Nats’ ad claims credit for Lab’s infrastructure

Written By: - Date published: 9:43 am, November 1st, 2011 - 51 comments
Categories: election 2011, labour, national, transport - Tags: , ,

Oh dear. This is not what National needed on the back of Goff besting Key in the first debate. National’s new TV ad is on the world-class infrastructure they claim to have built. But it was all planned, funded, and mostly built by Labour. Have National accidentally revealed their real achievement: taking credit for others work?

First up, we have shots of Newmarket Railway station (featuring Conveniently Multi-Ethnic Casttm). There’s lot of shots of people looking happy as they go to get on trains, which I thought National despised. The problem is: Newmarket was upgraded as part of Labour’s Project DART, planned and funded way back in 2006. Although Steven Joyce, the great patron of rail, happily took the credit when he reopened it.

Then, we see a shot of Spaghetti Junction. Specifically, the final section connecting the Northwestern Motorway eastbound to the Northern Motorway northbound. This project wasn’t just planned and funded by Labour, they were completely built under Labour too and finished in 2006. If National had to show a five year old Labour project in its infrastructure ad, how desperate were they?

Beside the shot of Spaghetti Junction are a couple of shots of a motorway with a distinctive overbridge. It’s the Northern Gateway motorway, specifically the ALPURT B2 extension. That was planned and funded, and mostly built under Labour as well. I’m not a fan of this toll road. But I’m less of a fan of parties that say “we’re building world-class infrastructure” and show other parties’ projects.

Finally, there’s John Key giving what I think we’re meant to believe it his professional and informed inspection of the Victoria Park Tunnel (‘the roof is 20mm lower than spec over there! And the camber on that bend is all wrong! What the hell are you people playing at?). National can at least claim that soil was broken on this project under them, just after they came to power. But it was planned, funded, and consented under Labour.

Oh and there’s some shots of fibre-optic cable being laid. You know, the stuff that Labour was planning to roll-out across the country, then National came up with a cheaper and shittier plan that restores Telecom’s monopoly and is already well behind schedule.

Nice ad, National. I’m left thinking ‘you know, Labour got a lot of stuff built in nine years’.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYE3Z1ItVk8

51 comments on “Nats’ ad claims credit for Lab’s infrastructure ”

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  1. Carol 1
    1 November 2011 at 10:09 am

    Yes, Nikki Kaye has been claiming Labour did nothing for Auckland public transport, while National has done all these rail upgrades. As I frequent user of the Western rail line for the last few years, I know there was a load of upgrades begun under Labour: Newmarket, double-tracking, the New Lynn rail trench (strongly supported by New Lynn MP David Cunliffe)… etc,.

  2. Blighty 2
    1 November 2011 at 10:23 am

    This is so dishonest from National. Good on you for being the first to call them out.

  3. Adrian 3
    1 November 2011 at 10:25 am

    Colin King, yeah you haven’t heard of him, NatMP for Kaikoura and worse than 4 men short , is claiming the new Wairau ( Blenheim ) Hospital, Kaikoura Hosp, Aquaculture Ed Centre, the Awatere bridge ( remember the double decker at Seddon on SH1 ), etc etc. All Labour funded and built. His ads don’t list a single new thing done in the last 3 years, because there hasn’t bloody been any. Lies .. sorry, he must be living in a ” dienimic inviromint”.

    • ianmac 3.1
      1 November 2011 at 3:40 pm

      Adrian.
      Colin King was miffed to be placed on the “wouldn’t be missed” list. He said that he had done heaps for his Kaikoura electorate. (Very safe for National. Puts me in mind of FPP wasted votes.)
      Where do you see his ads claiming work done?
      I feel another letter to editor Marlborough Express brewing in my mischief making mind!

  4. Dv 4
    1 November 2011 at 10:43 am

    I am confused about this.
    The Nats have been blaming Lab for the last three years. Its is only fair to take credit for the infrastructure developed by Lab.

  5. Tombstone 5
    1 November 2011 at 10:44 am

    So where are the media calling Key out on this stuff? It’s there job to ensure that the public are well informed and they’re just not doing it. This is critical because once again Key is exposed for being the lying, devious bastard he is and once again the media is doing nothing to reign him in and keep him honest. This is a critical election and if Key is lying or decieving the public, and blatantly so then he should be exposed for it so voters can make a truly informed choice. I’m getting seriously tired of our toothless media. They’re a bloody disgrace!

    • Ee 5.1
      1 November 2011 at 11:14 am

      The same media that constantly cut Goff off in the leader debate?
      The same media that is owned by the big businesses that Key raises GST and borrows money to provide tax cuts for?
      The internet is a wonderful thing, there was a time when we the people had no way of finding out when our governments acted like this, now we do.
      MMP is a wonderful system, there was a time when we could not hold our politicians accountable for their actions, now we can.
      Spread the word, tell people what is happening. Do not rely on the tv to tell us the truth, the truth doesn’t sell. Keys plastic smile and empty promises sell.
      This is all Key can do.
      He lies, slanders and misdirects.
      His whole campaign rests on his belief that New Zealanders are too ignorant and lazy to really look at his policy. That’s why all Nationals billboards are just his face. That’s why he lies in debates and lies in their adverts.

      Because he believes that we’re stupid enough to believe it.

    • Maggie May 5.2
      1 November 2011 at 11:57 am

      You will not find the media reigning John Key they have lifestyles to protrect.
      They may loose tax cuts after the election and have to operate under fairer policies.

      It is the usual National Party philosophy, ‘I care only about myself ‘ trouble is these people very quickly expect those they don’t care about to make this the kind of place they want to live in.

    • coolas 5.3
      1 November 2011 at 12:42 pm

      So true. The MSM have convinced themselves Nats will get a second term. I had a glimpse of this at a dinner with several high powered journos who all said that Key will win the election. Why are you so sure? I asked. They grin and say, ‘Cos we don’t get one term Governments.’ ‘It’s their turn.’ People are still sick of Labour.’

      To a man, and one woman, these journos seemed to me: smug, complacent, and lazy. Just like John Key.

      • jingyang 5.3.1
        1 November 2011 at 11:40 pm

        Wow. Did you point out to them that Labour in 1957-60 and 1972-75 were both one term governments? Maybe the journos simply meant we “don’t get one term National governments”

        “It’s their turn” Christ, now you’ve got me thinking that these journos are actually all 3-year-olds whining in the playground about whose turn it is cos they have such short attention spans.

        “People are still sick of Labour” – perhaps, But can’t we still be “even more sick of National”?
        Why do they still seem to equate not liking Labour with voting National – after 5 MMP elections?

        I agree with you coolas, what a bunch of smug useless tossers.

        • Colonial Viper 5.3.1.1
          1 November 2011 at 11:55 pm

          journalists with 3 year old mental ages have no memory of what John Key promised even 6 months ago, let alone what happened in 1972-1975.

    • Fila Hope 5.4
      1 November 2011 at 11:44 pm

      WE are the new media..

    • Maggie May 5.5
      7 November 2011 at 9:15 am

      The media want a National government elected so they are not reporting in the interests of the country they are reporting in their interests.

      National voters walk into a polling booth and vote National because they only care about themselves thereby forfeiting any right to ask others to care about them.

  6. Afewknowthetruth 6
    1 November 2011 at 11:29 am

    Labour shouldn’t be bosting about how much wealth they squandered on infrastructure that will have no utility in the near future.

    As peak oil bites ever harder, the billions of dollars spent on roads will be seen as one of the greatest misallocations of resources in history (along with airports)….. a bit like the people on Easter Island who were psychologically locked into building statues and were blind to the fact that they were destroying their life support systems; that particular population collapsed via canniballism.

    A bit further down the track, when the grid fails, the billions of dollars spent on rail systems in Auckland will be seen as a horrendous waste of resources.

    The truth takes a while to leak past guardians of dysfuntion and the censorship that takes place in western societies, of course, but eventually the tide of collapse becomes too great to be concealed:

    ‘The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) slashed its growth forecasts for some of the world’s biggest economies and said “without decisive action the outlook is gloomy”.

    Decisive action? What a joke! The clowns and criminals who call themsleves our leaders are looting the till as fast as they can while there is still something left to loot and are setting up their bolt holes in preparation for the meltdown that is not ar off now. Meanwhile, they con the masses into believing that unsustainable debt levels can be sustained by additional loans that increase the debt levels.

    The exact timing for the collapse of industrial civilisation cannot be determined precisely, of course, but a good guideline would be the end of economic growth by 2012 and ‘pretty much all over’ for most industrial economies by around 2020.

    I guess the submitters and most of the commenters on The Standard will keep playing the game -of focusing on distractions and ignoring reality- for as long as they can.

    • shreddakj 6.1
      1 November 2011 at 12:01 pm

      @Afewknowthetruth

      Ignoring reality? Tell that to the folk over on the right wing, us proud liberals are all for alternative energy sources. Labour pretty much wants to stop drilling deep sea oil, don’t even get me started on the Greens, you probably couldn’t find a more pro-alternative-energy party in the southern hemisphere. Get down off your conspiracy horse and come back to reality.

    • Colonial Viper 6.2
      1 November 2011 at 12:30 pm

      A bit further down the track, when the grid fails, the billions of dollars spent on rail systems in Auckland will be seen as a horrendous waste of resources.

      NZ is excellent at keeping its grid operating with 1950’s and 1960’s technology.

    • Draco T Bastard 6.3
      1 November 2011 at 1:04 pm

      A bit further down the track, when the grid fails,

      The grid won’t fail in NZ. We have the resources and expertise to maintain it indefinitely. It may be more constrained but it won’t fail.

      The present financial/ownership/economic model doesn’t work but that doesn’t mean that we can’t maintain an industrial society that is sustainable. We just have to cut back on what we take from the environment and also get rid of profit.

      • insider 6.3.1
        1 November 2011 at 1:09 pm

        Of course the grid can fail. Any grid can if put under enough stress. NZ is more vulnerable because of the long and stringy nature meaning we don’t have many alternative pathways for power. It’s a surprise it doesn’t fail more often. No it won’t collapse long term unless we have a societal collapse, but then neither will most things.

        • Draco T Bastard 6.3.1.1
          1 November 2011 at 2:04 pm

          Well, I suppose NAct could get back in and do more cost cutting and maintenance will therefore not be done and so the grid could fail, yes. But if we don’t vote in NAct and the government accepts reality rather than the present delusional economic paradigm then the grid has a chance of being maintained. As I said – we have the capability.

        • rail man 6.3.1.2
          6 November 2011 at 8:11 am

          yes of course it can fail, not for the demand placed on it for normal operations i.e if all the fleet was in one substation zone all at full power that this would represent half of the total capacity the line is capable of prviding but for incidents like wire strike at level crossings, infrastructure failing leading to derailed units taking out the overhead wire, power supply to ak fails due to over demand or other such incident similar to the hoist in Onehunga striking the HT wire leading to an Auckland wide blackout…

    • llamapajama 6.4
      1 November 2011 at 7:50 pm

      ‘…the billions of dollars spent on roads will be seen as one of the greatest misallocations of resources in history.’

      Uh, you realise National has upped its expenditure on new roads and simultaneously cut back on money for public transport, right?

      • Maggie May 6.4.1
        2 November 2011 at 2:56 pm

        You gotta remember these guys Stephen Joyce is giving roading contracts to are his mates, if there is going to be a failing economy you gotta protect your mates first, the workers are only there to pay for it..

    • mik e 6.5
      1 November 2011 at 8:25 pm

      A few I thought the world was ending according to your thruth the world has ended the share market and world banking collapsed and crashed beyond redemption god you would make a good National party leader making ridiculous claims Nov 1st and alls well that ends well

  7. Tigger 7
    1 November 2011 at 12:20 pm

    Time for BSA Election Programme complaint. Accuracy.

    • Draco T Bastard 7.1
      1 November 2011 at 1:06 pm

      Actually, that’s correct. It’s obvious false advertising and that is against the law.

      • Tigger 7.1.1
        1 November 2011 at 2:29 pm

        It’s misleading and it’s what the standard is there to stop. Can someone tell me when and where this has played on TV?

        • One Anonymous Bloke 7.1.1.1
          1 November 2011 at 2:37 pm

          Does it matter? They’ve posted it online – please don’t tell me the rules don’t apply to the interwebs.

  8. JS 8
    1 November 2011 at 12:26 pm

    Hopefully the Labour Party’s keyholes website will continue fact checking such Nat claims.

  9. Anthony 9
    1 November 2011 at 12:28 pm

    Too bad people will hear this and believe it…

  10. MrSmith 10
    1 November 2011 at 2:54 pm

    You really have to ask if the people running the National campaign are trying to sabotage it, winging it has worked fine till the spotlight has been brought to bare.
     
    This is going to turn out like the rugby world cup final, then I was being told by everyone we had it in the bag, all we had to do was show up (so I got on the french at 15-1 and almost cleaned up). 
     
    This election is shaping up the same way, silly mistakes will lose National the game, also you’d have to think Jinkskey believes what he has been reading in the paper.

  11. Chris S 11
    1 November 2011 at 6:23 pm

    Welp, I’ve sent a complaint to the Advertising Standards Authority. Let’s see if they rule on it.

  12. Sam 12
    1 November 2011 at 9:45 pm

    Got Michael Woodhouse’s campaign leaflet in the mail the other day. Top of the list for National’s achievements in Dunedin was keeping the neuro surgery unit. Another one to add to the list.

  13. jingyang 13
    1 November 2011 at 11:54 pm

    I’ve left a comment on youtube regarding this video, but it has to be accepted 🙂 so I don’t think they’ll let it through.

    I’ve also flagged it as inappropriate under “mass advertising” “misleading text”.

  14. Jamie 14
    2 November 2011 at 11:56 am

    I agree with what the article is saying, and most of the comments, but have you ever heard of proof reading and spell checking? This goes for the comments as well. In just a quick read of the article I spotted two pretty obvious errors, and the comments from you lot are chock-a-block full of spelling errors. It detracts from your argument if you cant even spell properly guys and girls.

    • MrSmith 14.1
      2 November 2011 at 3:59 pm

      Lightin up Jamie.

      • Vicky32 14.1.1
        6 November 2011 at 4:33 pm

        Although she/he does have a point! If I can make sure I make no/zero/zip/nada spelling and grammar errors, anyone can! It’s not that hard… (on second thoughts, maybe it is for native New Zealanders, but compared to cooking for instance, it’s a doddle…)

  15. Greg 15
    2 November 2011 at 1:12 pm

    Here’s my complaint to the ASA:

    “The ad breaches Rule 2 and is misleading.

    It shows images of infrastructure planned, consented, funded and mostly completed under Labour — while John Key’s voice asserts “National is building world-class infrastructure… better roads and rail”.

    A detailed breakdown of the projects can be found here: http://thestandard.org.nz/nats-ad-claims-credit-for-labs-infrastructure/

    Claiming someone else’s work as your own is substantially misleading. Any reasonable person without sufficient knowledge of the details would look at these images and form the impression all of the projects shown in the ad “belong” to National — giving no credit to the party that actually did the work, while implying National has been much more productive (in terms of infrastructure) than it actually has been.

    I believe this ad breaches RULE 2: Truthful Presentation – Advertisements should not contain any statement or visual presentation or create an overall impression which directly or by implication, omission, ambiguity or exaggerated claim is misleading or deceptive, is likely to deceive or mislead the consumer, makes false and misleading representation, abuses the trust of the consumer or exploits his/her lack of experience or knowledge. (Obvious hyperbole, identifiable as such, is not considered to be misleading).”

    • Greg 15.1
      2 November 2011 at 1:28 pm

      Seems the BSA should be involved. It handles “election programmes” which “typically consist of paid advertisements for political parties or candidates” (http://www.bsa.govt.nz/general-guidance/)

      Use this form: http://www.bsa.govt.nz/privacy-or-election-programmes-complaint/

      Here’s my objection. Copy and paste at will.

      “This election programme in the form of a paid advertisement for the National Party is fundamentally misleading.

      It shows images of infrastructure planned, consented, funded and mostly completed under Labour — while John Key’s voice asserts “National is building world-class infrastructure… better roads and rail”.

      Claiming someone else’s work as your own is substantially misleading. Any reasonable person without sufficient knowledge of the details would look at these images and form the impression all of the projects shown in the ad “belong” to National — giving no credit to the party that actually did the work, while implying National has been much more productive (in terms of infrastructure) than it actually has been.

      A detailed breakdown of the projects can be found here: http://thestandard.org.nz/nats-ad-claims-credit-for-labs-infrastructure/

      I believe this ad breaches Standards P6 (balance – does not allow for Labour’s contribution), P7 (fairness – uses Labour’s work to portray National in an unfairly positive light) and P8 (accuracy – it is simply inaccurate to show projects developed to completion under Labour as being somehow National’s achievements).”