I haven’t read Nicky Hagers’ new book Dirty Work yet, mostly because it will take some time to drift towards this end of the earth. There wasn’t a e-pub option to purchase.
Most of the book highlights in the release and the news media I read this morning were not a surprise to me. It has been clear since its inception about its goals and tactics.
As an organisation, The Taxpayers Union clearly didn’t give a shit about citizens or taxpayers apart from the taxpayers who paid for it to exist. There has been rumours for a long time that it was a shit employer, something that Nicky Hager has clearly tapped into. But what has always been quite opaque is who has been funding it. The idea that it is funded by tens of thousands of small donations was quite clearly ludicrous.
To date I haven’t met a single person in the business community who is a member. Even ardent supporters of Act or National who’d proudly admit to anything that supported their own interests say that they haven’t been asked or offered.
Which is why it is the revelation of its role as a big tobacco lobby front was a revelation. I didn’t think that the even sleazy founders of the TPU would be so debased that they would allow themselves to be funded by an industry that lives off killing our citizens by addiction to dangerous drugs and delivery mechanism byproducts. But that sounds like exactly what they or their successors have been doing.
Hopefully our local news media journos will read the book, and have a more critical look at information from this source. Just tagging the TPU as a big tobacco protection influenced organisation would bring some balance.
But it makes me wonder just how far this kind of invidious political corruption by tobacco companies has infiltrated the political community. I suspect that a serious review of some of the funding of political parties would be of interest. NZ First and Casey Costello come to mind. As well as the National parties habit of making MPs out of ex-tobacco lobbyists.
Agreed – but it can't only be the tobacco industry. That wouldn't explain why the TPU were so determined to kill 3Waters. It seems to me that there are three possible reasons why the TPU so cynically and easily leveraged provincial anti-Maori sentiment to kill 3Waters:
Spot on AB. All three in equal amounts.
All hail to Nicky Hager for having the guts to write the book.
I too will await a copy of the book.
I think re-reading the prior books, then reading the third volume will show the 'pathways' or 'web'
Webs have sticky parts to entrap prey and warn the spider. That is a very telling analogy.
The stated goals of TPU of 'Low taxes' does not show low taxes = low public services.
The second goal to prove uafordability seals in a false premis about government and money creation.
Too much debt' is a mantra for aqueezing Public spend and redirecting money towards private use.'
We need photos of Luxon et al with Jordan Williams and Farrah.
The photo of Jonhn Key with Whale oil and Farrah was worth a 1000 words,
Birds of a feather. Just to add, John Key on the board of a school getting 27million without oversight… wow! just wow.
Removal of the BSA, tightening of OIA rules, but not passing the anti xlavery bill, the failure to record instructions and minutes and emails to confirm oral instructions in the Education curriculum rewrite. These are warnings of what will come in the future.
Register, vote. Out in 26!!
A 2023 Newsroom longform article and its Part2 (cited on reddit today) is a good refresher on what was known at that time on TUP 2023 election-meddling. Quite a lot of muck that has been overwritten by fresh horrors since.
https://newsroom.co.nz/2023/10/31/chiding-in-plain-sight/
It is, in fact, a very good time to encourage the electorate to think about political messaging.
There’s a bit more explicit info on the book over at reddit/nzpolitics.
I'M IN AUCKLAND BUT I GOT ONE!!
Long story – I bought one on click and collect from Whitcoulls, which is across the road from where I work. Lunchtime, I went over and they said they only clear emails from head office at 9am and 4pm.
Meanwhile, people were grabbing the copies that I could see and touch on the counter. I pointed out that it seemed unreasonable that I had bought my copy before 9.30am this morning, and I could even pick it up and hold it, but I couldn't take it away like walk-in customers.
I'll leave out the bit between
, but the shopkeeper relented and went and got my order from the printer so I could take it home instead of reading it in front of the counter!! Now, I'm stuck waiting for the workday to end, so I can pore into it.
Spoiler – It feels a bit thinner than Dirty Politics, and if you're looking for a full chapter on the so-called Maiki Sherman hit job, there doesn't seem to be one (though I only glanced at the contents page).
I'll leave you with a thought that occurred to me and see if you agree/disagree. The Key government was surfing the popularity wave when Dirty Politics came out and the effect was like throwing a spanner into the machinery. But this book seems to be more confirming an existing trend in the unpopularity of the current coalition. It's more likely to keep the government's downward spiral going, rather than turn it from popular to unpopular.
Luxon's comment was that NZers don't care about this.
Unfortunately he may be right.
There are a lot of NZers to whom politics has become irrevocably dirty and corrupt that it has become the norm – "business as usual" as National Party individuals have termed it in the past – so it fails to excite the outrage that it should.
The outrage it should excite is meanwhile skilfully redirected by the CoC against Maori, beneficiaries, immigrants and the homeless, assisted by a MSM who can't look beyond the clickbait headlines.
It is a sad indictment on what NZ has become that we don't care that we have a corrupt organisation like the Taxpayers Union openly directing coalition policy.
Yes, I managed a chapter last night and it occurred to me that the Greens anti lobbying policy will just send the right wing attack dogs and the graft that seems to go with it underground.
We're in an Internet wild west, where bloggers are exempt from the same rules as journalists and I think that's the place to start.
I'm still trying to adapt to a country where people who have plenty would still not bat an eyelid to a homeless person who, for lack of support, would freeze to death in the gutter, if it added a few dollars to their net worth.
The rules about blogging, if there are any, don't cater for people like that.
I wonder – do van Velden, Seymour et al. believe their lives are similarly over-valued?
The nACT1 CoC is 'govt' by (buy/sell) and for the SORTED. Imho, many (most?) Nat MPs are more simpatico with Atlas ACT's R.W. agenda than this cartoon suggests.
Chris Slane, in the New Zealand Listener, 9 Feb 2026
Maybe our CEO knows who Hager is now. Then again, maybe not – who knows?
https://thestandard.nz/daily-review-27-05-2026/#comment-2063304
More perception than reality. Having operated this site since 2007, there are considerable constraints on local bloggers, they just took some time to kick in in the 2010s.
The HCDA for all of its flaws and the ineptness of NetSafe at implementing it provides a rapid response. Currently being misused by Ani O'Brien.
The Defamation Act covers bloggers just as much as it does anyone else.
And generally the local internet tends to deal with the real arseholes given time. Which was pretty much what eventually happened to Cameron Slater and Dermot Nottingham.
In most ways the biggest problem isn't in the blogs. Blogs don't have massive readerships, ie people who come on every day and read. Sure we all get journos browsing for ideas. But that is pretty low-key.
It is a problem with amplification, and that comes from international social media channels. X, facebook, reddit, twitch, discord etc who'd link to long-form.
Just saw the rnz article where Luxon says no one cares.
Well, I got my copy in a working class area shopping mall and in the time it took for me to get mine from the click and collect room they sold two more.
So, I take issue with Luxon. I think if a journalist checked the sales figures this time next week Luxon could be officially told he's wrong.
I think that 'people don't care' is a little more nuanced – than they can't be bothered to read it.
Sales and readership don't equate to a change in opinion.
People like 'shock' books (isn't everything awful, and look how horrible the world is) – hence the enduring popularity of the misery memoir. [YMMV, I'm talking about people in general, not any specific individual]
Compare Prince Harry's book, "Spare". Some of the highest sales ever. But his popularity got worse after it, not better.
Nicky Hager’s Dirty Work is not a ‘shock’ book, nor is it a celebrity memoir, it’s a truth book.
I seriously doubt you’ll read Dirty Work and argue blue in the face that it didn’t change your opinion on anything at all – (con)firming opinion is also a possible outcome, depending on your starting point.
I think you’re trying to say that, in your humble opinion, Dirty Work won’t change public opinion enough to make a material difference in the outcome of the upcoming GE. In any case, one could consider Dirty Work as ‘informed consent’ for voters who do read [about] it.
I read on one of the online news channels this morning that Heather du Plessis Allan had some junior staffer spend the night photo copying the entire book so she could read it and comment on it during her afternoon ZB programme.
No, can't be bothered ploughing through the sites to find out which one it was, but its there somewhere. And no, I never listen to her and not listening to her today.
https://thespinoff.co.nz/politics/23-09-2026/a-dispatch-from-the-sweaty-feverish-launch-of-nicky-hagers-new-book-dirty-work
HDPA may want to use the lame Luxon lie, i.e., I don’t know nothing [from before 2020].
The article appears to be hyperbole (since there were certainly copies available in Auckland, where the radio station, and presumably HDPA are based)
And, it would be a breach of copyright to photocopy the whole book (and not one any journalist is going to admit to in public)
Did she copy the bit that said you can't make copies?
I was simply making the point that readership numbers and/or book purchases – don't necessarily result in people changing their opinions.
Your opinion is that this is a "truth book"; other people will have different opinions. Or are you seriously arguing that an ACT supporter is going to regard this as telling the unbiased truth?
Having not read "Dirty work" yet (I'll wait for the library copy, since there doesn't appear to be an ebook available) – I can't say whether it's changed my opinion at all. And, TBH, I doubt that it's changed yours (assuming you've read it) – I'd be astounded if anything covered is going to make you less fond of the TPU.
"Or are you seriously arguing that an ACT supporter is going to regard this as telling the unbiased truth?"
Truth is that which does not change.
It doesn't matter the lens through which it is seen. The hypothetical ACT supporter may not like it, that doesn't stop it being the truth, if that is what it is.
In which case this is not, and cannot be a 'truth' book. There is (reportedly) an awful lot of opinion, i.e. interpretation of facts which themselves may or may not be entirely accurate – given that they are recollections, rather than documentary evidence.
Even Hager says there are things that he's not 'rock solid on'
https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/news/politics/nicky-hager-s-new-book-dirty-work-taxpayers-union-s-jordan-williams-responds/
IMO, this is a piece of political opinion writing. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. I can absolutely understand why Hager is outraged about the TPU and the effect that they have had on NZ politics.
what things is he not rock solid on? Be specific
It's mentioned in the article.
so there is a single thing, not things, that Hager has said he is not rock solid on?
Just finishing the (conveniently?) incomplete sentence in B's quote.
In that interview, Hager goes on to say:
I was asked about the specific claim that he's mentioned he's not rock solid on.
He mentions two or three things in your quote above.
The only evidence that we have that his witnesses are "really reliable people" is Hager's assessment.
And the accusation of Farrar is significant, as it's the only outright illegal thing which has been specifically sheeted home to an individual. If Farrar did this, then he's broken the law (Williams may also have broken the law, but there are no details of what the possible sexual harassment payout might have covered).
Yes, the reporting makes it sound a lot more like an 'allegations' book than a 'truth' one.
All his books have been 'allegations' based on some evidence or statements by people who were involved. 'Truth' is more of an dumbarse and weird abstraction that Bomber would wave around. I'm thinking about the Town hall debacle with DotCom more than a decade ago.
Personally I started in science and I follow the philosophy of we have a theory and so far we haven't managed to disprove it working – yet. But we'll keep trying to disprove it or at least blur the edges. For the moment, it is a reasonable assumption that based on previous experience is this what is what has happened or or will happen.
Just like the theory that if you give someone like Brash, John Key, Cameron Slater, David Farrar, or Jordan Williams a preview of a book critical of them that they will try to get an injunction to stop it being published in a timely fashion. They won’t try to establish the ‘truth’, they will simply try to suppress it until after it is useful.
Please state if you disagree with that theory…
Absolutely. My issue with this book is that there doesn't seem to have been any attempt to disprove the theory. It's certainly a plausible theory (no-one who's read 'Dirty Politics' could imagine Williams is incapable of the behaviour alleged in this latest book), but it doesn't sound like it's more than that.
I don't, but I also don't believe that gives the author an exemption from attempting to establish whether the allegations he's retailing have any external support.
The real test is probably now that he's published. If there's unsupported defamation of Williams in the book and Williams is confident Hager can't show evidence for it because Williams knows he didn't do those things, Hager's a sitting duck to be sued for defamation. If no defamation suit is brought, that doesn't prove anything in a legal sense but every individual is entitled to pass judgement in the court of their own personal opinion. I'd certainly judge it.
did you see the Bridge interview? I don’t have a copy of the book yet and have read selective coverage, but in that interview I saw a couple of things that made me think Hager is on solid ground.
He was calm and considered in his answers. He talked about the legal necessity of being very careful in what he said, but also in protecting his sources. The latter was paramount. This is a man whose whole career is dependent on maintaining his reputation for this.
At one point when being questioned about his sources, Bridge says “you’re worried about getting sued now aren’t you”, to which Hager smiles a bit and replies “to be perfectly honest, I’m not at all worried about being sued, but my lawyers would say to me to be suitably careful in what I am saying…”
This is a very experienced investigative journalist very confident in what he has written.
Doesn’t mean he can’t or didn’t make mistakes. Does support the idea that he’s good at what he does and this book is of similar standard.
https://youtu.be/lmz1QfnPQtw?t=295
tbh, I don’t know what to make of Bridge basically giving him a free ride. The YT seems to be edited though, so maybe I missed bits.
I wouldn't say that. He substantiates his theories with examples from evidence.
I haven't read it all yet. Work keeps interfering. But I keep opening it and reading a few pages at random while the AI churns looking for reasons for bugs.
He details about how he got the details of a story and cross checked it usually with several people giving the same story. He documents the documents.
I have seen assessments of reliability.
So far I haven't seen much that is straight speculation.
Ummm. Have you ever been on a jury or in court observing.
Most legal cases in court are decided on the credibility of witnesses and their statements of what they thought that they are on documentation.
My copy arrived in Invercargill this morning. Scanning it briefly through it mostly what I see is statements by eye witnesses. Or references to documents with witnesses explaining what they meant.
Ask any prosecutor bringing a criminal case to court or a plaintiff with a civil case, and they'll (privately) tell you that they aren't 'rock-solid' on their evidence, the timeline or what exactly happened and why. There is a shit-tonne of opinion and supposition from police and lawyers always
Are you trying to say that Nicky Hager should be held to a higher standard than that? You have been previously spoilt by him and the relative insecurity of documents paper and electronic when security was looser.
Anyway, there is always the option. Take it to court and find out.
Perhaps if you pointed to some specific things you're worried about rather than simply expressing your opinion about things that you have no evidence for, someone could point out the source of Hager's opinions and suppositions. He appears to state where he got them from.
I agree. However, I'm not the one claiming that this was a "truth book".
So far as I'm aware, none of the sources have been named – it's all anonymous. Which isn't at all comparable to a legal case – where you get to see and hear the person cross-examined, and form your own opinion of their credibility (regardless of the legal outcome).
the public doesn't always get to access those details though
Well of course they are. When you're dealing with questionable people who have a degree of power and money and are known to have shady contacts, then you have no choice but to remain anonymous.
They are, in effect, whistle blowers and have every reason to be fearful for their safety.
Ah.
gsayssaid that.Consider my opinion about saying things like that above.
You’re trying so hard to dismiss Hager’s book Dirty Work as mere opinion – opinions are like arseholes, everybody has got one, and everybody is entitled to theirs and free to do with them whatever they feel like (how FPU and libertine!).
You ignore that not all opinions are equal, that some are well-informed and grounded in professionalism, expertise, and long research (3 years, in the case of Hager working on Dirty Work). Yours, not so much, and you haven’t even read the book (yet).
Hager said this about TPU, but funnily, it’s applicable to you as well:
https://thespinoff.co.nz/politics/23-09-2026/nicky-hager-and-dirty-work-24-hours-on
Interesting that you've now moved from this is a "truth book" to agreeing with me that this is political opinion.
Please note that I haven't dismissed anything. Political opinion is entirely valid, and a well-recognized tool for shifting debate. I've never said otherwise.
And, you should also note that I haven't expressed an opinion about the book at all. I've noted and been prepared to discuss the news commentary (as have you, and just about everyone else on this site – since most don't have a copy to read).
Nope. Logical fail.
Yes, you have – you dismissed Dirty Work as “a piece of political opinion writing”, completely ignoring the 3-year research by an experienced investigative journalist. Keep up your denial.
Ahum, you wrote:
Seems to me that you explicitly expressed a clear and specific opinion there. Could be my bias though.
TPU does have vacancy for you, undoubtedly – they couldn’t have done a better job than you.
one of the outcomes of Dirty Politics was that journalists were less inclined to use those channels. You don't seem to have a very good grasp of how change happens.
Sure, the numbers themselves might be good for advertising and others to buy & read said book. Similarly, a book purchased as ornamental decoration on a coffee table won’t have much effect either – Dirty Work is not glossy enough for that, anyways. The problem is that you made a categorical claim, as per usual, which was a silly nonsensical generalisation – you left out “necessarily”.
Books don’t change people’s lives? The word is not mightier than the sword? Aren’t you a self-confessed ‘lifelong reader’? The irony is probably lost on you.
My comment was deliberately provocative (aka shock-jock MO) and as expected, you and a few others went all literal & legalistic. My aim was to reciprocate in the same fashion as your comment that I was replying to.
My opinion has a solid foundation though. Hager is a truth-seeker and his book(s) is aimed at other truth-seekers. In that sense, his latest book Dirty Work can indeed be labelled a ‘truth’ book. The dirty people Hager writes about are truth-evaders and truth-manipulators.
Seriously? Nice choice of words.
Yes, it’s entirely possibly, in my opinion, that an ACT supporter might consider some of Hager’s book truthful. After all, Hager interviewed a number of people (sources) to obtain & verify information for his book. Some of those were (and still are?) affiliated with TPU and presumably voted ACT or National.
I presumed so, which is why I used future tense in my comment. However, as mentioned above, you denied previously that it wouldn’t change [your] opinion.
Silly comment – why do you think I’d read to increase or decrease my fondness for anything or anybody? Do you seriously think that I read & reply to your comments for that reason? It’s got nothing to do with the price of fish other than accusing me of being biased towards TPU and an attempt to deflect and divert from replying to your comments, which is a habit of yours when challenged.
There is no need to include 'necessarily' in my statement "Sales and readership don't equate to a change in opinion"
The two things are not related. Opinions can change regardless of whether people buy a book, or even read it. Media coverage can be an important factor in changing public opinion – regardless of whether people have read the original or not.
I offer the case of the Unfortunate experiment at National Women's or the Mt Erebus inquiry, where most people certainly didn't read the official enquiry, or (often) even the associated books – but the media coverage of both.
Your claim of a shock jock response – I'll leave alone. Although I'll note that you apparently think it's fine if you do so – but not if others do.
Goodness – what do you read for then? Simply to confirm your existing biases? Seems a rather pointless endeavour to me.
I note that you’re happy to attribute bias to others, but much less willing to acknowledge your own.
Crikey dick! Why do kids learn to read at school? I’ll leave you to ponder your increasingly absurd responses here.
More than happy to acknowledge my biases if that makes you happy. However, that won’t change your silly attitude towards Hager’s Dirty Work and dismissing it as ‘opinion’ without any effect on opinion, as you seem to imply. Now, you even state that opinions can change without even buying the book, as if this proves your previous categorical claim that “[s]ales and readership don't equate to a change in opinion”.
Keep wriggling.
Ah well, Dirty Work was sold out at Whitcoulls in the Plaza, and at Bruce McKenzie. Both are expecting more copies in the next few days, although the sales staff at Bruce McKenzie said I would probably miss out again unless I reserved a copy. Still, not hurry eh, and it was a nice walk – bought the last box of fortune cookies on sale at Davis Trading instead.
Guess it's no surprise that Dirty Work would be selling well in Palmy – the last time that hotbed of socialism elected a National MP was in 1975.
It's a surprise to Luxon.
He thought, like himself, no-one would be interested.
Two days since the launch and we could be heading for a second print run!!
What did your Fortune Cookie say? If it was like Clint Eastwood’s in DeadPool “You’re s#!t out of luck”, I wouldn’t bother trying to get your own copy of the book anytime soon…
What I would say to you is I often find it quite difficult to believe what CEO Luxon says – reckon he'd have a tough time selling that particular lie now.
The fortune cookies are a present for twentysomething family members who a returning (briefly) from London in the wee small hours. I might get one.
Fortune Cookies – I think they would be a big money spinner for a keen little start-up by one of the innovative Left Parties. And there would be good lines in them from some of our wits. How about it? Would be sold by w-o-m not supermarkets.
And it's a sadder indictment on what NZ has become that many wouldn't even know we have a corrupt organisation like the Taxpayers Union openly directing coalition policy.
Coughlan's concusion in his Herald review brought me back to earth.
The pricks are going to get away with this shit.
The most compelling thing the book may say is about journalism itself. There’s little doubt the ugly tactics Hager has revealed in previous books persist. But advances in encryption and data security make leaking large troves of correspondence increasingly difficult and traceable.
The bigger question posed by books like this isn’t so much whether Dirty Politics goes on, but whether we’ll continue to find out about it.
https://archive.li/hY0h5
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/politics/nicky-hager-book-dirty-work-fascinating-but-light-on-evidence-thomas-coughlan/premium/YW2X6KY4YRDEHK4B6F5CKSDMHE/
Shit like this.
/
https://thespinoff.co.nz/the-bulletin/23-09-2026/nicky-hagers-dirty-work-taxpayers-union-three-waters-and-a-rotten-stench