no live blogging

On Friday I attended the Victoria University Post election conference held in Parliament’s Legislative Council Chamber.  It is about my third one I think and they are always fascinating.  A mix of media, campaign managers and academics disect the campaign.

It is held under Chatham House Rule so you can use the information just not identify who said what, nor the identity of their organisations.  After morning tea, the request was also made for no live blogging – to be honest the person doing the asking appeared as though they weren’t sure what they were asking.  Besides they were already too late. Some blog posts had already been written and released to the wild, just not by me.

So over the next few days I will sift through my copious notes and prepare an entry on how each party’s campaign went.  Lots of people talked about multiple parties and there were plenty of questions and comments from the audience so you can’t make assumptions about who said what.

twins

Well not really. But don’t you hate it when you turn up somewhere and someone else is wearing the same thing? John Key and Helen Clark were unusually in sync with John’s pink tie and Helen’s pink jacket.

history in the making

Asides from the hideous over-used phrase, the One News You Tube Election Debate is an excellent idea. I have no idea why Mark Sainsbury would think this is such a novel way to do things, after all, another election happening somewhere else in the world which is making a much bigger use of user generated content.

In previous elections we’ve had citizen questions filmed on the street by professional teams and nicely edited.  I like the idea of being able to vote on which questions get asked.  One News do say they aren’t making all questions available to vote on so I’m guessing what gets up on the site is moderated.  There are no ranting hateful questions at this point.  Mind you, having your face behind the question must make people think twice about being thoroughly obnoxious. You can’t hide behind an anonymous comment. I do wonder though what the demographic coverage will be like – will they all be younger and tech-savy?

And what amuses me most? Just how happy people are to display the contents of their bedrooms and living rooms.

dismal dennis

I’ve just watched the first episode of the new series of the Pretender. It wasn’t un-funny but I did expect a bit more. Dennis is hapless and clueless.  He’s striking out on his own fully confident he has a future. The crazy thing is that this wasn’t a truly original script I was watching, this was history, reality with names changed to protect the innocent. As ridiculous as some of these situations appeared most have happened in NZ’s political history.

 I did admire how well they’d got the set for Bowen House – it the pre-renovation state anyway.

Dennis Plant for Prime Minister

Check out the website of Future New Zealand. With the Election coming up we’ll need some light relief.

gordon is human too

After World War II, New Zealand donated two wooden dispatch boxes to the UK Parliament.  One of these boxes is used by Gordon Brown as a lectern. Black ink marks have been appearing on the box and the article on Stuff and elsewhere suggests it was a surprise that it turned out to be the pen of the PM causing the damage. They even managed to report a quote from some official announcing “Of course, we can’t say anything.” Really? Why not? He may not even know he’s doing it. Is it really better to have this reported in the media instead? For goodness sake, he’s human, try talking to him.

tony, derek and trevor

A couple of stories have surfaced in the media this week and it reminded me of another from a while ago.

Tony Veitch’s alleged attack on his partner which according to the media was so severe his partner needed to use a wheelchair afterwards.

Derek Fox’s violence towards his partners 30 or 40 years ago and 15 years ago.

And there’s Trevor Mallard’s shameful violence last year.

Veitch has gone from having a sparkling career to appearing to lose it all. He’s suspended from his media jobs, isn’t getting to cover the Olympics and is no longer offered as a celebrity speaker. The only person still seemingly stading by him is is fairly new wife. Veitch came out very publicly, forced by the media really but still said more than he had to. He admitted he did it but not the details. He admitted he paid compensation to his former partner. He said he’s been getting help for his violence. He said he’s not excusing his actions. So with such a public admission the police may now investigate. The country seems shocked and apalled but not as angry as I’d expect.

I then compare that to Fox. He’s keeping fairly quiet on his past. Again he’s been outed by the media. From reports it seems the police have been aware of incidents in the past but Fox was not prosecuted. The Maori Party are so desperate to win the seat from Parekura Horomia they have rallied around Fox.  They do police checks on potential candidates but of course if you’re not prosecuted nothing’s going to surface – till the media start digging.

Lastly there’s Mallard. He punched another politician, Henrare, after he made comments about his personal live.  Mallard was not made to resign. He was barely punished – he was demoted from 7 to 10 in cabinet and lost his favoured porfolios of sports and rugby world cup.  A private citizen took him to court.  Bloggers fumed with indignation at the apparent leniency with which Mallard was treated.

Based solely on media reports I can see the levels of violence were different in each circumstance but violence is violence. One thing disturbs me most of all. If the violence has some political implication, the person doesn’t entirely get away with it but it is treated solely as a political issue and for point scoring.  And then there’s Veitch who I think is in that other category this nation always wants to forgive – the sportsman. Okay, so he’s not a sportsman but he reports on it and it is the same key audience he shares with those who participate in sports.  The country is shocked by Veitch but just like the behaviour of so called sporting role models who drink to excess and behave badly, the country seems too quick to forgive.

what a truckload of….

The more I read about and understand the truck protest the more it annoys me.  I think it is great that we can protest so freely in this country. I have no problem with people exercising their right to protest.  The concept of truck drivers filling a city centre with their trucks is nothing new.  It has been happening over Europe as lorry drivers there protest the rising cost of fuel.

So why were the drivers protesting here? Road User charges were raised without them being notified in advance. You’d think they’d been double over night or something but no, a truckie already paying 14,000 a year will have to pay an extra $750. It turns out the truckies didn’t even mind the amount it had risen, they just wanted to be notified in advance.  The night before the protest the Transport Minister agreed to a working party to work through the issues and misunderstandings. So did the truckies call the protest off?

No they didn’t. This is the point it all starts to look really petty.   Road Transport Forum chief executive, and chief protest organiser Tony Friedlander is a former National cabinet minister. His politics is well known but increasingly this looks like a political move.

So what of the protest? – Bit of a fizzle really, didn’t bring the widespread chaos it promised. More of a parade to amuse small boys.  It didn’t impact on me at all, I walk to work. All I could think was what a waste of fuel and this must be making a few deliveries late. Beyond that I thought the incesant honking around Parliament was pointless.  It was a Friday and parliament is in recess – I doubt there were any members there to hear it. The only people you were annoying were members of the public trying to get on with their work.

For me the whole thing was a political stunt and not a very impressive one.

slow news day

Honestly, I can’t believe the harpies and the media beat up over Phil Goff’s comments. Is that really the best they can do for news. Sometimes the media needs reminding they are there to report on the news not twist and distort it. Watch the clip and decide for yourself.

about bloody time

Australia finally apologises. I don’t know what John Howard was thinking, how could he sidestep this for 11 years. Sorry doesn’t magic away the race relation problems Australia has to recover from but it gives them permission to start working on it. A wise move for Kevin Rudd to have placed this so far up his to do list.  I did cringe that his name for the policy is “closing the gaps”, where have we heard that before?