Posts by Tinakori
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Hard News: Meanwhile back at the polls, in reply to Russell Brown,
Jones was a guy who happened to be both a great communicator and wealthy and rode a wave of discontent to create a high profile for his NZ Party, a more incisive version of Winston or Jim Anderton (the last of whom he once described as his closest friend in politics to Anderton's protestations). Under FPP his victory was mostly a public relations one as his votes did not provide the margin of victory in enough electorates to tip the vote towards Labour. Labour won by their own efforts. KDC and HH are trying to combine two tiny political ripples into a wavelet. There is nothing like the discontent that surrounded National in 84 in any demographic.
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Hard News: The Fine Line, in reply to Chris Waugh,
One of the major deterrents to people smuggling by boat to NZ is a purely commercial one. People smuggling is a business. The boat has to be good for only one journey because it is a one way trip. The trade off between a boat that can meet the nautical challenges and be written off after each trip - because it is confiscated or sinks - is a very tough threshold to meet. It would have to be large to carry a good payload but the larger the boat the more costly if it is also capable of getting here in one piece. But people are ingenious and I would not be surprised if there were attempts to get here. After all, the two major groups of immigrants to this country faced technological challenges far greater than the people smugglers and, in the case of the Europeans, over far greater distances. People also respond to incentives. If one gets here and is welcomed others will follow.
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Hard News: The Fine Line, in reply to Chris Waugh,
OK, fine for the first boat. What if there is another?
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What government was in power for most of the decade prior to Pike River? Who were the founders of the main party in that government and where was that party founded?
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"I find it difficult to understand how a newsroom that contains John Campbell (who has become a very good journalist) and the team that supports him, can also contain Mr Gower. It strikes me as odd."
Now, John Campbell is a political journalist, but the political is with a small "p".
In other words he comes at everything from a left wing social justice angle so will sink his fangs into a politician on the same side who he feels is not living up to their shared standards and will praise a right winger or liberal who is prepared to favour something that overlaps with his own left wing conservative values. That's fine because it is so obvious, you could never accuse him of pretending to be balanced or even nuanced on the subjects he tackles. He and Gower are on the same channel and both are prominent on that channel. They don't balance one another because one is political and the other is not. There is no sign of a liberal version of John Campbell.
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I'm with Ruminator, Patrick Gower is a classic old-fashioned beat up artist, who'd sell his mother for a story that leads the bulletin and has him in the centre. He wouldn't sell his granny because he already has done. Back in the day he would have chain smoked, drunk like a fish, worn a fedora with a "Press" card tucked into the band and focused on a front page lead. He doesn't give a rats if the story is about David Cunliffe or John Key or Judith Collins. Its the story that counts and he tests a story subject to the max. If the subject makes a mistake however inconsequential its simply confirmation of the story. I've known a few journalists who would pull punches or make them harder depending on their political views but Gower is too focused on the psychodrama in which he is the leading character to ever do that. More people become journalists with Gower's motives than ever do to push a political line. The latter are also frankly pretty boring.
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Anthony Burgess of Clockwork Orange fame wrote three novels about his time as a schoolteacher in Malaya, the Malayan Trilogy. The descriptions of his curry meals - always accompanied by ice cold Tiger Beer - were what started my yet to be sated interest in curry.
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Hard News: What Hekia Parata actually said, in reply to Lilith __,
We are indeed and the spoken word hardly ever emerges in well wrought sentences and paragraphs even when the interviewee is used to being interrogated by journalists. If they do, its usually because the text has been fixed up at a later date and agreed between interviewee and interviewer.
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As a parent who has had two kids either pass through the system or in the process of passing through (state schools) - one NCEA, and one (with special needs) national standards and currently NCEA - I find the reaction here unrelated to our experience. Today's schools are a major improvement, in my view, on what I experienced back in the day. Then the assessment system was totally about the test or exam, failed a high % automatically and discouraged anything outside the approved tramlines. It also focused on a set of very narrow exam passing skills. The current system has a much wider base of assessment and looks far more at the whole child than anything either I or my partner can remember. If you are arguing that this will change because the government will look harder at value for money I might be concerned but, on the basis of the interview fragment, I can't see us heading back into the educational dark ages. There's also a basic fairness test. If Hekia Parata was not a National Minister and we leave aside her subject matter I imagine most commenters would praise her frankness with an interviewer and willingness to actually answer questions. Nor, by comparison with the jargon and cliches I deal with daily, her own past performances and the performances of any current leading politician (Government or Opposition), was she particularly unclear.
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Hard News: Spring Timing, in reply to BenWilson,
I think the problem is that Cunliffe said that his was from the B School not the far less competitive, prestigious and rigorous pub admin school of which I believe Shane Jones is also a graduate. I don't care but I think Cunliffe does and was trying to move up the prestige gradient and generate some unearned social income, a bit like Winston Peters when he introduced one of his candidates as a graduate of West Point when, in fact, he was once an athletics coach there.