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It's in the Wild | Nov 27, 2007 10:58

I have a copy of the 156-page police affidavit excerpted by the Dominion Post as "The Terrorism Files". Handwritten notes on the scanned pages and the nature of the US-based site hosting the PDF document both strongly suggest that it has not been leaked by the police, but by someone on the defence side.

It is, as you might expect, fascinating.

I am not going to link to it (although probably hundreds of people have it now, and it's effectively game over for its secrecy), or directly quote from it, but I will, as others have done, briefly characterise the evidence.

In context, some of the headline quotes in the Fairfax papers do read like bluster, and I can see why the evidence did not meet the high threshold for charges under the Terrorism Suppression Act (although the Solictor General will have seen informant evidence redacted here). Other evidence in the affidavit strikes me as much more damning.

But that's it. I'm not in a position to invite a nastygram from the Solicitor General. I'm also not enabling discussion for this post. You can jump over to a thread at Kiwiblog if you like.

Add me to the list of people who think there should be an inquiry. That inquiry might find that the police response was disproportionate in scale. I can't imagine that it will discover, as various interested parties have been insisting, that there was nothing to see here.

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Back in the mainstream | Nov 26, 2007 09:53

Australia's last two Labor Prime Ministers, Bob Hawke and Paul Keating, were raging personalities: brash, passionate, prone to controversy and somehow embodying national character. I don't think there's much chance of that with the new guy.

Now, after 11 years' indulgence of a small and rather mean man, they've elected a man who looks bland and sounds more so when he opens his mouth. This isn't to say that Kevin Rudd won't be a success. He is just by no stretch of the imagination a shitkicker.

It's no accident that both Hawke and Keating (having apparently settled a 16-year feud) provided what fire there was in the Labor campaign (which also, remarkably, saw the rehabilitation of Gough Whitlam). Both men wrote what can only be regarded as typewritten assassinations of Howard in the last week of the campaign, and Keating was swiftly into print again afterwards with this assessment:

The Liberal Party of John Howard, Philip Ruddock, Alexander Downer and Peter Costello is now a party of privilege and punishments. One that lacks that most basic of wellsprings: charity.

The French philosophers had it pretty right with the Enlightenment catchcry of liberty, equality and fraternity.

There was not much liberty for the boat people or fraternity for the Aborigines or the Muslims or equality for the trade unionists who believed in nothing more revolutionary than the simple right to collectively bargain.

You didn't hear that from Rudd. Indeed, having elected him, Australians still seem keen to find out exactly who he is. But for all his caution, he is committed to bringing Australia back into the international mainstream in ways that, by the standards of the past decade, are radical: Kyoto will be ratified, and the combat troops will be brought back from Iraq.

Rudd's centrist, even conservative, image, and his Christian belief have inevitably led to comparisons with Tony Blair. These seem terribly wide of the mark. Blair's core compulsion was to do what he knew in his heart to be right -- which, of course, allowed him to preside over much that was morally wrong -- and to sell it with rhetoric born of conviction. Blair trampled diplomats, Rudd is one by training.

There will be debate about exactly what lessons can be taken into New Zealand's election campaign next year, but there is no doubt about one thing: the internet will be important. Kevin Rudd, famously, has 20,000 friends on Facebook, and his Kevin07 website was a masterpiece of online momentum-building. The campaign ads that ran on Australian news websites were numerous and increasingly biting.

As the Electoral Finance Bill caps third-party campaign spending in particular, internet advertising will look both smarter and more cost-effective. The full-page newspaper ad your lobby group buys is tomorrow's fish-and-chip wrapper -- but the same money could buy you a pervasive campaign online. Just watch.

Anyway, the funniest thing on my Facebook newsfeed morning is this:

David Farrar left the group 'People who support Prime Minister John Howard'.

He doesn't muck about, does he?

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Maoriland Calling | Nov 23, 2007 11:46

Something a bit lovely turned up on the nets this week: 30 of the novels of Maoriland. These 19th century works, the first written fiction of and about New Zealand, were largely ignored by our cultural nationalists last century -- didn't fit with the project, you see -- so it's nice to see them retrieved, in all their political incorrectness.

They have been republished online by the Electronic Text Centre at Victoria University, in conjunction with the Alexander Turnbull Library, where many of the works are held. The centre scanned the old books then re-keyed all the text, which is displayed alongside the original page scans. I've interviewed the centre's director, Alison Stevenson, for Public Address Radio (5pm tomorrow on Radio Live, here on the podcast next week).

Jane Stafford and Mark Williams have provided a scholarly essay of introduction, but I think what this collection also needs is for someone to go through it with some joy in their heart and fetch out some choice passages for the edification of the public. Someone like, say, a Public Address reader …

Staying with culture, I watched The Big Picture again, on TVNZ 6. Interestingly (alright, it may not interest you) the widescreen picture was properly framed in the Freeview broadcast (and looked great), whereas on Sky Digital it had black bars at the sides. Anyone know why that might be?

Not so interesting: TVNZ's cursory web page for The Big Picture. I realise there's no clear rule on who should provide online resources for a programme like this -- broadcaster or independent producer -- but it's a real missed opportunity.

And it's not like it's a lot of work. It takes about 30 seconds to search the National Library's Timeframes database to bring up a number of images from the work of Abel Tasman's onboard artist Isaac Gilsemans, including this one, featured in the programme, which depicts the waka that came out to meet Tasman's ship off Golden Bay in 1642. Gilseman, who did not exactly shirk from detail, depicts its occupants as entirely without moko.

There are also images from Cook's artist, William Hodges, whose work is remarkable not least for its sheer range.

And there is more at the website of the main repository of Hodges' work, the British Ministry of Defence Art Collection (Hodges' original commissions came from the Admiralty). Hodges' thunderous painting of the sea off Cape Stephens, in Cook Strait, which Hamish Keith compared to Colin McCahon's Storm Warning, is here.

There was a huge fuss in 1999 when Victoria, which had been gifted Storm warning by the artist in 1981, sold it to a private collector. The purpose of the gifting, many people felt, was that the painting could be maintained for public viewing.

I think that's an important principle. I was glad when the Turnbull stopped vandalising its small online images with "sample" watermarks, but I feel bound to note that institutions in other countries don't feel the need to run copyright warnings under every image on their websites.

Indeed, if publicly-funded archives hold out-of-copyright works, I can't see why they cannot make high-quality images available to the public on a non-commercial basis. Te Ara, too, is niggardly over the quality of image it will provide. What's the point? It's not as if the originals will get grubby.

Anyway: back to the Big Picture. Yes, you can buy the book, but isn't there a huge missed opportunity in the failure to co-operate with or galleries and archives to curate accompanying online and real-world exhibitions? If TVNZ is going to promote the "public value" of its new digital channels, shouldn't someone be doing something like this? Where is the enterprise?

Also, being non-commercial doesn't mean no breaks in programmes in TVNZ 6's Showcase hours, but the first cut from Hamish standing reverentially with the Maori rock paintings to a blaring BSA message was jarring. And why isn't The Big Picture listed in the Sky Digital EPG for Sunday evening? Honestly, it needs to at least look like someone cares …

Interesting blogosophere trivia: The British MOD Art Collection was once under the care of Mr Litterick of The Fundy Post, who happens to have an amusing account of last Saturday's EFB protest for your, well, amusement …

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The Bottom is a Magic Place | Nov 22, 2007 10:09

We now actually have a "smacking" conviction subsequent to the Child Discipline Bill, and good old Bob McCoskrie has been able to further define his vision of "good" parenting: in this case, a father came home from work, heard a report of his son's misbehaviour at school and rather than, say, talking to his child, lost the plot, threw him around and smacked him -- in the process causing bruising to the boy's shoulder significant enough for his mother to photograph it and show it to a relative, who was moved to contact the police.

Both parents sought "anger management, parenting skills and relationship counselling" before the father was sentenced to nine months' supervision. The effect of the sentence is that the state will now pay for the counselling.

And McCoskrie,the man behind this lurid advertisement on child abuse, believes that to be an outrage. Go figure.

Dave Crampton, under the remarkable headline Parent finally prosecuted for light smacking, is already fixing to get the court papers so he can find out whether the father was "convicted because of the bruise or because of the smack, given that it was the bruise the parent was reported for." Most probably, it was the entire incident, but I'm rather surprised that Dave can divine, absent evidence, "light" smacking in the midst of an incident in which the father lost his temper and left bruises on his child. It seems that for pro-smackers, the bottom is a magic place, where hitting cannot be hurting.

Meanwhile, Rynso, the YouTube user who uploaded the Timaru lady speaks out video, has moved on (understandably, given that she appears to have assaulted yet another of her children now; she's alleged to have struck her daughter in the face) and onto the Electoral Finance Bill, where a pathological sense of grievance can be more safely expressed.

The coverage of yesterday's EFB protest at Parliament yesterday is some priceless alternative TV. Jeanette Fitzsimons addresses a hooting mob ("turn 'er microphone orf!") and actually says "fuck" (I should point out she's quoting a placard). Some young chap from the counter-protest gets to the mic too. And -- ladies, grab a pen -- David Farrar gives out his address.

The Standard, inevitably, gets the needle on over the rather small size of the protest, and DPF explains that things didn't exactly go to plan.

After all the shouting on both sides, Vernon Small's column on the EFB saga is a more sober read.

Meanwhile, across the Tasman, John Howard's office is stonewalling on the release of his correspondence with the Exclusive Brethren -- until after the election.

The Brethren have finally outed themselves in Tasmania, actually putting names on the latest smear pamphlet:

The letter refers readers to the Greens and Brethren websites, but also to an anonymous US-registered blog at www.greenswatch.com.

The site accuses the Greens of a belief in bestiality, of starting the race riots on Palm Island in 2004, and of "plotting to infiltrate the Exclusive Brethren".

Giggle.

And then there's this:

The Liberal Party is in damage control after the exposure of a dirty tricks campaign in a key marginal seat, where pamphlets designed to tap into anti-Muslim sentiment were distributed by party volunteers.

Just a prank, apparently. By the Liberal candidate's husband. Wow.

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Because that's how I roll | Nov 21, 2007 11:04

I was musing to someone this morning that, for reasons unclear, I appear to have jumped PR lists. I'm getting a different grade of invitation now, and the couriers beating a path to the front door are dropping new goods.

Hence, later today I'll have to get out of my tracksuit pants and into a suit to join "14 other prominent CEOs in a Chatham House rules style discussion" about New Zealand's communications infrastructure, to be hosted by New Zealand Institute CEO David Skilling in the private dining room of a good restaurant.

Ergo, I am a prominent CEO. If only my Dad were around to see it. In his absence, I guess I'll just have to make a grand gesture. Take the whole Dubwise Arrangements Limited staff out to lunch on Friday, perhaps. A table for two a Prego, then.

(Perhaps Ralston will be there, and I'll be able to congratulate him for his moving story of a family's struggle with the trauma of multiple suicides, in this week's Listener. In a world of celebrity columnists, Bill can actually write.)

Further evidence of my vaulting executive status came with the recent arrival of a new Blackberry Curve. Even though there was a "mobile mentor" into the bargain, I'm still traumatised by the bloody thing. There I was, a little dazed, trying to call my pals after the Cale concert last week, and none of their numbers were in the damn phone. When my Blackberry coach called back he determined that we'd neglected to do Address Book > Menu > Contacts on SIM > Copy over Contacts. Oh, right, how could I not have known that?

I've promised Paul Brislen (in the hood, we still call him The BRZA) I'll get back on the horse, and apart from anything else, I'm gaggin' for the Curve launch next week, which will feature a multimedia installation by Mike Hodgson and friends. Mike's talents are criminally under-used in New Zealand, to the extent that I've never actually seen one of his jobs. It's being presented in association with 42 Below, Mercedes, and Scent of Vulcan Lane. No free party pills then, clearly.

But for the moment, the SIM is back in my Motorola RAZR Maxx V6 (mine by virtue of enrolment in the MotoAmbassador programme, which provides a free phone at the cost of allowing myself to be snapped by Norrie Montgomery on a roughly annual basis) -- which I was obliged to configure and use as my internet connection this morning, on account of Wired Country going on one of its occasional mystery walkabouts, and my backup DSL connection working the way DSL connections so often work in Pt Chev: that being, not at all.

In the course of a longish support call with a pleasant Indian woman at Ihug (yes, I'm the kind of prominent CEO who makes his own tech support calls -- because that's just how I roll) we determined that the DSL connection was faulty, and that the Wired Country was working perfectly, apart from it just not working.

Next week's a busy one, what with the Digital Summit. I hope it's better than it looks. As a friend of mine pointed out, most of the people on the stage telling us stuff should really be in the audience being told stuff by the innovators. And does it really have to cost $800 to attend? I mean, as a prominent CEO, I'm gonna drop tha eight-bomb like it's nothin' (or, alternatively, blag my way in as a journalist, as usual), but what about the little people?

I should note that an accompanying part of the Digital Strategy is an open blog, to which anyone may submit a post. You should have a crack.

But for now, I should move along. I'm interviewing Campbell Smith for the radio show soon, on account of the second Big day out announcement being made. It's solid, if not stunning. I'm pleased to see a proper house act (Carl Cox) lined up for the tent, and most encouraged to see Doctor Octagon and Unkle on the bill.

But wait. I think I need something more. Euros. If Jay Z's got 'em, shouldn't I?

PS: Don't muck about getting in your tribute to your favourite New Zealand album(s) to win one of five copies of Grant Smithies' excellent book Soundtrack: 118 Great New Zealand albums. I want to clear that one some time next week so I can run another comp with some rather large, liquid prizes attached. Dude, Marc Ellis will be begging to come to my parties …

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