Media Bias Against NZ Government

by Larry Noye

The Australian Press embarked on an exercise in doomwatching in reporting on the 2005 New Zealand elections. Reports of a "clifffhanger" were exaggerated. The Helen Clark Labour Government was returned without the almighty scare the Murdoch and Fairfax papers painted it as going through.

At base of the media bias appears to be New Zealand's successful counter to private banks - per the Kiwibank it launched with signal success four years ago.

The Murdoch Australian and the Fairfax Age and Financial Review never carry stories on Kiwibank. They want to keep private banks in Australia free from Government competition as in the past when the Commonwealth and the States had Government-run banks.

Thus, Australians still restive about the thraldom forced on farmers and others by the banking buccaneers are kept unaware of the rescue operation led by the woman Prime Minister across the Tasman. In Australia bank-battered farmers are having a tough time. Children are suffering and suicides are increasing.

The Press sees nothing wrong with private banks continuing to reap outrageous profits. Reports indicate that Australian big time banks operating across the Tasman .are feeling the effects of the Government competitor.

The Press made a field day of the New Zealand elections on Saturday, September 17. The Labour Government was opposed by the Nationals, led by Don Brash, 65, who had entered politics after 14 years as Governor of New Zealand's Reserve Bank. Brash was the son of a left-wing Methodist minister. He had studied at the Australian National University and, back in NZ, was a merchant banker for years. He has been National leader for three years.

Helen Clark, a farmer's daughter who entered Labour politics, is popular with voters. But you wouldn't think so for the downplaying she is accorded by the Press in Australia. She only makes the news at all - despite the appeal of being a woman PM - on such as an issue as commenting on pop singers at Gallipoli, which she opposed.

It was notable through the many accounts of the NZ campaign in Australian newspapers that her achievement of launching Kiwibank was missing. It didn't do to have a potentially response rural world know about that; there were already cries for relief.

Kiwibank's young CEO, Sam Knowles, had reported in 2005 that the Government bank, burgeoning in public support, had delivered on Four Promises: cheaper loans and services than rivals, providing banking in suburbs and towns deserted by the private banks, opening for longer hours and having the most branches.

Its growth meant that by early 2005 it already had 306 branches - more than any of the Big Four banks operating in NZ. It was injecting low interest money into the new field of small business. Generally a rosy picture that has been ignored in Australia.

The Age reported jubilantly three weeks before the poll: "The Nationals have taken the lead in an opinion poll" and " Clark trailing as the poll hots up".

PM Helen Clark, was facing a prospect no NZ Labour Government had ever achieved - winning a third term. Brash was portrayed as leading a "bold challenge". Clark was "dithering between a rock and a hard place on a Maori issue". But Brash "seized the initiative".

A week before the election the Weekend Australian of September 10-11 had the parties "absolutely lineball". Labour was on 40.6 per cent of votes, the Nationals 40.1 . One pundit wrote of NZ as between continuing as a small democracy, with a socially Left agenda or leaping into the more lucrative world of freer enterprise.

The role of Kiwibank in fact demonstrated how Clark Labour was protecting New Zealanders, otherwise victims of the "boodle bludgers" under free enterprise. New Zealanders had been enrolling in Kiwibank 500 a day from its early days after opening in February 2002. The Annual Report of late 2004 revealed a heavy swing of mortgage business to the lower interest Government bank but none of this was publicised.

However the Weekend Australian of September 11, 2005 at least had to concede the economy had done extremrly well under Helen Clark with strong growth, low inflation and the lowest unemployment in the Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development.

Three days before the election, The New Zealander, a weekly, reporting on affairs at home for the 450,000 New Zealanders said to be living in Australia, carried a picture on page 1 of an actress portraying an ugly representation of Helen Clark on TV. This must have influenced reader-voters. This weekly seldom ventures into reporting on Kiwibank.

The day before the election, on a Friday, the Australian headlined a "dead-heat result" in a dramatic poll conclusion. A "vast majority" of voters in one poll was claimed to show voters believed they would be better off under National, a huge 52 percent to 29. Strangely, the same poll taken by TV station TV3, attributed Labour with 40.5 per cent of the vote, to 38.7.The day after the poll, Helen Clark was reported as winning that record third term, 50 seats against 49. What such reports didn't say was that there was never any doubt that the minor parties, who totted up a total of 23 seats, would solidly favour Labour, per alliances. New Zealand First, led by the maverick Maori Winston Peters, had seven seats, the Greens six, Maori Party four, United Future three, ACT (certainly not the Australian capital) two, and Progressive one.

That Progressive seat was most significant; it was held by one Jim Anderton, a Labour rebel of the 1980s. He had stood out against privatising New Zealand's then Government-owned Post Office Savings Bank - at a time when Labour in Australia was undergoing the curse of Keating; delivering up its once valuable Commonwealth Bank to its enemies, per privatisation.

Labor in Australia had no Jim Anderton leading a protest. While Keating's NSW Right had upset party tradition and had raised a storm of protest in the party, Keating toughed it out. In that he was aided by fellow travellers , Bob Hawke and Kim Beazley.

State Government-run banks like Victoria's State Bank and NSW Rural Bank were also lost to privatisation - at a time when a desecrated agricultural world was crying out for relief from the banking buccaneers.

In NZ , it was Anderton's splinter party, the Alliance Party, which co-operated with the NZ farmer's daughter in providing that country with that throbbing foe for the money mongers. Anderton is now a Clark Government Minister for Regional Development though he is now in the Progressive Party - after the Alliance of minor parties split.

The electoral system in NZ, where there is only one house, allows proportional representation for minor parties - whereas in Australia hope for the minor parties is largely confined to the Senate.

IN NZ the deals arranged by Labour eventually saw it well ahead in strength in the house. It had 11 minor party supporters in the 130 seat Parliament (though they didn't include the Greens).

Much was made of an alleged inconsistency in Clark appointing the maverick Winston Peters, of New Zealand First Party with seven seats, as Foreign Minister. Anything but letting Australians know about the bank’s rescue operation so strongly evident across the Tasman!

Larry Noye is a disillusioned veteran of Victorian ALP politics.