A taxpayer funded free hour for Labour in election week

The left have spent all year claiming Mediaworks and TV3 are pro-National, which has been almost amusing to anyone who actually watches TV3.

The latest proof of this, is reported in the HoS:

TV 3 is to screen a major documentary next week promoting a key Labour Party policy as a way to end child poverty in New Zealand.

The screening of Inside Child Poverty on Tuesday is a provocative move, with viewers confronted by heart-rending scenes of children in squalid state houses. …

Bruce also speaks to the camera from the Michael Joseph Savage Memorial in Auckland, saying the former prime minister would be “deeply ashamed” that children in New Zealand suffer poverty-related diseases.

It is followed by an interview with an academic who says: “Labour builds them, maintains them reasonably well then National gets in … sells off stock.”

Bruce said he started making the documentary – with $105,000 of taxpayer money – last September and told TV3 he wanted it screened just before the election.

So the taxpayer has paid for this documentary. NZ on Air as funder should be in the gun for now insisting it doesn’t show during the election campaign, and TV3 should not be showing it the week of the election.

Don’t get me wrong, if the documentary was outside the campaign period, there would be little issue about it. But to have a taxpayer funded documentary which is clearly anti-Government show in the final week of an election, goes against the rules designed to have a fair contest.

And the quote from the so called academic is just sheer partisan hackery. The housing stock inherited by National was massively run down, and National has increased the housing stock, with the only sales (a few dozen) being to existing tenants, and the capital used to buy more houses. In fact the total number of state houses has increased by more than 1,000 under National. National has also renovated or upgraded 50,000 state houses.

I can’t wait to see who this academic is, and what their ranking is on Labour’s list.

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