Posts by mark taslov
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Mr Key said New Zealand’s national threat level had now been increased by officials from Very Low to Low, ‘’which means that where previously the threat of a terrorist attack was assessed as unlikely, it is now assessed as possible but not expected’’.
John Key launches week long intensive campaign talking up terrorist threat and promoting deployment of New Zealand forces: single handedly raises New Zealand’s national threat level from ‘very unlikely’ to ‘unlikely’.
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Hard News: The Hager saga continues, in reply to mpledger,
<cough>
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Hard News: The Hager saga continues, in reply to Sofie Bribiesca,
Ha. I see you’re now up to 55 likes there =) Only one came from me, I promise.
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Hard News: The Hager saga continues, in reply to BenWilson,
Ok yes, I found it Ben, in Rodney Hide’s Kiwiblog comment August 17th he appears to be in full possession of the facts:
Graeme Edgeler writes in the first comment:
“The book does not include a claim that Rodney Hide was blackmailed.”
I am not a lawyer but here’s what Hager wrote (p.70):
“The documents do not contain the texts and we do not know that they exist. There is also no evidence that a direct threat to Hide was made. Nonetheless, Slater and Lusk’s planning and the thinly veiled threat on the blog post go far beyond normal politics. They feel more like blackmail.”
So he doesn’t “claim” I was blackmailed but it “feels” to him like I was!!
Compare and contrast – October 12th:
Hager alleges Slater blackmailed me to resign the Act Party leadership.
In that Kiwiblog comment Hide also states:
3. Brash never employed Lusk.
Which fortunately in the interests of coherency doesn’t conflict with Hide’s Herald article on the same day
Oh, and Don Brash in replacing me was – according to Hager – Lusk’s client. Ta da!
Regardless of whether or not Brash was formally Lusk’s client; whether Lusk had chosen to forgo his standard 10k campaign manager’s fee and was working pro bono; whether or not Lusk’s services were in fact solicited by Stephen Joyce, as insinuated by Trevor Mallard:
Was the Prime Minister advised by Steven Joyce of his role in engaging Simon Lusk for the Brash coup; if so, did he tell Bill English?
What Rodney Hide has confirmed is that he was aware of who Simon Lusk is, and he was also aware that Simon Lusk was behind Brash’s leadership coup, for well over a year before Dirty Politics was published. He is also, by his own admission, quite acutely aware that Hager’s Dirty Politics did not specifically claim that Hide had been blackmailed, and he is now on record claiming knowledge that Lusk – in his work with Act – was not in the employ of Brash.
So Craig, with all this info at hand, I can only agree with you in the strongest possible terms that there’s no reason why Hide should have kept a media circus going. He should have as you suggest stated something along the lines of “The allegations against me are utterly false, and I have no further comment to make.” and by doing so he could have pretty much killed that aspect of the story by not playing the game he is choosing to play.
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Also from that Stuff article:
He maintained he stepped down because he was challenged by former ACT leader Don Brash.
“I don’t know Simon Lusk, I’ve never met him I’ve never heard of him, and I can’t speak to what Simon Lusk and Cameron Slater email each other about because I’ve never seen that,” he said.
This RadioLive conversation from June 1 2013 paints a different picture (trascript begins 4:32):
Wallace Chapman: This figure called Simon Lusk. Rodney does a person, a person in a party who works right in the shadows, um pulls the strings or perhaps or perhaps sort of advises, does every party have these types of figures like Simon. Lusk?
Rodney Hide: Every party has them but they’re not top figures they’re bottom figures. And um so they can join up to a party and then, write emails and present themselves with having this great big say when in fact they don’t and I think Simon Lusk is definitely in this category, and I’ve never met the guy but when you saw John Key say that on a scale of zero to ten, he regards him as a minus one. I’d safe to say that with this kind of administration he has no say.
WC: And yet um, you know er, training MPs, training, you know the sort of fairly well known MPs I mean um would would the Act party have done the a similar thing, having people coming in and training MPs like Simon Lusk has been doing to some of those backbenchers?
RH: There’s always people prepared to help.
WC: Right
RH: And you know there’ll be campaign managers within electorates and MPs will acknowledge them but you know I I look I know this, Simon Lusk is despised by the current heirachy of the National Party because he’s a big noter that pretends to have a power and say that he doesn’t.
{…}
Selwyn Manning:…What we know is, is Simon Lusk was the strategy behind campaigns in the past for the party, he was a, he’s the strategist behind the anti-MMP campaign um that put to referendum last election, um he was in behind Don Brash’s campaign to replace Rodney, um as Act leader, um he was right…
WC:Do did did you know that Rodney?
RH: Yes, no, that’s correct.
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Hard News: The Hager saga continues, in reply to BenWilson,
What a knob.
It's all a bit abstract, he's never seen the emails:
Hide said he “laughed out loud” when he read the allegations and referred to Lusk and Slater’s conversations as “two guys who email each other sort of like they’re standing around in the pub talking bullshit…”
For many that would have been the ideal exit point on this issue.
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Hard News: The Hager saga continues, in reply to BenWilson,
That article I quoted is from August 17 where he also stated:
I get on with my day relieved that there is one more Nicky Hager book I don’t have to read.
From yesterday’s account it appears he is no closer to opening the book:
Hager never rang to check his allegations. He published them without a rudimentary check.
To me – though I’ve not read the book and do appreciate the quote you have provided – these allegations do seem to be about Slater and Lusk.
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Hard News: The Hager saga continues, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
We can – perhaps you can be a little more generous spirited than..
I will do my best Craig, my vocabulary with regards to blackmail is largely informed by pulp media, you are right that my statement there sounds insensitive. My angle when making such a statement is this:
Hager never rang to ask: “Hey, I have just come across the damnedest stuff and just have to ask, were you ever blackmailed?”
To which I would reply: “No, definitely not. I would never give in to blackmail. I would go straight to the police. It’s a crime. I have no doubt the police and the courts would take a dim view of any attempt to blackmail a political leader and Government minister. It never happened."
When what is outlined in the book could be construed as indication of a conspiracy to commit an offence.
“The allegations against me are utterly false, and I have no further comment to make.”
This statement doesn’t begin to address the larger issue here. The allegations aren’t against Rodney, in fact if anything, he would be the victim, is it not?
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Hard News: Dirty Politics, in reply to Sacha,
From the comments:
I see O’Sullivan is now getting validation from Alastair Thompson and Giovanni Tiso. This is not going to end with any winners on any sides.
Because when I try to visualise the archetypal O’Sullivan supporter, quite naturally it’s the epitomical Mr ‘validation’ Tiso who springs to mind.
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Hard News: The Hager saga continues, in reply to Jack Harrison,
This is so fucked up
You said it.