Exploring the Lab

New Zealand is where the revolution will happen and a “perfect place for an ideas summit,” writes journalist Craig Sherborne in an essay entitled ‘Not all Black and White: Inside New Zealand’s Social Laboratory’ featured in Australia’s The Monthly. “For most of its modern history in social justice, New Zealand has – in indigenous land rights, most  obviously – been advancing the lantern into the future’s blank mist, where Australia has been hesitant to venture. In New Zealand, ‘assimilation’ just is. Helen Clark stretches into the cushions of her Beehive sofa, a long woman with a patient if interrogative stare. ‘You have to continually work on reconciliation issues,’ she says. Later this year at the polls it’s a contest [between John Key and Clark] to be seen as the one most likely to preserve to the status quo. But this is New Zealand we’re talking about. Status Quo is just a ’70s rock band.”