Lies, damned lies and weather forecasts

Exclusive! The Dominion Post is involved in a conspiracy.

Together with diverse others, who shall and will be named, this foreign-owned masthead has wilfully plotted to deceive, disadvantage and delude its readers and in so doing mislead the public with information known to be wrong.

The newspaper’s co-conspirators include the Wellington City Council, various local MPs, the Ministry of Tourism and associated agencies, TV and radio stations, and the NZ Meteorological Service.

The charge is false pretences: The defendants have predicted and reported that the capital of New Zealand has enjoyed, is enjoying and will enjoy good weather.

Business journalists who ramp flagging companies to boost shares are guilty of serious misbehaviour warranting dismissal. The same strict ethical code should apply to hacks who talk up the weather.

These are not minor misdemeanours. They are serious matter that deserve instant dismissal with the offenders forced to leave their wet-weather gear in the office.

Need proof of their culpability? Here’s just one example:

At the end of January more than 30 people perished in Australian heat waves while bush fires threatened townships across the continent. The bill in one state alone will top AUD $100 million.

Half a million homes had no power. Rail-lines buckled. Trains stopped. So did sport – it was that serious. At the Australian Open the debate was not the tennis but the temperature.

On this Day of Furnace Oz the Dom Post said Wellington was ‘set for a scorcher’.

Shock, horror. Were we to suffer like our Melbournian mates at 45.1 degrees in the shade, always assuming it hadn’t all evaporated? Will the town belt explode with the first carelessly chucked fag-end? While I finger the sweat-drenched keyboard is the unstoppable sun even now probing for shards of shattered stubbies to focus and magnify its relentless rays on the tinder-dry undergrowth?

If only we’d bought an air-conditioner. If only they’d been for sale.

But there’ll be upsides. The cherry tomatoes, planted last October, might yet bear just one tiny tom. Maybe I won’t have to return the sunflowers (sic) to the Crofton Downs school fete and demand $1 reimbursement because they’ve failed to flourish. To be fair they’ve grown tall as rimu just to get through the clouds, though not a bud in sight.

Can we stop taking our Vitamin D capsules and get a natural boost from the great incinerator in the sky?

Some preparation for this catastrophic climate change was required, so I took off my jersey and my wife shed her hoodie. Though only for a moment. The small print revealed the forecast for the weekend was 26 and 23 degrees, just a whisper over half Victoria’s ‘near unbearable heat’ as described by The Age.

John Key’s government missed a grand opportunity to meet an election promise – the one to reverse the brain drain and get Kiwis back to the land whose taxpayers bred, nurtured, educated and trained them, with a snazzy slogan: ‘Cool Zealandia.’

The media isn’t the only culprit. Equally guilty are women, particularly those who promenade Lambton Quay in short skirts and shorter tops, testing the wowserish definitions of exposure under the Indecency in Public Places regulations of the Summary Offences Act (1981). As amended.

No wonder pornographer Steve Crow failed to arouse interest in Wellington with overweight matrons on motorbikes bouncing their deflated mammaries; their svelte and far more elegant sisters from the bureaucracy provide an alluring daily display – a real public service.

Their fashion statements remain constant, even on a standard summer day when the rains are horizontal and the winds disembowel brollies. That’s 173 out of 365 days on average, according to official statistics.

The idea here is one borrowed from highland tribes in Papua New Guinea that clear mock airstrips and knock-up wooden planes to encourage food drops, like those organised by the Allies during World War 11.

The same cargo cult principle applies in Willis Street at lunchtime: If enough pink flesh is flashed then a benign sun will surely respond. So far the tribesmen have been more successful.

The tourism industry says ‘you can’t beat Wellington on a good day’, a slogan so trite it could apply anywhere. The trick is knowing when this extraordinary event might occur. Just don’t believe the forecasters – and never trust journalists bearing barometers.

Duncan Graham is a former Australian Journalist now living in Wellington. See http://www.indonesianow.blogspot.com.

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