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Citizen Key II: The High School Years | Nov 30, 2006 10:46

Wherein I take up David Slack's search for the soul of John Key. I can tell you that the new National leader and I attended Christchurch's Burnside High School together. I gather that we both met our soulmates in that time. But do I remember him? No.

For most of his time at Burnside, John P. Key seems to have kept his head down. That wasn't unusual. At the time, Burnside was an experiment - the largest secondary school in the country - and plenty of kids just did their time and moved on.

Key was in the same junior division as me, West, but a year ahead. Having fetched and scrutinised the yearbooks, I can tell you that in his fifth form year, he moved from a "P" class to the more academic "L" stream. But otherwise, he features nowhere in the record of school life: no prefecture, public speaking or school council; no fencing club, tramping club or sports teams; no aeromodelling, coin club or Inter-School Christian Fellowship. (Update: On closer inspection, I've found him: 1977 debating team! He did quite well too, and was awarded a flash for his "devoted contribution to the club". The group picture depicts a little chap with a cherubic face and the smile that some people perceive now as overly smug.)

But I caution that my account is incomplete: the yearbook for 1979 is missing, and that appears to have been John Key's year. The 1980 book records that the previous year, John Key was one of 21 students to receive the PTA Prize for Seventh Form Academic Work, and achieved a "B" Bursary. And - here we go - that he shared the senior prize in Economics with Paul J. Commons.

Commons (I'm assuming it's the same one) went on to do well for himself in the cement business. Key, of course, went into banking and became very rich before entering politics, and stands a decent chance of one day being Prime Minister.

There are a thousand other stories in the yearbooks. A few of us - Bevan Rapson, Mike Jaspers and I - went into media careers. Deb Stanaway, who I remember as part of a sort of 90210 in-crowd, duly got married - then threw away the form book and came out as a lesbian, became a well-known radio announcer and now teaches radio. Some others are senior civil servants. One guy was offed in a gangland drug hit. My favourite teacher, Dave Nicholson, was jailed twice for grooming and abusing teenage boys. Anton Jenner, who I long thought would be killed by rock 'n' roll, cleaned up, got an honours degree and now lectures in sociology at Canterbury. Last I heard from Penny Feltham, she was the Manchester Popular Music Industry collector at the city's Museum of Science and Industry. Jan Arnold survived the very public tragedy of losing her husband, Rob Hall; and her fiercely clever brother Peter (who dropped out of university for a job fixing arcade game machines) now designs servers in California. My first serious girlfriend, Nicole King, died tragically in a tenement fire in Paris and is at rest at Pere Lachaise, along with Jim Morrison and Oscar Wilde.

By way of conclusion, if there were few signs that John P. Key would ascend to political leadership, it was always on the cards that I would end up a media wanker. I was first in sixth form English the year he topped the Economics class (I think the 1979 book includes a poem which is actually about the first time I tried marijuana). And the next year I won English and Creative English, the fruits of the latter being reproduced in the 1980 yearbook in the form of an amusingly romantic poem with the inscrutable title 'Integration by Inspection' (First Prize, Senior Poetry). But the same book contains a shorter work I remember more clearly:

Heavy

I've been brushing against people all day
Picking up hate like fluff
It's getting heavy now

Clearly, I was Emo before there was Emo …

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Maxim-ising the vote | Nov 28, 2006 09:15

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Finally got my copy of The Hollow Men last night. It's fascinating. Hard News gets a citation on p209. The date and title of the cited post are wrong, but the content is correct. (NB: Mystery solved - the date and title of the citation are right - it's just the vehicle that was wrong. It wasn't Hard News, it was Left Field, my column in Unlimited, one titled Right and Wrong, which quoted the same Maxim-supplied newspaper editorial as my original Hard News post did.)

It's a quote from a Pohutukawa Times editorial parroting (probably verbatim) the shonky "wasted vote" message from the Maxim Institute's "voter education" campaign.

I read the first 80 pages of the book before skipping forward to the main part about Maxim (from p203) to see if my speculation that National and Maxim had colluded on the institute's "one stop shop for voters offering objective information and not pushing any political agenda" was correct.

Yup. Thought so.

The NZVotes "education" campaign was discussed extensively with National months before other parties even knew about it. National had direct input on the campaign, it knew how much money Maxim was spending and, of course, the intent of the campaign was to haul the conservative vote away from third parties and consolidate it with National.

Naturally, neither side was inclined to acknowledge the extent of co-operation. When the Star Times ran its moral issues feature and Ruth Laugesen contacted National for comment, Richard Long circulated an email warning the crew not to "over-egg the links to Maxim".

There's some interesting stuff about Maxim's funding too.

Meanwhile Paul Litterick's Fundy Post - now a real blog, but as disrespectful as ever - notes the recent Maxim makeover:

The makeover is more Monster Garage than What Not To Wear: huge amounts of useless verbiage have been thrown out to create a new image. New Maxim is caring and sharing, working "towards a more just, free and compassionate New Zealand." Old Maxim talked about Family and fretted about Maori spirituality. New Maxim is not afraid to talk about whanau. Everything has gone green as well …

I wonder if Richard Poole is still working for Maxim? Yes, the same Richard Poole who in 2000 (with the assistance of the Holmes programme) fronted the "Lost Generation" campaign that earned a mention in The Guardian:

A 27-year-old Kiwi, Richard Poole, sent an email to some of the 600,000 New Zealanders who work abroad, urging them to donate NZ$30 (about £8.50) for a newspaper advertisement calling for the country's leaders act on the issue of the 'lost generation' - young New Zealanders fleeing the country for better paid jobs in Australia, the US and the UK.

Claiming to be the non-political fears of twenty-somethings, the Poole email was exposed by the government as being backed by money from the Business Roundtable, a pro-business pressure group.

NB: I should clarify the context here, I think: Poole is quoted in an email to Bryan Sinclair, 30 November, 2003. Hager says he was "in discussion with National at that time about working for it and was describing his existing marketing projects," which according to Hager included "working for the Maxim Institute on the early stages of fundraising aand strategy for a major education project." (p204-205) I gather Poole has his own marketing company in Auckland, so it seems more likely he was "working" as a contractor rather than an employee of Maxim.

A feature of the wider story in The Hollow Men is the way the same characters turn up over and again, often in different guises and almost invariably not being honest about their motives or their funding. I confess, the edge is taken off my outrage by the perception that so many of them are such thoroughgoing prats.

Finally, what exactly did Sean Plunket mean to say when he signed off his first, slightly tetchy, interview with John Key as National Party leader with the words "unfortunately that's the new National Party leader, John Key" on Morning Report today? Click the audio link at the top of this post if you don't believe me.

PS: Okay, no more waterfront stadium - so everyone can stop pretending there isn't a major problem with the Eden Park plan: it's nearly a quarter of a billion dollars shy of being paid for. I expect that the taxpayers and ratepayers will be tapped - and I damn well hope that our money buys us a commanding presence on the Eden Park Trust. There's quite a difference between spending public money on a public asset and spending it on a private one.

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Awesome | Nov 27, 2006 09:18

I went to U2's last Auckland show, the Zoo TV performance at Western Springs in 1993. I spent a good deal of it sitting back giggling on the hill and proposing they played one with a tune next. The big video screen created some memorable illusions, but it was, it seemed to me, a fairly solid case of nice video, shame about the song.

U2's music doesn't make me run from the room, but you couldn't call me a fan. And when I went along to see U2 play again on Friday night, I thought that would be my response: it might be fun and interesting, probably not much more.

Well, it was much more. Anyone can fly in a big screen, but I've never seen a concert production distinguished by such a degree of creative and technical evidence; nor one that complemented the music so well as Willie Williams' Vertigo extravaganza did at Mt Smart. The production was so big it made the stadium, packed with 40,000 people, seem compact and contained.

The key feature of the stage was a towering "beaded curtain" strung with spherical LEDs (MiSpheres, they're called, and they were developed specifically for this tour) which can be programmed simply as decoration, or as individual pixels in a giant low-res video display. I have never seen anything like it.

When the UN Declaration of Human Rights scrolled across the curtain, I thought of An Inconvenient Truth and its dazzling Keynote slide show, and wondered whether, with this command of new communications technology, we're seeing a new form of liberal speech. What would once have been deadly dull - a rock band reciting a manifesto, some guy giving a science speech - can now be vivid and captivating and large.

At other times, the arena had more the feel of a cathedral, with a titanic wall of stained glass at one end. Or, to put it another way, this was some of the grandeur and spirit for which people visited cathedrals before there was electricity. Either way, it seemed the kind of show only Catholics could stage.

There were startling and moving moments. As 'One Tree Hill' hit its stride, a beautiful pattern of koru motifs flowed across the curtain. The crowd went wild. Sounds cheesy? It wasn't; it was a compelling way to accompany a song for a Maori New Zealander (I knew the late Greg Carroll - he was the kind of keen, capable, full-of-life guy everyone wants to do well). The local references strewn through the show - including the threading of lines from 'Four Seasons in One Day' into 'Beautiful Day' - were clearly a work of some care. It was a bit more than Hello Auckland!.

Another you-had-to-be-there moment that probably sounds cheesy if you weren't: Bono asked people to hold up their lit mobile phones during 'Where the Streets Have No Name'. In seconds, there was a rippling sea of lights running across the crowd and washing up the stands. It made its own point about communications technology, and I actually thought it was breathtaking.

And the music? The set list is here. I think U2 have one great song ('One') and a number of good ones, but they're not performed as songs so much as anthemic themes. Related musical snippets (the Clash, the Beatles, Ann Peebles) are sprinkled through them in postmodern fashion, and with good taste. Where so many of the songs at Western Springs had seemed like fuzzy slabs of U2-ness, these were sharper and more effective performances amplified by what was going on in the rest of the production.

No, I'm not going to rush out and buy the back catalogue, but I am surprised and pleased to say that the U2 show was an extraordinary and occasionally overwhelming experience. I'm delighted to have been there.

---

Everyone who suggested Mt Smart for the site of a new national stadium, go and stand in the corner. Sure, we could hold big events there without bothering residents: so long as they're not on a Friday or everyone promises not to use the motorway. The jams before the show were replicated afterwards. I waited half an hour to leave and it was still a long, patient drive home; nose-to-tail all the way to Three Kings. The problem is that once people leave that stadium, they really don't have much choice but to go somewhere else, all at the same time. Departing also made me think again about the egress issue at that other stadium site, Carlaw Park: the critics have a point.

Anyway, thank to Mary for inviting me and to the Ticketmaster people, who were relaxed and personable hosts. That was a memorable Friday night out.

Danyl Mclauchlan has given us a review of The Hollow Men, so I'll refrain from comment today, except to note the devastating insight offered by one Sir Humphreys commenter: the book is the result of a conspiracy amongst left-wing MPs who secretly belong to kinky sex clubs. Why didn't I think of that?

PS: And here's one that'll warm Grant Robertson's southern heart: Tracey Nelson's game stats from the Welsh test say that Carl Hayman was in the first three All Blacks to the breakdown more than any other player - yes, even Richie. The big guy is a champ.

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Of course it's about the book | Nov 24, 2006 08:26

It's not about the book. Of course it's about the book. Gerry Brownlee has done a support deal allowing him to remain as deputy leader and, as a stray dog in the street could tell you, John Key will be elected leader on Monday.

Timing? Well, party and caucus sentiment has been with Key for a month or two. I gather there have been meetings in the past week - including a critical one between Brash, Brownlee and English - but my guess is also that things were hurried along when the caucus got a better idea of what was in Nicky Hager's book. And it's not good.

The emails aren't the half of it: there's a large quantity of correspondence noted in the book; to, from and between the top ranks of the National Party, with many names involved. So there's a lot of evidence: it just remains to be seen exactly what it's evidence of.

I gather there's a lot more to the Exclusive Brethren story than we've hitherto seen. When John Campbell - if not the only interviewer who has read the book, then the only one who can admit to it while the injunction remains in force - ran Brash through his denials last night, he seemed somewhat incredulous that Brash was sticking to his story, albeit with a lot of "to the best of my recollection".

Essentially, it made more sense for Brash to step down now, and claim that it wasn't about the book, than to wait and remove any doubt.

Also expect a couple of well-known people who aren't National Party members to be at least a little embarrassed when the book comes out.

Thoughts? I'm not sorry. I hate where the National Party went under Brash - although you could argue whether that was more about the people who backed him and came with him than Brash himself - and I'm interested to see whether Key will pull the party back towards its old identity. The punters may care to debate whether (a) Key kept his powder dry and was rewarded with the leadership without need of a messy coup; or (b) Key walked into the whole thing ass-backwards.

So the Auckland City Council votes 13-7 in favour of the waterfront stadium proposal - but with a strong preference for a site "substantially eastwards" from the present site on Captain Cook wharf. That actually only means about 250m east, but it eases a number of urban planning concerns, and, on the face of it, opens up more waterfront along Quay Street. It also raises serious questions about how much room Ports of Auckland will have left to do its business.

In another of our running narratives, reader Jeremy Matthews noted that the domain registration for apple.co.nz passed to Apple Australia, which also holds itunes.co.nz. Remember where you read that first.

Jeremy posted an update, observing that: "there was a company registered on the 20-Mar-2006 called Apple Sales New Zealand. Of which the single shareholder is Apple Australia. The directors are two Australians and the Apple CFO."

This seems to support the belief that Apple is not only bringing an iTunes Store, but a fully-fledged Apple Store, online or otherwise. As I noted in a Hard News update yesterday, the goss is that an iTunes launch has drifted back to Dec 7 rather than Nov 28.

Righto. Best do some work so I can do U2 with a clear conscience tonight, and be sure to get there for Kanye West. No, I'm not the world's greatest U2 fan, but Ticketmaster invited me into their corporate box, so, hey, bring it on. (No, I don't know why they asked me, they just did.) Extra points for spotting Damian Christie in the crowd. He's been socially deprived in Wellington, poor love, but may well be glimpsed in a range of hospitable settings here this weekend. Give him your down-home Auckland love.

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