Public Address - Hard News (Home)

Essay Question | Dec 16, 2008 09:28

1. Compare and contrast the following:

(a) The New Zealand Herald's editorial of Dec 8, headed Chance for MPs to turn over new leaf, in which the paper blasts the decline of Parliament under the previous government and looks forward to a new era of respect and good practice.

(b) The Herald on Sunday's editorial of Dec 14, headed Bulldozed rush of legislation makes mockery of democracy, which offers strong criticism of the new government's use of urgency, describing it as "disturbingly at odds with democratic Government".

(c) Bill Ralston's Herald on Sunday column of Dec 14, headed Shock news as Government promises kept, which describes the "painfully slow process" of select committee scrutiny as "thankfully missing" from the current Parliamentary programme and contends that "John Key is sensibly using the honeymoon period to get anything potentially unpopular through the House before it causes too much fuss."

(d) The New Zealand Herald editorial of Dec 15, headed Much needed boost for small business, which says "capable and conscientious workers have nothing to fear," from the new 90-day probation law, but allows that it is "unfortunate" and "not on" that National passed the law without select committee scrutiny or discussion with the Maori Party.

(e) Today's New Zealand Herald editorial headed Government yet to show its character, which proposes that the current legislative programme is that of "a party still finding its purpose in office."

Which piece most clearly expresses its ideas? Which is most likely to leave the reader confused?

Which piece contains the most facts? Do any contain notable errors of fact?

What do you think is the intention of each author?

Show examples in your answer.

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From soundbite to policy | Dec 12, 2008 10:17

I've been at pains, I think, to extend the benefit of the doubt to John Key's new government. But the end of its first week of actually governing -- as opposed to engaging in capable political marketing -- I'm already wondering if that's a viable position.

You might think a new government that opened its Parliament with a series of procedural flubs would have some idea of the limits of its own competence. But National has, instead, lumbered into urgency to pass a clutch of bills that were being debated even before they were drafted.

When drafts appeared, they were not made available to the public -- and, staggeringly, it was left to the Green Party to scan paper copies and make them available on its own website. None of these new laws will receive proper scrutiny. No member of the public will be able to make a submission on them. The ideas in them will not be subject to the basic tests of a Parliamentary democracy.

Urgency might be justified for the tax and Kiwisaver legislation. But what kind of idiot puts forward significant changes to the educational system as a fait accompli? Is Anne Tolley really so clever she can write policy so good it needs no scrutiny?

I suppose we'd all best hope so, because the Education (National Standards) Amendment Bill awards the Minister of Education carte blanche in setting the promised standards for literacy and numeracy. And that's about all we're told.

My friend Hilary Stace, who is involved with Autism New Zealand, made a comment about the arbitrary jacking up of fines for truancy and failure to enrol children that Tolley should bloody well read:

This Education Bill has huge implications and it is crazy not to put it through the scrutiny of a select committee. One result is that is going to make it very hard for parents of children who are school refusers or school phobics. Watch out parents of kids with autism - they will be open to prosecution if their kids can't cope with all the stress of school and refuse to go.

Kids with special educational needs and their parents better get ready for the humiliation of having their potentially poor achievement against inappropriate 'national' standards made public.

No attempt has been made to do justice to the promise that every child has the right to an education. In itself, that's not new. But to respond by clobbering families who are already being failed shows a particular arrogance. I know from personal experience how easy it is to sail close to such a breach, even when you're trying really hard for your child. And there's not even any good evidence that the increased fines will change the behaviour of the "undeserving". It's just a soundbite morphing into policy.

The Herald's Audrey Young blogged this week that National would do well to heed the warning of the Human Rights Commission about the rushing through of the 90-day employment probation period. Sadly, the same paper's editorial column, which loudly and repeatedly invoked the Commission's advice on the Electoral Finance Bill, sees no need to comment in this case.

But the Herald has been moved on another soundbite policy: the side-stepping of Pharmac in the funding of 12-month Herceptin courses. On one hand, it would be churlish not to feel glad for women who don't have to pay for the longer treatment, even if Herceptin isn't quite the magic bullet the campaigns depict. On the other, the politicisation of medical decisions is a dangerous precedent. Says the Herald:

Other pharmaceutical companies, and other groups dedicated to the sufferers of any illness, will be encouraged that they, too, through special pleading, can garner some of the $180 million that the Government plans to spend on pharmaceuticals over the next three years. The path to the Health Minister's door will be well-trodden. Ironically, a National government established Pharmac in part to prevent just this lobbying.

In announcing the Herceptin extension, Mr Key suggested up to 300 women a year would benefit from the year-long course. The cost of the drug was not, however, released for "reasons of commercial sensitivity". Nor was mention made of the opportunity cost of treating the many faceless people facing avoidable deaths from other causes.

Quite. In other jurisdictions, where funding decisions have been influenced by corporate-backed campaigns, the cost has been felt by other cancer patients whose drugs are no longer funded.

And, as this year's Auckland Women's Health Council report noted, the case for the longer treatment has not yet been made:

There are issues that still need to be resolved regarding the long-term efficacy of the various treatment regimes for Herceptin, the comparative clinical effectiveness of 12 months versus shorter treatment periods, and assessment of toxicity and adverse events, etc. More research is needed and until these issues have been resolved, it is entirely appropriate that PHARMAC resists both public pressure and the private pharmaceutical companies' demands for scarce health dollars to be spent on what is very likely to turn out to be unnecessarily prolonged treatment periods with a vastly overpriced drug that carries an increased risk of adverse effects.

The AWHC is therefore strongly supportive of Pharmac's proposal to continue to subsidise treatment with Herceptin for HER2 positive early breast cancer patients when it is administered for nine weeks concurrently with taxane chemotherapy, and to continue to decline funding for 12 months treatment with Herceptin, until further research whose results are not controlled by the drug company reveal whether 12-months is actually more effective than the nine-week course of Herceptin.

Against all this, I guess the shenanigans over Act's select committee review of the Emissions Trading Scheme look more like low comedy. The part of the terms of reference allowing the MPs to pass judgement on the basic science of climate change was slipped back in when the committee was constituted this week. But oh no it wasn't, said Gerry Brownlee:

"There are those...who say we should start questioning the science. I want to make it abundantly clear that these terms of reference does not allow questioning of the science," Mr Brownlee.

Oh yes it was, insisted Rodney Hide:

Mr Hide, who will sit on the committee, has said as far as he was concerned the committee will get to look at the issue of the science theory behind climate change.

Climate change sceptic Mr Hide said the reference to central projections, risks and uncertainties could allow examination of the science.

As I was digesting that, National's Nicky Wagner spammed me with this feast of weasel-wordage:

As part of the environment team I have been appointed as a member of the Select Committee to review the Emissions Trading Scheme and related matters. The committee has been set up to have a fresh look at the Emissions Trading Scheme in response to concerns about New Zealand's poor record on emissions, the changed economic environment and rushed way the legislation was passed. Dealing effectively with climate change is crucial to our environment and to our economy so this work is important and urgent.

No, Nicky. The committee was set up as a condition of the Act party's support on confidence and supply. Your party promised to let the ETS come into operation while it worked on a number of amendments to the legislation. Gerry Brownlee is now insisting (in what represents National's fourth different stance on the matter in six weeks) that the result of this inquiry into the ETS will be … the ETS. If you want to try and square this forthcoming sideshow with the "important and urgent" matter of climate change, be my guest.

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If that's all a bit much, you may want to have a crack at voting for your favourites from the 100 great New Zealand music videos selected by the Film Archive as part of its Ready to Roll project. The Top 10 is looking quite interesting.

NZ On Screen has made available Aroha, a 1951 National Film Unit drama about "a young woman caught between the traditional and contemporary worlds," which includes a couple of musical treats.

Also, a clip from the memorable disability documentary, Miles and Shelley Go Flatting.

And Trish Carter and Colin Peacock discussing the year's big stories in the first of the Media7 summer editions, recorded this week at Artisan winery.

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A news site where you can find the news! | Dec 11, 2008 09:35

TVNZ launched the first phase of its website revamp this morning. Almost anything would have been an improvement, but the rebuilt news site would seem to have a decent chance of wooing back news junkies from the newspaper sites, especially given that they're promising to operate a 24-hour newsdesk.

They're foregoing an advertising banner on the home page in favour of a highlights navigation and the rest of the home page is clean and open, if heavier on the Flash that some people will like. The theory that what people really want from the news is the weather is in full operation.

The Google-powered search engine can sort results by relevance or date, but doesn't seem to have indexed the bulk of the site content so far. A search on "Phil Goff" brings up only one recent news story, and, sadly, my own name brought no results. Pages are sometime also loading very slowly.

There are blogs, including this one by Barbara Dreaver and Jack Tame's blog from Christchurch. Related news content is slotted in alongside the blog posts, but there's no facility to comment as yet.

The video player is improved, and delivers clips up to 300k, but you'll have to wait till next year for a state-of-the-art player streaming HD video.

The next big launch will be the other half of the strategy, the "Entertainment" site, in March. Shortly before that, they'll be offering catch-up viewing of nearly the entire TVNZ schedule, including foreign shows like Lost and Desperate Housewives. I think the digital channels will have to wait a little while for the new online look.

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Also, the MyFreeview HD PVR (officially, they're calling it a "DTR" or digital television recorder, because that's the name that came up best in consumer research) should be in the shops today. I got a demo of it a couple of weeks ago and was impressed at how much they'd spruced up the original Zinwell box and even had the remote (a typical weakness of this kind of kit, and a particular strength of the MySky) rearranged.

It has two tuners, rather than the MySky HDi's three, but is smart enough to look for and record the next instance of your chosen programme if there's a scheduling clash or a recording failure. The main problem right now? Price. They'll want it to come down from that RRP of $1149 pretty soon.

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Update on democracy …

John Armstrong surveys the debris of National's "shambolic" first few days of attempting to run a Parliament, and deems the unnecessary recourse to urgency on the new bills "reprehensible".

No Right Turn notes that some of the bills to be rushed through all stages haven't even been drafted yet and declares:

… this is no way to run a legislature, or a democracy. You have to go back to Douglas and Richardson to see this sort of abuse of the Parliamentary process. And if this is how National intends to run Parliament - as if the change to MMP had never happened, and this was still an FPP elected dictatorship - then I think it is incumbent on the opposition to take a page out of National's book, and make the House utterly unmanageable until the normal Parliamentary and democratic process is restored.

And the Herald's editorial page, which began the week hailing a shiny new era in Parliamentary politics, is presently keeping its own counsel …

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Debacles and Disgraces | Dec 10, 2008 09:24

My mum went to one of the last-minute Hanover Finance meetings this week, to hear Mark Hotchin beg for the chance to keep the company out of receivership in favour of a five-year repayment plan. There were two meetings on the Kapiti Coast, each accommodating about 300 people, which gives you an idea of how many retired people in that part of the country are in the hole with Hanover.

There was much said about the $96 million Hotchin and Eric Watson are contributing to a rescue package (that figure being contingent on some controversial valuations) ; and nothing about the $200 million in cash the two men have taken out of the company since they bought it for less than $10 million. That figure being, in turn, nearly half of what Hanover owes its debenture holders.

Although, as Brian Gaynor put it, "Hanover Finance is an absolute disgrace and a dreadful indictment of the country's capital markets," investors like my mum had little choice but to accept the deal as presented.

At her meeting, a man who claimed to have a million dollars tied up in Hanover stood up and congratulated Hotchin for fronting up to investors (Watson was presumably busy at the gym or something) and then shook his hand. Would it be too cynical of me to think that sounded like a plant?

Mum is fortunate not to have had too much money in Hanover. She has more with Money Managers, who also held a meeting to discuss the stinking debacle around that company's First Step trusts, where investors' money was used very strangely.

At that meeting, a retired woman stood to speak and said she had $500,000 at risk in these Money Managers investments, was worried sick and wished she'd never heard of them. Then the company put on lunch for everyone.

At least a quarter of the households in Mum's retirement village have Money Managers problems. These are the people least able to withstand this kind of financial stress; the people who thought they were being prudent and frugal; the people who deserve a peaceful retirement.

They face these problems not principally as a matter of ordinary investor risk, but because of the way Mark Hotchin, Eric Watson and Doug Somers-Edgar have run their companies. In the place of those retired mums and dads, I think I'd be bloody angry.

This missive from the Dim-Post, where Danyl and his correspondents discuss the proper pluralisation of "anus", seems particularly apt.

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And on a completely different tip: a French website that has been right about Apple before is claiming that today, the iTunes Music Store will go DRM-free. That is, that Apple has finally made peace with Universal Music, SonyBMG Music and Warner, and will offer their releases, alongside those from EMI and various indies, as 256k AAC files unencumbered by digital rights management.

It's actually the better bit-rate that does it for me: I've virtually been on strike with iTunes apart from EMI releases for some time because the quality is simply not good enough.

If it doesn't all happen today, it seems that it will happen before too long: 256k non-DRM versions of major-label recordings have been briefly popping up on the iTunes Store in recent weeks, including tracks by Warner artist Neil Young.

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