Hard News: Privacy and the Public Interest
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The latest on the Blomfield-Slater saga:
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Does anyone here take LF seriously? Just asking.
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Joe Wylie, in reply to
Does anyone here take LF seriously? Just asking.
Never come across them until now. While I persevered through Ugly Truth’s link, its self-aggrandisingly beady-eyed tone mainly served to remind just how good a presenter of complex information Hager can be.
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Russell Brown, in reply to
Never come across them until now. While I persevered through Ugly Truth’s link, its self-aggrandisingly beady-eyed tone mainly served to remind just how good a presenter of complex information Hager can be.
Well put. I looked at LF and decided didn't want to extend it the authority of linking to it.
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UglyTruth, in reply to
Does anyone here take LF seriously? Just asking.
My first encounter with LF resulted in a mild head-butting session over calling copied emails "stolen", but we reached agreement about acting in the public interest. I don't always agree with the opinion posted there, but but I find the background on current events worth a read. YMMV
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The Herald is in fine Tory form this (saturday mornin) John Armstrong has produced one of his more blatant pieces of one-eyed opinionating, claiming Labour are the living dead.
Armstrong operates a ridiculous double standard when it comes to the level of accountability he holds Labour compared to National. Nary a peep from the gasping old bastard on the fiscal responsibility of the the sudden emergence of tax cuts, but a forensic analysis of a slip up in the details of Labour’s CGT and a gleeful dispatch to the cemetery as soon as he thinks decent.
Less than 48 hours after the “Dirty Politics” revelations started to die down, ZB are using Farrar and Slater as a primary source for their lead political story and TV3 were back to using John Key as a commentator on IMP party policy. My Mum used to say rich Tories never gave the poor anything, if you want something from them you don’t ask – you take it.
The same applies to the right wing corporate media. They won’t change until the left gets into power and make them.
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I'm mostly a floating voter, although I tend to be left-leaning. Almost voted for the Maori Party one year but then Tariana said something silly ... Also note, a voter from the provinces.
The revelations from "Dirty Politics" have left me embarrassed and ashamed of the politicians in Government, the people running this country. How bloody dare they? How dare the Prime Minister smirk and shrug his shoulders when one of his senior ministers is clearly up to her neck in unsavoury stuff with an unsavoury character (or three). How dare the deputy Prime Minister say it wasn't him but make no effort to do anything about it, like hold some of his Government colleagues to account. How dare the Minister of Justice use her office to attack private citizens, and even sometimes civil servants. It's beyond belief - and while we might laugh about the revolving governments of Italian politics, this is just as revolting as Berlusconi and his "bunga-bunga" parties.
Morals and ethics are not old-fashioned terms, plenty of young people care about them too. But it's the older voters who don't want to face what's been revealed. The dyed-in-the-wool blue voters, who wouldn't change their vote if their life depended on it. Yes, the ones who bang on about the war and how much their generation sacrificed for those who followed, the ones who expect respect, the ones who cheer John Key. I'd like to respectfully point out to those unthinking voters that our young men and women - your friends and comrades - did not die on foreign battlefields for this kind of muck to be happening in our society or for it to be sanctioned by the highest levels in Government.
And believe you me, I would be just as wild if it had happened under a Labour government.
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Cecelia, in reply to
Forceful, Sandra, a cry from the heart. You express everything I feel except that many baby-boomers like me are not blue-rinsed Nat supporters. A week or so ago I went to a Grey Power meeting with the candidates where most of the questions were hostile to the government and the Green candidate got one of the warmest responses.
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stever@cs.waikato.ac.nz, in reply to
Sandra you've nailed it...it's beyond belief. Literally.
So many, many people don't believe it :(
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Morals and ethics are not old-fashioned terms, plenty of young people care about them too.
Morals and ethics are part of the law of the land, but the secular state has a problem with their religious origins.
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Steve Barnes, in reply to
I’d like to respectfully point out to those unthinking voters that our young men and women – your friends and comrades – did not die on foreign battlefields for this kind of muck to be happening in our society or for it to be sanctioned by the highest levels in Government
This.
+2 from us -
I posted a little something in the Dirty Politics thread which may be relevant ;-)
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What I would love to see happen is for the people to be heard - and taken notice of, for the National politicians to really get that most people are furious about what's been going on, that their party needs a cleanout, but for all of them to wake up to the fact that the citizens of New Zealand do not want this kind of behaviour, ever. Street marches, maybe (theme song "we're not going to take it"), certainly grilling candidates at meetings and definitely voting with a conscience. Use your heart this election.
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@sandra
OK, there is reason for you to be furious, but unless you direct that energy wisely it's just going to be wasted. Fixing things involves both understanding the cause of the problem and having a reasonable remedy in mind.
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Part of the problem is that the unthinking voters don't go to political meetings. If you go to a meeting, then you're thinking about things and interested either in hearing the range of candidates' opinions, or in seeing "your" candidate out-perform the others. So you're either interested in the content, or the game - but you're interested.
So when you go to a political meeting, and look around, the question isn't who they appear to be supporting, but who isn't there. -
the 'Love' is gone...
Aroha from Mt Albert's McGehan Close - labelled "a "dead end" and "the nation's street of hopelessness" created by the Labour government." by John Key - speaks up ...Back in 2007, her mother Joan Nathan famously castigated Key for insulting their community.
As an olive branch, Key took the young girl to celebrations at Waitangi that year and got Nathan a job at MP Jackie Blue's office. Things briefly looked up for the family. But after the first term of Key's government, Aroha moved to Australia and her mother was back on the benefit after being made redundant from her job with Blue.
Three years later Aroha, now 20, feels she was used by Key - and the Prime Minister won't be getting her vote.
"The last time I spoke to him was when he took me to Waitangi Day. After that I have never heard from him again. I absolutely believe that I was used as a publicity stunt," she says. "I wouldn't vote for National."Key's Mr Lollipop Man T-shirt, mangles our cultures like he mangles words - mr sensitive...
He just doesn't get it,
but worse, doesn't care... -
So when you go to a political meeting, and look around, the question isn't who they appear to be supporting, but who isn't there.
So are you saying that the problem relates to the reason why people don't get involved in political activism in general, or is it a problem of not having an appropriate venue to discuss the issues?
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Cecelia, in reply to
I think political parties are going to have to reach out to the public in different ways, starting soon after this election. I don't know exactly how but there needs to be a new paradigm. We desperately need interesting political discussion in the media. John Campbell is brilliant at some things but there's a lack of follow-through on political issues. Seven Sharp is ridiculous. Media Take is hidden from the wider public. Now that it looks as if the public are going to vote John Key back into office, I will do anything to help Green/Labour advance progressive politics in the next three years. Our country! Our environment!
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I've been thinking about that this morning. I've had an email from a political party (I won't shame them by saying which one) inviting me to participate in some of their pre-election activities. I look at what they're doing, and none of it is actually stuff I want to spend time doing. It's all so sad and lame. I'm not going to write back and say "no, I'm not going to participate in 90% of what you've got here because it's sad and lame", because I don't believe in criticising without suggesting solutions. For now, I've got no solutions. But I'm sure there should be some.
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Ian Dalziel, in reply to
critical masses..
So when you go to a political meeting, and look around, the question isn’t who they appear to be supporting, but who isn’t there.
Three Canterbury recovery leaders failed to front at a television current affairs show's live September 2010 earthquake special because of security concerns and the "protest rally" feel of the format.
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Brownlee hasn’t attended a meet the candidates event for at least the last two elections. Back in 2011 the excuse was that he was too busy.
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andin, in reply to
but the secular state has a problem with their religious origins.
No it doesnt they pay lipservice to it all the time.
The problem IMO is the flawed nature of the solutions they offer, many are deeply unpleasant. To say the least.
And our continued inability to separate the good from the useless. Religious organisations continuing to push the same message like tired barrow boys and not willing to give up their wares for scrutiny, and retire their barrows. There are many astute observations and insight into human nature in there. There just isn't an overarching... something... whatever. -
Dismal Soyanz, in reply to
While engagement is something ideally all political parties should do, the fact that disengagement favours the right means that this is more a problem for the left.
Even then any attempt to invigorate public debate or interest in politics will need to be targeted. There is a sizeable group whose interests are not served by disturbing the status quo. For every person who has been profoundly upset by Dirty Politics' revelations, there seems to be someone who dismisses it (for whatever reason). Some of these will be wilfully ignorant and no amount of reaching out or engagement will move them.
When I think of other protests, especially those that draw in widespread support, they succeed because IMO because the elicit empathy. People either know someone affected or can visualise themselves being affected. It is hard to publicise political issues because of this (e.g. "politics is a dirty business anyway"). There have been sufficient examples of silly, careless behaviour across Parliament over the years for the entire process to be tarred with the same brush.
If any campaign to shake our fellow voters out of their complacency is to succeed, it will need to somehow bridge the gap between what is to many an abstract concept, democracy, and their own interests.
Disclaimer: All written without any deep knowledge of politics or psychology.
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For now, I've got no solutions. But I'm sure there should be some.
I think that the reason that people don't see the solution is because they are looking for conventional solutions which can be implemented via legislation, rather than looking at the underlying issue of equity/fairness in the relationship between society and the state.
This problem is most visibily expressed as Cunliffe's problem with trusts and his proposed CGT.
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Cecelia, in reply to
UglyTruth, could you explain what you mean by your last sentence. Do you mean that a CGT is fair but the proposed legislation is tricky or hard to pin down?
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