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Some of Olivia de Havilland’s best acting work was in ‘Gone with the Wind’. Namesake Olivia Wannan, from Stuff’s fact-check gang, emulates de Havilland’s performance in her own version of ‘Gone with the Tribe’ in which her fact-checking ‘The Whole Truth’ column is woefully biased, blessed with conjectures aplenty but facts a little less so, and topped off with a skewed, mean-spirited and condescending headline.
Calling on her inner Judith, what else could such special power be, Wannan surmises: “Judith Collins appears to…”, “it appears Collins was referring…”, “It seems likely Collins is comparing…”, or, in other words: she has no clue and is engaged in obvious straw-man building in order to blow over the National candidate’s argument with a simple huff ‘n a puff, give or take a couple of deep breaths. That ain’t fact-checkin’, that’s guessin’. How very Stuff-like and juvenile both.
Irking our Olivia is Collins’ claim of increased coal-fired electricity generation under Ardern’s magnificent reign, a fact which speaks for itself – I’m sorry Olivia – it is fact.
Over the four calendar years from 2013-2016 the use of coal-fired electricity steadily declined, under Labour mis-management it increased: their first year 30%, the second (for which full calendar years are available) 43%, a compound increase of 87% since Labour took office, an inconvenient truth to Olivia who claims: “Rain is key: the more we get, the fuller our hydro lakes are, which translates into less gas and coal.” Wannan then immediately veers to the make-believe more suited to melodrama, with a touch of snark: “By touting the low coal usage during National’s time in power, Collins is claiming credit for the weather.”
How completely ridiculous; Ms Collins is doing no such thing. As for Olivia pretending low rainfall in early 2019 was to blame: MBIE disagrees, from ‘Energy in NZ 2019’:
“In March 2019, hydro storage in New Zealand hit the 1% Electricity Risk Curve. However, it was not as low as 2017 when New Zealand experienced much drier conditions.”
Yet, in 2017 coal-fired electricity use was lower, much lower, about half of 2019’s production.
The difference was the unavailability of gas for electricity production, predominantly caused by the shut-down of the Pohokura field for maintenance. That’s the fact. Here’re some others: we are reliant on fossil-fueled electricity during peak demand and for security of supply, Ardern and her coterie of mental-mice have undermined and imperiled that very vital security, principally based on a particularly low-IQ ‘captain’s-call’ by the anointed-one.
So very low marks for truth; Olivia, but don’t despair, who knows, you may win an Oscar in the ‘Best Actress in a Mis-leading Role’ category.
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