Don't trust. Verify

This blog isn't called "Truth Seeker" for nothing. In my life I've found that one makes errors in direct proportion to the extent to which one is prepared to accept as true things that are not true. In an effort to avoid inflicting the consequences of my errors of fact or understanding on myself and others, I do try to see any thing from a variety of perspectives. I then weigh that up against my own values (tested for validity every day if the subject is new and / or there is uncertainty) and arrive at something resembling a conclusion. A provisional decision, valid unless new information invalidates it.

Caveats: Knowledge of anything complex usually isn't perfect. In turn, understanding is limited by the usual 5 senses and the brain (large or small) that has the job of making sense of them. Some do better than others. Some make no effort in either case, knowing little and understanding less. (But they vote anyway. Oh well....)

Already, we can see there is an inbuilt tendency to err based on imperfect knowledge and incomplete or inaccurate understanding and underpinned by motivation - or lack of it - to even try.

With that in mind, I read Matthew Hooten's column ("Labour fighting tooth and nail", 6/4/08 Pg A11) in the Sunday Star Times this weekend. I can't find a link for it.

What caught my eye in the column referred to were several assertions that - to me - appear to be insupportable.

The first was the almost throw-away claim that a fourth Labour term would "accelerate our brain-drain". That surprised me as there have been several recent reports that show the so-called brain drain is a myth. Journalist Nick Smith found the same thing when he looked into the claims there was a brain drain.

It's a hollow claim. My daughter is on an employment contract that says she'll work any time, for any number of hours, with no overtime, as required, if required. For the minimum wage, if she can coax them into paying it. Can you say "powerless"? The 40-hour week is stone, cold dead.

Apparently, this isn't "free" enough for some employers. It's hard to see what more they could ask for in terms of being able to dictate terms of employment. Not at all hard to see why Australia might be more attractive. But it would be the young and low-skilled who are being driven out of New Zealand and this appears to be what the statistics actually show to be happening.

Later, Mr. Hooten refers to "our demand for tax cuts". Who wants tax cuts? A recent NZ Herald-Digipoll showed that tax cuts were an issue for 22% of Kiwis. They made much of this, but I would have thought it more significant that 78% of Kiwis weren't fussed about tax cuts. I'd be among them. My impression is that "demand" for tax cuts has been largely media-driven. I've not seen any poll over several years that showed a level of demand for tax cuts warranting the sort of media campaign we have seen for several years now on the subject.

Hooten then goes on to assert that Labour will employ dirty tricks and speculates rumours will be "invented about hidden agendas and malign foreign influences".

I can't dismiss, as Mr. Hooten does, the clear hunger of some in the National Party for even less worker protections than the few that still exist. Nor can I easily forget the business-as-usual co-ordination with the US-lead Exclusive Brethren in the last election.

These aren't rumours. They are genuine concerns raised by National's own past behaviour.

Hooten then asserts the "economically ruinous effect of Labour's policy agenda". I'm sorry, but every economic indicator I know of indicates that since 1999 the present government has done as well as any government ever has economically and better than almost all others of any era. Low unemployment, solid growth, an open economy, a demonstrated capacity to withstand global downturns through sound local macro-economic management. NZ is ranked as one of the easiest countries on Earth to do business in. We even have a growing fiscal surplus that gives some hope the passing of the Baby Boomer generation into the ranks of the elderly will be fundable.

The summary is I found Mr. Hooten's column to be more misleading than it was informative. But I wouldn't know that if I hadn't actively sought to verify the assertions he made. I'm glad I made the effort. I hope the Sunday Star Times has a negative view of any columnist whose column is found to be full of assertions that don't stand up to scrutiny.