Public Address - Hard News (Home)

The Spiral of Events | Aug 29, 2008 09:06

I'm stuck for a metaphor for Sean Plunket's extraordinary, impromptu interview with Winston Peters this morning. I'm also very little the wiser as to the true nature of Peters' Byzantine financial affairs after hearing it. But I do feel secure in saying that Peters will have been firmly offered the opportunity to stand down as Foreign Affairs minister by the end of the day.

Such is the spiralling nature of events that the news that he is being investigated by the Serious Fraud Office late yesterday afternoon has, paradoxically, moved the agenda on from Helen Clark's revelation only hours earlier that she had been told back in February by Owen Glenn that he had donated $100,000 to Peter's legal defence fund.

Perhaps we should deal with that first. Why on earth would Helen Clark have decided not to implicitly trust Owen Glenn when he told her that? One reason is simpler than you might think: Glenn had recently given interviews in which his recollection of the timing and purpose of his donations to her own party was demonstrably off the planet.

Shortly before Glenn told Clark that he had made a donation directly to New Zealand First, he gave an interview to the Dominion Post's Kim Ruscoe in which he said he had donated his $500,000 to Labour's 2005 campaign because he was concerned about the "sneaky" influence of the Exclusive Brethren on the election.

This simply could not have been true: the Brethren flap blew up only weeks before polling day 2005. Glenn's donation was made -- and properly declared -- in two chunks in 2003 and 2004. It was all cheerily reported in the Herald in June 2005 -- four months before anyone outside the Brethren and some people in the National Party knew that the Brethren was involved in the campaign at all.

And yet here he was, in February 2008, giving an account that seemed to have sprung entirely from his imagination. In the same interview, Glenn also made the unlikely claim that Clark had seriously suggested he could be her Minister of Transport if he would but return to New Zealand. Glenn subsequently admitted he'd been big-noting to a lady reporter.

So if you'd been wondering -- as Messrs Farrar and Hooton have been doing very loudly -- how Clark could possibly have doubted the recollection of a prominent party donor over the word of her foreign minister, that's it. Glenn, successful businessman and excellent philanthropist that he is, had been demonstrating that he was not necessarily a reliable witness. Clark did, we now know, take the matter seriously enough to place an urgent call to Peters in South Africa. But we can perhaps understand her reluctance to pull the pin by calling her minister a liar.

And yet … Glenn's odd interview did include a statement that did prove to be demonstrably true: that he had loaned Labour $100,000 after the election, in order that it could set up a more robust fund-raising structure. There was nothing illegal or improper about that, and the forgone interest that constituted a donation was not large enough to meet the threshold for a statutory declaration. But Williams lied by omission to journalists, and the political cost of that was a demonstration of the folly of not actively advancing relevant information. Clark is reaping the same, even if she had quite good reasons for not implying that her minister was a liar.

But, of course, a verbal claim from Glenn is different to a careful, clear letter from Glenn to the select committee saying the same thing, and it's likely that things began to turn with the receipt of that letter. A possible heads-up on the SFO's intentions may also have hastened the disclosure.

The SFO inquiry doesn't -- yet -- cover the most incendiary allegations around Peters: that he requested $50,000 from the Simunovich family return for covering up alleged corruption in the fishing industry.

But it would be wise, for the moment, to bear in mind that that allegation was made under privilege by Rodney Hide, who is currently in throw-stuff-at-the-walls to see if it sticks mode. Another claim by Hide -- that TVNZ had deliberately destroyed evidence supporting that allegation -- has been shown to be entirely fanciful. Earlier in the week, Hide made another wild (not to say despicable, cynical and unpleasant) public allegation -- that the EPMU, which was respecting its duty not to speak publicly during its employment negotiations with surprise Act candidate Shawn Tan, only had a problem with Tan because of his race.

There may be a great deal more to come, but the fact that Rodney Hide says so most surely does not make it true.

I said this affair demonstrates the political perils of not volunteering information. It also underlines the problem of parties chasing donations from the likes of Glenn. And it underlines the role that a free and lively press plays in a democracy. Chris Trotter makes the staggering comparison of the press pursuit of Peters to a "gang-rape". I'm saying that whatever the upshot here, we owe a debt to the likes of Audrey Young and, in particular to the Dom Post's Phil Kitchin, for the shedding of light.

But I'll give Winston one thing: for all his barking and flailing, he has not accused Kitchin, whose stories appear to be based on New Zealand First documents, of "theft" of leaked documents, or of "hacking" party systems. The Opposition Party, whose own wealthy donors, and their quid pro quos, have been hidden behind carefully structured, opaque trusts, should really count its blessings. And to think a little harder the next time it is inclined to smear its own troublesome journalist.

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Last call for our Stories: The Internet thread. I'll dish out the prizes early next week. They include, as previously noted, five copies of Keith Newman's NZ internet history, Connecting the Clouds, five big bags of Eden Coffee, and one Nokia 6121 mobile phone (which we have by way of promotion for Vodafone's new dollar-a-day mobile internet plan).

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The Mag Trade | Aug 28, 2008 10:33

By all means, join the discussion being hosted by Mr Slack on the cloudy prospects for Winston Peters' future, but do feel free to pop over at some time and watch this week's Media7 programme on the magazine business.

As noted in the Media7 blog, there are some interesting trends in the domestic and international markets: what might be the start of a long-term slide for the gossip-oriented women's mags, lad mags doing down the toilet, gardening mags on the rise as staying home becomes the new going out -- and the hailing of a return to seriousness by the publishers of The Economist and The New Yorker (at home, North & South is flourishing under new direction with two successive six-monthly circulation increases).

The panel is Wendyl Nissen, Finlay Macdonald and New Zealand Gardener editor Lynda Hallinan.

The show is here on TVNZondemand, and also as Windows Media clips, the podcast and on our YouTube channel.

Oh, and the best of luck to our Paralympians, as they ship out to their games in Beijing.

There are two good-looking documentaries screening at 11.30pm on Sunday and 11pm on Monday nights respectively on TV One. The first is Meet the Paralympians, which profiles the athletes, and the second is The Power of Attitude, which focuses on the full-on world of the Wheel Blacks. I'll link to them both when they reach ondemand.

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Awesome | Aug 27, 2008 09:56

My eyes have teared up twice this week. One was when I tried to roll over during treatment on my messed-up back on Monday. And the other was while I watched Michelle Obama's Democratic convention speech.

I thought she was incredible. We're used to the idea that her husband is a great speaker, but he has become wearied on the campaign trail, turning metronomically between his left and right teleprompters in speech after speech. Michelle Obama seemed to be barely glancing at her prompts for quite long stretches, and she exuded an energy that seemed authentic and inspiring.

This is all the more remarkable given that her first task in this speech was to not frighten the horses; to disarm the right-wing talking points and the carefully-seeded rumours that have her as the Scary Black Woman.

Indeed, the text of her speech, worked on for weeks, is so jammed with apple-pie tick-boxes that it could have become facile, and she risked being turned into some sort of faithful 50s wife. But she got up and she owned it.

Yes, Hilary Clinton's supporters can rightly think that it's not the same as having a woman running for the White House in her own right, but they might console themselves that there has never been a prospective First Lady like this one.

I watched it again on the Voice of America slot on Stratos late last night, and it was clear that much of the opening night of the convention was given over to low-risk cheesiness. Her speech was bookended with treacly family tributes -- Michelle's basketball-coach brother Craig introducing her, and a clunky video link to Barack in Kansas afterwards -- but, especially from the point where she shifts up a gear and talks about standing, as a black woman, "at the cross-currents of history", it's very powerful. Many women in the room seemed to be in tears by the end.

All eyes are now on the speech of another woman: Hillary Clinton, which will be made in the next few hours. I don't seriously think she'll deliver anything but a rousing speech of endorsement for the nominee, which won't be enough to sway the behaviour of the fanatical rump of her supporters, the so-called PUMAs, who are so crazy that you wonder if they're McCain plants. But Hillary had better bring it.

Because I'm sure I'm not alone in thinking: America, please don't fuck this up.

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National Exuberance | Aug 26, 2008 11:07

Whether disingenuously or not, the Herald's editorial writer gets it wrong today in dismissing any idea that Maurice Williamson said that $50 in weekly road tolls would be "imposed" on motorists under a National government. "They would have a choice," the editorial grumps. "National's policy, like Labour's, would permit toll roads only where a free alternative route was available."

Not quite. In clarifying the comments he made on Saturday's Agenda, Williamson clearly allowed that exceptions would be made:

Asked about a statement he made on Television One's Agenda programme that tolls would be placed only on new roads, he acknowledged exceptions might be needed for such projects.

Tolling a tunnel under Waitemata Harbour while keeping the existing bridge free would otherwise lead to "dreadful distortion" in traffic, against which he believed even Labour would make an exception.

Frankly, National would be well advised to sort out what its own policy on the issue is before it goes writing Labour's.

A $5 each-way toll for a major new road or tunnel isn't necessarily a crazy idea. As Williamson said, it would save those willing and able to pay it time, money and petrol. It would see a greater share of roading costs fall on those who use the new roads.

But it doesn't fit well with National's have-your-cake-and-eat-it message for voters in 2008. And so we had the curious spectacle of Williamson being yanked off a Nine to Noon interview minutes before he was due to speak, and Bill English stepping into the breach with a particularly intense flurry of euphemisms (I think "exuberant" might really have legs as the election campaign heats up), misdirections and bridges.

And yet again, the public is left with the impression that National's actual policies are a mystery to its own spokespeople.

There are, as Clive Matthew-Wilson pointed out yesterday in a lively and provocative statement, legitimate reasons for doubt about the viability of toll-road projects, especially in the context of public-private partnerships. Clive raises questions that should be put to Williamson, or, if he's still grounded, Bill English or John Key.

Among them:

Can National categorically promise that it will not sign a deal whereby the government has to pay out any part of the road building costs in the event that the project goes bankrupt?

And:

National's transport spokesman Maurice Williamson has stated publicly that National will repeal the 'Greens amendment' that requires that whenever a toll road is built, the public must always have an alternative route available for free.

Can National categorically promise that it will not sign a deal whereby existing roads are closed down or restricted in order to force motorists to use a nearby toll road

And:

Faced with high fuel bills, many motorists are now looking to take public transport to work.

Can National categorically promise that it will not sign a deal whereby public transport is effectively excluded or restricted from competing with a toll road?

Some of these questions, of course, would be just as tricky for Labour to answer -- which makes them all the more important to ask.

Meanwhile, as you might expect, The Standard is having it large, and covering an amusing act of public satire on the issue.

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There are people far better qualified than me to comment on the employment law dimensions of Shawn Tan's future with the EPMU as an Act party candidate. Absent any other factors, I would tend to agree with No Right Turn that he has a democratic right to do so.

And if it's not just a rather queer stunt and Tan really did have a political satori that transformed him from a Green Party trade unionist to a member of the Act faithful … well, he's plainly weird enough to be an Act Party MP, isn't he?

Also, NRT's Idiot/Savant says new blogger Chris Trotter has implied he's mentally ill. I think that's putting a rather ambitious construction on a cheap comment, but I confess I didn't really understand Trotter's original contention that the Greens' consultative process on the Emissions Trading Scheme was some sort of outrage.

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Being Worked | Aug 25, 2008 11:30

That's three weeks by my count. Three weeks of stories being placed with the Sunday newspapers by persons unknown, but -- at the least in the case of the last lot -- very likely to be playing for Team Tony Veitch. Because, frankly, there aren't many other people it could be.

The senior police officer on the case explained this morning that very few people had legitimate access to the summary of evidence from which all three Sunday stories came: a couple of police officers, and the Team Veitch, which includes, of course, A-list situation manager Glenda Hughes, a private investigator and two senior QCs.

Of the three stories, the Herald on Sunday version is the strangest. If there was indeed a leak from the defence side, the intention, part of a steady drip, was to trivialise the charges faced by Veitch: like how crazy is it that Tony Veitch is being charged with assault for throwing a glass of water?

In the HoS, Carolyne Meng-Yee not only led with the glass-of-water angle, she did so to the exclusion of more serious allegations contained in the same police summary. Did she only get fed the water part? In which case: pwned!

Or did she choose , or agree, to leave out information on the other charges? In which case she's got a bit of a nerve calling herself a journalist. To be fair to Meng-Yee, she did bring the news of former police Special Tactics group officer Brian Sloan working on Veitch's behalf.

In the Sunday News, Jonathan Marshall trumpets a "bizarre new twist" to the case -- yes, it's that glass of water again -- in what the paper's front page claims is an "exclusive".

In the Sunday Star Times, there's another, rather similar, "exclusive". Donna Chisholm either had a much better look at the summary, or simply chose to use more of it, but even she has the water angle in the second paragraph.

Perhaps I'm being unfair to all three reporters. Perhaps they all came up with the same information through their own initiative and contacts. Maybe both sides are working them (and it may well be that the first media outreach in this sorry business came from the Dunne-Powell side). But it looks a lot more like they're now allowing themselves to be used in a methodical public relations campaign by one side: that of the celebrity accused. And they, and their editors, should think about that.

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Meanwhile, do feel free to chip in on our new Stories: The Internet thread. There are prizes for the best stories -- five copies of Keith Newman's new history of the Internet in New Zealand, Connecting the Clouds; five big bags of Eden Coffee and one internet-capable Nokia 6121 mobile phone -- but don't feel your contribution has to be an epic. It's a discussion more than it is a competition.

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