The persistent lies in New Zealand politics
Some time recently Jonathan Boston wrote an article in NewsRoom concerning Zombie Ideas that keep on being tried by Neoliberal governments when there is ample strong evidence they do not work – but like the walking dead – they just will not die and they get up again – and walk – like the Act Party straight towards you.
Of course it would be negligent to lay all the blame on Act when National and NZ First are also tearing at the door and banging on the window sills with Zombie ideas, but you get the general idea, the bad ideas are back and the good ideas are shelved.
What does it take for a small population of 5 Million people to be so regularly convinced that the Zombie ideas that never did work are worth another crack, I mean open the door, let the zombies in, we voted for change right?
According to Jonathan “Vested interests” is a large factor behind the survival of Zombie Ideas – and I think this means – economic power dominates the narratives in mainstream media and perhaps even on social media – although more indirectly…for example the rise of Chantelle ( Alt Right Barbie Girl ) did not happen without outside help.
Recently we all became more conscious of how the Atlas Network represents those “vested interests” via two think tanks in New Zealand and like ambush predators – both have adopted the strategy of hiding in plain sight.
The ambush predator is regarded as loved articles of family furniture attached to the trusted house – rather than some “Neoliberal” engine room of influence gripping government in its claw.
NewsRoom mentioned them – late last year – after the election in an article by David Fisher – but it’s not as if TVNZ 1 News will call out the ambush predators cos some members are their biggest advertisers – nor will Stuff, nor will the soon to be gone NewsHub news folk – and to be frank NZME is part of the gig so you’ve see these Think Tanks promoted by them – rather than being called out at the NZ Herald and NewsTalk ZB.
There are many lies that persist in NZ politics that should have been busted long ago and buried by a functioning fourth estate, but we all know that never happened.
Instead a sophisticated PR operation works tirelessly to ensure the lies persist – the Zombie Ideas keep walking…here they come again.
Some persistent lies include how National are the superior economic managers, how Military Style Boot Camps solve youth crime, how austerity for the poor is necessary in a cost of living crisis, how we really need those semi automatic weapons, how there’s a gold standard for live animal exports, plus how we need to shrink the size of the public service to what it was at some arbitrary point in the past, how we only have tenants to fear not bad landlords, how regulations are bad and should be cut to free up entrepreneurs and increase foreign investment, and of course all the racist ones – embedded over decades in the settler state about Te Tiriti.
The list is long…and it would take many articles to cover them.
For the purposes of this article I am going to select a small sample of these persistent lies – and briefly cover what has happened about them…in particular the ones that have made the news in the last two weeks.
- ) Six Years of Economic vandalism
- ) Fixing the economy and getting back our mojo
3.) Restoring law and order
4.) School Attendance
5.) Treaty Principles
6.) Jacinda bribed the Media that’s why Trust is low
7.) Climate Change can all be handled by the ETS alone - ) Six Years of Economic Vandalism
“Six years of economic vandalism” is a talking point used repeatedly by the Prime Minister for three different purposes.
It’s an excuse not to talk about what really happened before the pandemic under a Labour led government.
On October 10 2018 Grant Robertson was put under enormous pressure by mainstream media to “open up the purse strings” because the there was a $5.5 Billion surplus – which was three times higher than right wing “safe hands” Sir Bill English ever delivered. We can’t have Christopher Luxon explaining that in our media today – instead some like Corin Dann just accepts it never happened by repeatedly saying “I get that” back to Luxon, “Six years Corin I will not be lectured.”
In 2019 the Surplus delivered by Grant was $7.5 Billion – which if you ask any National Party voter was just pure economic vandalism. Net debt was better than expected at 19.2 percent of GDP, below the government’s self-imposed target.
If we had not borrowed and printed money during the pandemic we would have had double digit unemployment, starving people, riots, massive recessions and rising crime – beyond your wildest dreams.
These days the NZ Herald Editorial tells us all Labour has done is moan that it did not kill the economy which the NZ Herald says is True – but they fuelled the flames…oh it was all their fault etc.
The fact is Monetary policy was not Labour’s doing at all and even now the impacts of fiscal policy on monetary policy is the subject of much research at the RBNZ – because nobody knows.
Don’t let that stop Damian Grant ( Neoliberal member of the NZ Initiative ) telling you a porky in his opinion articles at Stuff – nor any number of wild off the cuff accusations being thrown around on News Talk ZB.
It’s their job to keep the lies in play.
The economic facts from 2018, 2019 and 2020 – magically never never get raised with Luxon about those six years – why is that?
Surely it must be me and social media making up fake news or something? Mainstream media do a great job holding government to account – so they tell us?
A second reason that this “economic vandalism” lie persists is that the Atlas Network are embedding the myth in preparation for the 2026 election and embedding the blame ( Labour did it ) – and that takes repetition, lots of repetition – and no challenge from media , so it must be eventually accepted as a true fact.
Six years…economic vandalism…ask no questions, hurry and move on saying “I get it”.
No wonder Luxon will not be lectured by Labour – he avoids the debate, it embeds the blame – to repeat the lie – and it helps with Decision 2026. Thirdly this lie sets up a false justification for reviving Atlas Network Zombie Ideas right now in Year one of a three year term.
A crony packed review – paying Stephen Joyce ( $4,000 per day ) or Sir Bill ( $2,500 per day ) to arrive at pre decided conclusions is all just business as usual. Think of the savings, the Zombie Benefits of privatisation and not the human costs nor the actual rising costs driven by private greed.
2.) Fixing the economy and getting back our mojo – is another Luxon talking point and so are most of the 36 “improvement” actions – which in the end boil down to business as usual and don’t fix the economy at all.
Fixing the economy boils down to fast track consenting and shifting the water bills onto councils who bring the massive rates increases back to rates payers – while Luxon pretends that “raising the energy” equates to outcomes – like doubling exports – when in reality it’s just a load of headlines and breathless cheer leading from the same old PR cheer leaders.
Fixing the economy from Inflation is going to happen regardless of Luxon and the – promised tax cuts well – would we be borrowing that $15 Billion if we did not have to pay for them? You will not get a direct answer from Willis about that, instead you will get evasion and deflection and denials and loud accusations about Labour.
Media will not report that. Funny isn’t it. Interest dot co dot nz will report it – but not the NZ Herald.
We never lost our mojo, we had a pandemic.
We never needed to gut all those jobs and make all those families suffer and to attack our environment.
The economy was not in need of Zombie ideas to fix it. We did not need to destroy the New Zealand we love to “fix something” that was not broken.
3.) Restoring law and order – turns out this was not about eliminating all crime like it pretends to be – but some small fraction as we naturally stabilise back to pre pandemic levels of crime in line with international trends.
Clap clap clap so many bouquets thrown at the NZ Herald.
What a grand deception from Luxon and Mark Mitchell…and New Zealanders should have known better than to open the door to the Zombie ideas about “tough on crime” solving anything.
Will we keep making the same errors for the next twenty years?
It probably helped Luxon and Mitchell – when media showed us visceral images almost every evening on news programs during an election year and Luxon called for Poto Williams to go – unlike with Melissa Lee right now.
The lie was shoved down our throats while real trends were obscured and complicated – and of course we did not hear about the same levels of crime spiking in the UK, Australia and Canada post pandemic. Context would have ruined the “accountability” gig and the story …but we all noticed that coverage of retail crime fell off a media cliff the day after the 2023 election.
The silence was deafening until about three months later the election – when there was a minimal crime coverage revival just enough to claim “we are not biased”.
Restoring law and order only means riding the receding wave that is abating anyway. But wow, there’s no reporting it in this country.
- School Attendance – apparently Luxon was most horrified by these figures – but truth is real truancy makes up only between 7.5% and 12% of the absence ( past four years ) – because nearly all absence is justified.
It’s okay to take a week off with Covid or for that matter the flu or other illness and mostly justified absence is a good thing.
National knew that the way we measure all these matters was going digital so it was possible to exploit the lag in data and to amplify concern – when once again – National were riding down a Pandemic effect wave that naturally abates.
Labour invested heavily in getting kids back to school but now we see a return to pre- pandemic levels being applauded by Audrey Young as if it were something really transformational and her telling us “Labour missed the target”.
Most G News readers have some kind of background in education so you know more than me – but I’m generally of the view that sick kids should stay home.
If kids catch more colds than adults and we give adults 10 days sick leave per year – what is the fuss – and what is the evidence linking justified absence with academic performance?
Once again I think we could and will improve – but the way Luxon has milked the impacts from Covid and the roll out of digital reporting is “a persistent lie”.
Meanwhile Erica is conflating geography with history – she’s from real estate – so of course she knows better than teachers.
5.) As you know “Painting over Te Tiriti” is a massive lie being campaigned upon by Act on behalf of the Atlas Network – where parts of sentences in the Articles are distorted to mean something quite false.
Like “all New Zealanders” meant settlers when it meant the ordinary members of Hapu – not just the chiefs.
This is a persistent lie that some media attack very well – but not at the NZ Herald or Newstalk ZB or for that matter The Platform or “Reality Check Radio”…where the lie is amplified.
Get ready for this Zombie Idea to surface again in May.
Getting Te Tiriti out of the way for the Atlas Network is a top priority but thankfully most mainstream media applies a blow torch to Luxon here – keep it up – we need you to.
Act wagging the Luxon in Year one of a three year term is a strategic decision – but this kind of carry on in election year would never happen.
6.) We will never convince people that Jacinda did not control the media – because they have talked themselves into this without any real evidence and some will never climb down from that tree.
Recently trust in media fell another 10% from 42% and nobody can blame Jacinda for that – but yes they do…that is what being crazy is all about.
Perhaps trust in media continues to fall because of the impact of Reality Check Radio ( who need money ) and The Platform ( who also need money ) but some of the reasons have to do with the way we need to escape the negativity and the bashing of good people like Jacinda or Chris Hipkins or Nanaia Mahuta.
In the case of Nanaia – Duplicity attacked her on the weekend saying she should have had more face to face meetings during the pandemic when travel was not allowed – and she should have been more like Winston ( who is only 2 years younger than Biden ) who is suddenly wonderful and all is forgiven…because he has lots of meetings.
“The energy levels” or optics look good if you ignore reality and equate the number of meetings with outcomes – as the same old group raise the pom poms and do high kicks about “the pep in his step” and “the fizz in his shizz”, like they did before the election. Yes it’s all BS – as we no longer need to be like Switzerland but – now – Estonia or is it Singapore? Anyway we need to be someone else with different geography and history and you know “a more productive small advanced economy” like someone else – while we ramp up property speculation at home.
The idea that Nanaia was lazy or corrupt was wrong but the lies persist – after she was vindicated. I think some of it was pure racism and playing up to that by Simeon Brown and company but Nanaia was a target because she was leading Three Waters in defiance of the Atlas Network who wanted to devolve and privatise.
Nanaia also allowed Maori wards to get a seat at the table – a voice that Atlas did not want there. This will not do.
Labour have admitted they needed to protect her better – but truth is she did us proud.
Some of us do not trust the media because they will harm good people for the story and not challenge any of these persistent lies. They are not going to do an expose on the Atlas Network any time soon for example.
7.) Matt Burgess is Luxon’s economic advisor and he has no time for complementary climate emissions reduction when a price point and neoliberal free markets are all we need to bring down carbon emissions.
National boasts about doubling renewable energy while consented wind farms sit around growing cobwebs cos of distortions in the electricity market caused by – you guessed it – Oil and Gas – something this Government is working to perpetuate longer and longer into the future.
Roger Partridge and Mr Hartwich are dead set against getting rid of coal boilers and industrial emissions because well the ETS free market will only create more emissions somewhere else – so all the oil and gas companies, banks, investors etc that make up the membership of the NZ Initiative are right into that idea. Delay is the new denial.
Anyway the lie that persists is that we can dig up more coal using the fast track consenting bill to get around all our environmental protections and the ETS will save us and if it costs a lot in years to come – simply blame Jacinda.
Delay Agriculture joining the ETS again and again – it’s a zombie idea…while sales of EVs plummet and we invest in fossil fuel vehicles that will be on our roads for another 25 years.
As mentioned the persistent lies in New Zealand politics are many and varied and I have only touched on a few of them.
In every case I feel a huge amount of frustration that New Zealand media seems incapable of getting down to the bottom of them and ridding us of these Zombie ideas.
It may be a failing of democracy that when a pandemic or natural disaster disadvantages the wealth of citizens they chuck out the best people who protected and saved them – in return for Zombie ideas and persistent lies.
However it is sure made worse when parts of media – are part of the problem as well.
The persistent lies in New Zealand politics
G 🙂
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