I overlooked the hypocrisy!

August 29th, 2011 at 3:00 pm by David Farrar

On Thursday I blogged my amusement at Labour criticising National for the fact it uses a template for its candidate announcements. Trevor Mallard had said:

Labour’s campaign chair Trevor Mallard said any ”fill in the blanks” type press statements were ”subject to ridicule”.

”It’s a sign of both laziness and also disrespects the electorate on the part of the candidate,” Mallard said.

Now my memory failed me. The correct reaction shouldn’t have been amusement but outrage at Trevor’s hypocrisy. Why?

Well I forgot how Labour set up a Government Communications Unit, also known as the Burns Unit. It consisted of five taxpayer funded press secretaries, and do you know what its job was? To produce hundreds and thousands of press releases for local newspapers, candidates and MPs. They’d take one standard press release, and stick in local data and send it to the local media. It was exactly what Trevor Mallard is now labelling as disrespecting the electorate. The difference is National has one staff member at Party HQ doing candidate releases, and Labour had a taxpayer funded unit of five full-time press secretaries dedicated to these “fill in the blanks” type press statements.

Again the hypocrisy is amazing.

Maybe Trevor forgot that Labour had their own taxpayer funded fill in the blanks press release factory. I doubt it though as the former head of the unit is now a Labour MP.

Tags: Burns Unit, hypocrisy, Labour

This entry was posted on Monday, August 29th, 2011 at 3:00 pm and is filed under NZ Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

15 Responses to “I overlooked the hypocrisy!”

Murray (8,832) Says:
August 29th, 2011 at 3:09 pm
Labour needs to employ a fact checker for Mallards mouth.
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YesWeDid (887) Says:
August 29th, 2011 at 3:26 pm
‘To produce hundreds and thousands…’

Why would Labour want to make multi-coloured confectionary sprinkles?
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bhudson (3,509) Says:
August 29th, 2011 at 3:27 pm
“Why would Labour want to make multi-coloured confectionary sprinkles?”

Because they make utter rubbish look good?
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BeaB (1,611) Says:
August 29th, 2011 at 3:30 pm
But we know if Labour does it it’s OK. It’s only when the dastardly Tories do anything that Trev and his gaggle get outraged.
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reid (13,566) Says:
August 29th, 2011 at 3:32 pm
Standard propaganda is to accuse your enemy of that which you are yourself most guilty.

Normally it only works when you have a state-run media distribution channel that is the only channel and which you control absolutely but today it appears to escape the current MSM and seems to work even when you haven’t got a gun at the editor’s head. How peculiar.
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Elaycee (3,512) Says:
August 29th, 2011 at 3:59 pm
Trevor’s standard response will be to try to suggest that Brendon Burns was only ‘disseminating policy’ – the truth, of course was that Burns adopted a ‘Goebbels like’ role within the Labour ranks.

This explains why Trevor stepped in when this issue surfaced on KB, rather than the member for Christchurch Central…. Hah!
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burt (5,933) Says:
August 29th, 2011 at 4:03 pm
reid is right, standard behaviour. Look at Winston….

Trevor seems to only half get this blog thing. He seems to have understood how to use the platform but seems incapable of understanding how it can also be used against him. Still, given his history of voting for laws then claiming they were confusing when he breached them it’s no surprise he’s only half up to speed.
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insider (948) Says:
August 29th, 2011 at 4:41 pm
It’s easy to overlook the commonplace
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DT (102) Says:
August 29th, 2011 at 11:39 pm
Come on DPF. It looks pretty bad to make, and so also encourage, unsubstantiated claims on your own site. And you are. The plural of anecdote is not data. Yet your once moderate blog’s increasingly well right positoniing goes that way. Do you want to actually prove your wild claims, or just leave it to the talk back mob to validate you? How great do you feel?
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DT (102) Says:
August 29th, 2011 at 11:43 pm
Name the MP DPF you cite DPF.
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the deity formerly known as nigel6888 (831) Says:
August 30th, 2011 at 3:52 am
Odd DT, is that the best you can manage. Try to keep up. While you are at it, look up Brendon Burns (Burns unit, geddit!).

Have you forgotten the previous government’s fanatical emphasis on message control? If so, I can probably point out a senior MP who was only guilty of trying to help his constituents – hint, that one is still in jail.
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expat (3,980) Says:
August 30th, 2011 at 7:08 am
20% Trev 20%.
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thedavincimode (4,707) Says:
August 30th, 2011 at 7:53 am
Mallard: liar, sleaze merchant, hypocrite and all round piece of shit.

Is there any news here?

Proud of your Government’s work are you DT?
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Murray (8,832) Says:
August 30th, 2011 at 8:22 am
“# YesWeDid (474) Says:
August 29th, 2011 at 3:26 pm

‘To produce hundreds and thousands…’

Why would Labour want to make multi-coloured confectionary sprinkles?”

For sprinkling on Chris Carters ass? Is that why they’re called rainbow labour?
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Mick Mac (1,085) Says:
August 30th, 2011 at 10:32 am
thedavincimode (1,942) Says:
August 30th, 2011 at 7:53 am

You got it in one, though I would include the entire Labour front row.
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