The press gallery and most commentators got it wrong, the book is not about the Snowden revelations, it is about Key, senior National Party staff and includes leaked emails between Cameron Slater and the National Party. It will include dirty tactics and Wellington insiders.
I am enjoying how frightened the Press Gallery look now, how on earth will the right wing media justify using Cameron Slater as a source now?
How will Patrick Gower, Brooke Sabin, Sean Plunkett, ZB, Mike Hosking, David Farrar, Breakfast TVNZ, Duncan Garner etc etc etc justify using this far right hate speech merchant as a source any longer?
* During the 2011 election campaign Slater obtained a database of the Labour Party’s members, e-mails and donations, and gleefully attacked the party. What no one knew is that Key’s dirty tricks person, Ede, had helped throughout, including searching inside the Labour Party computers and helping Slater plan the subsequent attacks on Labour. Ede’s office was just two doors from John Key’s and presumably he was using his Ministerial Services computer (Chapter 2).
* In the same election campaign, the prime minister’s office used its knowledge of secret SIS documents to tip off Slater and arrange an attack on the Labour leader (Chapter 3).
* Ede drafted official information act requests for Slater to use in other attacks, for instance against Ministry of Foreign Affairs staff who were in conflict with the government (Chapter 3).
* When the Labour Party leadership race was on last year and getting good publicity, Ede got National Party research staff to prepare an attack on David Cunliffe and other contenders’ policies that was published on David Farrar’s Kiwiblog website the following day (Chapter 9).
* The more the National Government has used Slater, the closer that Key himself has got to the attack blogger. For instance, when most New Zealanders were appalled by Slater’s offensive comments about the West Coast man who died in the car crash, his closest associates rallied to support him. One of those who phoned him and commiserated at that time, according to Slater’s account of the conversation, was John Key (Chapter 12).
I will have a review asap.
PS – Can we start calling this SlaterGate?
PPS – I don’t think this will be the only time Nicky will step forward before the election.
Awesomeness
Awesomeness indeed. But can we come up with a more original suffix than -Gate?
I’m voting for #BeefHooked
Slater beef hooked!
The nation says “F*ck John Key”… And Nicky Hager, a brave man with a serious track record, is the man for the job! Seriously, somebody had to do it.
How about SlaterCrushed !
Maybe SlaterSquashed would be better. We already have Crusher Collins.
Wail-Oil
Watergate 2
@Shrubbery – try the suffix “sludge” to go with this one.
SlaterSludge has an appropriate ring to it.
The biter bit!
The hooker hooked!
The slater slated!
The f**ker f**ked!
I could go on… I’m lovin’ it!
Looks like Ahab got his Whale. I do hope he gets the sharks, too.
Ha, John Key got the subject all wrong. By the sounds of it this book is looking terribly inconvenient for National and its media allies.
Tonight Garner is far more interested in HOW Hager got this information, not what the information is telling us about those personalities. He then goes on to accuse Hager of hacking, something “Cameron” doesn’t do apparently!
Expect a smear campaign against all and sundry involved in this and or who National determine will benefit from it.
Yep – Caught the last of garner when I was driving home from work. He said Hager was ‘snooping’ on people, the very thing he (Hager) claims to disapprove of.
This will be the bullshit attack line from all on the right as they try to distract from the content of the book.
Garner has such a permanent stiffy for Key it’s becoming a medical emergency. (So have Hosking, Plunket etc.)
So Garner has rushed to the defence of Slater and Key?
If Garner is criticising Hager for gaining access to leaked information, that suggests to me that Garner’s relationship to the National Party/Slater/Key is closer than we thought…
Because last time I looked, real journos always made good use of leaked material.
Wasn’t too long ago that Braunias was running a hit piece in the Listener to knock Garner down a few notches…
these guys are cannibalistic and now the media have realised the public are equally holding THEM to account, they are finally getting off the fence, picking their side and showing their true colours.
That said…. enough pressure on them and they’ll cave to the Court of Public Opinion – they’ve little choice at the end of the day and there is no small number within their own ranks awakening to the truth as we speak…
The end result will be dynamite.
Frank: I dunno about Garner, but Plonker has been all over Radio Live.
Looking forward to your review Martyn.
Is Mr Hager’s book available at all book retail outlets?
Somehow I don’t think this subject will get a mention on tomorrow’s Breakfast show. The MSM will minimise the political fallout on this by pretending that nothing has happened, what book? who’s Nicky Hager? No story here folks. They will probably show a clip of John Key having a sing along with kindergarten kids – someone who is so nice to kids couldn’t possibly be guilty of dirty tricks, could they?
Blubber-Gate? 🙂
There’ll be be tears, for sure. (Slater and Key eat whalemeat and blubber. Well, so would you…)
There are tears, now and plenty of them. They’re coming from our right wing MSM.
Don’t you mean Key and Slater are ‘whale meat’?
And they had a cheek to have a go at Shane Taurima for using Public TV resources for Labour.
This is way, way worse and we should not tolerate parliamentary resources being abused in this way nor our secret squirrel, public paid organisations used to spy on National’s opponents.
slatergate removes it from key, so NO
This on the face of it is better dirt than I expected. I predict there will be massive amounts of squirming and denials and excuses… but no apologies.
I hope the media journalists put aside there political preferences and give this story their unbiased urgent attention. Please!
Perhaps I’m the lone voice of non excitement but i don’t see this as being any sort of game changer. I don’t think it’s news to anyone that the Nats feed friendly bloggers with information and dirt and perversely the person who’s probably most happy is Slater with all the free publicity for his sewer of a blog.
Nah, it’s the impact on journalists that might make it a game-changer. The smart ones know this is going on, and many are complicit. But they will no longer be able to continue business as usual… Case in point : Key on TV, who got away with linking the “burning man” video with Internet Party on the strength of an affirmation on Whale Oil… When Laila rubbed their noses in it, they tried to laugh it off, but that won’t work any more. Death to the smear machine.
Tinfoil brain?
Inside the walls of the Keyremlin.Dark,dank,the home of a real assassin. Not smiling so much tonight
Yep, I watched Key and it was the “I’m trying really hard to put on my best poker face – I’m comfortable” routine but it looked very forced and more like “If what I know is in that book we are deeply in the shit” panic lines all over his face.
Keyremlin
more awesomness
Slater’s comments about the Cantabs were pretty pretty heartless. Useless eaters to him, no doubt.
Got a joke for you –
Whats the difference between the Wolf of Wall Street and Dot Com?
One made his money filing shares, the other made his money sharing files.
The first, legally. The second, illegally.
Oh and by the way, don’t bother buying Hager’s book. It will be available for free on Dotcoms site, just as he did with The Luminaries.
Hey slime Intrinsic
I’d rather pay for the truth from the author not second hand like you do and your crooked mates.
Times up, cash in your key chips before the truth brigade comes after you.
Truth? You mean that politics is dirty? I could have told you that and saved you the cost of the book.
That reminds me. Hager said the book had sold out — I’m not sure if he just meant where he was today or nationally. But you can still get the Kindle version from Amazon, $21. That’s good value. Go on, Intrinsicvalue, you’re a Nat, that’s chump change for you. Be a nice change from reading the busine$$ pages, I’m sure.
Sorry, the first legally?!?
Since when was shorting the market and flogging off pink slips as shares of value – which just happens to be financially illegal in terms of disclosure – legal?!?
There was nothing *illegal* about the Dotcom file upload setup, it was the content that they’re after. And even that, when taken in the context of Youtube, is dubious at best. It’s why Youtube had the case against them thrown out, the same type of case they’re bringing against KDC.
Do you people seriously have to prove your idiocy time and time again?!?
+1 Well said!
Anonymous ACT Supporter Intrinsicvalue… hmmm, so you care nothing for the truth when it finally comes out?
As is your ideology, you find comfort in lies and delusion.
Oh I love the truth. It is power to the people. Hager’s book tells us that politics is dirty. Is that news to you Frank?
Trin – we all get you are a right wing troll, but today just ain’t your day champ. This bullshit defence line being run by the National Party is a joke, please explain how any of this is normal politics
-blackmailing an MP into standing down
-Tobacco lobbyists publishing hate filled comments on blogs they write?
-editing wikipedia pages to smear the sex lives of MPs
-using prostitute to dig dirt on Len Brown, John Boscowan, Labour MPs, the Herald’s editors and Duncan Garner.
-moving a prisoner to a remote location and attempting suicide
-hacking opposition computers
-having the SIS provide information
If the Left had done that you would be screaming – your attempts to be an apologist for this crap diminishes your effectiveness as a right wing troll – better you dump this handle, and come back as a new right wing troll because every time you comment on this site I will point out how you have tried to justify all of the above.
Intrinsicvalue, is it news to you that the National Party is single-handedly dragging NZ’s annual ranking in the global corruption table from near the top to somewhere near the bottom? Not that you’ll give a monkey’s as long as the shares are doing OK.
Oh no, no, Martyn. If any of the Press Gallery are frightened, the reason is far more damaging. How many, I wonder, will be revealed as having some sort of “cosy” relationship Slater?
And what sort of manipulations and schemes will be involved?
I ask this, because my OIA’s to various minister on the Donghua Liu Affair have not yielded an answer to one of my questions. (It’s a very, very simple question – but if it’s wrong, certain NZ Herald staff have some serious questions of their own to answer.)
THe two things that shocked me the most, so far, and the revelations about the use of the SIS, and the allegation that this “team” of sleaze was involved in taking out Rodney Hyde as ACT leader!
now, THAT was a shock to me!
Oh, and the comment revealed on Cambell Live. by Whaleblubber, about the people of Christhchurch. That one comment totoally shreds any reputation that he ever had, and is so mean-spirited and outright DISGUSTING to be beyond belief.
He considers many of us to be “Useless Eaters”. No doubt he waits eagerly to form a Freikorps to prop up a failing right wing government.
This is a variation on the term that I think David Rothchilde used to describe all those outside of their inner sanctum ..except he went on record as using the term ‘Consumer eaters’.
Just another way of marginalising the public in a derogatory way.
Obviously where Slater took his inspiration from.
If Slater has put the boot into Cantabrians, National is in deep trouble. Apart from the revulsion that any decent Kiwi will feel about kicking a city that is really down on its luck, National has put a lot of time and money into maximising its vote from Christchurch. If they get dumped there on September 20th, it will stuff up an awful lot of arithmetic.
Don’t forget Banksy and Key joking before the last election about NZ First’s ageing support dying off. The right wingers seem to have a pretty classy line in humour, don’t they? But they don’t like us knowing about it. Key fought to make sure that joke was kept out of the public arena before the voters spoke. Key a nice guy? Huh! He’s sucked in more punters than Linda Lovelace.
My reading tells me that Nicky Hagar is a credible writer who does do the essential. I think that alone is a reason what he has written needs to be reviewed and the questions asked. There is no room for journalists who know the answers before they have asked the questions… Once they have the answers, and they don’t line up, that is when you attack the messenger, or in this instance Hagar
Martyn,
This is another chapter of Watergate right?
Hacking in to another Political party database?
We know how that ended with Richard Nixon resigning so we should have Key do what Nixon said, “I will resign effective at noon today”
Just to put the icing on the cake folks wasn’t it John Key that said in Parliament during Q+A about a month or so ago in responses to David Cunliffe’s pointed questions over Kim.com and Orivida, —-Key said;
“you want me to find dirt on you all, I have got it all in my draw”
I will find the Hansard, but he hung himself anyway, and why has MSM just two days ago rigged a poll saying 64% of National voters state that they believe national relies to much on John Key? Guess they knew what they were doing was leaked.
Key said two years ago “if NZ gets negative I will just get up and leave,” I will help him pack.
Nixon resigned on the 9th of August; John Keys birthday 🙂
Recently, Linda Clark, on the Panel said that the press gallery hunted in a pack, and in fact looking back she was ashamed of the way she acted at times. I am really hoping that that is still true and they go after Optimus Prime like ravenous dogs.
Nicky Hagar is a hero in this household. Having experienced first hand the ugliness and nastiness of Slater & Farrer’s blogs during the POA dispute, courtesy of our employer, we’ve been looking forward to the day these haters got their comeuppance.
Agree totally Banjo, finding out that these slime had info on Labour membership and hacked emails is no surprise to many. This just confirms what many leftists and environmentalists have suspected for a while. These guys are just too organised and linked up in the most sinister of ways. Cause and effect gets us all in the end Messrs Slug and not so Smug.
the panicked look on Corin Dann’s face was priceless on One news don’t think he will use his the governments come out of this relatively unscathed line for this one
Key is just like George Bush – every time a true picture of his behaviour emerges it is much worse than our most cynical surmises.
I notice my recommendation of Sulla’s punishment got moderated: but Sulla changed the public perception of corruption from an inevitable and ubiquitous vice to a rare and stupid folly in a few short years.
And New Zealand under Key really has become that corrupt.
Prosser was only the larval form of a National party parasite.
Call it whatever ‘gate’ you will if you must, but it does bring back memories of Tricky Dicky Nixon and Watergate on a number of counts….
Yeah except Nixon had a conscience.Key is a sociopath and really doesn’t give a fuck about NZ. It is only a source of wealth for his insatiable greed. He is consumed by it. Because at least greed allows him to feel something.
🙂
No comment from Cactus Kate? she’s usually so quick to rush in & defend her odious mate ……
[…] Russell Brown’s Public Address – Dirty Politics Martyn Bradbury’s The Daily Blog: “How Attack Politics Is Poisoning New Zealand’s Political Environment” […]
Thank you, Nicky Hager, one of the very few investigative journalists of calibre that New Zealand still has!
This could be the final game changer!
Just watched Paul Henry…. just saw this Charles guy….speed reader, what a cracker. He said he didn’t think it would bring down the government or change one vote…. and he knows 95% of the people in the book. Well that’s unbiased and trustworthy then knowing 95% of the people in the book, isn’t it? lol classic.
The media must distance itself from dirty tactics right wing Slater Hooton and Co.
Or loose all traces of credibility and respect as independent sources of news and information for the taxpayer who will be watching them all carefully from this day on.
Don’t they know this?
https://www.change.org/en-AU/petitions/the-judges-of-the-supreme-court-of-new-zealand-please-correct-the-injustice-6
Have a small sense of justice in reading of this. It’s disgusted me for years, knowing firsthand just how evil Slater et al really are, and being unable to do a thing about it.
It wasn’t just Cantabrian earthquake victims that Slater was so scathing of. He was also particularly nasty about the Pike River miners, he told me in no uncertain terms that who cares, they’re already dead and Farrar etc should stop acting so crybaby about it… right before he started telling me afresh how depressed he was and how noone understands him. He is not a nice person at all.
I’m not sure if his alleged tobacco corp payments of $6500 per month are a step up or down from the extortion or “whale insurance” he used to brag about, though. Let’s just say, for a so called sickness beneficiary “unable” to work due to “depression”, Slater always had plenty of money to throw around when it suited him.
A benefit and an income do not go too well together at my WINZ office.
Was/is WO a sickness beneficiary while earning more than $80 per week?
“…gate…” is for once highly justified given the similarities to Watergate,
while Whaleboil has had quite enough publicity already, how about…
–Whalegate
–Dirtgate
–Shonkeygate
The pronunciation has to work well for frequent use
Perhaps a biblical similarity here, maybe John Key will be swallowed up by the Whale(oil) blog just like Jonah. No-one believed Jonah either!
Founding Fathers. The 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence risked their lives and fortunes so that we could lead better lives. John Hancock, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson, and the others all chose to break from the tyranny of the British Empire and hoped to create a better form of self-government. They knew they were committing treason and risked it all for their children and ultimately for us and our children.
SO Cameron Slater what is your Golf Handicap Like and What is the definition of hooliganism is it “disruptive or unlawful behavior”. The fast talking between those two is truly breathtaking. What a set up Shame. JOHN KEY was going to resign from this year’s ELECTION but Did someone pay him RE-ENTER the election again Well playing Golf ??. iv got my Five Eyes on you John Key.
[…] The Nicky Hager Book – Dirty Politics. How Attack politics is poisoning New Zealand’s political … – The Daily Blog […]
Anyone see Hosking “chair” a face-off between Joyce and Hager tonight and then, at the end, rant at Hager that it was all just a worthless beat-up, total rubbish, and that by tomorrow it would be dead and buried? He was beside himself, red-faced, absolutely seething. No wonder Labour didn’t want the biased clown handling the leaders’ debates. He may not be on the Nats’ payroll as a PR man but he certainly acted like he was.
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