Why would Michelle Boag, who has spent years constructing herself as a respected media commentator and consultant, risk it all by sending a list to Hamish Walker?
Reading between the lines, the truth is plain to see. Struck by the preponderance of foreign names on the list of those in quarantine, which she claims was sent by virtue of her acting position of CE of the Auckland Helicopter Rescue Trust, she pondered ways to use it politically. She may have consulted others on this, or not.
Hamish Walker was her chosen secret weapon. She sent this list to him, with a comment something like: “look what’s coming your way”, relating to the potential use of Queenstown hotels for quarantine purposes. I am sure she told him the list was absolutely confidential.
It was later revealed that Boag did not get access to the list through the helicopter people, which raises further questions about where it did come from. The Inquiry will no doubt reveal the source.
Walker, thus enabled by such a senior figure, releases his famous statement that Queenstown is about to be overrun by foreigners. Boag’s purpose is therefore fulfilled while she herself remains absolutely aloof from the discourse. This is about a bad boy MP, not a respected ex-President of the Party.
Walker, who thought he was the chosen one in all this, was badly stung by the media reporting claims of racism. Completely misunderstanding the notion that Mr Singh or Ms Kim can be New Zealanders (how could he be so out of touch?), he releases Boag’s list to ’prove’ that current people in quarantine are not New Zealanders.
He does not prove this, but what he does is spark an Inquiry. Knowing that she will be found out, Boag seeks to cauterize the wound by ‘fessing up before she is found out. Although this will undoubtedly prove ruinous to her career, she hopes to minimise the damage.
In her press release, Boag apologises to her erstwhile employer. She has a lot more apologising to do. She has ended Walker’s career (although he must also be responsible for his choices) and has knocked a few points off National’s eventual election tally. It is a scandal and a disaster for National.
Everything National is doing currently is falling apart, making them look unfit to govern. Ten weeks out, it looks like a rout.
Dr Liz Gordon is a researcher and a barrister, with interests in destroying neo-liberalism in all its forms and moving towards a socially just society. She usually blogs on justice, social welfare and education topics.
Why do left wing commentators assume that political acts motivated by racism will be a vote loser? Most evidence from overseas elections suggests the opposite to be the case.
Sadly you’re correct @ PB. And that, is how far we’ve come as a civilised species. Clearly, we have a long, long, long way to go yet.
On a lighter note; the walker/boag debacle just might sink the natzo’s and not just on a racist note.
AO/NZ People need to realise that the National Party is dirty and have been dragging AO/NZ down for generations by joyfully taking OUR money out of circulation and handing to their billionaire mates while insisting we be patient and wait in poverty for the mythical trickle down effect that dumpy douglas sold us.
Until recently, we had a population of a scant few 3 million living on a land area greater than the UK by 25 K sq. km while producing foods and fibres in abundance to be exported and all supported by the convenience of being in the southern hemisphere which gave our growers a hugely profitable seasonal advantage. ( National? Why did you and holyoake etc weld us to the Australians when, in reality, they’re our fiercest agricultural competitors? )
Canterbury? A land area the size of Holland @ 45 K sq. km with a population of 666,000 people while Holland carries 17 million.
Canterbury is a hugely productive region pumping out the very finest wool in the world then beef, mutton, grains, fishes, timbers and has a first world city honing brilliant young minds within a couple of first world Universities.
Why is it then, that a sea side suburb there are still struggling after earthquakes some ten years ago? Where’s their money?? Where’s the money?
The National Party knows, aye boys?
You built Auckland with it, didn’t you? Think of Auckland as an enormous office for Natzo crooks with a built in harbour for their gin palaces? I love Auckland, don’t get me wrong. It’s just that speaking financially it shouldn’t be there. It’s not much more than a great big National Party Blue hole that our money gets thrown into, to never be seen again.
The National Party are, and have always been a weight on AO/NZ’s back.
( Except during Prime Minister Jack Marshall’s steerage. He’s the prime minister pig muldoon stabbed in the back then thought big and flooded a world class fruit growing region for a hydro dam to power up Auckland’s air conditioners.
Get rid of dirty old National and even the greediest of you will have more money that you’ve ever had before.
I really enjoyed reading this. Thank you.
Why do right wing commentators think racism in politics is normal. It borders on persecutory delusion. But then right wing leaders of the world are thought disordered. It may win votes but it ends with death.
Yes and look at what a useless job right-wing Donald Trump and Bolsanaro are doing in their respective countries. They won the vote, what happens when their right-wing Science denial kills their populace by the thousands, soon to be hundreds of thousands once the curve goes exponential because of their fuckwittery?
You can’t fix stupid, but in Trump’s case you “can”pay someone to sit your SAT exam.
“It may win votes but it ends with death.”
Thank you Bert.
Maybe because 2 Chinese are more valuable than 2 Indians…. in the Natz world…
Pakeha due to their inability to enable and pay for political donations, are fucking useless.
We can get a pretty good guess what the names reveal of the so called ‘Kiwi’s’ returning to their all expenses paid 4 star quarantine and free health care in NZ diligently paid for by those who stayed home and actually paid some taxes…
Just as interestingly the absolute hysteria in the media and government, protecting those names at all costs – even scalping a Natz dirty politic olympian and Natz MP.
Funny that, because no resignation of Simon Bridges with the revelation that you could effectively grease the process for a purchase of a Natz list MP seat for $100k as long as you were the right ethnicity…. and there were clear preferences and attack strategies for their donated money.
Apparently racism and discrimination is ok in NZ and no media lobby outcry, as long as it favours the right ethnicity to get more power in NZ.
100% correct Save NZ; there are ‘free-loading’ so callled “kiwis'” not real kiwi born kiwi’s.
SaveNZ
Pakeha by definition…a white new zealander….is a racist definition. Saying whites are fucking useless is seriously racist.
Shit – ‘Shovel-ready Herman’
Pakeha means white folks!!!!
Question; well when if my Grandson is half white ‘European’- and ‘half mixed race’ Ngāti Porou does that mean he too is pakeha or half paheha?
Herman Shovel Ready – I’m not saying that, I’m just paraphrasing the recorded conversation between Simon Bridges and Jami-Lee Ross … aka those who are fucking useless and need to go, are all Pakeha who apparently don’t bring in the donations… (woman, gay, elderly…)
https://thespinoff.co.nz/politics/17-10-2018/the-jami-lee-tapes-a-transcript-of-the-ross-and-bridges-donation-chat/
“SB: I mean, it’s like all these things, it’s bloody hard, you’ve only got so much space. Depends where we’re polling, you know? All that sort of thing. Two Chinese would be nice, but would it be one Chinese or one Filipino, or one – what do we do?
JLR: Two Chinese would be more valuable than two Indians, I have to say.
SB: Which is what we’ve got at the moment, right? Your problem there is you end up in a shit fight because you’ve got a list MP – you’ve got two list MPs – it’s a pretty mercenary cull – sitting MPs, all that shit. And then we’ve got the issue of – we could end up getting rid of some list MPs if we want and bringing in some of those new ones, and if you do that you’re just filling up your list even further with ones that you’ve gotta sort of look after – I mean I reckon there’s two or three of our MPs, not picking up obvious ones like Finlayson or Carter, but actually we just want them to go. You know? Like Maureen Pugh is fucking useless.
JLR: Yeah, I know. Carter, Finlayson, Nicky Wagner – they don’t really need to hang around.
Simon: Yeah, but then, we get, yeah, yeah, we don’t want them to go this year though.
JLR: Oh, no.”
Who on Earth made you the arbiter of who counts as a New Zealander and who doesn’t? The self-righteous entitlement is breathtaking.
Hanswurst under Rogernomics anyone can be a New Zealander if they pay third parties for it… foreign criminals, foreign students, foreign labourers and cafe owners, aged care workers (paid less than hospital workers), billionaires….
sadly though when you buy additional Nationalities for a fee, (and now entry into being a NZ politician with a $100k donation) a welfare based society does not seem to be benefit and in a country of 5 million does not take long before terrorism starts occurring, major criminal activity, political corruption, local poverty, and if left too long, the country can’t actually get back to being a healthy country anymore as it becomes engulfed in scams, criminals and international freeloaders.
Not just NZ, Malta, where the Panama Papers journalist were blown up in a car bomb, just a side effect of their pay-for-EU passports that the Maltese government has been involved in.
Malta slammed for cash-for-passport program
https://www.politico.eu/article/malta-cash-for-passports-program-individual-investor-programme/
Malta car bomb kills Panama Papers journalist
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/oct/16/malta-car-bomb-kills-panama-papers-journalist
(In NZ’s neoliberal quest to expand poverty in NZ, we don’t even ‘sell’ the citizenship and PR status like Malta as money to the government, migrants to NZ pay ‘private practise’ for the opportunities here like immigration advisors and buy laughable businesses opportunities in sunset industries like cafes. This means existing taxpayers actually end up paying for a huge portion of our migrants coming here in benefits from existing taxes (and huge debts to government to keep the ponzi going) because any new resident to NZ (which traditionally just takes 10 days to get and now woke up in arms because it takes longer and they can’t get enough visas through on the ponzi quick enough) can vote in 1 year of residency, get benefits in 2 years of residency, free health care straight away, free education for children, free 1 year of tertiary study, relatives, love interests, kids come in on the first visa holder…
10% of all migrants coming to NZ over the past 15 years actually have zero income when they are made resident. This is leading to a system of current NZer’s paying for the children, benefits and pensions of migrant pensioners that is so full up their are now more migrant pensioners from Asia in NZ than Maori or Pacific Islander pensioners.
And it’s exploding… the woke idea is to keep it going and make the current taxpayers not get a pension if they actually pay taxes as they are ‘rich’ while new migrant pensioners who have just arrived in the country in their nether years of their lives get their free pension – part of our kind face to foreigners and kick-in-the-face, user pays face to locals).
In addition under our ponzi immigration scheme we have seen an incredible rise in poverty in the local working poor…
So our system is great for exploiters who can make huge bucks of it, less great for those who are working hard and who want to actually work and live in NZ permanently with our current welfare system and no corruption.
Retirement village population grows, 11,900 new units planned by big six operators
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=12346593
“The number of Māori aged 65+ will more than double (from 48,500 to 109,400) between 2018 and 2034, as will the senior Pacific population (from 21,300 to 46,700), while the number of senior Asian New Zealanders will almost triple (from 59,500 to 171,900).”
(The amount of senior Asian NZer’s is expected to be more than the number of aged Maori and Pacific Islander’s combined within a decade, by design not natural population growth!)
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12281479
What idiot policy increases aged migration to a country that is aging and can’t afford it unless the lower services like health care, pensions etc!
Some pensioners in NZ are now even sponsoring in migrant boomer spouses after 11 day on line romances and a $10k payment https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/376220/10k-11-days-and-one-failed-deportation Interdistance romances are all the rage to get more migrant boomers into NZ who never paid taxes here https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/117990267/broadcasting-minister-kris-faafoi-promised-to-speed-up-immigration-process-for-opshop-singer-jason-kerrison
Everyone has the right to determine for themselves who is a ‘real New Zealander’ and who isn’t should they wish to do so.
Cruella De Vil
Cruella De Vil
If she doesn’t scare you
No evil thing will
To see her is to
Take a sudden chill
Cruella, Cruella
She’s like a spider waiting
For the kill
Look out for Cruella De Vil
At first, you think
Cruella is the devil
But after time has worn
Away the shock
You come to realize
You’ve seen her kind of eyes
Watching you from underneath
A rock!
This vampire bat
This inhuman beast
She ought to be locked up
And never released
The world was such
A wholesome place until
Mishey Boag decided to stick her snout back in the tough and help out her old boys network. Hope she rots.
Oh dear , oh dear,…it sounds more like the shady intrigue dreampt up in a dank castle with mold crawling down the walls than a 2020 pre election smear campaign reeking with Machiavellian subterfuge and sophistication…
Oh well…
Que Sera Sera
https://youtu.be/xZbKHDPPrrc?t=4
Boag is”just” another someone lacking basic integrity – like too many in positions of past/present power in godzone.
I “trust” that she will not be a participant in any RNZ programme henceforward.
Too many think NZ is a democratic country – IMO.
…” Boag is”just” another someone lacking basic integrity – like too many in positions of past/present power in godzone”…
————————————————–
Its been a long time I’ve heard someone speak of godzone.
Thank you.
It was a time of simple knowledge of whats wrong and what is right.
Thanking you.
Couldn’t agree more W.K.
So Boag set Hamish up ? Very plausible- it happens- sometimes good strategic planning. Good thinking, Liz.
Chances are Boag was telling the truth when she said that she didn’t expect him to forward it to the media, and when he did, everything blew up in her face, thus outing them both.
Using racism sucks, I am totally fed up with it; if Boag is one of its pernicious perpetrators, then everyone is well rid of her.
Michelle Boag has scary eyes.
She has scarier eyebrows, even given they’re only drawn on.
LOL I thought they were drawn on too Richard.
@cleangreen
They are soul-less eyes CG.
The eyes are the windows to the soul.
But, there needs to be a soul there in the first place to be able to see any character other than her actions, which are signposts towards unbridled, born-to-rule evil.
Maybe she will reveal her soul under cross-examination?
Her and the other Natz, remind me of Ian Richardson’s portrayal of the soulless Tories in the British series of House of Cards. They called Francis Urquart, FU.
Michelle Ann Boag. MAB, doesn’t have the same ring to it.
Maybe just FU will do, as a generic for her, her conniving ilk and all the other unscrupulous dirty politics Natz-Tories.
Briliant again Diane;
My dear departed Mum always said that to me; (when making me into a more caring individual) she would say Son smile as your eyes are the mirror to your soul so be happy.
The photo of Boag’s face is incredible. It really needs to have a caption to it so I will do the next best thing.
Estimate the exact moment the photo was taken.
I’m fairly confident it was taken around 6.58pm on Thursday 19th October 2017….at the exact moment Winston Peters said the word LABOUR.
She looks like an opossum caught in the headlights of her own misdeeds. Good riddance to a conniving old POS.
Ha ha probably right Jacindafan.
I was thinking today that Michelle Boag lacks an iota of humanity or a conscience. And as a result of lacking both humanity and a conscience then both Satan and the NZ National Party must be thoroughly proud of her.
Last night I was chatting to a neighbour who grew up in the same suburb as Boag. He said she was a bitch even as a child and treated others horrendously.
When I heard about her getting the ARHT Helicopter to fly to Waiheke Island to pick up her passport and then fly to Auckland International Airport I wondered if the $4000 she claimed she paid was a donation and therefore she would make a tax claim on it???!!!!!
Michelle Boag is ONLY cares about two things i.e herself and the NZ National Party. She doesn’t care about anyone else and especially obviously didn’t care about the records of the 18 patients when she passed the information onto Hamish Walker.
This clearly confirms that the “deep state” is highly active in New Zealand. Government information being fed to National to further their political objectives. One can only hope that this investigation would expose the wider net of such actions.
Boag is not rogue actor as suggested by Muller. Boag is directly linked to Muller’s coup and part of Nationals “war room” for the election and was actively partaking in their dirty politics campaign. Muller is eager to call it a rogue activity to claim plausible deniability in the illicit act. The very reason many of these dirty tricks is done by actors removed from Nationals leadership. Walker’s inexperience exposed their activity and it is underhanded to use him as a scapegoat. And the MSM is to stupefied to keep the focus where it should be, ie on Nationals persistence in dirty politics and rather rave about Muller’s so called excellent leadership in getting rid of an inexperienced mp he should have mentored. Well you can’t fix stupid!
Michael Woodhouse was reported on Radio NZ yesterday, (July 10) as saying that Michelle Boag, who sent Woodhouse the names and details of covid infected New Zealanders returning from India and Korea, included the message, “this may be helpful to you”
The National Party President knew that releasing these leaks to her MPs, would allow them to publicise the ethnicity of the covid sufferers under parliamentary privilege without any legal blowback.
The motive: To sow racism and dissension between New Zealanders.
The purpose: To direct this stirred up racial hatred against the government for not discriminating against New Zealanders of Asian and Indian heritage.
Michael Woodhouse and Hamish Walker, who was the one who released this information to the media are protected by parliamentary privilege, Michelle Boag is not. (which is why she didn’t release this stolen information herself).
But for her involvement and inception of this racist conspiracy, the public expect and deserve that Michelle Boag be prosecuted to the full extent that the law allows.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/audio/player?audio_id=2018754454
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