Sunday afternoon, a long weekend and time for a bit of net surfing. I fancied I was on a boring exercise but no, I caught an unexpected wave. The wave was rather a tempestuous one in the form of Andrea Vance, a senior journalist with Stuff. It appears her waters are somewhat troubled. What was unexpected was that I didn’t think I’d be reading an article of such a nature penned by her. Even more surprising was that her employer had allowed it to be published.
Andrea’s article was headed, This government promised to be open and transparent, but it is an artfully-crafted mirage. The fact it’s a mirage is not surprising: think Kiwibuild and a host of other project failures from this government. Andrea found it very difficult, at times next to impossible, to obtain relevant information from the various government departments. According to her, in Jacinda’s first formal speech to Parliament she pledged, “This Government will foster a more open and democratic society. It will strengthen transparency around official information.”
Since then the numbers of faceless communications specialists have skyrocketed and the government’s iron grip on the control of information has tightened. It is now harder than ever to get information. Andrea said in her 20+ years as a journalist, this government is one of the most thin skinned and secretive she has experienced and that many of her colleagues say the same.
My question for Andrea and her colleagues is: why then are you working for an outfit that is so supportive of them?
Not surprisingly, Mahuta is in the firing line. Two Stuff journalists wanted to question her on the China-Australia-New Zealand relationship but she refused with the flimsy excuse she didn’t want to talk to two journalists at once. I’m surprised she didn’t use the excuse that the interview wouldn’t be in Maori.
In the same week, she released detailed reports outlining the dire state of the country’s water infrastructure. Her media response, according to Andrea, was to cherry-pick a journalist from TV1. As Andrea pointed out while it was a coup for the state broadcaster it was a serious blow to accountability.
Kris Faafoi was another one singled out. It appears if they don’t like the questions they simply don’t answer them. This is the very reason this government have scrapped all targets and have no statistical records on anything. They don’t want to be held accountable. Why? Because they are the most incompetent government in the political history of this country.
Back to Andrea’s piece and some interesting stats. Each Minister has two press secretaries and Ardern has four. The Ministry for the Environment has gone from 10 PR staff to 18, MFAT numbers have more than doubled to 25, MBIE have blown out from 48 to 64.
NZTA however takes the cake with an increase from 26 to 72. You read that right: another 46 over 5 years. What a disgrace. Maybe they need that many to cope with dumb government ideas like building a bridge for wallies on two wheels and scrapping the Mill Road project.
Andrea says the prime minister’s office makes sure the audience is captured. They start the week and cement the agenda with a conference call with political editors.
Andrea says the public has a very different perception of this government. She clearly does not read The BFD. She concludes by saying that the way this government operates is an artfully crafted mirage. This is a government that is only generous with the information it chooses to share.
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