Yes, although from my observations, the more scope left for a complex answer results in wriggling and evasion.

Maybe, but I don’t think that’s enough, personally. If they were asked last election or the election before,…

They must take urgent steps to clean up politics in New Zealand, and to restore democratic checks and balances to the political process. It must adversely affect the lives of politicians, and make them wonder what happened to their own ideals, and how they became…

"I then questioned him about [false claims] live on air without having any evidence whatsoever to support the claims. These claims were based on comments from listeners that I did not check and I have…

Nothing to see. He did his time for the disgusting Tuhoe raids with possession of guns unlicensed and consequently he is perfectly able to stand for Parliament. Just as it was nothing to do with KDC that a…

I wonder how much the abuse Fisher and others has received has made other reporters reluctant to report anything negative about Slater. It must have a chilling effect.

Key's failure to condemn…

On the legality bit, although totally off the Fisher/Slater debacle.
Forging a signature on a document, as Collins allegedly did, carries a max 10 year jail term, instant dismissal from Parliament as the jail time is over 2 years.

It is.

...but seriously, I found this photo from the future, it's of National's Rowing Eight (+cox) after Key sold the 'shell' out from under them and left them high and dry...…

Such a flaccid cox...

copywrong

I'd assumed there'd been some sort of major incident between them and / or their friends, but Slater really is being a sore…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSYk8ofhYFY

Love that 'not a country' aside
though with NAFTA still floating around…

They do say that you:
’can lead a hawser to water
but you can’t make it sink…’

looks like it's been around a while

:- )

I can see their thinking:
Rowing is the ‘sport du jour’, and the ‘Eights; is the elite ’Blue Ribbon’ event,
too right, they’ll have some of that!…

Sorry for dropping by so soon, but John Slater lost the National Party presidency because it was contested and the other candidate won more votes. It’s how these things work, not least…

Yes, a recurring theme both before and after the book's release…

*independent in the sense of a bunch of unrelated people going "get him" at the same time

Just like the usenet of old

Maybe put that on the nice to have list

The other best investigative journalist in the country is working on this. I suspect National's…

applause

I was asked to link to proof that Hager got some things wrong in his book but didn't mention "the topic" in that.

Do you believe David Farrar's claim that Hager got that part of his book wrong…

Point. And taken. Have a good holiday, Craig.

{ETA: Sorry, Russell. I'm replying to your comment, but none of…

Nice pun, but it goes both ways.

Well I don't think it's ever going to be that bad here. People step in...

Not everyone's cup of tea and offensive to some, but this reads like bullying to me. I see him as somehow earnest and wanting to engage others to consider his views. It's almost brave on some level, knowing it's a tough crowd.

It's a fine line on…

beige blanket

'hey it worked on other blogs'

If you want to provoke the longest exit since Rasputin. ;D

I could always dust off my visual Swiftian salute. ;D

I'm sure it's one you're used to seeing.

So…

It seems like you both are jumping to diss before you…

Which, as Danyl also pointed out, would count as Conspiring to Commit an Offence, punishible by a maximum of 7 years in jail. And if…

I think we are. It's not often I recommend dumping someone from PAS but does Pete George really add any value to the discussions?

And, if you'd read the book, you'd know that Hager didn't say they blackmailed Hide but that they discussed doing it…

I do love the interwebs!

Hager wrote "The documents do not contain the texts and we do not know they exist. There is also no evidence that a direct threat was made to Hide".

I remember the Whale Oil posts but…

Hager said in the book, and Hide quoted it in the story, that there was no evidence that Hide had actually been blackmailed. He presented evidence that there was a conversation about blackmailing Hide,…

It also…

So, no, you have at no point addressed the substance of…

The book makes pretty careful claims based on the documents it has. Hide would have pretty strong motivations to deny something…

Well, there's the very thinly-veiled threat about Hide's personal life, posted on Whaleoil exactly as promised in the hacked messages.

But…

But there's no show without Punch!

always all about Judy

Translation: "So what if Rome is on fire? Time to break out the lyre!"

Sean Plunket's bizarre cold-call to Patrick Gower implying that Gower was privy to the hacking on the basis of what a handful of listeners thought they recalled hearing him say.

It's staggeringly unprofessional of Plunket to not even try to find…

Plus, you know, we actually have the messages exchanged between Lusk and Slater about the Hide blackmail, and no-one is disputing their veracity. So either they were lying to each other, or...

His boss, Stephen Franks, was hilarious today. He kept saying that he'd been away skiing and missed it all, so he might as well just pass on the…

You will recall Peter is the guy who compared asking sponsors…

David Farrar has just posted:
I was not the organiser of the party, and was not a party to the conversation. Yet Hager published this as fact. It is reasonably defamatory as various people have smeared me…

in this period when Collins was also minister of corrections, [Slater] appears to have used a prison officer in the department to move a prisoner between prisons on his instructions.

(That's in the text in chapter 4, not the footnote.)

Collins, but otherwise correct.

It would have been injuncted as soon as any of them were told about the book. Don't be a fool.

to some degree

beige

Whoever gave you that buzzword should have explained that they didn't literally mean drug-dependent sociopaths?

(see also "helicopter view")

Got a link?

It's obviously a problem that more and more people get turned off by dirty politics. That's why I try to address the problems across the board, not selecting one side…

Still waiting for the obvious 'trickle down' joke, Sacha...

What? Speak for yourself. Without integrity and honesty in politics we don't have democracy. I for one do not want…

My ears thank you.

[edit] That's enough. Susi, you're too glib for your own good. If Hager was a "grassy knoll conspiracist", he would have been taken to court every time he's published and would have…

That’s just lazy rubbish. Two of the three are serial professional liars while the third is an internationally-respected investigative journalist who has never had a single fact in any of his books successfully challenged.

Why else do…

Bob Jones?

That would require me to subject my ears to Jim Mora, and I don't want another HRC complaint from them.

Me too.

There are two primary issues here:

1. Dirty, nasty "attack" politics.

2. Serious constitutional abuses that — and this is no overstatement — erode the fragile democratic conventions of this country.

To say that everyone is involved in #1-type behaviour is "true" in a…

So, you called Hager a grassy knoll conspiracist without having…

I'm a bit frustrated by the ongoing implications…

And the pig enjoys it...

When you wrestle with pigs, Lucy, you only get muddy. ;-)

This.
The more he says/writes, the less credible he appears. Given the now exposed duplicity I couldn't accept any of his statements without independent evidence.

I won’t be told what to do by anyone.

and

I am happy to swear under oath what happened

Feel free to take Slater – or anyone else – at their word, that's your prerogative, but don't expect the rest of us…

I haven't seen anything yet that would make me trust a single word that Slater says or writes.

I thought the leaker was never identified, let alone their associations?

I watched Phil Goff on TV slam into the SIS about not being briefed about the…

Since Mr Key now appears to be unable to…

The 'clean' parties – Greens in p[articular, Conservatives, Maori Party, Act and United Future – all went up in the poll.

Campbell: Can I ask you a question? You were a leader of the Labour Party, up against and extraordinarily popular Prime Minister John Key.

Did you ever seek to do what you’re accusing him of doing, or use your office to do it, which…

And I linked to the story at te Harold on t’other thread. I should reload more often!

Also, we were saying the other day. Every day that JK says anything ,there will be another day he would have said…

You added the damning transcript, so superior service slightly slower.

Hey, you bet me too it. I should reload more frequently.

And now Fairfax has dug up a video from days after the release, where John Key refers to having been briefed.

"What happened is Warren Tucker didn't come to me, he went to his legal adviser and his legal…

Okay, let's not say things we can never take back now.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/10411491/Keys-SIS-claims-contradicted-by-video

Just .... I don't even.

The Listener used to be part of whatever it was that made up the fragile pickings of intellectual life in NZ, but no one even bothers discussing it anymore. It is just another "lifestyle"…

John Key looks a bit rattled.

Sheesh. That whole Morning Report interview could have been a National Party ad in itself. Suzie Ferguson might as well have just given him a podium.

Well, yes of course he bloody is. If anyone at The Listener is lurking hereabouts, I can state the blindingly obvious like it's a startlingly new insight…

+1

(Lord, it's been nearly ten years since I ended that destructive relationship, and I've never felt better — more confident, sure of myself, less consumed by rage and doubt....)

And comparing Hager to Assange is preposterous. Oh, they couch it nice and vaguely, but given their readership of increasingly befuddled and reactionary boomers, it seems to me like a pretty calculated slur against a member of their profession they might actually think to admire rather than slyly to…

Perhaps of tangential relevance.

I'd actually believe that is the case, given that the NZSIS hasn't uncovered a single threat to national security in the 58 years it has existed, and has failed…

Not only that, but the only justification for his staff not to bother the PM with this sort of thing…

Da plane! Da plane! Da ....huh? boom!

Yes, because Prime Ministers on holiday don’t ever have arrangements in place in case their Director of the SIS needs to contact them.

In this case, though, I doubt very much that the PM’s office would have thought this…

If that editorial is a train wreck, then Jane Clifton's piece in the same issue is a plane crashing into an erupting volcano.

Moreover, Hager’s supporters are no more entitled to claim the Whale Oil hacking was justified by Slater’s “feral” comments than those on the right could claim a Labour candidate’s recent despicable “Shylock” comments about Prime Minister John Key could ever justify such an action on their side of the…

Not Pamela. She doesn't write them, but will have a a view on its conclusion.

....swear? ;)
But, but, (my butt) he was on holiday now. say Harold

As with some recent past Listener editorials, it’s possibly either Pam Stirling, Jane Clifton or Bill Ralston. Joanne Black fits, but she bolted some time ago.

What an inane statement, in a equally inane editorial. The entire thing is just a sickening shrug, held together in the language of urbanity, gravitas and knowing.…

John Ansell: "God is obviously a member of the National Party, 'cause he flattened the Peoples Republic of Christchurch, and that created the economic growth they're boasting about."

* [[http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/morningreport/audio/20146529/election-ads-released|Morning Report, Thursday 21…

"Explaining is losing" only works up to a point. It's of…

With the possible exception of Narelle Henson whenever she lets her Maxim Institute past reassert itself.

A source who prefixes their story with "apparently" is not a source.