Thursday, June 23, 2005
Labour influences?
Two things happened tonight that made me wonder whether Labour has started to 'secretly' campaign. These two are on top of this story revealed on both Sir David and Jordan's blog today.
The two things are these.
First, we get a huge story on Close Up @ 7 about the increase in warmth of the oceans and how it could affect global weather patterns in the immediate future. They showed some film called 'The Day After Tomorrow' which was about a catastrophe caused by the a rise in ocean levels. The story was basically a huge plug for global warming and its offshoot - The Kyoto Protocol. This, of course, comes on top of the recently announced billion dollar bungle by the government, a bungle they knew about in April. I realise stories on Close Up take a while to put together and don't expect Helen's TV channel could have put it together within the last week, but I'm picking April would have been a good time to get it going.
Second thing was this headline in my local rag - the North Shore Times Advertiser.
"OFF DOLE, INTO WORK"
The story was basically about how long term unemployment numbers on the Shore have fallen from 359 in March 2004 to 209 in March this year. This is apparently a drop of 42%. Ann Hartley was quoted very early on trumpeting the numbers. Now of course there was no mention of this, but then again what did you expect?
I wondered when reading the article where the reporter (Ben Watson) got his story from. Of course, he got the figures from Work and Income but who asked him to push the story and who gave it the misleading headline? And why is Ann Hartley mentioned very early on when the other two Shore MP's, Nationals Wayne Mapp & Murray McCully, are never quoted or mentioned. I accept Hartley is a government MP but surely effective opposition members might have contributed to this too? Or is it that Hartley phoned the NSTA, offered them the story and asked to be quoted?
The NSTA is a good paper. It covers local events well. It rarely enters the central govenment fray, but it did in spectacular fashion today with a big, bold headline. I don't know how many have moved off the long term unemployment queue and onto sickness and invalid benefits on the North Shore. But I do know one thing, Ben Watson doesn't know either. At least, he's not telling if he does.
The two things are these.
First, we get a huge story on Close Up @ 7 about the increase in warmth of the oceans and how it could affect global weather patterns in the immediate future. They showed some film called 'The Day After Tomorrow' which was about a catastrophe caused by the a rise in ocean levels. The story was basically a huge plug for global warming and its offshoot - The Kyoto Protocol. This, of course, comes on top of the recently announced billion dollar bungle by the government, a bungle they knew about in April. I realise stories on Close Up take a while to put together and don't expect Helen's TV channel could have put it together within the last week, but I'm picking April would have been a good time to get it going.
Second thing was this headline in my local rag - the North Shore Times Advertiser.
"OFF DOLE, INTO WORK"
The story was basically about how long term unemployment numbers on the Shore have fallen from 359 in March 2004 to 209 in March this year. This is apparently a drop of 42%. Ann Hartley was quoted very early on trumpeting the numbers. Now of course there was no mention of this, but then again what did you expect?
I wondered when reading the article where the reporter (Ben Watson) got his story from. Of course, he got the figures from Work and Income but who asked him to push the story and who gave it the misleading headline? And why is Ann Hartley mentioned very early on when the other two Shore MP's, Nationals Wayne Mapp & Murray McCully, are never quoted or mentioned. I accept Hartley is a government MP but surely effective opposition members might have contributed to this too? Or is it that Hartley phoned the NSTA, offered them the story and asked to be quoted?
The NSTA is a good paper. It covers local events well. It rarely enters the central govenment fray, but it did in spectacular fashion today with a big, bold headline. I don't know how many have moved off the long term unemployment queue and onto sickness and invalid benefits on the North Shore. But I do know one thing, Ben Watson doesn't know either. At least, he's not telling if he does.
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I intend to, although i would like the numbers for the Shore re: dole to invalid/sickness but this would take time.
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