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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Last Monday SpaceX launched another clutch of Starlink satellites into low-Earth orbit, bringing up to 300 the number of these units intended to bring 5G internet to the whole globe. In this post I present a movie showing how all 300 such satellites will be zipping around our planet over ...
The recent floods in Southland have highlighted the issue of Rio Tinto's illegal toxic waste dump in Mataura. But according to Newsroom, there's an even worse mess in Ruakaka near Whangarei:A Northland property stockpiled one million litres of flammable and toxic chemicals. Almost two years since the situation came to ...
It’s amazing just how many attack ads $100,000 buys you these days. The National Party has really been going to town lately, with their latest Twitter campaign making a number of questionable and blatantly false assertions, one being that poverty has worsened under the Labour led Government.The National Party's claim ...
OMV's exploratory drilling in the Great South Basin has failed to find oil. Good. Firstly, because we can't afford to burn the oil and gas we've already found, so there's just no point looking for more. And secondly, because offshore, deep-water drilling poses a risk of an environmental catastrophe, which ...
The government has announced it will strengthen whistleblower protections. The major change is "allowing people to report serious wrongdoing direct to an external authority if they wish", which fixes one of the big flaws in the Act. At present, whistleblowers must generally make their disclosure direct to the body they ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Bruce Lieberman CARLSBAD, CA. – When it comes to paying the electric bill, most people don’t give it a second thought – it’s something that in effect is “baked in.” But across California and several other states, local governments increasingly are ...
Excerpts from Being and Being Bought, by Kajsa Ekis Ekman, Spinifex Press, 2013. Part 4 Ekman, a Swedish journalist and critic, brings together a Marxist and feminist analysis of prostitution and surrogacy in this groundbreaking book. This is the fourth part of a synopsis and brief commentary of the book by Daphna ...
The Democracy Virus: China’s authoritarian political system enables a level of social surveillance and control that liberal democratic societies cannot match. The Chinese Government makes full use of the latest digital technology to both punish – and reward – its citizens. The plans it formulates cannot be challenged, or hindered. Where ...
Another day, another IPCA report on criminal conduct by policy. This time they kicked a child in the head when he was handcuffed:Police chased him and yelled out for him to stop. When he turned to face the police, he threatened them with a hammer. That's when the officers tasered ...
The investigation of two of the five parties in Parliament for fraud around their election donations has pushed the issue of party funding back into the spotlight. And while there are obvious things we can do to tighten up the donations regime - a much lower declaration threshold, realtime disclosure ...
While the south of New Zealand has been struggling with too much rain in recent days, here in the north we are so very short of it (though Saturday’s forecast looks promising). Basically, we have had almost none since Christmas.As someone who relies on rain to wash the car, ...
Former National Party MP Jami-Lee RossIt comes as no surprise that Jami-Lee Ross has been named as one of the defendants in the X2 $100,000 National Party donations case currently before the courts. Click bait journalists who were chaffing at the bit to discredit the former senior whip had already ...
Stand Clear! Winston Peters is encouraging voters to think of RNZ as belonging to “The Media Party”. He wants them to see it as a politically partisan institution with its own, vicious attack-dogs in the electoral fight. If he succeeds, it will be, and probably should be, the end of ...
"You're going to need a longer runway" Gratton et al explore the ongoing effects of upward-creeping temperatures on aviation in Greece in the period since 1955 at a range of airports in that country. For longer runways impacts are measurable but with little impact on operations. For airports with shorter runways, ...
In mid-December the Israeli secret police, the Shin Beit, revealed it had arrested dozens of Palestinian left-wing activists, including members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), in the previous few months. Among those arrested was one of the central leaders of the PFLP, Khalida Jarrar. As ...
Former National Party chief whip Jami-Lee Ross is one of the four people charged over National's multiple fraudulent donations. How unsurprising. Meanwhile, just days ago National leader Simon Bridges was trying to pretend the charges were nothing to do with his party. Yeah, right. When your chief whip effectively publicly ...
If you've been watching FYI for a while, you'll have noticed that the police have a bad habit of demanding ID from requesters. They have apparently been repeatedly told to stop doing this by the Ombudsman, but we all know what law enforcement thinks of the law, so thye keep ...
Collateral Damage: For the Green Phoenix to be reborn, the funeral pyre so patiently assembled by its identity politicians over the course of many fractious years – but with growing intensity over the past three – first has to be ignited. The terrible probability, of course, is that, in setting ...
If you follow politics in New Zealand you've likely noticed that the right wing have been going on and on about the Coalition Government failing to reduce poverty. In fact they’ve been incessantly claiming, in the absence of any conclusive data, that poverty has been getting worse.Yesterday, NewstalkZB reported:Mike Hosking: ...
The Herald reported over the weekend that an Auckland business owner is being targeted with asset forfeiture laws over a workplace death:A workplace fatality has seen police use a law usually associated with drugs and organised crime to seize millions of dollars in assets from a business owner because of ...
Just days after talking about how people feel "squeezed" and promising tax and service cuts as a "solution", National is talking about cancelling a rise in the minimum wage if elected: National is considering scrapping the Government's planned minimum wage increase if it wins this year's election, the party's finance ...
Nobody thinks about the next century anymore. That at least is Sci-Fi writer William Gibson’s observation (in this BBC 4 short interview, starting at 1:43:50 ). He calls it “Futures Fatigue”, but isn’t judgemental about it. Gibson notes that in the 20th century speculation about the 21st (and beyond) was common. Now ...
A Labour government desperate for the numbers crawls into bed with Winston Peters. Winston ignores the law and secretly takes money under the table from someone. When it is exposed just months out from an election, he is investigated by the Serious Fraud Office. That's what happened back in 2008. ...
So the Serious Fraud Office has another secret $100,050 National Party donation before the Courts in a major scandal that looks set to quash any chances Simon Bridges had of winning the 2020 election.Yesterday, Newsroom reported:The Serious Fraud Office prosecution of four people over donations to the National Party involves ...
Story of the Week... Toon of the Week... Coming Soon on SkS... Climate Feedback Claim Review... Poster of the Week... SkS Week in Review... Story of the Week... Iceberg twice the size of Washington, D.C., breaks off Pine Island glacier in Antarctica Story Highlights: The Pine Island ...
Prof Philippa Howden-ChapmanHousing policy is building up to be the key election issue again. In this blog I reflect on the importance of the role of the New Zealand Government in improving access to affordable housing. I look at what the Government has been doing to increase quality public housing ...
Writing on The Spinoff, Danyl Mclauchlan argues that we have a vacuum in our political system, in that there is no longer an anti-establishment party anymore:I think there’s a vacuum in our political system. There are obvious problems with the status quo but no real critics offering reform. It’s a ...
Stuff today has a piece about the government discovering it has been oversubsidising polluters for a decade under the Emissions Trading scheme:The Government is pledging to urgently fix an issue within the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), after it emerged some polluters are likely being over-compensated with taxpayer-funded carbon credits. [...] ...
The Marlborough District Council, tired of public scrutiny, wants to increase the amount it charges for LGOIMA requests:The cost of requesting official information from Marlborough's government agency could almost double after a jump in "fishing expeditions". Charges could be raised from $60 to $100 an hour for information supplied by ...
When Winston Peters was caught money laundering donations and stalking journalists, the Greens were conspicuous by their silence. It was another example of how getting along with their government partners was eroding their values and their own reputation. It was obviously unsustainable, and so now James Shaw has finally spoken ...
I am among the most pro-free speech people I know. I don’t doubt there are others more strident than me, but I’m certainly up there. And my support for freedom of expression isn’t limited to opposition to government-imposed restrictions. It extends to a belief that employers should have limited powers ...
With over 69,000 confirmed cases and 1,600 deaths, here’s your round-up of the latest coronavirus news. New disease and virus have now officially been named On the 11th February, the WHO Director General announced a new name for the disease: COVID-19 which is short for coronavirus disease 2019. The naming ...
A chronological listing of news articles linked to on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week, i.e., Sun, Feb 9, 2020 through Sat, Feb 15, 2020 Editor's Pick ANALYSIS-Climate change opens up 'frontier' farmland, but at what cost to the planet?Climate change could expand farmland globally by ...
After cross-examination Jones knew he would lose the defamation case he took against film maker Renae Maihi. That’s why he threw in the towel. The weight of evidence was clearly against the old tycoon with the defense presenting fifty articles to confirm Jones’ racist views.Being unable to harass somebody into ...
Sprung! Former NZ First president, Lester Gray, chats with RNZ's Guyon Espiner in the carpark of a Tauranga shopping centre.(Photo supplied anonymously to NZ First and The BFD.)IT’S CLEAR THAT an important aspect of Jacinda Ardern’s political success is her willingness to seek – and take – advice. This ...
Ruth Cunningham, Charlotte Paul, Andrew MoorePublic health responses to infectious diseases such as COVID-19 require us to draw on our common humanity and be explicit about our values. Recognising this will help us make good decisions in difficult situations so that, for example, the need to impose restrictive measures ...
The Helen Clark Foundation has released its report on the housing crisis, and found that house-hoarders are to blame for it:Property investors are to blame for New Zealand's high house prices, a new research paper published by the Helen Clark Foundation says. [...] McArthur said previous attempts to address housing ...
The Abortion Legislation Committee has reported back on the Abortion Legislation Bill and recommended that it be passed with some amendments. Unfortunately, the latter include even more hoops to jump through for those seeking abortions after 20 weeks, including a time-wasting requirement to consult a second doctor. No-one casually seeks ...
Brexit is likely to be a disaster for the UK (how sad, never mind). But now that they're out of the EU, the latter has finaly taken the opportunity to blacklist one of their key tax havens:The Cayman Islands, a British overseas territory, is to be put on an EU ...
I’m not quite sure of what to make of the new figures for COVID-19 (as we must now call the novel coronavirus – though I’m not sure the capitalisation is correct) from Hubei province:Image from https://www.bbc.com/news/world-51495484The spike yesterday is a consequence of a using a different way of ...
Bob Jones has dropped his defamation case against Renae Maihi. Good. But at the same time, it perfectly exposes what the case was all about: not protecting Jones' reputation, but punishing someone who had dared to criticise him, and deterring others from doing the same. This rich pompous asshat dragged ...
As I've done for the past few years, I'm curating and presenting The Listening Lounge, the talk programme at Splore. On the morning of Saturday the 22nd at the Living Lounge stage, the korero goes like this.Yes, we're talking about drugs again, not just because I'm professionally interested in drug ...
What Were They Thinking? RNZ's CEO Paul Thompson (left) and Jim Mather, Chairman of the RNZ Board of Governors, attempt to justify the debacle arising out of their attempt to downgrade RNZ Concert to the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Select Committee at Parliament on Thursday, 13 February 2020.WHAT IS ...
Dame Tariana Turia with former PM John KeyWhat is it about Tariana Turia’s grudge against the Labour Party? Not content with attacking the Government over Whānau Ora funding, which was increased by $80 million in 2019, she has now made it personal by saying that Jacinda Ardern is out of her ...
Back in 2017, right after being elected, Jacinda Ardern promised that there would be no new mines on conservation land. Since then, her government has done nothing to make that happen, and now the policy has been officially "parked" for the election:West Coast-Tasman MP Damien O'Connor says the "no new ...
So the guy who advocated for public burning and beheading feels offended because someone called him a racist!Perhaps Bob Jones hasn't heard of the very old saying; Live by the sword, die by the sword?I mean for someone who often writes opinionated nonsense about Maori; this is a ridiculous case ...
The government today announced a major support package aimed at reducing homelessness. A thousand new transitional housing places, more support for people to find homes (or not lose them in the first place), all good stuff. The one problem with it is that they're going to start charging people in ...
Courtroom Drama: There is no off-switch in a courtroom. Neither is it possible to turn the page in disgust. Ill-formed and ill-defended opinions will be exposed ruthlessly and unapologetically. As Shakespeare put it: “Reputation is an idle and most false imposition; oft got without merit, and lost without deserving.” Sometimes the ...
As of today, the novel coronavirus spreading in China is called COVID-19. Why does it matter? Around the office, we’ve had several conversations over the past few weeks about how 2019-nCoV needed its own name. First, it was getting annoying calling it by the above designation, and ‘novel coronavirus’ doesn’t ...
by Philip Ferguson Last month B’Tselem, the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, reported: “In 2019, Israeli security forces killed 133 Palestinians, including 28 minors. Of the casualties, 104 were killed in the Gaza Strip, 26 in the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) and three within ...
A ballot for a single Member's Bill was held today, and the following bill was drawn: Arms (Firearms Prohibition Orders) Amendment Bill (No 2) (Brett Hudson)Its basicly more "tough on crime" nonsense (its already illegal for unlicensed people to own guns) designed to wedge NZ First against its arsehole base. ...
Kids learn better with a full stomach. That's why we launched our Lunches in Schools programme, which is already providing free and healthy school lunches to thousands of children so they can focus on what's important - learning. ...
Mark Patterson MP, New Zealand First List MP based in Clutha-Southland This afternoon to a crowd of over 100 people in Mataura -- Mark Patterson, New Zealand First List MP based in Clutha-Southland launched a parliamentary petition regarding the aluminium dross issue in Mataura, Southland. The petition asks that the ...
Fletcher Tabuteau MP, Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Regional Economic Development New Zealand First Deputy Leader and Spokesperson for Finance, Fletcher Tabuteau has welcomed Statistics New Zealand’s latest report as a timely reminder of the value that this Coalition Government brings to every day New Zealanders: “This Coalition Government has meant a ...
Today New Zealand First made a pledge to campaign at the election to fund St John Ambulance the 90 per cent it has asked for. Government funding would allow St. John’s to achieve fully funded status. Leader of New Zealand First, Rt Hon Winston Peters publicly declared his determination to deliver ...
Darroch Ball MP, Spokesperson for Law and Order Newly released Police data shows once again the number of fleeing drivers have continued to skyrocket with a record 512 incidents occurring in December – almost tripling the number of incidents occurring just ten years ago, says New Zealand First Law and ...
While the Provincial Growth Fund has provided $2 million to set up temporary water supplies in Kaikohe and Kaitaia, Regional Economic Minister Shane Jones said he is greatly concerned that there are “issues” in implementing the projects. The Minister said the immediate solution was to pipe water from a bore ...
Mark Patterson MP, New Zealand First List MP for Clutha-Southland NZ First is calling on Rio Tinto to accept its responsibilities to the Southland community and enable the immediate removal of the toxic Aluminium Dross from the Mataura Paper Mill site. New Zealand First List MP for Clutha-Southland, Mark Patterson ...
The Coalition Government has announced that a further $500,000 will be given to help residents in Southland and Otago to speed up recovery efforts from the floods. It follows prior government assistance of $200,000 earlier this month where the Southland Mayoral Relief Fund received $100,000 to support communities impacted by ...
Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones was on RNZ’s Morning Report talking about the recent droughts in the Northland region and what the Provincial Growth Fund (PGF) is doing to alleviate its impact. The PGF recently announced a funding of $2 million for temporary water supplies to Kaikohe and Kaitaia, ...
Speaking to The Country’s Jamie Mackay, New Zealand First MP and Cabinet Minister Shane Jones talks water storage, plant-based meat imitation, and superstar Hollywood director James Cameron. While water storage may have its critics, Minister Jones defended the scheme by saying: “unless we invest and continue to invest” in this ...
Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones is accusing northern iwi leaders of selling out Māori by voting for ideologically-driven court cases rather than practical steps to increase water supply. “I just think that iwi leaders who think that water issues are going to be solved by perpetually fighting in the ...
A dairy owner in St Kilda, Dunedin was delighted to hear that an attempted robbery of his establishment was foiled by a government-funded security system. Sean Lee was delighted at how well the anti-theft smoke system worked. When a knife-wielding man entered the store, the shop assistant immediately pressed a ...
Customs says it stopped more than three tonnes of illegal drugs coming into New Zealand last year. This includes 1,180kg of methamphetamine, 329kg of ephedrine and pseudoephedrine precursors, which could have been converted into 246kg of methamphetamine, 739kg and 6469 pills of MDMA or Ecstasy and 60kg of cocaine. Offshore, ...
Hon. Shane Jones, Minister for Regional Economic Development Up to $2 million will be allocated from the Provincial Growth Fund to set up temporary water supplies in Kaikohe and Kaitaia where drought is biting hard, Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones has announced. Drought conditions in Northland have led to ...
Darroch Ball, Spokesperson for Law and Order New Zealand First welcomes the deployment of an Eagle Police helicopter in Christchurch in what is a step towards fulfilling its long-standing goal to increase the use of police helicopters for the front line, particularly in addressing the scourge of fleeing drivers. Christchurch leads ...
It may have been the first sitting week of 2020, but our Government is already in full-swing - managing a strong economy, investing in infrastructure, and working to break the cycle of homelessness. Read below for all that, and more... ...
In a heated debate in Parliament, National's Deputy Leader Paula Bennett claimed that “nearly 1600 patched gang members have been added” since the Coalition Government took power. To illustrate her point, she altered a chart used by Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern to show her government’s progress in housing to instead ...
Speech by the Rt Hon Winston Peters at Parliament’s Opening 2020 "We all need insurance" This year New Zealanders are going to have a clear choice to make That choice is between: Optimism versus pessimism; More progress versus back to the future; Investment versus divestment; Unity versus division. New Zealand ...
Infrastructure Minister Shane Jones has slammed the Board of Auckland Airport following the airport's runway closing twice within two weeks due to maintenance. Around 2,000 passengers were affected by last week’s runway closures, according to 1NEWS. Another maintenance closure on January 24 saw two international flights and three domestic flights ...
Jenny Marcroft, Spokesperson for Broadcasting New Zealand First supports the commissioning of a business case to assess the viability of a new public media entity. “A strong media environment is critical for a healthy democracy. New Zealand First is a strong supporter of a diverse, independent media,” New Zealand First broadcasting spokesperson ...
Pounamou and technology industries in the West Coast region are set to receive more than $2 million in Provincial Growth Fund (PGF) funding. This was announced by the Under-Secretary for Regional Economic Development Fletcher Tabuteau during Waitangi Day commemorations in Hokitika. He said $800,000 would be given to Development West ...
A new partnership programme between the New Zealand Police and Fiji Police will focus on combatting transnational organised crime and enhancing investigative skills, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced on the first day of her visit to Fiji. The programme will see: · New Zealand Institute of Environmental Science and Research ...
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Prime Minister Josaia Voreqe Bainimarama met today in Suva, and renewed their commitment to continue to strengthen Fiji-New Zealand relations on a foundation of shared values and equal partnership. The Prime Ministers acknowledged the kinship between Fijians and New Zealanders, one that has endured over ...
A $19.9 million investment from the Provincial Growth Fund will help develop essential infrastructure for an industrial hub in the Bay of Plenty town of Kawerau, Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones says. “The funding will go to three projects to further develop the Putauaki Trust Industrial Hub, an industrial ...
The Provincial Growth Fund is investing $8.3 million on a roading package for Mahia that will lead to greater and wider economic benefits for the region and beyond, Under Secretary for Regional Economic Development Fletcher Tabuteau announced at an event in Mahia today. The $8.3 million announced consists of: $7 ...
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has welcomed new reporting showing the Coalition Government is on track to meet its child poverty targets, with 18,400 children lifted out of poverty as a result of the Families Package. Stats NZ has released the first set of comprehensive child poverty statistics since the Government ...
Associate Minister of Transport Julie Anne Genter today announced that Bikes in Schools facilities have been rolled out to 20,000 more kiwi kids under this Government. She made the announcement at the opening of a new bike track at Henderson North School in Auckland. “Bikes in Schools facilities give kids ...
Benefit settings rise in line with wages as of 1 April Main benefits will increase by over 3 percent, instead of 1.66 percent, on 1 April with the Government’s decision to annually adjust benefit rates to increases in the average wage. The Minister for Social Development, Carmel Sepuloni, said ...
Strengthening New Zealand’s political and business ties with India will be the focus of Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters’ and Trade and Export Growth Minister David Parker’s visit to India this week. The Ministers are co-leading a high level business delegation to India to support increased people and economic engagement ...
The Minister for Pacific Peoples, Aupito William Sio continues to champion for greater Pacific participation in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) careers with the announcement of the Toloa Awards, with 8 recipients of the Toloa Community Fund and 13 Toloa Tertiary Scholarships. “The Toloa Programme encourages more Pacific peoples ...
Conservation Minister Eugenie Sage has extended the date for people to have their say on proposed changes to improve management of whitebait across New Zealand. Submissions were due to close on 2 March 2020 but will now remain open until 9am on Monday 16 March 2020. “I have ...
The endangered toroa/Antipodean albatross has new international protection for its 100,000km annual migration, thanks to collaborative efforts led by New Zealand, Australia and Chile. Today, 130 countries agreed to strictly protect Antipodean albatross at the Conference of Parties on the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild ...
No sales to under-18-year-olds No advertising and sponsorship of vaping products and e-cigarettes No vaping or smokeless tobacco in smokefree areas Regulates vaping product safety comprehensively, - including devices, flavours and ingredients Ensure vaping products are available for those who want to quit smoking Vaping regulation that balances ...
Justice Minister Andrew Little will travel to Berlin tomorrow to represent New Zealand at a high-level summit on nuclear disarmament. This year, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) celebrates 50 years since it entered into force. “New Zealand’s proud record and leadership on nuclear disarmament is unwavering, so it’s important we are present ...
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern will visit two of New Zealand’s most important Pacific partners, Fiji and Australia, next week. The visit to Fiji will be the first by a New Zealand Prime Minister in four years and comes during the 50th anniversary of Fijian independence and diplomatic relations between our ...
Justice Minister Andrew Little and New Zealand First MP Darroch Ball, have today announced the appointment of the Chief Commissioner of the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC), the location, and the membership of the Establishment Advisory Group. Colin Carruthers QC has been appointed Chief Commissioner of the CCRC for an ...
Māori Development Minister Hon Nanaia Mahuta and Agriculture Minister Hon Damien O’Connor co-announced the first horticultural finalists for the Ahuwhenua Trophy celebrating excellence in the Māori agricultural sector. The three finalists are Ngai Tukairangi Trust from Mt Maunganui, Otama Marere Trust from Tauranga, and Hineora Orchard Te Kaha 15B Ahuwhenua ...
A new kete of resources to strengthen support for students with dyslexia will provide extra tools for the new Learning Support Coordinators (LSCs) as they start in schools, Associate Education Minister Tracey Martin announced today. The Minister launched the kete in Wellington this morning, at the first of three induction ...
The Government continues to make progress on a fairer and more secure rental market for renters and landlords with the First Reading of the Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill and its referral to the Social Services and Community Select Committee. “Now is the opportunity for landlords, tenants and others who want ...
Papua New Guinea’s Prime Minister Hon James Marape will visit New Zealand from 21-25 February, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced today. “New Zealand and Papua New Guinea have a warm and friendly relationship. I look forward to welcoming Prime Minister Marape here and strengthening the relationship between our two countries,” ...
Thousands of children have begun receiving a free lunch on every day of the school week, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said. The Government’s free and healthy school lunch programme is under way for 7,000 students at 31 schools in Hawke’s Bay / Tairāwhiti and Bay of Plenty / Waiariki, extending ...
The Minister for Social Development Carmel Sepuloni today announced a new approach that continues to broaden the Government’s social sector focus from a narrow, investment approach to one centred on people and wellbeing. Minister Sepuloni said redefining the previous approach to social investment by combining science, data and lived experience ...
The Government is strengthening the Protected Disclosures Act to provide better protection for whistle blowers, Minister of State Services Chris Hipkins said today. “The Protected Disclosures Act is meant to encourage people to speak up about serious wrongdoing in the workplace and protect them from losing their jobs or being ...
Nǐn hǎo (Hello in Mandarin). Xīn Nián Kuài Lè (Happy New Year in Mandarin) Néi Hóu (Hello in Cantonese). Sun Nin Fai Lok (Happy New Year in Cantonese) Tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou katoa. Thank you for your invitation to attend this celebration today. I would like to acknowledge ...
Kia ora. Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou katoa. Nau mai haere mai ki te Whare Pāremata. E ngā mana whenua ki tēnei rohe Taranaki Whānui, Te Upoko o Te Ika, Ngāti Toa Rangatira, Ngāti Raukawa – kei te mihi, kei te mihi, kei te mihi. E ngā mana, e ...
Kia ora. Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou katoa. Nau mai haere mai ki te Whare Pāremata. E ngā mana whenua ki tēnei rohe Taranaki Whānui, Te Upoko o Te Ika, Ngāti Toa Rangatira, Ngāti Raukawa – kei te mihi, kei te mihi, kei te mihi. E ngā mana, e ngā ...
Tougher penalties for gun crime are a step closer with the passage of firearms reform legislation through another stage in Parliament. The Arms Legislation Bill has tonight passed its Second Reading. “The changes have one objective - to prevent firearms falling into the wrong hands,” said Police Minister Stuart Nash. ...
Introduction Mr Speaker We all know why we are here today. It has been a long journey. The journey did not actually begin on 15 March 2019. It began on 30 June 1997. Almost 23 years ago, Justice Sir Thomas Thorp told us what was wrong with our firearms legislation. ...
The Government’s work to put trades and vocational education back on the agenda took another major step forward today with the passing of the Education (Vocational Education and Training Reform) Amendment Bill, Education Minister Chris Hipkins said. “This is a watershed day for trades and vocational education. These law changes formalise ...
Speeding up the return of Christchurch regeneration activities to local leadership is behind the Greater Christchurch Regeneration Amendment Bill introduced to Parliament today by Minister Megan Woods. “As we approach nine years since the February 2011 earthquake in Canterbury, and with the transition to local leadership well underway, the time ...
Hundreds of New Zealanders and international visitors will be able to get back out into nature with the Milford Track partially reopening next week, after extensive assessments and repairs, the Minister of Conservation Eugenie Sage announced today. The popular Great Walk has been closed since 3 February after an extreme ...
Up to 110 new EV chargers nationwide in cities and regions 50 electric vehicles for ride-sharing The Government is helping deliver more infrastructure and options for low emissions transport through new projects, Energy and Resources Minister Dr Megan Woods says. Tauranga, Nelson, Levin, New Plymouth and Oamaru are just some ...
New Zealanders are increasingly better off under this Government as wages rise and families have more disposable income, Finance Minister Grant Robertson says. Stats NZ reported today that average household disposable incomes after housing costs rose 4.9% in 2019. This was the highest rise in four years and came as ...
All New Zealanders need to have their voices heard at work to ensure we have an inclusive and productive economy. Today we introduce a Bill to do this for workers in the New Zealand screen industry, Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Iain Lees-Galloway says. “The Screen Industry Workers Bill will ...
The Government has announced further help for the Southland and Otago regions to speed up recovery efforts from the floods. “I’ve approved Enhanced Taskforce Green (ETFG), making $500,000 available to help with the clean-up in Fiordland, Southland, and the Clutha district in Otago,” Minister for Social Development Carmel Sepuloni said. ...
Following the announcement that more than 340 schools will be funded to run events promoting vocational education, the Government has announced it will fund a further 257 events to be run by employers and industry. “These industry-run events will allow more than 30,000 students to connect with more than 2,000 ...
Today the Government is making progress on a fairer and more secure rental market for renters and landlords with the introduction of the Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill in Parliament. “This Bill includes a series of reforms to improve the wellbeing of the 609,700 households that live in rented homes, and ...
A Government programme to wipe out pea weevil has achieved a world first, with Biosecurity Minister Damien O’Connor today announcing the successful eradication of the noxious pest from Wairarapa. This means the nearly four-year ban on pea plants and pea straw was lifted today. Commercial and home gardeners can again grow ...
Southland residents hit by flooding caused by heavy rainfall can now access help finding temporary accommodation with the Government activating the Temporary Accommodation Service, Minister of Civil Defence Peeni Henare announced today. “The Temporary Accommodation Service (TAS) has been activated by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment to help ...
“Is that it?” That’s Finance Minister Grant Robertson’s response to Simon Bridges’ much-hyped economic speech today. “Simon Bridges just gave the most over-hyped and under-delivered speech that I can remember during my time in politics,” Grant Robertson said. “It’s not surprising. Simon Bridges literally said on the radio this morning ...
A trial deployment of the Police Eagle helicopter in Christchurch will test whether the aircraft would make a significant difference to crime prevention and community safety. “The Bell 429 helicopter will be based in Christchurch for five weeks, from 17 February to 20 March,” said Police Minister Stuart Nash. “The ...
Good morning and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: New child poverty statistics show little change yet, Greenpeace call for fishing policy review over donations, and a focus on Covid-19 effects on forestry.New figures were released yesterday on one of the most important issues facing the country – how many ...
He may be marooned in Texas, but Joseph Parker is closer to a return to boxing's big time than you'd think. Joseph Parker’s road back to boxing relevance won’t ever lead to the now fully resurgent Tyson Fury. But that doesn’t mean the Gypsy King won’t be a key figure ...
A cruel string of injuries could have prematurely ended Shiray Kaka's sevens career. But with determination and meditation, she's back in the Black Ferns, focused on finally playing at the Olympics. This time last year, Shiray Kaka was living in Japan, studying to be a dog trainer and setting up ...
ReadingRoom is devoting all week to the best-selling book in New Zealand right now, In The Clearing, the brilliant new thriller by Ngāpuhi author JP Pomare, inspired by creepy Australian cult The Family. Today: the author backgrounds his interest in the story. A few years ago I become obsessed ...
A jury didn't accept abused woman Karen Ruddelle killed her partner in self-defence. What does that say about our attitudes towards women in violent relationships? Karen Anne Ruddelle was charged with murdering her partner. Last week, at the High Court in Auckland, she was acquitted of murder but convicted of ...
Former regional parks chair Sandra Coney says a purchase of the disputed land at Ihumātao by Auckland Council would be entirely in keeping with historical precedent and the actions of local government in preserving open spaces for future generations. With various claims being made about the Government stepping in to ...
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In today’s edition: Coronavirus’ harsh impact on New Zealand’s economy starts to reveal itself; Bridges advocates matching Australia’s deportation policies and the Shelly Bay dispute ratchets up.
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ReadingRoom is devoting all week to the best-selling book in New Zealand right now, In The Clearing, the brilliant thriller by Ngāpuhi author JP Pomare. Today: Steve Braunias interviews journalist Chris Johnston, who has written extensively about the creepy cult which inspired Pomare's novel. When I looked ...
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Laura Robertson once hated running, was overweight, then battled a heart condition. But nothing, it seems, will stop the athletic paramedic lining up in the punishing Ironman. Laura Robertson was a cross country cheat. She hated the race and did anything and everything she could to shorten it. She simply wasn’t a ...
Defend Nicky Hager 
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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?