Students of New Zealand politics may look back at the 2011 Election and see the so-called ‘Teapot Tape’ as the political turning point.
Election campaigns often have discernable moments when fortunes change.
In 2002 (former Prime Minister) Helen Clark’s opportunity of winning an absolute majority crumbled after the publication of Nicky Hager’s ‘Seeds of Distrust’ Book, which alleged that the Government kept the accidental release of GE crops secret.
In 2005 (then National Leader Dr) Don Brash’s momentum was lost when it was revealed he had secret backing from the Exclusive Brethren, who in turn were mounting anonymous attacks on the Green Party.
This time around, it was the political hot-seat of Epsom, where (Prime Minister) John Key’s attempt to steer National voters towards his preferred coalition partner, ACT has turned from a publicity stunt into an all-out war between the National Party and the news media.
First, let us recall that it is an embarrassing, but not uncommon blunder for a politician to be recorded unawares on a stray microphone while saying something injudicious, thinking he was speaking in private.
US President Barack Obama and French President Nicolas Sarkozy did not recently and so did former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown.
The best strategy is just to tough it out and say as little as possible, except an apology if necessary.
Publish and be damned
With hindsight, I wonder if the Herald on Sunday would not have done the PM a favour if it had just published the tape’s content without asking anyone’s permission. By now, it might be all over with, and we would have been back to the issues that really matter.
But what happened instead?
After the Herald on Sunday revealed it had the tape, National’s Campaign Chair Steven Joyce went online in attack mode.
The paper had “deliberately arranged the taping, in an unwelcome introduction of UK-style News of the World tabloid tactics”, he alleged.
This pre-judged the issue as a conflict between the party and the newspaper and it introduced the now-discredited comparison with the phone-hacking scandal in Britain.
More seriously, Mr Joyce leapt to the conclusion that the taping was ‘illegal,’ a serious criminal allegation that has yet to be tested in court.
Mr Key tried repeating these lines, but they were not convincing anyone except his most loyal supporters.
Tabloid Journalism?
He claimed the moral high ground, saying he was only trying to draw a line in the sand so that reporters would not think they could get away with ‘tabloid-style’ tactics in future.
Allowing the tape’s contents to be published would be ‘rewarding’ such undesirable behaviour.
In doing so, he impugned the whole profession of journalism in this country by effectively ignoring the fact that reporters and editors do have ethical standards and are overseen by the Press Council and the Broadcasting Standards Authority.
Next, he offended families who have lost a loved-one due to suicide, by musing about what would happen if a reporter recorded a private conversation between two high-profile parents whose child was suicidal, as if that were a relevant comparison!
He described the taped conversation as ‘bland’ but still would not publish it.
Then he pretended that he did not have to answer any more questions on the matter, to the point of turning his back on reporters.
What more, to whip this storm-in-a-tea-cup into a tornado, he complained to the police. They began executing search warrants on news media organisations.
I am sure that the officers involved have conducted the searches with the utmost integrity, but to the outside observer, this is a very bad look.
One week before the Election, we had the Police apparently ‘raiding’ media offices due to a complaint by an angry Prime Minister.
No doubt the Police will have in the backs of their minds the silly and somewhat insulting comment that Mr Key made about them having spare time to conduct the investigation.
Democratic downgrade
The Police investigation, now the focus of international media interest, places New Zealand at risk of a democratic credit rating downgrade to ‘Banana Republic’ B-minus.
The issue could have been put to rest by now, if the National Party’s campaign management had taken the ‘honesty and transparency’ line from the start.
Now the tea-party story is out of their control (much to the glee of New Zealand First Leader Winston Peters and the dismay of ACT Candidate John Banks), and everyone’s election campaign was in disarray.
Yet, we have still to hear the tapes themselves! So far, all we have had is a prolonged game of charades, hinting at the contents of the conversation. Once we see the whole transcript (maybe on Wikileaks!) then there will only be further gossip and scandal. Mr Key should sack his campaign managers and send them off to study Politics 101.
I cannot predict how this will end, or what effect it will have on the big poll on November 26.
But assuming that Mr Key is still PM after that date, he has set himself up for a miserable three-year term of sniping from all sides by the media.
Dr Grant Duncan is an Associate Professor (Politics and Public Policy) at Massey University’s Albany campus. The above article appeared in Massey University Newsletter prior to the November 26 General Election.
