Cycling safety

 photo: www.NZHerald.co.nz - photographer Steven McNicoll

There has been a spate of car v cyclist deaths and serious injuries in the last week and as a result there is much noise made by various interest groups and the public – as Shakespeare would tell us – full of sound and fury, not necessarily achieving much.

If you look at each of the incidents they all occur in circumstances which conform to previously identified risk factors.  Although most cycling injuries occur in urban areas, more serious accidents occur on open roads where speeds are greater, so you would expect the worst accident to have occurred there – which it did.  Highest rates of accidents in urban areas for adults are during major commuting times – which happened.  Children and teenagers are at worst risk, and we saw both groups injured or killed this weekend.  That it all happened over a short period may simply be a statistical anomaly.  In fact cycling deaths are still way below the 1990 total of 27 killed.

Either party may be responsible for an accident (in serious crash injuries about 25% are cyclists fault, and in 13% there is some fault of the cyclist), but in all cases the consequences for a cyclist are greater, due to their relative instability and much lower protection.  Having said that, statistically, cycling is still a much lower risk than riding a motorcycle.

People have an interesting relationship with driving and their vehicles and most treat it as an extension of their personal space, happily engaging in activities in their vehicles they would otherwise only do in the privacy of their homes.  It is hardly surprising then that we treat apparent obstacles to our progress – such as cyclists – the same way as we would treat a direct marketing call or Jehovah's  Witness visit at dinnertime.   Our reactions to these events reflects our personality.  Motorists get particularly upset when cyclists flout the rules, and although there are cyclists who are arrogant or ignorant, most will tell you they do so because our roads are particularly poorly designed to accommodate cyclists – for instance most traffic lights don't recognise cyclists presence, meaning they will only get a green light if a car happens to be in their lane (imagine how many motorists would go through red lights if the situation was reversed).  The LTSA believe, paradoxically, fewer cycling accidents would happen if there were more cyclists, both through “safety in numbers”, and demand for better road design.  Since the majority of accidents with cyclists happen at intersections, separate cycle lanes can actually increase the risk to cyclists by putting them out of the motorists “zone of observation” until they enter the intersection.

Recent research on happiness placed a figure of nearly 50% as the time our mind wanders from the task we are performing, and around 50% of serious injury accidents between cyclists and motor vehicles where the driver was at fault are due to inattention or diverted attention.  We have a limited ability for “directed attention” - our ability to concentrate despite distractions.  This is a task carried out by the inhibitory attention system, which can become fatigued - unsurprisingly called directed attention fatigue (DAF), with symptoms that include; impatience, forgetfulness, feeling stressed, cranky or distracted; and can lead to bad judgment, apathy, and accidents.  Sound familiar?  Many people have commented on the level of distraction in modern society, so maybe DAF is becoming more prevalent.

So what can be done?  Back in 2003 a town in the Netherlands called Drachten - population 45,000 - looked at this same issue and came to the conclusion that many of the problems were due to the number of rules and directions on the road.  The founder of this philosophy, Hans Monderman said "We're losing our capacity for socially responsible behaviour, ...The greater the number of prescriptions, the more people's sense of personal responsibility dwindles."  Their solution was removing signs, roadmarkings, traffic signals, and blur the distinction between pavement and roadway to force drivers to interact with others rather than comply with “artificial” rules.  These included intersections with over 20,000 traffic movements per day.  By making the road theoretically more dangerous they reduced traffic flow issues, reduced the number of accident injuries and eliminated deaths.  This concept is called “shared space” as it removes the segregation of motor vehicles, pedestrians and other road users.   It has been trialled in a number of cities around the world including some streets in Auckland.

Shared space in Brighton, England (photo from Wikipedia)

Although there are ways of specifically targeting cyclist safety, many of the safety issues are common with other road users, such as poor road design, and lack of knowledge and experience.  Some, such as driving while intoxicated are wider social problems – so there is no simple solution.  The appeal of shared space as one component of a solution comes from a couple of simple messages often forgotten – pay attention! and be nice to one another.

Alcohol abuse

The primary purpose of a liberal education is to make one's mind a pleasant place in which to spend one's leisure.  ~Sydney J. Harris

Alcohol fuelled behaviour is a fairly constant headline provider, whether it is at a sports match, on the road, domestic or late night public binge behaviour.  While everyone seems to agree it’s a problem, there is very little agreement on dealing with the issue.  

Alcohol affects the brain - at low levels alcohol increases the electrical activity in the brain affecting pleasure and euphoria, (working in a similar way to cocaine and amphetamines). It also works on the circuits targeted by drugs such as Valium - easing anxiety and calming, and on the serotonin system in a similar way to Prozac, increasing self-confidence and reducing depression.  In larger quantities though, it interferes with chemical messaging in the brain, affecting coordination, speech and the ability to learn and form memories - which is why people experience "blackouts".  All primates have an affinity for alcohol - monkeys and apes have been observed drunk from naturally occurring fermentation in the wild – based on our shared genetic ability to metabolise alcohol, and people with genes who are more efficient at processing alcohol are also linked to higher rates of usage.  Using this as a basis, we can theorise that modern binge drinking is a “disease of nutritional excess” like obesity, where the beneficial effects of particular foodstuffs in limited supply in the prehistoric environment we evolved in have become mismatched with its availability in the modern environment.

While this physical basis may give us a propensity to consume, using to excess must also involve other factors.  If we continue with our obesity analogy we can perhaps find signs of distorted thinking patterns among heavy drinkers such as; filtering - where you focus on negative details and magnifying them while filtering out all the positive aspects of a situation; personalization - where you think everything people do or say is some kind of reaction to you; control fallacies - feeling externally controlled and seeing yourself as helpless; and blaming - holding yourself or others responsible for every problem.  Distorted thinking can be involved in self harm situations so you may also see behaviour such as suicide in correlation with high alcohol use in some populations.  New Zealand certainly has high rates of both alcohol overuse and suicide.

Being social animals, there are also group dynamics involved with alcohol use.  Drinking patterns vary hugely between cultures, and the cultural heritage for many groups in New Zealand involves binge drinking.  Also present is the deindividuation that can occur within groups – the anonymity found in a group allowing the individual to indulge in forms of behaviour they wouldn’t otherwise engage in.

You may have heard of the Stanford marshmallow experiment; an experiment on self control where young children were left in a room with a marshmallow, and if they didn’t eat it before the experimenter came back, they could have it and another.  Only around a third of the children could wait long enough to get the second marshmallow.  Although the ability to defer gratification changes as we age, an earlier study in Trinidad showed that it was also dependant on social and economic background.  If self control was an issue with alcohol abuse it would be evident where alcohol was more available, and there are a number of studies which link alcohol related behaviours with the density of liquor outlets.

We can use a simple performance model to look at alcohol related behaviour; physical attributes plus motivation plus situational factors leads to behaviour.  There is a genetic basis to alcohol use with more efficient processors more likely to drink, and there are motivational factors – such as distorted thinking in individuals, deindividuation and cultural factors in groups.  Also present are contingent factors such as alcohol availability.  For each individual who exhibits negative alcohol related behaviour there may be a different emphasis e.g. low self control and high availability plus distorted thinking pattern; or genetically efficient, social users.  This may mean there is no one solution to alcohol abuse.   If we go back to the theory expressed above regarding alcohol as a disease of nutritional excess based on its availability, and the research indicating that the contingent factor of geographic availability has a correlation to negative behaviour then it would seem likely that restricting the density of outlets will assist with the dealing with the problem, although not solve it completely.

There is another way of restricting the availability of alcohol, and that’s by age.  If we look at teenagers they are a group that display low ability to defer gratification, a high proportion of distorted thinking patterns and more easily influenced by group behaviour i.e. many of the risk factors for abusive behaviour - so increasing the availability (reducing the contingent factor preventing use) by lowering the legal age doesn’t seem a particularly good decision.

But is there a simple solution?

New Zealand has been named as one of the countries people would most like to migrate to.  The standard of living for almost all of us is pretty good by world standards, so why are we so uncomfortable with ourself that we seek to leave our minds before we consider we are enjoying ourselves? Why don't we appreciate what we have more?

www.dilbert.com

There is a story about a great Buddhist teacher who is lying on his deathbed.  Shortly before he had his final meal; his favourite sweet rice cakes.  His students are gathered around, to hear and record his final words – such a great teacher will undoubtably say something particularly profound.  Finally he speaks and they lean forward eager to hear – “My” he said, “they were particularly good rice cakes” - and then he died.  When we get to the point of appreciating such simple everyday things in our lives, then the issue of alcohol abuse will surely go away.

Defense White Paper

photo: Navy Today

The Government has issued a white paper on the future of our defense forces.  Never in human history has the military technology developed so quickly or the cost of deploying it escalated so much.  The United States military have had to scale back or cancel many of their acquisition programmes for the most sophisticated weapons – such as their new jets.  Even new equipment which would save lives can be subject to budget considerations.  Traditional enemies (at least if you believe Yes Minister) Britain and France have just signed a 50 year agreement that will them to share their military resources, such as aircraft carriers, in order to save costs.  In all their cases purchase of equipment serves also to support their military research and production industries, which in turn provide their country with export earnings.  Even Australia has a defense industry, but for New Zealand the purchase of equipment provides little or no economic benefit – we've even outsourced our uniform purchase to China.

One of the major arguments being used against the continuance of 'business as usual' for the military is the current spate of asymmetric conflicts; terrorists (or freedom fighters depending on which side of the particular conflict you are spinning), cyber terrorists, and other irregular forces who won't put on a uniform and play by the rules.  Their impact in the news media has overshadowed the conventional conflicts that have taken place, both the initial invasion of Iraq (and of course the first Iraq war post Kuwait invasion), and the Russian invasion of Georgia.  The cessation of conventional warfare has been predicted before – after the 'war to end all wars' in 1918 much of Europe wound down their research, manufacture, and deployment of their military, and found it difficult to scale up to successfully defeat Hitler – impossible perhaps except for the intercession of an outside party.  The sophistication of modern conventional warfare puts this sort of escalation over a short period even less achievable.

Georgia particularly demonstrated one important aspect of modern warfare – even if your force is well equipped, if you can't field an integrated force that covers all aspects of operations (e.g. air cover for your ground forces), you will fail.   For a small country such as New Zealand, where the operational costs of even Vietnam era aircraft was prohibitive, let alone the cost of purchase and maintenance of modern equipment, this does present a problem. Even if you can afford it, as the USA is finding out, being able to sustain it for an extended period is also prohibitive.  If you ignore the furor over the mothballing of the expensive to run and totally ineffective Skyhawks, the military did quite well out of the previous government.  The airforce is replacing its Vietnam era helicopters for up to date ones and it acquired transport aircraft which can fly in commercial airspace.  The navy gained the ability to mount a limited expeditionary force, as well as significantly more ability to patrol New Zealand waters.  The army gained new infantry combat vehicles, modern communications equipment and a guidance system for its anti aircraft missiles.  Still not nearly enough though to independently mount a conventional war – or even defense of our own country.

The white paper recognises this by calling for interoperability with our allies – effectively becoming a limited resource within a larger force.  This makes good operational sense if you can't afford to do it yourself – and if Britain and France can't afford it, we certainly can't.  Militarily supporting other countries is also a good introduction for other aspects of a relationship -free trade agreements for instance - so it's also good foreign policy. 

US Coastguard helicopter operates off HMNZS Te Kaha during an exercise

The paper also categorizes other types of operation our military would be involved in and how it would achieve it.  It was disappointing that perhaps some ideas weren't explored enough.  Resource protection and other interception duties might better be done by a Coast Guard type service.  Surveillance might be better done through UAV's.  A joint rapid response force with Australia wasn't explored.  Counter terrorism might better be dealt with by a paramilitary force within the Police rather than an offshoot of the SAS.  Before the advent of firearms, Great Britain required its adult men to put a certain amount of time aside for archery practice – golf notwithstanding, and was able to field a fearsome and effective force at short notice.  Would it be more cost effective to expand the territorial army and reduce the size of our regular forces?

So why do we have a military force at all?  The origin of human warfare is still a topic debated by scientists and philosophers, but it is possibly a hand down from our common ancestor with the other hominids.  The aggressive acquisition of territory and resources appears to be common right through history and across all cultures, or at least all the successful ones who got to write the history.  Having said that, the requirement to have an actual army, navy and airforce shouldn't be taken as a given.  New Zealand is isolated geographically, and there are examples of less isolated countries which don't have them; Costa Rica for example eliminated its army after a particularly bloody coup and has since become one of the most stable democracies in South America (Fiji take note).  The level of health care and high rate of literacy is a testament to the good you can do with the money you save.

Modern conflicts seem irrational.  I can understand the Allied response to Hitler.  I don't understand the mindset of a suicide bomber and I don't understand the mindset of a President or Prime Minister who would lie to their citizens to justify military action, or consider water-boarding acceptable.  Religion, tribalism, nationalism, intolerance, racism, hate and hubris define modern conflicts.  How do you combat this without it costing life?

Another reason for the unease I feel when thinking about this subject has nothing to do with strategic decisions about the mix of our forces, but the removal of a major brake on our engaging in conflict.   Desmond Morris suggested a reason for our hesitancy to engage in face to face conflict;

“Every time one individual launches a physical attack on the body of another, there is a risk that both may suffer injury.  No matter how dominant the attacker may be, he has no guarantee of escaping unscathed.  His opponent, even if weaker, may be driven into a desperate frenzy of wild defensive actions, any one of which could inflict lasting damage.”

Of course, we've graduated to weapons which reduce this possibility but there is still the potential to die in conflict, and before sending in troops, leaders have to factor in the response to casualties in relation to the perceived gain e.g. attacking Iraq rather than another “axis of evil” power such as North Korea.  This remoteness was a major criticism to IBM's, but the potential response to such wanton destruction proved (so far) to be an adequate deterrent.  The next generation of weapons allows us to wage war without risking our troops, or causing massive indiscriminate damage, from a distance – “precision” guided weapons and cruise missiles have been joined by armed UAV's, remote controlled vessels and combat vehicles, which are now developing autonomous capabilities.  Where is the deterrent to our using them - and do we want to be part of that?

I guess the final argument on why it's necessary for us to maintain our military must belong to a wildly out of context misquoting of Ben Elton; if Albert Einstein was mugged in a dark alley, who would win - Albert or the mugger? It doesn't matter how sophisticated or civilised your society, or how idealistic your beliefs, in an irrational world sometimes you need to be pragmatic in your idealism and carry a big stick.

MP's "travel perks"

Managers can do anything they wanted, provided they would be happy to see the decision reported in the next day’s newspaper, and would be comfortable explaining their decision to their mothers.
NZ businessman as quoted in Human Resources Management in New Zealand (Rudman, R)

Dr Lockwood Smith

Speaker of the House Dr Lockwood Smith seemed to be quite comfortable with his decision to keep “travel perks” for MPs secret, although many people won’t necessarily agree with it.  We may feel uncomfortable with it on a gut level, but does the decision not just fail the smell test but also a more thorough analysis as well?

MPs' pay rates and benefits are set by the Remuneration Authority, which tries to determine the appropriate level of remuneration for senior civil servants, the Judiciary and MP's.  Most private companies use similar services to find the “market rate” when negotiating pay rates for their senior executives.  Usually this involves finding a total dollar value for the position - the total remuneration - and allowing the employee to choose the cash and benefit mix, up to that value; this commonly includes private use motor vehicles, superannuation and medical insurance.  These salary options often have a direct benefit to the employees family as well as the employee. 

For MP's $9600 per year of their total remuneration package goes towards reimbursement for international travel.  Although this commences from their start, the benefit isn't available until they have served 3 years.  Adding to the complexity, the proportion of international travel that is reimbursed is determined by the length of service, starting at 25% after three years and rising to 90% after 12, and there is no 'total pool' of all the contributions over the years – essential it is a pay as you go scheme with new members subsidising longer serving MP's.

Dr Smith argues that taxpayers actually gain from this scheme; because less money is reimbursed from the scheme that would have be paid directly to them as salary  (in 2009/10 it was $432,989 paid from $1,176,812 salary sacrificed), and as the balance isn't carried over each year, there is a direct saving in salary costs.

Other than it's complexity, the benefit isn't that different from those available from private companies; there's swings and roundabouts with some people benefiting more than they put in a particular year and some less (you see this often with private use vehicles – some people thrash the privilege, and you wonder based on their usage why some bother with the benefit), there is some private benefit to members families, and it forms part of the total remuneration.

MPs' have a very high rate of marriage failure - although whether this entirely due to the stress, long hours and public exposure of the job or partly a correlation due to the personality of someone who chooses to enter Parliament; so allowing their families to use this benefit may be a good thing.  Dr Smith suggesting that it's good for Parliament seems rather a generalisation and much harder to demonstrate.

So if it saves money, is good for MP's, and doesn't differ from common private practice, what's the issue?

Part of the blame must lie with the news media who insist on reporting it as a “travel perk”, when in fact it isn't free, but has been paid for.  This description is both emotive and untrue.

One of Dr Smiths arguments is based on the principle that if it was paid as cash we wouldn't know (or care) how it was spent, so MP's have the right to keep it private, but that somewhat misses the point.  The scheme does have the potential for abuse and based on the occasional previous misuse of public money, MPs' are difficult to trust - and for Dr Smith to suggest he will police it on our behalf is a who watches the Watchman argument, especially as he also benefits from the scheme.  The argument that since it is taken from total remuneration it not therefore paid by the taxpayer is also misleading – all MP's salaries are paid by the taxpayer however they are made up, making us not just stakeholders but shareholders in the system – and with a feeling that we have a right to know how our money is spent, whether that belief is correct or not.

MP's also sometimes bring it upon themselves by their representation of themselves as being just like us when seeking election – an everyman for everybody.  In many respects New Zealand is a very egalitarian country; our power distance - the amount we accept an unequal distribution of power - is very low.  Our inbuilt sense of distributive justice means we feel they should receive similar benefits as ourselves based on that similarity – and this isn't a similar benefit to what most of us receive.  In reality the burden, the workload, and the consequences of their actions are hugely dissimilar to our jobs, and their compensation should reflect that.

We are a very ethical country – in fact we top the world rankings for being corruption free.  This is the crux of the matter, our gut feeling that the secrecy is an ethical issue.  It can be hard to judge MP's job performance, but we can judge whether they do the right thing.  For all the benefits of the scheme and the logic of Dr Smith's arguments, ethics isn't just about doing the right thing, it’s also about being seen to do the right thing.

Te Papa Taonga Collection health hazard

Te Papa (image from www.cato.co.nz)

Te Papa caused controversy recently by suggesting that pregnant and menstruating women avoid the tour of their Maori Taonga.  Interesting was the suggestion that there was a risk of miscarriage due to the power they contain.  So is there a genuine health hazard?

Diaconis and Mostellers’ Law of Truly Large Numbers say that for a large enough sample, any unlikely thing is likely to happen, and further suggested that we notice unlikely events more than we notice likely events.  Without going into details with the maths, as an example, in a situation where something has a .1% chance of happening, if the situation is repeated a thousand times, the chances of it happening at least once rises to 63.2%, and if the situation is repeated 10,000 times, it will happen at least once with a chance of over 99.9%, i.e. it’s more likely to happen than not.  In recent months we’ve seen news reports both of someone winning the lottery twice, and a repeat of the same winning lottery numbers in relatively quick succession – good examples of both parts of this law in action.

If two things happen together does this mean that one causes the other?  Hobbes has suggested that for much of human history, life has been “brutish, short and nasty”, and in that sort of environment it certainly makes good survival sense for us to overestimate the connection between events – with less significant consequence, than failing to notice a real connection.  Particularly in emotionally heightened situations, where we search for meaning, we are programmed to overestimate the chances of a correlation or simple coincidence being due to causation.

Also in emotional situations, and where there are established beliefs, we are more likely to display a conformational bias; we look for evidence and recall information from memory selectively, and interpret it in a biased way.

So there’s been a good historical chance of miscarriage coincidentally after expose to taonga; we are predisposed to interpret this as causation; and we are more likely to remember the event than all the times it didn’t happen.  This would explain the establishment of the belief, but doesn’t answer our original question – can expose to taonga be a health hazard?

To answer that question we can look to the placebo effects evil twin – the nocebo effect.  We’re all familiar with the placebo effect, where an inert substance such as a sugar pill can produce a positive health outcome at greater than statistically average chance.  However, researchers have also found the opposite effect – for example in one study, women who believed that they were prone to heart disease were nearly four times as likely to die from it than women with similar risk factors who didn't hold the same belief.  There are cultural practices – the best know would be voodoo, that exploit the nocebo effect.

So a miscarriage occurring after exposure to taonga may simply be coincidence, or it could be correlative, where the root cause is the belief rather than the exposure itself.  So yes, exposure can be a health hazard: but not from any intrinsic power they contain, but rather from our belief that they do.

The Hobbit dispute

Sir Peter Jackson on the set of the Lord of the Rings

There’s a lot we don’t know about the nature of the dispute between the actors, the movie studio and the Hobbit’s Director. We can however look at the logic of some of the statements made to help us determine the veracity of their claims.

The problems first seemed to surface as an attempt to negotiate a collective agreement covering actors for this film. Notable was the claim that New Zealand actors are independent contractors not employees and therefore were covered by the Commerce Act, not the Employment Relations Act, making a collective negotiation “illegal”.

Not discussed is what makes them independent contractors instead of employees. This is an area that has regularly been before the courts, who have developed a number of tests to help determine the difference – which ask questions such as “who has control of how, where and when the work is done”, “are they required to do the work themselves or can they hire other people to do the work for them” and “who supplies the tools and equipment”. Some jobs have aspects which are consistent with employment for some tests and being a contractor for others. The Appeals Court in the case of Cunningham v TNT Express Worldwide (New Zealand) Ltd, operating under the previous Employment Contracts Act, looked at the “real nature of the relationship” primarily through looking at the intention of the parties as indicated by the nature of the contract they agreed to. Since the Employment Relations Act has come into force, the courts now consider the real nature of the relationship in wider terms with the intention only being one factor, and may decide against the agreement that was signed.

This happened in the Supreme Court decision on Three Foot Six Ltd v Bryson, where the court decided despite the contract and some aspects of the job being like a contractor, Bryson was an employee, although the court noted that the decision was “not to be regarded as affecting the as yet untested status of any other employee in the film industry”. Being stung once, it perhaps isn’t surprising that Sir Peter is keen to establish that actors are independent contractors from the outset. Particularly misleading was the statement that a collective employment agreement couldn’t be negotiated because the work was temporary. The Union, however, appear to have conceded on this point and now have concentrated talking about improving conditions in the “pink book”.

Withdrawal of labour is a well established tactic when negotiating, enshrined (at least for employees) in law – it could be considered one of our “rights”. The main argument against the Union proceeding with this path is the damage it does to the film industry as a whole, loosing future income that benefits other parts of the economy i.e. other people. This was a surprisingly collectivist argument from a right of centre government. Lets look at an analogous situation of rights v economic benefit – could I operate a clothing factory “sweat shop” paying a lower than minimum wage to people in exchange for the economic benefit they bring to me, clothing retailers, and ultimately consumers through lower prices? Surely the concept of a fair day's pay for a fair day's work shouldn’t be negotiable?

Photo: Reuters

So what's a fair day's pay?  We can do a comparison with minimum wages, but in this case we have a better point of comparison.  If you are doing the same job, to the same level of skill as the person next to you, then you shouldn’t be discriminated against because of your race, gender, nationality etc.  Yet that’s exactly what is happening here, between New Zealand and actors of other nationalities.  Unless you want to argue that our actors aren't as good, or as productive, or something  ....

There has been a further development. The suggestion is now that the work will go to England, not Eastern Europe. Since the conditions for actors work in England are greater than were being asked for here, and I can’t imagine other costs are any less, the economic argument against negotiating appear weak.

It has also been argued by the film studio that the action by the Union has cost them economically due to the time delay. This is a movie that has been on hold for some years (mostly due to financing issues with the studio), but it is possible that conditions have changed and this is now true. However, the action has only been for a few days. To organise another location, when work has already begun in this country, could take at least as long as the delay so far. It would appear then, that where the delay is due to the actors the cost is unacceptable, but when the studio makes an equally costly decision that’s OK. The argument, once again, isn’t about economics but seems to be about a principle.

The whole concept of workers accepting less than minimum conditions than they would have as employees; the tax breaks; and the other incentives to bring film work here - in exchange for less well defined economic benefits, looks a lot like the theory of trickle down economics, or as it was called in the US in the 1900’s “horse and sparrow economics”, based on the idea that if you feed a horse enough oats, some will pass through to the road for the sparrows.

Secondary school teacher negotiations

If hard work were such a wonderful thing, surely the rich would have kept it all to themselves. Lane Kirkland

Teaching has surely become more difficult, with assaults by students increasing, more ready access to alcohol at a younger age, and a greater emphasis on student rights over student responsibility.

You can understand teachers being frustrated then when their working conditions, including limiting classroom size, is under threat. If classroom size is a determinant of educational achievement why should teachers need to negotiate it at all – shouldn’t it be a given that the Government would want to get the best possible results for students? When I go to negotiate my pay deal, I look for personal benefits – more holidays, better pay. It looks like teachers are negotiating, and striking over, conditions (such as preparation time, class size) that improve the educational outcomes of students. Surely they should be offered these as tools to help them with their job?

The teachers claims seem to be a mixture of personal benefit (pay increase) and conditions, that, while they make the job easier, are also of benefit to students. The dual outcomes of these claims have been largely lost in government statements, analysis, and comment on the negotiations.

Why I dislike TV1's Breakfast programme

TVNZ Breakfast programme logo

I don’t watch “Breakfast” on TV1, and haven’t done for some time.  Why I dislike the programme can be described using Aristotle’s three pillars of rhetoric;

The first is ethos.  Ethos is about the character of the presenter, how they behave, what they say and how they treat other people.  Making fun of people who are different to you is classic bullying behaviour; suggesting someone who is eminently qualified to hold a job shouldn’t have it because of their skin colour and name is simply racism; and having a middle aged man making salacious comments about younger females they find attractive is just offensive and disturbing.  Once upon a time our presenters were epitomes of gravitas, they represented how we are at our best, not our most base.

The second is logos.  I’ve probably misquoted, and I’m afraid I can’t name the source, but someone recently referred to forming an opinion based on the facts, instead of passing off opinion as fact.  The stories presented in which I had some background knowledge confirmed my belief that research and analysis – gathering the facts, forming an opinion based on fact -were not high priorities for this programme.  Research seemed to be obtaining comment from a couple of people and then editing to present a predetermined point of view (the bias being deduced from the nature of the questions).  Contrast and conflict were valued over the development of argument or analysis.  The best of our news media has created worthwhile, constructive debate; promulgated ideas, and given a voice to people who couldn’t otherwise speak for themselves.  Creating controversy shouldn’t be the end goal for the news media, it should only be a by-product of making us better informed.

The last is pathos, the appeal to our emotions.  In the absence of the above two, Breakfast relied heavily on this method of persuasion.  It aimed to bypass the forebrain and imprint itself directly on the amygdala.  Pathos is the main delivery method used in advertising, and in a sense Breakfast became an extended advertisement, where the product being sold was the programme and its presenters.  It is hardly surprising that it has high ratings: adverts are designed to appeal to us and “sell”.

That the foremost exponent of this presentation style has come to an ignominious end is in some ways quite sad.  Although his nature helped shape the end product, he existed in an environment which allowed it to happen, encouraged and amplified it, rather than controlled and moderated it.  He paid the price of many peoples failings, at TVNZ, and of the higher value we place on entertainment over information.  We used to refer to “bread and circuses” as a superficial means of appeasing the masses.  But bread has some substance and with Breakfast there was none.  In the end, all we were left with was the circus.

On arming the Police

Armed NZ Police make an arrest - photo from www.stuff.co.nz

Watching Detective Inspector Mark Benefield show a strong emotional response -twice- while making press statements regarding the Carmen Thomas murder enquiry I was struck with how far we are from our stereotyped model of detection; from the cold calculation machine that was Sherlock Holmes, through the “just the facts ma’am” of Joe Friday, and the cool science discipline of CSI.  Justice is supposed to be blind, with decisions made only on the facts: not the beliefs, prejudices, and emotions of the participants.  We have expected our police to conduct their enquiries in the same manner - to ensure that there is no bias.

This may seem to be an insignificant detail, but it came at the same time as the Police Minister announced that police would have more routine access to firearms while on duty – assuring us that “law abiding citizens will have nothing to fear”.  Unless of course they find themselves at the wrong time and in the wrong place, confronted by an Officer responding with heightened emotions instead of analytically.  The Ministers argument only holds water if Police Officers never make mistakes, but to be human is to be fallible, and to be emotionally engaged only increases that potential.

I am neither arguing for or against the arming of police.  I do however have an issue with how the argument and policy have developed.  Only in July last year there was an announcement  that training in firearms would be reduced within certain groups of Officers, largely because of costs.  It looks like these Officers will now be armed – and are less well prepared for it than they were a year ago.  Unstated was whether the training will be returned, and if so where the previously unaffordable concomitant costs will be met from.

The Police Association at the time referred to the fact that criminals were already armed to protect their property and against other criminals, and that police were often “collateral damage” , i.e. outside of the engagements such as warrant execution where there is already discretion about whether to carry firearms, the assaults on police which would require the use of weapons is unpredictable and opportunistic.  In that case would having the weapons stored in the car help?  We haven’t seen any analysis of how many of the Police Officers killed on duty would have been saved by a weapon in their car, and outside of foot pursuits or traffic stops where the officer proceeds with weapon drawn what they hope can be achieved.  It looks very much like the plan is to “baby step” our way towards fully armed police, using single incidents where each current policy fails as a catalyst to move public opinion and political will further down the path.

There is a danger that once a tool is introduced the carefully worded purpose will fall by the operational wayside.  Only in May 2009 The Minister said;

"I would much rather have the police able to be armed with Tasers than firearms."

It would seem they now have their cake having eaten it as well.