Nice to see that the fine art of Real Journalism isn’t completely extinct in NZ. A piece on Scoop yesterday covering the PMs presser on paying for the Christchurch earthquake:
Today’s post-cabinet press conference concentrated on the Government’s proposal to pay for the costs of the Christchurch earthquake and rebuilding through spending cuts on other areas (excluding education and health).
And so on. The interesting bit came at the end of the summary:
Fact check: The Prime Minister states that “the bulk of New Zealanders” earn 40 to 75 thousand dollars a year.
According to Statistics New Zealand’s New Zealand Income Survey results for the June 2010 the median income (the amount which half the people in the country earn below) was $529 per week, which equates to $27508 per year. According to the survey’s technical notes the collected data was cash only, pre-tax (gross) income wherever possible, and did not include any non-cash fringe benefits.
Or by this table the median weekly income for those in paid employment is $767 ($39884 per year).
So either way It’s not possible to muster a majority starting at $40,000 and going up.
Which leaves Scoop at a bit of a loss as to what the Prime Minister means.
Fact checking the bland assertions of these lying Nats? Fact checking Mr Smile and Wave himself? Well stone the crows. Just imagine if this revolutionary idea was to catch on…
All of my posts for March will finish with this note. While life goes on as usual outside Christchurch, let our thoughts be with those who are coping with the aftermath, with the sorrow of so many who were lost, and with the challenges ahead.
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