Day of the Jackoff

Written By: - Date published: 4:04 pm, September 15th, 2010 - 87 comments
Categories: accountability, act, crime, making shit up, national/act government - Tags:

So ACT’s nutcase extraordinaire, the man whose only talent is to make John Boscawen look stable, has done it yet again.

Forever getting attention for all the wrong reasons, David Garrett has now admitted he’s been found guilty of a particularly distasteful dishonesty offence – stealing the identity of a dead infant for the purpose of fraudulently procuring a passport under a false identity.

So how many strikes does that make for Garrett? Dishonesty offence, assault conviction, calls to sterilise the poor, racist outbursts, homophobic outbursts, sexist outbursts, sexual harassment, lying about the lives to be saved by the 3 Strikes Law… the list goes on.

Ideological preferences aside, is this really the sort of person we want in Parliament? Will Hide or Key act like leaders and dismiss Garrett? Or will it be, like Andy Haden, another case of missing the opportunity to do the right thing and only firing Garrett when he inevitably screws up again and again and again, until belatedly doing the right thing is the only option left?

87 comments on “Day of the Jackoff ”

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  1. the pink postman 1
    14 September 2010 at 3:10 pm

    What a two faced lot of creeps these ACT people are . Hide with his double standards regarding perks .Garret with his rambling comments about crime and Douglas who was elected in the 1980s on false pretences .Lets hope this latest revelation will be the last nail in the coffin.

    • paula 1.1
      16 September 2010 at 12:26 pm

      [deleted]

      [lprent: As much as I personally dislike the SST, that comment dropped well over the edge. It was straight unsubstantiated defamation. ]

  2. ABC 2
    15 September 2010 at 1:34 pm

    Strikes are only for violent crimes as far as I know. But creating a false identity in the 1980s, that was discovered 2005, but was “just a prank of a young man”; how does that happen unless you were making a gain from that identity all that time? I can’t imagine a court being interested in a 20 year old identity issue if it was dormant. Someone must have known all along, or dug it up, tried to take him down in 2005 and is now back for more by passing it to Guyon Espiner. And some pretty amateur media handling by Garret during the footage. This issue is more damaging than the possibly false tongan assault conviction. Either way, ACT are taking a thrashing of late.

    • mcflock 2.1
      15 September 2010 at 5:28 pm

      nope – they put new systems in place and picked up the backlog of old cases. I remember a couple in the court news at the time, just folk who had done it then got sprung later on.

  3. Treetop 3
    15 September 2010 at 2:36 pm

    Garrett needs to use parliamentary privilege to have his police file on identity theft tabled in the house, incase he is not coming clean about the truth. Hide will probably object to this in record time. Hide what goes around comes around.

    • ABC 3.1
      15 September 2010 at 3:08 pm

      Just heard Garret give an explanation. He used a theory from the book Day of the Jackal and used the name of a dead baby to get a false passport.

      Hey, ACT, among your higly intelligent members have you any PR consultants? A member of parliament talking about stealing the identity of a dead baby is the fast track to obscurity! Good grief. It might be the truth but Garret’s deadpan voice “…I stole the identity of a baby who is now dead…” is a PR nightmare. I bet he’ll be gone soon.

      • Treetop 3.1.1
        15 September 2010 at 3:59 pm

        Did the PM know about Garrett stealing the identity of a deceased baby when Garrett was appointed to cabinet?

        Would Garret have been elected by the list Act Party voters had stealing identity been revealed?

        What does the police file say?

        Why was Garrett not charged?

        It does not wear with me to ignore such behaviour by an elected member of parliament even though they have not been charged. Garrett was an adult when he deliberately stole a dead baby’s identity.

        • Bright Red 3.1.1.1
          15 September 2010 at 5:02 pm

          Garrett’s not a minister, that’s Boscawen.

          Garrett was charged and found guilty but disharged without conviction.

          • Treetop 3.1.1.1.1
            15 September 2010 at 5:18 pm

            I thought that Garrett is a minister outside of cabinet. I realised my error. Correct me if I am wrong.

            • Bright Red 3.1.1.1.1.1
              15 September 2010 at 5:34 pm

              Nah, it’s Boscawen. Garrett is unusual as a first-term backbencher in getting his 3-strikes law through but that was because the government picked it up.

  4. mickysavage 4
    15 September 2010 at 2:38 pm

    So he is a fraudster as well as a thug?

  5. pollywog 5
    15 September 2010 at 4:18 pm

    Don’t even give this chump another strike. Bum rush his fool ass clean out of parliament i say…

    …the sooner, the better

    • Tigger 5.1
      15 September 2010 at 7:18 pm

      He’s already had that third strike anyway, laying down with the rotting corpse of the Act party surely constitutes necrophilia.

  6. billy fish 6
    15 September 2010 at 4:19 pm

    Quite simply with the Roy debacle Hide can’t afford another change of personnel and corresponding ructions.
    He stays and makes more foo foos

    John Key must be having a few face plants on this one

  7. Bright Red 7
    15 September 2010 at 4:26 pm

    I wonder how the Police tracked him down. Yeah, the Israeli spy scandal started them looking at passports, but working out that Garrett had been the one who got the passport, even with the clue of his photo, shouldn’t have been easy if he was otherwise unknown to the police… more to this methinks.

    • mcflock 7.1
      15 September 2010 at 4:56 pm

      that is, of course, ruling out that he put himself down as a witness on the passport application (ISTR 2 other people have to sign off on the application form). 🙂

      Alternatively they might have simply found the postal address it was sent to in their records and crossreferenced that with driver’s licenses, property ownership records, or other passports. He had to get it into his hands somehow.

      The interesting one was the Israelis – my recollection from the case was that the identities they stole were of living people, but institutionalised/invalids. My gentle guessing at the time is that the power that let them cf. passports with births/deaths also let them maybe look at invalids benefits.

      • Lindsey 7.1.1
        15 September 2010 at 5:40 pm

        Easy to trace – the witness has to have valid NZ passport. And they check that. So- either he used his own passport and signed as his own witness (another false statement) or his witness was prosecuted along with him and gave him up.

  8. mickysavage 8
    15 September 2010 at 4:27 pm

    Oh the irony!!

    The man who rails against weak judges and hits over the hand with a wet bus ticket received exactly this treatment himself.

    The man who wants zero tolerance for crime was shown a great deal of tolerance by our and the Tongan judiciary.

    That gurgling sound you can hear is Act’s chances at the next election going down the drain.

    But why was he selected as an MP when Hide knew about these problems before selection was complete?

    And I wonder what Cameron will say?

    • J Mex 8.1
      15 September 2010 at 6:53 pm

      Don’t know what happened there…

      To repost

      Oh the irony!!

      The man who rails against weak judges and hits over the hand with a wet bus ticket received exactly this treatment himself.

      Garret needs to resign. What a muppet.

      P.S. Anyone who has bothered to look into the Tongan thing, should realise that there was probably very little that Garret did wrong. This one is a complete absence of judgement.

    • Anne 8.2
      15 September 2010 at 9:21 pm

      “But why was he selected as an MP when Hide knew about these problems before selection was complete?”

      Remember reading somewhere that SS Trust was receiving large amounts of money from an American source. Maybe some of it ended up in Act’s campaign coffer. Payback? Act MP Garrett.

      Garth MCVicar was funny on Checkpoint tonight. Talk about a slippery eel… ducking and diving for cover. Must have had some C/T training too.

  9. Tammy Gordon 9
    15 September 2010 at 4:37 pm

    Damn my liberal heart! I swear to god I’m starting to feel sorry for Rodney.

    • the sprout 9.1
      15 September 2010 at 4:38 pm

      resist the urge, they would never return the favour

      • J Mex 9.1.1
        15 September 2010 at 6:42 pm

        The man who rails against weak judges and hits over the hand with a wet bus ticket received exactly this treatment himself.

        Bang on. What a drop kick.

        Rodney, do the right thing and get rid of this muppet.

  10. tc 10
    15 September 2010 at 4:42 pm

    Art imitates life…..from Blackadder 3 “….to be an MP you’ll need at least fraud and sexual deviancy…’

    Act appears to have set the bar somewhat higher….lets not forget garretts sexual harrassment issues and remember he’s a lawyer who doesn’t appear to grasp the law !

    He’s almost overqualified for ACT….sideshow doesn’t give a toss, you have to care to be concerned.

  11. pollywog 11
    15 September 2010 at 4:42 pm

    The court accepted that the consequences of a conviction for this offence would have consequences out of all proportion to the offending

    Uhh dude…YOU KNOWINGLY AND INTENTIONALLY ASSUMED THE IDENTITY OF A DEAD CHILD !!!

    Thats what i find really offensive.

    If you were prepared to do the crime you should be prepared to do the time…whatever that is

    The consequences being proportionate to the crime is what makes 3 strikes suck if you’re convicted on a lesser charge for your 3rd strike.

    and what exactly makes your punishment disproportionate ? The fact you never used the passport ? but dude…

    YOU KNOWINGLY AND INTENTIONALLY ASSUMED THE IDENTITY OF A DEAD CHILD !!!

    sweet…so i’ll rob a bank and never use the money. Maybe donate it to charity and when i get busted eventually i’ll try to use your justification too eh ?

    How far do you reckon that’ll wash with the judge. Me being poor and brown and all ?

    i just cant get over that…

    YOU KNOWINGLY AND INTENTIONALLY ASSUMED THE IDENTITY OF A DEAD CHILD !!!

    • toad 11.1
      15 September 2010 at 4:52 pm

      It is not a “fact” that he never used the passport. That is his assertion. By the time the case came to Court, the passport had expired and had been destroyed. So there is no evidence that he used the passport, which is different from evidence that it had never been used.

      Some OIAs to Internal Affairs, Immigration, and Customs to attempt to identify the name the passport was in and see if it had been used might be worth an effort, although it is still doubtful there will be good records that far back.

      • mcflock 11.1.1
        15 September 2010 at 4:59 pm

        that’s just what the family of the dead kid needs – if they give it to somebody responsible, they’ll also give it to the MSM. Just when ChCh is losing its amazing impact, too.

      • pollywog 11.1.2
        15 September 2010 at 5:21 pm

        It is not a “fact” that he never used the passport.

        Oops..My bad

        …and doesn’t that make things worse if it’s found out he used it.

        most obvious use i can think of would be benefit fraud. I’d check bank accounts and social welfare for dole payments in the 80’s under the dead childs name.

        • toad 11.1.2.1
          15 September 2010 at 8:30 pm

          Now, that is an interesting option. Work and Income copy passports if they are used as ID for for benefit applications. That’s worth a look via the OIA too, assuming we can get the name of the deceased person whose identity Garrett stole from DIA, because Work and Income should have a record of any benefit claimed under that name.

      • ghostwhowalksnz 11.1.3
        15 September 2010 at 6:14 pm

        Garrett says HE never used the passport, leaves a wide open gap to be used by someone else. Especially with an old photo who knows

        • felix 11.1.3.1
          15 September 2010 at 6:46 pm

          Actually we have no way of knowing if it was ever used by Garrett either – only his say-so.

          Presumably it would be simple enough to find out if it had ever been used for travel purposes, but even if not, there’s no way to be sure it wasn’t used as ID to falsely obtain credit or commit any other crimes.

        • Vicky32 11.1.3.2
          16 September 2010 at 7:27 pm

          And, I’ve learned from 3 News tonight, a photo in a rather lame disguise – dyed hair and glasses!
          Deb

    • Bored 11.2
      15 September 2010 at 4:53 pm

      SENTENCING JUDGE TO POLLY….Polly, it was your gang patch….being brown has got nothing to do with the huge sentence I am now going to give you.

      SENTENCING JUDGE TO GARRETT…You come from a nice supportive family and wear a beautiful suit, now if your not careful next time I will have to imprison you with societies dregs and a whole pile of Maori gang members…fined 50 cents and may God have mercy…..

  12. MikeE 12
    15 September 2010 at 4:49 pm

    Twitter… need more #GarrettBookInspirations

  13. mcflock 13
    15 September 2010 at 5:01 pm

    did I mention I spluttered my coffee when I read the post title? Damned fine title.

  14. lprent 14
    15 September 2010 at 5:02 pm

    Congrats to the sprout for the really great title.

    Update: someone broke the numbering with a comment deletion. Good been looking for a place to look at this

  15. Bright Red 15
    15 September 2010 at 5:08 pm

    A lawyer usually can’t be admitted to the bar have a conviction against their name. Might explain why he was discharged without conviction, presuming Garrett was either already a lawyer or at law school at the time.

    when was he meant to be an oil rig worker again? I’m guessing he was actually a lawyer for an oil company.

    • joe bloggs 15.1
      15 September 2010 at 5:40 pm

      presuming Garrett was either already a lawyer or at law school at the time.

      Presumption incorrect.

      He got this passport in 1984 but didn\’t enroll in the University of Canterbury until 1986. As I said eariler not a student prank but a pre-student prank

      • felix 15.1.1
        15 September 2010 at 6:09 pm

        And as I said the only source for it being any sort of prank is Garrett himself.

        And seeing as how he’s the kind of guy who steals the identity of a dead baby, I’d say you’re a fucking idiot if you believe anything he says.

        How old was he when he did this disgusting deed btw? You’re trying to paint it as an adolescent jape but he must’ve been an adult in the 1980s, surely.

      • Marty G 15.1.2
        15 September 2010 at 11:26 pm

        Actually, joe bloggs, Bright Red has a point. You see, Garrett was a lawyer when he was tried. Oh DtB has made that point.

    • Draco T Bastard 15.2
      15 September 2010 at 6:58 pm

      And he wasn’t in court over it until 2005. Being convicted of this would have disbarred him.

  16. SHG 16
    15 September 2010 at 5:15 pm

    Will Hide or Key act like leaders and dismiss Garrett?

    Hint: only one of those people is the leader of ACT.

  17. Tammy Gordon 17
    15 September 2010 at 5:22 pm

    Serves Act right for getting into bed with the devil aka The Sensible Sentencing Trust. Peter Dunne did better when he got into bed with god via the Future NZ party. Although all those bright and shiny MPs didn’t last very long bless ’em, and you never really got to know a single one of their names but at least they didn’t die a loud and humiliating death from from hypocrisitis.

  18. Policy Parrot 18
    15 September 2010 at 5:23 pm

    So that’s Strike 2 I assume?

  19. mickysavage 19
    15 September 2010 at 5:39 pm

    Did I hear Radio New Zealand right and did Garth McVicar of Sensible Sentencing Trust know about this previously?

  20. felix 20
    15 September 2010 at 5:48 pm

    Hey Rodney,

    is this another example of how the ACT caucus is representative of normal kiwis who don’t necessarily have spotless pasts?

    Or is it just what it looks like – a violent criminal, habitual drunk, sexual pest and unashamed bigot stealing a dead baby’s identity?

    • rosy 20.1
      15 September 2010 at 6:23 pm

      Oh I hope they don’t sack him! That would give NACT a teensy bit of credibility. The next person on the list has gotta be an improvement

      😉 Just joking

    • Billy Fish 20.2
      16 September 2010 at 1:15 pm

      Just while we are kicking him while he’s down,,,,, and he SOOOO deserves it,,,,, the man Garrett has a reputation in the legal world of being a sleaze bag.

  21. aj 21
    15 September 2010 at 6:02 pm

    Scum. I know a lot of people who did stupid things 30 years ago but none of them – NONE – stops so long as this scum did.

  22. Vicky32 22
    15 September 2010 at 6:05 pm

    I am just hearing TV3’s take on this… Garrett is shown as saying (with a scary flat affect) that he “was curious to see if such a thing could be done”. He’s old enough to have known at the time, that the Mr Asia drug syndicate used to do the same thing, news I remember hearing a lot longer ago than 26 years!
    Then JonKey says in effect ‘nothing to do with me’… Ma daiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!
    Deb

    • J Mex 22.1
      15 September 2010 at 6:58 pm

      It’s the child porn defense – ‘I was just curious.’

      I don’t care.

      It’s seriously wrong.

  23. felix 23
    15 September 2010 at 6:13 pm

    Bye Garrett. Crook.

    Bye Rodney. Dupe and hypocrite.

    Bye ACT. Bunch of lying, corrupt, selfish, immoral, racist, solipsistic fuckwits.

  24. ABC 24
    15 September 2010 at 6:29 pm

    “Espiner clarified for Garrett, a former barrister, that ONE News understood Garrett has been discharged without conviction on a charge of creating a false identity.”

    In that case, did Guyon knowingly break name suppression for the 2005 case? Political curries: you just have to be in the same room to get the shits.

  25. Rex Widerstrom 25
    15 September 2010 at 6:37 pm

    Now I see why Garrett refuses to believe in the possibility of redemption for any criminal. Redemption relies upon accepting not just the facts of your action but its wrongness, and the wrongness of your intent.

    It requires empathy (something lacking in psychopaths and sociopaths) to understand the hurt your actions have caused (in this case to the memory of a dead child and the feelings of all his relatives).

    It means you end up punishing yourself far harder than any justice system could do.

    But a prequisite to all of this is shame. And clearly, Garrett has none.

    • Macro 25.1
      15 September 2010 at 7:49 pm

      Well said Rex.
      This is the nub of the issue. Garrett (and SST) cannot understand the concept of the redemptive process. Their whole focus is on punishment.
      Will garret punish himself one wonders?

    • toad 25.2
      15 September 2010 at 9:01 pm

      “Sociopath” explains it completely, doesn’t it Rex.. I think you are onto something there. Wonder if Lhaws will pop up in Garrett’s defence?

  26. rosy 26
    15 September 2010 at 6:48 pm

    BTW does anyone know how old was he when he did this 26 years ago? I can’t see anything about his age on his FB page or the ACT website – he looks way too old for it being an excusable young man’s prank

  27. Johnno 27
    15 September 2010 at 7:03 pm

    That’s shocking behaviour by Garrett. This is definitely someone who should not be in Parliament. A lot of politicians are self serving arseholes but it’s the dishonest ones I can’t stand. Ethics are obviously optional down there.

  28. prism 28
    15 September 2010 at 7:48 pm

    Garrett did say he did the dead baby identity passport thing as an exercise to see how easily it could be done. Years ago the anti homosexual and everything campaigner Patricia ? did a similar thing in ordering mens mags that were banned in NZ from Oz. and copped flak for it even though she had been a nun.

    antispam – decent

    • Macro 28.1
      15 September 2010 at 7:59 pm

      Bartlett

    • Vicky32 28.2
      15 September 2010 at 8:16 pm

      Although he must have known that it could be, and was done, as the Mr Asia syndicate fuss was oin the media in about 82… and that was one of the things that came out, that they did it… So unless he was asleep from 1978 to 1986, mind you that’s always possible (or was that when he was being an oil rig worker?)
      Deb

  29. Gotham 29
    15 September 2010 at 8:05 pm

    I just can’t get over how far over the line he went doing this in the first place. To say that this was an error of judgement is so understating it, it is completely farcial. Because he read it in a BOOK???? I am in my late 20s, and the type of person Garrett would hate. I would never think it was acceptable to STEAL THE IDENTITY OF A DEAD BABY for a bit of fun.

    I remember a story coming into the news ages ago about the impact of someone stealing the identity of dead child on the family of the dead child. It sounded awful. I googled (not really thinking I would find it), but found this instead. Here are some interesting clips:

    “The Department of Internal Affairs says criminals attempting passport fraud are most likely to be caught and punished, no matter how long ago the crime occurred….Department of Internal Affairs Passports Manager, David Philp, says passport fraud is a crime with serious consequences, as well as being emotionally disturbing and offensive to innocent people. Often, as in this case, the criminal has used the name of a dead baby to obtain a false passport. This is very distressing for the bereaved family.”

    (and also) Statement from a victim of another false passport application:

    “The pain we have suffered was strange after all these years. I felt an intrusion into our private lives as well as old wounds reopened. It was extremely upsetting to learn that our baby brother’s identity was callously stolen.”

    (http://www.dia.govt.nz/press.nsf/d77da9b523f12931cc256ac5000d19b6/435c699f4eaf47edcc2571af001a34e0!OpenDocument)

    Oh – but it’s all good. Garrett got the idea from reading A BOOK!!!

  30. travellerev 30
    15 September 2010 at 8:25 pm

    Didn’t Tim Selwyn get a jail sentence for doing the same in part?

  31. nzfp 31
    15 September 2010 at 8:44 pm

    So does that mean that David Garret is working for Israel? I guess we can assume that passport wasn’t used in Dubai or maybe it was?!? It may be worth checking if that passport ever went to Dubai?

  32. Rharn 32
    15 September 2010 at 9:11 pm

    The moral high ground is indeed a slippery slope. If ya gona go there ya better not have any baggage to drag ya down. Bit late for Hide and his slippery mate.

  33. Lez Howard 33
    16 September 2010 at 6:43 am

    Is the NACT cloning Laurel and Hardy,s

  34. Bright Red 34
    16 September 2010 at 9:52 am

    Armstrong basically stole your line, sprout:

    “Yesterday was not so much the Day of the Jackal – the Frederick Forsyth thriller from which Act MP David Garrett took the idea of stealing the identity of a long dead baby to procure a fraudulent passport for himself.

    Yesterday was the Day of the Jackass”

  35. mickysavage 35
    16 September 2010 at 6:33 pm

    This just got worse for Garrett. According to TVone he told the North Shore Court in 2005 that he had no convictions, either in New Zealand or Tonga.

    He had the assault conviction in 2002 and obviously knew about it.

    Liar liar …

  36. Observer 36
    16 September 2010 at 11:04 pm

    I heard a radio commentator say that Rodney has to keep Garrett because the next two on the ACT list are on Heather Roys side of the party.If Garrett goes a leadership challenge will see Rodney lose.

    • Vicky32 36.1
      17 September 2010 at 6:21 pm

      Latest news apparently is that Garrett has quit and taken 2 weeks off to ‘reflect’… sounds familiar! 😀
      Deb

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