the late 1600s doesn’t know where to place her. She is Burton again brings the reader deep in Amsterdam of an arranged, doomed ready to leave the nest and besotted with into another world, among characters marriage between charismatic merchant a man from the theatrical world. But her who you care about deeply, delivering a Johannes Brandt and country girl Aunt Nella has other plans, wanting her tapestry of colour that brings viscerally Petronella “Nella” Oortman. The young to marry into a respectable family. The to life the sights and smells of the time: bride, disheartened by her husband’s lack Brandt family’s fortunes have become the boats and barges and bustling docks, of interest in her, tries to give her mar- severely depleted over the years, as Otto and Cornelia’s sumptuous cooking. It’s a riage life through the gift of a beautiful works a lowly job for the Dutch East India gripping, beautifully realised novel that miniature house of the great home she Company. All they own is the grand house can be enjoyed without knowledge of its has come to. Much drama and heartache on the Herengracht canal, which grows predecessor. ensues. In time, the unseen supplier of emptier by the minute as they sell posses- miniaturist items reveals a deep knowl- sions to survive and keep up appearances. THIS IS GONNA END IN TEARS, by Liza edge of secrets in the house. Klaussmann (John Murray, $36.99) Nella successfully finds a potential hus- Miller, Olly and Ash, three childhood It is now 1705, and Nella, servant Otto, band for her niece at a ball, but struggles friends who are all now nearing 40, get maid Cornelia and Thea, the baby who to convince Otto, Thea and Cornelia that back together in the Quaker settlement came into the Brandt household at the he’s the answer. As the wedding nears, town on the US east coast where they were 46 LISTENER AUGUST 13 2022

feted for her reasoned arguments, Luna drops in priority as he struggles to finance the Medicis’ return to Florence at the cost of his own family’s fortunes. Harcourt paints this world of high society in Florence with colour and drama, identifying the key families and how many of them move quickly to support Friar Savonarola and his vindictive sermons, so that their fortunes remain protected. For Luna, there is no upside. Her assured voice is now perceived as immod- est and her misshapen leg deemed a curse to her family. She nevertheless continues Jessie Burton again brings the reader deep into another world, among characters that you care about deeply. raised. Wonderland in the 1980s is a place they’d do anything for. And it’s what’s hap- her intellectual journey. At a debate, of pretty-coloured houses, the sound of pening with the kids, Nate and his friends which she attends disguised as a boy, she lawnmowers and pancakes being made. Cam and Suki, that the reader should be hears Nicolaus Copernicus suggest that At this point, Miller and Ash, who are keeping their eye on. The mentally fragile the ancient astronomer Claudius Ptolemy married, albeit unhappily, have been Aunt Tassie, meanwhile, knows more may have been wrong in his calculations estranged for about 15 years from their about what’s brewing than the other so- of the Moon’s motion. But in the Florence former friend. Olly is a mess, sacked from called adults. of that era, of course, it’s heresy to say his big Hollywood job and returning to that the Earth moves around the sun, and Wonderland to care for his elderly Aunt Klaussmann portrays small-town life Luna’s own interpretation of this reason- Tassie, who brought him up. well: the benign neglect that was parent- ing brings danger to her family. ing in the 1980s, the hard-drinking social It’s a far cry from 1963, when the insepa- lives, the unhappiness simmering beneath Through the story of Luna, who’s rable trio travelled from Wonderland to the surface. By the time the community is portrayed as a resilient young woman, Los Angeles and set up a surprisingly suc- ready to watch the film, things are ready to never a creature of pity, Harcourt shines cessful record company, thanks in large blow and it’s going to take a hero or two to a light on the lives of educated women part to Olly’s gift for recognising a hit. The stop it. An apt title. who simply wanted to join in the debate friendship will implode a few years later, alongside their male counterparts. It after Miller leaves Olly for Ash, but in this THE BRIGHTEST STAR, by Emma seems some of the happiest and most ful- hot summer in 1984, Olly sees an oppor- Harcourt (HQ Fiction, $35) filled women at this time were nuns (read tunity. Meanwhile, Nate, Miller and Ash’s Leonarda Lunetta “Luna” Fusilli, an edu- Sarah Dunant for more on this), who were son, returns home from boarding school cated young woman in 1496 Florence, who allowed to study in peace. And because ready to spend his last summer in his was born with a leg defect, has a natural Luna has a physical disability, she’s harder hometown before starting a film degree talent for stargazing and astronomy. to marry off, which leads her by chance in LA, and he is intrigued by Olly. At the But her impressive intellectual to a place where intellectual discovery is same time, the local Wonderland com- journey runs out of runway when actively encouraged. She gets to witness munity is transfixed by the film Moby Dick the fundamentalist preacher Friar an astronomical wonder that she has the being made in the town, the most exciting Girolamo Savonarola tightens knowledge to understand and treasure. l thing to ever happen there. his hold on the city of Florence. He makes it clear that the time of Miller, Ash and Olly are hard charac- debate and scholarly discussion ters to get invested in, although they’re is gone, following the exile of the entertaining enough. They’re all a bit powerful Medici family. After self-obsessed, with their one redeeming years of being her father’s pet and common trait being that Nate is someone AUGUST 13 2022 LISTENER 47

BOOKS Heart of darkness One of the great chroniclers of conflict and criminality gathers together some of his wild-but-true tales. by JENNY NICHOLLS ROGUES: True stories of grifters, killers, “It was” – dramatic pause – “very The author is fascinated, he writes, rebels and crooks, by Patrick Radden Keefe interesting.” by “crime and corruption, secrets and (Picador, $39.99) lies, the permeable membrane separat- New Yorker staff writer Patrick Radden “Oh!” I blurted. “Thank you.” ing licit and illicit worlds, the bonds of Keefe had just published “The Hunt for El “El Señor … is ready …” Seconds ticking family, the power of denial”. His subjects, Chapo”, a piece about the former leader of by. I clutched the phone, my heart ham- from billionaire arms traders to vintage- the brutal Sinaloa Cartel, Joaquín Guzmán mering. “To write his memoirs.” wine forgers, seldom admit their guilt. Loera, when he found an alarming mes- Keefe says he was tempted. The drug Keefe presents the facts without Daily sage on his work phone. lord – more of a drug oligarch – was Mail-style indignation, instead creating obsessively secretive. Keefe calls him an almost a 3D model in words, allowing us It came from a lawyer who said he rep- “almost mythical” character. But the kind to rotate it to see the same event in differ- resented the Guzmán family. of book a drug lord wants would not be ent ways. Is the computer technician who the kind of book Keefe would write. El exposed a Swiss bank’s secrets a thief, or Keefe is the author of two extraordi- Chapo had been responsible, directly and a whistleblower? Did a mass shooter kill nary books of investigative journalism: indirectly, for thousands – perhaps even her own brother years earlier in a cold Say Nothing, which explores the Troubles tens of thousands – of murders. These case hushed up by her parents? Was a in Northern Ireland, and Empire of Pain, deaths, the lives of the victims, could not well-liked medical researcher, at the heart about the billionaire family who manu- be glossed over. “The whole scenario felt a of a massive insider-trading scandal, factured OxyContin, the drug linked to bit like Act I of a thriller in which the hap- befuddled, exploited or greedy? Or all of the opioid crisis. He specialises in writing less magazine writer, blinded by his desire those things? A few of Keefe’s subjects about people reluctant to be interviewed, for a scoop, does not necessarily survive are not criminal at all. He hangs out with and he had never met El Chapo. “Write- Act III.” the chef’s chef and rebel’s rebel, the late arounds”, as these kinds of stories are Keefe tells the anecdote in the preface Anthony Bourdain. He chases the TV called, “are often more revealing,” Keefe to his new book of collected journalism (it mogul who resurrected Donald Trump, says, “than the scripted encounters you includes the story about El Chapo). While and he quizzes Judy Clarke, a San Diego end up with when the politician or the the incident captures his fascination CEO actually co-operates.” with the “grifters, killers, rebels and lawyer who gets “the worst of the crooks” of the book’s subtitle, and worst” off the death penalty. Before phoning back, Keefe confirmed also his drive to write the definitive “These are wild tales,” writes the lawyer’s credentials with a source, account, whatever comes, it is dif- Keefe, “but they are all true.” who warned him on no account to reveal ficult to know what to think about And who his home address. it ethically. Is it really flattering if doesn’t like a a notorious killer likes your story good yarn? l “I waited a while before calling the about him? This, it turns out, is a dis- PHILIP MONTGOMERY lawyer back. I figured that he would tinctly Keefe-ian conundrum. probably raise objections to some detail or other in the piece (and worried that it Patrick Radden Keefe: might be the passage in which I revealed presenting the facts. Above, El Chapo was a prodigious consumer of Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán Viagra).” in the hands of Mexican marines. Keefe writes that the lawyer’s voice was accented and he spoke “in a starchy, formal idiom”. “We have read your article.” “Oh,” I said, bracing. 48

Burning brightly The beloved British actor’s attempts at a “gentle record” of her later years goes off the rails. by ANNE ELSE OLD RAGE, by Sheila Hancock (Blooms- wartime childhood (superbly recounted Dicing with death: Sheila bury, $32.99) in the book) and urging the vital impor- Hancock as Edie in the British actor Sheila Hancock has already tance of working together to resolve the eponymous movie. written three memoirs, two on life with huge global problems facing us all. The her husband, John Thaw, until his death in audience worm shoots up in favour of wipes out her work and social life over- 2002, and one on living alone. When she remaining, but it’s too late: “I will always night. Worst of all is her eldest daughter’s began her fourth, in January 2016, she was worry that the 3.78% margin was my fault.” diagnosis of breast cancer. about to turn 83. In south-eastern Her accounts of all these trials are so It’s rare to read a memoir by a female France, the locals frank, feisty and often funny that readers actor covering her own old age. Hancock greet her warmly (especially older ones) will empathise thought hers would be “a gentle record in her ancient cast- deeply with her – and applaud her fierce of a fulfilled old age. An inspirational offs and “just accept determination to keep going. journey. It hasn’t turned out like that. As that Englishwomen I wrote it, my own and the wider world are not very chic”. But there’s much more to this book. descended into chaos.” In her cover photo, Hancock serves up a range of illuminat- she gazes defiantly out over the uncom- So she retreats to the small house she ing stories from her personal life, her promising title, daring readers to find out and Thaw bought in 1991, in an obscure extraordinarily wide-ranging career, and exactly what “old rage” means. village in south-eastern France, where, the enduring friendships (and run-ins) after 25 years, the locals greet her warmly that came with it. Since this is Britain, Yet the year begins well. She is, of in her ancient cast-offs and “just accept class inevitably surfaces: students at the course, still working. “I am not suddenly that Englishwomen are not very chic”. post-war Royal Academy of Dramatic Art deemed redundant and unable to work Both she and her two husbands came from were far more likely to come from Oxford so long as I can remember the words and families who never did holidays. or Cambridge than to have completely stumble across the stage or set without missed out, like Hancock, on going to bumping into the scenery. Luckily my After Brexit, worse follows: the onset of university at all. Many would have profession continues to consider me agonising rheumatoid arthritis and the scorned the down-market jobs she took to employable, although the roles increas- beginnings of a fierce battle to stay mobile; pay the rent. Perhaps that’s why, despite ingly require me to die or go senile.” the death of her older sister, music-hall her stunning achievements, she still has star Billie; and the Covid pandemic, which difficulty accepting that Offered the starring role in the film her damehood has been Edie, she discovers how high the price is: so thoroughly earned. three months of frantic efforts to get fit Apart from a few forays enough to climb a Welsh mountain. Amaz- into the “state of the ingly, she does it, only to nearly die right world”, which should at the end, when a helicopter, which was have been cut, it’s all chasing one last shot of her and her young thoroughly engaging male co-star on the summit, nearly sweeps and often moving – a them off the edge. fine winter read. l The rot sets in with the Brexit campaign, reaching its dreadful nadir with the murder of Labour MP Jo Cox. The night before the referendum, Hancock joins a TV panel to give a speech recalling her AUGUST 13 2022 LISTENER 49

BOOKS His majesty Actor David Duchovny’s latest is a funny, lively American novel of ideas. GETTY IMAGES by GREG DIXON bored during lockdown. an actor, he is something of a journeyman Of course, they may have literary talent who got lucky. TRULY LIKE LIGHTNING, by David Duchovny (Picador, $32.99) and a story to tell. That’s true of Stephen In his favour as a writer, he has a bach- Here’s the thing: when actors, that is to say Fry, but not of Macaulay Culkin, whose elor's in English literature from Princeton “famous” actors, decamp the VIP lounge 2006 novel Junior one critic labelled “self- and a master’s from Yale, which, if no for the humble shelves of our bookstores, indulgently infantile”. indication of literary talent, at least proves we cynics are wont to be suspicious. he takes books seriously. And since 2015, The actor David Duchovny presents a between (gulp) recording three albums of Is the poor dear taking a stab at writing more complicated picture. His television his own music, he has been fair churning because their screen career’s down the career – the long-running cult series them out. gurgler? we wonder. Maybe they’re striv- The X-Files made him a celebrity; his best ing for seriousness outside the celebrity performances were in Californication – is I have not read his first three novels, circus. Or did they, God help us, just get solid, with his film work, mostly broad though the Washington Post called the first comedy-dramas, largely forgettable. As “slight”, the second “modest” and the third 50 LISTENER AUGUST 13 2022