John Key has just announced an "overhaul of the family violence prevention system."

If it was a Labour government I'd be thinking, "About time." Under National, though, I fear it may be an exercise in bullying families in low socio-economic circumstances, rather than looking at the systemic oppression that often contributes to family violence.

I love this campaign. It speaks to the heart of an issue of fundamental importance: how do we create a strong, robust future society. Our children are that future. I submitted this to the #DearNewZealand website today.

I would solve child poverty by creating a culture where every kid has what they need, for free. Shelter, clothes, food, learning environments, safety and love. All these things should be provided for free by the Government.

Balancing confidence and humility in any relationship, be it personal or professional, is a real skill. The first step is to become aware of what the two are. Author of The Art and Etiquette of Polyamory, Françoise Simpère writes:

“Arrogance...is generally a cover for a chronic lack of self-confidence.To be specific, self-confidence is when one is aware of his or her qualities without falling victim to false modesty. Humility allows one to recognise quietly that even though he or she is a wonderful person, there may be qualities that he or she lacks. An individual with a balanced ego is fully aware of his or her own existence and does not need others to confirm it. He or she is interested in others because of who they are, and not because of a need to see him or herself as a reflection in their admiring eyes.”

Autonomy is often used to mean independence. Though their dictionary definitions are similar and they are synonyms of each other, I like to talk about autonomy in a slighty different way.

For me, autonomy is having the choice over when I am independent and when I am dependent. It's similar to the notion of interdependence, except the latter, interdependence, suggests an ongoing process of co-operation or collaboration. Perhaps autonomy could include the choice of interdependence as well, but for now I want to focus on the aspect of choice.

I'm getting a bit sick of hearing about climate change. Not because I don't care – I do, desperately​. I'm fed up because "climate change" is the effect of something much, much worse.

And what's even worse is that we're not talking about the cause. We're not naming what we're doing to create climate change. It's pretty bad.

If you want to lose customers and infuriate people, here are some ideas, based on my own, real-life, recent experiences with Parallel Imported, Pass the Parcel and Window Treatments. I won't be going back to any of them — I'd recommend you join me.

I've been saying to people lately, "I feel like I'm living someone else's life." Do you ever feel like that? If you do, you'll know how unsettling it is. My attempts at working out what's going on have been in the main unsuccessful, but I have a few theories.​

I wonder if it's my age – a mid-life crisis perhaps. After all, I do turn 50 next year. But I have no compunction to buy a red sports car.​​

Brexit, Donald Trump and schools policing young men's facial hair — what's going on?It feels like the world is spinning backwards.

Young people despaired at the decision of Britain to leave the EU. Commentators are saying Trump may win the US presidency, simply because he believes in nothing but himself. Schools want to force 17-year-olds to shave.

"Who We Are" is a music video with a vision of changing how we know ourselves & each other. It's all about us, made for the world to see.

Follow Jess and her friends as they explore and celebrate identity and self expression. They are young people with unique gender, sexual and functional expression who are proud of who they are.

Kintsugi is the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with lacquer dusted or mixed with powdered gold, silver, or platinum. (Wikipedia)

As a philosophy kintsugi can be seen to have similarities to the Japanese philosophy of wabi-sabi, an embracing of the flawed or imperfect. Japanese aesthetics values marks of wear by the use of an object. This can be seen as a rationale for keeping an object around even after it has broken and as a justification of kintsugi itself, highlighting the cracks and repairs as simply an event in the life of an object rather than allowing its service to end at the time of its damage or breakage.