Archive
Plot to Overthrow Auckland Student Magazine Editor
Posted 3:53pm Sunday 15th April 2012 by Staff Reporter
Craccum Editor Thomas Dykes may lose his position next week following a petition from 20 members of the Auckland University Student Association (AUSA) which calls for a motion of no confidence against him. The petition claims that Craccum (Auckland University’s student magazine) has been Read more...
Broadcasting Standards Authority agrees: Stoners are cool
Posted 3:53pm Sunday 15th April 2012 by Joe Stockman
The Broadcasting Standards Authority (BSA) has sided with Otago University student radio station Radio One, after a complaint by an Australian based GP about the radio station’s show Overgrown. The show, which is produced by pro-cannabis protest group NORML, and is hosted by NORML Read more...
Money Buys Happiness, But Not Elections
Posted 7:07pm Sunday 1st April 2012 by Callum Fredric
It’s a common myth that money buys elections – in New Zealand at least, this is simply not the case. Evidence from several NZ elections has shown no real link between party spending and votes received. In the 2011 election campaign, the six biggest spenders were (in order): National, $2.3m; Read more...
It’s Voluntary Jim, but not as we know it
Posted 7:07pm Sunday 1st April 2012 by Callum Fredric
Did you know OUSA considers you a member of their organisation? Well they do. It doesn’t matter that you didn’t sign up, OUSA President Logan Edgar reckons there’s no law preventing OUSA from signing up every single student as a member, so long as they’re not being directly charged any fees. Read more...
Old people love netball, but do students?
Posted 7:07pm Sunday 1st April 2012 by Gus Gawn
It seems like everyone in Invercargill loves netball. All the grannies and kids used to pack out that stadium (before it fell over), smash those rumble sticks together and have a hell of a time. But does anyone care about netball in Dunedin? The Southern Steel is our netball team. They Read more...
Red Bull Marketing Campaign Receives Student Magazine Exposure Because It Totes Counts As A Sport
Posted 7:07pm Sunday 1st April 2012 by Gus Gawn
This is the sixth issue of Critic for 2012. Apparently it only takes six weeks to abandon journalistic credibility and just start reporting on stuff that provides free energy drinks. When you think of Red Bull you think of extreme sports. Maybe a grinning Scandinavian guy pushing the limits Read more...
Now more expensive than ever to escape Dunedin
Posted 7:07pm Sunday 1st April 2012 by Charlotte Greenfield
The price of flights to and from Dunedin has risen by up to $4 since last Friday after a surge in the Dunedin International (LOL) Airport’s user charge. Air New Zealand claims it has been forced to raise fares after DIA hiked the user charge by 78% to a total of $1.8 million a year. “We are Read more...
Studyspace.co.nz Profits Reach Single-Figures
Posted 7:07pm Sunday 1st April 2012 by Callum Fredric
A new website has taken the student mantra “USBs get degrees” to a new level, with students now able to buy and sell notes for their courses online. University of Otago students Hayden Kerrisk (CEO), Mike Arthur (Programmer), and Paul Kibblewhite (Stylist) have created Studyspace, which is basically Read more...
Otago Greens Out
Posted 7:07pm Sunday 1st April 2012 by Bella Macdonald
Otago University is getting its green on with the appointment of Hilary Phipps in the role of Environmental Sustainability Co-ordinator. The creation of this brand-new role was prompted by the recommendations of a Working Party in late 2008 to promote the environmental sustainability of the Read more...
Ding Ding Flings Off Exec Thing
Posted 7:07pm Sunday 1st April 2012 by Josie Adams
Ding Yi Ding resigned from the OUSA Exec only hours after winning the International Officer position in the by-election two weeks ago. She cited “personal reasons” for her departure. Although this might appear to be a lucky break for Shane Corrigan, the Dream Team’s losing candidate for the Read more...
University deals with disaster
Posted 7:07pm Sunday 1st April 2012 by Margot Taylor
The University seems to have disaster on the mind, with assessment and construction underway to address the risk of earthquakes and floods. A year after the devastating 6.3 earthquake in Christchurch, Otago’s Christchurch campus, which houses the School of Medicine, is undergoing repairs, Read more...
DCC Plans Dunedin’s Future
Posted 7:07pm Sunday 1st April 2012 by Claudia Herron
The Dunedin City Council has distributed a draft long-term plan inviting submissions for its proposed rate increases for the next decade. The DCC is setting its sights high, although its efforts are being marred by the city’s debt and general apathy. The latter was evident in one first-rate Read more...
Hyde Street Galvanises Fun Police
Posted 7:07pm Sunday 1st April 2012 by Gus Gawn
Battle lines have been drawn over the much-publicised North Dunedin Liquor Ban proposed by the DCC. The liquor ban proposal has been sitting on the table since the beginning of the year. The council’s initial proposal was debated heatedly on campus early in the semester but it seemed to sit Read more...
Scarfies Give Street a Hyding
Posted 7:07pm Sunday 1st April 2012 by Charlotte Greenfield
Everyone’s favourite keg party took place Saturday March 24. Critic, along with 6,000 other partygoers, was there covering the drunkenness and debauchery. The goodProving to John Key that students do occasionally get out of bed before 7.30 at night, a raucous though mostly friendly crew of Read more...
Critic runs Jimmy Cowan Out of Town
Posted 5:00pm Monday 26th March 2012 by Gus Gawn
In breaking code news an un-named source has whispered in Critic Sports reporter Gus Gawn’s ear that Jimmy Cowan’s days as a Highlander are numbered. Our source has stated that Cowan will quit New Zealand at the end of the 2012 season to take up a contract with English club Gloucester. Read more...
New Zealand First
Posted 4:26pm Sunday 25th March 2012 by Callum Fredric
The New Zealand First Party is the Salmond College of political parties – far enough away from the mainstream to be forgotten by most, but not quite far out enough to gain notoriety like the Mana Party (Aquinas). For the average Kiwi, only one thing springs to mind when they think of NZ First ... Read more...
Warriors at Forsyth Barr, Yes Please.
Posted 4:26pm Sunday 25th March 2012 by Gus Gawn
How many of you want to see the Vodafone Warriors play an NRL game at Forsyth Barr Stadium? I know I do, and I bet you do too. Though Rugby League is the poorer cousin to Rugby Union in Dunedin, there is a dormant support base. How many of you regularly settle down to watch the Warriors on a Read more...
Highlanders Unbeaten
Posted 4:26pm Sunday 25th March 2012 by Gus Gawn
In unbelievable code update news, THE HIGHLANDERS ARE UNDEFEATED (or they were when we went to print on Thursday). That’s right folks – two home games, two away, four wins, 16 points, top of the table, top of the conference, top of the world. It’s not as if they’ve had an easy draw either. Read more...
Rower rows toward rowing victory (in a rowboat)
Posted 4:26pm Sunday 25th March 2012 by Gus Gawn
Earlier this month 38 rowers were named to represent New Zealand at the London Olympics in July this year. It is the largest rowing squad that New Zealand has ever mustered for an Olympic games. Beyond shot-putter Valerie Adams, most of New Zealand’s medals will probably come from these 38 rowers. Read more...
Castaway’s ‘Wilson’ makes tragic real life appearance in Southland
Posted 4:26pm Sunday 25th March 2012 by Sasha Borissenko
Invercargill locals are in shock over what has been described as New Zealand’s worst maritime disaster since the Wahine in 1968. An 11-metre fishing boat, the Easy Rider, capsized in Foveaux Strait on Wednesday March 14 with nine people on board. Only one person is thought to have survived, with Read more...
Marmite stocks depleted
Posted 4:26pm Sunday 25th March 2012 by Bella Macdonald
Marmite has disappeared off shelves all around New Zealand, four months after Sanitarium’s Christchurch factory was closed following an engineers’ report showing the building was unsafe. “Marmageddon” has ensued, resulting in rationing, mass riots and the breakdown of New Zealand society. The Read more...
Sex, blackmail and head injuries
Posted 4:26pm Sunday 25th March 2012 by Callum Fredric
National MP Nick Smith has resigned from his ministerial roles after the first major Parliamentary scandal of the year. On July 7 last year, Dr. Smith wrote a letter to ACC in support of his “friend” Bronwyn Pullar, who was fighting a long-running battle with ACC after suffering a head injury in a Read more...
Air NZ’s Cockpit Cock-Up
Posted 4:26pm Sunday 25th March 2012 by Bella Macdonald
Air New Zealand has discovered cracks near its planes’ cockpit windows, grounding 11 aircrafts and causing delays to flights in and out of Dunedin. After hairline cracks were found in one aircraft during a routine inspection, all 11 planes in the 11-year-old ATR fleet were grounded until Read more...
Edgar shits on rights abuse claims
Posted 4:26pm Sunday 25th March 2012 by Charlotte Greenfield
OUSA President Logan Edgar appeared in two hard-hitting interviews last week. The first took place on Breakfast on Tuesday March 20. Veteran journalist Corin Dann challenged Edgar on OUSA’s current student enrolment procedures, which allow the student association to skim cheekily above legal Read more...
Victoria IS the bomb
Posted 4:26pm Sunday 25th March 2012 by Gus Gawn
Victoria University in Wellington plunged into chaos on Monday morning when an anonymous email sent to the University outlined a bomb threat against the Easterfield building at the Uni’s Kelburn campus. The building was evacuated and cordoned off for several hours while police used a bomb dog to Read more...
Tame Iti Hangs Jury
Posted 4:26pm Sunday 25th March 2012 by Claudia Herron
Questions have arisen over the fate of the “Urewera Four” after a jury was unable to reach a verdict on the most serious charge against them. On March 20 Tame Iti, Te Rangikaiwhiria Kemara, Emily Bailey and Urs Signer were found guilty by a jury on a number of firearms charges. The offences Read more...
The Six Breeds of Anti Alcohol Activist
Posted 4:27pm Sunday 18th March 2012 by Callum Fredric
01 | Health NazisYeah that’s right, Critic breached Godwin’s law. Deal with it. The health nazis want to ban alcohol (and the KFC Double Down) to protect you from yourself. According to these finger-wagging wowsers, if a guy drinks six standards, he’s officially binge-drinking. That would explain Read more...
Rigger vents spleen all over Critic reporter
Posted 4:27pm Sunday 18th March 2012 by Gus Gawn
Mark Richardson is an ex-Black Cap, Sky Sports Commentator and host of TV shows The Crowd Goes Wild (CGW), and The Cricket Show. He lived in Dunedin for 10 years, playing cricket for Otago and studying towards a BCom (which he has never used). He makes his money nowadays as an inflammatory TV Read more...
Lamington Attacks Spark Dangerous New Trend
Posted 4:27pm Sunday 18th March 2012 by Bella Macdonald
Auckland Mayor Len Brown was attacked on March 9 by a sponge-smearing protester after a session with Auckland University students. Mr. Brown was on campus discussing the dispute between Maritime New Zealand and the Ports of Auckland Union. At the conclusion of his speech, a protester Read more...
Big queer boots to fill
Posted 4:27pm Sunday 18th March 2012 by Josie Adams
With long-time coordinator Jamie Burford finishing his stint at Queer Support last week, Neill Ballantyne has been appointed to take over the role. Neill has been involved in Queer Support for two years, starting out as a peer supporter. While the eventual plan might be to revolutionise Read more...
Skegg takes his place in the world
Posted 4:27pm Sunday 18th March 2012 by Margot Taylor
Sir David Skegg, former University of Otago Vice-Chancellor, was named this week as the next President of the Royal Society of New Zealand. Professor Skegg will begin his position at the Royal Society, an education and research charity for the advancement and promotion of science, Read more...
Otago Police Watch Titanic and Panic
Posted 4:27pm Sunday 18th March 2012 by Bella Macdonald
With a growing number of cruise ships entering the Otago Harbour this year, an emergency plan is being put in place to manage any potential disaster. The number of cruise ships visiting Otago has soared over the past decade from 25 in 2003 to 80 this year, prompting the emergency plan. It Read more...
Government serves up waffle with condescension sauce
Posted 4:27pm Sunday 18th March 2012 by Charlotte Greenfield
Prime Minister John Key has hinted at further overhaul to the student loan system, but is unlikely to reinstate interest for fear of reprisal by students “getting out of bed before 7 o’clock at night.” Critic polled students on the various insurrectionary activities they could pursue by Read more...
Parliament Hears Mojo Mathers
Posted 4:27pm Sunday 18th March 2012 by Callum Fredric
The yelling match is over. Green Party MP Mojo Mathers, who is profoundly deaf, will receive Parliamentary funding for a note-taking assistant and any extra support that she needs in order to carry out her duties as an MP. Speaker of the House Lockwood Smith issued a direction to Read more...
Critic loses porn access / reason to live
Posted 4:27pm Sunday 18th March 2012 by Gus Gawn
Students will no longer have access to websites deemed “objectionable” by the University’s IT services. In addition to preventing acess to pornography and sex advice, finding lulz has also been hindered by the policy. Critic was first alerted to the change after attempts to access morally Read more...
Powers that be make rules. Rules made to be broken.
Posted 4:27pm Sunday 18th March 2012 by Claudia Herron
Confusion has arisen over the enforcement of the proposed glass ban for the Hyde Street Keg Party. Hyde Street Party posters distributed by OUSA throughout the University state that the event is to be glass-free and that $200 fines can be dished out. However, OUSA do not have the Read more...
Critic goes to the Cricket
Posted 3:11pm Tuesday 13th March 2012 by Gus Gawn
On Wednesday Critic didn’t go to the cricket because we had to help write for Critic and had class, also it was raining. On Thursday Critic had to do Critic again and also had work so didn’t have time for the cricket. This made Critic angry because it was a lovely day and the cricket was Read more...
Rich White Men Battle to Evict Black Guy
Posted 6:37pm Sunday 11th March 2012 by Sam McChesney
The race for the Republican presidential nomination drags hilariously on. Actually, given that at the time of writing Mitt Romney has just won in the key state of Ohio, the race may actually be over by the time this issue of Critic gets published. In that case, don’t think of this blurb as obsolete, Read more...
Tall guy is good at Frisbee, also Discus
Posted 6:37pm Sunday 11th March 2012 by Gus Gawn
Marshall Hall is probably the best Dunedin athlete you have never heard of. Most people would have noticed him around uni (he’s 6’10” and massive) and thought, “who the fuck is that tall guy? I bet he’s good at basketball.” You would be right (NZ U18 rep), but he’s even better at throwing a discus. Read more...
NZUSA loves flogging dead horses
Posted 6:37pm Sunday 11th March 2012 by Bella Macdonald
The New Zealand Union of Students Associations (NZUSA) has realised students are incurring debt in order to study, and have issued a press release to warn everyone about the situation, a mere 20 years after the student loan scheme was launched. In a press release dated March 6 2012, NZUSA Read more...
University Entices Students With Stolen Gym
Posted 6:37pm Sunday 11th March 2012 by Gus Gawn
The Otago University has still not had to pay for the University Plaza building located in front of the stadium, despite using it since the start of the year. The Unipol recreation complex has been open since mid-January and has had massive numbers of students from the University and Read more...
Dunedin "100% Likely" to Suffer Catastrophic Earthquake by 2012
Posted 6:37pm Sunday 11th March 2012 by Callum Fredric
The University is spending $50m to upgrade its buildings over the next seven years, in order to reduce the buildings’ vulnerability to earthquakes. A top-secret forum, off-limits to students and the media, was held last Tuesday March 6 in the College of Education Auditorium, in order to Read more...
Sun sets on ODT's news section
Posted 6:37pm Sunday 11th March 2012 by Gregor Whyte
The Otago Daily Times was so delighted by the appearance of the Sun in the Dunedin skyline last week that they put an article to that effect as the lead story on their website. The short article was entitled “Strange excitement as sun appears above Dunedin”, and did not state who authored Read more...
Hyde and seek
Posted 6:37pm Sunday 11th March 2012 by Gus Gawn
OUSA president Logan Edgar has lashed out at claims by the Otago Daily Times’s Rosie Manins that the Hyde Street Keg Party has been “marred by disorder” in previous years. The comments from Edgar came as he clinched a significant political victory, securing the future of the keg party after having Read more...
Unversity kills 25,000 primitive animals during research
Posted 6:37pm Sunday 11th March 2012 by Margot Taylor
25,000 animals died in University of Otago research and teaching projects between 2009 and 2010. This number is expected to increase significantly, as statistics from 2011 are yet to be released. A recent Otago Daily Times article pushed the issue into the public sphere when it published Read more...
Edgar: "OUSA loses its Mojo"
Posted 6:37pm Sunday 11th March 2012 by Claudia Herron
Last Tuesday saw the long-overdue demolition of OUSA building Mojo’s Hall, after over a year of inactivity in deciding what to do with the weather-damaged site. OUSA finally sold the condemned property for above market value to a land developer, who then instigated its demolition to make way for Read more...
What's a few million amongst friends
Posted 4:53pm Sunday 4th March 2012 by Claudia Herron
While many students were pissing away their course-related costs in Dunedin’s “pimping new Forsyth Barr Stadium” last week, the Dunedin City Council announced that the total cost of the stadium was still not clear, and that an independent investigation by auditing firm PricewaterhouseCoopers would Read more...
New Unipol offers Freshers false hope over inevitable 'Five'
Posted 4:53pm Sunday 4th March 2012 by Gregor Whyte
The new Unipol recreation centre, located next to the Forsyth Barr stadium, opened in late January and the facility has so far received a warm reception from students, with 4600 students going through the gym in a single day last week. The facility boasts two weight rooms, a cardio room, Read more...
Skateboarders unable to read minds
Posted 4:53pm Sunday 4th March 2012 by Gregor Whyte
Property Services have announced that they will release a new Cycling and Skateboard policy later this year, with the intention of addressing several areas of concern for campus users. The policy will include maps showing cycle routes, an update of the current “open” bike racks on campus, and Read more...
William Tell, apparently not such a fantastic shot after a tray of SoGos
Posted 4:53pm Sunday 4th March 2012 by Gus Gawn
In a continuation of the gratuitous violence that has plagued Dunedin in recent weeks, a man was shot in the foot with a crossbow during an alcohol-fuelled incident in the suburb of Mornington. A 54-year-old male required surgery to remove a crossbow bolt from his foot after a 51-year-old Read more...
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