Cameron Slater has been ordered in the District Court to advise on who an otherwise confidential source for a story is. While at one level many would agree entirely with this decision there may be general considerations for the blogosphere which make this less than ideal.
Matthew Hooton said this week that Cameron Slater should put up or shut up. Slater then promised explosive new revelations in the SST and the Herald today. As detailed by Karol in her post The Blame Game the revelations were, but I suspect not in the way that Slater had hoped for. Because he has succeeded beyond what I thought would be possible in converting a story about a a philandering mayor into a story of how forces on the right tried to usurp the democratic choice of Aucklanders.
At least one MP if not the whole of National’s caucus knew that the news concerning Len Brown and Bevan Chuang would break soon eight days before it did. Slater’s and Palino’s claims are becoming more and more difficult to believe. And in a comment yesterday Bad12 sums up why this is such bad news for National.
I’ve been trying to think of a way of expressing my complete and utter distaste for the arsehole of the local blogs and politics. But someone beat me to it. Hamish Price has been attacked in the usual way by Cameron Slater. Here is his facebook statement in response.
This rings quite true to me from what I know of the people and timelines.
It is clear that there is significant concern within the National Party with the behaviour of Cameron Slater and there is worry that a New Zealand version of the Tea party is forming. There is an interesting battle developing between the civilised cautious wing of the Party and the Tea Party take no prisoners approach of Slater and Lusk. The future of the National Party is at stake …
Slater’s track record speaks for itself. As the Brown-Chuang-Wewege-Palino story unfolds, his angle on the story shifts, and the contradictions abound. On The Nation this morning, Slater lays it out: politics is a dirty game, and that’s the game he’s playing.
Of course John Palino did not know about the Len Brown Bevan Chuang relationship despite Chuang’s boyfriend who knew of the relationship being on his campaign team and despite Cameron Slater’s father being Palino’s campaign manager. Update: The Herald this morning has reported that Chuang claims to have met Palino for 90 minutes two days before the news of the affair was made public where the disclosing to Brown of the news was discussed.
We have two politicians in trouble in New Zealand. One is facing two years jail. The other is facing opprobrium for inappropriate moral behaviour. Of course the politician who breached the moral code is facing the most examination. The character of the other woman has also been heavily scrutinised and commented on and she has gone into hiding. Perhaps it is time that her wish for privacy is respected.
No-one’s happy with the revelations about Len Brown’s private life, apart from Slater (himself also an adulterer) who is wallowing in all the details that Chuang seems only too happy to provide. But what’s interesting is that this is clearly a political play. Who’s behind it and what do they have to gain? The players: Slater, Slater snr, Chuang, and Palino.
With Tea Party type zeal Cameron Slater is trying to bring down Len Brown’s mayoralty. What has happened is a tragedy for Len’s family and himself. But as Mayor of the super city we need him to move on from this.
The right must be very afraid of David Cunliffe. Because they are coming up with the most extraordinarily crazy conspiracy theories to try and discredit him.
Radio New Zealand has issued an apology to David Cunliffe following Matthew Hooton’s recent smearing of him. If only Cameron Slater would do the same because he is starting to get pretty obsessional about Cunliffe. This may not be a bad thing as he is rapidly turning the Collins faction of the National Party into New Zealand’s equivalent of the Tea Party
According to the tip line the farcical duo of Lusk and Slater will soon be kicking off a large negative campaign against Len Brown.
Truth has had a long and proud (and often not so proud but bloody fun) history. But now it’s over. Killed off by one of the biggest failures in the blogosphere.
Well, its not taken long for the counter-strike. After Judith Collins’ main brain, Simon Lusk (better known as the cogent Whaleoil) went public last weekend threatening backbenchers that their careers would be short if they didn’t back Collins’ leadership bid when Key goes. Now, documents by Lusk talking about a ‘party within a party’ have been leaked.
Aaron Gilmore has promised ‘utu’, or reciprocation, against a select band of National insiders. What’s going on behind the scenes?
NBR is reporting that prominent Labour party booster Josie Pagani will be the new leftwing commentator for the truth
The newpaper edited by prominent National Party booster Cameron Slater.
The New Zealand Truth has been going down the toilet for a long time. But they may have found their perfect editor. Cameron Slater aka “Whaleoil” has apparently been made editor of it. A bombastic bullyboy with fetish for inaccuracy is exactly the right fit for the role. And it gets a real deadbeat away from the taxpayers purse.
The Collins Faction is tooling up again. While Judith Collins herself has been trying to present a more reasonable face in the House, her Slater/Lusk campaign team is trying to undermine her challenger, Joyce, and the incumbent, Key. Upping Tau Henare’s ridiculous run for Speaker is naked opportunism – but a closer read of Whaleoil, and some inside tips, point to a far more ambitious play on the way
Well, that didn’t take long. A couple of weeks of quiet (probably thanks to some good polls more than anything) and, now, the National Party Civil War has re-erupted as the Collins and Joyce factions fight over the post-Key future. The leaking of National Party board minutes shows how serious the fighting is and reveals strong opposition to Slater/Lusk’s tactics.
Another secret taping, another political scandal. A recording of Pullar and Boag’s meeting with ACC by Pullar appears to show that Pullar did not “blackmail” ACC as alleged. This raises serious questions about how Pullar’s name got into the public arena. And why hasn’t Collins ordered ACC to correct its version of events since its had the transcript for weeks?
It was a bad day yesterday for the ‘heavy hitters’ of the Collins faction, Slater and Lusk. First, Ports of Auckland admitted supplying them with a workers’ private details. Then, the smear on the Meatworkers that they had orchestrated with Talley’s was shot down by the SFO in record time. Finally, Michelle Boag gave them a public serve on RNZ, fueling civil war talk.
Every time Simon Lusk’s name gets mentioned, Whaleoil (which is only Cameron Slater and has nothing to do with Lusk </sarcasm>) responds with a vitriolic and revealing tirade. In the latest, Whaleoil insists there are no National factions, before insulting and demeaning each of the factions except Collins’, and accidentally confirming the leadership tussle is on.
Slater/Lusk have been running a series of posts on the finances of the unions. Pretty weak stuff. All Slater/Lusk have proven is that they don’t understand the corporate structure of unions, they can’t read accounts, and they can’t do research. Still, you knew they were seeding something. And then came the Talleys’ complaint to the SFO about the Meatworkers’ Union.
Within minutes of Simon Lusk’s name being linked to the leaking of the Boag email, a message came through on the tip line – Slater is going feral over Lusk’s name being mentioned. And well he might, Lusk is Cameron Slater’s meal ticket. After a stunned silence on Whaleoil for a few hours – Slater/Lusk were back with all the dirt they could sling.
Why did Collins print a copy of the Boag email? Who else saw it or was informed of its contents? If she didn’t give the information to Lusk or Slater, how did it get to the Herald? If they weren’t involved, why did they run hard on the Pullar issue with an anti-Boag angle from Day 1? Does Collins want us to believe ACC leaked to the Herald? How long does Collins thinks she can hold out?
ACC denies leaking Bronwyn Pullar’s name. It’s not credible that they would act so high risk and so politically. Boag and Pullar clearly didn’t leak it. So, that leaves Collins and her office. Collins denied leaking the email to the media … but leaves a fair bit of wiggle room, doesn’t it? The tipline is, as they say, running hot – and the name on everyone’s lips is Lusk. More soon.
What a surprise.
Cameron Slater’s been caught lying again.
It’s a bit rich that PoAL are claiming they’re “investigating” online privacy breaches now when it’s obvious they’ve been colluding with Cameron Slater for months.
It’s also interesting that the limited “no comment” comment PoAL has issued has been in Tony Gibson’s name rather than Richard Pearson’s.
Looks like Ports of Auckland have been unlawfully passing workers’ private information to Cameron Slater.
It’s just another example of the intimidation and thuggery the port management is becoming well known for.
Cameron Slater reckons he’s cracked it; wages are growing after all. What’s his proof? A graph from the EPMU that shows wages have risen 17% and inflation only 15.7%. Wages are up, no crisis! But the man-boy genius needs to check his info better. Turns out that’s the average payrise for EPMU members since 2007. For all workers, the average pay rise was just 13%.
Farrar, Slater and their POAL masters are getting all antsy about how much port workers get paid.
Maybe it’s time they came clean about their own rorting, eh?
They say that the nice thing about Cameron Slater is he’ll believe whatever he’s paid to believe. Yesterday, I asked whether Slater is being paid to run dirt stories for Ports of Auckland. He didn’t deny it. So what is the Port’s propagandist up to? Yesterday, he was calling for the workers’ pay to be slashed while defending the directors’ massive fees.
Update: Ports of Auckland denies paying Slater anything.
Cameron Slater is a technological idiot. Well he has just proven it again. A comment on our site referred to IP/e-mail matching at another site. In his own guilt about privacy abuses Slater immediately jumped to the wrong conclusion.
I’d advise people to never put comments on sites that lack a privacy policy that is explicit about what information may be used for. But we ensure your privacy here.
About now or very shortly, Trevor Mallard and Cameron Slater should be dismounting from the cycling race that has obsessively awaited by the right on the blogosphere. I’ve been aware of that this ‘political’ event was going to happen because of the frequent waffling that shows up on posts from the right. But it was nice day – I went along to exercise the car and to see the start.
Update: Trevor won..
Who cares whether or not the SIS briefed Phil Goff over whether or not some Israelis were Mossad? What does interest me it this: Secretive SIS denied Fairfax a copy of the briefing paper on the non-agents. Days later it magics up a copy of this classified paper for Nat muckraker Cameron Slater. Who’s the SIS’s minister again? Oh yeah, John Key. Updated
