Nursing Some Trouble

Given I had heard nothing about it until I saw the above tweet, I have to say that I agree.

This is what happened:

Full story here

This what the mother says happened:

Now, of course, I don't know exactly what happened here. The nurses may have been busy on some huge emergency and simply failed to communicate that well. The baby's arrival may indeed have been entirely (and reasonably) unexpected. Heck, for all we know, the mother lied to the nursing staff about her symptoms.

On the other hand, maybe the nurses were goofing off, or negligent, or improperly trained. These are precisely the issues that the hospital will be investigating, and I expect that the result will be published in due course.

Witnesses should be spoken to, records should be kept, and to the extent that a person or a system if to blame, action should be taken to remedy it. That's how the matter should be dealt with.

This is exactly how it should NOT be dealt with:

Full story here

Unfortunately I cannot bring you a screenshot of the original tweet because it has subsequently been deleted.

Now, Mr Sage has a pretty anonymous twitter account:

I have no idea how the tweet was brought to the journalist's attention, but either way it's something that bears reporting. I don't agree with stories about the personal lives of politician's family ("MP's Son Failing Year 10", for example) but this is a family member putting out a pretty derogatory opinion. And he's doing it in a very public forum - it's hardly a carelessly whispered word at a bar somewhere.

It's especially important in that it reflects the kind of attitude that many people believe (rightly or wrongly) that  many Liberal members hold. That's particularly interesting when, as occurred above, the member in question refused to criticise her husband (although, in fairness, we don't know for sure why she didn't return the calls).

True it is that Roza Sage is not the relevant local member (map of her electorate is available here), is not the health minister, and as far as I know had absolutely nothing to do with the events at the hospital. She had the opportunity to say "My husbands an idiot, even I barely listen to him, and he doesn't speak for me" but she didn't take it. On one level, her failure to speak out and disavow the comments is more revealing that the fact her husband made them.

Having said all that, this isn't something that anyone is going to remember too well, I don't think. Politicians (and, for that matter, celebrities generally) have been getting into trouble for what they have been saying on twitter for almost as long as we have had twitter accounts. As you can see, there has hardly been an upswing in interest in Mr Sage's account.

What will be revealing will be if we start seeing more of this kind of story, especially in the lead-up to this year's federal election.

In fairness to him, here is Mr Sage's response to the article, directed at the journo who wrote it, Barclay Crawford:

Phelpsing around

Since yesterday I've been going back and forth on whether to blog about the latest Twitter adventures of @PeterPhelpsMLC.

There are a few reasons.  Firstly, I've done it before. Twice, actually.

Secondly. @stilgherrian did it this morning:

His response?

Aw, shucks.

Mostly, however, what I've realised is that most people don't really care what people they have never heard of say on twitter.

Unless you're employed in politics or, like me, you have what probably amounts to an unhealthy interest in it, you probably couldn't name five members of the upper house. Heck, I'd have to think about it.

O'Farrell knows this.  Either he doesn't care what Phelps does on twitter, or he knows it doesn't matter. I suppose whilst the second is true, the first probably is as well.

The interesting thing is that, as I understand it, Phelps may actually be the most genuine NSW politician on twitter - this is apparently exactly what he is like in real life. If you want, you can go read what he had to say yesterday at about 4pm and why he said it.

He saw an (admittedly pretty stupid) comment from a leftie, and decided to get stuck in.

Phelps likes running about on twitter, making trouble, and brawling with people who annoy him. He even took the chance yesterday to mock someone for being unemployed, although in fairness that someone did bring it on by calling him a "knob end".

Quite the place, twitter.

In any event, this, apparently, is the NSW upper house.  Given that the voters don't seem to care either way, and O'Farrell certainly doesn't, I suppose we're stuck with it.

A Phelps of an Afternoon

So. My blog last Friday caused a bit of a stir.

Some people were supportive.  Some were abusive (towards me and @Nyx2701) and were promptly unfollowed and/or blocked.

@PeterPhelpsMLC certainly hasn't been turned off twitter.  He also hasn't been banned by O'Farrell, it would seem.

In any event, Phelps and I ended up sparring for a part of this afternoon.  You can make what you like of the conversation - I'm just going to post it below as best I can.  It did shoot off in a few different directions (as conversations on twitter are wont to do) but hopefully it makes sense.

I think my view is clear, as is his.

The conversation started out this story on the Sydney Morning Herald Website.

The story explained that Conroy had been answering questions at the National Press Club on investment in Australia.  It was being broadcast on the ABC at the time. He apparently said the following:

The story wasn't particularly interesting, to me at least.  He accidentally swore, he immediately realised it was inappropriate, apologised and moved on.

The fuss the Herald made about was a little ridiculous, but par for the course in a media culture where it's "all about the clicks".

In any event, @LatikaMBourke tweeted this:

Phelps replied soon after:

My response was this:

From there the conversation kinda just flowed:

For those of you not in the know, my twitter avatar is of Jules Winnfield, a character in the brilliant Tarantino movie Pulp Fiction. Jules has, to say the least, a potty mouth.

A few people chimed in along the way:

Coming back to Peter and me:

Look, no doubt you have your own opinion about this conversation.  Maybe you think I'm being a bit precious.  I don't know.

I guess my point is this.  I'm not "offended" by anything he has said.  What I am is disappointed that someone who has been elected as my representative in this State's Upper House thinks that this is an appropriate way to behave.

Yes, I can unfollow him.  But that's not the point.  Politicians have a responsibility to act like adults and treat voters with respect.

I don't care what Peter is like in private.  I've certainly heard comments about that, but it's not the point.  If you want to get out there and engage with the community (which is a fantastic thing for a politician to do, in my opinion) then you'd better bring your courtesy with you.

If being polite is a little too hard, then we'd all rather you didn't bother.

A True Reflection?

Some politicians really shouldn't get involved in social media.

There are those that use networks like twitter just to broadcast things that are going on, rather than actually interacting with the community. I suppose that is better than nothing, but only just.

Then there are those politicians who don't seem to realise that when you behave on twitter like you behave in private, people notice.  And it matters.

I give you @PeterPhelpsMLC.

Photo from his twitter page

Peter's only been on twitter for a few weeks, but already some of his tweets recently have struck me as a little odd.

We've had comment on the "Libertarian support for unrestricted drug use":

I don't even understand this one:

We've had an intelligent contribution to the Global Warming debate:

There's been a little dating advice for protesters, which was generous of him:

In any event, this morning I saw this tweet and decided to say something:

More than a little disturbed by such juvenile behaviour a Member of the Legislative Council, I tweeted the following:

Subsequently, several people including Penny Sharpe (Labor MLC) have claimed that it is a real account.

A good friend of mine then tweeted the following:

This is what Peter had to say:

I still can't believe someone who has been elected to sit in our Upper House could be stupid enough to send that kind of tweet.

I'll leave the final word to Peter himself.  This was the first tweet he sent:

Peter, clearly it would be better for all of us if you handed your BlackBerry into someone responsible.  You're a disgrace.

UPDATE: I've attempted to bring this blogpost to both Peter and his staff's attention, as well as Barry O'Farrell.  If I receive any comment, I'll be sure to post it here.

UPDATE 2: Jo Tovey just published this piece on SMH

UPDATE 3: Barry O'Farrell just tweeted the following.  It wasn't a response to me as such, but it is pretty clear what it is about.

UPDATE 4: So now this is a thing:

From the SMH front page

Also, this made me laugh...

It appears that this has caused a stir....