Posts by izogi
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Hard News: Privacy and the Public Interest, in reply to Stephen R,
Generally people advertising jobs ask for their ideal candidate and then hire the best they can find; who will almost certainly be missing a range of things they want, but will have convinced the interviewer that they can learn them.
As a software dev I’ll second this where ICT many jobs are concerned. Once you have some core skills (and maybe that’s an issue), recent experience often counts for more than qualifications in many jobs, I guess because trends tend to shift so rapidly. If you’re not familiar with a specific tool or technology listed (especially some of the more obscure ones), it’s often enough to just look it up and read about it so you’re not dumbfounded when someone asks about it in an interview.
My current software dev job is deeply tied to HP TRIM (a very specific records management system), but when I applied, they were more than satisfied with a developer who had any records management exposure at all. In hindsight despite many months looking, and getting frustrated with mass-mailed generic CVs sent mostly from India, I think they hadn’t realised that they’d probably have been just as well off to advertise for a good developer with some reasonable commitment to responding to the job description points, and just teach them about the specialist requirements early on.
By far the hardest part of the process, IMHO, has always been that of getting through recruitment agents, many of whom aren’t interested in anything beyond buzz-words and will refuse to tell you who their client is (assuming the actual position hasn’t already expired long before you responded to their ad) in case you apply directly, but still refuse to put you forward. Some agents are much more onto it and helpful to deal with than others, though. Knowing people in the industry often helps, sadly, and if you can figure out where to apply directly for an ICT job, definitely go that way rather than through an agency. All NZ government jobs are always listed here (though that's mostly Wellington for ICT stuff), even when recruitment agents are also advertising elsewhere, and lots of companies have their vacancies listed on their websites these days, but the down-side is that it’s not always obvious where to look.
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Hard News: Dirty Politics, in reply to simon g,
And Stuff has an immediate response … from the Taxpayers’ Union. [–snip–] The media have “Play us, we can’t be arsed” written on their T-shirts. Any reporter who gives Williams credit is in the wrong job.
Stuff already has lots invested in the Taxpayers’ Union, at least in terms of reputation etc, after that big collaboration a while back, which from memory was to do with council spending comparisons. (I can’t find the link in 30 seconds.) The relationship seemingly goes deeper than just canvassing for rent-a-quotes.
But Jordan Williams can still get away with this because so many people are refusing along partisan lines to read the book, or take it seriously, or otherwise make the connections.
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Hard News: Privacy and the Public Interest, in reply to JonathanM,
I just wanted to repeat this: It seems like a (relatively) simple thing that could be done to improve participation. I’m relatively well informed about politics, as I find it interesting, yet I constantly see how so and so had a town meeting in my area – always after the fact.
Taking it further, I'm not even sure where to look for official info about who's even standing as a candidate in my electorate... short of turning up at the polling booth and reading the options on the ballot paper. Is there somewhere?
Surely the Electoral Commission should be the authority on this info, but the commission's own website seems to be entirely focused on getting people enrolled, explaining the voting system, and providing info for parties and candidates, without actually saying who they are.
So, like the meetings, it seems to be a case of hit-and-miss searching for billboards or similar to discover who's running, and probably asking the parties themselves who's on their party lists. What's up with this? Some central, official place, which tells people what their registered choices are, and where they can go to hear from the candidates, wouldn't go amiss.
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Hard News: Dirty Politics, in reply to Trevor Nicholls,
Dunne & the Nats talk of a dirty campaign meaning the *election* campaign.
When Dunne says it he always seems to mean that it's "the left" being dirty (or maybe I have biased perception?), and that's why I have trouble agreeing with him. If National's elite weren't acting in such a questionable way to begin with, this couldn't have come out at all.
The only thing Peter Dunne's really said which I agree with is that there's not a mood for change. So many people seem to be refusing to even look at evidence, and then being proud of it, Steve Barnes' example over here just being a case in point. I don't expect most people to change their vote if they hate the alternatives, but it'd be nice to at least see some acknowledgement that there's a serious problem with oversight, accountability and culture in Ministers' offices, right to the PM and his staff, and demand improvement beyond the PM saying "trust me, I've dealt with it".
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Hard News: Privacy and the Public Interest, in reply to Lucy Telfar Barnard,
Part of the problem is that the unthinking voters don’t go to political meetings.
What are the preferred ways to actually find out about these meetings? I’m presently living in Ohariu, and a few weeks back when I was trying to discover which public candidate meetings were actually happening, I found it very difficult. There barely seemed to be any advertising, in any obvious place I could think of, short of driving through the main road of Ngaio (just one smallish demographic part of the electorate) and spotting an obscure sign on the side of the road that advertised a meeting in Ngaio (still haven’t found out about any anywhere else). A web search didn’t turn up much, until I came across a calendar buried deep in the Green Party’s website, where the local GP candidate had advertised a meeting… and then at least a couple of times I’ve come across newspaper reports of different meetings I never even knew were happening.
How do people find out about these meetings? Am I meant to be buying the DomPost and reading each day’s Public Notices section? Some type of central database of public meetings which people can attend is something I thought the Electoral Commission, or similar, would be doing. Not as far as I can see, but if anyone can point something out it’d be great.
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Hard News: Dirty Politics, in reply to Alfie,
I caught the end of the panel on Friday and was surprised to hear Denise L’Estrange-Corbet insisting that there was no child poverty in NZ. Her argument was that if poor people only gave up their booze and fags …
I’m glad it wasn’t just me. I switched it on part way through and found that dialogue disturbing, albeit repeating the types of stuff I’ve heard people say elsewhere. You could sort-of tell Jim Mora wasn’t too comfortable with what she was saying (or at least how she was saying it), but he seemed conflicted between challenging it and just letting her blurt stuff out…. which is fairly typical. I still don’t know how he scored a place on Checkpoint.
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Hard News: Privacy and the Public Interest, in reply to Ben Austin,
If i recall correctly, the Wayback archive can have items removed, if someone is determined
According to its FAQ, the appropriate robots.txt on your website will remove all historic content... not just prevent future crawling. I guess this is what Cathy Odgers did, but I hadn't thought of the National Library archive until @mpledger pointed it out.
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Hard News: Privacy and the Public Interest, in reply to Allan Moyle,
Not sure who is behind this KiwiFirst site that rates Judges but
I’m unsure of the background of this, but the domain’s registered to Spartan News Limited, also acknowledged on that site. The Companies’ Office lists the single director as Vincent Ross Siemer, whose Wikipedia page starts off stating he’s “a prominent critic of the New Zealand judiciary”.
The rest of the Wikipedia blurb looks very colourful regarding his dealings with the courts, so I guess he has a certain insight, the value of which you could judge for yourself.
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Hard News: Privacy and the Public Interest, in reply to Keir Leslie,
how’s it not in the public interest to know that the Taxpayer’s Union spokesperson also ghost writes highly misogynistic content that seems almost designed to put women off involvement in politics, acts in misogynist ways in public, & then also discusses women with his political allies in precisely those terms?
I have a Facebook friend who was crowing not long ago about the TU’s bribe-o-meter thing (see their website because I won’t do them the courtesy of linking to it), saying how awesome it is and how brilliant National is. I had a brief go at explaining a bit more about the Taxpayers’ Union’s background and how it’s basically a front/fan club for a small number of highly idealised lobbyists. She didn’t want to hear a bar of it, and that wasn’t an argument that seemed to be going anywhere.
Despite her general outspoken-ness on misogynistic males, I don’t think even discovering all these “illegally hacked” communications from Jordan Williams would have made much difference. It’s too inconvenient-a-thing to hear, and I suppose that’s much of the issue. Why would people listen to stuff that they really don’t want to hear right now?
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Hard News: Privacy and the Public Interest, in reply to Paul Williams,
That said, I can’t quite imagine what changes – rules and regulations in the Cabinet Manual presumably – could mitigate against this kind of maladministration when the PM can simply refuse to see it.
I'm not sure if the Cabinet Manual is the right place to address this, but I'd be interested to see what a lawyer or two with constitution-type expertise might have to say about it.
We don't directly elect the Prime Minister or other Ministers into those positions, and even if we somehow did then I'm not sure if it'd be adequate, yet they're right at the top of the accountability chain. As recent events have shown (except to people who prefer to keep their eyes shut), the presence of oversight seems to be littered with political conflicts of interest.