Election Forums

An invitation from the Centre for Theology and Public Issues to

ELECTION FORUMS in DUNEDIN and WELLINGTON

There's an election coming next month. How should we vote? What questions should we put to candidates? Will our voices be heard?

There's an opportunity to discuss some of the important issues we face at two Churches' Election Forums which the Centre for Theology and Public Issues is co-hosting in the first week of November. Each will include short presentations from an invited panel; summary and commentary; and opportunity for discussion and questions. (Please note these are not 'candidate meetings').

At each event the focus will be on four broad themes:

• alcohol, advertising, consumerism and their effects;
• our national identity and the Treaty;
• families and relationships;
• crime and punishment.

Churches are also encouraged to download the Centre's 'election resource pack' which also covers these themes. These would be ideal for discussion by groups in the weeks leading up to the election.


You are very welcome to these forums. Please also make them known among churches and other networks.

Dunedin: TUESDAY 1 NOVEMBER, 7.30 - 9.00 pm, Burns Hall, First Church, Moray Place.

Panel:

• Glyn Carpenter (Director, New Zealand Christian Network)
• Gillian Bremner (CEO Presbyterian Support Otago)
• Prof Andrew Bradstock (Centre for Theology and Public Issues)
• Dr Andrew Shepherd (Centre for Theology and Public Issues).

Summary: Rt Rev Kelvin Wright (Anglican Bishop of Dunedin)

Chair: Rev Anne Thomson (First Church).

Wellington: THURSDAY 3 NOVEMBER, 7.00 - 9.00 pm: St John's in the City.

Panel:

Glyn Carpenter (Director, New Zealand Christian Network)

Rev Susan Blaikie (Wellington City Missioner)

Lisa Beech (Research and Advocacy Coordinator, Caritas)

Dr Andrew Shepherd (Centre for Theology and Public Issues)

Summary: Rev Canon Deborah Broome

Chair: Very Rev Frank Nelson (Dean of Wellington).

Further information from: Jill Rutherford, Centre for Theology and Public Issues (03 479 5358; jill.rutherford@otago.ac.nz)

Office Hours:  9.00am - 12 noon,  Mondays -Thursday

Andrew Bradstock
Howard Paterson Professor of Theology and Public Issues
Director, Centre for Theology and Public Issues
Department of Theology and Religion
University of Otago
PO Box 56
Dunedin 9054

(03) 479 8450 
andrew.bradstock@otago.ac.nz
www.otago.ac.nz/ctpi
www.facebook.com/pages/University-of-Otago-Centre-for-Theology-and-Public-Issues/237859522928938

David Bain Again

We're never going to get to the end of the Bain saga: book rights, movie rights, and now 'suppressed evidence,' supposedly a confession heard on the recording made of David's call to 111 on the morning of the murders. The words have been regarded as indecipherable until now by a number of experts, but some detective has claimed that David says something like 'I shot the prick.'
And then there's stuff about David supposedly having said he'd use his paper round to rape a female jogger. Was this in any way related to the murders? Hardly, the conversation took place, if it took place at all, when he was still at school.
No wonder this stuff was all suppressed. All the Bain-haters have come out of the woodwork with the usual lack of ability to present anything further than a load of hearsay, and are making their presence felt in the comments on blogs everywhere.
Like it or not, the guy has been declared Not Guilty. Just as he had to endure the prison sentence on the basis of the first trial, so Joe Public has to bear the consequences of the Not Guilty verdict in this second trial.
Time to give it all a rest, people.