2020: The History That Was – Part 4

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As the rest of the world  was perceived to be “going to hell in a handbasket with an out-of-control pandemic; ructions in Europe as Britain copes with “Brexit” chaos; Trumpism in the United States climaxing with the 6 January mob-led coup attempt in Washington’s Capitol; a deadly resurgent covid19 outbreak in Victoria, Australia (at time of writing); Russia continuing to harass and murder political dissidents with impunity; China  cracking down brutally on Hong Kong and it’s Uighur minority; and global temperatures continuing to rise as Humans blithely pump CO2 into the atmosphere – New Zealanders were spectators to our own issues, dramas, and problems…

Media (1 – Clickbait) 

We all coped with the Level 4 and 3 lockdowns in our own personal way. Some better than others, with varying degrees of stress.

According to the Ministry of Health website (last updated 25 August 2020), they were fully cognisant of the psychological impact that the threat of covid19;  lockdowns; restricted movement and social contact, might have upon the general population;

“We want people to know it is normal to not feel all right all the time – it’s understandable to feel sad, distressed, worried, confused, anxious or angry during this crisis. Everyone reacts differently to difficult events, and some may find this time more challenging than others. The ways people think, feel and behave are likely to change over time – we all have good days and bad days.”

Psychological stress was soon picked up by medical professionals.

In October last year, writing for the NZ Medical Journal, Meisha Nicolson and Jayde  Flett reported;

“Although fewer people reported severe experiences of depression and anxiety post-lockdown (5% compared to 8% during lockdown), this reduction mostly occurred in non-Māori/non-Pasifika people. Of those who completed both during and post-lockdown surveys, over half reported no experiences at both time points, while 22% had improved experiences and 13% had worsening experiences post-lockdown.

Experiences of depression and anxiety were common for young people both during and post-lockdown. Almost 60% of young people had some experience of depression or anxiety post-lockdown (57%), 10% being severe.”

In November,  Clinical Psychologist for Victoria University of Wellington and Umbrella Health, Dr Dougal Sutherland, commented;

“The data confirms in many ways what was expected: that many Kiwis were distressed and anxious in the midst of the lockdown. However, the study also shows a few interesting twists: about a third of New Zealanders reported significant distress, and rates in younger people (18-34 years) were higher than for older people. Interestingly, rates of distress amongst women and men were quite similar, which is unusual as often women report higher levels of distress.

Although the study couldn’t tell us exactly what about the lockdown people found stressful, it is likely that a combination of health anxiety and worry about the potential economic consequences of COVID-19 played a role. Sadly, more people reported feeling suicidal and there were higher rates of family violence during lockdown too.

Whilst the focus of our response to COVID-19 has now shifted onto the economy and ongoing containment on the virus, this study is a timely reminder that the virus has not only biological, but also psychological consequences. These psychological effects are likely to have a ‘long tail’ and be with us long after the virus has been contained or eliminated. The new Minister of Health will want to pay close attention to studies like this and continue investing in training of mental health professionals to inoculate the country against a future wave of mental health difficulties.”

The mainstream media not only failed to ameliorate the psychological impact of lockdowns (and post lockdowns) – but exacerbated anxiety with a constant, non-stop, daily diet of “human interest” stories. These were almost always focused on expat New Zealanders struggling to get home – often for tragic reasons such as terminal illness;

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The stories were relentless. Day after day, almost always personalised with photos of couples or entire families, they were tragic, heart-breaking, and intensely intimate.

Even Radio NZ was not immune, with “human interest” stories – often with interviews – on “Morning Report” as well as “Checkpoint“.

Even when Returnees has succeeded in coming home, the “human interest” value continued to be exploited; milked of every hint of pathos and frustration;

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It is hard to ascertain how deeply these “human interest” stories impacted on audiences, creating unnecessary anxiety, but it is worth noting this warning on the Covid-19 website;

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“Looking after your mental wellbeing

You may find it useful to limit your time online. Check media and social media at specific times once or twice a day.”

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The website for Depression NZ was even more dire with it’s warning to limit media intake;

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Find a healthy balance in relation to media coverage

• • • Being exposed to repeated negative information can be upsetting. While it’s important to stay informed, you may find it useful to limit your media intake if it is upsetting you or your family.
    • Try to stick to the facts and verified and government sources Unite against COVID-19.
    • Reassure your child or teen that it is OK to feel worried. Share with them how you deal with your own stress so that they can learn how to cope from you.
    • When others share information with you, their facts may not always be accurate – keep this in mind when you hear something about COVID-19 that is not endorsed by trusted sources such as Unite against COVID-19 or the World Health Organization.

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This blogger acknowledges that it is a delicate balancing act when presenting accurate information to media audiences.

But the personalisation of “human interest” (aka, “sob stories”) was counter-productive and ultimately, harmful. They were “clickbait” to sell advertising (or increase audience share in RNZ’s case), at the expense of our mental well-being and sensationalised at a time when many of us were vulnerable to heightened levels of stress and anxiety.

This blogger at one point last year switched off all devices and instituted a self-imposed, 48 hour, black-out on all media – including RNZ.  When I switch off RNZ, you know things are getting bad.

This blogger maintains that there is a vast difference between presenting the public with hard news that make us more informed citizens – and flooding us with a non-stop, unrelenting diet of tragedy that serves no purpose and only heightens peoples’ anxiety.

Contrast the stories above with the measured reporting by TVNZ journalist, Jack Tame, upon his return and quarantine.  His reporting was a mix of “human interest” and factual details, but without “ambulance chasing” exploitation of people’s circumstances and/or  “First World” complaints;

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Some wit at the Otago Daily Times, noting the preponderence of teeth-gnashing and wailing, had their own ‘take’ on the #nzhellhole stories with this subtle ‘dig’;

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(April fools story or real? Hard to tell the difference!)

And when even the vacuous Kate Hawkesby pens a story that puts things into perspective;

“Yes this week has shown up some potentially glaring issues at the Pullman, but it doesn’t mean all Hotels are doing a bad job. It doesn’t mean the returnees are at fault or doing anything wrong either. Most people are grateful to be here, appreciative of what NZ has achieved, and want to do the right thing.”

– you just know that some Returnees need to get their priorities in order, and the media should look closely at how it amplifies (and exploits) peoples’ frustrations and fears.

Meanwhile, the real stories we need to know are barely covered;

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Underpaid and over-worked MIQ workers apparently don’t attract the eyeballs and/or clicks, as much as families in tragic circumstances.

(Note: The so-called “human interest” stories continue to present day.)

Media (2 – Or, “The RNZ Holiday Silly Season”)

Speaking of RNZ, former producer for RNZ’s “Saturday Morning” for Kim Hill,  Mark Cubey on Twitter last December pointed out one of my personal pet peeves when it comes to Aotearoa’s mainstream media;

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Every year, for about a month, RNZ closes down ‘Morning Report‘, ‘Nine to Noon‘, ‘Checkpoint‘, and loses a whole bunch of well known hosts. The end-of-year winding-down of NZ’s flagship programmes began the week before Christmas. After Christmas, main programming is put on hiatus until the third week of January.

First to go is ‘Morning Report‘, which in the week leading up to Christmas is reduced from three to two hours in length. The last three hour episode is on Tuesday 22 December, and the following day, the programme is whittled down to two hours.

From Tuesday, 29 December 2020, the programme is reduced to one hour and in the New Year re-branded ‘Summer Report‘.  Episode lengths are one hour (or two, when it was forced to increase it’s duration on 8 January to cover the Washington coup d’état attempt). Programme lengths increased to two hours from Monday, 18 January 2021 to Friday, 22 January 2021.

There was a further special three hour edition of ‘Summer Report’ on Thursday, 21 January 2021 to cover President Biden’s Inuguration.

‘Summer Report‘ remains in-situ until ‘Morning Report‘ resumes, at its normal three hour duration, on Monday, 25 January 2021.

‘Nine to Noon‘ is replaced with ‘Summer Times‘,  hosted by Emile Donovan. The show is a more chat-show-like version of the regular ‘Nine to Noon‘ programme. ‘Summer Times‘ runs from 29 December to 22 January this year.

‘Checkpoint‘ – usually hosted by the tenacious and talented Lisa Owen – was missing altogether for a solid month. Only a five minute news report replaced the usual one and a half hour in-depth reporting. On 7 January, RNZ was forced to broadcast a one-hour long “RNZ Checkpoint Special” following the Washing riots and failed coup.

‘Checkpoint’s‘ month-long hiatus is inexplicable. As Mark Cubey pointed out, RNZ effectively “pretends news stops for the NZ summer“.

To the contrary, the world did not close down for the Christmas/New Year period. A pandemic continued to rage around the globe; Brexit was happening and the failure of a UK-Europe agreement came perilously close; and post-Presidential election events in the United States were causing ructions that reverberated around the planet.

At a time when events escalated, RNZ was missing in action.

And not just the state-owned broadcaster. The final episode (end-of-year Christmas party segment notwithstanding) of TV3’s “The Nation” aired on 28 November, and TV1’s “Q+A” on 6 December. Both then closed down, going into summer-hibernation for several months. (Q+A‘s first episode this year aired on 13 February.)

At a time when we most needed in-depth reporting of global events, we were – and remain – poorly served by our three main  broadcasters.

It is understandable that producing programmes like ‘Morning Report’ and ‘Checkpoint‘ place high demands on RNZ staff. They all deserve well-earned breaks from the stresses of their work. But it should not be beyond the wit and abilities of RNZ management (with consultation with staff) to create a holiday roster that allows programming to continue as normal. If necessary, RNZ could employ journalism students (on a living wage) as paid interns, on short-term contracts.

It is not acceptable that, for a month, we are denied current affairs programmes by our main broadcasters.

RNZ has a strong, dedicated following of loyal listeners who expect high standards from our public broadcaster. Those expectations do not lessen from late December through to late January. The world does not stop on 24 December and resume at some arbitrary point in time in the new year.

National

National was thrashed at last year’s election.

Overall, they crashed from 1,152,075 Party Votes in 2017, to 738,275 last year, losing 23 MPs in the process.

The causes of their defeat has been well canvassed. Reasons range from in-fighting; three leadership changes; leaks; inconsistent policy-making and fiscal ineptitude; and a current Leader who is – frankly speaking – just downright unlikeable.

All of the above is true.

But there is a more basic reason: National got hit by a virus called covid19 – at least metaphorically speaking.

National fought last year’s election as if it were 2017.  They were wedded to their mantra that “National are better economic managers”.

Unfortunately (for National supporters) the economy was only secondary to people’s concerns. For the majority, the main issue of concern – unsurprisingly – was health. More specifically, our health and safety as humanity faced a global pandemic sweeping almost every nation, and which has hospitalised and killed millions.

Almost daily, we were witnessing an out-of-control pandemic raging through Europe, UK, South America, and even the United States – the most advanced and wealthiest nation on the planet. We saw hospitals over-run by covid cases and mass graves being dug in Brazil and elsewhere in South America. In New York, trucks filled with rotting corpses seemed like something out of a post-apocalypse horror/science fiction  movie.

In Aotearoa New Zealand, the then-Labour-NZ First- Green coalition moved reasonably quickly (some might argue they should have acted earlier – but hindsight is always 20/20). At one minute to midnight on 23 March 2020, the country moved to Alert Level 3. Two days later, we went to near total lockdown to Level 4. On 29 March, the inevitable happened: we had our first covid death.

As we listened and watched our Prime Minister address the nation on those first evenings, and subsequently thereafter, we must have felt like five million “extras” in the Will Smith movie, “I Am Legend“, or the 1970s British sf tv series, “The Survivors“.

It was unprecedented. We were practically at war. And we were called upon to do our bit: stay home; watch TV. (How difficult could that be?)

It was against this backdrop that National contested the election.

But National was fighting a pre-Covid campaign based on “economic management” and – at one point – a  promise of “temporary” tax cuts. Worse still was Paul Goldsmith’s startling explanation that the tax cuts would be paid out of the $14 billion Covid Recovery fund set aside in the event of a second wave hitting the country!

New Zealanders got the message perfectly: National’s priority was the economy.

Voters would have been uneasy. That was not our collective priority. Our main concern was fighting a virus and keeping it out of the community.

Could National be trusted to make that their Number One Focus? At least 1,670,300 New Zealanders thought not.

National has always touted itself to be a pro-business, small-government Party. It’s policies on its own website is unequivocal in that respect. Even their Covid19 policy page was heavility tilted toward the economy;

A National Government will inject some steel into our first line of defence against COVID-19 by delivering robust border systems that will keep the virus at bay and allow our economy to thrive, National Party Leader Judith Collins says.

“The threat of COVID-19 will be with us for years to come and National is committed to safeguarding the health of all New Zealanders, as well as the wider economy.”

And their reference to limiting lockdowns to preserve economic activity also left no room for doubt where their priorities lay;

Preparing a more effective response to future outbreaks, should they occur, allowing lockdowns to be more targeted and shorter in duration.

[…]

Reducing the need for lockdowns could not be more crucial. The first lockdown saw 212,000 Kiwis end up on unemployment benefits with another 450,000 jobs kept alive by wage subsidies. The current lockdown is estimated to be costing Auckland 250 jobs and up to $75 million a day in economic activity.

[…]

“Continuous improvement of our systems is required so that lockdowns become more targeted and effective, with minimal impact on our communities and the economy.”

(See also “Wally of the Year” Award below.)

On 22 September, it was reported that National would relax border controls for economic reasons. Couched in terms of pseudo-safety rhetoric, National’s intentions were plain for all to see;

National have announced that, if elected, they will ramp up the private provision of quarantine to allow workers and long-term tourists into the country.

At an event in Auckland’s Viaduct Harbour deputy leader Gerry Brownlee said Covid-19 would be with us for a long time and the country had to establish safe conditions for skilled and essential workers to re-enter the country. 

Allowing workers in the Recognised Seasonal Employer scheme to return is at the top of that agenda, but the kind of measures the National Party is interested in exploring would extend to a number of industries with the costs of quarantine paid by industry or by individuals who wanted to enter New Zealand.

“Our horticultural industry, for example, is desperate to fill the worker shortage created by border restrictions that is putting $9.5 billion of the country’s economy at risk,” Brownlee said.

The party would implement a booking system for managed isolation facilities and explore “streamlined” travel arrangements for low-risk countries like Covid-free nations in the Pacific. 

And private quarantine facilities were also mooted;

Brownlee said National would work with accommodation providers to create private quarantine arrangements that met or exceeded levels of safety, security, reporting, transporting, training and testing. 

But in Victoria private security guards proved to be utterly disastrous;

The failures in Victoria’s “hastily assembled” hotel quarantine are “responsible” for the state’s 768 deaths and 18,418 cases since the end of May, the inquiry heard on Monday.

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“One only needs to pause and to reflect on those figures to appreciate the full scope of devastation and despair occasioned as a result of the outbreak,” counsel assisting Ben Ihle said.

“It was a program which failed to meet its primary objective to keep us safe from the virus.”

[…]

Throughout the course of the inquiry, none of the witnesses, including the premier, Daniel Andrews, said they made the decision to use private security guards for guarding returned travellers.

This was the clear message New Zealanders got from National: they were more focused on economic activity than on keeping the virus out of the country.

On 27 August last year, National issued a press statement outlining it’s small business policy. Covid19 and border controls were not mentioned once.

The UK has had “targetted lockdowns” – half-hearted measures that has resulted (at time of writing) 3,929,835 cases and 112,092 deaths.

This was National’s offering to New Zealanders and we wanted no part of it. Quite simply, most people did not trust National to prioritise our health over someone elses’ wealth.

NZ First

For the second time in it’s twentyseven year long history, NZ First has been thrown out of Parliament by voters. It’s share of the Party vote dropped from 7.2% in 2017 to 2.6% last year. 111,685 voters deserted the Party.

Again, the reasons are varied, but this blogger submits that one specific factor was the cause of it’s Parliamentary demise.

In October 2019, a survey found that 44.5% of NZ First voters would have preferred  National as a coalition partner after the 2017 General Election. Only 34.1% opted for Labour.

So the majority of NZ First supporters leaned toward National, not Labour.

Winston Peters and his party chose Labour instead, alienating nearly half their voter-base.

This is the only possible outcome when a political party refuses to disclose it’s preferred coalition intentions to voters so that they can cast their ballots accordingly.

In effect, by not making such a disclosure; by leaving that decision until after the election, NZ First supporters were handing Mr Peters & Co a “blank cheque”.

The remaining 34.1% who supported coalition with Labour were also alienated when NZ First made it clear it was a “hand brake” on their coalition partners.

A prime example was Labour’s attempt to implement a capital gains tax to slow investor speculation in the steadily worsening housing price-bubble. NZ First MP Shane Jones made it crystal clear who was responsible for “killing” the tax;

“The reality is you already had that announcement and none of you rung to thank me for NZ First killing off the capital gains tax.” 

NZ First managed to anger both National and Labour-leaning supporters. Quite a feat when you think about it.

It’s demise was inevitable.

Wally of the Year Award

There were several contenders:

• Simon Bridges for his non-stop negativity and failing to read-the-room when the nation was focused solely on keeping covid out and saving lives.
• Judith Collins, for her sheer, barely-contained malice.
• This idiot.
• Minister David Clark, who should have known better.
• Jami-Lee Ross for unmitigated colossal cheek for naked political opportunism and (alleged) harassment of staff.
• Billy Te Kahika, for achieving the dubious distinction as Aotearoa New Zealand’s go-too man for every conspiracy fantasy under the sun.
• Former National Party President, Michelle Boag, for being so blindingly wrong on just about everything, especially why covid19 has the number ’19’ followings it’s name. (Clue; no, it’s not because there were 18 strains preceding this one.) And for leaking private covid19 patient names.
• Former National MP, Hamish Walker, also for leaking private Covid19 patient details.
• National MP Michael Woodhouse, for his bizarre (and untrue) “homeless man” story.
• Plan B “sciencey poster boy”, Simon Thornley, who despite all the evidence, apparently wants Aotearoa New Zealand to follow Sweden’s model in dealing with covid19. Because, y’know, our 25 dead compared to Sweden’s 12,428 death toll is somehow a “failure” in his eyes?

But heads above the candidates listed, this blogger nominates Auckland Chamber of Commerce CEO, Michael Barnett.

Mr Barnett’s non-stop carping against lock-downs or calling for watered-down lock-downs, or exemptions for every business and Uncle Tom Cobbly, were in a league of their own;

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In a blogpost on 23 August last year, activist John Minto detailed Mr Barnett’s non-stop carping and misguided attempts to undermine Aotearoa New Zealand’s strategy to eliminate covid19. Had National been in power there is every chance they would have capitulated to Mr Barnett’s increasingly strident demands to weaken lockdowns and allow businesses to operate “as normal”.

The consequences, as shown by other countries, would have been horrific. Hospitals flooded with infected people; ICU wards over-flowing; rising death toll; cemetaries filling up; and Long Covid leaving people suffering debilitating after-effects for months later, perhaps for years to come.

As an agent speaking on behalf of business, he earned his salary. As an agent agitating on behalf of covid19, he excelled.

2020 – But wait, there’s more!

There was more – so much more! – to 2020. But let’s leave something for future (and present) historians to mull over, shall we?

And now, 2021…

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The concluding fourth chapter of 2020: The History That Was.

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References

The Wall Street Journal: The Covid-19 Death Toll Is Even Worse Than It Looks

Al Jazeera: In post-Brexit UK, quiet ports hide mounting transport chaos

The Atlantic: This is a coup

The Guardian: Victoria hotel quarantine failures ‘responsible’ for Covid second wave and 768 deaths, inquiry told

CNN: Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny dupes spy into revealing how he was poisoned

CNBC: Hundreds arrested in Hong Kong protests, as analysts weigh in on national security law’s impact

BBC: The Uighurs and the Chinese state – A long history of discord

Reuters: Global temperatures reached record highs in 2020, say EU scientists

Ministry of Health: Covid-19 – Mental health and wellbeing resources

NZ Medical Journal: The mental wellbeing of New Zealanders during and post-lockdown (pdf version)

Scoop Sci-Tech: Mental Health Impacts Of NZ’s Lockdown Revealed – Expert Reaction

RNZ: Plea to help Kiwis still stranded in Peru

Stuff media: Covid-19: Grieving Kiwi stranded in UK as cancelled flight means she misses out on MIQ spot

RNZ: New Zealanders abroad struggling to get home

Stuff media: Coronavirus – 400 New Zealanders desperate to leave India

Stuff media: Coronavirus – families split by Covid-19 border restrictionsNZ Herald: Covid 19 coronavirus – Family can’t get to NZ to see dying grandfather

RNZ: Covid-19: -Teenager waits in isolation in Auckland, family in Christchurch

Covid19.govt.nz: Looking after your mental wellbeing

Depression.org.nz: Feeling anxious and stressed about COVID-19 is normal

NZ Herald: Covid 19 coronavirus – Jack Tame on life in Hamilton managed isolation facilityNZ Herald: Covid 19 coronavirus – Managed isolation guest complains about breakfast – would you complain?

NZ Herald: Covid 19 coronavirus – Quarantine food so bad guest forks out for Uber Eats every night

Stuff media: Coronavirus – ‘Tantrum’ as level 1 quarantine walks denied

ODT: Travellers angry over Rotorua quarantine

ODT: Family trapped in luxury Auckland hotel for quarantine

Newstalk ZB: Kate Hawkesby – My brother’s having the time of his life in quarantine

RNZ: MIQ nurses speak out – ‘We’re going to get sloppy … we’re tired and stressed’

RNZ: Risky work – MIQ cleaners underpaid and undervalued, union says

RNZ: Covid-19 – Plea for those assessing managed isolation applications to be medically qualified

NZ Herald: Covid 19 coronavirus – 17 days in MIQ, five Covid tests for Wellington father turned back from airport

RNZ: Mark Cubey (profile)

Twitter: Mark Cubey – RNZ stopping for summer – 21.12.2020

RNZ: Morning Report – Tuesday 22 December 2020

RNZ: Morning Report – Wednesday 23 December 2020

RNZ: Morning Report – Tuesday 29 December 2020

RNZ: Summer Report

RNZ: Summer Report – Friday 8 January 2021

RNZ: Summer Report – Monday 18 January 2021

RNZ: Summer Report – Friday 22 January 2021

RNZ: Summer Report – Friday 21 January 2021

RNZ: Morning Report – Monday 25 January 2021

RNZ: Summer Times

RNZ: Summer Times – All episodes

Stuff media: Election 2020 – ‘Covid-19 election’ confirmed in new poll of voters’ concerns

New York Times: Covid Overload – U.S. Hospitals Are Running Out of Beds for Patients

NZ Herald: Covid 19 coronavirus – Mass graves dug as Brazil hits grim new toll

Reuters: Bodies found in unrefrigerated trucks in New York during COVID-19 pandemic

RNZ: Recap – Coronavirus updates in NZ and around the world on 23 March

RNZ: Coronavirus – Covid-19 updates in NZ and around the world on 25 March

RNZ: Coronavirus – First death in New Zealand from Covid-19

RNZ: Coronavirus – First death in New Zealand from Covid-19

Wikipedia: I Am Legend

Wikipedia: The Survivors

Stuff media: Election 2020 – National a better manager of economy, says Goldsmith

RNZ: National promises $4.7bn in tax cuts in economic and tax policy

Electoral Commission: New Zealand 2020 General Election – Official Results

National Party: Economic Recovery

Newsroom: National’s plan to let workers and tourists in

The Guardian: Victoria hotel quarantine failures ‘responsible’ for Covid second wave and 768 deaths, inquiry told

Scoop media: National Will Back New Zealand’s Small Businesses

Worldometer: United Kingdom Coronavirus Cases

Stuff media: NZ First voters preferred National to Labour at 2017 election by wide margin

NZ Herald: ‘A handbrake for silly ideas:’ Peters to discuss coalition disagreements in conference speech

Stuff media: NZ First put an end to capital gains tax, Shane Jones claims in post-Budget speech

RNZ: Man who deliberately sneezed at shoppers fined

NZ Herald: Covid-19 coronavirus – National MP Hamish Walker, Michelle Boag admit leaking patient details

NZ Herald: Covid 19 coronavirus – Michael Woodhouse’s isolation homeless mystery man claim debunked

Newsroom: ‘Contrarian’ academics oppose NZ lockdown

Newshub: Coronavirus – ‘Take me out of God’s waiting room and put me back to work’, business leader begs

NZ Herald: Covid 19 coronavirus – Michael Barnett calls for Auckland to move to level 1.5

National Geographic: Pandemic victims are filling graves on New York’s Hart Island. It isn’t the first time.

Mayo Clinic: COVID-19 (coronavirus) – Long-term effects

Additional

Greenpeace:  Five ways NZ will be much better if Jacinda makes good on her promise to Build Back Better

Other Blogposts

The Paepae: The juxtaposition in this screen shot of the ‘NZ Taxpayers Union Inc’ astroturf lobby group receiving a government-funded subsidy makes me chortle

The Daily Blog: When will Michael Barnett stop whinging, whining and bleating? – John Minto

Previous related blogposts

Observations on the 2017 Election campaign thus far… (rima)

Life in Level 2: Two Tier Welfare; A Green School; Right Rage, Wrong Reason

2020: Post-mortem or Prologue?

2020: The History That Was – Part 1

2020: The History That Was – Part 2

2020: The History That Was – Part 3

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Acknowledgement: Jeff Bell

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This blogpost was first published on The Daily Blog on 16 February 2021.

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Life in level 1: Newshub Nation, Q + A, and the end of Todd Muller’s leadership

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Two things happened this weekend that added to the scandal swirling around the leaked list, of eighteen covid19-positive Returnees.

The National Party scandal has claimed the ‘scalps’ of one MP – Hamish Walker – and operative and former President, Michelle Boag. It has also drawn in Todd Muller, who has been shown to be “loose with the truth”, and Michael Woodhouse, who also recieved emails from Ms Boag – and promptly deleted them.

The Walker-Boag whirlpool is slowly dragging others down into it’s swirling, murky maw.

The first thing that should have raised eyebrows was TV3’s “Newshub Nation” on 11 July. If the viewer was expecting wall-to-wall coverage of the Leaked List scandal, they were to be sorely disappointed. The episode, hosted by Simon Shepherd made a brief mention of Hamish Walker resigning, and the panel briefly discussed the issue.

Otherwise, the focus was on Shane Jones and his bid for the Northland electorate; ACT Party leader, David Seymour; the fringe nutter’s “New Conservative Party”; pandemic management discussion with epidemiologist, Michael Baker; and “Back Story” featuring Green MP, Julie-Anne Genter.

All very interesting, but…

Other than that, there were no interviews with any of the main actors or other political commentators or past National Party apparatchiks… it was a Leaked List-free zone.

Not so TVNZ’s “Q+A” today (12 July).

Though Todd Muller, Michelle Boag, Michael Woodhouse, and Hamish Walker were all invited to attend – none took up the offer.

Instead, it was left up to National’s Deputy Leader, Nikki Kaye, to front. Host, Jack Tame, grilled her mercilessly with rapid-fire questions and naked disbelief to Ms Kaye’s insistence that Michelle Boag did not confide in her about the Leaked List. This despite Ms Kaye acknowledging the closeness between the two – including Ms Boag being (until her recent resignation from the position) Nikki Kaye’s electorate campaign manager.

Ms Kaye was also left to explain and defend not just her conversation with Michelle Boag – but also Michael Woodhouse’s dubious actions and Todd Muller’s inconsistant (outright lies?) responses to what he knew and when did he know it.

She defended to her utmost Michael Woodhouse and Todd Muller. She defended her Party. She stood her ground.

This is what Leaders do.

They defend their team.

At no point did Ms Kaye deflect hard questions relating to two of her colleagues with the oft-repeated mantra, “Oh, you’d have to ask them”.

She took responsibility for answering on their behalf. To defend her Team.

Because that is an essential quality to leadership.

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Contrast Ms Kaye’s courage to the disturbing fact that Todd Muller refused to front for the interview.

Think about that for a moment.

The worst scandal to hit the National Party since Nicki Hager’s “Dirty Politics” – and Todd Muller was in hiding leaving his Deputy in the firing line.

Whatever one may think of Nikki Kaye’s responses to Jack Tame’s relentless questioning – she had the courage and determination to front.

Muller was nowhere to be seen.

As we both watched the spectacle, and noted Muller’s absence, my partner turned and pointed out to me;

“She’s doing a fine job as Leader of National.”

The date 12 July is the turning point for Todd Muller’s faux leadership of the National Party. Quite simply, it beggars belief that he failed to front for the interview. It was his responsibility to represent his Party in difficult times. And it doesn’t get any more difficult when one of his MPs is forced to stand down at the next election after admitting to releasing confidential medical details; a past-President was responsible for the leak; another MP wilfully deletes potential evidence; and Muller himself has been caught out being flexible with the truth.

When the so-called Leader of a political party fails to carry out his most basic responsibility and shoves his Deputy into the firing line, it calls into question his fitness to hold that position.

New Zealanders take note. Todd Muller hid away in safety whilst his Deputy took the hits.

There’s a word for that.

Cowardice.

#MullerUnfitToLead

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References

TVNZ: Public can continue to trust National amid Covid-19 patient details leak saga – deputy leader Nikki Kaye

Twitter: Laura Beattie – 8 July 2020

Previous related blogposts

Life in Level 1: Cunning Plans, Unanswered Questions

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Acknowledgement: Rod Emmerson

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This blogpost was first published on The Daily Blog on 13 July 2020.

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Roy Morgan poll confirms blogger’s prediction – National is in freefall

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On 12 November, I made the following observation;

Polling Decay in Opposition

The longer the Nats remain in Opposition, the  faster their public support will erode. Post 2008, Labour’s polling continued to plummet, whereas National’s ascendancy continued to build on it electoral success…

[…]

The longer National stays in Opposition, the further it’s public support will fall. It is hard to imagine that it’s election night result of 44.4%  will be maintained to the next election in 2020.

In short, the Nats risk growing irrelevancy the longer they stay out of government.

It’s taken faster than I thought possible, but the first post-election poll – from Roy Morgan – has the Labour-led coalition rising  whilst National’s support is falling;

In November support for the newly elected Labour/NZ First/Greens Government was 54.5% (up 6% since early October) ahead of National/Act NZ on 41% (down 5.5%) with minor parties outside Parliament attracting the remaining 4.5% of support.

• Support for Labour/NZ First is at 44.5% (up 7% since early October), a slight increase from their election result of 44.1% while coalition partners the Greens are on 10% (down 1%).
• Support for National is at 40.5% (down 5.5%) and down 3.95% from their election result of 44.5% while their right-wing colleagues Act NZ are stuck unchanged on 0.5%.

Hence why National’s chief party strategist, shit-stirrer, and head-kicker – Steven Joyce has been so vocal lately. His on-going carping about the new government is a desperate attempt for his party to stay relevant.

The longer the Coalition has to implement it’s reforms and fix up thirty years of neo-liberal mis-management, the harder it will be for the Nats to offer themselves as a viable alternative in 2020 or 2023. Or 2026.

Who would vote for a party whose nine years in office saw nothing of any practical value except a cycleway (that failed to deliver promised 4,000 new jobs) and bloated house-values for a minority of middle class property-owners in Auckland and Wellington?

Who would vote for a party whose former Dear Leader smiled and waved his way through eight years in office; who bullied a powerless waitress; wasted $26 million on a pointless referendum; and left a legacy of Kiwi families living in cars, garages, or crammed into mouldy, delapidated housing?

And then there’s this;

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… rivers too polluted to even swim in.

Nine years of National has proven to be an expensive exercise  in futility for this country.

But more so thirty years of a dogmatic neo-liberal experiment which has failed on almost every level (unless you are the 1% or an Auckland property owner).

TV3’s ‘The Nation‘  on 25 November emphasised the grim problems we face, as the entire episode was taken up with the socio-economic problems faced by Northlanders.

• Turning around the far north
• What happened to Moerewa?
• Fixing Northland

That one, single, episode was award-winning journalism. It was Reality TV unlike the inane bullshit we get from “The Block“, “Home Improvement“, “Survivor Whatever/Wherever“, “The Bachelor/ette“, “My Kitchen Cooks“, etc, etc, et-bloody-cetera.

It made for grim watching and deserves to be re-broadcast at prime time.

It is against this back-drop that National’s strategists should understand one thing very clearly: people’s expectations over the last three decades have been low. The pressing social and economic problems we face have been accepted with a shrug from a sizeable chunk of the voting population.

It was presented for a generation that this was as good as it gets.

But if Labour, NZ First, and the Greens can prove that a better alternative exists – then watch National’s poll rating plummet even further. The Roy Morgan Poll gave us a hint of this;

Government Confidence increased substantially during November after New Zealand First chose to form Government with the Labour Party installing Jacinda Ardern as New Zealand’s new PM.

The Roy Morgan Government Confidence Rating jumped 15.5pts to 146.5pts in November (the highest for nearly eight years since January 2010 early in the reign of Prime Minister John Key) with 66.5% of NZ electors (up 8% from October) saying NZ is ‘heading in the right direction’ cf. 20% of NZ electors (down 7.5%) that say New Zealand is ‘heading in the wrong direction’.

The Nats are on borrowed time. Their relevancy will continue to diminish.

And it is when the Right have their backs against the wall that they will be most dangerous.

Labour, Green, and NZ First Ministers and MPs need to be on-guard at all times. Stay focused on what needs to be done.

The Roy Morgan poll shows we are on track…

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from: Frank Macskasy <fmacskasy@gmail.com>
to: Sunday Star Times <letters@star-times.co.nz>
date: 26 November 2017
subject: Letters to the editor

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The editor
Sunday Star Times

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The latest Roy Morgan poll must be sending shivers down the backs of the National Party hierarchy.

Not because support for the newly elected Labour-led coalition was up 6% to 54.5%, with National/ACT free-falling 5.5% on 41%.

But because the same poll revealed that “66.5% of NZ electors (up 8%) said NZ is heading in the right direction”.

This is a clear message from the people that they have had enough of a market-led, minimalist-government regime that has seen growing child poverty; widening income/wealth inequality; stagnating wages; corporates rorting the tax system; worsening housing affordability; growing homelessness with entire families living in garages or cars; degraded rivers; and a grossly under-funded health system.

National was quick of the mark cutting taxes in 2009 and 2010, for which they had to borrow from overseas to fund, despite assurances that would not happen.

But not so quick to address the critical problems that really matter to New Zealanders.

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-Frank Macskasy

[name and address supplied]

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References

Wikipedia:  Opinion polling for the New Zealand general election, 2011

Electoral Commission:  2017 General Election – Official Result

Roy Morgan Poll:  New PM Jacinda Ardern drives surge in New Zealand Government Confidence

NZ Herald:  Cycleway jobs fall short

Mediaworks:  New Zealand housing most unaffordable in the world – The Economist

Fairfax media: Prime Minister John Key pulled waitress’ ponytail

Radio NZ:  Flag referendum ‘waste of money’

Fairfax media:  New Zealand’s poor housing is making our children sick

Fairfax media:  ‘Serious pressures’ facing rivers, Government report finds

Mediaworks: The Nation – Turning around the far north

Mediaworks: The Nation – What happened to Moerewa?

Mediaworks: The Nation – Fixing Northland

Other Blogs

The Standard:  Latest Roy Morgan Poll – Labour and Greens surge as National flounders

Previous related blogposts

The Legacy of a Dismantled Prime Minister

“Fool me once”

St. Steven and the Holy Grail of Fiscal Responsibility

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That was then…

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This is now…

 

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This blogpost was first published on The Daily Blog on 27 November 2017.

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From TV’s “The Nation” – Patrick Gower and James Shaw have a heart-to-heart

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Saturday, 12 August – On TV3’s ‘The Nation, Patrick Gower interviewed the Green Party’s remaining co-leader, James Shaw;

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For a while, the interview was low-key, with Gower exercising old school  journalistic professionalism. It’s as if someone slipped him a nice camomile tea laced with a couple of shots of  bourbon and just a smidgeon of valium.

The interview progressed well, with James Shaw being somewhat irritatingly ‘coy’ about the Green’s campaign re-set. Gower kept his frustration in check as Shaw did the dance of the Seven Veils, but without the peeling-away of said veils.

Then, at 6:10 into the interview, there was this jaw-dropping exchange between Gower and Shaw;

Patrick Gower: Well, an important aspect of that is what Metiria Turei’s venture around this benefit fraud was all about, which was empowering the disenfranchised. Now, where do they sit — those people that she tried to reach, or, as you’ve argued, did reach now they’ve seen someone who’s stood up for them slapped down and destroyed, effectively? What message does that send to those people that you were trying to reach that this is what happens when someone speaks up for you?

James Shaw: Yeah, Patrick, I have to say that’s been a huge personal concern for me is — what message does that send? And so it is a really important part of our campaign that the people that have come forward over the course of the last four weeks in response to Metiria’s campaign who said, ‘Finally, I feel like there’s someone in the House of Representatives who actually represents me,’ we are going to be speaking directly to those people and say, ‘The Green Party is here for you. We still stand for you.’ And it is our goal to end poverty. I mean, Metiria herself said that is was always bigger than her.

Patrick Gower: Yeah, but what do those words mean when what they see is she stood up for them and she was taken down by her own party in some senses? You guys didn’t stand behind her.

James Shaw: Patrick, we absolutely stood behind her. She had the full support of me, the caucus, the party executive. I mean, we had thousands of volunteers all over the country.

Now – what’s wrong with Gower’s comments?

Why – when listening/reading his words – does one feel rising nausea and anger?

And why does the word “hypocrisy” ring loud?

Perhaps I’ve crossed over into a Parallel Universe… Bernie Sanders is still President of the United States, right?

 

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References

Mediaworks/TV3: The Nation – Patrick Gower interviews James Shaw (video)

Scoop media: The Nation – Patrick Gower interviews James Shaw (transcript)

Previous related blogposts

Some background info for Guyon Espiner

Time to speak up for Metiria Turei!

Time to speak up for Metiria Turei! (Part Rua)

The most grievous betrayal of all – two so-called “Green” MPs who should know better

Metiria Turei has started something

 

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Acknowledgement for cartoon: Toby Morris, Radio NZ.

This blogpost was first published on The Daily Blog on 13 August 2017.

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The Mendacities of Mr Key # 18: “No question – NZ is better off!”

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1. Credit where it’s due!

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TV3’s  The Nation on 2 July was probably the most incisive investigative journalism this blogger has seen for a long time. The only “fault” is that The Nation is ‘buried’ at the ghetto time-slot of early Saturday (and repeated early Sunday morning). Mediaworks is wasting a tremendous opportunity to use their current affairs journalistic team as a critical lynch-pin of their broadcasting line-up.

(Especially after the fiasco surrounding the cancellation of Campbell Live. But let’s not go there and rain on The Nation’s well-deserved parade.

In this episode;

• Patrick Gower interviewed John Key and elicited some eyebrow-raising responses from him
• An investigation by Phil Vine and Heather du Plessis-Allan into the Saudi sheep deal yielded  disturbing revelations

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2. Evidently, we’re “better off”?

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Following on from Bill English’s tragi-comical  assertion in Parliament on 29 June that  “there is no evidence that inequality in New Zealand is increasing“, our esteemed Dear Leader repeated the mantra three days later in response to a question from Gower;

Patrick Gower: “Good morning, Prime Minister, and thank you very much for joining us. Now, I want to take you back to your first big speech as leader of the National Party – that speech about McGehan Close. You talked in that speech about streets in our country where helplessness has become ingrained and said we have to do better. Now, on McGehan Close, when you went there, people were living in homes. Now we are looking at people living in cars. Is that really better? Is that better?”

John Key: “I think there’s no question New Zealand’s better…”

As reported in a previous story (see: Foot in mouth award – Bill English, for his recent “Flat Earth” comment in Parliament) practically every metric used  presents an unflattering picture of New Zealand in the early 21st century.

From the Children’s Commissioner;

Child poverty is now significantly worse than the 1980s. In 1985 the percentage of children in families experiencing income poverty was 15%, compared to 29% now

Put another way;

“305,000 New Zealand children now live in poverty – 45,000 more than a year ago”.

Statistics NZ’s reported;

“Between 1988 and 2014, income inequality between households with high incomes and those with low incomes widened“

And the OECD was also damning, stating;

  “rising inequality is estimated to have knocked more than 10 percentage points off  [economic] growth in Mexico and New Zealand.” 

Perhaps the most credible indictment of Key’s misguided view that “there’s no question New Zealand’s better” is from Key himself, from 2011;

He said he had visited a number of budgeting services and food banks “and I think it’s fair to say they’ve seen an increase in people accessing their services. So that situation is there.”

The difficulty with Key’s statement that “there’s no question New Zealand’s better” is that no one believes it.

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3. Unemployment is down?

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When Gower pressed Key that things had not improved much since Key’s visit  to  Aroha Ireland in McGehan Close in 2007, Dear Leader responded;

“The unemployment rate in New Zealand is now falling pretty dramatically.”

Well of course “unemployment in New Zealand is now falling“.  Unemployment has “dropped” from 5.7% to 5.2%.

But not because National’s policies have created twelve thousand new jobs.

But because Statistics NZ had conveniently revised its method of calculating the number of unemployed men and women by arbitrarily excluding those who were jobseeking using the internet;

Looking at job advertisements on the internet is correctly classified as not actively seeking work. This change brings the classification in line with international standards and will make international comparability possible… Fewer people will be classified as actively seeking work, therefore the counts of people unemployed will be more accurate.

The utter cheek of Statistics NZ to claim that   “therefore the counts of people unemployed will be more accurate” by excluding on-line job-hunting is matched only by Dear Leader Key who wasted no time in taking credit for “unemployment rate in New Zealand is now falling pretty dramatically“.

We are being lied to – and it is officially sanctioned.

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4. Cosying up to Winston?

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Gower then touched upon Key’s attitude toward NZ First leader Winston Peters, and asked;

Patrick Gower: “But what about deputy prime minister? Do you rule out Winston Peters being deputy prime minister in one of your governments?”

At this point, my mind immediately Quantum-Leaped back to 2008 and 2011 when Key categorically, absolutely, 100%, resolutely, ruled out any possibility of having Winston Peters in his government;

“Mr Peters will be unacceptable as a Minister in a government led by me unless he can provide a credible explanation [on the Owen Glenn donations scandal].” – John Key, 27 August 2008

“I don’t see a place for a Winston Peters-led New Zealand First in a government that I lead. Historically, he has always been sacked by prime ministers. It’s a very different style to mine and it’s rearward-looking. I’m about tomorrow. I’m not about yesterday. If Winston Peters holds the balance of power it will be a Phil Goff-led Labour government. ” – John Key, 2 February 2011

Seems fairly straight forward; Key was holding up his own “No” card, a-la Winston;

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Except, in the next breath, Key over-ruled himself and his previous pronouncements;

John Key: “Well, I’m not going to rule those sorts of things out.”

Perhaps Key mis-heard Patrick Gower’s question. Perhaps Key had mistakenly thought that Gower had asked him; “But what about deputy prime minister? Do you rule out Moonbeam being deputy prime minister in one of your governments?”

So, being the fair-minded journo that Gower is, he repeated the question;

Patrick Gower:  “Yeah, but do you rule out Winston Peters as John Key’s deputy prime minister?”

John Key: “No, because in the end, in 2017, we’re going to have an election, and when we have that election, what we’ll have to do is I’ll ultimately put together a government. I can’t determine that. The people of New Zealand determine that. What I have a responsibility to do is to put together a government — if I’m in the position to lead the largest party and to lead those negotiations — then to try and make that work.  But I’m not going to say who’s a minister and who’s not or what role they have and what they don’t.”

So there you have it. John Key – a Man of his Word. And principled. And flexible. Flexible with his Principles.

Or else, the John Key of 2008 and 2011 is not the same man who calls himself “John Key” in 2016? An imposter?

The only reason that people like John Key can get away with back-peddling; mis-information; and bendy-truths is that the voting-public are more cynical than ever. (Hence the rise of anti-establishment figure, Donald Trump; the in-your-face “Brexit” vote, and the success of Independent candidates in the Australian elections.) Voters expect politicians to be dishonest, manipulative, and abandon all principles in pursuit of power.

In this respect, Key has not disappointed.

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5. Matthew Hooton

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Well known right-wing commentator, Matthew Hooton, has been scathing in his condemnation of Murray McCully’s “Saudi Sheep Deal”, and has  conducted his own investigations into the scandal. His findings have been published on the National Business Review’s website.

Whilst Matthew and I hold wildly differing political views, and whilst his involvement in ‘Dirty Politics’ is questionable, his insightful analysis and  commentary on McCully’s dealings with Hmood Al-Khalaf has to be respected.

Matthew was a valuable contributor in analysing the “Saudi Sheep Deal” on The Nation, proving a credible counter-foil to Michelle Boag’s slavish and occasionally near-hysterical defense of Murray McCully’s dubious actions.

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6. Auditor-General

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The panelists lamented the fact that the Auditor-General’s report into the Saudi Sheep Deal was “not imminent”. I do not share those feelings.

Next year will be Election Year, and the closer the report’s release is to Election Day, the better it will be for the Opposition. If the Auditor-General’s findings are as scathing as many believe it will be, McCully will be sacked from his Ministerial position. The inglorious demise of his career will add to public perception that National plays “loose” with laws if there is a “buck” to be made.

The release of the Auditor-General’s report next year would be a strategic coup for Labour, Greens, and NZ First.

 

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7. Final Word

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Final word from that outstanding episode of The Nation has to go to Victoria University political scientist, Dr Jon Johansson;

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“ People are utterly fed up with their Establishment, their elites, never accepting accountability for anything.”

Nailed it, Doc.

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References

TV3: The Nation

TV3: The Nation – Interview with John Key

Parliament Today: Questions & Answers – June 29

NZ Children: Child Poverty Monitor – Technical Report

Radio NZ: A third of NZ children live in poverty

Statistics NZ: Income inequality

OECD: Trends in Income Inequality and its impact on economic growth

NZ Herald: Key admits underclass still growing

NZ Herald:  A day out with friends in high places

Statistics NZ: Household Labour Force Survey – Revisions to labour market estimates

Scoop media:  Peters unacceptable in a National-led Government

NZ Herald: PM rules out any NZ First deal

Fairfax media: John Key’s Cat Moonbeam

NBR: Flying sheep endanger McCully

TV3:  Panel – Jon Johansson, Conor English & Mike Williams

Previous related blogposts

John Key: Man of Many Principles

An open letter to Winston Peters

John Key: When propaganda photo-ops go wrong

National Housing propaganda – McGehan Close Revisited

What will be her future?

I have seen one future, and it is bleak

State house sell-off in Tauranga unravelling?

The Mendacities of Mr English – Fibbing from Finance Minister confirmed

Why is Paula Bennett media-shy all of a sudden?

Park-up in Wellington – People speaking against the scourge of homelessness

Lies, Damned lies and Statistical Lies

Foot in mouth award – Bill English, for his recent “Flat Earth” comment in Parliament

Lies, Damned lies and Statistical Lies – ** UPDATE **

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This blogpost was first published on The Daily Blog on 7 July 2016.

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Letter to the editor – Did Bill English try to pull a swiftie on ‘The Nation’?

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On TV3’s “The Nation“, Lisa Owen asked Finance Minister Bill English if funding for health and education had been cut on a per-capita basis. The response from  English was jaw-dropping;

“…if you look at the figures, let’s say for health, a variety of economists say that we needed about 700 million a year just to keep pace, yet health is getting about 570 million a year. You’ve frozen the schools’ operational budgets, so to be absolutely clear, per capita spending on health and education, it’s down, isn’t it?”

Bill English replied;

“No. Look, I couldn’t say for sure whether it’s up or down. “

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What?! The Finance Minister was saying to the New Zealand public that he “ couldn’t say for sure whether it’s [per capita spending] up or down“?! So how does he allocate money within the multi-billion dollar budget? By roll of a dice?

It deserved a response…

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from: Frank Macskasy <fmacskasy@gmail.com>
to: NZ Herald <letters@herald.co.nz>
date: Sat, May 28, 2016
subject: Letter to the editor

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The editor
NZ Herald

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On 28 May, Finance Minister Bill English was interviewed on TV3’s “The Nation“. Host Lisa Owen asked English if funding for health and education had been cut on a per-capita basis;

“…if you look at the figures, let’s say for health, a variety of economists say that we needed about 700 million a year just to keep pace, yet health is getting about 570 million a year. You’ve frozen the schools’ operational budgets, so to be absolutely clear, per capita spending on health and education, it’s down, isn’t it?”

English replied,

“No. Look, I couldn’t say for sure whether it’s up or down. “

Which he repeated;

“It’s not a measure we apply… Now, per capita, I can’t tell you whether it’s up or down. “

It beggars belief that a Finance Minister, responsible for a budget of $77.4 billion of taxpayer’s money, appears not to know if per capita spending on health and education is up or down.

This would be akin to mum and dad doing the weekly grocery shopping – and not knowing how many children to buy food for.

It simply is not credible that a Finance Minister would be unaware of such basic information.

So which is it – incompetence or evasion?

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-Frank Macskasy

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[address and phone number supplied]

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References

TV3 The Nation: Interview with Bill English

Fairfax media:  Budget 2016 – $700m needed for health to stand still – CTU

NZ Herald: New Zealand Budget 2016 – At-risk students targeted, operational funding frozen

Budget 2016: Core Crown expenses

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This blogpost was first published on The Daily Blog on  29 May 2016.

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Media stories of the Week: US Ambassador dismissive of our laws

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Every so often, the mainstream news media do their job well, and little nuggets of insights are revealed…

TV3’s ‘The Nation‘ on 28 November had host and highly-experienced journalist, Lisa Owen, interview current US Ambassador, Mark Gilbert.

Amongst topics covered was National’s determination to invite an American warship to New Zealand.

Since 1987,  this country has been a nuclear weapons and nuclear-propelled* free-zone and even National grudgingly acceded to Labour’s then-revolutionary policy. At a time when the Cold War between super-powers held the entire planet at the precipice to atomic armageddon, a tiny little country of barely three million held up it’s collective hand and refused to participate in the madness.

In 2004, then-leader of the opposition National Party, Don Brash made secret promises to a US Congressional delegation that New Zealand’s nuclear-free legislation ban would be ‘gone by lunchtime‘. The story hit headlines, though Brash denied making any such promise. Two years later, after losing an election; personal-life problems; and unable to take Helen Clark head-on in debates; Brash was ousted as National’s leader.

Shortly after rolling Brash and seizing power in the National Party, newly-elected leader John Key vowed that his party would maintain New Zealand’s nuclear-free legislation, asserting;

“National’s position has been in limbo in relation to nuclear ships, so I want to make it perfectly clear that I support the nuclear-free legislation.

For as long as I am leader of the National Party, the nuclear-free legislation will remain intact.

I think New Zealanders have a long-held view that this is important to our nation-building. I think they see it as New Zealand standing up strongly for something it believes in.

I believe in that position and I see absolutely no reason to change it.”

In 2012, Key repeated his promise to maintain New Zealand’s status as nuclear-free;

“There’ll be no change to New Zealand’s anti-nuclear legislation, no change to the provisions about boats that would come to New Zealand.”

This year, Key has been making noises to invite a US warship to New Zealand, with an invitation issued at the beginning of November;

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When challenged whether or not National would take steps to seek guarantees that a visiting warship would neither be nuclear armed nor propelled, Key replied it was not necessary. In effect, he referred people to use Google;

“There’s plenty of open source documentation and qualification that would allow you to form a view – for instance, I don’t think anyone’s ever argued that a US coastguard is either nuclear-powered nor nuclear-armed.

There’s enough stuff there, depending on the vessel that they send, for an assessment to be made.”

Despite the supposed removal of all atomic weapons from US warships announced by President Bush in September 1991, the US military still maintains a “neither confirm, nor deny” policy, as stated unequivocally by Ambassador Gilbert on 28 November;

“We will always stay with our ‘neither confirm nor deny’ policy.”

Yet, as President Bush maintained on 28 September 1991;

“… the United States will withdraw all tactical nuclear weapons from its surface ships and attack submarines, as well as those nuclear weapons associated with our land-based naval aircraft. This means removing all nuclear Tomahawk cruise missiles from U.S. ships and submarines, as well as nuclear bombs aboard aircraft carriers. The bottom line is that under normal circumstances, our ships will not carry tactical nuclear weapons.”

Bush has stated categorically that atomic weapons were removed from all US warships.

Why is Ambassador Gilbert unwilling to confirm that?

Furthermore,  Lisa Owen extracted this admission from the Ambassador;

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Lisa Owen: Okay, so will you send a ship that complies with our laws? Let me put it that way.

Mark Gilbert: First of all, a decision has not been made whether we’re going to be able to send a ship or not.

Lisa Owen: If you were to send one, would you send one that complied with our laws?

Mark Gilbert: We will always stay with our ‘neither confirm nor deny’ policy.

Lisa Owen: You’re going to stick hard and fast with that?

Mark Gilbert: We always have.

Note that not only did the Ambassador refuse to confirm President Bush’s removal of atomic weapons from US warships – but he also refused to comply with our laws.

This is a shocking admission that the United States is prepared to ignore our laws, and that our esteemed dear Leader is prepared to turn a blind eye.

There is nothing from Key’s or Gilbert’s assertions that fills me with confidence that either men are willing to uphold this country’s nuclear free legislation.

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* The sinkings of the Lermontov and Rena perhaps offer sound reasons why the ban on nuclear propulsion should remain alongside atomic weapons.

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References

TV3: The Nation – Interview and transcript – US Ambassador Mark Gilbert

NZ History: Nuclear-free New Zealand

Beehive: Not yet gone by lunchtime

Radio NZ: Gone by lunchtime stoush erupts again

NZ Herald: Key’s vow makes National anti-nuke

TV3: NZ will stay nuclear-free – Key

Radio NZ: US naval ships invited to visit NZ

New York Times: Bush’s Arms Plan – Remarks by President Bush on Reducing U.S. and Soviet Nuclear Weapons

NZ National Maritime Museum: The Last Cruise of the Mikhail Lermontov

Transport Accident Investigation Commission: Marine Inquiry 11-204: Container ship MV Rena grounding on Astrolabe Reef, 5 October 2011

Other bloggers

No Right Turn: Against a US ship visit

The Daily Blog:  Is a US warship finally coming to New Zealand?

The Standard: US ship visit and nuclear free NZ

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This blogpost was first published on The Daily Blog on 29 November 2015.

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The Mendacity of Ms Una Jagose, Spymaster

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Intro.

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Background.

15 September 2014

Despite being labelled a “fizzer” by some National-aligned critics, and a media expecting ‘fireworks’, the “Moment of Truth” event  presented information that raised the public’s awareness of state surveillance and data collection in this country;

…that the Government Communications Security Bureau was involved in the mass surveillance of New Zealand citizens, and that the National government and Prime Minister John Key were aware of it […] NSA leaker Edward Snowden accused Prime Minister John Key of misleading the public over the country’s spying activities…

One mass-surveillance system referred to was XKEYSCORE, which investigative-journalists on The Intercept described as;

The NSA’s XKEYSCORE program, first revealed by The Guardian, sweeps up countless people’s Internet searches, emails, documents, usernames and passwords, and other private communications. XKEYSCORE is fed a constant flow of Internet traffic from fiber optic cables that make up the backbone of the world’s communication network, among other sources, for processing. As of 2008, the surveillance system boasted approximately 150 field sites in the United States, Mexico, Brazil, United Kingdom, Spain, Russia, Nigeria, Somalia, Pakistan, Japan, Australia, as well as many other countries, consisting of over 700 servers.

These servers store “full-take data” at the collection sites — meaning that they captured all of the traffic collected — and, as of 2009, stored content for 3 to 5 days and metadata for 30 to 45 days. NSA documents indicate that tens of billions of records are stored in its database. “It is a fully distributed processing and query system that runs on machines around the world,” an NSA briefing on XKEYSCORE says. “At field sites, XKEYSCORE can run on multiple computers that gives it the ability to scale in both processing power and storage.”

Our esteemed Dear Leader, John Key, has consistently refused to confirm of deny whether or not the GCSB uses XKEYSCORE. Equally critically, Key refused to confirm or deny whether or not the spy bureau obtains information from the American NSA, which does employ XKEYSCORE.

15 March 2015

However, seven months ago, investigative journalists Nicky Hager and Ryan Gallagher, working with the Herald on Sunday, released a damning report which presented clear evidence that the New Zealand government was indeed collecting private information using XKEYSCORE;

For the first time, New Zealanders can learn about people their government has targeted as part of its role in Five Eyes, a surveillance alliance that includes New Zealand, the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia.

The secret document, dated from January 2013, shows some of the names and other search terms that the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) entered into the internet spying system XKeyscore . XKeyscore is run by the US National Security Agency and is used to analyse vast amounts of email, internet browsing sessions and online chats that are intercepted from some 150 different locations worldwide.

GCSB has gained access to XKeyscore through its partnership in Five Eyes, and contributes data to the system that is swept up in bulk from a surveillance base in Waihopai Valley.

John Key’s assurances that New Zealanders are not under mass surveillance, nor mass data-collection being used, is also questionable after a recent TV3 The Nation’s interview with the GCSB’s  acting director, Una Jagose.

As well as XKEYSCORE, there is another programme that Key confirmed was being used by the GCSB – “Cortex”;

“We’ve never undertaken mass surveillance, we have got a programme called Cortex running over specific entities providing cyber protection.”

However, there are indications that Cortex is not merely the benign “cyber protection system” as has been made out.

It may well be a cleverly  disguised ‘Trojan Horse’ – a possibility recently raised by fellow blogger, Martyn Bradbury and others.

The Present.

On 3 October, the GCSB’s  acting director, Una Jagose, was interviewed by Patrick Gower.

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Image acknowledgement: TV3 – The Nation

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Whether by clever persistance or sheer dumb luck, Gower managed to elicit some intriguing responses from Jagose on the ‘Cortex’ programme.

Gower first asked who is under attack by “cyber threats from overseas”. Jagose responded;

“We focus our attention on New Zealand companies that are holders of information, assets of importance to New Zealand, so nationally important infrastructure companies and some key government departments. So, yes, we’re definitely seeing attacks there.”

Gower then pointedly asked; “So what you’re talking about – banks, telecom companies, those kinds of things?”

At this point, Jagose became less than forthcoming;

“Well, those parts of the infrastructure, the nationally important, those sorts of things. We actually don’t talk about who they are or specifically what types of organisations they are, because revealing that also reveals to an adversary where we might have our best and richest sources of data that they might be interested.”

Which is interesting, as foreign cyber attackers would already be aware who their targets are in this country. Jagose would not be revealing anything that foreign cyber attackers would not already know.

The only people kept in the dark – us.

As Gower continued to interview Jagose, it soon became apparent why she was reticent in revealing who was being targetted by so-called “foreign cyber attacks”.

Gower followed up by asking a natural-enough question; “who is trying to get this information? Is it individual criminal organisations, or is it countries?”

Jagose replied;

“…At best it’s criminals. It’s often foreign-sourced sophisticated malware that we’re seeing…

[…]

… it could be industrial espionage. It could be IP theft. It could be just having an in to important sovereign communications or discussions by government agencies, policies, positions governments might take, positions companies might take.”

Then, she made this startling admission;

“We don’t spend too much of our time trying to track down who did that, because, in fact, we want to use our time and our technology protecting networks and systems.”

Pardon?!

“We don’t spend too much of our time trying to track down who did that…”

Jagose repeated the statement in the next response she gave to Gower – though the TV3 reporter did not appear to comprehend the implications of her candid admission;

“Well, again, I say we don’t spend our energy looking at— attribution is really difficult. It is apparently a very technical and difficult thing to work out where did that come from, who’s doing it and why are they doing it? We spend our energy on defence.”

In effect, the GCSB’s “new role” has moved from intelligence gathering (ie, finding out who is supposedly – and I use that word deliberately – launching “cyber attacks” against us) – to one of being a State-funded-and-operated, quasi-Norton Anti-Virus agency?

Is this credible?

When did National decide to go into business to offer a rival service to MacAfee, AVG, Norton, et al?

That is not a rhetorical question, as National released two Cabinet Minutes related to “Project Cortex”. The first, labelled “1”, is dated 28 July 2014, the other (labelled “4”) is simply dated “2014” (though Key refers to the document as having been written in July 2014). Both outlined a business case for “Cortex”, including costings and assessment by Treasury – though all dollar figures had been redacted.

Cabinet Minute 4 takes great pains to point out;

2. The proposal takes into account the amended GCSB Act and necessary warranting procedures, and will in all cases operate with the consent of the participating entities.

In fact, Cabinet Minute 4 refers to “consent” from organisations and entities no less than eight times. Someone was at pains to make the point to whoever was going to read the document. Which would be  unusual, as normally Cabinet Minutes are almost never made public.

Cabinet Minute 4 also makes several curious statements;

27. There will be no ‘mass surveillance’, and data will be accessed by GCSB only with the  consent of owners of relevant networks or systems.

By coincidence, a press statement from John Key dated 15 September, 2014 – two months after Cabinet Minute 4 was supposedly written shortly after a Cabinet Meeting held that year – quoted Dear Leader as stating;

“I can assure New Zealanders that there is not, and never has been, mass surveillance by the GCSB.

“In stark contrast, the Bureau actually operates a sound, individually-based form of cyber protection only to entities which legally consent to it,” Mr Key says.

Paragraph 27 of that Cabinet Minute – supposedly written before the “Moment of Truth” on 15 September 2014 – sounds remarkably similar to Key’s 15 September 2015 press statement – a year after “Moment of Truth”.

It almost seems as if Cabinet Minute 4 was prepared at some later date, knowing that it would be eventually be released to the media and the public to counter the “Moment of Truth”. Which is ridiculous… the author(s) of that Minute could not have known – in advance – that the Minute would eventually be released by  National. That would mean that the document was written well after the Cabinet meeting, and was re-worded to take into account revelations by Edward Snowden on 15 September last year.

That would mean the document was a fraud.

Ridiculous… right?

Interestingly, Cabinet Minute 4 also makes this curious statement at two different points;

7. GCSB is not proposing to procure or develop bespoke systems. No material level of software development is required of GCSB or a second party. The proposal is to procure then integrate capability components already available and tested over several years [redacted],

41. GCSB is not proposing to procure or develop bespoke systems. No material level of software development is required of GCSB or a second party. The proposal is to procure then integrate capability components already available and tested, [redacted]. The hardware and software components range from widely available commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) systems, through to single-source COTS, to systems only available through government-to-government agreement. All of the technology has been in use for some time, [redacted].

As The Intercept website asked,

The Cortex documents [Cabinet Minutes] refer to the use of technology that “has been in use for some time.” What technology is this?

What is the Cabinet Minute referring to when it states; “ components already available and tested over several years ” and “capability components already available and tested“?

“Available” where?

“Tested” by whom?

“In use for some time” by who?

The document throws up more questions than answers. Unfortunately, despite Key’s claims to the contrary, this is not an open and transparent government that readily shares information.

So which “consenting organisations” will use Cortex? And will clients and staff be made aware that their electronic communications may be intercepted by the GCSB?

Cabinet Minute 4 states;

18. The foundation of the preferred option is a malware detection service delivered to [redacted] consenting organisations. [redacted] of the [redacted] organisations will be government agencies. The other [redacted] will be drawn from a list of approximately [redacted] organisations of national importance developed by DPMC’s National Cyber Policy Office (NCPO) and approved by ODESC on 7 June 2013. The list includes key economic generators, niche exporters, research institutions and operators of critical national infrastructure.

However, we do not know who those “consenting organisations” are. It is a secret. Remember Jagose’s first response to Gower during the 3 October interview;

“We actually don’t talk about who they are or specifically what types of organisations they are, because revealing that also reveals to an adversary where we might have our best and richest sources of data that they might be interested.”

Note that Paragraph 18 above refers to the “National Cyber Policy Office” (NCPO). The NCPO is an arm of the Security and Intelligence Group. That Group, in turn, is part of  the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet (DPMC);

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Note the address of the “National Cyber Policy Office“: Pipitea House, 1-15 Pipitea Street, Thorndon (arrow 1). Which happens to be the same building housing the GCSB.

Then note something called “Connect Smart” (arrow 2), which is described as;

Connect Smart is a new Government-led initiative, delivered in partnership with the private and NGO sectors, to raise awareness of cyber security issues and promote ways to protect yourself, your business and others online.

“Connect Smart” sounds remarkably like the supposedly top-secret list described by Cabinet Minute 4 as, “organisations of national importance developed by DPMC’s National Cyber Policy Office (NCPO) and  … The list includes key economic generators, niche exporters, research institutions and operators of critical national infrastructure”.

“Connect Smart” was launched on 16 June 2014 (just prior to Cabinet Minute 1   supposedly written on 28 July 2014), by Communications and Information Technology Minister, Amy Adams.

Adams warned about;

“The common thread that unites cyber threats is their capacity to cause damage; ranging in scale from the distress experienced by an individual who has had their identity hacked, to the economic damage that sustained industrial cyber espionage can cause to a country.”

She further stated;

“A range of departments are involved – from those at the front end, such as Police, Department of Internal Affairs, and the National Cyber Security Centre, through to those grappling with the policy implications of cyber security, led by the National Cyber Policy Office. 

This year, the NCPO will be working on a number of major policy initiatives:

• A refreshed and comprehensive national Cyber Security Strategy to make sure we are coordinated and resourced across government to address this challenge;

• A targeted inter-agency cybercrime plan;

• An assessment of the economic balance of cyberspace for New Zealand;

• Testing the Government’s response to a significant cyber incident; and

• Consideration of the options for a national cyber mechanism to improve the coordination, effectiveness and efficiency of the Government’s response to cyber incidents. “

It sounds as if Adams is referring to… Cortex?

So who are the  “Connect Smart” Partners? They are;

• Hewlett Packard
• Spark NZ (formerly Telecom)
• ASB
• Facebook
• ANZ
• Datacom
• Microsoft
• Dimension Data
• Marsh
• International Underwriting Agencies Ltd
• Internal Affairs
• Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet
• Vodaphone
• Aura Information
• Mako Networks
• Ministry for Primary Industries
• RSA
• Symantec
• NZ Post
• Inland Revenue
• EQC
• Nga Pu Waea
• NCSC
• North Harbour Business Association
• RealMe
• Mastercard
• NZ Police
• Transpower
• University of Auckland
• Yahoo NZ
• ZX Security
• Google
• IPENZ Engineers NZ
• ACC
• Air New Zealand
• British High Commission
• Consumer
• Financial Markets Authority
• Institute of IT Professionals
• Internet NZ
• Kiwibank
• KPMG
• Massey University
• Privacy Commissioner
• PWC
• Senior Net
• VISA
• Dept of Conservation
• Xero
• 1st Tuesday
• Journey Church
• Duo
• Digital Journey
• Institute of Directors
• University of Waikato
• Unitech
• Scots College
• Greater East Tamaki Business Association
• Commission for Financial Literacy
• Delta Insurance
• Neighbourhood Support
• Westpac
• Ministry of Education
• BNZ
• Waikator District Health Board
• NZ Foreign Affairs & Trade
• Waitemata District Health Board
• Business NZ
• Crimestoppers
• MPA
• Longitude 174
• University of Canterbury
• VMWare
• Trademe
• Insurance Council of NZ
• Weta Digital
• High Tech Youth Network
• AJ Park
• Noel Leeming
• Our School
• NZ Transport Agency
• NZ Bankers Association
• University of Otago
• Gallagher
• Chartered Accountants
• AIG
• ARC Solutions
• Secure Safe
• Safestack
• Paymark
• Quantum Security
• NZ Customs Service
• Room 9
• NZ Trade & Enterprise
• SSS IT Security Specialists
• Statistics NZ
• NZ Health IT
• Crombie Lockwood
• Snap
• Lock It
• Connect
• Computercare
• Meredith Connell
• Network Box
• TUANZ
• Stay Smart Online
• Sovereign
• NZ Security Intelligence Service (SIS)
• Eagle Technology
• Plan B
• Naki Cloud
• Pentech
• Liverton Technology Group
• Price Me
• Mila XAG
• Need A Nerd
• KD Consult
• Senate SHJ

(I have listed all companies, in case the website suddenly disappears, or that particular page is taken down.)

“The list includes key economic generators, niche exporters, research institutions and operators of critical national infrastructure” – the DPMC’s National Cyber Policy Office’s description of their supposedly secret list of clients.

The “Connect Smart” list certainly meets that criteria – including the Security Intelligence Service. And Amy Adams’ 16 June speech appears to confirm it.

So do the staff and clients of these companies, organisations, and government departments know that they are most likely part of the Cortex programme run by the GCSB?

Are they aware that their electronic communications may be collected and stored by the GCSB?

Are they aware their communications could be read, as Jagose confirmed to Patrick Gower;

Gower: What does the analyst do if there’s a personal email there?

Jagose: Well, the analyst is looking at it not for its content but for what the email and the traffic tells us about the fingerprint or the adverse attack that is occurring. So that’s what they do with it.

Gower: But the analyst can see the content if they want to?

Jagose: Yes.

Gower then asked the all-important question;

Gower: Yeah, but I would be told, would I, by the company that they’ve now put Cortex on?

Jagose: You’ll be told that your communications will be screened or may be screened for cyber defence purposes.

Gower: Right. How do you get told that?

Jagose: In terms and conditions of use, for example.

I scrutinised the Terms and Conditions of Spark NZ – one of the country’s largest companies that deals with thousands of employees, contractors, and customers. Is there any reference to Cortex with Spark’s Terms and Conditions?

Answer: no.

There is, however, this brief reference to handing over information to the government;

The Operator and Spark Digital reserve the right to disclose end user information that it believes, in good faith, is appropriate or necessary to take precautions against liability; to protect the Operator and Spark Digital and others from fraudulent, abusive, predatory, or unlawful uses or activity; to investigate and defend against any third party claims or allegations; to assist government enforcement agencies; or to protect the security or integrity of the Platform.

That paragraph is at the end of the Terms and Conditions statement, at the bottom of the page. How many people will have waded through the entire document to spot it? Who even bothers to read Terms and Conditions?

And by itself, just how informative is the brief statement, “to assist government enforcement agencies“?

It is a meaningless statement.

One cannot escape the conclusion that Una Jagose has attempted a ‘snow job’ of New Zealanders. If so, it remains to be seen how effective she has been.

Meanwhile,  it is unclear what the true purpose of the  ‘Cortex’ programme really is. Can we trust anything that we are told about it by National?

Answer: no.

There is much more to this than meets the eye.

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Addendum1

Def: “Bespoke”

Of goods, especially clothing) made to order.

(of a computer program) written or adapted for a specific user or purpose.

Addendum 2

Questions posed by The Intercept on XKEYSCORE and Cortex;

We are currently researching a number of other stories related to GCSB, and I expect we are going to shine more light on the agency’s activities in this sphere in the near future. In the meantime, Key and the GCSB face a mounting number of important questions that they have until now managed to dodge.

Here’s a few for starters:

• Why did you inform the public that the GCSB Amendment Bill would not lead to an expansion of powers when at the same time you were planning the Speargun mass surveillance initiative?

• Why was phase one of the Speargun project completed if it was, as Prime Minister Key has claimed, something that never made it past the “business case”?

• Why were New Zealanders not informed about the Cortex project until the government’s hand was forced by disclosures based on documents from Snowden?

• How much data is collected on a daily basis by GCSB under the Cortex project, and how does the agency ensure this data does not “incidentally” include the content or metadata of citizens’ communications?

• The Cortex documents refer to the use of technology that “has been in use for some time.” What technology is this?

• Is any information collected by GCSB under Cortex — or any other program that accesses internet data — shared with the NSA and/or other Five Eyes agencies through systems such as XKEYSCORE?

• Does GCSB have access to XKEYSCORE and, if so, for how long has this been the case?

• Does GCSB use its access to internet data streams — under initiatives like Cortex or similar — to launch active/offensive cyber operations that involve hacking computer systems to collect information?

• When will you declassify documents detailing the Speargun project and showing that it was not completed?

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References

Radio NZ: ‘Moment of Truth’ on world stage

The Intercept: Xkeyscore – NSA’s Google for the World’s private communications

Radio NZ: Key silent on spy programme

NZ Herald on Sunday: Revealed – The names NZ targeted using NSA’s XKeyscore system

TV3 The Nation: Interview – GCSB Acting Director Una Jagose

TV3 The Nation: Interview – GCSB Acting Director Una Jagose (transcript)

Beehive: Cabinet Minute 1

Beehive: Cabinet Minute 4

Beehive: PM responds to incorrect surveillance claims

Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet: National Cyber Policy Office

Connect Smart: Partners

Spark NZ: Terms and Conditions

Other bloggers

No Right Turn: The GCSB’s PR campaign

Public Address: Crowdsourcing Project Cortex

The Daily Blog: Martyn Bradbury – GCSB begin marketing campaign to con NZers

The Daily Blog: Chris Trotter – Revolution In Pipitea Street: The Listener celebrates the Baby-Boomer takeover of the SIS and the GCSB

Previous related blogposts

An Open Message to the GCSB, SIS, NSA, and Uncle Tom Cobbly

Letter to the Editor: John Campbell expose on Key and GCSB

Campbell Live on the GCSB – latest revelations – TV3 – 20 May 2014

The Mendacities of Mr Key #1: The GCSB Bill

One Dunedinite’s response to the passing of the GCSB Bill

The “man ban”; animal testing; GCSB Bill; and compulsory miltary training

Nigella Lawson, GCSB, Christchurch re-build, and Malcolm Burgess on Campbell Live

The real reason for the GCSB Bill

The Fletcher Affair – a warning for Labour

TV3 – Campbell Live’s GCSB Public Vote

The GCSB Act – Tracy Watkins gets it right

The GCSB Act – some history

The GCSB – when plain english simply won’t do

The GCSB law – vague or crystal clear?

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This blogpost was first published on The Daily Blog on 4 October 2015.

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= fs =

Polls and pundits – A facepalm moment

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19 September – This morning’s  episode of The Nation on TV3 featured leaders from Labour, Greens, NZ First,  ACT, and Steven Joyce spinning for National. The episode was an appraisal of National’s performance since last year’s election.

Joyce, Little, Shaw, and Peters were given decent time to respond to questions from hosts Lisa Owen and Patrick Gower. David Seymour seemed short-changed with an unseemingly hasty, brief interview, though at 0.69% of the Party vote his five minutes of question-and-answer might be deemed appropriate. Except that ACT has considerable influence on National out of proportion to it’s miniscule electoral support.

Perhaps the most disappointing aspect to the episode were continual references to poll ratings for John Key and National being “unchanged” and continuing to ride high. The implication being that National and Key’s poll ratings remain unchanged.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

A Roy Morgan poll reported on Radio NZ on Friday – the day before The Nation went to air – gave a shock result for National;

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According to the poll, National National’s support  has plummeted  by six percentage-points, with support for the  Labour/Green bloc jumping by eight percentage points.

NZ First support had also fallen by 2.5 percentage points.

The inescapable conclusion is that, according to this poll, Labour and the Greens had achieved the Golden Rule; increase support by taking from their opponants, and not by the two Left-wing parties cannibalising each other. As Patrick Gower pointed out;

@5.27

“They have to find a way to take votes of National. They can’t just shuffle it around between the Greens and New Zealand First to get to 33, 34. That ain’t gonna do it.”

In the Roy Morgan poll, National and NZ First’s fall mirrors almost exactly the rise of the Labour-Green bloc. No “shuffling” – National’s support has moved over to Labour and the Greens.

How was this reported on The Nation? Not at all. No mention made whatsoever of a poll – which while it should not be taken in isolation – should still give government party strategists cause for alarm and rate a mention from our current affairs media.

This made a mockery of Patrick Gower’s comment to Labour leader, Andrew Little,

@ 2.05

“But still the poll ratings haven’t changed. John Key is exactly where he has always been.”

@ 4.40

“That’s what the polls say. The polls put them at 47%.”

Or this comment from Lisa Owen;

@ 0.01

“So while National’s well ahead in the polls, it’s not been a year without its challenges.”

During the Panel discussion with Guyon Espiner, Patrick Gower, and  Tracy Watkin, similar  mis-leading references were made by professional political journalists who should know better.

Guyon Espiner

@ 0.18

“I think it’s tracking pretty well, if you look at the polls. I mean, 47% for National is extraordinary at that point.”

Tracy Watkins;

@ 1.15

“47%, if that’s that the numbers in the latest poll, I mean  that is quite incredible, it really is.”

Tracey Watkins;

@ 7.15

“Well I’m going to have to say John Key [is the winner]… Well, I mean, if he’s still on 47% [interruption] Winner! Winner! He’s…Despite everything,  y’know, third term and he’s still massively popular  and his government is still hugely popular.”

To be fair, if  the interviews for Saturday morning were pre-recorded throughout the week, the Roy Morgan poll results appeared too late to be included in questions asked of Party leaders. Though the lead-in from Lisa Owen and Patrick Gower was a live (?) broadcast. They should have been aware of the shock result only twentyfour hours previous.

The reality is that Roy Morgan polls are rarely reported by either TV1 or TV3. Both broadcasters have their own contracted polling companies and ignore all other results.

What is totally inexplicable is that the producers and hosts of The Nation ignored polling from their own company, Reid Research.

Polling from Reid Research has shown a steady decline in John Key’s popularity, as I reported on 13 July and  28 July;

As was reported previously, the personal popularity of our esteemed Dear Leader, John Key, has been in slow free-fall since 2009;

Oct/Nov 08: 36.4%

(Source)

Feb 2009: 52.1%

April 2009: 51.1%

Aug 2009: 51.6%

Oct 2009: 55.8%

Feb 2010: 49.4%

April 2010: 49.0%

June 2010: 49.6%

Jul/Aug 2010: 48.7%

Sept/Oct 2010: 50.6%

Nov/Dec 2010: 54.1%

Feb 2011: 49.1%

April 2011: 52.4%

May 2011: 48.2%

Jun/Jul 2011: 50.5%

Aug 2011: 53.3%

Sept 2011: 54.5%

Oct 2011: 52.7%

1-8 Nov 2011: 50.0%

9-16 Nov 2011: 49.4%

16-23 Nov 2011: 48.9%

Feb 2012: 45.8%

April 2012: 44.2%

May/Jun 2012: 40.5%

July: 43.2%

(Source)

Feb 2013: 41.0%

April 2013: 38.0%

May 2013: 41.0%

Jul 2013: 42.0%

Nov 2013: 40.9%

Jan 2014: 38.9%

Mar 2014: 42.6%

May 2014: 43.1%

Jun 2014: 46.7%

Jul 2014: 43.8%

5-3 Aug 2014: 44.1%

19-25 Aug 2014: 41.4%

26 Aug-1 Sept 2014: 45.1%

2-8 Sept 2014: 45.3%

9-15 Sept 2014: 44.1%

Jan 2015: 44.0%

May 2015: 39.4%

(Source)

The most recent 3News/Reid Research Poll is no better for John Key. His PPM ranking has slipped again;

July 2015: 38.3%

From the rarified-atmosphere heights of 55.8% (2009), Key has dropped 17.5 percentage points in the Preferred Prime Minister rankings by July of this year.

Not referencing a polling company that Mediaworks has no contractual relationship with is, perhaps understandable, even if it means not presenting their audience with a full picture of New Zealand’s ever changing political environment.

But not referencing a polling company that Mediaworks is contractually bound with, and has previously used their results for several years? Especially when that polling company has recorded a massive fall in popularity for Key since 2009?

The only explanation for this strange over-sight of data is that it did not fit with The Nation’s narrative of a “hugely popular Prime Minister”. Otherwise, Owen and Gower would have had to completely change their interviewing tactics with Little and Shaw.

Perhaps this is one reason why Key’s popularity has “remained so high” – a reluctance by certain MSM not to reassess the narrative around our esteemed Dear Leader. In doing so, the perception of Key’s “high popularity” is artificially maintained, creating a perpetual, self-fulfilling scenario.

In part, this provides an answer why Key is so “hugely popular”. Because we are told it is so.

Tim Watkin Responds

When the issues raised in this story were put to The Nation’s producer, Tim Watkin, he generously took time  give his response;

“On your Roy Morgan critique:

Media organisations always refer to their own polling, not others. The Roy Morgan poll is well known as the most volatile. Indeed, to emphasise why we wouldn’t base a programme discussing the past year in politics around a single poll by another organisation, Radio New Zealand and no lesser poll-watcher than Colin James reported this in just the past few days: http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/political/284109/national-back-in-poll-position

Polls are about trends, as you know, not single results. So I’m afraid your “nothing could be further from the truth” couldn’t be much further from the truth.

On your quotes of Lisa, Paddy, Tracy and Guyon:

Looking at the 3News-Reid Research poll, National has been remarkably consistent since 2011. National is indeed at 47%, as those on the programme said. When Guyon mentioned 47% he was likely referring to RNZ’s poll of polls, which also has National at 47%. Labour is in the low 30s. So all the quotes you mention are absolutely correct. Paddy’s mention of John Key being unchanged I took to mean ‘still well ahead of you, Mr Little’.

On John Key’s numbers:

Though you’re changing the goalposts by switching from party numbers to personal numbers, you’re right that Key’s own preferred PM numbers are down and right to focus on the trend, rather than a single poll. But when you say a couple of times that we didn’t reference that, you have simply ignored our final couple of questions to Steve Joyce. We didn’t mention those numbers precisely, but the ones behind that, on honesty, capability, narrow-minded etc. We put to Joyce that Key was sliding, exactly as you argue. So your outrage at our pre-ordained narrative is somewhat misplaced, isn’t it? We raised the point that you say we didn’t.

Still, to take a step back, the thing about those numbers is that while trending down (as Lisa stressed with Joyce), they are still at a level any other politician in the country would give a limb for. So when you talk about “freefall” etc, I think you’re missing the big picture, which is how those numbers are a) so much higher than others, b) unusually high for a third term PM and c) have gone down before, only to bounce back up.

So there’s no agenda or telling people how to think; just a cold hard look at the trends.”

Appendix1

Acknowledgement: some quotes have been used from transcripts provided by The Nation, to this blogger.

Appendix2

Roy Morgan polling is conducted by calling  both landline and mobile telephones throughout New Zealand, and is the only polling company to do so.

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References

The Nation: Steven Joyce interview

The Nation: Andrew Little interview

The Nation: Winston Peters

The Nation: James Shaw interview

The Nation: David Seymour

Wikipedia: 2014 General Election – Overall Results

Radio NZ: Labour, Greens support outstrips National

The Nation: The Panel discussion

Previous related blogposts

Mr Morgan phoned

Census, Surveys, and Cellphones (Part rua)

Census, Surveys, and Cellphones

The slow dismantling of a populist prime minister

The slow dismantling of a Prime Minister continues

Colmar Brunton-TV1 News – not giving us the complete picture

 

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This blogpost was first published on The Daily Blog on 20 September 2015.

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= fs =

The Curious Case of Cameron Slater, the Hacker, and the unforgivable crime of stupidity

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Cameron Slater is not a well man.

A recent exposé by TV3’s ‘The Nation‘ revealed that Cameron Slater has allegedly been conspiring with IT consultant, Ben Rachinger, to hack left-wing blogsite, ‘The Standard‘ to steal personal information.

According to a NZ Herald report, the matter is now evidently a matter of a Police investigation;

“The complaint is being investigated by Counties Manukau CIB.

There are a number of complexities to the investigation, including the posting online of documentation which has already compromised the investigation and is making our inquires more difficult.

Police are taking a cautious approach, and working through a number of complex steps to gather the necessary information to advance the enquiry.

Any decision on charges is some way off at this stage, and will be made after a thorough assessment of all relevant information.”

Any potential charges would most likely relate to attempting to procure a crime, if the allegations are found to have merit.

This alleged txt-message from Slater to Rachinger alone, seems to be an admission that he was fully aware of the dubious, and potentially illegal, nature of his activities;

“It’s no small thing I’m doing this, I could be being set up in a sting by a media person or cops.”

His ISP may also take a dim view if he has been using his internet connection for nefarious purposes.

Aside from the sheer illegality of these allegations, three things stand out in this grubby affair;

1. If proven, it seems that Cameron Slater’s desire for revenge on those he perceives have slighted him, is a psychopathy that reveals a deeply troubled human being.

In which case, Slater requires psychiatric attention, not prison or a fine.

2.If proven, it demonstrates that Slater has little hesitation in circumventing or breaking the law. He was convicted in September 2010 of eight counts of breaching name suppression orders and one count of identifying a victim in a sex case on his  blog. He is currently being sued  by Auckland businessman, Matthew Blomfield, in a defamation case.

3.If proven, Slater’s behaviour is worse than a simple matter of law-breaking – it shows his sheer stupidity in thinking that an attempt to hack another website could be done without being discovered.

Has he learned nothing from Nicky Hager’s ‘Dirty Politics’, in that it is virtually impossible to keep secrets in a small country like ours?

With certain exceptions, stupidity is the most unforgiving crime of all. It appears that Slater has learned nothing from recent experiences. Life’s lessons seem to have little value for this tragic character.

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References

TV3: The Nation – More Dirty Politics?

NZ Herald: Right-wing blogger accused of paying off hacker

Fairfax media: Whale Oil blogger Cameron Slater guilty

Previous related blogposts

That was Then, This is Now #25 – Keeping the buggers “honest”

Latest from Whaledump2 – Jordan Williams and Cameron Slater

When Karma caught up with Cameron Slater

Are Cameron Slater and Judith Collins bare-faced liars?

The Slater-Key Txt-Messages Trip-Up – Did Cameron Slater Plan this?

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This blogpost was first published on The Daily Blog on 7 June 2015.

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The Curious World of the Main Stream Media

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Q+ A and The Nation

The biggest news story of the week broke on  Thursday, 9 April, with Mediaworks revealing to a stunned public  that ‘Campbell Live‘ – which had just celebrated it’s tenth anniversary – was “under review”. It was a story appearing in practically every media outlet in the country;

Fairfax media

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NZ Herald

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Radio NZ

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NZ Newswire

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Mediaworks/TV3

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NewstalkZB

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National Business Review

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On Facebook, a Save Campbell Live!  group quickly sprang up, with 1,545 members as 12.01am, 14 April.

One petition on Change.org has acquired 19,654 signatures, and another on Action Stations has 66,974.

The tweet hashtag, #SaveCampbellLive, was trending near the top of Twitter’s New Zealand Trends on 9 April;

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Acknowledgement for use of image above: Halloween Mike1

As well as the msm, most of the top blogs in the country covered the story, one way or another (see: Other blogs)

So I was looking forward to see some serious analysis on ‘The Nation‘ and/or ‘Q+A‘, on this issue.

Incredibly, and alarmingly, none was forthcoming, except for a brief throw-away-line by comedians Jeremy Corbett and Paul Ego, during their sixty-second satirical-slot on ‘The Nation‘ (though without any actual direct reference to John Campbell), to “being replaced by Jono Pryor and Ben Boyce“.

TV1’s ‘Q+A‘ was also strangely silent on an issue that had been a nationwide talking point.

Instead, on Saturday’s ‘The Nation‘, we had stories on;

• Legal highs, with interviews with Peter Dunne and Matt Bowden
• the booming Auckland Property market, with interviews with Mayor Len Brown; Deputy Mayor Penny Hulse; Kate Healy from Ngati Whatua Orakei Whai Rawa Ltd, and property developer David Whitburn

Sunday’s ‘Q+A‘ on TV1  gave us;

• an interview with HSBC economist, Paul Bloxham, who coined the phrase “rock star economy”
• urban-designer, Charles Montgomery, on how to improve our cities

Considering that ‘Campbell Live‘ is one of the last serious current affairs programme remaining on free-to-air television, one would have thought that this was worthy of scrutiny by either ‘Q+A’ or ‘The Nation‘.

Understandably, perhaps, TV3’s executives Julie Christie and Group Chief Executive Officer Mark Weldon – who have allegedly expressed a dislike for  ‘Campbell Live‘ – may have dissuaded ‘The Nation‘ from enquiring further into the matter.

When Fairfax Media made redundant large numbers of sub-editors a few years ago, the event was not reported in ‘The Dominion Post‘ or any other Fairfax title. The news was suppressed by management. In this respect media management can be every bit as shy of public scrutiny as the politicians they profess to scrutinise.

The media demand press freedom to allow public scrutiny – except when it applies to them.

Stranger still is that TVNZ – a direct commercial competitor to Mediaworks – made no mention of goings-on at TV3. One would think that a major event in this country’s media would have rated some sort of story or analysis with media experts.

Instead – nothing.

Television executives seem very shy when it comes to public attention on their own activities.

How NOT to promote a flagship programme

Palmerston North teacher, Scott Milne, pointed out that ‘Campbell Live‘s’ poor ratings may be due to Mediaworks not promoting the programme as enthusiastically as it does with others.

On Twitter, Scott posted this screen-shot of a TV3 webpage;

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When an advert for hair shampoo (lower right on page) is larger than the promo for a current affairs show, it becomes fairly clear how well the broadcaster is supporting their own product (the programme – not the shampoo).

Perhaps there is an element of truth to suggestions that certain Mediaworks executives are not “fans” of Campbell and/or his show?

The sooner that a free-to-air, non-commercial, public broadcasting channel is established, the better it will be for this country. If  the UK can have the BBC and  Australia has the ABC and SBS – why can’t we have something similar?

Short answer: lack of political will coupled with ideological stubborness.

If we had a new NZBC, commercial free, and dedicated to something resembling quality programming – TVNZ and Mediaworks/TV3 could broadcast all the crappy reality and crime shows that the rest of the public could possibly stomach.

More than anything, a lack of a free-to-air, non-commercial, public broadcasting channel shows how immature we are as a nation. Distracted by trivia has given us the only form of  dumbed-down  television the masses can digest.

More head-scratching decisions at TV3?

News over the weekend indicates that TV3 will be cutting back their weekend news bulletins at 6pm to only half an hour – less when you subtract advertising, weather, and sports;

TV3 is to chop its Sunday night news bulletin to 30 minutes, in the latest dramatic move to turn its news department into a “news, commentary and conversation” team.

MediaWorks chief executive Mark Weldon is at odds with many among his 200-strong news staff after announcing “bubbles and bagels” to celebrate the launch of Paul Henry – at the same time as Campbell Live staff were being told their programme faced the axe.

“It was just insensitive and inappropriate,” a TV3 news staffer said.

A cut-down version of ‘Third Degree‘ will be given a new – and somewhat bizarre – name;  “3D and will be shortened to 30 minutes“.

If  MediaWorks executives still have faith in their 6PM news bulletin and ‘Third Degree/3D‘, they have an unusual way of showing it. Which raises a few questions – what do they hope to gain? More time allocated for commercial programming?

Those viewers who enjoy watching the 6PM news bulletins may find themselves feeling cheated at TV3’s cut-down, “budget” version. They may vote with their remotes to switch to TV1, where the format will offer an unchanged, longer version.

After all, if you enjoy watching TV news, which would you opt for?

Those who don’t watch TV news won’t care either way.

So MediaWork’s decision will impact only on news-watchers – and cutting back the format to 30 minutes may yet prove to be one of the  biggest blunders in TV3’s history. Perhaps bigger than it’s excellent 1993 sitcom, ‘Melody Rules‘…

MediaWorks group head of news Mark Jennings just keeps digging…

Just when you thought that threats to ‘Campbell Live’s‘ survival and cutting TV3’s 6pm news bulletin was bad enough, MediaWorks group head of news Mark Jennings seems to have made things worse by these incongruous utterances on 12 April;

“We know that Sunday night is a good place for current affairs. People are increasingly time poor and we believe 30 minutes of news plus 30 minutes of current affairs is a winning formula for this popular timeslot.”

No, Mr Jennings, we are not “time poor” – we are information poor.  In a world of superficiality and bastardised media services masqerading as “news”, we are poor in real, in-depth, news and analysis.

When “X Factor NZ” receives more  promotion from MediaWorks than one of the most respected broadcasters in the country – then it is fairly obvious where management’s priorities lie.

Trying to pass off responsibility for questionable decision-making by MediaWorks executives, onto the public being “time poor”, is exceedingly bad form. And dishonest.

If people are so “time poor”, the 6PM news bulletin might as well be cut to 15 minutes. Or eliminated altogether. There. Sorted. Plenty of time for people now…

… to switch to TV1.

Mr Jennings added;

“This way we can guarantee a pacey, high-quality product that will be appointment viewing.”

Yes, “pacey” – until each advertising break. Take ten or fifteen minutes out of each ‘3D” episode, and it become so “pacey” as to rush past the viewer. Blink, and you’ll miss it.

And then, this “gem” from Mr Jennings;

“I am very proud of our investigative journalism, and the 3D Investigates strand will build on our ground-breaking work on the Teina Pora and David Bain cases, and the Fox Glacier crash.”

Yes, indeed. He is so “proud of [TV3’s] investigative journalism” – that he is cutting both the 6PM News Bulletin and ‘Third Degree‘ in half – and considering dumping ‘Campbell Live‘.

What a peculiar way to express one’s “pride” in their work.

With regards to ‘Campbell Live‘, Mr Jennings explained his rationale for reviewing the programme;

“Viewer expectations in 2015 are quite different from those of 2005 and we need to constantly review our programming to ensure we are meeting those expectations.”

How “viewer expectations in 2015 are quite different from those of 2005″ is never quite explained. But it cannot be that different; people may take their information from the internet, but they also still watch television.

The advent of television was supposedly the death knell for movies. That belief was wrong.

On-line e-books were supposed to make real books redundant. That belief, too, was wrong.

People will watch television. What they won’t watch is crap.

In that respect, “viewer expectations in 2015 are [not so] different from those of 2005″.

Perhaps MediaWorks’ management should be looking at themselves and not at the public for reasons of ‘Campbell Live‘ not gaining increased viewership.

First and foremost; has it been promoted with the same vigour and gusto as Paul Henry? ‘The Block‘? ‘X Factor‘? ‘The Bachelor‘?

If the answer is “no” – the solution that follows on is fairly evident. Does it need to be spelled out?

MSM antics just get weirder and weirder…

Just when you thought the msm couldn’t get any weirder, comes this strange story about Fairfax media touting for ‘freebies’ from it’s readers;

Fairfax encourages readers to write

NZCity, 11 April 2015

Fairfax Media New Zealand has outlined more of its plans to make readers involved in its editorial process.

The company’s Stuff Nation product already publishes more than 2300 articles every year written by readers and the pieces are among stuff.co.nz’s most read and commented on.

Fairfax Media New Zealand group executive editor Sinead Boucher told theNewspaperWorks masthead newsrooms will set assignments for readers on newsworthy topics, as well as encourage them to send in more personal topics they may wish to discuss.

Pieces will be individually verified and edited by Fairfax journalists and edits discussed with contributors.

It’s not an attempt to get free content or do away with journalists, Ms Boucher says.

The company wants readers to play a larger role.

Popular issues include bullying, elections, obesity, the road toll, marriage equality and the property market.

On March 18, Fairfax Media New Zealand announced it was introducing a new approach to digital storytelling with a renewed focus on local journalism.

A series of changes and proposed changes aimed at enhancing local and national journalism across digital and print will be rolled out nationally.

Accepting op-ed pieces or letters-to-the-editor is one thing.

But “setting assignments for readers on newsworthy topics” appears to me that Fairfax is attempting to attract free content, which it will then on-sell for commercial gain.

There is a word for that: exploitation.

Not exactly surprising though, as Fairfax has lost many of their journalists and sub-editors over the last decade, as the company seeks to increase it’s profits and returns to shareholders.

“It’s not an attempt to get free content or do away with journalists”, Ms Boucher says.

That should go on a Tui billboard.

With fewer staff expected to do more; increasing use of “news hubs”; and a focus on on-line content at the expense of newspapers – that is precisely what Fairfax are aiming at.

Is this the future of newspapers; a msm-version of de facto bloggers-in-lieu-of-real-journalists, mass-producing stories on the cheap (free)?  If so, it makes for grim reading.

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References

Fairfax media: Campbell Live vs Jono and Ben

Fairfax media: Campbell Live to be reviewed

NZ Herald: Campbell Live to be axed? TV bosses place show under review

Radio NZ: The end for Campbell Live?

NZ Newswire: Support swells as Campbell Live faces chop

Mediaworks/TV3: MediaWorks confirms Campbell Live review

Newstalk ZB: Campbell Live facing the axe

NBR: Will Campbell Live survive?

TV3: The Nation (11/12 April 2015)

TVNZ: Q+A (12 April 2015)

Converge: Fairfax In Trouble

Twitter: Scott Milne

Fairfax media: Campbell Live should have moved with the times, pundits say

TV3: TV3 to reduce Sunday 6pm news bulletin to 30 minutes

Wikipedia: Melody Rules

TV3: TV3 current affairs moves to premium timeslot

Scoop media: Jono and Ben and Campbell Live

NZ CIty:  Fairfax encourages readers to write

Additional

Petition: TV3 – Save Campbell Live

Petition: Save Campbell Live

Facebook: Save Campbell Live!

Previous related blogposts

Campbell still Live, not gone

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This blogpost was first published on The Daily Blog on 14 April 2015.

 

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How biased is the media? A Patrick Gower case study

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Isn’t it interesting that Patrick Gower – who made his partisan feelings crystal clear on Twitter on 29 May with this extraordinary outburst;

 “Lalia Harré – you make me feel sick by how you are rorting MMP http://www.3news.co.nz/Opinion-Hone-and-Dotcoms-grubby-deal/tabid/1382/articleID/346334/Default.aspx#ixzz334vE4jKO Same goes for your pals Hone, Dotcom, Minto and Sykes.”

– is also the same one who interviewed Laila Harre on Saturday, 22 November, on TV3’s “The Nation”? What measure of  neutrality did “The Nation’s” producer, Tim Watkin, believe that Gower possessed, to run that interview?

Quite simply, any reasonable individual would have arrived at the conclusion that Gower should have disqualified himself and the role given, instead, to the highly talented Lisa Owen.

Notice how Gower was very well behaved during the interview, when face-to-face with  Harré?

But once Harré was off the set and he was with the panel (Mike Williams and Matthew Hooton), the gloves and mask came off and Gower’s vitriol issued forth;

“… She blamed Labour there, she blamed the Greens, she blamed the National Party, she blamed the media, she blamed Georgina Beyer, although she did say-“

“… I think there’s two words for what we saw over there, before and that’s called in denial. Hmmph!”

“… She’s not going to go in with the Greens, she’s betrayed them. Labour won’t have a a bar of her. No chance of Laila Harré coming back to Parliament. And that’s why you see this sort of denial from her. She’s got it horribly, horribly wrong and she still can’t admit it.”

It should be noted that neither Williams (an ex-Labour President) nor Hooton (a right-wing commentator) could possibly comment impartially on the Mana-Internet Alliance. Both Labour and the Right had a unified agenda to smash Mana-Internet at the election (See: 2014 Election – Post-mortem Up-date). There was simply no attempt at balance with the panelists or the the host-interviewer (Gower).

What is abundantly clear is that Gower seemed to lack a certain inner fortitude to say the things he did to the panelists, to Harré’s face.

This was part of  an ongoing, unrelenting onslaught against the Left. The same dirty media that saw right-wing, self-professed “media personalities” appointed to host political debates, despite public opposition and cries of partisanship;

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There was good reason for public disquiet over Mike Hosking hosting one of the election leadership debates. His political allegiance was already well known;

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Hosking: “As I see it, all things considered we are doing pretty bloody well. We box above our weight.
“We have bright prospects for the future, so long as you keep them [National] in Government.”

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An example of media bias was clearly shown over the issue of two holidays by two party Leaders. As I wrote on 24 July;

The recent non-story on David Cunliffe’s three day holiday should be proof-positive that the mainstream media (msm) is fixated on pumping out as many “bad news” reporting as can be generated by a headline-seeking; advertising-driven; lazy corporate-media system.

We’re all aware that whilst Cunliffe took a three day break (I’m surprised he bothered to come back, instead of telling this country to go get f- – – – – !), our illustrious Dear Leader was off on a ten-day holiday, sunning his pale, $55 million arse, on a Maui beach in Hawaii.

Whilst the media did indeed mention that salient fact (albeit in passing), it was taken as a given that the leader of a party polling 50%-plus in the polls is entitled to a holiday.

Meanwhile, the leader of a mid-twenties-polling (?) Party is – it was hinted – not entitled to any such break.

The subtext was blindingly obvious; success breeds reward. In this case, a warm, sunny Hawaiian beach.

And failure means you don’t deserve a single damn thing, so get-back-to-work-peasant!

(See:  When the mainstream media go feral: A tale of two holidays)

Perhaps the most outrageous, recent political “hatchet job” was the Herald’s  character assassination scheme launched against David Cunliffe, using unproven (and later discredited) allegations from immigrant-businessman, Donghua Liu. The story behind Liu’s shonkey allegations; a 13 year old letter; and information strategically released by National minister, Michael Woodshouse, to Herald and TV3 journos, was nothing less than a disturbing abuse of ministerial power and media influence. (See:  The Donghua Liu Affair – The Players Revealed)

When a party leader continually receives bad press (eg; condemnation over taking a 3 day break; the colour of the scarf he wore; a manufactured “scandal” regarding a 13 year old letter, etc) what is the mainstream media telling this country?

At one stage the level of attacks against Cunliffe descended into pettiness and farce when, on TV3, on 24 July,  TV3’s Tova O’Brien ran this report on their 6PM News bulletin, about Key’s face appearing – photo-shopped – on the cover of the “Rugby News“;

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However, stuck at the very end of the video-version of the story, was this oddball, juvenile parting-quip by O’Brien;

“So once again the blue team gets one over the red team. Yes, it’s cringey, but it’s left Cunliffe looking whingey.”

(See: When the mainstream media go feral: the descent into sheer farce, according to Tova O’Brien)

As I pointed out on 30 July,

Despite the fact that the story was ostensibly about Key getting his face photo-shopped onto a magazine and scoring some free election-year publicity – a supposedly well-educated, “impartial” journo still managed to somehow insert a childish comment about David Cunliffe. That’s despite the fact that Cunliffe’s comments were much more restrained and measured than the criticism  made by Winston Peters in the same video.

So there we have it, folks. Even when the story is about John Key – a silly little journo still managed to turn it into a swipe at David Cunliffe.

Such was the mainstream stream leading up to the election on 20 September.

Returning to Patrick Gower, there are three questions I would like to pose to him;

1. Why is it that Gower condemned the Internet-Mana alliance as “sickening” – but not the ACT-National deal in Epsom, with the same intensity?

2. Or the National-NZ First-Maori Party deal to endorse Labour’s Kelvin Davis over Hone Harawira in Te Tai Tokerau?

3. Why was Dotcom’s funding of Mana-Internet such a big deal worthy of condemnation – but millionaires funding National and ACT is barely noted, in passing, if at all?

Otherwise, Patrick, this is not impartial, intelligent journalism.

It’s not even close.

Postscript1 (Brick-bat)

Note to MSM journos, sub-editors (those remaining), current affairs/news producers, et al) – ok, we get the “Stuart Little” reference,

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Ho, ho, ho.

But enough already.

It was funny for the first thirty seconds. Now it’s just lame.

Message to journos: don’t be lame. It’s not cool.

Postscript2 (Bouquet)

For an excellent interview with a political leader (whether Labour, National, Greens, whatever), check out TVNZ’s Q+A today (22/23 November), where veteran reporter/interviewer, Heather du Plessis-Allan interviewed new Labour Leader, Andrew Little. This is how an interview should be conducted; the host asks the questions; the guest is given time to respond, without interuption.

All TV/radio hosts take note.

 

 

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References

Twitter: Patrick Gower

Pundit: Tim Watkin

TV3: Laila Harre stepping down as Internet Party leader

TV3: “The Nation” Panel – Patrick Gower, Mike Williams & Matthew Hooton

Fairfax Media: Labour claims Hosking’s biased

NZ Herald: Media – Hosking plugs car and Key

NZ Herald: Donghua Liu’s new statement on Labour donations

TV3: David Cunliffe owns up to getting it wrong

TV3: Stuart Little, leader of the Opposition?

TVNZ: Q+A 22/23 November

Previous related blogposts

Mike Hosking as TVNZ’s moderator for political debates?! WTF?!

The Donghua Liu Affair – The Players Revealed

When the mainstream media go feral: A tale of two holidays

When the mainstream media go feral: the descent into sheer farce, according to Tova O’Brien

2014 Election – Post-mortem Up-date

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This blogpost was first published on The Daily Blog on 24 November 2014

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Teflon Man No More

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On 26 August, as Nicky Hager’s expose on New Zealand’s right wing politics hit public consciousness and confirmed our worst fears, I wrote,

“Dirty Politics” has achieved more than simply revealing  unwholesome machinations between National party apparatchiks, ministers, and halfway-insane right-wing bloggers. The book has explained the nature of Key’s seemingly “Teflon” nature. The secret is revealed; the mystery is stripped away; and now, when Key is confronted by a media pack, the brown smelly stuff is sticking to him.

Two days later, I repeated my belief that Key’s seemingly air-of-invulnerability had been swept away;

The Teflon Man is no more. He has been terminally weakened by his own ‘kryptonite’ – truth.

My perception of Key’s new status as just another garden-variety politician has been born out by this extraordinary exchange between TV3’s Lisa Owen, and our soon-to-be replaced Prime Minister;

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Until 7.05, the rather routine discussion between Owen and Key centers around National’s options to govern, post election. Coalition options and minority government are discussed, and Key confidently handles each scenario thrown at him by the host.

At 7.05, however, matters take a turn for the worst for Key when Lisa Owen raised the subject of child poverty and asked Key,

“One of the big issues this election has been child poverty. And you have said, just last year, you said ‘we are proud of the government’s record  tackling child poverty. Do you stand by that?”

Key replied,

“I absolutely I do.”

At Owen’s further questioning, Key responded by saying that he was proud of his government’s track record in dealing with child poverty.

Owen then lobbed this “grenade” at him, namely a quote from John Key himself, reported  in the Sydney Morning Herald on 6 September.

  “Our opponents say more children are living in poverty than when we came into office. And that’s probably right.”

This frank admission runs counter to every line uttered by Key, Paula Bennett, other National ministers, right wing commentators and bloggers, et al. In fact, with four simple words, Key has effectively demolished his own government’s insistence that child poverty has been reducing over the last six years. Crosby Textor’s spin doctors must have collectively moaned in despair when they read that comment.

From this point on, Key squirmed uncomfortably as he tried to wriggle out from this admission to the Sydney Morning Herald – including at one point revealing his frustration by  blurting out (@ 9.15),

“Lisa, don’t be silly!”

Owen persisted challenging Key as he tried to wiggle out of his SMH comments – but she would have none of it.

For possibly the first time since Stephen Sackur interviewed Key on Hard Talk in May, 2011, this was a moment when our Prime Minister faced serious hard questioning and was not allowed to wriggle his way out with nonsensical, glib answers.

Since Nicky Hager’s revelations and the sacking of Judith Collins, Key’s preternatural teflon-shield has been stripped away. He is now just another politician, and if by some miracle he successfully leads the next government post 20 September, he will find  his interactions with journalists becoming harder and harder.

It may not be what he says that lowers his esteem in the public eye. It will be the way he says it.

Lisa Owen was simply the first.

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References

TV3:  John Key – Minority government possible

Sydney Morning Herald: The Key factor

Youtube-BBC:  John Key on Hardtalk (Part 2)

Previous related blogposts

The Rise and Fall of John Key – who will be the next Leader of the National Party?

“Dirty Politics” – the fall-out continues

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Above image acknowledgment: Francis Owen/Lurch Left Memes

This blogpost was first published on The Daily Blog on 14 September 2014

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Another media gaffe – this time it’s TV3’s Brook Sabin

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Every so often (quite regularly, in fact), a media personality will say something outrageously offensive, or just plain gormless, that results in an uncontrollable  *facepalm* reaction. On 19 July, on TV3’s “The Nation“, it was Brook Sabin’s turn.

Brook was one of three panellists on “The Nation“;

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(L-R) 3News political reporter Brook Sabin, RadioLIVE political editor Jessica Williams, and Metro magazine editor Simon Wilson

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The discussion centered around coalitions and pre-election deal-making. Colin Craig from the Conservative Party and Jamie Whyte from near-defunct ACT Party, had just been interviewed by a very competant Lisa Owen (unlike the uber differential performance between a very chummy Patrick Gower and NZ First Leader, Winston Peters).

At  1.42 into the panel discussion , there was this extraordinary exchange between Sabin and Wilson;

Sabin: And if John Key says ‘no’ to Colin Craig, he can say why is Labour not saying ‘no’ to doing a deal with Kim Dotcom, and I think that’s quite powerful as well-“

Wilson: Actually, I think that’s, that’s unreasonable. Now, Labour hasn’t done a deal with Kim Dotcom. They are saying maybe they will do some kind of deal after the election, in the same way that National would do a deal with the Conservatives. But right now, Labour’s made it very clear they’re going to do their best to win Te Tai Tokerau. They’re going to do their best to win all the Maori seats. They’re not doing a deal to give Internet-Mana a seat. On the contrary they’re going to fight them. They may need to do a deal later, but it is very different from the Epsom-Ohariu scenario.

Sabin: Yeah, absolutely. But David Cunliffe is leaving that door open…

Wilson: I think… I think they’ve said very clearly Kelvin Davis…[interuption]…

Sabin: …And I think he needs to try to close that door a little bit more…

Wilson: …Kelvin Davis has the party support to win that electorate and they’re going to do that.

Where has Brook Sabin been? Holidaying on Pluto?

The last few weeks have been rife with Labour MPs excoriating Mana-Internet. Simon Wilson  was 100% correct that  David Cunliffe has made it abundantly clear that Labour is not prepared to do Epsom-Ohario style deals – as the Labour leader pointedly made explicit on “The Nation“, just the previous week;

Patrick Gower: If Internet-Mana get there and you need their numbers will you use them to form a government or will you rule them out?

David Cunliffe: We’re not doing any pre-election deals with anybody.

[…]

Patrick Gower: But you would perform-

David Cunliffe: Paddy, with this team to win the election, campaigning for the Labour party vote. After the election we will work with whoever we need to work with to change the Government…

Seems fairly clear to me.

Is it clear to you, the reader?

Evidently it was not clear to Brook Sabin.

Does Sabin not watch his own current affairs show?

The media appears full of political journalists and reporters who simply don’t seem to know what they are talking about and put a ‘spin’ on things that is misleading and damaging to the process of democratic debate. (Note the irony here; even whilst Cunliffe and Labour bend over backwards not to engage in any pre-election deal-making – the media will still portray them as doing precisely that! Labour might as well nut out a full-scale deal with the Greens and Mana-Internet, as media commentators have already convicted them on the charge. All the while, the same media commentators look on in awe at Key’s deft handling of deals with ACT, Peter Dunne, and possibly Colin Craig. My poor little Hypocrisy Meter, which goes *DING!*, has melted down from over-excitement at the double standards of mainstream media commentators.)

If the media cannot be trusted to report what a party leader has said, unequivocally, in black-and-white terms that a five year old can understand – then we are not well served for information.

Brook Sabin tried to ‘lump’ David Cunliffe with John Key when it came to pre-election deal-making. He failed because luckily Simon Wilson was onboard “The Nation’s” panel to correct Sabin’s patently untrue assertions.

Either Sabin was truly ignorant of Labour’s position, or he was indulging in sloppy, lazy “they’re-all-the-same” style of political commentary. If it is the latter, Sabin needs to find a new job.

Are they looking for bar-staff on Pluto?

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References

The Daily Blog: Message to TV3 execs – Is this really acceptable?

TV3 The Nation:  Interview – Jamie Whyte & Colin Craig (video)

TV3 The Nation: Interview – NZ First Leader Winston Peters (video)

TV3 The Nation:  Panel – Brook Sabin, Jessica Williams & Simon Wilson (video)

TV3 The Nation: Interview – David Cunliffe (transcript)

Previous related blogposts

Labour’s collapse in the polls – why?

The secret of National’s success – revealed

Patrick Gower – losing his rag and the plot

The GCSB law – Oh FFS!!!

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Above image acknowledgment: Francis Owen/Lurch Left Memes

This blogpost was first published on The Daily Blog on 20 July 2014.

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Review: TV3′s The Nation – When current affairs gets it right

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After my uncompromising critique of an episode of TV’s The Nation, broadcast on 24 May, I was gratified and relieved that the producers and hosts of the programme had returned to a degree of journalistic/media professionalism that we should expect as the norm for current affairs in this country (and which is too often lacking).

The Nation, broadcast on 14 June, was good, solid, current affairs which left the viewer better informed after watching it. Hosts Lisa Owen and Patrick Gower, and reporter Torben Akel,  were on form with their respective interviews.

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Hosts for TV3’s “The Nation”, Lisa Owen and Patrick Gower

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First up; Hekia Parata, on what is rapidly devolving into another of National’s disastrous, ill-considered attempts to insert neo-liberal “reforms” into our education sector. National’s $359 million  so-called “Teaching & leadership career pathways” has been roundly condemned by the  primary school staff union, NZEI, and the Principals Federation asserting that it is unacceptable and unworkable.

Parata responded to questioning from Patrick Gower;

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[FULL TRANSCRIPT: Hekia Parata]

A decidedly ‘robotic’ performance from an automaton-like Hekia Parata. (Have National Party strategists and contract scientists actually built a look-a-like android  replacement replacement for Parata, to minimise potential stuff-ups from the mishap-prone education minister? And how did they make the android more realistic than the original?!)

Whether she actually convinced teachers and parents watching her performance is doubtful. When politicians avoid giving direct answers to questions, the inescapable conclusion is that they’re hiding something.

What is Parata hiding?

Perhaps the very real likelihood that the so-called “Teaching & leadership career pathways” policy is National attempt to introduce performance-pay-by-stealth?

In fact, my money is precisely on that call: performance-pay-by-stealth.

At any rate, she stayed on-message, and it was fairly obvious that Parata had been well-schooled by her tax-payer funded media-minders. She passed National’s Standard for evasiveness to questions.

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Next up, a serious look at one of this country’s worst pressing social problems – child poverty. The Right can bleat on about “SkyTV aerials”; ill-informed moralists who lead ‘saintly lives’ can pass judgement on “poor parenting”, and  the middle classes can turn a blind eye – but none of that will diminish a growing social crisis in our midst.

Prior to the introduction of neo-liberalism; the “free” market; de-regulation; and “more choices”, the term “child poverty” was unknown. Food banks barely existed, as this 2005 Child Poverty Action Group report pointed out;

There have always been foodbanks in Auckland, but until recently these were small- scale operations and, like the soup kitchens, were there to deal with emergencies and the requirements of the handful of indigents that have always been present in the urban areas of New Zealand. Data from the Presbyterian Support Services Foodlink Directory5 shows there were 16 foodbanks in Auckland in 1989. By 1994 this had mushroomed to over 130 (Mackay, 1995).

Nationally, the number of foodbanks exploded following the 1991 benefit cuts, and the passage of the Employment Contracts Act (ECA). For those in already low-paid and casual jobs, the ECA resulted in even lower wages (McLaughlin, 1998), a situation exacerbated by the high unemployment of the early 1990s (11% in 1991). The benefit cuts left many with debts, and little money to buy food (Downtown Community Ministry, 1999). In 1992 the introduction of market rents for state houses dealt another blow to state tenants on low incomes. By 1994 it was estimated that there were about 365 foodbanks nationally, one-fifth of which had been set up in the previous year (Downtown Community Ministry, 1999). This figure was an estimate, based on information from the 1994 foodbank conference. There were no nationally collated figures, a weakness that persists in the sector today.

Regarding what in some cases was a quadrupling of demand for food parcels after 1991, Mackay cautiously hypothesizes that “it is likely that much of it was driven by the benefit cuts of April 1991” (Mackay, 1995). Foodbank workers themselves were unequivocal that the 1991 benefit cuts were the key driver of increased foodbank use. Reflecting those most likely to be unemployed or on low wages, up to 90% of foodbank users were dependent upon some form of income support, and Maori and Pacific Island families were over- represented among those seeking assistance (Mackay, 1995).

Lisa Owen interviewed Jonathan Boston (Professor of Public Policy at Vic, co-chair of Child Poverty Expert Advisory Group), who has written New Zealand’s first book on Child Poverty in this country. That interview was followed up by Commissioner for Children, Dr Russell Wills.

 

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L-R: Lisa Owen & Dr Wills; Lisa Owen and Jonathan Boston

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[FULL TRANSCRIPT: Jonathan Boston & Russell Wills]

Both interviews made for compelling, informative viewing.

Dr Wills  and Prof Boston are professionals; academics;  with a deep understanding of problems and issues confronting our society. Neither men have a political agenda – theirs is simply to inform anyone who will listen that child poverty is a problem we can no longer afford to ignore.

Dr Wills made this simple statement in a level, calm tone – but which was nevertheless dramatic for it’s content;

“My weekend will be full of poor mostly Maori and Pacific preschool children with infectious diseases that our English registrars often haven’t even seen before. Now we see acute rheumatic fever. We see tuberculosis.  We have admissions to intensive care with children with illnesses that should have been treated in primary care but they couldn’t afford to go. We just don’t see those kinds of issues in our elderly people and I think that’s a great shame.”

I wonder, though,  if the inquisatorial approach taken by Lisa Owen to interview Messrs Wills and Boston was applicable in this instance? The inquisatorial style works well for political or activist public figures who may not always be forthcoming in disclosing facts.

But when it comes to academics and professionals such as Professor Boston and Dr Wills, I submit that such people will usually always  be forthcoming, even when academics are often loathe to talk in terms of absolutes, or provide simplistic answers to complex questions.

For example, Lisa Owen asked Dr Wills;

OWEN: But these are tight financial times as you would appreciate; you have said previously the questions is: are we prepared to give up something for the vulnerable. So who is the ‘we’ that has to give up something?

WILLS: It’s people like us Lisa. The fact is that we have large numbers of poor children in New Zealand who are missing out on things that our kids take for granted. So the kids that I see on the children’s ward often live in cold, damp, crowded houses. They often can’t afford to go to the GP. They commonly don’t have their own bed. They frequently all crowd around together in the living room to sleep.

OWEN: I appreciate what you’re saying there but when you say it’s people like us, that’s a nebulous concept. Don’t we need to pin down where this money is going to come from? Isn’t super or capping or raising the age, isn’t that a place where we can get a certain lot of money?

There was something a little  disturbing about the suggestion that “when you say it’s people like us, that’s a nebulous concept“.

It’s almost as if Lisa Owen had taken Margaret Thatcher’s dogma (“there is no such thing as society“)  and applied the notion to the question. Has New Zealand society become so individualised; so fragmented – that it is now a “nebulous concept“?

Sometimes we learn more from the interviewers than from  the people they are charged with interviewing.

Both men had a wealth of insights and knowledge to share with the audience. Their interviews could easily have been doubled in length to facilitate deeper under-standing of the issues involved. Perhaps canning Hekia Parata’s drivel would have provided extra time?

The audience would certainly have ended up better informed. (We already understand the fact that politicians often spout rubbish; talking a lot, but saying nothing.)

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Next up; the one and only (some might breath a sigh of relief at that), Colin Craig. Perhaps one of the oddest political aspirants to hit our political stage in recent times, Colin Craig had some very strange things to say in his interview;

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[FULL TRANSCRIPT: Colin Craig]

Gower started the interview with this bizarre exchange – almost reminiscent of a school Head Master dressing down an errant pupil;

Patrick Gower: I want to start with this extraordinary political cry for help that you made this week, effectively asking the Prime Minister to pull a candidate out of a seat for you.

Colin Craig: I didn’t do that.

Gower: Yes you did.

Craig: No, I didn’t.

I was expecting an impatient, testy, Gower to stand, pick up a nearby cane, and instruct  Craig,

Gower: Right boy, that’ll be enough fibbing! Bend over for six of the best!

Craig, of course, supports beating children, so this scenario would not be entirely implausible. And no one would have blamed Gower in the least.

Gower then asked Craig this salient question;

Gower: So which one of those could you beat? Which one of those three candidates could you beat? And tell the truth.

To which Craig responded;

Craig: Well look, I don’t think I could beat any of them unless we run a fantastic local campaign and people get behind us. Last time I –

Interesting.

Interesting because of what was not said, rather than what was.  No outrage over “dirty deals” in this interview, as Mr Gower expressed recently regarding the Mana-Internet alliance;

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And…

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I suspect, however, that the difference in style in Gower’s critiquing the deals between the Right – and that between Mana and Internet (no deals in recent times  have been proven between Labour and other parties on the Left, despite claims) –  is not so much a matter of bias, rather one of common acceptance.

In short, we are used to an ex-trader Prime Minister doing behind-the-scenes deals so it is the ‘norm‘ when the Right does it.

But not the ‘norm’ for the Left because, to date, such deal-making has been rare.

Unfair?

Yes, of course it is.

But nothing will ever change because (a) the public have more or less accepted such political wheeling-and-dealing as par-for-course amongst right-leaning politicians and their parties;  (b) it serves the interests of the Right, and (c) the media can get stuffed (in the eyes of the Right) because in the end, what matters is political power – not  chest-thumping from a few media talking-heads.

That’s the way it is.

The Left can (a) adapt and engage in their own deal-making or (b) remain “above it all”;  maintain a holier-than-thou attitude; and hope the voting public notice and duly reward them with their votes. Option ‘B’ is like going to a gunfight armed with a knife and hoping the gun misfires. There is no Option ‘C’.

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The last interview, by Torben Akel,  with Todd Barclay – the National candidate replacing outgoing MP, Bill English in Southland – was perhaps the most curious.

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At only 24, Todd  Barclay is one of Parliament’s youngest MPs. In itself, this not a negative factor, as we need representation from and for young people in our House of Representatives.

What was at issue was Barclay’s relative lack of life experience.

As Torben Akel asked in a introduction voice-over,

“But age aside, does Barclay have the real world experience to be an MP. Or does he represent the rise of an insulated careerist political class?”

National’s own website highlights Barclay’s limited life-experience;

Working in Wellington and then Auckland, Todd worked for Bill English and cabinet ministers Hekia Parata and Gerry Brownlee. He left Parliament to work for one of New Zealand’s leading public relations consultancies, before taking on a role as Corporate Affairs Manager for Philip Morris.

To be fair, one has to wonder just how much life experience a person can achieve by age 24. Though Barclay’s experience, thus far seems constrained to working for various ministers in Parliament and for a tobacco company that peddles products that kill people.

Not exactly a CV to be proud of.

In fact, it could be said that politics and public relations revolve around manipulating reality rather than living in it.

All up, a good interview; low-key and yet illuminating. Torben Akel did a good job presenting the person and his record, and then let the viewer decide for him/herself what to make of this young man.

Now it’s up to Southlanders if this is who they want as their representative.

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Postscript #1

The parameters “child poverty” nz  on Google returns 178,000 results;

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Not exactly something to be proud of, eh, New Zealand?

Postscript #2

It is has been said before and it is worth repeating again; the greatest disservice that TVNZ and TV3 programming managers have done to the viewing public; their own staff; and to their entire network is to ‘ghettoise’  “The Nation” and “Q+A” on early morning and late night time-slots in the weekends.

Maori TV schedules “Native Affairs” on Monday evenings  at  8.30pm.  This suggests that the management at Maori TV have sufficient faith in their ‘product’ that they are willing to give it a prime time viewing slot.

Sadly, the same cannot be said for TVNZ and TV3.

(And no, we will not settle for “Seven Sharp” or “The Paul Henry Show“.)

Postscript #3

National’s media release on it’s “Teaching & leadership career pathways” was published on it’s on party website; the Beehive website; and on Scoop Media. There’s a slight ‘risk’ in publishing an official party policy communique on an independent website – you never quite know what else is going to appear alongside the text;

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I’m sure Parata, Key, et al in the National Party would be “delirious with joy” at having a political advert for Kim Dotcom’s Internet Party nested within their pride and joy educational policy statement release…

… Not!

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References

Beehive: $359m for teaching & leadership career pathways

Radio NZ: NZEI, principals unite against policy

TV3 The Nation: Interview – Education Minister Hekia Parata

TV3 The Nation: Interview transcript – Education Minister Hekia Parata

Salvation Army: Hard to swallow – Child Poverty Action Group

BWB Books: Child Poverty in New Zealand

TV3 The Nation: Interview – Jonathan Boston & Russell Wills

Wikiquote:  Margaret Thatcher

TV3 The Nation: Interview – Conservative Party leader Colin Craig

Twitter: Patrick Gower 29 May 2014

TV3 The Nation: The new breed of career MPs

National Party: National Selects Todd Barclay For Clutha-Southland

National Party: $359m for teaching & leadership career pathways

Beehive: $359m for teaching & leadership career pathways

Scoop Media: $359m for teaching & leadership career pathways

Previous related blogposts

Review: TV3′s The Nation – “Let them eat ice cream!”

Patrick Gower – losing his rag and the plot

Doing ‘the business’ with John Key – Here’s How

Additional

Facebook: Inside Child Poverty

Bryan Bruce: How to vote strategically improves children’s lives

Child Poverty Action Group

 

Events

Tuesday 17 June, 5.30pm
Panel discussion with Jonathan Boston,
Damon Salesa, Susan St John and Russell Wills. Chaired by Tracey McIntosh.
Fale Pasifika, University of Auckland
26 Wynyard St, Auckland

Thursday 19 June, 8.00am – 4.00pm
Inequality: Causes and Consequences
Student Union Memorial Lecture Theatre
Victoria University of Wellington

Friday 20 June, 5.30pm
Lecture and book launch
Speakers include: Justine Cornwall, Jonathan Boston, and Cathy Wylie
Royal Society of New Zealand
11 Turnbull St, Thorndon, Wellington

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Above image acknowledgment: Francis Owen/Lurch Left Memes

This blogpost was first published on The Daily Blog on 16 June 2014.

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ACT Party candidate David Seymour – revealed

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On TV3’s  ‘The Nation‘, host Lisa Owen set about discussing the Epsom-ACT-John Banks issue with Green candidate, Julie-Anne Genter; Labour candidate Michael Wood; ACT’s David Seymour, and a bag of flour standing in for National’s, Paul Goldsmith (the actual difference between the bag of flour and Goldsmith is still a matter for debate).

At first glance, Lisa Owen seemed hopelessly unable to extract straight answers from ACT’s David Seymour.

My mistake. She was allowing Seymour plenty of rope by which to hang himself, as he burbled on and on and on and… about how fricken marvelous he was, going from door to door. Evidently Seymour has knocked on 7,000 doors thus far? (Doesn’t he have a regular day job?)

The most illuminating aspect of the panel-discussion was that we gained insight into the three candidates.

Michael Wood – Labour

Never heard of him.

Even his Wikipedia entry has less content than a list of ingredients for vegemite.

Julie-Anne Genter – Greens

This woman oozes class, intellect, wit, and confidence. She ran rings around Seymour, giving Lisa Owen flanking support to handle the young ‘up-myself’ whippersnapper.

Ms Genter is the kind of politician New Zealand desperately needs – but doesn’t deserve.

Paul Goldsmith/Flour – National

Goldsmith refused to take part in the debate because, evidently, he was “out campaigning for the Party vote”.

Really? So appearing on a current affairs programme to promote your Party’s policies is not considered “campaigning”? Never mind. His stand-in – a bag of flour – made more sense than Goldsmith himself.

David Seymour – ACT

Arrogant.

Unwilling/unable to answer a direct question.

Yelled over others who happened to be speaking.

Did not listen.

In short, a perfect Tory politician.

If this is what he’s like now – outside Parliament – what the devil will he be like as an actual MP?! Another Aaron Gilmore?

Listen to the panel yourself;

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David Seymour – avoiding answering questions on behalf of his electorate.

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Listen at 3:01 into the interview. The big *sigh* you can hear, as Seymour drones onnnn and onnnn and onnnn,  is probably Lisa Owen. If she’s thinking “My brain-cells are dying. God almighty, I don’t get paid enough to listen to this self-indulgent verbal diarrhea” – then I wholly sympathise. It was like listening to a blander, vanilla-version of Winston Peters. But at least Peters is entertaining. And often has a point to make.

Seymour could win Epsom outright by  anaesthetising the entire electorate with one of his interminable, monotone speeches, and then winning with just one vote cast. His own. Cunning bunch, these Tories.

At 6:30, Seymour attempted to deflect attention from ACT and John Banks by referring to Green Party co-leader, Russell Norman’s meeting with Kim Dotcom. It was a pathetic attempt, and he was shot down when  Julie Anne Genter pointed out the vain attempt at distraction. As she quite rightly pointed out, there is nothing illegal or untoward about elected representatives talking to New Zealand residents.

In fact, it is what MPs are paid to do.

Does Seymour plan not to talk with anyone should he be elected to Parliament? What kind of elected representative would that make him?

That attempt at evading the issue made Seymour look… dodgy. And god knows ACT has had plenty of dodgy characters within it’s ranks over the years.

At 7:50. Michael Wood refered to the dirty deal being done between National and ACT. At which point Wood brought out the bag of flour.

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A bit tacky.

John Campbell did it with much more style last year when he used a cardboard cutout of Hekia Parata when the Minister (often) refused interviews;

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But note Julie Anne Genter at 8:28. She all but took over as the host of the show by pointing out  some salient facts about Paul Goldsmith’s strange absence.

Poor Seymour. His response was to try to “stay on message”as he burbled on about “low taxes and stable centre-right government”. He was hopelessly outclassed by a Green MP who has been battle-hardened in Parliament’s debating chamber since 2011.

His inexperience showed when he made a major faux pas at 8:55, stating,

“And they do not want their neighbourhoods intensified with eight story towers next to their homes…”

That was almost too easy, and again, Genter jumped in, highlighting the policy contradiction between Seymour’s ranting against  “neighbourhoods intensified with eight story towers next to their homes” – and ACT’s new leader, Jamie Whyte, railing against the Resource Management Act;

“There are far too many powers currently being given to various times of groups and bureaucrats around the country to interfere with people and the use of their property.” – Jamie Whyte, 28 February 2014

“So we want to repeal the RMA and replace it with a law that addresses only real market failures, not fantastical injuries to Gaia or the sensitivities of people with no real interest in your land. It will be a very small law.” – Jamie Whyte, 1 March 2014

Perhaps Seymour hasn’t looked close enough at his own party’s policies – but allowing neighbourhoods to be intensified with multi-storey dwellings is precisely what would be allowed under ACT Party policy to do away with the RMA.

This ill-considered remark may come back to haunt him in the next three months of the election campaign. Epsom residents may be very interested to learn if ACT supports or rejects property rights when it comes to developing established urban land and neighbourhoods.

At 9:49, Lisa Owen asked the NZ$64,000 question;

“I’m wondering if National and ACT are going to buddy up, why don’t you guys [Labour and Greens] buddy up.”

Wood replied;

“We’re running a principled campaign [shouted interuption by Seymour]… We’re running a principled campaign. We want this to be a straight out contest of ideas and of parties. But we have a situation in which the National Party and the ACT Party are manipulating the system. And of course Labour voters and Green voters in the electorate will think about their options as the campaign goes on [shouted interuption by Seymour]…”

Seymour attempted to deflect focus from the National-ACT Epsom deal by demanding to know from both Genter and Wood if they would be encouraging their supporters to vote for Paul Goldsmith, to lock out ACT from winning Epsom.

Genter attempted to remind Seymour that since 2002, the Green Party has always only campaigned for  the Party Vote, not Electorate Votes. But Seymour was obviously not interested in listening and instead was more focused on deflecting focus from his own “arrangement” with National.

Wood responded with something less clear.

Several  interesting points emerged from the panel discussion;

1. Seymour is nowhere as clever as he thinks he is and Julie Anne Genter ran rings around the baby-faced Tory Toff.
2. Who is Michael Wood?!
3. Who makes better pancakes – an absent Paul Goldsmith or a bag of flour?
4. No matter how much Labour tries to rise above “dirty deals” and  “want this to be a straight out contest of ideas and of parties” – National/ACT will persist in tarring them with the same brush that has tarred Right as “dirty deal makers”.

With regards to #4 – it serves National/ACT’s purpose to throw as much mud around as possible – thereby increasing public cynicism and de-motivating voters to consider voting for a Left alternative. After all, what is the point of voters considering a Labour-led alternative if Labour, et al, are no different to the National-led bloc?

National does deal-making (whether one sees it as “dirty” or not) very well.

National wants to prevent similar deal-making between  Labour; the Greens; and Mana-Internet.

National therefore has engaged in a  covert strategy to paint all deal-making as dirty – even though they have no hesitation in doing it themselves in Epsom, Ohariu, and soon with the Conservatives. If the media questions this – they will deflect to Labour Greens, Mana, and the Internet Party doing the same thing. (Even though thus far only Mana-Internet have done any deals – two parties barely registering 2% between them in any given poll.)

National wants Labour to play by FPP rules –  which certain Labour MPs have obliged (see:  The secret of National’s success – revealed).

Meanwhile, National builds and supports deals with other parties as coalition partners for a post-2014 Third Term National-led government.

Meanwhile, the media focuses on perceived “dirty deals” by the Left, including Mana-Internet.

No wonder David Seymour kept banging on about alleged deal-making between the Greens and Labour in Epsom. That is the script he has been handed to read and speak.

The media dutifully oblige by repeating.

Just ask Patrick Gower.

 

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References

Wikipedia: Michael Wood

TV3: The Nation

NZ Herald: Act wants Resource Management Act dumped

ACT: Leader’s Speech to ACT New Zealand Conference – Saturday 1st March 2014

Previous related blogpost

Patrick Gower – losing his rag and the plot

The secret of National’s success – revealed.

 

 

 

 

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Above image acknowledgment: Francis Owen/Lurch Left Memes

This blogpost was first published on The Daily Blog on 8 June 2014.

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Review: TV3’s The Nation – “Let them eat ice cream!”

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In the last three years I have been truly outraged and sickened only twice when watching a current affairs/documentary programme. The first was Bryan Bruce’s “Inside Child Poverty“, broadcast back on 22 November 2011.

Bryan presented the viewer with a country of increasing child poverty, disease, low-quality housing; and growing inequality that few of us (except hardcore ACT and National supporters) would have believed possible in a wealthy country like New Zealand. Especially a country which once prided itself on egalitarianism, fairness, and looking after those less fortunate than the privileged Middle Classes.

The second time was just recent – watching TV3’s current affairs programme,  The Nation, on 24 May. The one word that came to mind as I watched the episode was: revulsion. Not revulsion at the fact that our once proud egalitarian nation is now one of the most unequal on the face of this planet – but revulsion at the injection of humour in interviews; panel discussion, and levity between the hosts, Lisa Owen and Patrick Gower.

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Hosts for TV3’s “The Nation”, Lisa Owen and Patrick Gower

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I am not even referring to Patrick Gower “interviewing” Ben Uffindell, editor of the satirical blogsite, The Citizen. Though one certainly has to question why this segment was deemed worthy of insertion? What was the point of suggesting that children living in poverty – many of whom go to school without food (or  are given “food” that is of dubious nutritional value); no shoes; no rain coats; or lacking other items which Middle Class families take for granted – would find it funny to be given ice cream or a South American animal?

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I recall a legend of someone else trying to “make light” of the plight of the poor. That person suggested cake, in lieu of ice cream.

The highly talented Mr Uffindell has never been  invited to comment on other pressing issues and problems confronting our country. So why start with inequality and associated problems with child poverty? A question I posed to The Nation, via Twitter;

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So why is levity suddenly the order-of-the-day when poverty and inequality is under the media microscope?

Because we are “just laughing at ourselves” some might say?

No. We are not “laughing at ourselves”. We are laughing at the thought  of children, living in  poverty, being given free ice cream and llamas.

We are not “laughing at ourselves”.  We are laughing at children and families living in poverty – at their expense.

That is the difference.

Funnily enough, there was certainly no humour on  The Nation (10 may) when ACT’s Jamie Whyte proposed a  flat tax policy. Where was the mirth? The satirical hilarity? Where was the wink-wink-nudge-nudge repartee between The Nation’s hosts?

Any humour must have been lost amongst the rustling sound of $100 bills been eagerly counted…

On top of which, was Torben Akel’s piece on “fact checking” looking at whether or not  inequality in New Zealand has increased;

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“But first, a bit of good old fashioned fact-checking“, said Patrick Gower, as he introduced Torben Akel’s piece. A pity, then, that no one at The Nation bothered to  “fact check” Akel’s reporting.

Bill English stated in the above video,

“Income inequality has not got worse. In fact we’re one of two developed countries where the OECD has recently as yesterday have said it’s stable since 1994. And in fact in the last few years there’s some indications it’s fallen slightly.”

Torben Akel asked for evidence to back up English’s claims;

“What we got was a page lifted from a new OECD report with a graph showing income inequality here in 2010 was less than it was in the mid nineties.”

So the “new” OECD report was based on  data, taken in the midst of the Global Financial Crisis and resulting Recession?! Data that was four years old?!

Akel continued with this – and here is the relevant bit;

“As for what had happened in the last few years, we were directed to the Ministry of Social Development’s household incomes report, released last July. And specifically, this graph, which shows why the Beehive [is] so sure our income gap isn’t growing.”

A cover of the Report flashed on our television screens;

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The document above is Bryan Perry’s Household incomes in New Zealand: Trends in indicators of inequality and hardship 1982 to 2011. It used data from Treasury to assess child poverty in this country;

“To calculate disposable income Statistics New Zealand uses the Treasury’s tax-benefit microsimulation model (Taxwell1) to estimate tax liabilities for individuals and benefit units. The resulting personal disposable incomes are summed to give disposable household income. Disposable household income is sometimes referred to as net income or after-tax cash income.”

– p25

“The Treasury has also developed a set of weights for use with its HES-based tax-benefit microsimulation model, Taxwell. The Taxwell weights include the number of beneficiaries as one of the key benchmarks, in accordance with Treasury’s primary use for the HES in the Taxwell model. Treasury’s Taxwell weights therefore provide a better estimate, for example, of the number of children in beneficiary families, although to achieve this there has been a trade-off with achieving other benchmarks…”

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“We know that the estimates using Statistics New Zealand’s weights consistently under-estimate the number of beneficiaries compared with the administrative data. Generally, the estimates using the Treasury’s Taxwell weights are closer to the administrative data, but the sampling error from the HES can still lead to either or both weighting regimes under- or over-estimating the population numbers. “

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The relevance of all this?

As reported back in February, Treasury had under-estimated the level of children living in poverty, as Bernard Hickey wrote on the 28th,

“Treasury and Statistics said in a joint statement they had double counted accommodation supplements in estimates of household disposable income between 2009 and 2012, which meant incomes were over-estimated by NZ$1.2 billion and the number of children in families earning less than 50% of the median income was under-estimated by 25,000.”

For those who want to read the actual Media Statement from Treasury,  can be found here: Media Statement: Data error prompts process improvements. Refer to the table headed “Miscalculation – Scale – Key statistics affected”.

Bryan Perry’s revised report can be found here: Household incomes in New Zealand: Trends in indicators of inequality and hardship 1982 to 2012 Revised Tables and Figures
27 February 2014. In it, he states,

“The revised trend-line figure is 32.9 compared with 32.7 [Gini Co-efficient] before the corrections. The trend line is still flat.”

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(The Gini Co-efficient measures inequality, with the higher the value, the lower the equality in income.)

The”trend line” may still be “flat”, but I submit to the reader that for a family on low income; paying exorbitant rent; in a cold, damp house, with very little food in the pantry and fridge – it matters very little.

What does matter is that since 1984, before the Neo-Liberal “revolution”, the Gini Coefficient was only 28.

It is now 37.7.

We are going in the wrong direction.

So not only are National’s claims not backed up by evidence; not only has data been found to be incorrect; but also Torben Akel and The Nation’s research team missed the obvious; inequality has worsened since 1984.

Falling home ownership rates are another indicator which confirm increasing inequality in this country (and throughout the rest of the world).

The Nation’s comedic episode continued with this exchange between hosts Lisa Owen and Patrick Gower, and panellists, author Max Rashbrooke, and right-wing commentator and National Party cadre, Matthew Hooton;

Lisa Owen: “Let’s change to a lighter note. The Civilian Party. Let’s be clear. That was a bit of fun. It was tongue in cheek, if anyone’s confused about that out there. Do we need this in an election year. Do we need some humour?”

Max Rashbrooke: “Oh I think, absolutely. I mean it’s great to see Ben do his thing with the Civilian [Party].

If there’s a problem though, it’s that some of his policies which he puts out as satire, are actually quite close to reality. I mean he talks about we should tax the poor, more. Well actually, if you add up income tax and gst, people on low incomes are paying pretty much the same proportion of their income in tax as people at the top half. If you added capital gains into that story, the poor are probably paying a bigger chunk of their income than the rich are.”

Patrick Gower: “And, and, I, I agree with you there. Because llamas, in my opinion have been dodging tax for years and years, and until someone moves on that loophole, um…”

[general hilarity ensues]

Then Matthew Hooton had to go spoil it all by getting All Serious again, and witter on about Paradise in Scandinavia with more of his skewed ‘spin’ on those country’s taxation system.

Yup. Poverty and rising inequality. A laugh a minute.

What next on The Nation – point and laugh at people with disabilities?

“Jolly good fun”!

Postscript

TVNZ’s Q+A on  25 May also had Ben Uffindell as a guest. As usual, his wit was on form. The big, big difference between Q+A and The Nation? On the former, he satirised and poked fun at politicians. On the latter, the targets for laughter were children in poverty.

Draw your own conclusions.

 

 

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References

TV3: Inside Child Poverty

TV3: Child poverty doco ‘apolitical’ – filmmaker

TV3: Party calls for free ice-cream and llamas

Twitter: Frank Macskasy/The Nation

TV3: ACT leader steals thunder in minor party debate

TV3: New Zealand’s record on inequality

Ministry of Social Development: Household incomes in New Zealand: Trends in indicators of inequality and hardship 1982 to 2011

Hive News: Inequality data error revealed

NZ Treasury: Media Statement: Data error prompts process improvements

Ministry of Social Development: Household incomes in New Zealand: Trends in indicators of inequality and hardship 1982 to 2012 Revised Tables and Figures
27 February 2014

Wikipedia: Gini Coefficient

Statistics NZ: 2013 Census – Trend of lower home ownership continues

TV3: Panel – Patrick Gower, Max Rashbrooke and Matthew Hooton

Other blogs

The Standard: Snapshot of a nation: inequality

 

 

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Above image acknowledgment: Francis Owen/Lurch Left Memes

This blogpost was first published on The Daily Blog on 25 May 2014.

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ACT leader, Jamie Whyte, refutes cliched stereotype of solo-mothers?

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One of the most enduring, irrational, and hateful myths constantly spat our by various right-wingers is that solo-mothers (but never solo-dads) are “breeding for business“. It is a cliche that rolls of the tongue easily; requires no evidence; and ignores simple realities of life such as women who escape violent relationships or are deserted by their partners for the blonde office-colleague.

Whether it is John Key referring to women as “breeding for business“, or anonymous redneck bigots parroting their cliches via on-line fora – solo-mums (but never solo-fathers) make for  easy targets. As one ignorant, right-wing bigot said on his blog,

“It seems like a good start but incentives really need to be focused on making it harder for Mums to pop out kids on the DPB and easier if one chooses to be honest with others and themselves and work for a living to support themselves and their family.”

Prejudice requires no justification. It just  panders to negative emotion rather than critical thought.

The myth of the “breeding solo mum” (but never “breeding solo dads”) is based on misogyny and enduring patriarchal punitive attitudes.

After all, when is the last time solo-fathers were targeted by right wing bloggers; beneficiariary bashers; or this government. Answer – practically never. If ever.

Equally pernicious is the right wing blogger, commentator, or self-proclaimed “expert”, who mis-uses statistics to prove their point, but which, upon closer analysis, debunks their case entirely.

The rationale for prejudice is fairly simple.

It absolves right-wing governments from adopting constructive, but costly policies such as the Training Incentive Allowance, which allow solo-parents (mums and dads) to gain an education and re-enter the workforce when family committments allow. This is how the current Welfare Minister, Paula Bennett, obtained her university degree – the Training Incentive Allowance.

In July 2009, Bennett scrapped the allowance altogether. And when two solo-mothers criticised Bennett’s actions, the Social Welfare Minister reacted with the full power of the State at her finger-tips, and released their personal details to the media. It was a frightening, sickening, display of abuse of State power unseen since Rob Muldoon’s reign of fear.

Three years later, despite the Director of the Office of Human Rights Proceedings, Robert Hesketh, upholding a complaint again Bennett, the Minister was unrepentant and said she would do the same thing again after “taking advice”.

Two years ago, as the  economy stagnated and unemployment soared to 7.3%,  National ramped up it’s brutal and destructive campaign against those on welfare. Key and his cronies needed a scapegoat to deflect public attention from daily bad headlines, and welfare beneficiaries were targetted.

Bennett launched a public campaign advocating that solo-mothers and their daughters should be “encouraged” to take contraception.  National and ACT both supported this draconian, Daddy State policy.

For two erstwhile liberal parties committed to getting government out of peoples’ lives, they were very, very keen to get into the bedrooms of women.

But not middle-class women who were either  independent via employment or a part of their (male) partner’s hegemony. This was directed at women who were single, poor, abandoned, and reliant on State support. In other words, vulnerable women.

And as we all know, bullies, rapists, misogynists, etc, prefer their intended targets to be as vulnerable as possible.

That allows their bodies to be owned and controlled.

So National and it’s  lap-dogs, in the form of  serial-liar, John Banks, and “Mr Sensible”, Peter Dunne,  supported moves to control women’s bodies.

All of which was carried out with the sub-text that solo-mothers (but never solo-fathers, remember) were reckless breeders.  “Breeding for business” as John Key put it.

As unemployment skyrocketed to 7.3%, and awkward questions were being asked of National’s economic plans for growth, Bennett was lighting the torches for the mob to ferret out; hunt down; and deal to, women who were “breeding for business“.

Of course Bennett denied  that  women would be coerced to take contraception;

“It’s not compulsory, it’s just something to add to them trying to plan their family so they’ve got choices. It’s completely reasonable.”

Of course it was not compulsory. It was not meant to be. That was never the point of National’s on-going demonisation of beneficiaries – especially solo-mums (but never…) as a multitude of anti-welfare headlines hit the media in 2012, courtesy of National.

It was all part of National’s covert strategy to divert public, media, and political attention from economic problems confronting this country. National’s hands-off ideology was not working, and a very dramatic distraction was needed. A distraction that jerked all the right  visceral responses. A distraction that National’s rightwing sycophants, cronies, and malcontents could pick up and promote.

A distraction that was too much for the powerless to fight back.

Solo-mothers… Reckless “breeders for business“… Young sluts… Dropping babies for cash…

The National Government would sort out these wanton women of loose morals.

Cue; two years later, this recent editorial in the Dominion Post.  As far as editorials in a conservative newspaper went, it was quite extraordinary, as it exposed and laid bare National’s  manipulative, self-serving policy of vilification against those on welfare. I repost the entire editorial, rather than just the headline and first couple of paragraphs, as I usually do;

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The Dominion Post – not normally renowned as the champion of the underdog when it comes to social welfare issues. So for the un-named writer to denounce National with such vehemence speaks volumes that the media was no longer buying into the “bene-bashing” narrative.

What is more, ACT’s latest leader, Philosopher/Libertarian, Jamie Whyte – in response to a point made by Green Party co-leader, Russell Norman – let slip on TV3’s The Nation on 10 May;

“Do you really think people only  have children because you flick them a few bucks?”

.Oh, really, Mr Whyte?

Do tell?

So people do not have children just “because you flick them a few bucks”?

Money is not a motivator?

Well, bugger me. Who’d’ve thought?!

Of course not. “Breeding for business” is a fiction.

But for certain right-wing politicians, it suits their agendas to demonise the poor; the powerless; and the marginalised.

Fortunately, though,  every so often the truth will out.

Thank you, Mr Whyte, for going on the record.

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References

NZ Herald: National takes aim at solo parents on DPB

Political Animal: National’s Welfare “Reform” : Is that it?

Waikato Times: Furious mum rejects ‘bludger’ tag

NZ Herald: No apology from Bennett over leaked income data

NZ Herald: Unemployment up to 7.3pc – a 13 year high

Fairfax media: Beneficiary contraception plan ‘intrusive’

NZ Herald: Business NZ sees no economic plan

Dominion Post: Editorial – Dole scheme redundant from start

TV3: The Nation (11.5.14, part 3, @ 8.10)

Previous related blogposts

Of witch hunts and solo mums

Once upon a time there was a solo-mum

Hypocrisy – thy name be National

Hon. Paula Bennett, Minister of Hypocrisy

 

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Above image (slightly altered) acknowledgment: Kirk

This blogpost was first published on The Daily Blog on 12 May 2014.

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National’s fund-raising at Antoine’s – was GST paid?

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On TV3’s The Nation, Key steadfastly refused to make public  the names of donors to various fund-raising events (or pay back) at Antoine’s restaurant in Parnell, Auckland.

Instead of using a Trust, where the names of donors are kept hidden, in this case Antoine’s Restaurant – whose owner is a well-known National Party supporter, Tony Astle – was the “bag man” who took the money; banked it; and then passed it on to the National Party as a donation. These donations were recorded with the Electoral Commission for 2010*and 2011*.

However – and here’s an interesting questing question that few (if any) have asked; was GST paid  by Mr Astle on any of the monies ($60,000 and $105,000) received in payment for the meals?

A donation made directly to a political Party does not incur GST. But  Inland Revenue (IRD) is quite clear of what constitutes a donation;

A donation is an unconditional gift only if the giver receives nothing in return.

But these monies were received from people attending the dinner and who paid for their meals accordingly. They received a ‘goods’ and ‘service’ in return for payment.

It is no longer an “unconditional gift”.

So those meals should have incurred GST.

(What Mr Astle then does with those monies, excluding GST,  is his business, and he subsequently gifted it to the National Party as a donation.)

Accordingly, I have made an inquiry with Inland Revenue on this matter;

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Report tax evasion or fraud

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Information about a business

Business or trade name:	Antoine’s Restaurant
Business IRD/GST number:	Not provided
Address – business:	Street: 333 Parnell Road
Suburb, city or town: Parnell, Auckland
Phone number:	(09) 379 8756
Mobile number:	Not provided
Description of the business:	restaurant
Provide your detailed information:	Kia ora Mr Taxman, It has recently been revealed in the media that Antoine’s Restaurant in Parnell, Auckland, hosted a series of fund-raising dinners on behalf of the National Party. One dinner event, in 2010, was attended by 21 people, where each person paid $5,000 to participate in the meal. The restaurant collected $105,000 from attendees. Another event, in 2010, a sum of $60,000 was paid to the restaurant for a similar event. Considering that the monies paid was for a meal; paid to Antoine’s directly; this appears to have been a good and service provided to paying members of the public. Was GST paid on these transactions? Regards, -Frank Macskasy

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You’ve successfully submitted your information.

Your information was received on Sunday, 9 March 2014 2:24:30 PM NZDT. This form is now completed.

Your reference number is: 208194.

It remains to be seen if Mr Astle paid GST on payments received for those meals. If 21 people paid $5,000 each, that comes to $105,000.

GST on that sum (in 2010), at 12.5%, would have amounted to $13,125.

Yet, the Donations Return for 2010 clearly shows that the full amount of $105,000 was transferred from Antoine’s/Astle to the National Party. No deduction has been made for GST.

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* Interesting Note:

The 2011 Party Donations Return for National also includes two payment by Oravida;

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This is the same Oravida that National Minister, Judith Collins, recently visited in China – and of which her husband is a Director. Other donors on this Return also have links to Oravida.

The 2010 National_Party_donations Return also included a donation by one, Susan Chou, who is also connected to Oravida,

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When it comes to ‘tricky’ – National excels with undisputed mastery of Big Time Tricky.

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References

TV3: Key not talking about fundraising dinner

NBR:  Key under fire for Antoine’s donations

Electoral Commission:  New Zealand National Party donations 2011.pdf

Electoral Commission: National_Party_donations_2010.pdf

IRD: Business income tax

TVNZ:  Judith Collins defiant amid claims of conflict of interest

Previous related blogposts

Doing ‘the business’ with John Key – Here’s How (Part # Rua)

Other blogs

No Right Turn:  “Out of the blue”

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Above image acknowledgment: Francis Owen

This blogpost was first published on The Daily Blog on 10 March 2014.

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TV3 journo shows his true colours?

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From an interview in the NZ Herald,

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4. How often do you drink with politicians?

Hardly ever. I think those days of journos drinking with the politicians are long gone. Either that or the politicians don’t want a bar of me – so it’s probably a bit of both actually…

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Really, Patrick? You look very chummy with National MP, Nick Smith. Is that you “keeping a professional distance” from politicians?

Which may explain Gower’s botched attempt to interview Labour leader David Cunliffe on The Nation on 1/2 March.

Gower may need to excuse himself from further political interviews with Party leaders as his impartiality is now in severe question.

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References

TV3: David Cunliffe admits mistake in attack on PM’s wealth

NZ Herald: Twelve Questions with Patrick Gower

Related Blogposts

“The Nation” – a review

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W.o.F “reforms” – coming to a crash in your suburb

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Continued from Liberalising WoF rules – where have we heard this before?

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A Bad Joke?

Stop me if you’ve heard this before; a National minister walks into  Parliamentary  and sez, “Mate, do I have a de-regulation for you!”

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Source

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Transport Minister, Simon Bridges, is proceeding full steam ahead with privatisation of the country’s Warrant of Fitness system.  Strangely, this policy was never ‘flagged’ at last year’s election – but that has never stopped National from implementing potentially problematic policies by rat-cunning stealth.

In fact, National’s Road Safety policy could be labelled “nanny statish” when it comes to issues such as banning cellphone use whilst driving; cracking down on the  anti-social “boy racing” culture; introducing zero blood levels for young drivers (but not older drivers);  tightening driving license procedures, etc.

See: National 2011 Transport Policy

See: National 2011 Road Safety Policy

National’s proposed WoF “reforms” do not appear anywhere in their Transport or Road Safety policies.

As outlined in my previous blogpost – Liberalising WoF rules – where have we heard this before? – this is another of National’s rush-of-blood-to-the-head type of policy which is based more on right wing, user-pays ideology than any measure of common sense.

Those Who Forget The Past…

Going by past examples of de-regulation and passing-the-buck on  safety issues, this will prove a costly exercise for the taxpayer. Costly in terms of damage caused by more accidents due to unchecked, unsafe, unroadworthy cars – and costly in terms of lives.

It is precisely this ideological  de-regulation and “reforms” in the 1990s that later created a crisis with our building industry and mines safety.

The loosening of building standards within the  1991 Building Act resulted in a leaking-rotting homes crisis that will ultimately cost home owners, local bodies, and the taxpayer billions in repairs.  Passed by Jim Bolger’s National Government, and which came into effect about 1994, light-handed controls and minimal standards (such as allowing the use of untreated timber and monolithic claddings) in the belief that building quality would be mostly assured by market-driven forces

See: Leaky homes prompt repeal of Building Act

The gutting of the mines inspectorate, allowing self-regulation by mining companies,  had it’s genesis in the early 1990s – again the Bolger-led National government –  where Bill Birch introduced the so-called “Health and Safety in Employment Act, in 1992.

Under the guise of  “eliminating red tape”, this dangerous piece of legislation allowed mining companies to self-monitor their own activities,

“39. Prior to the enactment of the HSE Act, New Zealand had a ‘mishmash of legislation’^[5], in which the duties of employers and others tended to be set out prescriptively and in considerable detail. Under this regime, specification standards directed duty holders as to precisely what preventive measures they must take in particular circumstances. Such standards identified inputs, telling duty holders how to meet a goal, rather than health and safety outcomes to be achieved…

42. In undertaking reform, New Zealand, like the UK and Australia before it, was strongly influenced by the British Robens Report of 1972. This report resulted in widespread legislative change, from the traditional, ‘command and control’ model, imposing detailed obligations on firms enforced by a state inspectorate, to a more ‘self-regulatory’ regime, using less direct means to achieve broad social goals…

46. New Zealand embraced the Robens philosophy of self-regulation somewhat belatedly, but with particular enthusiasm and in the context of a political environment that was strongly supportive of deregulation. Indeed, in various forms, deregulation (and reducing the regulatory burden on industry more broadly) was strongly endorsed by the Labour Government that came into power in 1984 and by the National Government that succeeded it in 1990. The HSE Act was a product of this deregulatory environment and in its initial version was stripped of some of the key measures recommended by Robens, not least tripartism, worker participation and an independent executive. It was regarded, so we were told, as a ‘necessary evil’ at a time when the predominant public policy goal was to enhance business competitiveness…”

See: Review of the Department of Labour’s interactions with Pike River Coal Limited

The conclusion of this experiment in free market de-regulation lies deep within the Pike River Mine, with the entombed bodies of 29 dead miners.

Unfortunately, the architects of this de-regulation, Bill Birch Birch, Ruth Richardson, and Jim Bolger were never prosecuted for their malfeasance in this tragedy.

They should have been.

Fastforward to 2012…

Never let it be said that National learns from history, mistakes, or uses simple common sense. That would be far too much to expect from right wing, market-faith-based ideologues.

Under proposals announced on 18 September, the Government is considering reducing warrant of fitness checks to once a year for cars under 12 years old. (Currently, they are checked in six monthly intervals,  six years after their first registration.)

Bridges says millions could be “saved” in “unnecessary inspections”.

Bullshit.

At most, a car-owner with a vehicle older than six years would save about $60 in a potentially “unnecessary inspection”.

$60.

About $1.15 a week.

16 cents a day.

For that money, we ensure that a vehicle is up to standard, and is not a rolling death-trap on our roads, waiting to maim, kill, and/or destroy property. It means tyres have tread on them; brakes actually brake the vehicle; and the indicator is more than just mere decoration on the steering column.

As a car owner, it’s tempting to save $60 a year.

Until I realise that, for 16 cents a day, I have peace-of-mind that the other car behind me will stop in time because it has working brakes. Or the car-driver approaching on my right will see me through heavy rain because his  car window-wipers work.

There is damned good reason why the Motor Trade Association is campaigning heavily against National’s lunatic proposals. The MTA understands the full implications of increasing WoF checks to yearly intervals; a lot can happen to an older model car in twelve months.

This blogger can foresee a scenario where older vehicles  go for longer periods without WoF checks; family incomes dropping whilst living expenses continue to rise;  coupled to no mandatory Third Party insurance  – and this will end in tears.

As it is, on TV3’s ‘The Nation‘, AA spokesperson Mark Stockdale himself conceded that 9% of cars  on the roads   already lack a current WoF. How many more will we see  if the interval between WoF checks is increased? It doesn’t take supernatural powers of prescience to see where this is heading.

See: TV3’s The Nation 28 October 2012

As mechanic, Don Sweet,  told Radio New Zealand’s Nine to Noon programme on 27 September,

“When you talk about the repairs, I’ve found steering joints falling off, brakes worn right out, brake hoses cracked to bursting, rusted brake pipes, tyres with steel cords coming out.

And that’s not just on six-month checks, that’s on one-year cars as well. I just think the six months is going to save lives.”

See: Warning warrant of fitness changes could cost lives

National has a habit of not listening to those at the coalface when they stuff around with our laws. Whether it’s Hekia Parata undermining our teachers, or Primary Industries Minister, David Carter, not listening to the agricultural sector when bio-security regulations are watered-down – the Nats are spectacularly inept at consultation.

With National, “nanny state”  becomes Daddy State, and “Father Knows Best” according to these misguided, Ministerial muppets.

The tragedy here is that if this craziness becomes reality, it will be innocent New Zealanders who suffer the consequences as cars become increasingly unsafe and our roads turn into potential killing zones.

Daft Idea #2

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Full story

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In the same episode of TV3’s ‘The Nation‘, Bridges voiced the bizarre proposition that WoF checks could be contracted out to private companies who would be authorised by the government to carry out “randomised roadside checks” for WoFs,

“It could be a private organisation who’s contracted by the government. As I understand it, that’s what they do in Queensland with a very good success.”

Only a male could come up with such a short-sighted, ill-conceived idea.

A female friend of mine listened to Bridges’ suggestion with wide-eyed horror on her face. She turned and said to me,

“There is no way on god’s earth I’d stop for a strange car trying to flag me down. I’d have my foot on the gas pedal and head for the nearest police station. ”

She has a point.

When a police vehicle pulls over another vehicle, the former is clearly marked – with flashing lights – and it is safe to do so.

Expecting lone women drivers to pull over for unmarked private vehicles, with god-knows-who at the wheel, is a recipe for disaster. It puts women at risk and cannot be justified by any rational, clear-thinking individual.

Simon Bridges has more than a ‘brain fade’ here – we’re talking full-on ‘brain-wipe‘.

He must be barking mad to believe that,

“If all we did as a country was decrease the frequency of vehicle inspections, that in itself may lead to slightly less, or not as good safety outcomes, but if we then target it, have a better targeting of regulation to where the risk is, I think that’s a smart thing.”

On every level, extending the period between WoF check and allowing “randomised roadside checks” by private companies, is the same craziness that National foisted on us in the 1990s.

All in the name of de-regulation and saving $60 a year.

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Related

Hands Off The WoF Campaign

Make A Submission Against the “Reforms”

Additional

TV3: Private companies may do random WoF checks

Previous related blogpost

This will end in tears

Other blogs

Deregulating for Disaster

Another deregulation fiasco

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