Over at The Ruminator there is a post corroborates the Judith Collins and Cameron Slater mutual back-scratching in private vendettas. It appears to me that there has been rather a lot of fiddling of the OIAs in recent years. In particular I’m thinking about the OIA requests on Liu for TV3.
Nicky Hager’s Dirty Politics tells of the “two track strategy” of John Key’s leadership of the National Party & the country: a smiley nice front, & vicious, covert black ops behind the scenes. Key has overseen one of the darkest, nastiest periods in NZ politics. Vote Left for necessary, democratic change, for people-centred governance.
Some interesting comments on Hager’s book by John Armstrong and Danyl McLaughlan and the nagging question of who is responsible remains …
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I don’t like listening to talkback radio, it’s not my thing. But I was prompted to listen today to a clip of Josie […]
Nationwide protests in support of Palestine are planned for this weekend.
How private are communications on social media platforms such as Facebook? It is claimed that the GCSB law’s definition of “privacy” leaves a loophole for warrantless surveillance of messaging by Kiwis on platforms like Facebook.
BLip comments on John Armstrong’s article yesterday. Then he updates his “Honest Man” list about John Key and his limited understanding of the truth.
In which I glow in the fame of being mentioned on Morning Report (and answer most of Guyon’s questions) and also encourage turnout in the wake of Dirty Politics.
It’s John Key. In a wide-ranging interview, he tried to explain how “the left” conspired to ensure over the last three days that they burnt an effigy of him, used a few swear words about him on You-Tube, ran a satirical video, and Nicky Hager launched a book at the normal after-work time! No wonder his minders would rather he didn’t do stand-ups.
Two days after Nicky Hager’s book has been released and National’s response has been interesting. They are doing everything from attacking the author to the means of obtaining the information, to saying that it is politics as usual and Labour does it too. But John Key’s recent response to TV3 looked desperate. And the veracity of what he said needs to be checked.
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The intention of this post is to examine the similarities and differences between the hacking of Cameron Slater’s communications on the one hand, and the hacking of the Labour Party donor database on the other. There are two important issues to determine in both cases and I will cover them separately. The first is the legality of the hacking and the second is the ethics of using the resulting information regardless of whether the obtaining of the information in the first instance was unlawful.
There has been a bit of pestering of authors by media in the last few days and some inadvisable waffling by fools ignorant of the blogging world about this site. I’ve had to bestir myself to talk about it. I’m not too happy about the time wasting. But on a happier note, the site is performing superbly under load..
According to John Key, allegations about Jason Ede’s muckspreading activities in cahoots with Cameron Slater are nothing to do with him because Ede now does not work any more on the 9th floor of the Beehive for the “Office of the Leader of the National Party.” The National Party employs him apparently. I would like to know exactly when Ede changed employers and email dates should establish exactly who paying for and managing him when the comments were made. Leader or Office – it’s the National Party spreading dirt – and many good people who are members will not be happy.
Cameron Slater expresses his thoughts on Christchurch and the effects of the second Christchurch Earthquake. John Key thinks that he is a “pretty colourful character”. What do you think?
New Zealand was the first country to give women the vote – and this year all New Zealand women have an opportunity to honour that achievement by voting in the general election.
Scott brings us this important info on how to set up your totally independent lobby group successfully.
Usually all lights are off. But not last night. I wonder what they were talking about on the 9th floor of the Beehive last night? That is John Keys office.
National’s standard response is to ridicule – other political parties, Jon Stephenson, scientists etc have all had it. It slots nicely with Cameron Slater’s style. Now they’re ridiculing Nicky Hager, but they need to be taken up on each allegation.
The use of clandestine SIS files as a weapon of partisan politics is needs to be investigated. John Key or his office discovered classified SIS files that were embarrassing to Phil Goff, got them declassified, then immediately told a right-wing blogger to seek those same newly-declassified files under the OIA, all as a means of smearing a political opponent.
I have foolishly never taken Cameron Slater very seriously except when his attacks have been obviously for the benefit of the National Party. I actually believed that the misinformed and bigoted viewpoints that prevail in his posts were his genuine opinions. It fits his character to drone on about “The Breastapo” “Sucking on the Taxpayers’ Tit”. To discover that such posts were actually written and paid for on behalf of Fonterra actually shocked me.
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In no particular order, some tweets from those in Wellington with the book. Or those who have read something more than I have.
There’s obviously a few people reading “Dirty Politics” tonight. One of the biggies, looks to be evidence of Slater’s collusion with Ports of Auckland. Other tweets show Slater in a very bad light.
I think I know someone who 5 weeks out from an election who thinks he has just had a few percent tacked on to his parties votes. After all remember the “cup of tea” in Epsom last election. And he may have read some parts of the book?
I do so want to read this book right now. I can hardly wait. The preface is online… http://dirtypoliticsnz.com Nicky Hager is way way more of a gentleperson than I am. Explaining the material that is not in the book – “The fact that Slater and his associates have made a career of exposing the very private details of other people’s lives does not make it right to do that to them.”
I haven’t read the Nicky Hager’s book “Dirty Politics” yet. But I’m not surprised that Cameron Slater is up to his neck in dirt provided by John Key’s dirt merchant Jason Ede. That he has been given information sourced from the SIS is extremely surprising. I had not thought that John Key was quite that stupid.
So the book is an expose of the Slater-Ede-Key Dirty Politics machine, based on data acquired and leaked to Hager. Will Update: Update: Hager to be on Campbell Live tonight.
A guest post by Old Irascible on recent local experience when a Labour candidate tried to reach out to his local Rotary Club.
Nicky Hager has certainly got the attention of political circles in NZ, by announcing his (untitled) book launch today at 5.15pm. J[update: 3 news Livestream of book launch] Update: Title “Dirty Politics” – on attack politics – implicates John key & Slater]
Dave Kennedy (bsprout) looks at the increasingly parlous current state of the smaller parties. He is also looking forward to the Green party campaign launch this weekend in Auckland. Updated with Green campaign launch details.
What the hell? This isn’t an election advertisement. This is someone expressing their views in music and video. This judgement by the Electoral Commission doesn’t appear to have any real basis behind it. Quite simply they are wrong.
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It’s been interesting to watch the nats and their busy little helpers working away at branding the election campaign as a nasty one.
It’s been disappointing to watch the media falling for it so hard.
Nicky Hager’s latest book will be unveiled tomorrow. I look at his research interests, & his approach to investigative journalism; plus Hager’s speech on the GCSB Bill, & opposition party policies on state surveillance services.
