Public Address - Hard News (Home)

After Corngate | Oct 20, 2004 10:08

I agree with Nicky Hager: it isn't correct to say that the Corngate select committee report released yesterday leaves us none the wiser about the events of late 2000 and early 2001. On the contrary, as he pointed out yesterday on Checkpoint, it advances the whole story by a considerable distance.

The report contains a wealth of information on what to do and what not to do in future. That it can't tell us for certain either way whether we had a genuine accidental release of some GM corn is not the point. David Saul and Jack Heinemann, the two expert scientists tasked by the committee both criticise the testing protocols and the practices of the labs involved. But they come up with different conclusions as to the likelihood of contamination and the reasonableness of the decision that there was enough evidence to dismiss the possibility of contamination in late 2000.

Dr Saul effectively lines up with the conclusions of Otago University's Dr Russell Poulter, whose advice was pivotal in the decision to abandon initial plans to remove the suspect crops, dismissing the original positive test by CFR - which began the story - as the result of laboratory contamination and declaring it "unlikely that NC9114 was contaminated with GE seed" adding that it is "impossible to see how else this data could be objectively assessed." He believes that it was reasonable for officials to conclude in late 2000 that there was no credible evidence of GM corn.

Dr Saul is particularly scathing of the claim in Nicky Hager's book, Seeds of Distrust: The Story of a GE Cover-Up that the positive result obtained by the Genescan lab in Melbourne was of much greater value than the negative from Crop & Food at Lincoln, declaring that "This statement is emphatic, convincing and irredeemably wrong."

Dr Heinemann, on the other hand, believes that the quality of evidence available to the officials was insufficient "for making a decision of such legal, environmental, health and political importance." He cannot conclude that there was contamination, but cannot rule it out - and believes that a testing structure could and should have been designed to give more robust conclusions after the initial scare.

In my view, the stronger claims in Seeds of Distrust - the certain fact of GM contamination, and the interference of ministers - are just not borne out by the report. As committee chair Jeanette Fitzsimons put it yesterday on Checkpoint, "We all agreed that there was no evidence of ministerial interference."

The government and its officials look much more ropey on the key issue on which the select committee was split: whether they introduced a tolerance level of .05% for GM presence in crops when the law as it stood (unworkably, in the view of some players) held out a zero tolerance for any GM presence. Whether, in effect, they changed the law without the bother of changing the law - and then, later changed their minds about that change.

The report, from a majority, sums it up thus:

The policy decision was defined as a choice between two options. These are set out in various forms in several documents but perhaps the clearest is in Donald Hannah's 1 December 2000 memorandum to Bas Walker:

(a) If any result shows a positive it is evidence of GM contamination and the shipment is rejected. This has the effect of putting the actual tolerance at the limit of the test methodology.

(b) Test results that can be reasonably quantified to be shown to be below 0.5% contamination would enable acceptance of the shipment, test results above 0.5% would result in shipments being rejected.

There is no record anywhere of an explicit decision being made between these two options at that time. It was the subject of ongoing dialogue between government agencies as the interim standard was developed.

And yet, recorded or not, there was a policy circulated to that effect. Whether it was applied - that is, whether the Novartis scare at the heart of Corngate was dealt with under it - is not clear.

Was there a cover-up? It depends on your definition of cover-up. Certainly, there was no outward indication of the behind-the-scenes frenzy at the time; the government played it down. But governments don't usually issue statements saying that they're flailing around. And we depend on good reporting to tell us when that is the case. In that sense, Seeds of Distrust was immensely valuable. We know a lot as a direct result of its publication.

But I still find it unsatisfactory that the identity of the scientist(s) who offer key judgement in the book remains unknown - surely, now, it would do no harm for this information to be revealed? Why should it remain a secret?

And - conceding bluntly that I'm not particularly proud of some of my initial response at the time - I would hope to never again see such work presented in such a way at such a time. Remember, the 3 News special based on the book was sprung on the accused, without independent scientific advice, just before an election, and it stated as stone cold fact that there was GM corn harvested with the certain knowledge of government and officials of its status, and that there was a political cover-up at the highest levels of that fact. That's pretty powerful stuff. And, as the record shows, it influenced an election.

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And a party too! | Oct 19, 2004 11:10

Assuming it was accurate, last night's 3 News report on the Waiparera Trust seems to indicate that somebody stole money from the trust in 1999. There can be no other gloss put on the revelations of invoices from bogus companies and matching cheques made out to cash.

This was, presumably, the final zinger the government was wearily anticipating from 3's rolling story - and if it's not, the 3 News team should probably drink a toast to its own enterprise and get the rest of it out the door. There's an inquiry on, after all.

If John Tamihere is found to be linked in any way to the apparent invoice scam, which took place in his final month as CEO of the trust, he's dog tucker, obviously. But he hasn't. And it's yet to be shown that he did anything wrong in accepting a golden handshake on his departure from the trust after 10 years' service (although accepting a payment you initially said you would not accept can only be cause for embarrassment).

The payment was widely reported at the time, and explained, in part, as recompense for Tamihere's acceptance of below-market salaries for much of his time as CEO. It was also quoted, at the time, as one of $280,000 - which would seem to lend weight to Tamihere's position that the $195,000 he received was an after-tax sum. But it's not the only issue, and speculation over the trust's affairs is such that we do now need the (relative) swiftness of an independent QC's inquiry.

Although the government's response since the story broke has been fairly textbook - a ministerial stand-down until the inquiry delivers a result - it will doubtless cop a pasting in Parliament this afternoon. Or perhaps what passes for a pasting from the National Party. Gerry Brownlee's talking point for the week - "John Tamihere is in Parliament because Helen Clark wanted him in Parliament" - is accurate, but a bit disingenuous. In the late 90s, Tamihere could have stood for almost any party of his choice - National included.

Good news: of yesterday afternoon (well, that's when it worked for me), if you type "Lange Oxford Union speech" into Google, our Great New Zealand Argument transcript is the first result (oddly, if you include "David" in your search string, the Hard News post of the same day takes top slot) . Google has reconfigured around us, and you just have to love that. The speech has been viewed more than 6000 times, and I'm expecting it to truck on for ever. I've also made inquiries about the right to put the audio of the speech online, but the wheels turn slowly in these things.

Public Address seems to be the top referrer to the fund-raiser for the civil unions newspaper ad, and some of you have been quite generous. If you haven't yet clicked through to donate (and, if you wish, have your name in print in the ad), please feel free to do so.

Much as I feel the frustration that the job of most powerful elected official in the world is left to America's broken-down democracy, the Guardian's stunt in inviting well-meaning poms to write to voters in Clark County, Ohio - to pass on thoughts about how they ought to vote - was patronising and misconceived. I don't think I'd take particularly kindly to someone from another country telling me how to cast my vote. At the same time, some of the responses from Ohio tend to feed the perception of an almost feral xenophobia in the American electorate. The fencing around the presidential debates - John Kerry as president would listen to foreigners! - left the impression that the USA in 2004 distrusts and despises not only its potential enemies, but its allies too.

Of course, the allies aren't too keen on the current American leadership either, as yet another global poll shows:

The results show that in Australia, Britain, Canada, France, Japan, Spain and South Korea a majority of voters share a rejection of the Iraq invasion, contempt for the Bush administration, a growing hostility to the US and a not-too-strong endorsement of Mr Kerry. But they all make a clear distinction between this kind of anti-Americanism and expressing a dislike of American people. On average 68% of those polled say they have a favourable opinion of Americans.

The 10-country poll suggests that rarely has an American administration faced such isolation and lack of public support amongst its closest allies.

Jonathan Freedland put it thus:

Besides, every good Republican knows the world is solid Kerry territory. A survey by pollsters HI Europe earlier this month found that, if Europeans had a vote, they would back Kerry over Bush by a 6 to 1 margin. Bush would win just 6% in Germany, 5% in Spain and a measly 4% in France. No Republican is going to cede turf like that to the enemy.

You would think those numbers would hurt Bush, making clear how unpopular he is in the world. But they don't. If anything they hurt Kerry, suggesting he is the candidate of limp-wristed foreigners and therefore somehow less American. We may find that a sorry state of affairs. But there is little we can do about it. In the democratic contest that matters most to the world, the world is disenfranchised.

While we might be astonished that Americans would be prepared to re-elect an administration that appears to almost everyone else to be both mendacious and incompetent, it's their choice. It's just a shame that they seem to be having trouble raising their democratic process to the level expected of a modern Western nation.

In Salon, Gary Younge looks at the various Republican Party attempts at suppressing the vote. And this site lists quite a few more - including the astonishing case of the private voter registration firm, funded by the Republican party, which has been soliciting registrations, and then shredding the forms of those who registered as Democrats. It gets worse: a Republican state judge has said that those whose forms were shredded cannot re-register.

Josh Marshall also noted the weird lack of action against Republican campaign operatives who, during the 2002 mid-term election, paid a telemarketing firm to jam the phone lines their Democrat opponents were using to get out their vote.

Anyway, that's almost enough for now. I'm very croaky after going to the Little Brother show last night - most from having to shout to be heard over the music. It was fun, though.

But one more thing: we're having a party! Our first event, The Great Blend: Public Address Live, will be held at the Grey Lynn Bowling Club (yes, it actually is a bowling club), 112 Surrey Crescent, from 4pm on October 31.

There'll be a little speech by me, a light-hearted bloggers' panel, a couple of cultural offerings (the poems of Allen Curnow read by his grandson, Nat Curnow, and a sneak peek at a documentary on the 1970s New Zealand skate boom) and performances by artists from Lil Chief Records (including members of the Brunettes and the Tokey Tones) and Ladi Six. There will be a cheap bar, some food and, thanks to our sponsors Karajoz Coffee Company, great complimentary coffee. It will be a relaxed, but stimulating affair.

It's free - and you, dear reader, can come if you're quick enough. Capacity is strictly limited, but you can click through here to get yourself on the door list (please don't do it unless you're actually going to come). I couldn't think of any better way to do it, so it's first in, first served. Best wishes, and perhaps we'll see you at the end of the month.

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L-Dopes | Oct 18, 2004 10:20

I've been fascinated by the controversy over John Kerry's mention of Dick Cheney's lesbian daughter, Mary, during the third presidential debate. In answering a question about whether homosexuality was a choice or not, after Bush had claimed that he didn't know, Kerry said "We're all God's children. And I think if you were to talk to Dick Cheney's daughter, who is a lesbian, she would tell you that she's being who she was. She's being who she was born as. I think if you talk to anybody, it's not a choice."

Within 24 hours, the vice-president and his wife Lynne assailed Kerry as a "not a good man" for dragging their daughter into the fray. Survey panels of likely voters adjudged that Kerry was wrong to have mentioned Mary Cheney's sexuality.

Yet it was only about three weeks ago that the Cheneys happily told the national media "we have a gay daughter". In the VPs' debate, John Edwards expressed his admiration for the Cheneys' love and support for their "gay daughter" - and was thanked by Cheney for his kind words. Then Kerry does the same thing and it as is, as one commentator put it, "like he exposed a breast" on national television.

So what is this actually about? Not just Mary Cheney, for sure. The fact that both Edwards and Kerry mentioned her in debates - in the context of gay-rights questions - is presumably no accident: they were looking to play up the gulf between the VP's personal attitude towards a family member and the broader Republican Party's unpleasant attitude toward homosexuality - and perhaps looking to chip off a little of the bigot vote that would otherwise go to Bush.

Anyone who planned to vote and had somehow not noticed that Mary Cheney was gay would have to be pretty stupid. It's not just that the fact had already been mentioned in one debate and widely in the national media: the woman is virtually a professional lesbian. She was "gay and lesbian corporate affairs manager" for Coors Brewing, for goodness sake. She has herself, where it's considered advantageous, been trotted out by the Republican campaign. But "pretty stupid" is a key Republican voter category, so it did matter to the party.

The fact is, also, that Lesbogate was about the only thing the Republican campaign could have taken away from the third debate. And take it they did: the remarks of the "bad man" would have been trumpeted as a key talking point in campaign dispatches.

That's not to say that the Bush support base will have needed much direction to outrage, though. I dipped into the live debate thread at the nutjob conservative site the Free Republic after it was over, and they were already frothing about it. They seemed to regard Mary Cheney's sexuality as a dread secret to be covered up.

But there was more than that. She has previously been framed as the "gay daughter". Kerry went further. He used the L-word: LESBIAN. LESBIAN, LESBIAN, LESBIAN!!! It might seem silly to us, but this is also the country where CNN ran a 20-minute profile of Vagina Monologues author Eve Ensler without once using the word "vagina". (Before getting too smug, we would also do well to note that the New Zealand Herald was extremely squeamish about using the L-word until the mid-1990s.) A Fox News commentator even opined that the L-word came across as "off the grid, and very, very shrill". Oh, really?

The gay community's response was largely one of fury: directed at the Cheneys. A superb column for Salon by Dave Cullen put it this way:

Let's get one thing straight. It is not an insult to call a proudly public lesbian a lesbian. It's an insult to gasp when someone calls her a lesbian. That's how all the gays I have spoken to the past 24 hours perceived the press response. You're embarrassed for us. And it's infuriating.

The spokesman for the gay group Log Cabin Republicans slammed the party for "feigning outrage" over Kerry's comments. Joanna Walters in The Guardian painted a similar picture, noting that "gays are furious that the Cheneys are, supposedly, furious, and that the mainstream media has whipped itself up into a frenzy over the issue."

But it actually gets weirder from there. Mary Cheney is actually a key advisor on her father's campaign, and 365Gay.com reported that the idea to go on the attack over the L-word issue may actually have been hers in the first place.

But wait, there's more: while the Cheneys vilified Kerry, they didn't say a word when extreme-right republican Senate candidate Alan Keyes told reporters recently that, as a lesbian, Mary Cheney was a "selfish hedonist," living in sin. Now it appears that Keyes himself has a gay daughter (who has been frank about her sexuality in a blog for the last three years), but won't discuss it. Indeed, it appears that there is quite a crowd of public moral conservatives with gay children they don't like to talk about. AfterEllen.com suggested that lesbian daughters appear to be the accessory of choice for politicians these days.

Also, more bulge pictures from debate three and elsewhere. There is no doubt whatsoever that Bush is wearing something bulky under his jacket. His office says it's not body armour. There's not real proof that it's a wireless relay. But WTF is it? Shouldn't some journalist, like, ask?

I don't know exactly what to make of John Tamihere's various historical troubles arising from the Waiparera Trust. I'm inclined to stay judgement because it has emerged from the obviously vile politics of the trust itself - the continuing dysfunction of governance in Maori organisations is really quite depressing, and the present leadership of the trust doesn't exactly encourage confidence.

But it doesn't look good for him. Even if no actual offence has been committed, that is not the standard on which ministers of the Crown are judged. And, of course, a by-election is the last thing the government wants right now.

So some local prison inmates are converting to "a militant, politicised brand of Islam" - and we have a new, media-friendly figurehead (think Kyle Chapman in a headscarf) to go with the story. But before fretting about race war, could the various commentators please do a smidgeon of study and work out the difference between Islam (an established faith followed by 1.6 billion people) and the Nation of Islam (a kooky American numerology cult)?

And, finally, thanks for all the responses to the Lange speech and the Great New Zealand Argument feature. It's most gratifying - and I have a good half dozen ideas from readers for future "historical blogs".

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A good day | Oct 15, 2004 09:41

This is a good day. Why? Because our new feature, Great New Zealand Argument, launches with what I'm pretty sure is the first published transcript of David Lange's 1985 Oxford Union debate speech. I can't think of a better way to launch our new "historical blog" than this.

Every fortnight from now on, Great New Zealand Argument will publish notable essays, editorials, speeches, comments, reports, chapters and pamphlets, loosely - but not exclusively - revolving around a theme of national identity.

The idea is that these things draw new life, and relevance, from being published alongside contemporary comment. In a fairly long stretch using the Internet for work and play, I have developed a deep respect for the source document: it's all very well to read about something, but there is no substitute for the original. I also believe that in the digital world, the best way to archive something is generally to publish it. (In this, I would also like to provide some sort of lead for the government's welcome but still-vague promise regarding the establishment of a New Zealand Creative Commons.)

So I would encourage you to link to the Lange speech, tell all your friends, add Great New Zealand Argument to your blogroll, write a story about us in your newspaper, whatever. I'm keen for people to see this, and the more links it gets, the further up the Google rankings it rises.

All going to plan, next up in GNZA will be Bill Pearson's oft-quoted (but out of print) 1952 essay for Landfall, Fretful Sleepers: A Sketch of New Zealand Behaviour and its Implications for the Artist. Donald Stenhouse, Pearson's executor, has kindly consented to its publication, so it just remains to get the thing digitised. After that, I'm thinking about Fintan Patrick Walsh's 'Walsh Report', with an introduction by Graham Hunt (yo! Penguin! wasn't someone sending me Graham's book?). I'd also like to delve into New Zealand's considerable tradition of pamphlet publishing.

Feel free to send me suggestions for future publication. I'm not anticipating running out of important opinion to re-publish. And I'd like to thank Karajoz Coffee Company for being smart enough to understand what we're doing and help us do it. I'll have another announcement on something else we're doing with Karajoz early next week. That's pretty cool too.

Anyway, our traffic at Public Address keeps rising. We're nudging 3000 visits on most weekdays - and our generous exposure in Frontseat's feature on Keri Hulme seems to have brought us some new readers. Last month, we logged 60,000 visits from either 21,000 unique readers (our count) or 14,500 (Nielsen NetRatings count). We'll top that this month.

I'm just glad that we have good reading for them when they come here. I mean, check out Che Tibby: the guy gets in touch as a letter-writer, starts contributing as a guest, and now he's made two posts this week that are better than 90 per cent of the altogether-too-many columns that currently crowd the papers. And it's free!

So thanks to him and all the other bloggers, CactusLab, 95bFM, Scoop, Pead PR (who do get it), our advertisers (who are always welcome) and to you, the readers. Public Address takes up far too much of my time, and it doesn't really pay, but it's the best thing I do. Cheers.

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