“The Global Opiate…Television has become the prime manipulator of public opinion, whether that be political mind control, achieved by confining public access to State-controlled channels, or the subtle allure of the advertising industry which, for the most part, funds television programming” (“Where We Are Now: The Smartest, Clearest Guide To The Issues That Shape Our World”, Cambridge International Reference on Current Affairs [CIRCA], Mitchell Beazley, 2008, p188).     

“Media manipulation in the US today is more efficient than it was in Nazi Germany, because here we have the pretence that we are getting all the information we want. That misconception prevents people from even looking for the truth” (Mark Crispin Miller, Professor of Media Studies, New York University).

“Another neo-liberal claim portrays the liberalisation and global integration of markets (via free trade) as inevitable and irreversible, almost like some natural force such as the weather or gravity” (“Neo-Liberalism: A Very Short Introduction”, Manfred B Steger & Ravi K Roy, Oxford University Press (OUP), 2010, pp53/4).

“No one should be surprised if there is a crisis of mistrust in politicians in NZ, and across the Anglo-American world. For the past 30 years, they have been pursuing a philosophy that strikes at the heart of trust and integrity in public life” (Dame Anne Salmond, Distinguished Professor of Maori Studies and Anthropologist at the University of Auckland, and New Zealander of the Year in 2013: “Balance Needed After Ravages Of Neo-Liberalism” New Zealand Herald, 15/7/16).  

“Wealth can only be concentrated for so long until popular backlash hits” (Labour MP David Cunliffe, quoted in Political Roundup, Dr Bryce Edwards,  “New Zealand's Revolting Masses”, New Zealand Herald, 6/7/16, http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11669444).

This article extends and elaborates on themes and issues covered in my previous one (“Contesting Crony Media And Neo-Liberal Dirty Politics”, Foreign Control Watchdog (FCW) 142, August 2016, http://www.converge.org.nz/watchdog/42/12.html). It looks in more detail at how crony media, neo-liberalism, and “Dirty Politics” operate in setting so much of the political agenda on the NZ scene, and in shaping the public view of the world. The article further examines the kind of content purveyed by the mainstream media and the accompanying machinations of this media.

It includes some detailed case studies. It is another contribution in a series on the politics of the NZ media (see my previous articles, “Media Manipulation” in Watchdog 136, September 2014, http://www.converge.org.nz/watchdog/36/07.html; & “Subverting Democracy” in Watchdog 137, December 2014, http://www.converge.org.nz/watchdog/37/04.html). As usual, I have had to be very selective given the ready abundance of material.

Spreading Zombie Cheer!

In my previous article, I paid particular attention to the media treatment of global warming. The insights gained here are so very salutary as to ways in which suicidal stupidity is regularly purveyed by so much of what can aptly be labelled the “zombie media”. A striking illustration of this “brain-dead” syndrome was provided by TV1 (i.e. State TVNZ!) on the first day of spring 2016. A news item proclaimed that in the hottest year on record that we were going to have a most unusually warm spring (One News At Midday, 1/9/16).  Presenter Melissa Stokes told us that this spring would be a “stunner”.  Whoopee do! 

The spin was breath-taking in its simplistic “good news” bullshit – stunning indeed! The weather, you see, would be lovely and sunny with temperatures in some places likely to be even five degrees or more above average. This particular item actually ended with a track of Louis Armstrong singing “Oh, What A Wonderful World”. So hurry on down to the beaches, rivers, and lakes, and let's all join hands together, skipping into the future Hell of rapid climate change (see e.g. “The Climate Wars Are Coming|” Al Jazeera America, 17/9/15; & my “Climate Wars” in Peace Researcher 46, December 2013, http://www.converge.org.nz/abc/pr/46/pr46-007.html  ). 

Indeed, One News at 6pm presenter Simon Dallow that same day promoted the “unseasonally warm” spring weather as “a whale of a time” with a beach shot of some people apparently playing with pilot whales. Such outlandish presentation of warming weather has in fact been quite typical of TV1. The reported evening news item by Chris Chang on 1st September was at least a bit more balanced than the noon news version. It included the expressed concerns of farmers about continuing dry and even drought conditions as in North Canterbury. Chang commented that the farmers want to get off this “roller-coaster ride”.

Yet the overall coverage by TV1 of the already recorded, as well as further predicted, extra hot weather for 2016 drastically downplays the enormously serious implications of this trend. If ever the nuclear missiles start flying, TV1 will be telling us to have a nice, sunny day… with perhaps the caveat that there might be a possibility of some storm clouds on the horizon. Such mainstream media, of course, are not only in tune with neo-liberal themes, but they have been closely linked to the National Party agenda (e.g. The Daily Blog Today: “Bought And Paid For – The Dirty Politics Of Climate Denial”, Hot Topic, www.hot-topic.co.nz).

Attack Bloggers

The National Party's leading attack blogger Cameron Slater (WhaleOil), along with Katherine Rich, “former National front bench spokesperson, now chief executive of the Food and Grocery Council”, and the totally cynical and mercenary corporate public relations (PR) agent Garrick Graham, are on record as expressing antagonism to groups like Generation Zero campaigning to try and control climate change (ibid.). In the case of Slater and PR man Graham, this sort of group has been on their ‘target list’” (ibid.).

Rich, in turn, has been “a key figure in directing Slater and Graham to conduct smear campaigns against commercial targets”, i.e. those people or businesses challenging or competing with Big Business (ibid.; for a really good reminder of some of the “dirty rotten bastards” involved, see “Dirty Politics In New Zealand: Who’s Who In The Whalegate Political Scandal. Truth Lies Deception and Cover-ups - Democracy Under Fire” www.truthliesdeceptioncoverups.info). 

Here we have the exposure (thanks originally to investigative journalist Nicky Hager) of the nexus of the National Party covert action machine involved in dirty work for crony capitalist interests. Damning stuff indeed, but psst - don't tell our foreign-controlled crony media! After all, this dirty work network operates for the free market and corporate interests against efforts to better regulate profit-making activities, including impacts on working conditions, labour laws, food safety, the environment, and climate change, among other sectors and problem areas. The way the media tend to slather at the very mention of tax cuts is so revealing.

Thankfully, at least a few mainstream journalists have done some digging in the dirt to give us some further nuggets of insight and enlightenment; and, to be fair, even the mainstream media feel obliged to give time and space now and again to the type of issues just mentioned, e.g., the problem of excess sugar in food and drinks causing obesity and disease. There is still some measure of reasonable debate and discussion.  Overall, however, we see at work the media glove puppets controlled by corporate power and their political agents, as fostered by free trade/investment agreements and crony capitalism.

The National Party is central to all of this and currently constitutes the core of Establishment control. For the most part, the mainstream media ensure that protectionism functions as smoothly as possible for the rich and powerful, especially their Dear Leader, Prime Minister (PM) John Key. Green MP Gareth Hughes has succinctly and graphically described the reality of Key's values, attitudes, and performance (“Gareth Hughes: Debate On Prime Minister's Statement”, Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand, www.greens.org.nz, 11/2/16).

National's “Dirty Politics” programme clearly demonstrated Key's harmful influence on our democracy (“Dirty Politics: How Attack Politics Is Poisoning New Zealand's Political Environment”, Nicky Hager, Craig Potton Publishing, 2014, reviewed by Jeremy Agar in Watchdog 137, December 2014, http://www.converge.org.nz/watchdog/37/13.html There is a plethora of issues and subjects screaming out for regular public scrutiny and investigative reporting. But, in general, the prevailing silence of our corporate media remains oppressively deadening. Conventional, mainstream journalists reinforce the hegemony of the neo-liberal status quo in a multitude of ways – see case studies below. 

In my previous article “Contesting Crony Media And Neo-Liberal Dirty Politics” (op. cit.), I drew attention to how the media was keen on pushing the Green Party further to the Right and how it saw the accession to co-leadership by James Shaw as a prime opportunity for this, given Shaw is openly capitalist in orientation (ibid.). For instance, journalist Vernon Small has congratulated the Green Party in “handing the crucial finance role” to Shaw (“Greens' Choice A Shaw Thing For finance”, Press, 30/9/16).

Small goes on to say: “Shaw is clearly rated highly by business, or as highly as a Green MP can reasonably expect. And driving home that his Party is, these days, far closer (my emphasis) to mainstream economics than its reputation of old, is a key goal that he is well suited to slot home” (ibid.). So here we have a hearty endorsement by a member of the neo-liberal Establishment for conformity to the prevailing politico-economic fold. It needs to be said here too that while Vernon Small certainly operates within the neo-liberal framework, he is usually one of the more measured and balanced journalists in his expressed opinions. 

Neo-Liberalism And Environmental Concerns

Ex-Merrill Lynch money trader John Key expressly articulates the neo-liberal outlook on the environment.  Despite his eco-capitalist orientation, Green Party Co-Leader James Shaw has shown that he is on the ball on a number of important issues. He questioned Key in Parliament about the need to reduce livestock numbers as strongly recommended by the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, Dr. Jan Wright, in her latest report “Climate Change And Agriculture: Understanding The Biological Greenhouse Gases” (“NZ Farmers Need To Carry The Can For Their Greenhouse Gases - Environment Commissioner”, Stuff, 19/10/16, http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/farming/85510503/nz-farmers-have-to-carry-the-can-for-their-greenhouse-gases--environment-commissioner  & Parliament TV, 19/10/16).

However, Key was curtly dismissive of this particular recommendation. As so typical of capitalist ideologues, he is blindly and self-interestedly gung-ho about technology. Scientific research, you see, will surely come up with another technical fix and we can grow and make profits for ever. It does not matter to such ideologues that technological intrusions into the biosphere continuously cause environmental problems, including, of course, most critically that of climate change. The capitalist faith will surely prevail. Science will solve climate change problems, including that of agricultural greenhouse gas emissions (Parliament TV, ibid.).

John Key thus explicitly believes in the “silver bullet” technical fix faith rejected by Dr Jan Wright. But Key's superficiality continues to entertain and appeal to the mainstream media. As also shown under questioning by James Shaw in Parliament, the Government's market contrived Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), the centrepiece of its climate change strategy, has relied on shonky credits from countries like Russia and Ukraine, and other sleight-of-hand stuff (e.g. Parliament TV, 12/10/16). In fact, the ETS has proved quite ineffectual in helping combat global warming.

For years, the Key-led Government has been able to rely on the mainstream media, as exemplified by TV1, to protect its climate change scepticism and corresponding lack of action. But, although the recent Royal Society report on the urgent action needed to combat climate change has got nowhere near the media coverage it so richly deserves, some media of late have been giving the issues involved a bit more attention. For instance, “a written Parliamentary Question by Christchurch-based Labour MP Dr Megan Woods”, has elicited information from the Government that it oversaw a severe cut in the number of “climate change research staff…during a restructure at Crown Institute AgResearch late last year (2015)” (“Climate Change Researchers Axed”, Press, 13/2/16).

Megan Woods aptly rubbed the irony of it all into the Government. She remarked: “The Government often talks about the science around reducing methane as the silver bullet for NZ reducing emissions”, and yet has been reducing the number of researchers in this vital area (ibid.). Woods has also pointed out that the “report from the Royal Society on climate change made it clear it believes the Government's current approach” is quite “inadequate” (“Climate Report Shows Govt Response ‘Inadequate'”, Press, 28/4/16).

The Royal Society “report suggested agricultural trade-offs and fewer cows, and called the ETS ineffective” (ibid.). In light of the latest warnings about our role in the agricultural generation of climate change, Vernon Small was one of the journalists who commendably called for more urgent action (“Now's The Hour On Climate Action”, Press, 20/10/16). And he has done this despite the contradiction of trying to further mainstream the Greens! Hearteningly too, Jack Tame, a fresh co-host of TV1's Breakfast “is particularly looking forward to shining more light on (climate change) in his new role” (Your Weekend, Press, 8/10/16).

But when seen in the context of the scientifically verified deterioration of the planetary biosphere as documented ever since the 1960s at least, and the rapidly growing environmental crisis with even the atmosphere under stress given climate change and global warming, the hegemonic neo-liberal outlook can be stunning in its wilful blindness and ignorance. There is no recognition that mainstream economics is ultimately self-destructive and that humankind desperately needs to develop a far more sustainable lifestyle, that we need to take pre-emptive, collective action on an unprecedented scale (see e.g., “Why The World Needs An Economics Revolution”, Pacific Ecologist, issue 19, Winter/Spring, 2010, http://pacificecologist.org/archive/19/).

To be sure, genuine sustainable development must mean reducing production and consumption overall, the complete opposite of striving to endlessly grow the economy. We need to create a steady state economy. In turn, this must mean redistributive economics and the application of the principles of cooperative social justice to hold societies together. No wonder the ideologues and practitioners of global capitalism with all their predatory greed, lavish consumption, and vested interests are so desperate to suppress real democratic debate and discussion!

Evolutionary Overshoot

Meanwhile, however, on a small planet with dwindling resources the boom and bust trajectory on the curve of evolutionary overshoot will bite home more and more as Social Darwinist conflicts deepen and compound around the globe. In 2016, on August 8, Earth Overshoot Day, “we began to use more from Nature than our planet can renew in the whole year” (Earth Overshoot Day, www.overshootday.org). By this day, “we use more ecological resources and services” than the planetary biosphere can “regenerate [due to] overfishing, overharvesting forests, and emitting more C02 into the atmosphere than forests can sequester”, among other human activities and demands (ibid.; for a sobering review of the trajectory of human evolution, see “Global Overshoot: Contemplating The World's Converging Problems”, Doug Cocks, Springer, 2013).

So, in 2016 we have used our supply of Earth's resources in less than eight months, and this landmark Overshoot date is getting earlier and earlier in the year over time. But the mainstream media strategy is to try and suppress discussion of these so critically important issues as much as possible. Indeed, the latest American-driven capitalist fantasy is that of a robot-dominated utopia (e.g., “Meet Machine, Our New Writer”, Press, 19/1916). Science fiction, already so evident in the technocratic colonisation fantasies of space exploration (as regularly seen on TV), is taking hold again in the travails of late capitalism. 

With regard to the biosphere, we can use the image here of the elephant in the room as to what cannot be talked about. This image is so much more poignant today in that elephants and rhinos in Africa are suffering a tragically horrific slaughter owing to Asian, especially Chinese, demand for ivory and horn. These species are now actually facing extinction due to rapacious and rampant globalisation. Recent reports indicate that wildlife generally is at imminent risk of extinction, including so many of NZ's seas birds and other living species.

Look out, humans! Indeed, we are now virtually sleep-walking into World War III, with the media systematically blinding, misleading, confusing, cheering, and goading us on to our fate (see e.g., http://www.thecanary.co/2016/10/11/the-prospect-of-all-out-nuclear-war-just-became-very-real-with-the-latest-terrifying-escalation-opinion/; http://www.thenation.com/article/the-united-states-and-nato-are-preparing-for-a-major-war-with-russia/; “Can Russia Survive Washington's Attack?” Paul Craig Roberts: www.paulcraigroberts.org, 19/5/16).

Crazily enough, America's nuclear war fighting posture has continued to confound the critically important perceptions of what is offence as opposed to defence. Its aggressive implementation around the globe of the Reaganite “Star Wars” missile defence initiative as much as possible is provoking the very predictable reactions. The US withdrew in 2002 from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABMT) with Russia, an agreement which had limited the deployment of ABM weaponry. America has thus destabilised the vital mutual deterrence system.

“Russia [has] said it's working with China to counter US plans to expand its missile-defence network”, which the two nations see as targeting their military assets for “a nuclear strike [delivered] 'with impunity'” (“Russia Joins China On Missile Defence”, Press, 13/10/16). Both Russia and China warn explicitly against “a decrease in the threshold for using nuclear weapons to pre-empt enemy actions”, and how this risks giving the US a false sense of immunity for increased belligerence (ibid.).

President Putin is speeding up the deployment of missile attack early warning system satellites. Russia has also developed a new ballistic missile designed to elude American anti-missile systems. The international situation is fast getting very perilous and grim (even recently highlighted from an aggressive American viewpoint on 60 Minutes (Prime TV, 26/9/16 & 3/10/16). We urgently need to mobilise mass movements and other initiatives to counter the drive for war and promote projects for peace (see John Gallagher's article “Korean Nuclear Standoff” in Peace Researcher (PR), 52, November 2016, http://www.converge.org.nz/abc/pr/52/pr52-008.html; for a more general approach and analysis, see my article “Protesting War: Working Pre-emptively For Peace”, http://www.converge.org.nz/abc/pr/52/pr52-010.html in the same PR).               

Capitalist Contradictions Galore!

Global capitalist production and consumption is shot through with contradictions, and the occasional glimpses or insights into the underlying and unfolding environmental reality still only amount to straws in the wind for most people. A news article in August 2016 proclaimed: “Man – Meet The Anthropocene” (Press, 31/8/16). Scientists believe that: “Our impact on the planet has now become so significant that it has pushed us into the Anthropocene epoch, meaning that human activity is now the dominant influence on climate and the environment” (ibid.).

The article said that “rapid industrialisation” is the essential cause, and “the impact is global and taking place at pretty much the same time across the whole Earth. It is affecting the functioning of the whole earth system” (ibid.). Here in Aotearoa/NZ, the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, Dr Jan Wright, notes that: “Nine years on, every environmental indicator except air quality is getting worse. More dairying means more nitrogen leaching and disappearing rivers, leading to poorer water quality and more algal slime.

The sea is becoming more acidic, threatening our fish. More birds face extinction. Sea level rise is biting at coastal settlements” (Press, 6/8/16). Even a Press editorial acknowledges that: “we are well on the way to wrecking the planet” [my emphasis] (“On The Cusp Of The New Geological Age”, Press, 2/9/16). To its credit, this editorial remarks that talk of “colonising other planets, in our solar system and beyond, once the Earth can no longer sustain our wants…may always stay in the realm of science fiction, but it is an alarming reflection of human attitudes, that instead of trying to fix the Earth's problems, we would look to inflict our ways on another world” (ibid.). The Press editorial commendably concludes with a call to arms: “But let us take this (news about the Anthropocene) as the call to action we need to try to save our world”, indeed, take up arms against a sea of troubles! (ibid.). 

The problem for the Press and the other members of our neo-liberal mainstream media is that their entrenched advocacy for the free market runs absolutely counter to this appeal. This is repeatedly testified by the general economic message expounded in the Press writings of reporters and columnists like Vernon Small, Tracy Watkins, Martin van Beynen, and Pattrick Smellie. For the Press, this huge contradiction was highlighted by Fairfax Media’s Press reporter Jo Moir in New Delhi when accompanying John Key's delegation on a visit to try and forge a new Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with India (“Plenty Of Pomp For PM In India”, 27/10/16).

Moir, like the other NZ reporters tripping with Key, was rapt, asserting that: “The benefits for both (countries) would be huge” (ibid.). Currently, Western international institutions, including the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), are preoccupied with efforts to reverse low growth rates, and spur investment and trade. Columnists such as Vernon Small are enjoining our own Government to “borrow and spend more to give the global economy (and inflation) a shot to the arm” (“Is [Finance Minister] English For Turning On IMF Demands?”, Press, 6/10/16).

Ironically, the metaphor used by Small of a junkie administering his or herself a drug boost is certainly most telling. Debt has long become a chronic, debilitating condition in capitalism. “NZ now owes almost half a trillion dollars in debt – and a growing chunk of it belongs to ordinary households, mainly borrowing to buy property…Households are now carrying a debt level that is equivalent to162% of their annual disposable income – higher than the level reached before the global financial crisis (GFC)” (“Nation Of Debt: New Zealand Sitting On Half-Trillion-Dollar Debt Bomb”, New Zealand Herald, 7/6/16, http://www.nzherald.co.nz/personal-finance/news/article.cfm?c_id=12&objectid=11651648).

NZ recorded a Government debt of 30.36% of the country's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2015. Western capitalism has certainly been long hooked on deepening debt (“The IMF Urges Governments To Tackle Record Global Debt Of $US152 Trillion”, Guardian, 5/10/16, https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/oct/05/world-debt-has-hit-record-high-of-152tn-says-imf). The IMF is warning of another economic and financial crisis like the GFC in 2008 and calling for further neo-liberal reforms (“Global Debt Hits $US152 Trillion”, NZ Herald, 6/10/16, http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11723760). The US has a debt of almost 20 trillion dollars. Debt levels are not only too high but are rising. The world economy got this “enormous debt… by a combination of a borrowing binge in the years before the finance crisis, followed by policies to try to get out of the recession which followed the boom” (ibid.). So it has been very much capitalist “boom and bust”. 

The Culture Of Celebrity Personality And General Dumbing Down

A somewhat apocryphal quote attributed to the Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels is: “Whenever I hear the word 'culture' I reach for my gun” (Quote/Counterquote: “Whenever I Hear The Word Culture'… “: www.quotecounterquote.com>2011/02, 2/7/14). “Culture”, of course, can have various connotations and interpretations. In 2016 in Aotearoa/NZ, “culture” in the sense of the conduct of democratic discourse for the greater good is certainly very much a fundamental issue at societal stake.

We are now witness to the travails of media restructuring, the further inroads of online presentation in various forms, and the increase of platform bonding across TV, radio, and print, coupled with greater cooperative interaction among formerly competing companies/entities. This has led to the emergence of a handful of very prominent, high-profile media performers/players like the eminent narcissists Mike Hosking and Paul Henry; and even a few other commentators like Duncan Garner (TV3 (Story), RadioLIVE, the Press, etc.), who fill a second-tier slot.

John Key has even in recent times blatantly endorsed Paul Henry as a favourite media presenter over the estimable John Campbell and any other similar presenters or reporters. It is worth briefly noting here that Garner's case can illustrate how media cliques indulge in the incestuous manufacture of “personalities”. At this stage, Duncan Garner is a considerably lesser light in the media personality line-up compared with either Hosking or Henry but the navel-gazing game is still at work. For instance, Garner reflected in July 2016 on his “First Day Of School” - “on the innocence of his youth!” - in Your Weekend (Press (2/7/16). 

Celebrity cult cultivation is integral to the “infotainment” media, although only a relative few actually make it to the really big-time. In fact, in Garner's case, it seemed that he might be swept aside from a prime media slot by Paul Henry in another TV3 reshuffle (“Henry: Evening Shift Out, End Of Story”, Sunday Star Times [SST], 21/8/16: the headline contradicts the gist of this item!).  However, the NZ Herald (9/11/16 http://www.nzherald.co.nz/entertainment/news/article.cfm?c_id=1501119&objectid=11744880) reported that not only is TV3 axing Story, its evening “current affairs programme” fronted by Garner and Heather du Plessis-Allan, but its also axing Paul Henry’s morning show (Garner is taking over that slot). Henry is rumoured to be moving to the US (and Heather du Plessis-Allan was sacked by MediaWorks in November 2016, with immediate effect. Ed.).

Garner may be an unashamed proponent of corporate foreign control but Henry has in the past even been a would-be National Party MP. “Shock-jock” (“I don't like people”) Henry is far more gross, colourful and hard-hitting, which has suited the Rightwing agenda of MediaWorks. Again, the poisonously arrogant and seemingly deranged Henry has been even more openly toxic than Hosking in making outrageous statements, which even saw him resign in 2010 from TVNZ obviously under public pressure (“Paul Henry: Pinot At 9 a.m.”, Press, 20/8/16).

This “much publicised series” of outrageous statements included racist remarks and “humour”, and the apparently enthusiastic endorsement of torture in the “War on Terror”. But the mainstream media machine has still been happy to promote him. For example, reporter Shane Cowlishaw says that: “Henry exudes a charming arrogance and he has every reason to be chuffed”, given the popularity ratings for his “cross-platform show” (ibid.). Cowlishaw glosses over Henry's racist remarks and other nasty comments during his time at TVNZ as simply “gaffes” (ibid.).

Most amusingly, the exuberantly expletive-spitting Paul Henry, exhibiting the clear symptoms of an extreme personality disorder, defends himself against the charge of being an “arsehole” by saying that his accusers should “have proof” (ibid.). He flaunts himself in the extravagant self-aggrandising style of Donald Trump (“Paul Henry Reveals Why He Hates People”, NZ Herald, 29/10/16, http://www.nzherald.co.nz/entertainment/news/article.cfm?c_id=1501119&objectid=11737753, a remarkable interview by Greg Bruce!; “'MediaWorks Does Not Condone Offensive Behaviour': Shock Jock Paul Henry Accused Of 'Harassment'”, SST, 30/10/16).

Remember, too, that supreme “arse-hole” Henry is endorsed by PM John Key!  He won the prize “this year [as] Broadcaster of the Year and Best Talk Presenter ahead of rival Mike Hosking at the NZ Radio Awards” (“Paul Henry: Pinot At 9am”, op. cit.). In sum, we have a handful of very self-promotional, and assiduously promoted, media personalities, who are constantly in our face, giving us their Rightwing, pro-National Party views ad nauseam. The behind the scenes manipulators, of course, are the owners, executives, and boards of the companies and corporate entities, including TVNZ, who are bent on pushing their neo-liberalism down our throats. 

The term “culture” in the best sense, so hated by the Nazis with all its connotations of free discussion, critical thinking and analysis, high standards of evidence, argument, and commitment to truth, and so on, can well represent what the neo-liberal media, and the cultivation of a neo-liberal culture, are intended to suppress (“The 10 Great Neo-Liberal Myths Of NZ”, The Daily Blog, www.thedailyblog.co.nz, 16/01/16). With open rein for the expressed opinions of certain reactionary media people, exemplified especially by Paul Henry and Mike Hosking, public discourse is now being manipulated and downgraded in ways that are quite unprecedented in scale and coverage.

Neo-liberal culture is pervasively poisonous and anti-social. There are now some highly disturbing trends on the Western public scene and mirrored as well in Aotearoa/NZ. Obviously, the antics by Donald Trump in his (successful) candidacy for the American Presidency have debased democracy in the US even further. At the same time, such tendencies and trends in Aotearoa/NZ should not be exaggerated at this stage, given there is still scope for wider public discussion and debate, even if the general mainstream sphere is severely restricted and distorted by its commitment to neo-liberalist culture. Our job should include actively countering the trends to Rightist machinations. Investigative journalist Nicky Hager did a brilliant solo effort in this regard with his most recent book, giving us plenty of material to build on (“Dirty Politics”, op. cit.).The fallout from his revelations is still continuing however much the mainstream media have worked to dampen down a lot of the implications.

Neo-Liberal Media Confounded And Confused

As noted earlier, the media are increasingly riven by contradictions. A set of components can be identified as comprising neo-liberalism. One strand or claim “presents the creation of globally integrating markets as a rational process that furthers individual freedom and material progress in the world” (“Neo-liberalism”, op. cit., p53). It is assumed here that “markets and consumerist principles” inevitably appeal to human self-interest everywhere, and in whatever the culture and social context (ibid.). “A related neo-liberal claim states that the liberalisation of trade and the global integration of markets will ultimately benefit all people materially” (ibid.).

This process is touted, and indeed celebrated today, as lifting many people permanently out of poverty. Hundreds of millions are said to have gained substantially in terms of living standards. Moreover, this process is portrayed as “inevitable and irreversible”, as illustrated in one of the introductory quotes at the start of my article. Peoples across the globe are enjoined to “adapt to the inherent rules of the free market if they are to survive and prosper” (ibid. p54). Yet another claims links democracy to the free market but with economics having primacy in determining freedom.

Everyone will supposedly benefit “in the long run” (ibid.). Under American tutelage, neo-liberalism has spawned the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and a phalanx of free trade agreements (FTAs). While free market fundamentalism temporarily lost its momentum in the wake of the GFC during 2008/9, “the second pillar of neo-liberalism – free trade – is not only still standing but has been reaffirmed as 'indispensable' by political and economic elites around the world” (ibid., p137).

The gross financialisation of so many businesses coupled with the international trading of existing assets has yet compounded global economic problems. Global elites have reaped immense profits at the expense of ordinary people. The speculative skewing of markets has been perverse and harmful in a multitude of ways, e.g., rampant property and housing markets. Now the fallout is generating political backlash in country after country, both directly and indirectly with increasing instability. 

Moreover, the IMF and the World Bank are intent on reviving free market fundamentalism with a vengeance! Besides bank funding for infrastructure and related investment, the IMF is specifically requesting that “more crucially (countries) could get rid of the red tape which strangles economies, freeing up over-regulated jobs markets, slashing barriers to international trade and encouraging research and development to boost productivity growth” (“Global Debt Hits $US152 Trillion”, op. cit.).

Its prescriptions make the perilous Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) look like a pussy cat! Its “slash and burn” programme would greatly accelerate the rush to catastrophic environmental destruction, let alone further undermining everything from labour conditions to food safety on the way in the race to the bottom. The mainstream media are now riding the turmoil and backlash of the breaking wave of capitalist globalisation which they have done so much to create.

Tracy Watkins, who is Fairfax Media's Political Editor, Parliamentary Bureau Chief, and also Key Government's cheerleader, laments an “anti-Establishment gone mad” with the rise of Donald Trump in the US and the Brexit vote to leave Europe (“Where Australia Goes, Will We Follow?”, Press, 2/7/16). As a long-time PR agent for the neo-liberal NZ Establishment, Watkins is pretty bewildered by what is happening. She even wonders if politics is “broken?’” (ibid.).

She declares: “When nobody trusts the media, or the Establishment, or even the experts anymore, there is no longer any disincentive not to lie” (ibid.). Watkins, of course, is conveniently blind to the lies and failings of the mainstream media and the manipulative vested interests behind it, including a history of neo-liberal and dirty politics machinations. She instead goes on to ponder the behaviour of “those voters who are feeling disenfranchised from politics and removed from the political process, marginalised by gotcha politics, and the policies of parties that are increasingly hard to tell apart as they jostle each other for ascendancy in the political centre ground (i.e. the neo-liberal consensus).  They are calling them the forgotten voters” (ibid.). There are a million or so of these voters in Aotearoa/NZ. 

But, in her typical Rightwing fashion, Watkins pictured a possible win for PM Malcom Turnbull's Liberal Party in the imminent Australian elections as “a flight to safety in an uncertain world, a response to Turnbull's plea to vote for stability, and economic continuity” (ibid.). Turnbull won narrowly. Watkins thus cheers on more neo-liberalism - so much the prime globalist cause of our deepening planetary problems. Yet, ironically, she mentions the NZ institution of the MMP voting system as “a reaction against Rogernomics (NZ's version of neo-liberalism)” (ibid.).

This voting system ensures greater balance and fairness, and its institution was driven by a popular movement to counter the pernicious influence of globalist Big Business. Unfortunately, MMP has still failed to engage many eligible voters. Watkins also mentions such things as “means testing the pension, factory closures, flogging off the railways and stripping away subsidies” as socio-economic impacts inducing dissatisfaction (ibid.). But she concludes her piece by positively promoting the National government's record, although sounding a warning note about uncertain times ahead (ibid.)

Meandering Political Musings

A further example of such meandering mainstream political musings are those by another Fairfax Media journalist Martin van Beynen, who ponders on the “malaise that brought us Trump and Brexit” (“Keeping An Eye On Festering Malcontents”, Press, 2/7/16). In the light of some overseas' commentary, he looks at the “politics of grievance” and the view “that people in adversity 'turn not to economics but to culture'” (ibid.). “Culture” here means self-identity in terms of nation, “race” or ethnic group.

Martin van Beynen even pertinently remarks in this connection that: “Some fear Europe and the US might currently be seeing something like the bacterial spread of Fascism in the [19]30s” (ibid.). He goes on in his article to caution about over-dramatising the trends illustrated by Trump and Brexit, and how Aotearoa/NZ is traditionally less susceptible to social trends of this nature. At the same time, he points to problems like “immigration, insecure jobs, and shortage of housing” in Britain, and also the US, as well as some similar potential for unrest here as well if pre-emptive and placatory action is not taken (ibid.).

But he is silent on the deeper, underlying causes and outcomes of capitalist globalisation: neo-liberalism, free trade, inequality, and the militarist market, despite the contradiction of recognising “adversity”. Indeed, van Beynen, in other articles, has demonstrated unashamedly hard Rightwing sentiments on the subject of inequality. For example, he endorses the views of the Minister of Police, Judith Collins, that lack of individual responsibility and “bad parenting is the main reason for delinquency and crime” (“Fixing Child Poverty Is Easy”, Press, 15/10/16).

This viewpoint, he smugly says, is that of “middle NZ” (ibid.). As a consequence, because “the do-gooders” and “bleeding hearts” are prone to “exaggerate the problem” of poverty, and “blame the system”, they lack political traction (ibid.). He concludes his earlier article about monitoring “malcontents” by saying: “What the politicians need to do (in NZ), however, is get out and see for themselves whether any festering discontent is in danger of 'turning to culture'” (op. cit.). Martin van Beynen thus blames the secondary cause of “culture” as he interprets it instead of the primary cause of capitalist globalisation and increasing inequalities. 

Such sociologically shallow analysis is par for the course for the mainstream media because of the vested interests they ultimately represent. Goebbels saw “culture” as a culprit too, although he had a very different meaning for the word. In the sort of political reflection practised by mainstream media commentators, they egregiously fail, naturally enough, to address the neo-liberal causes of societal and international tensions.  They themselves are too deeply embedded in these very causes!

Most significantly, much of this same media has been keenly rooting for the far Right in the form of its lone representative in Parliament, namely ACT MP, “The Weasel”, David Seymour. According to Fairfax Media reporter Stacey Kirk's PR, “Seymour has had a stellar first year in politics, by most standards (“Seymour Flips The Bird At Greens”, SST, 28/2/16). Kirk's opinion is simply rubbish by any standards but Seymour has seemed funny and quirky to the media on certain occasions, appealing to their superficiality as well as their political bias. After noting that ACT still “remains hovering below 1% support”, Kirk however congratulates Seymour for making a cunning pitch to “free market ideologues” by announcing a policy of selling off Landcorp to fund conservation sanctuaries “run by approved community groups and private enterprise” (ibid.). And so it goes . . .

 Political scientist Dr. Bryce Edwards of Otago University draws the bigger picture. “The worldwide rise of anti-Establishment feeling is obviously being driven by numerous factors, but central to this is the impact of economic inequality, especially since the global financial crisis. Here in NZ, inequality has hit particularly hard over recent decades. These trends are leading to various forecasts of proletarian revolt” (Political Roundup – “New Zealand's Revolting Masses”, op. cit.). As we have witnessed, ironies abound in media commentary on these trends.

In the course of his article, Dr. Edwards notes the assessment of Martin van Beynen among numerous others. Van Beynen is certainly hamstrung on the issue of inequality since he has also most cavalierly dismissed various NZ research reports (“Child Poverty Reports Becoming Meaningless”, Press, 19/12/15). He is similarly hamstrung on free trade, enjoining us “to trust the experts” as he defines them (“Anti-Brigade Good Argument For TPPA”, Press, 6/2/16). Interestingly, as well, Dr. Edwards cites the opinion of Duncan Garner and how Garner is now even talking about possible “revolution” (Political Roundup, op. cit.).

“According to Garner, inequality is a 'ticking time-bomb' and should be a 'wake-up call' for the politicians” (ibid.). Hilariously and absurdly, it was only a relatively short time ago that Garner was conveying the impression that Key and the National government had everything under control, with Key even implementing “socialist, Leftwing, big spending” policies (“Flexible Principles Help Key, While Labour Flounders”, Press, 30/1/16).

Apparently then, Garner started 2016 on a high note of optimism, promoting the National Party's “smart, pragmatic” hold on “the vast but crucial (neo-liberally contrived) Centre ground” (ibid.). Oh dear, how has this awful inequality with its revolutionary undertones so suddenly and dramatically come about then, Duncan?! Our mostly very lightweight - let alone grossly biased - media commentators are often outstandingly devoid of any consistency!

Dishing Up The Dirty Work

There are countless examples of media bias against the Left and so I always have far more material than I can cope with in writing up articles. At this point, it is worth pursuing the technique of framing and how manipulative it can be. As we near another election year, the media are clearly gearing up for the usual pattern of assault on what they see as the Leftist opposition to the neo-liberal consensus. By the second week of August 2016, there was a significant lift in the polls for both the Labour Party and the Green Party coalition but a number of players in the mainstream media were quick to try and spoil the new public image as much as possible.

They moved with malevolent intent to cast Labour and, especially its Leader, Andrew Little, in a bad light. For instance, Fairfax Media's Stacey Kirk asserted that Labour had spoilt its good news story with an improper criticism of Wellington Mayoralty candidate Nick Leggett, previously Mayor of Porirua and also a former Labour Party member (“Opportunity Squandered, Labour Flounders Without Focus”, Stuff, 14/8/16). Leggett had resigned from Labour to contest in open opposition to Labour's endorsed candidate. 

Little called Leggett a “Rightwinger”, also forbidding his Napier MP Stuart Nash from speaking at an event with Leggett (ibid.). Kirk commented that Little's criticism of Leggett was “un-Prime Ministerial and it revealed that Left and Right factions within Labour are far from dormant” (ibid.). I shall take up again what can be called the Nick Leggett affair later, below. Stacey Kirk then went on to paint a picture of Little's alleged incompetence in treating the steel dispute issue with China.

In fact, she devoted her short opinion piece to what she construed as bungling lapses by Labour's Leader, principally on the steel issue. Not only did she put her own very biased spin on things but it all obviously amounted to an excuse to take the heat off the Government by blaming Little. Her article is an egregious example of gratuitous Rightwing attack politics, a very nasty item of this type of opinionated reportage. Yet as I have emphasised, it is just another case of the countless instances of crony media protection of John Key as contrasted with the malign negativity for the Opposition parties, including regularly targeted attacks on the Labour leadership. Look out Andrew, they are out to get you with election year due soon!

Stacey Kirk's attack was featured in the SST (ibid. i.e. “Labour Sends Its Gift Horse Packing”, 14/8/16). The sub-heading of this short article read: “Little's Attempt To Drag PM Into China Trade Muck Was Pure Ineptitude” (ibid). It may just be a short opinion piece but it can demonstrate in detail yet again some of the crucial ways in which so many reporters effectively operate as Key's PR glove puppets. When seen in context, it encapsulates certain key techniques; above all that of continually targeting the Leader of the Opposition in ways designed to benefit the PM.

The mainstream media have carefully ensured that all the copious “muck” of “Dirty Politics” did not stick to John Key. They have ensured protection for Key's multitude of “un-Prime Ministerial” poisonous attacks; lies; “brain-fades”; mistakes; evasions; gaffes; vacuous ego-tripping (e.g., the flag debacle); promotion and defence of international tax avoidance/evasion trusts; and even creepy behaviour (e.g., his  hair-pulling fetish); let alone Key's backing for death-squad drone operations, and the continuing slaughter perpetrated by America's terroristic “War on Terror”; as well as his antagonism to refugee “boat-people”, many of whom are fleeing this very same war. The media have guaranteed: that all this muck has not stuck to their Dear Leader!; and they have maliciously done so while continuing to constantly undermine the Parliamentary Opposition. John Key (ex-Merrill Lynch) is their very own inspiring representative of American acquisitiveness and corporate greed, an exemplar of neo-liberal capitalist financial gaming and the free market. 

“Pure Ineptitude”

In Kirk's SST article, Labour Leader Andrew Little was instead Stacey Kirk's designated target and, of course, Labour's new boost in the polls and gain in popularity. Firstly, as observed, Kirk chastised Little strongly for daring to criticise Nick Leggett. Then she went on, as also indicated, to accuse Little of “pure ineptitude” (ibid.). If we were to assess Stacey Kirk's piece on the standards of reporting, her article would in fact simply illustrate her own “pure ineptitude”! But Kirk's article is very much in the tradition of “Dirty Politics”.

This strategy was starkly displayed in the 2014 general election with Key being systematically protected at the expense of Labour Leader David Cunliffe, who suffered a barrage of very nasty personal attacks. In the specific case here of Stacey Kirk's criticism of Andrew Little, there was no need of an attack blogger a la Cameron Slater, and/or a “black ops” covert action operator a la Jason Ede – just a very willing journalist!  No doubt Kirk's bosses, SST Editor Jonathan Milne and Fairfax Media Political Editor and Parliamentary Bureau Chief Tracy Watkins, are very pleased with her progress to date as a political reporter!

Kirk very specifically takes Andrew Little to task over the trade dispute issue with China. Kirk says that rather than questioning Trade Minister Todd McClay in Parliament, who “was the weak link on the issue of China's trade retaliation threats, Little took the lead and tried to make the muck stick to PM John Key instead” (ibid.). The SST reporter remarks that in order to succeed with that tactic one has to get “the facts right first” (ibid.). In reality, Stacey Kirk cannot even get her own “facts” right as can be easily proven from the readily available official transcript record of Parliament! (9/8/16, Question 5, Andrew Little: www.inthehouse.co.nz/video/44481; watch the video!).

As a regular observer of Parliament on TV, I have heard the series of questions to Key, and his answers, more than once, including on the online video recording. To try and portray this questioning as an example of Andrew Little's “ineptitude” only testifies to a most perversely biased political agenda. On this day in the House, Question 5 was very much a routine Opposition Question to the PM, ending up with the usual John Key defensive “smart alec” remarks that the media so love to hear. Little had already asked PM Key an earlier one (Question 3) about housing.

Stacey Kirk says that: “In the House, Little questioned the PM over whether the 'Government's decision not to investigate sub-standard Chinese steel imports' was connected to trade threats. Actually, no such decision has been made, and the allegation is around steel dumping, not quality per se” (“Labour Sends Its Gift Horse Packing”, op. cit.). Andrew Little had posed the opening question as to whether Key stood by “his statement that threats of trade retaliation by China if NZ investigates sub-standard Chinese steel imports are 'unsubstantiated rumours', given his Government has been discussing that threat with China since May” (9/8/16, Question 5, op. cit.).

Little then posed several Supplementary Questions in connection with his opening primary Question. In reply to one of these Questions, Key, despite heading the Government, did not even know the core answer relating to governmental action as he had to admit (ibid.). Little specifically asked Key whether the decision not to investigate sub-standard steel was linked to Chinese threats of trade retaliation (ibid.). Key admitted his ignorance in this respect – remarkably enough, he did not even know his own Government's decision on this important matter.

What staggering ineptitude on the part of our PM! Key was again left looking “foolish”, as previously rendered by Trade Minister Todd McClay's evasions (see an earlier SST article by Kirk as referenced below). Yet Stacey Kirk has malignly and misleadingly construed this central point of the question of relevant governmental action - despite the official record open to public scrutiny! -  as somehow reflecting poorly on Little. We have Stacey Kirk herself instead answering on behalf of the PM as recorded just above! (“Labour Sends Its Gift Horse Packing”, op. cit.). Kirk actually commented on Little's questioning that: “Key strolled through unscathed” (ibid.).  

She even deliberately echoed in glove puppet fashion Key's “smart alec” retort to Andrew Little at the end of Question 5 that, as the Leader of the Opposition, Little should at least “get the facts vaguely correct” (9/8/16, Question 5, op. cit.). This particular retort was in response to Little's allegation that the threat of trade reprisals over the steel issue was already demonstrated by the Chinese ban on kiwifruit exports by Zespri on account of a supposed fungal rot problem.

As earlier intimated, Stacey Kirk declaimed in glove puppet style that for Little to succeed with tackling the PM, such a “tactic requires getting the facts right first” (“Labour Sends Its Gift Horse Packing”, op. cit.). Kirk made out that the steel and kiwifruit issues are unrelated, saying that “nothing has been blocked” in the case of NZ exports to China, “and the decision by Zespri to defer a week's worth of shipments was its own in response to temporary barriers put up by China” (ibid.).

So, according to Kirk, Zespri's exports were “blocked”, even if temporarily (!) and, moreover, this was a voluntary decision by Zespri. What a weird example of perverse reasoning! The contradictions go on. I shall take a closer look at the Zespri kiwifruit issue below. As well, it is important to note that Key did not quibble at all about the issue being one of “sub-standard steel” instead of dumping as such. The quality of steel involved, indeed, is an issue of concern as well as the issue of dumping. In fact, Andrew Little specifically referred only to “steel dumping” in one particular question. The specious crap of Stacey Kirk's article reflects the inept and biased nature of so much of what comes out of the often perverted Parliamentary Press Gallery.  

Crony Media Machinations

For a proper examination of the outrageously biased evaluation by Stacey Kirk of Andrew Little's Parliamentary performance, we need to further reproduce and explicate the recorded text, both in light of Kirk's article, along with an earlier one by her, and the actual questions and answers in the House. In an article just a week prior, Kirk had mentioned that Trade Minister Todd McClay “left the PM looking foolish in the face of initial questions by the SST, downplaying informal threats by Chinese commerce officials as 'unsubstantiated rumours'”.

“They continue to be anything but. McClay knew about it for months, but didn't see fit to inform the PM of the full extent of the situation until it became clear the media knew far more than he” (“Labour Failing To Land A Body Blow: China's Trade Threats Are Far From Over”, Stacey Kirk, SST, 7/8/16).  She observed that:”McClay either wilfully ignored the risk of 'trade reprisals' that come from a Chinese government unimpressed its cheap [my emphasis, i.e. likely to be sub-standard too!] steel may come under scrutiny, or he couldn't see it” (ibid.). 

So, in light so far of what we have already recorded above of her article a week later, we can note several points of significance:

a/ Todd McClay had seriously embarrassed his PM. We further observe here that Key has a reputation of a “hands-off” leader, more interested in photo opportunities and overseas trips. He is very much the Government's front man. His successful image has conveyed the impression of unity, papering over the factional cracks to date. The clear PR implication here for the crony media is to try and cover up for the PM as much as possible; and thus keep him “unscathed”;

b/ Cheap and so very likely sub-standard steel is indeed a current issue of concern as we shall see in more detail below. Sub-standard Chinese products have previously proved to be of concern;

c/ Threats by “Chinese commerce officials” are to be taken seriously; and in this connection, Stacey Kirk had explicitly remarked that: “If McClay's not in the House, it'll be about as coincidental as the Zespri's kiwifruit shipments held up at the Chinese border since last month” (ibid.). Kirk clearly acknowledged here a link between the kiwifruit and steel issues;

d/ The media in the form of the SST has been investigating the relevant issues, and has established what Kirk had outlined prior (ibid.) to her gratuitous, open attack on Labour Leader Andrew Little a week later (“Labour Sends Its Gift Horse Packing”, op. cit.).

The Contortions Of Dirty Attack Politics

Obviously, it was most fitting for Andrew Little to signal that a “foolish” and embarrassed John Key and his Cabinet should be held directly accountable for the Government's bungling over Chinese steel. It can also be easily seen from the Parliamentary online video that the Labour Party was enthusiastically behind this move (9/8/16, Question 5, op. cit.). Labour's eminently rational and strategic objective was for Little to both hold Key to account and highlight the issues in a general way, “with trade spokesperson David Clark (according to Kirk) taking over in following days, going slow and steadily”, and “most importantly… focused and well-researched” (“Labour Sends Its Gift Horse Packing”, op. cit.).

But Kirk construes a patently false contrast between Little and Clark, saying that: “The lesson was apparently learnt” as to the right approach about these matters, given that Key had apparently been “unscathed” (ibid.). What an artificially contrived concoction and malign spin by Stacey Kirk as she purports to be unravelling Little's mistakes! Under cover of this sort of shonky analysis, her real aim was to single out Andrew Little for special condemnation and thus spoil its new heartening poll results (ibid.).

She went on to add that Little had quickly backpedalled on his “suggestion of a referendum to decriminalise cannabis”, and consequently - after entering the week flush with good news - “dropped more rails than NZ's equestrian team”, and that all this “won't go unnoticed by caucus” (ibid.). Unfortunately for Stacey Kirk, she is even caught up further in her own posturing contradictions. This is most evident with regard to the Zespri kiwifruit issue. As we see in c/ on the list in the immediately preceding paragraph, Kirk acknowledges a link between the kiwifruit and steel issues.  Furthermore, she acknowledges that Zespri's shipments of kiwifruit had been temporarily “blocked” by the Chinese government.

A huge irony in regard to Stacey Kirk's malicious attack on Little is that not only does she contradict herself but the evidence from SST's own Editor and another reporter blatantly undermines her criticisms. The opening statement of an article in July 2016 by Vernon Small and Jonathan Milne declared that: “China has threatened 'retaliatory measures' against NZ trade, warning it will slow the flow of dairy, wool and kiwifruit imports” (“China Threatens NZ Trade War”, SST, 17/7/16).

Among other things, this particular article remarked that in NZ: “The local [steel] industry is struggling to compete with the glut of sometimes substandard Chinese metal (my emphasis), which is being used in major projects” (ibid.). Pacific Steel had “lodged a confidential application, under local and WTO rules, for an investigation into alleged Chinese dumping of cut-price steel on the NZ market” (ibid.). It is important to note that the US and EU have also been taking action against the alleged dumping of Chinese steel, and that NZ is consequently even caught up, at least indirectly, in the geopolitical confrontation between the US and China in the South China Sea (ibid.; see also Small's “Steel Yourself, More Than Trade's At Stake”, Press, 21/7/16).

Small and Milnes' article revealed that: “Highly-placed sources have confirmed China is applying pressure in an attempt to sway regulators away from imposing anti-dumping duties on imported Chinese steel. Zespri and Fonterra are said to have been heavied (my emphasis), and other exporters may have been” (“China Threatens NZ Trade War”, op. cit.). Labour was joined by New Zealand First in its concerns. “NZ First leader Winston Peters said China was 'monstering' Fonterra, Zespri and the NZ steel industry” (ibid.). Peters said the resolution of such issues is now “all dependent on what stance we take on the South China Sea. That's the reality of it now” (ibid.). So these issues certainly demand the close and publicly expressed attention of the Opposition party leaders, just as does the housing issue.   

Just prior to Stacey Kirk's first piece on Labour and the steel issue (“Labour Failing To Land  A Body Blow”, op. cit.), Fairfax Media's investigative reporter Vernon Small had another relevant article in the Press (“Is Another Stumble McClay's Third Strike?” [so triggering his dismissal], 4/8/16). Small observed that Zespri and Fonterra had got a message in early July “through back channels…that China is extremely peeved that a complaint has been laid about the potential dumping of cheap Chinese steel in our market” (ibid.). 

However: “The various NZ agencies and exporters chant in unison that it is an 'unsubstantiated rumour' that such a link had been made” (ibid.). The link could not be verified. “Yet China has for some time been linking by implication the impact on bilateral trade with NZ of a steel inquiry” (ibid.). We can see then that all the evidence readily available completely vindicated Little's approach to the steel issue in the House on 9th August 2016. The Government was being very secretive and defensively obfuscatory.

About a month later, SST Editor Jonathan Milne was on the case again in an editorial (“Our Leaders Need Steel In The Spine”, SST, 11/9/16). He said that: “Asian nations have been subsidising their industries, and often dodgy (my emphasis) steel” (ibid.). (NZ) Firms like Fulton Hogan and HEB Construction have had to deal with such dodgy steel, with steel towns like Waiuku and Pukekohe “hurting” (ibid.). Furthermore, “NZ officials, Fonterra and Zespri were told they faced retaliatory barriers if NZ didn't back off” (ibid.). 

Vernon Small reviewed the timeline of what had happened, including the observation that “on July 29, just a few weeks after the initial 'warning', Chinese border agencies impose non-tariff barriers on our kiwifruit” (“Is Another Stumble McClay's Third Strike?”, op. cit.). Whereas Zespri maintains that the fungus at issue on its kiwifruit exports is harmless, the relevant Chinese agency treats it as a “rot pathogen” and a “major disease” of risk also to other types of fruit (ibid.).

The NZ government, however, continues to peddle its tale of “unsubstantiated rumours” and the mere “coincidence” of events (ibid.). Vernon Small waxes highly sarcastic in tone at this point in his article, with notice of another warning (perhaps final) for Trade Minister Todd McClay (ibid.). The Government has indeed been in overkill with evasion, secrecy, and obfuscatory PR. One can even hear the charges of “cover-up” coming from Labour Party members on the video recording of Question 5 in the House on 9/8/16 (op. cit.).

Most ironically and damningly, Stacey Kirk's gross misrepresentations can be highlighted by what she has written with fellow reporters. Together, they revealed that: "Both the Government and kiwifruit giant Zespri have backpedalled on claims they had not been briefed aboutf Chinese anger over a complaint against its alleged steel dumping practices" (Stacey Kirk, Jonathan Milne, & Vernon Small, "Fonterra Warned Of ‘Consequences’”, Press, 20/7/16). 

Zespri had previously denied any threat of trade reprisals, "when asked by Fairfax Media" (ibid.). Fonterra also warned the Government, which continued to dismiss any "retaliatory action" (ibid.).  But, despite all this, SST Editor Jonathan Milne was quite happy to publish Stacey Kirk's nasty “Dirty Politics”-style attack article on Andrew Little (“Labour Sends Its Gift Horse Packing”, op. cit.). Incidentally, in a situation of increased collaboration among the mainstream media, Milne is now occasionally one of the panel members on TV3's The Nation, as is Tracy Watkins. Tellingly, too, PR consultants are often panellists. 

Rightwing Rampant

So as we approach another election year, the dirty attack media are gearing up for a re-run of their consistent and concerted hit campaign on Labour Leader David Cunliffe during the 2014 national election. They are bent on trying to foster as much division as they can both within the Labour Party and among the wider Parliamentary Opposition movement and parties. Besides those already named, other media eagerly joined in the pack attack during August 2016 to help spoil Labour's party and so offset the good poll news.

Once again, the cunning crony media acted by this ploy in concerted fashion to both protect National and further sabotage Labour. As stressed, this crony interactive strategy between the media and National was dramatically demonstrated in the “Dirty Politics” employed throughout election year 2014, with Labour Leader David Cunliffe being pilloried as “tricky” and untrustworthy, and regularly subject to other malicious personal attacks.

Later, Andrew Little, in spiritedly and most commendably leading the retaliatory attack on “dirty politics” and its agents, was called “Angry Andrew” by the National Party and so also by the political reactionary “attack dogs” of the blogger-manipulated media. Rightwing media agents like Tracy Watkins still toss this label around. What can appropriately be called the Nick Leggett affair can serve as another case study as to how the malevolent Rightwing media operate to hurt the Left.

Tracy Watkins was well to the fore in highlighting what she described as Labour's problems of “factionalism” and “anti-business party” image - as pushed by both the National Party and its PR operatives like Watkins herself. She had several opinion pieces on Labour's alleged stuff-up in connection with Little's criticism of Leggett's mayoralty bid (e.g., see her “Ankle Tap Or Leg Up?  Why Andrew Little's Assault On Leggett Might Backfire”, www.stuff.co.nz>politics>opinion, 9/8/16; & ”Is Labour's Tent No Longer Big Enough For ‘Rightwingers’?”, www.stuff.co.nz, 13/8/16). 

The whole episode once more illustrates how the crony media work hand in glove puppet mode with the National Party. National MPs made a number of sneering comments in Parliament about Labour not accommodating “Rightwingers”, including specific references to Nick Leggett, and even Labour MP Stuart Nash and others. This was a cue for the dirty attack brigade to exploit whatever relevant subject matter they could. A glaring example of this sort of cue was provided by a John Key reply to Andrew Little on housing, which included a quite gratuitous and nasty epithet.

Key called Little the “Nick Leggett hater” (Parliament TV, Question Two, 10/8/16). The grossly biased Speaker of the House, David Carter, constantly lets National get away with this kind of “smart alec” insult. In turn, as emphasised, National has effectively worked the glove puppets of the media with such insults and pejorative labelling. Given the heat cynically being applied by the crony media (especially during August 2016) in conjunction with National on the Leggett affair, Little even felt obliged on one occasion in Parliament to specifically praise Leggett.

There were several objectives obviously being served by the assault on Little by the Fairfax Media journalists and others. Obviously, again, one was their deliberate choice to spoil Labour's positive poll results with negative news stories, and even spoil Labour's chances in the Wellington Mayoralty contest. Clearly, Andrew Little had every right to back his Party's candidate, Justin Lester, in this local election. Since Leggett had already resigned from the Labour Party in order to run against Labour, how did these journalists even have a plausible pretext for their story?!

No doubt, to the chagrin of Tracy Watkins, Stacey Kirk, and their cronies, Labour's Justin Lester won the Wellington Mayoralty by a handsome margin. Maybe, their own malign publicity rebounded! But the media agenda is much wider than just spoiling any lift for Labour in the polls and its chances in the Wellington Mayoral contest. Their mission is to defend the neo-liberal status quo against any shift in the electorate to the Left. Watkins pictures Labour as formerly led by Helen Clark as having “broad-church appeal” rather than being an “anti-business party” as claimed by the National Party (“Is Labour's Tent No Longer Big Enough”, op.cit; this same article featured as “No Rightwingers Please – Little's New Labour?” in  the Press, 13/8/16).

Her article provides a revelatory insight into the Fairfax Media agenda of doing all it can to keep the neo-liberal hegemony in place. The cunningly contrived wording is par for the course for the likes of Watkins & co. Watkins remarked that Little, after the demise of David Cunliffe as Leader, had communicated that “Labour was open for business” again (ibid). Watkins expressed concern at Little's apparent backtrack as signalled by his criticism of Leggett, warning darkly of a “purge” under way of the “Rightwing faction”.

Again, more revelatory insights are gained here into the Big Business-driven media agenda courtesy of Watkins & co. The aim is to keep the corporate grip on Labour's political agenda. It demonstrably explains too, of course, the viciously personal campaign directed against Cunliffe during the 2014 election by the TV channels and much of the print media; as well as the long-term and continuing support and protection for Key and his Government, whatever the pseudo-posturing criticism on occasion.

Mounting A Pack Attack!

The prospect that Labour might actually achieve effective unity and move more to the Left has to be strenuously combated by National and its media guardians. Labour could indeed solve its problem of factionalism as identified by Tracy Watkins by becoming united. It could eject disruptive Rightwingers altogether, effectively burying a favourite issue that the crony media use to beat up on Labour. Leggett himself had clearly moved on from the Party. Contradiction-laden commentary doesn't worry Watkins, however, as her own politics are so explicitly Rightwing.

Key can call Nicky Hager “a screaming Leftwing conspiracy theorist” and rely on the likes of Tracy Watkins & co. to help safeguard National's image whatever happens. The clinching damning fact about the PR of the political Right (both politicians and media) is that it would be virtually unthinkable for the National Party to have any problems with Leftwingers! In that eminently quotable and appropriate phrase of British comedian Catherine Tate, we confront a pack of “dirty rotten bastards” intent on subverting our democracy.

We might well harbour some degree of scepticism about any politician and his/her respect for the truth. But there is certainly something meaningful in Andrew Little's personal affirmation of being a “straight-shooter”. He told the media pack at the height of harassment over the Leggett affair that he had warned off Labour MPs from associating with the group around Leggett because such Rightwing people represent a threat to the interests of the Labour Party, consistently trying to undermine it. In noting this statement of concern by the Labour Leader, there have been various indications in the past of a group keen to push Labour to the Right and actively working to do this (“Is This Progress?”, the Standard, https://thestandard.org.nz, 10/6/15). This group is inspired by the model set by the greedy war criminal former British PM Tony Blair!

Once more, we can get a sense of the underlying media agenda – try and push Labour further to the Right; or put another dent in its public image, especially when it seems to be picking up support; or, at least, stir up more factionalism. Besides the print media, other media eagerly joined in the effort to spoil Labour's lift in the polls during August 2016. After all, this lift could have marked a real turning-point nearing election year. TV1's Q&A stepped up to the plate with a carefully framed and timed tactical manoeuvre during the Nick Leggett affair.

Labour MP David Shearer, in the course of an interview conducted by Jessica Mutch, properly dismissed the Nick Leggett issue - when pressed on it - as getting too much unwarranted attention (14/8/16). Significantly, Shearer can be considered a conservative within the Labour caucus. But the apparent opportunity to try and foster division within Labour clearly proved fruitless in this particular instance. Mutch had very pointedly asked him as to whether Labour should not be firming up the Centre vote and appealing to the younger voters that Leggett supposedly represents.

Once again, we see the malevolent mainstream media agenda at work here – try and keep Labour from moving more to the Left away from the “middle-ground” neo-liberal consensus. Remember that the same Q&A interviewer Jessica Mutch had earlier tried, in similar fashion, to cajole new Greens Party Co-Leader James Shaw more to the centre and away from the party's allegedly “far-Left supporters” (Q&A, 3/416). The same Q&A episode that featured the Shearer interview had one of the key players in the Nick Leggett affair on its panel – Phil Quin, a former Rightwing Labour Party member (op. cit.). Quin was closely associated with Leggett.

He attacked Andrew Little for criticising both himself and Leggett as conspiring together (ibid.). Another Rightwinger on the panel, Heather Roy, former ACT MP and Cabinet Minister, commented on presenter/interviewer Greg Boyed's assertion about how cracks in a party can become very damaging, even terminal. She said that the Parliamentary Opposition needs to be seen as unified. It should be noted here that Roy's observation was made in a quite positive sense.

But the overall panel discussion relating to the Leggett affair reinforced the perception of simmering factionalism within Labour as no doubt it was intended to do. The presence of Phil Quin was obviously a calculated move by Q&A to try and further embarrass Labour. He was presented in a confusing fashion with his political connections not made clear. He was labelled as “a freelance writer” and a former political staffer in NZ and Australia. Yet the impression was also conveyed that he was still a member of the NZ Labour Party.

Malevolent Media In Full Cry

Even during Labour's 2014 election campaign, Quin was working hand in glove with the mainstream media, undermining Labour's chances with a nasty attack on the then  Leader David Cunliffe (Phil Quin: “Inept Labour Needs To Aim Higher”, NZ Herald 20//7/14, www.nzherald.co.nz>news.article). Quin especially criticised Cunliffe for his apology for being a man, made by Cunliffe when he had been emotionally moved at a “Women's Refuge gathering” by the testimony witnessed there about male violence. With friends like these who needs enemies?!

Yet National's orchestrated pillorying of Cunliffe in conjunction with its crony media was certainly most viciously conceived. The Labour Leader's admirable expression of both empathy and sympathy for the female victims of male violence was systematically rubbished on the public scene. This tactic was very deliberately and maliciously calculated to help drive down the male vote for Labour in 2014. Indeed, this was obvious to many Labour supporters but instead Quin heartily joined in the malevolent media campaign and thus showed his true colours.

It was also very significant to note how Quin had been working with Shane Jones, Josie Pagani, Nick Leggett, Stuart Nash, and others to try and move Labour more to the Right (ibid., “Is This Progress?”, op. cit.). The media were well aware of the history of this group and its associated activities. In cultivating what they see as the Rightwing of the Labour Party, TVNZ has long featured the conservative Josie Pagani as one of its favourite Q&A panellists.   

Most significantly, TV1's political reporter Andrea Vance, who had demonstrated some good journalism in recent times, showed her true neo-liberal sentiments in viciously beating up on Andrew Little and promoting the so-called “Centre-Right” and even a “new party” (Opinion, “Little Doing A Poor Job Of Telling Labour's Story”,  One News Now, TVNZ: https://www.tvnz.co.nz>new-zealand, 11/8/16). Vance, a former “gutter press” journalist for the Murdoch-owned News of the World, openly lamented the decline of “a centrist or faction to the Right”, and touted more neo-liberalism as “the well of fresh ideas that Labour badly need” (ibid.). Remarkably, but again most revealingly, the sub-heading of her article was: “There's Something Rotten In The State Of Labour”! (ibid.). This echoes a remark by TV3's Political Editor, Patrick Gower.  Sorry, Andrea, the evidence demonstrably shows that there is something very rotten in the “Dirty Politics” National Party and its crony media. In your own words, “That it should come to this” - indeed!

Other Media Keenly Joined In The Leggett Affair

For instance, Guyon Espiner (a Radio NZ journalist) contributed a PR puff piece on Leggett, pushing his neo-liberal pragmatism over so-called “utopian” policies (“Wellington Politics: The Pragmatic Mr. Nick Leggett”, New Zealand Listener, 5/10/16 www.listener.co.nz>current affairs). As already documented to some considerable extent, the Fairfax Media attack machine was working on the Nick Leggett affair in combination with other media like the TV channels.

We have seen that corporate cheerleader Tracy Watkins was eagerly to the fore in defence of the neo-liberal hegemony (“No Rightwingers Please – Little's New Labour?”, op. cit.). She noted a very large donation once given by billionaire businessman Owen Glenn to the Labour Party (ibid.). Back in the notorious “Rogernomics” period of the 1980s, the decade of neo-liberal transformation, Big Business had openly backed the Labour Party even more than the National Party.

With the advent of Andrew Little to the Labour leadership in November 2014, the Party had appeared for Watkins & co. to be safely on the neo-liberal track again. Most revealingly, given the media's poisonous campaign in 2014 to derail David Cunliffe, Tracy Watkins pertinently comments how Labour seemed to be “'open for business' again after David Cunliffe” (ibid.). But she expressed concern about Little's designation of Nick Leggett as “Rightwing” and the warning off formal public association that he gave to MP Stuart Nash (ibid.).

Again, most revealingly for her own “Dirty Politics” attack agenda, Tracy Watkins referred darkly to a seeming purge of Labour's dwindling Rightwing faction, given “a residue of mistrust and suspicion of the Party's Rightwingers, carried over from the Lange-Douglas years” (i.e. from the “Rogernomics era). She even acknowledges that “on the economy there is not much daylight between them and National on some issues” (ibid.). For sure, Watkins says that this is what “made Helen Clark value them (i.e. Rightwingers)” (ibid.). Helen Clark, a fervent advocate for free trade, who did her best to crush democratic debate and discussion on the subject during her tenure as PM, recently failed in her bid to head the United Nations (UN). 

Tracy Watkins thus openly acknowledges the neo-liberal contamination of the Labour Party. As well, her case is completely broken by the glaring contradiction at the very heart of her argument. On the one hand, she runs the standard media attack line that Labour is supposedly riven with factionalism. The media have constantly and gleefully used this allegation, in conjunction with National, to cast doubts on Labour's fitness to govern, exploiting the problems of an overly “broad church” approach. On the other hand, she is obviously very concerned that Labour is purging itself of Rightwingers and thus becoming more unified in tune “with the grass-roots activists who stack the Party's conferences” (ibid.).

What Watkins obviously fears is a more “anti-business party” as she defines it, one that would seriously challenge neo-liberalism and capitalism itself. According to a recent international survey, NZ is the most open and business friendly economy in the world (One News At Midday, TVNZ, 25/10/16). The media are always keen to promote NZ's high rankings on the neo-liberal globalisation index. Watkins' spin is that former PM Clark realised she needed the Rightwingers within her purportedly Leftwing party “to straddle the political (neo-liberally defined) Centre” (“No Rightwingers Please”, op. cit.).

Given proper context, Watkins' piece is certainly a “telling one” (ibid.). Like that of Andrea Vance, it is intended to protect the neo-liberal hegemony as much as possible. She even mentions the heartening new poll for the Labour-Green coalition, and how “Little needed some good hits” to reinforce his own “favourability ratings” (ibid.). But she says Little instead “turned the gun-sights on himself” and created “a public party squabble” (ibid.). No, what really happened was that neo-liberal PR media agents like Tracy Watkins, Stacey Kirk, Andrea Vance, TV1's Q&A, and TV3's The Nation did their very best to spoil Labour's recent gains in the polls and maintain the neo-liberal hegemony. 

Andrea Vance followed up her nasty neo-liberal opinion piece on Andrew Little, with an effort to try and spoil Labour's image at its annual conference in November 2016. Obviously inspired by National Party criticisms (including David Farrar's Kiwiblog) of Labour's costings for a new youth employment initiative, Vance again played the theme of Labour's alleged incompetence (One News At 6pm, 6/11/16). Labour has charged TV1 and Vance with "biased and unprofessional" reporting and a "hatchet job" (e.g., “Labour Digs In Over Row With One News Journalist About Youth Work Scheme Costs”, www.stuff.co.nz, 8/11/16). Labour has laid a formal complaint with TVNZ and the Broadcasting Standards Authority. Meantime, TVNZ has been trying to give the Leggett affair more legs, e.g., putting Nick Leggett on a Q&A panel as a "political strategy consultant" (6/11/16). TVNZ is jostling with others to head the media "Dirty Politics" attack pack on Labour in election year 2017.

Countering The Malign Media

We confront in so much of the mainstream media the operative agency of a pack of “dirty rotten bastards”, dedicated to subverting our democracy and promoting the vested interests of the rich and powerful. These media in the general sense, of course, are simply acting true to form. They are owned or effectively controlled by foreign capitalist interests and function as the major rationalising organ of neo-liberal corporate globalisation.

They are fundamentally antagonistic to the principles of social justice and environmental sustainability, being committed to entrepreneurial and rentier profitability. Exposing their machinations via social media and other activities must be an essential part of our ongoing programme for participatory democracy, sustainable development, and far fairer shares in both NZ society and internationally. Given the growing global challenges, this goal is more imperative and urgent than ever.