Posted by Blogger Name. Category:
Big Tobacco
,
Clutha-Southland
,
Dominion-Post
,
Kieran McAnulty
,
Labour Party
,
Selective morality
,
Todd Barclay
,
Wairarapa
The Dominion-Post has an "interesting" editorial this morning. We use the inverted commas, because there are plenty of other words that could be used to describe it. Here's a brief sample:
The job of being a tobacco lobbyist is not a respectable one. Big Tobacco kills 5000 New Zealanders a year.
Half its customers die as a result of using the product. Tobacco is an addictive substance that causes untold misery and death throughout the world. Those promoting the interests of Big Tobacco know all this, and yet choose to work for a genuinely evil force.
Astonishingly, the National Party has chosen a 23-year-old tobacco lobbyist as its candidate for the super- safe National seat of Southland. Todd Barclay seems rather conflicted about his eight months as corporate affairs PR for Philip Morris. On the one hand, he says, it was "just a job" and it "doesn't define him".
On the other, he doesn't "condone" smoking and even seems to think he should acknowledge some of its ill- effects. "Everyone has been affected by someone with a long-term illness, so my greatest sympathies go out to them," says the young politician.
Firstly, let's point out the obvious error. There is no Southland electorate, and there hasn't been since the first MMP election in 1996. The electorate in question is Clutha-Southland.
Some would argue that the job of a journalist is "not a respectable one" either. The revelations of phone-tapping in the UK certainly don't do that particular industry a lot of good. But it is the Dom-Post's selective morality that is our prime concern.
Throughout the term of this Parliament, Labour has railed against problem gambling. It opposed the Sky City Convention Centre deal and the subsequent legislation, although that did not stop Labour MP's enjoying corporate hospitality from Sky City at the 2011 Rugby World Cup, or again in June last year.
We do not dispute that gambling is an addiction, and that in extreme cases it causes significant harm, especially to the families of the problem gambler. So where was the Dom-Post's moral hubris and outrage when the Labour Party appointed TAB bookie Kieran McAnulty as its Wairarapa candidate in this year's General Election.
Todd Barclay resigned from his role with Phillip Morris immediately upon his selection as a National Party candidate. Kieran McAnulty was selected as Labour's Wairarapa candidate in December 2013, but as recently as the end of February, was still taking bets.
And here's the rub. Two months ago we blogged about a story, in the Dom-Post no less, on betting on Masterton's iconic Golden Shears competition. Mr McAnulty was featured, with no mention of his Labour Party affiliation, or his candidacy for Parliament.
So not only has the Dom-Post decreed that working for Big Tobacco is a crime far worse than working in the gambling industry, but it has made the editorial decision that one must be condemned, and the other ignored.
That is selective morality of the worst kind, with undertones of overt political bias. The Dominion-Post should be better than that.
