Two small observations that brought a wry smile to my face when I read about them in the paper this week:
1. Bill English announces that the ballooning number of government “policy advisors” will be slashed to save money. He says he is receiving advice from advisors on how the policy would be implemented. Will he receive advice from other policy advisors on who should be chosen to provide that advice?
2. The Press in Christchurch publishes an editorial on Thursday about Winston Peters and his plans to return to political life. Earlier in the week Peters addressed Rangiora Grey Power about fears that foreigners are buying up all the rest homes and retirement villages in NZ.
A quote from the editorial: “The topic Peters chose to speak on probably was not particularly significant. The purpose of his manoeuvrings at the moment is to try to regenerate interest in himself and the possibility of his return to Parliament. To that extent it no doubt served its purpose.”
It certainly did! The Press themselves fell into the trap with a huge front page article, including Peters’ face, reporting his speech in its full populist glory. As usual, Peters gets far more coverage than he’s worth, and our dutiful media fall for it yet again for the sake of more newspaper sales. So much for treating Peters’ topic as “not particularly significant”. So what significance should we give to a front-page lead story?
I can only hope that if ‘foreigners’ (after all, what are we?) are buying up resthomes that they have more resources to put into staffing levels and proper wages than NZ enterprises have been able to manage. How likely is that?