Public Address - Hard News (Home)

Madness in Mt Albert | Apr 29, 2009 11:01

If 3 News was going to try prospective Labour candidate David Shearer, or his party, for hypocrisy, it might have been polite to actually give him the chance to commit such first. But these things are mere details in the spin cycle.

According to last night's story -- which ran under the frankly gobsmacking banner "Shearer's Private Armies" -- 3 News "obtained articles written by Shearer where he's arguing for private military companies -- mercenaries -- be hired by the United Nations to go to war".

It would have been more accurate to say that 3 News "obtained" the old articles from National Party bloggers David Farrar and Cameron "Whaleoil" Slater, who discovered them while digging through Shearer's academic record, rather than through any enterprise of its own.

The first of them was published in the policy journal Foreign Affairs 11 years ago and republished by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and the second in 2001.

The first is here. Although Farrar cherry-picked phrases from the paper in a joyful attempt to depict Shearer as a far-right winger, the whole thing is actually an interesting read.

Shearer (drawing on his experience as a senior adviser to the UN Department of Humanitarian Affairs in Liberia and Rwanda in 1995 and 1996) depicted private military companies as a historical fact of life (they were a business worth hundreds of millions of dollars a year even in 1998), and argued for their regulation, while not shying away from the difficulties and complications that might summon.

Do his arguments conflict with the stance New Zealand took in passing the Mercenary Activities (Prohibition) Act 2004, which his friend and then Justice minister Phil Goff described at the time as a blow against "paid murder"? Well, yes. But there is no indication that, as an MP, he would seek to change the act. And it seems cloddish to hang him for having discussed policy in a policy journal.

But Duncan Garner is not the type to carefully explain an argument when there is a gotcha to be had. Thus, first comment in his story helpfully went to John Key who declared that "lo and behold the new poster boy from Mt Albert for Labour wants to privatise the army." He, er, what?

Goff, on the other hand, "even opposes private prisons here". WTF? In what sense is the regulation of private military companies in failed states the same thing as actively privatising prisons in a functioning one?

It's another score for Farrar, who was lauded for his "machiavellian" expertise in a recent Poneke blog post. Farrar himself says he was merely the first to air the "Tizard" issue, which would have arisen anyway. As he notes, any new entrants come from the grudging section of Labour's 2008 list, where MPs who have served but aren't fashionable reside. Bright young things are further down. Although that might also be said of National's list, given that a victory in Mt Albert for Melissa Lee would bring back Cam Calder on its list. No one's heart would race at that prospect.

The next bill of goods the journalists will be invited to sample is that there is something weird or wrong with the local Labour electorate organisation erecting some hoardings before it has chosen its candidate. Um, why? This meme is coursing through the right-wing blogosphere, but it seems profoundly unexceptional that a party with a strong local organisation wouldn't be getting the brand out in front of voters as soon as possible. Indeed, it would be remiss not to do so.

The Greens' decision to stand Russel Norman is understandable. The by-election will be conducted under a media spotlight, and that's hugely helpful to Norman, who most people still don't know. There's an obvious risk too: he won't win, and if he does manage to cannibalise the vote to the extent that it helps National win Mt Albert and further extend its majority, there will be unease within his own party.

The aspect of the Mt Albert race that's gone somewhat under-reported -- perhaps because it doesn't come on a plate with garnish -- is the role of the local electorate organisation, which is both Labour's best bet for holding the seat, and a complicating factor in candidate selection.

The place to look for that is The Standard, whose manager, Lynn Prentice, is a Mt Albert stalwart, if not always a compliant party soldier. He was a little sceptical at the news of Shearer's entry to the nomination race. But as he pointed out in this report before the first candidate selection Q&A meeting:

It is likely that local issues are going to be a very strong part of this campaign. Issues like the NACT super-city botch-up, the stalled train station upgrades after NACT stopped the financing, the changes to the state highway 20 where NACT is 'reviewing' the existing design to something that is noisier and far more intrusive to the local community, the doubling of the size of St Lukes mall using the NACT minimal protection RMA, etc.

I suspect he's right. This isn't going to be a race that can be called from Wellington, however much that might suit the usual suspects.

There's an extra bonus for our household: our older boy, who turned 18 earlier this year, gets to vote for the first time in his life. That's more important to me than a Wellington gotcha.

(329 responses)
Digg this Scoopit!

Playing Nice? | Apr 28, 2009 09:53

Telecom seems to have decided that co-operation is the better part of valour in hitching itself to the government's grand fibre plan -- and, in the process, putting some meat on the bones of the idea.

A statement released this morning commits Telecom to providing high-speed fibre to "every school and hospital by Term 2, 2012". And Computerworld's story quotes CEO Paul Reynolds as offering two potential ways forward:

"accelerating the roll-out of fibre infrastructure by co-ordinating both our investments" and "creating a national fibre ducting asset".

I couldn't find a link to Telecom's full submission, so I've uploaded it here.

It's hard to say what Telecom's offer to play nice does for the infrastructure competition the government was promising, but the company's competitors will presumably be wary of it coming in from the cold.

Vodafone and Orcon seem to be expecting that the Commerce Commission's decision on terms for access to Telecom's roadside cabinets (effectively, extending regulated unbundling from the exchanges to the cabinets themselves, where competitors might then place their own broadband equipment) will be much more to Telecom's liking than theirs.

---

I sincerely hope that not a cent of students' money is going towards the absurd legal threats being issued by Michael Oliver, the news editor of Salient, the Victoria Universty of Wellington student paper. And even if not, perhaps it's a good time for a grown-up to drop by the office and see what on earth is going on.

Oliver, clearly, is a quirky sort. And there's obviously a little history between himself and the keeper of the Big News blog, Dave Crampton, who wrote this post noting dozens of comments posted under fake names (some very well-known) beneath one of his own blog posts, and identifying Oliver as the editor of those comments. He also says Oliver has posted comments in a similar fashion under Oliver's own stories on the Salient website.

As evidence, Crampton notes similarities in the various texts and oddities of timing. I don't know if he's right. So it's a workaday blog squabble --or rather, was, until Crampton received a letter from Wellington barrister Paul Chisnall acting under instruction from Salient and Oliver.

My first response on seeing the letter was to ask Crampton if he was sure that Mr Chisnall actually existed, so preposterous were parts of the letter. Among the "allegations" it demands be removed from Crampton's blog are the passages "but Oliver is no ordinary news editor" and "smart ass Oliver".

Further, it declares "Salient and Michael Oliver refute all the allegations made on your blog. They say that the allegations made on your blog are defamatory and untrue." You, too, may be thinking that even if the client doesn't know what "refute" means, surely his lawyer would.

The letter goes on to demand removal of the post on Big News, an apology to Salient and Oliver, subject to their approval, and that Crampton, who lives on a student allowance, meet Salient's and Oliver's legal expenses -- under pain of court proceedings to seek costs, damages and removal of the article. It sets a deadline of 5pm tomorrow.

Oliver may have been revved up by this post about the affair by AUT's Martin Hirst. But his response is such as to bring Salient and its owners into disrepute. If he really is not the author of the many bogus comments, he should have taken up Crampton's invitation to say so, under his own name.

Using someone else's money, if that is the case, to issue threats against an honours student in no position to pay for a lawyer himself is not really acceptable. It goes beyond the transgressions we accept and expect from student journalists, and does no good to any aspirations Oliver might have to a journalistic career of his own.

On the face of it, Salient and Oliver need saving from themselves. It would be a relief if someone with a little sense were to expedite the process.

---

Oh, and a message to Bruce Wileman of BB Internet Group, Johnsonville, Wellington. If you want to try and cash in on the swine flu scare by registering an "information" site and trying to game Google ad revenue, I can't stop you. But do not spam the forums here with links to your sorry little enterprise.

---

We've turned on a dime and gone for the swine in this week's Media7. The opening panel will look at the swine flu coverage with the assistance of Radio New Zealand health correspondent Karen Brown, New Zealand Doctor editor Barbara Fountain and one other.

And then -- because it's 20 years ago this month -- I'll be pondering the connection of New Zealand's first internet link to the rest of the world, and what happened next, with David Farrar, Colin Jackson and Nat Torkington. They all have their own stories to tell of our early internet, so that ought to be fun.

If you're like to join us for tomorrow's recording, after 5pm at the Classic Comedy Club in Queen St, hit Reply and let me know.

(142 responses)
Digg this Scoopit!

There is History | Apr 27, 2009 09:26

World War 1 ushered in an unprecedented wave of global mobility. And at its end, millions of people -- soldiers, refugees -- turned and headed for their homes. Some took with them a virulent strain of subtype H1N1 influenza, the same subtype as that causing the present alarm. It swept the world.

In two years "Spanish flu" (so named because it was first widely reported in Spain, which was not under wartime media censorship) killed between 50 million and 100 million people. By comparison, the war had taken 16 million lives in Europe, and, decades later, the AIDS pandemic killed 25 million over 25 years.

One in every five humans contracted the disease -- as many as half of those exposed to the virus. Of those, between two and 20% died (the usual mortality rate from influenza is more like 0.1%) and some populations suffered more grievously than others. Nearly a quarter of the population of Western Samoa died in two weeks.

In New Zealand, more than 8600 people died, with Maori particularly badly struck. At its height, the country virtually ground to a halt.

The most common mechanism of death was a cytokine storm, an response in which the body's immune system goes into a destructive feedback loop. Ironically, people with the most vigorous immune systems were the most likely to die this way. So while the very young and the very old were the most likely to survive, young adults were most likely to die.

Those young adults were often parents, and there are harrowing stories of children, orphaned by the disease, sitting watch over their dead parents. NZHistory.net has a number of oral history recordings from the New Zealand Sound Archives, including this one:

[Woman speaking] Ah no, the children were very good; we had to keep them—they were not allowed out the gate. They had to play in their own backyards. So, no, the children seemed to realise too how dreadful the time was. And the unfortunate part was when anyone having a baby, the mothers were lost, the babies seemed to survive. But there was a dreadful lot of babies were left without their mothers. And I think that was one of the saddest parts.

[Man speaking] At the school, when we're in the class, and that, some of my friends whose parents had passed away would all of a sudden start their crying, and the teacher would have to console them later.

So it was no wonder that, in 1976, the US government responded strongly to the news that 19-year-old Pvt. David Lewis had died after contracting, from an unknown source, a variant of the 1918 swine flu virus. About 500 soldiers at the base contracted the flu, continuing a historical congruence between H1N1 and the military.

On expert advice, President Gerald Ford commissioned the development and distribution of a vaccine that was eventually received by about 40 million Americans. Not one more person died of the flu. But, horrifyingly, about one in a thousand people inoculated against it developed an ascending paralysis called Guillain-Barré syndrome. By the time the vaccine was withdrawn at the end of the year, 500 Americans were suffering from the condition and 30 died as a result of receiving the vaccine. And yet, it may still be true that the mass-vaccination decision was not the wrong one.

So that's how high the stakes are. And if 80 people have died in Mexico, the new outbreak is already more serious than that of 1976. That clearly doesn't mean it's 1918 again. For one thing, we now have anti-viral drugs that appear to be effective against the latest strain. The new swine flu also does not appear to spread very rapidly amongst humans. But if you are wondering why the authorities are so excited, well, there's history there.

(421 responses)
Digg this Scoopit!

Dear Prudence | Apr 24, 2009 11:18

I'm not as scandalised by Bill English's speech this week about fiscal restraint as some others are, if only because it's a pleasant change to see the government advancing a theory that amounts to something beyond saying what people want to hear or doing justice to last year's soundbites.

It is certainly true that it would be a long-term benefit if New Zealand can emerge from the present crisis with government debt still relatively low. The Budget Alastair Darling has just brought down in Britain involves a truly alarming level of borrowing. On the other hand lies the IMF's view that all governments need to engage in immediate fiscal stimulus to ameliorate the worst global recession since the 1930s.

But I think that fiscal prudence cuts both ways, and that National's proposed tax cuts must now be emphatically off the agenda. And if that's to be the case, the inequitable tax cuts that have already been granted look like a rather broken policy.

---

John Drinnan displays the passion for accuracy and attention to detail we've all come to expect in identifying me as "Russell Brown of Hard Copy" this morning. But hey, cut the guy some slack: I've only been doing Hard News for more than 17 years.

His beef is with myself, David Farrar and Alastair Thompson of Scoop appearing in amusingly Photoshopped form in the Powershop Pioneers ads on our respective sites: Al and I as Che Guevara and DPF as Uncle Sam.

Drinnan frets that this blurs the line between advertising and editorial. I was happy to discuss it with him yesterday (when another journalist is clearly scratching for a lead, it's only decent to help). Powershop is a Meridian Energy venture that aims to create a competitive retail market for electricity, managed by individual consumers via the internet. I've been quite keen for them to pitch to our audience since I got a briefing on it last year.

In the event, the campaign was sold for us by Scoop Media, which also sells Kiwiblog. I didn't have any role in developing it, but I said yes when it was presented, and not just because the of the money (only about $700 after commissions), but also because it's rare to get a campaign that's not just us getting the crumbs from the table of the big publishers, with exactly the same ad creative as them.

Hopefully there'll be more of that to come (although I think the humorous portrait idea has now officially been done), via Ffunnell, a new advertising network of independent publishers in which we'll have a stake, along with Throng, Scoop, Kiwiblog, Geekzone and the Made From New Zealand founders.

Does the present campaign constitute an endorsement? It would be fair to say it connotes a degree of approval, in that I wouldn't do it if the product sucked. Ironically, the only editorial space I've given it until today is a paragraph last week explaining how the promotion works.

As I explained to Drinnan, being transparent with the audience is important to me, as is the integrity of the conversational part (meaning that if a "Powershop Pioneer" publicly relates a bad experience, that stands, and the client sucks it up and tries to do better).

You can read the forum here. One thing that's evident to me is that it's difficult for new customers to immediately start discussing their experience (and, if necessary, get advice), because after sign-up you can't buy electricity until the end of your existing billing period.

Oddly enough, our new account went live yesterday, and we bought a couple of weeks' worth of 100% renewable electricity at what seemed a competitive price. The actual worth of the platform will, I suspect, only become evident over time, but it is certainly very easy to use.

In the meantime, I do have to wonder whether Drinnan really needed to point out twice that one of my other gigs is "taxpayer funded" (this time last year the issue was that I was a government lackey). I try not to take it personally, because it's clearly more to do with Drinnan's relationship with TVNZ than it is with me. I was running a small business for years before our TV show started and the brand is nearly two decades old. Still, there are boundaries. I certainly wouldn't have transformed my website in a corporate sponsor's colours like the Herald did for Vodafone last week. But I suppose things are different for the mainstream media.

---

Speaking of commerce, you probably don't like "energy" drinks anyway, but PA reader Mrs Skin has been in touch to point out to me that there's an extra reason not to like Rockstar Energy Drinks. The parent company is co-founded by America hate-radio meathead Michael Savage, whose freakish bigotry extends to vile spewing about both gay folk, and autistic children and their parents. You may wish to buy your caffeine and sugar concoctions elsewhere.

---

Damian Christie interviewed Steve Coogan! It's on Public Address Radio, which airs from 5pm tomorrow on Radio Live, and it'll be here on the podcast by Monday. Damian and I also spoke to New Zealand International Comedy Festival director Kylie Aitchison, and there'll be plenty of comedy goodness on the radio show over the next month.

---

The latest edition of Media7 is online now. The first panel -- Ranginui Walker, Ken Mair and Willie Jackson -- discusses the reporting of maoriissues; and the second -- Dame Cath Tizard, TV3's head of programming Kelly Martin and OMD media strategist Andrew Reinholds -- asks why so little TV is aimed at older viewers.

Dame Cath rang me this morning to share a story. After the show, a young woman approached her to say how much she'd enjoyed her contribution: "You really are," she told Mrs Tizard, "New Zealand's own Dame Edna."

Cath thought that was funny.

---

Anyway, that might do for now. You might be interested that that the first snip from the Basement Jaxx comeback album is on the wires. It's not your standard tune. Any chance of the Jaxx being back for next year's Big Day Out?

(153 responses)
Digg this Scoopit!