The Sunday News Roast

On the Sunday News Roast tonight at 7pm, Sky Digital 65, Alt Tvs News and weekend newspaper critique show that is Unfair & Unbalanced, THE SPIN STARTS HERE with the best political news team on television with your host, Bomber - head of Current Affairs at Alt Tv, Phoebe Fletcher from the Auckland University Film, Television and media department Blogger Tim Selwyn - the last man to be convicted of sedition in NZ and Ben Thomas the Political Editor of the NBR.

Week that was

The great communicator – Minister of Health Cuts, Tony Ryall setting unrealistic new limits for hospital waiting times with no extra funding so that the hospitals fail those standards so Tony can claim we need help from the private sector and start the health privatization agenda. The only difference between the National Party Health policy Mallard leaked and the version National released was the 20 new clinics National intended to build, Private Public Partnerships in health by building 20 clinics for the private health industry anyone?

Local Government Forum latest report this week is proposing a mass privatization of local council assets, here’s a line from it – “The benefits of reading a book are largely enjoyed by the borrower, not by other people. Alternatives to public libraries, such as bookstores, second-hand book shops and DVD and video stores, illustrate the point that similar services can be provided privately”. Is it any surprise that the genially named Local Government Forum is comprised of Business NZ, the Electricity Networks Association, Federated Farmers, the Business Roundtable, Chambers of Commerce and the New Zealand Retailers Association. With Rodney the Razor as the Minster for Local Government Privatization by stealth, I wonder if he will be following his buddies advice?

News this week that Treasury have presented the new Government with some extreme free market options and Bill English says he’s unimpressed from the yet to be released report. Treasury with their free market zealots and late night Adam Smith rituals where they weekly sacrifice a virgin in Accounting to appease the economic gods, always try it on with a new Government and present Chicago school of economics wet dream privatization fantasies as policy suggestions. The question has always been, will National resist the sirens from their own philosophical fold because resisting Treasury when they are telling you things you secretly want to go along with but know would be politically unsustainable is a game National will find difficult with ACT clearly pushing for those results with major changes like TABOR.

News this week that Lincoln scientists have been given approval to continue their controversial experiments on genetically engineered (GE) crops. Saftey measures include laboratory-bred fly pupae with special double-layered cages all to prevent any of the Genetically Engineered crop from escaping into the environment and the reason for it? So the crop can be genetically resistant to massive doses of pesticide so that farmers can drench crops in pesticides to the levels necessary to kill all the pesticide resistant weeds. All that research with the possible threat of releasing this unintentionally so that the makers of pesticides can drown crops in chemicals when we have organic options looks desperately like a corporate solution looking for a corporate problem.

John Key on his trip overseas gushing that it was great meeting George W Bush, because George is famous and Gerry Brownlee after leading the charge against the Nanny State stormtroopers from the HelenGrad Dykocracy kicking your door in to force power saving lightbulbs down your throat campaign has quietly pointed out he won’t be changing them, reminding us the Nanny state stuff was always bullshit.

In the Weekend Newspapers
STORY 1 – Experts at a loss to explain Airbus tragedy sst
EFFORTS TO explain the mystery crash of the Air New Zealand Airbus in France may take months as experts rule out the most likely causes for its abrupt plunge into the Mediterranean Sea. Air New Zealand chief executive Rob Fyfe is due in Perpignan today with a support crew and relatives of one of the five New Zealanders killed, vowing to "bring our team home".

Air NZ crash: Hero crew sacrificed lives to save town - HOS
The crew of Air New Zealand's doomed Airbus jet were last night being hailed as heroes - a witness believes they saved dozens of lives by crashing the plane into the sea to avoid a small French town.
Sunday Star Times goes with the mystery of the crash while HOS does the hero sacrifice line based on the info from one witness. 29 years to the day Air NZ suffers another tragedy – most impressed with Rob Fyfe’s leadership so far on this issue. Has the media done an appropriate job covering the story?

STORY 2 – India, Pakistan simmer over Mumbai attacks – sst
Indian accusations of a Pakistani link to the attacks on Mumbai that killed nearly 200 people threaten to damage attempts to improve ties between the rivals.
I think what is more important than who actually carried these attacks out is who India decide to blame for it. Pakistan's recent and rapid destabilization has allowed extremists to operate there and project into Afghanistan and the fear now is that has also been widened to India. If India blames Pakistan because they believe it, or because they wish to take focus away from domestic religious tensions that will become exacerbated by the oncoming global economic meltdown, they will find a fan in America, who have become increasingly hawkish towards Pakistan with their current drone assisted assassination campaign that is so effectively killing dozens of innocent Pakistani civilians and turning the population against the west-leaning government. Who India blame will be crucial.

STORY 3 – No on-air apology for Noelle McCarthy's cut-and-paste essays- sst
IRISH BROADCASTER Noelle McCarthy is off air until Boxing Day, with no public apology to Radio New Zealand listeners for her unattributed use of other journalists' work.
Kim Knights hate campaign against Noelle McCarthy continues this week as Kim proclaims Noelle as an ‘Irish’ broadcaster in the same way Millie Eldar always gets called the ‘adopted’ daughter of Paul Holmes whenever she’s up on drugs charges. I am really stunned by the sheer venom so many have spat at Noelle on different blog sites, it’s become some sort of Oprah on meth venting session. It’s odd because the exact same vitriol was heaped on Oliver Driver’s appointment to Sunrise and Driver has ended up doubling the ratings AND has asked the hardest questions in the current affairs spehere over the elections. It’s not so much tall poppies syndrome as poppies on stilts amongst a sea of 3 foot angry bloodthirsty dwarves with baseball bats. I don’t think Noelle was purposely plagiarizing any more than anyone of us do day in day out as we discuss the news of the day, which is what she does. Now of course you have to acknowledge where things come from, and she will be much more careful of that in future, but to try and have her publicly flogged for the grossest of intellectual dishonesties is just ludicrous, give the girl a break and go hunt down your next media victim, why the hell don’t the public do something useful and crucify Garth George, for the love of God, hasn’t he earned it yet?

FINAL WORD – Look at the way NationalACT are pushing through changes in bail and parole, by misusing the power of Urgency, no discussion, no debate on such a radical change to our bail and parole laws from “real or substantial risk” to any risk at all – you would need to go back to 1998 to see another example of a misuse of urgency and prior to that you need to go back to Rodger Douglas, who surprise surprise just happens to be back in parliament. If the debate is so clear cut why will NationalACT hijack the power of urgency and misuse it to stifle and shut down any dissenting opinion on such a fundamental change, a change that will see our prison population balloon in size – oh and NationalACTs response to this is to import Dick Cheney’s corrupt private prison industry. Let’s be very clear, Private Prisons don’t care about the welfare or rehabilitation of prisoners, they care only for profit and they make their profit through longer and harsher sentences, and remember under NationalACT these prisons will be gulags, forced prison labour where the prisoner gets paid 60cents a day and the company pockets the $12 per hour – they’re vested interests will pervert the prison system in NZ as horrifically as they have done so in America and this is all being rammed through without any discussion while the mainstream media are asleep on holiday.

Let’s be Frank replay tonight, Oliver interviews American Foreign Affairs expert Paul Buchanan on the challenges confronting Obama and what effect his election will actually have on foreign affairs.

That’s this weeks Sunday News Roast – unfair and unbalanced, the spin starts here with the best political team on television, stay classy Alt-eroa, here’s this weeks moment of media zen