Category Archives: Comment and Opinion

Commercials in the Domain

Posted on by Brad Heap

Last night was the annual Carols in the Domain in Sydney. I was going to go in person but ended up watching the TV broadcast from home because this weekend I seem to have become a nigel-no-mates as everyone has gone out of town for the holiday.

The carols, the show, the broadcast, etc was really well done and ran without a glitch. However, the one comment that everyone was making on twitter, and driving me nuts, was the over the top product placement.

These days you expect ads and sponsorship at events. However, what I don’t expect is Jack Black singing an altered version of Little Drummer Boy with lyrics advertising his latest movie flop, or a group of children emailing Santa via a Samsung Galaxy Tab through Telstra which the kids informing us Telstra gives us a little more giftness.

These two examples were probably the worst of it, but every time one of the MCs spoke they name dropped a sponsor be it Woolworths, MLC, NSW Government, etc.

Maybe my blogging and moaning about it the following day shows that the advertising worked, I remember the names and I have been no so subliminally informed about them. But once upon a time Christmas wasn’t just all about commercialism, especially carols!

Then again the modern revival of Santa Claus was sparked by Coca Cola so maybe advertising really is the reason for the season.

On a lighter note the start of the show right on sunset shows the size of the crowd and parts of the beautiful city I live in:

They’re spying me, just like everyone else, including you.

Posted on by Brad Heap

“EXCLUSIVE” screams the headline on the Sydney Morning Herald today. “Political websites plant spy devices” and “browser beware as political websites plant spy devices” appear on the homepage and article title.

The contents of the story gets even more scary:

Politicians are letting foreign-owned companies covertly gather information about voters.

The websites of Barry O’Farrell, Kristina Keneally, Tony Abbott and the Greens plant spying devices on visitors’ computers, which can track them as they browse the internet.

Information gathered about a user’s online behaviour can be used to build detailed profiles to help target advertisements – a practice many believe is a threat to privacy.

So how are these politicians being evil and spying on you? By using tracking cookies to identify user behaviour. The same type of cookies this site and just about every other site on the internet uses. The cookies that provide information that allow web developers to focus on what works and doesn’t on their sites and improves usability and content delivery.

But this logical explanation is far too simple for the SMH to handle. Instead, we have a fantastic media beat up.

Oh and by the way, SMH is spying on me too with five cookies of their own and a multitude of images from six off-site and off-country servers. Pot, Kettle, Black.

Persecuting the innocent to appease the majority #2drinksmax

Posted on by Brad Heap

Over the last two nights Auckland police have been running a drink driving blitz testing 21,000 drivers. 77 people were found to be over the limit. In other words 0.37% of all drivers stopped or 1 in 273 drivers. Yet the NZ Herald continues to run its scare campaign suggesting every second driver on the road is a drunk homicidal maniac on a rampage to kill you.

The logic that the Herald is applying to this campaign is the same as the police used over the last two long weekends to try and stop people from speeding, make the law extremely strict and enforce it with no leeway. The problem with this approach is it doesn’t stop those people who flout the law regardless of what the limit is and instead turns those otherwise mild mannered, considerate and normal drivers into criminals. It is like trying to do keyhole surgery with a jackhammer.

The reality is regardless of the limits and the law a few people will continue to disobey the law and cause problems. This is a fact of society and is not something that can be just wiped out by persecuting the masses.

At least one of the Herald’s own commentators gets the stupidity of the campaign:

The Two Drinks Max thing is nothing more than the latest top-of-mind issue that’s the current thing to bang the drum about.

The absurdity of a two-drink maximum is the people who sign up are already responsible enough to know being half-cut and driving doesn’t mix. I give this campaign about another week or three and it’ll be gone only to be replaced by something along the lines of saving a few more whales or whatever.

I won’t be signing up to this campaign or anything like it. Give me something with some cojones and I’ll be there in a flash. Chest thumping does nothing for me along with a lot of people I have spoken to this past week. We don’t want a flash campaign, we want action and lowering the limit won’t solve a bloody thing.

Banning someone from driving a car for five years after a second offence, and permanently for a third, would do the trick for me. I would have preferred a publication to have a go at why so many recidivist drink-drivers are allowed to keep on getting their licences back. Or maybe a concentrated follow up on why public money is spent on helping disqualified drivers get their licences back as reported in the Sunday Star Times. Now that’s what I call a big worry – you get your licence suspended for a good reason, mostly drink driving but allegedly Work and Income will help pay so you get it back. Go figure.

So instead of fudging around the corners and telling everyone to only have two drinks, get behind something that’ll do some good. Hit the heavy drinkers and tell the PC brigade who reckon “the most important thing for drink-driving is treatment” and having people in work can be “therapeutic” to pull their collective heads in. Not too sure how letting someone who’s been convicted of drink driving go back to driving will stop them drinking.

Have a go at that lot and stop targeting folk who already know better.

Revenue gathering doesn’t save lives better roads do

Posted on by Brad Heap

The road toll in NZ this labour weekend is already five. This is despite, for the second long weekend in a row, the Police dropping the tolerance level for speeding from 10km/h over limit to 5km/h.

Last long weekend the Police claimed that their lowering of the tolerance level saved lives, however, with the road toll in NZ being so volatile due to weather factors, and the size of the country being small it was more than likely just a statistic anomaly then any effect the Police had.

This long weekend has just shown that the effect of lowering tolerance does nothing to the limit and instead just trivialises fines and is nothing more than a revenue gathering exercise for police.

In NSW police do the same thing with double demerit points on long weekends. This does not save lives or encourages people to drive safer. Instead people who do take note spend more time looking at their dashboards instead of the road ahead.

A few weeks back former V8 Supercar Champion, Mark Skaife, was on a current affairs show on TV arguing that money should be spent on improving roads, increasing the speed limit, driver education and better cars than super strict enforcement of the driving rules.

I doubt any change will happen though when police and government policy continues to be driven on ticket quotas, revenue raising, and persecution of young drivers.

Mourning the self-inflicted death of NZ unions

Posted on by Brad Heap

The core purpose of workers unions is to band together as a group of individuals to create a collective entity to negotiate with employers in industrial relations. However, in the recent decades union membership has fallen as people become more individually competitive and the unions become more about political bias and ideology than actually representing workers.

Sure this may be a very broad generalisation but the actions of the Council of Trade Unions (CTU) in the dispute regarding The Hobbit has done more damage to the reputation of unions in NZ than any government policy could dream of.

If NZ loses The Hobbit much more than $500 million in production costs and 2,500 immediate jobs will be lost. The flow on effects of tourism and related jobs and money will also be lost and the value of this cannot be measured. All of this because an Australian union with 80 members in NZ tries to hold an entire nation to ransom.

The reality is NZ is small economically and this dispute is already having an impact on the currency markets. NZ’s reputation in Australia is being trashed with the story front page on Friday’s newspapers. And even the actual actors are fed up with the stupidity of the unions. The NZ Herald reports:

… at the Armageddon Expo, Stargate Atlantis actor Torri Higginson told the crowd it would be “insane” if The Hobbit was not filmed in New Zealand. “If anyone knows him [Peter Jackson] tell him I’ll work for free,” said Higginson. “F*** the unions.”

Personally, I am ideologically pro-union. However, the actions of the CTU have put me off ever joining a CTU affiliated union, and I think many people in NZ would feel the same way. I except in the coming year union membership in NZ to drop even more.

Kiwiblog sums up the feeling of the nation well:

I suspect many actors would work for free on the film. But Jackson will not only be paying good weekly rates, he is the first Producer to offer residuals to NZ actors. How the fuck the CTU ever decided to make him public enemy number one I don’t know.

Paul Henry – apology not good enough, suspended, and great for publicity

Posted on by Brad Heap

Firstly this from the Race Relations Commissioner (via NZ Herald)

“Television New Zealand probably has some responsibilities as a public broadcaster.”

Mr de Bres said Henry often said things to challenge or shock people “but this one was off the planet”.

“What he was saying was that if you were an Indian New Zealander and you were born here, you went to school here, you went to university here, you practised law here, you became a judge, you became an ombudsman and you became a Governor-General, that a key presenter on national television still thinks you don’t look like or sound like a New Zealander.”

This is the best summary of just how offensive Henry’s comments are.

Now TVNZ has suspended him for two weeks but that is still not good enough. He needs to be fired. Blogs from the right, left and centre are saying he needs to go. This isn’t a PC vs not-PC battle this is a battle that strikes right at the heart of what it means to be a NZder we are not just all white! And if you have that mindset you are living in the wrong century and the wrong country.

Danyl at the Dim Post comments:

The story led the MSM news websites all day but has yet to be covered by TVNZ News. How professional. TVNZ’s self-censorship is a perfect illustration of why being the state broadcaster is incompatible with using offensive and controversial material to boost your ratings.

Danyl also mentions his own blog stats from yesterday:

Busiest day ever on the blog yesterday with 9,464 visitors. Average for a weekday is 4,500 which goes up to around 6,000 if I find the time to write something original or amusing, which isn’t very often these days. If I advertised I’d be rich!

My visits were also about double normal rates and my busiest day since April when I blogged on the new version of Ubuntu Linux… although my numbers are only about 1.5% of Danyl’s numbers.

Why do we keep a racist on Government TV?

Posted on by Brad Heap

Until now I have been reluctant to dislike Paul Henry. When he is in his prime he is a damn good interviewer. However, he is far too much of a shock jock to continue on national TV. Particularly on Government funded TV.

His latest bout of stupidity is from this morning, while interviewing the Prime Minister about the appointment of a new Governor General he asked if the new GG would look and sound more like a New Zealander. Watch for yourself:

This was not a gaffe or a mistake this was a deliberate racist comment against a senior representative of New Zealand.

Only last week CNN sacked Rick Sanchez for anti-Jewish remarks against Jon Stewart. Yes a commercial TV station sacked a news anchor for radio comments against a comedian.

Yet here we have a government funded national broadcaster willing to keep on air someone who is racist in an interview with the Prime Minister. Disgusting.

How many nine lives has Paul Henry had now?

Update: Oh god, I missed this from last week:

Update 2: @nzben (Ben Gracewood) of www.ben.geek.nz fame has withdrawn from his regular gadget section on the show. Good on him for standing up on principal. His comments are here.

Voluntary Students’ Association Membership Bill Reported Back – The good, the bad and the missing

Posted on by Brad Heap

Yesterday, the Education & Science Select Committee reported back on the Education (Freedom of Association) Amendment Bill.

The full report from the Select Committee is here.

So firstly the bad: It seems inevitable that students’ associations in New Zealand will become voluntary. Unless a Labour government is elected next year and a repeal is rushed through, in 15 months time compulsory students’ associations will be no more. Once they are voluntary I doubt that any future government will return them to being compulsory.

And the good: The bill is nowhere near as bad or as nasty as Australia, the bill allows for universities to collect fees at enrolment, it sets out clear mechanisms for complaints, and while changing the structure of associations will not kill them (if associations are smart and work with the changes).

And the missing: The bill repeals the current definition of a students’ association and fails to replace it. This is a minor technicality but should be fixed.

The actual details of the bill:

The bill repeals the following sections of the Education Act 1989:

  • Section 171(2)(e) which defines student membership of university councils. However, it is replaced with a requirement that the university council conducts an election for up to three student representatives. This is much better than repealing all student representation on councils. This means that no longer will the students’ association President be guaranteed a seat at the council. Although they are likely to be elected by the students to the council as those who are involved in students’ associations will also be most likely to vote in council elections.
  • Section 229A, 229B, and 229C. These sections currently lay out what constitutes a students’ association (missing from the new bill), how membership fees are collected, how to object, how to vote to change from compulsory to voluntary.

The bill inserts new sections covering:

  • Undue influence, a person cannot pressure a student into becoming a member of the association, not becoming a member, or leaving the association. This clause is good because it sets out clear requirements for both sides. The following section details how a complaint about undue influence is handled by the university council. Furthermore the council has powers to dismiss a complaint if it is not on reasonable grounds. This will stop time wasting and political grandstanding by those who hate students’ associations altogether.
  • Membership fees, students’ associations can continue to collect membership fees. Furthermore universities can collect membership fees on behalf of associations at enrolment. Students’ associations can also charge fees to non-members for services they use. All of this is simple, straightforward and a good working model.
    However, one issue I have with this is the ability in the bill for councils to withhold funds if they believe that a students’ association is not complying with its constitution. This could end up in a massive spat between the university and the association if someone accuses it of not following its constitution on political grounds rather than actual problems. There needs to be some form of dispute resolution if a council withholds fees and the students’ association disagrees with the reasoning of the council in doing so.

I think this version of the bill is workable and while not something that any students’ association wants it is fair to both sides of the political argument. The only major technical flaw in the bill is the missing definition of a students’ association. The current bill has clause 229A(b)

The students association that, at the commencement of this section, is recognised by the council of the institution as being the institution’s students association for the purpose of representation on the council, is the students association at that institution for the purposes of section 171(2)(e), this section, and sections 229B and 229C.

This bill needs a similar clause maybe reading:

The students association that, at the commencement of this section, is recognised by the council of the institution as being the institution’s students association for the purposes of section 171(2)(e), this section, and sections 229B and 229C.

This prevents multiple students’ associations or rouge groups claiming to be an institution’s students’ association and rather has the council spell it out.

—
Footnote: I have used compulsory rather than universal in describing current membership of students’ associations as this is the same word as used in the current Education Act.

The lost art of reading

Posted on by Brad Heap

Due to it being students’ association election season, over the past two weeks I have been talking to a few people about student politics. In particular how to debate, articulate a point of view and campaign. During these discussions I have explained that one of the key methods of articulating a point is to use references from common culture, and in particular with debates, you often quote literature with a slight spin. However, from these discussions it has become clear just how few people these days are up to play with what I would consider well known texts, such as: Alice in Wonderland, Shakespeare, The Chronicles of Narnia, etc.

This is rather sad, but it gets worse. On Tuesday night I saw the movie adaptation of John Marsden’s Tomorrow When the War Began. Out of the four people I saw it with I was the only one who had read the book (indeed the whole series) as a child. Last year, Maurice Gee’s Under the Mountain was also adapted into a movie and again few people had read the book. What is happening? Sure one could argue the likes of Harry Potter and Twilight are providing the next generation with the reading and imagination skills they need. However, I think there is more at play here than just a generational gap. The likes of Alice in Wonderland, Shakespeare and less so Narnia are full of nonsense verse and other wonders of English. This is missing from modern texts. Furthermore there is nothing better than falling down a rabbit hole, exiting your imagination through a cupboard and then pricking yourself to make sure you still bleed.

Post high school I am reading less Fiction and more non-fiction, mainly popular science and sociology type books. However, the key is I still read. I also read blogs and way too many status updates on Facebook and Twitter. However, the digital environment is not a replacement for books and is a great time waster which I believe is collectively lowering our literature IQ. Last week I purchased a novel, the first novel I have bought in a very long time. However, I had to buy it because the author is a good friend of mine. I am referring to The Fallen by Ben Sanders. Ben is a 3rd year, civil engineering student and at just 20 years of age has written an adult crime novel and subsequently gone number one on the best-sellers list in NZ.  What strikes me most about the book is not the story, hell it is good and you should buy it, but the dedication at the start:

“This book is dedicated to my parents who always made me read.”

Isn’t it time we all started to read again, not only it provides us with an escape from real life; it also improves our imagination, understanding and all round communication skills. Plus it provides us with new quotes to famously spin in the future.

Safe Trains or Rushed Trains?

Posted on by Brad Heap

In the Sydney Morning Herald today there is a beat up over the delays in the construction of new trains to replace Sydney’s old air-conditioned trains. Currently the project is months behind schedule and rapidly becoming a disaster for the state government. The track taken by the SMH in its article argues that shortcuts should be taken in the safety of the trains to speed things up. Naturally I completely disagree and believe safety should be the first priority but have a read:

RailCorp’s stringent controls have caused huge delays in the building of carriages…

…with Australians it’s mainly technical requirements. We think the burden is not necessary.

NSW laws require that an eight-carriage Waratah train must be built to withstand a head-on collision at a speed of 55km/h without any structural damage or passenger injuries. In China the bar is set at 10 km/h.

As pointed out by a fellow workmate, one can only wonder what the accident and death rate is on the Chinese railways compared to Australia. The old Sydney trains are very worn out and need replacing, but I would rather wait a year to get things right rather than a rush job that could result in serious problems.