On the Chinese cyber security threat

On paper, the decisions to partner with the Chinese firm Huawei in the roll out of ultra fast broadband (and rural broadband) in New Zealand were taken locally, by the Enable Networks in Christchurch, and by WEL Networks in the Waikato. Yet could those decisions really have been made without any consideration of the national security implications of such involvement? Did, for instance, the SIS and GCSB conduct any evaluation of the security implications of Huawei’s involvement – and if not, why not?

After all, New Zealand spent a lot of time in the mid 2000s worried about being a ‘soft touch’ on terrorism. Or agonised about being seen as a ‘soft touch’ on illegal immigrants. Or only a few days ago, bit its fingernails about being seen as a soft touch on homegrown terrorists.

Such were the concerns that the reactionary likes of Winston Peters spent a lot of time in the mid 2000s urging the Clark government to pre-emptively abridge the human rights of asylum seekers, in the name of national security. Peters used to be very, very concerned that this or that refugee or asylum seeker could be – or could be seen to be – a potential sleeper agent for Al Qaeda, and suggested that such complacency would only encourage the real Al Qaeda operatives to regard us as a soft portal for further mischief.

All that evidently goes out the window when there are bucks to be made from doing trade with China. Might taking action on potential security risks get us in China’s bad books? Well, better not do anything. Thus, the fact that our defence and security partners in Australia and the United States have barred Huawei – on security grounds – from bidding in key telecommunications contracts in those countries has been brushed aside.

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On The Hunger Games and body image

Earlier this year, Next magazine published a scary survey on the body image of young New Zealand women, a story that prompted Labour MP Sue Moroney to issue a press release in mid February (“ The Beauty Myth Needs Busting Again”) that lamented the lack of realistic images of women in the media in these terms:

“Eighty-six per cent of the 1500 women who took part [in the Next survey] said they think about their weight daily, while three quarters believe good-looking people get more opportunities in life than ‘ordinary’ ones,” Sue Moroney said.

“Unfortunately it’s hardly surprising given the messages we are bombarded with every day. How often, for instance, do we see a middle-aged or older female television presenter on our screens? When was the last time we saw a size 14 – the standard New Zealand dress size – model, [or] an advertisement for make-up that shows laugh lines?

Scoop journalist Anne Russell followed up this issue in Werewolf via a story that interviewed Moroney, and sought her response to UK and Scandinavian moves to pass legislation that outlaw – or at least identify with a label – those instances where magazines and newspapers have used Photoshopped and airbrushed images of women to sell their products. Anne also tried unsuccessfully to interview Women’s Affairs Minister Jo Goodhew on the Next magazine findings.

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On CEO public sector pay, and North Korea’s nuclear threat

This morning’s NZ Herald story about the massive pay hikes for chief executives in the public service knocks a hole in the rationale for the government’s programme of public sector cutbacks. Only a couple of weeks ago, Finance Minister Bill English was preaching the need for austerity, in these classic we-must-tighten-our-belts terms:

…We need state sector agencies to become truly focused on, and organised around, meeting the priority needs of families and businesses, and doing so within tight budgets.

“One part of delivering better public services is ensuring money is not unnecessarily spent on back office administration, when redirecting it to front line services would yield better results.

Such calls for austerity go flying out the window however, when it comes to padding out the pay packets of public service CEOs. Read the rest of this entry »

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On McCully’s latest debacle, and on a fracking counter-measure

So Nick Smith has fallen on his sword, while dutifully covering for John Key’s leadership inadequacies on this issue as he did so. At the outset, Key had tried to sweep the entire affair under the carpet by describing Smith’s main transgression – the reference letter about his friend that he sent to his own ACC officials on ministerial letterhead – as being only a “minor” matter, no violation of the Cabinet manual, and moreover, the kind of lapse of judgment so common in his government that if he had to sack Smith, Key said, he would have to sack half of his Cabinet.

Right. Only after it became clear that nearly everyone else felt otherwise, Key treated a second, genuinely minor error by Smith (ie, his writing about his friend to fellow MP Pansy Wong without declaring his conflict of interest) as having tipped the balance. Faithfully, Smith has kept repeating the line about his two lapses of judgement, which really is little more than a cover story for Key’s change of tack.

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On the Urewera verdicts (and Nick Smith)

While the Crown regroups and rethinks about a possible retrial of the Urewera four, the country should taking a long, hard look at how the Police and prosecution have performed. Talk of a retrial is out of the question, surely. This is just the Crown trying to save face, and beating the most dignified retreat it can manage in the circumstances.

Besides the cost, and the likelihood that another jury hearing the same evidence would be just as split, there is the issue of natural justice and the time being taken to deliver it. The original arrests were five years ago, and the delay in getting to this recent trial was already stretching the acceptable boundaries of timeliness. Any decision that meant the accused would have to wait a further year or two years to finally clear their name would be open to challenge by the defence as an intolerable link, now, in the chain of delay in justice being served.

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On the local government reforms

Clearly, centre-right governments dislike Big Government only when it isn’t their brand of government. When it is, many of the democratic brakes get removed, quick smart. At heart, the reforms to local government unveiled yesterday see central government dictating to local communities how much, and for what, their rates money can be raised and spent. Until now, I’d always assumed that voters could use the ballot box to respond, if they thought their local councils were not using their money wisely, or were raising their rates unduly.

Not for much longer. Local Government Minister Nick Smith knows better than we do, and is going to use the law to force local communities to share his vision. Read the rest of this entry »

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On the speeches by John Key and David Shearer

The much touted smackdown between John Key and David Shearer – one gives a major speech at breakfast, the other at lunchtime! – turned out to be one of those occasions where the rivals spent the entire 15 rounds trying not to put their chin where it might be hit, while the relatively few committed fans of either Labour and National were left feeling deflated – is that all there is? etc.

Key’s speech on public service reform consisted primarily of a shuffling together of several departments into one “super ministry” – as feared beforehand by the editorial writers at the NZ Herald, who were plainly hoping for much more:

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On David Cunliffe’s comments on the ports of Auckland dispute (and on Iran)

Labour’s Economic Development spokesperson David Cunliffe made a useful contribution to the ports of Auckland dispute this morning.

As Cunliffe says, the proposals that management are trying impose run the risk of losing experienced staff, and undermining the morale and the worksite cohesion that’s necessary for productivity gains to be sustained, long term. As Cunliffe also pointed out, health and safety standards in the workplace are easier to organise when the work force is less fragmented: “In the long term, complex organizations, particularly those who undertake dangerous and difficult work, as ports of Auckland does, need to have an empowered, an involved, a committed work force.”

This has never been much of a concern for our business lobbyists, who have been chronically inclined to chase short term labour cost savings at the expense of everything else. Read the rest of this entry »

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On Tinariwen, and the forgotten war in Mali

Sometimes, civil war in Africa can even bring suffering to the well-heeled patrons of the International Festival of the Arts in Wellington. Tinariwen, the Tuareg rock group from Mali, is due to perform at the Arts Festival tonight – which is big news for anyone who has followed the band’s steady ascent from being indie darlings on the Pitchfork website to their gig late last year on the Stephen Colbert show with TV On the Radio, and this year’s Grammy award for the best World Music album of 2011.

Yet thanks to the upheaval in northern Mali, two key members of the band – vocalist Ibrahim Ibrahim Ag Alhabib, and guitarist Elaga Ag Hamid – remain trapped in a Tuareg refugee camp on the border with Algeria, and have been unable to get out of Mali in time to join the tour. Read the rest of this entry »

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On Defence’s failed policy of “civilianisation”

One of the tried and true maxims of management is that business hates uncertainty – because, don’t you know, business can’t be done in a climate where the rules keep on changing, and where CEOs lack a firm foundation on which to base their decisions.

Somehow, this wisdom is rarely extended to the work force, who – evidently – are expected to become ever more productive in a climate of total insecurity, where the rules and their roles keep on being changed, where their jobs and career paths are constantly being restructured and where casualisation and contracting out ensures there is little capacity to make any reliable plans for the future. CEOs, it seems, require certainty – but everyone else is expected to thrive on its exact opposite.

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