National announces that it will reintroduce prescription fees, and it’s immediately interpreted as an attack on women and linked with Luxon’s personal position on abortion.
A microphone picks up a comment from Luxon about New Zealand being wet, whiny and inward-looking, and it becomes the political furore-du-jour.
A journalist discovers that the National leader arranged for the use of a taxpayer-funded Tesla, which he’s entitled to do, and he’s attacked as a hypocrite because his party opposed government subsidies for buyers of e-cars.
See what’s going on here? They’re all variants of “Gotcha!” journalism, the purpose of which is to make the target look bad, stupid or both. The odd thing is that the person in the media cross-hairs is invariably the National leader, just as it was under the hapless Judith Collins.
It should go without saying that all politicians are fair game. Having put themselves forward for office and persuaded us to vote for them (or at least for their party, since under MMP most politicians are not directly answerable to the electors), they invite our critical scrutiny. Exposing chicanery, inconsistency and double-talk in politics is a legitimate – indeed, essential – journalistic function. No party should be spared.
And it’s not as if Luxon and National are alone in feeling the heat. Labour too has been under pressure for all sorts of reasons: cabinet ministers failing to sort out obvious conflicts of interest or correct misstatements to the House, another abandoning ship, the health and education sectors in turmoil, crime rampant, living costs out of control, the economy in recession, farmers in rebellious mood … .
The media have publicised these issues, as they must if they expect to hold onto their steadily diminishing public respect and trust. Labour is the party in power, after all, and its actions and policies affect everyone. These are real issues that have an impact on the country’s wellbeing, not only now but far into the future.
For that reason, government is where media scrutiny should be most intense. National, by comparison, can only present itself as a government-in-waiting, a role in which its statements have no real bearing on people’s lives, at least for now.
That’s not to say National’s feet shouldn’t be held to the fire if its policies and promises don’t stack up. Yet something seems seriously out of whack in the way political reporters repeatedly attempt to stir up controversy over National Party flubs and gaffes that are essentially inconsequential. Artificially confected issues are taking priority over real ones to the point where you could be excused for wondering whether the media regard it as their duty to divert attention from the government’s failings.
Certainly, I don’t see Chris Hipkins or Grant Robertson being subjected to the same aggressive examination as Luxon, other than by Mike Hosking in his Tuesday morning interviews with the PM. The “Gotcha!” game seems to be played almost exclusively at the expense of right-of-centre politicians.
However I can confirm that it’s having an effect, if not the intended one. It’s made me feel some sympathy for Luxon when previously I regarded him and many of his shadow cabinet ministers with disdain.
Let’s take the above examples one by one.
■ Answering questions about immigration settings at a public meeting in Christchurch, Luxon said: “Immigration's always got to be linked to our economic agenda and our economic agenda says we need people.
“I mean, here's the deal: essentially New Zealand stopped replacing itself in 2016.
“I encourage all of you to go out there, have more babies if you wish, that would be helpful.”
Cue splenetic fury from media who bizarrely saw it as pointing to a scenario in which women are made to stay home and breed. Margaret Atwood (author of The Handmaid’s Tale, a dystopian story in which a patriarchal regime forces women to produce children) has a lot to answer for.
Cushla Norman of TVNZ appeared to lapse into a momentary state of delirium when she asked National’s deputy leader Nicola Willis whether Luxon was aware of Lebensborn, Nazi Germany’s policy of creating racially pure Aryans. The only possible excuse for Norman’s question, which was grossly offensive if intended seriously, was that she was briefly unhinged by outrage.
Luxon subsequently tried to pass off his comment as tongue-in-cheek, but he needn’t have. It’s a fact that the birth rate has fallen to below replacement level, meaning that if present trends continue New Zealand may not have enough workers to support an ageing population – a serious problem now afflicting Japan.
Increased immigration is one way around the problem; increasing the birth rate is another. Luxon was entitled to raise it as an issue that we should start thinking about. But the media, fixated as they are with gender politics, immediately saw it as a threat to women’s autonomy – ignoring the fact that Luxon raised it merely as a possibility, and in any case couldn’t make it happen even if he wanted to.
He and Willis then erred by trying to explain the comment away as a joke, which was one step short of apologising. By doing so they risked creating the impression that the outcry over Luxon’s comment, irrational though it was, might have been valid.
Luxon and Willis need to understand that trying to ingratiate themselves with aggressive, sanctimonious journalists gets them nowhere. They would earn more public respect if they learned to stand up for themselves in the face of fatuous media hectoring.
■ The reaction to National’s prescription fees policy was similarly infected by identity politics fever. The promise to reverse Labour’s axing of fees will affect all prescriptions, but was widely framed in the media as an attack on women’s access to contraception.
Newshub headlined its story Election 2023: National to make women pay fee for contraception prescription if elected. The first line of Amelia Wade’s story read “The National Party says it will reintroduce the fee for contraception prescriptions if it wins the election”, thus creating the impression – I suspect deliberately – that National had specifically targeted contraception.
In fact Newshub could just as legitimately have angled its story on the policy’s impact on injured rugby players having to pay for anti-inflammatories or people needing cold and flu remedies, because they’ll be affected too. By presenting the policy as anti-women, Newshub turned the announcement into a scare story about the danger for women of voting National.
Luxon probably didn’t realise it at the time, but he became a marked man when, in 2021, he said he was pro-life and regarded abortion as tantamount to murder. It’s a moral position he was entitled to take, but it meant that every statement he makes about women’s issues is bound to be skewed by reporters who view opposition to abortion as tantamount to misogyny.
■ That brings us to the “wet and whiny” episode, when a 1News microphone caught Luxon making apparently disparaging remarks about New Zealanders.
Fair cop, you might say – except that it was another “Gotcha!” moment which, in the context of the other recent “Gotcha!” moments, looked suspiciously like part of a media gang-up.
Remember, again, that National is not in power. Luxon’s careless off-the-cuff comments don’t have any real consequences. Yet the media seem obsessed with catching him out, just as they were with Judith Collins during her ill-fated and inept spell as National leader.
Even Luxon’s explanation – that he wasn’t talking about New Zealanders so much as the demoralising effects of the Labour government (although he didn’t make that as clear as he might have) – was spun in a way that made it look feeble and unconvincing.
Here’s a suggestion for the National leader: don’t back-pedal and don’t look like you’re constantly apologising and retreating. Own what you say.
Luxon could have turned the “wet and whiny” controversy to his advantage by doubling down and lamenting the country’s low morale under Labour. The media would have lashed themselves into a frenzy, but many voters would have nodded their heads in agreement. At the very least, they might have respected Luxon for being up-front. A bit of bluntness would be refreshing. As it is, he too often seems cowed in the face of media attacks and ends up resorting to bland, hollow corporate-speak.
■ And so to the non-issue of the taxpayer-funded Tesla, which Luxon reportedly asked for – as he was entitled to do as Opposition leader – before changing his mind. NZ Herald deputy political editor Thomas Coughlan, who broke the story, framed it as hypocrisy, given that National had slammed Labour’s policy of subsidising wealthy Tesla buyers through the clean-car discount.
This is what’s known as false equivalence. There is no contradiction between Luxon asking to use a government-provided Tesla while also objecting to taxpayers’ money being spent to help the Remuera and Thorndon elites acquire them on the cheap. After all, the Opposition leader is entitled to a state-funded, “self-drive” (as opposed to chauffeur-driven) car, and it makes no difference whether it’s a Tesla, a Ford or whatever. Taxpayers would pick up the tab regardless. Even Herald political editor Clare Trevett acknowledged on RNZ this morning that the car is a legitimate perk of office.
Coughlan reported, incidentally, that “horrified staff” talked Luxon out of getting a Tesla, indicating that his advisers were intimidated by the possibility of adverse media coverage. There’s part of the problem, right there; I suspect he’s poorly served by excessively risk-averse minders.
Footnote: “Gotcha!” journalism isn’t confined to national politics. There was another egregious example last week – again in the Herald – when Wellington city councillor Nicola Young was falsely and absurdly accused of racism.
During a council discussion about a proposed Chinese garden on the Wellington waterfront, Young referred to it as the “Uyghurs’ Park”. It was obvious, from the way she immediately corrected herself, that it was tongue-in-cheek, but you had to wade two-thirds of the way through reporter Melissa Nightingale’s overwrought story to see what Young was getting at.
She was alluding to the source of funding for the garden, which is reportedly coming from Wellington’s sister cities in inland China rather than the local Chinese community, as originally proposed. But former Green Party councillor David Lee, who is Chinese, emailed councillors challenging them to “call out” what he called an "offensive soundbite". Somehow Lee managed to interpret Young’s words as showing “total contempt for the Chinese community”. Really?
Predictably, Young’s fellow councillor Tamatha Paul – never slow to stir the identity politics pot – and race relations commissioner Meng Foon joined with gusto in condemning Young, although neither took the trouble to explain just how her comment could be construed as racist. Certainly, many Herald readers would have been left scratching their heads.
I know Young and suspect her main failing, an inexcusable one, is that she’s a conservative on a council still dominated – in terms of noise, if not numbers – by far-Left activists. The attack on her bore all the hallmarks of a political hit job in which the Herald and its reporter obligingly colluded.
In the meantime, Wellington continues to slide ever deeper into a hole. Retailers are abandoning the CBD because crime and antisocial behaviour have become intolerable. Last year, the city recorded the largest fall in the Economist Intelligence Unit’s rankings of the world’s most liveable cities – from fourth to 50th. But the capital’s benighted and betrayed citizens can rest assured that councillors like Paul are tirelessly championing their best interests.
Wellington is dying, and even its woke-friendly daily paper The Post – whose precursor titles celebrated the city as “Absolutely Positively Wellington” and the “coolest little capital” – can't ignore the evidence of its terminal condition.
A journalist discovers that the National leader arranged for the use of a taxpayer-funded Tesla, which he’s entitled to do, and he’s attacked as a hypocrite because his party opposed government subsidies for buyers of e-cars.
See what’s going on here? They’re all variants of “Gotcha!” journalism, the purpose of which is to make the target look bad, stupid or both. The odd thing is that the person in the media cross-hairs is invariably the National leader, just as it was under the hapless Judith Collins.
It should go without saying that all politicians are fair game. Having put themselves forward for office and persuaded us to vote for them (or at least for their party, since under MMP most politicians are not directly answerable to the electors), they invite our critical scrutiny. Exposing chicanery, inconsistency and double-talk in politics is a legitimate – indeed, essential – journalistic function. No party should be spared.
And it’s not as if Luxon and National are alone in feeling the heat. Labour too has been under pressure for all sorts of reasons: cabinet ministers failing to sort out obvious conflicts of interest or correct misstatements to the House, another abandoning ship, the health and education sectors in turmoil, crime rampant, living costs out of control, the economy in recession, farmers in rebellious mood … .
The media have publicised these issues, as they must if they expect to hold onto their steadily diminishing public respect and trust. Labour is the party in power, after all, and its actions and policies affect everyone. These are real issues that have an impact on the country’s wellbeing, not only now but far into the future.
For that reason, government is where media scrutiny should be most intense. National, by comparison, can only present itself as a government-in-waiting, a role in which its statements have no real bearing on people’s lives, at least for now.
That’s not to say National’s feet shouldn’t be held to the fire if its policies and promises don’t stack up. Yet something seems seriously out of whack in the way political reporters repeatedly attempt to stir up controversy over National Party flubs and gaffes that are essentially inconsequential. Artificially confected issues are taking priority over real ones to the point where you could be excused for wondering whether the media regard it as their duty to divert attention from the government’s failings.
Certainly, I don’t see Chris Hipkins or Grant Robertson being subjected to the same aggressive examination as Luxon, other than by Mike Hosking in his Tuesday morning interviews with the PM. The “Gotcha!” game seems to be played almost exclusively at the expense of right-of-centre politicians.
However I can confirm that it’s having an effect, if not the intended one. It’s made me feel some sympathy for Luxon when previously I regarded him and many of his shadow cabinet ministers with disdain.
Let’s take the above examples one by one.
■ Answering questions about immigration settings at a public meeting in Christchurch, Luxon said: “Immigration's always got to be linked to our economic agenda and our economic agenda says we need people.
“I mean, here's the deal: essentially New Zealand stopped replacing itself in 2016.
“I encourage all of you to go out there, have more babies if you wish, that would be helpful.”
Cue splenetic fury from media who bizarrely saw it as pointing to a scenario in which women are made to stay home and breed. Margaret Atwood (author of The Handmaid’s Tale, a dystopian story in which a patriarchal regime forces women to produce children) has a lot to answer for.
Cushla Norman of TVNZ appeared to lapse into a momentary state of delirium when she asked National’s deputy leader Nicola Willis whether Luxon was aware of Lebensborn, Nazi Germany’s policy of creating racially pure Aryans. The only possible excuse for Norman’s question, which was grossly offensive if intended seriously, was that she was briefly unhinged by outrage.
Luxon subsequently tried to pass off his comment as tongue-in-cheek, but he needn’t have. It’s a fact that the birth rate has fallen to below replacement level, meaning that if present trends continue New Zealand may not have enough workers to support an ageing population – a serious problem now afflicting Japan.
Increased immigration is one way around the problem; increasing the birth rate is another. Luxon was entitled to raise it as an issue that we should start thinking about. But the media, fixated as they are with gender politics, immediately saw it as a threat to women’s autonomy – ignoring the fact that Luxon raised it merely as a possibility, and in any case couldn’t make it happen even if he wanted to.
He and Willis then erred by trying to explain the comment away as a joke, which was one step short of apologising. By doing so they risked creating the impression that the outcry over Luxon’s comment, irrational though it was, might have been valid.
Luxon and Willis need to understand that trying to ingratiate themselves with aggressive, sanctimonious journalists gets them nowhere. They would earn more public respect if they learned to stand up for themselves in the face of fatuous media hectoring.
■ The reaction to National’s prescription fees policy was similarly infected by identity politics fever. The promise to reverse Labour’s axing of fees will affect all prescriptions, but was widely framed in the media as an attack on women’s access to contraception.
Newshub headlined its story Election 2023: National to make women pay fee for contraception prescription if elected. The first line of Amelia Wade’s story read “The National Party says it will reintroduce the fee for contraception prescriptions if it wins the election”, thus creating the impression – I suspect deliberately – that National had specifically targeted contraception.
In fact Newshub could just as legitimately have angled its story on the policy’s impact on injured rugby players having to pay for anti-inflammatories or people needing cold and flu remedies, because they’ll be affected too. By presenting the policy as anti-women, Newshub turned the announcement into a scare story about the danger for women of voting National.
Luxon probably didn’t realise it at the time, but he became a marked man when, in 2021, he said he was pro-life and regarded abortion as tantamount to murder. It’s a moral position he was entitled to take, but it meant that every statement he makes about women’s issues is bound to be skewed by reporters who view opposition to abortion as tantamount to misogyny.
■ That brings us to the “wet and whiny” episode, when a 1News microphone caught Luxon making apparently disparaging remarks about New Zealanders.
Fair cop, you might say – except that it was another “Gotcha!” moment which, in the context of the other recent “Gotcha!” moments, looked suspiciously like part of a media gang-up.
Remember, again, that National is not in power. Luxon’s careless off-the-cuff comments don’t have any real consequences. Yet the media seem obsessed with catching him out, just as they were with Judith Collins during her ill-fated and inept spell as National leader.
Even Luxon’s explanation – that he wasn’t talking about New Zealanders so much as the demoralising effects of the Labour government (although he didn’t make that as clear as he might have) – was spun in a way that made it look feeble and unconvincing.
Here’s a suggestion for the National leader: don’t back-pedal and don’t look like you’re constantly apologising and retreating. Own what you say.
Luxon could have turned the “wet and whiny” controversy to his advantage by doubling down and lamenting the country’s low morale under Labour. The media would have lashed themselves into a frenzy, but many voters would have nodded their heads in agreement. At the very least, they might have respected Luxon for being up-front. A bit of bluntness would be refreshing. As it is, he too often seems cowed in the face of media attacks and ends up resorting to bland, hollow corporate-speak.
■ And so to the non-issue of the taxpayer-funded Tesla, which Luxon reportedly asked for – as he was entitled to do as Opposition leader – before changing his mind. NZ Herald deputy political editor Thomas Coughlan, who broke the story, framed it as hypocrisy, given that National had slammed Labour’s policy of subsidising wealthy Tesla buyers through the clean-car discount.
This is what’s known as false equivalence. There is no contradiction between Luxon asking to use a government-provided Tesla while also objecting to taxpayers’ money being spent to help the Remuera and Thorndon elites acquire them on the cheap. After all, the Opposition leader is entitled to a state-funded, “self-drive” (as opposed to chauffeur-driven) car, and it makes no difference whether it’s a Tesla, a Ford or whatever. Taxpayers would pick up the tab regardless. Even Herald political editor Clare Trevett acknowledged on RNZ this morning that the car is a legitimate perk of office.
Coughlan reported, incidentally, that “horrified staff” talked Luxon out of getting a Tesla, indicating that his advisers were intimidated by the possibility of adverse media coverage. There’s part of the problem, right there; I suspect he’s poorly served by excessively risk-averse minders.
Footnote: “Gotcha!” journalism isn’t confined to national politics. There was another egregious example last week – again in the Herald – when Wellington city councillor Nicola Young was falsely and absurdly accused of racism.
During a council discussion about a proposed Chinese garden on the Wellington waterfront, Young referred to it as the “Uyghurs’ Park”. It was obvious, from the way she immediately corrected herself, that it was tongue-in-cheek, but you had to wade two-thirds of the way through reporter Melissa Nightingale’s overwrought story to see what Young was getting at.
She was alluding to the source of funding for the garden, which is reportedly coming from Wellington’s sister cities in inland China rather than the local Chinese community, as originally proposed. But former Green Party councillor David Lee, who is Chinese, emailed councillors challenging them to “call out” what he called an "offensive soundbite". Somehow Lee managed to interpret Young’s words as showing “total contempt for the Chinese community”. Really?
Predictably, Young’s fellow councillor Tamatha Paul – never slow to stir the identity politics pot – and race relations commissioner Meng Foon joined with gusto in condemning Young, although neither took the trouble to explain just how her comment could be construed as racist. Certainly, many Herald readers would have been left scratching their heads.
I know Young and suspect her main failing, an inexcusable one, is that she’s a conservative on a council still dominated – in terms of noise, if not numbers – by far-Left activists. The attack on her bore all the hallmarks of a political hit job in which the Herald and its reporter obligingly colluded.
In the meantime, Wellington continues to slide ever deeper into a hole. Retailers are abandoning the CBD because crime and antisocial behaviour have become intolerable. Last year, the city recorded the largest fall in the Economist Intelligence Unit’s rankings of the world’s most liveable cities – from fourth to 50th. But the capital’s benighted and betrayed citizens can rest assured that councillors like Paul are tirelessly championing their best interests.
Wellington is dying, and even its woke-friendly daily paper The Post – whose precursor titles celebrated the city as “Absolutely Positively Wellington” and the “coolest little capital” – can't ignore the evidence of its terminal condition.
Karl du Fresne, a freelance journalist, is the former editor of The Dominion newspaper. He blogs at karldufresne.blogspot.co.nz.
1 comment:
The latest structure of the Health system, with many politicised maori working directly to maori citizens, with the working of MMP in mind, will ensure that the maori reproduction rate does not lag. Unfortunately instead of growing the economy, many just create demands for more social housing, intensive teaching, Police and other social services.
Post a Comment