A non story
August 1st, 2011 at 9:04 pm by David FarrarTVNZ reports:
Prime Minister John Key’s appearance on Late Show with David Letterman may have cost taxpayers up to $10,000.
Not really.
“I’ve been informed that Tourism New Zealand have a PR company. They’re on a retainer. They pay them every month, irrelevant of what I do.”
“Apparently, when the Letterman show was on, that was one of the projects they worked on. They would have made the payment whether I was there or not.”
So in fact no extra money was spent. Not that I would have had a problem if there had been – as a tourism promotion, $10,000 would have been ridiculously cheap.
In fact one 25th the cost of the $250,000 spent in 2002 on a Discovery documentary about NZ, starring Helen Clark. And that was in an election year.
I have no problem with either expenditure if they are genuinely deemed a worthwhile tourism investment.
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August 1st, 2011 at 9:17 pm
Yawn, the Trevor Mallared and Stuart Nash school of election campaigning reaches its zenith of sophostication.
Vote:August 1st, 2011 at 9:30 pm
Wahrp waaaahhhhrrrrp.
Great work from the Labour Research Group yet again!
Vote:August 1st, 2011 at 9:35 pm
that key performance was embarrassing. Letterman made him appear like a gurning school girl
Vote:August 1st, 2011 at 9:37 pm
Was this a “revelation” from the same people who tried to assert that farmers hardly pay any tax?
Vote:August 1st, 2011 at 9:40 pm
It is a revelation according to the independent non-party connected Zetetic. Makes for a distraction from yet another depressing poll result which hasn’t been mentioned there. He/she even jokes “They (DPF/Whale) worked out a distraction line”.
Vote:August 1st, 2011 at 9:41 pm
@Randy, what is gurning and how does it apply to NZ? You aren’t in Wapping working for a tabloid now geeza.
Vote:August 1st, 2011 at 9:46 pm
Piss-poor polling and your leader giving a potential coalition partner the big no.. any distraction’s a good one. This makes the BMW fiasco seem almost newsworthy.
Vote:August 1st, 2011 at 9:47 pm
Jeeeyaysuses.
This made both TVNZ and TV3 national news?
How much did TVNZ spend on chewing gum for its trainee Labour Party press secretaries over the last few years?
[Deleted by DPF]
Vote:August 1st, 2011 at 10:08 pm
Unlike Key, Clark never went slobbering at the feet of the Discovery Channel team by way of a “jokey’ videotape. From recall, they came to her. Clark’s office, and the tourism people, were upfront about the Discovery project and the fact taxpayers money was spent on the venture. There is something deeply discomforting and sneaky about the way that Key’s Letterman spend was kept well tucked away from public view.
Vote:August 1st, 2011 at 10:08 pm
The Standard are in full bleat mode over this, so I have contributed the following.
Oh come on, really? Is that the best you can do?
The company that arranged this worked to promote NZ, and is paid a retainer. What that means is the company is paid no matter what. The 10 grand figure is what the company spent working to secure the deal. Don’t intimate that there was a payment to the Letterman show to secure the appearance! People are actually smarter than that.
You could contrast this with the 200,000 Helen Clark’s government spent on a documentary, which I had no trouble with. Or what about the 6 million dollar bill that Oprah’s visit cost the Australian taxpayer!
Vote:August 1st, 2011 at 10:16 pm
It’s okay, everyone. It’s a non-story, and Helen Clark did the same non-story worse.
Vote:August 1st, 2011 at 10:20 pm
I do wonder why Felix Marwick and Heather du Plessis-Allan were getting so excited about this.
$10,000 doesn’t even get you a half-page ad in The New York Times.
Tourism NZ couldn’t even have afforded to have bought the time Key spent on the show.
For God’s sake!
Vote:August 1st, 2011 at 10:22 pm
Well, the way they ran it was that Key said they spent nothing, but they now say “actually, there were some expenses”.
I’m trying to tell myself that I would have been up in arms about this sort of thing under Clark, but I’m really struggling to believe myself.
Oh, and this is the same media who ignored Ian Wishart’s explosive story about Benson-Pope.
Vote:August 1st, 2011 at 10:36 pm
I just got banned at the sewer for arguing with Red Logie:
Vote:http://thestandard.org.nz/you-paid-to-get-try-hard-john-on-the-telly/#comment-359082
I compared the $10K to the $200M we paid over the top for Kiwisnail, I suggested the $10K was a sunk cost so ignore it, a rule in Finance:)
August 1st, 2011 at 10:38 pm
Out of the ashes of the h-fee scandal rises a Pheonixtonothing
Vote:August 2nd, 2011 at 4:47 am
Did anybody ask the scum at the Standard about the millions of tax payer dollars Klark spent purchasing herself a job at the UN?
Vote:August 2nd, 2011 at 5:42 am
Reason 11’254,982 to privatise TVNZ, bastion of the left. C’mon National, have the guts.
Vote:August 2nd, 2011 at 6:59 am
I know Key’s appearance on Letterman was a little awkward, but it’s the kind of awkward like when your dad does something and you feel a little embarrassed, but all your friends think “his dad is cool”. After all, it’s probably significantly less cost to the taxpayer than the cost of the Capital Gains Tax material produced by the Parliamentary Office of Phil Goff.
Vote:August 2nd, 2011 at 7:06 am
@ Manolo and reason number whatever to abolish Tourism New Zealand too. If it’s such a great idea let the tourism operators fund it.
Vote:August 2nd, 2011 at 7:07 am
Also 1/7th of the cost of promoting or recording an album that almost no taxpayer will voluntarily listen too…., or 1/300th of a waka. Perhaps the “letterman” can become a new benchmark for measuring government spending – “oh dont worry, we are only borrowing 30,000 lettermans a week”
Vote:August 2nd, 2011 at 7:11 am
If it made 4 or 5 american families spend a holiday in NZ, then that money is recouped.
Shit, James Cameron has spent way more than that in NZ on his many visits, which are far more common than the media thinks. I know he has visited at least twice this year.
That 10k raised NZ’s profile far more than a number of cloned tourism ads which could be any number of generic scenes.
Vote:August 2nd, 2011 at 7:12 am
You people just don’t get it. The difference between $10K and $250K is that Helen Clark was the greatest Pm we ever had who knew best and had our best interests at heart, and John Key is just a try hard, smiling, Mossad enabling, Hawaiian holidaying, Rich prick.
Vote:August 2nd, 2011 at 7:19 am
Well said KiwiGreg- It bugs the absolute hell out of me that the NZ taxpayer throws tens of thousands of dollars a week at talentless South Auckland ‘Gangsta- Rappers’ to put on phoney American accents and pretend they are Snoop Dogg…
Vote:Yet a public outcry over this?
August 2nd, 2011 at 7:20 am
This story is of some interest. Tourism New Zealand denied it for a year and then were suddenly able to confirm the details. That’s just stupid and makes them look embarrassed about the whole thing. It is amusing that some amount of PR effort needed to be used to persuade the Letterman Show to have Key as a guest. It was obvious that Letterman had no idea who Key was, and the whole charade was bit like the Flight of the Conchords episode where the NZ PM visits New York.
Vote:August 2nd, 2011 at 7:26 am
$10 000 to get our PM onto a talkshow hosts show is not the issue, as well as bloated whale oile and the kiwibog well know. The issue is the ego of the PM is so huge, he wanted to let kiwis believe he is so popular overseas, he was invited on. The man is all for lying to con the people. Look at his comments when some overseas reporter asked him about out poor water health. “Untrue” cries the PM. “Bullshit. Totally true cry Cawthron. Goff may be conservative, but he is not a liar.
Vote:August 2nd, 2011 at 7:30 am
Math Fail, DPF.
Not $10,000, but $10,000 per month.
Vote:August 2nd, 2011 at 7:32 am
I always found Flight of the Conchords a very poor man’s Mighty Boosh….
Vote:August 2nd, 2011 at 7:36 am
Well I loved them. Something very Kiwi about their laid-back delivery. Great in concert too.
Vote:August 2nd, 2011 at 8:12 am
What the hell is a gurning school girl???????
Vote:August 2nd, 2011 at 8:22 am
Oh look, new commentators (with count = 1!) arriving to diss John Key. I think we see the start of Labour’s “new” (=old) election strategy of trying to run-down Key. I wonder which one of the newbies is Trevor Mallard’s new alias.
Vote:August 2nd, 2011 at 8:34 am
En Snack is correct – its no coincidence that new posters arrive from the stranded to express their outrage that the PM would dare appear on Letterman. The usual lefty KB authors also emerge – all making comment along the similar theme.
What an embarrassment that this is their best shot. No new policies. No alternate policy either. No fresh initiatives. Nothing.
Is this it? Pffttt…
Vote:August 2nd, 2011 at 8:43 am
God they’re slow learners aren’t they.
Problem: Snotty little bullshit character attacks cost them the last election.
Analysis: They didn;t do them HARD enough.
Solution: Use even more pathetic bullshit snotty little character attacks and double the sock puppetry!
Result… see the damn polls you muppets.
Vote:August 2nd, 2011 at 8:46 am
@ Elaycee – they do have new policies. They want to raise taxes and increase benefits. Apparently that is the path to prosperity and happiness.
Vote:August 2nd, 2011 at 8:46 am
Nothing like a chance to put a desperate boot into JK to bring the socialists out from under the carpet. They haven’t seen the ball since kickoff but the fauna of the floor still thrash around certain that their instinct to attack a popular leader is the winning strategy.
Roll on November.
Vote:August 2nd, 2011 at 8:47 am
Gurning is that scottish competition for making faces isnt it?
Vote:August 2nd, 2011 at 8:48 am
Greg those are not new policies.
Vote:August 2nd, 2011 at 9:46 am
Graeme Edgeler
Are you suggesting it took them more than a month to organise Graeme? I’d suspect the reverse is true, and in reality it cost less than $10,000.
Vote:August 2nd, 2011 at 9:49 am
@KiwiGreg – agree with Murray. When I suggested “No new policies…” maybe I could have added that they will always revert to type when the heat goes on – their meme is to tax the wealth generators and give the handouts to a beneficiary dependent voter base.
The usual stuff: If you rob Peter to pay Paul, you can count on Paul’s support (and vote) every time.
But when you run out of ‘Peter’s’ then your policy is stuffed.
Some things just don’t change…
Vote:August 2nd, 2011 at 10:30 am
Once again the left is in sneering mode. Little regard for the fact that we in Kiwi land are a pimple on the elephants bum. Tourism is a big earner; we must DO WHATEVER IT TAKES to bring ourselves to he attention of potential tourists and Americans are the best; they spend more and do not stay long. But here we have the likes of MM deriding John Key’s efforts to promote NZ. My guess is that Key found the Letterman show difficult and even embarassing but he did it, because it may help our cause. Once again the Left show their ignorance of business (you have to spend money to make money) and their willingness to sacrifice the economy to party politics.
Vote:August 2nd, 2011 at 10:56 am
The money is a non-issue as it was already spent. Though I’m not sure that you could call Key’s embarrassing display on Letterman a promotion. More like ‘haha look at Letterman mock the simple guy, was he Australian?’.
Vote:August 2nd, 2011 at 11:21 am
Gotta love that John Key though. Here he is on the price of milk:
“My view is that it is quite tough on New Zealanders who rely on milk. It’s a very staple part of our diet and I acknowledge that New Zealanders are struggling under milk prices.
“On the other side of the coin, is it a bad thing for New Zealand that milk prices are high? Well, for the overall good of the country’s export earnings, it’s actually a positive thing that commodity prices are high.”
Vote:August 2nd, 2011 at 11:29 am
If you are familiar with american TV (‘roasts’ in particular) you will know that Key’s ‘aw shucks’ demeanour and the ritual humiliation would have gone down very well. Kiwis have a tendency to become easily embarassed; American do not; and they after all were the target audience. But I guess this is not about a serious analysis of the effectiveness of tourist promotion; it is more about mud slinging at John Key by those who are desperately tying to hobble the favourite before the race is run.
Vote:August 2nd, 2011 at 11:56 am
At least Key didn’t have to make a visit to sleaze-bag Letterman’s infamous “casting-couch” to score a spot on his show!
Maybe it would have been cheaper for the PR company to shout Letterman a $100 hooker to score the gig (in fact, who knows – that may have been what actually happened).
Vote:August 2nd, 2011 at 12:02 pm
It is patently obvious that the lefties (and their supporters on KB) are on the ‘beat up John Key’ bandwagon again and yet they should already know that such tactics are doomed to fail.
Key is popular. Key is electable. He is happily married. He has children. He admits his mistakes. There are no skeletons in the Key closet. And despite the left leaning media looking for stories where there isn’t one, he will be elected again in November……
When will the lefties ever learn? No time soon…
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