New Zealanders were forced to read the tea leaves regarding Labour’s (hidden) 2020 election manifesto whilst, behind the scenes, the taxpayer-funded Mahuta family worked on the He Puapua policy.
Recently Grant Robertson joined in the discussion around the US Supreme Court decision on abortion and did some tea-leaf reading of his own around Christopher Luxon’s promise that he would not relitigate or change our abortion law, passed before he entered parliament, if he became PM.
(Paddy Gower on the Nation made a vicious attack on Luxon’s stance, including wrongly accusing him of voting for the NZ bill, for which Simon Shepherd made a sheepish apology on his behalf the following week.)
Robertson’s assertion that Luxon could not be trusted to keep his word after the election over abortion law (like Jane Clifton’s and others’ emotive musings) was laughable, given Robertson’s Government covered up their true intentions in the 2020 election campaign around their policy based on the concept of apartheid (Afrikaans for separateness): destined to divide our nation as his Government attempts to dismantle democracy, by subterfuge.
At the same time, in an obvious conflict of interest, they had a small team of taxpayer-funded family members of Nanaia Mahuta’s working away on the very policy they forgot to mention, but are today putting into legislation (Maori wards, Three Waters, Maori Health Authority and others to come) with little public consultation, apart from the Maori community.
This is a double deception, with the nepotism condoned by Jacinda Ardern, who let it completely ‘slip her mind’ to include He Puapua in their election campaign as one of their main agendas for the next term, or to mention anything about it to her partner in government at the time, NZ First.
They were misleading the public when they laughingly said the election was all about Covid; they could not be honest with all their intentions during their election campaign, as they knew if they were they would not be elected with such a divisive agenda.
So they won in 2020 by deception and in 2017 were selected by accepting a bribe. And now Robertson has the audacity to talk about keeping one’s word (the definition of integrity) – something we know we could never accuse this Government of possessing.
And trust!
Thankfully for them they have most of their friends from the media cheering from the sidelines. Very little attention has been paid to the obvious conflict of interest of Mahuta’s family appointments and Jacinda’s endorsement of nepotism by her Government. When she insists that everything is above board, they obediently move on to another subject. Supporting corruption by their apathy and silence and possibly obedience to their paymaster?
To their credit, Newsroom is tackling Matthew Tukaki (HDPA’s former bestie and another questionable government contractor) in their most hard-hitting piece to date on the charlatan, as being a liability to the Government. And, on his blogsite, Chris Trotter in recent times has been doing his best to send smoke signals to Jacinda that she is on the wrong track with He Puapua.
In Jack Tame’s recent interview with Nanaia Mahuta on Q+A, unlike Newsroom, he insipidly tiptoed on eggshells around the issue surrounding her family (of nepotism and corruption). Mahuta denied this, painting herself as the victim under attack, whose lineage goes right back to the Treaty and who will not be denied implementing her policy (which the PM still maintains is not a policy!) that is for the good of us all.
Tame, of course, asked if it could be racism (the emotive word that will protect her into the future from further scrutiny from the left-leaning media). Mahuta agreed.
No digging down by Tame to tease the emotion from the facts. Lazy, fearful journalism…
I hope they surprise me; however, in reality, I do not expect any of our leading commentators to come out to express their outrage. Their silence will once more be deafening. Each time something more egregious happens I think: this must be it. How can they ignore this? Quite easily, it seems.
A recent example of the media’s lazy journalism and approach to the government’s irregular employment practices around the Mahuta family is Newshub’s emotive headline:
Nepotism or racism?
How do they have the audacity to print this, when colour of skin has nothing to do with a conflict of interest. (And how does Jack Tame have the temerity to suggest it without putting his subject on the spot to explain herself?)
Conflict of interest or nepotism is where people get priority over others due to their closeness to people in power. Simple.
But the insertion of the emotive word racism is used to shut down discussion that is uncomfortable for the Government. It’s working so far.
The attack on Christopher Luxon for his views on abortion by Robertson and the media was an attempt to smear him for having different views from their own, which are the acceptable ones and a convenient distraction from covering the contentious issues round a government out of control and drunk on their own power.
https://www.newsroom.co.nz/the-political-liability-of-matt-tukaki
Mahuta hits back at ‘toxic trolling’ after nepotism accusations (1news.co.nz)