Focus on New Zealand's dirty politics

Police raid of Investigative Journalist’s house ruled illegal – this is a war on journalism

By Martyn Bradbury 

Hager wasn’t a suspect, he was a journalist with legal protections that the Police simply overrode without a seconds thought because his work had humiliated and embarrassed the Government.

the Daily Blog,

18 December, 2015

Just read that headline again for a second, Police raid of Investigative Journalist’s house ruled illegal.

Where would you expect that kind of headline?

A third world banana republic? A harsh authoritarian middle eastern country, or soviet satellite state or CIA client government?

It comes from us, here in NZ.

The ruling that the Police illegally raided Nicky Hager’s home should force immediate attention on this issue by every media outlet in our country. This is a war on journalism being quietly waged by the Government via the Police force. The abuse of power is remarkable and there needs to be an immediate investigation into how this was allowed to occur and whether there was any political interference in this raid.

Hager wasn’t a suspect, he was a journalist with legal protections that the Police simply overrode  without a seconds thought because his work had humiliated and embarrassed the Government.

Look at the way the Police behaved on the day…

Police searched and seized computers, phones and personal records from Mr. Hager’s home. They also intimidated Mr. Hager’s daughter (who was home at the time) by forcing her to dress in front of an officer and relinquish her personal computer. In addition, they asked a number of service providers to give them access to Mr. Hager’s personal details without a warrant or production order. Most of the service providers refused or asked for a warrant but at least one, the financial corporation Westpac, gave up eight month’s worth of Mr. Hager’s transaction records without asking the Police for a legal instrument compelling them to do so.

We now know…

• The Police were investigating Hager before a complaint was even registered.
•  The speed with which they raided Hager’s home is incredible compared against similar crimes and lack of Police action on those.
• The Police also gained the information of 2500 NZers who holidayed in Vanuatu and there’s been no explanation what has happened to those peoples private information.
• Police threatened companies with legal action if they didn’t hand over information.
• Police didn’t bother with gaining search warrants for this information.
• Westpac damaged Hager’s credit rating based on being approached by the Police.
• Former National Party Minister of Justice Simon Power went to work at Westpac.

…why was there an immediate investigation? Who ordered that?

The Search and Surveillance powers the Police are trying to justify their illegal activity were passed to fight organised crime and terrorists. This all should alarm people because the Police have a history under this Government of breaking the law, and John Key just rolling up and pass retrospective legislation simply legalising their illegality. That creates  a Police force who become a law unto themselves.

The Secret Intelligence Agency agreed to work with the PMs Office to falsely smear Phil Goff months before the 2011 election. To have the Prime Minister’s Office and the SIS collude to work together, how much of a jump is it to suggest the Police and the Government have colluded in this case against Hager?

Because if that’s true – there must be a push back against this type of abuse of political power.

Yes your house is over valued and that gives you a sense of slim security, but we can’t let this sort of thing happen. Cops raiding journalists homes for exposing abuse of power, that’s not NZ.

We are better than this.

Bryce Edwards’ Political 

Roundup: Dirty Politics 

won’t die

By Bryce Edwards -

"

Yesterday’s landmark judicial ruling against the Police for raiding Nicky Hager’s house is just the latest chapter in the ongoing saga of Dirty Politics. Image: Nicky Hager - at the Dirty Politics book launch.

Political Roundup by Dr Bryce Edwards.

Last year’s Dirty Politics bombshell keeps going off. The ruling by the High Court against the Police for raiding Nicky Hager’s home is an important judgement in yet another busy year for the various Dirty Politics characters. 

Yesterday’s landmark judicial ruling against the Police for raiding Nicky Hager’s house is just the latest chapter in the ongoing saga of Dirty Politics. For the best coverage of the ruling, see David Fisher’s Police house raid on investigative journalist Nicky Hager found to be unlawful. 

For an explanation of why the judgement is so important for democracy and the public, see Regan Schoultz’s Hager decision: Why you should care and Matt Nippert’s Nicky Hager police raid ruling a win for journalism. Both pieces make significant points about the need to have properly functioning mechanisms that hold the powerful to account, and say the police raid undermined that mechanism. 

But for the hardest-hitting criticism of the Police, see Gordon Campbell’s On the Police harassment of Nicky Hager. His short must-read column paints a picture of the Police acting as blatant stooges for the political Establishment, to take out a critic. And he warns that it will continue to happen. 

Hager spoke about his victory and the “strange” actions of the police in a five-minute interview with Alison Mau – see: Hager: Police raid ‘weird overkill’.

Attention is now turning to the question of how the Police could get this case so wrong. Various politicians and partisans are pointing the finger at the National Government’s role in the saga – see Greg Presland’s blog post, What was National’s role in the police raid on Nicky Hager? and Sam Sachdeva’s Nicky Hager case ‘raises questions’ about political pressure on police – MPs. 

To understand the case properly it’s worth going back and looking at some of the material from the court case in July. Alastair Thompson of the Scoop website used the Official Information Act to obtain the various court documents relating to the case – see: Inside The Hunt For Rawshark – Hager Raid Court File and Inside The Hunt For Rawshark – Hager Raid Court File Part 2. This includes my own affidavit, which you can read together with other Dirty Politics material.

The court case itself was also covered in depth by Jon Stephenson – see: Nicky Hager Case – Breaking News Reportage. See also Giovanni Tiso’s essays, The Life and death of the political author and The raid.

Of course, it’s also worth remembering the way the Police carried out their investigation, using controversial methods – see my October column, Libertarians against dirty politics. 

And for more on the police investigation of Rawshark, see Paul Buchanan’s latest blog post, The Impunity Files, Police Edition: Trolling for Rawshark, and Juha Saarinen’s Hager, Whale Oil, Dirty Politics, Rawshark, and what the police should have done. 

Cameron Slater’s ongoing Dirty Politics

You probably shouldn’t trust anything written in this column. At least that’s what Cameron Slater would have you believe. Slater has just launched his latest project with co-conspirator Simon Lusk, which includes an evaluation of political journalists and commentators. The first issue of their monthly Incite newsletter came out on Tuesday, and it labelled my work as “Not to be trusted” and gave me an evaluation of two out of ten. Other pundits and journalists fared worse – Richard Harman got 8/10, followed closely by Barry Soper on 7/10. At the other end of the scale, Rachel Smalley would have been very happy with her 1/10.

For an amusing review of the new publication, see Danyl Mclauchlan’s blog post, Why You Need Incite in Your Life – a Review of Cameron Slater’s $35 Monthly Newsletter. See also Pete George’s Incite review. For a more favourable spin, published on Slater’s Whaleoil blog, see Inside Incite (and why you should subscribe).

Pete George blogged that Slater’s Whaleoil blog could be in a perilous state – see: Conflict at Whale Oil. This blog post reports a testy exchange between Slater and the blog’s apparent co-owner, and in the comments section there are further revealing discussion from former Whaleoil volunteers. 

Part of Whaleoil’s decline is financial, and the latest advertiser to pull the plug is entrepreneur Rod Drury – see Matt Nippert’s Xero boss withdraws advertising from Whaleoil. According to this article, “Rodney Hide has confirmed he was probably behind a series of Whaleoil posts attacking Xero that led Rod Drury to suspend advertising on the controversial blog.”

Not all is going badly for Slater however. He has was the first case of complaint for the new Online Media Standards Authority, and he won – see David Farrar’s OMSA rules in favour of blogger. 

Slater also brought out a slim book this year about trade unions, titled “Dodgy Unions”, which got a very positive review on Amazon by a certain “B Edwards”, explained by blogger Pete George in his post Which B Edwards? This was followed by a more legitimate evaluation: Dodgy Unions – review. And it got the usual endorsement from Scott Yorke – see: Why you should get Cameron Slater’s book. 

Slater also got some heat from his National rival Michelle Boag, who made further Dirty Politics-style claims about his activities – listen to RadioLIve’s Are Kiwi bloggers taking payment to stay silent? Slater categorically denied the allegation – listen to: Cameron Slater denies Michelle Boag’s claim he takes payment for silence. 

The “Exoneration” of Judith Collins 

The reappointment to Cabinet of one of the main politicians in Dirty Politics has irked Nicky Hager, especially because of accompanying claims she had been exonerated – see Hager’s blog post, Spinning the return of Judith Collins. 

Collins herself explains why she feels “pretty damn vindicated, frankly” in Tracy Watkins’ article, Judith Collins – ‘exonerated, vindicated’ and on the comeback trail. Watkins also reports on the various objections that might be made about her claims of exoneration. 

For an examination of the official “Chisholm inquiry into Allegations concerning Judith Collins”, blogger Peter Aranyi has used the Official Information Act to obtain all of the witness transcripts, testimony and evidence for the inquiry – you can read all 60 of them here: Judith Collins Lester Chisholm Inquiry evidence. 

Aranyi has commented on these files at length in follow up blog posts such as Who was actually on trial? and ‘Taking one for the team’. In the latter he discusses the transcripts of the inquiry, as well as Slater’s lessened financial situation, and concludes: “Maybe he could get an honest job. Does Mrs Collins need a press secretary?” He also highlights an extract on how Slater’s wife felt about the Dirty Politics controversy.

Celebrating the return of Collins, Matthew Hooton declared “It’s good to again know with certainty there is at least one right-wing minister in John Key’s cabinet” – see his NBR column, Collins’ return a good signal to the right (paywalled). 

In this column he reflects on how Collins might yet become National Party leader: “Her moment comes if and when the public develops fatigue with Mr Key’s blancmange style of politics and perceives his government’s lack of a serious reform programme will only ever deliver slow relative economic decline”. Hooton argues that “the idea of a future Collins leadership is no longer as fanciful as it was 15 months ago, when the media mob so disgracefully drove her from office relying on the unsubstantiated testimony of a blogger.”

And for a faux-women’s magazine exclusive on Collins’ return, see Andrew Gunn’s Crusher Collins awakens the Force. Here’s John Key on why Collins had to be let back into Cabinet: “Judith’s always been really good at projecting the National-led government’s core philosophy. And I’d much rather she was inside the tent projecting out than outside the tent projecting in”.

Simon Lusk’s dirty politics

The most shadowy figure in Dirty Politics was self-declared political hit man Simon Lusk, who Duncan Garner profiled and interviewed last month on TV3’s Story – watch the nine-minute item: Shadowy political figure’s motto: ‘Dominate, intimidate and humiliate’. 

The story involved claims by Lusk that he paid “people, on behalf of clients, to get a certain voting outcome”, which Garner examined in a follow up item, Lusk goes public on ‘koha to vote’. 

There were also allegations of Lusk targeting and befriending Labour politicians. The supposed links to MP Stuart Nash were then examined in the six-minute item, Nash embarrassed by links to Simon Lusk. And a threatened campaign against another MP was explained by Isaac Davison in Phil Twyford won’t be intimidated by smear campaign. 

All of these issues were then examined by RNZ’s Mediawatch – see: Dirty Politics players back in the frame. 

Earlier in the year Lusk also published a book – see David Farrar’s Lusk: A Campaign Professional’s Guide to Winning New Zealand Campaigns. 

Rachel Glucina and Scout

The gossipmonger at the centre of Dirty Politics, Rachel Glucina, has made plenty of news herself this year. For a good backgrounder on Glucina and the controversies she caused, see: Rachel Glucina: the queen of gossip. 

Much of her notoriety in 2015 came out of her coverage of Ponytailgate for the Herald, which received criticism from the Press Council – see the Herald’s story, Press council rules against Herald on ‘Ponygate’ interview. 

The Prime Minister’s Office was also caught up in the controversy, especially after it “declined to make public conversations or messages with former New Zealand Herald writer Rachel Glucina over Auckland’s Cafe Rosie” – see Andrea Vance’s Ponytailgate correspondence with gossip columnist probed. 

Glucina left the Herald for a new job at Mediaworks. Upon this announcement there was a raft of humorous tweets and speculation on Glucina’s likely influence and future with the TV3 company – see my blog post, Top tweets about Rachel Glucina going to TV3. 

The new project for TV3’s Mediaworks was announced as Scout. Not surprisingly, the actual scouting movement was very quick to distance itself from the new TV3 product – see Brittany Mann’s ScoutsNZ distances itself from Rachel Glucina website, seeks legal advice. 

The site soon ran into all sorts of trouble, detailed in MediaWorks staff turn on Scout, Rachel Glucina’s new gossip site, and analysed on The Standard in the blog post, No Friends: The One about Rachel. 

But the must-read account is Duncan Greive’s Anatomy of a Corporate Disaster – Inside Weldon and Glucina’s Gossip Site Scout. See also his post, Cool Story #2 – Two Sides of the Gluc. 

The Other players

Carrick Graham became known as Cameron Slater’s paymaster, and in June North and South magazine published Peter Newport’s excellent feature about him and his PR activities, which is now available free to read online: Carrick Graham: Without Apologies. Similarly, see my column Dirty digital politics. 

Jordan Williams and David Farrar are still very actively running their lobby group, which David Fisher investigates in The Big Read: So what’s this Taxpayers’ Union, which purports to represent us all? Earlier in the year, the group was also in the spotlight for their focus on author Eleanor Catton – see the Herald’s Kiwis have been generous to Catton, says Taxpayers’ Union. 

But is the group partisan? Not exactly. And David Farrar has the figures to prove it – see his blog post, Taxpayers Union critical regardless of party. 

Ben Rachinger, another mysterious figure who was, for a time, close to Cameron Slater, also created some minor news about Dirty Politics this year which I covered my column, Dirty Politics “done dirt cheap”. 

For an update on him see Keith Ng’s illuminating and indepth investigation The Whaledump Saga: Scooby-Doo Edition. Or for the main points see Danyl Mclauchlan’s Shorter Ng/Rachinger/Slater/Key. 

There was another more high profile figure who related to Dirty Politics in some curious ways. In July, the then Conservative Party leader Colin Craig published his booklet Dirty Politics and Hidden Agendas, which was aimed at Cameron Slater, Jordan Williams, and others in his own party. 

Craig explained this in a guest post on the Daily Blog, drawing parallels with Hager’s 2014 book – see: Dirty Politics, why should we care? But last month, in a typically bizarre twist, TV3 reported Colin Craig unveiled as ‘Mr X’. 

Of course the character who has come out best from the Dirty Politics saga is Hager himself. Hager continued to publish vitally important research on New Zealand politics which I covered earlier in the year in three columns: Who cares about the #SnowdenNZ revelations?, Should John Key resign over ‘mass surveillance’? and The ramifications of the spying scandal. 

For more on Hager, see his essay about his investigative journalism, Loose lips, and his interview with Toby Manhire, “A Kick Back Against Government Intolerance” – an Interview with Nicky Hager. 

Finally, for one of the best reads about Dirty Politics and how it played out for a television journalist covering last year’s election campaign, read Nicola Kean’s academic chapter on #PeakCray – Making Current Affairs TV During NZ’s Strangest Election. 

Bryce Edwards - http://liberation.typepad.com/

Dr Bryce Edwards is a lecturer in Politics at the University of Otago. He teaches and researches on New Zealand politics, public policy, political parties, elections, and political communication. His PhD, completed in 2003, was on 'Political Parties in New Zealand: A Study of Ideological and Organisational Transformation'. He is currently working on a book entitled 'Who Runs New Zealand? An Anatomy of Power'. He is also on the board of directors for Transparency International New Zealand.

John Key's 'prison rape' stunt goes international

Prime Minister John Key's participation in a "prison rape" stunt on music radio station The Rock is making world headlines.

John Key was asked to enter a cage and pick up a bar of soap on The Rock radio station – a reference to rape in prisons. Photo: Supplied

United Kingdom newspapers The Times and The Guardian, as well as US broadcaster CNN, are among those that have reported on Wednesday's incident, in which Mr Key agreed to get into a cage in The Rock's studio. He was then asked to pick up a bar of soap - a reference to rape in prison.

Most of the foreign media reports focused on the stunt being the latest of a number of incidents in which Mr Key has raised eyebrows. They mentioned "blunders", including the recent furore in Parliament over his attack on Labour for "backing the rapists", in response to opposition accusations that the government had been weak in its dealings with Australia over the detention of New Zealanders on Christmas Island.

The Times said the prime minister had "come under fire after appearing to make light of rape while taking part in a crude radio station stunt".

"The Rock stunt is the latest in a series of live radio appearances Mr Key has taken part in in which he has revealed more personal information than many New Zealanders might wish to know," the article said.

The newspaper also called attention to New Zealand's record of sexual violence: "In the 2011 United Nations Report on the Status of Women, New Zealand was ranked worst of all the OECD countries for rates of sexual violence," it said.

CNN also reported Mr Key was "under fire", for participating in a "prison rape" joke. The broadcaster listed a number of instances of earlier "unstatesmanlike" behaviour under the heading "Media blunders".

It linked it to his "you back the rapists" comments which resulted in a walkout by female MPs, the much-publicised incidents in which he pulled a waitress's ponytail and his personal revelations about urinating in the shower, which he made during an earlier radio appearance.

The Guardian ran a story under the headline "New Zealand prime minister John Key criticised for 'rape joke' stunt".

Photo: The Rock

The story included quotes critical of Mr Key's actions from Massey University lecturer Deborah Russell who said by playing along with rape jokes the prime minister was making light of sexual violence.

"This makes me feel ill. When the PM thinks it's okay to participate in rape jokes, how can women feel safe?" she tweeted.

Rae Duff, the national president of the National Council of Women, was quoted as saying Mr Key was routinely "trivialising" sexual violence.

Other international media outlets to feature the prime minister's comments were the Daily Mail and theInternational Business Times.

A spokesperson for Mr Key told The Guardian, "The prime minister does these interviews in the spirit of Christmas and the content is decided by the hosts.

"The interviews are meant to be light-hearted, and the prime minister hopes the media and the public take them that way."

Petition to strip Key of White Ribbon role

Meanwhile, Auckland psychotherapist Kyle MacDonald has started an online petition to remove Mr Key as ambassador for White Ribbon, a global campaign by men who condemn violence against women, over the comments.

The petition has received more than 7000 signatures.

Launching the petition, Mr Kyle wrote, "I have become increasingly concerned about the actions of our prime minister, and how they show a complete lack of understanding about the impacts of sexual and physical violence in this country."

His "prison rape" joke on radio yesterday was the last straw.

"I believe it is no longer OK for John Key to make light of sexual abuse and sexual violence, and so I ask you to join me in calling on the White Ribbon organisation to remove John Key as an ambassador."

Ken Clearwater, of Survivors of Sexual Abuse New Zealand, said he found the stunt "bloody appalling".

"Rape is not a joke, full stop. Regardless of the gender of the victim. The psychological damage done to men and boys is the same as to women," he said.

Mr Clearwater called for Mr Key to apologise.

"Obviously he didn't give it a lot of thought before he went into it, and that's probably a major issue we have in this country - we talk about the 'rape culture' and obviously he thinks that rape is a joke and that's really scary."

Mr Clearwater says he has been interviewed by The Guardian about Mr Key's radio stunt.

The Prison John Key Built – horror of the SERCO deal you’re not being told about

By Martyn Bradbury 

We have allowed National to build an empire of suffering from the privatisation of prisons. When fear and anger warp social policy the product is a harvest of spite.

the Daily Blog,

19 December, 2015

After prisoner beatings, stand over tactics, fight clubs, rape, falsification of information to hide these abuses and death we are now seeing the real horror of the SERCO deal.

Despite all these terrible abuses SERCO has made $8million in bonuses. That’s right, fight clubs and rape and death gets them bonuses based on information SERCO are supplying despite them already getting pinged for falsifying those stats. That’s how bad the bloody deal National agreed to when they green lighted  these private prison experiments, we pay even when SERCO screw up!

Don’t forget these are BONUSES – this is ON TOP of what SERCO are earning in fees. Part of the deal is that we pay SERCO for every bed in Wiri regardless of it being full or not. The incentive is to fill it because we are paying for them anyway.

MEANWHILE – prison populations explode. We hit our highest level of prisoners locked up despite crime rates falling. Judith has had to rush in and pledge another $15million to keep the public prisons from falling over but feeding this prison industrial complex is the wrong approach!

We are now gaining a secondary prisoner population. These are prisoners who were caught up in the ‘get tough on crime’ crap that occurred in the early 2000s. 

They could not admit their crimes, have received zero counselling inside prison, and have now served their entire sentence. Because they’ve had no counselling at all, many of these men are being released after being locked up for a full 10 year plus sentence and they are more damaged than when they went in. The Government know this and instead of acknowledging the ‘get tough on crime’ crap has produced a deformed counter productive outcome, they simply pass law to extend the sentences and keep these men locked up indefinitely.

We have allowed National to build an empire of suffering from the privatisation of prisons. When fear and anger warp social policy the product is a harvest of spite.