Nicky Hager’s “Dirty Politics” Book Kicks Up a Storm in New Zealand. Part Two

/ August 13, 2014
"Working for Whale Oil," from a tweet by Martyn Bradbury

“Working for Whale Oil,” from a satirical tweet by Martyn Bradbury

In part two of our coverage of the reaction to Nicky Hager’s book “Dirty Politics“we’ll be looking at the public reaction via Twitter and social media.

It looks like New Zealand may be having its own Watergate scandal unraveling, seats are going to be sold out when Glenn Greenwald visits New Zealand to make revelations at Auckland Town Hall on Sept 15th.

First. A post from the blog The Dim-Post to start the ball rolling.

“…after a speed read the big reveals are:

1. The Prime Minister’s office hacked into Labour’s servers, obtaining information about its donors and membership, passed the information onto Cameron Slater and then lied about it.

2. The Prime Minister’s office told Slater to OIA classified SIS documents, then had the SIS declassify them and released to Slater.

If substantiated – and Hager’s book is based on correspondence between Cameron Slater and one of Key’s senior staffers – then the scale of the abuse of power is unprecedented, and there will need to be a transparent independent investigation into the Prime Minister’s office…

The book also documents the close friendship between Slater and Justice Minister Judith Collins, alleging:

  • Collins is the source of much of the material for Slater’s ‘tipline’, attacking Labour MPs and her enemies within the National Party.
  • When she was Minister of Corrections Collins appears to have had a prisoner transferred at Slater’s request, because a friend of Slater’s didn’t want her daughter visiting her imprisoned ex-partner and Slater arranged to have the man transferred to a more remote prison. The prisoner later attempted suicide.
  • Collins discusses the illegal leaking of police evidence with Slater and publication of the evidence on Slater’s blog (at the time she was Minister of Police)…
  • Much of the material published by Slater under his name is actually written by Carrick Graham, a lobbyist for the tobacco industry. Allegations:
    • Graham also comments extensively on WhaleOil, using pseudonyms, often under his own posts. His pseudo-anonymous comments are incredibly racist and misogynistic.
    • Graham pays Slater about $6500 a month for publishing pro tobacco, pro alcohol PR, written by Graham but published under Slater’s byline.
    • Many of the posts are vicious attacks against academics that publish scientific research that upsets Graham’s clients.

    Other noteworthy allegations:

    • Slater has a friend who is a former-prostitute, who asks around brothels to find out if his political enemies have been to them. Len Brown, John Boscowan, Labour MPs, the Herald’s editors and Duncan Garner are all named as people Slater has attempted to ‘dig dirt’ on in this manner to ‘apply pressure’.
    • Jordan Williams edits the Wikipedia pages of Labour MPs and writes smears about their sex lives
    • Content on David Farrar’s Kiwiblog is written by National’s communications staffers…” source

“

 

More to come…

Related posts

2 thoughts on “Nicky Hager’s “Dirty Politics” Book Kicks Up a Storm in New Zealand. Part Two”

  1. They’ve tried revealing his address in the past.
    Of course “intimidation of our political opponents is simply not done in New Zealand” /sarcasm
    http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11309750
    Bloggers revealed Hager’s address
    5:00 AM Saturday Aug 16, 2014
    Internet
    Politics
    Cactus Kate predicted ‘chop chop for Nicky’ if rich Chinese knew his details

    Cathy Odgers suggested that Nicky Hager’s address be published. Photo / Mark Mitchell

    Whale Oil blogger Cameron Slater published details of Dirty Politics author Nicky Hager’s address after fellow blogger Cathy Odgers suggested doing so could result in him suffering physical attacks.

    On the other hand, I didn’t know what cactuskate (Cathy Odgers) looked like before.

    In the same vein of “intimidation of our political opponents”, I remember reading on the now not updated expatexposed, that one of the contributors was told his job was in peril after (if I remember right, must dig out those posts later) topcat83 contacted his employers to let him know that that person was contributing his opinions (which were critical of New Zealand) to that site.
    Smell that freedom of speech …

    • Slater – what a douchebag. Let’s hope this story is the tipping point that causes the national delusion to crumble.

Comments are closed.