Well, when I say letter, it was a folded printed sheet titled Getting Back On Track — Budget 2024 and lacked any greeting like "Dear Jim" so I guess it wasn’t a really personal type of communication.
You probably got one too. In fact, every household in New Zealand may have been privileged enough to have the prime minister reach out with this personal and caring message.
I wondered because the pamphlet was pretty well identical with the propaganda we get so much of in an election year.
The pamphlet’s message is that National is cleaning up the mess it inherited from Labour to "stop spending that isn’t delivering results". Lucky and his deputy Nicola Willis flash grins from carefully-posed photographs which I’m sure will be recycled (photos and the grins) at election time.
Was the pamphlet an early election persuader? You might like to know what the National Party had to say.
The pamphlet, we are told in minute type on the last page, was "authorised by S Simpson".
"S Simpson" turns out to be Scott Simpson, a cabinet minister for about six months, who is now a lesser luminary as chief government whip, a job which involves keeping National MPs in order and which probably gives him the feeling he is mustering merinos with a Persian cat.
I asked Simpson if the party had paid for the pamphlet. One of his staff replied, "The leaflet was funded from within National’s Parliamentary Service budget. It was approved for release by Parliamentary Service.".
That all sounds above board, of course, but it is a fine example of not really answering the question. The Parliamentary Service employs 700 people and has a budget of about $60 million. Perhaps even now the razor gang are savagely hacking into those staff numbers, or maybe not.
Of immediate concern, though, is pamphlets. The Parliamentary Service rules have this to say: "Governments may legitimately use public funds for advertising and publicity to explain their policies, and to inform the public of the government services available to them and of their rights and responsibilities. These guidelines recognise the public concern that government advertising should not be conducted in a manner that results in public funds being used to finance publicity for party political purposes.".
At first glance, then, the pamphlets which cluttered up our letterboxes would seem to be in the clear. They "explain policies", albeit in an aggressively partisan manner, and "inform the public" even though in this case there is nothing about the Budget which the public didn’t already know.
The big question is, did this pamphlet constitute "government advertising for political purposes"? It seems that Parliamentary Service thought not, and cheerfully signed off the costs using taxpayers’ money.
In an effort to ensure I wasn’t misjudging the government I asked Simpson’s office to give me a simple "Yes" or "No" to the question, "Was the pamphlet ultimately paid for by the taxpayer rather than from National Party funds (i.e. money donated to or earned by the party without recourse to tax money)?".
That was two weeks ago and there has been no reply. But one wasn’t really needed.
The pamphlet was obviously paid for by the taxpayers and was, from my point of view, produced for political purposes. The taxpayers probably found it of little interest and maybe two million pamphlets have found their way to landfill, recycling, or gathering dust on the mantelpiece along with final demands.
There is no great drama here. No-one has actually lied during my quest for information but there has been enough fudging to indicate that politicians find it difficult to handle the truth in any direct way.
Was the fudgy response from Simpson an attempt to mislead me?
I’ll let you be the judge of that but if you have any doubts about what you are told by a politician then you are not alone.
In spite of constant questioning and firm "promises" during which no-one seems to have told a deliberate lie are we confident a Dunedin hospital fit for purpose will rise from the rubble?
Before the election Lucky Luxon told us, "We’re going to build this hospital back to the specification that was originally intended, in terms of giving us the capacity we need, and that we will need for the future.".
In July, Dunedin’s deputy mayor Cherry Lucas reported that Minister of Health Dr Shane Reti had hold her "the government remained committed to its campaign pledge of delivering the new Dunedin hospital as originally promised."
In the end, it’s not that politicians tell lies, it’s just that sometimes they avoid the truth.
— Jim Sullivan is a Patearoa writer.
