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An inside job

On May 24, within two days of coming on board, Curran was able to report to Comms Manager Neal Cave that the ministry's work had the feel of the "big issue of our time". It required careful stakeholder management. The ministry had to anticipate challenges, bring stakeholders up to speed and be "ultimately marginalising the ones who were intractable"...

The coalition "could obstruct" the success of achieving the strategic objectives. The debate needed to be reframed to position the Government's response as "sensible" and isolate the coalition and similar groups. "A dismissive response makes them seem like radicals."

Curran suggested how to explain away the fact that a review of climate change policy was "being done in secret", how to offset questions over New Zealand's growing liabilities under the Kyoto protocol and much more in this vein.


So, third parties can only spend $120,000 in an election year. That's not enough for any sort of sustained campaign. Consider them muzzled. But what about the government? Just imagine if NZ Labour want to make climate change the hot topic for the election.

What would their strategy be? Perhaps they could get the Ministry for the Environment to spend several million dollars making the public "aware" in such a way that it dovetails nicely with NZ Labour policy announcements. If any other group popped up to try to counter "the message", then deal to them.

This is why Clare Curran's role, when exposed, is so significant. Fran O'Sullivan has detailed this story, but unfortunately, it all comes out at Christmas time. Unless the story is kept alive, the left will simply breathe a sigh of relief and get on with their multi-million dollar election campaign. And those multi-million dollars will all be tax paid, uncapped funds. Aren't we the suckers?

Related Link: Fran O'Sullivan: Prebble's Team in Political Whitewash

Related Link: How Labour Americanized the Public Service

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