Wendy Geus: Ardern Misled Us after the Christchurch Massacre

Winston’s tweet was correct but imprecise. The inquest revealed the truth.

There is a saying, “The devil is in the detail”, and so it is with the email sent to Jacinda Ardern’s office prior to the Christchurch massacre. In her first statement following the massacre, the queen of spin misled us (lied) and the information that she withheld we only know now from findings at the coronial inquest this week, over four years later.

Winston was right when he said information emerged that we did not know about until the inquest, but he did not include enough details for a full understanding of what it is we learned.

The media grabbed the simplistic and literal interpretation of Peters’s tweet, jumping to Ardern’s defence using emotive language to lambast Peters, rather than delving any deeper. They emotively editorialised their headlines and commentary without doing the research. But is anyone surprised?

They glossed over it and muddied the waters by saying that Peters denied that Ardern put out a statement, which is wrong; he was questioning why the ‘full facts’ were not revealed by Ardern.

I sent an email to Toby Manhire and Thomas Manch, including the information easily available, to add balance to their story, but that would have spoiled their negative, emotive rant about Peters, proving he was right.

They are not the only ones who took the emotive, subjective, ‘avoid the facts’ route. Like most of the rest of the media, their hearts belong to Labour and their dethroned princess. However, they have been known to produce some balanced work. We wait with anticipation…

Verbatim wording from Ardern’s original statement, bolded for emphasis.

I was one of more than 30 recipients of a manifesto that was mailed out nine minutes before the attack took place…it did not include a location, it did not include specific details. I’m advised that within two minutes of its receipt in at least my office, it was conveyed directly to Parliamentary security.

(I understand the two minutes was not correct; it was more like eight)

However, we now know she misled us when she said it did not include location or specific details.

From the inquest it was reported:

The parliamentary staffer scanned the manifesto during the [111] call and picked out information including the terrorist’s name, age, weapon he was intending to use and location of the attack.

Approximately 24 hours lapsed until Ardern gave her statement: time enough to know this crucial information. It is just not believable that the information was not known to her when she faced the nation.

She took her usual route to cover her back. She bent the narrative to her will, just like she did after the Countdown terrorist stabbings two hours after the tragedy, telling us what to think and how to interpret it.

Labour, governed by coercion, forcing their will on us. For Ardern facts and truth are a foreign country.

Fran O’Sullivan is the only MSM commentator who has been bold enough to suggest that Ardern should have to appear at the Inquest. She was PM; her evidence would be helpful. Instead, she is avoiding accountability.

The sister of a Christchurch victim has opined:

Pursuit of truth is a shared responsibility.

Her response to parts of the inquest also included:

You got a range of ‘no answer’ responses, lapses of memory and ‘hindsight’ responses. I don’t know how I feel about that, but generally, it feels like it’s side-stepping responsibility and accountability.

Don’t these poor people deserve to hear the truth?

Wendy Geus is a former speechwriter and generalist communications advisor in local government. She now writes for the pure love of it. This article was first published HERE