Hard News: The Hager saga continues
303 Responses
First ←Older Page 1 2 3 4 5 … 13 Newer→ Last
-
mark taslov, in reply to
This is so fucked up
You said it.
-
"...that John Key’s government “has worked systematically to close down critical voices:"
.... voices of the little people....http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10827271
and voices of the great...
......http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Salinger
This guy was found to be "depressed",
and no bloody wonder.
National declared it's hand early in the piece...speak up and be shot down.
So, what do we do about it?
-
Jack Harrison, in reply to
It’s a small country. Slander is hard here. I can remember reading things about Charlotte Dawson in the press that made me ashamed to be a New Zealander. She was hounded out.
The press can hound you unmercifully. It’s that bad now that it’s unhealthy.
-
Russell Brown, in reply to
I can remember reading things about Charlotte Dawson in the press that made me ashamed to be a New Zealander. She was hounded out.
And chief among the hounders was Judith Collins' bestie, Rachel Glucina.
-
It's fucked. The Boston Consulting Group have told most media the same thing. You are in maturity, do anything to elongate that slide for your investors. Anything generally means becoming a red-top tabloid.
-
Ian Dalziel, in reply to
from covert to culvert...
but that’s where this sewer has gone
First it was called the gutter,
but now it's just called going
through the usual channels...
drain nadir. -
Jack Harrison, in reply to
What civilisation ever promoted marriage break-up? That’s a sin, everywhere.
-
Lilith __, in reply to
doesn’t that mean we then
have a ‘stablehand’ in control?If only they'd do the mucking-out. #DirtyPolitics
-
Lilith __, in reply to
It's a stitch-up
that’s where this sewer has gone
I'm off to knit up the ravelled sleeve of care.
Night! -
Arrgh, "Slater", it sounds so similar to "Slayer", does it not?
Has the man any tiny remnants of decency? It does not look at it.
And then he tried to claim injury, well it was, I suppose, about some commenting or revealing info on his sick mother.
Cameron Slater is having to learn the hard way, what it means to be done wrong, and I fear he has not learned enough yet, and has a long road to travel until he may come to terms with what he has actually done in harm to many others, actually quite "innocent" and decent people.
I look forward to seeing and hearing Nicky Hager on Media Take!
-
Craig Ranapia, in reply to
Can we just agree to disagree about this Craig?
We can - perhaps you can be a little more generous spirited than "Unless of course Hide knows that Slater has the goods on him, which can in its way totally be read to tally with Hide’s reaction from the outset. The cost of admission is high."
It's equally possible that Hide knew the claims were bullshit and came from someone whose credibility is roughly zero, but he'd be a fucking fool to give them legs by responding. Which is not far from the reason why Helen Clark and Peter Davies, quite sensibly, weren't in the habit of engaging with the sleazy paranoid gibbering of Ian Wishart.
-
Speaking of Wishart, what has he been up to of late?
-
BenWilson, in reply to
It does seem there's a reasonable chance the whole thing was Slater's sick fantasy. The only actual evidence we have is Slater's word (via the hacked mails) against Hide's. Which makes Hagar a strange target for Hide's ire, until you remember that he's totally and unrepentantly partisan, so saying a harsh word against Slater, even when Slater was fairly clearly plotting and relishing his downfall (I'm reading the book right now), is off the table in favour of the more important concern of calling Hager a fantasist without reference to any single fact that Hager has claimed.
But that would be because Hager quite clearly says this (in Chapter 6):
"There were of course various political pressures on Hide as he made the decision but the threats described here were something completely different. The documents do not contain the texts and we do not know that they exist. There is also no evidence that a direct threat was made to Hide. Nonetheless, Slater and Lusk’s planning and the thinly veiled threat on the blog post go far beyond normal politics. They feel more like blackmail."
So when Rodney said in the Herald "Hager alleges Slater blackmailed me to resign the Act Party leadership. It's not true.", this is in fact not true. It's not true that Hager says he was blackmailed. What Hager says is that they were plotting to blackmail him, and that much is starkly clear. But I'm not surprised that Hide wouldn't want to read it, it's some rancid shit from someone he might once have thought of as a friend. So instead he brain-farts in Hager's general direction, and completely misses.
-
mark taslov, in reply to
We can – perhaps you can be a little more generous spirited than..
I will do my best Craig, my vocabulary with regards to blackmail is largely informed by pulp media, you are right that my statement there sounds insensitive. My angle when making such a statement is this:
Hager never rang to ask: “Hey, I have just come across the damnedest stuff and just have to ask, were you ever blackmailed?”
To which I would reply: “No, definitely not. I would never give in to blackmail. I would go straight to the police. It’s a crime. I have no doubt the police and the courts would take a dim view of any attempt to blackmail a political leader and Government minister. It never happened."
When what is outlined in the book could be construed as indication of a conspiracy to commit an offence.
“The allegations against me are utterly false, and I have no further comment to make.”
This statement doesn’t begin to address the larger issue here. The allegations aren’t against Rodney, in fact if anything, he would be the victim, is it not?
-
BenWilson, in reply to
My angle when making such a statement is this:
Wow, so he had the gall to write yesterday's article even after clearly reading (and quoting) Hager's caveat I gave above? What a knob.
-
mark taslov, in reply to
That article I quoted is from August 17 where he also stated:
I get on with my day relieved that there is one more Nicky Hager book I don’t have to read.
From yesterday’s account it appears he is no closer to opening the book:
Hager never rang to check his allegations. He published them without a rudimentary check.
To me – though I’ve not read the book and do appreciate the quote you have provided – these allegations do seem to be about Slater and Lusk.
-
mark taslov, in reply to
What a knob.
It's all a bit abstract, he's never seen the emails:
Hide said he “laughed out loud” when he read the allegations and referred to Lusk and Slater’s conversations as “two guys who email each other sort of like they’re standing around in the pub talking bullshit…”
For many that would have been the ideal exit point on this issue.
-
WH,
It must be hard to pitch Hageresque allegations knowing that they are likely to be held in abeyance by readers already awash in a sea of unreliable opinion.
I guess you just have to build up trust in credible media sources over time.
-
Also from that Stuff article:
He maintained he stepped down because he was challenged by former ACT leader Don Brash.
“I don’t know Simon Lusk, I’ve never met him I’ve never heard of him, and I can’t speak to what Simon Lusk and Cameron Slater email each other about because I’ve never seen that,” he said.
This RadioLive conversation from June 1 2013 paints a different picture (trascript begins 4:32):
Wallace Chapman: This figure called Simon Lusk. Rodney does a person, a person in a party who works right in the shadows, um pulls the strings or perhaps or perhaps sort of advises, does every party have these types of figures like Simon. Lusk?
Rodney Hide: Every party has them but they’re not top figures they’re bottom figures. And um so they can join up to a party and then, write emails and present themselves with having this great big say when in fact they don’t and I think Simon Lusk is definitely in this category, and I’ve never met the guy but when you saw John Key say that on a scale of zero to ten, he regards him as a minus one. I’d safe to say that with this kind of administration he has no say.
WC: And yet um, you know er, training MPs, training, you know the sort of fairly well known MPs I mean um would would the Act party have done the a similar thing, having people coming in and training MPs like Simon Lusk has been doing to some of those backbenchers?
RH: There’s always people prepared to help.
WC: Right
RH: And you know there’ll be campaign managers within electorates and MPs will acknowledge them but you know I I look I know this, Simon Lusk is despised by the current heirachy of the National Party because he’s a big noter that pretends to have a power and say that he doesn’t.
{…}
Selwyn Manning:…What we know is, is Simon Lusk was the strategy behind campaigns in the past for the party, he was a, he’s the strategist behind the anti-MMP campaign um that put to referendum last election, um he was in behind Don Brash’s campaign to replace Rodney, um as Act leader, um he was right…
WC:Do did did you know that Rodney?
RH: Yes, no, that’s correct.
-
mark taslov, in reply to
Ok yes, I found it Ben, in Rodney Hide’s Kiwiblog comment August 17th he appears to be in full possession of the facts:
Graeme Edgeler writes in the first comment:
“The book does not include a claim that Rodney Hide was blackmailed.”
I am not a lawyer but here’s what Hager wrote (p.70):
“The documents do not contain the texts and we do not know that they exist. There is also no evidence that a direct threat to Hide was made. Nonetheless, Slater and Lusk’s planning and the thinly veiled threat on the blog post go far beyond normal politics. They feel more like blackmail.”
So he doesn’t “claim” I was blackmailed but it “feels” to him like I was!!
Compare and contrast – October 12th:
Hager alleges Slater blackmailed me to resign the Act Party leadership.
In that Kiwiblog comment Hide also states:
3. Brash never employed Lusk.
Which fortunately in the interests of coherency doesn’t conflict with Hide’s Herald article on the same day
Oh, and Don Brash in replacing me was – according to Hager – Lusk’s client. Ta da!
Regardless of whether or not Brash was formally Lusk’s client; whether Lusk had chosen to forgo his standard 10k campaign manager’s fee and was working pro bono; whether or not Lusk’s services were in fact solicited by Stephen Joyce, as insinuated by Trevor Mallard:
Was the Prime Minister advised by Steven Joyce of his role in engaging Simon Lusk for the Brash coup; if so, did he tell Bill English?
What Rodney Hide has confirmed is that he was aware of who Simon Lusk is, and he was also aware that Simon Lusk was behind Brash’s leadership coup, for well over a year before Dirty Politics was published. He is also, by his own admission, quite acutely aware that Hager’s Dirty Politics did not specifically claim that Hide had been blackmailed, and he is now on record claiming knowledge that Lusk – in his work with Act – was not in the employ of Brash.
So Craig, with all this info at hand, I can only agree with you in the strongest possible terms that there’s no reason why Hide should have kept a media circus going. He should have as you suggest stated something along the lines of “The allegations against me are utterly false, and I have no further comment to make.” and by doing so he could have pretty much killed that aspect of the story by not playing the game he is choosing to play.
-
I'll see you, and raise you: Roughan's first column after the election.
Warning: should not be read with your morning coffee. Spluttering guaranteed. Or a fit of giggles.
It's standard practice to have column click-bait - we all know the game, strike a provocative pose, rile up the readers. But in Roughan's case, he seems genuinely to believe this nonsense. It's so unhinged, I end up shaking my head rather than fist.
-
Sofie Bribiesca, in reply to
there’s no reason why Hide should have kept a media circus going. He should have as you suggest stated something along the lines of “The allegations against me are utterly false, and I have no further comment to make.” and by doing so he could have pretty much killed that aspect of the story by not playing the game he is choosing to play.
Exactly. The man wrote an utterly unnecessary opinion piece in Te Granny yesterday.
He appeared to be in a right shitty which is exactly how it came across. Spiteful and shitty. Almost like it was there to back up Roughan's diatribe. Two diatribes don't make it right. Oh ,hang on , does it make it extreme right ? Right. ;) -
mark taslov, in reply to
Ha. I see you’re now up to 55 likes there =) Only one came from me, I promise.
-
Cameron Slater has sent me a copy of his letter from the IPCA. It does make me feel sorry for the police.
-
Rosemary McDonald, in reply to
I also have a letter from the IPCA.
I complained about police proceedure, biased investigation (such as it was) and their refusal to investigate my complaint against another party…even though I had wriiten evidence strongly indicating wrongdoing.
They sent a senior, uniformed officer to our home in a police car. Senior officer’s all guns blazing stance somewhat dampened when there was four of us….all witnesses waiting for him. Clearly he anticipated just the cripple and his nutbar partner.
However….you can’t move mountains without dynamite…and that’s illegal.So we got told to fuck off by the IPCA.
And, at the very least, someone got away with insurance fraud, and his cop mates backed him up.
I’m going to go and eat some more junk food and claim to be even more depressed/mentally ill than and obviously am.
Because I just don’t understand how Slater warrents so much attention.
Post your response…
This topic is closed.