Posts by Russell Brown
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Hard News: The Letter, in reply to Stephen R,
but leaving room for some obscure document that they haven’t found yet to come out.
That doesn’t seem unreasonable in the circumstances.
As you say, given the scorn tipped on Cunliffe, it's hard to see how they could say or do otherwise.
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Hard News: The Letter, in reply to Chris Waugh,
I get pretty much everyone else around here is willing to extend Labour the benefit of the doubt, and write Liu off as a pathological liar.
No, I’m just finding the evidence of Labour or any Labour MPs up to no good with Donghua Liu that has been presented so far is underwhelming and rather flimsy.
Noted in the comments for Danyl's last post: this charity wine auction on June 3, 2007 -- which is the datestamp on the photo that Jared Savage received. But there were no bids of anything like $100,000.
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Hard News: The Letter, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
And meanwhile ...
Prime Minister John Key is refusing to say how much he knew about Donghua Liu's donations to Labour.
The Auckland property developer says he paid $100,000 for a bottle of wine at a 2007 fundraiser, but Labour says it can't find any record of the donation and has commissioned an audit.
Last week Key made a number of assertions about the millionaire's links to Labour. Though he told reporters he knew about a written statement from Liu "a few weeks ago", he is refusing to say who told him.
Is it really Tim Barnett who's refusing to explain himself?
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Hard News: The Letter, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
You know what, he probably needs to outsource that line considering Tim Barnett is now extremely reluctant to go on the record either confirming or denying anything Liu has said. Which, when you get right down to it, is the problem right there.
That's not what he's saying at all. From yesterday afternoon:
Labour Party general secretary Tim Barnett told Radio New Zealand's Morning Report programme on Monday that he had scoured the records and found nothing.
Mr Barnet dismissed a suggestion that a $150,000 anonymous donation made in 2007 via the law firm Palmer Theron might cover the Liu claims.
"What we've done is to check Donghua Liu's lawyer whether he has a link with any of the three law firms through which we receive donations and there's no link that we can see. The allegation is that he paid at an auction $100,000 - you wouldn't pay $100,000 as an anonymous donation through a lawyer."
What the hell else is he supposed to say besides "we can't find anything"? They've now hired an auditor to go over all the records. What more are they supposed to do?
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Hard News: The Big Chill, in reply to harry hausen,
The key point to note here is that the defence (the Crown) has deliberately suggested a long, complicated, unsound and kinda dumb route and the judge has picked up on it. Now Dotcom has to either expensively appeal on the point of law or take the lengthy route proposed by the judge. Clever lawyering on their part, whether or not it stands up on appeal.
Yes. It has the effect of Dotcom’s action against the Crown agencies much more protracted. It’s pretty clear who that benefits.
Can we say that Justice Winkelmann has been played?
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Hard News: The Letter, in reply to Ian Dalziel,
He’s not a journalist, how dare he expect to protect his sources!
Quite. It's an odd thing to say.
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Hard News: The Letter, in reply to Ian Dalziel,
Unless it’s a ‘disclosure’ about another party…
Stuff: Prime minister's lips sealed on Liu leaker
Prime Minister John Key is refusing to say how much he knew about Donghua Liu's donations to Labour ...
Key said: "I was told that there was [donations to Labour]. I'm not going to talk about my sources."
However, he said he had not seen the statement and did not know if anyone in his office had. "I've heard about it.
"I can't tell you the particular people I talk to, but what I can say is that there is plenty of discussion out there about the fact. And it didn't come as any surprise to me that Donghua Liu had been both a donor to National and Labour."
Key said he did not know if his MPs were in touch with Chinese-born Liu. "I'm certainly not."
Key opened Liu's $70 million hotel development in 2011. Liu also met Immigration Minister Michael Woodhouse to discuss policy.
Asked if the statement could have been written by a National Party figure, Key said: "You'll have to go and ask Donghua Liu who it was written by. I don't know the man other than opening his building that time. I wouldn't agree with that statement."
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And Toby Manhire thought he might have found the mystery bottle of wine, but it appears not.
It's worth noting that according to Jared Savage, the uncropped version of the photo of Liu's wife, Barker and a big bottle of wine bears a date stamp of 3/6/2007.
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Liu told the Weekend Herald last week that he had given “equally to Governments of both colours”.
National declared a $22,000 donation in 2012, but when asked about donations other than that from the Chinese property developer, party president Mr Goodfellow said he didn’t want to discuss individual donations.
“I think it’s more appropriate that you ask him what he meant by that statement, whether he gives to both parties or somehow meant a dollar amount. We disclose where it’s required and that’s exactly what we’ve done. Our practice is disclose according to the rules."
Meanwhile, Labour is commissioning an audit. If it doesn’t find the $100k donation and Barker’s dinner was what it seems, this story is looking pretty dodgy.
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Hard News: The Big Chill, in reply to Rich Lock,
But it raises a whole bunch of ‘what ifs’
What if a wealthy celebrity gets mad and tries to get hold of a biographer's research via the Privacy Act? That'd be new and interesting.