The extreme tactics being used by the National Party to get the media to keep Todd Barclay out of the headlines suggests the polling from David Farrar is in and the verdict is that the association is damaging to National.
Tracey Watkins opinion piece today charts the extraordinary lies, manipulations and power games being used privately to bully the media into keeping Todd Barclay out of the headlines…
anything goes is certainly how you would describe the extraordinary goings on in Southland this week after a local reporter, Rachael Kelly, tried to find out what local MP Todd Barclay had been up to since disappearing from public life last month.
Kelly and a local cameraman have been accused of intimidating and threatening behaviour, even of being physically aggressive.
And the allegations were made at the highest levels, from the Prime Minister’s office and Parliamentary Service.
Problem is, it’s not true. A video shows what actually happened.
Kelly, accompanied by a cameraman, knocked on a door to Barclay’s Gore electorate office where a receptionist came to speak to them. Kelly is well known to the staff at the Gore office – Gore is her beat.
The pair were on the trail of a story that matters in their local community.
Barclay was forced to leave Parliament after police reopened an investigation into allegations he covertly recorded his electorate office staff.
But rather than go immediately Barclay is staying on till the election, meaning he is still collecting his $165,000 a year salary.
There has been something of a local backlash to the fact that Barclay has effectively gone to ground since then.
Kelly and her cameraman were in Barclay’s office barely more than a minute. After being told Barclay was not at work, and checking he hadn’t been there that week, the reporter said thank you and she and the cameraman left.
Watch it for yourself, at the top of this story, if you like.
Yet in conversations with South Island editor-in-chief, Joanna Norris, it was alleged Kelly and her cameraman “barged” into Barclay’s office and harassed and intimidated staff – even pursuing them to the back of the office, leaving the staff feeling threatened and under siege.
There was also a complaint about a [different] journalist shouting and abusing Barclay’s PR person over the phone.
Apparently he has one, even though it’s highly unusual for a backbencher to have their own media minder.
The allegations were made in two phone conversations between Norris and a senior member of the PM’s staff, as well as phone conversations with the head of Parliamentary Service, David Stevenson.
Stevenson also dropped the bombshell that police were now involved.
Both acknowledged after seeing the video it was not as they thought. They also defended their intervention as being out of concern for the welfare of staff, who have had to front for Barclay in his absence. But if it had not been for Stuff’s ability to produce video evidence, the allegations would probably have stuck.
And that is the big worry. Not that the allegations were untrue – but because the effect would have been to shut down more questions about what Barclay had been up to. It probably would have helped turn local sympathy in Barclay’s direction as well.
…Barclay lied for months about secretly taping a staff member, the Prime Minister first didn’t know anything, then did know something, then questioned if he any such tape even existed and then admitted to being asked to listen to the tape that never existed while National Party Board members bullied staff and made veiled threats.
Public funds have been secretly spent keeping this out of the Courts, Barclay whom we are still paying $3000 a week to isn’t at work and the Party are using menacing tactics to scare off the media.
For fucks sake, if you are still voting National after 9 years of this kind of abuse of power, then you are the problem.
UN-BELIEVABLE MARYN,
JUST A MORALLY BANKRUPT GOVERNMENT BILL ENGLISH RUNS AS BAD AS KEY DID.
ALL TARRED WITH THE SAME BRUSH EH!!!!!
Jesus, they jumped from heaven and highwater to incriminate the reporter and cameraman, yet did nothing, at the time, to admonish Barclay. Corrupt to the core.
The next three years of this government will be a doozy.
Absolute power corrupts.
If Police were called in and charges of “harassment” and “intimidation” made; and those allegations were demonstrably false; then there’s a legal response to that. It is an offence called wasting police time and under Section 24 of the Summary Offences Act 1981 is subject to jail time or a fine;
ref: http://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1981/0113/latest/whole.html#DLM53580
So, if the Police were called; (a) who called them, (b) who laid the complaint and (c) will there be repercussions?
If not, can I please be refunded my parking fines for the last ten years as obviously the laws of this country no longer apply. (What? I have to be a National MP for that?! Bugger.)
Even as the journalist at the center of the latest developments earns the praise and support of her colleagues for a great job on an important story, National’s propaganda publishers at nzherald.co.nz completely ignore Todd Barclay and his dodgy association with Bill English.
While this is being discussed across less partisan media and in journalism forums such as Kiwi Journalists Association, the only political news the Herald are interested in is the tiff between NZ First and the Greens, which Granny clearly hopes will be enough to get their National Party buddies across the line if they talk about it loud enough.
In fact, given the Herald’s anti-democratic, dirty politics enabling, Labourphobic history, that publication’s silence speaks volumes about how much damage this is doing to the National Party.
#nzheraldwherebalancedjournalismgoestodie
#nzheraldholdingtheoppositiontoaccountsince2008
#nzherald #nzh #Billshut
$3000 dollars a week plus other perks is not bad when you can engage in illegal activity and your employer will cover it up and will use somebody else’s money to pay compensation to keep it from hurting you publicly and the best one , not having to co’operate with a police investigation in other words you are above the law as well !! oh and come back to work when you feel like it and hey we will also intimidate the complainant as part of our obstruction of justice service.
Shit where can you sign up for a job like that and get a knighthood for your endeavours.
I always thought the National party was filled with criminal career politicians.
That is another example of John Keys poisoned legacy.
A secret illegal payment was made from the Prime Ministers fund and a confidentiality clause added to ensure that there would be no legal repercussions to Barclay’s illegal taping of a conversation to which he was not a party.
This implicates at least two other national party figures in the criminal conspiracy to obstruct, prevent, pervert or defeat justice.
The first would be John Key from whose fund this money was taken to make the payment.
The second would be the Speaker of the House, David Carter, the man ultimately responsible for any dispersal from that fund.
Why has this aspect of the Barclay debacle not been raised and investigated ?
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