Blog

Massey University’s latest Rental Report shows a national deterioration in rental affordability both quarterly (1.76 per cent Index Deterioration March 2021 – June 2021) and annually (9.4 per cent Rental Charge Deterioration June 2020 – June 2021).

The report also shows a decline in rental affordability in seven of the 16 regions from last quarter, with Southland and the West Coast of the South Island bucking the trend.

Regionally, between March 2021 and June 2021, seven regions are deemed less affordable than the national average which is set at 100 per cent.

• Bay of Plenty ­– 113.3 per cent
• Tasman – 113.1 per cent
• Hawke’s Bay – 110.5 per cent
• Northland – 106.3 per cent
• Auckland – 103.3 per cent
• Nelson – 102.2 per cent
• Gisborne – 100.9 per cent

The largest annual rent increases were recorded in five regions:

• Hawke’s Bay – 20.4 per cent
• Bay of Plenty – 16.4 per cent
• Manawatū-Whanganui – 14.2 per cent
• Northland – 12.8 per cent
• Gisborne – 11 per cent

Wellington and Auckland showed a moderate increase of 7.8 per cent and 3.4 per cent respectively for the year.

Report authors, Dr Arshad Javed and Professor Graham Squires from the Massey University Real Estate Analysis Unit, say there are a number of varied factors impacting rental prices across New Zealand.

“These include rising house prices that feed through the housing system towards renters, a shortage of properties, and rising costs for landlords given recent policy changes,” Professor Squires says.

The remaining nine regions are all relatively more rent affordable than the national average, but two regions continue to stand out as being the most affordable for renters – Southland (73.5 per cent) and West Coast (65.7 per cent).

“West Coast and Southland continue to have affordability below the national average, reflecting more favourable rental conditions in these regions relative to incomes,” Dr Javed says.

“Despite the West Coast being one of the most affordable places for renters, the region has had the largest quarterly increase in rent prices – up 12 per cent to an average rent of $281 per week. This still pales in comparison of course to Auckland and Wellington – the most expensive cities to rent accommodation, at an average of $554 and $510 per week respectively,” Dr Javed adds.

Last updated: Monday 28 November 2022

Last updated: Tuesday 13 September 2022

Massey novelists make up three quarters of finalists shortlisted for the $60,000 Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction. They are Professor Bryan Walpert for Entanglement (Makaro Press), Dr Gigi Fenster for A Good Winter (Text Publishing), and Whiti Hereaka for Kurangaituku (Huia Publishers). Poet Anne Kennedy is shortlisted for the Mary and Peter Biggs Award for Poetry, for The Sea Walks into a Wall (Auckland University Press).

Listed in the New Zealand Listener’s Best Books of 2021, Entanglement has been described as an “ingenious meditation on time, memory and decay,” and lauded for its ambitious scope in exploring tragedy and loss – with a dose of quantum physics.

Professor Walpert, a doctoral mentor and supervisor who teaches undergraduate and post-graduate creative writing papers, says, “I’m delighted and honoured that the judges thought Entanglement worthy of being among the finalists. It’s a particular honour given the very high calibre of the other writers on the long list. I’m really happy people are reading the work and finding something to appreciate in it.”

His novella Late Sonata won the 2020 Seizure Viva La Novella Prize, and he’s also written a short story collection, four books of poetry, and two of literary criticism.

Dr Fenster, who teaches fiction, creative non-fiction, and writing for children, says she is “surprised, blown away, excited and a little bit terrified,” at being shortlisted for her psychological thriller about two older women looking after a baby while the mother recovers from postnatal depression.

“There were so many brilliant books on the longlist, and the shortlist is exceptional. It can be hard to see the merit in one’s own work, particularly when one spends much of one’s working life reading masterpieces,” she says. “I think all writers are critical of their own work, and that self-criticism doesn’t go away once one starts publishing. The critical voice in my head has, over the years, grown all the more strident. Being shortlisted has muted the silence – for now – and that is no small thing.”

A Good Winter is her second novel following the publication of The Intentions Book in 2013, a finalist in the New Zealand Post Book Awards at the time.

Anne Kennedy is a novelist, screenwriter, and multiple-award-winning author of 10 works of poetry and fiction who received the Prime Minister’s Award for Literary Achievement in Poetry last year. She says it’s a huge honour to be shortlisted, especially alongside such fine writers. “I feel very lucky. It means someone has read the work, and along with most writers, I like to be read.”

“What excites me about the Ockham process is that it brings contemporary Aotearoa literature to the fore for a few weeks a year. The list, and, importantly, books that aren’t on the list too, get talked about in a whole range of ways – for their content and technique, who they represent, what changes are happening in literature. All good stuff.”

Whiti Hereaka, Ngāti Tūwharetoa, Te Arawa, an award-winning playwright who has written three previous novels, recently joined Massey’s creative writing teaching staff. Her novel Kurangaituku is a clever re-imagining of the bird-woman ogress from Māori myth Hutupatu and the Bird-Woman.

She says she is thrilled and a little bit overwhelmed at being a finalist. “There’s a part of me that still thinks of myself as a playwright hack pretending to be a novelist, so to be amongst some very fine novelists is humbling indeed. Also, I never think it’s a given that my work will be published let alone it being celebrated, so it’s encouraging that there are people out there that resonate with my work. Also, I think it has given me licence to experiment even more in my mahi — so stay tuned for extra strangeness.”

Professor Kerry Taylor, head of the School of Humanities, Media, and Creative Communication, says he is incredibly proud that so many Massey-connected writers are on the Ockham shortlist.

The creative writing programme celebrated its 20th anniversary last year. Professor Taylor says, “As well as continuing to expand and consolidate strengths with the addition of new staff, we are also opening up new conversations for creative writing in Aotearoa in the 21st century.”

As well as a Master of Creative Writing, the programme offers undergraduate papers in life writing, poetry, travel, scriptwriting, creative non-fiction and eco-fiction, writing for children and more. Many are taught by academics who are also published and award-winning authors.

For more information on creative writing at Massey, click here.

More information about the awards can be found here.

Last updated: Tuesday 22 March 2022

This appointment is a continuation of her role at Massey University, moving from her adjunct professorship with the School of Health Sciences to the Riddet Institute. Her expertise in sustainable diets, food security and nutrition will be of great benefit to the research programmes at the institute, particularly the Sustainable Nutrition InitiativeTM.

Distinguished Professor Harjinder Singh, Director of the Riddet Institute, says Professor Burlingame brings her strong connections and expert knowledge on nutrition and sustainability.

“Her appointment will further strengthen the institute’s ability to collaborate across the world. Her strategic advice into the Riddet Institute and its Sustainable Nutrition InitiativeTM will be invaluable.”

Professor Burlingame is a nutrition scientist, an independent consultant and advisor to several international bodies. She has a PhD from Massey University and undergraduate degrees from University of California, Davis (nutrition science and environmental toxicology).

Professor Burlingame is a member of the High-Level Panel of Experts Steering Committee on World Food Security, chair of the International Union of Nutritional Sciences Task Force on Sustainable Diets and specialty chief editor of Frontiers in Nutrition. She was the recipient of the 2021 Ancel and Margaret Keys award for her work on sustainable diets and biodiversity for food and nutrition.

Professor Burlingame says her interests and international activities align well with the Riddet Institute, particularly in the area of sustainable nutrition. 

“While chief of nutrition at Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), I had the occasion to invite Riddet personnel to be involved in important international expert consultations on several critical nutrition topics. Their involvement was always highly valued.”

From her work in the late 1980s through to 1998 as a scientist in one of the Crown Research Institutes, to her current international work with FAO and other UN bodies, her interactions with Riddet Institute staff has been a constant feature, she adds.

Professor Burlingame’s work with the Riddet Institute will focus on sustainable diets and sustainable food systems.

Originally from Malaysia and growing up in the Philippines, Rhema Chatiya Nantham decided she wanted to move to New Zealand for university. Spoilt for choice, she has a very straightforward reason for choosing Massey.

“I chose Massey simply because the name of the degree was different to all other universities – Bachelor of Business Studies (BBS), compared to Bachelor of Commerce. I thought this was a straightforward degree name and its difference would give me an edge when I applied for jobs.”

Fast forward to her final year majoring in Finance, Rhema was in a leadership class being taught by Dr Farah Palmer when she came to the sudden realisation that actually, this was what she wanted to pursue: a career in leadership.

“I signed up for a Master’s in Business Studies (MBS) and majored in Management to pursue leadership research. The whole experience was exciting and exhilarating. I had found my passion – women in leadership.”

After finishing her MBS, Rhema took on a role at Massey helping to manage the Young Women in Leadership programme, she then helped to launch the Strengths@Massey programme and the Kahurei programme.

When the role finished, Rhema and her husband moved around New Zealand for different jobs and experiences, but ever since her discovery of leadership studies, she knew she wanted her career to revolve around running leadership development programmes for women and helping women grow. In 2019, Rhema decided it was time to make that happen, so she committed to a PhD.

“My research learns from the experiences of women who grew up as ‘third culture kids’ to advance global leadership development by understanding the challenges that these children experience with each international move.

My research gives a voice to an underrepresented group because all my participants are women of colour, who have spent significant parts of their youth living in different countries.

They share their life stories, which are understood through a critical race feminist lens to appreciate the racist, sexist challenges they experienced from a young age and the coping strategies they used to adapt into their new socio-cultural contexts.”

Rhema feels blessed to have so many strong and influential women in her life, many of whom she has met along her Massey journey.

“My best friend is one of the first people I met at Massey. Ten years on, our friendship is stronger, and we have seen each other through every phase of our womanhood.

I believe that I can learn from every woman who is in my life and the beauty of being a woman is that we get to share our unique definition of womanhood and support each other.”

For Rhema, International Women’s Day is a universal reminder to recognise and celebrate women’s achievements and plights.

“It should be part of our everyday culture to celebrate diversity and provide platforms and opportunities to share. Our stories are our most valuable assets because they are unique to us, and we can only learn from one another through telling our stories.”

The latest Massey University Home Affordability Report shows an overall decline in national affordability over the most recent quarter, largely driven by soaring house prices in most regions and an increasing interest rate.

The report, which covers the quarter from August 2021 to November 2021, shows median house prices across the country increased by 8.8 per cent in aggregate. This, combined with an increase in interest rate, has seen national home affordability decline by 24 per cent.

National house price-to-income ratios have declined this quarter, with house prices moving from 12.8 to 13.8 times the average annual wage.

Report authors, Dr Arshad Javed and Professor Graham Squires from the Massey University Real Estate Analysis Unit (REAU), say the results show home affordability in New Zealand continues to decline.

“In this quarter we have seen a decline in affordability. If we take an annual view, there’s a solid decline in affordability at a national level of 38.2 per cent, reflected in all 16 regions,” Professor Squires says.

“Within this aggregate result, there are some large regional changes, including 93.4 and 88.1 per cent decline in affordability for the Taranaki and Gisborne regions respectively over the past year, and more than 35 per cent decline in affordability for the remaining twelve regions,” he adds.

The greatest increase in median house prices, in percentage terms, has for the last quarter occurred in Gisborne (37 per cent or $185,000), Hawke’s Bay (18.6 per cent or $130,000), West Coast (16.7 per cent or $50,000) and Northland (14.6 per cent or $95,000). All sixteen regions showed an increase in house prices in this quarter, with the exception of Marlborough (-19.4 per cent or -$170,000).

Read the full December 2021 Home Affordability Report here.

New Zealand decriminalised sex work in 2003 with the Prostitution Reform Act. Almost 20 years later, how have ideas about the sex industry changed?

Dr Gwyn Easterbrook-Smith is a tutor at the School of Humanities, Media and Creative Communication on Massey University’s Wellington campus. Their new book Producing the Acceptable Sex Worker considers this question by looking at how sex workers have been discussed in the news media.

“I’m interested in looking at media representations because for a lot of people, that’s one of the main places they learn about the sex industry,” Dr Easterbrook-Smith says. “Most sex workers carefully manage who they tell about their jobs, because of the stigma which is still attached to the work. So, many people either don’t know, or don’t know that they know, a sex worker. That lack of personal knowledge or experience makes the media a really important site where ideas about the industry can be reproduced or challenged.”

Dr Easterbrook-Smith’s research found that post-decriminalisation, some sex workers were increasingly presented as acceptable or respectable, but that acceptability was highly contingent and not available to all sex workers.

“While obviously people of all genders do sex work, I found that women, both trans and cisgender, were vastly more likely to be discussed in coverage of sex work, which I think is important to note since a lot of the narratives around the work are quite gendered,” Dr Easterbrook-Smith says.

Sex worker rights organisations often focus on the idea that sex work is work, and this came through in some media coverage of sex work in Aotearoa New Zealand – although this was more likely to be the case if the women involved were cisgender, charged relatively higher prices, and worked indoors.

“When sex workers did have their work treated as a real job, this was often accompanied by an explicit or implicit comparison to other sex workers, suggesting the stigma of the job may just be shifted around rather than genuinely reduced.

“Sex workers who continued to be stigmatised in news media coverage were often those who were marginalised in other ways – transgender women, particularly those who do street-based sex work, and migrant sex workers, who are specifically excluded from the protections of the Prostitution Reform Act.

“The ways that they were stigmatised as sex workers were often linked to other groups which they were also a part of. This really highlights the importance of paying attention to the multifaceted nature of people’s identities, that is, taking an intersectional approach, to discussing sex work.”

Producing the Acceptable Sex Worker also discusses the persistent influence of stereotypes about sex work, which influence the sort of stories that are told about sex work, even when the stories are being refuted.

“One thing I found quite a lot in some of the older texts I analysed, dating from the earlier 2010s, was an emphasis on people not ‘looking like’ a sex worker. Well, what do you mean by that? What does a sex worker look like? And obviously the intention there is that the reader is going to understand this as a positive thing, but in doing that, you’re reinforcing the idea that ‘sex worker’ is this negative identity which people should distance themselves from. What you’re seeing there is the comparison between different kinds of sex workers, but also the issue where old stereotypes about the industry can be really limiting, shaping how it’s discussed, even in fairly positive coverage.” 

Producing the Acceptable Sex Worker, published by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, is available on pre-order now from Amazon.