HARD NEWS 17/10/97 (plus! free HN 10/10/97!)
Russell Brown
HARD NEWS is broadcast on 95bFM around 8.45am Fridays, and repeated at
4.30pm Friday and 10am Sunday, on the Culture Bunker. Text goes to
http://nz.com (home of the Hard News mailing list); http://speeches.com
and http://www.plug.co.nz
---------------------------
GOOD DAY MEDIAPHILES ... How Bizarre. How Bizarre. Yes, we all know the
tune, most of us know the success story, but how many of us know that
the man who co-wrote and produced said global smasheroonie was once in a
group called the Body Electric? And who can recall the name of their
album. Think hard! Truly, you are pulsing to meta-music if you said
'Presentation and Reality'.
It was originally something, I think, that Bogart declared in a
movie, about how everything in the world was either "presentation", that
is, a front or pretence; or "reality". And it just happens to apply most
handsomely to our current situation. We have a Prime Minister who is
suddenly rushing around the country burbling about policy concepts not
as policy, as such, but as a positioning exercise within his own party.
Bring on the remix album.
Bolger, feeling the hot breath of Jenny Shipley down his neck -
and dwell on that one for a moment, punters - is trying to dig himself
out of the coalition cesspit by lurching to the right. In the last two
weeks he has proposed, essentially, the cancellation of the New Zealand
social contract. No more universal provision of health education and
welfare services.
Instead, according to the PM, we should look to "the community"
to play a greater role in the social arena, with third parties working
with government to address social needs. Oh, lovely. But when you look
at the treatment dished out in recent years to Plunket and Women's
Refuge, when you think back to Shipley attacking food banks for
encouraging dependency, who the hell can believe that?
Bolger also gave a speech urging those in the business community
to, quote "look after their neighbours" in welfare. Oh, so this would be
the same business community which spent most of the 1980s desperately
avoiding its obligations to the national revenue, would it? Perhaps if
Mr Fay and Mr Richwhite's firm pretended to look after some
single-parent families in the Cook Islands they could get a note
relieving them of similar obligations here. Brilliant scheme. I look
forward to someone trying it.
Also, without actually using the phrase, Bolger suggested
throwing our schooling policy over to a voucher system. Trouble with
education voucher systems is that since that whacky chap Milton Freidman
proposed them 55 years ago, they haven't worked on any meaningful scale,
anywhere.
Bolger, frankly struggling to give the impression that he
believed this stuff, couldn't even summon any ACT-style bilge about
choice and how buying education is just like buying a shirt, only more
expensive. All he could suggest is that it would be cheaper. Probably.
Hell, maybe Bolger did have a conversion on the road from Te
Kuiti to Damascus. Maybe he does believe this stuff. In which case, he
should dissolve Parliament and fight a new election on it, because it's
certainly nothing like what he campaigned the last one on. I'd actually
enjoy seeing the likes of National's Maungakiekie MP Belinda Vernon -
who claimed on TV this week that government had no place in running a
welfare system - getting their stupid Tory arses kicked.
National's lurch to the right has, of course, made some space on
the centre ground for its coalition partner. And New Zealand First has,
of course, taken the lazy path. Winston Peters jumped up to say his
party would not support the buying of a new Anzac frigate, or the
"Beehive on wheels" plan. And I'm sure he's strongly opposed to cheap
populism, too.
Peters' deputy, Tau Henare, seems to be concerning himself
largely with the idea of selling TVNZ. It won't happen, he says.
Ironically, he had to wait half an hour to say that to Ian Fraser on
Wednesday night because the state broadcaster had to screen the second
half of that crucial public service programme, Telebingo.
It's the Telebingo factor which makes me less than fervent about
holding onto TVNZ in its present form. And if new technology is going to
mean that the means and diversity of broadcast will proliferate in the
next decade, thus lowering the value of an asset developed under a
monolithic model of broadcasting, then we should examine what a useful
public role is in the new era. We should, in other words, have a vision
for what we're going to do. The government doesn't. It just doesn't, and
nothing should be flicked off until it does.
Henare, who appeared on Fraser disguised as a prison warder from
Mt Eden, was always on the back foot intellectually to Fraser. Although
I'm sure he hadn't, his debating style is reminscent of a man who's had
a few drinks and can't quite get his arument together. He did manage to
describe the Prime Minister as "a wily old so-and-so" yet insisted he
was not going to, quote, "dob him in". That went down very well, I'm
sure.
And arise, Sir Les, great leader of our Commonwealth and Olympic
Games teams. Whoops, that's not for a few years, though, is it? Les
Mills surely had the scent of knighthood in his nostrils when he
accepted the job of chef de mission for the games in Kuala Lumpur and
Sydney this week. I'm not saying he won't do a good job - he probably
will - but he's bailing out, isn't he?
Although Mills insists he's still in the Auckland mayoral race
next year, he'll be in Malaysia during the local body election campaign.
And I'm sure he won't be too unhappy to be voted out. After all, he is
leading an administration on a road to nowhere.
Consider how the council has failed to deliver any civic capital
under Mills' tenure. Think of the International Rugby Museum, the
Britomart, the council housing sell-off, the Metrowater debacle. Think
of the slogan that never, ever happened: "Auckland, City of Lovers".
Think, I challenge you, of one single feel-good factor in the life of
this council. Frightening, isn't it?
No, here in Auckland we have to make our own feelgood, and
20,000 of us did just that at Eden Park, where Zinzan Brooke was carried
shoulder high off the ground after what was - probably - his last game
on Eden Park. He's off next year to play some soft rugby for top money
in England; and will we ever again see his like? The daft, dizzy
try-fest against Wellington was a pretty good send-off - and could
really only have been improved by Zinny clinching the victory with a
drop-goal from halfway.
Of course, the seamless continuum which is modern rugby in New
Zealand stretches on now, with the NPC semi-finals and the naming of the
All Black squad to tour the UK. I'm picking Auckland to get up and do it
against Canterbury, and Waikato to have too much cow-power for Counties.
After that, it's only one more week before we can forget our
provincial differences and unite behind Saint John Hart as he leads a
generation of players to victory over the Poms and encourages them to
talk about their feelings while they do it. It is all very, to use
Hart's favourite word, "special". Did not Zinzan Brooke speak the words,
"I love you all," after Saturday's game? Zinzan, love is all you need. -
G'bye!
--------------------------------------
HARD NEWS 10/10/97
--------------------------------------
GOOD DAY MEDIAPHILES ... How Bizarre. How Bizarre. Yes, we all know the
tune, most of us know the success story, but how many of us know that
the man who co-wrote and produced said global smasheroonie was once in a
group called the Body Electric? And who can recall the name of their
album. Think hard! Truly, you are pulsing to meta-music if you said
'Presentation and Reality'.
It was originally something, I think, that Bogart declared in a
movie, about how everything in the world was either "presentation", that
is, a front or pretence; or "reality". And it just happens to apply most
handsomely to our current situation. We have a Prime Minister who is
suddenly rushing around the country burbling about policy concepts not
as policy, as such, but as a positioning exercise within his own party.
Bring on the remix album.
Bolger, feeling the hot breath of Jenny Shipley down his neck -
and dwell on that one for a moment, punters - is trying to dig himself
out of the coalition cesspit by lurching to the right. In the last two
weeks he has proposed, essentially, the cancellation of the New Zealand
social contract. No more universal provision of health education and
welfare services.
Instead, according to the PM, we should look to "the community"
to play a greater role in the social arena, with third parties working
with government to address social needs. Oh, lovely. But when you look
at the treatment dished out in recent years to Plunket and Women's
Refuge, when you think back to Shipley attacking food banks for
encouraging dependency, who the hell can believe that?
Bolger also gave a speech urging those in the business community
to, quote "look after their neighbours" in welfare. Oh, so this would be
the same business community which spent most of the 1980s desperately
avoiding its obligations to the national revenue, would it? Perhaps if
Mr Fay and Mr Richwhite's firm pretended to look after some
single-parent families in the Cook Islands they could get a note
relieving them of similar obligations here. Brilliant scheme. I look
forward to someone trying it.
Also, without actually using the phrase, Bolger suggested
throwing our schooling policy over to a voucher system. Trouble with
education voucher systems is that since that whacky chap Milton Freidman
proposed them 55 years ago, they haven't worked on any meaningful scale,
anywhere.
Bolger, frankly struggling to give the impression that he
believed this stuff, couldn't even summon any ACT-style bilge about
choice and how buying education is just like buying a shirt, only more
expensive. All he could suggest is that it would be cheaper. Probably.
Hell, maybe Bolger did have a conversion on the road from Te
Kuiti to Damascus. Maybe he does believe this stuff. In which case, he
should dissolve Parliament and fight a new election on it, because it's
certainly nothing like what he campaigned the last one on. I'd actually
enjoy seeing the likes of National's Maungakiekie MP Belinda Vernon -
who claimed on TV this week that government had no place in running a
welfare system - getting their stupid Tory arses kicked.
National's lurch to the right has, of course, made some space on
the centre ground for its coalition partner. And New Zealand First has,
of course, taken the lazy path. Winston Peters jumped up to say his
party would not support the buying of a new Anzac frigate, or the
"Beehive on wheels" plan. And I'm sure he's strongly opposed to cheap
populism, too.
Peters' deputy, Tau Henare, seems to be concerning himself
largely with the idea of selling TVNZ. It won't happen, he says.
Ironically, he had to wait half an hour to say that to Ian Fraser on
Wednesday night because the state broadcaster had to screen the second
half of that crucial public service programme, Telebingo.
It's the Telebingo factor which makes me less than fervent about
holding onto TVNZ in its present form. And if new technology is going to
mean that the means and diversity of broadcast will proliferate in the
next decade, thus lowering the value of an asset developed under a
monolithic model of broadcasting, then we should examine what a useful
public role is in the new era. We should, in other words, have a vision
for what we're going to do. The government doesn't. It just doesn't, and
nothing should be flicked off until it does.
Henare, who appeared on Fraser disguised as a prison warder from
Mt Eden, was always on the back foot intellectually to Fraser. Although
I'm sure he hadn't, his debating style is reminscent of a man who's had
a few drinks and can't quite get his arument together. He did manage to
describe the Prime Minister as "a wily old so-and-so" yet insisted he
was not going to, quote, "dob him in". That went down very well, I'm
sure.
And arise, Sir Les, great leader of our Commonwealth and Olympic
Games teams. Whoops, that's not for a few years, though, is it? Les
Mills surely had the scent of knighthood in his nostrils when he
accepted the job of chef de mission for the games in Kuala Lumpur and
Sydney this week. I'm not saying he won't do a good job - he probably
will - but he's bailing out, isn't he?
Although Mills insists he's still in the Auckland mayoral race
next year, he'll be in Malaysia during the local body election campaign.
And I'm sure he won't be too unhappy to be voted out. After all, he is
leading an administration on a road to nowhere.
Consider how the council has failed to deliver any civic capital
under Mills' tenure. Think of the International Rugby Museum, the
Britomart, the council housing sell-off, the Metrowater debacle. Think
of the slogan that never, ever happened: "Auckland, City of Lovers".
Think, I challenge you, of one single feel-good factor in the life of
this council. Frightening, isn't it?
No, here in Auckland we have to make our own feelgood, and
20,000 of us did just that at Eden Park, where Zinzan Brooke was carried
shoulder high off the ground after what was - probably - his last game
on Eden Park. He's off next year to play some soft rugby for top money
in England; and will we ever again see his like? The daft, dizzy
try-fest against Wellington was a pretty good send-off - and could
really only have been improved by Zinny clinching the victory with a
drop-goal from halfway.
Of course, the seamless continuum which is modern rugby in New
Zealand stretches on now, with the NPC semi-finals and the naming of the
All Black squad to tour the UK. I'm picking Auckland to get up and do it
against Canterbury, and Waikato to have too much cow-power for Counties.
After that, it's only one more week before we can forget our
provincial differences and unite behind Saint John Hart as he leads a
generation of players to victory over the Poms and encourages them to
talk about their feelings while they do it. It is all very, to use
Hart's favourite word, "special". Did not Zinzan Brooke speak the words,
"I love you all," after Saturday's game? Zinzan, love *is* all you need.
- G'bye!