Gerard Otto Facebook: G News – The Good News

G News – The Good News

What a fabulous start to the political year – as our much loved world famous PM Jacinda Ardern hands over to Chippy and Labour blindsides National who were sleeping at the wheel, thinking they were a shoe-in to win the 2023 election.

How the smug have fallen.

Who can forget Luxon declaring at National’s conference in Hamilton on 25 May 2022 that the cost of living “Tsunami” would lead National to victory in 2023.

Hosking ( the angry toilet brush bristling in its corner ) declared on the 25 August 2022 that “With roughly a year to go to the next election there is little, if any, doubt in my mind the Government has already lost. The only question is by how much”.

Welcome to today.

Today all bets are off as Chippy focuses on the cost of living crisis and the economy and spent his first day listening to big business in Auckland – about their number one concern – labour force shortages.

Notably New Zealand media have been freaking out – because now their blessed polls mean zero and we are back to the starting line.

Jessica MuckInMyEye looked grey, shiny and sweaty around the gills as the whole unforeseen transition of power played out – rendering all her previous supercilious words moot.

Last Night MuckinMyEye lashed out at Chippy by suddenly comparing him to world famous PM Jacinda Ardern – and saying he was more flat and low key and people did were not drawn to him.

Many people observed that MuckInMyEye never gave Jacinda that credit while she was PM – that her comments were ugly – negative and it was time for her to go.

Over at Discovery Inc – complaints came flooding in after Jenna Lynch ( Spouse of Act Chief of Staff ) made ridiculous claims that nothing tangible have been delivered by Chippy, 2 hours into the job – before the new cabinet was even selected.

Lynch’s double standard was obvious because nobody at NewsHub challenged National leader Chris Luxon to produce policy after two hours in the role. In fact it took 96 days for Luxon to announce any policy and media were very relaxed about that.

News Zealanders continue to exit watching TVNZ 1 News and Discovery Inc news – according to feedback on G News.

Failed National Party communications stooge and propaganda writer Matthew Hooton, reckoned that Chippy, Grant and Jacinda hatched up the leadership switch before Christmas – which was quite a cool story hypothesis based on barely any evidence.

Notably world famous PM Jacinda Ardern said in end of year interviews ( as early as 8 December 2022 ) that : “So we will be spending some time over summer casting our eye over the agenda to make sure that where we are investing our energy and resources, they are on those areas that New Zealanders expect us to be.”

Plus at most Chippy said Jacinda was going into the holiday period with thoughts about whether she still had enough in the tank…but no decisions were made until Chippy and a few others got a heads-up about a week before the rest of cabinet.

Hooton’s conspiratorial mind ran like a drugged up hamster around in circles as he imagined this was unfair on other contenders and gave them little time to lobby for power. But truth was the hamster was spinning in circles without any evidence as per usual.

Thomas Coughlan discovered over the summer holidays that :

“Most New Zealanders who own homes either have no mortgage, or a very small mortgage. In fact, New Zealand’s true median household with a mortgage (that’s not including people who own a house outright or don’t own a home at all), will see their interest costs increase by $175 a week since 2020, to about $350.”

Thomas discovered that only 32 per cent of New Zealanders have a mortgage and the average size of their outstanding mortgage debt was not $500,000 as derived in an example by Nicola Willis, but only $260,000.

Luxon had spent much of 2022 saying – “A family with a $700,000 mortgage is on the hook for $14,000 more a year in interest than this time last year.”

Naturally nobody in our media challenged Luxon – especially not TVNZ 1 News, the NZ Herald, or NewsHub.

In other news Nicola Willis made a bit of a jerk of herself saying Labour have raised the minimum wage too high and now cannot do much to help minimum wage workers this year.

Michael Wood said the 2022 minimum wage increase of 5.9% only added about 1 tenth of 1 percent ( 0.1% ) to inflation – and of course we must not let the wealthy stop us helping those who are most acutely impacted by the cost of living crisis.

Naturally the former ManBun of Act Party Discovery Inc AM lost his noodle about anything that might contribute to inflation no matter how tiny the effect ( unless it was a National Party tax cut ).

G News notes that the fuel excise discount has reduced inflation and PM Chris Hipkins has not ruled out extending it again.

Overall – Government policies are now seen to be working in alignment with Monetary policy – and singling out one measure ( an increase to the minimum wage ) from all the others – is typically poor reporting by media and – they should be holding Willis to account for her part in distracting the public from the overall context.

Nobody reading this is Gerry Brownlee !!! Hooray !!!

Gerry had to apologise and blame an emotional junior staffer when his social media account liked a post that called Jacinda a tyrant. National have such bad experience with staffers and they don’t ever want to talk about it.

Luxon made a knob of himself at Rātana and disrespected almost everyone with his political clap trap about co-governance and public services and a coherent single system – which made no sense. PM Chris Hipkins by contrast was well received and since then has made some remarks about articulating what is meant by a word that has now lost its meaning to many.

PM Hipkins said he would never use race relations to divide New Zealanders to win an election and almost all G News readers agreed that is exactly what National and Act have been doing for a long time now.

Media and the opposition have been trying to get ahead of the Government and dictate what items they must slow down about or scrap in their work programme. The real purpose here is to make Labour into National – to do what Luxon says – and when it does not happen sufficiently for right wing lunatics peddling nonsense – media will create wedges – and drive deeply into Labour supporters trying to split them up – like sheep dogs splitting the flock.

G News suggests that whatever happens to the speed and pace of change ( Three waters, New Public Media Entity, Income Insurance ) – not to allow the media to divide us – better to lose a small battle – and win a major war in the long run. Far left commentators will soon attack Chippy viciously for applying the brakes – too much – and Bryce Edwards will repeat their comments many times – but the same commentators don’t want Act in power do they?

Media headlines will always favour Luxon – so don’t allow them to split us up.

Grant is going to run as a list MP and not run for Wellington Central in the 2023 election :

““Post-election I want to continue as Minister of Finance, and devote myself to that role, without feeling I am not giving my full attention to the people of Wellington Central.” – said Grant.

Residents in Auckland and other North Island regions are enduring more miserable summer weather this morning, with heavy rain, power cuts, cancelled ferries and warnings that the city’s harbour bridge may be closed by heavy winds.

Somewhere out there Simeon Brown will be counting new potholes and blaming Chippy for them – in the same way nobody mentions the weather when it comes to food price inflation.

Brad from the flat has been on all channels talking about stubbornly high inflation sticking around even though it did not go up in the Q4 December 2022 quarter. Everyone’s asking can we get a better economist? But looks like here is only one that hogs 90% of the media limelight. So much for a plurality of voices.

Finally, I’ve been watching a bit of tennis in Australia here on my TV – and Novak is looking likely in the mens singles. I’m still catching up with who is who in the woman’s competition.

Things are going great – the media are crapping themselves, Chippy and Carmel are shining, Luxon is floundering. Willis is making no sense and our beloved former PM Jacinda Ardern can finally put her feet up – just for a while. She more than deserves it, and will be remembered all around the world as one of the greatest leaders of our times.

G News – The Good News

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Luxon arrived at Ratana disrespectful and arrogant like he owned the place dressed up like Biden with ‘Dark Brandon’ shades on and proceeded to politicise Co governance to incite division and dog whistle to get his white racist base to jump back from the clutches of ACT bigot white supremacist Seymour

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Jenny Purchase Facebook Comments : MEDIA COMPLICITY IN THE JACINDA ARDERN RESIGNATION DEBACLE

MEDIA COMPLICITY IN THE JACINDA ARDERN DEBACLE

Let’s not downplay the role the media played in Jacinda Ardern’s resignation. Over a long period of time, they have systematically

Amplified the negative stuff 100-fold, instead of balancing it out with all the positive stuff JA and her government have achieved. They have also, like a pack of hyenas as a kill, determinedly sought to discredit Jacinda Ardern, despite her huge popularity, immense abilities, and global reach. Call it tall poppy syndrome if you will. However it is far more insidious and dangerous than that.

This media partisanship, spin and bias is enacted by various means – obfuscation, ommission, slant, innuendo, distortion, opinion, reckons, obsessive focus on the sensational etc – all the techniques an autocratic dictatorship uses to distort and ‘massage’ the message and disseminate propoganda.

Sadly, the fact is, we have ended up with a gutter press in NZ which is a serious and sustained threat to our democracy. Aside from the independent media (predominantly Murdich-owned), even publicly funded media are complicit! Ratings have eclipsed the principles of responsible journalism across the board

We need a code of conduct for the industry that sets standards and enforces them. We need a media watchdog with teeth. The BSA is, frankly, useless! Many of us, over the past few years, have tried to call these heinous practices out, have written letters of complaint to media outlets, copied them to the BSA and lobbied the Minister, mostly to no avail.

I encourage every person in this country who believes that media is the fourth estate, and should therefore SERVE THE BEST INTERESTS OF THE POPULACE, to ramp up their efforts to counter media spin this year. It’s no use sitting on FB all day having verbal spats with individuals who are irrational and brainwashed. Report them if they cross the line, but avoid engaging. In my experience, very few of them are open to changing their views. Similarly, spending time in echo chambers with others who hold similar views is comforting but actually achieves nothing; we need to direct our energy to where it can make a difference.

We need to effectively bombard the media with complaints which should be copied to the BSA and the Minister of Broadcasting, we need to actively boycott offending media, and we need to mobilize support for petitions and activism around this issue. More on this in the weeks to come!

Ensuring we have a fair, balanced, non-biased, non-partisan media will go a long way towards ensuring we end up with the better government in October 2023. I assure you, the alternative is too awful to contemplate and will set NZ back years, back into the 20th century!

Thank you for reading and go forth and fight the good fight

Gerard Otto Facebook: Tuesday comment: Hipkins the real deal versus Luxon the fake

Despite both TVNZ 1 News and Three at 6PM both referring to incoming PM Chris Hipkins as a person “selling” himself as a “bread and butter” everyman who is “back to basics”, the fact is – that actually is who he is.

Unlike Luxon – Chippy does not pretend to be someone he is not.

The Chipster does not need a script to be the Chipster.

Kiwis like authenticity and can sniff out a fake – and its fair comment that being a fake “everyman” and working to a script, has been a problem for multi millionaire Chris Luxon from day one.

It’s just fake and it’s boring listening to circular word salads after a few hundred revolutions.

Selling Luxon as a regular community guy from a regular family was a constant challenge for National’s Spin Machine back in December 2021 – BUT – the “selling of Luxon” was never explicitly called out by TVNZ 1 News nor Three at 6PM at the time.

The black mercedes was a horrendous example of staged bullshite – and Jessica chasing it – just made it worse.

Nobody could compare the way Chippy just walked out of parliament to the waiting microphones with Luxon’s badly staged fake arrival.

Its obvious – authentic start vs fake start.

Truth is Luxon needed a rehearsed story about himself – and Luxon adopted the John Key story – to try and sell us that Luxon ( who had been out the country for 16 years ) owner of 7 ( now 9 ) houses and with a net worth of $30 Million was really just like every ordinary New Zealander, struggling along – but who wanted to succeed.

Luxon said he wanted the same opportunities for all New Zealanders – except for bottom feeders, who he does not feed.

Luxon was praised by Luke Malpass for occasionally wearing a black sweater rather than a suit.

It was part of the deception – and the fluffing.

Luxon boasted that he “used to run an airline” unchecked by media – and he kept going for months until John Campbell finally cracked up laughing in his face when he said it the ten millionth time.

Luxon was so out of touch “selling himself” and he was last to know the whole country was laughing at him – and it made Jessica quite cross – because people had to get to know him.

Jessica was speaking for all media according to TVNZ when she said we have been trying to get him to do more photo opportunities – after Mr Luxon flipped a burger for cameras – the day after fair pay legislation was passed. Legislation Luxon opposed while insisting he’s about raising incomes.

Almost a year after Luxon became leader of National and Jessica was still telling us that people still needed to get to know Luxon.

Luxon was – the guy who was saying he was in Te Puke but actually doing the “White Lotus” routine in Hawaii – during a cost of living crisis.

Luxon was the guy who was going to cancel Labour Day, the guy who called Matariki, Mata-you know rangi, the guy who slagged off New Zealand businesses and public servants at the Policy Exchange – and the guy who hid the Uffindell Report and the Terms of Reference from all scrutiny by the public, because Sam had done nothing wrong and was different now.

The bad taste of the fake act really did keep those preferred PM numbers low in the polls – compared to world famous PM Jacinda Ardern.

Yet Jacinda’s popularity slowly descended a few notches after a very hard year – and as the hate tornado grew – but Jacinda’s lowest PPM status was much higher than Luxon’s highest.

Today is Jacinda’s last official act as PM at Rātana apart from signing her resignation tomorrow, and it is still a bit like nobody can believe it. In fact the blood boils as the facts slowly come out.

Yesterday large parts of the population were shocked to discover the reality Jacinda had endured – the extreme abuse – 50 times greater than other politicians – and with the endless negative nit picking from local media thrown in on top of that ( ManBun ) – the abusers echoed each other – building the abuse – into a tornado of hate.

Mike Hosking does not consider himself a hater – but those who listened in to the vicious “back biting” over a long period – know better. The extreme hate and misogyny broadcast on some media – lived and grew in right wing radio audience nurseries.

Hate for Jacinda was watered and fed every day and that’s not all.

NZME had to pay up for abusing Clarke Gayford, Jason Walls ran amok attacking Siouxsie Wiles, there are many examples – it was all abuse really. Abuse our media deny – all day long – especially the ManBun.

The hate wasn’t just fostered on social media.

Yes the MSM in New Zealand certainly have participated in generating the overwhelming levels of hate – and now as TV media focus on Rātana – and how Jacinda will make her final words – they are also suggesting Chippie is “selling himself” when he’s just being himself.

Media were not just allowing Luxon to say “It’s just the same old team” and Labour have just moved an “open side flanker to a number eight” completely unchallenged.

Media were promoting these comments into lead stories on 1 News and Three at 6PM.

When Luxon was appointed leader of National he boasted about how a change to his party’s leadership and a reshuffle would get the right people into the right roles – and how leadership involved performance and unity – but apparently that does not apply to Labour – and neither Jessica nor Jenna will be pointing that out.

Once again media show their absolute bias and neglect to hold Opposition ( part of Government ) to account.

We’ve just seen National promote Judith Collins and Todd Muller in a defensive move to keep Luxon’s enemies closer – and to stop the leaking to the likes of Slater.

A move which really is about moving some really dead wood deckchairs on the Titanic, as if the leaks won’t keep coming.

The multi-millionare who pretends to be one of us is a fake – propped up by media – while incoming PM Chris Hipkins is the real deal – back to basics – bread and butter.

If only we had a fair and decent media – we would not be witnessing the kind of hate and burnout we have all seen.

New Zealand must do better.

Something needs to be done about it.

Forever Tuesday Morning

G

Gerard Otto Facebook: Chris Luxon massive tax U-turn

 

Rinky Dink Flip Flopping Flip Floppers

Yes Christopher Luxon is now Liz Truss in drag after the massive flip flop yesterday by National as it finally saw what everyone else had seen a year ago – that transferring hundreds of millions of dollars of tax payers money to the most wealthy 3% of income earners was a bad, stupid, inflationary idea in the current volatile economic conditions around the world.

We’re all coming out of a global pandemic at the same time and Grant Robertson knew he had to get us through with a careful balance between fiscal policy and the monetary policy of the Reserve Bank. That’s why at the beginning of the year Grant established declining budget allowances in the years ahead…and ensured Government Spending tracked down to the long run average of 30% of GDP.

Nevertheless the flip flopping opposition decided that it would announce tax cuts at the peak of Omicron in early March 2022 and promise to repeal all of Labour’s taxes along with a tax cut for all earning over $180,000. These were fiscally irresponsible election bribes and so rinky dink that the flip flopping National Party never even bothered to cost it all.

Christopher Luxon stood before a green screen and tried to sound like he would get things done.

Truly a wizard of Oz moment in all its clumsy fake marketing and rehearsal.

At the exact same moment Jessica MuckInMyEye at TVNZ 1 News salivated over a new Kantar Poll that was underway – a poll that would see if Christopher’s election bribes would give National a big push up towards Labour.

The election bribery at a time of great mental stress under the hammer of Covid worked and there were huge celebrations amongst the Press Gallery that Luxon had “steadied the ship”.

“Well, well, well, take a bow Mr Luxon” – was the headline at the NZHerald and Claire Trevett rejoiced at the marvel of Christopher’s first 100 days after the great reset.

During these months Christopher Luxon successfully sold a message of blame on “Government Spending” as the biggest driver of inflation on uncontested media platforms.

“Grant Roberston is addicted to spending” repeated Luxon on NewsCrap ZB, on Newshub AM, on TVNZ 1 News, ON TVNZ Breakfast and even on RNZ ( if he could avoid Susie ) while media sat blinking like really dumb wombats.

Luxon argued that international factors had a small bit to do with all things inflation and that international factors were all just excuses from a desperate government who had utterly mismanaged the economy.

Of course the truth is that today the inflationary impulse from the wage subsidy and business resurgence payments is actually negative and actually has a drag on inflation – a point Luxon avoids talking about.

Further – the Reserve Bank has made it abundantly clear that Government spending was small beer compared to the international shocks – like the unforeseen war in Ukraine and supply shocks in China. Plus nobody could see the future – with Americas Federal Reserve arguing inflation was only transitory.

It was not until Jack Tame confronted Luxon in late April 2022 that it became clear Luxon could not back up his factually incorrect spin with examples of Government Spending that could explain the effects.

The examples were all far too small – so the Flip Flopping National Party stopped calling “Government Spending” the biggest driver of domestic inflation – and subtly modified it – to “government spending only pours more fuel on the inflationary fire.”

Boris was in trouble by the time flip flopping Luxon arrived in the UK only to be stood up by every Tory MP he had counted on for a photo opportunity – and Liz Truss would soon step in with her legendary Tax cuts.

New Zealand media ( Jenée, Thomas, etc ) all paddled hard for National to try and illustrate why Luxon’s tax cuts for the most wealthy were not the same as Liz Truss’s tax cuts for the most wealthy.

But they were pretty much identical in their stupidity and poor timing.

Brad from the flat was inserted in the way by Nat loving media – saying no comparisons could ever be made between Luxon and Truss and their tax cuts …to try and shield National from the embarrassing reality that it had better back down on pure insanity.

On 4 August 2022 the flip flopping National Party flip flopped and then flip flopped back again in one day – and the Tax Payers Union ran down the streets of social media screaming that talk of a flip flop on tax were greatly exaggerated.

“We will be providing permanent tax reduction that adjusts the tax thresholds as we presented in January as a minimum,” the flip flopping National finance spokesperson said.

Nicola Willis tried to separate out the earlier “election bribes” and gradually over time step away from these vote catching bribes – using whatever excuses worked in a culture of excuses amongst National voters.

National wanted to backtrack on their tax bracket shift settings, promised so confidently back in March 2022 because they had finally seen they could not afford them down the track – while two days later on 6th August 2022 Liz Truss announced “she would use tax cuts to tackle the cost of living crisis”

Only a few days later again – at the National party Conference in early August 2022 the flip flopping National Party were still doubling down on tax cuts and flip flopping flapper himself Chris Bishop told media that his flip flopping party was still committed to the 39% tax rate cut for the most wealthy income earners – come hell or high water out on the flip flopping economic mud flats.

At the same time the RBNZ released another OCR hike of 50 basis points and made a projection ( its best foot forward at the time ) that there would be bugger all GDP growth in 2023.

Everyone knew for months that we have a contraction in aggregate GDP growth coming up for a sustained period of months in 2023 and everyone also knew that the OCR would continue to rise next year.

There was some doubt about whether we had passed peak inflation but in general everyone wanted that to be true.

National calculated that if people did not know much about these matters – it could exploit these facts in more deceptive spin – and media was not “onto it enough” to call them to account.

Everyone knew it was a bugger of a time for making accurate predictions – and National were stagnating in the polls as they now hesitated and tried to unsay what they had previously said.

Every single economist in New Zealand was duped into thinking inflation in the June Quarter would decline to 6.4% so when it came in at 7.2% – media ran round like Judge and Jury lashing out at Adrian Orr ( Jenée, Fran, Steven Joyce, Duplicity etc ) – until it was made clear by Paul Conway that – even if the RBNZ had acted earlier in 2021 to raise the OCR – the difference would be only 1% in CPI Headline Inflation now.

Despite knowing inflation was sticking around, knowing that GDP growth was bugger all next year and knowing that the OCR would continue to rise to do it’s job next year – Flip Flopping National still determined that they would stick with the 39% top tax rate cut despite the well signalled projections.

Luxon doubled down against a barrage of media attacks when the CTU published figures showing the flip flopping Nat tax cuts would cost $11 Billion over three years.

$2.15 a week for a minimum wage worker in a cost of living crisis said it all – while Luxon would scoop up tens of thousands in undeserved tax relief that helped nobody in a cost of living crisis.

Soon Truss was resigning after sacking her finance minister and everyone shook their head at how stupid the Tory tax cuts were.

The Nats saw the fallout as Joe Biden called Truss’ tax cuts a mistake.

The flip flopping U-Turn for the Nat’s had to be staggered and spread out so nobody much noticed if possible.

The Nat’s had planned to flip flop on Tax yesterday as could be seen by the way Luxon suddenly shifted his rhetoric in an interview with Thomas Coughlan at Midday ( two hours before the announcement ).

Luxon spoke about how he’d always said the economic conditions would determine what National would do – ha ha ha.

Straight after the 75 point rise in the OCR announcement yesterday – Luxon was before cameras spinning the flip flop.

Kim Hill cornered Nicola Willis this morning – forcing her to admit – it was only after seeing the OCR rise yesterday that National were dropping the 39% tax cut.

Kim also pressed home that there was not much of a surprise about yesterday’s announcement.

Every economist predicted it – every bank thought it would happen…but truth was Luxon had to drop the election bribe that had become a thorn in his side.

Today Luxon is making out that there was a huge shock yesterday because – who knew GDP might be slightly negative ( 1% ) next year – and who knew we may not have passed peak inflation and who knew the OCR would still go up.

“We are where we are because this Labour Government has totally and utterly mismanaged our economy and failed to have a plan to tackle inflation”, said Luxon to his cellphone last night.

In summary Luxon had bribed the electorate far too early in 2022 with unrealistic tax cuts that were unaffordable and not targeted, not tailored and not temporary.

Luxon would have mismanaged the economy and he was the last to learn that – backing down slowly to soften the fallout.

Just like Liz Truss, Luxon wore the criticism now for his political expedience earlier.

Claire Trevett was no longer clapping over on the wallflower seats at the NZ Herald.

So it was that people laughed and said you can’t Truss Luxon as Luxon applied his lipstick and smacked his lips before a mirror, dressed in only a tuxedo, his sandals and shorts – and he strode to his seat before the green screen.

“Only National can save us with sound economic management…”, said the painted bald clown, reading off the cue cards, that flip flopped around what would gain more votes for the clown …not what was best for you or me.

Rinky Dink Flip Flopping Flip Floppers

Morena

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Gerard Otto Facebook: Mr Humpty Dumpty Gaffe Luxon first year

G News – Mr Gaffe’s first year

Mr Gaffe otherwise known as “Everyman Christopher Luxon”, has had a bumpy first year and as we approach the 12 month anniversary it was time G News wrote an “off the cuff” review of Mr Gaffe’s first year.

1. ) Mr Gaffe’s first mistake was the black Mercedes which just went down like a cup of vomit because it was so out of touch with people who were struggling and people who were aware that Mr gaffe could have just walked a hundred metres to get to parliament.

2. ) Mr Gaffe’s second mistake was not knowing the Living wage after being in parliament for a year by this time – it was embarrassing but true and showed Mr Gaffe’s values.

3. ) The third Luxon mistake was saying the world had moved on from Covid when a new Covid variant ( Omicron ) was still emerging and not yet understood by scientists This showed the big disconnect and willingness to lay down the lives of New Zealanders for a few dollars more.

4. ) Luxon messed up his first question in parliament – only having to read it out – he still messed it all up and said something nonsensical.

5. ) Luxon mispronounced Matariki as “Matarangi you know” to Jack Tame which said it all really.

6. ) Luxon was comfortable with only 85% vaccination levels which would have killed many Maori and Pasifika people.

7. ) Luxon goofed off at the Cricket during Summer 2021/2022 and later criticised the government for goofing off over Summer.

8. ) Luxon staged his National Party retreat in swanky QueensTown location where he plotted to exploit the “cost of Living crisis” to gain votes.

9. ) Luxon demanded we needed more RATs from Australia – but we didn’t need any of them at all.

10. ) Luxon insisted we should have doubled our ICU bed capacity like New South Wales – but turned out we didn’t need to.

11. ) Luxon blamed Government Spending for inflation in New Zealand and said it was one of the biggest drivers – when it was really a very small driver and Luxon refused to articulate that he was referring to the inflationary impulse from the Wage Subsidy and Business Resurgent payments. Money that was vital to all of us at the time. Government spending as a ratio of GDP was almost exactly the same in 2017 compared to 2022.

12. Luxon looked like a dork when he could not explain large enough examples of government spending that would have driven inflation on TVNZ Q&A – demonstrating Luxon was just spinning with no real facts.

13. ) Luxon promised tax cuts and to repeal taxes made by Labour but neglected to point out that they would cost $11.7 Billion over three years and probably add to inflation. Luxon still has not provided costs and how he will pay for these tax cuts. Those on the minimum wage would get $2 per week.

14. ) Luxon promised to get rid of Labour Day if we were going to have a Matariki holiday and when he came under heat for this – Luxon said he was joking.

15. ) Luxon told Newstalk ZB that National does not feed the bottom – and the poor got the picture.

16. ) Luxon supported the protestors outside parliament in his speeches despite many being dangerous fruit loops.

17. ) Luxon spun that our vaccination rollout took too long – when it was about the same as the rollout in Australia – this was because Pfizer supplied to nations based on need.

18. ) Luxon said he did not believe public transport should be subsidised when – it was already subsidised for years and – then said he had not really looked into it.

19. ) Luxon messed up the meaning of the LCI ( Labour Cost Index ) before media.

20. ) Luxon told media National would index Health and Education spending to inflation but Nicola Willis later contradicted Luxon showing massive disagreement with Mr Gaffe.

21. ) Luxon was interviewed by Moana and said the English version of the Treaty shows Sovereignty was handed over to the Queen – showing ignorance about the 540 chiefs who signed the Maori version which did not say the same things.

22. ) Luxon sat on a table at a school where Maori were insulted by this ignorant act.

23. ) Luxon had to backtrack about abortion law after Simon O’Connor ( Vengeance will be mine ) and Simeon Brown went rogue on social media saying it was a great day that Roe vs Wade was being overturned in the US Supreme Court.

24. ) Luxon said he would repeal Three Waters before it had even been through Select Committee and had no solution details to offer just vague platitudes about a CCO here or there.

25. ) Luxon wore his mask under his nose for weeks breaking Covid Mask rules.

26. ) Luxon admitted that repealing interest deductibility for landlords will not lower rents.

27. ) Luxon misrepresented a “tax on KiwiSaver” to kiwis in blatant misinformation – which was really a proposed tax on the fees charged by investment managers.

28. ) Luxon admitted on TV that National might not sack all 14,000 Public servants and like its tax cuts – it was all a secret until closer to the 2023 election.

29. ) Luxon tried breaking the mask rules in Singapore and got a frosty “handshake” for his arrogance.

30. ) Luxon lashed out at New Zealand businesses in a PolicyExchange Speech – running them down calling them soft.

31. ) Luxon’s meetings in the UK all fell through and his mission was a total train wreck – badly planned and executed .

32. ) Luxon secretly flew to Hawaii to bathe in sheer luxury during a cost of living crisis and allowed people to think he was in Te Puke – which looked very dishonest and deliberate and incompetent all at once.

33. ) Luxon initially refused to admit he had made any error BY DECEIVING New Zealand on FaceBook that he was in Te puke and it was only media pressure that made him cave in and admit the mistake – which he then blamed on a staffer.

34. ) Luxon boasted about new candidate selection processes – only to select Sam Uffindell in Tauranga.

35. ) Luxon covered up the Uffindell terms of Reference and the KC report – creating real transparency issues for National.

36. ) Luxon boasted he would ban gang patches to solve the gang drive by shootings in Auckland – but – the problem went away without needing any of that “tough on crime” nonsense.

37. ) Luxon constantly put down Public servants calling them “bureaucrats” and suggesting they were worthless people who he would make unemployed because they were a waste of money.

38. ) Luxon cried crocodile tears about a man who only bought some Farm Bake Cookies at a Supermarket – but it was a crock of shite story.

39. ) Luxon threatened sick and disabled New Zealanders that National will control their money unless they get back to work if deemed fit to work.

40. ) Luxon pulled dumb PR stunts in a boxing ring and at McDonalds to try to pretend he was an “EveryMan” and not a disconnected multi millionaire with seven houses

41. ) Luxon mispronounced NCEA as NCA and NCE in parliament – which was ironic given he was concerned with literacy at the time.

42. ) Luxon wrongly suggested the Reserve Bank needed to have a single mandate focused on Inflation when there is no correlation between the number of mandates a central bank has – and their current experience of inflation.

43. ) Luxon boasted he was learning Te Reo but continues to avoid using it in simple greetings and phrases.

44. ) Luxon supported the myths spread by Groundswell – which included much opposition to the use of Te Reo and people who called the PM a communist.

45. ) Luxon misled New Zealanders that the Government’s counter proposal to farmers about pricing agricultural emissions – was somehow an unacceptable outrage – when it had the same productivity impacts as the sector’s proposal.

46. ) Luxon criticised too much hui when National meets on Tuesdays over pizza but still produces no new policies.

47. ) Luxon took two weeks to get around to making Barbara Kuriger stand down after he was made aware – and Luxon made excuses for her actions and the delays.

48. ) Luxon swore to reverse the ban on offshore gas exploration which would be a massive backward step for New Zealand in a climate crisis.

49.) Luxon posted a photo of himself in a Tuxedo wearing underpants and jandals – to try and be more popular – but he just looked pathetic and wet pale squid came to mind as people scrolled on – feeling sick.

50. ) Luxon’s promise to repeal Labour’s climate change actions will put 23.9 Million tonnes of C02 into the atmosphere by 2030.

51. ) Luxon’s commitment to repeal the merger of TVNZ and RNZ will be massively expensive but National have not shown us the money.

52.) Luxon “helicoptered into a school” and did a strange PR stunt that looked really wrong cos he was exploiting the kids – but worse – Luxon then attacked principals saying there was no longer any way we can maintain “a culture of excuses” about school absences and Luxon referred to “a mixed bag” of school principals.

53. ) Luxon called the free car discount a “Ute Tax” until now when he U-Turned and said National supported the free car discount on NewsHub AM after months opposing it. Seeing he had gaffed – he tried to U-Turn again about how he had misspoken.

There was more but that was an “off the cuff” summary of Mr Gaffe’s first year.

G News – Mr Gaffe’s first year

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Gerard Otto Facebook: How TV1 made Government’s good 1.7% Q2 GDP result look bad by destructively putting the most negative spin on what should have been positive good news for Labour & NZ economy

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.

This article has been brought to you by G from G News – the good news.

Tonight’s Propaganda from TVNZ 1 News

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Gerard Otto Facebook: G News is Back !!!

Forever Tuesday Morning

It may have come as a devastating blow for Jessica MuckInMyEye, BeenA dick Collins and the other one, what was her name again ( Maiki Sherman ), that none of them won the best political journalist of the year award from Voyager last week but trust me it got worse.

None of them were even finalists in the category.

The quality of their work was just not good enough.

It’s enough to make Simon Dallow grimace and ask for more on the story from 1 News political Reporter Jessica MuckInMyEye.

But shit – nobody in the TVNZ 1 News wants to report that news.

“We sucked badly”, was not going on a billboard at TVNZ anytime soon.

Yes it turns out that repeating misleading statistics about people sleeping in cars and crowing about National climbing in the Kantar Polls got Jessica nowhere.

Pointing a camera at herself has not made Jessica a better political reporter. Neither has ignoring Luxon’s mask use, how he’ll pay for tax cuts, nor which staffer knew what about Uffindell but failed to tell Luxon.

Jessica just wasn’t up to standard much like the rest of the TVNZ 1 news team in 2021/ 2022.

Maiki’s efforts to create a story about a Green Party Leadership Crisis was both too much, too little, and too late to score Maiki any points – and BeenAdick pretending Poto said things she never said about police crime stats just got him laughed out of town on 6 May 2022.

Even the semi retired Audrey Young ( former winner ) who now sits around doing her knitting at the NZ Herald between naps – beat the crap out of the TVNZ 1 News team according to the judges.

Audrey snuck into the list of finalists while Jenna Lynch from Discovery NewsHub took out the “prestigious” award despite being away having a baby for much of the year.

That’s about it really.

The winner was absent much of the time ( irony laughs ).

Which brings me to the point.

I don’t care about awards really because it’s mostly an illegitimate attempt to make these wallies seem legitimate, a kind of lozenge for a sore throat, an ego rush for insecure scribblers – while they collectively bury the real context of the events they report upon.

Right now who cares about the Sharma Drama other than wanting to see a naughty boy brought to justice for grandstanding and labelling everyone bullies?

Everyone is a bully apart from Sharma.

That’s the gist of it.

Yet Sharma never got beaten with bed legs in a bed, or had to jump out a window to run away did he?

Heart and centre of that story was Sharma who could not properly manage staff and three of them complained – one desiring death before he’d work for that Sharma fella again.

Sharma was offered help and a pause was put on his ability to hire more staff until he acquired the skills to be a much better manager.

Cue extreme kamikazi Sharma Drama – a helicopter of accusations spraying all over the place without evidence while the “award winning” media sit around unable to talk about anything else for nearly two weeks.

Next somebody will win an award for how they covered the Sharma Drama but truth is the whole thing is a distraction and right now it feels kind of fictional like House of the Dragon.

Loads of soap opera and bright lights but essentially about nothing really.

The news has grown thin and flimsy when there’s Climate Change adaptation knocking on our doors ( see Nelson roads ) which will make 100 year weather events happen every week soon.

The racist underbelly of rural NZ ( folks who don’t mix with city folk much ) is evident in “stop three waters” signs up and down the South island – while Kīngitanga rebukes Luxon over co-governance and he continues to spout his memorised “whites must rule your asses” spin to their faces.

“No say for you lot” at the white “public services” table under a Luxon government.

The same Luxon who barely understands there was a Maori version of the Treaty.

We’ve got the likes of the Wright family backing Squid face with more Maori bashing on The Platform.

Like you I rolled my eyes like I had swallowed a “Fuckery Grenade” and silently digested the ill effects – when I read that Mr Wright was so Mr Wrong about WFPM Jacinda Ardern and how she chose Jessica and Tova to speak first at 1PM Health updates during 2021.

Mr Wright thought that order of events was about media corruption by the government – when it was only about the fact that Television Networks went first by convention – associated with audience size.

Inheriting wealth does not make Mr Wright smart.

But Squid Face ( Plunket ) has a platform again as a result so we get to change the channel, knowing people with brains the size of acorns are up tight about 3 Waters again.

It’s all about poor critical thinking, white fright and fragility.

Don’t talk about chocolate bars.

Plus who can forget the possibility of forcing beneficiaries out of bed with all sorts of health disabilities, hitching them up to a heavy load with a job coach ( one Luxon can’t afford without privatising ) and cracking that rich man’s whip on their backs until they make a chart look better for Luxon to boast about to Jessica?

He cares so deeply.

But mostly about his own record, and if Jessica is down the road by then – it will be some other ambitious glory seeker in the media busting to win an award by being hard hitting.

A perfect recipe for more Gotcha sauce and an absence of context.

Everyone’s aware there’s another parliamentary protest happening today, but less than a thousand science deniers who hate democracy are involved and this time the cops are ready, blocking cars and all that other nonsense that lunatics rant about.

Alt Right Barbie Girl in her Alt Right barbie World will be layered up with all the required hair products and foundation, only not of FaceBook.

It’s kind of like a curiosity, maybe good for a few laughs?

If you take a step back from this theatre, there’s bigger stories that should have been told over the past nine months that our pretty useless, self praising media should have told.

G News is talking about the way the Opposition get in first when a problem comes along – selling “solutions” without showing you the money, claiming the government “shoulda done it sooner”, claiming “it’s too little too late” by the time the real solutions are applied – and hurrying on to the next topic before it becomes clear that the Government solved the issues and there were no terrible outcomes.

The “award winning” media never tell that story.

Remember tales of doom about the “Brain Drain” linked to cost of living, the “law and order crisis” and a spike in ram raids, “The gang crisis and guns”, the “health crisis in our hospitals” with raging Nurses, “the second omicron wave”, “the cost of living crisis” with no workers filling roles, “Inflation is lower in japan and Australia”, “$3.50 petrol at the pumps”, “talking up an inevitable recession” by Brad, and of course the usual anecdotes on the street about the cost of a block of cheese ha ha ha.

Yes just look at that pile of shite that media did not show the public any details about what was forecast ( no inflation forecast were published in any media ).

Look at how low Omicron case rates are now.

Look at how many migrants are flooding into New Zealand.

Look at how many ICU beds are free,

Look at how inflation is coming down.

Look how many nurses are arriving.

Look at the lower number of reported gun shots and ram raids.

Look at that EU FTA

Look at that pathway for citizenship in Australia

Media did not show you how the issues would peak and then ebb away as the Government solved these problems.

Finally Uffindell, the real bully, waits to hear his fate in secret after National covered everything up again.

Luxon says he wanted the voters of Tauranga to know the truth while covering up the report ha ha ha.

Yes G News is back.

No awards, no bright lights, just the facts.

And a little bit of humour.

Let’s keep moving.

Forever Tuesday Morning

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Gerard Otto Facebook: Amber lights on the dash and Luxon’s Uffindell cover-up shitshow

Amber Lights are on the dash

When Todd McClay saw those amber lights on the dash he immediately contacted an emotional junior staffer rather than Christopher Luxon because it was not his role to inform the leader.

It was the Party’s responsibility not Todd’s but he had gone above and beyond to let an emotional junior staffer know about a highly confidential matter that the leader should not be privy to.

That’s why Todd told media it was not his role to inform the leader after he had informed the emotional junior staffer – it all make perfect sense.

If only Christopher Luxon had known about Sam and that emotional junior staffer had ruined the open, honest process.

Luxon implied in hindsight fantasy talk that – he would have discarded Sam’s rights to privacy and the confidential Party process – and shown everyone in Tauranga what the victim had to say about Sam and made the case that Sam had changed now before the 18 June 2022.

You’ve got to make your case and take the people with you.’

It’s all about open, transparent democracy from a national, National Party who represents all New Zealanders.

Had Luxon held a press conference and declared there were amber lights on the dash before the Tauranga By-Election – then Sam’s former flat mate may have come forward to tell her story before the by-election as well.

Yes voters may have had the opportunity to be fully informed before they decided who best represented them. You know, aligned values, integrity and a deep respect for others rather than old school lying politicians covering up secrets.

National were past all of that now after the reset.

Billboards of women’s underwear hanging on the coat rack in Sam’s old Dunedin flat might have made a “very popular” billboard on Tauranga motorway off ramps alongside Sam holding a bed leg in his hands.

The opportunity for this type of honest open transparency was something Christopher deeply regretted as he told the press he was not telling them anything at all – about the emotional junior staffer.

Hindsight fantasy meets present day reality.

After bringing his staff into it Luxon said he did not want to bring his staff into it, even if they wanted to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth about a national, National Party.

Just like with Simon O’Conner, nobody had been gagged but who would come forward from within the ranks?

G News understands from a credible source that nobody knew Jami-Lee had lost his job as a swimming pool lifeguard for taking photos of girls in their bikinis.

Reportedly nobody who worked with him would come forward officially. Which is similar to the situation today about Todd and his weird choice to inform a staffer ( Luxon’s office ) but not Luxon himself.

Poor National such rotten luck with staffers who are not as reliable as email.

Todd really should have known by now and just copied in the staffer ( office ) and addressed his communications to Luxon instead.

That’s if Todd sent an email – because Luxon does not want to go there right now.

Todd knew that an emotional junior staffer had previously deleted a petition off the National Party Website and later got into a dispute with the National party after alleging media were lied to, two sources close to the situation said at the time.

Then there was that staffer who told on Nick Smith being abusive in a fit of rage …or something like that….and Judith knew about it. Nick had to go – bye bye Nick.

Yet despite all this Todd foolishly trusted staffers with this vital red flag information about Sam.

Todd knew the amber lights may not come up on the dash but he took the least reliable and least confidential path anyway.

Good one Todd.

More recently Todd also knew staffers were to blame for Luxon not managing his Te Puke video on social media and failing to change the captioning.

There’s a National Party bus with heaps of emotional staffers underneath it where they had all been thrown while media watched on.

No wonder Todd was being so oblique with the media on Tuesday 9th August – saying it was not his role to inform the leader about the amber lights on the dash.

They call Todd’s words – arse covering in the suburbs.

Luxon says he typically picks up a phone when there are amber lights on the dash and asks hard questions like how many people have come forward about Sam today, what kind of underwear and who else knows about that?

How many ICU beds do we have today and how many allegations are there against Sam Uffindell today?

Apparently a woman in the US is about to step forward about Sam according to social media reports and Luxon wants to know.

That kind of thing.

It’s proactive leadership really and Todd knows that.

So many amber lights now on the dash.

Amber lights appeared on the dash about inflation earlier this year but none appeared about Sam Uffindell so what could Luxon do?

The last thing Todd needed was Luxon being proactive, trying to get things done, you know – picking up the phone and asking if a “deep check” had been done on Sam, were there any amber lights on the dash, risk management and all that stuff a real leader would do…

Luxon was paralysed and could not pick up his phone unless someone sent him something first.

It’s what real leaders do.

Just sit there in your Crusaders shirt and make another video.

But of course Luxon now says we are where we are – because of that staffer and so nothing can be done about the whole murky mess – especially not bringing them into it after already bringing them into it.

Staffers make honest mistakes.

Should some staffers now come forward with evidence that Luxon did know about the amber lights on the dash – then that would be the end for Christopher so it’s not like there is any pressure on staffers to stay silent right now.

Luxon’s whole political career now rests on staffers staying quiet.

“We care deeply about staffers” springs to mind, especially when they suddenly have to go on jobseeker to just be free of the bullying.

Bringing Staffers further into this – so the public knows the truth is far too big a risk for Christopher.

They might go native on him, hey and we don’t want that after the National Party Conference and TVNZ’s poll.

So the truth must be covered up and we must move on soon so Christopher can be the next Prime Minister.

It’s all about who we really are deep down.

Underneath all of this people on all sides – people are worried that everyone has a skeleton or two in their closet in Wellington and where do we draw the line, because if we push too hard for the truth – a scandal war will erupt and crikey – all sorts of underwear will appear in the press.

Imagine the skid marks.

Nobody reading this is Gerry Brownlee!

OMG the association…is too much.

Yes we can’t handle the truth about that dirty laundry so Luxon is drawing a line – like he did about Maori Co-Governance in the public service.

Truth has to know its limitations just like those bureaucratic staffers from parliamentary services.

Staffers are some of the bureaucrats who Luxon is going to sack anyway to pay for his tax cuts for the wealthy if he can win the 2023 election.

I hope those staffers have brushed up their CVs because there’s some very real amber lights on the dash and there’s plenty of room under that National Party bus.

Maybe it’s time one of those staffers thought about all the future victims caused by their complicity and silence.

“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.” – Martin Luther King Jr.

Amber Lights are on the dash

Morena

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Gerard Otto: How National and Luxon with complicit media help manage and bury the Uffindell scandal in eight easy steps

Corporate Opposition Procedure when caught

1. Immediately swarm and huddle to assess the risks – no media

2. Discover all evidence that links the leader to knowing about the scandal?

3. Can we bury it? Can we destroy it? Can we plausibly deny it? If not sack the offender and admit a small error like “we should have changed the subtitles” or “I accepted the view of the selection panel”.

4. If you can destroy it, implement the – “I had no idea until yesterday” media line from the leader and dig up a distraction strategy about the Government to limit media focus

5. Push offender in front of cameras to make full confession for two days until distraction story dominates news cycle. Make the offender into the victim if possible. For pities sake – he said sorry and fronted up – he was just a white privileged kid and we all make mistakes. Use the words like – “he has made himself accountable” by throwing himself at the mercy of the Party…and we think he’s suffered enough. We believe in him. He told me in a heart to heart frank conversation. I looked him in the eye. Stuff like that, you know – eat your crow early and move on.

6. Leader to make a statement before friendly media about real genuine disappointment and shock and surprise to only just learn about this but – after a full and frank apology, we’ve decided to give the offender a second chance…because we are bigger than that. Every New Zealander who is white, rich and useful deserves a second chance. That’s who we are unless you are a brown kid who became a gang member, ram raid teenagers, or other people on the job seeker benefit who might have brown skin. For them the free ride is over…but for Sam …have a cigar, you’re gonna go far, you are never gonna die, they are gonna love you…

7. Reinforce the message that “I had no idea” multiple times and say “That’s up to Sam to reach out to the victim” and point to planted media who shift the focus away to the distraction strategy topic about last night’s poll ( for example ). End the conference abruptly and put on mask, but remember to place it over nostrils until cameras stop filming.

8. Media to summarise what we told them and move on quickly. Scandal managed and over in three days maximum.

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Gerard Otto Facebook: Shambolic National bench their 10.25% tax bracket shift proposal

It’s been since 2010 since tax brackets were last adjusted and how much CPI inflation has happened over the past 12 years compared to LCI wage cost inflation?

Tricky question but Statistics NZ data tells no lies and in June 2022 Stats said, “wage increases have typically exceeded consumer price increases over the past yen years”.

There’s been about three spikes in CPI inflation over the the past decade where temporarily CPI Inflation got a gap on LCI wage cost inflation for about a year – but sure enough CPI Inflation declined and things middled out back into that target zone ( between 1% and 3% ) while LCI wage costs dominated.

So what can we say about tax bracket creep if wages have mostly kept up with consumer prices?

I think that the argument for a tax bracket adjustment – which is an attempt to keep things constant is strongest when CPI inflation is outpacing wage cost inflation.

Well honest Bill English was all good about not adjusting tax brackets in 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016 but when he was the PM in 2017 in an election year – honest Bill decided to make an adjustment .

The 2017 Budget created by “honest” Bill English included a plan to increase the bottom three tax brackets but Bill’s cunning plan was reversed and reallocated to the families package by the Coalition Government.

Poor Honest Bill – Winston had foiled his plans and National set about being as obstructive as possible in Opposition because they were filthy sore losers.

Honest Bill wasn’t feeling it anymore and decided to cry off into oblivion – mentoring any possible future Ruth Richardson clones, which allowed “glorious loyder” Simon Bridges the opportunity to conduct a sausage roll limo tour that resulted in the biggest Jami Lee train wreck New Zealand had ever seen.

But Simon Bridges had a thick skin and although he had no fresh original ideas – he sure knew how to reheat crappy ones.

On 30 January 2019, Simon Bridges ( sly little bear ) reheated honest Bill’s tax bracket shift idea – and Bridges pledged to index tax thresholds to inflation to prevent wage and salary earners from being pushed into higher tax brackets by inflation.

Something a wage increase will do anyway.

Well Simon Bridges was the toast of the sleepy NZ media town at the time – standing ovations as the media praised this bold “new initiative” from National and mostly skipped over the way such a policy might work when CPI inflation is in decline after one of those spikes or wages cost inflation is beating CPI inflation.

National’s idea to deal with CPI Inflation spikes on the decline included getting Treasury to provide advice to the government in the year after each election and to include a veto clause so the government did not have to act in the “rare circumstances” that there was good reason not to.

That’s the background – then entered Christopher Luxon after the dark days of Jude the Ripper.

Luxon stepped out of the shade and announced on March 6 2022 :

“One of the hidden costs of inflation is bracket creep, where earners are paying more tax solely because of inflation. Someone on the average wage now has a marginal tax rate of 33 per cent. That’s not right.”

The 33% threshold is at $70,000 so Luxon is talking about those on $72,000 ( the 2021 average wage – not median wage ) and how a small part of earnings ( $2 K ) is taxed at 33%.

Then Luxon said …

“At the upcoming budget the Finance Minister should adjust the bottom three income thresholds to account for inflation we’ve seen in the last four years under Labour.”

There is something political and arbitrary about that selected four years “under Labour” when tax brackets have not been adjusted for twelve years.

During the past four years – wage inflation outpaced CPI inflation for three of them – and any adjustment should ideally be calculated using the “difference between wage inflation and price inflation ” over 12 years.

As we previously noted …”wage increases have typically exceeded consumer price increases over the past yen years”.

Despite these matters National proposed an increase in tax thresholds of 10.25% across the lower three brackets.

This meant someone earning $45,000 would save $2 a week.

Someone earning $55,000 would save $15 a week.

And someone earning $78,000 would save $18 a week.

A perverse outcome that gave the least to those who needed support the most and the most to those who required it the least.

There was no comparisons to the price of a block of cheese made by media – like media did when Labour proposed a $27 a week temporary payment.

Incredibly media objected to Labour’s solution being not enough – when it was thirteen times more than Nationals for someone on $45,000 during the peak of the inflationary spike.

National’s proposed changes would have cost $1.7 Billion from Budget 2022 but once these changes were made – there would be no adjusting the tax brackets back down again in subsequent Budgets as CPI inflation returned back down to between 1% and 3%.

Every year in the future – the missing $1.7 Billion would accrue meaning there was billions less to spend on public services, less for wage increases for nurses, doctors, police, teachers etc.

Programmes of work would have to be slashed. Perhaps these would be climate change action projects, reforming the health system so we got better outcomes for Maori and optimised workforces across regions, or just kicking the can down the road about long overdue water infrastructure reform?

The hidden future damage and aspects that made National’s proposal unfit for purpose were largely brushed off while nobody actually estimated that real gap between CPI inflation and LCI inflation since 2010.

It’s that accumulated gap over the past twelves years that should have been the basis for any real adjustment to tax brackets.

Generally the gap appears to be in favour of wage growth apart from spikes in CPI in 2008, 2011 and 2021/2022.

On August 2022, TVNZ 1 News reported :

“Average hourly earnings have increased by 6.4% Stats NZ said today. People working in manufacturing are the big winners, with average wage growth up 8.2% to over 35. Health care and social assistance was up 6.7% “

The average earnings increase of 6.4% is only 0.9% behind the June quarter CPI Inflation of 7.3%.

The small gap of only -0.9% represents how much on average kiwis are going backwards over the last year.

The 12 year figure is likely not even a negative gap.

Did this type of small gap of -0.9% between wages and prices – really justify a 10.25% tax bracket adjustment as proposed by National given all the downstream impacts for public services and the fact that the outcomes were completely arse about face?

Not likely – and suddenly the “shite hit the fan” yesterday when National stopped campaigning on this proposal, nearly three months after Budget 2022.

Ongoing communications from National about the proposal should have emphasised straight after Budget 2022 that this was just a proposal made for Budget 2022 – when inflation was on the rise in early 2022 and how it would permanently effect all Budgets for years to come.

But National did not communicate these facts at all after Budget 2022 and when they suddenly ditched the settings used ( 10.5% based on CPI inflation over the last four years under Labour ) it seemed like National were caught out – sneaking about – shifting the sales spin…hand in the cookie jar.

Unable to easily explain – National went into a scramble – and bought time yesterday morning from friends in the media as – they scrambled to deflect the facts about this blaming Labour for National’s bad communications and swore they would keep tax bracket shifts in future – perhaps even larger shifts than 10.5% – in case the polls were being impacted by their incompetence.

Labour poked fun at National’s stupidity and Chris Bishop looked like a demented outraged barn owl as he made pathetic childish noises which were pure deflection.

New Zealanders were not impressed with TVNZ 1 News for cobbling together a “they are all naughty boys” story instead of digging into some of the background I have detailed here.

Now inflation is said to be past its peak in New Zealand and National’s tax bracket shift proposal will look increasingly weak, unfit for purpose and like a really bad idea looking for a shallow grave to fall into.

The spike in inflation is temporary not permanent.

Proposing a permanent fix to a temporary problem is stupid.

Proposing a solution that was arse about face was stupid.

Yet National have mocked Labour’s right sized temporary solution for a temporary problem and mocked the much more effective support that $27 a week gives than $2 a week to those who need it more.

National’s position about this has now all changed and new positions arise and fall away with the rise and fall of CPI inflation.

The public are confused and bamboozled just like media as National Party clowns rush up and down making new – ever changing announcements in a polling period.

The parade of the Nat Clowns shows us all on some level that National’s previous proposal – was really like undertaking invasive permanent surgery that would leave us all crippled for life – when a bandaid over the temporary inflation wound would do just nicely thanks.

National bench their 10.25% tax bracket shift proposal.

G