Hard News: Dear John
83 Responses
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You'd think that the concept of the right to a break being taken away, including the right to a toilet break, would be pretty simple to understand. I can't see what's complicated.
They seemed to think that there was a problem with the government "stepping in and regulating" these things, as if the state were decreeing what time everyone's lunch hour was. Helen explained that the law required employers and employees to negotiate an appropriate schedule between themselves, but it seemed to make no difference.
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Are you in favour of a change to the system at all, Tom?
I would like to see the threshold lowered to 4%.
But politicians respond to what gets them votes. We are going down the British route of the surveillance state of CCTV and DNA databases because we've got a hollowed out media that has been reduced to ratings-driven ambulance chasing, sensationalist crime reporting and interviewing a cacophany of opinion.
To me, if we want to change political discourse we have to change political culture. Clemenceau said war was to important to be left to the generals. I believe the media is to important to be left to the market. Strong reform of media governance laws - in particular in relation to ownership models (would it be a good idea to legally require all newspapers and news magazines published in N.Z. to be owned by not-for-profit trusts and the like?), in relation to forbidding foreign (read rent-extracting Australians and Canadians) ownership and in having anti-monopoly laws to break up oprganisations like Sky TV would go a long way to naturally re-populating our newsrooms with actual journalists.
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Strong reform of media governance laws
You really think that is even possible in New Zealand?
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I mean, possible with the current bunch.
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Strong reform of media governance laws - in particular in relation to ownership models (would it be a good idea to legally require all newspapers and news magazines published in N.Z. to be owned by not-for-profit trusts and the like?), in relation to forbidding foreign (read rent-extracting Australians and Canadians) ownership and in having anti-monopoly laws to break up oprganisations like Sky TV would go a long way to naturally re-populating our newsrooms with actual journalists.
Welcome to the age of New Yellow Journalism. The least that could be done would be to bring said media companies under the aegis of the Commerce Act.
The Press Council was formed in an age before media companies were publicly listed, and has been left ineffectual since their emergence.
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would go a long way to naturally re-populating our newsrooms with actual journalists.
Only if your trusts have a new way of making their income. Staffing decline is a response to pressure on the whole business model.
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Only if your trusts have a new way of making their income. Staffing decline is a response to pressure on the whole business model.
Well, I guess it depends what you mean by pressure on the business model. A not for profit NZHerald could have employed 200 journalists at 100k each and still turned a six million profit.
It isn't the profitability that is the issue yet. It is the return on investment.
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You really think that is even possible in New Zealand?
Well, you could get elected on a centrist platform, appoint Keith Locke as minister of broadcasting then be forced to intervene to stop his plan of complete state control of the media...
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I believe the media is to important to be left to the market. Strong reform of media governance laws - in particular in relation to ownership models (would it be a good idea to legally require all newspapers and news magazines published in N.Z. to be owned by not-for-profit trusts and the like?),
It's a hideous idea that would see New Zealand justly plummet down international press freedom rankings. Magazines are the most small-business-oriented and independent sector in the New Zealand media.
Which ones would the government order should be handed over to a trust? How do you define a "news magazine"? Will we have a special government panel that defines what "news" is? Will the government then decree how editorial websites may operate?
The most avowedly right-wing newspaper in the country, the NBR, is privately-owned. And as for the others, I think you'll find that the Kiwiblog audience remains convinced that they are staffed by godless liberals in league with Labour.
in relation to forbidding foreign (read rent-extracting Australians and Canadians) ownership and in having anti-monopoly laws to break up oprganisations like Sky TV would go a long way to naturally re-populating our newsrooms with actual journalists.
Ironically, had it not been for the politically-appointed leadership of the TVNZ board selling our shareholding in Sky in the 1990s, things would be different now.
WRT the Australians who own our newspapers, would you be proposing forcible sale to local interests? I'm sure Barry Colman would be pleased to enter such a buyer's market. And it is worth noting that Wilson & Horton's passage out of New Zealand ownership was provoked by a hostile raid by a New Zealander -- Ron Brierley -- who had already killed the Auckland and Christchurch Star newspaper. At the time, Tony O'Reilly was seen (in Michael Horton's own words) as a "white knight".
I know a bit about the way those companies have sucked money out of New Zealand in the past decade and half -- which is a much more important problem than any political direction from proprietors.
Ironically, the most obvious example of political direction of which I'm aware was Tony O'Reilly's instruction to the Herald to stop being so hysterically negative about the country's fortunes under Labour. (I have it on reasonable authority that something of the kind was said one one of O'Reilly's visits.)
But I don't think foreign ownership precludes good journalism, or that any general statements can be made about the political orientation of journalists themselves. Perhaps the horse could have been prevented from bolting had we had media ownership laws in place then.
I'm also very uncomfortable with the idea that if the newspapers say something I don't like they should be permanently set right by the government. We had that for decades in New Zealand, and it was a crushing weight.
That said ... I admire The Guardian's trust model, while still noting that that newspaper's operation is underwritten by a stable of consumer magazines that actually make all the money. I wish those rich Hollywood liberals had bought back the LA Times before it was strip-mined by the Tribune Group, but I suspect things will have to get much worse before that kind of thing starts happening.
And when it does , I bags The Listener. For sentimental reasons.
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Only if your trusts have a new way of making their income. Staffing decline is a response to pressure on the whole business model.
Hastened, it must be said, by the big sucking noise coming from across the Tasman. The local Fairfax papers have done more than their share to prop up the loss-making Australian Financial Review in the last few years.
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Are you saying the Aussies suck? :)
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As Albert Eienstein put it, Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen
Or alternatively in bumper sticker form: common sense is neither
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Are you saying the Aussies suck?
Like a Dyson 10000 Turbo XL running on three-phase. You gotta problem with that?
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You Aucklanders and your car fetishes. I see there's a new "eco-building" opened in K Rd. Main feature: higher density car parking.
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You gotta problem with that?
Slightly OT but what the hey! I have a problem with
this and yep Aussies suck. :) -
It's a great lil' building, and it's all "look ma no hands" :)
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Keeping with the theme. So now the dear leader thinks travel perks are acceptable for the old skool politicians. I say relocate like the rest of us if it causes so much strife with your relationships.As an example , Rodney Hide stinks. He had no problem forgoing one relationship for another when he chose to.Nothing to do with travel.He definitely is no martyr. Just a whinger.
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Labour just need to be patient and wait it out, simple as that. Sooner or later, the public will tire of National, some Nat MP will make a big, unpalatable boo-boo, but who knows when.
I suspect that unless Labour provides us with an alternative vision, "sooner or later" might be 9 or 12 years away.
They could start by being an actual oppositon, and not kowtowing to the law and order mob. And they may need to find a leader who resonates with the centre-left. I'm sure Goff's a lovely chap and very capable, but the poll results would suggest he does not excite the voters.
Sure, a lot can happen in the next two years. But my guess is the voters won't dump Key and co unless Labour convinces them Labour can do a better job. Waiting it out doesn't seem a good option, unless they're already resigned to failure next election.
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This is, I think, to understate Key's and National's polling margin.
Most people know nothing about public policy. Therefore, most people that answer polling questions are not sufficiently informed to have a considered opinion. So who fucking cares what the polls say. Most people vote for the party they think will win. Wait until after election day, when the election narrative is set, to start the beard stroking.
But a good many voters will need to tire of National, or become uncomfortable with major policy changes, for Labour to come back into the picture. If it were to happen that quickly, of course, it would be bloody spectacular to watch. That's a long way to fall.
I don't agree. No one is in to politics right now. There is nothing on the boil. Bring on summer. Then NZ goes on pause. Then around March-May we can see politics pick up. Mainly for Supercity. Then with MMP referendum and Supercity burn out no one will give enough of a fuck to change the government.
Goff seems stranded
Horseshit. He's just punching time until the bell goes off for the first round. You trade more horses than that weak-voiced dude at the Herald.
It's a hideous idea that would see New Zealand justly plummet down international press freedom rankings.
Then its press freedom rankings would match is editorial content ranking. Just like how -40 is the same in celcius and farenheit. What a picture that would be. Did you see the pair of tits on the cover of the Sunday Star Times this weekend? Yapoze!
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I have a problem with
thisIdiotSavant shares your disgust.
The benefit is, as you would expect from its name, for invalids - people unable to work due to ongoing sickness, injury, or disability. Its paid to terminal cancer patients, people with no limbs, and the totally blind. Work-testing these people, particularly against a background where disability is the most widespread form of workplace discrimination, is simply an exercise in sadism.
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Horseshit. He's just punching time until the bell goes off for the first round.
Perhaps Public Address' next publishing extravaganza could be an complimentary A1 sized poster for every politician and journalist's office wall:
THIS IS NOT A GAME
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And yet, these have yet to make a real impact on public opinion.
Even a basic rights issue like workplace breaks being rolled back doesn't seem to have found any purchase -- listening to Helen Kelly of the CTU try and explain the issue to Jim Mora and Graham Bell on The Panel last week was painful. Neither of them seemed to grasp what she was talking about.
Yet. That's my view anyway.
You can't have that many fuck-ups so early in your term of government. These aren't peripheral issues, they're core. For the moment, people aren't troubled, but when ACC unravels further (I remember the last time incidentally, I set up company during the transition, it was ridiculously confusing) and the new education standards delivery one eighth of fuck all... then Key's genuine charm won't be enough.
Not necessarily a good thing. The grassroots level of the GOP is "quite lively" -- as well as bugshit crazy and shrinking faster than cotton candy in a monsoon. I wouldn't confuse Brownian motion with productive activity.
Yeah, that's a fair point Craig and for certain some activity is mournful and reflexsive but not a lot. Objectively, Labour are in good shape having significantly renewed their caucus. My sense, limited again by distance, is that the activity is focused and not at all oriented in the past.
Slightly OT but what the hey! I have a problem with this and yep Aussies suck. :)
Sofie, Aussies ain't so bad... nor different from us either. I don't like the National approach to vulnerable people and having heard what disability pensioners face in the short-term in Australia, I'm worried about here too.
What's amusing is that, Robbie Deans after, let's say 45 years living as a kiwi, seems entirely enculturated to Australian values after one year given his bleating about the referee... (tho Sivi shoulda been red-carded).
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I'm not entirely sure what would be better about going via Rosebank. It would be longer, which would involve killing more suburbs, for the purpose of making a more expensive piece of road that would waste more gas for more people. The cost of that gas (not to mention wasted time) would quickly outweigh any benefits, even if there were any, and I can't see any.
I think the main reason the Rosebank alignment of SH20 was abandoned was because it had an estimated cost of around $3 billion, even more than the fully tunnelled version of Waterview. Plus, building a giant interchange on Pollen Island would have been pretty nasty from an environmental perspective.
Not to mention running right through the middle of miles more suburbs and industrial property, towns and schools, all people who would need to be displaced. I could probably milk a compulsory acquisition of my house, but I still think the idea sucks arse.
As for Goff, I've said it before and I'll say it again, he is a placeholder. His purpose is to hold a position no-one wants, the newly-ousted. Picking an uncharismatic guy is probably a good long term idea, because when someone with some lead in their pencil actually challenges for the leadership they will be cast into beautiful stark relief. I'm picking that will come shortly after defeat in the next election. National are going to play the centrist game a bit longer, because it's working, and the recession has left them with few options. They'll get 2 terms, they always do.
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I'm not entirely sure what would be better about going via Rosebank.
I'd defer to Joshua about cost being the issue, and I really don't know the detail.
However, I'm confident the decision wasn't about driver reluctance to go an extra 3kms as Roughan swallowed. Either way are about the same overall distance, especially if you are going west along the motorway rather than doubling back east towards the CBD. It is designed as a ring route, after all.
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You can't have that many fuck-ups so early in your term of government. These aren't peripheral issues, they're core.
If so, perhaps Labour could come up with a serious response. I probably shouldn't be giving the evil ones free advice :), but Goff could do us all a favour if he put a swear jar (proceeds to charity) on his desk, and put a gold coin every time we heard the words "privatization by stealth" or "secret agenda". In case he didn't notice, it just worked in '05, failed utterly last year and nobody is buying anymore -- just as Gordon Brown is finding chuntering on about the Tories' "secret agenda to cut public spending" isn't getting any traction. (In large part because the right-wing of the Conservatives aren't shy about bitching the "Cameroons" won't go far enough.)
John Howard found that people didn't believe that Kevin Rudd was some swivel-eyed loon. (He wasn't helped by Labour finally choosing a leader who wasn't a swivel-eyed loon with a secret diary.)
Or, dare I say it, like nobody was buying the notion a decade ago that Labour had a covert tax-hiking agenda behind the utterly overt one that was there for all to see.
A good definition of madness is doing the same old shit and expecting a different result.
Yeah, that's a fair point Craig and for certain some activity is mournful and reflexsive but not a lot. Objectively, Labour are in good shape having significantly renewed their caucus. My sense, limited again by distance, is that the activity is focused and not at all oriented in the past.
Personally, I wasn't expecting Labour's first post-election conference to be held on the edge of a cliff and climax with a mass lemming impersonation.
"Objectively", there are some good new people in caucus, and better late than never -- I think you could also say the same about National, which went through a rather uncomfortable process of pruning the deadwood. But potential and achievement are two very different beasts -- I'll take out a pair of tongs and hold up Shane Jones as exhibit A for the prosecution. He's not incapable, but he seems to have stuff all to do nowadays except replace John Tamihere as the designated caucus brown-neck. (ie. Someone who can denounce the Maori Party as 1) sell-out race traitors, or, 2) extremist radicals when required, without the taint of honkiness leading to accusations of racism.)
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