Phil Goff

Murray McCully is in trouble for spending up on some flights in Burma. He really shouldn’t be in trouble for that. I certainly don’t begrudge him organising some safer flights than otherwise available in-country.

Labour have gone down the wrong path by using deliberately leaked information from fat, bloated civil servants that no one except Phil Goff likes.

Where they should have gone after McCully is the rank hypocrisy in swanning around a country ruled by a military junta, with a poor record on human rights, a country one of our SOEs (Kordia) is making a poultice of cash from, where we have no sanctions in place, we maintain diplomatic relations with and have our Foreign Minister visit and spend up large.

Meanwhile he refuses to talk to Fiji. Refuses to offer assistance to them, maintains “smart sanctions” against key people, blocks sports people travelling to NZ, places travel bans on senior officials and bad mouths the country at every opportunity. Fiji isn’t at war internally, it is perfectly safe to travel everywhere as many Kiwis do,with Fiji being a preferred holiday destination.

The contrast couldn’t be more stark. It disgusts me how New Zealand sucks up to appalling dictators and yet wags its finger at Fiji like a naughty school child. Little wonder we have ceded hegemony in the Pacific to China.

I find Goff’s criticism of McCully’s trip to Myanmar totally hypocritical.

When he was a Minister in the last Labour Government he was fully supportive of engagement with Myanmar… New Zealand even signed up to more engagement with the country.

New Zealand supports fully the efforts of the United Nations to keep the doors open and build foundations for the future, including the two visits to Myanmar by the Secretary General’s Special Envoy, Ibrahim Gambari, and the recent visit by Mr Pinheiro.

New Zealand shares the sentiments of the international community, in line with the view of the UN Security Council, that genuine and open dialogue is the only way to address Myanmar’s ongoing crisis.

When he was Foreign Minister he was getting emails from the public urging him to do more in Myanmar.

I am puzzled that a Labour-led government (who I would expect to be concerned for basic human rights and dignity) does not seem to have been at all active in taking steps to encourage a resolution to the twenty year old conflict in Burma

And during his time as Foreign Minister he signed several travel warnings for people visiting Myanmar:

And in his long past, Mr Goff even had a Myanmar refugee working in his office who was shocked that he did not require more security in New Zealand.

When Myanmar democratic activist Naw Htoo Paw spent her first day with Defence Minister Phil Goff , she was astonished that he drove her to electorate functions himself.

Using the former name of the country still favoured by political activists, she said: “In Burma when the Defence Minister goes out there will be a lot of security guards and there will be at least 10 cars that guard the minister.

So Goff’s attack on McCully is hypocritical, petty and naked opportunism.

A whole bunch of fat cat troughing bureaucrats at MFaT are crying into their state funded lattes this morning and threatening to walk off their highly lucrative and well padded jobs:

A survey by the Foreign Service Association of 312 staff – or about 25 per cent of employees – found 73 per cent of members working abroad for the ministry said they were either considering returning to New Zealand before the scheduled end of their posting or resigning because of plans to cut jobs and slash allowances.

Among Wellington-based staff, 66 per cent were less likely to consider a posting abroad and a quarter were thinking about resigning.

It has been revealed that lucrative allowances and subsidies for children and spouses can swell the size of a foreign-based diplomat’s pay packet to as much as $500,000.

Proposals unveiled last week include slashing those allowances, forcing 600 staff to reapply for their jobs and cutting 300 positions.

Good riddance I say. I’ll bet you their fat cat salaries and padded expense accounts that money will win over bravado. Phil Goff of course is pandering to the whingers:

“Who in their right mind would uproot their family, get their partner to give up their job, put their kids in education overseas on the basis that at the end of that position there will be no job for them?”

He had spoken to staffers he worked with as foreign minister and people were “distraught”.

“They are upset, they feel that the whole basis on which they began their career with the ministry has been totally undermined. They are disillusioned and they are thinking about their options to leave.”

This is precisely what happens in the private sector. Of course we can’t expect a man who has spent a lifetime in a sinecured position at the trough to understand that corporate staff deal with this in a constant basis. With attitudes like the MFaT staff and enabled by veteran troughers like Phil Goff it is little wonder the state sector is as bloated as it is.

Cactus Kate perhaps sums up best the real situation here:

The Union head states:
“The bottom line is that hardly anyone will want to serve New Zealand abroad under the proposed changes.”

Whatever. There’s no shortage of people wanting to work in this glamour industry. Their threats are pathetic. If they could get better jobs they would already have them.
Serve New Zealand? Nonsense. Soldiers serve New Zealand. MFAT workers are serving themselves to large perks and good pay. Perks and pay that are now under the spotlight.

Until McCully hits 100% unhappiness at slashing pay and perks he is a failure as a Minister.

Labour will hold 18 meetings in March to try and “modernise and strengthen” Labour. Supporters and the public will be asked to submit ideas.

— Jessica Mutch TVNZ (@MutchJessica) February 26, 2012

Haven’t they done this yet… ?

Isn’t this what they say every year… ?
I didn’t think David Shearer like meetings?

What came out of the last round of this navel gazing… oh that’s right, David Shearer singing Country Roads to much ridicule, Phil Goff riding a motorcycle trying to be more ‘hip’, an Axe The Tax campaign that wasn’t really an axe the tax campaign, and an increasingly inane series of tweets from Labour MPs who were all connecting and getting a really good feedback on the ground.

Then of course there was the famous ‘survey’ of the public to find out if Labour could be more cool, laid back, funky etc…

As they say there’s nothing new under the sun in politics, but Shearer appears to be re-running the 2008-11 playbook – with less conviction.

Great idea Labour. Looking forward to it. I need to update this this video:

Desperation is indeed a stinky cologne:

Labour Party leader David Shearer has opened the door to discussions with Mana Party leader Hone Harawira.

Mr Shearer’s predecessor, Phil Goff, explicitly ruled out any kind of relationship with Mr Harawira.

The new leader says he will respect ideas wherever they come from, including from the Mana Party.

He says he does not have any baggage with the Mana Party.

“I’ll take them as I find them and if they turn out to be somebody I can’t work with, I’ll make that determination then.”

Mr Shearer says he has already met with New Zealand First leader Winston Peters and the Green Party co-leaders.

Mr Harawira says he welcomes the opportunity to sit down with Labour to start planning a united opposition to what he calls the anti-worker, anti-beneficiary policy that National is rolling out.

Murray McCully is cutting the bloat out of MFaT:

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT) has confirmed it is cutting around 300 staff as Finance Minister Bill English says it’s crunch time for the public sector.

MFAT’s chief executive John Allen this afternoon said it would be cutting 305 staff.

The news came as English said Kiwis were about to see the public service change.

English said the Government had last year told public sector chief executives to look at their own operations and ”tell us how they could be improved to deliver better services with little or no new money”.

”We gave them time to do that. We’re now at that point. That means we’ll see quite a change in how public services are delivered.”

Allen said 600 MFAT staff would have to reapply for their jobs in new specialist roles. The ministry has 1340 staff, half of which are offshore

He also confirmed changes to remuneration including offshore allowances. Staff would be asked to make a “nominal contribution” to their living costs overseas.

Only Labour could complain about axing bureaucrats:

Labour’s Foreign Affairs spokesman Phil Goff said the MFAT’s cuts were disastrous at a time when New Zealand’s national interests were at risk from an unstable world.

Hmmm…I seem to remember a certain Prime Minister telling us we lived in a benign strategic environment. Has something changed. But the real question that needs to be asked of Phil Goff is “If not now then when would be a good time to cut staff?”

A guest post from Thakur Ranjit Singh on some comparisons between Fiji and New Zealand media environments. I agree on some aspects of the post but not on others, however it provides and interesting discussion post.

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.]

The DomPost editorial is less than flattering for David Shearer, it seems he is getting noticed for all the wrong reasons:

 When David Shearer became Labour leader at the end of last year, he touted himself as a fresh face for the party and promised a “fresh vision for New Zealand”. So far, his face has barely been seen by most of the voting public and his vision, if there is one, remains hidden from view.

More than two months after he took over from Phil Goff after Labour’s disastrous election defeat, Mr Shearer is yet to give any meaningful indication of what he stands for, what his aspirations for New Zealand are and what he would do differently from Prime Minister John Key to achieve them. Mr Shearer is in danger of wasting the honeymoon traditionally enjoyed by new party leaders unless he starts espousing his vision and policies to back it before much more of the parliamentary year ticks away.

He also has the Mallard issue which he hasn’t even dealt with. Right now ‘Trademe’ Mallard will be feeling emboldened.

Of course by dealing emphatically with Mallard, Shearer could show some much needed backbone but also had a nasty ally to Grant Robertson who is quietly taking over anyway with the hiring of the staff.

It wasn’t just the one email Labour’s chief spin doctor sent to RadioLive pleading for Phil to get his own show.

There was a whole chain of them.

“We strongly believe this is unfair”… “We ask that you reconsider”

So, Labour is only complaining that RadioLive’s broadcast was illegal because they couldn’t bully the radio station into a backdown.

Ahh.. sour grapes…

I think Michael Cullen said something about this.

It started with the words, “We won you lost…

It is all very funny watching Grant Robertson try to link John Key to Radio Live’s alleged electoral breach.

Especially since the email trail shows Labour’s chief spin doctor was pleading, nay…begging to get Phil Goff on.

“We are very keen to arrange for Labour Leader Phil Goff to come on to the show as a host.”

So Robertson’s essentially running the sour grapes strategy, because they got the bum’s rush from RadioLive and also from the electorate.

Here is the begging letter contained in the OIA: