Posts by Craig Ranapia
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Journalists are obliged to see her as the Member of Parliament she's been for the past 15 years, as a would-be member of the country's governing executive.
And I'll say this again because it keeps being ignored, journalists didn't feel obliged to "see" the freshly-minted Police Minister when Michael Woodhouse outed himself as having been... not entirely forthcoming with voters about his historical drunk driving conviction.
I didn't notice the usual suspects busting their girdles when Ruth Dyson was quietly given back most of her ministerial responsibilities after her DUI.
So, yeah, again, can we just stop pretending that journalists are just passive stenographers of the passing parade. They're not. Then et's talk about the "thunderous clash of perspectives" when it comes to moralistic legalism over the rules broken by nice middle-class people -- particularly white middle-class men -- and everyone else.
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One of my colleagues spent several hours buried in the National Library this week trying to track down her flatmates from that time.
As I've said repeatedly, wouldn't it be nice if as much deep investigative journalism went into exposing the prominent men (including one of our self-appointed media moralists, I'm reliably informed) who don't pay their child support. That's a billion dollars owed to taxpayers I don't notice any performative media outrage about.
Let me just illustrate what I mean about historical perspective, and the need to stand back from the mob.
Ah yes, Simon let's talk about that historical perspective.
Prime Minister John Key says he is not concerned that Police Minister Michael Woodhouse has a past drink-driving conviction, and it was disclosed to National before he became an MP.
Woodhouse has owned up to a past drink-driving conviction during a wide-ranging interview about his new portfolio.
Asked if he had had any brushes with the law, Woodhouse revealed: "I have a conviction for driving with excess blood alcohol - it's 27 years old, I was 21."
He said: "You've asked, I can't say no . . . I suppose that's on the public record."
Key said Woodhouse was "very up-front ... to tell us about that".
"In the end very few people come to Parliament with a background of perfection. Some do, but most people have made the odd mistake in their life," Key said.
People with drink-driving convictions are not allowed to become police officers. Woodhouse was appointed police minister this month.
It was barely a one-day story, and far from being hounded out of Parliament for being well... less than entirely forthcoming with voters, Woodhouse got promoted. Repeatedly.
And before any Labour folks unholster their pointing fingers, I'd note Ruth Dyson's political career isn't over either.
So yeah, we have two MPs whose criminal convictions didn't deem them unfit for public life, let alone Ministerial office. Our media moralist were happy to say "shit happens, move along" for people whose law-breaking could easily have ended in tragedy.
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Hard News: Metiria's Problem, in reply to Russell Brown,
She was impressive – and showed a degree of grace that perhaps some of the party’s activists could take a lesson from.
Perhaps a lesson that could be taken by Kennedy Graham who was all over the media telling party activists to "stop inflaming" a fire he started and plenty of others have been cheerfully pouring fuel on. There does come a point where clutching your invisible pearls when you get exactly the reaction you're fishing for just isn't credible.
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Hard News: Metiria's Problem, in reply to Russell Brown,
The party is understood to be furious at how the two MPs have handled it - going outside normal parliamentary channels to tell media of their plans.
And so they fucking should. If true (and apply salt and tequila to taste) the most shocking thing is how common it is. Every three years, every single party has its share of sulking, muttering and foot-stamping trantrums from folks who aren't happy their egos didn't get put sufficiently high up the list. Most have the good sense to either suck it up, or at least throw their tiaras behind closed doors.
But Grilled Jeebus, if folks think Meteria doesn't have the political smarts to organise a piss-up in an organic craft brewery, Graham and Clendon haven't exactly displayed top-shelf nous today.
"Hey, let's threaten to quit six weeks from the election unless THAT WOMEN resigns from the leadership of the party. What could possibly go wrong?"
The rats in the ranks got hit with shovels. Hard. Find it impossible to muster any sympathy.
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Hard News: Metiria's Problem, in reply to kiwiwolf,
Or Mrs English
Who?
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Russell, this isn't a direct chip at you more a general comment.
I keep hearing "This is politics, and Metiria can't cry foul about that."
Well, I don't remember anyone hereabouts having a bar of that when to put it crudely, Mark Richardson, Mike Hosking et. al. couldn't shut the fuck up about Jacinda Ardern's uterus. And his "but she's OK talking about it!" attempt at damage control just inspired another round of mockery. Rightly so.
When you say "it's just politics" remember there's a lot of people out there - and I'm one of them -- for who this isn't a game of Election Season Stratego. (And, Tom, please don't bother talking at me. This is one topic where I'm not playing our usual game.)
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My friends on Twitter demanding that the Labour leadership rides in on a horse to defend its coalition partner are dreaming. This wasn't Labour's political gamble to take and two thirds of its own voters told a Newshub poll they didn't approve of her deceit (not to mention an even greater proportion of the parties it wants to take votes from and fully half of Green voters).
That's at least partially directed at me, so may I retort? Yes, it wasn't Labour's "political gamble" to take but let's not pretend they didn't make a political decision -- and exactly the kind of "poll-driven fruitcake" Helen Clark once said she wasn't willing to eat.
And I'm straying out of my competence, but that poll? How you construct the frame (i.e. the wording of the questions) goes a long way to determining what the picture looks like. And I'd say Newshub and Reid Research know that.
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Hard News: One big day at the drug symposium, in reply to Russell Brown,
There is, in some respects, a de facto decriminalisation going on, and has been for about a decade – largely because of a much broader use of avenues like pre-charge warnings, so people are arrested, but not eventually charged. Sometimes.
And this is where my views on drug policy have *cough* evolved a lot over a long time, because we really need to write a brutally frank reality check on who tends to get the benefit of the doubt and who gets their lives blown apart under de facto decriminalisation. Trump's America isn't the only place where The War on Drugs looks a lot more like a War on Poor and Brown People.
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Hard News: Barclay and arrogance, in reply to izogi,
Shouldn't parties be explaining to voters how they're going to make it so their MPs and Ministers can't get away with the kind of stuff that Barclay's being accused of?
Thing is: If MPs and Ministers want to be shot of staffers, Parliamentary & Ministerial Services and the State Services Commission can explain the legitimate and lawful way to do it in excruciatingly granular detail to anyone who's interested. That's their job, and they do it well.
"Don't go Full Nixon on staffers, stonewall Police investigations, monster complainants into going away and keeping quiet, then lie your arse off about all of it" shouldn't need explaining. Neither is the basic concept that MPs and Ministers are not exempt from the law. Any of it.
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Gorgeous - have you ever considered branching out into Soviet-era bus stops? Between them Christopher Herwig and Peter Ortner (link to German language website) have spent just shy of twenty years documenting bus stops ranging from brutalist socialist realism, through atomic kitsch to what I can only describe as acid-infused ethnographic gingerbread house.