This year we have seen proof of the SIS used for political purposes. How many other organs of the state have been politicised? Two days ago David Parker raised the issue in Parliament. The specific context was questions about the SFO investigation where Parker made allegations (under Parliamentary privilege), a brief summary here:
Calls for police to further investigate Hager claims
He [Parker] has used Parliamentary Privilege to name Mark Hotchin as a man alleged to have paid Cameron Slater and PR man Carrick Graham to run a smear campaign against the Serious Fraud Office while he was being investigated over his finance company Hanover Finance.
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“We know that thousands of dollars were being paid to Cameron Slater – Whaleoil – and Carrick Graham, and that they were busy trying to undermine the Serious Fraud Office. What we don’t know is whether that crossed the line.”
From this context Parker moves on to question the role of the police in dirty politics more generally. Here are extracts from Parker’s address in Parliament:
There remains much to be investigated arising from the Nicky Hager book. The Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security showed last week the politicisation of the SIS by the head of the SIS and the Prime Minister’s own staff in his office. What was written off by the Prime Minister as a left-wing conspiracy during the election was proven to be true: underhand tactics being used by the Prime Minister and the SIS.
National was cynical enough on the day of the release of that report to drop two others including the report by Justice Chisholm into Judith Collins. … The report did not exonerate Judith Collins in respect of those other matters and the report does not exonerate anyone else in respect of what may have been happening in respect of the undermining of the Serious Fraud Office.
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I have had two people make worrying allegations to me. … I cannot name either of those sources and I cannot prove those allegations to be true. They are both hearsay allegations to me but these allegations must be investigated.We have seen in respect of the SIS matters that there was fire behind the smoke and in respect of these allegations we know that thousands of dollars were presumably being paid by Hotchin to Carrick Graham and Slater and Cathy Odgers in respect of their efforts to undermine the Serious Fraud Office.
What we do not know is whether those actions were criminal and whether there was a criminal conspiracy. I made a complaint to the police over 2 months ago in respect of that. The only information I have had back other than to inquire whether I had more evidence was a line in the Chisholm report to say that the allegations in respect of Judith Collins were not being looked to any further, but it looks like no further actions are being inquired into.
These are serious allegations. They must be looked seriously at by the authorities. We have seen the politicisation of the SIS.
We must make sure that the police have not been politicised. They were happy enough to inquire into the teapot tapes, to cooperate with the Prime Minister to deem Mr Ambrose guilty despite the fact that he had two arguable defences, and yet we do not have the police looking at these most serious allegations as to whether the other allegations in the Hager book are true.
Indeed, Mr Hager—and if it were not for his efforts none of the SIS stuff would have come out and none of this other stuff would have been investigated—is the one who is being raided. He is the one who has suffered search warrants and yet neither Mr Slater, Ms Odgers, Mr Hotchin, nor the others like Carrick Graham seem to have been investigated by the police, and I do not think that is good enough.
Well, that’s the elephant in the room isn’t it, and Parker has put it out there. Why are investigations into those who embarrass John Key expedited, while investigations into potentially embarrassing topics and persons languish?
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