Govt sets up new science and tech advisory council
science politics 12 minutes ago
The government's new science and technology advisory council has been described as group set up to make money rather than provide direction to a science sector that has been overhauled. New Zealand Association of Scientists co-president Dr Lucy Stewart spoke to Ingrid Hipkiss.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
RNZ News
an hour ago
- RNZ News
Fast track or slow track? The data problem that could hurt development
"I think inevitably the lack of information does mean a slow track," Simon Upton says. Photo: VNP/Louis Collins The government's fast track for building big infrastructure will be a slow track if New Zealand does not get its head around its hotchpotch of datasets about what is all around us. This warning about "globs" of siloed data hurting development is coming from the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment. It follows years of failed attempts to unlock billions of dollars of growth from getting a better grasp on everything geospatial - that is, what is in the physical environment and how it interacts. "It's a place-based thing", said commissioner Simon Upton. "If you want to know about where you're going to farm something or where you're going to build something, you need to put together a whole lot of place-spaced or geospatial information, and that's currently held in all sorts of dispersed places." The three-decade struggle with the Resource Management Act had showed up what was at stake. But though this law was in for another overhaul, the key data piece was still missing. "The reason I think that the current moment really is a critical, is that this government is the second government in a row that's trying to completely upend the resource management system and do it all differently." The gap would bog down the government's controversial fast-tracking of big projects, Upton said. "From what I can see, the fast-track process still requires people to pull all the information together and so the panels that are looking at this, they're going to have to give people the time to pull that together and then analyse it. "I think inevitably the lack of information does mean a slow track. "The time has come when we need to be able to 'federate' or pull together that dispersed information so that people can make good decisions." His new report lists a whole raft of shortcomings in the geospatial system: It was "plagued" by duplication, overlaps and significant gaps, was poorly accessible, lacked leadership and was dispersed across scores of councils, agencies, catchment groups and other community bodies. "Without robust environmental information we won't be able to judge if costly actions and mitigations undertaken are making a difference," the 19-page report said. Upton has campaigned for a joined-up - or "federated" - system for years. In a 2022 report, he pointed out how the info gaps around land use, and water quality and use - at many of the 1500 water monitoring sites, for example, only a few types of measurements were made. "Compared with surface water, groundwater is even less well understood." In the marine ecosystem, "luck has driven much of what we know. For example, the early discovery of large submarine volcanoes in the Kermadec Arc, north of New Zealand, was largely the result of serendipitous mapping". The country has tried to get serious about geospatial before, with little to show for it. Over 15 years ago, the first national geospatial review said a massive jigsaw of joined-up datasets constantly being added to, would be worth billions to the economy. So the government set up a geospatial office, its job was to set up the technology, policies, standards and human resources for networks of "open, accessible and interoperable" data. But by 2014, the office (NZGO) was writing a 40-page report about the bureaucratic indifference and fragmentation that had derailed attempts to set up a Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI) framework by 2014. RNZ got the report under the OIA. "Despite a review and reset in July 2013, low attendance and low engagement in ... governance groups was ongoing and meetings were frequently cancelled," Land Information NZ told RNZ in an OIA response to questions about the fate of a system that was promised to deliver billions in benefits. The geospatial effort dragged its feet for a host of reasons. "Organisations tended to participate in the national SDI for their own ends rather than because Cabinet has directed them to, or to deliver a public good", agencies "didn't have the resources to participate if they didn't get direct benefit"; or they found it "difficult to understand let alone explain to others" so could not get a budget for it. It did not help that it lacked "identifiable measures towards a defined 'end game'". By 2017 the NZGO "was effectively disestablished". The geospatial strategy still exists, but orphaned and without a champion, multiple geospatial industry players told RNZ. Simon Upton put his shoulder to the uphill push years after this drawn-out (2006-17) and failed attempt - he was not in the country at the time it was going on. "But I'd make this observation," Upton said. "This is not sexy stuff. This is scarcely a vote-winning territory, talking about data. "It is not something that is likely to enliven government officials or politicians. "This is really the the engine room stuff." But the government wanted to do spatial planning, so a big job was there to be done, he said. "If you want to do it differently and do it successfully, you are going to need much better information."
RNZ News
2 hours ago
- RNZ News
What looking at art does to your brain
When seeing a great work of art, does your heart race? Do the hairs on your arms stand on end? Maybe you don't feel anything at all. Tamar Torrance is a PhD student at the University of Auckland. Photo: Supplied Tamar Torrance is a PhD researcher at the University of Auckland. Working in the relatively new field of neuroaesthetics, Tamar is conducting research into what goes on in our brains and bodies when viewing art online, in person, and through VR. She joins Emile to discuss how art and beauty can affect us physically and mentally. Photo: Henry Fuseli / Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, gift of Sir George Grey, 1887 Study for the three witches in Macbeth Photo: Henry Fuseli / Public domain
RNZ News
4 hours ago
- RNZ News
Mata Season 3 Episode 11 Tania Waikato
In the wake of an unprecedented punishment for the haka that drew global attention to the Treaty Principles Bill, Te Pāti Māori legal representative Tania Waikato reflects on the fallout, the opposition to the Regulatory Standards Bill, and what this moment reveals about Māori political power. Parliament took the unprecedented step of suspending both Te Pāti Māori leaders - Debbie Ngarewa-Packer and Rawiri Waititi - for 21 days. Te Pāti Māori MP Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke was suspended for seven days - but had also been punished with a 24-hour suspension on the day over a haka all three had performed in Parliament, against the Treaty Principles Bill, in November. It is against the rules of the House for members to leave their seats during a debate - which all three did. Waikato said one of the most galling things about the entire process was that the haka was said to be intimidatory and that the process the committee adopted was framed in that way from the beginning. She said in her 20 years of being a lawyer she had not seen a process that "disrespected the laws of natural justice" in the way it did. "I was actually flabbergasted at the lack of respect that that body had for very very basic rights that had anyone who's been accused of any type of behaviour that could have a censure result, let alone a censure of this magnitude, imposed on them should be given." Requests to the committee to have a hearing at a time when both counsels were available and for the accused to bring evidence to defend themselves against the allegations were rejected even though that was provided for in the standing orders, she said. "So right from the beginning of the process they were not following their own rules and they were ... in my opinion trumping up the charges to make them sound as serious as possible and to slant the outcome towards what we ended up with." Asked why the MPs chose not to appear before the committee, Waikato said it was because the MPs felt they would not get a fair hearing. "They felt, and quite rightly I believe, that they had already predetermined what they were going to decide." Waikato, who is also a health and safety lawyer, said Parliament was supposed to be the height of democracy but the behaviour of MPs within the House had degenerated and was "sliding towards this gutter politics style". "I watched some of the behaviour that goes on in the House and particularly in that last debate before the suspensions were made and there is no way that you could behave like that in any other workplace and get away with it - it would be illegal and you would be hauled up on workplace bullying charges in an instant if you behaved like that in any other workplace." Waikato said she would have advised Te Pāti Māori MPs to do the haka had she been their lawyer prior to this on the basis that the Treaty Principles Bill was "the most divisive, racist piece of legislation that has ever been introduced during our lifetimes". It was an exceptional event which required an exceptional response, she said. "And the Speaker took action on the day, it's not like there was nothing that happened on the day, Hannah was censured for what happened, it should have stopped there." It should not have been referred to the Privileges Committee, she said. Photo: Te Māngai Pāho Photo: NZ On Air
