Hard News: Dirty Politics
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Angela Hart, in reply to
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worth every cent some right-leaning donor paid for keeping the topic out of the media so effectively.
Except for its dishonest, nasty, underhand nature, you can't fault the strategy, on all fronts it has worked well, the only problem being that the public will become more conscious of it as the fallout from the book penetrates. People will care, but the strategy will aim to minimise the backlash and permit continuation of these tactics.
Vanishing Jason was masterful, but he must remain silent awhile longer.
Its ironic that my biggest hope lies with honourable Nats, who should now be attempting to ensure that their party's activities are and are seen to be fair, clean, open and honest.
This election was not fought on policy. It was fought on trust, (and untrue sound bites) Key can't afford to lose that trust., it's all he actually has. -
Ian Dalziel, in reply to
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Sell sword, sells words... ?
Vanishing Jason was masterful, but he must remain silent awhile longer.
Bets on whether it's broken in the Woman's Weekly or similar, before the critical or analytic media...
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Greg Dawson, in reply to
Bets on whether it’s broken in the Woman’s Weekly or similar, before the critical or analytic media…
The truth on sunday? Not sure he'd make a page 3, but while in eden, one does dress the part.
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Sofie Bribiesca, in reply to
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Its ironic that my biggest hope lies with honourable Nats, who should now be attempting to ensure that their party’s activities are and are seen to be fair, clean, open and honest.
But missing in action for the last 6 years. Have they left in disgust yet? It would be interesting if any of the ex MPs ( that have bowed out, some at the behest of Key) already knew about the machinations of the Party. An awful lot went at the end of the last term in Office. They sure had a clean out. Then there is the unreleased emails from Rawshark and that could align more MPs from TeamKey. Still. I wont hold my breath. English has been the only person to say anything unsupportive about practices that came to light and even that was pretty flimsy. And lets face it, if the public told them they don't care and gave them a Party vote etc, who are they to be honourable. I know of a pretty honourable Tory around these parts and that person found the Party still acceptable no matter any of their behaviour.That paints a pretty clear picture in my book.You have far more faith than me.
Key can’t afford to lose that trust., it’s all he actually has.
He doesn't have much of that. Majority of Harold voters believe KDC is more honest than Key. Honesty is what trust relies on. So he is a liar and still got voted in. How is them bananas on the apple tree? ;)
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Email Web
I’ve been a big fan of MetaFilter for years, but lately every page I go to on my phone has an ad for Crest Cleaning in it. Those who’ve read Dirty Politics will remember Crest were the cleaning company that used Slater (spit) as a front to vilely attack the cleaning company’s business organisation and to force cleaner’s wages for government contracts back down to minimum wage.
Anyone else seeing it? any odea who I can complain to?
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Ian Dalziel, in reply to
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...any idea who I can complain to?
D.U.S.T.
Department of UnSavoury Transactions ?
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The dragon opens an eye; a most unexpected contender. Well done sir.
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Chris Waugh, in reply to
The dragon opens an eye; a most unexpected contender. Well done sir.
Except that my experience of MFAT is the complete opposite of what Rodney Hide describes. In my experience they are superb, highly professional, highly competent. I'm still surprised at how badly they apparently screwed up in this case.
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st ephen, in reply to
I heard that back when Rogernomics was in full swing there was a proposal to privatise Foreign Affairs. Just contract in a service provider to do all that wine-and-cheesing, trade missioning, visiting stray kiwis in jail, diplomacy-type stuff. Someone like Alan Gibbs could have built up the business and flogged it off to the likes of Halliburton. I think in the end someone basically said to Treasury "FFS - we're either a sovereign nation or we're not".
Thirty years later it seems we're not so hung up on notions of sovereignty, and we're running out of other ways to transfer public value to private individuals. -
Sacha, in reply to
we’re running out of other ways to transfer public value to private individuals
there's all those state-funded social services just waiting to be privatised..
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Email Web
Ah that explains a a certain bouncy person's new cabinet role
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Radio Live reporting that Nicky Hagar’s house raided by police looking for details of Rawshark. Worrying.
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That's all there is on the Radio Live site right now - 4.08pm.
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Greg Dawson, in reply to
Journalist Nicky Hager’s been the target of a police raid as they try to flush out the hacker who downloaded blogger Cameron Slater’s emails.
The NZ Police are to be congratulated once again on their finely tuned sense of where the real problems lie.
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The Herald reports that the Police took away "Computer equipment" from Hager's home.
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Nicky Hager’s own statement about the raid.
The police spent over ten hours searching the house and removing property in an attempt to discover the identity of the person who provided information used in my book Dirty Politics.
Soon after the police arrived, the lead detective stated that I was not a suspect in their case, merely a witness. I spoke to him by phone and informed him that he would find no information in the house about my source. Nonetheless, he and his four colleagues seized a large collection of papers and electronic equipment belonging to my family, including computers, drives, phones, CDs, an IPOD and a camera. -
According to Hager's own account, this raid took place last Thursday. I'm surprised that it wasn't made public a lot earlier.
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He spoke at the Wellington Medical School on Friday about the attacks on public health academics and the need for public health people to push back against the corporate lobbyists and their assistants.
I don't recall that him mentioning the raid but he would have had his reasons.
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Trevor Nicholls, in reply to
we're running out of other ways to transfer public value to private individuals
The common-wealth is becoming invested in fewer and fewer hands. It's like the class system only even worse.
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mark taslov, in reply to
Except that my experience of MFAT is the complete opposite of what Rodney Hide describes. In my experience they are superb, highly professional, highly competent. I’m still surprised at how badly they apparently screwed up in this case.
They’re ok, I’d be prepared to give them B, I give them a loss of marks for making we wait 3 days before acquiescing to accept cash for a new passport at the HongKong consulate (2012).
Further marks lost in Beijing (2008); fully informed of a deadline the PSB had given me to replace a lost passport, Attache Christine Holah had promised me a 10 day turnaround on a replacement. On late delivery of the passport she appended it with a letter in which the acknowledgment of MFAT’s own liability was insufficient. At the end of the day, and it really was the end of the day, not long before closing, just as the minute hand had crossed twilight, I got yelled at by a PSB officer, a stamp was added to my blemish free Chinese record, and I walked away with a receipt or warning. It could have been worse but.
However every other interaction I’ve had with them has likewise been superb, with a notable mentions to Rebecca Needham and the staff at the New Zealand Consul-General, Guangzhou and Chase Williams at the New Zealand Embassy Beijing.
In Rodney’s article, I took the MFAT aspect as more of a preamble to criticism of the Ministers themselves.
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Kumara Republic, in reply to
Thirty years later it seems we're not so hung up on notions of sovereignty, and we're running out of other ways to transfer public value to private individuals.
The only remaining example I can think of is a poll tax. We know how that turned out for Maggie Thatcher. If it ever gets implemented here, I'm prepared to risk jail not to pay it.
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Chris Waugh, in reply to
Further marks lost in Beijing (2008);
That's odd. I've renewed my passport here twice now. First time the Embassy was totally up front about how they most likely would not be able to get the new passport back within the PSB's time limit, but would give me a letter to explain everything. The PSB officer didn't look happy and asked me if that really was as quick as I could get in to the PSB, and I said yes, I'd just come straight from the Embassy, then it was all good. Second time round the PSB officer didn't even grunt, just did it.
We also had an incident here involving a staff member in distress (privacy; no details), and Chris Holah and her husband both went way above and beyond the call of duty helping us sort the situation out and get said distressed staff member safely on a plane home.
As for Rodney, I thought he was just gratuitously slagging off bureaucrats because... well, I only bothered reading because you linked to it with a strong hint there was more to his rant than I normally associate with screeds written by Rodney Hide.
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Key's Tone Kops...?
The Police had better now - if they are being fair and balanced - exercise the same warrants for seizure at the Herald and Fairfax and perhaps they should seize Whaleoil's equipment so they can figure out how Rawshark got in... just in case, being thorough, you know all that painstaking process stuff.Looks like they are just using the Search and Surveillance Act to be obstructive if not vexatious and vindictive - at whose behest?
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mark taslov, in reply to
Meanwhile David Parker's letter gathers grease stains and dust, democracy checks her watch.
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mark taslov, in reply to
Chris Holah and her husband both went way above and beyond the call of duty helping us sort the situation
I’m glad to hear this, as with any job, human error will be a factor. I guess my point is that it’s not in our democratic interests to absolve MFAT or any department of criticism based on our limited exposure. In fact it is often the case that criticism of a larger body such as an institution, department etc may facilitate change that enables individuals to be more productive.
This is a matter of public of interest:
Officials took it upon themselves to act contrary to our Government’s wishes and did so without advising ministry boss John Allen.
The only other accountable individuals being name checked are:
The Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Murray McCully told us at the time that our Government had been strenuous in asking the Malaysian Government to waive immunity.
That the conclusion includes one of the few non-ironic MSM references to #Dirty Politics for quite some time, is a bonus.
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