The cause of the rising tide of propaganda, playing on public fears and appealing to prejudice has been revealed. Nicky Hager reports in the Sunday Star Times that campaign hitmen, Crosby / Textor have been working with National party leader, John Key for the past two years.
Mining the darker side of the Kiwi psyche for electoral advantage while pumping up Key's image while avoiding substantive issues has been the strategy and so far it has been very successful.
I wonder how Kiwis feel about being manipulated in this way?
Guess we'll find out. Personally, I don't see how any rational person could vote for any party without having some detailed idea of what that party planned to do in government. Blind faith is a mistake in any context.
General Debate 14 July 2025
1 hour ago
Labour will be hoping that electors have not already made up their minds based on the issues before the public now.
ReplyDeleteThey expect that closer to the (unannounced) Election Day voters will opt for them in spite of the current train wreck.
So what has Labour not announced that they will pin their colours to?
Or does blind faith apply only to National voters?
anon: There is no train wreck. Unemployment is the lowest in 30 years. The NZ economy has seen its best decade for a LONG time. The economy is only in trouble now because of the global fall-out of the US having an incompetent President - possibly the worst they have ever had. It started with his tax cuts......
ReplyDeleteLabour's policy is mostly already in play - implemented. They are a known quantity in every policy portfolio you might care to mention.
National is an unknown quantity in almost every policy portfolio you care to mention.
Therefore, of the two main parties, blind faith does currently only apply to a vote for National.
So for Labour right now is as good as it is going to get.
ReplyDeleteKind of like "foxhole Christians" on the blind faith thing and National?
How could the electorate get that desperate?
No wonder the socialists hate George Bush.
Anon: The issues voters have been wound up about by the media aren't the meat and potato issues that make any real difference to their lives.
ReplyDeleteBush and his cronies did the same thing: getting people to vote on emotive issues that don't actually affect the lives of 99% of them. Bait and switch.
This strategy need at least some of the media to be complict and the NZ Herald has stepped up to be one-eyed this year in a big way. They wrongfully claimed dimmer switched were threatened while ignoring the story the same week of unemployment hitting a 30 year low.
Of the two, the economic stat in an election year is clearly the more significant.....but not to a newspaper that refuses to print any good news about the present government.
So Crosby / Texter's hit and run PR "swift boat" strategy has the partner it needs to be successful in Auckland.
NZ residents leaving for Australia signal what?
ReplyDeleteNews media bias?
Survival?
Rats maybe?
anon: People go to Australia for many reasons. Here are a few:
ReplyDelete1. In April 2005, NZ increased the length of time to gain citizenship from 3 years to 5 years. This was done because so many immigrants were using NZ citizenship as a back door to Australia. This created pent up demand by people who now had to wait a few more years. Those years are now up for many of them and OFF THEY GO!
2. Opening our markets up to anyone without reciprocal trade access to their markets has been a disaster for Kiwi manufacturing. Thousands of jobs have been lost in the last 18 months alone. There is NO support for retraining from either government or employers, so people in the shrinking manufacturing sector basically have one job option left: go to Australia where they still make stuff.
3. Young Kiwis, like my daughter, are being presented with work-all-hours, no overtime, no limits, no benefits contracts at or below the legal mininum wage. No future in that and they don't want a mountain of student debt: off to Australia.
4. Big student debt? The Aussie dollar is worth more and the salaries are higher (even if the user fees and state taxes and other charges wipe most of that out). Off to Aussie.
5. Good managers in the state sector here are described by many senior opposition politicians and "useless wasters" and "parasites". Looks like they might win the election. Why hang around and be sacked or abused? Off to Australia!
6. Bright lights, big city. Adventure. Off to see the world.
The funny thing here is that there is an excellent case to support an argument that policies the right backs are the very same policies that are seeing people flee to Australia where economic "reform" was not as severe and unions have more power and wages and conditions are better.
Looks at who is leaving. "The best and the birghtest" might account for 2% of all the bods on the plane with a one-way ticket.
The people leaving are people who feel there is no opportunity here for them...and that is because the jobs THEY do have become McJobs or disappeared altogether. Or maybe they are tradespeople who can make more in OZ.
So let's see.
ReplyDelete1. Aussie,Aussie,Aussie,Oi,Oi,Oi
2. Survival
3. Survival
4. Survival
5. Survival
6. Fun,Fun,Fun
Bloody news media!
How many people tell you they don't believe advertising works on them? The genius of Crosby/Textor is they push the buttons - but you draw your own conclusions.
ReplyDeleteI am afraid most of the people repeating the anti-Clarke, anti-Labour mantra will react with deep and violent hostility to being told they've been taken for fools and manipulated by the utterly cynincal and morally void marketers of CB into thinking exactly what they want CB want you to think.
Anon: The reasons have a lot to do with past policy moves that have had unintended consequences....the SAME policies that National wants to now renew and intensify as a "cure" for the problem. The effect will be the opposite.....More power for employers and lower wages and worse conditions for ordinary folk will not keep people in New Zealand. You'd have to be mad to think it would.
ReplyDeleteSanctuary: You're probably right. The critical factor will be to what extent any individual is aware and conscious of their own values and curious as to what real-world evidence underpins those values as being valid. The more unconscious you are, the easier it is for C/T to draw you in and in the darkness bind you with your own unfounded beliefs and prejudices.
ReplyDelete