The Dead Cats Society

Members include Donald Trump and David Seymour.

The dead cat strategy is the political strategy of deliberately making a shocking announcement to divert media attention away from problems or failures in other areas.

It’s a strategy Boris Johnson credited to his Australian advisor Lynton Crosby in an article he wrote for The Telegraph in March of 2013.

“There is one thing that is absolutely certain about throwing a dead cat on the dining room table – and I don't mean that people will be outraged, alarmed, disgusted. That is true, but irrelevant. The key point is that everyone will shout, "Jeez, mate, there’s a dead cat on the table!" In other words, they will be talking about the dead cat – the thing you want them to talk about – and they will not be talking about the issue that has been causing you so much trouble.”

I suspect David Seymour threw a dead cat on the table yesterday when he began his Press Conference announcing that public services will be now be delivered “by need, not race,” with a story about how teachers in a South Auckland school are allegedly taking lunches off kids and sending them home hungry.

Whether there is any truth at all to this claim is something he, as Associate Minister of Education, should have verified with his Ministry before going public with such an accusation.

So why didn’t he do that?

I suspect it’s because his teachers -taking -kids- lunches story was Seymour’s dead cat strategy to distract attention away from yet another racially divisive policy announcement.

And it worked!

Because the NZ Herald led with the headline :

“David Seymour claims teachers took lunches off students, asks Ministry of Education to investigate.”  

A more accurate headline reflecting the substance of Seymour’s Press Conference announcement would have been:

 “Government puts an end to contracting Māori public services”

We saw Trump unsuccessfuly attempt to employ a dead cat strategy during his Presidential debate with Kamala Harris by claiming that Haitian immigrants in Springfield Ohio were eating not only cats, but dogs.

The ABC moderator instantly fact checked Trump saying they had reached out to the Springfield City Manager who stated:

“There have been no credible reports or specific claims of pets being harmed, injured or abused by individuals within the immigrant community.”

It would really serve the public interest in our country if the NZ Herald followed the ABC’s lead and fact checked Seymour’s allegations before leading with them and, instead, chose to highlight the racial divisiveness of his ACT party’s policies.

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