Maiki's Massive Serve.
Sherman helps mayor grind axe.
Last night I watched One News as there was another new poll. I’m not going to go into the poll result, suffice to say the way that it was presented by Jessica Mutch McKay had sufficient spin to form its own gravitational field, a field that TVNZ seem intent on drawing viewers into.
Long story short National and Labour were both unchanged in the poll, and so can you guess what the headline was…
That’s right in TVNZ land if the two major parties remain unchanged the headline is “Labour Stagnates” - really subtle guys. Next time can you wrap a brick in it? I’m not feeling sedated enough. Because the thing is I saw the same numbers as you, and to me the obvious headline was “National/ACT vote falls for fourth poll in a row!”
Maybe that wasn’t the story TVNZ wanted to tell people, even if the numbers were all on display. But don’t worry the next segment was Maiki Sherman on the West Coast - and this one definitely had a brick wrapped in it - CLANG!!! Take that viewers!
I was kind of interested in what she’d have to say having recently written an article about the West Coast-Tasman electorate, which looked at the candidates and considered the likely outcomes. If you missed it you can check it out below, it is partially paywalled though. I’ve got to pay the bills, just like Maiki. Well, hopefully not too much like Maiki actually, but we’ll come to that.
Electorate Watch: West Coast-Tasman
The piece opened with Christopher Luxon once again wearing a hairnet and being shown around a factory. He looked a bit like a pirate. I could almost imagine Nicola Willis sitting on his shoulder and squawking “pieces of eight”.
Maiki then moved on to asking locals about the election. One said he’d be glad when it was all over and done with. “Lots of promises get make around this time, although lots of them don’t follow through”, said a woman who sounded like she’d definitely been disappointed by suitors in the past.
Then out of the blue Maiki declared “locals are scathing of Labour”. I assumed they must have done a poll in the electorate as has been done in others like Auckland Central or Ilam. But no, it turned out Maiki’s declaration of how locals were feeling about Labour was based on a rather smaller sample size than the 1,000 used in a standard poll, or even the 500 often used in a single electorate. As I watched on, from what I could tell, Maiki’s declaration was based on the views of just three people.
One was a chap who looked a bit like a Walrus, or a retired taxi driver, he offered, without anything to back it up, “there’s a lot of people here very unhappy with Damien O’Connor”. It wasn’t clear which people he was talking about, there didn’t seem to be a lot of people about. Perhaps they were all waiting for a taxi.
Then a woman said “we’ve always been Labour, but you know sometimes we need to open our lense and look at something new”. Which was fair enough, but it didn’t suggest she meant National, she could have equally been talking about the Greens or Freedoms NZ for all we knew.
The third person Maiki met, Westland Mayor Helen Lash, spoke for quite a bit longer, saying “we’ve had Labour there for a long time, they’ve done nothing for the coast. We just have the feeling that, you know, Labour would like to see us shut down as a country!” Curiously there was an obvious edit between Helen’s two sentences.
Maiki told us that Helen claimed Chris Hipkins had snubbed local mayors during a recent visit, the mayor saying “I would have expected a bit of respect to be shown to the mayors and made contact, even for a 10-minute hui”. Poor Helen, I don’t think we’d realised just how much this was about her.
They crossed to Chippy in isolation who explained that “during an election campaign it isn’t possible to meet with every local government leader everywhere that I go.” “That to me shows what his interest in the coast is”, said Helen bitterly.
We then crossed back to the factory scene where Maiki was now wearing her own hairnet. She said “While the red hairnet today wasn’t quite the right colour for Christopher Luxon, support here for National has it on track to be flavour of the month. Something Labour will be acutely aware of after today’s massive serve from the West Coast.”
That was just bizarre - what massive serve Maiki?
I assumed she must have meant from Mayor Helen Lash, although despite Helen’s criticism of Labour she hadn’t actually said anything about National. Nobody shown mentioned that party at all, so it was a massive stretch to say Christopher Luxon was “on track”, nice use of National’s slogan there Maiki, “to be flavour of the month.”
Something didn’t sit right with me about the article, the claims of a “massive serve” seemed ludicrous and without basis. The fact was the article was almost entirely based on the views of one disgruntled person with an axe to grind - Helen Lash. Well, two, if you count Maiki.
One thing in particular struck me, it was Helen saying “Labour would like to see us shut down as a country!” Regular people don’t say things like that in an off the cuff vox pop, I thought I’d check out Helen a bit further.
The first thing I found was an interview Helen had done with Guyon Espiner on RNZ.
Helen declared that pricing the cost of farming emissions was “unworkable”. Guyon pointed out that we’ve been arguing about this for twenty years, recalling that he was at parliament when they drove tractors up the steps because of the so-called “fart tax”. He continued by saying that farming causes half of our greenhouse emissions and the whole world has to combat climate change. He asked Helen what we should do.
Helen replied saying “well we do have to do something, but we’re just a pimple on the cow’s backside”. Guyon said that was the problem, if everyone just says we’re only a tiny part of it then the world doesn’t solve it. Helen said “sit down with the farming sector”. Guyon explained that that has been happening for years.
Helen said “we need a timely approach to these things, not over night”. An exasperated Guyon said “it’s not, it’s twenty years!” Helen then went on an off topic rant about cows grazing in waterways until Guyon ended the interview.
Mayor Lash was one of a group of mayors who issued a statement in support of the Groundswell protests “We must protect our farming and rural communities. They are a vital contributor to our economy both regionally and nationally and are some of the most sustainable food producers in the world, having one of the lowest carbon footprints.
This tax emission plan as currently proposed is unworkable. Although we acknowledge Government obligations around climate emissions, it is vital that these don't create unintended consequences to the value of our key agricultural producers, and the valuable contribution they make to the economy.”
In other words - leave our farmers alone and kick that climate change can down the road. It’s really odd Helen’s Facebook photos alternate between pictures of flooded farmland and then the next minute slogans demanding that nothing be done about climate change if it’s going to inconvenience farmers - or else we’ll all starve.
But Maiki’s key witness for the prosecution isn’t just opposed to addressing emissions, and a Groundswell supporter, she’s also opposed to He Puapua. Is anyone surprised?
On her mayoral Facebook account Helen made a post about He Puapua last year with the following message:
“This will divide the country in a manner never seen before and it’s already started. The damage it will cause will be irreparable. Financially, this country does not have the means to fund a 2 governance country or the people to make it work. This is not the NZ we all grew up in and it’s not the NZ we want to leave to the following generations.
To me we have always been one people, one nation.
There must be a better way forward than the carnage this will create.”
Needless to say of course Mayor Lash was not a fan of former Labour Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, making the following post not only last year, but also the year before:
If you think that’s a bad look for an elected official this is the one she posted when Winston formed a coalition with Jacinda back in 2017:
It’s worth remembering that Maiki’s segment on the news was a pre-recorded piece, with the whole premise of there being a “massive serve” against Labour based on a “chance” encounter with Helen Lash.
You’d think maybe someone at TVNZ could’ve spent the five minutes it took me to find out she is anti He Puapua, anti the agricultural sector taking any responsibility for their emissions, and rather sympathetic towards Groundswell.
Now there’s nothing against the law in having those views, but the fact that you hold them means you’re not a credible voice to represent to New Zealand what the West Coast thinks of Labour. But Helen isn’t the one at fault here, she is hardly the first small town mayor to share some fairly ugly views - and yeah, doing nothing about half our emissions is pretty damn ugly. No, this is on Maiki Sherman and TVNZ.
Ten days before polling day, in the midst of early voting, and they’re pushing this one-sided garbage based on the views of one Labour hating opponent of climate change action?
It was like TVNZ looked at the poor poll results for the right, with National/ACT support clearly trending downwards, and they said - don’t worry about those mean old polls, we got you. TVNZ have got your back Christopher, and so has Maiki.
I’d say do better, but I don’t believe this was just down to laziness or poor journalism. This was an advertorial on behalf of the National Party masquerading as the 6 o’clock news. Ten days before an election it just isn’t good enough, but I think I’ve identified the solution.
Maiki Sherman in her piece essentially declared that the result for the electorate was going to be a win for National. I don’t think it will be, I reckon even if Labour loses the election they’re still odds on to win West Coast-Tasman.
As Maiki has now staked her reputation on National winning the electorate, which was a massive call, I think her on going career should be based on the result. If Labour win the West Coast then I think Maiki should lose her job.
Nah, I’m only kidding. News presenters shouldn’t be putting out pieces calling the winners of electorates before people have even voted, that is unforgivable - she should be sacked now.
Unless of course Maiki was merely following instructions and that opinion piece she presented was the editorial position of TVNZ. In which case it’s time for a complete clear out because electioneering for the National Party should not be the role of our public broadcaster.
To end on more of a positive note here’s a music clip that Maiki could perhaps use the next time she’s doing a piece on Christopher Luxon 😀
Maiki's piece was pure dribble. She knows nothing about the West Coast. That vitriolic Mayor should be ashamed of herself. What an ugly piece. Hope she gets the chop next time around.
We are served so very poorly by some elements of the MSM , we deserve better.