THE TIPPING POINT
MJ Kaplan
The first time I visited Te Hana Te Ao Marama Māori Cultural Centre in 2013, a group of American travel agents were visiting the property.
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LOG CABIN LIFE
Maryanne Spurdle
These Kiwis have rolled out the Number 8 wire out a little further. Stories by Maryanne Spurdle
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WALKING THE TIGHTROPE
Athalia Harper
Put your money where your mouth is. It’s a challenge that applies equally to big business and individual purchases ...
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A GOOD LIFE
Liam Hehir
“Our vocation is not a sphinx’s riddle, which we must solve in one guess or else perish. Some people find, in the end, that they have made many wrong guess ...
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THE PLACE OF WORK
Hanna Balemi
The “workplace” means different things for different types of work. From a van full of tools or packages, to a factory or gym floor, our work takes us into ...
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MORE THAN PROFIT
Murray Sheard
The Kitchen aimed at being a creative, well-resourced work environment and community hub for change-makers creating social and environmental good.
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WHITE PAINT
Jamiee Abict
Scrawled in white paint on the exterior of my neighbours’ peach-coloured weatherboard abode were three letters: “PHB.”
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LIFE ON THE OUTSIDE
Brad Mills
We take pride in being a cohesive and safe country, with a strong co-operative culture. But New Zealand’s current record high rates of incarceration and reof ...
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LEADING BY EXAMPLE
Hannah Bartlett
In the face of finite resources and mounting landfill, Timothy Allan wants to change the future, through innovative d ...
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RAISING THE “FOURTH WALL”
Tommy Livingston
“Thinking about whether you should take your own life is not a biological question. It is a spiritual question. Medication may help you to avoid those though ...
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HERE WE WERE
Throughout history the places we have used to gather, speak, and make ourselves heard have not always been actual pub ...
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A PARLIAMENTARY PRIVILEGE
Jeremy Vargo
While many of us are happy to steer clear of raucous debates and controversy, the inhabitants of Parliament have made a career of talking about the big issues ...
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BUSINESS UNUSUAL
Jamiee Abict
What do 6000 South Auckland kids, the United Nations, a Tongan coffee roastery, the oldest university in England, and a Royal New Zealand Air Force excursion o ...
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REBUILDING TRUST – POLARISATION, POLITICS, AND PUBLIC GOOD
Thomas Simpson
“Trust is the cement which holds the community together, distrust the solvent which makes it crumble.” H. B. Acton, The Idea of a Spiritual Power
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THE THINGS WE SELL – AND THOSE WE CAN’T
Rev Dr John Fox
“The social affections, says the economist, are accidental and disturbing elements in human nature; but avarice and the desire of progress are constant eleme ...
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REFLECTING ON HOME, INSIDE THE HOUSE
Maryanne Spurdle
“The life, the health, the intelligence, and the morals of the nation count for more than riches, and I would rather have this country free from want and squ ...
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CULTURAL TURTLE
Dietrich Soakai
I AM a cultural turtle who might not be the fastest creature
But t ...
A QUIET LEGACY
Abigail Egden
"A library outranks any other one thing a community can do to benefit its people. It is a never failing spring in the desert."
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LIVING ACROSS GENERATIONS
'Alapasita Teu
Both my parents grew up in big families and multi-generational households. Our family was no different. Mum and Dad were never short of babysitters when work o ...
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WHAKAPAPA
Francis & Kaiora Tipene
TV’s favourite funeral directors Casketeers Francis and Kaiora Tipene reflect on the ties that bind.
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REPAIRING THE FABRIC OF THE UNIVERSE
Te Karere Scarborough
“Ko taku reo taku ohooho, ko taku reo taku mapihi mauria” “My language is my awakening, my language is the window to my soul”
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THE CHALLENGES OF INTEGRATION: LESSONS FROM BRITAIN
Dr Jeffrey W. Bailey
Over the next several decades the vitality of Western countries will depend on their ability to successfully integrate immigrants from many and diverse backgro ...
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BLUEPRINT FOR LIVING
Joy Reid
Very few cities are given the chance to start over. A city generally evolves over the decades, with each generation adding flair and innovation to what their f ...
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GROW UP OR SPREAD OUT? THE DEBATE OVER URBAN SPRAWL VS COMPACT CITIES
David Killick
“Neither cities nor places in them are unordered, unplanned; the question is only whose order, whose planning, for what purpose?” — Urban Planner Peter M ...
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ON COMMON GROUND
Kieran Madden
“The good we secure for ourselves is precarious and uncertain until it is secured for all of us and incorporated into our common life.” ― Jane Addams
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FAMILIES, SCHOOLS, CONFLICT AND STORIES
Sue Dow
Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire. – W.B. Yeats
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REFLECTING THE NEW MOSAIC
Tash McGill
While we expect news media to perform their societal function as the “fourth estate,” the arrival of the internet has upended the business model that used ...
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The Right Conversation
Joy Britten
Rights as a conversational currency are becoming weaker, as my generation’s ears perk up instead at compassion.
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ONLY A NUMBER: AGE IS NOT YOUR IDENTITY
Josie Pagani
Youth is like a summer romance—an identity with a time limit. You know from the start this exclusive club will tear up your membership the day you turn 30. I ...
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LAND: THE IDOL OF OUR AGE
Hamish Dobbie
“And I will give to you and to your offspring after you the land of your sojournings, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession, and I will be th ...
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DOING GOOD AND MAKING MONEY
Jeremy Vargo
When I think of the type of person best suited to help New Zealanders living in poverty, my mind doesn’t natur ...
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WHEN WORLDS COLLIDE: PACIFIC IDEAS OF SUCCESS IN NEW ZEALAND’S WORKFORCE
Lana Lopesi
O le ala i le pule o le tautua The road to leadership is through service - Sāmoan Proverb
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HOME AGAIN
Michelle Neethling
Images of bombed-out buildings and broken lives have brought the refugee crisis to our attention. When refugees emerge out of these stories and into our neighb ...
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FLINT & STEEL VOLUME 09 – EDITORIAL
Jason Heale
Welcome to the ninth volume of Flint & Steel. This annual publication aims to live up to its moniker’s metaphor: we want it to ...
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INSIDE THE CHAOS OF CONSTRUCTION
Jason Heale
“Use the best possible materials, and reveal the quality of those materials and the craftsmanship of their assembly.” – Karl Friedrich Schinkel
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THE HOUSE AWAY FROM HOME
Jeremy Vargo
In the lead up to the 2017 elections, we talked to four Members of New Zealand's 51st Parliament about what it takes to stay connected to the ideals, the peopl ...
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HE WAHI TAPU – A SACRED PLACE
Jade Hohaia
I have two very vivid early memories. The first is of being bullied for my physical appearance.
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A Recipe For Community
In 2010, Benjamin Johnson and a group of friends set up The Free Store, a grassroots community in Wellington’s CBD that gathers around surplus food. Seven ye ...
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WORLDS TOGETHER
Kareen Hillenaar
I studied fashion. It was hard. I did some postgraduate studies in an attempt to reconcile myself to the difficulties of correlating this industry with the wor ...
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A CLEARER VIEW
Hannah Revell
For some, New Zealand’s mangroves are an invasive weed, the “gorse of the water,” in need of eradication. For others, mangrove forests are the “shelter ...
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FORMATION, EDUCATION, AND THE CHALLENGE OF LIFELONG LEARNING
Dr Roshan Allpress & Dr Luke Fenwick
“The New Zealand Curriculum is a clear statement of what we deem important in education. It takes as its starting point a vision of our young people as lifel ...
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AN UNINTERRUPTED HORIZON
Deborah Teh
Waikumete Cemetery, at the end of my road, is the largest in Auckland. It’s a rambling, hilly patch of green.
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BACK TO THE LAND
James Borrowdale
"I was basically burnt out, almost an alcoholic, pretty unhappy.” Michael Pearce, 35, was taking a break from calving to squeeze our conversation into a smal ...
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LOOK THEM UP
All the amazing companies we've heard about within this magazine, go check them out.
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HERE’S OUR HOME
Stephan Vermeulen & Nakita Whittaker
When asked about what home means to us we are indeed a little biased in our answer...
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PONO AND TIKA – A NEW INVITATION TO BE A MAN
Kieran Madden
As social understandings and stereotypes of masculinity rightly comes up for a reckoning post #metoo, Kieran Madden explores the roots of his identity as a ...
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A REASON TO SERVE
Jeremy Vargo
Our representatives in Parliament have an outsized influence on the way we work and live, responsible for policy on issues like tax, research and development f ...
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THE PLACE WE CALL HOME
Josie Pagani
“The ache for home lives in all of us. The safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned.” - Maya Angelou
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RECOVERING MAU RĀKAU
Annette Pereria
The river flows, the seasons turn, The sparrow and starling have no time to waste. If men do not build How shall t ...
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THE THINGS WE LEARN
Dr John Fox
I passed by the school where I studied as a boy and said in my heart: here I learned certain things and didn't learn ...
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HOME FOR GOOD
Shelly Neethling
“So you know all of me?” asked the boy. “Yes,” said the horse. “And you still love me?” “We love you all the more.” – Charlie Mackesy, The Bo ...
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BURN THE BOOMERS: SWEET TOOTH AND GENERATIONAL CONFLICT
Rowan Light
‘The past is a funny thing. Sometimes we want to cling to it, sometimes we just need to let it go. But, sometimes, the past won’t let go of us.’
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RENEWING THE LUNGS OF THE LAND
Hannah Bartlett
It’s fair to say that Gray Baldwin is a man of the land.
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RECONCILIATION, COLONISATION, AND IDENTITY IN AOTEAROA, NEW ZEALAND
Alistair Reese
“There have been two remembered histories of New Zealand since 1840: that of the colonisers, and that of the colonised...
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TRUTH VERSUS CONFORMITY
Josiah Brown
Ill-informed societies make ill-informed decisions. The importance of well-functioning educational institutions is undisputed. Students are formed by what they ...
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EDITORIAL – VOL 02
WELCOME TO THE SECOND VOLUME OF FLINT & STEEL
Welcome to the second volume of Flint & Steel.
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HOW SOCIAL ENTERPRISES WORK AND WHAT THEY NEED TO GROW
Alex Hannant
Business is an effective way of getting things done. We all, pretty much, believe that it is a good way to keep the world turning.
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THE FACE OF MY NEIGHBOUR
Dr John Fox
In this age of identity it is tempting, and frighteningly possible, to reduce the fullness of a human life down to a single action, opinion, or caricature.
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Remote login – what’s missing from the hybrid work model
Jane Kennelly
“The best way to predict the future is to create it.” – Abraham Lincoln.
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SIDE BY SIDE
Lydia O'Donnell
“Freedom, I found is not only in the running but in the heart, the mind, the hands.” - Louise Erdich
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YURT LIFE
Maryanne Spurdle
These Kiwis have rolled out the Number 8 wire out a little further. Stories by Maryanne Spurdle
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NEW ZEALAND – IN SEARCH OF A NEW NATIONAL IDENTITY
Dr Philippa Smith
Ask a range of people from Stewart Island to Cape Reinga to define what it means to be a New Zealander, and the chances are their answers will be many and vari ...
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SEEING THE POSSIBLE
Hannah Smith
There’s a mushrooming grey area between traditional charity and business as usual. A whole spectrum of efforts based on a conviction that things can be done ...
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A NATION AT PLAY
Patrick Silloway
Rugby is a deeply entrenched aspect of New Zealand culture. In many ways rugby is the national game of New Zealand.
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CONTAINER LIFE
Maryanne Spurdle
These Kiwis have rolled the Number 8 wire out a little further. Stories by Maryanne Spurdle
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INTERGENERATIONAL POLITICS
Maryanne Spurdle
As told to Maryanne Spurdle What have you learnt from past generations? What do you hope to pass on? What has shaped you? Four politicians reflect.
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DŌMO ARIGATŌ, MR ROBOTO
Kinley Salmon
Are robots coming for our jobs? How seriously should we take dire predictions of job losses and the death of industries by a thousand algorithms? Economist and ...
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TEACHING THE TOWN OF THE FUTURE
Olivia Burne
As a growing town welcomes its first high school, meet the people who have imagined the environment and values that will shape the young people of this communi ...
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INSIDE ENSPIRAL SPACE
Stephan Vermeulen & Nakita Whittaker
“We believe magic happens when like-minded people share a space. We've seen this repeatedly: conversations spark ideas, which become projects that grow i ...
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BECAUSE WE ARE TOO MENNY
Tim Upperton
‘I should like everybody in the world destroyed and the world empty of people. You yourself, don’t you find it a beautiful clean thought, a world empty of ...
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BUILD BACK BETTER
Jeremy Vargo
The COVID-19 pandemic is the story of 2020, and its social and economic aftermath may prove to be the story of this generation. While we look to politicians to ...
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PROTEST AND PATRIOTISM
Rowan Light
One of our last truly public rituals, Anzac Day claims a sacred space in New Zealand’s national attention. Historian Rowan Light describes how Anzac commemor ...
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ROUTES AND ROOTS
Michelle Neethling
Each time I am asked to tell my story or small facts about “South Africanness,” I reaffirm my own identity as a South African, and it has been both interes ...
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DEVELOPING COMMUNITY IN ADOLESCENCE
Dr Myron Friesen & Keren Donaldson
In the adolescent years, young people are drawn to new relationships and community connections that fulfill their needs for exploration and autonomy. The chall ...
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THE BEGINNINGS OF BELONGING
Kirke Sawrey
Belonging is a basic human need—as humans we are relational beings that require interaction.
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GEN X, LEADERSHIP, AND THE CRISIS OF INSTITUTIONS
Dr Jonathan Cole
As generational leadership changes take place across the world, Dr Jonathan Cole reflects on the role that Gen X must play to rebuild trust in the institutions ...
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IN FORMATION – REFLECTIONS ON A CAREER IN TEACHING
Dr Michael Reid
Teaching is not simply baby-sitting, or a mechanical transfer of skills. To help form minds, awake curiosity, help human beings to grow; that is an exercise in ...
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State Housing
Loren Taylor
State housing has always been a hot political potato in Aotearoa New Zealand.
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The Capital—Homelessness
Ashley Graham
“People who are homeless are not social inadequates. They are people without homes.” – Sheila McKechnie
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THE LITTLE TOWN THAT COULD
Dale Williams
Small towns face a fight for survival. How can these close knit communities retain the next generation in the face of ...
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REMOTE LOGIN: WHAT’S MISSING FROM THE HYBRID WORK MODEL
Jane Kennelly
“The best way to predict the future is to create it.” – Abraham Lincoln.
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FOR THE AFTER-COMERS
Alex Penk & Paul Henderson
"After-comers cannot guess the beauty been.” In 1879, Gerard Manly Hopkins lamented the destruction of a line of trees with this line of poetry.
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STATE HOUSING: A WALK THROUGH OUR HISTORY WITH THE HOUSING CRISIS
Loren Taylor
State housing has always been a hot political potato in Aotearoa New Zealand.
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THE GREAT (AND BORING) WORK OF VOCATION
Jeremy Vargo
At the core of “do something you love,” the notion of “work” is framed as something to be avoided. To be clear it’s not the job, or activity that mus ...
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GET A REAL JOB, GET A LIFE?
Emma Hensman
The vocation of every man and woman is to serve other people. - Leo Tolstoy
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COHAUS LIFE
Maryanne Spurdle
These Kiwis have rolled the Number 8 wire out a little further. Story by Maryanne Spurdle. Images by Adam Luxton
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THE CAPITAL—HOMELESSNESS
Ashley Graham
“People who are homeless are not social inadequates. They are people without homes.” – Sheila McKechnie
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