The beltway beat-up of the week goes to the seemingly ongoing fascination over the missing paperwork and the Prime Minister's office when it came to a meeting between Z Energy and their concerns over Mike Smith's court case involving polluters and climate cost.
Mike Smith called "conspiracy" and you don’t, sadly, need to do a lot more than that to get half the media fizzing over a scandal for the ages.
The bit, if you have forgotten, that made it look troublesome was twofold:
1) The PM's office didn’t have said paperwork, hence it looked shady.
2) The Government changed, or is going through the process of changing, the law in a way that, surprise, surprise, suits Z Energy.
Now, accepting lost paperwork is not a good look, and the Prime Minister freely admitted it weeks ago, we finally hear this week from a bloke called Lindis Jones who runs Z Energy. He produces the document they gave to the Government and here is the critical point – there is nothing in it.
Nothing they hadn't said publicly already.
In other words, they were alarmed that blokes like Smith can fill court time with fishing expeditions and that singling out companies like Z Energy and Fonterra is dangerous and ruinous to businesses and reputations.
Now, they say that because, funnily enough, it's true. And that is why, funnily enough, the Government acted to change the law.
The Government said, correctly, that the Government is the ultimate court and when it comes to climate policy the Parliament is the place decisions are made.
Now, they did that, not because Z Energy thinks that, or Fonterra thinks that, or you and I think that. But because it's true and it's right and they would have done it anyway.
There is no skullduggery. There is no clandestine, backroom nonsense. No one met in a dark alleyway. No Government was dragged into making a decision they wouldn’t not have already made.
All that happened was a piece of paper got waylaid and Mike Smith stirred up a very gullible media looking for fizz and clickbait.
What's required of the media, if they are remotely interested in repairing their battered reputations, is the ability to see real news.
The ability to differentiate between a story and BS and to not be so keen to see things that aren't there.
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