Hype, Spin And Restrictions On Freedom Of Information

This page is about Spin, the deliberate withholding of information and other misleading  hype and propaganda about New Zealand.

This can range from myths perpetuated by  ‘100% pure’ slogans to ‘least corrupt country in the world’ statements, to significant restriction on the type and nature of information that is released to the public. Click on the links to read the full story at source:

•  Principal Family Court Judge, Peter Boshier, has questioned police statistics which show recorded family violence offences reversed an upwards trend to drop by 3.1 per cent to 52,408 in 2010-11. He asked if the statistics “tell a true story”.  He observed that there had been “no let-up” in cases before courts, despite police recording a drop in offences of 10.2 per cent in Auckland and 8.9 per cent in Counties Manukau. “I would have to say … the sheer volume of cases coming into our family violence courts means that in some respects we are struggling.” (November 2011) source 
• “GISBORNE police have decided to restrict the information on crime they provide to media in a move to “make the community feel safer” a police media statement said “Our daily feed of information to the media does not provide the right recipe for the community in terms of important information they need to know. A lot of that has to do with how the public views the city or community they live in.”

• New Zealand often makes much of its ‘nuclear free’ stance but in reality nuclear material (Yellowcake, used in nuclear manufacture) has been transiting through ports in Nelson, Napier, Tauranga and Auckland once a week. Most Kiwis are unaware of this contradiction and ministers ‘only found out about it’ in May 2010. The shipments came to light because the Environmental Risk Management Authority had changed its procedures and was now assessing them.

• New Zealand is often described as the most peaceful country in the world, however it is still legal to deploy NZ troops overseas on illegal missions. The Non-Aggression and Lawful Use of Force Bill was defeated in parliament on its first reading in June 2009. If successful the bill would have introduced legislation that “required NZ leaders, when requested by another country for armed assistance in foreign military operations, to seek a finding from the New Zealand Attorney-General whether the operation was in conformity with the United Nations Charter. [The UN Charter prohibits initiation of armed action for any reason other than immediate self-defence] before deciding on such a request. A special prosecutor’s office would have been created to investigate and possibly pursue charges that such a decision violated the United Nations Charter.” Scoop Sept 2009

• New Zealand is a target for arms traders. The Oxfam report Brokers Without Borders “holds New Zealand up as an example of how illicit arms brokers continue to use international networks of companies to exploit regulatory gaps, when detailing an incident last December when a 35-tonne cache of conventional weapons, which left North Korea bound for Iran, was seized by authorities in Thailand…All of a sudden New Zealand, the country ranked as the world’s most peaceful nation in 2009, was linked to one of the biggest international arms trafficking cases that year,” the report says.”

• Catherine Woulfe, a journalist, fought for over a year to get the Teachers Council  to release information under the Official Information Act about the number of self confessed and convicted criminals who were teaching children in New Zealand. Ultimately she resorted to the Ombudsman to get the requested information released. To read the story the Teachers Council did not want told see “Criminals in our classrooms” in the Sunday Star Times.

• Ministers are ignoring the Official Information Act, according to a No Right Turn press release. “Only one Minister, Chris Finlayson, met (the standard). Most fell far below it, with four making timely responses in only 50% of cases. The worst-performing Minister was Gerry Brownlee, who answered only 39.7% of requests within the statutory timelines set by the Act. Overall, across all Ministers, only 71% of requests were answered on time.  One Minister, Paula Bennett, refused to cooperate with the survey, saying that she did not consider release of accurate tracking data to be in the public interest. Her refusal is currently the subject of a complaint to the Ombudsmen…The difference between Ministerial offices and government departments is significant,” said Idiot/Savant. “It shows that the problem is political. Ministers just don’t want to answer.” Source

• The Dominion Post newspaper reported that Economic Development Minister Gerry Brownlee said the wage gap between NZ and Australia had reduced since his party came into office. The paper obtained figures to  compare the average weekly earnings in November 2008 and February and found that they told a different story. New Zealand’s had risen by 5.2 per % compared to 6.17 % for Australia.  The paper calculated that the gap widened from $540 a week in December 2008 to $580 in March 2010.

• “Nelson liquidator Pat Norris (allegedly)has a previous dishonesty conviction and owned a failed company which left creditors more than $150,000 out-of-pocket. However, the Companies Office will not investigate concerns about Mr Norris, saying laws do not allow it to take such action. Mr Norris, a director of Norris Management Services, came to public attention last month after he was convicted for secretly filming his former wife having sex with another man in their Kawerau home.”

• NZ often brags about being the first “country” to ‘give’ women the vote (1893) but in reality women only gained the right because a government strategy to deliberately scupper the bill backfired on it.

• The bill was only passed after two members switched sides in protest at the PM ordering them to vote against it. It was passed by 20 votes to 18. Both sides tried to claim credit for the bill and sought women’s votes accordingly. But women weren’t given full sufferage and allowed to stand for office until 1919 and they were not eligible to be appointed to the New Zealand Legislative Council (the Upper House of Parliament) until 1941.

• The media is quick to seize upon Kiwi successes, such as medical advances, but sometimes doesn’t tell the whole story if it detracts from the ‘Kiwiness’ of the discovery. For instance this story about a possible treatment for noise induced cochlear injury didn’t reveal that the funding was from a UK based charity the RNID who are supporting research into the use of antioxidants to protect hearing. The article also doesn’t mention that the group has been looking for an investment partner for clinical trials since Dec 2009.

• Women were able to vote in 1838 in the Pitcairns and in South Australia in 1861, long before their New Zealand sisters. Places with similar status which granted women the vote include Wyoming Territory (1869). South Australia went on to grant both universal suffrage and  allowed women to stand for the colonial parliament in 1895, long before NZ did the same. In 1906 (7 years before NZ) Finland was the first NATION in the world to grant suffrage (the right to vote and to run for office) to all citizens, including women.  Other possible contenders for first “country” to grant female suffrage include the Corsican Republic, the Isle of Man (1881) and Franceville.

• Despite a lot of hype about made about women’s rights and equality in NZ, women are still required to sit behind the men at Maori ceremonies.

• Far from being the progressive country it tries to portray, NZ is letting Women Rights slide backwards. See Here for more details.

• NZ did not invent the bungee/bungy  jump. By and large the first time the modern world saw the jump was in the 1950s when British film maker David Attenborough brought back footage of people jumping from wooden platforms in Vanuatu with vines tied to their feet. The first  modern bungee jumps were made on 1 April 1979 from the 250-foot Clifton Suspension Bridge in Bristol, UK by David Kirke, Chris Baker, Simon Keeling, Tim Hunt and Alan Weston of the Oxford University Dangerous Sports Club. Kiwis, however, were the first to turn bungee into a commercial enterprise.

• Much is made of NZ being a supposedly secular state: “New Zealand is a secular State with no State religion, where religious and democratic structures are separated“. Even the immigration service perpetuates this by stating “New Zealand is a modern, secular, democratic society, with no ingrained class system.”  However, it is a country where Sunday trading restrictions apply and some shops and businesses are forced to close on Christmas Day, Easter Sunday and Good Friday, or face stiff fines. No similar provisions apply to any non-Christian festival days.

In the National Athem -”

God Defend New Zealand

” -

He

is implored to “defend” and “bless” the free land.

A prayer is also said at the start of each day in Parliament

: “

Almighty God, humbly acknowledging our need for Thy guidance in all things, and laying aside all private and personal interests, we beseech Thee to grant that we may conduct the affairs of this House and of our country to the glory of Thy holy name, the maintenance of true religion and justice, the honour of the Queen, and the public welfare, peace, and tranquillity of New Zealand, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen

.”

• The Health Ministry was accused of “putting a spin” on the findings of a study into the clean-up of chemical contamination near Nelson, saying that there were unlikely to be adverse long-term health effects for people living near the former Fruitgrowers site at Mapua. A Greens MP issued a challenge by saying that officials “got it wrong and the report highlighted shoddy practices and ineffective monitoring of the site.”… “chemicals used at the site are dangerous even in tiny amounts, so there is no way the Ministry can say there will be no bad effects.” (see also our Health and Death page)

• A List of 763 contaminated or potentially contaminated sites in the Tasman District Council has been released, but only after after the ombudsman ordered its release to the Nelson Mail. The sites include chemical, automotive, timber treatment, orchard land and landfills, a copy of the register can be found in the Box widget (below the videos) in the side bar to the right.  Many councils in New Zealand have these lists but they are rarely released to the public.

• Comedian Mike King is accusing the pork industry of “deception” over promises to make factory pig farming methods transparent and protect animal welfare. A new label developed by NZPork saying “100% NZPork Welfare Approved” will not say if pigs are reared in sow crates (metal cages, for sows during pregnancy, which are so small sows cannot turn around) and farrowing stalls (just wide enough to enable pigs to lie down to nurse). The pork industry argues the cages immobilise pigs to stop them fighting and mounting each other when on heat. But the cages also increase pigs’ stress levels. A Colmar Brunton Survey carried out late last year showed 77% of New Zealanders want a ban on sow stalls and farrowing crates, another 77% want production methods displayed on pork labels.

• An animals rights campaigner is pictured in a newspaper with a tracking device she found attached to her car. The Sunday Star Times alleges that this is the third time in three years that they have “caught Thompson & Clark Investigations doing covert surveillance on political groups for corporate clients.” The political campaigner told the paper she believed the  company had been engaged by the Pork Industry Board. Read the full report HERE