Propaganda Coup: This excellent example of political re-framing should be giving the National Party serious heart palpitations. The Rena Disaster is a classic example of the exogenous political event - the thing no campaign manager can plan for. In 2002 in was "Corngate" - this year it could well be the Rena. Some are already calling New Zealand's worst environmental disaster "Key's Katrina". If the Prime Minister isn't able to escape this frame - and quickly - he could end up drowning in it.
Similar to Katrina and Dubya; the PM has displayed slow response, indifference and transference of responsibility in a disaster situation.
ReplyDeleteAdvance concerns had been indicated for years about New Orleans flood management systems. Likewise the then Seafarers Union alerted anyone who would listen about National’s 1990s Flag of convenience NZ coastal shipping deregulation. Attendant worries being slave crews and incompetent or undertrained Masters and navigators. Based on examples of oil spills in the UK and other places that allowed FOC rust buckets.
Actually I don't think Key has been all that reprehensible over this issue, as he said, the government didn't drive the ship onto the reef and the transference of hard bitumen through broken pipes IS difficult.
ReplyDeleteAlso, non union FOC deathtraps have sailed through many a Labour governed year.
Still, I revel in and relish Keys discomforture. Smug financial speculators deserve comeuppance.
Oh the time will come up
ReplyDeleteWhen the winds will stop
And the breeze will cease to be breathin'
Like the stillness in the wind
'Fore the hurricane begins
The hours when the ship comes in.
And the seas will split
And the ship will hit
And the sands on the shoreline will be shaking
Then the tide will sound
And the wind will pound
And the morning will be breaking.
And the words that are used
For to get the ship confused
Will not be understood as they're spoken
For the spin of John Key
Will have busted in the night
And will be buried at the bottom of the ocean.
Anonymous @1.39pm was utilising Dylan's 'When the Ship Comes in', I think to good effect. And John Key has had to answer some real questions in some serious interviews. And once again, an under-resourced public sector agency has come up short. Are people going to wake up this time, the National Party have undermined the public sector services for years, when they are most needed in a crisis.
ReplyDeleteThere are some interesting parallels between Pike River, Christchurch and the Rena. It seems that in any major emergency, line one, item one of the NZ Emergency Response handbook must read something like.
ReplyDelete1) Call in outside experts. If you are reading this...you are already out of your depth.
2) Do nothing until you can be assured by outside experts that anything you do, or might do, will not make the situation worse.
This is not to say that this approach is wrong, it's that we have so few experts in large scale major emergencies / disasters.
I think it is delusional to think this will make much of a difference. The National Party will lose some votes in the Bay of Plenty and a few more people will vote for the new petty bourgeois version of Green Party.
ReplyDeleteNational is still going to win by a landslide on account of the financial insecurity that most people are feeling. From the individual point of view, a conservative government is the best bet to avoid losing your house. Of course, it will be collectively self defeating, but that's the trap.
@ Anonymous (October 13, 1.39 PM).
ReplyDeleteI can do better than that. Here's a poem written by my Great Aunty's best friend in my Great Aunty's diary in 1912 (when they were both 13 years of age):
Many a ship has gone down at sea for want of tar and rubber
Many a girl has lost her boy from talking to another.
.