Friday 19 May 2006

Brain drain budget. Brain dead news.

Spin is in. Sadly. Last week I pointed out that you and I are taken for idiots by the Parliamentary power-lusters, which was misunderstood to be an attack on the stupidity of the public. Au contraire. Most of us are focussed on our own business not on what the political vermin are doing, which is as it should be. That's a good thing. However, the point I attempted to make was that those who are in a position to check the politicians' spin are not challenging it, but are peddling it instead. And you lot, their audience, are letting both them and the pollies away with murder.

To a man, woman and all things in between, the commentariat just repeat whatever spin they're given, without ever stopping to run it by the grey matter first.

For example, we're still hearing about the "billion dollar leak" -- even though the amount lost is now $2.2 billion, and not one cent of that loss is due to The Leak; we've continued to hear about 'unbundling' instead of calling the actual cause of the loss what it is: theft; and yesterday we were treated to disingenuous spin from Helen Clark in response to Don Brash's criticism of the Budget that there was nothing in it to discourage New Zealanders from continuing to move to Australia, where in contrast to the Cullen Budget $45 billion of tax cuts has been announced.

"Helen Clark and Michael Cullen believe there is a place for tax cuts," said Brash. "It's called Australia. This is the brain drain Budget, the Bondi Budget. Tragically, we are now set to lose even more skilled people across the Tasman." Responded Clark without missing a beat: "If he likes Australia so much, why doesn't he go and live there."

Isn't Clark's spin obvious? Transparent? Glaring? There's a clear difference betweeen highlighting the tragedy of a brain drain, and seeking to join that brain drain yourself. The spin was repeated on all channels across the evening and across the news this morning, but I have yet to hear one question from any commentator or interviewer to any of the spinners asking how they justify it, and whether they aren't just talking nonsense to obscure the accuracy of Brash's criticism.

Brain drain budget? Sure was. Braindead news? Too right.

LINKS: Delusions en masse, and spin all the time - Peter Cresswell, Not PC
Bondi budget bad for New Zealand - Don Brash, Scoop

TAGS: Politics-NZ, Budget_&_Taxation, Politics-Labour

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

There has been a problem with the media & the publics reaction to it in NZ for some time, the situation probably wont correct ifself until
theres a major recession in NZ, (Its only when theres a crisis that most people start to think objectively). In the meantime the wheels of mediocrity keep turning.