These fragments I have shored against my ruins

Initially, I was going to blog about how crazy and hectic my days are as the count-down to graduation looms, and I find myself struggling against the tide.

But then I saw this piece of claptrap - I mean, honestly, what kind of lame PR outfit is looking after Vector Arena these days?

I mean, writing a profile of the chief executive to sneak in some figures about how well the venue did last year, and preview some of the upcoming gigs this year is not my idea of savvy marketing.

My favourite line is the intro: "Passing Auckland’s Vector Arena daily as it was being built in 2006; Guy Ngata would think 'that’s going to be great, I’d love to be part of that'." Barf.

I sincerely hope Star PR isn't still looking after this account - when they started up a few years back, they seemed to know what they were doing.

Compare that to Network PR's latest job to make hay for bankers in the middle of a financial collapse and you can see quite easily who's doing the better job.

(Incidentally, it's nice to see Network have figured out that they really shouldn't be advertising their wares when they're on the job - well done.)

End rant (and destructive procrastination),
PB.

Thanks to words, we have often sunk to the level of demons

Kudos where it's due.

My initial suspicion that Minister of Housing Phil Heatley merely jumped on to the comment option on the NBR to push forward his own agenda and shut down any criticism of Gateway Housing product has been laid to rest... for now.

The Minister took on board my major concern and responded that my fears would be taken under consideration:

it is our intention to address both the dispersal and concentration issues you cite.

Of course I'm not naive enough to take this at face value - it's a broad enough answer to allow the Minister to wriggle out if he fails to address the potential creation of ghettoes with his housing project.

But it's an encouraging prospect that ministers are willing to make these statements in comment threads that will undoubtedly be used to hold them to account if they fail to deliver, and I can only hope it continues.

Credit where it's due....

Well done Mr Heatley.

PB.

I alone, as the sharer of their way of life, presented a replica of childhood

This is a first for me - Minister of Housing Phil Heatley commenting on the veracity of a story on the NBR website... in under three hours!!!

I'm not sure how I feel about this - on one hand, it's impressive that Mr Heatley is willing to engage (so far) with the Jazial Crossley's article on National's plan to open up Crown-owned land for the development of low-cost housing, but on the other, he goes to great lengths to refute the points that he's not particularly fond of.

Whether he continues (via his proxies) to engage with commenters on the NBR website remains to be seen, and I honestly hope he does.

If not, well, it'll be another case of Juli Clausen's ill-advised foray into commenting on Colin Espiner's blog a while back, and a pretty cynical (and early) attempt to shut down any critique of the government.

Unfortunately, I'm inclined to think the latter.

He sticks well to the party line, rattling off low interest rates (for which I find it quite concerning that he's trying to tie monetary policy to the whim of the guvmint), lower taxes, and RMA reform, but he opens with:

As Housing Minister I’d like to take a few moments to comment on some of the points and assertions raised in this article, not the least with the headline, which obviously misrepresents National’s intentions with the release of its Gateway Housing product later this year.

and closes with:

Certainly it’s my view that the assertion in the headline is both incorrect and unfair.

Yet, he only makes one attempt to explain why the headline "Why does National want to create poor-people ghettoes?" is incorrect when he says they will be "providing cheap land for first home buyers in places like Hobsonville alongside million dollar homes, in the same suburb, with the affluent living alongside the less well off", but doesn't go into more detail, and doesn't rule out the concentration of low-cost housing that could (and often does) lead to the creation of ghettoes.

He may well be right (and I hope he is), but the hint that there will be some low-cost housing in affluent suburbs and the assertion that the development of low-cost housing in specific areas is not going to lump together impoverished people together seems to me to be a flawed argument.

I'd suggest quizzing the minister and seeing if we can get a decent thread going on the story... that's what I'm doing...

PB.

As a general rule, people, even the wicked, are much more naive and simple hearted than we suppose

Well I can't say I'm too surprised at the superficial coverage given to our State Services Minister's sleight of hand yesterday evening.

Kudos to Tom Pullar-Strecker at the Dom for pulling together a story for the front page of the business section - at least he gave it a try.

And I guess the Labour Party's belated response in the form of yet another press release kind of fanned the fire.

That fire being the NZPA and its under-resourced pump out the re-written press release machine.

I can't even criticise them 'cos everyone knows that's what they do, but I do lament the lack of scepticism on the part of our full-grown journos who didn't feel like chasing the Hon Mr Ryall and finding out when the tender's going, if anyone's already applied to take over the contract, how many people will lose their jobs (I'd love to see a cost benefit analysis for the sacking public servants - right down to the consultant's fee) and a number of other questions relating to the pruning of the bureacracy.

I do hope Mr Ryall's PR team don't try to sneak through more bad news in the still of the night - it's just not a good look and much easier (and honourable) to face the light of day when you make a ballsy call.

But hey, what do I know...

I'm just a baby journalist...

PB.

Bad taste creates many more millionaires than good taste

It was only a matter of time.

And in this case, time is the essential item.

I can already hear my socialist friends chanting "slash and burn, slash and burn", because the man with the manifesto to slash red tape in the health bureaucracy has now begun his role as Minister of State Services.

Sitting at my school PC (that's what baby reporters do), I noted a scoop e-mail alert titled "Government Shared Network to be discontinued" pop through at 5.13pm.

The fact that the State Services Minister Tony Ryall is cutting the GSN ("a secure network linking government agencies with high-speed Internet and telecommunications services) is not, in and of itself, overly surprising.

Nor is the fact that the "[p]articipating government agencies will be moved to a new provider in the private sector."

The thing's losing money, and has done since its inception in 2007 (don't ask me why it was supposed to make money), so it was obviously going to be a candidate for slashing under our auspicious minister.

But 5.13pm for the press release?!? After the layout of most morning papers have been drawn up and TV's putting on the finishing touches to its 6pm bulletin?!? Hoping against hope that it gets lost in the avalanche of press releases accompanying the return of the politicians?!?

Puh-leeze - that's just plain stupid.

It looks suspicious and it draws attention to the move when it could have been sneaked through earlier in the day while all the media focus was on the RMA changes.

This is a senior minister with experienced PR professionals in his office, and it's not something that they saw at 3.30pm this afternoon, decided upon at 4.45pm, and wrote up a press release at 5.12pm.

Dumb, dumb, dumb.

Will the media fall for it and ignore a potential follow-up for something that looks, sounds, and smells like scuttling public sector jobs? Probably.

But it shouldn't - and touch wood, someone will pick it up and ask Mr Ryall what else is on the agenda for the slash and burn treatment.

This baby journalist would, but afterschool care's closing up, and I've got a ton of stuff to do.

Maybe I'll leave it to the professionals.... maybe...

PB.