Daily review 09/12/2024
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5:30 pm, December 9th, 2024 - 12 comments
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- Choosing your fights
My daily news diet is not what it once was.It was the TV news that lost me first. Too infantilising, too breathless, too frustrating.The Herald was next. You could look past the reactionary framing while it was being a decent newspaper of record, but once Shayne Currie began unleashing all ...4 hours ago - Hit The Road Jack
Hit the road Jack and don't you come backNo more, no more, no more, no moreHit the road Jack and don't you come back no moreWhat you say?Songwriters: Percy MayfieldMorena,I keep many of my posts, like this one, paywall-free so that everyone can read them.However, please consider supporting me as ...9 hours ago - Review: The Narnia books, by C.S. Lewis (1950-1956) – Part One
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Kia Ora,I try to keep most my posts without a paywall for public interest journalism purposes. However, if you can afford to, please consider supporting me as a paid subscriber and/or supporting over at Ko-Fi. That will help me to continue, and to keep spending time on the work. Embarrassingly, ...1 day ago - No one could save me but you
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5 days free after killing a CEO and a backpack full of monopoly money – sheesh this case gets stranger by the day.
Atlas/Tax Dodgers Union barred from Treasury event, attempt to smear the CTU for the decision:
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/politics/council-of-trade-unions-economist-craig-renney-blocked-from-treasury-event/NX6DRD5OJJHRZJSMWDVR24TLLA/
How does Jordan the wasted pig know that Graig Renney wasn't barred to balance the Atlas/TPU rejection, rather than the other way around as he claims?
I can't see why either the Tax-Payers Union or the CTU should be attending the lock-up.
The reason for the people getting a heads-up is so that they are able to give accurate advice to their clients when the stuff goes public. They can read all the material and ask questions of the Treasury Officials to make sure that they clearly understand what is going on.
Neither the Tax-Payers Union nor the CTU need to be there.
I think they are being sensible in reducing the ranks of those at the lock-up to those who have to pass on accurately the story immediately after it is announced.
I guess Farrar and Williams are kicking themselves for calling it a Union. They thought they were being clever and now they are being slapped in the face, hard.
The subconscious irony.
Doesn't the CTU have "clients" tens of thousands of them, whose interests can depend on "accurate advice".
Whereas the tax dodgers association is simply a ginger group.
Disgraced, conflicted, and corrupt pollster David Farrar once again manufactures a huge outlier for ACT at 13% while an equivalent poll by an organisation which is signed up to the industry code of practice and very recently won top awards from the Research Association of NZ, has ACT at 8%.
Farrar has inflated the ACT result by 160% for political purposes. He did this around Waitangi Day earlier this year and he's doin it now to try to seed momentum for his master's failed and racist bill. That Farrar and Curia are both pollster and aggressive political activist leaves them wide open for scrutiny, accusation, and conclusion.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/politics/1news-verian-poll-shows-te-pati-maori-getting-boost/5EG5ANQEZBAYPKFEEDHEQC7FSU/
The Taxpayers Union gets the poll result it wants because it pays for the poll. The TU is funded by the Atlas Network, tobacco, liquor and sugar retailers.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/in-depth/517506/jordan-williams-on-why-the-taxpayers-union-went-to-panama-to-debate-vaping
Farrar has got away with his rubbish for too long. The MSM should be calling this out not blithely reporting it as gospel.
Curia is still held up alongside legitimate polling companies as reputable, reliable, and impartial but by definition it is not. The massive funding boost enjoyed by the TPU in the last three years since National imploded has allowed Farrar to push Curia's brand. With Curia 'trusted and respected', Farrar uses manufactured poll results to steer a particular political narrative.
However, people are starting to look at the rot under the veneer. We simple commenters can help by documenting and discussing. I believe some journalists do read this forum.
And the fact NZH picks the Curia poll as the one to headline.
Reddit/new zealand comment had this great wiki link aggregating all NZ political poll results. Here.
I suggest we all go there in future to judge political polling trends.
It shows an obvious dip for nats and a big rise for labour (and their respective coalition partners) in the last 2 months.
The link the Reddit thread is to the Wikipedia page, Opinion polling for the next NZ general election. It's a very useful page and it's great to see a qualifier on that page describing Farrar's dodgy polling practice loud and clear.
Very strange to have a post-Cabinet press conference where the PM repeatedly says that he doesn't talk about decisions made in Cabinet.
I assume most people know the political play here, but for anyone who hasn't worked it out:
1. There will be an announcement shortly about the Cook Strait ferries.
2. The announcement will leave the government with egg on face, after the hasty cancellation and fudged promises a year ago.
3. So the playbook says, do not let the PM be the face of bad news. Therefore avoid answering Qs about it at the weekly press conference. Entirely reasonable questions, by the way.
4. When the announcement is made and the Qs come flooding in (cost? delay? etc), the PM will be elsewhere.
5. It's Christmas! Politics? Yawn. Luxon will be available to sing Snoopy songs or other seasonal silliness, but not take Qs about billions of tax dollars.
Unfortunately for him, all those questions will still be waiting for him after the summer holiday.