One point in particular struck me. Peters got indignant, as only he can, when Dann asked whether NZ First might be prepared to provide confidence and supply from the cross benches in the event of a hung parliament.
“You’re asking me the outcome before the people have spoken,” the Great Populist righteously declaimed. “You have to know [first] what the voters have decided on, and the voters are masters of this matter, not politicians.”
Oh, really? When, I wonder, did Peters come around to the novel view that the voters’ will is paramount?
Could this be the same Winston Peters who decided in 2017 that NZ First would endorse a party that won 37 percent of the party vote over one supported by 44 percent of the voters?
The voters didn’t decide the outcome of the election on that occasion. Peters did, and now he seeks to rewrite history by pretending the voter is supreme. Only Peters would expect to get away with such bare-faced hypocrisy.
We may never know whether he anointed Jacinda Ardern as prime minister in 2017 because she offered him a more generous deal than Bill English did, or whether he was motivated by pure spite toward National, with whom he had a rancorous history. Quite likely it was a bit of both.
What we do know is that Peters disregarded the voters’ preference when he went with Labour, to the astonishment and delight of Ardern and Grant Robertson.
Ardern subsequently became something of a political phenomenon, leading the country through the Christchurch mosque massacres, the Whakaari-White Island eruption and the Covid pandemic with such assurance that voters rewarded her by giving Labour an unprecedented majority in 2020. We know how well that turned out.
NZ First was unceremoniously wiped out in that same election, but the damage had been done. Had Peters not ignored the voters’ clearly expressed preference in 2017, we would have been spared the most harmful government in living memory.
To put it another way, Peters, by going with Labour, is ultimately responsible for everything that has happened in the past three disastrous, chaotic years. Voters have notoriously short memories, so need to be constantly reminded of that.
He now has the effrontery to present himself as Mr Fixit. But putting Peters back in government, in any capacity, would be like calling back the same builder whose dodgy workmanship caused your house to collapse the last time you employed him.
■ Also on Morning Report, Maori Party co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer was extolling the virtue of unity. She claims to want her fellow politicians to focus on a future where we can live in harmony rather than focus on what we don’t have in common (her words).
It’s an appealing sentiment, but it rings resoundingly hollow coming from one of the most divisive figures in Parliament and the co-leader of the only New Zealand political party that, by definition, sets itself apart on the basis of racial identity. Far from cultivating a spirit of accord, Te Pati Maori proudly celebrates its otherness. That seems an odd basis on which to present yourself as a champion of unity.
Ngarewa-Packer railed against the politics of fear and division and twice described the positions taken by her political rivals as “revolting” – not a word calculated to promote the warm, positive vibes she supposedly aspires to.
She didn’t name them but clearly she was referring to National, ACT and presumably NZ First as well. It’s worth pointing out that all those parties have Maori candidates as well as Pakeha, and in the case of National and ACT, representatives of other minorities as well. ACT, which I suspect is the party Ngarewa-Packer most reviles, has three MPs of Maori descent, including leader David Seymour.
By way of contrast, the defining feature of the Maori Party is that all its candidates are (and presumably are required to be) Maori. But can you really exclude 84 percent of the population and present yourself as a unifying force? I suspect that when Ngarewa-Packer affirms the value of unity, she means unity on her terms. If there was an award for cant of the day, she would be runner-up to Peters.
■ You know there’s no real news around when you turn on RNZ at 8am on a Saturday and the lead item is about an Auckland University sociologist no one has ever heard of urging the New Zealand government to protest against the discharge of waste water from the Fukushima nuclear reactor.
Of course there was real news around; it’s just that whoever edited the bulletin decided the opinion of an obscure leftist academic – one who spoke with a North American accent – was the most urgent and compelling story of the morning.
I later googled the academic, one Karly Burch, and found an earlier RNZ news item which quoted her as saying the nuclear waste discharge needed to be viewed “in the context of nuclear imperialism and nuclear colonialism”.
In other words this was a purely political opinion: a fashionably woke one, but no more relevant, coming from a sociologist, than that of a bank teller or a barber. No newspaper – not even a leftist one like The Post – would lead its front page with such a flimsy story. But this is RNZ, and normal editorial criteria don’t always apply.
The next item wasn’t much better. It quoted Buddy Mikaere, a former member of the Waitangi Tribunal, who was concerned about supposed misinformation in a booklet about co-governance. More than any other news outlet, RNZ loves stories about people’s opinions, just as long as they’re the right sort (Family First not so much). The item included a voice report in which the journalist presented a loaded, politicised interpretation of the Treaty of Waitangi as if it were a settled fact.
My impression is that most RNZ reporters do a conscientious job, but as an institution it leans sharply to the left, like all public broadcasters, and ideology inevitably seeps into its news bulletins. This is more likely to happen when there’s a skeleton staff on (I’m told RNZ newsrooms are scarily empty at weekends) and editorial checks and balances are probably not applied as rigorously as they might be during the week.
As a publicly funded news outlet, RNZ has a unique obligation to ensure fairness, accuracy and balance. This becomes even more important at a time when public trust in the media is dangerously frayed.
It’s also worth noting that RNZ recently went through an expensive, high-profile inquiry that resulted in an embarrassing mea culpa for illicit editorial tampering by a rogue journalist who has since been dismissed. Has the organisation learned nothing, or do different standards apply when the influence exerted by biased journalists is deemed to be ideologically acceptable?
Karl du Fresne, a freelance journalist, is the former editor of The Dominion newspaper. He blogs at karldufresne.blogspot.co.nz where this article was sourced.
Oh, really? When, I wonder, did Peters come around to the novel view that the voters’ will is paramount?
Could this be the same Winston Peters who decided in 2017 that NZ First would endorse a party that won 37 percent of the party vote over one supported by 44 percent of the voters?
The voters didn’t decide the outcome of the election on that occasion. Peters did, and now he seeks to rewrite history by pretending the voter is supreme. Only Peters would expect to get away with such bare-faced hypocrisy.
We may never know whether he anointed Jacinda Ardern as prime minister in 2017 because she offered him a more generous deal than Bill English did, or whether he was motivated by pure spite toward National, with whom he had a rancorous history. Quite likely it was a bit of both.
What we do know is that Peters disregarded the voters’ preference when he went with Labour, to the astonishment and delight of Ardern and Grant Robertson.
Ardern subsequently became something of a political phenomenon, leading the country through the Christchurch mosque massacres, the Whakaari-White Island eruption and the Covid pandemic with such assurance that voters rewarded her by giving Labour an unprecedented majority in 2020. We know how well that turned out.
NZ First was unceremoniously wiped out in that same election, but the damage had been done. Had Peters not ignored the voters’ clearly expressed preference in 2017, we would have been spared the most harmful government in living memory.
To put it another way, Peters, by going with Labour, is ultimately responsible for everything that has happened in the past three disastrous, chaotic years. Voters have notoriously short memories, so need to be constantly reminded of that.
He now has the effrontery to present himself as Mr Fixit. But putting Peters back in government, in any capacity, would be like calling back the same builder whose dodgy workmanship caused your house to collapse the last time you employed him.
■ Also on Morning Report, Maori Party co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer was extolling the virtue of unity. She claims to want her fellow politicians to focus on a future where we can live in harmony rather than focus on what we don’t have in common (her words).
It’s an appealing sentiment, but it rings resoundingly hollow coming from one of the most divisive figures in Parliament and the co-leader of the only New Zealand political party that, by definition, sets itself apart on the basis of racial identity. Far from cultivating a spirit of accord, Te Pati Maori proudly celebrates its otherness. That seems an odd basis on which to present yourself as a champion of unity.
Ngarewa-Packer railed against the politics of fear and division and twice described the positions taken by her political rivals as “revolting” – not a word calculated to promote the warm, positive vibes she supposedly aspires to.
She didn’t name them but clearly she was referring to National, ACT and presumably NZ First as well. It’s worth pointing out that all those parties have Maori candidates as well as Pakeha, and in the case of National and ACT, representatives of other minorities as well. ACT, which I suspect is the party Ngarewa-Packer most reviles, has three MPs of Maori descent, including leader David Seymour.
By way of contrast, the defining feature of the Maori Party is that all its candidates are (and presumably are required to be) Maori. But can you really exclude 84 percent of the population and present yourself as a unifying force? I suspect that when Ngarewa-Packer affirms the value of unity, she means unity on her terms. If there was an award for cant of the day, she would be runner-up to Peters.
■ You know there’s no real news around when you turn on RNZ at 8am on a Saturday and the lead item is about an Auckland University sociologist no one has ever heard of urging the New Zealand government to protest against the discharge of waste water from the Fukushima nuclear reactor.
Of course there was real news around; it’s just that whoever edited the bulletin decided the opinion of an obscure leftist academic – one who spoke with a North American accent – was the most urgent and compelling story of the morning.
I later googled the academic, one Karly Burch, and found an earlier RNZ news item which quoted her as saying the nuclear waste discharge needed to be viewed “in the context of nuclear imperialism and nuclear colonialism”.
In other words this was a purely political opinion: a fashionably woke one, but no more relevant, coming from a sociologist, than that of a bank teller or a barber. No newspaper – not even a leftist one like The Post – would lead its front page with such a flimsy story. But this is RNZ, and normal editorial criteria don’t always apply.
The next item wasn’t much better. It quoted Buddy Mikaere, a former member of the Waitangi Tribunal, who was concerned about supposed misinformation in a booklet about co-governance. More than any other news outlet, RNZ loves stories about people’s opinions, just as long as they’re the right sort (Family First not so much). The item included a voice report in which the journalist presented a loaded, politicised interpretation of the Treaty of Waitangi as if it were a settled fact.
My impression is that most RNZ reporters do a conscientious job, but as an institution it leans sharply to the left, like all public broadcasters, and ideology inevitably seeps into its news bulletins. This is more likely to happen when there’s a skeleton staff on (I’m told RNZ newsrooms are scarily empty at weekends) and editorial checks and balances are probably not applied as rigorously as they might be during the week.
As a publicly funded news outlet, RNZ has a unique obligation to ensure fairness, accuracy and balance. This becomes even more important at a time when public trust in the media is dangerously frayed.
It’s also worth noting that RNZ recently went through an expensive, high-profile inquiry that resulted in an embarrassing mea culpa for illicit editorial tampering by a rogue journalist who has since been dismissed. Has the organisation learned nothing, or do different standards apply when the influence exerted by biased journalists is deemed to be ideologically acceptable?
Karl du Fresne, a freelance journalist, is the former editor of The Dominion newspaper. He blogs at karldufresne.blogspot.co.nz where this article was sourced.
9 comments:
I still can't see why Winston is getting the rap for Labour winning the 2020 election. Us stupid voters have to wear that one. He actually was roundly dismissed as the voters did speak.
Everyone comes down on him but no-one can say who he has done wrong by. He played the MMP game, winners and losers. The person we are all very angry with is the dam Dame.
And yes, we need the media sorted, pronto. Who will do that?
MC
Karl is it pertinent to ask - "what is the ethnicity & Country of origin of Karly Birch"?
So now every thing??, has to be tagged either -
- racist,
- colonialist (that all white men, who founded the world are now evil because of their Colonial attitudes toward the Natives of the land they Conquered.
p.s - hence question of Ms Birch ethnicity.
- nuclear power is now an "evil" because of what Japan is doing currently, what about 3 Mile Island (USA), can I throw in Chernobyl (which was a Russian plant) and Germany, who decided to "close their Nuclear power plants"(they had natural gas from Russia, till Ukraine) - now they have to restart them.
The only reason NZ does not have Nuclear, is that David Lange "did not like uranium on people's breath"! I wonder what that makes him?
It would appear that all NZ MSM - print & radio, now rely on "opinion pieces" that are unverified, unsubstantial, lacking in truth, not able to be cross referenced to another article on the same subject - and more commonly "printed" by a University Academic, who relies on Academic Freedom, to "hide behind", which if it was "Joe Public" doing the same thing, they could be liable for a Legal case of "Deformation".
Interesting, when completing a University Paper, the Academic Domain require that the "Author" follows APA referencing requirements for that paper, and the marking Academic will reject "said paper" on basis that "said paper" does not comply with APA referencing - wonders never cease.
Keeps these Blogs, commentray coming Karl - we know that we "get the real world information".
P.s. - do not worry about WHinny the Poo, he will struggle at the voting booth, the people "have already decided that".
The Mikaere originated publicity stunt with its unsabstantiated claim that some election publicity law had been broken was disgraceful. Repeated several times with no explanation. Many hours before Karl's observation appeared I sent off to the Platform and to RNZ obseravtions worded near identical to his, including referenc to the recent RNZ editorial scandal. It seems they are incapable or doggedly determined not to learn. Hopefully the Board and approach will change with the govt. Any balancing coverage of the case against co governace never appears. Of Bachelor's meetings only the uncouth physical disruption by "once were warriors" and associates is reported.
I have to concede many drawn to the rebel Te Pati are remarkably able with English. Ngarere Packer and now candiddate Ruakawa Tait. I can undstand why maori did not allow women speakers on the marae. And Hone Harawera could teach Luxon much. I guess if yur audience is always receptive and never challenging, confidence is rapidly acquired.
ms burch is not a lecturer at the university of auckland, she's kaikorero at waipapa taumata rau. she's not an immigrant from usa with a permanent residency (or even nz citizenship, she's tangata tiriti. i'm surprised that you are surprised to hear her say these words!
Good points Karl - and good reminders for voters.
While Einstein was probably right to question the infinity of the universe he certainly knew humans had no bounds, but surely even my fellow NZrs can’t be that stupid or masochistic to allow Labour, the Greens and Te Pati Maori anything like a look-in this election?
Labour has said it won’t work with Winston, ACT have all-but said the same and, Luxon won’t get off the fence, for he’s only interested in being PM, a role he’ll regrettably achieve by default, not through merit. That being the case a vote for Winston is really a waste of a vote, with ACT being our only last real hope for righting NZ from becoming an ethnostate on what otherwise will be a slow road to perdition, especially if Luxon is largely unshackled at the helm. People do need to engage their brain and vote wisely, especially with their Party Vote this coming October 14th.
Hard to know quite what anonymous is saying. In Ms Burch's profile she says herself she lectures at the university of Auckland. She also was born in the USA. Instead of posting in gobbledygook lingo, the usage of English is recommended.
I do like much of what Winnie says, unfortunately- looking into covid management, and problems, no more mandating vaccines, remove transgender ideology from schools, remove NZ from UNDRIP, make English the official language, repeal therapeutics product act, dedicated gang prisons... Read it for yourself on Waikanae Watch,last Friday or NZ First Website.
Ngarewa-Packer used the word "revolting"
It's a word we may hear more in the future.
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