Last week, I received a few comments along the lines of, “but did anything good happen in the world last week?” I mean, probably. But I tend to gravitate more towards the ‘holding truth to power’ type reporting – if you’re after more positive shit, maybe go watch Seven Sharp or something. I’ll try and be better for you, though.
Young people in Aotearoa are a little bit safer this week after ARISE Church’s lead pastors resigned amid allegations of serious misconduct. Their statement was released quietly last Friday, and was followed immediately by an exclusive interview on 1 News (never let a good crisis go to waste, right?). Founders John and Gillian Cameron led a tearful apology during the following Sunday’s service, where they claimed that ‘ARISE is a different church to the one talked about in most of the stories that have been aired,’ – but the church isn’t that different to the over 600 complainants who submitted to independent reviewers Pathfinding over the past six weeks. Following the apology, many ex-members on social media criticized their use of minor key piano music during their final speech, pointing to recent criticisms of Pentecostal churches using certain types of music to emotionally manipulate their congregation. Not only has ARISE Church damaged over 600 lives since their inception, they have also damaged the reputation of the wider church in Aotearoa, which is actually full of incredibly normal, not-homophobic, pro-choice people that don’t want to use God as an excuse to make money. Luckily for John and Gillian, Stuff reports that they will be using their unexpected retirement to enjoy their $6million worth of property. Massive shout out to journalist David Farrier who originally broke this story and has been an invaluable source for our own reporting here at Nexus. Thank you for making the Christian church in Aotearoa a safer place to be. We owe you one.
A climate advocacy group have launched a postcard campaign to urge politicians to do something about climate change. Following the release of the Government’s Emission Reduction Plan in May, Nelson Tasman Climate Forum are encouraging citizens to contact their local MP to urge them to implement the recommendations. ‘There is a real risk that MPs will be distracted by other urgent business,’ the Climate Forum said in a statement. ‘[They] underestimate the importance of urgent, decisive action now.’ Rather than running an online petition, the group hopes to ‘load up the MPs’ in-trays’ with postcards, which are free to send to Parliament in Aotearoa. For more information, and to send a postcard of your own, head to https://nelsontasmanclimateforum.ning.com
The Government has actually decided to do something about ‘excess profits’ being made by Aotearoa supermarkets. Earlier this year, the Commerce Commission found that duopoly players and enemies of the people Foodstuffs and Woolworths were making excess profits of $1 million a day, but a recent survey by Stuff found that 84% of their readers thought the commission’s recommendations didn’t go far enough to bring down ballooning food prices. The Government seems to agree, saying it will be ‘taking stronger action’ to allow for new supermarkets to enter the market by forcing our supermarkets to open up their wholesaling warehouses to third parties. Anti-workers’ rights advocate and ACT Party leader David Seymour predictably disagreed with Labour’s plan to make groceries more affordable for New Zealanders, claiming supermarket prices are the fault of ‘fair pay agreements’ for employees, and not the bullying of suppliers from Foodstuffs and Woolworths.
The Hamilton City Council is close to finalising a deal that would see up to 4000 homes being built in the CBD. Stuff reports that Council has applied for a $151million grant from central government’s Infrastructure Acceleration Fund, which they plan to use to upgrade our ageing central city infrastructure to set the stage for more housing builds. A 2018 report from Nifa Limited found that Kirikiriroa had a housing shortage of around 4000 dwellings, which has since been exacerbated by the burgeoning housing crisis of the last few years, fueled by greedy landlords and rental agencies. It’s probable that a sizeable percentage of the fund will be siphoned off by useless middle management and bureaucrats at the Hamilton City Council, but hopefully enough of it will be used to create a more affordable city for our people to call home.
