![The image of canned Whale Meat used to illustrate the Twitter account of the leaker of Cameron Slater's documents.](/sites/default/files/styles/full_width/public/feature_images/isrYgHRv_400x400%20%281%29.jpg?itok=fvCF6ygA)
By Bernard Hickey
With less than five weeks to go until the September 20 election, here's my daily round-up of political news on Monday August 15, including the hacker behind the leaked Cameron Slater documents beginning to drip-feed them to the public by a twitter account called Whaledump.
The documents were released onto Mega.com, but appeared to have been deleted by late on Monday evening. They were also released onto Imgur.
They show Prime Minister John Key's then Press Secretary Kevin Taylor saying to Slater in May 2008 Key would not do a video interview with Slater as the office "planned not to engage with bloggers", however he said fellow National staffer Jason Ede would give him a call. They then show Ede coaching Slater in June 2012 on how to make an OIA request aimed at embarrassing MFaT officials opposed to a restructure.
John Key had previously challenged Nicky Hager to release the documents underpinning his 'Dirty Politics' that has dominated the election campaign since it's publication last Wednesday.
Earlier, Key again defended Ede's downloading of data from a Labour website and stood behind Justic Minister Judith Collins, despite her acknowledgement she had given the details of a former Labour staffer to Slater. Key also rejected criticism of his earlier comments that he did not approve an accelerated OIA request on whether the SIS gave a briefing to Phil Goff.
He said it was "spooky" that the leaker had put the documents on Mega, which had been originally built by Kim Dotcom. Hager has denied the leaker has anything to Dotcom, as has Dotcom.
Key told reporters in Petone Ede's role was to brief right wing bloggers. "I am absolutely confident you'll find when you go look at the Labour party over successive Labour leaders they'll have exactly the same position. We have to deal with the media," Key said.
Later on Monday evening, the SIS appeared to contradict Key's earlier view that he was unaware of the OIA request. The SIS said it had informed Key's office that it was responding to the OIA request. The response within 24 hours was seen as unheard of by other media, who also said they had unsuccessfully made OIA requests over the same matter.
Key again attacked the book.
"He got one series of selected emails which were hacked, which today are getting put up on a site which arguably was established by Kim DotComm which is a little bit spooky, and now what we've got is a situation where we are meet to believe that verbatim it is right even though most of these stories are dissolving before Nicky Hager's eyes," Key said.
He defended the actions of National staffers in downloading information from a National website.
"If they leave the security off the site and if they choose to want to do that, that's their mistake. It's not the National party's mistake," Key said.
"If the Wallabies go out and they name their starting side on their internal site and they leave their security off, are you really telling me that the All Black management wouldn't go and have a look? Of course they would," he said.
Key was announcing with Gerry Brownlee that the Government planned to spend NZ$100 million over four years on urban cycleways. It is being managed separately from the Land Transport Fund, where other cycling spending is grouped with spending on motorways and public transport.
Earlier denials
However, Collins' identification of a former Labour staffer and current official to Slater remains a live issue, as does the identity of whoever at National Party head office downloaded details from Labour's computers, and the speed of a successful OIA request by Slater to the SIS.
The details quoted from Slater's email and Facebook traffic are damaging revelations about the views and activities of Slater himself, Judith Collins, National Party campaigner Simon Lusk , PR man (and son of former National Cabinet Minister Doug Graham) Carrick Graham, National Party PR man Jason Ede , Taxpayers' Union Executive Director Jordan Williams, Auckland National Party figure Aaron Bhatnagar and National MP Mark Mitchell . Former National MP Katherine Rich has yet to answer questions about whether the Food and Grocery Council used Graham to plant and pay for articles on Whaleoil that personally attacked anti-alcohol campaigners.
John Key is not directly linked in any of the quoted exchanges, but he said last week he spoke on the phone to Slater three or four times a year and had texted him on occasions.
Key again stood behind Collins and Ede in a combative and compelling interview with Guyon Espiner on Radio NZ's morning report . Key declined to criticise Slater, simply saying: "He's not my guy." Key compared National's briefings of Slater to the ones it gives to journalists in the television, radio and print.
Anyone who doubts the damage to these people and the scale of the problem for National and Collins in particular should read the quotes in the book, none of which have yet been challenged by Slater. Strip away the overlay put on the quotes by Hager and it reveals the character of Slater, Collins and Lusk in particular. Regardless of whether any criminality or ministerial impropriety is shown (and that is far from clear), the tone and the content of the conversations revealed in the book is shocking.
Toxic brands
Key's continued contact with Slater and his support for Collins creates the risk his #TeamKey 'brand' will be tarnished by the toxicity revealed in the quotes in the book. For those who doubt this, they just need to read the book and the notes that go with it. It makes for sickening reading. Again, Slater has not denied any of the quotes, and neither Ede nor Lusk have commented to deny the quotes.
John Armstrong commented in the NZ Herald on Saturday that Key is putting himself at significant risk. "It only requires someone connected with one of the incidents in the book to dispute and disprove the Prime Minister's assertion that it all has 'nothing to do with National' for Key to be in serious trouble credibility wise," Armstrong wrote.
Interestingly, Key has previously distanced himself from Lusk, saying in May last year: "I think I once described (Lusk) on a scale of 1 to 10, as minus-1." Here's an excellent backgrounder on Lusk last year by Fairfax's Andrea Vance, , which shows Lusk lined up alongside Collins in an intense factional fight with Steven Joyce.
One definite result of the book's publication is to reveal the bitter factionalism within National underneath Key and the lack of a clear successor. The risk for the Government is that this bitterness rubs off onto public perceptions about Key himself. So far, that is not clear.
Poll shows some impact
TVNZ released a snap opinion poll by Colmar Brunton on Saturdayshowing 43% of voters did not believe the allegations in 'Dirty Politics' about the involvement of Prime Minister's Office, while 28% did believe them and 29% did not know. It found the book had negatively influenced 9% of the respodents' views about National, while 4% said it had improved their view of National and 82% said it made no difference.
Interestingly for those watching the turnout and fearing it may cause a 'plague on both your houses' reduction in turnout, the poll found the book made 12% of respondents more likely to vote, while only 1% were less likely to vote.
Both Hager and Cameron Slater were interviewed by both TV3's The Nation and TVNZ's Q+A .
Slater said he had received death threats and that he was not a National Party member. He he regularly spoke to political figures on the left and had helped in their campaigns. He said he wanted Stuart Nash and Kelvin Davis to do well in their campaigns. He said he expected to keep corresponding with Key, but that if he didn't, he wasn't bothered.
David Cunliffe later said Labour candidates should not be in contact or talking "to someone of Mr Slater's ilk."
Meanwhile, Nicky Hager told Q+A he had gone back to the source of the leaked documents to ask if they could be released.
Hager said he believed his source had decided to release the documents himself, but he reiterated he had asked the source to redact the names and details of non-public figures to avoid "collateral damage." Hager again denied that the source had anything to do with Kim Dotcom.
He said in all the documents he had read there were no indications of Slater talking to Labour party figures, although there were mentions of contacts with left-wing bloggers. For quite some time Slater appeared on a cable television political chat show with blogger Martyn Bradbury.
Opinion poll results
Two opinion polls showed the debate over foreign ownership of land in the first two weeks of the campaign has appeared to cut into National's support, although Labour has not necessarily been the beneficiary. Both polls were completed before the release of the book.
TVNZ's Colmar Brunton poll of 1,000 voters from August 9-13 found support for National fell 2% to 50% from a month ago, while support for Labour also fell 2% to 26%. Green support rose 1% to 11% and support for NZ First rose 1% to 5%. Internet Mana rose 2% to 4% and Conservative was flat at 2%. Maori and Act were unchanged at 1%. The poll has a 3.1% margin of error at the 95% confidence interval and 15% of those polled either had no view or were undecided.
TV3's Reid Research poll of 1,000 voters from August 5-13 found support for National fell 1.9% to 47.5% from a month ago, while support for Labour rose 2.3% to 29%. Green rose 0.6% to 13% and New Zealand First rose 0.3% to 4.6%. Conservative fell 0.2% to 2.5%, Internet Mana fell 0.3% to 2%, Maori fell 0.3% to 0.8%. ACT rose 0.2% to 0.3% and United Future was flat at 0.2%. The poll has a margin of error of 2.1% at the 95% confidence interval.
Elsewhere, Judith Collins told Adam Bennett at the NZ Herald that her husband David Wong-Tung's office was burgled six weeks ago and his laptop accessed. This followed break-ins at Mark Mitchell 's Parliamentary and electorate offices almost a year ago.
Green Child Poverty plan
Metiria Turei launched the Green Party's Election Campaign with this speech , which included its policy for reducing child poverty. This included a new 40% top tax rate for those earning over NZ$140,000 a year and an increase in the trust rate from 33% to 40% to raise NZ$1.12 billion per year. That money would then be redirected into various measures to reduce child poverty.
"Ensuring that every child in New Zealand has enough to thrive is one of the biggest moral and economic challenges of our times. One in four kiwi children now live below the poverty line," she said.
"For a quarter of the price of National’s tax cuts to the wealthiest New Zealanders we can reduce poverty and its effects amongst our poorest children," she said.
The policy included:
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extending the NZ$60/week In Work Tax Credit (IWTC) to those 130,000 to 150,000 families currently not receiving it, where the parents are not working 20 hours each or a combined 30 hours a week. This would cost NZ$400 million a year.
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providing a parental tax credit of NZ$220/week for newborns of beneficiaries in their first 10 weeks of life. Currently beneficiaries do not receive this. This would cost NZ$29.4 million per year.
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investing NZ$500 million a year in children's health and education, including through establishing school 'hubs' at decile 1-4 primary and intermediate schools where the health, social and welfare needs of children, and their families could be met on-site. Each hub would employ a coordinator, offer free after-school and holiday care programmes, offer a national school lunch fund and include dedicated school nurses.
The costings over the first three years of the policy detailed on Page 18 show the policies would cost NZ$2.866 million in the first three years, but the revenue measures would raise NZ$4.111 billion, leaving a net gain to the Government of NZ$1.96 billion.
Steven Joyce said the Green and Labour recipe of higher taxes would stall New Zealand's economic recovery.
"We've been here before. A 40 per cent tax rate is damaging to the economy because it increases tax avoidance, penalises hard work, and sends some of our best and brightest offshore," he said. "And it is of course just another in a long list of new taxes Labour and the Greens want to introduce including a capital gains tax, a big carbon tax, taxes on water use, higher personal taxes, and regional fuel taxes."
Annette King announced Labour's Health policy on Friday, including a national bowel screening programme, a review of ambulance services and an independent review of clinical thresholds for elective surgery.
(Updated with Whaledump leaks, Key's comments and cycleway announcement)
I'll update this regularly through the day.
See all my previous election diaries here.
See the index for Interest.co.nz's special election policy comparison pages here.
67 Comments
Quite a good summary on Dot Com in the Guardian. Regardless of how one feels about the man, the Nats created this monster for themselves. They very much underestimated this man. Fool he aint.
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/aug/17/kim-dotcom-megaupload…
I agree, how NZ treated him is totally un-acceptable, and now he's p*ssed and wants to stop it...so would I be.
Some of the youtube interviews were interesting,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMxhIfG0MpY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmIPVrkN1hA
Just why 4+ armed men with semi-automatic guns are needed for an otherwise un-armed and non-violent man is mind boggling.
oh boy has John boy mad an enemy.
Or even a helicopter, just where is he going to run to?
Either the police were utter retards, and/or politically motivated.
regards
I find it very difficult to distingush between Hager and Slater. Except perhaps diet.
Both have an agenda, both publish to the best effect they have to achieve that agenda. Both attempt to wreak havoc on their targets.
Both have relationships with other people with an agenda, who use Hager and Slater to achieve those. That relationship between the two and their feeders seems symbiotic.
Both receive information and publish it, to achieve their feeders objective.
Feeders, Hager and Slater, would all prefer to keep the relationships and channels secret.
Are you saying that matters covered in his previous books - Seeds of Distrust and The Hollow Men - have been discredited? I've done a fair amount of google searching on can't find any such journalistic/academic criticism. Sure the targets of the exposures and/or those sympathetic with the targets do alot of attemtped discrediting, but never do they deny the hard evidence because the evidence is sound.
Completely serious Rastus. I have listened closely to Hagar. In his self appointed pious way, he certainly weedles and threatens, and 'condemns with faint praise' etc. Not as upfront as the odious Slater, but much the same approach.
But Rastus, what do you think of the overall similarities I outlined in their self adopted role ?
Fair point...and most poltical extremists are self appointed and pious. I have yet to read the book, but will do so as soon as pos. I have been uneasy with the Nats since the day the NZ FBI raided the mansion. Seems we have an americanisation of the nz scene going on here - and Slater is but one part of this - I'm not so sure I want to reward anyone for this trend with my vote.
rastus - if you haven't read the book yet - here's a very interesting blog post on it by Andrew Geddis, Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Otago. Quoting him in terms of the purpose of the post;
Because I want to talk about the sorts of people who this book reveals for who they are, and what their participation in our politics means.
http://pundit.co.nz/content/cri-du-c%C5%93ur
As a Professor of Law he is particularly disturbed by email commnets made by two barristers and solicitors of the High Court of New Zealand, whom he points out are subject to the New Zealand Law Society's ethical obligations. Very grim relvelations for them in that regard, I'd say.
KH,
Simply astounded that you think they are similar. Have you been on the whaleoil blog? Its the unrestained rant of a bigot and bully. Everything about Slater is nasty even his attempts to appear resonable.
Hagar by comparison is restrained. I think the book is no "weedle" , it shines light on links at a Govt level to Slater a known National rant machine.
Whether you agree with Hagars politics or not , we should all be concerned about this type of activity.
The "he condemns with faint praise" line is pure fantasy. I think there is no praise is this book for National or slater. Not sure what you mean? Can you explain?
Yes Pure. I have been to the Whale Oil blog and it is truely odious. I fully agree on that.
As for the many similarities I identified between Slater and Hager. Look at my original post (3rd on the list above). Interested to hear what you think of each of those similarities in their process.
I am very interested to see who the feeders of Hager are. Also it seems to me that the Labour are going a bit soft on Slater. Probably because they are scared he will turn and identify who in the Labout Party feeds him stuff as well.
KH,
I certainly agree they have a differant diet. Just think the attempt to compare these two is a big stretch.Josie Pagani met him the other day. She found him a genuine character. I think this to be a good assessment.
Maybe the whale should write a book...titles....Low Oil.....Unhooked...??
Righto then..Both have an agenda..dum de de dah.
A fish and a tartare sauce have much in common.
You have identified commonality. This is not very hard. The question is , how useful is it.
If your goal is to attempt to make them appear the same , you have done well.
The usefulness of Hagars book , to my mind is reasonably straightforward
The usefulness of Slater........less so
"Nicky Hager's book exposes both the politics of demonisation and the National Government’s role in facilitating it. The right wing blogs have been more extreme, more violent and more coordinated with the parliamentary party and so the book is their comeuppance. "
J Pagani
the hacker has apparently been talking to the Herald for a week, and will be releasing things via twitter.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11310429
the morning report interview was indeed, as described above, compelling. Audio here
http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/morningreport/audio/201460…
Where's the evidence Mr Hager ? Hager now says his source will release the documents .
If Kiwi's seriuosly believe that , then I have just had confirmation that they will believe absolutley anything
I could place a bet at the TAB that the release will never happen
This whole Hager thing is so yesterday's news , if it was ever news in the first place .
An attempt at a stitch -up if anything , nothing but a political document , consisting of lies and disotrtions of the truth , and we have yet to see any of the evidence , which Hager now conveniently says will be released by the source .
Boatman, It seems likely a dump of evidence is coming later today, as you note. You are making yourself potentially look very foolish in predicting it won't come. If the source is going to drip feed the evidence right up until the election, then this issue will be the gift that keeps on giving.
Whether enough New Zealanders care to make a difference, time will tell. I think they just might, though. National's campaign is entirely about John Key, and trust, and if that image and perception is broken, their campaign looks in trouble to me.
Sorry Boatman but your attempts to discredit Mr Hager are just an attempted smokescreen. None of the protagonists have denied the veracity of the source material, merely the means of its acquistion. I have read the book and I am truely disgusted with it contents, particularily regarding the expediated preferential release of SIS material to Slater and Collin's enabling the persecution of a defenseless public servant. While much of it merely reveals Slater own twisted sense of the world the fact that our Prime Minister by association condones this behaviour asks many questions of his character. My political leanings are to the National Party but sadly this election my vote will be cast in an manner that seeks to rid New Zealand of this morally corrupt man. The National party clearly needs some time in opposition under new leadership to clense itself.
My first vote in NZ was Muldoon. Then the next election the Bob Jones Party. From there voted Winston right through, until I decided Helen had overstepped the mark and voted National. And of course, totally not predicted by me, that was the term that Winston didn't make it back. Swore I'd never do that again, and I'd stick with NZ First because no matter who is in government his skills in opposition are just so worthy. And their policies are really sound (which is why I really should vote for them!)
Now I'm torn between NZ First and Internet/Mana. I have decided my political persuasion is neither left nor right but anti-establishment or "spoiler".
Nicky Hager has an imagination that Walt Disney would be proud of, and should take up script writing for fiction movies
I initially thought it was just the wrtitings of a left leaning journo , but on careful reading one can see it is couched in language that is highly inflamatory , and designed to make you feel shocked .
Until you check the backgorund to the stuff , and realise its a highly distorted view of reality.
I have now read the book cover to cover over the weekend , and sorry to say it chaps , my opinion has not changed from when I speed read it last week .
This is nothng but the wild imagination of a fiction writer disguising himslef as an investigative journalist .
John Key comes out of this 100% clean , green and smelling of roses
Key , the winner gets $1000 for passing go
Slater get $15 reparations as the victim in this hacking crime
Hager gets NIL , goes directly to jail , does not pass first base and does not collect anything
No , Craig , you are becoming like Nicky Hager, imagining things . I never said I had read it thoroughly or properly last week , ( I have checked my positngs and I never said that )
I said I got a copy from Whitcoulls Albany Mall .
I had read it very quickly to get an overview , the gist of the book .
I then sat down on Friday evening and started to to try to make sense of it .
Its garbage of the first order, another feeble attempt by the now desperate left to lower John Key in the eyes of his adoring supporters .
Kiwi's will see it for what it is
Just to clarify , and this probably will raise more questions than answers , I did not buy a copy myself becasue I felt it was a waste of good money , we used the organisations expense card to buy it ........
Now let your imaginiation go wild , and start your own conspiracy theory about who I may or may not be
Well, I wouldn't count on getting an accountant's, lawyer's, tax or financial or company/trust structures adviser's ear much before the end of September, given the Greens plan to tax the wealth generators and redistribute it to some cause-du-jour.
The old, old economic deadweights of:
- redescription
- redirection
- structural changes
- tax domicile changes
- Ownership changes
simply to end-run this well-signalled and hence completely self-defeating proposal, will be back with us full force.
So the $1.1b they foolishly hope to raise via this tax, could easily instead be spent on advisers and the sort of avoidance structures and activities I note above, and result in not one red cent to the Gubmint...
Such naivety....
Greens (and Labour) certainly raising a lot of tax (CGT and personal income tax) - they need to fund their enormous election promises.
How about some more radical but more harmonious tax changes, such as:
- Changing where the tax bands kick in - currently the second highest tax rate (30c) cuts in at only $48,000! Madness that someone on the average wage pays tax at only 3c per dollar less than someone on $100k.
- A land tax - recommended by the tax working group instead of a capital gains tax.
- Aligning the tax rates - company, trust, personal. Rise them all in unison.
These ideas align most to the tax policy of the Mana Party - see;
http://mana.net.nz/policy/policy-economic-justice/
Scroll down to the bottom for the tax specific policy. Interesting that they also support systemic monetary policy change in the long term;
Long term, MANA supports the need to build a new sustainable monetary system to replace the current capitalist, privatized system that is so fundamentally flawed in order to significantly reduce the cost of living and share wealth much more fairly. - See more at: http://mana.net.nz/policy/policy-economic-justice/#sthash.poutVmP9.dpuf
Zoultuger......not sure my back of envelope figures will help you but..
Income$48250 = 19% total tax on earnings of$8973
Income$100,000 = 28% total tax on earnings $27579.
Person on $100k is paying tax at 28% and a total of 3X income tax overall
they also dont get a community services card and no WFF unless they have heaps of kids,
i,m no accountant so if im way off then let us know.
there is a 3% difference in marginal tax rates I know but your comment is misleading..
OK everyone. I know some of you are passionate defenders of your own political views, but interest.co.nz is not going to have commenting like on Whaleoil or the Standard/etc. Attacking other commenters is not acceptable. Use the "Report Comment" if you see it; I can't keep both working and monitoring comments. I am not trying to restrain discussion of the issues, but no personal attacks. Comparing our registered commenters to Hager or Slater is a personal attack. Don't do it.
... storm in a teacup .... nothing to see here folks , all is fine in Gnat Land , you can bank on that ... little Johnny has the Crusher well in hand ... move along , please ....
The Hager saga will be over by lunch-time ... trust us .... ( we bloody well hope so ) ....
... Slater is just a master baiter of the lefties ... ... nothing to do with us ....
.......many of the poor are very productive, they work hard but cannot make ground. How do you think you would manage in todays environment if you were born into south Auckland family, mum and dad working two jobs, barley covering the food and rent, nothing extra to spend on you or your activities?
We are not going to achieve equality by taking money away from the productive sector and giving it to the poor.
The so called "poor" will become dependant on this ( in many cases they already have developed a dependancy) , and make their problems worse for the longer run .
Government should provide the framework and environment for people to succeed and develop .
Handouts dont help they foster dependancy .
Oh Rastus , c'mon mate we have been feeding the poor and downtrodden folk for generations .
I have no problem with helping the truly needy, but we now have so much middle class welfare that we run the risk of bankrupting ourselves .
And we need to ask what we have got from this investment in the poor :-
- Having to increase Manukau Police force to double its 2008 compliment to curb crime ( and we pay for that too)
- An increase in substance abuse ( how they afford that is beyond me)
- More Pokie machines per capita than any other non-gambling centre in the world
- More liquior stores per family in South Auckland than anywhere else in NZ
While there have been some successes like John Key for example , who grew up in a solo parent state house , there is a terrible culture of expectation of handouts and dependancy by perfectly able people .
Its nonsense .
As to the issue of low paid jobs and people barely able to cover the rent , we have all sorts of programs which are generaous in the extremem including :-
income support for them to pay for clothes , Warrants of fitness, electricity , etc
the acccomdation supplement to pay the rent
Working for families a handout enough to pay for the entire weekly grocery bill
What more do they want ?
Amusingly, the t'ing no-one dares mention in the whole Hager storm-in-a-tea-cup is the question of provenance.
How do we all know that the 'leaked emails' were not:
- edited before release?
- made up out of whole cloth by an army of electron-torturing monkeys? (The technical IT term for this is PDOOMA - Pulled Directly Out Of My Aristotle)
- some combination of the above?
To use an art analogy, we cannot possibly know whether we are looking at a Carl Feodor Goldie or at a Karl Sim.....
Some email facts discussed have been denied, such as Rodney Hide denies he was ever blackmailed. Although that doesn't necessarily mean that these emails were altered/made up. Slater may have bragged about stuff that didn't happen. But by in large Slater, Judith Collins and others do not deny that these are their emails.
.Key - Espiner transcrit. Well worth a read........
http://thestandard.org.nz/muddying-the-waters-transcript-key-on-rnz/
Would appreciate it if we could keep the Standard/Whaleoil -type links off of interest.co.nz. We are happy to report election 'news' but we are also trying not to be drawn too far into the sewer. Beltway stirring is sometimes 'fun,' but there are never any safety rails ...
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