Hard News: Costly indeed
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I didn't see that, but can Ministerial Services ever catch a break -- it seems like they're damned no matter what they do.
It was on the radio, and it was more an indication that he valued his reputation rather highly, I think.
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It was on the radio, and it was more an indication that he valued his reputation rather highly, I think.
Sure, and to be fair I'd probably get a wee bit miffy in Cullen's position too. But I suspect the folks in Ministerial Services value their reputations too -- and as you've pointed out many times over the years, when politicians attack career civil servants they know damn well they're not on a level playing field.
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Porn? Surely the first thing Goff is going to be saying to Jones is "what the fuck were you thinking and how the hell didn't I know it weeks ago"? That could have been managed 10 times better.
Totally. And there are so many ways they could have softened that particular blow. For instance, play a funky jazz soundtrack when he walked into the House.
(As a matter of fact, he still wasn't completely owning up to it on the morning of the disclosure. That's your definition of running behind the news right there.)
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Porn? Surely the first thing Goff is going to be saying to Jones is "what the fuck were you thinking and how the hell didn't I know it weeks ago"?
Indeed -- and I'm sure it's going to be like a few "WTF? Seriously, were you you high?" conversations Key never wanted to have. I know this is going to make most of you puke, but I think Michelle Boag and Mike Williams both had a fair point on Q&A yesterday: On some level, a Prime Minister or party leader has to trust their team to show a base level of good judgement (or raw political cunning, if you want to be cynical) because the only other alternative is pranoid micro-management that causes more problems than it solves.
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I thought Jones, at least the clip I saw of John Campbell ambushing him (at the airport) handled it reasonably well. There's a limit to how well you can say "well, I fucked up didn't I?".
But if Labour knew that several 'wineboxes' full of papers were going to be released, there's no way Goff should have been off overseas.
They needed a person who came out clean in the 'audit' to front the coverage with a solid beating of Jones and a lashing for Carter and the others. The leader would be the best choice.
In his absence, John Campbell just loads up his table with porn movies because there's no Goff to interview and there's no way they're going to put Jones or any of the others out there to look stupid.
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But if Labour knew that several 'wineboxes' full of papers were going to be released, there's no way Goff should have been off overseas.
That is quite precisely where Phill Goff needed to be.
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Also, the party answer was, I presume "I'll be fronting up to the caucus rather than resigning now", which was what Jones said on the day. Which will be a whole 'nother round of front page stories and recaps and "coming up on one news..." and another body blow just over a year out from the election.
The party should have had an answer to what was to be done with him and it should have been done then. Get it all done quick limit the time that the media can play with it.
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But if Labour knew that several 'wineboxes' full of papers were going to be released, there's no way Goff should have been off overseas.
If I have to defend Goff one more time today, I'm going to vomit. :) But if he had been in country this week, I wouldn't have advised him to play it any differently -- get your deputy to front the (relatively) friendly media ops and decline everything else. Classic small target media strategy.
They needed a person who came out clean in the 'audit' to front the coverage
Don't think Helen and Mike would taking that call. :)
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There's too many threads and too many links from these threads to keep up with. I'm confusing.
Maybe I'll wait for the book of the film of the book.
The Plastic Files: Dreck, Pies and Videotapes.
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They needed a person who came out clean in the 'audit' to front the coverage
Don't think Helen and Mike would taking that call.
When Jim Anderton called in to Q+A, they should have interviewed him live over the 'phone.
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Hilarious clip of Opo the dolphin... I mean Opo the Gay Golphin :-)
http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4052/4698278620_3b5bbc1032_b.jpg -
3410,
Opo the Gay Golphin
I once asked my mum "what does that even mean ?"
She replied "Oh, that's just what passed for humour in the '50s".
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The Harold has a junior round-up of coverage by their own columnists and a smattering of those newfangled blog thingies (which they've at least started linking to).
It prefixes The Standard as "left-leaning" but curiously leaves the far more rabid Whaleoil unadorned. Who knows how many readers innocently went there and like our Craig risked their breakfast?
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And hat-tip to Danyl for this, but Gordon Campbell has a intriguing suggestion:
To prevent misuse of company cards in the private sector, US firms routinely use a service that Visa and some other card holders have offered for years – namely, Merchant Category Codes (or MCC).
These codes entail a four digit number that automatically refuses to accept certain categories of spending, or spending in certain locations.
The first step in preventing unauthorized purchases means checking with your credit card issuer to find out which protections can be built into the credit card network. These Merchant Category Codes, also known as MCC codes, can prevent corporate credit cards from being used for gaming, at certain nightclubs or with other specific types of merchants…..
Business owners can also work with credit card issuers to determine spending limits by user, per transaction or per day. Larger expenditures must be approved on a case-by-case basis by a supervisor or the business owner, thereby avoiding any nasty sticker shock come statement time.
Consider a corporate credit card that includes free employee credit cards with spending limits the business owner controls, monthly employee spending reports and Employee Misuse Insurance Protection. Some cards offer reporting tools that provide spending summaries according to merchant, cardholder, and a variety of dates, allowing you to receive alerts of “unusual spending,” and catch discrepancies or unusual spending patterns.
It would be interesting to know which of these ‘early warning’ systems – if any – Ministerial Services now have in place to detect wrongful spending, when it happens. What is also needed is a category of merchants and/or an agreed list of items that can be pro-actively barred from purchase on a Ministerial card. If grey areas or contexts emerge when such items are on rare occasions deemed to be justified, the initial payment can still be made on the Minister’s own personal card, and reimbursement sought from Ministerial Services, on the presentation of receipts. Ministers are hardly likely to be caught short – they are, after all, on salaries and perks packages that are worth at least four times (or more) the average wage.
While I don't entirely share Gordon's confidence that party leaders can be trusted to take seriously MCC coding, I'd be very happy to be proved wrong.
Who knows how many readers innocently went there and like our Craig risked their breakfast?
Anyone reading The Herald on a full stomach deserves all the gastro-intestinal distress that comes their way. (Yes, I'm going to have a shitload of penance to do for such a lack of Christian charity.)
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The only question I have over all this is "What don't they want us to know about, Why this big smokescreen?""
I don't have a clue but I have a very bad feeling... -
The only question I have over all this is "What don't they want us to know about, Why this big smokescreen?"
And the simple answer. The passage, in 1982, of the Official Information Act.
From the Dominion Post:
Nobody imagined four months ago that a simple one-sentence request would result in boxloads of political scandal.
In February, The Dominion Post requested all details of spending on ministerial credit cards. The response that came back was unexpectedly detailed. It led to Phil Heatley's resignation as housing minister and to an inquiry by the auditor-general.
The Heatley scandal sparked dozens of requests to the Internal Affairs Department. The 7000 pages of detail, prepared by three officials working fulltime, landed in seven boxes yesterday. Some ministers distinguished themselves by the size of their records – Chris Carter's is eight fingers thick.
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The Herald also has an online poll (of course) on Goff's options, and currently in the lead is (of course) "Make them resign".
Exactly what the MPs should be resigning from is unclear. Spokes-thing? Caucus? Parliament? Life?
Let's give party leaders more power to force MPs out of Parliament. What could possibly go wrong?
"Now, about that conscience vote yesterday. You're fired ..."
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Some ministers distinguished themselves by the size of their records – Chris Carter's is eight fingers thick.
Goff probably needed eight fingers of single malt to dull the pain of reading it. :)
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Chris Carter's is eight fingers thick.
Oh boy. Tway-tu-tu-tway, tu-tu-twang-twang.
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namely, Merchant Category Codes (or MCC).
I know the MCC list by heart and neither "pay per view movies" (porn or otherwise) nor "expensive bubbly at restaurant" are separate from other hotel or restaurant spending. The flowers... well, it depends on where Carter purchased them.
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So how come the emphasis on Labour? surely those members of the Association of Consumers and Taxpayers would consider Taxes to be their money and that is was their duty to Consume as much as possible?. As for National, who knows who pays their expenses.
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So how come the emphasis on Labour?
Because the release covers a time period, most of which was Labour government?
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Goff probably needed eight fingers of single malt to dull the pain of reading it. :)
Nobody ever needs more than two fingers of scotch, but sometimes you have to use one from each hand :)
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So how come the emphasis on Labour? ... As for National, who knows who pays their expenses.
National ministers' credit card expense details were released months ago. It was following a fulsome release of National's expenses that Labour's were requested (OIA requests about Labour's credit card expenditure during its term of office only ever got responses giving the totals spent by each minister, not what it was spent on).
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