AND SO IT BEGINS. Once again, the enemies of Winston Peters are manoeuvring to eject him and his NZ First Party from Parliament. Once again the primary vector for their attack is the news media. And, once again, Peters is making it easy for them.
To understand what is happening and why requires (at least) two investigations. The first, into the chameleon-like character of NZ First and its leader. The second, into the uses to which New Zealand’s political journalists have allowed themselves – and are still allowing themselves – to be put.
NZ First, like its leader, has always had two faces. Outwardly, it is a conservative-nationalist party determined to preserve both the New Zealand character and the New Zealand economy from the cultural, political and financial impositions of foreign powers and peoples. Behind the scenes, however, Peters and his party have simultaneously positioned themselves as practiced and practical political enablers.
NZ First’s hidden face is a necessary adjunct to its public countenance. Throughout New Zealand’s brief history, conservative parties and crony capitalism have marched together in lock-step. In such a tiny society how could they not? Only the state has ever had access to the huge capital resources required to facilitate economic development. For capitalists, large and small, that meant securing their desired economic outcomes by cultivating mutually beneficial political relationships. Naturally, the individuals, businesses, and political parties involved in this activity were not at all keen to have their behaviour trumpeted from the roof-tops. If deals needed to be done, it was overwhelmingly in the interests of all parties that they be done in secret.
Up until the 1980s, National had been the go-to party for business leaders on the scrounge for government assistance. It would be wrong to brand what took place as “corruption”. (Although that is certainly what most Americans and Europeans would have called it!) Only on the very rarest of occasions were individuals quietly handed a brown paper envelope stuffed with banknotes. Not necessary. The rules of the game were clear. If a government minister intervened on a business’s behalf, then the very least it could do was make a generous contribution to the coffers of the governing party. And when the obliging politician retired, a seat on the assisted company’s board-of-directors. No brown paper envelopes required – only patience.
A very Kiwi kind of corruption.
Winston Peters learned how to play this game from one of its grand masters, Rob Muldoon. The expectation that helping businesses to flourish was one of the most important responsibilities of a conservative New Zealand politician was deeply ingrained in Peters’ generation. They neither understood nor approved the sudden economic shift from the local to the global. If the distribution of resources was no longer the function of those in control of the nation state, but of transnational corporations and financiers, then what, exactly, was the point of politicians?
When viewed from this perspective, Peters political practice makes perfect sense. If his party was to rescue New Zealand business from the clutches of international financiers, then Kiwi businessmen would have to help him do it. Quid pro quo. But never, ever, where anybody not familiar with the rules of the game might witness the quids pro-quoing! NZ First’s obsessive secrecy is simply the organisational refection of its rock-solid commitment to rescuing New Zealand Inc: one contribution at a time.
If this is errant political behaviour, then there is something quaintly patriotic about it. Those tempted to climb upon their high moral horses should first ask themselves which is worse: taking thoroughbred-breeders’ money to rescue the racing industry; or, taking money from the People’s Republic of China to ensure that New Zealand remains open to its investors? Because it would be a huge mistake to think that political corruption is a thing of the past. All that’s happened is that, just like the rest of the economy, the locus of corruption has shifted from the local to the global. And, as the stakes have grown higher, so have the pay-offs.
Where does the news media fit into all this? Essentially the role of the news media in dealing with political corruption hasn’t changed at all. In the past, the job of the press was to ensure that, even when they were looking directly at it, New Zealanders would fail to recognise corrupt behaviour. In a country as dependent upon crony capitalism as New Zealand, scorching media exposés of political and business venality could only undermine people’s faith in the system – maybe to the point where it collapsed completely. Best to turn a blind eye.
The advent of globalisation, along with the neoliberal revolutions it necessitated, only reinforced the news media’s role as the justifier of capitalism’s mysterious ways to the ordinary man and woman. In the new order, however, there was an additional duty. The final and furious destruction of any politician or party foolhardy enough to defend the way things were done in the bad old days – back when the country was run, you know, like a Polish shipyard.
Unsurprising, then, that Winston Peters and NZ First, from the moment they acquired independent political form, were targeted by the news media for termination with extreme prejudice. That Peters cemented his status as the people’s tribune by exposing the massive financial corruption scandal known as “The Winebox Affair” only made his political termination all the more urgent. The 25 years of unrelenting media hostility to which Peters has, accordingly, been subjected by this country’s political and business journalists is nowhere near as surprising as the fact he has survived it.
Just as they did in 2008, the present attacks will go on and on. Politicians will collude with press gallery journalists, and press gallery journalists will collude with politicians, both groups making sure that the grubby process of leaking information and priming the public for ever-more shocking revelations continues right up until the general election. Completely ignoring the decades-long enfeeblement of our electoral watchdogs, Peters and NZ First will be condemned for the gaming of a system which no government has ever bothered to make un-game-able. This time, however, the assistance rendered by right-wing bloggers and tweeters will be even more decisive.
Twelve years ago, Winston Peters was still robust enough to come back from the political crucifixion which his political and media enemies had prepared for him. In his seventies now, the chances of a second resurrection are slim. We should, therefore, prepare for the last gasp of Old New Zealand’s very Kiwi corruption.
So the political media are once again seeking to “take out the middleman” on behalf of National.
Here I was thinking it was a level playing field(not!).
Now where are we on the SFO investigation into Simons $100,000 donation?
Yes Bert they seem to have amnesia on this one
Good! He is a cancer upon NZ.
I doubt he had ever done a damned thing in NZ politics that was not intended to benefit himself.
Don’t hate the player. Hate the game. If ever you need N example it is right there in Racheal Stewart. Never has there been a more grotesque example of journalism than the subordination of of information for profit. You know information is a little bit important for the ordinary man, and woman to be able to make rational decisions.
You mean like Key, Bridges,Smith, Brownlee, English, Seymour etc etc etc. The damage they have done and continue to do will be a stain on N.Z. history.
The irony is you have condemned him by kangaroo court and that is a very dangerous thing. My elderly parents have benefited by Winston so clearly makes you wrong. Unlike Key and John Banks(the then beneficiary of two $25,000 Dot Com donations) over a cup of tea, they tried to destroy Winston because he went into bat for the elderly. It was reported Banks and Key said the elderly vote was a dead vote and wouldn’t count.
You should be lauding Winston, Jay, you will be old once and be thankful for what Winston has achieved.
Let’s be clear. He went to bat for the elderly for the same reason he went to bat for Tauranga and Northland.
Vote winning bribes.
Not everyone who shits on you is your enemy and not everyone who helps you out of the shit is your friend.
That sort of thinking is naive in the extreme.
God, this is good. If only mainstream commentators were this insightful and cognisant of history.
Rachel Stewart: “God, this is good. If only mainstream commentators were this insightful and cognisant of history.”
Indeed it is. This post illustrates why many of us – having long since given up on reading anything of substance in the msm – turn to the blogosphere for actual journalism. And – joy of joys! – we can proffer our opinions, with a reasonable certainty that they’ll be published. Unlike the daily newspapers and – for the most part – a website such as Stuff.
In characterising these msm people as “political journalists”, Chris is in my view being generous. We have had journalists in the past, before they retired or were given their marching orders for wanting to do actual journalism. But the contemporary lot are just reporters, as far as I can tell.
And in this country, we have, regrettably, no history of foreign affairs/policy specialist journalists. Some years back, Michael Field remarked upon this peculiar gap at the heart of NZ’s news media.
D’Esterre – I only see these ‘journalists’ online – apart from the the odd compulsion to buy a newspaper – but I don’t know if I’d call them ‘reporters’ either. The big ego’d ones sometimes call themselves commentators, and commentate they do. They insert their own opinions and comments, often in a prejudicial way or biased way, and without the grasp of history that e.g. Chris Trotter has, or sometimes with an omission of context – for whatever reason – that is annoying to those in the know in a particular area. When this is done deliberately to try and influence people, they can
be on shaky ground ethically.
If they were just reporters, and reported the facts, fine. But when they try to be, or think they are part of the story – as some of them are – then they may be of limited use to punters whose only wish is to be informed. So that’s where blogs are good, and a real mine of information – which is tough luck on highly partisan MSM.
People have commented previously on the lack of foreign/overseas news in the Dom-Post – they used to run regular Robert Fisk columns – and I gather that trying to keep readers ignorant was an editorial decision; this is fine for news junkies who enjoy accessing great stuff online, but it also keeps the ordinary reader – if there is one –
a bit ill-informed.
Snow White: “I only see these ‘journalists’ online – apart from the the odd compulsion to buy a newspaper – but I don’t know if I’d call them ‘reporters’ either.”
Indeed. But in my view, they aren’t journos unless they actually do journalism. Most msm people here don’t.
They’re ok – mostly – when they’re reporting on natural disasters and the like. Though TV reporters have an irritating habit of inserting themselves into their reportage: standing in front of, and speaking to, camera, as they’ve clearly been instructed to do by their editors. It really annoys me.
That’s why I like RT and its Ruptly service: just a camera, no commentary. I’ve watched footage on les Gilets Jaune, the HK protests and – most critically, because what it showed was not what the msm was telling us had happened – Antifa disruption of the Charlottesville Unite the Right rally in 2017. RT does us the courtesy of assuming that we’re adults, with a bit of knowledge of the world and of history.
I’ve been listening to RNZ and its predecessor iterations since childhood; it’s a tough habit to break. I’ve been shouting at Morning Report since it first began broadcasting in the 70s. In my childhood, it was heavily censored by the government of the day; by the 70s, I believe that those days were past. Certainly the news coverage was less beholden to the government line.
There were journalists on RNZ back then; there aren’t now. Michael Field was one of the last, I believe. I’m not sure whether I’ve posted this link for you before, but here it is if I haven’t:
https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL1612/S00104/background-to-how-israel-nearly-went-to-war-with-new-zealand.htm
I used this piece to illustrate to another msm person what I expected from journalists. We don’t get it here, except on the blogosphere. And on offshore websites and blogs, of course.
In that article, Field makes the following comments:
“New Zealand’s media has abdicated any role in reporting on or defining the country’s foreign policy. It accepts a line that foreign policy is about trade while the actual policy itself is worked out behind closed doors, and in this case, by Foreign Minister Murray McCully.
……….
there is at least one issue that needs to be considered; how is New Zealand foreign policy formulated?
As one New Zealand diplomat put it, commenting on this issue, New Zealand ” diplomacy is still conducted very much in secret, indeed much more so than in other democracies”. The diplomat added the New Zealand media didnt have the specialists to pursue international issues”. Using the Official Information Act to find out what happens is no longer effective as it had been “gamed by ministers and comprehensive PR has been a hall mark of the Key regime.””
He’s right. It is to the very great disadvantage of all of us citizens that we do not have any tradition of foreign policy/affairs journalism.
D’Esterre – Thanks for this – just read the Scoop bit – which I’d missed – and I will reread it later. RT is good, and Al Jazeera and their film clips.
I get the UK Tablet, published as an international weekly, and its good on political issues invisible elsewhere – I think I get it third-hand.
I’m trying to relate all this to the Dom-Post’s published decision not to have much overseas news – not even syndicated columns – and regardless of McCully – I think it’s always been this way, but is now worse.
And somewhere, MSM producers decided to replace the printed word with big coloured pix – on every page- and we quickly got used to it.
Speaking out much of what I have thought for years, even commented on, but most are so deluded and ignorant, they never seem to get it.
Rachel i have missed your analysis and insight.
Please contribute your opinion with regular posts please.
Much appreciated
Thanks, Rachel.
Number 1; This is a storm in a beltway teacup. Like anything Winston, the promotion and fanfare are always far better than the shitty low rent disappointment that results. Nothing will come of it except Simon will get all angry, again, and Winston will be all lawyer-like and clever. Still, if, by some miracle, it rids us of Shane Jones, then that’s a good thing!
Number 2; The rules governing political parties and the behaviour of politicians who man them are toothless and pointless. They sound good in theory with lots of penalties but nothing ever happens to any politician who breaches them. It’s like they are trustworthy honourable citizens who need a break. There are so many examples of political parties playing fast and loose with, aka breaking the law in respect of income that it just adds to the tired but accurate narrative of politics and politicians being dishonest self-serving arseholes that most of us wouldn’t want to be caught near.
Recall one of Nationals many gigs to bypass the law? Key was a guest speaker at a Parnell restaurant, ‘Antoine’s‘. The tickets were $5000 per head. That is the fee the restaurant charges to allow guests the privilege of dining there and seeing the legend in the flesh. The restaurant then “donates” the equivalent of the tickets to the National Party. The guests remained anonymous for the most part. One hand washes the other, nothing to see here, all legit and within the rules.
Note to organised crime: Watch the masters in action when it comes to laundering money!
Number 3;, All too aware of how this bullshit carries on and who were at times outspoken about Nationals appalling corrupt behaviour, Labour had the opportunity to sort these rorts out. But I recall the PM saying not too long ago there are no problems here. If only she could see the damage this does to democracy. But I guess living in the political bubble takes away any grip on the real world.
Honestly, all this does is reinforce that politics is a legal, moral and ethical sewer full of turds that are constantly in need of polishing!
So taking anonymous large donations is actually an act of patriotism by NZ First?
And multiple journalists across the decades have decided to ignore hugely newsworthy stories in order to shore up capitalism and not let the workers know of the corruption?
Spot on. In my humble view at least.
peters would drop his pet kitten into a dog fight pit for a dollar.
Has he been arrested?
No. Of course not.
So, it begs the question; is this a way for the old crook to ease of politics while leaving not one clue as to his deviant past and the dubious company he kept.
Remember that photograph showing peters doing tea outside that cafe in Auckland with that hideous, odious don brash?
don ‘Bare Chest’ brash? The scum bag reserve bankster governor who watched idly by as interest rates soared to 22%
Any and everybody active in politics during the late 1980’s and the 1990’s is deeply guilty of something at some point.
Get rid of donations we have already seen how national got around the law and how national have been abusing their Ministerial powers by having secret meetings with wealthy business men while they are suppose to be representing our country and doing what is best for us. Instead they have been feathering there own nests. Now we have our bias media attacking Winstone, they smell blood and they are going in for the kill.
I followed the wine box inquiry at the time, and read various books on the subject (Anthony Molloy’s thirty pieces of silver) etc. Although i have never subscribed to Winston’s politics, i have always had a grudging respect for what he attempted to uncover. Your comments on the sad joke we call msm in New Zealand are so apt. Thank the stars/whatever that we now have alternative sources of information.
Some irony given MSM seems to covet privileged monopoly, regulation of international social media or government subsidy to survive.
The media is doing National’s bidding, because they know they can’t get back in unless Winston goes.
I don’t really care about what NZ First does behind the scenes. When they’re in government, they are pretty inoffensive and I think they play the game the way it ought to be played. Winston has done a good job of treading the fine line between maintaining NZF independence and not unduly undermining Jacinda. It would have been easy for him as an older man to make a complete mess of her leadership, but he’s been respectful and pushed back just enough to show that NZF isn’t completely subservient to Labour.
And, as you say, at least he’s a loyal New Zealander and not a stooge for the Chinese Communist Party.
Loyal to fishing, racing and forestry, not New Zealanders.
What happened to the Kermedec Sanctuary again?
I wouldn’t say the media is doing Nationals bidding – it’s more like National and the media are collectively doing the bidding of the establishment. The end results are the same regardless
More like ‘ The Media is doing Nationals bedding’. They are Co dependent and more a case of ‘ mutual massaging’.
Peters would be more deserving of sympathy were it not for the fact he provides Adern and the rest of the neolib faux lefties in cabinet with all the cover they need to excuse the failure by this Aotearoa government to provide adequate housing, health services and employment to less fortunate citizens.
The Ardern government has been by far the most useless & ineffectual alleged left administration this nation has ever endured.
Further I consider it a bit rich for a partisan Trotter to claim that it is only conservative pols who engaged in corrupt deals with business when the big construction companies who are stealing even more from us all since the creation of their construction materials duopoly, enjoyed huge patronage from Labour administrations as well, particularly during the “State Housing” deluge. As have land bankers and other less visible “financial industry” leeches upon our society.
A classic contemporary example being this government’s refusal to stop the influx of major global social vandals like the Peter Thiele monster from using Aotearoa as a bolt hole should his venality result in amerikan citizens waking up to him. How on earth could anyone see the presence of sociopathic, anything goes billionaires, as being good for Aotearoa? especially given these types proven connections with murderous, coup creating foreign intelligence shops.
Yet the Ardern mob does nothing and should anyone point out the danger of doing nothing about these creeps to labour pols, one cops an elbow, a wink and a whisper, “ask Winston”.
F+ck that for a joke.
NZF & Winston capture 11% of the vote at the 2020 general election!
Remember well the Goldcard. It could have been done for years but Winny did it.
Why was it left so long.
It took Winney’s courage and astute judgement as to what really was good for NZ and its people.
John W: “Remember well the Goldcard.”
I never forget it. Each time I use it, I think: thanks, Winston! God bless him: we pensioners get little enough by way of discounts and the like: Queensland this surely ain’t….
Yes A our media are doing nationals bidding and Winstone is there nemesis. National know he stands in there way to power and so they are working hard to get rid of our Winstone. They tried to discredit him with his super and it back fired. I don’t vote for NZ FIRST but despite his Maori bashing I admire him and many of our Maori trust him. During the last election i was out on the streets in the Hutt Valley with my sign for 6 hours. My sign said “vote for change” and people did. If if was not for Winstone many would still be suffering.
Michelle – Winston Peters has risen like a phoenix from the ashes before, and he can do so again. He’s not that old, and importantly he’s a highly intelligent professional man, with a trained mind, whereas most MSM are not. That we now have alternative news sources like Chris Trotter et al is fantastic – and no-one can sack Trotter either.
It’s the dirty tricks division of the National Party who are the scurrilous ratbags – so please ignore any mention I’ve made of voting for them by default, they are the ones interested only in themselves and their cronies, who have helped worsen people’s lives during their years of damaging misrule.
Good on you for mentioning the attempted NZ Super smear; the fact remains that one weekend, there was a knot of senior National politicians salivating with excitement that that was coming up in the media. How did they know it was coming if they weren’t involved ?
Further, Tolley herself admitted suggesting to her sister that Peters was claiming it dishonestly – because she was hot and tired that day. Utterly pathetic even thinking that way in the first place, and this sort of excuse certainly wouldn’t wear well in a normal workplace, it would be a Code of Conduct offence – but hey – this is the Nats.
They’ll get dirtier – and Simon Bridges own wife said that he was a dirty little street fighter, and she would have been showing off his good points…
Snow White: “It’s the dirty tricks division of the National Party….”
Yup. I was about to say: this is dirty politics 2014-style. In truth, at that time, the dirty politics campaign had begun pretty much as soon as Key came to power in 2008. It took Nicky Hager to show us what was really going on. We’ll never be fooled again.
Everyone commenting here needs to read Hager’s book “Dirty Politics”, if they haven’t already done so. It will be immediately obvious what we’re looking at with the NZF situation.
D’Esterre -“Dirty Politics” is an easy read, but people don’t want to read it. Don’t want to know – even quite nice people. I offered it to many people – including whanau who I annoyed asking for it back again after, “only two weeks”, but that’s how books vanish.
It can be polished off in a night, and isn’t a tedious read, and those who haven’t read it could struggle to believe just how totally filthy and damaging Nat Party people can be, and how often they saw appalling behaviour as a game.
My illusion was thinking Collins, Key and Eade were the slimeballs, but it’s all much deeper than that. Yesterday it looked as if there’s big money wants Peters gone, but the subterranean levels political crooks function at could make Peters’ or anybody’s life hard. The candy-floss headed are assuming that Peters has sinned, when I very much doubt that he’s that big an idiot.
(Hager could have published, “Dirty Politics Illustrated with Dirty Pictures” to capture readers – and the word pictures are all in there.
I’ve never yet voted for NZ1st but have had a grudging admiration for Winston. (and appreciation for his success in doctors fees for under 6s ,the gold card triumph for over 65s and efforts to rejuvenate Northland and the other regions neglected and ignored by National.) The current vicious media attacks are making me angry and NZ1st will now probably get my party vote.
Chris Trotter makes more sense than MSM so called journalists who seem to think that people might be interested in their fanciful opinions.
Wow Chris. I feel better after reading that, and know others see the game being played. The first casualty of politics is the truth.
No kidding, political parties lobbying and getting money through anonymous, or secondary donors. I think I donated a fiver to NZF recently, who cares? The National Party/establishment/mainstream media are so fixated on hating Winston Peters that they don’t cover real news anymore, they don’t know what critical thought and objective factual reporting is. They certainly didn’t bother with National Party fraud such as Saudi sheep deals etc. They should stick with what they know, stories on koala bears.
“The rules of the game were clear. If a government minister intervened on a business’s behalf, then the very least it could do was make a generous contribution to the coffers of the governing party. And when the obliging politician retired, a seat on the assisted company’s board-of-directors. No brown paper envelopes required – only patience.”
“A very Kiwi kind of corruption.”
Respect, respect, Monsieur Trotter, you dare, at last, to speak out the truth about this little corrupt country that is unjustifiably held so high in regards by the rest of the world!!!
This is a little corrupt country here, and in Europe and the US they would INDEED call it for what it is, a CORRUPT society, where you do not even need brown envelopes full of money or certain accounts used to ‘wash’ funds.
It goes around over time, backhanders and so forth, people get ‘rewarded’, look at the likes of John Key, certainly one of the most skilled at playing the dirty game plaid here, hidden away far from the rest of the world, in the South Pacific, the land of pretense, the long white lies and deception, where they call clean what is never clean, and green that is not green.
Peters does what some in the National Party used to do, but National turned full neoliberalist and internationalist in the late 1980s, alongside Labour, years before. So Peters is being hammered for doing what National used to do before that, irony and cynicism galore.
The only solution is state funding of political parties !!!!
The only answer too Kiwis concerns about cash for influence.
Do we want too continue with the type of Sky City ( John Key and National party leech shareholders )deal or should we have TRANSPARENCY.
As a taxpayer i have the right too know how my money is being extorted by these greedy bastards !!!!!!!!
I used to wonder, for years and years, what it was that the mainstream Nats had against Peters — why the continuing persecution on and on? Even when he was in their party. And why, not so many years ago, National believed it was totally on to replace their one token Maori woman in Parliament with a white man as Minister of Maori Affairs — and to next to no reaction from the media, or none at all. In Peters’ case I think it might be a combination of his “class”, poise, and a certain brand of the Maori style renegade (exemplified in Labour by Dover Samuels and John Tamihere as examples) that gets up party hacks’ noses. Or a cringing sense that he’s just too good for them to stomach.
Garbonza: “Or a cringing sense that he’s just too good for them to stomach.”
Heh! Yup.He’s certainly too smart – and too forthright – for them. They don’t know how to respond.
Garbonza Thank you so much for saying that Peters has class. I wouldn’t have dared say that lest someone call me a snob… I’ve been called all sorts of things here, some of which I’ve had to google to find out what I am.
He has panache and style too – you know how in Rome all the gorgeous Italian men get around in beautifully cut, beautifully tailored suits, even in the suburbs ? In NZ one man does, Winston Peters, so we must hang onto him with both hands.
Bugger all the Fairax toadies and others out to get Peters, our one and only classy male icon – he carries his clothes like cool men do – when others go to the supermarket in plastic flip-flops and belch in public. God.
Think it was 2007, in the Green Parrot , and two tables of politicians were there – somebody’s birthday. We were put opp the loo doors and observed comings and goings. Tau Henare emerges pinky faced,top shirt button undone, tie loosened askew; a couple of others looking sort of alright – then Mr Peters comes out looking impeccable, debonair and other foreign words, with his Scots Mum’s comportment.
Later reading – co-incidentally – “Dirty Politics”, I laughed where Cameron Slater elicited serious conversation with that taxpayers’ eager-beaver Jordan person, about going down to Courtney Place at night, and getting photos of Winston Peters looking drunk. Even I knew that that photo would never happen – Peters knows very much what he’s doing.
Lets face it with the NZ National Party that if Winston went with them after the outcome of the 2017 general election and this information became knowledge that National would be denying, refusing, ignoring and ultimately blaming some lowly staff member for this ‘breach of privacy” of a political party that they(National)could have been in cohorts with.
In other words if NZ First became eager bed fellows with National then the matter would never make the light of day or into the mainstream NZ media who are also eager bed-fellows with the NZ National Party. No-one in the general public would be any the wiser.
But because Winston did the wise thing and went with Labour then National consider him and NZ First the enemy. And we all now know when someone who is against the NZ National Party and is not in favour of them and says so then in their pure hypocrisy National will have it in for whomever finds fault with them. Their(National’s) past track record of breaching the right to privacy of beneficaries who criticised National is now public knowledge.
The NZ National Party’s relentless persecution of Winston Peters will hopefully bounce back upon them ten-fold in reduced votes. Because there have been times in the past when National turned a blind eye to say Split Donations in regards to the John Banks and Kim Dotcom matter.
It’s truly amazing National and the mainstream NZ media seem to have selective amnesia to what National and the ACT Partys did in the past when it came to donations albeit from donations or funds raised from pre-election auctions directed to those wealthy “Instant Kiwis”
Politics is a dirty busyness .
Crucifixion used as a metaphor surely might also involve a second resurrection? Winston is not gone yet, but “Someone” certainly seems to want him gone…
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