Thesis (M.S. in zoology)--Washington State University, December 2009. / Title from PDF title page (viewed on Jan. 21, 2010). "Department of School of Biological Sciences." Includes bibliographical references (p. 34-40).

Of all the elections in New Zealand's political history, only two qualify for the adjective momentous. In 1890 and in 1935, Governments came to power whose vigour and liberalism were not only to alter the lives of their. contemporaries, but also to make changes that had continual repercussions in this country and echoes in other nations' handling of social problems.

This thesis interrogates the abortion debate in New Zealand and New South Wales over the period 1970 to the present from a feminist perspective. The arguments of this thesis are five fold. First, it argues that abortion was the central issue for second wave feminists in the 1970s because they believed that until women had complete control over their bodies any other gains made by the movement would be of little significance. Second, feminists who did not support abortion law reform left the mainstream movement and set up their own groups because that movement was not prepared to tolerate a diversity of opinions on the abortion issue. Third, not only was abortion a central issue for feminists; it became a central issue for parliament, illustrated by the establishment of royal commissions in both New Zealand and Australia to investigate abortion among a number of other issues. Fourth, from the 1970s New Zealand women travelled to Australia for abortions. After the 1977 restrictive law change this travel was made possible by women's groups in both New Zealand and New South Wales working together to help New Zealand women. Until now this trans-Tasman relationship has been invisible in the literature. Fifth, in the 1980s and 1990s, when there was a backlash against the women's movement, abortion was targeted by many groups because they too saw it as central to women's liberation. Despite the funding and active support of anti-abortionists in New Zealand and New South Wales, they were not able to restrict access to abortion. In short, this thesis addresses how feminists supported, or in some cases opposed, women's access to abortion during the 1970s and the challenges they faced in the 1980s and 1990s.

The New Zealand historiography on intellectual disability has been expanded in the twenty years by histories of the residential institution and the foundation of advocacy groups. However, there is still a limited field of history regarding how the intellectually disabled were discussed in twentieth century New Zealand. This thesis will discuss how the identity of the intellectually disabled was constructed as a social category, through different discourses, in twentieth century New Zealand. It shall be argued that from 1900 to at least 1960 those who created medical, government and public discourse also maintained the power to create the identity of the intellectually disabled. This argument will take the form of a discourse analysis and will draw on both primary and secondary sources. The primary sources will include government documents, medical literature and newspaper content. The secondary sources will cover material which provides context, and / or which has discussed the construction of intellectual disability. It will be argued that discourses centred on an idea of a 'problem' within the intellectually disabled individual. Also, the medical discourse and 'medicalized' understandings of intellectual disability will be seen to influence public and government discourse. Further, a tension will be shown in these discourses between the desire to assist the intellectually disabled and their families, as well as to protect the New Zealand community from these people.

This thesis investigates the determinants of innovation in the New Zealand manufacturing sector by addressing the issue in three main parts. First, an extensive literature review is undertaken to identify definitions of innovation. A number of hypotheses are then proposed based on the international literature. Secondly, supported by the New Zealand Manufactures and Exporters Association (NZMEA), a unique dataset was collected via an Internet-based instrument, the Innovation Survey of the Manufacturing Sector. A series of regression models were then used to test the proposed hypotheses. The final part of the research involved a number of in-depth company interviews that approached the topic from a different perspective and complemented the qualitative analyses by further investigating issues that were unresolved from the survey. The research results suggest that “micro” (i.e. very small) firms may not be very innovative, and identified that practical skills and co-operation are crucial factors influencing innovation in the New Zealand manufacturing sector.

The fishing industry is worth approximately $1.4 billion annually to the New Zealand economy, making seafood New Zealand's fifth largest export earner, and giving the industry as a whole a position of high importance to New Zealand. All is not well however. Recent events have exposed a sordid underside to this industry involving the abuse of labour of foreign fishermen at the hands of Korean boat owners, chartered by New Zealand companies to fish New Zealand waters. Since the introduction of the quota management system in the 1980s, the New Zealand fishing industry has had problems relating to the exploitation of migrant workers. In some instances, this exploitation appears to be manifested in the form of human trafficking. Adopting a socio-legal methodology, this thesis examines the facts that support claims of human trafficking of economically vulnerable fishers from countries such as Indonesia and the Philippines into New Zealand, where they are required to work in exploitative conditions upon foreign charter vessels in New Zealand's exclusive economic zone. Having established the argument for the existence of human trafficking in New Zealand's territory (a claim which has been consistently downplayed or denied by government officials) this thesis then examines the evolving nature of the legal obligations that have been placed upon the New Zealand government by international law. Combining these international obligations with standards of best practice that have been derived from an examination of three other jurisdictions - Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States of America - into a set of benchmark criteria, this thesis concludes with a critical assessment of the New Zealand anti-trafficking framework by these standards.

Organisations maintain our economy; they provide jobs, goods, services and a sense of community. The increasingly globalised nature of the modern world has lead to organisations facing threats that often are not recognise until the threat becomes a crisis. It is impossible for organisations, regardless of size, location or financial strength, to identify all possible hazards and their consequences; let alone plan for them. Therefore, the concept of increasing organisational resilience is gaining momentum. However, the term resilience has been used with abandon across a wide range of academic disciplines and in a great many situations. There is little consensus regarding what resilience is, what it means for organisations and, more importantly, how they may achieve greater resilience in the face of increasing threats. This study investigates 10 organisations from a range of industry sectors, sizes, localities and types within the New Zealand context to discover what are the common issues that foster or create barriers to increased resilience. Organisational resilience is defined in this study as a function of the overall situation awareness, keystone vulnerabilities and adaptive capacity of an organisation in a complex, dynamic and interrelated environment. A multiple case-study method has been used, and a facilitated 5-Step process for assessing and increasing resilience has been developed in conjunction with these organisations. Data was collected in the form of interviews, survey and participant observations in workshop environments. A set of 15 resilience indicators have been identified, and the organisations have been ranked according to their overall resilience relative to the other organisations in this study. Future work is likely to include further quantification of the methodology and the resilience indicators, resilience maturity models and work on understanding resilient leadership, communication of resilience concepts and international case studies to further determine the range of resilience for organisations.

No description available.

When Charles Brasch died, in 1973, he specified that his private papers - his diaries, letters, and many of his manuscripts - be placed under embargo for thirty years after his death. The external details of his life were, by this time, well-known. He had become a high-profile figure in the field of New Zealand literature, through his critical writings, his role as 'patron', and particularly his twenty- year editorship of the periodical Landfall. Yet his reputation as a poet, although established, was neglected both then and now. His poetry is one of central relevance to a contemporary scene; as clearly as any, it reveals the difficulty of writing for, and about, a society which still laboured under the weight of a 'colonial' stigma. By tracing the movement from his juvenilia to his mature poetry, from his teenage years to adulthood, this study examines the effect of Brasch's personal development on his writing. Partly because of the embargo on his papers, partly because of his secretive nature, his private life has remained a shadow behind poetry which is itself often ambiguous; yet his creative progression was largely determined by the events of this life, both external and internal. Previously, little has been known or written about the decade and a half he spent in Europe. These were crucial years, both in shaping his editorial vision, and in the discovery of his own poetic voice. By means of personal interviews, and recourse to letters in private collections, his story is told: from his arrival in Oxford in 1927, to his final acceptance of New Zealand as his home, in 1945. The first chapter outlines the three years he spent at St John's College, and the general literary context in which he began to write. Chapter Two covers his brief foray into archaeology, and the resultant poetry and unpublished fiction. The importance of German literature - particularly that of Rilke - to his work becomes the focus of Chapter Three. As a direct result of this influence, the second half of the 1930s was dominated by his search for a voice, and a subject, of his own. Chapter Four details this struggle, and the first tentative New Zealand element in his work. A teaching job at Great Missenden - the subject of Chapter Five - temporarily distracted Brasch from developing this theme, yet sources reveal that the country of his birth was never far from his mind. Chapters Six and Seven deal with the effect on his poetry of the growing unease in Europe, the difficult split of allegiances to two hemispheres, and his subsequent commitment to England for the duration of the war. Throughout 1944-5, he became involved in script-writing, and the eighth and final chapter examines the extent of his success in this new genre. His return to New Zealand, late in 1945, marked the apparent beginning of a career which, nonetheless, had its origins in experiences half a world away.

All policy involves the transmission of language and ideas and therefore power. Public sport and recreation policy, through which millions of tax dollars are allocated and which disseminates knowledge and understandings about sport and recreation, is one arena where power relations are constantly formed, reformed and challenged. To understand more about the exercise of power in New Zealand sport and recreation policy, this research examines the dissemination and challenge of policies written by Sparc (Sport and Recreation New Zealand), the organisation responsible for public sport and recreation policy in New Zealand. Three questions were used to understand the exercise of power in New Zealand public policy. These questions included: How is knowledge about sport and recreation produced and disseminated through public policy? How is �the truth� about sport and recreation proclaimed and constructed in public policy? How can individuals affected by sport and recreation policy challenge existing relations of power? Theoretically, this research draws on Foucauldian conceptions about power, knowledge, truth and the self. Foucault argued that individuals and groups exercise power discursively, by promoting and deploying certain dominant discourses (or understandings) to the exclusion of other (subjugated) knowledges. As such, the way in which individuals within a society understand knowledge, truth and the self is governed by dominant discourses, and is continually formed discursively over time. Discourses are deployed through a variety of means, including the writing, implementation and resistance of public policy. Methodologically, the thesis merges Foucault�s archaeological and genealogical approaches to studying discourses. Further, it is guided by a critical discourse analysis, which enables the researcher to question the assumptions behind policy discourses. Data is gathered from various sources, including policy documents, public debate over policy, media articulations of policy and interviews with individuals involved in the writing and resistance of public policy. This research highlights four distinct practices (or techniques) that illustrate how power is exercised in public sport and recreation policy. These techniques include an analysis of bio-power, techniques used to analyse, control, and define the body; governmentality, which dictates the range of possible actions of individuals and citizens; games of truth, through which �the truth� is part of a constant discursive debate; and parrhesia, a practice through which citizens can lessen the effect of dominant discourses on their lives. These practices are analysed through specific case studies within the discursive terrain of public sport and recreation policy. With each case study both theoretical considerations and practical suggestions for policy making are offered. Four findings are discussed. Firstly, public policy can discursively and problematically construct understandings of the world through policy goals and measurements. Secondly, the thesis suggests that while public sport and recreation policy is often defended by policy makers as scientific and rational, its writing and implementation is formed by a number of other understandings which cannot be reconciled with the espoused, positivist logic. Thirdly, the thesis suggests that because policy writing is an ongoing process, and because of changing social conditions, �the truth� about particular policies is also susceptible to change. Fourthly, despite protestors of public policy often believing their resistance is in vain, this study suggests that their efforts do appear to influence the subsequent writing of policy. The research concludes with reflections about the problematic discursive effects of public policy as well as a consideration of the potential for groups and individuals to challenge or resist understandings about sport and recreation which they do not agree with. In turn, it offers recommendations about the future development of sport public policy, as well as a reflection of this particular type of research approach used. Finally, using this research as a pivot point, sites for future research are considered. In particular, an examination of the effect of public policy on individuals� lived experiences (as distinct from communities or nations) might be of interest, as would an investigation of effects of global discourses about sport, recreation and physical activity on national public policy.