Public Address - Hard News (Home)

Shilly-shallying | Oct 01, 2004 11:04

I feel that I should offer some stern consideration to the government's continuing ugliness in the matter of Ahmed Zaoui, or Trevor Mallard's attempt to pretend that over-long school powhiri are a pressing issue … But it's been a long week and I lack the sense of duty such a course would dictate.

So you could hop on over to Scoop, which continues to pursue the Zaoui story with dedication and vigour, or check in on No Right Turn, who does these things so much better than me. I can report that TVNZ has bumped previous programming on Wednesday, October 13 in favour of Enemy of the State, a programme for which Alex van Wel and Mike Valintine travelled to Algeria "to investigate Zaoui's life". Among other things, they use hidden cameras to "probe the allegations made against him and discover who made them". They claim to have raised "serious questions about the credibility" of the case against Zaoui.

Me, I'll just tarry a moment and knock out another coffee from my shiny, new and ever-so-treasured Vibiemme Domobar Super, which I collected last week as part of some business we're doing with Karajoz coffee (more of which soon). It's stainless steel inside-and-out and (now that we've learned to respect its power and stopped burning the milk) really quite amazing.

I'm confidently expecting a similar buzz out of another shiny new tool, the iMac G5, which I officially spec'd and ordered from Magnum Mac just before I picked up the Domobar last week. There's still no word on exactly when the G5 will arrive, and local back-orders are already well into the hundreds, but I will have mine before most people get theirs, so I can't complain. I just want it now.

Dunedin was fun, although these night-time raids on other cities never leave any time for shopping. The crowd at Arc Café for Off the Wire was good-humoured and responsive and the recording was a pleasure. It was good to meet the legendary Dougal Stephenson too.

I had intended to go and see the Lonesome Buckwhips, the country-music-comedy act featuring Hamish from Critic, who were playing around the corner, but ended up being hauled along by my colleagues on an informal survey of Dunedin's bar culture - which wasn't bad for a Wednesday. We even popped in on the Bowling Green, which was of great anthropological interest, and wound up back at the Arc to have a drink with our new friends on the staff and pump money into the jukebox.

That was quite enough late-night excitement for the week, but I will be venturing out to the all-important Auckland vs Canterbury NPC clash on Saturday, thanks to Hoani at West Lynn Organic Meats (or, as the Mad Butcher used to put it, "the orgasmic butcher"), who kindly offered me his two members' tickets for the match. Big Gay Paul and I are very grateful for this - and I hereby invite readers to head on down to Hoani's shop, throw money at him and tell him I sent you. The organic bacon and the organic chicken sausages are particularly noteworthy.

BTW, I'll be presenting Sunday morning's Mediawatch live on National Radio, and Nicola Legat and Reg Birchfield will be joining me to size up the first edition of the new Sunday "compact", the Herald on Sunday. We probably won't get as far as the industrial dispute, but I would not underestimate the resolve of the Herald journalists on this one.

I'm delighted that Damian Christie's blog here has helped him get a column with the new paper (and that, I think, his column will be accompanied by his blog address!). He'll be sharing a page with Deborah Coddington, who I'm guessing won't be touching on the unfortunate business with Roger Kerr. I feel sorry for Coddington - no one invites this stuff - but it's hard not to marvel at the rather colourful psychology at that end of the political spectrum.

MediaCow farewells Fuse and stuff at DogBitingMen. Oh, and will somebody in Wellington give David Cohen a hug? Or at least make his day by asking him to do that Bruce Springsteen impression again? Frankly, I've given up on Nippert ever making the cut as a breakdancer, no matter how long he spends hanging out in Scribe's dressing room, and I've had to give up air guitar on account of the RSI, but Cohen as The Boss might well save the reputation of New Zealand journalism. Toodle-pip!

PS: Damn! I forgot to post the following transcript from an interview with Keri Hulme due to air on Frontseat on TV One on Sunday night. Very flattering, and I'm looking forward to seeing it on Sunday:

FRONTSEAT: Tell me about Public Address where you posted a blog...

HULME: I did (laughs). It wasn't so much a blog, it was an invited comment. Because Bill really did - erstwhile of Blerta - Bill Deakin (sp?) did turn up at my place in his specialised paraplegic van with his helpmate, and we stewed ourselves on V8 and vodka basically, on a tremendously thunderstorm night. It was extraordinary. And I'd made a comment about this to Damian Christie… and as a result they accepted what I'd posted.

I love Hard News, I love Public Address. And of course there is one Jolisa [Gracewood] … I have also enjoyed her contributions very much.
Blogging is a new literary form. The really good ones are worth keeping in more than such semi-permanent stuff as hard drives. Download them, print 'em out please and keep them. And it's very very new.

FRONTSEAT: Is it good writing?

HULME: All of it?

FRONTSEAT: Blogging.

HULME: No! There's an awful lot of crap out there. But the good bloggers are very good indeed. A lot of them in New Zealand unfortunately are almost purely political. We don't have people, as you get in some of the archaeological blogs, doing semi-autobiographical stuff or coming up with musings on the whys and wherefores of humanity etcetera. Public Address is the best blog 'portal', if you can call it that, because it has a range of people offering material.

Nice!

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The envelope, please ... | Sep 29, 2004 10:43

So, how to vote in the local body elections? I'm not averse on principle to sending the odd vote to a CitRat candidate - the late Phil Warren always got a tick from me - but I'm blowed if I can see one I'd want to back from this year's Citizens & Ratepayers Now slate. And, in general, I simply don't trust the buggers.

You will, of course, be making your own choices - read the booklet! - but people do keep asking me about this, so ....from my point of view, it was a string of CitRat-dominated councils that allowed Auckland's water and wastewater infrastructure to deteriorate to the point of crisis by milking its budget. In this term, after campaigning on a zero rates rise, they altered the balance of the rates burden so that those least able to afford it faced increases of nearly 40%.

And then, from a dominant position on what is laughably described as a "consumer trust", they have turned the governance of our electricity lines company, Vector, into an undemocratic debacle. I think that civic utilities should be run in a businesslike fashion, and at arms-length from politics, but I also think they should stick to their knitting, and not go chasing after what a Herald editorial held to be "potent avenue[s] for growth" by fundamentally altering their stakeholder responsibilities.

The entry of an unpleasant Act Party tendency since the formation of Citizens and Ratepayers Now just makes them less appealing than ever. I accept that it is useful to have a centre-right presence on the councils, and I even agreed with some of the centre-right's past actions (the establishment of Metrowater, for example). I'm just not going to vote for them.

On the other hand, the centre-left and independent presence on the last Auckland City Council had a lot to do with its relatively competent performance in such basic areas of financial governance as controlling unbudgeted expenditure and not going on consultancy spending sprees (compare and contrast if you wish with what the CitRats have done in the past three years).

I'm largely happy with the performance of the current City Vision ticket, including Western Bays' two councillors, Bruce Hucker and Penny Sefuiva, who will be returned. For the community board, Leigh Kennaway and Bruce Kilmister are precisely the kind of active members of the community I would want to see on such a body. A glance at campaign literature for other wards suggests that one or two City Vision candidates are a little too Green-left for my tastes (opposition to the rational and affordable completion of State Highway 20, for example), so you'll want to check the profiles that come with your voting forms and make your own call.

It's rather more interesting on the other side of the tracks in Hobson Bays, where the Action Hobson ticket has sprung out of the Stop the Eastern Motorway group to provide a new sort of centre-right vision: one that is occasionally capable of seeing a road that it doesn't like.

I recently spoke to someone who had attended a STEM meeting and who described it as "the future face of the National Party - discreet, competent people who know what they're doing," and I rather suspect that if Banks is defeated and the CitRats lose some council and community board seats in the wards they have traditionally owned, the balance of Auckland local body politics will alter permanently. I think that's a good thing.

We get to pick four members for the Auckland Regional Council, a body which is rather too much of a mystery given its growing importance. The rates-revolt group Residents Action Movement (RAM) has entered the fray with a forest of signage that makes it look vaguely looney, but one of its ARC candidates, Rachel Asher, seems worth a look, although I'm mostly happy with City Vision here too.

The Auckland District Health Board ushers in the thrill of STV voting, and you may find it beyond your powers of political concentration to rank all 31 candidates in order - we certainly did in our house. But the thing is, you don't have to. I'll have Kilmister (again) as my top pick there, followed by Barry De Geest and Di Nash, but I haven't quite got to grips with the rest of the league table.

And yes, I'll be voting for Dick Hubbard as mayor - although, like Brian Rudman, I'm not exactly over the moon with what's on offer. As Rudman says, Christine Fletcher dug her own grave a while ago - although it's a shame she declined to put herself forward for the ARC. But in comparison to the arrogant, self-fancying, ineffective little man in the job right now, almost anything would be an improvement.

PS: I'm off for 22 hours in swinging Dunedin now, so tomorrow's posts might be a little late, and don't expect any replies to emails till tomorrow afternoon, if that ...

PPS: I have been very confidently assured by Someone Who Ought To Know that the fraternal relationship between Auckland City employee Graeme Colman and NBR owner Barry Colman harbours no clues at all as to the NBR's assault on Dick Hubbard, so forget I said that. Oddly enough, it was someone to ought to know who suggested it to me in the first place …

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Late run | Sep 28, 2004 09:57

Christine Fletcher won last night's Holmes Auckland mayoral debate by a country mile. She had a better grasp of the issues than either of her rivals, and got her points across effectively. Unfortunately for her, her goose was cooked some time ago in the only two published polls on the mayoral race.

Fletcher failed to get near enough to Banks in the first, independent poll, and ran a distant third in the poll taken by the Herald after Dick Hubbard announced his candidacy. Now, with the postal vote already in progress, it's just a bit late for her to be finding form. And I personally am not going to risk a vote that might have the effect of returning the incumbent mayor. Politics is a cruel business. Perhaps now that they've made up, Hubbard could offer her a job.

Hubbard himself seemed largely intent on keeping it simple and staying out of trouble. As John Banks has been doing for the whole campaign, he mostly trotted out canned talking points.

And Banks just looked rattled. When Fletcher asked him the question that interviewers haven't been asking - with the exception of the new sand on Kohimarama Beach, what current city project can you honestly claim is the initiative of your council? - Banks changed the subject. He seems to have decided that he can no longer get away with claiming credit for the achievements of others. When he returned to the topic later on to declare that he'd put sand on several other beaches as well, it was finally established on television that the council that has "achieved more than any council in living memory" has in fact done bugger-all. Hallelujah.

The fourth man in the room, Paul Holmes, performed quite well too. Speaking of which, no indignant phone calls or emails. I was determined not to make my Holmes story for this week's Listener a hatchet job, which seemed to me a little too easy and too expected. Then when I picked it up last Friday I wondered whether I'd been a bit soft on him. When you file a cover story less than 48 hours after the interview it can be hard to tell. But people seem to like it. And seeing Cate Brett describe me as "the acerbic Russell Brown" in the SST on Sunday was most amusing.

Meanwhile, in Stuff's wrap-up of the dodgy mail drop, Metro editor Nicola Legat says Banks' claim that copies of the magazine's story about him were distributed to Auckland residents is news to her ("I would have thought if it was circulating by now someone might have phoned the magazine to say `do you know this is happening'") and the Herald newsdesk is actively appealing for sightings. No luck yet, apparently. Would it be rude to suggest it only happened in the mayor's head?

Ross from Dorking Labs has a blunt cartoon about the whole business.

One more thing before we leave the mayoral brawl. Journalists with a moment or two might like to amuse themselves by connecting the dots between Graeme Colman (works for Auckland City doing media management and communications for John Banks) and his brother Barry Colman (owns a large boat, publishes the National Business Review). Just a thought.

Anyway, while we're worrying about elections in Auckland, or Iraq, what about America? Nick Turner pointed me to Jimmy Carter's column in the Washington Post, in which the experienced election observer looks at the federal fumbling since the botched vote in 2000 and frankly declares that "some basic international requirements for a fair election are missing in Florida".

Knight Ridder's correspondents in Iraq continue to make the others look lazy. Check this:

Operations by U.S. and multinational forces and Iraqi police are killing twice as many Iraqis - most of them civilians - as attacks by insurgents, according to statistics compiled by the Iraqi Health Ministry and obtained exclusively by Knight Ridder.

According to the ministry, the interim Iraqi government recorded 3,487 Iraqi deaths in 15 of the country's 18 provinces from April 5 - when the ministry began compiling the data - until Sept. 19. Of those, 328 were women and children. Another 13,720 Iraqis were injured, the ministry said.

And Pakistan's leader Pervez Musharraf clearly didn't get the same script as the accommodating Mr Allawi. This from an interview with CNN's Paula Zahn:

ZAHN: Is the world a safer place because of the war in Iraq?

MUSHARRAF: No. It's more dangerous. It's not safer, certainly not.

ZAHN: How so?

MUSHARRAF: Well, because it has aroused actions of the Muslims more. It's aroused certain sentiments of the Muslim world, and then the responses, the latest phenomena of explosives, more frequent for bombs and suicide bombings. This phenomenon is extremely dangerous.

ZAHN: Was it a mistake to have gone to war with Iraq?

MUSHARRAF: Well, I would say that it has ended up bringing more trouble to the world....

ZAHN: Has that happened in Iraq?

MUSHARRAF: Well, there are difficulties. One can't predict. Maybe the difficulties are surmounted and then it ends up with a victory, with a success. But, at the moment, we are bogged down, yes, yes indeed....

ZAHN: Do you think that the war in Iraq has undermined the overall war on terror?

MUSHARRAF: It has complicated it, certainly. I wouldn't say undermined. It has further complicated it. It has made the job more difficult.

And Colin Powell and General John Abizaid appear to have missed the script-drop too:

US Secretary of State Colin Powell says he sees the situation in Iraq "getting worse" as planned elections approach.

And the top US military commander for Iraq says he expects more violence in the months ahead.

Their comments yesterday followed a week in which President Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi spoke optimistically about the situation, despite the beheadings of two more Americans and the deaths of dozens of people in car bombings.

Raed Jarrar and others are pointing to this video. If it is what it is purported to be - cockpit video from a US fighter plane firing on dozens of protesters in Fallujah in July - then it is unspeakably chilling. As chilling, indeed, as any of the atrocities committed by the bad guys. It's also here.

Riverbend is fuming.

You may have heard discussion on Chris Laidlaw's show on Sunday about the Bush administration's consistent perversion of science. Scientists and Engineers for Change (who count the mighty Vint Cerf among their number) have more information and comment on the topic, including The Bush Record on US science issues, which ought to alarm anyone who cares about this stuff.

PS: How exactly does being a former Miss New Zealand qualify you to have your extreme and alarmist views on the Civil Union Bill splashed across the front page of the New Zealand Herald? And to another opponent of the bill, Jennie McKeown of Kaukapakapa, who had this to say to the select committee:

"What on earth are you doing, dealing with less than 1 per cent of the nation's concerns? They are not being killed or burned or beaten up …"

Does the name David McNee ring a bell?

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