Category Archives: ECONOMICS

ARTS, ECONOMICS

Q&A | TNAF’s Aaron Short on winning a Green Card & moving to LA

The Naked and Famous are one of the biggest bands to break out of New Zealand and onto the international circuit in recent times, having cracked into stardom with their hit ‘Young Blood’ in 2010. Evelyn talks to keyboardist Aaron Short about his path to living in Los Angeles – from arriving on a P-1 artists visa after the band’s whirlwind first few years on the road, to ‘winning’ permanent residency via the so-called Green Card Lottery.

The interview considers the alternative paths available to migrants with particular skillsets, citizenship background and financial means, at a time that borders are becoming more restrictive globally, and the Trump administration has made it clear that reducing immigration is high on the political agenda in the US.

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ECONOMICS, POLITICS

Oliver Chan: Stop eating your Greens

Popular, charismatic political saviours can be a contagion in their nation’s body politic. I’m not saying that Emmanuel Macron or Justin Trudeau are the patient zeroes of deadly pandemics, but that their impact has awakened a dormant problem that, while it won’t kill us, can severely impede our cognitive abilities. Case in point: Jacindamania – the media frenzy around the rise of new Labour leader Jacinda Ardern during New Zealand’s general election, that has pundits and political geeks feverishly hallucinating a two-horse race. Which in turn, for the public, enforces a delusion that the country still votes under a First Past the Post system. Without strong third parties, Labour and National – both still lacking truly bold reforms in housing, the environment, employment or productivity – as an 80% plus two-party billing could seal a cosy consensus for years to come.

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