Posts by Russell Brown
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Hard News: How long the leash on the…, in reply to Steve Curtis,
If you had read the story from the journalist who made the tape, you would discover that she hadn’t given the details to Richardson and apologised profusely to Palmer.
He had replied that the ‘office of PM could withstand these storms in a teacup’ and not to worry.Quite a contrast dont you think ?
It is. And I think what it showed up was the gap in what you might call constitutional awareness between Palmer on one hand and Joyce and Key on the other. Palmer would simply never have done what Joyce and Key did, while they regarded themselves as entitled to do what they did.
Tim Pankhurst delivers a pretty sharp serve on their actions – and on the lack of boldness amongst New Zealand editors – in tonight’s Media7 (9.05pm, TVNZ 7).
I think this is an entirely separate issue to the flood of celebrities on front pages in the past five years.
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Hard News: How long the leash on the…, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
Comparing the HoS to the Screws of the World was offensively hyperbolic, but let’s not balance it up by equally stupidly comparing the Herald stable to journalists who are facing genuine, and incredibly serious intimidation in places like Fiji, Vanuatu and Papua.
To be fair, it wasn't just Joyce's nastiness. It was the actions that led to the police serving search warrants on major news organisations a week out from a general election -- and the fact that two of those news organisations had done no more than report on a significant campaign story: the very job we expect them to do.
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Hard News: When A City Falls, in reply to Walter Nicholls,
About 8-10 people in the cinema, but all stayed to the end of the credits, after which there was a tasteful silence (thanks Event Cinemas) before the regular sound-filler started up again.
It seemed only decent to stay in our seats till the end of the credits.
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because we like the cut of his jibe
Oh, nicely played.
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4) jpgs best; The developers have sorted the JPG/jpg problem, but it is probably safest to use jpgs in general as the file type.
Would it be clearer to phrase this as "it is probably safest to use .jpg in general as the file type"?
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Up Front: What if We Held an Election…, in reply to James Butler,
Arse Vote Card
Hence the popular phrase "playing the arse card".
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Hard News: Democracy Night, in reply to Sacha,
Side note. As I’ve said to a few journos, it’s actually Deaf with a capital D for the community and NZ Sign Language for their language (much like English, Korean or Farsi have capitals).
Noted.
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Hard News: Democracy Night, in reply to Raymond A Francis,
Don’t believe everything you see on TV Brian
Try discussions here. There are Christchurch people happy with the government’s actions. But they don’t tend to be (a) poor, and (b) in the worst-affected areas. Most of those people have simply had to leave.
The idea that their problems are some TV confection is really quite insulting.
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Hard News: Democracy Night, in reply to Keir Leslie,
What the Labour Party does not have is a translation of that policy into message. And that is largely a failure of the party organisation, and has to be fixed at that level. And a large part of that is process issues, as much as getting mired in process sucks.
I think Mojo Mathers -- who I really hope squeaks in on the Greens' list -- illustrates that pretty well.
She's deaf, and comes from disability culture. She'd never have reached a similar position in Labour's list, because Labour's culture is institutional, rather than personal. Which is not to say that Labour is not aware of the disabled as a constituency -- far from it -- but to get in on Labour's list you'd need to be the chair of something.
OTOH, the presence of career politicians also absolutely benefits Labour. Who do we all think are good? Grant Robertson and Jacinda Ardern. Career politicians -- and very good at the job they've chosen. We need those people precisely because they're very good at their jobs.
The other end of that spectrum is the likes of Joyce and Key, non-politicians who can't see what's wrong with sending the cops into newsrooms during an election campaign to solve a political problem -- or with legislating National Standards under urgency to avoid their slogan running into any evidence. On both counts I utterly despise their actions.
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Hard News: Democracy Night, in reply to Heather Gaye,
So I’d like the left to balance that out by drilling into the media the kind of phrases that promote the egalitarian ethics we’ve traditionally associated with nz society – “the social contract”, “protecting the vulnerable”, “second chance” , that kind of thing. The way to sway the national dialogue – specifically the “gut feelings” of people that aren’t interested in politics – is sheer repetition.
And that’s what the right did – albeit it took them three terms to get the message home.
I’ve just been talking to some Green voters who lamented what they’d felt Labour had become under Clark – too much government, too much regulation and compliance. And yet, what regulation has National rolled back apart from energy standards, electoral finance and a broadcasting review no one’s heard of anyway? All of which were backed by the Greens.
But the Greens have successfully used their libertarian thread to reach those people. Others went National – but I know of three people now who voted Green + Kaye in Auckland Central, and of course Craig voted Green + Maggie Barry.
This seems, then, a principal challenge for Labour. New Zealand’s regulatory burden is way lower than most OECD countries, including Australia, which is conjured as a model by centre-right parties, even though governments there impose a regulatory model that makes NZ look like some libertarian paradise.
So as well as seeding the national conversation with the phrases you propose, they need to re-frame ideas around government and governance. And not via the prescriptions of John Pagani and Chris Trotter, because I think neither of them have any real idea of what people are actually thinking.