Posts by Russell Brown
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Hard News: The Letter, in reply to simon g,
The current version explicitly confirms that Liu counted the $60,000 he claims to have spent on the staff dinner in the “close to” $100,000 he “believes” he donated to Labour, but still says this:
His confirmation of the total sum of $100,000 will still leave Labour with a headache as it searches records for donations and the links between senior MPs and the wealthy businessman which emerged last week.
Fucksake. And of course the $150,000 the Herald alleged just four days ago has gone right down the memory hole.
This really isn’t good enough.
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As Rob notes, Liu has changed his story -- and if I'm reading this right, he counts the $50-60,000 dinner for his staff as part of the "nearly" $100,000 he claims to have donated to Labour.
So the fabled"$100,000 for a bottle of wine" -- which is now explicitly less than $100,000 -- is now what he "believes" to have donated in total and well over half of it is what he spent on a dinner for his own staff in China.
And the $150,000 is now clearly and absolutely wrong. I think a more explicit clarification from the Herald is very much in order now.
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Hard News: The Letter, in reply to Rob Stowell,
His comment comes as Labour readies big legal guns for its defence in the event evidence of improper donations from Liu emerges.
“In the event’ seems a little coy?
They’d be morons if they didn’t seek to establish their legal position in the event of anything unfortunate being discovered. Jeez.
Tim Murphy and Jared Savage have been fairly active on Twitter around this. Neither of them answered my polite request for clarification on whether the “$50,000 gift to the Labour Party” was in their view any more than the slap-up Liu staff dinner Barker says he attended.
It’s hard not to feel they’ve over-egged it.
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Hard News: Radio New Zealand: changing…, in reply to Sacha,
without an audience?
With audience. Not sure where to tell people to assemble etc. It's quite difficult there.
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Hard News: Radio New Zealand: changing…, in reply to Geoff Lealand,
Which reminds me, Russell, how are things going with MediaMatters? I am looking to Semester B teaching and it would good to be able to take students on field trips again.
It’s Media Take and it launches on July 1!
Let us settle into recordings-- which will be at the building site formerly known at TVNZ, we'll work out how we do it and, yeah, we'd be delighted to host your students again.
RNZ has gone rather dullish in the weekday afternoons. I think it needs new voices.
Relevant comparison: Radio NZ’s music-related programming on Saturday afternoons. It’s obviously more niche than weekdays could be, but it’s been consistently good for a long time and it has evolved over that time.
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Hard News: Radio New Zealand: changing…, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
But the specialists that really know their round, have strong contacts with all the players, and a depth of knowledge to see the scoops that set the agenda instead of following it? That’s value you can’t reduce to a line item on a spreadsheet.
When we first started Media7, we had then-Education correspondent Gael Woods on to talk about reporting of the Avondale school stabbing incident, and I was so impressed with the way she knew the story every whichway, including things I hadn't thought of. Really brought home to me what those roles are about.
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Hard News: Radio New Zealand: changing…, in reply to Tinakori,
Some non-politics reporters really know their stuff – Lois Williams in Northland, their Education reporter and so on…..
Todd Niall in Auckland is also a welcome source of measured, knowledgeable reporting. If I recall rightly, the special correspondents system was set up by Al Morrison and it's been a real treasure. Fortunately, it looks like they're not going to mess with it.
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The donation to the Hawke's Bay Rowing Club has been confirmed.
Further down the story:
Mr Key revealed yesterday that he had known of Liu's statement for some weeks.
However, this morning he said he had no information on whether the donations claimed by Liu had been handled improperly by Labour.
Labour President Moira Coatsworth has been among those including Labour Leader David Cunliffe and Mr Key calling for Mr Liu to put up evidence to substantiate his claims.
The party was being expected to investigate claims "that no evidence has been provided for."
What I've done is speak to a senior barrister. If there is evidence that is presented that we need to consider then we'll move but at the moment we have a completely unsubstantiated allegation.
Meanwhile, National Party President Peter Goodfellow once again refused to comment on whether National had received any donations from Liu other than the $22,000 disclosed in 2012.
Mr Goodfellow said that was a question for Liu.Mr Key said he had sought no assurances from Mr Goodfellow about any other donations by Liu to National.
"I am very confident that National acts within the law and is as transparent as it needs to be."
Mr Key certainly is chillaxed to the max. We can only imagine what the response would be if Cunliffe declared he wasn't interested in asking his own party president about donations.
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Hard News: The Letter, in reply to Rob Stowell,
FWIW I don’t think it’s bias, apart from the pile-on effect when journos get the smell of political blood. I think it’s sloppy, but also the Herald got played. Of course Tim Murphy will ‘protect their source.’ But a/ they can’t be happy about being so manipulated, and b/ there’s now a genuine story: who obtained the signed letter; and in what capacity were they operating.
I was interested that Jared Savage tweeted a link to Stuff's story about John Key's refusal to discuss how he knew about the claimed donations. It's not exactly common for reporters to direct people to the opposition.
I agree with your reading of the situation, as things stand. It's worth noting that Savage took up Whaleoil's Len Brown story and pivoted the whole thing to point at the perpetrators.
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Hard News: The Letter, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
To be blunt as a cosh to the back of the head – you’d expect him to just throw up his hands and say “fair cop” if he did? Congratulations, this is a system of nudge-nudge wink-wink plausibly deniable political money laundering that is working exactly to spec. Fuck it, I’ve got a limited supply of sympathy and none of it to spare for politicians and political parties reaping what they sowed with eyes wide open.
For goodness sake Craig, they've hired an auditor. It's hard to equate that with a cover-up.