Look at the way National Party MPs try and deceive NZers

As we get closer to the 2017 election, the standard move by the National Party Government is to lie, deceive and spin.

The list of deceptions they have conducted to con you the voter are egregious and vicious.

Let’s start with the lies spread about the budget. Despite all the claims of extra money going into health, the truth is that National have underfunded Health to the tune of $2.3billion.

What about the Transport Minister who wants to block information requests…

Transport Minister tries to block official information request

New Zealand First leader Winston Peters tabled an email trail in Parliament yesterday showing that Mr Bridges’ office repeatedly urged KiwiRail last week not to release a business case on Auckland’s proposed third main railway track.

Initially, his officials opposed the document being released, saying it was part of an unsuccessful budget bid, but were told by KiwiRail on Thursday that the law was clear it should be released.

After consulting its legal team, KiwiRail told Mr Bridge’s office it would struggle to justify not releasing it.

But on Friday Mr Bridges’ office again urged KiwiRail not to release the business plan.

This time it used a scatter-gun approach – arguing the report was only a draft, was on a misleading template and that its proposed release was making them “extremely uncomfortable”.

Mr Peters said Mr Bridges was clearly been trying to heavy KiwiRail into keeping the information secret.

“You’ve got the minister after nine years of government exhibiting all the arrogance that often long-time governments do exhibit – and he’s saying ‘well we’ll be seriously uncomfortable about that’.

“Well the Official Information Act is not about the comfort zone of governments or ministers, it’s about the right of the public and the media to have critical information that they need,” Mr Peters said.

…and then there is the MPI Fishing scandal…

Leaked report shows public misled over snapper policing

A Government report leaked to Greenpeace shows the public is being misled over the effectiveness of video cameras used to police the fishing industry.

A Ministry of Primary Industries internal document says the new surveillance cameras installed on commercial fishing boats aren’t up to the task of checking on snapper size.
Under the law commercial fishers are allowed to discard snapper smaller than 25 cm in length.

The MPI and its Minister, Nathan Guy, previously went on record saying the video cameras can be used to make sure fishing fleets are legally compliant, and when they are not, footage can be used to prosecute the fishing companies.

However the report obtained by Greenpeace directly contradicts this claim. It says the camera footage is not up to standard for compliance and cannot be used as evidence for prosecutions.

…let’s not forget the lies to build 34 000 houses…

It’s not 34 000 new houses at all, it’s only 26 000 new houses and a replacement of 8000 state houses and most of those 26 000 new houses have already been announced in previous plans and because National intend to sell many of these off at market rates so as to subsidise the ‘affordable’ houses, we don’t actually know how many affordable houses National are offering nor what they are defining as ‘affordable’.

…National are spinning and lying because the true legacy of their 9 years in power are now naked and for everyone to see.

Because we have a mainstream media more interested in clickbait than journalism and because National have strangled off serious public broadcasting while having their corporate mates kill off Campbell Live, voters have no true sense of what the National Party is really about.

The last 9 year rule of National has seen a deeply ideological drive to  mutilate the state’s ability to raise revenue so that it can consistently amputate their social welfare obligations. This allows the Government to claim they are ‘living within their means’.

It’s a deceptive trick and the truth of how truly underfunded our social infrastructure really is must be lied about constantly if National are to con NZers into giving them another 3 years.