The writ refers to comments I’d made about Mr Banks on The Ralston Group. I can’t recall the context, but I began, ‘John Banks has to go,’ and finished, ‘So he has to go.’ I can’t repeat the lengthy bit in between, because Mr Banks might decide to issue another writ for defamation. Suffice to say, it expressed my opinion of his character at the time and it wasn’t flattering.

Anyway, TV3 indicated that it would defend the writ, Mr Banks (to my knowledge)  did nothing more about it and that was that.

You’ll understand that I was not a fan of the current Mayor of Auckland then and continued not to be a fan, until very recently. On numerous occasions I expressed my dislike of him publicly,  though rather more circumspectly.

I disliked him as a talk-back host on Radio Pacific. His world, it seemed to me, was divided into ‘good people’ and ‘bad people’, a view I thought simplistic and untrue.

I wasn’t much impressed when he was Mayor of Auckland from 2001 to 2004 either and did my bit to see that he wasn’t re-elected.

More recently, during Jim Mora’s The Panel, I described him as ‘that dreadful man’. 

I was surprised therefore to find myself and Judy invited some months ago to a private lunch which turned out to be composed entirely of John Banks supporters and some of his advisors. Citing a favourite saying of my ex-father-in-law, I said to Judy, ‘We’re among friends, but they’re not ours.’ But it turned out to be a very pleasant afternoon and Mr Banks did not appear to be bearing any grudges.

Ten days ago I was one of five speakers at an Auckland Mayoral Fathers’ Breakfast at Sky City organised by Parents Inc., the organisation founded by Ian Grant. Each of us had seven minutes to give an inspirational address on fatherhood to the 750 men present. The Mayor of Auckland, formally hosting the event, spoke first.

I’ve heard a lot of speeches in my time and few have been memorable. I don’t think I’ll ever forget the seven minutes in which John Banks held that audience in the palm of his hand, enthralled. He did not, as his advisors have suggested, talk about his own traumatic childhood. He talked about the troubled kids he has met in the course of his job; kids on drugs, kids in trouble with the law, kids in borstals and prisons, lost boys and girls. A common theme, especially among the  boys, he observed, was the absence of a father in their lives. These were boys without role models, boys who didn’t know how to be men. Fathers mattered and fathers had a responsibility to teach their kids the difference between right and wrong.

Delivered entirely without notes, the short address was spellbinding, extremely moving, and entirely met the inspirational criteria laid down by the breakfast’s organisers. When he returned to the table, I said to him, ‘If you could talk like that during your campaign, you would certainly be the first Mayor of the Super City.’

A week later Banks was on Close Up responding to claims that his son Alex was one of the boys who had egged on 17-year-old Kings College student James Webster to go on drinking vodka, advice which at least contributed to his death.  Banks was only one of two parents to front up about their sons’ involvement. Holding back tears, he told Close Up:

‘I say as a father, there but for the grace of God, go I.  I said to Alex, this is very sad for our families and you’re going to have to stay home and not go out at night until you’ve undertaken a comprehensive First Aid course, so that you understand the dangers of alcohol and you clearly understand that if it ever happens again you’ll be in a position to save a life.

‘It’s a big thing for me to have to live with, but it’s very, very hard for the Webster family. My son now knows from experience that what happened was disastrous and if he was in that circumstance ever again, he would know what to do. And on that fateful night most people didn’t know what to do. That little guy didn’t have to lose his life.

‘Life is about accepting responsibility for the actions of yourself and for the behaviour of your sons. And in this case, you know, we’re having this conversation because, hopefully, we will save one or two or a handful of James Websters.’

Banks, it seemed to me, had practised what he preached. He had fronted up, accepted responsibility as a parent for his son’s actions and set the limits that are part of a father’s duty to his children.

John Banks is a polarising individual, admired by some, hated – not too strong a word – by others. For my part, I have not changed my view of the man I attacked on The Ralston Group, the talk-back host I deplored on Radio Pacific or the Mayor of Auckland in his previous incarnation. But either he has changed or I have. I suspect it’s the former. Certainly the person I have got to know in the past fortnight is a very fine man indeed. Or maybe there are two John Banks, two sides to the one man – the father and the politician perhaps. I’d be happy to have the father continue as Mayor.

Pic: Natalie Slade, NZ Herald

Seventeen-month-old Rebecca Jones has cerebral palsy and was to have two surgical procedures this Thursday to ease constant pain and sickness, and help her take solid food.

Parents Cara Porter-Jones and Gary Jones had been preparing for the operation for months after being given the go-ahead in March, and have taken leave from work.

But Mrs Porter-Jones says that with just days to go, she received a phonecall saying her daughter’s surgery had been cancelled because of strikes at Auckland City Hospital.

“I broke down in tears. I was devastated,” she said.

“To put it nicely, I’m very, very, very angry. We’ve been preparing ourselves for this for weeks. Now that we were getting so close to it – naturally we’re very scared – and to be told that it’s been cancelled because people are fighting over money …”

Now the family are in limbo, as they wait for another date to be set.

I can entirely understand Mrs Porter-Jones’ anger. If surgery for a suffering child or grandchild of mine had been postponed in this manner, I would be looking for someone’s blood.

BUT…

This is also a very good story for a tabloid newspaper. What makes it good is that it can be cast in simple terms of good and evil: good loving parents and evil striking workers. And in the middle an ailing child.

The Herald’s headlines and subhead cast it in exactly those terms:

HEALTH SERVICE WALKOUTS HIT FAMILY

Strikers’ helpless victims

Hospital workers want more money… baby Rebecca wants surgery that will change her life.

This is the traditional way in which the media present industrial disputes involving workers in essential occupations: good versus evil; long suffering public versus selfish workers ‘holding the employer/country to ransom’.

The language of these stories reflects this conflict of ideologies. The fate of those affected by the strike is couched in highly emotive terms; the strikers’ arguments presented in the coldest, hardest language. Look at the headlines and subhead of the Herald’s story again:

 HEALTH SERVICE WALKOUTS HIT FAMILY

Strikers’ helpless victims

Hospital workers want more money… baby Rebecca wants surgery that will change her life. 

Editors understand this very well of course. At the bottom of the story about little Rebecca – to whom all our hearts must go out – the paper invites readers to TELL US YOUR STORY – Email newsdesk@nzherald.co.nz.  I’m not so naive as to think that it’s stories from the hospital workers they want to hear. This is almost certainly the start of a campaign against them.

What’s wrong with this sort of reporting is that it gives us little or no opportunity to judge the rights and wrongs of the radiographers’ and medical laboratory workers’ case. We learn almost nothing about that in the story. It probably isn’t necessary, because the intention of the Herald’s report is not to inform but to appeal to prejudice, the prejudice inherent in the concept of ‘holding the public/country  to ransom’.

But the fact of the matter is that people who work in essential occupations have great difficulty withdrawing their labour, however just their cause may be. Bus drivers, for example, are badly paid and their working conditions are poor. But if they strike for better pay or conditions, everyone hates them. They are ‘holding the travelling public to ransom.’

The fact is that, precisely because they work in an essential occupation, they themselves are held to ransom by the widespread disapproval of the public. The employer of people in any essential occupation is in fact in a stronger position than other employers. He has the gun of public odium to hold to his workers’ heads.

It is of course extremely unfortunate that patients are suffering and will continue to suffer as a result of strike action by hospital workers. Those patients and their families cannot be expected to stand back and take a dispassionate look at the reasons for the strike action. They are entitled to be upset and angry. But the media have an obligation to go beyond the simplistic allocation of blame and to provide their readers, listeners, viewers with an even-handed analysis of the workers’ claims which will allow them to make an informed judgement of the rights and wrongs of the workers’ case.

There are three parties in this case: the hospital workers, their direct employers (the DHBs) and their indirect employers (the government). Should the question not at least be asked: what blame, or proportion of blame, for the suffering of the patients can be directed to the employers?

One can only hope that the Herald will ask that question in the next few days.

I measured the front page of the NZ Herald this morning. Excluding the top and bottom margins, 25cm was taken up with advertising and glaring promos. Only 29cm was news content, and if you exclude the photos and headlines, there was precious little of that –  a mere 47.5 column centimetres of copy.

The front page of the Herald has become a travesty of journalism.  Today the headline screamed:  KIWI UMPIRES CAUGHT UP IN CRICKET SCANDAL.  The implication is clear: our umpires were in the thick of the match-fixing.

Squinting at the front page while I made the first cup of tea I wailed, “Oh no, not Billy Bowden!”  I’ve always been a fan of the outrageous Bowden and the concept of him being involved in match-fixing damn near curdled the milk.

So it was both a relief and an anticlimax to discover that Bowden’s  involvement in the “cricket scandal” amounted to umpiring the fourth test between England and Pakistan, and calling the staged no-balls  for what they were.

The first paragraph of the story clarified that they were innocent of wrong-doing – “Cricket has been stung by one of its biggest bribery and corruption scandals – and New Zealand umpires Tony Hill and Billy Bowden are unwittingly caught up in it.”

There’s a helluva lot of difference between “caught up” in it and “unwittingly caught up” in it.  The headline GRANDMOTHER THROWS KITTENS IN DRYER implies something far more sinister and newsworthy than GRANDMOTHER ACCIDENTALLY THROWS KITTENS IN DRYER (because they were hiding in the washing basket).

The front page of the Herald is now designed to sell papers on the street and in dairies. It’s one huge advertisement for itself, and the tabloid headlines are often deliberately misleading  (I’ve written about this in an earlier post).

I don’t know who’s composing these headlines, but I do know that the chief sub and the editor should be jumping on them from a great height. It is blatant dishonesty and does a disservice to both its readers and to the good journalists who work for it. Some of them may start considering a career change if this carries on.

 My dear friend Ivan Strahan and his gorgeous wife Claire, who live in Donaghadee,  have both been unwell and have found themselves thrown upon the tender mercies  of the medical profession. Since they are understandably feeling a bit low, I thought I would send them this column, which I wrote 23 years ago for what was then the Dominion Sunday Times,  to cheer them up. A case perhaps of  ‘Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose’.

Take Two Washers and Call Me in the Morning

A case for Fair Go.

Mrs Green, an elderly widow, calls Jones the plumber to fix a leaking tap in the bathroom. Jones arrives. He is wearing crisp, clean overalls, has an agreeable manner and gives every appearance of knowing what he’s doing. Mrs Green leaves him to it.

He emerges from the bathroom half an hour later, says, ‘Let’s see how that goes,’ and proceeds to write an account for $47 – labour, materials, callout, mileage and GST.

‘Give us a call if you’ve any further trouble,’ he says as he pockets the cheque, and drives off into the night.

‘What a nice man,’ thinks Mrs Green as she opens the bathroom door. The tap is still leaking. 

Jones returned the next day. He told Mrs Green they’d been experimenting with these new washers. They weren’t always effective, so he’d try something else.

‘See how that goes,’ he said, writing out another account.

After the fourth visit, Mrs Green’s dander was up. She insisted that Jones fix the tap or find someone who could.

‘Look,’ said Jones, ‘the truth of the matter is you can’t fix these taps. No-one has ever invented a washer that will do it. We don’t know why they leak. Sometimes they stop leaking for no reason at all. Then, maybe in five years time, they start all over again.’

‘But this is absurd,’ said Mrs Green. ‘Are you telling me I’m stuck with this leaking tap for the rest of my life?’

‘Possibly,’ said Jones, ‘but it won’t kill you.’

Well, the end of the story was that Jones referred Mrs Green to a mate of his who was an expert on leaking taps. He spent a lot more time than Jones examining the tap and charged a lot more too. He couldn’t fix the leak either. He was even more reassuring than Jones. Thousands of people had these leaking taps and had learned to live with them. They weren’t serious. They certainly wouldn’t kill you.

So Mrs Jones lay awake at nights listening to her leaking tap.

Sometimes she cried into her pillow.

If Mrs Jones had written to Fair Go, they’d have said that Jones clearly wasn’t fit to call himself a plumber, that he was a conman, a rip-off artist who was fleecing old ladies by pretending to have knowledge and skills he didn’t possess. And as for Jones’ ‘expert’ mate, well, he was obviously in league with Jones and an even bigger tealeaf. Both of them were charlatans and should be behind bars.

There are thousands of tradesmen in this country doing exactly what Jones and his mate did. They aren’t behind bars. On the contrary, they’re held in high regard by the community and financially rewarded accordingly. They’re called doctors (and specialists).

I came to this startling realisation at a dinner party last week.

There were two doctors at this function, friends of mine. (Well, they were!) We were joking about how useless most doctors are, when one of them said: ‘Yeah, I reckon we can fix about two percent of the people who come to see us, on a clear day!’ And he wasn’t joking.

I thought back over my own medical history and realised he was right. Except for purely mechanical stuff like sprained ankles and broken arms, no doctor had ever actually fixed anything I had wrong with me. OK, I tend to hypochondria, but in half a century I must have had something wrong with me that was real and could be fixed. Nothing ever was. My illnesses either went away by themselves, or they didn’t.

What I’d like you to do is check this out with the guests at your next dinner party. I’m going to predict that no-one there has ever been fixed by a doctor. And I really mean ‘fixed’, as in:

‘Doctor, this hurts.’

‘Let’s see. Ah yes, a leaking tap. Take these two washers.’ 

‘Thanks Doctor, that’s wonderful, it doesn’t hurt anymore.’

 I’d willingly pay a hundred bucks for a consultation like that.

But it doesn’t happen anymore. Doctors dispense reassurance these days, not cures. I don’t want to be told that it isn’t going to kill me or that millions of other people have learned to live with it. I want it fixed. Isn’t that what doctors are for?

Now the doctors are going to reply that you can’t compare the human body to a leaking tap – living organism, far more complex, waffle, waffle, waffle. I’ll buy that, but I still want the answer to two questions: Exactly what business are you in then, Doctor? And why are you charging people money to fix things which you already know you can’t fix?

No, fellow sufferers, the truth of the matter is that the bugs have got ‘em beat. The bacteria have become resistant to the antibiotics and the viruses are having a field day. The medics have lost their magic. That’s why we’re all heading off in droves to the new witchdoctors – the chiropractors, the acupuncturists and the holistic healers. Sometimes what they do works.

——————————————————————————————-

Note 1: The General Practitioner Society was not amused by this column and formally complained to the New Zealand Press Council.

In its complaint, the Society rated the column ‘the most malicious attack on the doctors who make up our membership that we have ever read … We think he should be told that he can’t get away with it.’

The Press Council disagreed. It ‘did not accept that this light-hearted, though exaggerated piece exceeded the bounds of tolerance traditionally accorded columnists, or that it would have  lowered the esteem in which the medical profession was held. The  Council considered that, if members of the profession had read the column with a reasonable sense of humour, they need not have been offended by it.’

Note 2: I have a wonderful doctor here in Herne Bay. Indeed I have two of them. I’m feeling much better now, thank you.

So if you’re the author of an 82-page dossier vilifying your boss and he finds out and you’re unceremoniously demoted and told to take a hike for a couple of weeks and sort yourself out and you defy your boss by coming back early and he isn’t impressed and treats you like a leper…

Well, if all those things happen, then trying to persuade the media that, even though you don’t take back a word of those 82 pages,  everything is rosy in the garden and you totally support your boss and will be working harmoniously with him ‘going forward’….

Well, it’s just not believable, is it? In fact, I’d say that Sisyphus had an easier task trying to get that bloody rock to the top of the mountain, than Heather Roy has trying to persuade us that she and Rodney will live happily ever after. And if you doubt it, check out these interviews from last night’s telly.

Heather Roy on Close Up

Heather Roy on Campbell Live

 UPDATE 27 AUGUST: Heather and Rodney have kissed and made up. [Not an entirely pleasing image.] They were on telly last night exuding mutual affection. Rodney even said he was sorry for having upset Heather. [Ahhhh. Nice] But in the latest Listener we learn from the undisputed queen of columnists, Jane Clifton, that Heather barely got through her previous televised engagement party with Rodney before fleeing in tears from the chaise longue. None of this bodes well for a long and happy five-in-a-bed.

The Herald’s decision to publish the names of the final six contestants in TV3′s  New Zealand’s  Next Top Model  programme was petty, mean-spirited and unnecessary. The story had nothing newsworthy about it,  other perhaps  than in revealing a particularly nasty streak in the paper’s editorial staff.  Even that will barely be news to most people. 

At present there are still 12 hopefuls in the televised competition. Since we now know the names of the six finalists, we also know the names of the six who won’t make it.  What purpose was served by spoiling viewers’ enjoyment of the programme for the six weeks it will take the  outed losers to be sent home, is beyond me, except to allow Herald reporting staff to tee-hee behind their hands in the toilet.

They  will have spoiled things too for the outed girls, each of whose survival over the coming weeks can scarcely be celebrated by them or the viewers who now know that their hopes and dreams are bound to come to nothing.

Almost more cynical than publishing the names was to tease the story with a large photo of one of the six finalists top left on the front page with the text EXCLUSIVE PICTURES – Top Model final few revealed  A3 and a small diagonal banner bottom left with the words SPOILER ALERT. The sole purpose of that was of course to whet your appetite for what was on Page 3. Which meant, if you think about it, that if you didn’t want to know who were the ‘final few’, you couldn’t turn to Page 3 at all or probably even to Page 2 opposite.

All in all this was just a piece of gratuitous nastiness on the part of the Herald, which I happen to know [SPOILER ALERT]  is a shoo-in to win this year’s award as New Zealand’s Next Top Ratbag Newspaper.

Congratulations guys!

In this Radio New Zealand interview, broadcast on last night’s Checkpoint, New Zealand’s most consistently effective current-affairs  interviewer, Mary Wilson, makes mincemeat of Justice Minister Simon Power’s  unconvincing apologia for the government’s half-hearted, half-baked approach to solving New Zealand’s booze crisis. It’s great stuff. Look for Power’s warning that  next Thursday might not happen.

Herald On Sunday

I am reluctant to return to the topic of Paul Henry. In talking about him at all one pays him a degree of attention which he almost certainly does not deserve. But he is employed by the state broadcaster as an entertainer and is well rewarded for his efforts. And it is this aspect of the debate that I wish to address.

The central question concerning Henry, it seems to me, ought to be: Does Television New Zealand accept responsibility for Henry’s regular abuses of his privileged position as a broadcaster on national television? Or does it take the view that his ratings – and potential ratings if he is given his own prime-time show – more than compensate for the insult that he so cheerfully pays to so many groups and so many viewers? And is the censure of the generally weak-kneed Broadcasting Standards Authority, with its totally inadequate penalties, actually a convenient way for TVNZ to absolve itself of responsibility for Henry’s uncivilised opinions?

It might be thought that none of this matters since Henry is the co-host of a breakfast show which, by definition, has a very small audience. But common sense dictates that the only reason for TVNZ to put up with the regular fallout from their host’s disagreeable utterances is the substantial future revenue which it might expect to generate from the high viewing figures which any show designed to offend public sentiment will be guaranteed to attract. For the simple fact of the matter is that if the mooted prime-time Henry programme proves to be inoffensive, it will disappoint and fail.  

Tolerance of the things Henry says appears to be based on the view that he’s a bit of a larrikin and a colourful character and we have too few of those in New Zealand. I’m inclined to agree with that as a general proposition. But Henry’s throwaway lines also wound individuals and groups and validate moral positions which are damaging to an enlightened democracy.

When Henry expresses the view that it would be less troublesome to slit the throats of Afghani prisoners of war than to hand them over to Afghanistan’s infamous National Security Directorate, he advocates the murder without trial of prisoners of war, in breach of the Geneva Convention to which this country subscribes. But more importantly, he expresses a view which must surely be anathema to any civilised person. In so doing, he reduces, albeit in a small way, the moral integrity of New Zealand society as a whole.

I am a debater and I love to debate. I am an arguer and I love to argue. I approve of and welcome the forceful expression of ideas. But if a guest at my table were to express the view that slitting the throats of prisoners of war was an acceptable and convenient way of solving a difficult diplomatic problem, I would show them the door. There are some people, however clever, however talented, however amusing, however charming in person,  who are simply not worth knowing.

Or having on our screens.

“Indeed there is a touch of the Chauncey Gardner about him – the Peter Sellars gardener that charmed everyone in the classic movie satire Being There.

“Others graft their aims and aspirations on to the benign countenance of the prime minister and see themselves reflected back.

“This is the first prime minister who is actually liked. Not respected nor admired nor feared. Liked. You would have to go back to Labour’s Walter Nash to find another prime minister so routinely inoffensive.”

Michael Laws in today’s Sunday Star Times

Michele Hewitson with Greg Dixon at the Cathy Pacific Travel Media Awards

I was amazed when Herald journalist Michele Hewitson rang to ask me if she could interview me for her back page feature in the Saturday Herald. With uncharacteristic lack of caution, I immediately agreed. If Judy had been home, I’d probably have said, ‘Look, I’d like to have a think about this, can I ring you back?’ But Judy was at university and not due back for hours. So I agreed. I have a suspicion that Michele was surprised by my instantaneous agreement.

If you live outside Auckland, you may not be familiar with Michele Hewitson’s interviews or her reputation. She is both admired and feared. Admired because her Saturday interviews are a joy to read; and feared because the joy so often takes the form of Schadenfreude – pleasure in the misfortune of others. Hewitson is an acute observer of people, their foibles and frailties and the fate of many of her subjects most resembles that of the fly who accepted the spider’s invitation to come into her parlour. Michele Hewitson, many of her victims and a solid proportion of her readers would say, is a total bitch. A hugely talented, very perceptive, extraordinarily readable and amusing total bitch.

So I was pretty nervous about being interviewed by her. No one wants to appear in print looking like a total arsehole.

Let me not bore you with the details of an interview that lasted for an hour and a half, except to say that I thoroughly enjoyed it. Hewitson is acerbic, yes, but she is also extremely funny. It occurred to me that she would be great fun at a dinner party. The gossip would be delicious, the one-liners would flow with the wine. I suspect, as my mother would have said, you’d have ended up wetting your pants. ‘Oh you are awful, but I like you.’

I liked her. But my liking did not obscure my suspicion that I was being set up for one of Michele’s famous hatchet jobs.

I didn’t sleep well last night. I was worried about how I would be presented in next morning’s paper.

The Herald is delivered at our house well before six. I was down at the letter box at 5.50. No Herald. No Herald at 6.15, 6.30, 6.45, 7.00, 7.15…  I’m writing this at 8.30 and still no Herald. Of all bloody mornings…

I couldn’t take any more by 7.45 and read the interview on line. Bloody unflattering photo, but the piece was fair – and funny. I have no complaint.

And it occurred to me that the fearsome Michele Hewitson might just have been a bit afraid of me and may have gone away thinking, ‘That bastard wasn’t too bad at all.’ She might even have liked me.  

Judy arrived back just as Michele was leaving. ‘You be nice to him,’ she said in a somewhat menacing tone.

‘How did it go?”

‘OK, I thought. I quite liked her. But you never know of course.’

The doorbell rang about 20 minutes later. It was Michele. She’d been standing outside in the cold all that time, waiting for a taxi. But that wasn’t the reason she’d come back. She’d seen a small white dog almost get run over just outside our house and wondered if we knew the owners. It kept running backwards and forwards across the road and was sure to get killed. As it happens, we did know the owners, but they weren’t home, so we left them a note and took the dog in to meet Max and Felix.

“Total bitch saves life of small white dog!”

There’s a lesson here about preconceptions. It’s easy to misjudge people whom you know only from watching them on the telly or hearing them on the radio or reading what they’ve written in the paper.

Read the Hewitson/Edwards Interview