Hard News by Russell Brown

As part of the deal with the government announced this morning, SkyCity will -- along with a range of other concessions and favours -- be allowed to install 230 more pokie machines in exchange for building and operating an international convention centre alongside its present casino site.

I'm pretty sure the number of new pokies is no accident. It's the exact same number granted when Sky City built its existing convention centre in Federal Street Street in 2001. Similarly, Sky was then granted permission for another 12 gaming tables, and this time it's 11. David Farrar has pounced on the symmetry, bolding it up in case no one gets the message:

This reinforces to me what a tough negotiator Steven Joyce is, as groups were talking the agreement could be as many as 500 new pokie machines. The number, at 230, is identical to those granted to SkyCity under the previous Government in 2001 for the development of the existing, and much smaller, Auckland Convention Centre.

Thus has "Labour did it too" been set up as a key line in the presentation of the deal. Farrar doesn't even have to say the H-word because he knows one of his commenters will fill in the blanks soon enough:

So Labour did the same thing and they now whinge about it. Their hypocriscy knows no bounds.

The trouble with this line is that it's bullshit. Yes, the numbers are the same -- but they were achieved by wholly different means. The Labour government played no role in the 2001 arrangement. As Bernard Orsman noted in the Herald a year ago, the decision was made by the five-member Casino Control Authority, which was chaired at the time by soon-to-be MP Judith Collins.

As Orsman writes:

At the time of the 2001 deal Labour was in Government but played no role in the pokies for convention centre deal. Labour introduced the Gambling Act in 2003, preventing further expansion of gambling facilities.

So it's hardly hypocrisy. Labour not only played no role in the authority granting regulatory concessions to SkyCity, it soon afterwards changed the law to prevent such deals being done in future. National, by contrast, is to change the law, under urgency, to allow an expansion.

In 2001 there were no private dinners with the Prime Minister, no preferential treatment for SkyCity, no critical report from the Auditor-General, no SOEs being leaned on, and no cautious, conservative political commentators writing columns like this:

Verging on banana republic kind of stuff without the bananas - that is the only conclusion to draw from the deeply disturbing report into the shonkiness surrounding the Government's selection of SkyCity as the preferred builder and operator of a national convention centre.

I'd also take tributes to Steven Joyce's negotiating mojo with a grain of salt. SkyCity has really done better than it might have expected in this arrangement. As David Fisher noted today on Twitter, the price of $75 million for a renewal of the casino's licence presents "a significant shift to SkyCity's benefit", given that Korda Mentha independently valued the licence at between $65 million and $115 million. The taxpayer will also cough up $34 million over four years to promote the new convention centre.

I don't doubt the economic value of a big, high-quality convention centre (which we can only hope will be built to a higher standard than the shoddy, stuffy Federal Street facility), but I do hope that the egregious spin attached to today's announcement won't simply be recycled by the news media. This deal has been reached via an extremely troubling process. The government's cheerleaders will hail it nonetheless. The rest of us should feel very, very uneasy about it.

I doubt that anyone would have anticipated that one of 2013's television hits would have been captured by the cameras of Parliament TV, yet that is what happened. In concert with a level of social media chatter usually reserved for TV talent quests and major sporting events, the final reading of the Marriage Amendment Bill played out last month as a surprising feel-good live broadcast event.

The waiata was heard around the world, and Maurice Williamson became, as had Chris Auchinvole at the bill's previous reading, an unlikely star.

The seeds for that prime-time spectacle lie in the regular coverage of Parliamentary Question Time, which plays to a smaller audience but enjoys the same real-time buzz. It is watched, and it drives the daily political conversation in a substantial way. The excellent service provided by In The House, which bundles up proceedings for time-shifted viewing on the internet, makes it even more useful.

Live Parliamentary coverage is now so established that Radio New Zealand is reportedly planning a bid to expand the scope of Parliament TV itself, into an equivalent of the US C-Span channel.

And yet, it's worth recalling how controversial the idea of full-time live TV coverage was before its introduction six years ago.

When the idea was first proposed in 2001, Richard Prebble saw it as a way to curb the mischievous use of news cameras in the House, and it cameras were still a hot issue in 2003, when the standing orders committee reviewed the rules around media coverage. When it was proposed in 2005 that permission for independent news cameras be revoked when the new automated Parliamentary system was introduced, TV3 went into outright revolt, screening pictures of a sleeping David Benson Pope as a protest against the proposal. The fuss was enough to crack the all-party agreement that had decided on exclusivity for the official cameras when the system was commissioned in 2003.

Ironically, the networks now rely on the taxpayer-funded system and seem only rarely to bother with their own news cameras in the House. By the same token, the strict rules on what can be shown have been formally (and perhaps informally) eased. The system seems to work.

So how has it affected the conduct of the House and the behaviour of MPs? How has it altered our own sense of engagement with the Parliament?

I'll be joined on Media3 this week by Sean Plunket and Duncan Garner to discuss the era of Parliament TV -- and Jose Barbosa has been to Wellington to look at how the coverage is produced.

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Also this week, I'll be talking to Clare Bradley, the chair of the Online Media Standards Authority, the new independent body established by broadcasters to field complaints about their online news and current affairs. It officially launches on July 1-- but has it already been made irrelevant by the Law Commission's recommendation for a single independent news media standards body across all media?

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If you'd like to join us for tomorrow's Media3 recording, we'll need you to come to the first floor of the Villa Dalmacija, 10 New North Road, Aucland, at 5.30pm.

Fiona and I celebrated her birthday on Tuesday night with dinner at Coco's Cantina (free-range veal Milanese ftw!) and then Lawrence Arabia's show at Golden Dawn. We literally walked into the venue just as he started playing, and gee, it was a lovely evening.

I'm struck by the way James Milne can reshape his catalogue to the occasion, whether it be a 10-piece ensemble (with string section) at Laneway or, as it was on Tuesday, a charmingly self-aware ("I feel awkward -- it's like you're all watching me ... It's a delightful experience, but also terrifying") solo show. He offered up Reduction Agents songs, Lawrence Arabia songs, even a little Fabulous Arabia. Where there was call for a horn section, he made the noises himself.

When he finished with 'I've Smoked Too Much', it seemed that was it. But no. Without telling anyone what he was doing, he stepped down off the stage, strolled into the bar, sat down at the old piano there and began playing that perennial encore, 'Waiting For Your Love'. And everybody came inside and joined in and it was pure magic. I caught the end of it on video:

James flew out to Europe the next day -- in the first instance to play several shows in Britain with the Phoenix Foundation. I hope he does well. And as I said to him when we left: "There will be an audience for those songs for as long as you want to play them."

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I'd have been at the GD on Sunday night for the Phoenix Foundation too, had not Toby Manhire rather thoughtlessly failed to telepathically read my intentions from several streets away and picked me up on his way there. Apart from anything else, I'd have been interested to see how they all fit on that stage. I gather it was a grand show.

Actual record reviews are a bit beyond me at the moment, but after letting the new album Fandango swoosh, swoop and swoon by me a few times, I can say this: it's greater than the sum of its parts. The Phoenix Foundation are keeping the album format relevant, which I'm sure is their intention.

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The first hour of Afrika Bambaataa's show at The Studio last night was sensational -- an expertly-mixed selection of hip hop, electro, soul and even Florida rave (DJ Icey's 'This Is How My Drummer Drums') -- and then the MC had a rest and he rolled out his disco set, which was perfectly genial if not quite the same thing.

The audience could have been bigger -- it was a busy night in town and if you hadn't bought your ticket in advance you were looking at $60 on the door -- but it was a nice crowd, including a few greybeards and some  b-boys and b-girls who were clearly some years from being born when 'Planet Rock' first came out. Good turnout from the nerdcore community. Respect.

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In a nice little nod to New Zealand Music Month, Design Assmbly asked a bunch of people (including ) to talk about their favourite New Zealand album covers.  This was mine:

Explanations had to be trimmed a bit to fit, but here's mine in full:

The Clean

Boodle Boodle Boodle

Flying Nun (1981)

This sleeve is a fine line drawing by Chris Knox based on (and thoroughly transcending) a promo photograph of the band in a bath. It doesn't really have design elements as such -- it's an illustration incorporating the title. But it conjures the atmosphere of the time -- one where records could be made in halls and houses (Boodle itself was captured to four-track tape in the ramshackle Oddfellows Hall on Auckland's Bond Street) and sleeves, posters and videos were the work of friends or of the band members themselves. Chris Knox has long insisted that those early Flying Nun records shouldn't be characterised as "low-fi", but "low-tech" -- and that's what we see here. It's a virtuoso drawing with a pen. It's also worth noting that the original 12" came with a similarly low-fi comic drawn by the band -- and a few lucky journalists got Knox's incredible pop-up press kit, which might actually be the best press kit ever.

Although, it could also easily have been this one:

That image was reproduced on possibly my favourite t-shirt ever. I wore the shirt to the film studios at Wroclaw, Poland, when I flew there once to do a story on Yello for Select magazine, and was stopped in the hallway by a couple of very excited artisan film-makers. The language barrier prevented me from finding out whether they were fans of the band or just loved the image, but boy did they love it.

Peter McLennan has some more faves.

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It's an 80s celebration tomorrow night at the King's Arms, as Danse Macabre and Penknife Glides get together play a reunion show at the King's Arms. (They're saying it's 31 years since they played, but Danse Macabre did have a little get-together several years ago.) Penknife Glifes even have a new record! I'm tempted to go if only to catch up with that lovely man Stefan Morris, who I haven't seen since we both worked at Rip It Up in the early 1980s. 

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Over at TheAudience, Motocade frontman Eden Mulholland has this catchy little solo number (free download if you click the "Fan" button):

Also, atmospheric indie pop from The Leers (another free download):

The Hard News Music Post is sponsored by:

It was never likely that Len Brown would stand unopposed for the Auckland mayoralty this year. Indeed, he wouldn't want to: being a consensus candidate is all very well, but it's a lot easier to claim a mandate when you've actually beaten someone.

And Brown, as well-liked as he is, does need to demonstrate a mandate, not just to his city, but to central government, which seeks to confound much of what Brown and his council propose for Auckland's development -- without, as yet, proposing any coherent alternative.

John Minto entered the race last week as the Mana candidate. On his own -- and leaving Brown the vast territory to his right -- Minto couldn't do much more than keep Brown honest. The emergence of a candidate to the right of Brown might make for more of a squeeze.

One such candidate has now emerged. Restauranteur John Palino has declared his candidacy. I've met John a few times and I like him. He's a clever guy. But I don't think he has the networks or the experience for the mayoralty. How many councillors could he count on were he elected?

But, more importantly, I don't buy his platform, which rests on opposition to the Unitary Plan and the development of a second CBD in Manukau:

"The fact of the matter is that people are not happy with this plan. It's actually very scary and it's going to change people's way of life and we shouldn't do that and they're going to pay for with the road tax and petrol tax."

He says unlike the inner city rail loop proposed by Mayor Len Brown, building up Manukau is doable.

"That's an actual project that you can fund. You can go out there you can get Government borrowing, borrow from the public, Government bonds and you fund that through the fact that it's a business plan and you can say in the future this is what it's going to bring us. It could be 20 year, 30 year loans."

Really? Build it and they will come? That's a better business case than the exhaustively-researched City Rail Link? To be fair, Palino has been attending the public meetings around the Unitary Plan, and standing up and arguing strongly against its intensification elements. And as Campbell Live's very good report (really, watch it) showed, some suburban centres (sorry, "villages") are far less keen on the prospect of allowing eventual building-up than others are. Avondale says "bring it on" and Milford says "go away".

But the Plan can change. That's what the curent consulation process is about. What I don't think is viable is the assumption that you can address Auckland's housing capacity problems by telling people to go and live in a new development in Manukau. (It's worth noting that Auckland was founded on an intricate plan that was royally ignored. The city was supposed to develop in concentric circles around Waterloo Quadrant, and to spread east and west. People went and built the length of the north-south open sewer that eventually became Queen Street.)

Palino says he entered the race after growing tired of waiting for retiring Pakuranga MP Maurice Williamson to declare his hand. I'm not sure how much Williamson had really thought about standing for the mayoralty until Patrick Gower started touting the possibility (and then, being Paddy, demanding that Williamson immediately either rule it out or resign as an MP) but my guess is that he won't do it.

Williamson is well-liked in Parliament (he should have been made Speaker) and clearly has an excellent electorate organisation. But standing as a centre-right candidate for the Auckland mayoralty means encountering a good deal of hostility and grubby politics -- and that's just from your own side.

Interestingly, the centre-right's most prominent candidate, the irritating but tireless Cr Cameron Brewer, seems to have done the numbers some time ago and decided he can't win.

But competition of any kind should motivate Brown to do a better job of advocating for his own policies. It's all very well ranting merrily from the stage at Laneway, but the course set for Auckland needs communicating, and Brown hopelessy flubbed that task when he appeared in Campbell Live's report on the CRL. How on earth did he manage to come up with numbers that actively undersold a key policy? (Mind you, even Minto doesn't seem to understand exactly what the CRL would do.)

Anyway, I'll tell you one way not to go about it: via childish blog posts like the anonymous We Hate Nimby's (sic), which CR Michael Goudie described as "brilliant" and linked to from his Facebook page. The mayor's office is aggrieved that the Herald's Bernard Orsman has dubbed Goudie's link to this rant against anti-intensifiers the promotion of "hate speech", but I think that's the risk you run when you endorse a silly screed that repeatedly uses the word "hate" about people who elected you. If this is a communications strategy, it's fucking stupid one.

The recent Boston Marathon bombing and the events that followed it were a predictable, unpredictable news phenomenon. More people died in another soulcrushing purge in Syria and in the bewildering series of assasinations that were engulfing the Pakistani elections, but the bombing was a tragedy and a mystery and a new chapter in the America's megalithic, media-political post-2001 discussion about security. It took place at a major sporting event where both the media and the crowd had cameras and communications channels -- and it all played out to us in real time.

America's 24-hour news networks can be tawdry when there is no urgent news for them to chew on -- Fox News, especially, of course. (Check out this two-minute TPM compilation of Fox's idiocy last Friday.) But it turned out that the news team at Fox's Boston affiliate is a strong outfit -- for hours on end they supplanted Fox's idiot commentariat, to sometimes compelling effect.

Self-important photo-detectives at Reddit endangered the security of innocent people as they confidently picked out one "suspect" after another from the countless photographs of the scene. Appallingly, Murdoch's New York Post played the same game across the pages of an actual newspaper.

We could even play in New Zealand, and eavesdrop on the contextless, uncorrected noise of the police radio scanner being streamed to the internet. The spreading of noise went global. There were so many false reports that at times you'd have been net better-informed by simply knowing nothing.

And where there are unresolved noise, chaos and standing narratives, there will be conspiracy theories. So many conspiracy theories that the Boston bombing has the kind of file on Snopes that used to take months, even years, to ferment in the wild.

And, yes, I followed it all and sometimes joined in the frenzy. I retweeted stuff. I do, of course, have an excuse: it was for work.

But some Twitter reporters -- Wired's Seth Mnookin, caught up in the denouement at Watertown as he tried to get home -- were amazing to follow. He tweeted what he observed, sourced what he heard and corrected himself clearly and promptly if he discovered he was wrong. And the city paper, the Boston Globe, seems to have risen to the twin challenges of bringing big breaking news and addressing the wounded soul of the city. The sheer quantity of solid reporting archived on the paper's home page for the bombings is remarkable.

But do we need constant chatter? Couldn't we find something more useful to do than jonesing on a tragedy half a world away? Well, yes. But we don't need sport, porn or pop music either, and they're still all quite popular. (Again, it was for work.) Further, the collective viewing experience didn't start with the internet and it certainly wasn't ended by it.

The real-time news reporting environment spawned in 2001 has matured, if that's the right word. We're more guarded about the idea of "citizen journalism" now, but, equally, citizen reporters are a valuable part of the plan in every newsroom.

Including those closer to home. I noted the role of the "little pieces of a big picture" in writing about the September and February Christchurch earthquakes. We have even had our post-earthquake conspiracy theories. We're part of the picture, and the noise. Breaking news is broken and breaking news isn't broken.

On Media3 this week I'll be discussing these ideas with Tuanz chief executive and former editor Paul Brislen and Troy Rawhiti-Forbes, the social media editor at the New Zealand Herald. Matthew Dentith will also join me to run through the conspiracy theories.

If you'd like to join us for Tuesday evening's Media3 recording, come to the first floor of the Villa Dalmacija, 10 New North Road, Auckland, from 5.20pm for a 6pm recording. There will be intelligent company, food and congenially-priced beverages.