Mr Brown said Mr Rudd’s office had contacted him overnight but despite saying he was available to speak with Mr Rudd, he had not yet heard directly from him.

He said the Greens could work with either Ms Gillard or Mr Rudd but noted that under Mr Rudd’s prime ministership he had “not been able to get in a conversation with Kevin”.

He went on to say that he had shared a good working relationship with Mr Rudd during his term as foreign minister before praising the policy outcomes he said the Greens had been able to achieve with Julia Gillard as Prime Minister.

Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard has all but accused Kevin Rudd of sabotaging the 2010 election, saying that Labor had been in a ”winning” position before the damaging leaks during the campaign.

“It required some stoicism,” she said.

In a press conference this morning in Adelaide, she said that party polling had put Labor in a ”winning” lead, which it lost thanks to leaks in the later part of the campaign.

In her reply to Mr Rudd’s resignation from the foreign ministry last night, Ms Gillard confirmed that she will call a ballot for the Labor leadership at 10am (12 noon, NZ time) on Monday.

She said that she expected to win but in the event she did not, pledged to go to the backbench and renounce any further claims on the leadership.

She called on Mr Rudd – whom she expects to also nominate on Monday – to make the same promise.

Earlier this morning, Rudd told reporters in Washington that he was set to contest the Labor leadership.

”I do not believe that Prime Minister Gillard can lead the Australian Labor Party to success at the next election,” he said

After his naked opportunism over the tea-pot tapes (which turned out to be a complete fizzer) I thought it might be worthwhile to remind Kiwis that Winston Peters is the king of sideshows.

I dug this out from my ’08 archives.  It seems the media are only the enemy, when it’s Winston being asked the questions.

Muldoon once said Peters had an ‘acute political mind’.  But one thing that Winston has never learned to say is sorry – because it’s never, ever his fault.

A daring inmate has escaped from his prison in a Department of Corrections 4WD.

Jamie Paamu Hughes, 29, escaped from Rangipo Prison near Turangi about 11.15am this morning, police said.

Hughes escaped in a white 2005 Toyota Landcruiser, registration CPU985, which had a large grey speaker mounted on the roof.

Hughes is a 160cm tall male Maori of thin build. Police said anyone who sees him should not approach him but should contact police.

If private operators get fined for escapes, what is the sanction for when prisoners escape from state run facilities.

I have an idea…fine the CEO of Corrections, the General Manager of the prison and the Corrections Union the $150,000. Split it evenly. Seems fair.

Cristina Kirchner has been warned to leave Falkland Islanders to decide their own future as Argentina’s president faced a backlash from a group of the South American country’s leading thinkers.

Last week, Sean Penn, the Hollywood actor, appeared with President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner to criticise British actions over the disputed archipelago.

But a group of Argentina’s leading intellectuals, historians, journalists, constitutional experts and politicians have published an open letter calling on their own government to rethink policy towards the islands they call the Malvinas branding it “crazy” and “absurd”.

The 17 signatories accused Mrs Kirchner’s government of “harassing” the Falklands population of 3,000, who overwhelmingly want the islands to remain a British Overseas Territory.

The group said Argentina must respect the islanders’ right to self-determination and give up its policy of trying to force Britain into negotiating sovereignty.

“It is truly absurd and crazy to force a government and sovereignty on people who do not want it,” commented Fernando Iglesias, a former congressman who co-authored the document.

They forgot to add that they will get a severe beating if they try to strong arm the Falkland Islands.

Prime Minister John Key has refused a request by the Public Service Association for an urgent meeting to discuss his plans for the state sector.

Earlier this month Mr Key signalled more mergers and job losses as the Government continues its goal of slashing $1billion from the public service.

The Government is looking at how technology such as smart phones can be used to replace over-the-counter contact and how savings can be made through further sharing of back-office functions such as human resources.

Mr Key plans to outline the Government’s proposals in a speech next month and has warned he will “make no apology” for trying to make the state sector more efficient.

The PSA sent Mr Key a letter last week asking to discuss urgently changes to the public service.

National secretary Brenda Pilott said the PSA had been told Mr Key could not meet the union due to time pressures and referred it to new State Services Minister Jonathan Coleman.

“We are disappointed he is not prepared to meet with us.

“This is a strategy the prime minister has fronted up on … but he is not able to make the time to brief one of the key stakeholders about it,” Ms Pilott said.

The PSA are the enemy. So pissing them off is a good move.

Finland’s highly developed teacher preparation program is the centerpiece of its school reform strategy. Only eight universities are permitted to prepare teachers, and admission to these elite teacher education programs is highly competitive: only one of every ten applicants is accepted. There are no alternative ways to earn a teaching license. Those who are accepted have already taken required high school courses in physics, chemistry, philosophy, music, and at least two foreign languages. Future teachers have a strong academic education for three years, then enter a two-year master’s degree program. Subject-matter teachers earn their master’s degree from the university’s academic departments, not—in contrast to the US—the department of teacher education, or in special schools for teacher education. Every candidate prepares to teach all kinds of students, including students with disabilities and other special needs. Every teacher must complete an undergraduate degree and a master’s degree in education.

Because entry into teaching is difficult and the training is rigorous, teaching is a respected and prestigious profession in Finland. So selective and demanding is the process that virtually every teacher is well prepared.

Imagine of our teacher training were so rigorous. A great many of the problems in our schools would dissipate almost instantly. Here, instead, teachers demand respect they do not deserve nor that they have earned.

Mayor Len Brown has gone to some lengths to promote his plan to make Auckland’s municipal swimming pools free.

Having detected an “overwhelming sentiment” during the election campaign to replicate Manukau’s free pools across the city, he pumped up the proposal by making it part of his “100 projects in 100 days” programme.

Never mind that critics said there was no public call for free pools beyond Manukau, and that people were simply responding as they would to any free offer. The Mayor ploughed ahead regardless and sought confirmation of his view through a report from international consultancy KPMG.

I really wonder about that KPMG report, so does the Herald.

Unfortunately for Mr Brown, that report provides anything but solid backing. It puts the cost of free entry to the Auckland Council’s 24 pools at just $5.5 million, even though it cost $6.7 million to provide this to Manukau’s six pools when Mr Brown was mayor of that city.

This is completely contrary to suggestions that it would cost up to $50 million a year to provide such a service. The reason for the discrepancy is that, astoundingly, KPMG assumes free access would create an initial increase in use but that, in the long term, this would settle to around current levels, and that new revenue would be collected from spas, sauna, steam programmes, and retail sales.

Is anyone up for the audit services of KPMG now?

Mr Brown is sticking to his guns, saying he sees no need to doubt the study’s accuracy. Yet, even setting the dubious assumption on patronage aside, there is good reason to believe he should be rethinking his plan.

KPMG has based its figures on a projection from just six swimming pools. That, in itself, suggests thoroughness has been sacrificed in the interests of the Mayor’s wish for quick action.

Incredible that KPMG would risk their reputation with such apparently shoddy work.

Council pools are already heavily subsidised by ratepayers. Each visit to Manukau’s six free pools is estimated to cost ratepayers $3.76. Extending that largesse across the city would simply be too expensive, no matter the well-meaning urge to teach children to be safe and confident around water.

To that end, most people outside Manukau seem to find it no obstacle to pay something like $6 for adult entry and $3 for children. Others find it perfectly convenient to use Auckland’s many fine beaches to ensure their children learn water safety.

In that context, there seems little reason to extend free pools across the city. Given the uneven distribution of pools and all Aucklanders’ easy access to the waters of the Waitemata and the Manukau, a stronger case could be made for instituting full user charges. Better that than an option that ends up costing nothing like what people expected.

No doubt LGOIMA requests about all this will be met with secrecy, murk and lengthy delays.

The amount of income tax paid fell sharply last month in the first formal indication that the new 50p higher rate is not raising the expected amount of revenue.

The Treasury received £10.35 billion in income tax payments from those paying by self-assessment last month, a drop of £509 million compared with January 2011. Most other taxes produced higher revenues over the same period.

Senior sources said that the first official figures indicated that there had been “manoeuvring” by well-off Britons to avoid the new higher rate. The figures will add to pressure on the Coalition to drop the levy amid fears it is forcing entrepreneurs to relocate abroad.

The self-assessment returns from January, when most income tax is paid by the better-off, have been eagerly awaited by the Treasury and government ministers as they provide the first evidence of the success, or failure, of the 50p rate. It is the first year following the introduction of the 50p rate which had been expected to boost tax revenues from self-assessment by more than £1billion.

²³ Get the truth and never sell it;
also get wisdom, discipline, and good judgment.

We have discovered that this woman is not a bludger. Sure she has made mistakes, sure she isn’t a brain surgeon….but she does have pride and drive and ambition.

We have discovered that Jacinda Ardern couldn’t even be bothered driving out to see Tania, instead preferring to shop the story to Simon Collins.

We have found out that new Green MP is actually doing the job an MP should be doing, and though she is struggling a bit by thinking that asking questions in the house will deliver results, she is at least trying, which is a whole lot more than Jacinda Ardern

We have found that Simon Collins would rather focus on the sensational than the detail as he seeks to manufacture stories of misery as he pimps out the lives of the poor. He is more concerned with the number of views on his article than solutions and outcomes for the people he writes about.

But what we haven’t explored is the real issue that Tania Wysocki is experiencing difficulty. This is the reason why she contacted all the agencies, and politicians in the first place. the agencies were intent on covering their butts and the politicians intent on scoring points. the “journalist” was intent on something else altogether. Not a single one of them was intent on actually understanding the real issue.

The Issue

The essence of Tania Wysocki’s problem is that she is aiming too high. She is attempting to complete a NCEA Level 6 course in Veterinarian Nursing at UNITEC.  For some bizarre reason child care extended hours are only available for people attending NCEA Level 3 and below courses.

We are expending millions of dollars on child care for basic courses that are supposedly going to qualify people to be work ready when the reality is that any course at NCEA Level 3 or below is basic stuff and mostly remedial.

What we aren’t doing is encouraging more people like Tania Wysocki to enter and complete training. They are left feeling rightly or wrongly that they are having additional barriers put in their way whereas less able students, and frankly unemployable students are enjoying a largesse that will probably never be repaid to society.

When I spoke with the Ministers office they told me that the childcare changes were brought about in the 2009 budget when the economy was severely constrained. The thought was that those most vulnerable needed help and should be prioritised and that it perhaps wasn’t fair that in more advanced courses it wasn’t fair that people were attending the courses and sitting next to highly subsidised beneficiaries.

I suggested to the Ministers Office that perhaps we were encouraging the wrong people into training, that I witnessed on a daily basis in Manukau what these wrong kinds of incentives deliver and suggested that they might like to use this case as a good reason to review the policy. Who knows, perhaps they will.

Of course when making policy that affects large numbers of people there are always those at the crossover points that prove the exception to the rule. The unwieldy beast that is MSD is neither willing nor able to consider every little exception and sometimes intervention is called for.

This is issue that Tania Wysocki was trying to explain, but it got missed in the shameless point scoring and headline grabbing of politicians.

It took an unpaid blogger to do what highly paid politicians either couldn’t or wouldn’t do…drive out to see the person concerned and actually listen to the issues.

It astounds me that a politician as lazy and self-centred as Jacinda Ardern is touted as a future leader.

I don’t know what the solution is to our burgeoning and mis-directed welfare system is. But I know it isn’t listening to anything Jacinda Ardern or Labour has to say…or Simon Collins for that matter.

In their haste to get into print they ignored a constituent and a larger problem that seriously needs addressing and instead Pimped out the Poor in multiple stories of manufactured misery.

We have covered the timeline and the back story of Tania Wysocki. It was necessary so that you can fully understand what happened next.

After Tania, utterly frustrated with an intransigent WINZ office in Pukekohe and seemingly being ignored in her plight, sent out an email to all parties she was contacted by two politicians. The attitude and behaviour of those two politicians are in stark contrast with each other.

One shamelessly shopped the story to the media and the other actually treated the issue as any competent MP should.

As they say…Do you want the good news or the bad news first?

Help from The Greens

Let us look at the actions of Jan Logie first. The good news.

Jan Logie is a new MP. She lives in Wellington. She stood in Mana electorate against Kris Fa’afoi. Whilst Fa’afoi is invisible Jan Logie is extremely visible and has got involved in a case way outside of Wellington, in South Auckland. I asked Tania Wysocki to rate her interactions and resolutions with Jan Logie and she have her an 8 out of 10. Jan has kept in contact, emailed, phoned, sends txts as well as arranged a flight to Wellington to attempt to get some resolution to the issue.

Credit where credit is due, this new MP is actually trying to make a difference. Even during no doubt what is a busy time as she tries to get her mind around being a new MP and the responsibilities and workload that brings in a small Party.

No Help from Labour

Now for the bad news.

When Jacinda Ardern received the cry for help from Tania Wysocki she made a phone call to Tania. It was a short call. In that call she didn’t garner extra details, she simply told Tania that she had “friends in the media” and that Simon Collins would giver her a call.

She was true to her word on that Monday. Quasi Electorate agent for the List MP, Simon Collins called a short time later and arrange to drive out with a photographer for his scoop of the week, a beneficiary who wants to prostitute herself to pay for vocational training.

Simon Collins did attend Tania’s modest house in rural South Auckland. He then proceeded to actually ignore the issues regarding training and child care, focus only on the prostitution angle. He ignored Tania’s back story, clearly he didn’t deem it relevant to the picture he was trying to portray of an uncaring government expecting women to prostitute themselves to pay for training.

We know that Simon Collins doesn’t care about his subjects because he threw Craig and Carla to the wolves without a simple background check on Facebook and other social media and dating sites. Had he done even the basics he would have realised that in that case Carla was hardly a fit subject for his touching stories. She suffers from severe depression, from her own Facebook updates has a marriage on the rocks as she looks on dating sites for some comfort, and had discussed suicide. I can’t imagine how Carla now feels after having been shamelessly pimped out by Simon Collins in his manufactured series on misery.

He didn’t care because he had a story about misery to manufacture. He aslo didn’t care about Tania Wysocki either, because he printed the names of her children, the area in which she lives and worse, the only contact he has had since the story was a quick email to let Tania know just how many people read the article online.

How touching. No comments about how she was doing. Nothing about if there was any progress with the authorities. Nope, just how many views his cool article Pimping out the Poor, manufacturing misery had got.

Worse though is that Jacinda Ardern followed up with a single phone call about how awesome the article was. That’s it. One phone call before the article to sell tania out to Simon Collins and one phone call after to congratulate herself ont eh publicity coup.

All the while Jan Logie is doing what Jacinda Ardern either couldn’t or wouldn’t do….actually try and help.

How do I know she couldn’t or wouldn’t help?

Well because yesterday I contacted the Minister’s office for a comment and to ask some questions. My questions were simple. Has either Simon Collins and/or Jacinda Ardern been in contact with the Minister’s office, or with the Ministry of Social Development with the case of Tania Wysocki or with the case of Craig and Carla Bradley?

The answer was an emphatic no in the case of Jacinda Ardern. Labour’s vaunted super star, who leap-frogged over all the women in the caucus to take this portfolio, appears to have been too lazy to care about people she is the opposition spokesperson for. Instead she was highly motivated to shop the stories to her quasi-Electorate Agent Simon Collins. In the case of Simon Collins, he only contacted the MSD regarding Tania Wysocki and that was only to ask about her entitlement and confirm details for his manufactured story. He has never contacted the Minister’s office for comment on any of his articles about poverty, the very areas that Paula Bennett is the Minister responsible for.

We now know that Labour, especially Jacinda Ardern is closely working with and feeding stories to Simon Collins. Even if Simon Collins won’t confirm his source for the stories we know that the story about Tania Wysocki was directly fed to him by Jacinda Ardern.

The most shameful thing about Jacinda’s actions is that she either couldn’t or wouldn’t travel 35 minutes from Aucklad Central to at least visit Tania. The best she could muster was two short taxpayer funded phone calls…plus the one to Simon Collins of course.

Jan Logie meanwhile, from Wellington has managed to provide a level of pastoral care to Tania Wysocki that would put most MPs to shame. It really isn’t any wonder that The Greens are currently out-performing Labour in parliament and acting as though they are the real opposition. It isn’t really a surprise that whilst Jan Logie scored an 8 out of 10 for her help Jacinda Ardern was rated by Tania Wysocki at a very low 2 out of 10 and then only barely scraping through to that level.

This behaviour came to light with the Simon Collins series in the NZ Herald culminating in the story of Tania Wysocki.

I gave a short history so that you could have context for what happened next for Tania Wysocki as politicians sold her down the river for some cheap headlines.

As I outlined Tania was extremely frustrated with progress in trying to get cover for childcare so she could attend the Vet Nurse training at Unitec. When I visited Tania yesterday I talked over with her as to why she picked that course and also discussed some of her background. She had touched on this in her emails with me and it became apparent that Simon Collins had left a great many pertinent facts out of his article.

Tania’s back story

Tania wants to train as a vet nurse because she wants to formalise what is years of actual work in the horse racing industry and rural sector. She has assisted with foaling, been on foal watch in the middle of the night, helped vets perform minor surgeries on farms as needed. Tania has worked doing seasonal work even while on the DPB. She is not one to sit still. She love animals and it reflects a lifetime of her work. She has figured that she would be able to provide for her two children better by formalising her qualifications.

She was quick to admit to me that she was silly to leave school at 15. She regrets it. But what is done is done. She explained to me her long term relationship and her first child and how that ended, she also explained to me the details of why it ended but asked to not go into detail on that. Suffice to say I bet she wears a white ribbon every year.

Her relationship ended at the same time as she was nursing her father who had terminal cancer. it was also during this time that she fell pregnant again. Something she never planned for. She could see where she was headed if she continued on this track and made a decision that when she had her second child that she would sterilise herself. She did not want a life a poverty for her or her children or to bring any more children into the world either, perpetrating that lifestyle. So when she had a cesarean section for the birth of her second child she also had a tubal ligation. So committed she was to not having any more children she had a follow up procedure called a Dye Scan to check that the surgery was successful. It was during this procedure she found that the operation wasn’t properly done and so had it done again. this woman is tough, she has resolve and didn’t at all present to me like Simon Collins portrayed her.

He focused on her comments about becoming a prostitute and I asked her why she said that. Tania explained to me that she actually researched it and she put it in her emails and used it in her interview with Simon Collins because she thought that was the only way forward. Personally I think she is wrong, but given that prostitution is legal there shouldn’t be the outcry there was, unless of course that prostitution is wrong…just saying.

However she felt that Simon Collins ignored her past and her story and instead focussed on what would garner the biggest headlines. No wonder she was mad as hell.

Why Train as a Vet?

Tania explained to me the reason why she wanted to take the train to study at Unitec…she had worked out that she could get in a couple of extra hours a day study by taking the train rather than driving, that being a solo mother with two children it was actually a more effective use of her limited time than driving and being unable to study because of the driving.

This woman isn’t stupid. She is driven…and she was impressing me with her drive. I mean how many people have the balls to contact me, some politicians run from the room when I enter and she had the intestinal fortitude to contact me and tell me off and to ask for re-dress for the shoddy reporting she had experienced.

So now we have had the timeline, and now Tania’s background. Both things left out of Simon Collins article. I believe that Tania’s background, her back story to use political parlance is highly relevant and paints an entirely different picture of a woman who is simply after a fair go.

It is the details of the course she wants to do that is causing the problem. Studying to be a Vet Nurse is a NCEA Level 6 course. For some bizarre reason additional hours of child care are only available for NCEA Level 3 and below courses.

It seems to me that we are spending money in the wrong areas. We encouraging the wrong level of student to engage in study when it is people like Tania Wysocki who should be getting as much encouragement as possible to enter and complete training.

Tania said to me herself that she wants to be a taxpayer again, not a bludger. She hates being on the DPB and this two year course will see her employed and providing for her family.

Next up in the Pimping the Poor series – Labour colludes with the NZ Herald to Pimp the Poor

They manufactured misery as they went painting a picture that they wanted to paint and have been extremely economical with the truth along the way.

I am going to explore precisely how they have operated and will use the case of Tania Wysocki to prove their shameless pimping of the poor as they manufactured misery.

BACKGROUND

Last week Simon Collins reported the story of Tania Wysocki. On the surface this looked just another case of a beneficiary bludging off the state wanting more. Predictably talkback and the blogs went off on it and equally predictably the left wing politicians jumped on the band-wagon for some cheap headlines and grandstanding at the expense of a woman and her family.

Something didn’t ring true about this case…things didn’t add up…and on Thurday night last week I received an email from Tania Wysocki, who was indignant that her story hadn’t been told properly and that she was being painted as a bludger on large, flipping it up for random blokes to create a lifestyle. It is fair to say that she was mad as hell.

After exchanging emails over a few days I can now understand why she is mad as hell and I will explain why. But in order to do so I need to provide a timetable for you. then in subsequent posts I will explain why Tania Wysocki should feel aggrieved, but not with who you would think.

TIMELINE

Back in October last year Tania Wysocki decided that she no longer wanted to be a benefit dependent solo mother, that she wanted to train for a decent job and become a taxpayer again. Tania is not some young thing exploited the DPB for personal gain. She is 38 years old and freely admits in conversations with me that she has made mistakes in her life but at 38, after leaving school at 15 has actually worked for most of her life. It is only in the past 4 years that she became a beneficiary. That story in and of itself shows some steel and I will cover that later as it is material to the case against Simon Collins.

Tania approached the WINZ office in Pukekohe, it is the nearest office to her home. It is fair to say that they were less than helpful, but it is also fair to say that the rules and regulations surrounding training at the level Tania is contemplating are perplexing. She was confused and struggling to see how she could actually extricate herself from a life on a benefit.

She went and visited her local MPO, Paul Hutchison. Tania agrees that at the time Paul Hutchison treated her with respect, with caring and agreed to write to the Minister and to the WINZ office in Pukekohe…both things he did.

Despite repeatedly informing the local office of the details of the course she was enrolled in, and I might add approved for a student loan, WINZ could not see a way to accomodate her child care requirements. The rules, which I will discuss later, are a little silly. Tania experienced the frustration of dealing with a government department. On December 27, two days after Christmas and after most of Wellington had shut down for she emailed John Key’s office.

Later in in late January and early February with the start of her course imminent she started emailing other political parties until un utter frustration she sent out an angry email asking if anyone cared about her situation.

That is the lead up and timeline. I have seen the emails and I have read them all. It is what happens next that is truly appalling when you understand the full details. Details Simon Collins omitted and details Jacinda Ardern has kept quiet.

Stay tuned for the next installment.

Foreign Minister Murray McCully says he is not embarrassed by the release of emails hacked from his private account last year, including one from MP and former diplomat John Hayes suggesting ways to help people in the region to “resist China.”

Mr McCully said he saw no need to be contacting anyone about the emails.

“I don’t think it is going to keep anyone awake in bed at night,” he said today.

Mr Hayes was well known for his “plain speaking,” Mr McCully said, adding that he was not confirming the authenticity of anything or commenting on material that was stolen.

Right now, with the emails that have been released, McCully has actually had his reputation enhanced…bashing bloated civil servants is always a winner with the masses.

By all accounts Kevin Rudd has bottled his coup attempt and appear to not have the numbers. Then again neither did Don Brash…twice.

The NewstalkZB Huddle wityh Larry Williams and David Farrar talking about Christchurch, Kim Dotcom and Matt McCarten:

Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd has announced his resignation at a press conference in Washington DC at 1.20am local time, 5.20pm AEDT.

Mr Rudd said he believed he no longer had the support of the Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, and had no option but to resign.

“I cannot continue to serve as foreign minister if I do not have the Prime Minister’s support and so I have decided to do the honourable thing and the honourable thing is to resign.”

He said the reign of “faceless men” and their iron grip on the control of the Labor leadership must end.

He called the leadership brawl a “soap opera” and said he would not have “anything to do with it”.

Mr Rudd said the “ongoing saga” was damaging the business community and “my good friend Anna Bligh” who is contesting the Queensland election.

“I feel very uncomfortable doing this from Washington rather than in Australia but I don’t feel I have a choice,” Mr Rudd said.

He called a press conference for 1:30am in Washington…he has resigned so he can get on the next available plane and run the numbers over the weekend. If he had stayed away until Sunday as planned then that posed all sorts of trouble for Tuesday’s caucus.

There is blood in the water now.

I’m on NewstalkZb with Larry Williams and some socialist commentator called Farrar at 5:40pm.

Topics are:

Christchurch, Kit Dotcom and Matt McCarten…so far.

I will post the audio tomorrow morning.

The Maritime Union through their proxies in the Labour party and the CTU started an “information campaign a couple of weeks ago…now the Ports of Auckland has responded to the claims made in those documents and upped the ante on the Maritime Union by also filing “an application with the Employment Relations Authority (ERA) to rule on what it considers is a serious and calculated breach of good faith in the Maritime Union’s current publicity campaign.”

I wonder if Garry Parsloe and his union pals will now call off their all expenses paid trip to Sydney to attend the ERA sitting or will they cry off that until a time better suited to them?

Here is the POAL rebuttal document which arrived via my tipline a short while ago. As you will see the Union isn’t blessed with truthfulness.

POAL -Union-Misinformation 21 Feb

Unfortunately for them all their claims were, yesterday, turned topsy-turvy when a leading climate scientist (chair of the IGU Integrity Committee) confessed that he had fraudulently obtained the documents by a form of identity theft. Worse, the main document is a forgery.

Peter H. Gleick, a water and climate analyst who has been studying aspects of global warming for more than two decades, in recent years became an aggressive critic of organizations and individuals casting doubt on the seriousness of greenhouse-driven climate change. He used blogs,congressional testimony, group letters and other means to make his case.

Now, Gleick has admitted to an act that leaves his reputation in ruins and threatens to undercut the cause he spent so much time pursuing. His summary, just published on his blog at Huffington Post, speaks for itself. …

…

The Heartland Institute had already signaled that it plans to seek charges and civil action against the person who extracted its documents under a false identity. Foreshadowing today’s events, on Friday, Ross Kaminsky, a senior fellow and former board member at Heartland, posted a piece on the American Spectator site naming Gleick as an “obvious suspect.” Now they have their man.

I won’t speculate on how the legal aspects of this story might play out.

Another question, of course, is who wrote the climate strategy document that Gleick now says was mailed to him. His admitted acts of deception in acquiring the cache of authentic Heartland documents surely will sustain suspicion that he created the summary, which Heartland’s leadership insists is fake.

One way or the other, Gleick’s use of deception in pursuit of his cause after years of calling out climate deception has destroyed his credibility and harmed others. (Some of the released documents contain information about Heartland employees that has no bearing on the climate fight.) That is his personal tragedy and shame (and I’m sure devastating for his colleagues, friends and family).

On 21 February 2012, the Electoral Commission referred The Radio Network to the Police for broadcasting election programmes for United Future on 25 October 2011. It is the Electoral Commission’s view that the broadcasts for United Future on 25 October constituted a breach of section 70 of the Broadcasting Act 1989 because broadcasters were prohibited from broadcasting election programmes for a political party outside of the election period for the 2011 General Election, which began on 26 October and ended on 25 November 2011.
As this matter is now with the Police, the Electoral Commission will not be commenting further.

I think this is one aspect of electoral and broadcasting law that is silly. Firstly that only political parties can broadcast and secondly that they are only allowed to within a proscribed period.

Then there is the unwillingness of Police to act or investigate electoral matters. If the Police don;t act then there is little point in having  these laws. Political parties,especially Labour already pretty much know this and conduct themselves outside of the rules on frequent occasions knowing that they will never be prosecuted or held accountable.

So far the Maritime Union has failed to explain how demands for more will assist in clawing back the difference in productivity between the two poerts.

There is no way that Auckland can rise to meet the level of Tauranga unless fundamental changes are made, and they recognise that they must be made.

Sadly the Union does not want to see those changes made, and therefore the customers have walked. They will continue to walk.

When watchdogs become lapdogs: Some New Zealand media in spotlight

With the fall of Murdoch Media Empire and Wikileaks Scandal, the concept of a free media has taken almost a fatal hit. With recent developments in mainstream television, controversies and questionable decisions by some media outlets in New Zealand, one is forced to revisit Propaganda Model.

Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky, in their book, originally published in 1988, Manufacturing Consent: The political economy of mass media (2008), have put forward a model as a framework for gauging, analysing and understanding the functioning of the US media. Their concept, called the Propaganda Model, stipulates that media is not a free agent that the public have been made to believe. They challenge the myth that the press is stubborn, difficult, persistent and present everywhere as searchers and defenders of the truth. What they state through Propaganda Model is that all facets of news are structured by the influence and consensus of the elite to ensure systematic propaganda. Effectively what they say is that the media serves and propagandises on behalf of those who control and finance them.

This is where the recent behaviour of Television New Zealand (TVNZ) and Media Works comes into question. Almost two months before the last elections, Prime Minister John Key hosted an hour-long show on September 30, 2011 on Radio Live. He declared that the show was an “election-free zone.”

However, the Opposition, complained to the Broadcasting Standards Authority (BSA) and the Electoral Commission claiming that the show qualified it as an election advertisement because it was so close to the November 26, 2011 election. The ruling of the Electoral Commission was that despite statements that the show was an “election-free zone”, Mr Key had associated himself with well-known people. In doing so, he took the opportunity to raise his personal profile unchallenged, and hence was likely to be seen to encourage people to vote for National Party under his leadership.

The then Labour leader Phil Goff accused Radio Live of granting special favours to John Key in exchange for Government’s decision to defer $43 million of licensing fees for Media Works, the owners of Radio Live and TV 3. He said it would have been a different situation if other leaders had been afforded the same opportunity. Goff said Radio Live had rejected the idea of allowing others to participate. The concentration of ownership of NZ media between Fairfax, Media Works and Government makes the picture murkier and give further credence to Propaganda Model.

In yet another media move that would raise concerns and controversy is a decision by TVNZ to dump the new Labour leader’s weekly appearance on its Breakfast show. They were courteous in telling Labour leader David Shearer that he was not newsworthy and he did not have an automatic right to appear on the show, and would have to create news to appear on its show. It is a typical chicken and egg situation- how is he expected to create news without TV exposure?

Coming on the heels of Labour’s complaint about PM’s free election advertising on Radio Live reported above, some feel it is the government-owned station’s act of getting back at Labour for being a naughty boy. Its axing may be due to the Electoral Commission finding Prime Minister’s appearance on Radio Live breached the Broadcasting Act and the case being referred to police. This fiasco, apart from illustrating the act of Government broadcaster licking the hand that feeds it (government), also raises questions about whether the media should treat party leaders differently in their coverage. However, according to Propaganda Model, TVNZ will look after the interests of its owner and financier – the government and the Opposition (Labour Party) can go and jump.

Such expedient decisions by the media in pleasing the government are not only confined within New Zealand, but have gone abroad as well. This comes amidst allegation from Fiji Broadcasting Commission (FBC) that NZ government was blocking the newly established FBC TV from showing TVNZ news and features to Fijians.

FBC’s chief executive, Riyaz Sayed-Khaiyum (former TVNZ’s Asia Downunder reporter) said that while TVNZ Pacific Services were free of service across the Pacific, Fiji was denied permission for showing such to its people. All that was needed was any broadcaster to be given approval from TVNZ. However, reportedly two requests made last year by FBC TV had been rejected by TVNZ on the grounds that FBC TV was owned by government of Fiji. What defies sense or logic is that TVNZ itself is a government owned enterprise. And because of it being NZ Government owned, Khaiyum claims political pressures were exerted on TVNZ by Murry McCully’s Foreign Affairs Department not to grant the Fijians the approval to broadcast. According to what Khaiyum told Fiji Sun, this was confirmed by New Zealand High Commission’s Deputy Head in Suva, Peter Lund that the directive of refusal came from New Zealand Foreign Affairs. Effectively, this was a case of a Government exerting its ownership powers to prevent dispersal of regional information in the Pacific region. TVNZ, as a supposedly free media organisation was merely dancing to the tunes of its owners and financiers- New Zealand government. Khaiyum said the decision may only change with the change of government.

However, your truly is not holding his breath for it- Labour party has been no different in its treatment of Fiji. Just the players change, the game rules remain the same. In the meantime, people are getting used to the high standards and quality of TV services from the English service of Al Jazeera from Doha in Qatar. It is similar to the case of another Arab enterprise, Emirates Airlines, increasingly taking foot in the traditional Australasian market.

The cases above illustrate that Herman and Chomsky’s Propaganda Model stipulated over two decades ago still holds current in New Zealand. In this developed First World, some media still continue to be sympathizer and mouthpiece of, and jump to the tunes of those who finance them. In doing so, they abandon their watchdog roles to become lapdogs.

Endnote: The author graduated with Masters in Communication Studies (MCS) with Honours from Auckland University of Technology (AUT) last year. His research topic was: The 2000 Speight coup in Fiji: an analysis of the role of The Fiji Times and the impact of partisan media. The research is available at the following site: http://aut.researchgateway.ac.nz/handle/10292/2554

The research revealed that Propaganda Model of media was also in play during 2000, leading to Speight coup in Fiji.

[About the author: Thakur Ranjit Singh is a media commentator, a community worker and CEO of Media Relations Limited, a media promotions, event management, public relations and communications company based in Auckland.]

Christie Marceau may have died a tragic and preventable death but her memory will live on, in fact her death has become the catalyst for change.

The Sensible Sentencing Trust working alongside the Marceau family and supporters will launch a campaign aptly titled ‘Christies’ Law’ which will be aiming to have bail laws reviewed and an annual appraisal of Judges themselves.

Trust Spokesman Garth McVicar said the Marceau family had approached him soon after Christie was murdered wanting to ensure Christies’ life was not in vain and the system failures that led to the tragedy were challenged and changed.

“The murder of Christie by an offender on bail was not a one-of, we have dealt with many families who have experienced similar tragedies but Christie’s death appears to be the tipping point – the catalyst for change.”

Mr. McVicar said momentum for Christies’ Law was building with confirmation that a bus load of supporters from Tauranga will be attending.

The launch of Christies Law will take place at:

Location: Auckland High Court in Waterloo Quadrant
Date: 27th February [This coming Monday]
Time: 12 noon [the public are invited to gather from 11-30am]