Speaker by Various Artists

Bring back Brian Edwards and lift the standard of interviewing on TV by 500%!

Could never happen today.

Meanwhile, an OECD survey showsthat wage-earners' share of [national income] in all developed countries, [has fallen] on average from around 67 per cent ... in 1976 to 57 per cent in 2006.

Could never happen today.

Meanwhile, an OECD survey showsthat wage-earners' share of [national income] in all developed countries, [has fallen] on average from around 67 per cent ... in 1976 to 57 per cent in 2006.

And the gap is worse in New Zealand than most other places -- notably, Australia. It's called labour market flexibility, and people seem to leave the country to avoid it.

It's called labour market flexibility, and people seem to leave the country to avoid it.

How do you mean?

Labour market flexibility is newspeak for "low-wage, casual-employment economy".

Gotcha, I had misunderstood the crux of the OECD survey.

Funny how I haven't heard anything from the campaigning pollies about how income inequality is known to drive levels of violence in a society.

That's because it would force them to come up with an actual law and order policy, rather than "we're tougher than you are, look how many more people than you we'd lock up given half the chance", and come to terms with the fact that preventing crime is a lot different to preventing re-offending.

Sacha: I asked Richard Prebble about that after he spoke in the University of Auckland quad before the 2002 election. He was more interested in cleaning the egg off of his jacket than answering my question, but he said something about the 1970s welfare system being responsible for the rise in crime in the 1990s.

The logic was 'the welfare state nearly bankrupted us, so we got rid of it, and that's where crime came from'. Now that I think about it, I don't see how that answered my 'your policies drove the crime rate up, isn't it hypocritical to then campaign on law and order?' question at all.

He was more interested in cleaning the egg off of his jacket than answering my question

Classic!

“Going to any Post Offices?” ... I make no apology for having relished the day and the experience to the full.

I've heard Edwards recall visiting every Post Office within reach that day and so was conveniently placed to receive the public's plaudits, a move that hardly harmed his career I'm sure. Would that modern public figures could expose themselves to the public (so to speak) and receive their due reception.

1970s New Zealand truly was another country.

1970s New Zealand truly was another country.

Even if you were more-or-less there. As I was elsewhere for the first half of the 70s I missed Edwards' meteoric rise. Watching his heavily-hyped interview/confrontation with Muldoon in early 1976 (on my next-door neighbour's spanking-new made-in-Waihi Philips K9) I could only wonder what justified what seemed a towering sense of self-importance when he opened by stating that he'd been offered sexual favours provided he "spill your blood on the studio floor".
After all these years I think I finally understand.