This is what happens to dissident whistleblowers in today's New Zealand

A snapshot of what can happen when you blow the whistle.

A scary world we live in.

EDIT: To provide clarity, We support Jami-Lee Ross in his efforts to hold Simon Bridges to account. It is quite a coincidence that he has been taken into Mental Health Care at this moment. We would hope that it just is that and Kim Dotcom has offered legal support if he needs it.

---the Internet Party

Jami-Lee Ross taken into mental health care

Newstalk ZB,

21 October, 2018

Jami-Lee Ross has been taken into mental health care

Newstalk ZB can confirm the rogue National MP was taken in by police.

He was taken to a facility in Auckland.

A spokesperson for the National Party said in a statement: "Over the past several weeks the National Party has taken seriously the mental health concerns raised by Mr Ross and the medical professionals he has been involved with.

"That has included seeking advice from medical professionals and involving Police wherever necessary to ensure support is made available to Mr Ross. It would not be appropriate to comment further."

Ross took leave from Parliament at the beginning of the month. He told reporters this week that it was because he was "devastated" at being accused of harassment and denied natural justice.

When he talked to media on Tuesday and Wednesday, he said that his doctor had cleared him and he was feeling healthy. He rejected comments from National deputy leader Paula Bennett that he was suffering from mental health issues, saying that his doctor had called Bennett to tell her that he was healthy.

Those comments were made before six women spoke publicly about what they called bullying and intimidating behaviour from Ross. Ross disagreed with the way the women portrayed him in media reports, but admitted to extra-marital affairs and said he had apologised to his wife Lucy Schwaner.

A National Party spokesman said: "Over the past several weeks the National Party has taken seriously the mental health concerns raised by Mr Ross and the medical professionals he has been involved with. That has included seeking advice from medical professionals and involving Police wherever necessary to ensure support is made available to Mr Ross. It would not be appropriate to comment further."

Paula Bennett has repeatedly expressed concern this week for Ross' health.

It is unclear if Ross was admitted under the Mental Health (Compulsory Assessment and Treatment) Act, which means that someone can be admitted to a safe place and given treatment against their will if their safety is considered at risk.

Ross' leave from Parliament at the start of the month followed a text message concerned about the mental health of the person who leaked details of National leader Simon Bridges' expenses. It led to speculation that Ross was the leaker, which he denies, even though an inquiry found that he was likely the leaker.

Ummmmm, forcing Jami-Lee Ross into mental health services? What?

By Martyn Bradbury

the Daily Blog,

October 21, 2018 

We are in incredibly dangerous waters now. I think it is of the highest importance that IF JLR has been forcibly taken into mental health custody that decision be reviewed immediately to ensure that a terrible wrong hasn’t just occurred.

Whoa, whoa, whoa!

MP Jami-Lee Ross admitted to mental health care

MP Jami-Lee Ross has been taken into mental health care.

Newstalk ZB understands he was taken in by police.

He was taken to a facility in Auckland.

A National Party spokesman said: “Over the past several weeks the National Party has taken seriously the mental health concerns raised by Mr Ross and the medical professionals he has been involved with. 

That has included seeking advice from medical professionals and involving Police wherever necessary to ensure support is made available to Mr Ross. It would not be appropriate to comment further.”

Ross took leave from Parliament at the beginning of the month. He told reporters this week that it was because he was “devastated” at being accused of harassment and denied natural justice.

When he talked to media on Tuesday and Wednesday, he said that his doctor had cleared him and he was feeling healthy. He rejected comments from National deputy leader Paula Bennett that he was suffering from mental health issues, saying that his doctor had called Bennett to tell her that he was healthy.

Those comments were made before six women spoke publicly about what they called bullying and intimidating behaviour from Ross. Ross disagreed with the way the women portrayed him in media reports, but admitted to extra-marital affairs and said he had apologised to his wife Lucy Schwaner.

Paula Bennett has repeatedly expressed concern for Ross’ health.

It is unclear if Ross was admitted under the Mental Health (Compulsory Assessment and Treatment) Act, which means that someone can be admitted to a safe place and given treatment against their will if their safety is considered at risk.

Am I reading this correctly? Has JLR been forced into mental health care? Folks, we can all be disgusted by his behaviour – but we also can see involuntary imprisonment by the State into mental health custody as ummmm terrifying right?

Look, if he has suffered a mental health break down where he is unable to make rational decisions for himself and is a threat to himself, that is a terrible outcome and while his actions and behaviour have been offensive, on a purely human level, what a tragic outcome and a symptom of the clusterfuck toxic masculinity leaves in its wake.

Buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuut IFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF this is something else, ummmmmmmmm, I mean, Jesus wept!

We are in incredibly dangerous waters now. I think it is of the highest importance that IF JLR has been forcibly taken into mental health custody that decision be reviewed immediately to ensure that a terrible wrong hasn’t just occurred.

Because, Jesus folks, just – JESUS!

This is a shocking turn of events in a story that has managed to lower the bar with every single revelation.

 From yesterday

The Jami-Lee Ross strategy and endgame: Possible impacts for the 2020 election

What we are witnessing is a political hit job of bewildering savagery and maliciousness. I understand the moment Simon Bridges won the leadership, dented egos started plotting.

 

the Daily Blog,

20 October, 2018

I believe Jami-Lee Ross was never going to stand in Botany to seek a by-election mandate because he was always intending to remain inside Parliament. He made the statement knowing full well National would unleash upon him all the allegations of harassment that they had helped hide. His political advisor Simon Lusk would have known this and they would have concluded that in their haste to destroy Jami-Lee Ross, National would inevitably over egg their attack and go too far.

Paula Bennett did just that with her ‘inappropriate behaviour for a married MP’ attack, and once they had ‘gone there’, Jami-Lee pulled the wounded martyr routine and announced he would stay in Parliament for self righteous utu against a corrupt leader.

If he had announced he was staying in Parliament and then National hit him with the allegations, he would have found it hard to stay in Parliament in light of those claims, that Lusk and JLR  had the foresight to get their footing right from the outset should worry all because this isn’t the random madness of a rogue MP, this is cold and calculating with an agenda.

What we are witnessing is a political hit job of bewildering savagery and maliciousness. I understand the moment Simon Bridges won the leadership, dented egos started plotting.

Simon Bridges: The chinless wonder

Why isn’t Simon resonating with the rump of the National Party despite unprecedented party polling? I’ve known Simon far better than I’ve personally known any of the other National Party leaders. In private he is funny, pragmatic and clever. His external social conservative shtick is for the voting base, but Bridges is ultimately a solid person who would probably do a reasonable job of running the country.

And that’s the problem.

There is a huge electorate within National who are spittle flecked with rage over the election loss. They were robbed by the MMP commies, lesbians and Maori’s and for them, this mutation of a Government has no legitimacy.

So incandescent with rage are National rump voters, that they actually hate the PMs baby, hate the fact the PM is a young unmarried woman and hate any suggestion of kindness.

The right wing of NZ have become as twisted with hate as the Left did over Key, except of course with Key propping up a speculative property bubble, slashing public funding, privatising welfare and implementing a mass surveillance state, anyone with a basic education had every justifiable right under the sun to be spittle flecked with rage. National Party white rage however has no such justification other than ‘change-and-difference-frighten-us-and-we-hate-things-that-frighten-us-what-the-hell-is-uber-eats’.

Simon can’t connect with his supporters irrational anger because that’s not really the person he is, as such he comes across as flat, rudderless and without purpose or direction. With people around him with far more ambition than talent, it was only a matter of time before his inability to channel his inner redneck to connect with his book burning supporters would be used against him.

 

Jami-Lee Ross: A neanderthal hairplug looking for a homicide

One of the reasons this implosion is so dirty and nasty is because JLR was a chief whip and bagman. He knows where many of the bodies are buried because he helped put them there. His ruthlessness and arrogance have been highlighted by his bullying and harassment of anything with a pulse and general contempt for any inanimate object that doesn’t pose an immediate benefit to him. With an ethical code that would make your average drug cartel blush and look away in disgust, JLR is a right wing creature devoid of the usual moral safeguards and his desire to destroy Simon Bridges over little more than a professional slight by being demoted combined with a grotesque sense of  self importance has set JLR on a behind the lines guerrilla mission to destabilise the Party.

 

Simon Lusk: Something evil this way slithers 

Lusk’s weird love of destroying people that he shared with Slater is well documented in Hager’s Dirty Politics.  He has detailed that his political strategy is to inject venom into politics so that ordinary voters who can’t stand the sleaze don’t vote leaving the minority to win.

Lusk’s greatest hits:

• Lusk and Slater charge aspiring National politicians to help them win candidate selection in National safe-seats by running attack campaigns against their opponents.
• The book documents an extensive smear campaign in the Rodney electorate in 2011, in which Lusk and Slater successfully elected their client Mark Mitchell, who is now the MP for Rodney.
• Lusk was hired by Brash to help replace Rodney Hide as leader of the ACT Party. Lusk – evidently without Brash’s knowledge – found out from Jordan Williams that Rodney Hide had been sending ‘dodgy texts’ to a young woman. Slater published hints about this on his blog and Lusk proposed that they approach Hide quietly and ‘tell Hide that someone had the texts and will release them if he doesn’t resign by Friday’. Hide resigned.

Duncan Garner alleged during the 2014 election that Lusk took money to bribe Maori voters to vote against Hone Harawira.

Later in Story last Monday, TV3 reporters quizzed several MPs in Parliament about their relationships with Simon Lusk. The discomfort of some was clear. Evidently the exposure of Dirty Politics hasn’t scared off all his political clients. Duncan Garner also revealed supporters of Labour’s Napier MP Stewart Nash paid Simon Lusk to canvas the option of a new political party, and that Simon Lusk had told him Labour MP Phil Twyford would be his next target.

Simon Lusk also claimed on Story he had been instrumental in unseating Mana Party co-leader Hone Harawira in the last election. Unnamed “businessmen” had paid thousands for that, he said. And in conversation with his co-host last Monday, Duncan Garner said money had been paid to get Maori electors to vote in Te Tai Tokerau.

Lusk is a political strategist who is so dangerous the National Party tried to formally push him and Slater away in 2013…

National turns on hard right advisor
Simon Lusk pushed to get rid of the “wet wing” and make sure MPs obeyed donors. Now a leaker has revealed his agenda in an attempt to discredit him
Leaked documents written by a political strategist who has trained National MPs set out a vision for taking the party to the right of the political spectrum, tripling donations to $6 million a year and using donations and government jobs as inducements to control MPs.

 

Lusk believes the dirtier the politics, the more people disengage, the easier it is for the Right to win. He and Slater have this warped fantasy of igniting white rage and harnessing it electorally.

 

Judith Collins: “I’m not a Monster” hissed the monster

When you privately ask why the power brokers of the National Party do everything in  their power to stop Judith gaining the leadership, the answer is simple, they are terrified with what she would do with power. Her version of hate inspired politics would go full Trump, she would exploit cultural fault lines and have no problems declaring martial law at the drop of a hat.

My deep suspicion is that she is ultimately the one pulling all the puppet strings here, and the set up of JLR in Parliament attacking Bridges every week helps one person and one person only – Judith.

The endgame:

With JLR now entrenched in Parliament, he will use the protection of Parliamentary Privilege to continue drip feeding damaging material about Simon and any of those on the front bench defending Simon. It will get nastier and dirtier, but Lusk wants that because it turns people off voting.

JLR will wage a campaign against Bridges and as the damage sheets home, the Party in desperation will turn against Bridges towards the only person they think will be strong enough to lead, Judith Collins.

Judith will miraculously gain an immediate state of peace with JLR, the price probably being him running a new sexist right wing party uncontested in Botany while Mark Mitchell fleshes out a New Conservative Party in Rodney.

National know that need allies to win 51% and two minor electorate based parties using MMP coat-tailing is the best way to do that.

Political Guru Bryce Edwards has argued this is extra vile because there isn’t really a policy difference here, and he’s partially correct. This isn’t about policy, it’s about style, Judith wants to kneecap her enemies and bring a level of Trumpian malignancy to NZ politics that other politicians would find sickening.

A dirty politics campaign that purposely drives away voters so only the most radicalised vote is a page out of the Lusk playbook and using that campaign to take the National Party leadership to create a multi-pronged right wing  party is a kind of evil genius.

2020:

So, if Bridges is forced to step down because JLR runs a character assassination program against him and Judith is elected, she would want to grant JLR and Mark Mitchell their electorate based side project political parties with the hope National+ACT+Chauvinist Pigs United + New Conservatives can get 51% of Parliament.

If TOP run a better campaign, they will not get above 5%, but they will cannibalise the Greens under 5%. Unfortunately the Greens have lost themselves in alienating woke revisionism and are currently reading poems to their electric vegan bikes. They are the political equivalent of a fart in an elevator.

Labour will hope to have something to show those who trusted them with their vote and do better than their 2017 result while NZ First will just be praying Winston continues to defy every death calculator and somehow lives another 3 years.

Right now many on the left are loving the National Party implosion, but I fear the people deeply involved in this have far darker agendas and because of those machinations, there’s no certainty 2020 will see Jacinda re-elected.