Post truth, post hole

It seems that we live in the era of "post truth" politicians. An interesting take on the matter, considering the amount of lying that has gone on in recorded history. Perhaps a more accurate description would be the Couldn't Give a Bugger About the Truth era? It would certainly enliven future textbooks about the early 21st Century.
 "At this point it became obvious just how few buggers were actually given by politicians as it was conclusively proven that Trump was of an alien species but his voters continued to say he connected with real heartland Americans".
 New Zild has had its own share of non-fact-connected politicians but the current Prime Minister must be in the top 5 in the top No Buggers Given list. In the past he has opined about all and sundry with no scraps of credibility or knowledge to impede his decision making. For instance we know he has peed in the shower but not masturbated, he thinks Iraq is a safe place and he would not have shot the Gorilla. Many of his National party colleagues breathed a little easier after that one.
But he doesn't just limit himself to shower antics or zoo animal preservation, he also comments upon things that are central to the modern, go ahead Conservative government he leads.
Conservative governments have a bit of a checklist of things they will do, a comment I have made on this blog before, hopping into the poor people, lowering taxes for rich people and helping businesses to oppress their workers etcetera, etcetera.
This government has ticked all of those boxes and made a special point of Great Specialnesss about how they had "reformed" employment laws with the introduction of the 90 day rule. After they realised that this not a relaxation of the 4 second, dropping food on the floor rule, many New Zilders reacted with "Wahhht... my...did...rugby on". Unbeknownst to them the government had introduced legislation that allowed people to be employed for 90 days at low pay rates and even more excitingly dismissed with no reason and no backsies at any time in the 90 days.
At the time this was greeted by government spinners and lackies as a Great Leap Forward for industrial relations and the benefits would flow to all and young folks would get jobs and possibly everyone would get a panda to keep as a pet.  
Of course, it did no such things.
Five years on from the introduction of the 90 days rules a Treasury report has concluded that the introduction of the 90 day rule has had little to no affect on NZ employment issues. This is the Treasury, mind you, Friedmanites to the core and paid for by the Gubblement to find shit out when the troooooth is needed.
So the PM was in a bind, since his fairytale did not have the right ending and the people collecting the data are his inquisitorial shocktroops. Brilliantly he ignored that dumb ole report. People, he said, talked to him all the time as he went around NZ  and they said it had gone swimmingly and everyone was happy as two clams in whatever place would make clams happy. So there! To make sure that The Base would get what he was on about he noted.

"You can have a piece of academic research but it's quite different from the small cafe owner whose money is on the line, who is taking the risks and who actually rely on this kind of policy.

Academics amirite?

Still, quite brave of him to bring up small cafes after the ponytail pulling incidents of last year. But he is nothing if not something or other.