Stuff’s Chief Political Correspondent used a fake 164 word 48 second question to smear the Prime Minister.

Tova O’Brien inserted a 164 word preamble to a question designed primarily to smear rather than generate a detailed response.

She could never have expected that Mr Luxon could answer such a lengthy question, especially as she had already said there was very little time left for the interview. So there could not have been any real meaning to it, other than to smear Mr Luxon with a series of dodgy allegations.

Some of the points were perhaps legitimate, but some were not, and which were which clearly did not matter to Ms O’Brien.

The question Ms O’Brien asked so breathlessly (at the rate of around 3.5 words per second) was a laundry list of Labour party talking points. Thereby putting to rest any illusions anyone might have ever had about Stuff being a balanced reporter of NZ politics.

Here is the question in its entirety-

Last question. Can I just run past you some juxtapositions and decisions that that you’ve made? You’re cutting school lunches maybe by half but giving landlords billions in tax breaks. You cut Te Reo incentives for public servants saying in the real world outside the bubble of parliament people actually pay for it themselves. But you hadn’t paid for it yourself. Your Te Reo lessons were paid for by the taxpayer. You demand tax cuts across the public service and make police an insulting pay offer and you take that $52,000 living allowance to live in your own apartment. You bemoan, just bear with me here, you bemoan the Labor government subsidizing wealthy Tesla owners but your household claimed that same $8,625 clean car subsidy in fact you had another Tesla on order on the taxpayer as well which you cancelled and you claim $3750 from the taxpayer a month to pay your electorate office that you also own.. Can you see anything wrong with any of that?

There has been no decision on school lunches being cut by half or any measure. However there is a discussion underway concerning how to deal with the tremendous amount of waste incurred by the program. Surely this is a legitimate concern.

(Aside: when around 20% of the parents of school children expect the remaining 80% to provide lunches not only for their own kids but also for the 20% as well, and regard it as a moral outrage when they stop providing those lunches, then the country is in deep trouble)

No landlords are getting “tax breaks” and that this mantra has currency among NZ’s legacy media merely proves their financial illiteracy and infantile grasp of the issue. The Labour govt’s decision to move mortgage interest payments out of the tax rebate category, when every other business in the country enjoys this right, was unjust and discriminatory.

Just as Mr Luxon has claimed, it helped in raising rents, something Ardern and her comrades were meant to be working earnestly against.

(Aside: Why is it that most major parties claim to be concerned by the prices of houses and rental rates, but do and say very little on the prime mover in such matters, which is an unprecedented level of immigration?)

It would take too many words to analyse the rest of Tova’s aspersions, and to speak frankly I share (with some reservations) some of the concerns therein myself.

However Mr Luxon’s parting words pretty much explain his own position. He is wondering why he is constantly asked about issues he sees as insignificant and immaterial while the issues he thinks are important are ignored.

Of course the real purpose of Tova’s question is to label Mr Luxon a shyster and a hypocrite. Apparently to provide some emotional succour for herself and to generate some applause from her far left comrades and fans.

With the overriding purpose being to cause a drop in Mr Luxon’s polling figures.

It could work. Mr Luxon and the National party IMHO need to devise a much more effective strategy against the relentless attacks of an unethical, corrupt and politically partisan legacy media.