Choosing the issue, and its nature
The three tests for a usable issue
- Test 1: is it unresolved? The standard defines contemporary as currently affecting people or places and unresolved. A decision already made is a case study, and there is nothing left to propose.
- Test 2: does it have a spatial dimension? It must be about somewhere — a boundary, a zone, a route, a catchment, a coastline, a neighbourhood. Could I map this? is the quick check.
- Test 3: is it genuinely contested? You need at least two groups whose responses differ, and both of whose positions can be explained rather than dismissed.
- There is no New Zealand requirement at Level 3. AS91245 has one; this standard does not, so an overseas issue is allowed — although a local one is usually easier to get evidence about.
- Choose small and real over large and abstract. Climate change is not an issue you can analyse in 3 credits; whether to defend or retreat from a named eroding street is.
Good and bad choices
- Good: a proposed road, a housing intensification plan, a managed-retreat decision, a water allocation, a marine reserve boundary, a landfill or quarry consent, a freedom-camping bylaw, a mining or aquaculture application.
- Bad: a topic with no location (plastic pollution), a topic already decided (the plant that opened last year), or a topic where one side has no explainable position.
- The worked example on these pages is coastal erosion and managed retreat at the invented Ōtaraki Beach, where 14 houses now sit inside a 20-year erosion hazard zone on a coast retreating about 0.4 m a year.
- Test it: unresolved (the council has not decided), spatial (a hazard line drawn on a map through a street), and contested (homeowners, surf club and iwi, and the council all want different things).
- Choose an issue you can get documents about — council reports, hazard maps, submissions, media coverage, and ideally an interview.
Explaining the nature of the issue
- The nature is what the issue is, where, who is affected and why it exists — and it should occupy about a quarter of the report, not half.
- Cover five things: what the problem is, where it is, who is affected, how big it is, and why it has arisen now.
- Quantify. In the invented example: 0.4 m a year of retreat, 14 houses inside the 20-year zone, 38 more inside the 50-year zone, a beach that draws about 60,000 visits a year, and a council with a $4.6 m seawall estimate against a $7.2 m retreat estimate.
- Say why it is an issue now rather than earlier. In the invented case, a 2023 hazard reassessment redrew the line and put 14 houses inside it for the first time — the coast did not change, the map did.
- Show the spatial dimension explicitly. A map with the hazard lines, the properties, the beach access and the surf club is worth several paragraphs.
Getting the geography into it
- An issue is geographic when place matters to the argument. If the same dispute could happen anywhere with nothing changed, you have a political issue rather than a geographic one.
- Ask what the physical environment contributes. At Ōtaraki, the sand supply comes from a river 12 km north, and a seawall reflects wave energy that scours the beach in front of it — physical facts that constrain which responses can work.
- Ask what the human geography contributes. Where the houses are, who owns them, what the land is zoned, where the road and services run, and who uses the beach.
- Ask what changes across space. The 14 houses inside the 20-year line face a different problem from the 38 inside the 50-year line, and both differ from the properties two streets back.
- The spatial dimension is not decoration. It is what makes some courses of action possible and others not.
Structuring the whole report
- Four sections: the nature of the issue; values, perceptions and responses; the courses of action; the justified proposal.
- Include the map early, with the hazard zones and the affected properties.
- Keep the nature section tight. The marks concentrate in the second and fourth sections.
- Signpost with headings that match the standard's language, so it is obvious which criterion each section addresses.
- Write the justification last but plan it first, because the whole report should be building towards it.
Worked Example
Worked example
Four students propose issues. Apply the three tests.
- A: plastic pollution in the ocean.
- B: the new supermarket that opened in town last year.
- C: whether to build a seawall or retreat from 14 houses on an eroding beach.
- D: whether the school should have a later start time.
Answer:
Topic A — plastic pollution. Unresolved? Yes. Contested? Yes. Spatial dimension? Not as stated. It has no where, so there is nothing to map, no groups located in relation to each other, and no course of action that could be proposed for a specific place. It could be rescued by narrowing it — whether to ban single-use plastics at the named harbour — but as posed it fails test 2.
Topic B — the supermarket. Spatial? Yes. Contested? It was. Unresolved? No — it opened. There is nothing left to propose, and the report would be a history. Fails test 1.
Topic D — the school start time. Unresolved and contested, but it has no spatial dimension and no environment. It is a good issue and not a geographic one. Fails test 2 and arguably test 3's requirement that it relate to a natural or cultural environment.
Topic C — the beach. Apply all three:
- Unresolved: the council has three options on the table and no decision until next year. ✓
- Spatial: a hazard line drawn on a map runs through a street; 14 houses are inside the 20-year zone and 38 inside the 50-year zone; the beach, the surf club and the road are all located in relation to that line. ✓
- Contested: homeowners want a seawall, the surf club and iwi want retreat, the council is weighing cost and statutory duty. All three positions can be explained. ✓
The nature of the issue, written from that:
The Ōtaraki Beach shoreline is retreating at about 0.4 m a year, and a 2023 hazard reassessment placed 14 houses inside the 20-year erosion hazard zone and 38 inside the 50-year zone for the first time. The coast has been eroding for decades; what changed in 2023 was the map, and with it the council's statutory obligation to avoid increasing risk.
The affected area is a single beachfront street of 52 properties, backed by a road carrying the services, with the surf club at the northern end and the main beach access — about 60,000 visits a year — through the middle. The council has costed a seawall at $4.6 m and a managed retreat at $7.2 m, and has not decided.