Posts by Matthew Poole
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Christmas Day morning with her family, then off to the ’tron late afternoon to mine. Went to Hamilton Zoo on Boxing Day for lunch, a stroll, and a “small primate encounter” which involved feeding various primates including a pair of Siamang gibbons – old (mid-30s) couple from Auckland, complete with dominant female and a brow-beaten male who had to endure a couple of slaps and the ignominy of having a slice of apple pinched from right under his nose. Literally. Then off to make up “enrichment” packages for the spider monkeys, which meant tying up banana, popcorn and raisins in egg cartons and hanging them about the enclosure before said monkeys were let loose to play hunt the food.
The real highlight was hand-feeding a trio of male ruffed lemurs; as they were perched on our shoulders. Very cute, very gentle, very, very fluffy, and ever so demanding. No hands were being moved while they were around, because they knew exactly how to grab your hand just so and haul it closer. A lot of fun was had by the five of us, and I certainly recommend such encounters to anyone who might’ve been considering but wasn’t quite convinced. -
Hard News: Behaving badly at the bottom…, in reply to John Holley,
It gets really murky. If your tweet or re-tweet was posted before the suppression order was in place, then you cannot be in breach because there was nothing to breach when you posted. However, once the order's in place you're getting into all kinds of grey by having them still available. The MSM tends to retroactively censor suppressed material and then argue with the courts about the order.
It does demonstrate the need to review suppression law, since, as you say, if you act like a twatcock in public and you're recognisable it's probably going up on twitter and/or Facebook before your blood pressure's even back to normal. Once that happens, the cat's out of the bag. For circumstances that don't happen in public, though, a suppression order is still of use since it can be granted before any solid information about the alleged crimes is easily available.
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Hard News: Behaving badly at the bottom…, in reply to Lilith __,
OK, but stories of alleged celebrities allegedly behaving badly could also be in contempt of court as well as defamatory. The skeleton staff can handle that but not the other?
umm, they could only be contempt if the suppression order forbade talking about the case. Which would not be normal with name suppression. The rules around name suppression are understood by newsrooms, because they crop up frequently. Similarly it can't be defamatory if the person isn't identified. That's a pretty basic aspect of defamation: you can't defame someone unless you identify who you're discussing.
Suppression of the reasons behind the order, and discussion of the order, is an entirely different kettle of fish. It's very novel, and the rules around reporting on it likely haven't ever been contemplated.
As for bloggers, yes, I'm familiar with the Oily Cetacean's case. That was pretty dramatic, though, and he went out of his way to breach suppression orders. Most bloggers aren't that arrogant.
You don't seem to quite grasp the fundamental level of risk aversion that prevails in most MSM newsrooms most of the time. If it could get the editor fined or jailed, it's going to be subjected to careful legal scrutiny. Bloggers will say far less about the topic and take their chances. Note that Scoop redacted a lot of the press release because they considered that it breached the order.
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Hard News: Behaving badly at the bottom…, in reply to Lilith __,
Is that really a good excuse? When important stuff happens, in defiance of statutory holidays, there are no senior staff to call on? How come Idiot/Savant, Russell, Paul Buchanan, et al, are hard at work in the public interest, holiday or no holiday, and those whose papers we pay actual money for simply can’t be arsed?
I/S, Russell, Paul, and all the others, have been very, very circumspect about what they've said. The suppression order is very broad, and very vague. At its widest interpretation, saying that it suppresses discussion of what it suppresses could be a breach. With that in mind, the skeleton editorial staff in place at major media outlets, the kinds of outlets that are prone to be the focus of contempt of court proceedings, will be very hesitant to publish comment on a matter that cannot be vetted by the doubtless-on-holiday senior legal staff.
As I said above, this matter can wait another couple of weeks. The law that allows it changed several years ago, and the trial won't be for a number of months. It's not a breaking story that'll be all over before the lawyers get back from Omaha and Pauanui and can cast their lawsuit-avoidance detectors over the copy. -
Hard News: Behaving badly at the bottom…, in reply to Idiot Savant,
The charitable interpretation is that the Auckland High Court has been closed since xmas eve, and won't open until Monday, so no-one can get a proper copy of the judgement to confirm they are able to report. Of course, the relevant documents are floating around on the internet.
Similarly, being the silly season, it's likely that the legal department is also on holiday. This decision can wait a couple of weeks before being examined in the media - no editor in their right mind would risk running a story on this that hasn't been approved by the lawyers - and it's not of such immediate, imminent significance that it needs to be aired right now. If we get to mid-January and there's still nothing, then I'll start getting twitchy.
The bigger issue, for me, is that this is even possible. I get that there are concerns around "methods" and "sources" and the general guff that goes with classified information, but it's not insurmountable. Summaries of classified material are provided to defence lawyers in national security cases overseas to avoid the time and expense of vetting, and I don't see why similar couldn't be done for a jury with this trial. Even with National's offensive short-cutting of the court system these charges would still qualify for defendants to elect a jury trial.
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Speaker: It's called "planning" for a reason, in reply to Kumara Republic,
PwC won't get involved beyond commenting on their work with the CBDRL business case. It's the nature of the Big Four. Unfortunately, the "journalists" at Granny don't appear to be interested in reporting in depth and getting the informed opinions (as opposed to Joyce's pig-ignorant ones, since he's said that the case doesn't answer questions that are clearly discussed within its pages) of consultants who reviewed the work that went into the "transformational benefits" aspects.
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Speaker: It's called "planning" for a reason, in reply to Russell Brown,
Calling it "feeble and petulant" is charitable, Russell. It's a load of shit worthy of Fran O'Sullivan's worst pontifications on the need to finish the great right-wing experiment and put our economy out if its misery.
I think "bunch of evidence-free clowns" is probably the best summation of Granny's editorial team when it comes to the whole road vs rail issue. Mostly because they're following Joyce's lead, and he's incapable of impartial thought.
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Speaker: It's called "planning" for a reason, in reply to Sacha,
Yes, that was quite the disgusting ignorant hatchet job. So many holes it was hard to know where to start with my reply.
Obviously the Southern Parking Lot is a complete waste of money, given that it's going to be closed for three consecutive nights, 10 hours per night, next week. Clearly it's totally unnecessary if it can just be closed like that.Fucking idiots. Reads like a stream of consciousness from our illustrious Minister for the Road Transport Forum.
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Speaker: It's called "planning" for a reason, in reply to Kumara Republic,
Given that Megatropolis is of the current government's making, I doubt it. GLC long pre-dated the Thatcher government. Joyce may, however, act as "bag man" for the CitRat candidate to try and buy them a much higher profile.
He also has the option of stifling Brown's rail vision for just long enough that Brown gets ejected in 2013 (assuming National wins next year), at which point the entire issue becomes moot. National won't be around when Auckland grinds to a screaming halt due to forced under-investment in public transport, so they don't care how it pans out. -
Speaker: It's called "planning" for a reason, in reply to Sacha,
Not that there are any wealthy land-bankers rubbing their hands together with glee or anything
Of course not. That has nothing whatsoever to do with Joyce's view that the MUL is an evil communist plot to govern how people live. As opposed to urban sprawl around roads, which is a good capitalist plot to govern how people live.