KEY POINTS:
What a surprise it was coming home to positive headlines - gold medals, silver and bronze medals, we beat the Springboks. Then again, this was all sports-related and it didn't take long for negativity to rear its ugly head.
The Boobs on Bikes parade, you'd be forgiven for
thinking, would destroy the very fabric of society. As casually as you'd recommend a good fishing hole, a member of the Mongrel Mob calls an area in Wairarapa, near where I live, "the most evil valley in New Zealand, it is where you kill your kids".
An estimated 90 per cent of sexual offences go unreported.
Neighbours complained, successfully, to noise control because a kindergarten played kiddies' songs too loudly. Good old Godzone.
I left the country just as news was breaking about donations to NZ First, and I returned to find this loop still playing. The Dominion Post seems to be obsessed, and there's nothing wrong with that, although I do wonder why they don't shine the spotlight on other political parties, and compare funding structures of all.
I don't know about Labour, National, the Greens or the Maori Party but I did know a little about Act's funding (although the board kept most donors secret from MPs).
Winston Peters' allegations in the House at question time on July 31 were well-known. Sir Robert Jones, for several years, provided a rent-free office to Act, and it probably was worth, as Peters claimed, about $20,000 a year.
What Peters didn't know was when Act moved out and Sir Robert had to spend a couple of thousand dollars making it rentable again, he was told by an Act board member to send the bill to Parliamentary Services so the taxpayers could pay.
Act did have a separate Asian Chapter into whose coffers many thousands of dollars were poured. I remember going to a fundraising dinner at a Chinese restaurant in Pakuranga, and an Asian property developer from Remuera paid about $20,000 for a signed photograph of Richard Prebble.
Most of the throng attending this dinner paid to sign up to the Asian Chapter, then when Act took Donna Awatere-Huata to the Supreme Court to have her expelled from Parliament, the Asian Chapter was pressured to pay the legal bills because their candidate, Kenneth Wang, was next on the list.
That's how political parties operate. Every MP spends much of their time trying to raise funds for the party - what do reporters want? Taxpayers forced to fully fund political campaigns? There's nothing sinister in Act's fundraising, nor in National's secret trusts, nor Labour's hoovering up union fees, but if you sexed it up and put Phil Kitchin's byline on it you could make it look suspicious.
Do the public really care about these issues as much as the political media estimate? As a small child I wanted to be a journalist more than anything in the world. When my parents drove past the Hawke's Bay Herald Tribune building in Hastings, I used to look at it and picture myself in there one day, living my dream.
Today when I'm with friends I seem to spend a lot of time defending "the bloody media", trying to point out they're not all silly. But when I hear about senior media people gleefully playing the secret tape-recording of Bill English's cocktail chatter at National's conference as "National's secret agenda", I despair at this creeping unprofessionalism.
It's no excuse the tape was "leaked" - the principles of the Broadcasting Act state if someone's opinions are to be recorded for possible broadcast they must be informed of the fact.
Recently a reporter contacted me wanting confirmation of rumours concerning the personal life of a Cabinet minister. If published, the information - decades old - would not harm his ability to man his portfolio, but would harm his children. It was a scurrilous investigation and disgusting invasion of privacy.
In Australia last week, an outcry greeted recommendations from the Australian Law Reform Commission that people be given the right to sue for invasion of privacy.
As Nine Network News' head remarked, those with the most to hide will escape exposure, and certainly there are times when exposure of hypocrisy, lies, fraud and criminal activity is in the public interest. But it's obvious certain members of the media, at least in this country, are inviting such laws to be passed here.
There's a vast difference between private information being in the public interest, and the public's interest in private information. If we don't revisit that ethic, our own Law Commission will apply the brakes for us.
