Now the rest of the NZ media comprehend the enormity of the meth hysteria – here’s what won’t happen next

By
Martyn Bradbury
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13
2

The sheer scale of this meth hysteria is depressingly intense and large.

In almost every possible and conceivable way, the State utterly failed.

Social Policy should be based on making life better, not punitively cripple it.

That’s what Housing NZ and their political masters did, they crippled vulnerable people seeking shelter.

HNZ threw 900 beneficiaries out onto the streets, banned them from HNZ for 12 months, in some cases had children removed, were allegedly getting secret information from Health Boards targeting addicts using their services and indebted hundreds with hundreds of thousands in contamination costs while needlessly costing the country over $100m.

All at a time when we were in the middle of a housing and homelessness crisis!

Housing NZ, Bill English & Paula Bennett were all told in 2016 that HNZ were applying their own policy incorrectly, and yet HNZ still threw 300 onto the street after being told this directly.

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Why?

Because at a time when Paula and Bill were trying to privatise state housing, negative media attention against druggie beneficiaries was great marketing.

The entire hysteria would not have happened if the fourth estate had not bee asleep at the wheel.

And that’s not what will happen next, a thorough examination of the media’s role in whipping up this hysteria. This blog and Public Address were sounding alarms about this policy from the beginning, Lisa Owen and John Campbell picked that criticism up and were the only ones challenging this witch hunt.

Where was the rest of the media?

How did this monstrosity manage to get out of hand so fast in a first world country country based on science? Because the corporate media’s favourite whipping boy, beneficiaries, were involved and no one lost money in newspapers from beating up on bludgers.

Mix this media contempt for the poor with many middle class landowners who now have tenants in their precious investment portfolios and the fear of a loss of capital gains mixed with neoliberal cultural disgust at self failure for being poor in the first place, and you had all the self interested ingredients and momentum for hysteria to take over.

That this fiasco wasn’t taken to pieces by the mainstream media shows how utterly failed we are by our fourth estate.

 

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13 COMMENTS

  1. Actually if the Labour Party deals wit this correctly then a large number of landlords are going to be really pissed with National! By allowing the “Meth scare” to continue it allowed insurance companies to slide out of paying for legitimate damages done to housing stock, it allowed landlords to be up for large amounts of unnecessary repairs – when a clean down would have done, it allowed for housing deals to be voided when someone had smoked one pipe in the house, it allowed councils to condemn good houses. Many people lost their shirts and National is now blaming dud advice!

  2. The real sad thing is, the “…favourite whipping boy…” find themselves without a voice. A voice, that should be amplified by the corporate media.

  3. While Australia and other countries with a P problem did not oust their people from their houses and create a $100 million dollar ‘clean up industry’ out of this on inadequate trumped up science ( they would not have dared)

    …in New Zealand Just look at the fiasco of the P beatup in State houses and NZs poorest of the poor victimised for no reason except to support Nactionals agenda of making propaganda ( excuses for foreign buy up of NZ houses and NZer homelessness)…and real business monetary profits out of the poorest NZers by throwing them out of their State houses and making them pay for clean ups

    …the real Nact culprits behind this humanitarian crime against the poor have yet to be fingered and exposed…we need names of the perpetrators and details of profits …a Commission of Inquiry in fact…we need to regain our humanity, so that this never happens again!

    …and sorry RNZ and the mainstream media journalists…for all your protestations to the contrary that you did a good job on exposing this farce

    ….you did NOT ask the HARD questions!…WHY and WHO was PROFITING and what links they had to Nactional politicians and the Nact Party ?

    ….and why were the poor in NZ so poorly served by the biased Nact mainstream media to allow this farce to happen?….

  5. It is a form of social engineering, I can just imagine John Key and Paula Bennett sniggering away to each other over a glass of Pinot Noir.

    • You bet it’s social engineering, but govts do their prioritising very very privately, and NZ is lucky that National lost the election and Key and English ran away before they had the chance to do even more damage than they did to the people of NZ.

      BBC reports today that Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are to visit NZ because the govt invited them here, so how and why the Coalition Govt prioritises is equally mysterious too.

      • Wasn’t it Einstein that once said, and I’m paraphrasing, stock markets is the most powerful force on the planet.

        Falling like Dominoes. Emerging Market Currencies that have been whacked in the last 6 weeks Vs USD inc. Argie Peso (ARS), Brasilian Real (BRL), Turkish Lira (TRY) and now South African Rand (ZAR). Whats the next shoe to drop?

        A true leader can predict the future. Stay tuned. Things are going to get real crazy. 18 months ago a wise man once said U.S. economy will boom around about now. And that’s happening. Atlanta FED now projecting 4.1% GDP growth. Make America Great Again. Sorry not sorry.

        As for the EU. UK pulls out crashing German pension funds. Germany apologises for the next 50 years.

        Or. EU enforces regulation outside of the EU. German Pension funds crash. Germany apologise for next 50 years.

        Make New Zealand Great again. And again, sorry not sorry.

  6. um..!..i know i am just a bloody media-minnow..but i see the coverage/exposure timeline like this: ross bell from the drug foundation first raised the alarm in their monthly publication –

    shortly afterwards simon morris on ‘this way up!’ on national radio did a very tidy piece on it (which alerted me/confirmed my suspicions..)

    i then went to that public housing meeting where i called bennett out on this (and she admitted it – but the present m.s.m. seemed to miss this/her admission)

    http://www.whoar.co.nz/2018/op-ed-my-meth-testing-encounter-with-paula-bennett-in-june-2016/

    now this was on the 13th of june 2016..

    you note:’This blog and Public Address were sounding alarms about this policy from the beginning, Lisa Owen and John Campbell picked that criticism up and were the only ones challenging this witch hunt.

    Where was the rest of the media?’

    you have already admitted you weren’t covering the testing-aspect – more the war-on-the-poor..

    russel browns’ first piece/warning was in august 2016 – two months after my questioning of bennet..

    and i would submit that my first questioning of bennett was the first time she was challenged by the media on this –

    i say this for two reasons: one was her being blindsided by my questions – the pther being can anyone point me to any media questioning of bennett before my go at her in mid-june 2016..

    so..y’know..!..like i said ‘i am only a media minnow’…but i was two months ahead of brown – and as far as i can ascertain the very first to confront/question bennett on this

    but ;’This blog and Public Address were sounding alarms about this policy from the beginning, Lisa Owen and John Campbell picked that criticism up and were the only ones challenging this witch hunt.’..?

    really..?

    really…?

  7. It is my understanding that the only NZ owned, independent, newspaper is the Otago Daily Times. All of the rest are Australian owned. Apart from Radio NZ, the same applies to all of our radio stations I think. It is a system designed for “business” by “business.” We get a predictable response when a government aligned with working New Zealanders tries to get it’s views across. The National party is very cosy with “business,” it is funded by “business” and dances to their tune. Business predictably, has gone grumpy at the thought their interests are second to the interests of New Zealand.

  8. And all the while and even now, the apologists continue to keep showing their ignorance, arrogance and total misunderstanding of journalistic ethics and honesty ,,, with their comments in support of policies and procedures implemented by the previous government. People like Mark Richardson, Mike Hosking and of course, the now-disgraced Paula Bennett, Judith Collins and etc etc. Shame on you!

  9. WHERE IS THE PUBLIC OUTRAGE?

    People are numbed, mesmerised by gadget screens, busy with social chatter about lifestyle matters, countless little narcissistic individuals everywhere, not interested in such issues, they only worry about the price of the next latte at their favourite cafe or fast food outlet.

    Brainwashed to the extreme, conditioned to compete at all levels, to avoid social contact with those outside the new class based comfort zones, and mostly dedicated to consumerism, careerism and self enhancement, few people get what is going on.

    They are rather willing hamsters in their hamster wheels, staring at a screen while they run and run and run, and think, they are getting ‘ahead’.

    This country and with that most of its population are screwed.

    It does not matter what hysteria or crisis comes next, it is shrugged off as irrelevant to the individual by most, as self interest, self serving actions and utter selfishness is what drives most now.

    So meth testing, oh, that only affects the no hopers who take those drugs, and their associates, won’t it? Climate change, oh, well, I think it cannot be stopped anyway, so what the f***, I carry on as usual, I want to ‘live’ as I like it.

    Poverty, what is that? It is not what interests most doing well, and if they say it does concern them, it is like with pollution, climate change and so, it is a total disconnect between what they may say and what they actually do themselves.

    Leave the poor to eat cake, or the morsels of it, if they can, I cannot be bothered, I want to get ahead with my plan and MY life, screw the rest, that is what I observe all around me in oh so busy Awkland.

    So would you expect the MSM to behave differently?

  10. Obviously Gluckman, John Keys Chief Science Advisor didn’t have his eye on the ball, Jacinda and Twyford obviously steered Gluckman in the right direction and made him open his eyes a little wider with regards to the metamphetamine standards and testing procedures????

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