News from Parliament
Well, the big announcement today has been the news that there will be free-to-air digital TV from next year. It’s good news - opening lots of exciting possibilities for content, new channels, public service broadcasting and interactive content - but, as this release of Sue K’s points out, unless it is accompanied by significant funding for local content, there’s a real risk of New Zealand programming being swamped. There’s also the issue of consumers having to buy their own set top boxes at around $200 each.
In other big news from the corridors of power today, TWO Green Party Bills have been pulled from the ballot, continuing an extraordinary run of luck with the ballot. Watch this space for more info about Sue B’s Corrections (Mothers with Babies) Amendment Bill, and Metiria’s Misuse of Drugs (Medicinal Cannabis) Amendment Bill.
June 15th, 2006 at 1:17 pm
Yes, the Green ballot mojo strikes again. That’s 6 Green bills out of 19 drawn so far this year.
I have brief summaries of both bills (and indeed the other bills drawn today) in In the ballot.
June 15th, 2006 at 3:49 pm
Seems strange that this is getting so much attention considering that broadcast media will be (hopefully) as dead as the dodo in fairly short order.
Hands up who else’s primary means of accessing media is RSS and bittorrent?
June 15th, 2006 at 5:14 pm
I take the Fifth.
June 15th, 2006 at 6:21 pm
There is no fifth, that’s another problem with this country
June 15th, 2006 at 6:50 pm
Oh great, squillions of more outlets promoting unregulated corporate freedom and no tax for infra-structure n society, perhaps with a flavouring of literal fundamental christainity, gay marriage, patriotism, militarism, ownership society blah blah blah all with the values that will get associated with whateva the token collective outlet that is provided for people to come together about.
But perhaps there is a wisdom here that if the whole world had been recieving the same propaganda as germany in the thirties, there wouldn’t have been the war.
Whateva the case, there is no doubt the Mr Clinton’s move to allow the media networks to be consolidated back in the day, has certainly paid dividends, which are being reaped now and in the future…nuke pre-emptive strikes?
Despite all that gloom, please check this news hour out, for real journalism bout Iraq, Police States, stolen elections, class war.
I recommend 128k stream if possibly.
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/06/14/1424235
Dangerous, huh?
June 15th, 2006 at 7:39 pm
Follow this link to which, will give first ten minutes of show and rest of hour also if interested-my mistake.
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/06/14/1424228
June 15th, 2006 at 8:39 pm
“squillions of more outlets promoting unregulated corporate freedom and no tax for infra-structure n society” TVNZ and John Campbell on TV3? get a grip! It’s almost impossible to get that view on NZ TV - it’s usually full of moaning about why the government wont do something for people.
June 16th, 2006 at 10:34 am
Yay! More TV! More channels! More ads! Who needs to leave the house at all? Why indulge in reality when you can enjoy watching a much nicer version of it in the comort of your own home?
Almost makes me wish I had a TV.
June 16th, 2006 at 10:47 am
You could have gotten one for $49 I’m told, provided you were happy to sit in traffic burning fossil fuels for 4 hours.
June 16th, 2006 at 2:09 pm
FreeView (also http://www.freeview.co.uk/)
I can’t see why there is an issue with the cost of the set top box (or aerials),
next of all kiwis will expect free televisions as well because they have a ‘right’
“yeah right” to free to air television.
I like the opportunities it provides because it is digital.
Certainly cost hasn’t stopped a huge number of (often lower income) kiwis getting sky (and what is the opportunity cost there?).
See also
http://www.aardvark.co.nz/daily/2006/0615.shtml
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=1&ObjectID=10386655
http://www.med.govt.nz/templates/MultipageDocumentPage____9100.aspx
http://www.executive.govt.nz/minister/hobbs/digital/issue2.htm
June 16th, 2006 at 3:43 pm
If it is a one time $200 it isn’t much except that the value of getting digital cr*p instead of analog cr*p tossed in your face is usually even less than nothing. I don’t actually see any value in TV because what passes for programming content now is an embarrassment to the species homo-sapiens.
Perhaps we are devolving into a different species?
respectfully
BJ
June 16th, 2006 at 4:07 pm
Since the broadcasters are getting public monies ($25million each) could/should we (the public) ask for a public channel from each broadcaster. What an opportunity, ask for a percentage of NZ content, and there is content from PBS (http://www.pbs.org/), ABC (http://www.abc.net.au/tv/), CBC (http://www.cbc.ca/) etc … [bring back the NZBC]
I don’t think it makes sense to confuse the medium with the message (sorry Marshall).
Could it be that we don’t have enough channels to get the good programs on (I seem to recall one broadcaster buying programs but not showing them!!!).
Or perhaps that good content is on pay per view (cf National Geographic).
Perchance there is scope for regional and local TV, and good content free to air (Ok with advertising) [hey, beats pay TV WITH advertising].
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_broadcasting
http://www.pubforge.org/ !!!
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/
June 16th, 2006 at 5:48 pm
I agree bj.
One thing I find increasingly worrying about TV, (as one who must subscribe to SKY to access MaoriTV), is the potential affects of incessant exposure to “mindless American crap” on young Kiwi minds.
I’m talking about the CHEAP programmes to fill the gaps, from a culture that isn’t ours, and ghastly advertisments touting seemingly endless American gadgets (presumably made in ThirdWorld sweatshops).
I find myself wishing that the USA had chosen German as their official language “way back then” when the choice was made!
June 16th, 2006 at 9:51 pm
So many of you don’t like TV, yet Sue Kedgley calls for subsidies for people to have set top boxes when they can’t afford them? I know a couple of people who have children and TV free homes, so they are not distracted from playing with their kids, reading to them and being a family.
“Mindless American crap” - such anti-American bigotry, as if there is no NZ On Air funded mindless NZ crap, or Australian quota protected mindless Australian crap, or mindless British crap. Crap culture exists everywhere, including the non-English speaking world. German TV is hardly free of it - why is American bashing a habit? Just the same sort of mindless emotional rhetoric that you would see in neo-nazis.
June 17th, 2006 at 12:18 am
“Medicinal Cannabis” is a crock - Cannabis is full of toxins and carcogins. It exacerbates mental issues, long-term use causes memory problems, emotional problems and is often related to other social problems - like crime, road deaths/injuries, self-harm.
If there was any medical benefit that could be provided you’d think Merck or Roche or some other drug company would have researched it and refined the property in Cannabis that was beneficial into a drug with out all the nasty side-effects.
June 17th, 2006 at 12:35 pm
Could it possibly be any worse than morphine?
And it is worth noting,
“in its natural form, (cannabis) is one of the safest therapeutically active substances known” Francis Young, US Drug Enforcement Agency Administrative Law Judge.
http://www.druglibrary.org/olsen/MEDICAL/YOUNG/young.html
June 17th, 2006 at 1:45 pm
liberty - As an American I have a right to call it “American” mindless cr*p and I do… and while there may well be mindless German or Russian or Italian cr*p America is number one in cr*p production and it is damned hard to get a channel in Russian here.
Have a nice day.
BJ
June 17th, 2006 at 4:43 pm
Thanks for that reply BJ !
eredwen
June 17th, 2006 at 4:52 pm
Michael Ellis,
Dismissing medicinal use of cannabis on the grounds that it can have negative side-effects won’t get you very far, for the simple reason that *all* drugs - even the humble aspirin - can have negative side-effects.
When it comes to pain-relief, only the individual can decide what the best treatment is for them. More than that, only they can weigh-up the costs and benefits in the face of known side-effects; for example, it is likely that a proportion of sufferers would choose to accept an increased mortality risk for a drug able to alleviate a severe, chronic condition. You and I can count ourselves fortunate if we never have to make that choice - and we should certainly not try and make it for others.
Also, your objection to cannabis treatment on the grounds that recreational use of the drug is linked to the likes of crime and self-harm is totally spurious.
June 17th, 2006 at 5:01 pm
libertyscott:
Six of my eight “nearest and dearest” are Americans.
They would share my assesment of our current TV programming in Aotearoa.
… and, yes! … all of them are Green voters.
eredwen
June 18th, 2006 at 1:17 pm
Mouldwarp - We agree on something ! BJ
June 18th, 2006 at 3:48 pm
Certainly there is a lot of mindless New Zealand crap (and much of it on One News), but the difference is it is OUR crap. Why should we bring in crap from a foreign culture with foreign values when we have more than enough crap of our own.
SOC (Save Our Crap)
June 18th, 2006 at 6:23 pm
kiore1:
I do agree! as long as it is genuine Kiwi crap and not a local imitation of the imported stuff.
SOGKC (Save Our Genuine Kiwi Crap)
June 18th, 2006 at 6:27 pm
Perhaps SOAKK would be a beeter slogan … (Save Our Authentic Kiwi Krap)
June 19th, 2006 at 9:58 am
I rather agree with L-Scott that there’s a tendency to assunme the American crap is worse than other forms of crap. Last I watched TV they seemed to be doing better crap than the British, whose crap was just crap.
And I agree that it’s ridiculous supporting government subsidies to help people watch TV. Why not just subsidise designer drugs?
June 19th, 2006 at 12:57 pm
Michael Ellis, you suggested that if there was a medical benefit of cannabis then major drug companies would be researching and marketing it.
They are!
http://www.gwpharm.com/
I question what you base your opinion on. Where are your sources? My opinion is that you base the contents of your post completely on irrational prejudice, and with no basis in reality.
June 19th, 2006 at 1:17 pm
re the subsidies for set-top boxes, I agree they are completely inappropriate - it just smacks of ill-thought out populist politics.
However in Sue K’s defence I want to point out that she argued in favour of government assistance to purchase set-top boxes only AFTER the analogue TV signal is turned off (so there is no other option - digital or no TV) and only IF the price of the set-top box doesn’t come down with mass production/competition.
June 19th, 2006 at 1:59 pm
Stuey, I’m not convinced.
If I haven’t gotten around to buying a $200 set-top box (either I can’t afford it or I don’t care enough) then it’s obviously not very important to me, so why should the govt have to fork out to top up my apathy?
Bizarre.
June 19th, 2006 at 4:45 pm
“It is essential that no one loses access…”
What? Essential?
It might be essential that nobody loses access to health care, or gets their water or electricity cut off, or can’t afford to use the library. It’s essential that people have an income that allows them to eat healthy food. It is essential for people to get a decent enough education to enable them to read and write, be numerate and have the knowledge to function in a modern society. It’s essential that kids grow up in a safe environment. It is essential that people don’t get forced to work in hazardous conditions. It’s essential that women aren’t financially dependent on abusive partners. It’s even essential that we can breathe the air and swim at the beach without poisoning ourselves.
Essential that we can watch TV??!!!!??????
Turn your brain back on, Sue.
June 19th, 2006 at 5:59 pm
It’d be a good thing if every TV in the country were zorched by a zillion kilovolt lightning bolt (as long as no people were damaged in the process). It is a form of brain death, watching the tube, and worse when you consider the stuff that is on it. The only good thing about TV is that when everyone else is watching it I have time to read a book
respectfully
BJ
June 19th, 2006 at 8:02 pm
I’d have to agree with some of you - digital TV is a great opportunity for households to think - do we need the bloody thing at all? TV competes with books, plays, concerts, sport and conversation/socialising for entertainment - it is so all pervasive, why does it need a leg up? TV can be excellent - as with the UK Channel 4 documentary about religion - but it mostly is there for people to lose their presence in the room they are in.
I’d much rather people read unsubsidised books (kiwi or otherwise), than watched subsidised TV (kiwi or otherwise). Better for the environment too?
June 19th, 2006 at 9:44 pm
back to medical mj, so if “medical cannabis is a crock” then how come the UK House of Lords concluded (in 1998) that they were convinced “that cannabis almost certainly does have genuine medical applications, especially in treating the painful muscular spasms and other symptoms of MS and in the control of other forms of pain.”
http://www.parliament.the-stationery-office.co.uk/pa/ld199798/ldselect /ldsctech/151/15101.htm
In that report they recommended that clinical trials be carried out, and that the legal status of cannabis be downgraded. And of course both those things subsequently happened.
The UK clinical trials have demonstrated that cannabis is a medicine. See:
http://www.gwpharm.com/research_phase_iii.asp
This summarises the trials and lists all the papers in scientific journals that resulted from them.
Finally the UK Royal Pharmaceutical Society also published (in 2004) a 448 page book detailing the evidence, see:
http://www.rpsgb.org.uk/search/index.asp?q=The+medicinal+uses+of+canna bis+and+cannabinoids
or buy it online
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0853695172/qid%3D1150709818/2 02-5363469-3712614
June 20th, 2006 at 12:34 pm
BJ wrote:
“It is a form of brain death, watching the tube, and worse when you consider the stuff that is on it … when everyone else is watching it I have time to read a book … ”
Ah! but what sort of book do you choose? When you consider the stuff that is available in print … ?
“A bad workman blames his tools.”
I find TV is an excellent medium for very worthwhile stuff. As with everything else it is a matter of choosing wisely and more so with TV because it is a compelling medium.
TV documentaries can lead kids to research and reading … etc etc etc
I still remember, as an adolescent, seeing TV news in our home for the first time. The affect of having a current world situation portrayed in our living room remains in my memory… in black and white of course!
(Yes, it was the Israelis grabbing the West Bank … a situation which is killing more people today as I write.)
Demonstrably, I am an old bugger now and have learnt to be selective and disciplined in what I watch (most of the time!)
eredwen
June 20th, 2006 at 4:05 pm
“I find TV is an excellent medium for very worthwhile stuff. As with everything else it is a matter of choosing wisely and more so with TV because it is a compelling medium.”
Well put. I’ll add it’s about having the opportunity to choose also.
PBS, before it got reined in, use to investigate corruption and hypocrasy(there wasn’t n isn’t a shortage going), contrast it with the average lives of those at the bottom and also show educational stuff about the world, community and history etc
I read, for example, immagrants telling their younger family, if u want to know what it is to be american, watch pbs.
I’ve no problem with having commercial channels, but just have one channel that is BIAS and not commercial. An outlet that shows the inbalances and problems of society unabashed, that isn’t scared to challenge the status quo and concentrations of wealth, power, the mis-uses of technology and on and on.
It would be inherently political, but commercial channels are inherently political also, a publicly funded channel would have a set of values different to that of a commercial channel. Surely having this choice would only enhance society and the functioning of it’s democratic ideal?
From what i read, when pbs was allowed to function, with shows as diverse as “the power of myth”, educational shows about poetry to exposes on big money in politics pushing through anti-environmental laws, it rated pretty well also.
So here are some of even’s international talkin points:
First here’s some humour, Stephen Colbert: http://www.crooksandliars.com/2006/06/15.html#a8728
Now, some physics :
http://youtube.com/watch?v=Son0BWduQx4&search=controlled%20demolition
Lastly, are the underlying structures in society repeating history?
“”The administration has not only the right, but the duty, in my opinion, to pursue Fifth Column movements,”
http://www.alternet.org/rights/32647/
June 21st, 2006 at 10:26 am
I have to agree with Eredwen that TV can be powerful - one of the images that has haunted me from my youth was footage of Israeli aircraft bombing Beirut’s apartment blocks.
It would also be a shame if people turned off “The Simpsons” only to pick up a copy of Tolkein. But the problem with TV is its addictiveness. Once you start, it’s hard to stop. Addicts might convince themselves that they only do the good stuff, but when you see the victim’s whole lives being organised by the need to be in front of a screen at the right time of day, you have to be concerned for them.
How about a national TV moratorium for six to eight weeks of the year? Say in January/February when the weather’s nice? That leaves plenty of time to show all the worthwhile docos and the like, while ensuring people have time out to try other activities.
June 24th, 2006 at 3:30 pm
Medicinal marjiuana isn’t a crock, but I suspect that the bill has pretty much missed the point. Just about everything is listed under schedule 1, and it allows for two year olds to be prescribed cannabis. The number of conditions has to be much shorter, certainly, and allowing under-18’s to legally use it is idiotic.
A Sunday Star Times poll showed that about 40% of those surveyed supported the old Tanczos bill, but it was played down at the election because it might frighten off mainstream voters. 40% sounds like a pretty big chunk of the mainstream to me. This bill allows for pretty much unlimited amounts of cannabis, for people whose mental growth it can quite likely disrupt. Why?
June 26th, 2006 at 9:39 pm
Mouldwarp said: “Also, your objection to cannabis treatment on the grounds that recreational use of the drug is linked to the likes of crime and self-harm is totally spurious.”
Could you explain why Matthew Luamanu is behind bars until 2008 (at least)? Or why Stephen Anderson is committed to a mental organisation for life?
June 28th, 2006 at 4:47 pm
Michael Ellis,
Is it because they were taking cannabis for medicinal purposes? Surely not.
You took issue when I said that “your objection to cannabis treatment on the grounds that recreational use of the drug is linked to the likes of crime and self-harm is totally spurious”
Why is it spurious? Because it’s like saying that alcohol-based medicinal products should be banned because alcohol abuse is responsible for so much violence, or that morphine should be banned because it’s an evil narcotic.
Searching round for instances of harm involving cannabis (and you really do have to search around) gets you nowhere in this case.
July 3rd, 2006 at 3:40 pm
I think you can already buy the Freeview Boxes to receive the free channels already broadcast on Satellite (currently 7 channels) from http://www.freeviewshop.co.nz