Wednesday Morning Coffee
Last evening at 6.18PM – Claire Trevett – the chief political editor at the NZ Herald wasted no time publishing the following factually incorrect misinformation in the NZ Herald:
“The polling period followed Luxon’s trip to Japan and coincided with the mass power cut to Northland after a Transpower pylon fell over, and the grounding of the Interislander ferry near Picton.” – Claire Trevett
The polling period for the TVNZ Verian Poll ended on Wednesday 19 June but the Transpower pylon fell over on Thursday 20 June and the Interislander was grounded about 10PM on Friday.
It was factually incorrect to state that Thursday and Friday coincided with Wednesday when even a child knows those events on Thursday and Friday happened after polling had finished.
If you can’t trust Claire Trevett over the small things, how can you trust her over the big things?
Some might say Trevett misled people deliberately to quell the conception that the result is now very out of date while pointing out how much has transpired over the past week since polling ended.
Talk about bounce backs that are smaller than the margin for error after Budget 24 is mere speculation on the part of Trevett and argues that such a poll is pin point accurate and that the bounce back effect did not kick in until three weeks after the Budget.
Trevett knows an Atlas Network TPU Curia poll had National on only 35.4% on 6 June 2024 – one week after the Budget and if a bounce back affect was happening then – somehow 2.6% support swung in behind National while Luxon was “C-Listing it” and swapping planes over in Japan.
Yeah-nah.
You could counterfactually argue that things improved for National the more people forgot about the crappy Budget which only reminded them how Willis had crashed into a life and death omission and made no tagged contingency to pay for the cancer drugs at the time.
The Occam’s Razor argument is that there are a number of errors in the sample and method that combine to mean the changes are not statistically significant and nothing has really changed and we are seeing poll marketing by media eager for eyes and ears over their exclusive polling products.
That’s most likely the truth and it implies a very disconnected population which is also resistant to much voter intention swing over what they call Beltway issues.
A small minority of us are labelled ( and negated ) “political tragics” which is a negative term for the ridiculous crime of paying attention to the details of what is really happening.
Political tragics for example know that this Government is attacking the dignity of the disabled, starving the Auckland City Mission of funds so it is turning away hungry people, underfunding food banks, slashing budget services, facilitating massive rates increases, pushing through structurally racist Māori Ward legislation, robbing South Auckland Police to appear more visible on Queen Street, deceiving the public about port side ferry costs being mostly associated with the large size of the cancelled iRex Cook Strait ferries, openly fibbing about their “catch-up politics” over cancer drugs and deliberately hiding the Fast Track Consenting project list from public scrutiny until after the Select Committee public submissions stage.
It’s the kind of thing that National voting people hate to hear when they say “I vote National and think they are doing a great job”, because to them it all sounds like a fiction. They never heard about any of that in their echo chambers or because they were far too busy out making money.
When they agree to participate in an Atlas Network TPU Curia Poll or a TVNZ 1 News Verian Poll – they proudly say National is my party vote and Luxon is my preferred PM.
To political tragics this looks like a sad, unplugged set of fellow citizens who do not realise what they are doing. “Forgive them father for they know not what they do”, said some fellow being murdered on a cross.
The issue then becomes for some – how do you reach the unplugged people who reinforce the destruction, deception and delusion via their detachment?
Recently we discussed how it “does not take very much to be nice”, and how rather than freezing out people from our lives due to these political differences – it’s really vital to hang on to them and strive to understand and gently offer them more to think about. Clearly some are lost and we discussed how you may never see the fruit of changed minds – but how for some you are the agent of change.
To me it’s important to stand my ground before Jacinda haters for example and I will not back down, but I will ask questions about what is at the bottom of their beliefs and offer my take on that. Maybe verifiable facts have been missed, or twisted and then if the intention is to understand rather than to be right – it is possible to deliver facts that may have escaped consideration.
I agree that this kind of influence is almost impossible with strangers who have no reason to afford you any respect but for those who do respect you but disagree – this stuff will swirl around in their heads.
Personally I find it a bit tricky to have conversations with people who do not wish to talk about things they do not know much about – so the topic has to be instigated by them in most instances.
Yesterday I did not quite have time to get across all the things that were going down – so I realise we all struggle to keep up with the play – and we can only do what we can fit in with life crowding in at times.
No wonder most people are unplugged and operating on a thin spread of information, usually from a source they prefer.
For some that’s Mike, Kerre and Dupliicty and for others it’s Maiki, BeenDick and Katie – and then there’s Thomas and Trevett or Atlas fan Luke …
On some level I find there needs to be a bit more – for example deeper digging into the iRex project costs – or what is being said in Parliament and what is being avoided.
That extra layer of factual information is gold if it can be presented and stacks up.
I think all of us making an effort to grasp some of these essentials compliments the mainstream reporting and at times highlights gaps and errors or bias ( eg. Trevett ).
It’s why I value RNZ Media Watch and sources like BHN who go over the news and offer up more observations about it. Even Bomber’s weekly podcast ‘The working group” sheds some insight on how the other side think ( wrongly as it may be ).
Like in any topic we kind of must become familiar with the whole range of takes in order to bring understanding and I think that’s a full time job, my job really.
One take is that polls do not matter right now and don’t unless there is an election looming…and that in the meantime anything goes – forget about it.
However as we just saw – National were driven to solve the cancer drug eyesore through constant public backlash because internal polls do matter to them despite the lies Luxon tells you.
They would not be paying for them if they did not matter lol.
Like you I felt a certain kind of sucker punch about last night’s poll, a disappointment in fellow citizens for their perceptions, but I try to remember that many are unplugged, and if they knew what we did, the values we have – would also be values that matter to them in many cases.
It’s hard to believe that New Zealand is cold, brutal, uncaring about the vulnerable, easily deceived, happy to destroy endangered species, easy about making climate change worse for future generations, deeply racist, obsessively selfish and celebrating all of that like blind fools.
Sure some of us – maybe 20% are hard core rotten as described but I prefer to think we are mostly just unplugged and possibly not very interested because we are too busy.
They voted for change and it’s hard to admit that this is not the change they intended.
In the fullness of time, if enough of us exert influence by bringing the facts to conversations that are invited – we will see a continuation of the trend Chippy referred to since the election.
The fuss over statistically insignificant polls will remain – but gradually as impacts like higher rates bills, prescription charges, motor vehicle registrations and transport costs kick in we will see the trends more clearly.
This crap Government has got to go.
Wednesday Morning Coffee
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