(First published in the Curmudgeon column, The Dominion Post, November 22.)
THE ELECTION campaign has brought to the fore a new style of television journalism.
It is aggressive, confrontational, highly opinionated and designed to provoke a reaction. Its chief practitioners are Patrick Gower and Duncan Garner of 3 News.
Both are astute political journalists who clearly see their role as much more than simply reporting. When Garner announces “This issue isn’t going away”, under the guise of making an objective statement about the political controversy du jour (such as the Café Urban furore), he does so with the certainty of a man who will make damned sure it doesn’t go away.
But it’s Gower who has obviously been designated TV3’s resident attack dog, with a brief to get in politicians’ faces.
3 News recently showed Act leader Don Brash saying to Gower outside Wellington’s Amora Hotel: “You are a deceitful bastard, quite frankly, and I don’t want to talk to you anymore.”
To goad the almost painfully polite Brash into responding so vehemently must have taken some doing, but I bet Gower went home that night feeling pleased with his day’s work. It’s just a shame that 3 News didn’t explain the background to the exchange so that viewers could decide whether Brash’s accusation was justified.
Former Act MP David Garrett subsequently wrote on Kiwiblog: “Gower is the prick who tried to goad me into dropping my bag and dropping him at Wellington Airport a year ago.” Garrett, who was up to his eyeballs in political strife at the time, accused the journalist of blocking his path at the security gate until a security man pulled him out of the way.
I watched that news item and agree that Gower seemed intent on provoking the volatile MP into lashing out. But as Garrett said, that would have played into his hands.
Tripping politicians up, catching them out, is an honourable journalistic tradition. Gower had the usually cocky John Banks on the ropes last week over what was said over tea at the Café Urban, and even John Key looked rattled in the face of Garner’s questioning. Neither journalist lacks guts.
Yet there’s something disconcerting about Gower’s approach. You get the feeling that its purpose is to claim political scalps for the sheer sport of it.
He is a journalistic picker of scabs, a scavenger who swoops on the wounded. He scans the political landscape looking for any story that, with judicious editing and sneering voice-over, can be manipulated for maximum effect.
The Gower approach illustrates two trends in modern political journalism. One is to strive at all costs for what former British prime minister Tony Blair called “impact” – something to excite the public blood lust.
The other is to put the journalist at the centre of the story. The modern political reporter is no longer content to be a passive observer, but wants to be a player – a maker and breaker of careers.
* * *
HIGH COURT judge Forrie Miller acted sensibly and compassionately in discharging without conviction the mother of a toddler who drowned in the family swimming pool while she was distracted inside the house.
Mary-Anne Illston will serve a life sentence anyway, metaphorically speaking. She hardly needed a conviction to realise the terrible consequences of not supervising her daughter more closely.
But the case raises an important question about the need for consistency in the way police deal with such matters.
Illston was charged with manslaughter. Similarly, last April, Ashish Macwan was charged with careless driving causing death after his three-year-old son Aarush drowned in Lake Dunstan. The family van, with the boy inside, rolled into the lake after Macwan inadvertently left the handbrake off. In that case too, an enlightened judge discharged the bereaved parent without conviction.
Most people would say that in both instances, the parent’s grief was punishment enough. Yet police followed the book.
It will be interesting to see, then, whether they take the same uncompromising approach in the case of two-year-old Sukhraj Singh, who recently drowned in the Taruheru River at Gisborne. News reports said Sukhraj and his cousin, who also nearly drowned, wandered off from Sukhraj’s home and it was 10 or 15 minutes before anyone noticed they were missing.
The family blamed Gisborne District Council for not fencing the river. But the primary cause of this terrible accident, if news reports are accurate, was a failure of parental supervision.
Only the stony-hearted could not feel sorry for the Singh family. But as Justice Miller pointed out, there have been 85 pre-school and infant deaths in the past decade, most of them the result of adult complacency. Water Safety New Zealand accepts that prosecuting parents can compound their grief, but says it’s an effective way of drawing attention to the problem of child drownings.
What’s important, surely, is that the police are seen to be even-handed. The law should not be a lottery.
* * *
AT AN ELECTION meeting last week, Wairarapa MP John Hayes mentioned that of 25 young men who went on a forestry work course, 22 subsequently failed a drug test.
This is an aspect of the drug problem that the pro-dope lobby doesn’t mention. Present laws may not be very effective, but at least they serve as some sort of curb on usage. Legalise cannabis, and even more young men may be condemned to lives of uselessness.
Showing posts with label child safety. Show all posts
Showing posts with label child safety. Show all posts
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
Monday, November 7, 2011
The avoidable death of Sukhraj Singh
WHEN A CHILD dies an avoidable death, it’s not entirely surprising that the grieving family looks for someone to blame.
In the case of toddler Sukhraj Singh, who drowned in the Taruheru River at Gisborne last week, blame has fallen on Gisborne District Council for not fencing off the river.
Only the flint-hearted could not feel sorry for the family. I can't think of any event more heartbreaking than the death of a child. But the primary cause of this terrible accident, if news reports are accurate, is that the mothers of Sukhraj and his cousin Achilles Kaui – who also nearly drowned – didn’t notice that they had wandered off.
According to the Dominion Post’s account, 10 or 15 minutes passed before the two women realised the little boys were gone – more than enough time for a child to get into fatal trouble.
It’s now almost a kneejerk reaction to blame some imagined bureaucratic failing whenever awful accidents happen. A similar thing happened in 2009 when Aisling Symes fell into a manhole in Henderson.
But the primary responsibility for children’s safety will always rest with parents. Far more children die because their parents were distracted at a crucial moment than because councils didn’t put up fences or follow up reports of manhole covers coming loose.
Public authorities can never identify, still less eliminate, every potential hazard, and it’s not their function to do so. Active, inquisitive children will always find ways to put themselves at risk; that’s why their parents need to watch them at all times.
When there’s water nearby, the need for vigilance multiplies.
In the same week that Sukhraj died, an inquest was held into the drowning of a two-year-old girl at Waiwera Thermal Pools north of Auckland. The coroner was told that Nylah Vau wandered away from the kiddies’ pool while her parents were otherwise occupied.
The Vau family will now have a lifetime in which to mourn the tragic consequences of inadequate supervision. Such incidents are far too common.
If events follow the usual course in Gisborne, the district council will feel compelled to conduct an inquiry into the death of Sukhraj Singh and will very likely announce some time later that action has been taken to prevent a recurrence.
The trouble with such outcomes is that they perpetuate the dishonest pretence that public officials can eliminate risk – and even more lethally, they encourage the mindset that it is the responsibility of public officials, rather than parents, to ensure that tragedies don’t happen.
In the case of toddler Sukhraj Singh, who drowned in the Taruheru River at Gisborne last week, blame has fallen on Gisborne District Council for not fencing off the river.
Only the flint-hearted could not feel sorry for the family. I can't think of any event more heartbreaking than the death of a child. But the primary cause of this terrible accident, if news reports are accurate, is that the mothers of Sukhraj and his cousin Achilles Kaui – who also nearly drowned – didn’t notice that they had wandered off.
According to the Dominion Post’s account, 10 or 15 minutes passed before the two women realised the little boys were gone – more than enough time for a child to get into fatal trouble.
It’s now almost a kneejerk reaction to blame some imagined bureaucratic failing whenever awful accidents happen. A similar thing happened in 2009 when Aisling Symes fell into a manhole in Henderson.
But the primary responsibility for children’s safety will always rest with parents. Far more children die because their parents were distracted at a crucial moment than because councils didn’t put up fences or follow up reports of manhole covers coming loose.
Public authorities can never identify, still less eliminate, every potential hazard, and it’s not their function to do so. Active, inquisitive children will always find ways to put themselves at risk; that’s why their parents need to watch them at all times.
When there’s water nearby, the need for vigilance multiplies.
In the same week that Sukhraj died, an inquest was held into the drowning of a two-year-old girl at Waiwera Thermal Pools north of Auckland. The coroner was told that Nylah Vau wandered away from the kiddies’ pool while her parents were otherwise occupied.
The Vau family will now have a lifetime in which to mourn the tragic consequences of inadequate supervision. Such incidents are far too common.
If events follow the usual course in Gisborne, the district council will feel compelled to conduct an inquiry into the death of Sukhraj Singh and will very likely announce some time later that action has been taken to prevent a recurrence.
The trouble with such outcomes is that they perpetuate the dishonest pretence that public officials can eliminate risk – and even more lethally, they encourage the mindset that it is the responsibility of public officials, rather than parents, to ensure that tragedies don’t happen.
Thursday, September 16, 2010
Quick, let's take offence
(First published in the Curmudgeon column, The Dominion Post, September 14.)
ACUTE sensitivity disorder has broken out again. In New Zealand, the Muslim community has taken offence at Building Minister Maurice Williamson’s after-dinner jokes. In Australia, meanwhile, Olympic swimmer Stephanie Rice, a triple gold medallist at Beijing, has had a sponsorship deal cancelled by Jaguar because she made an imprudent comment on Twitter using the word “faggots”.
The question surely should be, in such instances, whether there was serious intent to stir up hatred or ill-will. In neither case is that apparent.
Mr Williamson was just being the class clown, as is his wont. His joke – about Muslims being stoned after committing adultery while New Zealanders committed adultery after getting stoned – was in questionable taste, but that’s all.
As for Rice, her grammatically challenged tweet, “Suck on that faggots”, following the Wallabies’ win over the Springboks, seemed merely puerile and impetuous – the product of an immature mind rather than a calculated slur intended to incite ill-feeling against homosexuals. It doesn’t even make sense. What’s the bet she had been drinking?
The main lesson to be taken from Rice’s misfortune, and that of countless other not-very-bright celebrities before her, is that Twitter, the very name of which implies empty-headedness, is dangerous as well as pointless.
* * *
MY HEART goes out to the parents of the little boy who was killed by a reversing vehicle in a South Auckland driveway last week, but the question has to be asked: when are people going to learn?
Toddlers and driveways are bad combinations. They are even more lethal when the next-door neighbour’s vehicle is a big four-wheel-drive (as in this case) with poor rear visibility. Anyone who drives an SUV has to be almost obsessively cautious when reversing, especially if there are children in the neighbourhood.
What other lessons can be learned from this tragedy? One is that little kids move fast – a point brought home by the sad death of Lucas Ward, who drowned in Gisborne’s Waimata River while his grandmother was momentarily distracted.
In the case of 18-month-old Sirj-Michaels Siaea, of Otara, who was killed under the wheels of the neighbour’s Land Cruiser, his mother was reportedly having a cigarette with her partner nearby when it happened.
The newspaper account said the little boy was too young to understand the dangers of playing in driveways. Of course he was; that’s why children need adults to protect them.
I wonder if the coroner will say anything about this. It might sound heartless, but too many small children die because the adults responsible for them seem to lack any awareness of how quickly an everyday situation can turn to tragedy.
* * *
FOR AS long as most of us can remember, there has been a clear differentiation between TV One and TV2.
TV One was the channel for the more mature (and, dare I say it, discerning) viewer. It was where TVNZ chose to show its serious drama and current affairs programmes. TV2, on the other hand, was pitched at a younger audience and was largely about fun and frivolity.
But without any public pronouncements, or at least none that I’m aware of, the state broadcaster appears to have abandoned this long-standing policy. Look at the programme schedules now, and it’s virtually impossible to detect any difference between the offerings on TV One and TV2. Most nights they are an interchangeable selection of crass pseudo-reality shows and formulaic American crime dramas.
My question is this: when will the government abandon the pretence that the taxpayer has any interest in owning a broadcaster that goes for the lowest common denominator and doesn’t even pay lip service to the public service values that were once its raison d’etre?
The government might as well own a chain of sex shops or fast-food outlets. TVNZ has become an embarrassment and should be knocked off to the highest bidder without delay.
* * *
CHRIS CARTER was right about one thing: as things stand, Phil Goff looks as if he’s merely keeping the seat warm for whoever will be the next Labour Party leader.
Mr Goff is a decent, personable man. He was an effective and respected cabinet minister. But he has never looked convincing as leader. His minimal impact in the role shows there’s a big leap from being a capable team player to running the show.
Part of the problem is that as leader, he is under much closer public scrutiny than ever before. He has not responded well to that scrutiny, often looking awkward and self-conscious. His media trainers appear to have advised him to be warm and sympathetic, but often the result is that he looks wishy-washy and ineffectual.
My advice would be to stop trying so hard and be himself. Otherwise he risks becoming the embodiment of the Peter Principle, which holds that employees in an organisation rise to their level of incompetence – in other words, they keep advancing through the hierarchy until eventually they find themselves in a job that’s beyond them.
ACUTE sensitivity disorder has broken out again. In New Zealand, the Muslim community has taken offence at Building Minister Maurice Williamson’s after-dinner jokes. In Australia, meanwhile, Olympic swimmer Stephanie Rice, a triple gold medallist at Beijing, has had a sponsorship deal cancelled by Jaguar because she made an imprudent comment on Twitter using the word “faggots”.
The question surely should be, in such instances, whether there was serious intent to stir up hatred or ill-will. In neither case is that apparent.
Mr Williamson was just being the class clown, as is his wont. His joke – about Muslims being stoned after committing adultery while New Zealanders committed adultery after getting stoned – was in questionable taste, but that’s all.
As for Rice, her grammatically challenged tweet, “Suck on that faggots”, following the Wallabies’ win over the Springboks, seemed merely puerile and impetuous – the product of an immature mind rather than a calculated slur intended to incite ill-feeling against homosexuals. It doesn’t even make sense. What’s the bet she had been drinking?
The main lesson to be taken from Rice’s misfortune, and that of countless other not-very-bright celebrities before her, is that Twitter, the very name of which implies empty-headedness, is dangerous as well as pointless.
* * *
MY HEART goes out to the parents of the little boy who was killed by a reversing vehicle in a South Auckland driveway last week, but the question has to be asked: when are people going to learn?
Toddlers and driveways are bad combinations. They are even more lethal when the next-door neighbour’s vehicle is a big four-wheel-drive (as in this case) with poor rear visibility. Anyone who drives an SUV has to be almost obsessively cautious when reversing, especially if there are children in the neighbourhood.
What other lessons can be learned from this tragedy? One is that little kids move fast – a point brought home by the sad death of Lucas Ward, who drowned in Gisborne’s Waimata River while his grandmother was momentarily distracted.
In the case of 18-month-old Sirj-Michaels Siaea, of Otara, who was killed under the wheels of the neighbour’s Land Cruiser, his mother was reportedly having a cigarette with her partner nearby when it happened.
The newspaper account said the little boy was too young to understand the dangers of playing in driveways. Of course he was; that’s why children need adults to protect them.
I wonder if the coroner will say anything about this. It might sound heartless, but too many small children die because the adults responsible for them seem to lack any awareness of how quickly an everyday situation can turn to tragedy.
* * *
FOR AS long as most of us can remember, there has been a clear differentiation between TV One and TV2.
TV One was the channel for the more mature (and, dare I say it, discerning) viewer. It was where TVNZ chose to show its serious drama and current affairs programmes. TV2, on the other hand, was pitched at a younger audience and was largely about fun and frivolity.
But without any public pronouncements, or at least none that I’m aware of, the state broadcaster appears to have abandoned this long-standing policy. Look at the programme schedules now, and it’s virtually impossible to detect any difference between the offerings on TV One and TV2. Most nights they are an interchangeable selection of crass pseudo-reality shows and formulaic American crime dramas.
My question is this: when will the government abandon the pretence that the taxpayer has any interest in owning a broadcaster that goes for the lowest common denominator and doesn’t even pay lip service to the public service values that were once its raison d’etre?
The government might as well own a chain of sex shops or fast-food outlets. TVNZ has become an embarrassment and should be knocked off to the highest bidder without delay.
* * *
CHRIS CARTER was right about one thing: as things stand, Phil Goff looks as if he’s merely keeping the seat warm for whoever will be the next Labour Party leader.
Mr Goff is a decent, personable man. He was an effective and respected cabinet minister. But he has never looked convincing as leader. His minimal impact in the role shows there’s a big leap from being a capable team player to running the show.
Part of the problem is that as leader, he is under much closer public scrutiny than ever before. He has not responded well to that scrutiny, often looking awkward and self-conscious. His media trainers appear to have advised him to be warm and sympathetic, but often the result is that he looks wishy-washy and ineffectual.
My advice would be to stop trying so hard and be himself. Otherwise he risks becoming the embodiment of the Peter Principle, which holds that employees in an organisation rise to their level of incompetence – in other words, they keep advancing through the hierarchy until eventually they find themselves in a job that’s beyond them.
Monday, December 29, 2008
Let's be honest about child deaths
(Published in the Curmudgeon column, The Dominion Post, December 23.)
WE’RE killing our kids, according to a recent news item. Two children are said to die every week as a result of accidents, and the blame is being laid – at least in part – on our “she’ll be right” attitude.
A front-page news story in The Dominion Post cited figures from a recent World Health Organisation report and quoted Ann Weaver, director of Safekids New Zealand – the injury prevention arm of Starship Hospital – as saying that compared with other wealthy nations, New Zealand performed very badly.
“We have this ‘she’ll be right’ attitude and an aversion to being told what to do,” she said. “We don’t want to mollycoddle our children … but, looking at these statistics, you can see we’re not doing enough.”
I interpreted the statement that we’re “not doing enough” as a coded call for more regulation – more rules that place the paternalistic state, rather than parents, at the centre of child protection.
I’m the first to agree that two child deaths a week are two deaths too many, but there are some important points to be made about these statistics.
The first is that a press statement issued with the WHO report specifically cites New Zealand as being among the countries with the lowest rates of accidental injury to children. Lobbyists who agitate for greater state intervention are careful to make us look bad by comparing us with the relatively few affluent western countries that have even better child safety figures.
They also seem careful to avoid reference to the politically unmentionable factor that prevents New Zealand from catching up with those countries. I refer to the disproportionately high rate of accidental death and injury among children from Maori and Pacific Island families.
It’s an awful but indisputable fact that whenever you read of a toddler being backed over by a careless driver, of a baby being smothered in bed, of a child wandering off on a riverbank or a beach and drowning when no one was watching, or of children dying in a house fire caused by a burning candle or a cigarette lighter left lying around, the probability is that the victim will be from a Maori or Pacific Island family.
It’s an even more terrible fact that children who die or are permanently damaged as a result of physical abuse are most likely to be Maori or Polynesian, though I’m not sure whether these deaths and injuries count as “accidental” for statistical purposes.
No one, least of all the innocent victims of parental carelessness or brutality, is served by denying that these problems are disproportionately common among Maori and Pacific Island families.
What’s more, these issues are well understood and in most cases are covered by existing laws. The law has long required, for example, that children in cars be properly restrained, but it's commonly disregarded by Maori and Pacific Island drivers.
Ignorance? Carelessness? Laziness? Lack of imagination? Who knows? But to suggest that we need more laws to reduce injuries to children is either delusional or dishonest. Adequate laws exist already.
Stricter enforcement might help, but what’s far more important is that parents are encouraged to develop a greater awareness of the risks surrounding children and a stronger sense of personal responsibility for the safety of those in their care. There can be no more urgent task confronting Maori and Pacific Island leaders.
Performing a haka at the graveside of a dead child is a poor way to show how precious the tamariki are.
* * *
MUCH has been said about the supposed virtues of online shopping. You can get goods cheaper, people say, because online retailers have low overheads. You can shop in the comfort of your own home and at a time of your own convenience.
But in the midst of the Christmas shopping frenzy, I want to put in a word for the old-fashioned shop.
Online retailers such as Amazon - which I use occasionally - have taken a huge amount of business from traditional stores, but there’s still something to be said for a retail outlet where you can examine the merchandise.
It’s easy to make a wrong decision about a product on the basis of a description on a website, as I did recently. Misled by an Internet retailer’s brief note about an expensive music reference book, I ordered it and when it arrived, found it wasn’t at all what I expected.
As it happened I liked the book anyway and have no regrets about buying it. But the deal could have turned sour.
Online shopping has other drawbacks too. I recently got the run-around from online retailer Fishpond over a DVD I ordered off its website at the beginning of November. To cut a long story short, the DVD turned out not to be in stock. After several exchanges of emails I was advised that it might not arrive before mid-January.
Tough luck if I’d ordered it to give someone for Christmas. I told them to forget it.
There are no such problems with the conventional retailer. If you’re shopping for a book, for example, you can pick it up and flick through the pages. And if you like it you can go to the counter, pay for it and walk out with your purchase tucked securely under your arm
Technology is great when it delivers, but too often it sings a siren song of false promises.
WE’RE killing our kids, according to a recent news item. Two children are said to die every week as a result of accidents, and the blame is being laid – at least in part – on our “she’ll be right” attitude.
A front-page news story in The Dominion Post cited figures from a recent World Health Organisation report and quoted Ann Weaver, director of Safekids New Zealand – the injury prevention arm of Starship Hospital – as saying that compared with other wealthy nations, New Zealand performed very badly.
“We have this ‘she’ll be right’ attitude and an aversion to being told what to do,” she said. “We don’t want to mollycoddle our children … but, looking at these statistics, you can see we’re not doing enough.”
I interpreted the statement that we’re “not doing enough” as a coded call for more regulation – more rules that place the paternalistic state, rather than parents, at the centre of child protection.
I’m the first to agree that two child deaths a week are two deaths too many, but there are some important points to be made about these statistics.
The first is that a press statement issued with the WHO report specifically cites New Zealand as being among the countries with the lowest rates of accidental injury to children. Lobbyists who agitate for greater state intervention are careful to make us look bad by comparing us with the relatively few affluent western countries that have even better child safety figures.
They also seem careful to avoid reference to the politically unmentionable factor that prevents New Zealand from catching up with those countries. I refer to the disproportionately high rate of accidental death and injury among children from Maori and Pacific Island families.
It’s an awful but indisputable fact that whenever you read of a toddler being backed over by a careless driver, of a baby being smothered in bed, of a child wandering off on a riverbank or a beach and drowning when no one was watching, or of children dying in a house fire caused by a burning candle or a cigarette lighter left lying around, the probability is that the victim will be from a Maori or Pacific Island family.
It’s an even more terrible fact that children who die or are permanently damaged as a result of physical abuse are most likely to be Maori or Polynesian, though I’m not sure whether these deaths and injuries count as “accidental” for statistical purposes.
No one, least of all the innocent victims of parental carelessness or brutality, is served by denying that these problems are disproportionately common among Maori and Pacific Island families.
What’s more, these issues are well understood and in most cases are covered by existing laws. The law has long required, for example, that children in cars be properly restrained, but it's commonly disregarded by Maori and Pacific Island drivers.
Ignorance? Carelessness? Laziness? Lack of imagination? Who knows? But to suggest that we need more laws to reduce injuries to children is either delusional or dishonest. Adequate laws exist already.
Stricter enforcement might help, but what’s far more important is that parents are encouraged to develop a greater awareness of the risks surrounding children and a stronger sense of personal responsibility for the safety of those in their care. There can be no more urgent task confronting Maori and Pacific Island leaders.
Performing a haka at the graveside of a dead child is a poor way to show how precious the tamariki are.
* * *
MUCH has been said about the supposed virtues of online shopping. You can get goods cheaper, people say, because online retailers have low overheads. You can shop in the comfort of your own home and at a time of your own convenience.
But in the midst of the Christmas shopping frenzy, I want to put in a word for the old-fashioned shop.
Online retailers such as Amazon - which I use occasionally - have taken a huge amount of business from traditional stores, but there’s still something to be said for a retail outlet where you can examine the merchandise.
It’s easy to make a wrong decision about a product on the basis of a description on a website, as I did recently. Misled by an Internet retailer’s brief note about an expensive music reference book, I ordered it and when it arrived, found it wasn’t at all what I expected.
As it happened I liked the book anyway and have no regrets about buying it. But the deal could have turned sour.
Online shopping has other drawbacks too. I recently got the run-around from online retailer Fishpond over a DVD I ordered off its website at the beginning of November. To cut a long story short, the DVD turned out not to be in stock. After several exchanges of emails I was advised that it might not arrive before mid-January.
Tough luck if I’d ordered it to give someone for Christmas. I told them to forget it.
There are no such problems with the conventional retailer. If you’re shopping for a book, for example, you can pick it up and flick through the pages. And if you like it you can go to the counter, pay for it and walk out with your purchase tucked securely under your arm
Technology is great when it delivers, but too often it sings a siren song of false promises.
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