New Zealand Conspirators Association Praises Victoria University
Satire By Lyndon Hood
Satire: Emerging from a traditional smoke-filled meeting this afternoon, representatives of the New Zealand Conspirators
Association praised the administration of Victoria University of Wellington for actions furthering the suppression of
information.
"The publication of leaked confidential information is an important part of the democratic process, allowing abuses to
be revealed and governments and businesses to be held to account for their actions," an NZCA spokesman told a
carefully-selected group of journalists, "Victoria University obviously shares our view that that sort of thing must not
be allowed to continue."
"As a venerable institution whose role, stated in law and their own charter, is to act as critic and conscience of
society, the university was an excellent choice to lead this fight to cripple the public's access to the truth."
"While at first glance Victoria appears to have been unsuccessful, they have in fact made significant achievements on
our behalf. For example, the court injunction has been established as an effective tool for delaying significant news
stories that publicise information which the agency or corporation in question wishes to conceal. Used properly, an
injunction alone could effectively kill any story and seriously damage the media outlet's finances. I'm a bully myself,
and I have to say - I'm impressed."
"We are pleased with this legal recognition of the widely-adopted practise of the media only saying what we want them
to."
In response to a suggestion that this would encourage media agencies to simply publish leaks without first getting
responses or confirmation on the issue, the spokesman, who wished to remain anonymous, was unconcerned. "If they do
that," he explained, "We'll just leak them some false information and hit them for defamation or damages or some such
afterwards."
NZCA also praised Victoria, and in particular Vice-Chancellor Pat Walsh and university spokeswoman Jude Urlich, for
their dedication in pursuing legal action, despite the way it required them to "make complete pillocks of themselves and
be viewed by the entire world as a pair of baby-eating ogres". They were commended for their principled and selfless
dedication to the cause of information suppression.
The spokesman did however express disappointment that Victoria were unable to bring their media-crippling proposal
before a substantive hearing. "The judge who rewrote TV3's programming decisions before the election granted the
unprecidented injunction; he was lined up to hear the case too. Things were going so well."
"Unfortunately, the information was legitimately released due to Victoria's total ignorance of the workings of the
student media. But it was a good plan and it should have worked."
"We'd have got away with it too, if it weren't for you meddling kids."
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