Join me in celebrating the very substantive contribution to academe made by Professor Annick Masselot and Professor Lynne Taylor as part of the Professorial Lecture Series in 2018.
- Date: Thursday, 25 October 2018, from 4.30 – 6.00 p.m.
- Location: F3 – Forestry
I encourage all staff and postgraduate students to attend this lecture, to actively support our new Professors, and take the opportunity to appreciate the fantastic research being undertaken in parts of the university we may be less familiar with.
Presentation details:
“Raising pigs and children: Comparative approaches to work-life balance policies”
Presented by Professor Annick Masselot, School of Law
Rising female employment rate, fluid family formation and falling fertility rates are amongst factors contributing to work-family conflicts. In the quest for work and family reconciliation, many post-industrial societies continue to face a plethora of challenges linked to the tensions between the demands of capitalist employment and the requirement for care.
Countries have adopted different approaches to develop work-life balance policies. For example, work-family reconciliation is a fully-fledged principle of the EU gender equality framework. New Zealand’s approach to work-life balance by contrast claims to neither be about women, nor about families. In Singapore, effort related to work-life balance are about raising fertility rates. Regardless of the approach chosen, the results are similar: There are large gaps between the letter of the law and its practice. Pregnant women and new parents (especially mothers) continue to experience high levels of systemic discrimination based on prejudice and the exclusion of reproduction from costs/benefits in traditional accounting.
How can we move forwards? What strategies could be put forward to value productive and reproductive activities more equally in our societies?
“The duties of directors of insolvent companies: A case study”
Presented by Professor Lynne Taylor, School of Law
Our law as to bankruptcy is archaic, antiquated, abstruse. I have always shied absolutely clear of it, and I think that most lawyers have, too… You [only] have to look at the statute; and then you do not understand it.” Lord Denning, perhaps the most famous common law judge of the twentieth century, uttered these words in 1985. Yet, despite the antipathy expressed by Lord Denning and others, bankruptcy (or insolvency) law is something that touches us all. Very few of us are likely to avoid being a creditor of an insolvent company. Even if we are so fortunate, we will almost certainly be indirectly and adversely affected by the flow-on effects of company failures, large and small, on the wider community.
Unlike Lord Denning, the presenter has not flinched from exploring the mysteries of insolvency law. Drawing on 20 years of research in this area, she offers her view on the adequacy of New Zealand’s company insolvency framework using the duties of directors of insolvent companies as a case study.
Professor Ian Wright
Deputy Vice-Chancellor | Tumu Tuarua
