Are The Guns Turned Inwards?

Or are some people just overreacting?

I didn't know what to make of the claims being made on The Standard about a Labour MP threatening to "out" or discipline certain bloggers and blog commenters. So I read a number of posts and hundreds of hundreds of blog comments.

Why Russell Brown Is Wrong

I took the below post from The Standard. It's worth republishing, because it's a powerful point by point response to the claims made by that notorious Chardonnay Socialist Russell Brown and his attacks on Actors Equity.

Union Good

Peter Jackson not like Union

Peter Jackson Bad.

“The quest stands upon the edge of a knife. Stray but a little and it will fail."

If you want to read something sensible and considered about the dispute between Sir Peter Jackson and the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance, don't bother with The Standard.

Anyone familiar with The Standard could predict that the site would take a "worker solidarity" line on this issue, so that is no surprise. What really takes the cake are the vituperative comments directed towards anyone who suggests even the most moderate position. Banning commenters who disagree with you is a sure sign that you've lost the argument and are sliding towards insensibility.

And don't bother with Chris Trotter. In this post he compares Chris Finlayson to the Mouth of Sauron. 

On the other side of the debate the mainstream news media appears to be taking a largely hostile approach towards the Australian union behind this dispute and backing "Our Peter", while the blogosphere on the right predictably rails against the commies.

But if you want to read something sensible and considered about the dispute between Peter Jackson and the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance, there is hope. You could try Russell Brown or Gordon Campbell. Neither have an agenda or an axe to grind, and both examine the matter dispassionately.

The dispute shows no sign of abating. Stuff reports that Sir Peter Jackson requested a meeting with the actors' union, but was turned down. It can only be hoped that the two sides will get together soon, because if this continues our film industry may go down the plughole.

Update: It appears there is some question as to whether Jackson is legally able to deal with MEAA. The Herald reports:

Yesterday, Mr Finlayson said in a letter to the studios - which was also copied to Sir Peter and Ward-Lealand - that legal advice from the Crown Law Office confirmed the Commerce Act prevented The Hobbit's producers "from entering into a union-negotiated agreement with performers who are independent contractors". Section 30 of the act, which deals with price fixing, "effectively prohibits" such arrangements, he said.

The MEAA has obtained an opinion from Simpson Grierson pointing out that Jackson could deal with them as employees, rather than independent contractors, and not breach section 30.

I’m not going to give a legal opinion on this. Both parties may well be right, but I’m no expert in these areas.

Labour Remembers Not To Endorse The SST

Check out this post by Labour MP Clayton Cosgrove on Red Alert:

Labour believes that the Parliament genuinely is a people’s parliament. Even if people have differing views.So when Labour was asked (by the National Party on behalf of the Speaker) whether we objected to the Sensible Sentencing Trust holding a conference in the parliament, we said no we don’t object. After all the parliament is actually owned by the people.

It is our understanding that all the major parties were asked.

That’s it. The Labour Party was never approached to co-host. I was never approached or asked if my name could appear on the invitation. This happened without my knowledge or my permission.

Perhaps The Standard should have checked.

Cosgrove is responding to a post on The Standard critical of Labour's associations with the Sensible Sentencing Trust (I also wrote a critical post, but am led to believe that the audience for this blog may be slightly smaller than The Standard's). A media report indicated the conference was being hosted by Labour. It has taken until now for anyone in Labour to deny this.

It's a pity it has taken until now for this to be cleared up. A cynic might conclude that Labour either wasn't fussed by the association with Garth McVicar and his nutjob group, or that it was too afraid to break rank with the law and order mob.

I'm sure there's a reason why this wasn't mentioned during the conference. Wouldn't want to give old Garth one of those juicy soundbites about out-of-touch politicians, huh?

Now this has been cleared up, I await Clayton Cosgrove's denunciation of the Sensible Sentencing Trust's use of Labour's name to promote its organisation.

But a question: how long should I wait?

Saying Sorry Is Hard To Do

The blogosphere is filled with angry people all too willing to smear those they don't agree with as tyrants, corrupt or evil.

A good example of this was a blogger from The Standard, Eddie, who on the strength of a flimsy TV3 story accused Social Development Minister Paula Bennett of corruption and bribery.

The blogger is now backing down, but instead of apologising to Bennett for the disgraceful slur, is now attacking TV3.

Anyone who reads this blog will know what I think about Bennett's policies. But calling someone corrupt is serious.

It's often hard to apologise when the person you've wronged stands for everything you despise.

But allegations of corruption should only be used when there is actual evidence of serious criminal wrongdoing. The TV3 story never met that threshold.

Two Tribes

I have decided to steer clear of the two main blogsites, The Standard and Kiwiblog, for a couple of days.

The level of debate on both sites over the last day or so has reached an all time low. Yesterday David Farrar launched a quite vicious and mostly* unwarranted attack on "Eddie", the anonymous blogger on The Standard whose post on Murray McCully embarrassed the Foreign Minister. Farrar was wrong to claim Eddie's story was a beat-up, because the media thought it was newsworthy, and McCully himself is now desperately trying to get rid of the shares he got caught with.

Then Lynn on The Standard launched a full scale assault on Farrar, calling him an idiot and a hypocrite.

The comments sections of each blog post are truly awful.

This is childish name-calling at its worst, and will no doubt reinforce the negative view each tribe has of the other.

People, can't we all just get along?

* The use of the "corruption" tag on Eddie's article was unwarranted and inappropriate.

The Standard Catches McCully Out

The Standard today picked up Murray McCully on a potential conflict of interest.

The Standard can now reveal that Murray McCully has shares in a company that stands to benefit directly from National’s mining policy. As a member of Cabinet deciding this policy McCully has a significant conflict of interest.

The company that McCully has a stake in, according to the MPs’ Register of Pecuniary Interests, is Widespread Portfolios (almost sounds like a front company for a Bond villain, eh?). Far from being “widespread”, its investments are exclusively in mining and oil. These include New Zealand-based mining operations.

Its subsidiary Widespread Energy is a petroleum and phosphates company. It owns prospecting permits over land north of Lake Brunner in the South Island and large areas of the seabed. Widespread Energy and Widespread Portfolios have jointly applied for a permit to prospect for phosphate on the Chatham Rise. The phosphates are found around hydrothermal vents – unique and fragile ecosystems that we are barely beginning to understand. They are the basis of some of our most important fisheries.

Mining will annihilate these ecosystems. As of June last year, McCully’s companies were lobbying Crown Minerals to develop “suitable” rules for undersea mining

It's a shame that, while technically McCully was putting himself in a position where he could be conflicted, no real conflict exists. I say a shame because I have no great love for the man, and would have enjoyed watching his disgrace.

McCully told Checkpoint tonight he was trying to get rid of the shares, but they're so worthless he can't find a buyer. He said their value was $31.63. Apparently there has been no cabinet discussion on conservation mining yet, so no technical conflict has arisen.

Still, it's a bad look when a minister gets tripped up like this. There are growing signs that members of this Government are being careless about their personal affairs. Last year it was Bill English. This year we've had John Key's uranium shares, Heatley's and Brownlee's credit cards, and now McCully. With the possible exception of English, these appear to be acts of simple carelessness. But they suggest Key and his ministers are not particularly disciplined in their personal affairs.

Good on The Standard for exposing the carelessness though.