Condemnation from across the board

We blogged yesterday about a cowardly attempt to intimidate Wanganui mayoral candidate Michael Laws.

We are delighted to report that we're not the only ones to condemn this, and that the condemnation has come from both sides of the blogosphere. After all, you couldn't get two blogs further apart than No Right Turn and WhaleOil! 

Idiot/Savant blogs:

Someone has apparently sent a threatening letter to Wanganui mayoral candidate Michael Laws. Meanwhile, Labour leadership aspirant Shane Jones is publicly fantasising about torturing John key's genitalia.There's an obvious link between the two: both involve threatening violence against public figures for political gain. That is vile and it is wrong and it has absolutely no place in our democracy.

From the other extreme, Cameron Slater notes:

We live in a democracy where we encourage people to put forward alternate views. Politics is a robust environment but there is no need for violence. Politics is supposed to be a contest of ideas but unfortunately there are some among us who do not want alternate voices heard.
It used to be they would cut out letters an make words from them and stick them to cardboard and write in green felt tip, but now these essentially retarded people have Facebook and Twitter and other media with which to spew their rantings.

We agree with both points of view. The intimidation of candidates for public office has no place whatsoever in New Zealand society. It is pleasing that the political Left and Right can be in agreement on this issue.

Intimidation is not on

We're no great fans of Michael Laws, even though there are times where we have agreed with an opinion that he has expressed. Nor would we consider voting for him for the mayoralty of Wanganui this year. 

But this kind of behaviour is absolutely unacceptable, and needs to be denounced; Stuff reports:

Michael Laws says his initial reaction is "defiance", following an attack on his home and a threatening letter demanding he withdraw his candidacy for the Whanganui mayoralty.
Laws said his home in St John's Hill was attacked early yesterday morning, with broken beer bottles strewn across the driveway.
A handwritten letter was also delivered to his address, threatening action if he should continue with his candidacy for the Whanganui mayoralty.
Laws attached the contents of the letter, which began:
"Dear Michael,
Hey boy! You've got a problem! I want you to withdraw from the local election. You have an enemy in me. U know why? Because you are a feral fascist! [sic]"
A name and phone number, which appeared bogus, were attached to the letter.
Laws said he would not be threatened, blackmailed or bullied.
He told Fairfax Media today he believed the two incidents were related, and he had some idea of who it was.
"I've identified a leading suspect and I'll be handing their name to the police," he said.
He had spoken to police, but would make a formal complaint and hand in the evidence today.
"My immediate priority is ensuring the safety and security of my children," he said.
His children had gone to check the mailbox and had discovered the broken glass and the letter.
"I think it's despicable that people attack families in this way, it's happened before - I've had rocks through my children's bedroom windows."
Last week Laws suspended his mayoral campaign after his ex-partner, Leonie Brockhammer, suffered a severe stroke.
"I have a very strong family who have gone through a lot of adversity and obviously with their mother at the moment are undergoing quite a bit more," Laws said.
While he did not say if he had made a decision on whether to continue his campaign for Whanganui mayor, he said his initial reaction was "defiance".
"But I've got to put that to one side and make a considered reaction for the family. I know how instinctively I feel about it, but I've got to think with my heart, and not with my head. I just can't let an emotional response on the wider issue govern it." 

This attack is cowardly, and has no place in a democratic election campaign. It is especially vile that the intimidation has had a direct effect on Laws' children.

Whilst Michael Laws is not our preferred candidate, we are disgusted that this kind of behaviour has occurred. We are also deeply disappointed that it will further add to the negative perceptions that many have about Wanganui; perceptions which are generally undeserved.

We also take this opportunity to extend our thoughts and prayers to the Laws and Brookhammer families with regard to Ms Brookhammer's serious illness. For everyone's sake and especially her and her children's, we hope that she makes a complete recovery. 

Laws on the media

There's been lots of umbrage from a number of journalists over the last week over the release of phone records to the Henry inquiry. Let's not forget that the purpose of the Henry inquiry was to establish who leaked a confidential report on the performance of the GCSB to journalist Andrea Vance from Fairfax.

Michael Laws has weighed in to the debate. And oddly, he has little sympathy for the journalistic community; under the headline Journalists can't handle the truth Laws opines:

One of the great dichotomies of democracy is that we don't trust those that we elect to lead us. This does not stop us getting very passionate and involved every electoral cycle. We have one of the highest electoral turnouts in the Western world.
The same point might be made of the relationship between the New Zealand news media and the public. We are avid consumers of news - we just don't trust the people charged with managing that information.
There's good reason for this. Politicians have acquired an unenviable reputation for promising sunshine and delivering rain. Journalists, for reporting the rain as snow. Charged with delivering the truth, they deliver their own version. It's the final scene of Orwell's Animal Farm made post-modern.
The best example of this is the parliamentary press gallery - a gaggle of competing egos, and any number suffering a God complex. TV3's Patrick Gower was a perfect example last week, claiming that his job "is to hold the Government accountable . . . we're the eyes and ears of the public".
No, it isn't. And no, he's not. His job is not to act as judge and jury - it is to relay the facts and let us make up our own minds. That's the fatal misstep that so many journalists make: they really do believe that they're our moral arbiters and secular priests. 

We agree with Laws on that point. We've often argued that the primary role of journalists is to report the news rather than to create it or even to BE the news. However as the "old media" struggle to remain relevant, many journalists are also expanding their reach into the blogosphere, albeit through their media outlets. In the race to provide a sensational by-line, we wonder if some are losing their objectivity.

Laws has been on the receiving end of his share of journalistic attention, although that's hardly surprising when you seek the limelight as he has done over many years. But his comments on the "piranha mentality" of the media pack are interesting; he concludes thus:

In arguing that the Henry inquiry was snooping on one of its own, Andrea Vance, they forget that theirs is a vocation that regularly invades the privacy of New Zealanders. That regularly employs unethical practices to acquire information - that actively encourages the illegal leaking of confidential information. And yet habitually claims the moral high ground.
There's also something of a piranha mentality at play. If there's the faintest hint of blood in the water, the whole pack is at play. And there's an audacious hypocrisy at play. I'm told numerous Official Information Act requests came from journalists - many from the parliamentary press gallery - seeking exactly the same information as Parliamentary Services provided to the Henry inquiry. If the press had obtained it, they would all have published.
A couple of years ago, fellow Sunday Star-Times columnist Andrea Vance wrote a fascinating account of her time as a News of the World reporter. She described the high pressure tactics and threats that were routine in trying to prise information from reluctant members of the public. 
In the past five years, I've both witnessed and experienced similar tactics here. And they clearly win those practitioners media awards - such as the New Zealand Herald's David Fisher, the current Canon Media Awards reporter of the year.
So when the parliamentary press gallery tries to claim the moral high ground, it is never an easy climb. Especially when their latest mini-scandal has all the hallmarks of a cock-up.
After all, it's hardly Watergate. 

It is a bit difficult for Andrea Vance to claim the moral high ground here given, as we mentioned earlier in this post, that this whole messy business started with her publishing a confidential government report that has been leaked to her by a person or persons as yet unknown. 

That Ms Vance is now apparently saying that her details are sacrosanct but others' are not is just a little precious, especially given the column of hers of a couple of years ago described above. 

Quote of the Day - 8 July 2013

Given Michael Laws' views on political correctness and the like, it's no surprise that he is not a fan of Labour's proposed Man-Ban. 

And just because this is something written by Laws, it would not be a good idea for the Labour Party mandarins to simply dismiss it. Under the heading Labour's sexist suicide mission Laws opines:

This past week though, one of this country's most significant policy-makers - the Labour Party - decided to make discrimination overt. To be fair, that is the intent of their leadership, rather than their membership. But the implications are clear.
To impose a strict gender balance upon their parliamentary caucus, Labour wants to have women-only contests for electorate nominations. Should a male apply, the plan is to reject them. Even if they are gay, brown or disabled.
At first sight, the policy seems patently absurd. At second, third and fourth sight, it gets worse. It would not only be illegal under human rights legislation, but it sends the clearest of political messages: that talent, experience and intelligence is irrelevant in New Zealand, and political correctness is everything.
And if this is the thinking of the Labour Party leadership in Opposition, you can imagine such thinking will spread across the public sector when Labour is returned to government. The prospect of women-only jobs and appointments looms large. An unofficial prejudice made official.
If Labour wants to know why it is stuck in a polling wasteland, and John Key seems destined to repeat Helen Clark's three-term administration, this policy proposal explains all. Five years in Opposition has taught them absolutely nothing.
Such sexist suicide sends shudders through us all, even women. If Labour's logic is applied, professions they dominate - teaching, nursing, the media - will require reverse quotas. And let's ensure strict gender quotas for specialist undergraduate schools like law and medicine because women also dominate tertiary education these days. 
Which is the really odd thing about Labour's policy: it fails to recognise the massive societal change under way. It is actually young men who are under-achieving in the new currency of learning. And that will have massive implications for the next generation.
But obviously men aren't under-achieving enough for the Labour Party hierarchy. Some artificial nobbling is also required.
Especially, it would seem, of their party's electoral chances next year. 

"Sexist suicide"; we can see that line slipping into the political vernacular as easily as the expression Man-Ban already has. And epithets such as that will continue to haunt Labour in the months ahead.

So they should; tokenistic policies which are demeaning to women have no place in politics.

Please say it isn't so...

There's talk of Michael Laws throwing his hat in the ring again to be mayor of Wanganui; the Herald on Sunday reports:

Former shock jock Michael Laws - once an MP and mayor of Wanganui - is thought to be considering a rerun for his old mayoral job.
A source told the Herald on Sunday Laws has been sending more emails recently about civic affairs.
Laws was weighing up the position, but would not announce he was standing until the last minute, the source said.
"It certainly wouldn't surprise me."
Current mayor Annette Main, whose husband John Blythe died this week, said she would stand again and was not concerned by talk of a challenge.
Laws told the Herald on Sunday: "I haven't given any thought to local body elections whatsoever."

We've heard slightly differently to what Laws told the Herald on Sunday. The whispers reaching us are that the former mayor will not only very likely stand for his old job, but will have a "ticket" of council candidates as well; rather like his former Vision Wanganui ticket, but without a name.

We're not denying that Michael Laws did a reasonable job as mayor; he certainly got Wanganui into the nation's consciousness. And as we have blogged previously, we supported 100% the Gang Insignia Bill that Laws and Whanganui MP Chester Borrows promoted, which until the High Court intervened was working just fine.

But we do not believe that another term with Mr Laws as mayor will benefit Wanganui. We had misgivings when Annette Main was elected, but we have been pleasantly surprised by her willingness to engage with the business community. After six divisive years under Laws' leadership, she has been like a breath of fresh air.

There don't seem to be too many possible challengers to Ms Main. Cr Ray Stevens is possibly stepping down from council, Dot McKinnon has moved away from local body politics, and young Cr Jack Bullock knows that he needs a longer apprenticeship. Whilst a contest of ideas and policies is always good, a contest based on personalities and talkback hyperbole would do our city more harm than good.

Cr Laws has come under plenty of criticism for his attendance record at Council and District Health Board meetings in the last year or so. We wonder if another bid for mayor would be attempted for the right reasons. Michael Laws excels in self-promotion but what Wanganui needs at the moment is a mayor whose primary focus is making Wanganui a great city to live in. We're not convinced that Michael Laws is that person.