Tuesday

Today our POLS class had a visit from Winston Peters.

Our lecturers had been encouraging us for weeks in advance to start thinking of questions to ask him and more recently, been telling us to bring our friends along to the lecture so that Winston had a full house to talk to. It worked. Attendance practically doubled and the lecture theatre (one of the very big ones) was nearly full.

He was slightly late as having just arrived from a the airport with one of our lecturers (Jon Johannsson) picking him up.

He began by talking about the cuts to the intake of students at Vic, while mentioning that the number of paying international students hadn't cut. And I guess there is sense to this argument, but then again I am swayed by practically anything I hear. I need to find a viewpoint and just stick to it or I'll be floating around in the inbetween forever!

Anyway, his speech was basically about Maori and how we should stop making separatist policies like we have been. Basically that we should just promote equality, rather than trying to create a separate Maori nation. And as someone noted afterwards, it's great that he can actually say this (as half Maori and former Minister of Maori Affairs) because if any white person suggested something of the sort, they'd surely instantly be labelled racist.

After his speech, there was time for questions in the last 15 minutes or so.

I certainly can see why some people like him now. He's a very charismatic person and he made lots of jokes (about Rodney Hide) and he seems to stick very firmly to what he believes in. Although what he said was very rhetoric.

Definitely an enjoyable lecture :)

In fact, it's made me think about lecturers and whatnot. I didn't realise before University, but lecturers seem to be quite well established in the realm of academics. For example most of mine have written and published books either individually or co-authored and I cite them in my essays. They talk about all the things they've done and the people they've met and involvement they've had in political issues. It's really impressive!

That's just my point of interest today.

Love Erin :)