Crux under intense attack from three different sources

Editorial By Peter Newport

This month has been an interesting time for me as Editor of Crux.

This week featured a visit to the Queenstown police station to report an online threat to break both of my collar bones from a member of the Bendigo mine supporters group.

The launch of Lakeview construction exposed me to a completely new experience – a snake hiss of pure contempt – from a QLDC councillor.

A LinkedIn post from a Queenstown business leader exposed a tidal wave of abusive comments from many other key business leaders before the post and the comments were removed by LinkedIn.

In other words, Crux is under attack from business leaders, mine supporters and some QLDC councillors.

On top of that Crux is experiencing a collection of unusual events. My home security system has strangely gone offline, new Facebook pages are being launched to produce “news media scrutiny” and Crux was excluded from a two-week electric ferry visit by the PR company working with Destination Queenstown and Kingston Village.

In short – it’s a battlefield. Not necessarily new – but much more intense. And it’s connected with far more than predictable tensions between print and digital media as audiences shift and traditional advertising markets collapse.

Let’s tackle the QLDC issues first. It was perhaps naïve to expect rapid progress in terms of accountability/transparency after the election of a new mayor and many new councillors last October. Good things take time. But I did not expect what is actually happening. A backlash against the local election result from both council staff and some elected councillors.

Council staff are, Crux understands, scared of potential job losses and changes in policy.

There’s a new antagonism towards Crux from some councillors – quite apart from the contemptuous snake hiss at the Lakeview launch. Another councillor, at the same event, went on the attack over Crux coverage of the spectacular Lakeview financial losses to the ratepayer, arguing that Lakeview’s financial situation was somehow just fine.

“You’ve been told. You’ve been told.” that councillor repeated – not quite poking me in the chest but that’s how it felt.

I’ve heard this phrase many times over the past eight years from council staff – not often directly but in various LGOIMA releases and relayed conversations. “But … He’s been told.”

These few words somehow sum up the problem with current QLDC comms and the subsequent lack of trust in the council. Journalists don’t, and should never, report just “what we’ve been told” - without checking. That’s the entire purpose of journalism in a nutshell.

We’ve been told by QLDC senior management over the years a number of things that have simply not been true.

Our 4-year investigation into council procurement revealed a widespread failure to comply with the council’s own financial rules – but we were forcibly told otherwise.

More recently we were told by QLDC managers and comms people that there was no serious problem with the Shotover sewage plant and that the illegal wall built by the council via Veolia did not exist. None of those claims were true.

Calls for a halt to new development, including from the Deputy Mayor, were studiously ignored.

Councillor Niki Gladding was stripped of her council committee roles as a punishment for telling the truth about the sewage crisis.

And yet in Wellington another sewage failure involving poor management and overseas contractor Veolia has been met with howls of community protest and a full Government inquiry.

It’s the same story with our business community and Chamber of Commerce. It’s the same story with the Bendigo mine supporters.

There’s no genuine discussion. It’s a battle of money, influence and toxic, vested interests. It’s red faced, its provincial – it’s not very sophisticated. It’s not a good look.

It’s brutal – and the absence of any other strong journalism voices in our district makes things even harder for Crux. Our council pours $200,000 into the ODT/Mountain Scene who back local business and council interests, to the exclusion of important local issues like the sewage crisis – no doubt to encourage the advertising revenue they depend on. Crux requests this year for a fair share of that QLDC advertising budget have so far been 100% ignored.

So where does this leave Crux – and are we without blame?

Well first of all we are certainly guilty of letting our frustration come through in our coverage on occasion – and yes, accountability does sometimes involve naming people – and that’s uncomfortable. And yes – I’m from a strong commercial news background and that does involve headlines that are strong and encourage people to read our stories. “Injuries avoided in minor accident” is not going to attract much attention – and begs the question as to why such a story would be published at all.

The good news, especially for Crux subscribers is that we are going to fight back. Not with threats of physical violence or getting even more frustrated with the business community and the QLDC. Our fight will be with data, logic and structured debate.

We do live in a boom town, and you’d have to be blind to not see that every second vehicle here is involved in building news houses, installing top end home entertainment systems, renting out houses to short term visitors and mowing those lawns.

But only around 30% of us are involved in tourism – and most of those jobs are low wage and low productivity. Housing and property booms come and go – often.

Crux will be fighting back with facts about our audience size, facts about the damage being done to our district by a lack of transparency and accountability, facts about the dangers of inequality where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, facts about how our environment does need protecting – the facts of life where profit and fairness can successfully live together.

If all of that sounds idealistic we make no apology. Community first is a winning strategy for everyone – including councils and businesses. As for the Bendigo mine – the same applies. Community first – whatever that decision turns out to be. Not threats of violence.

Please become a paid subscriber today to help Crux defend itself against further attacks.