NZ First plays with dirty politics
The day after we find out JLR had given his proxy vote to NZ First, we learn that the Dark Lord of the Sith and human hunting aficionado, Simon Lusk, has been slithering around inside NZ First…
Dirty politics, Russell McVeagh and Winston Peters. The bizarre story of two high priced dinners
One of the key players in the 2014 National Party “dirty politics” allegations appears to have become involved with NZ First.
The Hawke’s Bay political consultant, Simon Lusk, attended two recent NZ First “business networking” evenings with NZ First Leader, Winston Peters.
Lusk featured prominently in the “dirty politics” allegations along with his close associate, Cameron “Whaleoil” Slater.
Lusk would not comment on his connection with NZ First when this was put to him by POLITIK yesterday but said he would respond today.
Peters was joined at the functions by NZ First MPs Shane Jones and Fletcher Tabuteau and Clayton Mitchell apparently attended the Wellington function.
The news of Lusk’s involvement comes at the same time as one of his longest term clients, Jami Lee Ross, has announced that he will give his proxy vote to NZ First but that they will cast it with National.
National rejected an earlier proposal that they hold his proxy however sources connected to senior levels of the National Party were last night suggesting that there is now reason to believe that because of the Lusk involvement, Ross may have been leaning towards NZ First for some time.
The networking evenings bizarrely, were hosted in Wellington and Auckland by the top-drawer law firm, Russell McVeagh and drew around 60 prominent business people and industry lobbyists at each venue.
Among the attendees in Wellington, is believed to have been Business NZ CEO, Kirk Hope.
Some of the attendees are believed to have made substantial donations at the $300 a head functions to the party.
…this is all very clever, devious and terribly dangerous.
You will notice the very specific language used by NZ First and JLR, it’s all wrapped up in ‘proportionality’, this is because the reason you get kicked out of Parliament under the waka jumping legislation is by changing proportionality and the Courts (when they’ve looked at this) sets a very low threshold for what changing proportionality means.
The game at foot here is to stop National kicking JLR out before December 13th when he is due to appear in Parliament and will be able to say anything he likes under Parliamentary Privilege, a last nuclear bomb to destabilise and destroy Bridges leadership.
NZ First believe that helping the enemy of your enemy to create meltdown inside National is worth it for the mischief making and because NZ First believes it could pick up disaffected National voters, my fear is that this will lead to the Party turning to Judith Collins and while we on the left like to joke about Collins becoming Leader to scare children into doing their chores, the reality would be far more alarming.
The CIA always got blowback whenever they played God in other peoples country’s, NZ First should know that enabling Lusk to continue his JLR kamikaze suicide bomber coup has every possibility of biting us all in the arse in 2020.
It is a far smarter move to allow Bridges to limp to a bumbling defeat in 2020 than accidentally resurrect Judith Collins the Witch King into the Leadership.
Watching Winston over the whole JLR thing I strongly suspect he (Winnie) knows exactly who leaked his super details and he will have his utu.
He will serve it long and cold.
This Lusk liaison/proxy vote thing makes perfect sense in that light.
Well , Mr Bradbury may very well be right, as ‘when you lie down with dogs , you get up with fleas’…
However, Peters has had 3 decades of garbage from these neo liberal types, all the abuse and the mockery , … and do we really think he is going to finish his political career with a whimper?
Oh no. OOOOOH nooo sireeee!
Along with destabilizing that neo liberalism he is going to take down as many of them as he can. I don’t think we give him enough credit for his political nous. He runs rings around all of them, – both in Labour and ChiNational.
For Peters,.. Collins is like an annoying mosquito that hangs around your head at night when camping… and just as easily swatted down.
That man fears nobody.
I always wondered who Lusk worked for ( certainly not the Chinese) if he works for anyone
…if JLR ( with connections to Lusk) has more dirt to dish on the National Party connections with the Chinese
…then Lusk could possibly work for the opposition to Chinese influence /takeover of the Nacts…so who does Lusk work for?…three guesses…or call me a conspiracy theorist.
(btw I certainly don’t think Winston Peters is a fool)
I never thought Peters a fool either, and he is one of the best performers in Parliament, but having read Lusk on Lusk,seeing him used as a consultant to political leaders, is disturbing.
I assumed Lusk was a mercenary – possibly wrongly – and he has made no secret of his long-term goals.
Once again another article that does not connect Cameron Slater’s legal advisor Brian Henry with Winston….. Of course Winston is not paying Slater and Lusk he is just loaning them his lawyer for life.