Public Address - Hard News (Home)

Debate like it's 2008! | Mar 20, 2008 10:30

You're in danger of people liking you a little bit more than they have lately -- so why go out of your way to look like a bully? That's just what Michael Cullen did yesterday in the House when he hauled out the old canard about Keith Locke having been a cheerleader for Pol Pot.

I looked into this one years ago, after Locke politely took it up with me. I looked into some old Socialist Action League material, which is as cringe-inducing as you might expect. Locke welcomed the arrival of the new government in Cambodia in 1975, but so did many other people, and other governments. I could find no evidence that he was a cheerleader for the later genocide, or for Pol Pot. But Cullen knew that.

It would be fairer to say that Locke and others, lost in their dreams of socialist revolution, were keener on China then than they are now, but that's irrelevant -- just as Close Up's elaborate contrivance to compare Clark and Goff as student protesters with the pair of them as government ministers 30 years later was irrelevant. As I noted yesterday, I have some qualms about Locke's unwaveringly negative views about interacting with China. Sometimes it seems like the acceptable face of xenophobia. But perhaps the debate could be conducted in 2008, not 1978. And without substituting baiting for argument.

Unless, of course, he actually wants our political culture to descend into Trevor Loudon-style ideological panty-sniffing, Cullen should be ashamed of what he did yesterday.

Moving on, the casual reader might have taken today's Radio New Zealand headline Global crime study puts NZ third worst to mean that we have the third worst crime rate in the world.

Not quite. The 2004-2005 International Crime Victims Survey covers a group of up to 38 countries (not 78, as all the local news reports have it) -- but not all countries are in every pass of the survey and the core group is 30, mostly European countries.

It takes the form of a phone survey and aims to overcome differences in the official recording of crime by asking a standardised set of questions. Its authors write that "the near universal drop in volume crime is arguably the most striking result of the fifth round of the ICVS and poses a clear theoretical challenge to criminologists."

For the basket of the 10 common crimes New Zealand does indeed fare worse in a group of 30 countries than only Ireland and England and Wales. Our rating is principally hurt by theft from cars and burglary. Spain and Portugal are at the other end of the scale, which might surprise anyone who's been pickpocketed on holiday.

Interestingly, the others with us in the group of 10 countries with the highest rates include both very affluent countries such as Switzerland, Ireland and Iceland and less affluent countries such as Estonia and Mexico.

But, along with the rest of the world, our experience of most of these crimes continues to fall. (One year-prevalence rates for car theft have fallen from 2.7% in 1991 to 1.8%, for example.) It has fallen faster in some other places, and the authors speculate that "improved security may well have been one of the main forces behind the universal drop in crimes such as joyriding and household burglary."

The more recent rise in victimisation in the less common crimes of robbery and assault has been mirrored -- and exceeded in quite a few other countries in the sample. Notable exceptions include the USA (which nonetheless still has a horrible record on gun crime, and much the highest rate for the use of weapons in sexual assaults). In general, these crimes fall more heavily on urban populations. The wildly varying rates reported in one place, Northern Ireland -- 0.5% (1995), 0.1% (1999) and 1.1% (04-05) -- suggests that this kind of survey has some real problems.

Indeed, the authors emphasise that the section on sexual assaults needs to be approached very carefully, taking account widely varying cultural perceptions of what constitutes an assault. We surely don't believe, for example, that the incidence in of sexual assault in the past five years in Mexico has really been zero. But, even as the likelihood of the reporting of assault, especially in a domestic setting, has risen, the victimisation rate for sexual assault in New Zealand has halved since 1991.

There is some unalloyed good news on the measures most directly impacted by policy and resourcing -- satisfaction with police performance (which combines reporting rates, public satisfaction with police, and police performance in dealing with reported crimes) and provision of victim support -- where New Zealand is stellar. On the latter measure, the report says:

The top position of New Zealand is corroborated by statistics on the numbers of clients of victim support according to the national victim support agency in New Zealand. In this country with a population of 4 million, circa 100,000 victims are assisted annually according to the national victim support organisation.

Also, we have the lowest rate of bicycle theft in the survey.

That these surveys are almost always reported in the frame of whoever is issuing the press release can be seen in the fact that the same survey was actually reported two weeks ago, exclusively as good news, subsequent to a release from Victim Support.

That would have been the whole account had not National's Simon Power issued his own release yesterday, highlighting the less happy findings. Yesterday's news stories are essentially rewrites of that release. But Power's statement, inevitably, contains its own spin. Does no one have time to read the report itself, and report on that?

Anyway, the summary is online and the full report is here. Feel free to poke around.

And finally: how much of a premium would you pay on your iPod for free access, for life, to the entire iTunes library? The music companies reckon $80; Apple says $20. Emusic, as you might expect, smells an antitrust case brewing.

Watch this one …

And a special Easter bonus: the video and audio from Webstock is now online. Enjoy.

(124 responses)
Digg this Scoopit!

Buy now: spend the recession inside! | Mar 19, 2008 10:22

I laid hands yesterday on one of the Freeview HD decoders that officially arrive in the shops on April 2. The HD service is terrestrial -- you simply connect your existing aerial cable to the decoder. And it is … amazing.

It helps, naturally, that I went out and bought a new television on Saturday. The choice was made easier after I measured up our entertainment unit and determined that it would accommodate a set not larger than 32". I decided that the Sony Bravia D-Series was the best-equipped LCD set in that size. (Well, actually, I wasn't prepared to drop $6500 on a Loewe.) It was stocked at most places at $2300, but I found it for $1776 at the Appliance Shed outlet store in Glenfield.

We've since viewed content in various formats. Oddly, the worst of it was a movie on Blu-Ray: Talladega Nights, which looked odd and garish, with the HD resolution largely serving to highlight shortcomings in set design and makeup. I downloaded a couple of HD (720p) TV torrents: the latest episodes of Lost, which looked very good, and Torchwood, which looked positively sumptuous.

But the most striking experience has been watching Freeview HD. The transmitters are all on ahead of launch, and although TV3 won't start broadcasting HD until April 1, we watched House last night and sat there gawping in the dark.

I checked this morning with TV3 and, no, it wasn't an HD broadcast; they haven't even been supplied with an HD version of the series. But because the bitrate is very high, and because the decoder upconverts the standard-definition picture to your set's highest resolution, even the SD programming looks very good. Better than the Freeview satellite service, and a lot better than most of the Sky channels. Also, programmes that are irritatingly letterboxed on SD services often satisfyingly fill the screen on Freeview HD.

It goes without saying that HDTV does not improve the quality of the script in a drama or the performance of TV news reporting. But it is compelling to look at, and it does constitute a competitive offering.

TV3 will have more HD content initially, an hour or two a night of US and Australian drama. The fact that TV3 is broadcasting in 1080i resolution while TVNZ has opted for 720p seems messy, but, with unconverting, unlikely to have a major impact on the viewing experience.

The there will be no HD on TV One and TV 2 until the Olympics (it would be fair to surmise that there are quite a few people there who, no matter what brutality the Chinese government is visiting on Tibet, are praying against an Olympic boycott).

Thereafter, HD programming will ramp up for the rest of the year, although there are no short-term plans to go HD with channel 6 and 7. I gather the delay on the main channels is down to the wait for a new file-based content system to come online. Sky is also promising HD later in the year (yay! sport!), but it appears it will carry a price premium, and upgrading decoders will be quite a task.

It's not all good. The price of the decoder is, as Peter Griffin has been pointing out in the Herald, daunting: around $500 for the sole approved model, and you'll still have to buy your own HDMI cable if you want the best picture. This is the price of the decision to go for MPEG4 video, which is relatively new in consumer equipment, over MPEG 2, the staple in digital television for more than a decade. There simply aren't that many factories in China making boxes to that spec.

Freeview NZ, a consortium of the major free-to-air broadcasters, has handled that in two ways. The first: follow the French, and try and stick to their particular DVB-T spec. There's a problem there in that the French (bizarrely) didn't specify any middleware -- that's the software that brings you the electronic programme guide on your decoder, among other things. Freeview has specified MHEG-5, which is also used on Freeview boxes in Britain.

Secondly, Freeview has made its spec available to anyone else who wants it. Hong Kong has already accepted the spec and Singapore, Taiwan and several other Asian countries are considering it. Ireland and Norway's specs are very close. It seems likely that, if Australia picks up the Freeview model, as rumours suggest, it will also adopt our spec. The promise is that in two years' time we'll be awash in Freeview-compatible boxes (and PC cards, which Freeview will bless) and that scale and competition will sharply reduce prices.

If that happens, I'd expect there to be a range of Freeview-compatible devices available, including some very small ones, and perhaps even some mobile phones packing DVB-T chipsets. Look out for them around the Viaduct in 2012.

Griffin's story this morning suggests that the Zinwell is overpriced right now, given the uncertified boxes already available in Asia. I'm told there are two or three more devices awaiting Freeview certification at Freeview's British-based testing company.

For now, if you have a fancy set and you're in a position to do so, you might as well look at one of the new decoders. If you're in a major population centre and you have a UHF aerial, you should be able to get the service. There are coverage maps here. It's also worth noting that the small indoor aerials, which cost tens of dollars, are apparently quite effective.

And if you don't have a fancy HD set and don't want to upgrade right now? I have been assured by the Freeview people that your decoder will work with an older TV set, so long as it has component or s-video inputs. If it is composite only (that's the single yellow plug with the red and white for audio), forget it. The HD decoder doesn't support that.

Update: Apparently, composite is fine, so forget what I said. Also, bear in mid that digital integrated TVs (ie: a TV with a Freeview HD decoder built-in) are coming some time in the next six months.

---

The blogsphere continues to blossom. Fresh this week: The Hand Mirror, a group home for some of the country's best feminist bloggers, including Deborah, Stef the Ex-Expat (who has sprung into view with some tremendous posts on her own blog lately) and someone whose prose style might seem familiar. Cool.

---

Now that the Prime Minister has been moved to upgrade her criticism of Chinese actions in Tibet from tepid to mild (which is basically where the rest of the West is at with it too, while Russia urges the Chinese leadership to do anything necessary to "curtail unlawful actions"), it's important to keep the issue urgent. But hating on China itself sometimes seems to me to be the acceptable face of xenophobia. China isn't going away. I was recently given a copy of Caijing, an annual strategic journal translated into English for the first time, and it brings home quite how much is happening in that vast country. The authors' calls for reform are cautious, but consistent. Not engaging with that doesn't seem to be an option.

---

Wow, is this my week for upsetting baby-boomers?

Various readers kept me posted on Bill Ralston's repeated abusive outbursts on his Radio Live show (he fills in for Paul Henry) yesterday. The invective was targeted in part at bloggers in general, but mostly at me, personally. It didn't seem like something I should listen to, but I gather the following is a partial list of terms: "half-wit", "wanker", "dick" "worst commentator", "no background in journalism", "does no research", "ignorant blogger ... who believes strange things", "feeds like vermin off the work of other journalists".

Two readers, including another journalist, described him as "frothing at the mouth". There was also a promise to dish it out to me in his next Herald on Sunday column. I sincerely hope he's calmed down by then.

So. Bill …

Yes, I was somewhat critical of your Herald on Sunday column: not greatly so, and I think the criticism was borne out by the day's events. Keith was much harsher on another of your recent columns. The HoS gave him his own "Fact Check" slot shortly afterwards. You are, naturally, at liberty to criticise either of us.

On the other hand, I've also praised you warmly, here and to your face, for other work in the past few months. I've cheerfully made time to front up as a commentator on your show. And I've certainly never uttered the kind of sustained personal abuse you did yesterday.

(183 responses)
Digg this Scoopit!

Unhappy Birthday | Mar 18, 2008 09:51

This is the week for reflection on five years of the Iraq adventure. The New York Times has invited nine "experts on military and foreign affairs" to think again. The Times' definition of "expert" includes such interested actors as Paul Bremer and Richard Pearle, so you can well imagine that there is some selective memory at work.

Meanwhile, Amnesty International has released a report entitled Carnage and despair: Iraq five years on. It is withering. From the press statement:

Five years after the US-led invasion of Iraq, the country is still in disarray. The human rights situation is disastrous, a climate of impunity has prevailed, the economy is in tatters and the refugee crisis continues to escalate …

With the rise of fundamentalist religious groups, conditions for women have also worsened. Many have been forced to wear Islamic dress or targeted for abduction, rape or killing. A survey conducted by the World Heath Organization (WHO) in 2006/2007 in Iraq found that 21.2 percent of Iraqi women had experienced physical violence.

The situation in Iraq has not been helped by the Iraqi government's failure to investigate effectively the many incidents of human rights abuse - whether committed by security forces or militia groups – and to bring those responsible to justice.

Economic conditions also remain very poor, with most Iraqis suffering from lack of food, shelter, water, sanitation, education, healthcare and employment.

The Red Cross also released a report on Iraq, which remains its largest single commitment. The organisation says "the humanitarian situation in most of the country remains among the most critical in the world," and that Iraq's health care system is "now in worse shape than ever."

A McClatchy story contends that the cost of the war has been to America's power, prestige and influence.

Meanwhile, Dick Cheney has declared a "remarkable turnaround" and a "successful endeavour" that has "been well worth the effort."

Staying with the US, two key Clinton advisors convened a conference call over the weekend to warn reporters that the Obama camp had decided to go "consistently negative".

The occasion for this unusual claim? What appears to have been a remarkably successful bid by Obama to make full disclosure and thus end the chatter about his relationship with a crooked Chicago businessman. He allowed himself to be questioned by journalists from the Chicago Tribune, a conservative paper that has pursued him for some time over the issue. Having apparently accepted his response, the Tribune then ran a story saying that his camp was preparing "a full assault on [Clinton] over ethics and transparency." Translation: he's disclosed everything, including tax returns and earmark requests, and now he's going to ask Clinton (and probably McCain) to do the same.

Meanwhile, a Clinton-supporting Daily Kos diarist walks away in protest at the site's tenor and Kos says, whatever.

And finally, what on earth is John Ansell on about? The adman who designed National's 2005 campaign has decamped to the Act party (The Standard is claiming sources that say National showed him the door). He has given an interview to Claire Trevett in the Herald which contains this rather odd section:

In 2005, Mr Ansell's ads attracted some vitriolic responses from the left. He said he was attacked for being "dishonest" with his billboards comparing Labour and National policies such as "iwi/ kiwi" and the education "excuses/exams." He is expecting more of the same this election.

"You do have to steel yourself when the people like the Russell Browns [Public Address blogger] attack you. You get used to it, but I didn't realise I'd get used to it quite so quickly. It really stung the first time."

Actually, so far as I can tell, I've never even mentioned Mr Ansell by name, let alone attacked him personally. And the "first time" I commented on the iwi-versus-kiwi billboard, on June 3, 2005, I don't think I was unduly mean:

I genuinely despair of this. Apart from being inaccurate and dishonest, National's billboard sets New Zealanders against each other. It is simultaneously cute and very ugly. Someone should ask Georgina Te Heu Heu what she thinks about it.

A handful of subsequent comments also revolved around the clever-but-creepy theme. Is the man who conceived those divisive billboards really still nursing his wounds because someone criticised them? How bizarre.

I might add that the party to which Mr Ansell has staged his prodigal return enjoys the support of a group of online cheerleaders who cough up abusive and invective on a roughly hourly basis. Perhaps he shares with them an embarrassing tendency to lapse into victim mode when challenged.

Meanwhile, Poneke works a useful history of Roger Douglas's contributions into a conclusion that Act is "destined to become a curious footnote in the history books, a party started with great promise, but ending a disappointment."

PS: The winners of the Dimmer/Spectrum double passes (chosen from all entries up till this morning with the help of a random number generator) are Tim Owens of Christchurch and Lissa Chong of Wellington.

(177 responses)
Digg this Scoopit!

A business most feral | Mar 17, 2008 10:37

I haven't commented here on the foul disputes at the Hawke's Bay District Health Board, largely because it hasn't been clear to me exactly what the hell went on there. Although I did suspect it wasn't quite the open-and-shut case that Bill Ralston recently declared it to be ("If National can't drive the dagger of this debacle into the Government's heart, it doesn't deserve to win the next election.")

It seemed unlikely to me that a man as ambitious as David Cunliffe would hitch his ministerial career to a brutal act of "utu" (as Ralston had it) if he knew there was an independent review of disputes around the board coming that would leave him thoroughly exposed only weeks later. Indeed, it appears that there may be things in the report not dreamed of in Ralston's philosophy.

Fran O'Sullivan had a detailed summary of the legal to-ing and fro-ing in the HoS yesterday. Among other things, it covers what became of the so-called "suppressed" draft of the report, which appeared to bear out claims of a conflict of interest on Peter Hausmann's part. Hausmann, like the other parties to the dispute, had the opportunity to review the draft, claimed it was "factually incorrect in several key areas" and had it peer-reviewed by a QC.

Presumably, Hausmann to some extent won his argument, or the original draft wouldn't have been leaked to the media and the National Party. Hausmann obviously has the money and motivation for serious lawyering. But that doesn't mean he's wrong, or right. He has simply exercised the same rights as all other parties to this lamentable mess.

Whatever the director-general reveals this afternoon, it won't be the end of the matter. Two former board members have laid a complaint with the police over Hausmann's alleged conflict of interest, without even waiting for the review's release, and I suspect that's only the start. Former Health minister Annette King has made extraordinary allegations that the former board members have told others that the seeding of rumours of an affair involving her husband "was going to be the next wave of attack". Yikes.

Whatever the whole truth of it, it does seem, if it's okay to use the word, a business most feral.

Meanwhile, Blair Mullholland was over the moon with the Act conference ("I have not ever seen the party so united, so organised and so determined"). Has anybody spied a report on how Penny Bright's speech went down?

Anyway, it's time for a giveaway -- a big one, from Monteith's, as a follow-up to the ad they ran with us last week.

They have a dozen Monteith's New Zealand Lager (each!) to give away to the first 100 people who use their mobile phones to text PUBLIC to 393. I should note that texts cost 20 cents and you must be over 18 to enter. If you're in the first 100, you'll receive a POCKETvoucher text message that you can present at any Liquorland store to redeem the prize.

The beer is one developed for the global market and now being launched domestically. I had some watching the cricket at the weekend: it's a nice, clean-tasting natural lager; less of a craft beer than the established Monteith's labels, more of an international lager. I'd buy it. (Clearly, I'd be somewhat compromised if I hadn't liked it, but I try to avoid such conflicts.)

I'm interested in how long it takes for the offer to fill up, so if you do the text thing and miss out, please let me know, either by email or in comments. (UPDATE: All gone in 25 minutes! But it looks like you'll still get a two-for-the-price-of-one offer if you text in UPDATE 2: There are still a few of the twofer deals going, but they'll probably be exhausted by 12.30pm.)

And furthermore: we also have two double passes for the following tour by Dimmer and Spectrum to give away. These are the dates:

Thu 20 Mar SF Bath House, Wellington
Sat 22 Mar Phat Club, Nelson
Mon 24 Mar Red Rock, Wanaka
Wed 26 Mar Backstage Bar, Dunedin
Thu 27 Mar Al's Bar, Christchurch
Fri 28 Mar Kings Arms, Auckland
Sun 30 Mar Leigh Sawmill Café (late afternoon show with special guest Dean Roberts)

To make it slightly more challenging, I'll need you to tell me who made the memorable video for Dimmer's 'Seed'. Just click Reply, put your answer in the subject line and say which gig you want to go to in the body of the message.

(151 responses)
Digg this Scoopit!