Reported today in Stuff.co.nz:
National leader John Key has just got a late Christmas present most New Zealand families being squeezed by soaring interest rates and high prices would envy – a tropical holiday home in Hawaii.
Now … I am not at all pro-National, though I was actually a member of the party at one stage. I approved of their financial platform, but I switched to Labour when I found the Nats social platforms to be rather backwards.[1]
I think money is less important than people and this is why I now vote for Labour, despite the fact that I grit my teeth every time I see them spend tax dollars on shit that the government shouldn’t have anything to do with. So, anyway, I’m not a Nat fan or apologist.
Keeping that in mind, I think this story is a pointless load of shite. One can only guess it was an absurdly slow news day. Did NZ really need a piece of news that, in essence, is “Man buys house”? I suspect not.
What floats it down Lake Pointless then nudges it over the Lame Dam and sends it careening down The Objectionable River is the half-assed attempt to conflate the concepts of Key buying a property with the overall high level of NZ house prices.
Stay classy, Stuff. Stay classy.
[1] I won’t even get into my rant about how fiscal responsibility is somehow magically tied, in the world of politics, to social conservatism. Can’t you be keen on social progression AND not keen on sprawling, wasteful government?