Posts by Dylan Reeve
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Hard News: Doing over the witness, in reply to Shaun Lott,
Call me cynical, but the announcement of the Cabinet and this raid seem very similarly timed. Seems like now the numbers are finally done, someone is getting on with the business of their third term…
The raid was five days before the announcement of cabinet. It seems that it was Hager who chose to make the information public when it was.
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I tweeted about it earlier - my main point was that people who were saying, effectively, "why are the Police bothering to investigate the hacker, but ignoring the claims in the book" were being unreasonable... And I saw quite a lot of it on Twitter and FB from some of my leftie friends.
Regardless of the outcome, there was a crime committed against Cameron Slater and he is entitled to expect the police to take action on what was a pretty significant breach of his privacy and data security. Of course there are plenty of points to be made about the irony of such things with Slater, but that doesn't really change the nature of the crime.
As for the Hager raid - it's certainly a more troubling part of the whole thing, but there are a couple of things... I believe recently it's been decided by courts that book authors probably don't qualify as "journalists" for the purposes of s68 of the Evidence Act, which I'm sure Hager knew. Also, even if they are definitively journalists I'm not sure the act actually prevents the police from a search, just that certain judicial process will need to be followed before examining that evidence perhaps?
I believe the Police have taken the evidence and sealed it pending a judicial ruling on it which I guess that's basically the proper way to do it in this scenario?
While the action is certainly somewhat chilling, and also disruptive to Hager's work I'm fairly certain he would have had a fairly good expectation of the risk that it may take place and ultimately the impact for him (and value for the police) will be fairly limited.
While the crime in question is the hacking of Slater, which few people can muster any outrage for, the objective decrying of the police's actions is pretty easy, but does the same standard still hold if the crime changes?
If Hager (or some other journalist) had written a book detailing a series of murders that some informant had admitted to, would we hold the same standard? I don't like a slippery slope argument, but I do like consistency - if the police could be allowed to take this action (with proper judicial process) in the latter case, then it should be allowed in the former too.
In general I don't like the idea of journalists becoming targets for police searches, but at the same time if journalists are dealing with the proceeds and evidence of crime then it can't be entirely unexpected, can it?
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Hard News: Five further thoughts, in reply to brin murray,
I will say this: Paul Henry calling Dotcom ‘the fat German criminal’ on mainstream TV on election night, shows a comfort with contemptuous and near hate-filled xenophobia which can only come from a culture embedded deep within his organisation.
Xenophobia is close kin to racism, pure and simple. I find it deeply disturbing that TV3 apparently finds this acceptable. It is frightening that this orchestrated hate campaign exists at all, and then that it is focused on Dotcom’s being foreign as a key element of untrustworthiness/unlikeability.I'm not convinced the foreignness is a *huge* part of it... I think the bigger part is his questionable moral/criminal history (and present) and how conspicuously he was trying to influence the election.
The fact he isn't a citizen is certainly part of it, however if everything else were the same but Dotcom had been born in Matamata I think the spin, fear and outcomes would be very similar.
National were very successful with their message of "don't let this millionaire criminal hijack our election" - and probably quite predictably so.
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Hard News: Five further thoughts, in reply to SteveH,
There’s a pretty easy counter for that particular example. If the minimum wage is not a living wage then those people on minimum wage need to be topped up with benefits. Thus a lower (or no) minimum wage is in fact corporate welfare. I thought you were against corporate welfare Dr Whyte?
But that's countered by the common sense idea that working harder earns more money. A lower minimum wage "creates more jobs" which increases competition making thus naturally driving up wages.
It's not necessarily right, but it makes sense.
And minimum wage is just one example - I honestly think the majority of right wing policy - especially fiscal - is rooted in this intuitive common sense sort of stuff which therefore is so much easier to promote and defend.
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Hard News: Five further thoughts, in reply to tussock,
No. That’s their presentation, not their fact.
But the point is that their ideas, whether right or wrong, are simple and intuitive. They just make sense.
Complex but well evidenced alternatives aren't a great counter to that. Look at Jamie Whyte's argument against raising the minimum wage in the Campbell Live minor leaders dinner... It makes sense that raising the cost of something (human labour) will reduce demand (jobs) for that thing. The reality is that it doesn't, but that isn't intuitive so in that discussion it's too hard to present the alternative point of view.
I think that broadly holds true of a lot of right wing policy, and I'm not sure how you combat something like that... Because the alternative is complex.
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Hard News: Five further thoughts, in reply to barnaclebarnes,
More than one National voter I have spoken with would have voted Green if they had not ruled out working with National.
Didn’t the Green’s specifically not rule out working with National?
Not sure how independent they can be when they clearly have a financial policy outlook that is quite far from National’s.
Edit: The Greens could work with National... But then, oh no, five days later, no way!
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Not entirely sure this is the thread for it.... But I have this broad theory about left-wing vs. right-wing political theory...
It seems to me, from an entirely shallow and unscientific analysis, that right-wing policy is generally built around "common sense" - they ideas at the core of much right-wing policy are predicated of simple common sense thinking. From things like lowering tax to privatisation, from minimum wage and employment relations...
The ideas they express just make sense when they're outlined... Reduce taxes, because we are better at spending our money than the government... Privatise things because companies will be motivated to be more efficient by the lure of profit... Raising minimum wage will mean companies lay off staff... Make it easier for companies to hire and fire people so they can be more efficient and flexible...
All those things are simple and seem intuitive. You hear someone like Jamie Whyte or Colin Craig express those ideas and there's a definitive "well, of course" sensation...
On the other hand, left-wing ideas seem, in general, to be more complicated and sometimes unintuitive...
It seems that left-wing parties have a much harder task in clearly explaining and justifying their policies in the face of the right-wing common sense ideas. And, frankly, they don't seem very good at it.
This is only something that's really occurred to me in the last few weeks, but in seeing the campaigning from the right (especially Conservatives, where every policy outline ended with some variation on "it's just common sense") it really looks like they know how to make this work for them.
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Hard News: Five further thoughts, in reply to Kumara Republic,
To what extent do polling companies and horse-race journalism influence voter behaviour, as opposed to merely reporting the news? We need nothing less than a Royal Commission a la Leveson/Finkelstein to find out.
The more I think about polling the more I simply can't see the point in it. At best it offers us a pointless prediction about the outcome of an event that is going to end up the way it does, regardless.
We get nothing from a poll besides an inaccurate and ultimately pointless snapshot of opinions that may well change anyway. The stories that are generate from these polls are equally pointless - they offer no substance and are reporting on imaginary figures that then hopefully further influence the imaginary figures.
At worst polls affect the outcome of the election they are supposed to measure. Surely some percentage of people make their decisions (who to vote for, whether to vote at all) based, at least partially, of the results of polls that are meant to predict those same peoples' actions.
I honestly can't see any good reason to have published polls like that during the election.
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Hard News: Dirty Politics, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
Evidence that Rodney Hide sent “dodgy texts” to a young woman, or was putting an allegation of sexual harassment out there just acceptable collateral damage? I think that’s a perfectly legitimate question to ask of Hager, whether you like Hide or not. And given Slater’s rather irregular relationship with the truth, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to hope Hager did some due diligence on what he decided to publish.
Hager's book is about the political machinations of these players. If they, in their own communications, outline this plan then that is the story that Hager is telling.
Should he have not included the story of this apparent serious interference in the leadership of another political party because to do so would be exposing a unverifiable claim about the leader of that party?
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Hard News: Dirty Politics, in reply to ,
Is it true that Hager might be forced to reveal his source, because it’s a book not news?
Well in the case of Fisher's Dotcom book it was rule that journalistic protection didn't apply because it was a book, so potentially.
But if I understand it correctly Hager claims not to know the source - that the information arrived anonymously in the post on a USB flash drive. That's a pretty solid dead end for anyone trying to force information from him.