Since John Campbell joined Breakfast on TVNZ, I haven’t watched The AM Show.
It’s been glorious.
TVNZ Breakfast with John is the best public broadcasting on TV, it is smart, intelligent, warm, funny – every single morning I feel like I have learnt something and seen real insight.
When I watched the The AM Show every morning, I was always left exhausted by the moronic bullshit spouted, it’s the intellectual equivalent to having a mince pie washed down with a can of coke for breakfast, a sugar high that leaves you angry and tired.
So I’ve simply changed my morning news diet and I’m a better human being, better neighbour and a better father for it, however this morning I had accidentally left my TV on 3 from the night before and stumbled onto the AM Show this morning.
The debate was Garner’s favourite bugbear, smoking in cars with children. He’s been pushing for a bullshit law to fine parents money for smoking in cars with children for ages and this stupid brainfart has apparently made it all the way up the foodchain to actually be considered in Parliament.
Now anyone with a basic education and reading skills can automatically see how this will be just another stick to beat the shit of Māori with. Māori women are the biggest smokers, punishing them with $50 fines will simply become the new go to harassment policy by cops, which is fine by Duncs who screams ‘something must be done’ but he had his arse handed to him by a researcher who eloquently took down every single one of his claims in an interview that is so embarrassing one wonders who the hell is the Producer of The AM Show and why hadn’t they informed Duncs that his crusade was so stupid in the first place?
65% of Māori offenders have a driving offence as part of their initial jail sentence and about 5% of jail sentences are just for driving without a license. Criminalising smoking in the car will target Māori women and it will lead to fines, people unable to pay the fines, penalties added and eventually imprisonment.
Your first job as a Producer is to ensure your host doesn’t make a fool of themselves, The AM Show Producer failed horribly at that this morning.
It was a trainwreck of an interview and simply exposed Duncs desire to punish masquerading as ‘won’t someone think of the kids’ style morality.
Thank God for Breakfast on TVNZ because I threw up what The AM Show was offering.
There is a way to make The AM Show work now it’s fighting a broadcaster of the class of Campbell, but sweet Jesus it isn’t what Garner’s doing. Currently, The AM Show is like getting a concussion before work each day.
UPDATE: So it turns out that the researcher involved in this debate actually gets a revenue stream from the fucking tobacco industry. Worse than that she is a friend of Carrick Graham who was deeply involved with Slater in funding dirty politics attacks against health academics. I have no time for the tobacco industry, as far as I am concerned they are the enemy of humanity, but I stand by all my above criticism and believe that criminalising smoking in cars will simply be an attack against the largest group in this demographic, young Māori mothers and I stand by my criticism that this will end up being another discriminatory policy.
The sooner Maori stop smoking the sooner they will live longer and have more money in their pockets. Kids shouldn’t be exposed to second hand smoke and it should not be allowed. We all have to wear seatbelt, now it is time that smoking in vehicles is outlawed.
This has got to be the dumbist policy ever our Maori people will get picked up by the racist nz police and I can see the potential for brawls dumb dumb dumb at a time when we are trying to reduce prison numbers we have dumb ill thought out policy like this.
I had to endure second hand smoke growing up and now have respiratory problems I did not ask for. I myself never smoked and never will. I would not dream of smoking around my child, even if I did smoke and I’d go off like a rocket at anyone who got into a car with her and lit up.
I don’t think this is a poor idea but to my mind a better one is to outright ban cigarettes (with treatment centers in place to gradually wean off those addicted). They have damaged the health of numerous people including my parents. Time they were consigned to the ashtray of history.
Tobacco and crime go hand in hand.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/115156008/robbed-christchurch-liquor-store-wont-sell-cigarettes-after-violent-robberies
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/115014183/cigarette-smuggling-case-defendants-keep-names-secret-to-protect-children-employees
Garner has shit for brains IMHO ?
Ngungukai Sometimes Garner does get it right. He was one of the few public figures who openly supported Sue Bradford’s anti-smacking bill and had the guts to explain why, when some media people still won’t shut up about it, and Sue Bradford is still viciously persecuted by various right-wing extremists.
Garner saw the big picture, which is that Bradford’s bill got the message out that violence towards children is unacceptable.
Bradford-haters leap around like lunatics arguing about defenses being already available under criminal law, missing sight of the fact that NZ’ers are world leaders in battering and murdering our most precious taonga, our tamariki. Garner was on the right side of history on this one, the side of the children.
Maybe we just need to put all the professional persuasion aside and just look at the issue. Is tobacco smoke bad for us? The evidence says yes. Does exposing children to it in a closed environment harm their health? Again, the evidence says yes. Do we want people to avoid smoking around children (and other non-smokers), yes. Just like we want pregnant women to avoid alcohol, and we want everyone to avoid recreational use of opioids.
But is legal sanctions (whether fines or criminal charges) an effective way to change people’s drug use behaviour? The weight of evidence says no. Legal threats don’t significantly affect the decisions people make about drug use. It just adds to the drug-related harms by creating a second layer of prohibition-related harms; impoverishment, persecution, prison, and so on.
What if we fined the tobacco company whose cigarettes were being smoked with children in the car, instead of the unfortunate parent whose stressed and addicted metabolism won’t let them wait for a more appropriate time for a fix? Then I guarantee you the tobacco industry would fund highly effective PR campaigns to stamp out the practice.
If anyone hasn’t seen ‘Thank You For Smoking’, I highly recommend it as a satirical expose of how corporate PR works. Activists, journalists, academics, and other public interest advocates often seem to think that just being sincere and having the facts on our side is enough. But we’re up against professional illusionists, masters at manipulating what people see and what conclusions it leads them to, who always turn up well prepared. We need to figure out ways to make corporations redeploy this persuasive machinery to work in the public interest, even against their own short-term financial interests.
HOW can trying to protect children be called racist. A bad parent is a bad parent no matter what the skin colour is . If a fine of $50 cannot be afforded what are they doing spending $30 on a packet of 20 of these death sticks.
Addicts, Trev. One of the sneaky damn things done under the Key govt, was the privatization by stealth of various health services. The Quit Line was one of them. It is now run by some group of PHO’s who wouldn’t be doing it if there wasn’t money in it for them, and the whole service seems to have gone downhill compared to what it was. I know. I’ve used it under both its different umbrellas, but I wouldn’t now – the whole ethos has changed, and one local quitter I know has felt emotionally threatened by them.
I don’t know how researchers using smoking to bash Maori do their research or assemble their stats, but at the time I first started quitting, the biggest single group of smokers identified in NZ were nurses and doctors’ wives. It’s a bit like battered spouse syndrome always being dumped on Maori when it is just as prevalent among Pakeha of all ilk, as the Women’s Refuges well know.
Meantime, here’s hoping that Tariana Turia’s previous suggestion of motorists tooting at fellow drivers who they see smoking never comes to fruition, or it could lead to more mayhem on the roads.
I haven’t watched any TV3 program since I would say January 2019 when my tv aerial had a wobbly and all I get is TVNZ. Yes I am one of those old fashioned souls that still use a tv aerial.
I don’t miss the lack of access to TV3. In fact since John Campbell is on Breakfast(TV One)I religiously keep to that channel unless the idiots like Simon Bridges, Paula Bennett etc appears and then the remote control has proven to be such a handy item in the house-hold. The Breakfast Team on TV One are so enjoyable to watch and listen to because they have such amazing opinions.
TV3 is ruined by Garner and Richardson. But like I have said I haven’t watched a TV3 program since the beginning of this year.
However of late this thought has crossed my mind in regards to what I will call the mainstream NZ media. Most of the media outlets in New Zealand have had financial difficulties over the past so many years. Most have had to approach the government of the day for NZ Taxpayer funded bail outs. I am now of the firm opinion that whilst say TV3 and its associated TV channels required a NZ taxpayer funded bail out that the National government of the time made this request(that they probably said to other media outlets that also required taxpayer funded bail outs to keep afloat) “We(the National government)will give you the money on the condition you weed out those journalists and news teams that question the National government and replace those professional journalists with our(the NZ National Party)sanctioned ‘journos’ in their place….” And so what we have today in the mainstream NZ media are National Party siding lapdogs like Garner, Richardson, Hosking, Hawkesby, Roughan, Young, Sloper(and his wife), etc.etc.etc….. All these Village Idiots(the National Party journo team) do is spread incorrect and often false information through-out the “News” whilst being paid probably huge incomes for spreading bullshit and lies.
I don’t bother listening to let alot reading any of the articles from the aforementioned ‘journos’ because they truly do not merit being read let alone considered.
And so whatever Garner or anyone else in TV3 says I am so glad I don’t get that tv station anymore. I used to respect and admire it but those days are now so long gone. It’s a shadow of its former self. It’s the mouthpiece of the NZ National Party through and through.
Duncan is one of the producers of the am show Martyn.
I thought Duncan Garner’s (previous) success as a broadcaster was in his ability to simplify issues so ordinary punters could respond what he said. Smoking in cars we all agree is pernicious for children. I have a problem with him being labelled racist for his stance on this when his ex-wife is Maori and his two daughters are part Maori. I assume this gives him an insight into taha Maori. Be interesting to see what his highly intelligent ex-wife has to say about that.
Comments are closed.