Wednesday, February 01, 2012

Jacinda Ardern - nutter

Jacinda Ardern is desperate to get some traction as the new Labour Social Development spokesperson and issues say-nothing press releases in the process. But yesterday's is even worse than saying nothing:


Jacinda
ARDERN
Spokesperson for Social Development


31 January 2012 MEDIA STATEMENT
Statistics can’t hide the truth
With almost twice as many people on the unemployment benefit now as when National first became the government, it is glaringly obvious it has to take a serious look at its policies, Labour’s Social Development spokesperson Jacinda Ardern says.
“Statistics, which should have been released before now, show that as of the end of last month there were 29,456 more Kiwis receiving the unemployment benefit than in December 2008.That’s a 96.5 per cent increase in just three years.
The December quarter benefit factsheets were released "before now" (31 January). They were released last Wednesday, January 25. Which is fairly typical for quarterly statistics, towards the end of the month following end of the quarter. If Ardern had been monitoring the MSD website, her job, she would have noticed them sooner.

On the matter of unemployment the numbers are down. Here is what the fact sheet actually says:


At the end of December 2011, 60,000 working-age people (aged 18–64 years)[1] were receiving an Unemployment Benefit[2].   Over the year to December 2011, the number of recipients of an Unemployment Benefit decreased by 7,000, or 11 percent[3].
Ardern continues:

“The Government has been banging on about a brighter future and more jobs for a while now. The rhetoric is fine, but words without actions are meaningless,” Jacinda Ardern said.
“The figures tell their own story. It’s obvious now why the Minister sat on them for two months to avoid pre-election coverage; they show the Government is failing to stem the tide of jobless.
What? How can the Minister sit on December quarter statistics during November??

And to blatantly ignore the positive unemployment trend and then issue a statement entitled Statistics can’t hide the truth is comedic. Nutter.

4 comments:

Kiwiwit said...

And this woman is heralded as a future leader of the Labour Party? Heaven help us.

MarkR said...

I also blame the repeaters of our 'press'. They suck up everything and, without confirming the validity (or otherwise), spew it forth. The subjects they supposedly research also seem to always have a slant depending on the political bent of the author. Unfortunately long gone are the days that as a reader you could form an opinion based on factual and unbiased reporting. I expect a lot more of this type of reporting (and unbalanced proclomations) as times get harder.

Manolo said...

I agree with Kiwiwit on his/her comment about this "possible" future leader.

Shallow, vain, and with little grasp of the facts, the hopeless Miss Arden is condemned to languish in Opposition.

Paulus said...

She was trained by Helen Clark, but she has only a minutae if her brain.
However she is a flasher which the media love without question.
Manolo, I think you mean "KiwiTwit".
With her level of intelligence she will go far, and keep going, and going.
If she represents the best that Labour can offer gawd help us.