News briefs

JUNE 2009

Interested public to get in on act
NEW ZEALAND: Help is at hand for community groups, local councillors and others who needs to understand the ramifications of the updated Local Government Act.  Local Government New Zealand has introduced a “good, practical general guide to the act, suitable for anyone with an interest in how local government works”, according to acting Chief Executive Kinsley Sampson.  The organisation had already produced several publications and training resources for local-body staff, covering rating, governance and other key aspects of the new legislation, but were now thinking of the public’s needs.  The guide costs $40 and is available from LGNZ, PO Box 1214, Wellington.
 

Referendum move smacks of ambiguity
NEW ZEALAND: First we had a plan for a citizen-initiated referendum on the already passed anti-smacking legislation — at a cost (to the taxpayer) of $9 million.  Then both Prime Minister John Key and Opposition leader Phil Goff criticised the wording as unclear, overly complex and misleading.  So Green MP Sue Bradford, who had introduced the legislation in the first place, proposed a new bill to prevent confusing and ambiguous referendum questions.  Meanwhile, the the legal fraternity, in various newspaper columns and letters to editors, has called for a full review of the Citizens Initiated Referenda Act.  Reading between the lines, they seem to want more details and nuances introduced — presumably to keep the great unwashed public out of weighty legal matters.
 

Federal bodies true to form
UNITED STATES: New legislation will require all federal agencies to use plain English in widely available official forms.  The bill was the brainchild of the quaintly named House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.  It included several amendments to guide government departments (such as the Internal Revenue Service, Social Security and Medicare) in making the changes.
 

Poor spelling, grammar hurt prospects
UNITED KINGDOM: Job-seekers risk missing out on vacancies through “poor spelling, grammar” and misuse of words, according to a study by Personal Career Management.  This from an industry that routinely produces unreadable job ads and job descriptions, blighted by “poor spelling, grammar” and strings of meaningless fuzzwords. 
 

Great title, shame about the job
UNITED KINGDOM:   School dinner ladies are now called “education centre nourishment consultants”, paper boys are “media distribution officers” and dish-washers are  “gastronomical hygiene technicians”.  These were among a list of glamorous and important-sounding job titles revealed in a survey of British workers.
Read here for the full Daily Telegraph story, plus a list of the 20 stupidest job titles.
 

New broom targets hospital boards
NEW ZEALAND: Over the past decade, the public has been increasingly concerned over those waffly, formulaic, PC reports on patient treatment that emanate from district health boards.  Now the new Health Minister, Tony Ryall, has formally recognised this in slashing DHB targets (set by the previous Government, of course) to six.  “We have inherited a system overburdened with 13 health priorities; 61 objectives, with an additional subset of 13 health objectives; a set of 10 health targets measured through 18 indicators; 25 other indicators of DHB performance; not to mention four hospital benchmark indicators assessed through 15 measures; and an outcomes framework with nine outcomes measured against 39 headline indicators,” he said.  PEP lauds his actions.  Now, if only he can spread his message of simplification to his colleagues in other high-profile portfolios.
 

A quote to be treasured
UNITED STATES: “Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or administrative agency.”  No 6 on the Yale Book of Quotation’s top 10 quotes of 2008.  It refers to the US Treasury Department’s proposed (September 2008) Emergency Economic Stabilisation Act. And that translates to ‘How We’re Going to Fix the Economy’.
 

Place-name police visit islands
NEW ZEALAND: What’s in a name?  The world sniggered at New Zealand when our Geographic Board proposed to rename the North and South Islands.  The reason: they’d suddenly discovered that these names were not official under our legislation.  We suspect they were deemed too plain, too common, too ‘English’.  The board’s recommended alternatives are ‘Te Ika a Maui’ (North) and ‘Te Wai Pounamu’ (South).  Historically accurate, yes, but a nightmare for cartographers and tourists.  Meanwhile, Wanganui’s bitter, long-running battle over whether the city name should restore its ‘h’ (‘Whanganui’) has foundered on public opinion.  A referendum showed 77% of residents want to keep their city h-free.
 

Even sillier — by miles
NEW ZEALAND:  Yet more angst on place names. The worthy-sounding Taupo Metrification Alignment Project is urging the local council and NZ Post officials to change a raft of long-standing, widely recognised place names.  For example, Three Mile Bay should become ‘4.8 Kilometre Bay’ (or ‘4.8K Bay’, in response to public resistance).
 

Census compilers count on confusion
NEW ZEALAND:  Our census compilers are sticking to their guns over the phrasing of questions.  Critics described the ethnicity question as vague and unclear, after it was revealed that 11.1% of the population answered “New Zealander”.  But Statistics NZ is defending the wording.  The compilers are reluctant to help out us ordinary folk by differentiating between nationality and ethnicity, which they say would make it hard to compare future results with past counts.  Yet again the needs of government processes win out over communicating clearly with the public.
 

Behold the millionth English word
WEB-WIDE WORLD:  The world’s media heralded the “millionth word in the English language” as if it was the second coming — but without being too precise about the grand winner.  English-speaking countries all showed regional bias in nominating their own choices (‘slumdog’ from India, ‘octomom’ from California, ‘defriend’ from social networking) and dumping on other people’s choices.
 

A model of diplomacy
UNITED STATES: Poor old foot-in-mouth George W. had his every utterance scrutinised — for its idiocy quotient.  Now President Barack Obama is finding his words analysed, deconstructed and reconstructed — but more for their cross-cultural sensitivity and political traction than their entertainment value.  After his recent address at Cairo University to the Muslim world, Obama largely got the thumbs-up for his use of language.  He was praised for, among other things, his accurate quoting from the Koran,  his sprinkling of common Arabic words, and his finely crafted formalities that showed respect to all listeners.

Explore our news archive:

   News briefs, March 2009
 

   News briefs, Sept 2008


   News briefs, June 2008

   News briefs, April 2008
 

   News briefs, December 2007
 

   News briefs, May 2007
 

   News briefs, March 2007