Nothing to worry about

Written By: - Date published: 7:36 am, October 25th, 2018 - 48 comments
Categories: national, Politics, same old national, Simon Bridges, spin, you couldn't make this shit up - Tags: , ,

I was impressed with National’s uber confidence yesterday. Sure they might have had a week from hell and a poll result confirming that they were no longer the biggest party and their support was waning and they had no friends but their line that it could have been a lot worse resonated somewhat.

After all it was not as if their leader had been implicated in doing anything illegal.

Parties partition up donations all the time and split $100k donations into seven $14k donations and one $2 donation for the Feng Shui, not so that the identity of the donor has to be disclosed.  After all it is not as if they were embarrassed that their giving an award to this person would not look good, or that the fact that an associate of this person wanting to be a National Party MP might be frowned on.

And the confident expressions that all was fine by independent commentators who used to be National Party General Secretaries was notable. After all they should know.

And the Electoral Law does not have provisions relating to donations funded by contributions. National’s Party Secretary was not obliged to give the donation back. He did not have reasonable grounds to believe that the donor has failed to comply with his obligation to advise that the donation had come from contributions.  He was under no obligation to disclose the fact the donation came from contributions.  And it is not an offence to file a false return.

And what about Simon Bridges in his own return mistakenly calling Aaron Bhatnagar “Cathedral Club”?  This was an innocent mistake that happens all the time.

Of course the Police seeking advice from the Electoral Commission will result in no action being taken.

There is nothing to see here.

One can be assured by the fact that National is not panicking.  Simon Bridges ringing Cameron Slater is absolutely fine.  Slater having a key role to play in this matter as it develops is nothing for National to worry about.  What could go wrong?

48 comments on “Nothing to worry about ”

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  1. Ad 1
    25 October 2018 at 8:00 am

    Come on man can we do some actual policy now?

    These guys have gifted Ardern the next election – let’s go into Conference with a push for a bold government.

    • Draco T Bastard 1.1
      25 October 2018 at 9:55 am

      These guys have gifted Ardern the next election

      Because all of them are going to be in jail right?

    • AB 1.2
      25 October 2018 at 10:21 am

      If there is a chance to move Overton’s window back from its 30+ year rightwards slide, then we should be shoving with all our might.
      I’m not convinced that going on and on about this mess in the National Party contributes to that, but we do need longer time horizons than the next election. I guess what I am saying clumsily, is that we need not only a policy strategy, but an ideological strategy as well. Ideological victory is just as important as getting some policy stuff done, and any chance to stamp all over right wing ideology should be taken.

    • Enough is Enough 1.3
      25 October 2018 at 10:34 am

      Yep and it hardly bold to be bullied by the soon be former leader of opposition as was shown in the House yesterday.

      When the opposition is failing to pick themselves off the canvas, I have no idea why the PM let Bridges have a huge win in the Question Time yesterday.

      It is time to be bold. Don’t allow the Nats to dictate the direction of travel.

  2. Ankerrawshark 2
    25 October 2018 at 8:56 am

    Hey ad I agree policy is what we want and bold policy at the conference, but I am also appreciating the chance to follow this unfolding situation in National.

    For me it’s about justice. National we’re exposed as dirty operators in dirty politics, although many of us suspected their dishonesty and corruption. They were so invoLoved in their dirty games that they neglected to govern, which suited their rich mates well. And for me I was devastated when key romped home despite the exposures is Hager’s book.

    I want good left policies, but I also want decency in my politicians. So the fact that Jami-Lee is opening up about what goes on behind the scenes is great. As long as his mental health can take it……….

    It is possible to walk and chew gum at the same time and I believe the standard can and is doing policy and uncovering corruption in the Nats. The Jami-Lee Ross thing may have been dominating in the last week, but I think that’s understandable

  3. patricia bremner 3
    25 October 2018 at 9:00 am

    Jacinda Ardern and team have sensibly kept out of the firestorm of self destruction provided by National.

    Read the Policy statements and the list of items ticked off or started in the twelve months. Strong foundations are being laid. The conference will solidify the gains.

    This Government knows there are two years ’till the next election, and in a cloudy world situation cold winds could blow this steady state away in a heartbeat.

    Hopefully you are right and the next election will be a gift that keeps on giving.

    • veutoviper 3.1
      25 October 2018 at 9:34 am

      Did you see her in Question Time yesterday. patricia?

      She was on fire. I like the way that she answered Bridges’ first usual question “Does she stand by etc” not just with a “Yes” but with a long list of items ticked off in their first 12 months. LOL

      In the first minute or so of this video – but the whole thing is worth watching. Some very funny exchanges took place (except by Bridges).

      https://www.parliament.nz/en/watch-parliament/ondemand?itemId=203427

      • Draco T Bastard 3.1.1
        25 October 2018 at 10:16 am

        Hah, Seymore’s first question should have had the PM telling him that that was how markets worked and then asking him if he still believed in the market.

        Actually, his second question seems to indicate that he doesn’t.

        Seems National doesn’t either as they try to shift all the blame onto the government rather than placing it where it is – on the oil companies profits.

      • patricia bremner 3.1.2
        25 October 2018 at 10:25 am

        Thanks for that Veutoviper, I am in Aussie visiting family, so would have missed that. My wee tablet has been red hot at times.

      • patricia bremner 3.1.3
        25 October 2018 at 10:26 am

        Brilliant. Thanks for that Veutoviper, I am in Aussie visiting family, so would have missed that. My wee tablet has been red hot at times.

  4. outofbed 4
    25 October 2018 at 9:09 am

    So many unanswered questions
    https://bowalleyroad.blogspot.com/2018/10/questions-questions-questions.html

    And this
    https://thespinoff.co.nz/unsponsored/25-10-2018/dirty-politics-2018-nicky-hager-assesses-the-jami-lee-ross-saga/

    Yes lets focus on policy, but first get some sunlight onto the National party so they can clean themselves up as they are a blight on New Zealand.

    It very pertinent as Nicky says ” We should notice that Bridges spoke of using the controversial $100,000 donation for attack advertising – not for explaining his vision for how to make a better country ”

    I want to respect the National party whilst fundamentally disagreeing with them.
    At the moment they have zero respect.

    • One Two 4.1
      25 October 2018 at 9:22 am

      The political landscape won’t be changing until it’s forced into changing…

      Every vote place, every comment of support, every wish to be able to respect a political party…

      Simply ensures those who own and control NZ politics will continue to laugh and mock the entire parliamentary system…

      Exactly as has been going on for 40 years or more…

      NZ politics is a shambles because it is captured…controlled…and recent events are the evidence…

      • Draco T Bastard 4.1.1
        25 October 2018 at 10:21 am

        +111

        Exactly.

        This is why we need better laws around political donations with some real teeth to them. As it stands, several National MPs and administrators should be going to jail.

    • Dukeofurl 4.2
      25 October 2018 at 9:25 am

      So The Spinoff have an ‘unsponsored’ category of news …and by some perchance thats where Hagers comments go.

      The Spinoff makes the Guardian seem like the UK Morning Star!

    • Draco T Bastard 4.3
      25 October 2018 at 10:19 am

      Yes lets focus on policy, but first get some sunlight onto the National party so they can clean themselves up as they are a blight on New Zealand.

      Leaving them to clean themselves up obviously isn’t working. In cases like this we need to engage the law to its fullest extent.

  5. JustMe 5
    25 October 2018 at 9:42 am

    Out of all this of recent weeks National has lost all credibility. 99% of their MPs come across now as corrupt, money hungry, ego-driven, self-serving ratbags.
    They have been creators of their own destruction and so long may it continue.
    Maybe it’s all some well deserved Karmic Payback for ALL the horrid things National have done especially to low income NZers as from 2008 through to late 2017.

    What has truly demeaned National further is the text message from a female National Party MP(whose name we probably will never know because National are so incapable(due to corruption over many years)to be transparent)saying to JLR that she wishes he was dead. Now for a supposedly adult person to say such a thing is the lowest of the low. It’s a disgusting behavioural problem that that woman has.

    She needs to seriously re-evaluate her mental state and whether she is worthy to be an MP! All indications is that she does not merit being an MP let alone a representative of her electorate. I would like to ask her as to how many mental health patients live in her electorate and are still capable of voting especially at election time? As she has shown so much hatred to Jamie-Lee Ross then her attitude is a direct reflection that she is nasty, lacking empathy, caring(a National MP showing caring is a joke nowadays),cruelty and just plain old unsuitable for her electorate.

    National cannot expect to be trusted by the voting public – unless a considerable number of the voting public are in the National Party pocket and would vote National until the Pandas arrive – mainly because behind the scenes it looks like no-one trusts anyone within the NZ National Party.

    I am sure all the problems National have experienced have been going on for more than just the past 2 years. Back then however Key and English managed to suppress any negative news because Key had successfully over-satuated the main-stream NZ media with National supporters eg Hosking, Roughan, Young, Soper, DPA, etc,etc,etc. And back then there was the attitude by National of “Nothing to see. Move along please…”

    • Dennis Frank 5.1
      25 October 2018 at 9:59 am

      Apparently it was a 64-word text. Rather long, eh? I heard the RNZ reporter of that breaking news explain that they had decided only to report that last bit. In other words, the rest of the text was too toxic for RNZ listeners to hear! But her saying she thought he ought to die was sufficiently mild to report.

      • JustMe 5.1.1
        25 October 2018 at 12:12 pm

        I wonder if the NZ Public will ever be given all the text messages Bill English did whilst he was prime minister of NZ?

      • Graeme 5.1.2
        25 October 2018 at 12:31 pm

        Editorial in Southland Times today.

        https://www.stuff.co.nz/southland-times/opinion/108080508/another-issue-arises-from-the-ross-case

        “Surely, however, those four words, in themselves, are sufficient to require assessment against the laws of the land; specifically the Harmful Digital Communications Act.

        When more information is provided, as it must be, the appropriate consequences for the text sender – including whether she can stay in her role – then become a legitimate issue.
        ……
        Another point, and not a small one.

        Without knowing for sure who sent that text message, we don’t know for sure who didn’t.

        Unworthy suspicion now inflicts a not-particularly-large group of people.

        Which only adds to the case, already existent, for the unnamed MP to come forward.”

        [Snip – please no speculation on who the MP may be – MS]

    • Kahu 5.2
      25 October 2018 at 4:23 pm

      Wouldn’t it be funny if the female mp was paula bennett or lolz maureen pugh? The feminist media has selfcensored re identity of female mp’s & staff accusing JLR of bad behaviour yet a women mp’s bad behaviour in text gets a pass whole JLR gets reviled. In modern environment a guy’s reputation can get shredded simply by accusations re behaviour & mental illness with no evidence offered up nor formal complaints (in this case). The female MP he had an affair with should be subject to same outing that JLR has been and the vicious texter too (possibly the same woman?). The texter might be bitter coz JLR ended the relationship for all we know) JLR seen as culpable but the women are seen/treated as innocent and don’t have to take responsibility for their own behaviour/actions.

      • Delia 5.2.1
        26 October 2018 at 9:40 am

        How has the feminist media censured the publication of the name? You got something against feminists, here is a tip, we do not run the media. Some may work for it of course. Next you will be using the charming term Feminazi. I hope not. Your bunkum I expect to read on Stuff not the Labour movement site.

  6. JessNZ 6
    25 October 2018 at 9:47 am

    I want a policy on restrictions and transparencies in political funding! Keep turning over the rotting pile…

    • Draco T Bastard 6.1
      25 October 2018 at 1:19 pm

      Transparency of political donations is something that the country needs along with strict enforcement of those regulations. No one should be able to donate anonymously to a political party.

  7. R.P Mcmurphy 7
    25 October 2018 at 9:52 am

    who watches Channel 31.
    Collins has all the charm and charisma of a rattlesnake.
    Put her on the stump and the nationals party would disappear into oblivion faster than they are doing so now.

  8. outofbed 8
    25 October 2018 at 9:55 am

    I think the biggest thing that National have to worry about is that Bill English left.

    I think he was basically a decent bloke and a tempering influence for the more rabid Nat Mp’s
    In some respect the Nat vote holding up is more the residue of media management from Key and the sensible Mr English.

    I’m sure when the general public catch up with actual the venal lying nature of the current lot, things will change.

    • JessNZ 8.1
      25 October 2018 at 10:07 am

      I think it’s time National admitted that decent blokes and blokettes just don’t fit into today’s National party. Decent people recognise NZ’s inequalities and the need to change to secure the future for economic winners and victims alike.

      • JustMe 8.1.1
        25 October 2018 at 11:11 am

        I could never ever call Bill English. Not whilst he was one minute telling NZers that ‘you(NZers)are living beyond your means and MUST experience financial cutbacks….’ and at the same time he was happily and without an ounce of remorse Double Dipping from the NZ taxpayers.

        Sir Ed once said he has never met an honest politician. Looking at the antics to date of the National lot then no wonder no-one can trust them or look upon them as being honest. Not whilst they are married to Money, Greed, Ego, self-attainment whilst at the same time battering anyone and everyone who they consider ‘Down and Outs’.

        I am beginning to get the impression that National comprises mostly of bullies, intimidators, mongrels, ratbags and all the lowlifes that a political party like National can attract.

    • Pete 8.2
      25 October 2018 at 10:11 am

      The actual the venal lying nature of the current lot? Bill English basically a decent bloke?

      Apropos the comment by KJT in Open Mike today:
      “Cheating. In sport, business, and politics has become acceptable in New Zealand.
      A mind set where lying, stealing and destroying others, is fine, so long as you win.”

      Bill English was clearly lying and evasive in the doings around the Barclay Clutha stuff. The way things work it was better or considered to be less problematic, for him to lie and be evasive.

      I accept that in terms of comparison he might have been the best of a bad bunch.

    • Draco T Bastard 8.3
      25 October 2018 at 10:25 am

      I think he was basically a decent bloke…

      The guy who rorted the country of tens of thousands of dollars is a decent bloke?

      Yeah, nah.

    • patricia bremner 8.4
      25 October 2018 at 10:33 am

      English decent? Hardly!! Go back over the Todd tape saga.

    • AB 8.5
      25 October 2018 at 10:47 am

      It is easy to mistake a sort of surface civility for decency. ‘Gentleman’ Jack Marshall had the surface civility down to a fine art, but still supported the death penalty while the odious, bullying Rob Muldoon opposed it.
      The thing that convinced me that English was not at his core decent, was his fondness for ‘social investment’ theory, i.e. the idea that when people fall through the cracks and need help, it is due to some innate or acquired defect that is amenable to early detection and remediation. The opposite contention, that people are basically OK and the problem lies in the economic system, was simply unimaginable for him.

  9. Michelle 9
    25 October 2018 at 10:12 am

    A decent bloke that sold our assets even though we said no, a decent bloke that said there is no housing crisis when people were sleeping on our streets, a
    decent bloke that allowed and encouraged P house epidemic evictions on a whim,
    a decent bloke that turned a blind eye to our high suicide rates, a decent bloke whose party incarcerated Maori at the highest levels ever.
    out of bed look up the word decent.

  10. outofbed 10
    25 October 2018 at 10:55 am

    I was trying to be positive and find someone among them that was halfway decent.
    I have it on good authority he loathed the Bennet Key Bridges Smith lot.
    Still I concede the best of a bad lot is not much of an epitaph

    • ScottGN 10.1
      25 October 2018 at 12:53 pm

      If you mean Nick Smith, he and English were thick as thieves.

      • outofbed 10.1.1
        25 October 2018 at 3:07 pm

        no not Smith my mistake he is a different kettle of fish entirely
        Not a very nice person.
        I’ve had a bit to do with him when I lived in Nelson

  11. Draco T Bastard 11
    25 October 2018 at 2:31 pm

    Greens reiterate call for change after National received $3.5m in anonymous donations

    “$3.5 million in anonymous donations is a huge sum of money. It is unlikely this is made up of coins or small notes dropped in a bucket or given at a bake sale,” Greens co-leader Marama Davidson said today.

    “This spells out powerful vested interests tipping huge amounts of money into the coffers of the National Party, hiding behind anonymity.”

    With that amount of money we can be pretty sure that the National Party knows exactly where that money came from and the policies that it wants.

    Time to make sure that no political donations are anonymous. We just can’t allow this sort of corruption to continue.

    • tc 11.1
      25 October 2018 at 3:03 pm

      Finally ! c’mon greens about time you grew a pair.

      Of course they know where it all comes from….if they don’t they’ll get a reminder soon enough from the donor.

  12. ianmac 12
    25 October 2018 at 3:19 pm

    When the Dirty Tricks book came out my National Party friends would not read it because the source was stolen emails. The Party can do no wrong they said.

    And now I bet they will say that again because Ross exposed some secret stuff, that mean it must be ignored. “The Party can do no wrong,” as no doubt Michelle Boag says.

    • Draco T Bastard 12.1
      25 October 2018 at 6:58 pm

      When the Dirty Tricks book came out my National Party friends would not read it because the source was stolen emails.

      That always bugged me that. They allowed themselves, and there is no other word for it. to be distracted by the claims of ‘stolen emails’ rather than applying the simple and damming logic that if the emails were stolen then they were obviously real and that everything that was described was absolutely true. And the only conclusion from that is that the National Party in inherently corrupt.

      Recent evidence reinforces that conclusion.

  13. Kahu 13
    25 October 2018 at 4:26 pm

    Wouldn’t it be funny if the female mp was paula bennett or lolz maureen pugh? The feminist media has selfcensored re identity of female mp’s & staff accusing JLR of bad behaviour yet a women mp’s bad behaviour in text gets a pass whole JLR gets reviled. In modern environment a guy’s reputation can get shredded simply by accusations re behaviour & mental illness with no evidence offered up nor formal complaints (in this case). The female MP he had an affair with should be subject to same outing that JLR has been and the vicious texter too (possibly the same woman?). The texter might be bitter coz JLR ended the relationship for all we know) JLR seen as culpable but the women are seen/treated as innocent and don’t have to take responsibility for their own behaviour/actions.

  14. R.P Mcmurphy 14
    26 October 2018 at 3:20 am

    parliament seems to have become inhabited by hot house flowers who learned their stuff bullying in the schoolyard.
    in the cold light of day there is no hiding place for their childish manouvres and poisonous machinations.