I alone, as the sharer of their way of life, presented a replica of childhood

This is a first for me - Minister of Housing Phil Heatley commenting on the veracity of a story on the NBR website... in under three hours!!!

I'm not sure how I feel about this - on one hand, it's impressive that Mr Heatley is willing to engage (so far) with the Jazial Crossley's article on National's plan to open up Crown-owned land for the development of low-cost housing, but on the other, he goes to great lengths to refute the points that he's not particularly fond of.

Whether he continues (via his proxies) to engage with commenters on the NBR website remains to be seen, and I honestly hope he does.

If not, well, it'll be another case of Juli Clausen's ill-advised foray into commenting on Colin Espiner's blog a while back, and a pretty cynical (and early) attempt to shut down any critique of the government.

Unfortunately, I'm inclined to think the latter.

He sticks well to the party line, rattling off low interest rates (for which I find it quite concerning that he's trying to tie monetary policy to the whim of the guvmint), lower taxes, and RMA reform, but he opens with:

As Housing Minister I’d like to take a few moments to comment on some of the points and assertions raised in this article, not the least with the headline, which obviously misrepresents National’s intentions with the release of its Gateway Housing product later this year.

and closes with:

Certainly it’s my view that the assertion in the headline is both incorrect and unfair.

Yet, he only makes one attempt to explain why the headline "Why does National want to create poor-people ghettoes?" is incorrect when he says they will be "providing cheap land for first home buyers in places like Hobsonville alongside million dollar homes, in the same suburb, with the affluent living alongside the less well off", but doesn't go into more detail, and doesn't rule out the concentration of low-cost housing that could (and often does) lead to the creation of ghettoes.

He may well be right (and I hope he is), but the hint that there will be some low-cost housing in affluent suburbs and the assertion that the development of low-cost housing in specific areas is not going to lump together impoverished people together seems to me to be a flawed argument.

I'd suggest quizzing the minister and seeing if we can get a decent thread going on the story... that's what I'm doing...

PB.

Eureka!

I've finally figured it out!

The link between John Key and Barack Obama that is.

Everyone scoffed when our PM-to-be likened himself to President-elect Obama in an interview with the Financial Times back in September, but with a little bit of help, I've found out what the link actually is.

Mark Leibovich wrote an excellent piece in the New York Times about the Obama campaign's communications strategy and wider team, and, funnily enough, Brand Key followed this to a tee.

Like Obama's campaign, Key's was "was unusually small and close-knit," which enabled it to "maintain tight control of its information."

Both campaigns (tried) to speak "with a single voice and a precise message and only when they wanted to. They did it with a smile, not complaining — at least not publicly — about how the press was the enemy."

And who used this style of campaigning so effectively in the past you may ask?

Well, none other than...

Ain't it grand...

PB.

(Hat tip to PR Watch for helping me put 8 and 39 together...)

The lady doth protest too much, methinks

Taking DPF's advice, I aim to do this in under 30 minutes.

Tory hack writes:

The Sunday Star-Times best efforts to re-elect the Government continue. They try a double header today.

Socialist hack writes:

Tracey Watkins is said by some of her colleagues to be spending an ‘unseemly’ about of time hanging out in John Key’s office, she’s certainly spent enough time at National HQ recently to get similar with the wall hangings. So, it’s fairly safe to say we know where her loyalties lie, and it’s not with journalistic independence.

Baby hack hopes partisan communication specialists who engage in tit-for-tat games on the interwebs recognise irony.