How much money do you think a writer makes from a book with the sales numbers of Dirty Politics? Enough to cover ongoing legal expenses that could go into the many times thousands, you reckon?
Hmm. I guess he could spend all his money, remortgage (if he has one) , move into a car (if he has one) after renting his remortgaged house to tenants in an attempt to keep a cash flow flowing…
…and then just up and represent himself if all else fails.
That’s usually the plan. Look at what happened to the Urewera 8 and Kim Dotcom. Tied down in ongoing court proceedings. Officials paid for by our tax dollars spending their days developing and performing actions designed to cost good people like Hager their time, their livelihood, their savings, the security of their family, etc.
According to Nicky a first press of any book in NZ is about 2000. When I went to his Waikato uni lecture the sales had reached about 4000. An absolute bestseller here in NZ apparently!
I should like to donate Mike S, but I don’t do online banking and there is never any address where one can send a check or do an electronic transaction at the bank.
No, he hasn’t been charged with anything. He’s been done over… for nothing. Oh, that’s not quite true, is it? He’s been done over as a way of ‘sending a message’ to anyone who might be tempted to either speak truth to power or out them on their bullshit. Message reads – “You’ll pay.”
Nah, they can’t be the tools of his trade or there’d be compromising material on them. Hager assures us that his sources have not been compromised, therefore they cannot be the tools of his trade.
Unless he thinks that “deleting” a file deletes the information, I suppose.
Nah, I’m picking the police stole (an illegal warrant…*) personal belongings with no connection to Hager’s work.
*don’t give me this shit about the warrant being legal under the 2012 Bill: the 2012 Bill breaches our international obligation to protect human rights and constitutes a crime against humanity.
I seriously can’t understand how many people think Hagar is justified in using stolen materials.
They weren’t leaked, they were taken by force and stolen.
To defend Hagar is to defend the notation that the ends justify the means.
That its alright to break the law, rights of others, and even turn a tidy profit from it, so long as you feel like you’ve done good.
And thats not even touching the defamation aspect.
If Hagar and rawshark are the champions of the left, the bar could hardly be set lower.
“I seriously can’t understand how many people think Hagar is justified in using stolen materials.”
Not stolen, but in any case, he is justified in using them because the law says he is. You’ll note that he isn’t being charged with anything. NO one is even taking a civil claim AFAIK.
Accessed without permission.
Copied without permission
Distributed without permission.
I’m sure a lawyer can draw up the correct, and verbose list of crimes commited, but i’ll settle with calling it stealing.
“but in any case, he is justified in using them because the law says he is. You’ll note that he isn’t being charged with anything. NO one is even taking a civil claim AFAIK”
And yet the subject of this article is “Defend Nicky Hager”…
Are you in need of remedial English comprehension lessons? The 2012 Bill breaches fundamental human rights principles, which is why the New Zealand Law Society, that bastion of Communism, warned the UN about it.
I note you are lying about Nicky Hager. What kind of low-life asshole are you, anyway?
So if Rawshark stumbled upon a child-trafficking ring and stole their emails, do the same ethics apply?
Would the argument be that these traffickers shouldn’t be outed because the evidence against them was stolen?
Lets get this right.
Rawshark hacked the emails taking them by force. He didn’t just stumble across them by chance. He set out to break the security protecting private files, and then copied and distributed them.
But to elaborate your hypothesis, there are two scenarios he’d come across that data
First is that he hacked the child-trafficking PC and stole the data
The other is he stumbled into it. IE: fixing a clients/employers PC and finding the evidence the course of his work
In the first, both parties are scumbags, and i’d like to see both destroyed under our laws.
In the second, hes a whistleblower, having gained access to the information in good faith.
Or do you believe that Hackers should have freedom to access your PC whenever they like because “think of the children”
Fact is, chump, when burglars find evidence of worse crimes during their activities they are wont to turn it over. ‘Information received’ doesn’t just come from law-abiding citizens.
Your argument paints the cop following a tip-off from a seedy informant with the same brush as Hager. Mine too for that matter; you just seem to think Hager did something bad by exposing Dear Leader.
“I seriously can’t understand how many people think Hagar is justified in using stolen materials.”
yes he wrote a book using illegally obtained emails
but he wrote a book as a journalist that exposed the fact the govt was running an attack machine out of the PMs office and that the people involved in this are at best highly nasty and at worst outright criminals
do you have no problem with the govt of the day using such a mechanism to attack its opponent?
do you support the govt of the day getting away with keeping such activities secret?
do you support the exposure of such activities if they exist?
do you support other such instances were corruption has been exposed in similar ways?
do you understand the legal concept of public interest?
how many times do we have to repeat ourselves here?
The second being that if he really wanted to reveal wrongdoing, there were far better ways than just writing a book.
But he kept everything a secret, wrote it in a book, released it at a time to both inflict maximum political damage and maximum profitability, and gave no right of reply, or even fact checking and validation with those in the book.
Call me a cynic, but i have a hard time calling that journalism.
“do you have no problem with the govt of the day using such a mechanism to attack its opponent?
do you support the govt of the day getting away with keeping such activities secret?
do you support the exposure of such activities if they exist?”
I’ll be honest, i haven’t read the book, i’d not pay a dime to support Hagar and his actions, so you’d need to be more specific.
But in a general sense of what the book is about, with the national government leaking the failings of the opposition to a 3rd party. I don’t really have an issue with that no.
In fact i’d prefer it that way.
If i want to read about dirt and negativity, i can go to WO and thestandard.
If i to head about policies and nationals/goverments official stance on matters, its not cluttered by dirt throwing.
Honestly i have a hard time seeing what the difference is between WO and thestandard. Both have ties to their parties, both provide opposing views hidden facts, and dissenting opinions.
“do you understand the legal concept of public interest?”
I can say honestly no i can’t.
I did google it, and this is from the top of the wiki page.
“Public interest law is a somewhat elastic term referring to legal practices that are undertaken on a not for profit basis”
If thats the legal definition, then it clearly excludes Hagar’s actions.
It is kind of strange that Slater isn’t in prison then. After all he stole (by your definition) Blomfields data and then published it.
It is clear that you haven’t read the actual legislation rather than your pathetic distorted and delusional version of it. For instance section 68 of the Evidence Act covering journalists which explicitly states that there are public good considerations. This directly contradicts your idiotic mumblings..
Basically Slater won’t be able to use defamation because Hager didn’t lie about the content of the material that he received (unlike Slater who routinely lies about most things), he just summarized it and wrote an opinion on it. That Slater got upset and whines about it is his problem.
As i said before in a previous thread many months ago on this site about blomfield’s data.
If slater did obtain it illegally, he should be held accountable by the law.
I also said there was doubt as to how he obtained it, i suspect it was leaked to him by someone with access to the data, rather then hacked.
Thats the actions of a whistleblower, not a hacker.
Someone within the organization would of given him the data.
If someone from whale oil had leaked those emails to Hager, that’d be the same scenario.
Whistleblower or Hacker. You get to pick one, not both.
I suspect the judge’s judgement on the matter means something, and your ignorance of it is just ignorance, and watching your wittering drivel disintegrate in the face of it (the judgement) leaves me wanting better wingnuts.
Yes, that your argument wanted on several fronts from the get-go, not least of which is understanding of the law, and also including ignorance of almost every other aspect of the subject under discussion.
Further, that this is a pattern not confined to your behaviour alone, rather one we see repeated ad nauseam.
It’s transparent, and feeble, and a few moment’s thought (and some reading) might help you avoid it.
Surely there’s some conservative viewpoint you can imagine rather than this feeble tea-party melange?
@ Bazar
How do you know they were taken by force? Are you practising your ethics for a verbal test in your law study? What about revealing activities that play around with the rules and expectations of behaviour in our democracy?
Should the police have sent armed men to frighten and immobilise Tuhoe because they were playing games like hunting and shooting with paintballs or rifles and talking wildly, which the police would never have heard if they weren’t listening in and spying on them?
They imagined there was something solid where there was a lot of hot air. Rawshark demonstrated there was something solid when he looked at Cameron Slater’s unethical behaviour and saw the documents that showed it. Which as I said undermines our belief that our democracy is a good one. Which is worst?
I don’t think anyone is disputing the fact that the emails were hacked.
Thats what i mean by force.
Tuhoe has nothing to do with Hagar or Whaleoil, so i’m not going to be sidetracked there.
And as for something being wrong with our democracy, i’d agree.
When political figures can have their personal rights ignored and trampled over, i do fear for our democracy.
There are no real checks on them. The IPCA is pretty much a joke. Even when they do manage to find against the police, then typically the police simply ignore the result.
In this case they have clearly have and they are very likely to both have the search warrant eventually overturned and to appeal it whilst holding the ‘evidence’ while they use taxpayer funds to impose a non-legal punishment.
Don’t you think that when the police get things wrong that they should accept some responsibility for their actions, pay costs, compensation, and someone getting fired or demoted?
Currently none of those things happen when the police overstep their bounds.
They are the ones who argue that the means justify the ends because it allows them to provide punishments on activists where the courts wind up as mere bit players. They act as police and judge until overruled by a real judge with no penalty apart from those that we the public impose.
Of course we have to put up with simpering apologists like yourself in the process.. Or do we?
In this case Hager acted as a good journalist should. When a whistle blower gave him some information about underhanded political and commercial tactics, he acted in the public good and published it. Whistleblowers seldom get their material through legal means which amongst other reasons is why we give journalists legal protections to protect their sources. In this case the police appear to wish to obviate those protections, and a normal court (ie not the privacy commission who ruled on David Fisher and who operate under different rules) will almost certainly eventually rule against the police.
Incidentally, I believe that the privacy court will be looking at Cameron Slater’s invasion of Blomfield’s privacy later this month. I’m expecting that Slater is going to get some unpleasant surprises.
“When a whistle blower gave him some information ”
And thats where we disagree fundamentally.
Hacking your victim, stealing his data, and publishing what you want from what you find isn’t whistleblowing. Its being a hacker, it’s a crime, and it should be punished.
By such s disgustingly bad definition of whistleblowing, i could justify hacking any and everyone.
I’ll start tonight, i’ll hack the emails of Cunliff, read all his dirty secrets, learn about who his secret trust funders were, and have it all published.
He can’t complain, i’m just a whistleblower.
How about the private emails of ABC members, i’m sure they have a lot to say that the public should know about Labour and Cunliffe.
And how about you Lprent, hack this server, steal all your membership data, publish all the membership details that people have entered.
Its for the public good, and as long as i get someone else to publish what i find, i’m a whistleblower and should not be prosecuted.
How you can believe a hacker praying on his victim is a whistleblower just because hes leftwing… Whatever it takes to sleep at night i guess.
What you don’t get is that if you found morally reprehensible crap on cunliffe’s computer and a journalist published it, that would still be a public good.
If you found and had published strong indications that national-security classifications didn’t apply to favoured bloggers when Labour is in power, it would still be in the public interest.
And the journalist who publishes it should still be protected from being forced to reveal your identity.
By such s disgustingly bad definition of whistleblowing, i could justify hacking any and everyone.
No you couldn’t.
Rawshark hacked Slater. This is against the law and as such should be punished but:
1. Did s/he have just cause? Considering the lies and attack politics of Slater on his blog this is a possible argument
2. Then, instead of publishing everything that they found they gave it to Hager who went through it carefully and published exposing
3. Corrupt, immoral and possibly illegal practices
@Draco
“Did s/he have just cause? ”
So again we come back to the ends justify the means.
That its okay to ignore the law and rights of others, because you feel you have something to prove.
2. “Then, instead of publishing everything that they found”
Yes, tell that to slater when rawshark was dumping every single email by twitter, including personally private emails about Slater with his mom dying of cancer.
3. I disagree with calling Hagar a whistleblower. But honestly i’m tired of arguing this so i’ll leave that issue alone.
@lprent
Thank you for creating such a large strawman for me. My last comment was clearly about the illegal and immoral hacking activities of a hacker. The only reference to Hagar was as a 3rd party publisher.
@McFlock
“What you don’t get is that if you found morally reprehensible crap on cunliffe’s computer and a journalist published it, that would still be a public good.”
No, i can clearly understand that point. But you’re missing my point.
THE ENDS DO NOT JUSTIFY THE MEANS
You cannot go around breaking peoples rights or property without just cause. And because hes Slater isn’t just cause regardless of how much people here would like to believe that.
We are a country that values freedom and personal rights. To start trampling those core values to promote someone’s/some party’s agenda is to accept corruption at the heart of our society.
“And the journalist who publishes it should still be protected from being forced to reveal your identity.”
And so you’ve given your blessing to vigilantes to break laws and get off scott free, so long as they work as a team of lawbreaker/publisher.
Take a look at my previous post about what a precedence sets. Hacking Cunliffe’s emails would be just the start.
Perhaps these words may ring a bell
“Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.” – B Franklin.
Is anyone saying the hacker shouldn’t be punished if caught and identified and it’s proven they got the right person in court?
If you want to go vigilante to get something, that’s the risk. That hasn’t changed, that’s what the law is.
Do you think the law should be changed? That we should remove journalistic privileges like the public interest defence?
Gpoing on about ‘what if this happened to so sand so’ doesn;t mean anything, because this is how the law already is. If someone hacked Cunliffe of whoever, that would be a crime, of they gave the info to a journalist, that part (giving it to a journo) would not be a crime. If the journo thought there was a public interest element they could publish. That’s a risk insofar as whether or not a court agrees there is a public interest.
In the Dirty Politics case, hell yeah there’s a public interest. Remember the Minister of Justice resigning? I doubt any court would say there was no public interest involved.
and
“Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.” – B Franklin.”
lol what the fuck man? You are the one wanting to restrict the free press. Look up what Ben had to say about that. The quote you cite is better suited to the ‘OMG terrists are gonna kill us all’ debate.
Bazar,
I wonder, did you quote Ben Franklin when the GCSB’s activities against Kim Dotcom were revealed?
Somehow I doubt it.
Have you considered the liberty that you are giving up, for fear of hacking? The freedom of the press? Franklin, being a printer, probably had a few things to say about that and all.
Perhaps these words may ring a bell
“Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.” – B Franklin.
*groan*
The letter wasn’t about liberty but about taxes and the ability to “raise money for defense against French and Indian attacks. The governor kept vetoing the assembly’s efforts at the behest of the family, which had appointed him.”
Indeed, if you look at the text surrounding the famous quote, it’s pretty clearly about money: “Our assemblies have of late had so many supply bill, and of such different kinds, rejected, on various pretences,” wrote Franklin.
There’s not much on liberty, as we understand the concept, in the entire letter.
Baszar
You don’t want to put your mind to the situation. Just keep revolving your argument. And that the Tuhoe police raid has no connection with this shows that you can’t see the underlying factors in this police raid and that.
Now over $7000.
We’ve all learnt a lot about the way the Nats government works, thanks to this guy and the whistleblowing hero who went to him.
Our heartfelt thanks are due.
If that’s the case, I don’t think money really is an issue.
[lprent: Read where? Where is your link?
I rather suspect that you are just repeating a smear probably by a blustering and whining technical incompetent liar. I’d suggest that you don’t make a habit of it. ]
“I read that Nicky Hager was a trust fund child. If that’s the case, I don’t think money really is an issue.”
🙄 Where did you read that, Bollox Man? From memory, he’s one of four kids bought up by parents who both worked for a living in Levin. Yeah, Levin. Glamorous bourgeois Levin, home of the filthy rich since, er, never.
BM – Two generations of the Hager family on one side and three on the other have contributed to NZ society in ways far beyond what your pathetic imagination could conceive. It is suggested you pull your head in rather than display such mind numbing ignorance.
My parents owned, quite a large factory in Levin, clothing manufacturer. I didn’t grow up in a state house.
After building houses around Wellington and renovating houses for a while, I am living in the house that I built. And that has, more than any other single thing, allowed me to… I [now] have the security of the house I don’t have to pay a … mortgage on.”
It’s just bizarre.
While it’s easy to embrace the fascism narrative, one would think they wouldn’t be so keen to keep testing the limits of public indifference.
What’s the wider strategy? Apart from perhaps getting it over with well before the next election, is it some kind of provocation or setup for something else? An extra round of intimidation just doesn’t seem a big enough payoff for the risk of backlash.
Or maybe they are simply that confident they can act with impunity … I’m not sure their confidence is misplaced.
Am I missing something , but wasn’t Hagar in possession of stolen material? A journalist protecting his source – give me a break.
[lprent: You just described Cameron Slater vs Blomfield. After his 10 hour ordeal last August when all of his computers were seized because he’d received and published stolen emails and documents, journalist Cameron Slater said.. (oops: that was from an alternate universe where the police are impartial rather than John Key’s poodles).
Wow I just wish you RWNJs could move past first base with your arguments. The material was not stolen but was hacked. And please justify how Slater’s treatment of Matt Blomfield is OK but Hager’s treatment of Slater is not.
“Where did I say I was defending Slater Iprent and Mickysavage?”
right here
“Am I missing something , but wasn’t Hagar in possession of stolen material? A journalist protecting his source – give me a break.”
just to bring you up to speed – its the EXACT SAME line used by every other fool and dishonest bullshitter whos been trying to defend slater for months.
you might think your being original – but its been used so much that anyone pulling that particular line out of their backside will meet a pretty swift and stern reactrion
why? because its old, discredited and diversionary bullshit
Wow I just wish you RWNJs could move past first base with your arguments.
How can they mickysavage? That’s all they were told to say and there’s been no update since this morning so they don’t know what to say next so they have to keep saying the same thing over and over again. Blubber boy’s slipping up on the job.
you may wish to update your sources on whether the HDD were actually stolen. according to sources they were never reported as such.
[lprent: Blomfield reported them as being stolen when Cameron Slater started writing stories about them. That was in 2012. The complaint appears to have been ignored by the police. Yet Cameron Slater reports it, and Hager gets raided as a witness mere months later. I’d say that the police appear to be corrupt. ]
The judge said that Slater was a journalist and could invoke source protection under the Evidence Act.
However, the judge also granted orders sought by Blomfield that this section of the law not apply to Slater in this case.
There was a “public interest” in the disclosure of the identity of Slater’s informants, Justice Asher said.
“There is a real public interest in those who claim that they are defamed being able to fully explore the circumstances of the defamation…” the judge said.
This was not a whistle blower case and it seemed the information was obtained illegally by sources, which diminished the importance of protecting them, the judge said.
“Moreover, any concern at the chilling effect of disclosure of sources is lessened when the subject matter of the material originally disclosed has the mark of a private feud, and features abusive and vindictive language.”
This is an almost inevitable consequence of any righteous public actions. We need to be prepared for it.
The other aspect to be aware of is ‘credible deny-ability’ – the person who has initiated this set of raids will have separated themselves far enough so that they can deny all knowledge of the Police actions.
Kia kaha Nicky
Does anyone know if anything even remotely like this happened during the investigation into The Hollow Men?
Because as I recall there was a police investigation (which resulted in nothing). I don’t know whether they turned over Hager’s house looking for information on the source.
If not, what is different about this case when compared to The Hollow Men?
I don’t think hollow man was a hack, simply national insiders who did not like brash passing on material legitimately in their possession. In the Hagar case a crime was clearly committed, police are in their right to search Hagar on the basis to find the hacker, similarly for all we know Hagar could be the hacker, there is no evidence to the contrary barring Hagar comments which the police can’t accept at face value. If Hagar was not the hacker did he assist indirectly etc thus is complicit in the crime All This bs about the police been JK poodle is ridiculous and really makes you all look a bit silly, but if it makes you feel better that’s ok, no harm done
[lprent: Hager is essentially a technophobe by my standards. He has even fewer technical skills than Cameron Slater. There is no way that he could have done any of the things that rawshark is reported to have done.
The police have had exactly the same complaint made against Cameron Slater. Emails copied from a hard disk and documents that the owner never gave permission to be accessed, and a ‘journalist’ who published them. Yet in the last year they appear to have not bothered to investigate the complaint that was laid.
Whereas Cameron Slater raises his head from licking John Keys arse for a few minutes and the police are all over his complaint. Yeah, the police appear to be John Key’s poodles. They had the exact same alacrity of response in the Ambrose recording in 2011. ]
so why havent they raided anybody else from the wide pool of people implicated by their own words as revealed in hagers book? (evidence that hasnt been denied challenged or refuted by anyone)
why havent they acted on, and in fact dismissed the other complaints received that implicate ede, key and slater explicitly?
Why did they raid the house of a witness for 10 hours, even when they could be pretty certain they would find nothing?
why does it look like they are going after a radio DJ for encouraging people to vote green on election day but not the all blacks for their tweets in the other direction on the same day? ( here )
why have we had two elections in a row where media who have made JKs life a bit harder have ended up being raided by the cops?
why do breaches of the electoral act (by all parties admitedly) never get looked into by the police?
okay – maybe not JKs poodle explicitly – but are you seriously going to sit there and ignore the rather obvious pattern of police bias and favour that they show to our rulers – and the nats in particular?
Not sure of slater case but Hagar,whale dump etc haven’t helped themselves by playing this up, red rag to a bull in that police had no choice but to act. Was slater more a case of sloppy security and unethical behaviour rather than a crime
Love how when I gave to Hagar fund, my card didn’t get charged an extra $8 like it did when I gave to the Daily Blog !! And for the record, when I commented about it to find out why, my comment never got past moderation.
This Glenn Greenwald article published in the Guardian last year is worth reading. Those RWNJ really do need to stop and think about
how the lack of transparency in government can lead to corrupt practices.
“On whistleblowers and government threats of investigation
No healthy democracy can endure when the most consequential acts of those in power remain secret and unaccountable. Those who step forward to blow these whistles rarely benefit at all. The ones who benefit are you. You discover what you should know but what is hidden from you: namely, the most consequential acts being taken by those with the greatest power, and how those actions are affecting your life, your country and your world.” http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/jun/07/whistleblowers-and-leak-investigations
“After building houses around Wellington and renovating houses for a while, I am living in the house that I built. And that has, more than any other single thing, allowed me to… I [now] have the security of the house I don’t have to pay a … mortgage on.”
“My parents owned, quite a large factory in Levin, clothing manufacturer. I didn’t grow up in a state house.”
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The Ides of March brought me COVID followed by a bereavement. No wonder they tell you to be careful of them.I’m home now and have resumed the interrupted recuperation. Very much looking forward to getting back to regular things. Meanwhile, some thoughts…OneThis new Prime Minister guy just keeps getting more dire. ...
News that the Chinese ATP 40 cyber-hacking unit penetrated parliamentary internet networks in 2021 has renewed concerns about the PRC’s malign intentions in Aotearoa. But is the hack that significant given the length of time that has passed since its … Continue reading → ...
When Parliament passed the Intelligence and security Act in 2017, they assured us all that it was full of safeguards. Any intrusive surveillance of New Zealanders would be subject to a "triple lock", requiring the approval of the Minister and (supposedly independent) Commissioner of Intelligence Warrants, as well as post-facto ...
Eric Crampton writes – Richard Harman’s Politik newsletter provides a bit of the context that ought to have been showing up in other media reports on potential reductions in public service staffing. Media has been reporting on staffing cuts on the order of about 7%. Is that ...
Mike Grimshaw writes – It’s becoming increasingly apparent that many perceive free speech to have become the preserve of the politically right wing, the religiously conservative, the libertarian fringe, the anti-trans, the anti-Māori and…. well, just fill in with whatever groups or individuals you don’t like and don’t ...
Don Brash writes – As everybody who is not blind and deaf is aware, there is a huge political preoccupation with climate change at the moment, a widespread (though by no means unanimous) belief that global temperatures are rising mainly as a result of the greenhouse gases created ...
TL;DR: My six things to note in Aotearoa’s political economy on Wednesday, March 27 include:Chris Bishop laid out his vision for filling Aotearoa-NZ’s $100 billion infrastructure deficit in a speech yesterday, emphasising user pays and private funding, but failed to say how to achieve bipartisanship on population, public borrowing and ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Former Finance Minister Grant Robertson and former Prime Minister Chris Hipkins have been conveying how unhappy they are with the tax system. Last week in his valedictory speech, Robertson called for the introduction of a wealth or capital gains tax. And this week Hipkins ...
On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a ...
Buzz from the Beehive China has loomed large in Beehive considerations over the past 24 hours, largely because of that country’s mischief-making in the cyber espionage department. Two media statements emerged on that subject hard on the heels of the PM baulking at questions put to him on RNZ’s Morning ...
Chris Trotter writes – WHY IS THE NATIONAL PARTY doing so much for landlords, property developers, trucking, and construction companies, and so little for everybody who isn’t already pretty well-off? It’s as if protecting landlords’ investments and building apartments and roads now constitute the whole of National’s ...
Bryce Edwards writes – When she was campaigning to be Minister of Finance last year, Nicola Willis pledged that she would resign from the job if she failed to deliver tax cuts in her first Budget. Now, it’s that pledge, along with Prime Minister Christopher Luxon’s ...
Robert MacCulloch writes – The Reserve Bank has doubled staff numbers in five years to 510, with personnel costs rising to $80 million in 2023 from $32 million in 2018 – up by a whopping 150%. I guess when you print $50 billion and flood markets with liquidity, ...
The furore. In case you didn’t notice there was a controversy in the weekend involving dolphins in a little town off the South Island. Don’t panic, they haven’t declared independence and resumed whaling, this was simply a sailing event.The problem began when racing was cancelled on the opening day of ...
For 20 years or more, the case for a meaningful capital tax gains has been mulled over and analysed to death, including by the tax working group chaired by Sir Michael Cullen. More than once, the International Monetary Fund has said a CGT would be a good idea for New ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read: The Public Health Communications Centre (PHCC) call for urgent preventive action and a risk assessment survey of long covid in this briefing noteLocal scoop: NZ road deaths surpass OECD rates, so why is the govt reversing safety plans? ...
This story was originally published by Grist and is part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration strengthening coverage of the climate story. This story is part of a collaboration with Grist and WABE to demystify the Georgia Public Service Commission, the small but powerful state-elected board that makes critical decisions about everything from raising ...
This is a guest post from Robert McLachlan Global warming is accelerating; 2023 was off the charts. We need to stop burning fossil fuels. In New Zealand, transport accounts for half of all fossil fuels burnt. In the Emissions Reduction Plan, transport emissions fall 41% by 2035. As the ...
Labour productivity has been receding rapidly over the past two years, reversing a post-lockdown rise. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: My six things to note in Aotearoa’s political economy as at 6:26am on Tuesday, March 26 include:Workers have been treading water in output per hour worked for 12 years, ...
TL;DR: The key events to watch in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy in the week to April 2 include:Today, Parliament resumes sitting at 2pm for the second week of a two-week session. Officials for SIS and GCSB report their annual reviews in public to the Intelligence and Security Select Committee from 5.10pm.Tomorrow, ...
Faced with a barrage of criticism over the promised tax cuts from usually supportive commentators, Finance Minister Nicola Willis yesterday reaffirmed her intention to include them in this year’s Budget. The Government is up against it over the cuts just about every way it turns. Commentators like Fran O’Sullivan, Matthew ...
Here’s my pick of today’s substack posts as of 6:26pm on Monday, March 25: writes via his substack that Market-rate housing will make your city cheaper writes via his substack about the problems talking to double-cab ute (truck) drivers about their vehicles. today about moments of radicalisation in ...
Buzz from the Beehive Just before Christmas, Finance Minister Nicola Willis delivered something that was pitched as a mini-budget and brayed about the decisive action being taken to repair the Government books and support income tax relief in Budget 2024. In a statement headed Fiscal repair job underway. she introduced ...
My sister Belinda asked Dad yesterday what one word would describe Mum best. He said: vivacious.If you only knew her from the photos on the slideshow we've made for today,you might wonder about that, because the camera tended to lie with Mum.If ever she saw a camera pointed at her, she ...
There are two major public consultations closing in the next week, Auckland Council’s Long Term Plan (LTP), and the draft Government Policy Statement on Land Transport (GPS). Closing dates and times: LTP closes Thursday 28 February, at 11.59pm – a minute to midnight! GPS closes Tuesday 2 April, at 12pm noon – note that’s ...
From Kiwiblog’s David Farrar – Bryce Wilkinson writes: Senior Fellow Bryce Wilkinson’s analysis reveals that since March 2009, New Zealand has spent $158 billion more overseas than it has earned, but its NIIP has only fallen by $32 billion.Statistics New Zealand shows that receipts from overseas reinsurers have ...
Is she hinting that the Coalition Government will have to back down on key promises it made in Opposition? Brian Easton writes – The Minister of Finance, Nicola Willis, is telling an evolving story about her fiscal challenges. In Opposition she was confident that she could ...
Dear Nicola Willis,Right now you’ve probably got lots of competing demands coming at you. Ministers who’ve inherited quite a mess, or so you’ve told us, looking for money in the budget to improve things. I imagine that’s why they came to parliament - to make things better.You’ll have to make ...
The Local Government, Transport and Auckland Minister hasthreatened councils with intervention if they don’t merge water assets to take them off balance sheet, just as the now-repealed Three Waters plan directed. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: My six things of note this morning for Monday, March 25 include:Simeon ...
A listing of 36 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, March 17, 2024 thru Sat, March 23, 2024. Story of the week Thanks to John Mason having the stamina to sit down to watch "Climate - the Movie" ...
This morning the Q&A programme had Simeon Brown on to talk about National’s replacement for Three Waters. In case anyone’s forgotten the three are - drinking water, waste water, and sewerage. It’s quite important not to get them mixed up. In much the same way that you wouldn’t want to ...
Today’s newsletter comes with a mini-podcast conversation between me and my buddy Liv Tennet, talking about her time as a child actor in Lord of the Rings. It’s a conversation with a lot of giggles as she talks about falling off a horse, and becoming a meme. Read ...
The Desmog Climate Disinformation Database documents, "individuals and organisations that have helped to delay and distract the public and our elected leaders from taking needed action to reduce greenhouse gas pollution and fight global warming." It's a who's who of the organised climate change denial movement, in other words. In ...
Bob Edlin writes – A High Court judge has decided miscreants who have mana – or who claim to have mana – should be treated differently from miscreants who have none. It’s a ruling that suggests indigenous law-breakers have a better chance of securing a discharge without conviction ...
Welcome to the first, and possibly last, edition of Brickbats, Bouquets and Bull’s Wool. In which I’ll take a look at the events of the last week or so, and rate them.In such ratings the numbers usually have more to do with the opinions of the reviewer, than the actual ...
Roger Partridge writes – My earlier column this month, New Zealand’s highest court could be facing a turning point, prompted a flood of feedback from business readers and lawyers alike. A common query was what Parliament can do to restrain an overreaching judiciary. This week I discuss two steps Parliament ...
TL;DR: In today’s ‘six-stack’ of substacks at 6.16pm on Friday, March 22: writes about New Zealand's Building Boom—And What the World Must Learn From It over at his substack. challenges the Auckland Council’s use of a 3.8 degrees of warming forecast to oppose a wave-park and data centre project ...
Is she hinting that the Coalition Government will have to back down on key promises it made in Opposition?The Minister of Finance, Nicola Willis, is telling an evolving story about her fiscal challenges. In Opposition she was confident that she could deliver her promised income tax cuts. Appointed minister, she ...
Buzz from the Beehive Ministers of the Crown have drawn attention to one sector of the science sector which is unlikely to be subjected to heavy spending cuts, a state-funded broadcaster which is doing nicely, thank you, and a sporting event that had $5.4 million from the public purse puffed ...
Abbott’s Freestyle Libre sensors allow continuous glucose monitoring (CGM). The sensor is applied to the back of the patient’s arm, with a thin filament under the skin measuring glucose levels constantly. But it costs around $100 per sensor and must be replaced once every 14 days. Photo by BSIP/Universal Images ...
The Inspector General of Intelligence and Security (IGIS) recently released a report in which he exposes the existence of a foreign intelligence partner-controlled technological “capability” inside the headquarters of the GCSB, NZ’s 5 Eyes-affiliated signals intelligence collection and analysis agency. … Continue reading → ...
Peter Dunne writes – Nearly three decades after the introduction of MMP and multiparty governments there should be a greater level of understanding about their finer points than often appears to be the case. The reaction to the despicable outburst from the Deputy Prime Minister at the weekend highlights ...
The sweet kisses from fruit of summerHave slowly been turning dullerYou say, "those times"And "remember the daysWhen we went outside and there still was the shade?"Taking no reason into play…Autumn. Clear, blue days shortening to longer nights, growing colder. Aotearoa.That’s us. The temperature dropping, the looming car crash - so ...
Bryce Edwards writes – “It is often said that behind every great man is a great woman”. This is the pitch by the National Party Botany electorate branch to attend their “Ladies Afternoon Tea with Amanda Luxon”. For $110 including GST, you can turn up on Saturday 20 April ...
David Farrar writes – The Electoral Commission has published the expense returns for political parties for the 2023 election. I’ve put them in a table with how many votes a party got so we can see the spend per vote. National only spent $3.34 for every vote they got, almost ...
Winston Peters’ headline-making actions over the past week may have been a show of political power intended to strengthen his hand in Budget negotiations. It was no accident that his State of the Nation speech was as it was. He made it as New Zealand First Leader, not as Deputy ...
Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The five things that mattered in Aotearoa’s political economy that we wrote and spoke about via The Kākā and elsewhere for paying subscribers in the last week included:Former Labour Finance Minister Grant Robertson bowed out of politics this week, giving a series of exit ...
Graham Adams writes — If you love the law or sausages, as the saying goes, best not to look too closely at how they are made. And after watching the orgy of self-pity when Newshub’s closure was announced on February 28, television journalism should definitely be added to the list of those ...
Venerable New Zealand political commentator, Chris Trotter (https://bowalleyroad.blogspot.com/), is a sad creature these days. Once one of the most reliable Leftist writers out there – Economic Left at that – Trotter seems to have absorbed the worldview of Auckland culture-war obsessives. It is not for me to categorise what he ...
The cruelty of short-term memory loss is that each time you ask where she is, you get the fresh shock and grief of the news. That was Dad's day yesterday.Comfortingly, it seems to be less so today. Last night he looked crumpled, today he seems more settled. There's a card ...
The Coalition Government’s plan to ‘get Auckland moving’ is a cuts cover-up that will ultimately cost Aucklanders more to move around the city, says Labour Auckland Issues spokesperson Shanan Halbert. ...
Slashing the Ministry of Pacific Peoples by 40% will have a devastating impact on pacific communities and further highlights how little this government cares about anything other than cutting taxes for the wealthiest few. ...
Labour has proposed an urgent inquiry to investigate the ever-increasing profits of supermarkets, aiming to lower costs for shoppers and food producers alike, says Labour Spokesperson for Commerce and Consumer Affairs Arena Williams and Primary Production Spokesperson Cushla Tangaere-Manuel. ...
With 14% of jobs on the line at the Ministry for Ethnic Communities, the responsible Minister Melissa Lee is failing to stand up for the very communities she’s meant to be representing. ...
COURT OF APPEAL: TRIFECTA OF VICTORY FOR NZ FIRST, TRIFECTA OF FAILURE FOR OPPONENTS For the third time since April 2020, New Zealand First has defeated the Serious Fraud Office and all those complicit in a malicious attack against a political party going about its lawful business in a lawful ...
The Green Party stands with people who live in public housing, people in dire housing need, experts and advocates in demanding better than the Government’s archaic approach to housing those who need our support the most. ...
New Zealand has recently lost the hosting rights of some major international sporting events including the America’s Cup, the Rugby Championship, Netball World Cup, and the Wellington Sevens. We are now at a huge risk of losing SailGP as well. And it won’t stop there. The recent issues with SailGP ...
A Member’s Bill drawn this week would modernise insurance law and make things fairer and more transparent for consumers, Christchurch Central MP Duncan Webb said. ...
The Minister for Disability Issues has confirmed she was aware of funding issues in mid-December and did nothing to stop it. On 14 March, she signed off on changes that were announced and implemented on 18 March without any consultation with disability communities. ...
Green Party MP Julie Anne Genter says her members' bill is an opportunity for the coalition government to plug the gap in electric vehicle incentives. ...
The National Government continues to talk about irresponsible tax cuts that will only drive up inflation, despite the country entering a technical recession. ...
The Minister for Disability Issues must act urgently to reinstate flexibility around the funding for disability support and apologise to disabled carers. ...
This story has been initiated by a leftie shill reporter who proactively sought to call a member of a former band, which disbanded twelve years ago, give their biased appraisal of what was said in my speech, and concocted a ham-fisted attempt at a story that does nothing but show ...
The Government has accepted Labour’s change to the Road User Charge (RUC) discount for hybrid vehicles, meaning there will still be some incentive for people to buy greener vehicles. ...
Many in the mainstream media have taken what was said in New Zealand First’s State of the Nation Speech in Palmerston North on Sunday and deliberately, deceitfully, and ignorantly misrepresented what I said and why I said it. The headlines and commentary on the news stated that I compared ‘co-governance ...
Kicking the most vulnerable people out of state housing and pushing them towards homelessness will result in a proliferation of poverty and trauma across our most vulnerable communities. ...
Te Pāti Māori co-leader and MP for Waiariki, Rawiri Waititi has penned a letter asking MPs to support his members bill to remove GST from all food. The bill is expected to go through its first reading in parliament this Wednesday. “I’m calling on all political parties to support my ...
Good afternoon. Thank you for, in your very busy lives, turning up to this meeting today. On October 14th last year New Zealanders overwhelmingly voted for change. That is exactly what this new government is bringing. New Zealand First campaigned to ‘take back our country’ and stop the disastrous economic ...
This year is about getting real with Kiwis and discussing the tough issues, as the National Government exacerbates inequality and divides New Zealand, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said ...
The Government adding Significant Natural Areas (SNAs) to its already roaring environmental policy bonfire is an assault on the future of wildlife that makes Aotearoa unique. ...
After 12 years of fighting to protect our moana we are finding ourselves back at square one and back at court. Today, the Environmental Protection Agency is sitting in Hawera to reconsider an application from Trans-Tasman Resources to dig up 50 million tonnes of the seabed in South Taranaki. This ...
Minister Shane Jones’ decision to step away from a seabed mining project is evidence of the murky waters surrounding the Government’s fast-track legislation. ...
The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last government in a bid to get greater coherence in the publicservice on Treaty matters. When ministers first considered the need for tighter oversight in 2021, there ...
The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last government in a bid to get greater coherence in the publicservice on Treaty matters. When ministers first considered the need for tighter oversight in 2021, there ...
The Coalition Government’s miscalculation saga continues as it has forgotten an eyewatering $90 million gap in its interest deductibility cost figures, say Labour Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds and Revenue Spokesperson Deborah Russell. ...
He Pou a Rangi Climate Change Commission has today released advice that says if the Government doesn’t act now New Zealand is at risk of not meeting its climate goals. ...
The Coalition Government has today confirmed it is abandoning first home buyers who are struggling to get ahead, says Labour Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds. ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has welcomed the passing of legislation to move light electric vehicles (EVs) and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) into the road user charges system from 1 April. “It was always intended that EVs and PHEVs would be exempt from road user charges until they reached two ...
New Zealand is strengthening its ability to combat illegal fishing outside its domestic waters and beef up regulation for its own commercial fishers in international waters through a Bill which had its first reading in Parliament today. The Fisheries (International Fishing and Other Matters) Amendment Bill 2023 sets out stronger ...
Economists Carl Hansen and Professor Prasanna Gai have been appointed to the Reserve Bank Monetary Policy Committee, Finance Minister Nicola Willis announced today. The Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) is the independent decision-making body that sets the Official Cash Rate which determines interest rates. Carl Hansen, the executive director of Capital ...
Apartment owners and buyers will soon have greater protections as further changes to the law on unit titles come into effect, Housing Minister Chris Bishop says. “The Unit Titles (Strengthening Body Corporate Governance and Other Matters) Amendment Act had already introduced some changes in December 2022 and May 2023, and ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters will travel to Egypt and Europe from this weekend. “This travel will focus on a range of New Zealand’s traditional diplomatic and security partnerships while enabling broad engagement on the urgent situation in Gaza,” Mr Peters says. Mr Peters will attend the NATO Foreign ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown is encouraging all road users to stay safe, plan their journeys ahead of time, and be patient with other drivers while travelling around this Easter long weekend. “Road safety is a responsibility we all share, and with increased traffic on our roads expected this Easter we ...
About 1.4 million New Zealanders will receive cost of living relief through increased government assistance from April 1 909,000 pensioners get a boost to Superannuation, including 5000 veterans 371,000 working-age beneficiaries will get higher payments 45,000 students will see an increase in their allowance Over a quarter of New Zealanders ...
Ensuring social housing is being provided to those with the greatest needs is front of mind as the Government restarts social housing tenancy reviews, Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka says. “Our relentless focus on building a strong economy is to ensure we can deliver better public services such as social ...
The Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary will not go ahead, with Cabinet deciding to stop work on the proposed reserve and remove the Bill that would have established it from Parliament’s order paper. “The Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary Bill would have created a 620,000 sq km economic no-go zone,” Oceans and Fisheries Minister ...
Dam safety regulations are being amended so that smaller dams won’t be subject to excessive compliance costs, Minister for Building and Construction Chris Penk says. “The coalition Government is focused on reducing costs and removing unnecessary red tape so we can get the economy back on track. “Dam safety regulations ...
The coalition Government is expanding the medium-scale adverse event classification to parts of the North Island as dry weather conditions persist, Agriculture Minister Todd McClay announced today. “I have made the decision to expand the medium-scale adverse event classification already in place for parts of the South Island to also cover the ...
The passing of legislation giving effect to coalition Government tax commitments has been welcomed by Finance Minister Nicola Willis. “The Taxation (Annual Rates for 2023–24, Multinational Tax, and Remedial Matters) Bill will help place New Zealand on a more secure economic footing, improve outcomes for New Zealanders, and make our tax system ...
Science, Innovation and Technology Minister Judith Collins and Tertiary Education and Skills Minister Penny Simmonds today announced plans to transform our science and university sectors to boost the economy. Two advisory groups, chaired by Professor Sir Peter Gluckman, will advise the Government on how these sectors can play a greater ...
The Budget will deliver urgently-needed tax relief to hard-working New Zealanders while putting the government’s finances back on a sustainable track, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The Finance Minister made the comments at the release of the Budget Policy Statement setting out the Government’s Budget objectives. “The coalition Government intends ...
The coalition Government will look at options to address a zoning issue that limits how much financial support Queenstown residents can get for accommodation. Cabinet has agreed on a response to the Petitions Committee, which had recommended the geographic information MSD uses to determine how much accommodation supplement can be ...
Cabinet has agreed to a short extension to the final reporting timeframe for the Royal Commission into Abuse in Care from 28 March 2024 to 26 June 2024, Internal Affairs Minister Brooke van Velden says. “The Royal Commission wrote to me on 16 February 2024, requesting that I consider an ...
The coalition Government is delivering an $18 million boost to New Zealanders needing to travel for specialist health treatment, Health Minister Dr Shane Reti says. “These changes are long overdue – the National Travel Assistance (NTA) scheme saw its last increase to mileage and accommodation rates way back in 2009. ...
The Government is recognising the innovative and rising talent in New Zealand’s growing space sector, with the Prime Minister and Space Minister Judith Collins announcing the new Prime Minister’s Prizes for Space today. “New Zealand has a growing reputation as a high-value partner for space missions and research. I am ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has confirmed New Zealand’s concerns about cyber activity have been conveyed directly to the Chinese Government. “The Prime Minister and Minister Collins have expressed concerns today about malicious cyber activity, attributed to groups sponsored by the Chinese Government, targeting democratic institutions in both New ...
Independent Reviewers appointed for School Property Inquiry Education Minister Erica Stanford today announced the appointment of three independent reviewers to lead the Ministerial Inquiry into the Ministry of Education’s School Property Function. The Inquiry will be led by former Minister of Foreign Affairs Murray McCully. “There is a clear need ...
State Highway 1 across the Brynderwyns will be open for Easter weekend, with work currently underway to ensure the resilience of this critical route being paused for Easter Weekend to allow holiday makers to travel north, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Today I visited the Brynderwyn Hills construction site, where ...
Introduction Good morning to you all, and thanks for having me bright and early today. I am absolutely delighted to be the Minister for Infrastructure alongside the Minister of Housing and Resource Management Reform. I know the Prime Minister sees the three roles as closely connected and he wants me ...
New Zealand stands with the United Kingdom in its condemnation of People’s Republic of China (PRC) state-backed malicious cyber activity impacting its Electoral Commission and targeting Members of the UK Parliament. “The use of cyber-enabled espionage operations to interfere with democratic institutions and processes anywhere is unacceptable,” Minister Responsible for ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters and Defence Minister Judith Collins today announced New Zealand will provide logistics support for the upcoming Solomon Islands election. “We’re sending a team of New Zealand Defence Force personnel and two NH90 helicopters to provide logistics support for the election on 17 April, at the request ...
The European Union Free Trade Agreement Legislation Amendment Bill received Royal Assent today, completing the process for New Zealand’s ratification of its free trade agreement with the European Union. “I am pleased to announce that today, in a small ceremony at the Beehive, New Zealand notified the European Union ...
Public consultation on the terms of reference for the Royal Commission into COVID-19 Lessons has concluded, Internal Affairs Minister Hon Brooke van Velden says. “I have been advised that there were over 11,000 submissions made through the Royal Commission’s online consultation portal.” Expanding the scope of the Royal Commission of ...
Hardworking families are set to benefit from a new credit to help them meet their early childcare education (ECE) costs, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. From 1 July, parents and caregivers of young children will be supported to manage the rising cost of living with a partial reimbursement of their ...
A specialised Independent Technical Advisory Group (ITAG) tasked with preparing and publishing independent non-binding advice on the design of a "green" (sustainable finance) taxonomy rulebook is being established, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. “Comprising experts and market participants, the ITAG's primary goal is to deliver comprehensive recommendations to the ...
Defence Minister Judith Collins has thanked the Chief of Army, Major General John Boswell, DSD, for his service as he leaves the Army after 40 years. “I would like to thank Major General Boswell for his contribution to the Army and the wider New Zealand Defence Force, undertaking many different ...
25 March 2024 Minister to meet Australian counterparts and Manufacturing Industry Leaders Small Business, Manufacturing, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly will travel to Australia for a series of bi-lateral meetings and manufacturing visits. During the visit, Minister Bayly will meet with his Australian counterparts, Senator Tim Ayres, Ed ...
Government commits almost $3 million for period products in schools The Coalition Government has committed $2.9 million to ensure intermediate and secondary schools continue providing period products to those who need them, Minister of Education Erica Stanford announced today. “This is an issue of dignity and ensuring young women don’t ...
Good morning, it’s great to be here. First, I would like to acknowledge the New Zealand Institute of Building Surveyors and thank you for the opportunity to be here this morning. I would like to use this opportunity to outline the Government’s ambitious plan and what we hope to ...
Minister for Pacific Peoples Dr Shane Reti has announced the Government’s commitment to the Auckland Secondary Schools Māori and Pacific Islands Cultural Festival, more commonly known as Polyfest. “The Ministry for Pacific Peoples is a longtime supporter of Polyfest and, as it celebrates 49 years in 2024, I’m proud to ...
Before moving onto the substance of today’s address, I want to recognise the very significant and ongoing contribution the Breast Cancer Foundation makes to support the lives of New Zealand women and their families living with breast cancer. I very much enjoy working with you. I also want to recognise ...
New Zealand has notched up a first with the launch of University of Canterbury research to the International Space Station, Science, Innovation and Technology and Space Minister Judith Collins says. The hardware, developed by Dr Sarah Kessans, is designed to operate autonomously in orbit, allowing scientists on Earth to study ...
Introduction Thank you for inviting me to speak with you today and I’m sorry I can’t be there in person. Yesterday I started in Wellington for Breakfast TV, spoke to a property conference in Auckland, and finished the day speaking to local government in Christchurch, so it would have been ...
The Coalition Government is contributing more than $1 million to support the establishment of an emergency multi-agency coordination centre in Northland. Emergency Management and Recovery Minister Mark Mitchell announced the contribution today during a visit of the Whangārei site where the facility will be constructed. “Northland has faced a number ...
New Zealanders have enjoyed a broader range of voices telling the story of Aotearoa thanks to the creation of Whakaata Māori 20 years ago, says Māori Development Minister Tama Potaka. The minister spoke at a celebration marking the national indigenous media organisation’s 20th anniversary at their studio in Auckland on ...
Commercial catch limits for some fisheries have been increased following a review showing stocks are healthy and abundant, Ocean and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. The changes, along with some other catch limit changes and management settings, begin coming into effect from 1 April 2024. "Regular biannual reviews of fish ...
Analysis - Nicola Willis is holding firm on tax cuts despite the economic outlook being worse than forecast and critics urging her to wait, writes Peter Wilson for The Week In Politics. ...
Opposition MPs and unions are criticising a proposal by New Zealand’s Ministry of Pacific Peoples to cut staff by 40 percent. The country’s largest trade union — The Public Service Association — says the ministry has informed staff that it is looking to shed 63 of 156 positions. Opposition MPs ...
A poem by Poetry Aotearoa Yearbook 2024 featured poet Carin Smeaton. Daughtr of the 90s when she gets promoted to usherette a baby blu eel carries her all the way up to mothership she’s hovering high she lets the underaged in to see keanu reeves she lets the only lonely ...
Analysis by Keith Rankin. Keith Rankin, trained as an economic historian, is a retired lecturer in Economics and Statistics. He lives in Auckland, New Zealand. My earlier article – Can ‘Good’ be the Greater Evil? – looked at the issue of how wars should end, and how Good versus Evil ...
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington.AUCKLAND1 AMMA by Saraid de Silva (Moa Press, $38)A stunning debut novel reviewed by Brannavan ...
From Steve Martin to Ricky Stanicky, a pick’n’mix of things worth watching and listening to this long weekend. This is an excerpt from our weekly pop culture newsletter Rec Room. Sign up here. If you’re at a loss for something to occupy yourself with this Easter, don’t panic: The Spinoff’s got ...
Jesus had dinner with his 12 disciples right before he died. Noted historian Madeleine Chapman finds out who really deserved to be there.First published in 2018 but let’s be honest, the subject is timeless. As you sit on your couch this Easter Sunday, eating a chocolate egg you know ...
The newly-promoted Northern League club is on a mission to return to the National League for the first time in two decades. Plenty about domestic football in New Zealand has changed in that time – but the sense that this amateur competition is not an entirely level playing field remains. ...
Comment: Every year on February 2, a dozen men in tuxedos and top hats approach the burrow of a groundhog in Gobbler’s Knob, Pennsylvania and entice the beaver-like rodent to emerge and predict the weather. If the groundhog, named Punxsutawney Phil, sees its own shadow when it is summoned, legend ...
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Has the sales from his book dried up?
Has the capacity for craven lickspittles to besmirch themselves diminished?
Why must Hager pay for the National Party’s abuses of power?
Because Big Government is your Daddy?
Good gawd you idiot.
How much money do you think a writer makes from a book with the sales numbers of Dirty Politics? Enough to cover ongoing legal expenses that could go into the many times thousands, you reckon?
Hmm. I guess he could spend all his money, remortgage (if he has one) , move into a car (if he has one) after renting his remortgaged house to tenants in an attempt to keep a cash flow flowing…
…and then just up and represent himself if all else fails.
That’s usually the plan. Look at what happened to the Urewera 8 and Kim Dotcom. Tied down in ongoing court proceedings. Officials paid for by our tax dollars spending their days developing and performing actions designed to cost good people like Hager their time, their livelihood, their savings, the security of their family, etc.
Prosecute those who are prepared to follow such orders, There is no alternative.
Yeah, all these right-wingers who are suddenly incensed at the idea of people making money really have no idea how much authors earn.
According to Nicky a first press of any book in NZ is about 2000. When I went to his Waikato uni lecture the sales had reached about 4000. An absolute bestseller here in NZ apparently!
Has your English skills “not achieved”?
I should like to donate Mike S, but I don’t do online banking and there is never any address where one can send a check or do an electronic transaction at the bank.
Is anyone able to assist in this regard?
Contact them directly? http://dirtypoliticsnz.com/contact/
Thanks wekarawshark
Don’t be such a techno-phobe.
Com’n old girl crank handle those synapses into life and get with the times.
This is straight out of the right winger’s song sheet…
“Why can’t everyone live like me?”
+100
Has he been charged with something?
No, he hasn’t been charged with anything. He’s been done over… for nothing. Oh, that’s not quite true, is it? He’s been done over as a way of ‘sending a message’ to anyone who might be tempted to either speak truth to power or out them on their bullshit. Message reads – “You’ll pay.”
now 36 mins later it’s $5,515
15 minutes later it is 6,035
Even if Hager finally doesn’t need these defence monies, it’s pretty certain that Rawshark will, if they catch up with him.
The tools of his trade have been confiscated. And lawyers don’t come cheap. Pretty sure he’ll need the money.
Nah, they can’t be the tools of his trade or there’d be compromising material on them. Hager assures us that his sources have not been compromised, therefore they cannot be the tools of his trade.
Unless he thinks that “deleting” a file deletes the information, I suppose.
Nah, I’m picking the police stole (an illegal warrant…*) personal belongings with no connection to Hager’s work.
*don’t give me this shit about the warrant being legal under the 2012 Bill: the 2012 Bill breaches our international obligation to protect human rights and constitutes a crime against humanity.
A crime against humanity, thats rich.
I seriously can’t understand how many people think Hagar is justified in using stolen materials.
They weren’t leaked, they were taken by force and stolen.
To defend Hagar is to defend the notation that the ends justify the means.
That its alright to break the law, rights of others, and even turn a tidy profit from it, so long as you feel like you’ve done good.
And thats not even touching the defamation aspect.
If Hagar and rawshark are the champions of the left, the bar could hardly be set lower.
“I seriously can’t understand how many people think Hagar is justified in using stolen materials.”
Not stolen, but in any case, he is justified in using them because the law says he is. You’ll note that he isn’t being charged with anything. NO one is even taking a civil claim AFAIK.
“Not stolen”
If you want to be techinical, then:
Accessed without permission.
Copied without permission
Distributed without permission.
I’m sure a lawyer can draw up the correct, and verbose list of crimes commited, but i’ll settle with calling it stealing.
“but in any case, he is justified in using them because the law says he is. You’ll note that he isn’t being charged with anything. NO one is even taking a civil claim AFAIK”
And yet the subject of this article is “Defend Nicky Hager”…
Against an intimidating search and seizure of property. Baby steps.
Are you in need of remedial English comprehension lessons? The 2012 Bill breaches fundamental human rights principles, which is why the New Zealand Law Society, that bastion of Communism, warned the UN about it.
I note you are lying about Nicky Hager. What kind of low-life asshole are you, anyway?
So if Rawshark stumbled upon a child-trafficking ring and stole their emails, do the same ethics apply?
Would the argument be that these traffickers shouldn’t be outed because the evidence against them was stolen?
You can’t make an “argument” out of fecal matter and wind.
Lets get this right.
Rawshark hacked the emails taking them by force. He didn’t just stumble across them by chance. He set out to break the security protecting private files, and then copied and distributed them.
But to elaborate your hypothesis, there are two scenarios he’d come across that data
First is that he hacked the child-trafficking PC and stole the data
The other is he stumbled into it. IE: fixing a clients/employers PC and finding the evidence the course of his work
In the first, both parties are scumbags, and i’d like to see both destroyed under our laws.
In the second, hes a whistleblower, having gained access to the information in good faith.
Or do you believe that Hackers should have freedom to access your PC whenever they like because “think of the children”
Fact is, chump, when burglars find evidence of worse crimes during their activities they are wont to turn it over. ‘Information received’ doesn’t just come from law-abiding citizens.
Your argument paints the cop following a tip-off from a seedy informant with the same brush as Hager. Mine too for that matter; you just seem to think Hager did something bad by exposing Dear Leader.
“I seriously can’t understand how many people think Hagar is justified in using stolen materials.”
yes he wrote a book using illegally obtained emails
but he wrote a book as a journalist that exposed the fact the govt was running an attack machine out of the PMs office and that the people involved in this are at best highly nasty and at worst outright criminals
do you have no problem with the govt of the day using such a mechanism to attack its opponent?
do you support the govt of the day getting away with keeping such activities secret?
do you support the exposure of such activities if they exist?
do you support other such instances were corruption has been exposed in similar ways?
do you understand the legal concept of public interest?
how many times do we have to repeat ourselves here?
Well although i think we’re going to disagree, i at least you’ve broken the issue down to revelant issues.
That makes this a quality post for thestandard, and nice to address.
“but he wrote a book as a journalist”
Two issues right there, the first being that a book is not a news medium.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11283331
The second being that if he really wanted to reveal wrongdoing, there were far better ways than just writing a book.
But he kept everything a secret, wrote it in a book, released it at a time to both inflict maximum political damage and maximum profitability, and gave no right of reply, or even fact checking and validation with those in the book.
Call me a cynic, but i have a hard time calling that journalism.
“do you have no problem with the govt of the day using such a mechanism to attack its opponent?
do you support the govt of the day getting away with keeping such activities secret?
do you support the exposure of such activities if they exist?”
I’ll be honest, i haven’t read the book, i’d not pay a dime to support Hagar and his actions, so you’d need to be more specific.
But in a general sense of what the book is about, with the national government leaking the failings of the opposition to a 3rd party. I don’t really have an issue with that no.
In fact i’d prefer it that way.
If i want to read about dirt and negativity, i can go to WO and thestandard.
If i to head about policies and nationals/goverments official stance on matters, its not cluttered by dirt throwing.
Honestly i have a hard time seeing what the difference is between WO and thestandard. Both have ties to their parties, both provide opposing views hidden facts, and dissenting opinions.
“do you understand the legal concept of public interest?”
I can say honestly no i can’t.
I did google it, and this is from the top of the wiki page.
“Public interest law is a somewhat elastic term referring to legal practices that are undertaken on a not for profit basis”
If thats the legal definition, then it clearly excludes Hagar’s actions.
You have little understanding of the material in Dirty Politics, and consequently, running your mouth on the subject makes you look very foolish.
It is kind of strange that Slater isn’t in prison then. After all he stole (by your definition) Blomfields data and then published it.
It is clear that you haven’t read the actual legislation rather than your pathetic distorted and delusional version of it. For instance section 68 of the Evidence Act covering journalists which explicitly states that there are public good considerations. This directly contradicts your idiotic mumblings..
Basically Slater won’t be able to use defamation because Hager didn’t lie about the content of the material that he received (unlike Slater who routinely lies about most things), he just summarized it and wrote an opinion on it. That Slater got upset and whines about it is his problem.
I was waiting for the blomfield’s argument.
As i said before in a previous thread many months ago on this site about blomfield’s data.
If slater did obtain it illegally, he should be held accountable by the law.
I also said there was doubt as to how he obtained it, i suspect it was leaked to him by someone with access to the data, rather then hacked.
Thats the actions of a whistleblower, not a hacker.
Someone within the organization would of given him the data.
If someone from whale oil had leaked those emails to Hager, that’d be the same scenario.
Whistleblower or Hacker. You get to pick one, not both.
I suspect the judge’s judgement on the matter means something, and your ignorance of it is just ignorance, and watching your wittering drivel disintegrate in the face of it (the judgement) leaves me wanting better wingnuts.
Do you ever have anything meaningful to say?
Yes, that your argument wanted on several fronts from the get-go, not least of which is understanding of the law, and also including ignorance of almost every other aspect of the subject under discussion.
Further, that this is a pattern not confined to your behaviour alone, rather one we see repeated ad nauseam.
It’s transparent, and feeble, and a few moment’s thought (and some reading) might help you avoid it.
Surely there’s some conservative viewpoint you can imagine rather than this feeble tea-party melange?
So thats a no then?
You talk so much, and yet say so little, and mostly just for the sake of talking down.
@ Bazar
How do you know they were taken by force? Are you practising your ethics for a verbal test in your law study? What about revealing activities that play around with the rules and expectations of behaviour in our democracy?
Should the police have sent armed men to frighten and immobilise Tuhoe because they were playing games like hunting and shooting with paintballs or rifles and talking wildly, which the police would never have heard if they weren’t listening in and spying on them?
They imagined there was something solid where there was a lot of hot air. Rawshark demonstrated there was something solid when he looked at Cameron Slater’s unethical behaviour and saw the documents that showed it. Which as I said undermines our belief that our democracy is a good one. Which is worst?
I don’t think anyone is disputing the fact that the emails were hacked.
Thats what i mean by force.
Tuhoe has nothing to do with Hagar or Whaleoil, so i’m not going to be sidetracked there.
And as for something being wrong with our democracy, i’d agree.
When political figures can have their personal rights ignored and trampled over, i do fear for our democracy.
The ends do not justify the means.
Including the police?
There are no real checks on them. The IPCA is pretty much a joke. Even when they do manage to find against the police, then typically the police simply ignore the result.
In this case they have clearly have and they are very likely to both have the search warrant eventually overturned and to appeal it whilst holding the ‘evidence’ while they use taxpayer funds to impose a non-legal punishment.
Don’t you think that when the police get things wrong that they should accept some responsibility for their actions, pay costs, compensation, and someone getting fired or demoted?
Currently none of those things happen when the police overstep their bounds.
They are the ones who argue that the means justify the ends because it allows them to provide punishments on activists where the courts wind up as mere bit players. They act as police and judge until overruled by a real judge with no penalty apart from those that we the public impose.
Of course we have to put up with simpering apologists like yourself in the process.. Or do we?
In this case Hager acted as a good journalist should. When a whistle blower gave him some information about underhanded political and commercial tactics, he acted in the public good and published it. Whistleblowers seldom get their material through legal means which amongst other reasons is why we give journalists legal protections to protect their sources. In this case the police appear to wish to obviate those protections, and a normal court (ie not the privacy commission who ruled on David Fisher and who operate under different rules) will almost certainly eventually rule against the police.
Incidentally, I believe that the privacy court will be looking at Cameron Slater’s invasion of Blomfield’s privacy later this month. I’m expecting that Slater is going to get some unpleasant surprises.
“When a whistle blower gave him some information ”
And thats where we disagree fundamentally.
Hacking your victim, stealing his data, and publishing what you want from what you find isn’t whistleblowing. Its being a hacker, it’s a crime, and it should be punished.
By such s disgustingly bad definition of whistleblowing, i could justify hacking any and everyone.
I’ll start tonight, i’ll hack the emails of Cunliff, read all his dirty secrets, learn about who his secret trust funders were, and have it all published.
He can’t complain, i’m just a whistleblower.
How about the private emails of ABC members, i’m sure they have a lot to say that the public should know about Labour and Cunliffe.
And how about you Lprent, hack this server, steal all your membership data, publish all the membership details that people have entered.
Its for the public good, and as long as i get someone else to publish what i find, i’m a whistleblower and should not be prosecuted.
How you can believe a hacker praying on his victim is a whistleblower just because hes leftwing… Whatever it takes to sleep at night i guess.
What you don’t get is that if you found morally reprehensible crap on cunliffe’s computer and a journalist published it, that would still be a public good.
If you found and had published strong indications that national-security classifications didn’t apply to favoured bloggers when Labour is in power, it would still be in the public interest.
And the journalist who publishes it should still be protected from being forced to reveal your identity.
No you couldn’t.
Rawshark hacked Slater. This is against the law and as such should be punished but:
1. Did s/he have just cause? Considering the lies and attack politics of Slater on his blog this is a possible argument
2. Then, instead of publishing everything that they found they gave it to Hager who went through it carefully and published exposing
3. Corrupt, immoral and possibly illegal practices
which fits the definition of whistle-blower
None of which you’d have.
Hager didn’t hack the system, he didn’t really profit from it (have you ever looked at the profit margins for book runs in NZ), he simply exposed it.
So what you are saying is that because you can’t find the actual crim, that you will take any available victim and attack them in their stead.
I have to say that YOUR morals look fucking awful….
@Draco
“Did s/he have just cause? ”
So again we come back to the ends justify the means.
That its okay to ignore the law and rights of others, because you feel you have something to prove.
2. “Then, instead of publishing everything that they found”
Yes, tell that to slater when rawshark was dumping every single email by twitter, including personally private emails about Slater with his mom dying of cancer.
3. I disagree with calling Hagar a whistleblower. But honestly i’m tired of arguing this so i’ll leave that issue alone.
@lprent
Thank you for creating such a large strawman for me. My last comment was clearly about the illegal and immoral hacking activities of a hacker. The only reference to Hagar was as a 3rd party publisher.
@McFlock
“What you don’t get is that if you found morally reprehensible crap on cunliffe’s computer and a journalist published it, that would still be a public good.”
No, i can clearly understand that point. But you’re missing my point.
THE ENDS DO NOT JUSTIFY THE MEANS
You cannot go around breaking peoples rights or property without just cause. And because hes Slater isn’t just cause regardless of how much people here would like to believe that.
We are a country that values freedom and personal rights. To start trampling those core values to promote someone’s/some party’s agenda is to accept corruption at the heart of our society.
“And the journalist who publishes it should still be protected from being forced to reveal your identity.”
And so you’ve given your blessing to vigilantes to break laws and get off scott free, so long as they work as a team of lawbreaker/publisher.
Take a look at my previous post about what a precedence sets. Hacking Cunliffe’s emails would be just the start.
Perhaps these words may ring a bell
“Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.” – B Franklin.
Is anyone saying the hacker shouldn’t be punished if caught and identified and it’s proven they got the right person in court?
If you want to go vigilante to get something, that’s the risk. That hasn’t changed, that’s what the law is.
Do you think the law should be changed? That we should remove journalistic privileges like the public interest defence?
Gpoing on about ‘what if this happened to so sand so’ doesn;t mean anything, because this is how the law already is. If someone hacked Cunliffe of whoever, that would be a crime, of they gave the info to a journalist, that part (giving it to a journo) would not be a crime. If the journo thought there was a public interest element they could publish. That’s a risk insofar as whether or not a court agrees there is a public interest.
In the Dirty Politics case, hell yeah there’s a public interest. Remember the Minister of Justice resigning? I doubt any court would say there was no public interest involved.
and
“Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.” – B Franklin.”
lol what the fuck man? You are the one wanting to restrict the free press. Look up what Ben had to say about that. The quote you cite is better suited to the ‘OMG terrists are gonna kill us all’ debate.
The standard RWNJ capability of having two opposing views at the same time.
Just cause would be due to Slater’s actions.
I didn’t call Hager a whistleblower so this indicates that you either can’t read or you’re trying to distract.
And yet you don’t seem to have any problem with the indications that the National Party have been doing exactly that.
Nope, only if it was justified and in the public interest and what Dirty Politics exposed was.
Bazar,
I wonder, did you quote Ben Franklin when the GCSB’s activities against Kim Dotcom were revealed?
Somehow I doubt it.
Have you considered the liberty that you are giving up, for fear of hacking? The freedom of the press? Franklin, being a printer, probably had a few things to say about that and all.
*groan*
The letter wasn’t about liberty but about taxes and the ability to “raise money for defense against French and Indian attacks. The governor kept vetoing the assembly’s efforts at the behest of the family, which had appointed him.”
Indeed, if you look at the text surrounding the famous quote, it’s pretty clearly about money: “Our assemblies have of late had so many supply bill, and of such different kinds, rejected, on various pretences,” wrote Franklin.
There’s not much on liberty, as we understand the concept, in the entire letter.
http://techcrunch.com/2014/02/14/how-the-world-butchered-benjamin-franklins-quote-on-liberty-vs-security/
Baszar
You don’t want to put your mind to the situation. Just keep revolving your argument. And that the Tuhoe police raid has no connection with this shows that you can’t see the underlying factors in this police raid and that.
The way Mr Hager is being treated could be from the rule book of the stasi. I never thought that this is possible in NZ.
Now over $7000.
We’ve all learnt a lot about the way the Nats government works, thanks to this guy and the whistleblowing hero who went to him.
Our heartfelt thanks are due.
over $11,000 now.
over $11,600 now
I read that Nicky Hager was a trust fund child.
If that’s the case, I don’t think money really is an issue.
[lprent: Read where? Where is your link?
I rather suspect that you are just repeating a smear probably by a blustering and whining technical incompetent liar. I’d suggest that you don’t make a habit of it. ]
You are such a generous spirited person.
BM is the epitome of the right wing Key-love and English-worship.
No humanity. Ugly to the core.
I’m a realist.
Also I think there’s more worthy charity cases than Nicky Hager , yeah it’s a piss, but I don’t think he’ll be too put out by the loss of a computer.
🙄
as if anyone here gives a shit about what your meanspirited self thinks on the matter.
Nah. You’re just ugly-inside and out- but you don’t know. Nothing like a realist.
Just hope you haven’t offspring.
“I read that Nicky Hager was a trust fund child. If that’s the case, I don’t think money really is an issue.”
🙄 Where did you read that, Bollox Man? From memory, he’s one of four kids bought up by parents who both worked for a living in Levin. Yeah, Levin. Glamorous bourgeois Levin, home of the filthy rich since, er, never.
It goes like this:
Step One: write “X has a trust fund”.
Step Two: read what you just wrote.
Step three: add the phrase “I read that” in front of the previous phrase.
With experience, you can move directly to step three.
ONB 7.2.1. Lol ++
BM – Two generations of the Hager family on one side and three on the other have contributed to NZ society in ways far beyond what your pathetic imagination could conceive. It is suggested you pull your head in rather than display such mind numbing ignorance.
My parents owned, quite a large factory in Levin, clothing manufacturer. I didn’t grow up in a state house.
After building houses around Wellington and renovating houses for a while, I am living in the house that I built. And that has, more than any other single thing, allowed me to… I [now] have the security of the house I don’t have to pay a … mortgage on.”
He read it on Blubberblog.
BM, Nicky Hager is a very brave men. In 20 -30 years time people will know who he is/was. I doubt that this is true for you.
Joyously contributed 😀
me too happily
It’s just bizarre.
While it’s easy to embrace the fascism narrative, one would think they wouldn’t be so keen to keep testing the limits of public indifference.
What’s the wider strategy? Apart from perhaps getting it over with well before the next election, is it some kind of provocation or setup for something else? An extra round of intimidation just doesn’t seem a big enough payoff for the risk of backlash.
Or maybe they are simply that confident they can act with impunity … I’m not sure their confidence is misplaced.
This needs to be bigger than a few individuals contributing their $20. It needs to get full coverage.
This is about those at the centre of dirty politics taking their revenge for being exposed. We live in dangerous times.
Am I missing something , but wasn’t Hagar in possession of stolen material? A journalist protecting his source – give me a break.
[lprent: You just described Cameron Slater vs Blomfield. After his 10 hour ordeal last August when all of his computers were seized because he’d received and published stolen emails and documents, journalist Cameron Slater said.. (oops: that was from an alternate universe where the police are impartial rather than John Key’s poodles).
Don’t you stupid dongles ever use your brains? ]
Wow I just wish you RWNJs could move past first base with your arguments. The material was not stolen but was hacked. And please justify how Slater’s treatment of Matt Blomfield is OK but Hager’s treatment of Slater is not.
Where did I say I was defending Slater Iprent and Mickysavage? My point was regading Hagar – ie. the subject of this post.
By the way, real classy with the name calling just because I happen to offer an alternative view.
Lies aren’t “alternative views” – they’re just lies, indicative of ignorance, gullibility or mendacity, and in many cases all three.
I’m picking all three apply in your case.
“Where did I say I was defending Slater Iprent and Mickysavage?”
right here
“Am I missing something , but wasn’t Hagar in possession of stolen material? A journalist protecting his source – give me a break.”
just to bring you up to speed – its the EXACT SAME line used by every other fool and dishonest bullshitter whos been trying to defend slater for months.
you might think your being original – but its been used so much that anyone pulling that particular line out of their backside will meet a pretty swift and stern reactrion
why? because its old, discredited and diversionary bullshit
How can they mickysavage? That’s all they were told to say and there’s been no update since this morning so they don’t know what to say next so they have to keep saying the same thing over and over again. Blubber boy’s slipping up on the job.
you may wish to update your sources on whether the HDD were actually stolen. according to sources they were never reported as such.
[lprent: Blomfield reported them as being stolen when Cameron Slater started writing stories about them. That was in 2012. The complaint appears to have been ignored by the police. Yet Cameron Slater reports it, and Hager gets raided as a witness mere months later. I’d say that the police appear to be corrupt. ]
The judge said that Slater was a journalist and could invoke source protection under the Evidence Act.
However, the judge also granted orders sought by Blomfield that this section of the law not apply to Slater in this case.
There was a “public interest” in the disclosure of the identity of Slater’s informants, Justice Asher said.
“There is a real public interest in those who claim that they are defamed being able to fully explore the circumstances of the defamation…” the judge said.
This was not a whistle blower case and it seemed the information was obtained illegally by sources, which diminished the importance of protecting them, the judge said.
“Moreover, any concern at the chilling effect of disclosure of sources is lessened when the subject matter of the material originally disclosed has the mark of a private feud, and features abusive and vindictive language.”
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11323615
Highlighted: where the judge indicates he thinks it was obtained illegally, and the diffs between what Slater did and Hager.
and if slater is a journalist then hager sure as he is…
This is an almost inevitable consequence of any righteous public actions. We need to be prepared for it.
The other aspect to be aware of is ‘credible deny-ability’ – the person who has initiated this set of raids will have separated themselves far enough so that they can deny all knowledge of the Police actions.
Kia kaha Nicky
Or perhaps they will just say ‘I don’t recall that, but at the end of the day…’
Does anyone know if anything even remotely like this happened during the investigation into The Hollow Men?
Because as I recall there was a police investigation (which resulted in nothing). I don’t know whether they turned over Hager’s house looking for information on the source.
If not, what is different about this case when compared to The Hollow Men?
I don’t think hollow man was a hack, simply national insiders who did not like brash passing on material legitimately in their possession. In the Hagar case a crime was clearly committed, police are in their right to search Hagar on the basis to find the hacker, similarly for all we know Hagar could be the hacker, there is no evidence to the contrary barring Hagar comments which the police can’t accept at face value. If Hagar was not the hacker did he assist indirectly etc thus is complicit in the crime All This bs about the police been JK poodle is ridiculous and really makes you all look a bit silly, but if it makes you feel better that’s ok, no harm done
[lprent: Hager is essentially a technophobe by my standards. He has even fewer technical skills than Cameron Slater. There is no way that he could have done any of the things that rawshark is reported to have done.
The police have had exactly the same complaint made against Cameron Slater. Emails copied from a hard disk and documents that the owner never gave permission to be accessed, and a ‘journalist’ who published them. Yet in the last year they appear to have not bothered to investigate the complaint that was laid.
Whereas Cameron Slater raises his head from licking John Keys arse for a few minutes and the police are all over his complaint. Yeah, the police appear to be John Key’s poodles. They had the exact same alacrity of response in the Ambrose recording in 2011. ]
“All This bs about the police been JK poodle”
so why havent they raided anybody else from the wide pool of people implicated by their own words as revealed in hagers book? (evidence that hasnt been denied challenged or refuted by anyone)
why havent they acted on, and in fact dismissed the other complaints received that implicate ede, key and slater explicitly?
Why did they raid the house of a witness for 10 hours, even when they could be pretty certain they would find nothing?
why does it look like they are going after a radio DJ for encouraging people to vote green on election day but not the all blacks for their tweets in the other direction on the same day? ( here )
why have we had two elections in a row where media who have made JKs life a bit harder have ended up being raided by the cops?
why do breaches of the electoral act (by all parties admitedly) never get looked into by the police?
okay – maybe not JKs poodle explicitly – but are you seriously going to sit there and ignore the rather obvious pattern of police bias and favour that they show to our rulers – and the nats in particular?
Not sure of slater case but Hagar,whale dump etc haven’t helped themselves by playing this up, red rag to a bull in that police had no choice but to act. Was slater more a case of sloppy security and unethical behaviour rather than a crime
legal aid!
Love how when I gave to Hagar fund, my card didn’t get charged an extra $8 like it did when I gave to the Daily Blog !! And for the record, when I commented about it to find out why, my comment never got past moderation.
This Glenn Greenwald article published in the Guardian last year is worth reading. Those RWNJ really do need to stop and think about
how the lack of transparency in government can lead to corrupt practices.
“On whistleblowers and government threats of investigation
No healthy democracy can endure when the most consequential acts of those in power remain secret and unaccountable. Those who step forward to blow these whistles rarely benefit at all. The ones who benefit are you. You discover what you should know but what is hidden from you: namely, the most consequential acts being taken by those with the greatest power, and how those actions are affecting your life, your country and your world.”
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/jun/07/whistleblowers-and-leak-investigations
Right wing nut jobs only understand this argument when Margaret Thatcher is making it in reference to Communists.
All the 47% that voted for this govt, should do what I have just done, watch
CRY FREEDOM
the issue is the ~1.1M non vote and unenrolled.
http://www.getfrank.co.nz/editorial/features/interview-nicky-hager-2
“After building houses around Wellington and renovating houses for a while, I am living in the house that I built. And that has, more than any other single thing, allowed me to… I [now] have the security of the house I don’t have to pay a … mortgage on.”
“My parents owned, quite a large factory in Levin, clothing manufacturer. I didn’t grow up in a state house.”
If you only have financial security because you don’t have to pay a mortgage, your income can’t be very large.
@ johnb 8.26
Your meaning is obscure. What is your point? Thanks for the link, interesting.
its over 15k.
how do we know it is what it says it is?
trust.
nearly $16,000 now.
😉
presumably hager would speak out if he knew nothing of it.
he said he doesn’t know meg the woman that is running it but is grateful. Might have been in the Stuff article?