Sloppy

The Dom Post reports:

Millions of dollars and thousands of jobs will disappear from the Auckland economy when the super-city becomes a reality, an economics consultant says. …

Unifying Auckland local government should shed between 539 and 817 council staff. That, along with centralised purchasing from suppliers, should save the super-city council $181 million a year compared with what the present eight councils spend, said Auckland University public economics teacher Rhema Vaithianathan.

Now putting aside the fact most ratepayers will be delighted at savings of $181 million a year, shouldn’t the story have made clear this research was commissioned by the Labour Party? And should it not also have been made clear that the “economics teacher” is not just a member of the Labour Party but stood for the Mt Albert nomination just a few weeks ago?

This doesn’t mean her work is wrong – but the media should be upfront about this, when it is in such a subjective area such as economic modelling.