The final chapter of Dirty Politics closes – what did we learn?
Dirty Politics saga ends with tobacco lobbyist’s courtroom apology over defamatory Whale Oil blogs
One of the last acts of the Dirty Politics saga came to a dramatic end in court today with lobbyist Carrick Graham apologising to three public health advocates for his actions in spreading defamatory statements about them.
And so the final chapter in the Dirty Politics saga ends in a defamation trial where the powerful manufactured food industry got caught out attacking public health officials to ensure a sugar tax never happened in NZ.
So in 7 years since its publication, what did we learn?
Police illegally search Nick Hager and illegally take evidence: The cops illegally searched Hager’s house while deceiving the Judge when signing the warrant. What they did was a crime against journalism and the fourth estate. How dare National get the Police to investigate him for exposing their crimes!!!!
SIS illegally spied on Nicky Hager: The SIS also illegally spied on Hager. Just think about that, what the fuck was the SIS doing getting involved in a book that humiliates the Government???
Slater & Co humiliate and attack Matthew Blomfield : This is truly grim. Slater’s paid humiliation campaign leads to a death threat and attack on Blomfield in his house in front of his children. Blomfield had the last laugh when he took all of Whaleoil blog and shut it down as part of his defamation settlement.
Police breach my civil rights, destroy my credit rating: That’s right, the Police decided I was Rawshark and spied on me illegally and then when caught out, the Police tried to hold the entire case in a secret trial that I wasn’t allowed to hear the evidence from!
Allegation of Rodney Hide being blackmailed by Jordon Williams with sex texts – barely investigated.
Hacking Labour’s computer and downloading the entire database – barely investigated.
The role of John Key’s office in dealing with Slater – no NZ news media have managed to find Jason Ede.
Rigging candidate selections so Mark Mitchell wins – barely investigated.
Corporate hate merchants paying Slater for hate campaigns against public good organisations – barely investigated.
The relationship between Slater and most mainstream media outlets – NEVER investigated as this makes the mainstream media look terrible.
Slater’s role in helping attack the SFO because Judith was angry at them investigated, but whitewashed.
Let’s remember some of the Dirty Politics greatest hits…
…my personal favourite was when Key’s Office met with the SIS to falsely frame Phil Goff in the run up to the 2011 election. In most countries when the spies and the Prime Minister conspire to smear the leader of the opposition, that’s considered a coup, here the sleepy hobbits of muddle Nu Zilind don’t even think about it.
Just imagine if the NZ mainstream media found out Jacinda’s Office met secretly with the Secret Intelligence Service to falsely smear Judith Collins months before an election – do you think the NZ MSM would be quiet about that the way they were with Key?
Key’s infamous anti-intellectualism resonated with muddle Nu Zilind and they were more than happy to share a beer with him while they burned books around the BBQ. Muddle Nu Zilind wrote Dirty Politics off as the work of communist Nicky Hager and was just the moaning of the lefty whingers who didn’t know how to play politics hard like good cheating rugby players do.
It wasn’t the depths of depravity, malevolence or spite that National, the police, the SIS and the media who empowered Slater were prepared to go to that told us something about ourselves, it was the manner in which so many New Zealanders were prepared to ignore what Dirty Politics showed us that really told the truth about us as a people.
As a people we were more than happy to allow abuse of political power like this and that response to Dirty Politics became the final political act of the voting Boomer generation who are now no longer numerically the electoral majority.
We should never forgive National, the SIS, the mainstream media who gave Slater power or the Boomer voters who pretended to not see it.
New Zealand is a better place for the publication of Dirty Politics, but for many of us who fought to get that story out, the damage was far greater than we ever calculated.
When you expose a political party’s corruption, you face the full force of the State and pray the people take notice.
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Thank you Martyn for an excellent summary of the saga. I think National’s failure to deal with the internal problems and culture within its ranks that were exposed by Nick Hager is a major reason for the mess it now finds itself in. Until the party purges itself of the personalities and culture involved its political future remains uncertain and ACT will continue to benefit; unfortunately this will bring a swing to the Right in the political landscape. The total willingness of the National caucus to use the States clandestine powers for its political purposes is something the main stream media has carefully glossed over. Simon Bridges’ latest outburst at the Police Commissioner is further evidence that the ‘old guard’ and its culture are still firmly entrenched.
Sort of the Kiwi version of Mossack Fonseca, really.
Won’t somebody think of the children?? Quite alarming on that list is number 8, bullying school principals opposing national standards, some of whom have since resigned. National Standards, as I see it, are a dumbing down, data collecting mechanism which reduce human children to one and zero commodities. The dropping of media studies in the curriculum proves this: at a time when children should be armed to the digital teeth against the onslaught of ubiquitous advertising they are now to be apparently ignorant cannon fodder plugged into Parata’s matrix.
A small but important point, Martyn.
Of your list of villains, the overwhelming majority are representatives of generations born after the Baby Boom generation (1946-1965).
Which only proves that bad bastards have been – and will be – around forever.
Oh, and one more little fact: Nicky Hager (unlike Cam Slater) is a Baby Boomer.
Plus, looking at the graphic within the post, the demographic characteristics of the majority of the main villains is that they are male – plus they have access to politic power and/or wealth.
No generation is free of the motivation to corrupt democratic processes using access to wealth and power.
However, I agree with the rest of Martyn’s post about who are the villains, and how much of Hager’s allegations have been investigated.
Demographically, it was the boomer generation that tipped the scales, otherwise they would not have been elected. I think that’s just a fact.
However, politicians are all spineless. The one thing they will never do is tax the scum bag tax dodging rich.
But John Key’s government was utterly corrupt. That was basically fascism. Using the police to harass dissenting voices and journalists. The SIS to smear opponents?
And the spineless corporate owned MSM played along happily, cutting out dissenting voices, pushing dick heads Hosking to fore.
It was absolutely disgusting what happened during that decade.
And yes it was largely the boomers who let it happen, unfortunately.
But of course, there are corrupt assholes in every generation.
As usual an exceptional summary. What have we learned? Nothing, Nix, Zip, Nada, Fark All. It is a blight, a stain on our country. It makes us look like the original Banana Republic. Got Money ? Want a visa Invest a little cash and walk away with Millions. Remember P Theil? https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/revealed-how-peter-thiel-got-new-zealand-citizenship/UO6WOVE5D26PAXXCDRTMUPQEW4/. And what was MacCully upto? There’s a mystery where did ALL those millions go? Sheep farms in Saudi (Yeah Right) Over a period of 15 – 20 years NZ just seemed to get ‘dirtier’ and some of those ‘pigeons’ came home to roost Remember the Panama Papers and the foreign trusts ?
Well said, young Bomber.
Even just reading your summation brought back the feelings of sick disgust at the NZ establishment.
Do not forget how far these shysters are prepared to go to line their pockets. They’ll do it again in a heartbeat…
A finer group as we’ve ever seen. Makes one proud to be a New Zealander.
Well put Martyn.
Maybe Nicky and others could cut and paste a “Dirty Politics: Epilogue Edition” or something to corral all this for future generations, and us that were there, that cannot recall everything in full detail.
So many narratives and personal stories of redemption and ruin involved.
Without Hager, none of this would ever have seen the light of day. And Hager is still disparaged by all sorts of players in the political arena – the animosity comes seeping out from the rotten low-hanging fruit just like the sulphurous stench from John Key’s office which sought to wreck the personal and work lives of hard working professional people contributing so much more to the community than most politicians ever have, or ever will.
Some of their victims will always be bruised.
Everyone should read, ‘Dirty Politics’, but most don’t want to. That Cameron Slater appeared to me to be the best friend of both Judith Collins and Key, is totally pathetic. I think Key said that he touched base with Slater on a daily or almost daily basis. Wow. I wonder who else, Key touched base with so often ? What busy boys they were, and what a busy girl, all running the country in our interests. Judith wanted her photo changed…
I was surprised to see that Graham appears to be so old – he came across to me as just another juvenile smart-arsed ass. They all did. Those bastards were playing a very poisonous game, and the inevitable implosion of this party of inadequate social cripples creates a space for a party of integrity – if there is any grouping wise or mature enough not to be deflected by the divisiveness of identity politics, and able to act on behalf of the common good, and in our own country’s interests.
Note, not many of the pro right wingers coming to the support of the party of the dark arts.
Great summary Bomber. No one in New Zealand should ever forget this event, and the political climate that got us there. The John Key is the THE most corrupt politician of my lifetime.
And they rewarded him with a bloody knighthood, they being the National party.
Surely grounds to revoke a knighthood or at least stopping the man from scribing on the Herald, Stuff etc.