Posts by Russell Brown
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Hard News: Moving right along?, in reply to Andre Alessi,
I don’t know if the suggestions of shutting down a National party shitfight are even necessary: most people don’t even register when party officials/boosters start sniping at each other, especially not on Facebook.
And on Kiwiblog and Whaleoil. That's quite a lot of readers.
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Hard News: Moving right along?, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
Nikki Kaye’s majority in Auckland Central: 717. I hear she’s generally regarded as a good and effective local member, but she doesn’t need Cameron Slater’s sleaze becoming a campaign issue for her.
It's already getting needlessly messy for her, given that Hamish Price ran her last campaign. And yes, she's a capable and decent MP.
In further amusement, Cameron Slater is now calling Price a "sleezeoid". I won't bother linking to it, but there seems to be a fairly high level of cognitive dissonance going on over at Whaleoil.
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Hard News: Moving right along?, in reply to Graeme Edgeler,
First, I don’t believe an inquiry has begun.
Very well. The inquiry has been ordered and we've been given some information on its scope and the terms will be published today or tomorrow.
Second, they’ve been calling it independent, but have we enough information yet to be confident that it is?
Yes, it is conceivable that the Auckland Council chief executive Doug McKay and other council officials have been actively misleading the public in describing it as an independent review. For the time being, the New Zealand Herald is describing it in that way.
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Hard News: Moving right along?, in reply to SteveH,
Spotted that already. I don't have spellcheck in my CMS edit window ...
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Hard News: Everybody's Machiavelli, in reply to BenWilson,
But I tend to agree. Unless Russell knows of some real impending blowback on Slater, I find it hard to think that it’s even possible for him to suffer reputational damage. There’s just nothing to lose. His key stat is attention, always has been.
The new Chuang affidavit the Herald stories are based on has him actually uttering the word "blackmail" to her. An actual criminal offence. But she's not necessarily going to be seen as a good witness. And it would be more attention, so, yeah ... you may well be right.
The consequences within the National Party are going to be ignificant, though. This has really brought the Slater/Lusk thing to a head. Someone should ask Judith Collins to comment.
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Hard News: Everybody's Machiavelli, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
Also:
It's easy to feel morally indignant about Banks' apparent willingness to solicit donations for favours. Brown, unfortunately, has arguably committed a similar crime.
Does McCarten know what the word "crime" means?
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Hard News: Everybody's Machiavelli, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
Oh, and what immediately comes to mind when you hear the word “solicit”?
What a fucking dickwad word to use, is what comes to mind.
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Hard News: Everybody's Machiavelli, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
I know a bit more than what has been thus far published, and I'm starting to think that this could all turn out very, very badly for Cameron Slater.
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Now Slater is actually denying he was part of a plot.
He is lying.