Is National working with Colliers? | The Jackal

4 Sept 2014

Is National working with Colliers?

As you may know, one of the highlights in election year that most political junkies look forward to is the Press leaders debate. Situated in the middle of campaigning when candidates should have hit their stride, the Press leaders debate always brings out the best and worst of those vying for ultimate political power in New Zealand.

Of course the biased mainstream media outlets do their best to only report on events that paint their chosen leader in a good light. The problem for them is that other journalists are still reporting on the actual facts of the matter and the events that really unfolded. This makes the lack of reporting from agencies like the NZ Herald and TVNZ look rather ridiculous!

The void of reporting on anything that makes John Key look bad was nicely highlighted yesterday when Radio NZ published this article:

Questions over election period advert

A political scientist is asking why National Party leader John Key knows so much about a private company's advertising he said was due to appear in a newspaper next week.

At The Press leaders debate last night, Mr Key used the pending advertorial to defend progress on the Christchurch rebuild.

The debate moderator, Press editor Joanna Norris, put it to Mr Key that the Government had managed to complete only one of its main rebuild projects - a boardwalk.

"Actually Joanna you know that's not right," Mr Key said. "Because your newspaper, either this week or probably now next week, is going to deliver in the newspaper a very big supplement, that's going to sell I'm sure extremely well, which points out there are 200 buildings in the CBD alone that are basically completed."

Mr Key later clarified that it was an advertisment by a third party. "No, it's not the government, it's Colliers, one of the big real estate companies. My understanding was that it was going to go in this week - it's actually going in next week."

Ms Norris said she was surprised and puzzled as to why he cited an advertisement that has yet to appear in the newspaper to defend the Government's rebuild efforts in the city.

There are only two possibilities here. Either John Key was bullshitting to try and deflect away from his governments failure to rebuild Christchurch, or the National party is working with Colliers to publish National party propaganda.

The news about Christchurch today couldn't be worse for the National party today. Not only is there an article about people still having to crap in buckets, there's also a comprehensive article by Marta Steeman that shows the Christchurch repairs are only 10% completed.

The 7.1 magnitude earthquake struck Christchurch exactly four years ago today. I would expect a bit more progress and a bit less propaganda from those that have been in power over the last six years. By all accounts but their own, they have totally failed Christchurch.

Clearly it's time for a government that will stop yapping and get on with the job.

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