The smear begins

Published: September 3, 2005

by frog

One of frogblog‘s very early posts was devoted to the idea that a smear campaign would be launched on the Greens during the election campaign. Back in March, I wrote:

“Why the Greens can’t be trusted.? Apparently, that’s gonna be one of the campaign themes this year. And when I say apparently, I mean a Labour insider told me recently. Certainly, many of the other parties have been practising their Green scaremongering rhetoric: from New Zealand First (who deride our commitment to only enter government with Labour), the Progressives (who prefer grimy, coal-fuelled “socialism? to the clean, green kind), and United Future (whose moral puritanicalism finds our liberal social values deeply threatening). National and Act may also join in too, deciding that Labour is easier to attack by-proxy than head-on.

That post also detailed an earlier attack on the Australian Greens by a newspaper which was then wrapped on the knuckles by the Australian Press Council for making things up. You can go read all about it here.

Alas, the attacks have begun full-frontal today. We’ve learned that a pamphlet attacking the Greens, and making things up about our policy, has been distributed in Wellington, Auckland and Christchurch. The pamphlet is here.

The pamphlet contains a number of outright lies:

  • The pamphlet says the Greens wish to introduce a capital gains tax on family homes. The Greens do not have a policy that a capital gains tax should be introduced. We believe New Zealand should investigate whether introducing a capital gains tax exempting the family home would be good for our country.
  • The pamphlet says the Greens want to increase petrol excise duty. This is not true.
  • The pamphlet says the proposed carbon tax will increase the price of petrol by 10%. This is not true: the best estimates place the increase at around 3%.
  • The pamphlet says the the Greens support people having a right-to-roam on other people’s private property. This is untrue. The Greens’ land access policy specifically excludes the right-to-roam.

I understand that Jeanette is preparing a detailed, point-by-point rebuttal. However, the above bullet points should suffice for now as my, top-of-the-head suggestions of areas in which the pamphlet tells lies about the Greens’ policies.

Jeanette has put out a press release about the pamphlet, in which she says:

This scurrilous attack on the Greens is 50% outright lies and 50% gross exaggerations. I’m asking all other party leaders, especially Don Brash, to come clean and say categorically that their parties had nothing to do with these leaflets. Given National’s history of smearing the Greens, a reticence on Dr Brash’s behalf would probably have to be interpreted as an admission of guilt.

The leaflet has been produced by someone with a lot of money and not much policy of their own. Why else would they spend all this money just to talk about the Green Party?

In my 1999 campaign for the Coromandel seat, the National Party distributed leaflets which spread lies about both me and other members of the Green Party. In that year, National tried desperately to win re-election by smearing the Greens at every opportunity. I had hoped that the National Party had cleaned up its act since then, and wouldn’t stoop to this level again in 2005. I remain hopeful that National isn’t behind these attacks and am therefore asking Don Brash to state on the record whether his party was involved.

Earlier this week, Australian Green Senator Bob Brown came to New Zealand to warn of the toxicity of dirty politics. Little did we know that while Bob was warning the media about dirty tricks campaigns, our political opponents were getting one ready.

In the last Australian federal election, the Australian Greens were subjected to a campaign of lies contained in Liberal Party pamphlets, which made their way into the Herald-Sun newspaper. Mr Brown complained to the Australian Press Council about the Herald-Sun article, a complaint which was upheld, and the Herald-Sun had to publish a subsequent article outlining the lies it had told about the Greens.

While the New Zealand Greens will be investigating whether these pamphlets breach the Electoral Act, such legal action is of little use in the middle of an election campaign. Once a decision is made on the pamphlets, the damage will have been done. That’s why we’re taking immediate steps to uncover who is behind these pamphlets, by urging all party leaders to distance themselves from this campaign of lies.

We already know that the glossy brochure has been distributed in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch. A mail drop of this kind would probably cost something like $100,000. I’ll be very interested to hear what Dr Brash has to say for himself.

UPDATE: Here’s the point-by-point rebuttal. It finds that the fifteen claims about Green policy in the pamphlet come in as seven outright lies, seven half-truths, and one true statement. Well, one out of fifteen ain’t bad :)

frog says

Published in Campaign by frog on Sat, September 3rd, 2005   

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