Primer on the New Zealand Constitution
Monday, December 13th, 2010Here’s a “Simpleton’s guide to the Constitution” that I wrote for the The Press a few years ago. It seems timely to stick it up again given the government’s new Constitutional review (aka the “Consideration of Constitutional Issues”). At the law school where I work, you’ll sometimes find foreign students wandering around the law library looking baffled. “Where is your […]
Toothless Bill of Rights?
Monday, December 13th, 2010I think NZ Herald’s John Armstrong is on the money when he lambasts John Key for not fronting up and justifying the decision to hold hearings into the NZ SIS Amendment Bill in private, and for wondering whether there is any real justification. But his parting shot at the “privacy supposedly protected by New Zealand’s […]
Wikileaks: the big question
Sunday, December 12th, 2010In all of the controversy about Wikileaks, one central question seems to remain unresolved: how should we pronounce “Assange”? Is it “an” as in “dance” or “blancmange” or “flange”? [Update: these sites suggest that the first is correct]. The main lesson of the Wikileaks saga for me is that we should be skeptical of government assertions that the […]
Pike River privacy III
Tuesday, December 7th, 2010In an earlier post, I wondered whether Dr Nicole Moreham was right to say that the grieving relatives at Pike River, caught on camera shortly after being told that all 29 miners were certainly dead, could successfully sue for invasion of privacy. Here’s her reply: Thanks, Steven. I am glad that you agree that there […]
Ask and ye shall receive?
Thursday, December 2nd, 2010Next time you hear the media bleating about our restrictive suicide-reporting rules, consider this. The law allows the media to seek permission from the coroner to report the details of an apparent (or confirmed) suicide. Last night, I asked Chief Coroner Neil MacLean how often the media sought such permission. He said it was extremely […]
Pike River privacy II
Thursday, December 2nd, 2010I’ve since discussed Nicole Moreham’s post (below) with another privacy expert, who agrees with her wholeheartedly. For myself, I’m not quite so sure. Certainly the grieving families were caught in a distraught and vulnerable moment. I’ll assume that there was no way for them to use to escape the assembled media. Coverage of children and those […]
Pike River privacy breach
Friday, November 26th, 2010My colleague, privacy expert Dr Nicole Moreham, reckons the media are guilty of breach of privacy with their splashy coverage of the victims’ grief-stricken families emerging from the briefing where they were informed of their loved ones’ fate. She has kindly allowed me to cross-post (original source here): There would be few New Zealanders who […]
Bill of Yeah Rights
Thursday, November 11th, 2010Since the Bill of Rights was enacted, the government has, on average, ignored one section 7 report a year, according to the Minister of Justice. (A section 7 report is a legal opinion given by the Attorney General to Parliament that the proposed legislation breaches fundamental rights in an unjustified way.) Simon Power was addressing a […]
Read this
Monday, November 8th, 2010If you haven’t seen it already, I recommend Emma Woods’ thoughtful and moving response to Michael Laws’ attack on her in the Sunday Star-Times. In some ways, it’s an indictment of every columnist who sallies forth based on some incomplete news report, every ideologue who tries to marshall someone’s story to support their pet cause, […]
Irony
Sunday, October 31st, 2010Something sounded funny to my ear on this morning’s episode of MediaWatch on Radio NZ National. Colin Peacock referred to the Listener’s Quips and Quotes column, which had quoted the following journalistic aphorism and told readers it was attributed to the City News Bureau of Chicago: If your mother tells you she loves you, check […]
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