Mainstream Media Play Catch Up 2: Jacinda Ardern

It was bound to happen eventually. It just took its sweet time. But I knew, if I kept saying it often enough, it might come to pass.

What I’m talking about is my oft-repeated prediction that Jacinda Ardern would do a Kevin Rudd.

It’s hard to realise, now that he’s become a miserable irrelevancy, but Kevin Rudd was the most opinion-poll-popular PM Australia has ever had. Rudd’s opinion poll numbers made Ardern’s look paltry. Then it all came crashing down.

As I’ve warned, prime ministerships made of nothing but media fairy dust are uniquely vulnerable. That’s because the media are pack hunters. While they’re running with you, it’s all good. But when they turn, they turn as a pack: suddenly and viciously.

For Rudd, the turning-point was the Mining Tax. The weaknesses were, of course, always there, festering along. The over-reaction to the GFC turning Australia from creditor to debtor overnight. Free laptops for students which never materialised and new school halls, whether they were wanted or needed. Failed climate policies, from “cash for clunkers”, to the deadly home insulation scheme. The ongoing debacle of the NBN.

The media were happy to gloss over all of that. For a while. Then Rudd’s attempt to impose a “super tax” on mining profits generated a concerted backlash – and the media smelled blood in the water.

And it was game over, Kevin07.

It’s taking a lot longer to happen to Jacinda Ardern. Nearly twice as long. But the first cracks in her previously unassailable media love-in are starting to appear.

First, there was Stuff’s attack on Ardern’s “artfully-crafted mirage”. Now the boots are being laced up for a sustained kicking over the draconian “hate speech” laws.

In the four days since the Government outlined changes to “hate speech” law, it has become obvious from comments by the Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, that she does not understand them[…]

Ardern does not understand the extent of what is proposed, as was evident by her comments on the AM show today. She was factually wrong when she said the proposals don’t include political opinion.

NZ Herald

This is the mainstream media getting dangerously close to admitting that Ardern is incompetent.

Especially when Newshub chimes agreement.

Jacinda Ardern has come under attack for her defence of expanded hate speech proposals, with ACT leader David Seymour describing the Prime Minister as “out of her depth”.

Worse – for her –Ardern is personally biting the hands that have held her aloft for the past four years.

Ardern’s comments have since come under scrutiny, with [Tova O’Brien] pointing out in a rebuttal that it is “insulting and irresponsible to pit journalists – or anyone who questions or debates the legislation – as somehow being in opposition to the needs of the victims of March 15”.

Newshub

Perhaps the mainstream media have already burned through the $50m of goodwill that the Ardern government bought, at the taxpayer’s expense. Independent media like The BFD, on the other hand, have been under no financial obligation to the government.

Maybe I’m just wishful thinking, or plying the Gambler’s Fallacy: if I keep making the same prediction, I’ll eventually get it right.

But… predicting that it will rain is one thing. Hearing the first rumbles of the approaching storm, quite another.

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