By Bernard Hickey
With four weeks to go until the September 20 election, here's my daily round-up of political news on Friday August 21, including a fresh poll showing how the 'Dirty Politics' saga has affected the Government's popularity and the latest on whether or not Prime Minister John Key personally knew anything about the now infamously-expedited OIA response to Cameron Slater from the SIS.
The first full opinion poll done since the publication on the evening of August 13 of Nicky Hager's book shows the personal popularity of Key and National has fallen, but remains far ahead Labour andDavid Cunliffe respectively.
The New Zealand Herald's DigiPoll of 750 voters from August 14 to 20 found support for National fell 4.9% to 50% from a month ago, while support for Labour fell 1.3% to 25.3%. The biggest winner was the GreenParty. Its support rose 3.8% to 13.7%, while New Zealand First fell 0.3% to 4.3%.
Conservative more than doubled to 2.6% from 1.2%, Internet-Mana fell to 2.1% from 2.2% and Maori, ACT and United Future were all solidly below 1%. The poll found 12.5% undecided.
The poll found 64.8% saw John Key as preferred Prime Minister, down 8.5% from a month ago, while David Cunliffe rose 4.1% to 14.6%. This Hubbard cartoon in the Dominion Post captured the mood over the damage to 'Brand Key' from his association with Judith Collins andCameron Slater.
Other more market-based measures of the Government's support also show it has fallen in the last week.
The contract on iPredict for whether there will be a National Prime Minister after the election has fallen to a 63% chance from an 82% chance last Wednesday.
Shares in Meridian, Genesis and Mighty River Power , which are seen as a proxy for whether a Labour/Green/NZ First Government would elected and introduce New Zealand Power, have fallen 2%, 4% and 1% respectively since last week, despite a 1.5% rise in the NZX 50 and very strong profit and dividend results from Meridian and Mighty River Power.
Key's word challenged
Key's reputation was challenged directly yesterday when letters fromWarren Tucker and Beverley Wakem to NewstalkZB's Felix Marwick were published saying Tucker had spoken to "the Prime Minister" over the now infamously-expedited OIA response to Cameron Slater. This conflicted with Key's previous assurances that he personally had nothing to do with arranging or expediting the OIA response.
Phil Goff accused Key of lying and called for his resignation. Cunliffe said Key's assurance was simply not credible as SIS briefings had always been directly to the Prime Minister in the past.
After a morning of confusion, both Tucker and Wakem took the unusual steps of issuing statements backing the Prime Minister, saying Tucker had only briefed the office of the Prime Minister rather than the Prime Minister himself.
Key repeated that he was not personally briefed, saying he was on holiday at the time in Hawaii. He even joked about it. (See quote of the day below.)
The issue may not be dead yet though, as Adam Bennett at the NZ Herald reported from an August 2011 news conference where Key said this: "What happened is Warren Tucker didn't come to me, he went to his legal adviser and his legal advisers told him this is the process they have to follow and when he was going through that process it was at that point he told me he'd release it because he has to tell me that under the no-surprises doctrine."
Key again refused on the campaign trail to say if he would ask who in his office who worked with Slater on drafting the OIA request or who signed off on the expedited OIA response. This connection between Key's office and Slater is the central claim in Hager's book. The man at the centre of the storm, now National Party staffer Jason Ede , has yet to comment.
'Sack Collins'
Thursday morning's direct challenge to the Prime Minister's word is an indicator of how his refusal to remove Judith Collins has put the smell of blood in the water. The Otago Daily Times called on Key to sack Collins or at least dump her from cabinet after the election.
Key himself tried to turn the discussion around to attack on the hacker behind the theft of Cameron Slater's emails and facebook traffic.
"There's a real risk that a hacker and the left wing are trying to take an election off New Zealanders," he said. Key repeated the focus on 'Dirty Politics' was turning voters off and could lower the turnout.
More Whaledumps
Meanwhile, 'Whaledump' released another patch of documents aroundmidnight and the drama is set to continue while Key refuses to sack Collins and refuses to say who in his office coached and expedited Slater's OIA request. Also, the Parliamentary Service confirmed to Metiria Turei it was looking into matters raised in the book.
Key's demeanour on the campaign trail is starting to become more frustrated. He was reported by Fairfax to have half jokingly told a Radio NZ reporter as he was getting into his car: "Get out of my way scummy media or I might shove you."
Labour's Otago policy
David Cunliffe announced in Dunedin that a Labour Government would re-open and upgrade the Hillside railway workshops and keep the Invermay research centre open. Labour's policy for Dunedin and Otagopromised to create 3,000 more jobs within its first term.
Steven Joyce said the 3,000 extra jobs would represent a slow-down, given 23,000 extra jobs had been created in the region in the last five years.
The NZEI announced 93% of teachers and principals in the union had voted they had no confidence in the Government's ' Investing in Educational Success ' policy and 73% voted to reject the policy outright, rather than just try to renegotiate it.
Hekia Parata announced agreements over the plan with secondary school principals and school trustees. They had agreed to MOUs to alter the collective agreements of principals.
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.
56 Comments
Given the content of the Lusk/Slater Whaledump;
It would be great if someone created a list of National MPs with a column of those who used Lusk/Slater vs those who were targeted by Lusk/Slater.
To the Prime Minister's credit - I do recall an MSM statement by him ranking Lusk a -1 on a scale of 1 to 10. One of the first conversations in that email dump speaks of an intended 'hit' on Bill English;
- January 22, 2009
- -------------------------
- Simon Lusk, 1/22, 1:09am
- awesome post
- cam i thought your post on english was spot on. i struggle to see why others havent been as insightful as you have.
- simon
- -------------------------
- Cameron Slater, 1/22, 1:13am
- There is to be a campaign to get rid of Bill, you are welcome to contribute anonymously anything you wish, just send it through to me and it will be placed on a new website to be established shortly.
And then they go on at lengths to discuss who 'their' candidates are vs who they plan to oust. Very mafia-type tactics - Simon Lusk talks about wanting to make all of the National candidates aware that if they don't pay to work with Lusk/Slater - then they won't be successful within the party.
For the sake of the National Party going forward - those using Lusk should be cleaned out at this election by the very constituents who probably have no idea at the moment that their representatives participate in these dirty tricks campaigns.
I think you mean right-wing propaganda?
Lusk and Slater work their propaganda for (factions of) the right-wing.
You can read their conversations here;
and here;
http://w1.wikisend.com/node-fs/download/02b2ff9ca93ab0cc3ce9cee2141bbf9…
Although not sure how those links will work for you. If they don't work, the main Twitter feed page is here;
NZF is also climbing steadily. Strategically I think Cunliff has failed miserably, he has failed to take and hold the centre, worried I assume on losing voters to the left. Instead it seems he has petrified voters to the right of labour, the swingers that decide the election.
regards
Seemed the Hager thing had caused the Nationals to lose leading the agenda. For most of last week anyway.
Now this week it seems to me that Hager/Slater has also hurt the Labour Party. Labour intended to go on the basis of 'Vote Positive' but that went out the window. They have not been talking policy or getting any traction with it. Instead they have distracted themselves with Hager/Slater. They got derailed.
Not leading with a policy conversation is hurting the Labou party now.
True , KH we have not heard a squeak from Labour ,drowned out completely by John Key responding to his relentless media grilling , which I must say we are all getting weary of .
Only Labours TV advert which suggests that somehow parents will get to spend more time with their families if we vote Labour .
Maybe I am missing something , but how on earth do they think they could ever achieve that.?
I don't work in education, run a management consultancy, in this case I think the NZEI has a point, clearly hard to see how the National policy initiative will work in primary education.
Anyone with management experience can see that if they care to look. The end game appears to be consolidation of cost based on cluster schools rather than more focused on effective teaching.
Certainly after visiting universities on graduate recruitment, my obserervation is that many young have been captured by Mana/Internet party, they will not show up on the polls, (cell phone based) so will be interesting to see the effect at election time.
As a professional and having to live by the norms of accountability, I find it hard to listen to a Prime Minster who takes no responsibility for his office. The media is so on weak sticking this to him. Never get away with that in the professions.
Naturally the time poor and biased will not change their vote regardless however the swinging voter should not be underestimated.
By an end to child poverty , I hope you mean an end child inequality ........ things like ensuring children attend and get through school , and can actually read and write , are not abused , properly and warmly clothed and fed , not left to roam about in the strreets and become "known to police "at the tender age of 10 .
Money taken for honest hardworking Kiwis needs to be used properly .
Right now our inequality arises not from a lack of money , but from a whole host of social ills , substance abuse , horrendous mismanagement of the the money the famailies earn or are given .There are also cultural ills such as the lack of respect for authority , and this widespread nonsense of tagging , petty theft and pilfering of anything not bolted into the ground .
I recently went to Clendon shopping centre , and the bar in the shopping centre with Pokies was so full there were patrons literally queuing to use the pokie machines .
I have an interest in some commercial property in the area , and things are tight , so I dont have spare cash for Pokie machines .
I cant afford to use pokie machines , and according to Stats NZ we are supposedly in the top quartile of New Zelanders in terms of wealth and Income , so how can those folk afford them ?
We all know that throwing more and more money at the problem has never worked and often made the problem worse .
Running a budget is quite hard, especially on a tight income. Ive run a household budget spreadsheet for over a decade, now looking back through the years is quite interesting.
iphones etc, yep I look at whats being used on the train. I have a $29 phone, most of the school kids have phones that are 15 and probably 30 times what my one is worth. No wonder Apple has ordered 70million (I think it was) 6's the status symbol these days.
Oh and gas guzzlers, dont forget the status symbol of running a yank tank/SUV....ouch.
regards
mean? I don't mean anything, just vote for a "smarter greener economy".
I having a crack at being John Key and no matter what the subject the answer is "a smear campaign from the left".
Would you rather vote for more coal mines and unswimable rivers or a "smarter cleaner economy"?
PE what do you mean by the words "smarter green economy." Just how many jobs will this economy create? I believe we need to spend more money on extracting our natural resources which will create jobs and raise the standard of living for many New Zealanders who are currently struggling on their low wages. Controls can be put in place and I would even allow minerals to be extracted from national parks. Why do we deliberately keep so many New Zealanders poor? No wonder they go overseas for work.
So once those natural resources are used up what then? Like the UK survive on an ever growing mountain of debt? paying those now un-employed to sit around? What a great outcome that would be, not.
We have areas designated as Natural parks because they are "natural" as is, dont you fathom that that means unspoiled, un-changed?
"Just how many jobs will this economy create" not enough, hence we need to reduce the population. After peak oil means without more fossil fuel per day and in fact less the world's economy will stop growing and then shrink. or maybe you have not noticed that since 2008?
regards
Jolly Kid is still 4 times more popular as a PM than Cunny is , in the polls ...
... if David Shearer was still leading Labour , the alliance of left wing parties would now be ahead of the Gnats ...
But Cunny chose personal glorification , above what was best for the party ... no amount of dirty tricks by Dotcom's hencemen , stealing emails or whatever , will undo Cunnie's personal unlikeability ... ABC , brother !
... little wonder the extreme left are so hacked off ...
Nope, on his track record of managing this economy through one of the worst global economic crisis in decades, and a major local disaster, to a point where the country's growth and employments levels are the envy of most OCD countries including our nearest neighbour. That is what counts for the majority of NZers and that's what will count come election side - the rest is a side show designed to give the lefties some comfort over the next 5 weeks before a further 3 years of more discomfort.
I was taking the pith out fo GBH
:P
Yes, to be fair he didnt do a Cameron and bring in Austerity measures and tank our economy. I suppose the Q is would Labour have been any better? or worse? That is a hard Q to answer, HC and Dr Cullen had 9 years of paying down debt and acting pretty responsibly. I'd suggest its hard to say they would have been worse.
Not so sure on the next 5 weeks, the Hager and whaledump info is showing us voters just how ugly National really is, albour is back with a decent chance IMHO.
regards
Steven, lets be fair though - Labour managed the economy last during a global boom period certainly not a period with the biggest economic crisis since the great depression - yes we dont know how Labour would have handled that in comparison to National, but there is zero comparison in challenges between the two periods, especially when you put Chch on top of that.
With regards the dirty politics, I for one never doubted that National played hard ball exactly the same as the others, so if its an eye opener for some National party supporters I think theyve been very niaive. That said, its totally obvious from all the past scandals that Labour had that the only other party in power over the past few decades operates in exactly the same manner - I associate it with everyone's politics because thats the way it has been for my voting life, and in just about every other country as well- whats more, I suspect the vast majority of Kiwis do as well. Personally, I think when its time for voters to vote for whats best for them and the country, National will have done enough to get those votes..
You are talking rubbish now Grant, just because ppl dont want something doesnt make it not happen.
There is no choice about this, the world economy needs 1% to 2.5% more fossil fuel to grow 4%. However there is no significant increase in oil supply and that has been the case since 2005~6 when crude oil production peaked. Based on say a generious 2% to 4% ratio when the world's crude oil output starts to decline some time in the next 5 years it will be 4~8% per year, that means our economy can shrink 5% per year easily, if not 10%+. That signals a huge Recession and Depression, way worse than 2008.
I'd almost wish Labour loses so national takes the blame for that except the Green's see it and are trying to get work in progress so its not so bad. Either big party are yesterday's men in this regard.
regards
Sorry Steven, I'm not what youre referring to with the "no choice" comment ? Is it a reference to peak oil ? We're already past peak conventional oil, and no doubt at some point in the future we will have peak fossil fuels as well (horizontal drilling, fracking, shale oil, oil sands etc) are delaying it longer than I would have expected, but then thats the way things evolve and things get invented when the price gets right. I'm certainly not in the "peak energy" camp in my life time, and not even my kids.
Seriously what has Labour done that is even in the same ball park as the sleaze that this National Government in cohoots with Slater has got up to, there is no comparison at all.
These are very disturbing things that have been going on, I don't remember anything near as bad as this, and certainly not anthing remotely on this scale.
Nope I don't Philty, but the example well quoted of Mike Williams going overseas looking for dirt on Key is a fair indication of the activity being widespread - what would he have done if he's actually found some, leaked it to either the media or a blogger, standard practice. National's problem is that some criminal broke into their bloggers systems and highlighted it to those niaive enough to be surprised that it happens.
"lets be fair though" I did say this...however Ive not seen much evidence that it was managed, strikes me as some luck. I mean when JK said with the OCR where it was that he didnt understand why we were not growing at 6% then for me that was a defining moment. Now would Labour have done a better job? a very hard Q. On balance more public spending might well have seen a less bad recession, thats the good bit. What that would have done to the Govn cost of borrowing from overseas is a point we'll never know, but it could have been vicious, we had to borrow from ppl who frankly have a very right woing view of the world, we'd have been at their mercy.
There is hard ball and dirty politics, setting ppl with mental health issues at ppl you dont agree with or want to get back at is utterly wrong. I would and will condemn labour equally if they ever stoopt to that. I'll throw in I dont think for a moment labour are especially clean, some of their bloggers strike me as also close to needing medical help.
"when its time for voters to vote for whats best for them and the country," I'll agree that the former point is true, you only have to look at Epsom's support of ACT to see that. For the latter well sadly I think its a minority. Also though I think some ppl will vote blindly based on party politics ("my dad was a labout voter and so am I etc etc") and even more on not thinking about the medium and longer term that is utterly stupid. Of course part of the leadership thing is looking at the longer term and seeing what coming connecting with the voter and taking them with you. I have not seen much of that for many years.
regards
steven , if you've got a personality that doesn't resonate with the voting public ( and clearly Cunny is in that category ) , then you'd better off-set that with some great policies , a sound vision for the future , and a supporting team with oodles of energy and fresh ideas ....
... Cunny ain't got none of that ... he's got CGT as his main platform , no vision announced yet , and a bunch of tired old Clarkensians on his bench ...
3 more years , guys , 3 more years .... haaaaaaa ha de haaaaaaaaaaa !!!!!!
So in summary you are voting for JK cause he's good looking...
fair enough
CGT, this is one of the policies to stop crazy property speculation...a vision thing.
3 more years, dont count your chickens until they are hatched as they say, the Hager book has re-leveled the playing field.
regards
The problem with labours capital gains tax is...
on one hand they are earmarking the $millions of dollars raised for a large number of half arsed expenditure programmes..
on the other they are implementing it as a way to curb house price speculation for FHB
they CANT have both outcomes...i e if they are raising plenty of $ in CGT(which they wont) then house prices are obviously rising...?hard luck FHB..
... it's called the " Beehive " because each office is an individual cell , and can be detached from the rest of the building ..
The PM's office was floated across to Hawaii for a holiday , and the staff ambled over ... from what I've seen in the polls after the Hager saga , I really do believe that Little Johnny & the Gnats have proven they could walk on water ...
I always knew planet Key was a very strange and disturbing place, but who would have thought that on planet Key, when you say "me" you don't actually mean yourself, you mean your office at work, and even if you've said something like "he told me" sometimes that can still mean you know nothing about what he told you.
.. I believe it's called " the Royal me " , when one refers to one's entire coterie as " me " ... similarly , the " Royal we " includes the entire household ....
Except of course when you go to the toilet , then the " Royal wee " is an individual event ...
.... which , to the delight of all poker players , is closely followed by a Royal flush ...
so it seems Whaleoil's site was logging IP addresses, and when his site collapsed under the attacks over the "feral" thing people got the logs of the comments, which include IP addresses usernames and the email address they registered with. This is now in the hands of the Herald.
So the Herald can go "did you post anonymously on Whaleoil's site?" And the person goes "I don't know" the Herald can go "did you post this comment at this time and date as it came from your computer with an account registered with your email address?" . At least, that is what they seem to have done with Brownlee's Press Secretary.
Yes, here's the article;
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11313039
This is just awful - sickening dirty politicisation of the public service. I work at Massey University. Internet security there means that we can view blog sites but cannot log in to post anything. Why has this not been implement with respect to Parliamentary Services? Inexcusable to my mind - it's almost as if this sort of public servants posting anonymously to political blog sites from their work computers (the work WE the taxpayer are paying for) is something TPTB want to happen.
Have we completely lost an apolitical public service?
A MUST read from Naked Capitalism on the Dirty Politics network;
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2014/08/new-zealand-prime-minister-john-…
Well spotted Kate. New Zealanders for the most part, even those who like to think they are informed have no idea of the motives of our masters.
It's amazing that this international commentator should have a better grasp on what is happening in NZ than our own journalists. Hope you have forwarded the link to Guyon Espiner
as his interview was quoted in full. The article is long and complicated and the international money laundering company links very convoluted but very enlightening. There are some
bad eggs in NZ and at the highest level. Read the link people !
We welcome your comments below. If you are not already registered, please register to comment.
Remember we welcome robust, respectful and insightful debate. We don't welcome abusive or defamatory comments and will de-register those repeatedly making such comments. Our current comment policy is here.