Graham Adams lashes out at Mihingarangi

Who is Graham Adams you ask and what is he is he saying about Mihingarangi Forbes and why now?

Graham Adams is usually described as a freelance writer and he will tell you himself that he's had more than 20 years experience in various editorial roles working for ACP and Bauer, Metro, North and South, chummy with Bill Ralston at the Listener, and more recently Noted, The Spinoff, Newsroom, The Common room and of course he's part of the stable of voices Bryce Edwards amplifies at the Democracy Project.

It would be fair comment to say Graham Adams leans hard to the Libertarian end of the political spectrum ( Act Party aligned views ) and a browse through all of his work confirms this quite strongly.

Graham seemed annoyed at Jacinda over minor matters :

"For a politician who has expressed very strong opinions in public on topics such as The Warehouse cutting staff and Bauer Media closing its doors, Ardern is obviously very selective about what topics she will make judgments on." - Graham Adams.

The way Bauer Media ( Cash cow for Adams ) bowed out when vaporised by the owner during the pandemic caused Graham Adams to have a go at Jacinda about how she exploited her photogenic appeal and how the magazines were not deemed essential.

Suffice to say Graham Adams was no fan of Jacinda Ardern, and in particular one of the sticking points in Graham Adam's craw include the criteria for access to the $55m Public Interest Journalism Fund made available by the government in 2020 to support news media through the COVID-19-induced downturn.

Graham Adams comes from the school where the Treaty of Waitangi and the principle of partnership should not have anything to do with decisions made to fund projects or expand journalism with tax payers money.

Graham Adams was also hot and bothered about "the covert Plan to establish Māori sovereignty by Ardern's government", He Pua Pua, proposed hate speech laws, whether Jacinda was the messiah or a crafty politician, Māori knowledge and science, the safety of bilingual road signs, co-governance, ...you get the picture.

More recently Graham Adams has been writing about how Dr Muriel Newman has managed to insert 1.1 Million pamphlets into 55 newspapers - expressing the views of Sir Āpirana Ngata and his early 20th Century views about how Māori ceded sovereignty and how some of the land confiscations and punishments were justified.

As you know Dr Muriel Newman was a founding member of the ACT New Zealand party and after bowing out set up the New Zealand Centre for Political Research, an "independent" public policy think tank.

Anyway Graham Adams gets his work shared on Newman' s blog like he does on The Platform - and you can look up his article named "The highly inconvenient Sir Apirana Ngata" where Adams praises Newman for getting Ngata's book into the hands of over one million New Zealanders - effectively undermining the "preferred view" of much of the "Mainstream Media".

Adams attempts to argue that Ngata was not a man of his time - discounting new research or later understandings of Te Tiriti - and rubbishing the notion his opinions were singular or unsupported by others.

Interestingly Adam's arguments are "gossamer thin" and rely on appeals to authority rather than evidence that tie back to the original understandings of those who made their mark on Te Tiriti ( eg. Most relied on what Missionaries told them it meant and nobody got a copy of the deal )

A better title might have been "The highly convenient Sir Apirana Ngata" when viewed through an Act Party / Libertarian lens right now.

Clearly the tactic was to influence polling about the Treaty Principles Bill by "educating the uneducated public" with this early 20th Century interpretation.

But what is Graham Adams saying about Mihingarangi Forbes?

Yesterday Friday 16th February 2024 - Adams wrote that Mihingangi counts on her audience being uncritical and uninformed. An extraordinary claim.

Ironically Adams characterised Mihingarangi as making an "extraordinary claim" ( Richard Dawkins ) when she asked David Seymour about Act's links to the Atlas Network.

Adams wrote how Seymour expressed incredulity and disappointment that she was "raising a conspiracy theory" and how Mihingarangi said he was asking questions on behalf of others.

Then Adams pitched in with his subjective take on this response :

"At that moment she resembled an arsonist asking after a fire if he could help her find out more about how the blaze started when she had lit it herself", wrote Adams.

Adams was suggesting there are no links between Act and the Atlas Network - other than Seymour attending an Atlas 2008 MBA - and working for some Atlas think tanks in Canada - and he minimises this without mentioning all the other links we have discussed.

Adams leaves out the Alan Gibbs donations to Act, the memberships of the NZ Initiative - the Catherine Issac connection, Ruth Richardson being a director at the Mont Pelerin Society, ties between Act's Stephen Franks and Jordan Williams, Roger Douglas' directorships on Atlas think tanks, not to mention the way ACT policy is informed by NZ Initiative white papers etc. ( there's a long paper trail )

Instead - Adams seeks to "follow recent money" to establish that nothing is going on here - when the money was spent ages ago setting these think tanks up and influence was in the form of press releases and relationships with politicians.

“Richard Fink, president of the Charles G. Koch and Claude R. Lambe charitable foundations…argued that the translation of ideas into action requires the development of intellectual raw materials, their conversion into specific policy products, and the marketing and distribution of these products to citizen-consumers." - History of Mont Pelerin Society.

You only need to watch Muriel Newman ( links to Act ) sending those books out to see that in action - but I digress...

Adams described the 24 minute documentary "Trick or Treaty" Mihingarangi worked on as soviet styled propaganda ( agitprop ) and he describes the links between Atlas Think Tanks in Australia as "sinister links" to conjure implausibility and her case as "gossamer thin".

Adam's counter argument is that not much money was spent by these Atlas think tanks and some of Australia's richest oil and gas people donated to the Yes Vote. Once again - it's a red herring designed for the "critical minded" audiences at The Platform lol.

Adam's even writes how Debbi Gibbs is upset she was not contacted for comment by Mihingarangi and how Debbi is quoting that only $60,000 was spent on the Voice by Atlas - which will be in the next Annual Report.

What Adams is not referring to is the influence itself because that's the heart of the matter - the interviews, the news reports, the radio talk, the social media blogs, the pamphlets - and although Adam's mentions Dr Jeremy Walker at UTS ( Uni of Tech Sydney ) who studies the Atlas Network - he puts it in commas "studies the Atlas Network" to undermine the academic.

Adams is concerned that Mihingarangi insinuated the same "shadowy forces" are operating in New Zealand - and how they will bolster support for the Treaty Principles Bill here - something so many like Adams are going through extraordinary effort to deny.

During the past week The Platform has repeatedly "over acted" their horror and mockery of the impossible notion that the Tax Payers Union or NZ Initiative are here to influence anything - certainly not the Treaty Principles Bill ha ha ha.

However that in itself just tells people - that Mihingarangi has definitely put her finger on something very big here.

The fact Graham Adams is spreading attack articles on this after promoting Muriel Newman's classic Atlas Network pamphlet drop and the hype over that single Taxpayers Union Poll - all concentrate the way there's a desperate attempt to limit the damage and steady the ship with those Atlas wish to bring on board over Seymour's Bill.

I'd like to see more work by Mihingarangi on these attempts to silence and ridicule her for daring to ask Seymour questions.

No fear nor favour - the angry Atlas Pustule is going to blow it's top - and it's going to be ugly.

Perhaps some of the rest of our media should be getting in on this story - there's definitely journalism awards just waiting at the other end of this snake, for whoever uncovers it all best and first.

Graham Adams lashes out at Mihingarangi

Morena

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