Polity: News from National Comms!

notices and features
10 years ago
Categories: election 2014, housing, national, national/act government, parliamentary spending, privatisation, same old national
Tags: comms, jordan williams, nz taxpayers union, polity, state funding, state housing, wellington

Rob Salmond at Polity on what has landed in his mail box paid for by your GST and also close to the wrong side the permissible limits of Parliamentary Services funds. Or perhaps this is something for “NZ Taxpayers Union” to moan about wasting taxpayers money with. They won’t of course because they seem to be good little front organisation for Act and Jordan Williams appears to have about as much independence as their beloved slaves.

I received a copy of “Capital News: Information from National’s Wellington MPs” in my mailbox today. There are some tragicomic gems in here:

Figures show that after Auckland and Canterbury, the largest increase in regional GDP last year was in Wellington. And after Auckland, Wellington makes the second-highest contribution to national GDP.

Translation: “Wellington” is the second largest statistical unit for calculating regional GDP, but it did not grow as fast as Canterbury, which is marginally smaller. Um, good job National?!

National has worked hard to ensure Kiwi families have access to warmer, healthier, and low cost homes. We’re focused on increasing land supply, reducing delays and costs of resource and building consenting, ensuring the timely provision of infrastructure, improving productivity in the construction sector, and bringing down building material costs.

Translation: The number of measurable improvements we have achieved is exactly none.

… That’s why we’re investing a record $2.9 billion through Housing New Zealand (HNZ) to add extra bedrooms to 3,000 houses.

No wonder this is a record investment – it comes to $966,667 per bedroom!

Second, just as informative is what is not here. The 250 word section on “educational success” does not mention national standards once. And not only is asset sales – National’s biggest workstream since 2011 – entirely missing, instead we have a bold claim that National has added $16 billion in state assets. Good luck with that one.

National’s polling must be showing it is hugely vulnerable on the only major thing it actually did this term.

Third, this propaganda is paid for with taxpayer funds, but National is sailing very close to the wind with Parliament’s rules for what it can and cannot say. The rules ban anything that “seeks or discourages support for the casting of a party vote for a particular political party or political parties” [10.1(ii)]. So play judge on this:

In the coming election, we’ll be seeking a mandate to extend the recovery, for the benefit of all New Zealanders.

I’m interested to hear, via comments or email, of others getting this stuff. Know thy self, know thy enemy.