Tonight’s Propaganda from TVNZ 1 News
GDP rises 1.7% as border opening helps economy bounce back https://www.1news.co.nz/2022/09/15/gdp-up-17-as-border-reopening-helps-economy-bounce-back/
Here’s a summary of propaganda to help the National Party in tonight’s TVNZ 1 News at 6PM segment about the June Quarter GDP growth of 1.7%.
1. ) TVNZ started the segment by featuring a background graphic saying “Rising Costs” with a red arrow pointing skyward as Simon Dallow read the teleprompter. This choice of background about costs going up instead of a graphic about GDP or rising growth was a deliberate choice to signal bad news to the audience and at best a secondary aspect behind the main topic. TVNZ however – bent over backwards to make a positive feel negative using this visual device.
2.) TVNZ summarised the main takeaways as – “we are all spending less and reopening the borders is helping steady the economy and kept the country out of recession…that’s the main takeaway from today’s GDP figures which showed small economic growth.” The figure of 1.7% growth was described as at the top end of the forecasts by all economists and exceeded the growth of Canada 0.8%, Australia 0.9%, Euro Area ( 19 countries ) 0.8%, European Union ( 27 Countries ) 0.7%, Japan 0.9%, OECD Total 0.4%, UK -0.1%, and the USA -0.1%. None of that was mentioned by TVNZ 1 News who described the growth as small – leaving New Zealanders ignorant of the relative large growth NZ had experienced in the June Quarter.
3.) Katie Bradford told a tale of two economies – and positioned Grant Robertson at a breakfast where today started with “eggs bene” to make him seem like the privileged rich – and pulled down his optimism about opportunities by arguing opportunities are a lot harder at the City Mission. Wow? A guy called Nicolas who had lived for 13 years under a bridge but who now had a roof over his head at the new City Mission building said “Paying rent these days is over the top”. Bradford then went on to add more and more people need help …before finally making a massive leap to try and make all of this bad news link to today’s GDP figures by saying “the financial pain had showed up in today’s GDP figures”. Yet Bradford did not explain how or where? All of this was a giant smear on the government – when talking about GDP growth in Q2 which was greater than in most economies.
4.) There has been a 3.2% drop during the June Quarter ( 3 months ago ) in private consumption – but instead of pointing out today’s figures were in the past and represented conditions in April, May and June – Bradford rushed to three random vox pops of people today saying they were trying to cut down on 1. electricity, 2. “Can I afford to buy a block of cheese” and 3. “travel and treats”. A 3.2% drop in private consumption was mostly driven by a decrease in durable goods purchased ( cars, stereos, white-ware, furniture, BBQs, Computers, TVs ) not electricity, cheese or travel and treats ( non durable ) So all of Katie Bradfords examples of “pain” and cutting back were pretty irrelevant and out of date by 3 months.
5.) Katie Bradford said there was a “big fall” in construction but that fall was only 2.4% – an amount she called “big” while the 1.7% GDP growth was referred to as “small”. Wow talk about diminishing one figure and exaggerating another – when they are only 0.7% apart. Bradford also failed to mention that a decrease in construction was a good thing as it’s a big driver of domestic inflation. The biggest.
6.) Luxon said the look isn’t good for New Zealand at the moment – “we’ve got rapidly rising prices, we’ve got inflation becoming embedded in the economy and we’ve got declining real wages and that means that everyone is going backwards.” TVNZ did not challenge any of this – by saying CPI inflation past it’s peak in June and is now thought to be declining by nearly all economists, real wages have not really declined after record wage increases in Q2 mostly kept pace with inflation and nobody went backwards by much, especially the rich. There’s a small amount of inflation embedded in the economy and National are using that as their rhetoric now that inflation is falling and everything comes back to more usual levels over the next year.
7.) Grant said there were many reasons to be optimistic about New Zealand’s economy BUT Katie Bradford could not allow that – and dragged it down by saying “but with so many global and domestic pressures piling on not everyone was feeling that optimism.” An opinion with no reference to who or what exactly she is referring to which is a technique to link to the next part of her propaganda – not news and not factual – just a transition back to Simon.
8.) Simon Dallow read out the scripted question – and asked Katie Bradford what are the economic risks we need to be aware of? A breathless Bradford rushed through saying “there were some positives – if people come here and work in Summer ( which they will 100% ) then we will see some of that optimism from Grant Robertson be validated. But then there’s all those things we can’t control, the energy price crisis, inflation around the world, the war in Ukraine – and here the two big issues are skill shortages and inflation.” OMG – inflation is coming down and has been since June – and workers are already flooding into the country. A few weeks ago Michael Wood said “Since our borders have fully reopened we are seeing the return of working holiday makers with approximately 4,000 already in the country and over 21,000 have had their application to work here approved.”
9.) Lastly Katie Bradford made major errors – referring to last weeks food prices up 8.3% – and how people are now feeling the pain of that and because of that the RBNZ will keep on raising the OCR. Bradford said we’ll keep seeing interest rates go up ( everyone has seen the OCR track so that is not news ) and that will mean Kiwis will continue to tighten their belts for some time yet. ( about buying durables – not so much non durables like food and going out to restaurants etc ).
In summary – today’s news should have been about GDP Growth at 1.7% in Q2 but Bradford had made it about wealth inequality and how people living under bridges were getting along, positioned Grant Robertson as being optimistic while eating egg bene with plonkers, omitted the relative stats from other nations who did way worse than NZ, called 1.7% small but 2.4% big, mixed up her vox pops which all referred to non durable goods with – falling expenditure on durable goods.
On top of that Luxon’s spin was embedded without challenge when it was grossly misleading as per usual and don’t forget that graphic about rising prices.
The news tonight was supposed to be about GDP growth in Q2…but just look at what they did to it to make it seem like bad news.
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Tonight’s Propaganda from TVNZ 1 News
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