Hard News by Russell Brown

Just FYI: we were told that Hosking was given a “clarification” to deliver last week – and rewrote it on his own, rendering the whole exercise of clarifying rather pointless.

Hard-working New Zealanders are not an ATM for Saudi sheep farmers, Sky City or Orivida.

Hosking has either demonstrated a profound lack of knowledge about the NZ electoral system, or else he has deliberately spread misinformation to suit his political bias. Either should disqualify him from any role moderating a political debate.

Was that National ATM slogan out before or after the $10b promise of new roads ? Have we all got so skeptical / cynical that election bribes from the main parties is even seen as a strategy at all. Come on sheeple :)

I won’t be watching any election stuff since I still don’t watch MSM TV. The only election signs I see are at the local park and I block them out the same as I do any ads online.

Social media does amplify things but mute buttons work too and it is easy to filter out most of this.

Despite all the *noise* around the election so far the Metiria story seems like it has the most cut through. I understand why she stepped down but in my view that was a rare moment of truth and we need more of those.

I've been trying to expunge the whole thing from my life, if I didn't have to do something whilst waiting for the computer occasionally I'd succeed.

I have no idea what's going on though. Peters had hundreds of deceased NZF members bequeath him their super entitlements and thought that was ok? Something about Hoskings and ATM? Ewww.

Was that National ATM slogan out before or after the $10b promise of new roads ?

Actually I believe it's been borrowed/bought/stolen from Australian right wing parties at the last election.

Hard-working New Zealanders are not an ATM for Saudi sheep farmers, Sky City, Orivida...

the aluminium smelter, movie industry or the water industry ...

Feel free to add more....

pointless corporate-style rebranding efforts, aka flag-wa(i)ving …

Rugby, Infratil*, Weta, SAP...

(although the leading cheerleaders for us buying Infratil a fairly useless new runway are our Labour councillors in Wellington, one of whom is now running for parliament).

...trucking lobby.

New Zealanders are not an ATM for ...

I think a much better response is "Forget ATMs, New Zealanders are where the government gets their money from. The real question is whether it's used to help the many or the few?" (to steal another foreign slogan).

If you must buy into destructive narratives ask "Should the government an ATM for rich foreigners or for ordinary New Zealanders"?

New Zealanders are not an ATM

Is low-level sociopsychological language, it pits one stratum of society against another. Its unfunny how those doing ok still seem to want to see themselves as victims.

I'm shocked at how easy the media is going on #PetersPension. He's admitted he paid it back with interest and penalties. Why would a lawyer pay penalties unless they were part of a settlement deal? I assume MSD decided evidentiary burden of proof in court may not have supported guilty verdict on fraud due to undisclosed nature of "mistake" on the application. And why apparently did Peters not get or respond to annual MSD letter to confirm eligibility details? Yes Dirty Politics is playing a role but that's an entirely separate issue. Personally on the balance of probabilities I'd plump for guilty. His attempted revival of the right to assault children is particularly disgusting.

And why apparently did Peters not get or respond to annual MSD letter to confirm eligibility details?

Most likely it was a matter of – have your details changed – to which one would say no they haven’t. And he would have had no reason to believe otherwise.

But he is a stickler for detail on issues such as immigration so maybe he’ll learn a lesson about fallibility. As if.

Most likely it was a matter of – have your details changed – to which one would say no they haven’t.

Nope. You will find a scanned copy of the standard letter here or on Kiwibog if you prefer.

Future generations should not be an ATM for the National Party.

The National meme is correct in that the tax burden does unfairly fall on "hard-working New Zealanders".

The truth is that the tax burden should be more equitably borne by the New Zealanders who don't have to work hard, because their income and capital, which dwarf those of hard working New Zealanders, are earning colossal sums of money for them.

The hardest working New Zealanders are those in two or more jobs at minimum wages because the cost of health, housing, education and food is just too damn high.

Just FYI: we were told that Hosking was given a “clarification” to deliver last week – and rewrote it on his own, rendering the whole exercise of clarifying rather pointless.

This would square with the stories from the likes of Liz Gunn that Hoskings basically does as he pleases and is completely out of the control of his supposed superiors. I would suspect Hoskings told his spineless bosses he would be moderating the debates, not the other way round.

Nope. You will find a scanned copy of the standard letter here or on Kiwibog if you prefer.

The letter is of the type I thought - if things haven't changed then no need to do anything. Easy enough to read the first few sentences and since nothing has changed throw it away without looking further down at the details.

Today Peter Dunne joins the long list of those who now decry the emptiness of Keyism, but only after Key has gone. If they wanted elevated political discourse, they should have got around to telling the former PM, maybe during one of those infantile rants on Budget day, or countless other eye-rolling performances.

In fact, I find this election campaign a good deal less cringeworthy than many previous ones (so far ... with fate duly tempted).

Easy enough to read the first few sentences and since nothing has changed throw it away without looking further down at the details.

Hence the section I've pictured above being in bold and only a handful of lines from the start of the letter. Go on believing whatever suits your worldview though.

Go on believing whatever suits your worldview though.

There's no need to be rude. It's just my opinion that this sort of passive details check letter can be problematic. Easy to not check the details if you think the details haven't changed.

@Trevor Nicholls Look how well that turned out for the Australian right wing parties 🤣

@Russell Also with those Maori seat polls, we should remember the fieldwork dates (20 out of 37 days were before Jacinda became Labour leader) and that historically Maori seat polls have been relatively positive for the Maori Party. There was definitely one election where the Marae Digipoll showed them winning all 7 seats, which of course never happened.

It's a cute line of National's.

Meanwhile, almost every area of social policy is literally dying of cash starvation. Housing. Income equality. Education (or rather, the lack of it). Environment. Not everything's bad. Just all the basic stuff. Did I mention health?

So as a hard working New Zealander, I'm only too happy to cop a tax hike if it gives me some certainty that the train will get me to the doctor who'll have what he needs to patch me up; that good teachers can afford to live near good schools (and that there are no bad ones); that the twenty kids who currently die each year in cold, damp homes might escape such a miserable destiny.