Sloppy Journalism #15 – Jim, this is not a gerrymander

Oh dear! Jim Anderton has opened his mouth again. An article by Vernon Small quotes:-

Extra funding for MPs in most Maori seats and some big general electorates is a Government gerrymander, Progressives leader Jim Anderton says

Now Jim may not agree with the policy but it is not a gerrymander.

The common definition of a gerrymander is:-

the dividing of a state, county, etc., into election districts so as to give one political party a majority in many districts while concentrating the voting strength of the other party into as few districts as possible.

So we do not have a gerrymander here as there is no tampering with electoral boundaries. So Jim is not only appearing economically illiterate and possessed of limitless economic ignorance with his recent pronouncements, but may well be seeking to gain newspaper traction through casting out suggestions that are palpably incorrect. Or perhaps he is just blowing smoke! Or maybe, it was a wordplay by Jim, on Gerry Brownlee. Nah!

For good measure Small quotes Boy Wonder on this ‘issue‘:-

Labour MP David Cunliffe said it was “an outrageous screwing of the scrum” by National.

No doubt Cunliffe said this with a straight face. It was left to the final paragraphs for accuracy and truth to emerge:-

Leader of the House Gerry Brownlee said the extra funding would go to six out of the seven Maori seats four held by the Maori Party and two by Labour and constituency seats covering a geographic area larger than 20,000 square kilometres. It would help them to better serve widely spread constituents.

He rejected suggestions it had been kept secret or that the Cabinet had extended a deal in its support agreement with the Maori Party to include general seats.

“This funding increase was clearly spelled out in the post-election agreement the National Party reached with the Maori Party.”

It followed a recommendation in a March 2007 independent review. The Cabinet had made only one change, excluding Tamaki-Makaurau, Mr Brownlee said.

So the increase was in the post election agreement. Consequently the faux shock horror expressed by various politicians and media commentators this week is overblown and nonsensical.

Further it appears that it follows the recommendation of an independent review in March 2007, which the previous regime chose not to implement. Perhaps they were the true guilty parties by seeking to disadvantage MPs, especially Maori MPs, with large electorates.

This article along with another by Tracy Watkins in similar vein reek of media beat-up and opportunistic comment on what is essentially a non-issue. Are the media so short of new that they need to resort to such sloppy journalism. MacDoctor has a good critique of the Watkins article here.

Tellingly MacDoctor commented:-

And finally, worst of all, because this has been in the public domain since the agreement between National and the Maori party was signed, how is this news? These issues have already been extensively blogged about in November by Kiwiblog and Homepaddock.

Frankly this smacks of a distraction to draw attention away from Labour’s appallingly lackluster performance in parliament this week.

Indeed, perhaps not so much sloppy journalism, but a politically initiated smokescreen aided and abetted by journalists. No, Adam, no – our journalists would never ever do such a thing. What never?

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