Hosking on what Jacinda doesn’t know

Mike Hosking writes:

If you ever want a lesson in the simple reality of spending other people’s money, have a listen to our interview with the Prime Minister yesterday over her hiring of an ad agency in New York to follow her around and film her and take photos.

A few things are at play here: One, this has not got the sort of coverage in wider media you would expect, why not? Is the media in general still enamoured with Jacinda Ardern and therefore failing to do their job as diligently as they might?

Two, she doesn’t know what the bill is. Why not? It’s being paid for by her budget, the leader’s budget.

So she claims not to know the cost.

Five, the advertising agency they hired might or might not have been a donor to the party. I say donor because it could be a straight out donation, or work done in lieu of a donation at a cut rate – Ardern didn’t know that either.

Knows nothing about their donation to her campaign.

Could this be another scenario, a Whaitiri, a Curran, a Handley whereby we are about to get, whether through further questioning on shows like this, questions in Parliament, a level of detail we should have got yesterday.

In other words yesterday was her chance to clear the decks, explain fully and come clean. Because what this looks like is self-aggrandisement at our expense.

It’s a political glamour shoot, it’s style over substance with us footing the bill. It’s electioneering, especially if it turns up in the election.

It’s a lot of questions, all of which could have been, should have been sorted but haven’t, why?

Watch this space.

There will be more to come out on this.