Chris Bishop’s Fieldays attack against Labour collapsed the moment the facts arrived

OPINION: Chris Bishop’s attempt to embarrass Labour at Fieldays backfired because it was based on a claim that was not true. The National Minister used a photograph of an empty patch of grass to suggest Labour had failed to show up to New Zealand’s largest agricultural event. It collapsed the moment the facts arrived.

The criticism generated attention online, but it quickly lost credibility when Labour leader Chris Hipkins pointed out that Labour had never booked a Fieldays site in the first place.

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Image: Labour leader Chris Hipkins says Labour deliberately chose not to have a Fieldays site this year, opting instead to engage directly with farmers and exhibitors throughout the event. (Supplied / Courtesy of Radio New Zealand)

According to Hipkins, the Labour party made a deliberate decision not to operate a stall this year and instead send MPs walking throughout the event to engage directly with farmers, exhibitors and visitors.

Political parties are entitled to criticise each other and National can argue Labour has failed rural communities. Those are legitimate political debates and voters are capable of judging the merits of those arguments for themselves.

What happened at Fieldays was different. Rather than challenging Labour’s policies or record, coalition politicians attempted to build a narrative around an assumption. Once that assumption was proven wrong, the attack collapsed.

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Social media rewards speed, outrage and mockery far more than it rewards accuracy. Politicians are increasingly tempted to chase a viral moment rather than spend an extra few minutes checking whether the facts support the claim they are about to make.

Image: Chris Bishop described the empty site as "barren and vacant", comparing it to Labour's policies for farmers and rural New Zealand. (Chris Bishop / Facebook)

Bishop’s post may have attracted a lot of engagement, but engagement is not the same thing as credibility.

A minister’s words carry weight, particularly when they are being used to attack political opponents but the public expect those attacks to be factual.

Hipkins deserves credit for correcting the record rather than escalating the exchange. He explained why Labour chose not to have a stall and defended the decision as a more effective way of engaging with people attending the event. His response focused on what Labour was actually doing at Fieldays rather than the political theatre unfolding online.

The irony is that the coalition’s attack may have handed Hipkins an opportunity to demonstrate exactly what it was trying to deny. By explaining that Labour MPs were out talking to people across the event rather than sitting at a single site, he was able to prove the party was actively engaging with rural New Zealand.

There is no shortage of serious issues facing farmers and rural communities. Rising costs, infrastructure challenges, workforce pressures, health services and education remain pressing concerns across many parts of the country. Those are the issues that deserve attention from political leaders seeking support ahead of the next election.

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Instead, the public was treated to an argument about a vacant patch of grass that Labour never claimed and never booked.

Voters can reach their own conclusions about Labour’s agricultural policies and whether the party deserves support in rural New Zealand. What they should also expect is reasoned political debate.

The Fieldays episode is a reminder to the Government that a clever political attack is only effective when the underlying claim is true. In this case, the criticism unravelled because the facts pointed in the opposite direction. Once Hipkins clarified what had actually happened, the empty space that Bishop presented as evidence of Labour’s failure became evidence of something else entirely: the risks of rushing to score political points before establishing the facts.

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