Spare a thought for poor Judith Collins this morning. Her favorite two attack dogs have just been put down by the Prime Minister…
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.
As broken on The Daily Blog last night, This is a truly fascinating insight into the dark machinations of the National Party. As TDB has been pointing out for sometime, Collins Stormtroopers have been waging a low level internal guerrilla war within the party to manufacture a hard right Government.
For the anti-reactionary hierarchy of the Party, Lusk & Slater are dangerous. They can get their privatization and wealth benefits for the 1% through Parliament without the NZ Public ever waking up as long as Mr Vacant Aspiration grins like a clown down the camera lens and states, “I’m comfortable with that’. To risk waking such an anesthetized electorate with white hate and fascist overtones is not only ethically shocking, it’s totally counter-productive.
After the Aaron Gilmore hit job, the PMs Office has investigated these influences and have decided to out them, in doing so Key is directly blunting Collins rise to challenge for the leadership.
On a side note, it will be interesting to see if the contempt with which Lusk and Slater view the ease of their manipulation of the mainstream media will impact on the media using Slater as a pundit.
What is happening to Lusk & Slater right now by outing them in this fashion is exactly what happened to Gilmore. An initial allegation to catch the media’s attention with some blood in the water and then the private word that much worse can be released. In Gilmore’s case these were things he wouldn’t want made public, in Lusk & Slater’s case, it is far more damaging plots.
The list of MPs who pay Lusk will be the next leverage point and I imagine those very same MPs who made sure they paid their fee the week after Gilmore was taken out, won’t be paying this month, lest that list get published.
This type of threat might not work however and could provoke a full nuclear retaliation. Slater is under immense personal stress at the moment and issues with the Crow Brothers walking away from the Truth can’t be helping that. With his ongoing depression issues, a cornered, angry, humiliated Slater is completely unpredictable. Likewise, Lusk has shown how ruthless he can be during the Aaron Gilmore hit and may be cornered enough to launch more direct attacks against the leadership.
National must let them know they are serious about releasing the rest of what they have.
Has Key bitten off more than he can chew by turning on them or is ‘Gilmore Utu’ a dish served best cold with a slice of bitter whale and a slow roasted head of Lusk?
It’s like a Political Master Chef where each meal is poisonous.
The interesting thing about this will be the reaction of those who’ve said – more power to spy on New Zealanders – what would you have to fear unless you’ve done something wrong – I’ll bet they didn’t think about this…..
I note Key’s predictable response on The Nation was that he was comfortable. Does he have a position on anything? Does he see himself as NZ’s easy chair?
As a past target of the whale, I’m pleased to see the mud going in the opposite direction. About time…
The Herald are already spinning it exactly as Key would want; National are a “broad church” blah blah, the hard-right are a nutty minority who no-one else likes blah blah, and are countered by the “green” faction, headed by Nick ‘Deniston Mine’ Smith, and the liberal caring faction, headed by Katherine Rich, whose conscience vote record includes votes against equal marriage and death with dignity bills.
Still, at least the Herald have addressed it, nothing at all from Fairfax.
Neil, there was this on stuff.co.nz over a week ago:
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/8717357/Seriously-happy-to-upset-the-status-quo
What I’m trying to work out from it is why Lusk, who has become famous for not commenting to the media, is suddenly saying so much.
Farrar will be the one to watch.
Who is Simon Lusk? ie what is his back story? and what else is he doing back there in the shadows of government??
Watched The Nation this morning, so the Lusk plan calls for funding from backers in the US, aspiration or work in progress? If he has contact with US backers it’ll be interesting to know who they are; conservatives disgruntled with the Obama administration surely, with a vision to build a conservative utopia in the South Pacific as many fervent Republicans view here as a potentially attractive bolthole. Imagine the Lusk plan coming to fruition along with the TPPA.
The Standard has the full, first Lusk paper online and the second one concerning US funding will be released tomorrow.
http://thestandard.org.nz/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/lusk1.pdf
http://thestandard.org.nz/the-lusk-paper/
Awesome, cheers for the link.
Wow, lusk really wants an American style of politics.
His aims shouldn’t be laughed at though thatcher accomplished exactly these things, she even said her greatest contribution had been to pull the Labour Party to the right. Que Tony Blair.
These changes would bring a new era of neo-rodgernomics.
Please explain…my understanding is that this paper is furthering a business or privately controlled government that is influenced in it’s decisions by it’s contributors not by the people it represents. If this is so then it would not be a democracy at all, but a puppet government, am I correct in my understanding of this document?
Yes paula thats exactly what it means if you think the nats are business friendly now it will be 10 times worse.
Amusing to watch!
The Slater/Lusk ‘faction’ though are more like the Michigan Militia.
The GCSB and SIS would be better of spending their time on that Slator/Lusk ilk than their current preoccupation.
Funny (strange) how it never seems to occur to ‘them’ (the ‘comfortably off’) until it all jumps up and bites them in the bum – then we’re all expected to feel sorry for them!
[…] Now we have some idea of the level of contempt and joy Lusk & Slater privately have in manipula… will Firstline, RadioLive, ZB and The Nation continue to have him as a commentator on their shows? […]
[…] Lusk & Slater: Dirty Deeds Done Poorly […]
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