Written By: - Date published: 10:56 am, September 9th, 2008 - 58 comments
Categories: national, science -
Tags: leaks, trevor mallard
God, another leak from National, this time their research, science and technology policy.
From Mallard’s press release:
“Mr Key should not only be embarrassed, he should be very worried about the shambolic show he is running. Contrary to his desperate claims last week, I did not find any of these policies in any café. Or in any restroom either for that matter.
“These leaks are more like a gushing stream and demonstrate yet again that there are serious problems within National.
“There is clearly a simmering resentment with John Key who is muzzling the caucus, keeping them out of all decision making and keeping his agenda secret from his own MPs as well as the New Zealand public,” Trevor Mallard said.
Key has previously tried to claim that the leaked policies are all from the same bundle and someone must have left them at Copperfields. That line’s now looking well and truly shot.
Honestly, what a shambles.
UPDATE: Frog chips in:
While Trevor is keen to put the boot in as hard as possible, I am simply afraid of what such an ill disciplined caucus could mean in government. It doesn’t bear thinking about.
UPDATE 2: Copy of the leaked policy here.
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It’ll be interesting what the public’s view is on this.
I’m may not be representative but I think this confirms more about Trevor Mallard and his handlers than it does about National.
“Honestly” Tane, we saw something like this coming today. Hardly a distraction from the main event. The question must be asked, why are underhanded countermeasures needed at all?
I’m not sure what you’re on about coge. One or more people inside the National Party caucus are leaking policy (not to mention other embarrassing information) to Labour. We’ve now seen four policies leaked and no doubt more to come.
To me that speaks of major divisions within National and a concerted effort to undermine John Key. That’s pretty significant and worthy of our attention and analysis, don’t you think?
HS, coge, so there’s nothing wrong within National, it’s Mallard’s fault that people in National are leaking their policies. And it’s not an issue that someone in National feels it necessary to leak internal documents to the opposition, for whatever reason, the only concern is that Mallard is telling the public that there are leaks.
Your comments imply that Mallard should be protecting National from itself: quite an interesting line.
I wonder if that’s the one National will use this time around.
MP
Trevor Mallard has not proven himself to be an honourable member so I am withholding an opinion on whether there are or aren’t leaks within National.
MP
Also as I said last week it might be more productive to actually debate the merit of what was in the policies.
Your first comment wasn’t ‘withholding’ an opinion at all, HS.
And yes, HS, I’d love to debate what is in National policy – why must I depend on the Right Honourable Trevor Mallard to deliver them?
As I said on the previous thread.
A leak of this size and regularity starts to appear less like a leak and more like theft.
Mallard already has a record of assault and infidelity, he only needs stealing to make it a full house
There is no leak from within the Nats. This is a beat up from Trev and the Standard. If there really was a leak where are the good policies? It’s more likely that some dumbarse National incompetent left hard copy in the cafe or something equally as retarded. I’ll believe there really is a leak when i see Trev release National’s tax policy. It ain’t going to happen.
Ah, the stolen emails defence. Real credible mate.
Toxeth: “where are the good policies?”
That’s the problem mate – the Nats don’t seem to have any
captcha: and deduce (what you want from that).
Oh, and you fullas arguing theft – what do you say about TV3 revealing it received its tip-off about Lord Ashcroft from a person inside the National Party?
Is that theft too?
Toxteth O’Grady,
how is it that environment policy is not ‘good’ policy.
It has been labeled as an election issue.
I am going to take a leap and assume from the tone of your comment that you tend to sit on the right. It just goes to show the rights views on the environment.
But i agree with you, Nationals environment is not a ‘good’ policy, it is super weak.
But Tane – that’s what you’d expect from Blar/Ted/Eddie/Toxteth etc.
Oh and hi blar – your style sticks out like dog’s balls.
What I really love is how invested the right have got in this whole Winston Peters thing and how disappointed they are going to be. When both the committee, the SFO and the cops come back with the fact that there is no case and the polls show that nobody is blaming Labour apart from the usual frothing crazies like Farrar and Hooton then they’re all going to be so upset.
I can’t wait…
This does look pretty messy. On the face of it, it does now look as if there is somebody within National who is deliberately dumping material on the Labour Party.
The nature of the material leaked so far doesn’t appear to be very consequential: the environment, conservation, and science policies. These are policies that will all have been distributed at caucus, were probably just a few days from release, and possibly as many as 100 people would have seen them.
So given that the stuff leaked so far is hardly critical, top-secret stuff, and presuming it is a leak, then the leak could be anyone from John Key down to an MP’s secretary. Given the risks involved, it’s much more likely to be the latter than the former.
I don’t agree with Mallard’s claim, or Tane’s claim, that this is evidence of huge divisions within National’s caucus. If the leak is a single, parliamentary staffer, then it says nothing of the sort. If it is a parliamentary staffer, then the motivations for the leak could be varied: annoyed at the prospect that they won’t get a job in government, falling-out with the boss, offer of financial reward to leak material, promise of a job in a Labour Party opposition office after the election, etc.
If Mallard did have a leak from somebody identifiable, and senior, with access to really sensitive material, then he would be letting that bomb off fairly soon, like tonight when Owen Glenn gives evidence. He hasn’t. All he’s got is a small, relatively insignificant policy release. This is not the sign of somebody who’s picked up the big smoking gun.
Like I say, it is messy that National probably has somebody like this within the ranks, but this person is likely to be caught soon. If they are caught, there are big risks to the Labour Party as well. If Trevor Mallard made some offer of a future advantage to the staffer, in return for receiving these documents, then that kind of sleazy politics will backfire. I can guarantee you that National will have stepped up the resolve to find the leak, and when they do that leak will squeal all.
Oh and Blar? I’ve got a really good post in the making – if I were you I’d start regularly checking ‘sodblog to make sure you don’t miss out on it…
When it comes to issues like this, which break along partisan lines, the opinions of those at either end are irrelevant. Personally, I’d be shocked if Steve, Tane, Matt, Mallard and others didn’t cry `leak’ every time, and equally shocked if HS, coge, Crank and Key didn’t cry `theft’.
Those who aren’t strongly aligned will be the judge of whether the Nats are leaking, incompetent, or the victims of theft. What the media think goes some way to defining this. The fact that TV3 have been the recipients of several confirmed leaks this year already (Derek Fox leak; Ashcroft for two) gives an indication of the line they (at least) will be running.
Edit: Tim Ellis, while your analysis is right, I think you miss the point. It’s not what gets leaked – it’s that policy gets leaked at all. Unless clear skullduggery is uncovered (and given the inconsequential nature of this stuff, this seems unlikely to be an orchestrated plot by Labour) the Nats either look incompetent or internally divided.
L
Tane
“Ah, the stolen emails defence. Real credible mate.”
I would hate to think that you were ready to cast judgement on this without going through the due process to find out the facts.
The police have shown there was no evidence of theft in the Hollow Men email leak. Hager insists his sources are inside the National Party. He’s since been handed information from inside the party showing National uses Crosby Textor.
TV3 has confirmed they are receiving leaks from the National Party over Lord Ashcroft’s visit.
Now there’s National Party policy coming out in the form of caucus briefing papers.
Occam’s razor says there’s a leak, and that it’s probably from inside caucus.
Occam’s razor says Winston is corrupt.
Yeah, and given the evidence we’ve seen he probably is. The question is whether he can be done for it, and whether the evidence provided is sufficient to give Clark grounds to sack him.
The leak is almost certainly from inside caucus. If I were Key I wouldn’t be sacking Bill English quite yet, but I’d sure be running my numbers and watching my back.
If Labour was stealing these policies I’m sure they’d nick something more newsworthy than Conservation or Research!
Lew, I agree with your points. Like I say, I don’t think it looks tidy when anything has been leaked, whether accidental, as in mislaying a document at Bellamy’s, or deliberate, as in a staffer or caucus member handing documents over to Mallard’s office.
I further agree that the views of the most partisan, on either side, don’t assist us in working out what went out. Trevor Mallard has a vested interest in promoting the theory that the National Party is divided. So does Tane. John Key has a vested interest in suppressing the theory that the National Party is divided.
Let’s assume there’s a mole at some level in the National Party. Does the existence of a mole say that the National Party caucus is divided, or there is a major faction, or serious dissent within the National Party caucus, or that John Key is about to be rolled?
Could just be building up to the biggies, Dom. Maybe they’ve got the lot.
Yl,
It’s not about a left/right thing – it’s the theatre of it all. I’m not a supporter of either side – I just love the drama and strategy. If there is a steady stream of further releases by TM, I’ll concede there is a leak from within the ranks, but at the moment I think there are other explanations to this as opposed to with is being purported by a political opponent. If anyone takes anything TM says as gospel then they are on a one-way track to Jonestown. Some Labour lackey found something lying around and they have used it to their advantage fair play too. The Nats deserve to be shown in a negative light for this error but to stretch it out to full blown case of an insider handing over what is second and third level policy announcements to political opponents suggests there are too many Tom Clancy novels being read
Lew,
Did you never read Archer/Forsyth/Clancy?
First rule of espionage; never bite off more than you can chew (ie; you don’t start with the big stuff)
Let’s assume for a second that this is leak – that someone inside National has been ‘cultivated’ and is handing over tidbits of info to Mallard and Labour (assuming for the moment that this is unrelated to Hagar).
What then happens if/when this person is outed? How does the Labour party look when it becomes public knowledge that they had someone planted in National? That’s really only one step removed from Watergate…
That’s dangerous ground.
Let’s pretend, for a moment, that National’s spin is true: all caucus members got a bundle of draft policies for approval, one accidentally left theirs in a cafe, someone found it and now Labour has it and is drip feeding it to the media. So National knows exactly what Labour has (the bundle of policies).
If we were National political strategists, what would our best play be? Easy, release all the policies in the group, that way Labour can’t keep drip feeding them, our (bullet point) policy briefs would get out (just like we want them to), and we wouldn’t look like dicks.
Given that’s not how it’s happening, I can posit a couple of possible reasons:
1) National’s spin is incorrect and they know it; or
2) National’s political strategists are incompetent; or
3) National want their policy to be released this way.
Any other possibilities?
phil. you’re premise is flawed. just because labour got the leaks doesn’t mean they cultivated the leaker. you don’t think garner cultivated the secret agenda taper do you?
Tane, I know you’ve got a barrow to push here.
No they didn’t, Tane. The police didn’t show that. The police just did not find any evidence of theft. The failure to find evidence can mean either the police didn’t go looking for it–which is Brash’s claim–or that there was no evidence to be found–which is your claim.
Hager also has a barrow to push. It is in Hager’s interest to say this. He has said he’s been handed information on this, but I for one don’t take that as a fact. National has used Crosby Textor for many years in the past. It doesn’t take a high level leak to say that they are using them again. I haven’t seen any documentary evidence from Hager to say that he’s received emails or invoices confirming it. The most I have seen is speculation from Hager. If there was documentary evidence, I would be surprised why he hasn’t produced it.
A leak, not leaks. Singular, not plural. This on its own is quite concerning, I admit, because as I understand the leader’s diary is not widely circulated. I don’t think there’s any reason for Garner to lie about this. However Garner would not know whether the information came from somebody who had access to Key’s diary (which would be very troublesome for Key), or from somebody who heard idle gossip that Ashcroft was visiting, and then leaked it to Garner. It’s pretty clear Garner got that information from somebody speaking out of turn. Whether it was a malicious leak by somebody disaffected, or sloppy trading of gossip, I don’t know.
Three so far. The first two clearly went together, because they related to National’s environment and conservation launch. The third one may have been discussed and distributed at the same caucus meeting. I don’t know. But we do know that they were all pretty widely-distributed documents, given a caucus of 48 and the likelihood that parliamentary staff received that material as well.
Occam’s razor says there’s a leak from somebody on the periphery of caucus.
P.S. Let’s pretend, for a different moment, that National’s information security processes are somewhat adequate. They know exactly how many copies of the policies-for-approval were printed, they know who had them, they can count them back in. Therefore they either know exactly whose is missing, or they know that someone deliberately copied theirs and passed it on.
Recaptcha is being particularly surreal today: 2,813,430,000 smink
That’s exactly right, Phil. If there is a leaker, and that leaker is caught, that person will squeal. If they were groomed by the Labour Party, then the political damage to Labour for engaging in those dirty tricks would be enormous.
Anita, I agree with you also. If all the papers released by Mallard so far are from the same caucus meeting, then it would make sense for the Nats to kill the noise by releasing all the stuff discussed at that meeting.
Clearly there wasn’t any big stuff leaked, otherwise Mallard would have released it by now.
Tim: “Does the existence of a mole say that the National Party caucus is divided, or there is a major faction, or serious dissent within the National Party caucus, or that John Key is about to be rolled?”
I don’t necessarily think so. It’s an indication that all’s not running as smoothly as outward appearances might indicate. What you make of that depends on your allegiances and proclivities.
Phil: “What then happens if/when this person is outed? How does the Labour party look when it becomes public knowledge that they had someone planted in National?”
That’s an `if’ you’re looking for, not a `when’.
“That’s really only one step removed from Watergate ”
And all that shows is that you don’t know much about Watergate.
Edit: Crikey, I can’t keep up with this thread.
L
Tim. I don’t have time to go through this all point by point, but just look at the hurdles you have to jump through to explain away all these leaks. The simplest explanation is that there’s someone leaking inside the National Party.
Tim Ellis,
Actually the Police say they went looking. Are you saying that they’re lieing? Are you saying that Brash said they were lieing? If so, you might like to provide a reference.