I’m not one to shriek “bias!” at the drop of a hat and I’m no cheerleader for John Key, but there was something decidedly suspicious about the behaviour of the “worm” in last night leaders’ debate on TV3.
As Stephen Franks pointed out on Morning Report, the worm moved up every time Phil Goff opened his mouth, even before anyone had a chance to digest what he was saying. David Farrar joked on Kiwiblog that Goff could have confessed to the Crewe murders and the worm would have gone up.
The reverse happened the moment Key began to speak. The worm immediately tracked downward.
The 65 people in the studio audience, whose responses determined the worm’s movements, were supposedly non-committed voters. Perhaps this means that undecided voters are those who can’t quite make up their minds between Labour, Mana and the Greens.
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
Monday, November 14, 2011
The funny business at the Cafe Urban
My first reaction, on hearing the Herald on Sunday had obtained a clandestine recording of John Key’s meeting with John Banks in Newmarket last Friday, was to let out a groan of dismay and disbelief. Did we really need this London-style tabloid sleaze?
Now, having learned the full circumstances, I’m inclined to take the paper’s side.
I could understand Key getting up on his hind legs, but I heard HoS editor Bryce Johns on Morning Report and his explanation of how it happened struck me as plausible. Besides, I worked with Bryce for several years and unless he’s changed, I don’t think he’s a journalist in the Clive Goodman/Rebekah Brooks mould.
Quite apart from anything else, leaving a recording device on the table right in front of the two politicians, even if it was in a little black pouch, seemed too clumsy by far to be a serious attempt at eavesdropping. It was sure to be spotted, and it was.
The fact that the paper chose not to report what was said during the conversation supports its case. The HoS appears to have acted ethically. This is not the behaviour of an editor bent on getting a sensational story that might blow the election wide open.
In any case, why go to the trouble of planting a recording device, and risking the inevitable hullabaloo that would ensue, if you weren’t going to take maximum advantage of it by splashing the taped exchange all over page one?
This affair has the potential to rebound on Key. He dismisses his exchange with Banks as “bland” but refused permission for the HoS to publish the transcript of the recording, on the ground that he didn’t want to give the paper the satisfaction of getting the story after behaving unethically (if indeed it was unethical).
The problem now is that there is real public curiosity about what was said, and about the contradiction between Johns’ claim that the recording is potentially game-changing (the political phrase du jour) and Key’s insistence that it’s really of no interest. The stakes have been raised to the point where it becomes increasingly likely that someone will divulge what was said.
TV3 disclosed tonight that it too has a copy of the tape, and there are likely to be others circulating. There are hints that the recording contains statements about ACT leader Don Brash that would not look good for either Key or Banks. I’m picking that it will all spill into the public arena sooner or later. That’s the way these things normally play out.
It demonstrates that even at this late stage in a carefully orchestrated and generally successful National campaign, things could still go pear-shaped for Key. It only takes one indiscreet comment, and Johns hinted at such a comment in the tape from the Café Urban.
In fact it would be exquisitely ironic – you might say poetic justice – if the meeting between Key and Banks blew up in their faces. It was a PR stunt staged to attract maximum media attention. People talk about the cup of tea as being symbolic, and so it was – not just in the strictly political sense, but also because it was symbolic of a tightly controlled media operation in which political journalists are expected to dance to a ballet choreographed by Beehive spin-meisters.
It was assumed the media would turn up en masse at the Café Urban and film the palaver; indeed the whole pantomime would have been pointless if they hadn’t. But the journalists and photographers were then expected to retreat to a respectful distance, noses pressed up against the window (almost literally), and allow the two men to go into a cosy huddle.
It was a highly public event, deliberately so, yet at crunch time Key insisted on asserting his right to privacy. I don’t think I’m alone in thinking there’s a bit of a contradiction, a double standard, here. The whole affair was conducted entirely on the politicians’ terms, for the politicians’ benefit, and to that extent, pretty much summed up what the modern election campaign, with all its jiggery-pokery, has become; and I have to admit I’d find it quite satisfying if something hideously embarrassing came out of it all.
Now, having learned the full circumstances, I’m inclined to take the paper’s side.
I could understand Key getting up on his hind legs, but I heard HoS editor Bryce Johns on Morning Report and his explanation of how it happened struck me as plausible. Besides, I worked with Bryce for several years and unless he’s changed, I don’t think he’s a journalist in the Clive Goodman/Rebekah Brooks mould.
Quite apart from anything else, leaving a recording device on the table right in front of the two politicians, even if it was in a little black pouch, seemed too clumsy by far to be a serious attempt at eavesdropping. It was sure to be spotted, and it was.
The fact that the paper chose not to report what was said during the conversation supports its case. The HoS appears to have acted ethically. This is not the behaviour of an editor bent on getting a sensational story that might blow the election wide open.
In any case, why go to the trouble of planting a recording device, and risking the inevitable hullabaloo that would ensue, if you weren’t going to take maximum advantage of it by splashing the taped exchange all over page one?
This affair has the potential to rebound on Key. He dismisses his exchange with Banks as “bland” but refused permission for the HoS to publish the transcript of the recording, on the ground that he didn’t want to give the paper the satisfaction of getting the story after behaving unethically (if indeed it was unethical).
The problem now is that there is real public curiosity about what was said, and about the contradiction between Johns’ claim that the recording is potentially game-changing (the political phrase du jour) and Key’s insistence that it’s really of no interest. The stakes have been raised to the point where it becomes increasingly likely that someone will divulge what was said.
TV3 disclosed tonight that it too has a copy of the tape, and there are likely to be others circulating. There are hints that the recording contains statements about ACT leader Don Brash that would not look good for either Key or Banks. I’m picking that it will all spill into the public arena sooner or later. That’s the way these things normally play out.
It demonstrates that even at this late stage in a carefully orchestrated and generally successful National campaign, things could still go pear-shaped for Key. It only takes one indiscreet comment, and Johns hinted at such a comment in the tape from the Café Urban.
In fact it would be exquisitely ironic – you might say poetic justice – if the meeting between Key and Banks blew up in their faces. It was a PR stunt staged to attract maximum media attention. People talk about the cup of tea as being symbolic, and so it was – not just in the strictly political sense, but also because it was symbolic of a tightly controlled media operation in which political journalists are expected to dance to a ballet choreographed by Beehive spin-meisters.
It was assumed the media would turn up en masse at the Café Urban and film the palaver; indeed the whole pantomime would have been pointless if they hadn’t. But the journalists and photographers were then expected to retreat to a respectful distance, noses pressed up against the window (almost literally), and allow the two men to go into a cosy huddle.
It was a highly public event, deliberately so, yet at crunch time Key insisted on asserting his right to privacy. I don’t think I’m alone in thinking there’s a bit of a contradiction, a double standard, here. The whole affair was conducted entirely on the politicians’ terms, for the politicians’ benefit, and to that extent, pretty much summed up what the modern election campaign, with all its jiggery-pokery, has become; and I have to admit I’d find it quite satisfying if something hideously embarrassing came out of it all.
Friday, November 11, 2011
Parading our inferiority complex
(First published in the Nelson Mail and Manawatu Standard, November 9.)
Wikipedia, the online encyclopaedia, defines “mania” as a state of abnormally elevated or irritable mood, arousal, and/ or energy levels.
Sound familiar? Strike out that word “irritable” and you’ve got an accurate description of the mood that gripped the country for the duration of the Rugby World Cup.
Like any patriotic New Zealander, I was pleased at the outcome of the event; but I was also relieved when it was over. The media hype was relentless and overwhelming.
Harmless fun? Yes, most of the time. Yet occasionally there was a nasty edge to it, and it didn’t escape attention.
A columnist in the Sydney Morning Herald, Paul Sheehan, brought the collective wrath of the nation down on his head in the last week of the tournament when he criticised the throat-slitting gesture in the All Blacks’ Kapa O Pango haka.
The criticism came at the tail end of what I thought was a fair and perceptive column in which Sheehan commented on the “immense emotional stake” New Zealanders had invested in the RWC final, which was to be played the following weekend.
“The cumulative weight of the 24 years since the All Blacks won the World Cup for the first and only time has become a burden on the nation that can be lifted only when the All Blacks captain lifts the cup once more,” Sheehan wrote.
Had the Wallabies won the semifinal against the All Blacks, he added, the result would have been a “psychic scar” across New Zealand.
The column concluded with Sheehan saying that the violence implied by the throat-slitting gesture had no place in sport.
To say he touched a raw nerve would be to understate the case. More than 560 comments were posted on the Sydney Morning Herald’s website, many of them from outraged New Zealanders. When Fairfax Media’s Stuff website in New Zealand picked up Sheehan’s comments, a further 868 comments were posted – depressing proof that nothing, not even politics or religion, arouses New Zealanders’ emotions more than sport.
Some readers remonstrated with Sheehan for supposedly misunderstanding the throat-slitting gesture. A handful sided with him. But most readers accused Sheehan of being a sore loser because the All Blacks had beaten the Wallabies a few days before.
This was a lazy and churlish response. Far easier to accuse Sheehan of sour grapes than to engage with his arguments, which were that the Kapa O Pango haka sends an unfortunate message (whatever its defenders may claim) and that New Zealanders depend far too heavily on one sport, rugby, for their national pride and sense of identity.
A few readers seized Sheehan’s column as an opportunity to boast of New Zealand’s superior race relations and to condemn Australia’s treatment of Aboriginals – hardly relevant in this context. One commenter labelled Sheehan a convict.
The tone of the responses was overwhelmingly vitriolic and depressingly puerile. A fairly typical comment (anonymous, of course – they always are) ran: “I think [the haka] is awesome. What have Australia got? That Waltzing Matilda crap.”
Another, in similar vein, went: “Thanks for your input skippy, now back to Waltzing Matilda, and leave us to our affairs.”
At such times we New Zealanders reveal an ugly aspect of the national character: touchy, defensive and acutely sensitive to criticism, especially when it comes from our big, brash neighbour. It wasn’t just the silver fern on display during the RWC; we grabbed the opportunity to parade our national inferiority complex too.
Sheehan was provoked into writing a second column in which he described the torrent of condemnation as “an outpouring of dog-in-the-manger, chip-on-the-shoulder, small-country-small-minded, defensive churlishness on an industrial scale.” I have to agree.
He reminded readers that he had described the haka as “the greatest ritual in world sport” (it was just the Kapo O Pango version he disliked), and had also acknowledged that it would be an injustice if the All Blacks didn’t win the RWC (so much for the accusations of sour grapes). But as I’ve learned myself in 40 years of writing newspaper columns, you can’t control the meaning readers choose to take from what you write.
The response to Sheehan’s column wasn’t the only unattractive New Zealand trait on display during the World Cup. The demonisation of New Zealand-born Wallaby Quade Cooper, encouraged by idiotic elements of the media, was just as distasteful. The booing whenever Cooper touched the ball was a disgrace.
One Australian commentator on The Roar website paid tribute to the good-natured reaction of New Zealand fans after the All Blacks had demolished the Wallabies. But how would we have behaved, I wonder, if the Aussies had won? It’s easy to be gracious in victory; much harder in defeat.
The most telling point Sheehan made in his original column was that rugby occupies too big a place in the New Zealand psyche, and our response to the All Blacks’ narrow win in the final proved his point.
Like any patriotic New Zealander I was pleased by the result, but the euphoria that enveloped the country for days afterwards was over the top. Our national pride must be very fragile if it rests on something as ephemeral as a sporting trophy.
I found the self-congratulatory tone of the celebrations intriguing too. Anyone would think the entire country had been playing the French on Eden Park rather than an elite team of highly paid professional sportsmen.
And I couldn’t help wondering about the ugly flip-side of victory. The consequences if the All Blacks had lost don’t bear thinking about.
The nation would have been plunged into a mood of dark despondency. If previous experience is anything to go by, the incidence of domestic violence would have soared as neanderthal males took out their frustrations on their partners and children.
Graham Henry and his team would probably have needed police protection. Former All Blacks coach John Hart received death threats and hate mail after the defeat by France in the 1999 semifinals. Just imagine how much more extreme the reaction would have been had they lost again this time.
Sheehan was right. New Zealand had too much emotion invested in the RWC and some of the side-effects weren’t pretty. As an Australian living in New Zealand commented on the Sydney Morning Herald website, we need another way, besides rugby, to define ourselves on the world stage.
Wikipedia, the online encyclopaedia, defines “mania” as a state of abnormally elevated or irritable mood, arousal, and/ or energy levels.
Sound familiar? Strike out that word “irritable” and you’ve got an accurate description of the mood that gripped the country for the duration of the Rugby World Cup.
Like any patriotic New Zealander, I was pleased at the outcome of the event; but I was also relieved when it was over. The media hype was relentless and overwhelming.
Harmless fun? Yes, most of the time. Yet occasionally there was a nasty edge to it, and it didn’t escape attention.
A columnist in the Sydney Morning Herald, Paul Sheehan, brought the collective wrath of the nation down on his head in the last week of the tournament when he criticised the throat-slitting gesture in the All Blacks’ Kapa O Pango haka.
The criticism came at the tail end of what I thought was a fair and perceptive column in which Sheehan commented on the “immense emotional stake” New Zealanders had invested in the RWC final, which was to be played the following weekend.
“The cumulative weight of the 24 years since the All Blacks won the World Cup for the first and only time has become a burden on the nation that can be lifted only when the All Blacks captain lifts the cup once more,” Sheehan wrote.
Had the Wallabies won the semifinal against the All Blacks, he added, the result would have been a “psychic scar” across New Zealand.
The column concluded with Sheehan saying that the violence implied by the throat-slitting gesture had no place in sport.
To say he touched a raw nerve would be to understate the case. More than 560 comments were posted on the Sydney Morning Herald’s website, many of them from outraged New Zealanders. When Fairfax Media’s Stuff website in New Zealand picked up Sheehan’s comments, a further 868 comments were posted – depressing proof that nothing, not even politics or religion, arouses New Zealanders’ emotions more than sport.
Some readers remonstrated with Sheehan for supposedly misunderstanding the throat-slitting gesture. A handful sided with him. But most readers accused Sheehan of being a sore loser because the All Blacks had beaten the Wallabies a few days before.
This was a lazy and churlish response. Far easier to accuse Sheehan of sour grapes than to engage with his arguments, which were that the Kapa O Pango haka sends an unfortunate message (whatever its defenders may claim) and that New Zealanders depend far too heavily on one sport, rugby, for their national pride and sense of identity.
A few readers seized Sheehan’s column as an opportunity to boast of New Zealand’s superior race relations and to condemn Australia’s treatment of Aboriginals – hardly relevant in this context. One commenter labelled Sheehan a convict.
The tone of the responses was overwhelmingly vitriolic and depressingly puerile. A fairly typical comment (anonymous, of course – they always are) ran: “I think [the haka] is awesome. What have Australia got? That Waltzing Matilda crap.”
Another, in similar vein, went: “Thanks for your input skippy, now back to Waltzing Matilda, and leave us to our affairs.”
At such times we New Zealanders reveal an ugly aspect of the national character: touchy, defensive and acutely sensitive to criticism, especially when it comes from our big, brash neighbour. It wasn’t just the silver fern on display during the RWC; we grabbed the opportunity to parade our national inferiority complex too.
Sheehan was provoked into writing a second column in which he described the torrent of condemnation as “an outpouring of dog-in-the-manger, chip-on-the-shoulder, small-country-small-minded, defensive churlishness on an industrial scale.” I have to agree.
He reminded readers that he had described the haka as “the greatest ritual in world sport” (it was just the Kapo O Pango version he disliked), and had also acknowledged that it would be an injustice if the All Blacks didn’t win the RWC (so much for the accusations of sour grapes). But as I’ve learned myself in 40 years of writing newspaper columns, you can’t control the meaning readers choose to take from what you write.
The response to Sheehan’s column wasn’t the only unattractive New Zealand trait on display during the World Cup. The demonisation of New Zealand-born Wallaby Quade Cooper, encouraged by idiotic elements of the media, was just as distasteful. The booing whenever Cooper touched the ball was a disgrace.
One Australian commentator on The Roar website paid tribute to the good-natured reaction of New Zealand fans after the All Blacks had demolished the Wallabies. But how would we have behaved, I wonder, if the Aussies had won? It’s easy to be gracious in victory; much harder in defeat.
The most telling point Sheehan made in his original column was that rugby occupies too big a place in the New Zealand psyche, and our response to the All Blacks’ narrow win in the final proved his point.
Like any patriotic New Zealander I was pleased by the result, but the euphoria that enveloped the country for days afterwards was over the top. Our national pride must be very fragile if it rests on something as ephemeral as a sporting trophy.
I found the self-congratulatory tone of the celebrations intriguing too. Anyone would think the entire country had been playing the French on Eden Park rather than an elite team of highly paid professional sportsmen.
And I couldn’t help wondering about the ugly flip-side of victory. The consequences if the All Blacks had lost don’t bear thinking about.
The nation would have been plunged into a mood of dark despondency. If previous experience is anything to go by, the incidence of domestic violence would have soared as neanderthal males took out their frustrations on their partners and children.
Graham Henry and his team would probably have needed police protection. Former All Blacks coach John Hart received death threats and hate mail after the defeat by France in the 1999 semifinals. Just imagine how much more extreme the reaction would have been had they lost again this time.
Sheehan was right. New Zealand had too much emotion invested in the RWC and some of the side-effects weren’t pretty. As an Australian living in New Zealand commented on the Sydney Morning Herald website, we need another way, besides rugby, to define ourselves on the world stage.
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
What we need is a Lange - or even a Muldoon
(First published in the Curmudgeon column, The Dominion Post, November 8.)
THE ELECTION campaign reminds me of a catchphrase made famous by British television comedians Eric Morecambe and Ernie Wise. “What do you think of it so far?” Morecambe would ask halfway through their show. And the answer was always the same: “Rubbish!”
One of the consequences of MMP is that the major parties have become more risk-averse and more centrist. The defining ideological differences that once separated National and Labour have narrowed to the point where they are reduced to fighting over a shrinking patch of centre ground.
What this means is that election campaigns are matters of tone and nuance rather than the great contests of ideas that they should be. It’s all about “branding”.
There’s no fire, no galvanising vision. At a Business New Zealand pre-election conference addressed by the party leaders last week, it was the minor parties that presented the bold ideas (and Pita Sharples the wit).
In difficult times like this, an election campaign provides an opportunity for the nation to debate whether to tear the house down and start again. But John Key and Phil Goff are like a married couple squabbling over which shade of off-white to paint the kitchen.
Both are decent, well-meaning men, but this campaign could do with the fiery idealism of a Norman Kirk or the biting wit and charisma of a David Lange.
In fact it’s almost enough to make you yearn for the days of Robert David Muldoon. He may have been a nasty little bully, and a socialist to boot (despite leading a supposedly conservative party), but at least he stirred people up.
* * *
NONETHELESS, election campaigns have a way of bringing certain things out into the open.
Asked on TV3 News which major party the Maori Party would support, co-leader Tariana Turia replied: “You’ll just have to wait and see.”
Here, in stark relief, is one of the fatal shortcomings of MMP. We have no control over what happens after we cast our votes. We don’t know who will get into bed together, what compromises will be made and what policies will be traded off.
The politicians, having gone through the three-yearly ritual of prostrating themselves at our feet in order to win our support, will be back in the driver’s seat and the voter will be merely an impotent onlooker.
Opponents of FPP say that things were no better under that system; that once in power, governments were free to do whatever they liked regardless of any promises made beforehand. But the difference is that under MMP, post-election horse-trading behind closed doors is more than just a risk; it’s an integral feature of the system.
Under FPP, governments that broke promises or introduced policies without consulting the electorate knew they risked being punished at the next election. Now parties can justify almost any breach of faith with their supporters by saying it’s the price we pay for a system that depends on compromise and negotiation.
I won’t be voting for a return to FPP, which was a demonstrably unfair system, but neither will I vote to retain MMP. We have replaced one seriously flawed setup with another.
* * *
MR SHARPLES illustrated another unattractive aspect of the new political environment when he attacked the rival Mana Party on the basis that it has Pakeha candidates, namely John Minto and Sue Bradford.
How can people with white skin, Mr Sharples asked, pretend to represent Maori?
This was a naked appeal to identity politics, whereby people define themselves according to whatever minority group they belong to – be it Maori, gay, fundamentalist Christian, disabled or whatever – and frame their political goals accordingly.
Identity politics runs counter to the idea of communities acting in concert for the common good. It also promotes the divisive idea that to represent someone with brown skin, a politician must be of the same colour.
Mr Sharples’ party depends heavily on identity politics for its appeal. So does Hone Harawira’s Mana Party, though it seeks to mop up disaffected ragtag Pakeha as well as Maori.
In a useful report on the forthcoming voting referendum, the centre-right Maxim Institute highlights the choice voters will be given between systems that elect MPs to represent the community as a whole and ones that emphasise representation for narrow interest groups.
The report describes identity politics as “murky ground” but also acknowledges the unfairness of electoral systems that don’t give minority parties any chance at all.
Maxim doesn’t come out in favour of any one system, but on the basis of its analysis STV and SM, while far from perfect, look to be the best compromises between the two unpalatable extremes.
Call me sceptical, but I suspect that whatever electoral system we come up with, the politicians will find a way to turn it to their own advantage.
THE ELECTION campaign reminds me of a catchphrase made famous by British television comedians Eric Morecambe and Ernie Wise. “What do you think of it so far?” Morecambe would ask halfway through their show. And the answer was always the same: “Rubbish!”
One of the consequences of MMP is that the major parties have become more risk-averse and more centrist. The defining ideological differences that once separated National and Labour have narrowed to the point where they are reduced to fighting over a shrinking patch of centre ground.
What this means is that election campaigns are matters of tone and nuance rather than the great contests of ideas that they should be. It’s all about “branding”.
There’s no fire, no galvanising vision. At a Business New Zealand pre-election conference addressed by the party leaders last week, it was the minor parties that presented the bold ideas (and Pita Sharples the wit).
In difficult times like this, an election campaign provides an opportunity for the nation to debate whether to tear the house down and start again. But John Key and Phil Goff are like a married couple squabbling over which shade of off-white to paint the kitchen.
Both are decent, well-meaning men, but this campaign could do with the fiery idealism of a Norman Kirk or the biting wit and charisma of a David Lange.
In fact it’s almost enough to make you yearn for the days of Robert David Muldoon. He may have been a nasty little bully, and a socialist to boot (despite leading a supposedly conservative party), but at least he stirred people up.
* * *
NONETHELESS, election campaigns have a way of bringing certain things out into the open.
Asked on TV3 News which major party the Maori Party would support, co-leader Tariana Turia replied: “You’ll just have to wait and see.”
Here, in stark relief, is one of the fatal shortcomings of MMP. We have no control over what happens after we cast our votes. We don’t know who will get into bed together, what compromises will be made and what policies will be traded off.
The politicians, having gone through the three-yearly ritual of prostrating themselves at our feet in order to win our support, will be back in the driver’s seat and the voter will be merely an impotent onlooker.
Opponents of FPP say that things were no better under that system; that once in power, governments were free to do whatever they liked regardless of any promises made beforehand. But the difference is that under MMP, post-election horse-trading behind closed doors is more than just a risk; it’s an integral feature of the system.
Under FPP, governments that broke promises or introduced policies without consulting the electorate knew they risked being punished at the next election. Now parties can justify almost any breach of faith with their supporters by saying it’s the price we pay for a system that depends on compromise and negotiation.
I won’t be voting for a return to FPP, which was a demonstrably unfair system, but neither will I vote to retain MMP. We have replaced one seriously flawed setup with another.
* * *
MR SHARPLES illustrated another unattractive aspect of the new political environment when he attacked the rival Mana Party on the basis that it has Pakeha candidates, namely John Minto and Sue Bradford.
How can people with white skin, Mr Sharples asked, pretend to represent Maori?
This was a naked appeal to identity politics, whereby people define themselves according to whatever minority group they belong to – be it Maori, gay, fundamentalist Christian, disabled or whatever – and frame their political goals accordingly.
Identity politics runs counter to the idea of communities acting in concert for the common good. It also promotes the divisive idea that to represent someone with brown skin, a politician must be of the same colour.
Mr Sharples’ party depends heavily on identity politics for its appeal. So does Hone Harawira’s Mana Party, though it seeks to mop up disaffected ragtag Pakeha as well as Maori.
In a useful report on the forthcoming voting referendum, the centre-right Maxim Institute highlights the choice voters will be given between systems that elect MPs to represent the community as a whole and ones that emphasise representation for narrow interest groups.
The report describes identity politics as “murky ground” but also acknowledges the unfairness of electoral systems that don’t give minority parties any chance at all.
Maxim doesn’t come out in favour of any one system, but on the basis of its analysis STV and SM, while far from perfect, look to be the best compromises between the two unpalatable extremes.
Call me sceptical, but I suspect that whatever electoral system we come up with, the politicians will find a way to turn it to their own advantage.
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.
Friday, November 4, 2011
Oz Spectator honours Kerr
The latest edition of The Spectator Australia, out today (well, in Australia, anyway; New Zealand gets it next week) devotes an editorial to the late Roger Kerr, crediting him with helping to kick-start a dramatic reform agenda – “cutting income and business tax, privatising state-run industry, floating the exchange rate, slashing agricultural subsidies and protective tariffs, changing the rules of welfare, deregulating the labour market (and eroding the source of union power)” – that made Paul Keating, the champion of economic reform in Bob Hawke’s government, blush.
The editorial tribute, written by Spectator Australia editor Tom Switzer, describes the long-serving Business Roundtable head, whose funeral service yesterday packed Old St Paul's in Wellington, as a public intellectual in the best sense of the term. “His wit, civility and intellectual honesty contributed hugely to the respectability of the cause of free markets and small government in a nation with deep socialist roots.”
The editorial tribute, written by Spectator Australia editor Tom Switzer, describes the long-serving Business Roundtable head, whose funeral service yesterday packed Old St Paul's in Wellington, as a public intellectual in the best sense of the term. “His wit, civility and intellectual honesty contributed hugely to the respectability of the cause of free markets and small government in a nation with deep socialist roots.”
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
Rolling across America
(This article was published in the travel section of The Dominion Post, October 26.)
THERE can be few better ways to travel than in the observation car of an American train on a golden autumn afternoon with a cold beer in hand.
I’m on the California Zephyr, speeding westward through the gently undulating farmland of Illinois. We’re about four metres above the ground, on the upper of two levels, and the train is quiet and smooth.
To my surprise, the observation car is half-empty. Either my fellow passengers have all done this trip before and become blasé about the sights, or they are unmoved by the beauty of the landscape.
The view through the floor-to-ceiling windows gives new meaning to the line from America the Beautiful about amber waves of grain. Cornfields stretch to the horizon in all directions, interrupted here and there by dark clumps of trees indicating the presence of a lonely farmhouse. Some of these habitations look like exquisite little doll’s houses.
We are at the start of the great Midwestern prairie and it will take us the rest of the day and all of the night to cross it. The landscape changes little but it’s easy on the eye and I’m never bored.
As evening approaches, we cross the Mississippi into rural Iowa. The sunset is like molten copper. Much later, in the darkness, we rumble across the inky-black waters of another mighty river which a fellow passenger confirms is the Missouri, the border between Iowa and Nebraska.
My wife and I boarded the California Zephyr in Chicago at two in the afternoon. If we were to stay on the train all the way to Emeryville, near San Francisco, it would be a 52-hour trip. But because we couldn’t get a sleeper compartment and didn’t fancy sitting for all that time, we’ve decided to break the journey for a day and a night in Denver, Colorado, before resuming.
We could have saved time and money by flying, but it goes without saying that you see a lot more from a train than you do from 30,000 feet. Rail remains one of the most rewarding forms of travel – and sociable too, since you naturally fall into conversation with your fellow passengers. As on a ship, a camaraderie soon develops among the people temporarily brought together in this confined space.
In the dining car on our first night we sit opposite a genial young man from Perth, Australia, and a shy female student on her way back to Stanford University after the summer vacation. Because space is limited in the dining car, people are required to share their table with strangers; but rather than being an imposition, it adds to the enjoyment of the journey.
Our companions at dinner on the second night are a charming elderly couple, retired teachers from Wisconsin, who are on their way to visit relatives in Oakland, California. They have a sleeping compartment but complain that it’s claustrophobic – that once they’re in there with the door closed they feel shut in.
It’s a comment we hear from other passengers too, and we’re pleased that we’re travelling coach class. We even sleep reasonably well, since the train is barely half-full and each of us is able to stretch out over two seats. The only problem on the first night is that it’s cold – a malfunctioning thermostat, apparently.
The food in the dining car could be described only as basic – at best, on a par with airline meals. It’s not cheap, either, but you either eat it or starve, since there’s no opportunity to buy food along the way. But the dining car serves wine and beer, which makes the meals seem more palatable; and in any case, no one ever travelled on an Amtrak train for the innovative cuisine.
It’s the scenery that makes this journey unforgettable. The prairies, pretty as they are, are merely an appetiser; the main course, in visual terms, is served once the train starts climbing into the Rockies west of Denver.
Here the California Zephyr passes through terrain that makes the usual superlatives seem feeble: spectacular rocky bluffs, deep canyons, rushing mountain creeks and idyllic alpine meadows. Though it’s only early autumn, the forest foliage at this altitude (the railway climbs to nearly 3000 metres) seems to show off every colour in nature’s palette, from pale yellow to brilliant scarlet.
We’re soon following the upper reaches of the Colorado River, where we pass parties of white-water kayakers, the occasional fly fisherman and even a prospector panning for gold. Here the railway passes through Upper Gore Canyon, whose walls rise nearly 500 metres and seem to reach out menacingly over the train.
But wait: there’s more. After the Rockies come the vast deserts of Utah and Nevada – a lunar landscape where wind and rain have sculpted the rock into all manner of improbable shapes. In the distance I see massive buttes, similar to those of the famous Monument Valley, rising from the desert floor.
The train rolls through the desert all night, occasionally passing desolate little towns almost hidden in the sagebrush. At 3 am we stop briefly in a place called Elko, Nevada, where there’s not even a station – just a shelter with room for two or three people. Obviously someone got off, or on, the train at Elko and I can’t help thinking the latter would have been the better option.
We also pass the town of Winnemucca, where the conductor, a man with a voice that reminds me of Fozzie Bear in The Muppet Show, tells us Butch Cassidy robbed the bank in 1900.
But there are more mountains to come yet – namely, the majestic range known as the Sierra Nevada. Here we cross the Donner Pass, scene of one of the darkest episodes in the history of American settlement. Trapped by thick snow in the terrible winter of 1846-47, 39 members of a party of 87 settlers died of malnutrition and exposure. Some members of the party famously resorted to cannibalism.
It’s hard to reconcile this grim story with the scene presented by Donner Lake on a gloriously sunny day, shimmering under a powder-blue sky criss-crossed by vapour trails.
Once out of the mountains, the train makes a last dash across California’s broad Central Valley and skirts the shores of San Francisco Bay before reaching its ultimate destination. From Emeryville, we catch an Amtrak bus across the Bay Bridge to San Francisco, where we say our goodbyes.
We’ve spent 33 hours on the California Zephyr since Denver but it doesn’t feel like it. In fact we get off the train feeling infinitely fresher than at the end of a 12-hour flight cooped up like battery hens on a Boeing 747. Even as lowly coach-class passengers we have experienced travel as a pleasure in itself, rather than merely as a means of getting somewhere.
EXTRA STUFF YOU MIGHT WANT TO KNOW ...
State-owned Amtrak operates the California Zephyr service daily each way between Chicago and Emeryville, in the San Francisco Bay area of California – a distance of nearly 4000km. The train leaves Chicago at 2pm and arrives at 4.10pm two days later. In the reverse direction the train leaves Emeryville at 9.10am and arrives in Chicago two days later at 2.50pm. Cities it passes through include Burlington, Iowa; Omaha, Nebraska; Denver, Colorado; Salt Lake City, Utah; Reno, Nevada; and Sacramento, California. “Superliner” sleeping accommodation is available and the dining car provides a full meal service, including wine and beer. Smoking on the train is prohibited. Prices range from $US152 for a coach-class seat (not including meals) to $US1396 for a superliner bedroom for two (meals included). Superliner bedrooms are self-contained with their own hand basin, toilet and shower. Note: fares may vary depending on the time of year.
THERE can be few better ways to travel than in the observation car of an American train on a golden autumn afternoon with a cold beer in hand.
I’m on the California Zephyr, speeding westward through the gently undulating farmland of Illinois. We’re about four metres above the ground, on the upper of two levels, and the train is quiet and smooth.
To my surprise, the observation car is half-empty. Either my fellow passengers have all done this trip before and become blasé about the sights, or they are unmoved by the beauty of the landscape.
The view through the floor-to-ceiling windows gives new meaning to the line from America the Beautiful about amber waves of grain. Cornfields stretch to the horizon in all directions, interrupted here and there by dark clumps of trees indicating the presence of a lonely farmhouse. Some of these habitations look like exquisite little doll’s houses.
We are at the start of the great Midwestern prairie and it will take us the rest of the day and all of the night to cross it. The landscape changes little but it’s easy on the eye and I’m never bored.
As evening approaches, we cross the Mississippi into rural Iowa. The sunset is like molten copper. Much later, in the darkness, we rumble across the inky-black waters of another mighty river which a fellow passenger confirms is the Missouri, the border between Iowa and Nebraska.
My wife and I boarded the California Zephyr in Chicago at two in the afternoon. If we were to stay on the train all the way to Emeryville, near San Francisco, it would be a 52-hour trip. But because we couldn’t get a sleeper compartment and didn’t fancy sitting for all that time, we’ve decided to break the journey for a day and a night in Denver, Colorado, before resuming.
We could have saved time and money by flying, but it goes without saying that you see a lot more from a train than you do from 30,000 feet. Rail remains one of the most rewarding forms of travel – and sociable too, since you naturally fall into conversation with your fellow passengers. As on a ship, a camaraderie soon develops among the people temporarily brought together in this confined space.
In the dining car on our first night we sit opposite a genial young man from Perth, Australia, and a shy female student on her way back to Stanford University after the summer vacation. Because space is limited in the dining car, people are required to share their table with strangers; but rather than being an imposition, it adds to the enjoyment of the journey.
Our companions at dinner on the second night are a charming elderly couple, retired teachers from Wisconsin, who are on their way to visit relatives in Oakland, California. They have a sleeping compartment but complain that it’s claustrophobic – that once they’re in there with the door closed they feel shut in.
It’s a comment we hear from other passengers too, and we’re pleased that we’re travelling coach class. We even sleep reasonably well, since the train is barely half-full and each of us is able to stretch out over two seats. The only problem on the first night is that it’s cold – a malfunctioning thermostat, apparently.
The food in the dining car could be described only as basic – at best, on a par with airline meals. It’s not cheap, either, but you either eat it or starve, since there’s no opportunity to buy food along the way. But the dining car serves wine and beer, which makes the meals seem more palatable; and in any case, no one ever travelled on an Amtrak train for the innovative cuisine.
It’s the scenery that makes this journey unforgettable. The prairies, pretty as they are, are merely an appetiser; the main course, in visual terms, is served once the train starts climbing into the Rockies west of Denver.
Here the California Zephyr passes through terrain that makes the usual superlatives seem feeble: spectacular rocky bluffs, deep canyons, rushing mountain creeks and idyllic alpine meadows. Though it’s only early autumn, the forest foliage at this altitude (the railway climbs to nearly 3000 metres) seems to show off every colour in nature’s palette, from pale yellow to brilliant scarlet.
We’re soon following the upper reaches of the Colorado River, where we pass parties of white-water kayakers, the occasional fly fisherman and even a prospector panning for gold. Here the railway passes through Upper Gore Canyon, whose walls rise nearly 500 metres and seem to reach out menacingly over the train.
But wait: there’s more. After the Rockies come the vast deserts of Utah and Nevada – a lunar landscape where wind and rain have sculpted the rock into all manner of improbable shapes. In the distance I see massive buttes, similar to those of the famous Monument Valley, rising from the desert floor.
The train rolls through the desert all night, occasionally passing desolate little towns almost hidden in the sagebrush. At 3 am we stop briefly in a place called Elko, Nevada, where there’s not even a station – just a shelter with room for two or three people. Obviously someone got off, or on, the train at Elko and I can’t help thinking the latter would have been the better option.
We also pass the town of Winnemucca, where the conductor, a man with a voice that reminds me of Fozzie Bear in The Muppet Show, tells us Butch Cassidy robbed the bank in 1900.
But there are more mountains to come yet – namely, the majestic range known as the Sierra Nevada. Here we cross the Donner Pass, scene of one of the darkest episodes in the history of American settlement. Trapped by thick snow in the terrible winter of 1846-47, 39 members of a party of 87 settlers died of malnutrition and exposure. Some members of the party famously resorted to cannibalism.
It’s hard to reconcile this grim story with the scene presented by Donner Lake on a gloriously sunny day, shimmering under a powder-blue sky criss-crossed by vapour trails.
Once out of the mountains, the train makes a last dash across California’s broad Central Valley and skirts the shores of San Francisco Bay before reaching its ultimate destination. From Emeryville, we catch an Amtrak bus across the Bay Bridge to San Francisco, where we say our goodbyes.
We’ve spent 33 hours on the California Zephyr since Denver but it doesn’t feel like it. In fact we get off the train feeling infinitely fresher than at the end of a 12-hour flight cooped up like battery hens on a Boeing 747. Even as lowly coach-class passengers we have experienced travel as a pleasure in itself, rather than merely as a means of getting somewhere.
EXTRA STUFF YOU MIGHT WANT TO KNOW ...
State-owned Amtrak operates the California Zephyr service daily each way between Chicago and Emeryville, in the San Francisco Bay area of California – a distance of nearly 4000km. The train leaves Chicago at 2pm and arrives at 4.10pm two days later. In the reverse direction the train leaves Emeryville at 9.10am and arrives in Chicago two days later at 2.50pm. Cities it passes through include Burlington, Iowa; Omaha, Nebraska; Denver, Colorado; Salt Lake City, Utah; Reno, Nevada; and Sacramento, California. “Superliner” sleeping accommodation is available and the dining car provides a full meal service, including wine and beer. Smoking on the train is prohibited. Prices range from $US152 for a coach-class seat (not including meals) to $US1396 for a superliner bedroom for two (meals included). Superliner bedrooms are self-contained with their own hand basin, toilet and shower. Note: fares may vary depending on the time of year.
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