Hypocrisy and manipulation at its best.

This was written as a collaborative effort between Clive and me Matt King

( Note from Sue Reyland : Fantastic post – well said! J.A. said she wouldn’t mandate, she did. The truth is being buried while we watch NZ become so divisive and live under a fear narrative. Segregation is utterly unnecessary. We don’t need a traffic light system. We don’t need control over our own health. It is absolutely time to start turning this country back around )

5th Jan 2022

Given the media won’t report actual facts, this article is intended to highlight some of the recent hypocritical decisions of the current Govt.In October 2020, Jacinda Ardern said she would be the most transparent Govt ever and govern for all New Zealanders. Many Kiwis believed this, but in the last 15 months, we’ve seen how very different reality has been. This is the most manipulative, deceitful, arrogant and divisive Govt New Zealand has ever seen. Despite failing dismally on every self-identified target for their first term in Govt (2017-20), Ardern was able to convince half of voters that she was the best option for 2020-23. Narratives, spin and emotive comms definitely played a part in this. In her own words, 2020 was a COVID election.Now, it’s time for New Zealand to wake up, stop believing the spin – and start asking questions. Why are we seeing what we are, how much longer is this going to continue for, and how much do we value our democracy?Poor fiscal management, and a poorly managed COVID response strategy (all spin, no substance) – including an epic failure to build hospital capacity, has resulted in unnecessarily long, expensive and restrictive lockdowns – and left us now totally unprepared for future variants or any indication of properly reopening. The price – nearly $60 billion in additional Govt debt. Being a small and sparsely populated island nation with no land border (even the North/South Island are separated by water!), we had every opportunity to be ahead of the game. We have also experienced incredible luck and substantially increased export prices. However, while the rest of the world is learning to live with COVID, we are still languishing well behind. Infrastructure projects which could have been well on their way with proper Govt management, are still just at the planning stage – and note, huge amounts have been wasted on unrealistic and ridiculous projects that were deemed not feasible early on (SkyPath an example).Labour can talk and spend, but simply cannot deliver for all New Zealanders.We have lost thousands of highly skilled and qualified people due to recent draconian legislation, and our immigration policy has meant that we’ve lost – and not welcomed, overseas skilled talent.The hypocrisy and sheer inconsistency with regulations seen in recent examples – such as Lorde bypassing the MIQ lottery to be available just in time for Jacinda Ardern’s wedding, are blatantly obvious. Or, British DJ Dimension in the community while positive with COVID – who was granted special status exemptions to come to New Zealand three times in the last 18 months to perform – making him far more important to New Zealand apparently than life-saving ICU nurses according to Labour. Perhaps it’s because Ardern was once a DJ, she values the music industry more than the life-saving doctors and nurses needed during a pandemic. New Zealand as a country has gone backwards instead of into the future.This is all about a return to the antiquated social policies of the 1970s – which have been abandoned by the modern western world because they simply don’t work in our modern technology-based society, and particularly in a less populated country like New Zealand, where our main employers are SMEs. We are steadily heading back to a society where we will all be encouraged to be mediocre rather than aspirational, where the incentive to work and achieve will be frowned upon – and the average person will have to rely on the state for housing and welfare. Our drop in the world education standards (university rankings) over the last four years is a classic example of this. Ardern and her team are currently running our country based on what looks like a reenactment of a 50-year-old social experiment – that has unfavourable results for society as a whole. When you aim for a common denominator, it generally ends up being the lowest – Labour is renowned for creating dependency to ensure full and sustained control. Spin, PR jargon, manipulation and deceit through narratives – that’s probably what Jacinda Ardern and her Govt are best known for. And this is all happening before our eyes with a highly biased media and very few people asking questions. Time to stand up, speak up – and preserve democracy by holding this Govt and the media to account. Note: This was written as a collaborative effort between Clive and me (Matt King).