Glory Days!
This election is on, and does Seymour dream of robot sheep?
Glory days
Well, they'll pass you by, glory days
In the wink of a young girl's eye, glory days
Glory days
Song: Bruce Springsteen.
Two news stories this morning, and I’m afraid we’re going to start with the less pleasant one before we gorge ourselves on the most delicious of news. Nom Nom Nom. You didn’t think we’d start with the pudding, did you?
Seymour’s Bots.
Generally, I regard David Seymour as one of the more dishonest people in our political system. Usually, though, he at least wraps his false claims in something that could pass scrutiny if the recipient were very stupid, incredibly right-wing, or lacking in consciousness.
I suppose some combination of the three would work, too.
But in this morning’s headline, all bets are off; he is saying stuff that flies in the face of all facts and evidence and is without question something he has made up, comfortable in the knowledge that he can say whatever he likes, no matter how untrue, and he is untouchable.
ACT leader David Seymour suggested 'bots' drove 'fake submissions' against his Regulatory Standards Bill
When it emerged that only 0.33 per cent of submitters were in favour of David’s Bill, he could’ve taken it in his stride and said he didn’t care what people thought, he was going to carry on regardless, just as he had with the Treaty Principles Bill.
But this time is different; he needs his coalition partners to get this across the line, including Winston Peters, who might remember that the whole basis of his Nationalistic party was about not handing over our sovereignty to some overseas entity.
Seymour has claimed that 99.5 per cent of the submissions received on the RSB were created using “bots.” An ironic statement given the nature of ACT’s online support base.
You can read about the exchange between Guyon Espiner and David Seymour at the link above. Suffice it to say, despite his claims that the numbers are meaningless and that someone could be running a campaign with a bot, his statements were based on other online campaigns and had no basis in these submissions whatsoever.
David Seymour just made up a lie to suit his political position - are you shocked?
Showing the sort of absolute loyalty demanded in the Trump regime, Ministry for Regulation deputy chief executive policy Andrew Royle would not address Seymour's claims about bots directly. I’m guessing he would have been quick to speak up if there was any evidence at all to back his boss.
The ministry's summary shows its process included a "qualitative" analysis of about 1000 individual submissions. Group submissions and submissions over 10,000 words were read separately. The rest were summarised using AI.
There was nothing in the report about bots or other interference in the submissions process.
Should a Minister be expected to say things that have at least some possibility of being true, or is it ok for them to say things that are lies, safe in the knowledge that neither the public service nor a state-funded media is going to call them on it?
Let’s look at Seymour’s claim that 99.5% of submissions were fake and created by bots.
Now I’m going to assume that Seymour believes the 0.33% of submissions that supported his bill are real, so that leaves just another 0.17% that can be real, with the rest, according to Seymour, being fake.
So the totals, according to David’s entirely bogus scenario, given the total of 23,000 submissions made, are:
Submissions in favour (all real) = 77
Real Submissions opposed = 38
Bot Submissions opposed = 22,885
That’s how ridiculous it is. If Seymour’s claim were valid, then only 38 real submissions would’ve been made by human beings. I have no doubt that more than 38 people who read this will have made submissions; in fact, I know some of you have worked bloody hard writing yours.
So, how do you feel about the Deputy Prime Minister of Aotearoa telling lies to the nation to say that you didn’t?
ActionStation director Kassie Hartendorp said, “If he presents some evidence that there were bots involved, and there's probably ways to be able to do that, if he presents evidence, then fine. But otherwise, it just seems like an outlandish claim that isn't matching up with reality.”
Will anyone hold Seymour to account? Obviously, it won’t be his boss; he doesn’t have one.
I’d like to see him make the same claim in a room full of submitters. Or perhaps to those who will assemble outside of parliament as his awful bill continues to face the crowd. No need to be too scared this time, David, there’s nothing to worry about, remember - they’re all bots.
Right, time for the deliciousness… this morning’s release of the RNZ-Reid Research poll.
Left bloc would have enough support to turf coalition government out of power - poll
Boom!
Following the pay inequity debacle and a budget that was met with little enthusiasm, the latest poll shows the left bloc in the ascendancy. It is on!
National has fired most of its bullets and now faces an almost inevitable decline as public dissatisfaction grows and its coalition partners worry about self-preservation, and I could not be happier.
With Labour, the Greens and Te Pāti Māori all gaining compared to the previous poll taken in March, they would have a majority with 63 seats between them, compared to the coalition's 57 - again, New Zealand First was the only coalition party to see a boost.
The poll was taken in the week following the release of the budget and saw:
National ⬇️ 2.2% to 30.7%
Act ⬇️ 2.8% to 6.6%
Labour ⬆️ 0.9% to 33.2%
The Greens ⬆️ 1.6% to 11.6%
Te Pāti Māori ⬆️ 0.5% now over 5%
NZ First ⬆️ 1.8% to 9.1%
While it is concerning to see NZ First on the rise, it is also telling that combined support for National and ACT has dropped to just 37.3%. That is down by almost 10% from election night, a dramatic fall in support for the policies of austerity favoured by the two trickle-down parties.
How awesome is that graph? With Labour and the Greens combined, up to 44.8%.
Some other key points worth noting:
More New Zealanders polled say the country is going in the wrong direction (46.6%) than in the right direction (37.8%), resulting in a net negative of -8.8%, a substantial decrease from March's 2.9% result.
Christopher Luxon's net favourability ratings drop further into the negative, from -3.9% in March to -9.8%, with significantly more respondents (45.5%) saying he performed poorly or very poorly than said he performed well or very well (35.7%).
Chippy was at 23.2% preferred PM, comfortably ahead of Luxon, who was back at just 18.8%, a remarkably low level for a Prime Minister only halfway into his first term.
The more we got to know you, Christopher, the less we liked you. If I were to offer one suggestion, you could start by telling people like Chris Bishop and David Seymour to pull their heads in; their antics and your weakness in the face of them make you look ineffective and gutless.
Of course, you will do no such thing; in which case, might I recommend that you keep a close eye on your more ambitious colleagues, because a poll like this is blood in the water—and it’s yours, Christopher.
On this day in 1984, the Boss released the album Born in the USA; here is "Glory Days” from it. And what a glorious piece of news that was to start the day - have a good one, all you excellent lefties!
The level of lowness, deceit and arrogance of Seymour has no bounds. When we think we are there, he goes even lower!
I wrote one of those submissions that was probably not read. I will be writing another. I'm also going to write personally to Winston Peters, thanking him for my gold card and his previous standing up against foreign intervention and urge him not to support this bill. NZF can sink it if he decides to do that.