Ports of Auckland's Whale

Just to have a post on the lighter side of things, here's a blog post on why you shouldn't take any blogs (except this one) seriously!

Left of Pol Pot blog The Standard has a whole piece on how they think Whale Oil blogger Cameron Slater is being paid by POAL (Ports of Auckland, Ltd) to write from the perspective of the company, to sway public opinion, and feed information to be used by mainstream media - mistaking opinion piece with impartial journalism. To have something to blame for the left's failures and inadequacies, they've played the nut job "it's a conspiracy I tells yer" card. 

Whale said:

There is no way I’d do what I am doing for $10,000 as a fixed fee, for something like the Ports of Auckland I’d probably do it for $20,000 after a discount for the sheer fun of union bashing

 The Standard thinks:He didn’t admit being paid but his failure to deny it when given the chance is evidence itself. Unless his “I’m not being paid by Ports of Auckland” keys were broken. Slater doesn’t run this kind of intense campaign for the hell of it – it’s his occupation. And why would he be running the Port’s lines for free? 

This is just sarcasm!! Not only would Whale never need to be paid for the fun of union bashing, but if he were, would he so explicitly tell The Standard that he was?!

Union Bashing

The VRWC and the right wing in general has a proud history of union bashing and a relentless pursuit of getting the rest of them. Whale Oil is among the top dogs in New Zealand for this. Whale probably hates every union, and would defend about any business being stifled by union irks. Whether they were POAL, POTL, Tower Insurance, Burger King, or a company that makes tea cozies; grinding businesses to a halt is not good for the economy, especially done by the greed and inconsideration of union hacks. Whale wouldn't need to be paid a cent for taking the side of POAL, he blogs every day for free on the side that's not a disruptive union.

It's A Conspiracy!

Well, to start, the mythical $90,000 a year came from Cactus Kate, one of Slater’s occasional sub-contractors, of whom Slater says “there is only two ways to get Cactus Kate to do anything…offers of money or sex with hot men”.

Tony Gibson, the CEO of POAL has said repeatedly in the media that dockers get this kind of money, it's not a made up figure. Right wingers could've gone for gold and said it was $83,498,378,679,734 if they really wanted. Whale never 'sub-contracts,' the man posts 25-30 times a day, he does exactly what he wants to do himself, while Cactus maintains her own well-written blog updating a few times a week. Plus the comment at the end about what Cactus would do is sarcastic, in line entirely with the her style of self-depracating jokes. 

The piddling $2,000 donation that the Maritime Union gave to Len Brown, Slater used to suggest the Supercity mayor was in the wharfies’ pocket. That one didn’t really fly.

Len Brown admitted that he received money from MUNZ, he just denied that it would swing his decision.

But it’s really started to unravel for Slater a bit in the past few days. He had the ground to himself before but now the journalists are back at work and not buying his crap.

There's nothing to unravel. Lefties love conspiracies and 'toppling' the enemy, often when there is no conspiracy or enemy to be found. That and journalists never cite Whale's writing, as there is a definite line between opinion piece and impartial journalism. 

Seems like the Port isn’t getting value for money when the propagandist is arguing that the wharfies’ deserve to have their wages cut. Rather undermines the spin that the Port is the good guys, eh?

Lefties are so smug, and often so wrong. Makes a great laugh though.

The wheels are starting to come off this one a bit for Ports of Auckland. Their paid propagandist is misfiring, their spin is unraveling.

Again, and just for LOLs.

They’re starting to wonder: if the Port’s offer is really so generous, them why have the workers turned it down and, if the Port is such a wonderful employer, why won’t it agree to let the workers keep their conditions with an inflation-matching wage hike?

POAL's offer of a 10% pay increase is extremely generous, especially compared to the rises in everyone else's wages right now. The reason why POAL won't accept the union's demands is because the demands have nothing to do with worker's rights or benefits, it's about stopping the union from having a monopoly on labor supply.

Truth Denial

Dear James
I am the Senior Communications Manager for Ports of Auckland and I can categorically confirm that we have not paid and will not pay Cameron Slater anything.
Best regards
Catherine

Do I need to say more?!

The Standard needs to grow up. Cactus wrote a post today comprehensively listing everything stupid they've written and questioning the credibility of the blog.