Posts by Russell Brown
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Tim Murphy on Morning Report:
- The Herald only got Liu's statement on Saturday, and not from Liu. Won't say who it came from.
- Won't show the statement to Labour because there's "more to be done" and "it's a matter of us working through things first".
Given the big-noting from the PM and various National Party activists about the claimed donations, it's evident that National at the least was aware of the statement. So they had this and the electorate letter in early May.
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This morning's instalment of the slow drip:
Liu said he paid "close to $100,000" for the prize, according to a signed statement dated May 3, a price tag Mr Barker called "an extraordinary and eye-watering amount, one that I would recall if it happened and I don't".
Mr Barker, who was Minister of Internal Affairs at the time, added: "Had $100,000 been paid for a bottle of wine at a fundraiser that I was not at, I am certain I would have been told about it and I haven't. That figure for one item is considerably more than most fundraisers got in total."
Mr Barker said he handed over a bottle of wine at a number of Labour fundraisers.
"I can say [the one handed to Ms Zhang] wasn't a $100,000 bottle."
And:
Liu also said he paid at least $50,000 hosting Mr Barker on the Yangtze River trip and visited him in Hawkes Bay in 2006, dining with him at an exclusive lodge and meeting for breakfast the next morning.
According to Barker, the dinner on the Yangtze included what seemed to be all Liu's local staff, which might explain the $50k cost. Adding that to the claimed donation and presenting it as Businessman gifts $150k to Labour Party, as the Herald did yesterday, is extremely misleading.
He said he made a donation to Hawkes Bay Rowing, which Mr Barker was associated with.
Barker seems to have seen a bit more of Liu than he'd like it to be known, but I don't think there's anything to hang him on so far.
Liu now won't say any more than is in his "written statement" -- including who he wrote the May 3 statement for in the first place, and why. And how did the Prime Minister know so much about the contents of the statement?
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Interesting Music Week story on the YouTube wrangle: a leaked memo from the CEO of Believe Digital, which expresses support for the campaign against YouTube’s terms by WIN and IMPALA, but announces he has signed with YouTube on behalf of his clients.
He makes some thoughtful points.
An earlier story has further detail.
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Hard News: The Big Chill, in reply to Lucy Telfar Barnard,
So… what if, instead of (or as well as, but before) publishing his book as a “book”, David Fisher had presented the material as a series of blog chapters with subscriber access. Would that mean it was presented in a news medium, and therefore protected? Would that mean that the subsequent book, being merely a compilation of those blogs, was still protected? Or would its later publication mean that the same material suddenly stopped being journalism?
These are excellent questions!
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Hard News: The Big Chill, in reply to Hilary Stace,
But if a journalist wrote a book about the case and talked to people who had more evidence the person convicted could access all the sources, and continue his campaign of intimidation, under protection of the law .
Is this what this judgement means? if so that seems really unjust.There would have to be a legal action that required discovery from the respective parties, one of whom could presumably do what the police and GCSB lawyers have done here and force the other(s) to exercise their rights under the Privacy Act. So it's not open slather, but there's certainly a line that's been crossed here.
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Hard News: The Letter, in reply to Sacha,
Why did we have to waste so much time and energy on the total non-issue that is Cunliffe’s letter?
so that the whole thing seems his fault.
Yes. It’s been interesting today that people still seem really keen to pin the new donation story on him too.
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Andrew Geddis has written a useful blog post in response to the latest news:
It simply isn't clear that any offence has been committed here at all. Let's say that everything the Herald is reporting is true (an assumption we should be a bit cautious about making - the story is based purely on a "signed statement" from Liu, not even an affadavit). He gave Labour a bunch of money in 2007 in exchange for things like a bottle of wine and a book.
Well, if you go back to the financial returns from political parties for 2007, there is listed a donation to Labour of $150,000 from "Palmer Theron, Solicitors, on behalf of an undisclosed client" (as well as two other donations of $50,000 and $30,000 from other law firms on behalf of similaraly "undisclosed clients"). For balance, you might also note that in that year National reported $40,000 in anonymous donations, as well as $513,000 from three trusts that it had been using to launder donations previously.
Now, was Liu the "undisclosed client" who gave Labour this $150,000 donation? Who, aside from Liu, can really tell? And if this was Liu, then no law was breached. If he gave the payment to Labour by way of a cheque from a solicitor's trust fund, then not only did he do nothing legally wrong, but Labour (under the laws at the time) did nothing legally wrong in accepting it or listing the solicitor's undisclosed client as being the source. That was a bad law, as I argued a lot at the time, but it was the law ... and you can't retrospectively rewrite it now.
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And now the Herald gets to the $100k donation to Labour that the PM and half the National Party have been hinting about – because, it turns out, it’s been noted in a written statement by Liu since May 3.
The fact that the donation can’t be found is alarming -- although Graeme Edgeler is considerably less exercised by it than I figured he'd be.
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The latest Prime Ministerial brainfade, on NZ's previously unheralded full reintegration into Five Eyes:
Spokesman Brian Hale said reintegration happened after talks between our Five Eyes partners - the US, Australia, Canada and Britain - on the basis that it was believed to be "in the best interest of their nation and their group".
Prime Minister John Key said he could not recall any such change since National took office.
"I don't know exactly what they are referring to.
"My understanding of it is that even through the challenging times of the relationship post the anti-nuclear legislation, New Zealand continued to be an active member of Five Eyes."
Asked to confirm whether his Government had ever made a decision to actively rejoin Five Eyes, Key responded: "I don't think that's right, but I remember there were some vague things . . . "
He then said he would check.
"If they are increasingly sharing more, then that's news to me but they would know that more than I would."
Dude. You're the Prime Minister and the Minister with responsibility for the GCSB. Could you please stop pretending you can't remember anything at all?
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Hard News: Friday Music: F**kYouTube, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
Yes, quite a few people seem to be making the Amazon comparison.