As local elections approach and the Wellington City Council mayoralty race heats up, Salient sits down with the main players at a location of their choosing to share a drink and discuss their ambitions for Pōneke.

This week we met with former Green Party Chief of Staff, Tory Whanau (Pakakohi, Taranaki).

Running for Mayor with the party’s endorsement, Whanau has what she describes as “green values”. She aligns with key Green party policies such as free public transport, affordable housing, and

An increasing number of Wellington bars are adopting digital ID checking technology in a move to make the capital's nightlife safer, but potential privacy risks are going unchecked by bar owners.

The Patronscan system, which is widely used in Australia, scans the IDs of town-goers as well as photographing them on entry. Their data is then stored and shared between venues across New Zealand and Australia, and security staff have the ability to permanently flag patrons for unruly behaviour.

Lege

After making headlines earlier this year for illegally supplying free alcohol to student flats in exchange for social media promotion, Aotearoa based RTD manufacturers are still pursuing these dubious transactions.

Reports in February found numerous alcohol companies were seriously breaching the Sale and Supply of Alcohol Act by hooking up party-going students with copious amounts of free piss. Warnings were given to offending businesses saying the trade promoted “irresponsible consumption of a

The university has apoligised to students for what they called “shortfalls” in an “extremely challenging time” after food provided to isolating students at Victoria University halls of residence made national headlines for being “worthy only of the rubbish bin”. Yet this isn't a one-off case of an overstretched catering team struggling to keep up, halls of residence have a history of providing substandard food for exuberant prices while the company behind it all, Compass Catering, records multi-

After findings of systemic racism in Otago University’s School of Physical Education, academics across Aotearoa are again calling for more to be done to address racism and discrimination.

An independent review which began August 2021 investigated the culture of the School of Physical Education, Sport, and Exercise Sciences. The findings of the review confirmed evidence of “systemic racism, discrimination, and bullying.” This follows ongoing issues of racism within the PE faculty which led to Mā

Two fires which broke out at the Contemporary Chinese Research Centre in the last six months are being treated as suspicious. The building at 18 Kelburn Parade, funded by the Victoria University of Wellington, also houses an organisation called the Confucius Institute, a global education program partly funded by a partner university (Xiamen University) and the Chinese government.

The first fire which occurred on the evening of 1 Oct 2021 caused “significant damage” which led to the building sit

Salient has uncovered a group chat on the encrypted messaging app Telegram, where unvaccinated Victoria University of Wellington students and staff have spread misinformation about Covid-19 and discussed ways to flout the mandate and organise legal action against the university for “breaching their human rights.”


The group, created 9 December 2021, consists of 67 members and contains both VUW staff and students who consider themselves “anti-vax.”

It initially began as a collective effort to