OPINION
The media’s bullying of National (and Wayne Brown) is becoming a little predictable, like Stuff‘s Glenn McConnell or the Herald‘s Simon Wilson who use storytelling artistic licence to sell the government’s narrative and misrepresent National and the Mayor.
The media’s current fixation is bilingual road signs. Chris Luxon does not bring this issue up; the media do every time. I can confidently say Luxon would rather take a dip in the Arctic Ocean than discuss this political hot potato.
The government’s propaganda arm then make up the narrative to paint him as the bad guy who is ‘struggling with Maori politics’ or ‘keeps returning to this uneasy question’, according to misleading commentary from the rigid worldview of Glenn McConnell.
It is important to set the record straight. The media are getting tedious; they lack balance and fail to investigate before affixing their labels ‘knee-jerk’, ‘racist’, ‘dog-whistling’, or ‘misogynist’ whenever they unilaterally decide National aren’t falling in behind the government’s social justice agenda. Their reporting is emotive – and unacceptable.
No wonder Wayne Brown locks Stuff reporters (and probably Simon Wilson as well) out of his meetings; their commentary is neither balanced nor true. It is based purely on their emotive world view. Anybody who disagrees will be attacked personally.
The Herald with stirring music markets its brand as ‘News you can trust’, ‘News worth knowing’.
News is purely ‘stuff that happens’. Sometimes worth knowing, sometimes not. I want the facts and ‘both sides of the story’, which they assert they provide but clearly struggle with. The stirring music and empty words mean nothing.
‘News you can trust’. Does that mean no bullsh*t? You have got to be joking.
The Herald’s (and Stuff’s) news have been sanitised to fit their worldview. It is as simple as that.
“Villian or buffoon. Wayne Brown’s budget falls apart” reads Simon Wilson’s latest attack in his ongoing battle against the Mayor. That is bound to catch the attention of his socialist readers, who hate increasing efficiencies and think money comes from money trees out the back of Auckland Council and parliament. It seems some of his councillors who were present when Phil Goff’s overspending and borrowing happened think the same.
Wayne Brown is making difficult, unpopular decisions, something Goff did not have the spine to do. Showing leadership (like Luxon around spending and rejection of co-governance), which the socialist government and the left-wing media who control the narrative abhor. Pushing ahead against all odds when hard decisions have to be made.
That’s real leadership.
Similarly, National do not think mobile te reo lessons, diverting attention from safe driving, should be a preoccupation of the New Zealand Transport Agency, which should be focusing on filling potholes and building roads.
National have been condemned for using common sense, logic and reason, rather than the current fad of ideological virtue signalling.
Greg Murphy agreed on The Platform, saying it would have cost heaps to consult over this and there will be no improved safety outcomes. How does this align with their Road to Zero campaign?
He also decries the mess road workers leave behind when they finish a job, which the New Zealand Transport Agency, preoccupied with bi-lingual signage, needs to attend to.
Labour’s (and the media’s) attack on Luxon for not immediately adopting the government’s no prescription fees on oral contraception came back to bite them. Megan Woods’s and Hipkins’s knee-jerk attack responses didn’t work.
For six years they have let women pay for prescriptions, so Woods’s Handmaiden’s Tale label, far off the mark anyway, applies to Labour too.
And then Erica Stanford put the boot in referring to the poise and grace of Ardern, who would never have behaved like this. Ouch!
The media on this issue were forced to back down and called it an ‘own goal’ for Labour.
Since when does National have to dance to Labour’s tune?