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?
April 20, 2008 at 10:42 am
Particularly since the party of which Key is leader hasn’t been in power for the best part of ten years, so their influence on the housing market (and fiscal policy in general) must surely have been limited at best.
April 21, 2008 at 3:59 am
From the left-left wing, I’ll back you on “pointless load of shite”. It’s an attempt to connect two completely unconnected pieces of information so people can have their Breakfast Outrage.
Now, I still wouldn’t care, but one COULD conceivably make a news article out of it if, say, Key was campaigning on the basis of being an ‘ordinary bloke, man of the people, wandering round Otara Market in a tshirt’ kind of guy. If only so maybe we could avoid that whole ‘Obama trying to bowl, Hilary downing shots’ kind of bullcrap. But it still wouldn’t be news any more than Helen Clark not having kids matters in any context.
April 21, 2008 at 8:57 am
Last year’s “Ambitious for New Zealand” DVD featured John Key wandering round the Porirua Market, being a man of the people. He isn’t trying to claim he’s working class, but it’s hard for an average middle-class person to identify with someone who – holy shit – is wealthy enough to be able to buy a holiday home in Hawaii, and presumedly can also afford to fly over there several times a year. That ain’t no mainstream New Zealander. That’s pretty outre.
April 21, 2008 at 10:17 am
I may indeed have been aware of that. He looked about as comfortable as John Campbell first night without the tie. And if I were a media whore, that was the angle I would have gone for.
April 21, 2008 at 10:58 am
I don’t pretend to know how the right-wing mind works but it occurs to me that if I were that way inclined I might well want someone who can afford Hawaiian holiday homes in charge – after all he’d be pretty likely to have a good handle on getting and holding onto personal wealth.