It’s extraordinary that the media in their haste to crucify a MeToo villain could run anonymous allegations against JLR and then pretend to give a fuck after the inevitable meltdown occurs – is Newsroom a snuff blog now?
In the new media landscape of post MeToo where accusation is the new evidential threshold and due process is dead because #empowerment, it seems incredulous all the faux concern now given JLR by the very same mainstream media who so quickly spread those anonymous allegations.
We now hear that this hit job against JLR was pretty contrived and the National Party involvement in sectioning JLR demands immediate scrutiny, however asking any question whatsoever of the motivations of the women who accused JLR is victim shaming, victim blaming and contributing to rape culture.
Meanwhile, the questions around Chinese influence in buying two MPs into our largest political party go utterly ignored.
I think in their excitement at nabbing a MeToo villain the mainstream media did a terrible disservice to the issues raised and the mental health of the person they were trying to crucify.
This is the reality of where we are at as a culture now, this is what passes for champagne journalism in NZ.
I unfavourited Newsroom after their shabby hit on Winston Peters over his super overpayment. It seemed way over the top from Murphy et al at the time and so it proved to be.
It was totally one sided and a very obvious hatchet job.
I seldom visit the site now, we have enough National mouth piece mainstream media no need for another.
Nasty people run ‘newsroom’ it appears.
Not people we would welcome into our democratic world and more akin to 1933 Germany.
I never of there….and I certainly wont start now
edit: never go there
I can’t pretend to be a Newsroom visitor, but nor do I understand how or why someone says they spent a year investigating Ross’s sex life.
It’s not as if NZ is some sort of utopia where there are no major societal issues, nor swathes of people living with boots on their necks.
This is the media creating the news which is (a) not their job and (b) lazy journalism. If they think they have some sort of duty to the public to tell us that four anonymous women shagged J-L R, that’s not champagne territory, it’s cheap bubbly on a girls’ night out.
I know that when Paula Bennett announced to the nation that Ross’s behaviour did not befit a married man, apart from thinking her a vile cow, I wondered if she could be held criminally liable for the effect that this could have on the man – and on his whanau. In a decent society, she would be regarded as morally liable.
Of course high amongst the many reason’s why JLR got destroyed from all sides in a frenzied attack by both National+Media, and probably also why Labour etc sat silent, is that JLR was breaking the code of silence around what goes on in the sleazy corners of NZ politics, and you can be very very sure there are many many people from all sides of the political and media spectrum who have plenty of dirty secrets that they want kept that way = goodbye JLR.
Typical National Party Dirty Politics. Time for Nicky Hager to write Volume 2 …
With due respect Marg, I really hope volume two never gets written.
It is all so disgusting that writing it and having it recorded in print for future generations – if there are any- shows NZ’ers as a tawdry sleazy bunch.
It may also be unfair on Nicky Hager having to fill his head with more rat dropping words. He did it with, “Dirty Politics”, and what happened ? Very little.
“questions around Chinese influence in buying two MPs into our largest political party go utterly ignored. ”
And continues to be .
Forget the sleaze, let us focus on the corruption!
Hi Bert. In my mind sleaze and corruption go hand in hand.
Makes me wonder now after reading and listening to JLR’s recent revelations, whether Jian Yang the Chinese spy’s list place in Natz was bought (donation?) by the CCP via a wealthy Chinese patriot living in NZ!
Like Mr Zhan, Yang also received a NZ honour!!!!
Media should be doing some hard investigation about what’s going on regarding buying of political seats for Chinese in NZ!
Or is msm still compliant with Natz corruption? Seems like it to me, because everything has gone dead quiet on that front!
Was JLR the author of his own fate, or a hapless lothario caught in a maelstrom?
Many dots have now been joined. JLR has always denied being the leaker of SB’s expenses. But he does know who the leaker is, because he sent the text to Mallard, warning that the leaker had mental health concerns. No one has specifically stated that the leaker, is the mp JLR had a 3 year fling with, but it’s possible, given the content of the text message that RNZ got, saying JLR “deserved to die”. And the fact that JLR must know the leaker well, or the person he presumes to be the leaker, to know about the mental health concerns. The whole mess may have been precipitated, by one dour woman scorned. And unfortunate JLR, has been the scapegoat, since he criticized SB’s leadership, and he had recently broken up with the leaker, who happened to be very close to PB. JLR also had a fling with another staffer, and the other 2 accusers could just be hot air…and all coming up in the middle of hashtag-me-too. The big problem for SB, out of the myriad problems, is that he’s now told so many lies in such a short time, to paint an unbelievable narrative, that he can’t wind it back…there’s just no clean way to draw a line under it, short of resigning. For example, can SB prove he can find a total of 15 complainants, about JLR’s behavior?
SB’s comment, that his training as a prosecutor, allowed him to see through Mallard, was bunkum. SB couldn’t see, that even though JLR criticized his leadership, JLR was likely telling SB the truth, while others were spinning SB a web of lies, which SB completely fell for. So much for the razor witted former prosecutor, who probably couldn’t find his foot, if it was stuck in his mouth.
But SB could do worse, than send the husband of the woman scorned, a case of his most expensive scotch, as a token gesture, that could never make up for the abysmal events, which SB has so severely misjudged. SB needs to give the woman scorned complete indemnity, to come forward to him, and state categorically whether or not she’s the original leaker, and whether she sent the angry text to JLR on Aug 11, because PB informed her of the 3 other anonymous complainants? Just when did PB get her claws into the woman scorned. It certainly seems that SB needs to have a sitdown with the woman scorned, asap. Giving the indemnity will be a difficult and smelly rat for SB to swallow, since he’s already demolished JLR, because he thought he was the leaker.
The moral of the story for SB, regarding the leak inquiry…is that before setting out for revenge, first dig two graves, or three or four. And why are there wontons, yum cha, and a plain brown paper bag on SB’s desk, full of 100k in cash? Hmmm…….
With the benefit of hindsight, PWC is probably wishing they could rewrite their leak report, and say that there wasn’t enough evidence available to draw a firm conclusion about anybody. Since the tentative conclusion they did reach, under the oversight of PB, could be wrong. Was PWC ever told of the woman scorned. Some of the PWC analysis makes an assumption that the person who texted Mallard, asking for the leak inquiry to stop, was also the leaker, but there was never proof of this. But it’s important, since JLR definitely texted Mallard, but JLR still denies being the leaker. For someone with nothing to lose, there’s no reason for JLR to deny being the leaker, unless he actually wasn’t the leaker. And JLR did contact the police after the text, but no one knows why, or what he said. He may just have had concern for the woman scorned, who he may have assumed, was the leaker. There are various equally likely possibilities. If JLR is innocent, he could give the police a waiver, to release what he said to them, while redacting identifying information…since police probably record all their incoming calls.
This all seems to fit…but does SB know, that the woman scorned probably also has mental health concerns, and just why did the leaker leak in the first place. The leak itself was almost innocuous…but it did start a bad chain of events. There is no apparent cui bono for the leaker, if the leaker is the woman scorned. What could she gain? Since the leak would slightly hurt SB, and not JLR. But since the person JLR presumed was the leaker, had mental health concerns, then her motive may not have been rational. But if PB saw how badly the woman scorned was reacting to her breakup, and decided to leak SB’s expenses herself, then there is definite cui bono, because SB would be weakened, and JLR could be jettisoned for reasons real, or if necessary imagined. Allowing PB to inch ever closer to the leadership. And PB knowing that the woman scorned, would be too embarrassed to say anything, that would set the record straight. Sisters are doing it for themselves. Is there no limit to PB’s dreadful treachery? She may be responsible for 2 marriage breakups, and several destroyed careers, and giving SB a dose of terminal speed wobbles. It was a bad twist of fate, for the woman scorned to seek solace, with evil catsuited schemer PB.
While the leak inquiry was going on, PB could have been updating SB, saying that JLR was looking like the likely leaker. And giving SB the ready made hit on JLR, by using her powers of gossip to weaponise the 4 anonymous complainants, that SB and PB could use against JLR, via the newsroom story. Making the complainants out to be pure as the driven snow innocent victims of big bad nasty discredited JLR, when the cougar scorned, was actually 10 years senior to JLR. SB thinking that PB was acting to help him, while all along, PB wanted to undermine SB, and revenge the woman scorned. Which equally likely scenario is believable, will depend on the elephant in the room…that being, exactly who the original leaker really was.
PB was ideally placed to do all this, since she was put in charge of the leak inquiry, and she knew the woman scorned, and she knew Melanie Reid, and she was gleefully happy to lift JLR’s bedsheets, and it was probably she who fed SB the line that there could be 15 woman altogether, and she has a history of leaking, from MSD single mums to possibly Winston. (PB’s grubby fingerprints being all over this, is more evidential, than anything PWC came up with).
Tova, who was probably also duped, and possibly Trevor, may know the missing piece of the puzzle…while JLR may think he knows…and SB has no idea…what a tangled web we weave. Luckily the protection of sources, has not had a mortal outcome. Did Trevor drop the first leek inquiry like a hot potato, when he learnt that the leaker was not just from the national party…but was actually the second-in-command. No wonder JLR spectacularly lost his rag when it all happened…since the bad breakup would have also had an affect on his mental state…and since he couldn’t come clean to SB about the woman scorned, for fear of harming her, and since he could see everything happening, and knew what it was about, but couldn’t stop any of it, and couldn’t see PB’s role in it, knowing that somehow SB had been talked into unjustifiably ending JLR’s career, for which JLR had no recourse…..at the time, JLR was only guilty of telling the truth, and having a couple of flings. And eagle eyed super prosecutor SB, was guilty of not being able to see what was under his very nose…that JLR was being stitched up. But SB may still be guilty of having decapitated himself, depending on the eventual police findings. Meanwhile, JLR is off recuperating somewhere, collecting his thoughts, quickly finding out who his real friends are, and tabulating his collection of audio recordings.
If JLR wasn’t so far right wing, he might actually be a good fit, to lead a relaunched Maori party, who badly want to be in Parliament.
You don’t leave a cancer alone, if you know it’s going to be the end of you…time for PB to be promoted to, official walker of zee plank…and she can take her broomstick with her! …Deputy Nikki Kaye has a nice ring to it. PB’s downfall would be a welcome distraction, from SB’s own bungling.
Or heaven forbid, will PB yet come out of all this smelling like roses, and be seen as the natural successor of SB, after having hoodwinked absolutely everyone.
A lot of heat, but very little light…it would all have made a great who-done-it tell all, by Hager, but he’s probably too busy with the important stuff.
In the long run, this could end up bad for labour, because when national finally do get appealing leadership, they might receive a similar bounce to what labour had, after their last leadership change. And with nationals party vote still holding in the forties, such a bounce could see them high enough, to not require support parties, by draining the support from labour’s support parties, to less than the 5% threshold, as support party polling trends down with time anyway.
Corruption of the democratic process is the thing to go after
… not peoples consensual sex lives
… which is actually none of anyone else’s business ( except maybe their spouses)
when are we going to have another look at Paula’s past apparently inappropriate behaviour re personal housing assets, etc?
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