Professor Farrar

Somehow a quick visit to the University of North Florida ended up with me giving a 75 minute guest lecture to the Global Issues politics class.

They had been mainly studying globalisation, so I spoke on NZ’s experiences with globalisation, our relationship with the US, and prospects of a free trade agreement etc.

Made the point that it is somewhat silly that the US and NZ Governments continue to have a stand off regarding the nuclear powered ships ban, as the law is not basically symbolic only with almost no US surface ships (only carriers which would never visit) nuclear powered (or armed) and it would be an irony if NZ concluded a free trade agreement with communist China before it does with the bastion of capitalism – the United States. Both NZ and US need to compromise on this.

The lecture went really well with heaps and heaps of questions (only one about hobbits) and the 75 minutes disappeared quickly.

Many of the students said they were very keen to visit New Zealand, which naturally I encouraged.