Whale Oil – the book

Written By: - Date published: 11:45 am, May 29th, 2019 - 15 comments
Categories: blogs, law, Media, police, Social issues, uncategorized - Tags: , , , , , , ,

Just finished Whale Oil by Margie Thomson. about the Blomfield vs Slater case.

It was a case now lost by Cameron Slater because after 7 years of trying to delay it, before a judge who was finally able to look at his ‘proofs’, he was simply unable to justify the claims made in a representation of the posts he wrote about Matthew Blomfield. Like every previous state body like the SFO, MBIE, IRD, Privacy and Human Rights, it was judged to be complete and utter bullshit.

Most of those investigations had looked at the same box or copies of the hard drives and physical files that were the property stolen from Matt Blomfield. Apparently just about the only state arm that hadn’t seen that property were in fact the police.

Probably because they didn’t want to in case they had to actually deal with arresting someone for thieving it or receiving it. The contrast between the police reaction to this case and the over-the-top reactions when the same kind of theft happened to Cameron Slater by ‘Rawshark’ is rather hard to fathom. Perhaps it was because Judith Collins, a hat-tipping mate of Cameron, was police minister?

Margie Thomson is a very good writer. Trying to cram 7 years of hell for her subject into a book is a hell of a task. While it often reads like fiction, it is really a accurate and true story. You can tell – it is too strange to be fiction.

It is a bleak topic, the misuse of position and the lack of use of police powers, but just as worth reading as Dirty Politics. It shows some of the really dangerous fracture points threatening social stability arising from online media – from a different perspective.

Instead of the look at a broad range of political and corporate immorality that was in Dirty Politics. In this case you see what happens when a ill-defined area of the societal bounds of behaviour is exceeded by a conspiracy of opportunists and the shit is dropped on one person, their business contacts and their family. Now this didn’t just happen to Matthew Blomfield. It happened to a lot of other people and companies as well over the reign of terror from Whaleoil, Kiwiblog and few other immoral bloggers and other people in social media. 

I have been around the edges of this sordid war between the abusers of the net and its defenders for quite some time. I found it interesting that some of the detail in this book is new to me.

It has moderately interesting cast of minions and villains, many of whom many of you may not have heard of before.

Marc Spring – well what can one really say about this malevolent nutter. To me he is just as deranged and as tenacious as ‘Dad for Justice’ was a decade ago on this site. Popping up under different aliases arguing with his other identities.

But unlike d4j, Marc Spring has always seemed to me to be just a mean fool trying to skulk from the shadows as a “justice campaigner”. I saw him originally as a simple set of trolls that require infestation control on this site. I and other moderators automatically moderated out his comments as making assertions of fact without evidence – which is something that is actionable. Over the years I’ve also had to read his emails about Matt Blomfield and largely ignored them as being pretty obvious fantasies or opinions that he also asserted as being fact. 

But for quite some time he was probably the most prolific troll in our local net. Pete George at YourNZ apparently got a shock when he realised that 47 of his commenters were in fact Marc Spring.

Reading the book, I was struck on how it appears that Amanda Easterbrook was probably the nastiest and probably the most intelligent villain in the mix. Based on the OIA material finally released by the SFO, she seems to have specialised as evil genius of the vaguely plausible storyline. One where out-of-context snippets were woven together to seem to the casual observer to be more than they actually are,

The fantastic conspiracy scheme that Cameron Slater was pushing back in his 6 month campaign against Matthew Blomfield back in 2012 were simply just fantasies. According to a very old and delayed Official Information Act request to the Serious Fraud Office, that just got finally responded to earlier this year. She appears as both a complainant and the person who concocted those weird and complicated claims. Looking at the style of the semi-plausible bile she was using, it makes me wonder what else she contributed to the whaleoil site. It seems quite familiar in other Slater campaigns.

Moreover, in her letter to a SFO investigator, she stated that she had been the receiver of the Matthew Blomfields hard disks and filing cabinet contents. The instruction came from his former business partner Warren Powell. She used that to concoct the stories that the dumb sucker Cameron Slater parroted (I had thought that they were a bit too complex for him).

There were the other minor players. Like Dermot Nottingham who ran and still runs the laudafinem site, for which he is still serving a home detention sentence after being convicted of 7 charges of online and offline harassment. He was the incredibly incompetent and inept legal friend Cameron Slater really shouldn’t have wanted to use in his Blomfield vs Slater. In a failed private prosecution on me, Pete George, and two newspapers he was mainly notable because he simply wasn’t able to string any legal principles together coherently. 

Looks like Cameron Slater in the end was just another fool who got screwed over by Warren Powell. While Slater was not prepared to name him as the source of the hard drives and filing cabinets that he had provided as part of his jilted revenge. Otis (as WP is known as) obviously treated Slater as some kind of minor minion… Not a person for anyone to trust. 

On the other hand, I’ve dealt with Matthew Blomfield for the last five and bit years – mostly online, but also occasionally passing at the courts.

I’d have to say that to me he has been a bit of a diamond in the rough entrepreneurial type. I’m familiar with their ways and always treat them as being a bit like handling mercury fulminate. To be treated carefully and with good protection. He is enthusiastic as a pitbull pup with the family kids, and it would be just as inadvisable to cross fair bounds. But fundamentally someone that I have never had any cause to mistrust.

I really like the way that Margie has managed to portray him as being no frigging hero.

And I have to say, that now I have found out about it, I’m a bit worried about the courtrooms of this country. He is embarked on doing a law degree. I suspect that he is going to be an unholy terror in the courts when he finishes his law degree and slaps on a bit of polish over those rough edges.

//————————————————————————————-

Meanwhile Cameron Slater has a couple more defamation cases to lose. He might get lucky with Colin Craig. But with his paymasters also in the gun for the case brought by a number of health professionals against the purveyors of junk foods and their PR minions, I suspect that case will be going to fruition. 

I’d also invite speculation about who or what will get control of the Whaleoil site next year after the Cameron Slater and his holding company co-defendant get awards against them and as the bankruptcies and liquidations proceed.

Personally I’d like that bit of sordid and faded history to be consigned to the historical archives at NatLib, and only available to historians and the continuing legal expeditions.

 

15 comments on “Whale Oil – the book ”

  1. Michael 1

    The Human Rights Review Tribunal just let Slater off paying legal costs in another case he lost, apparently because he's "too poor" to pay anything. Naturally this had nothing to do with the alleged transfer of assets into Slater's wife's name (a transaction conducted, allegedly, at 2.00am a few weeks back by an accountant renowned for his services to the National Party). The "forma pauperis" plea now being run by Slater could well have the effect of deterring others from seeking costs and pursuing their claims against him.

    • A 1.1

      I hate people who do this. Really if this country is going to make defamation laws then there needs to be an actual remedy/consequence.

      • mpledger 1.1.1

        The biggest cost to Slater is probably that he is a spent force. His currency was always power and now he has none and the people who had his back have way less.

        All I can is that Matt Blomfield is an extraordinary man with an absolute and amazing belief that everything would come right and the absolute tenacity to keep fighting until it did. His wife is also amazing – in takes amazing faith to stand beside her husband as he spent so much time involved with this case and so much money. That was a huge cost to the entire family.

        I hope that Matt Blomfield and his family goes on to have every success that they should want in their second life.

  2. veutoviper 2

    Jesse Mulligan of RNZ National Radio had a very interesting indepth interview with Matt Blomfield this afternoon well worth listening to (26 minutes). Link:

    https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/afternoons/audio/2018697299/matt-blomfield-seven-years-of-hell-at-the-hands-of-whale-oil

    Thanks for the review of the book, lprent.

    • Cinny 2.1

      Awesome, hugs VV, I've missed you. Hope all is well and thanks for the link. laugh

  3. Thanks for the review. I have just ordered a copy from Auckland Library. 21 of 21 holds on one copy. Hope they buy more.

  4. Cinny 4

    Yes, thank you very much for that review, I thoroughly enjoyed reading it. Sounds like a fascinating and messed up story. I don't really know much about it all except the obvious, until your review and now it's really peaked my interest.

    Our local book store doesn't have it, rang them today, I'm on the mission to get myself a copy, super motivated now.

    Thanks again for your review lprent. yes

  5. Sanctuary 5

    Matt Blomfield's interview with Jesse Mulligan yesterday afternoon was compelling listening –

    https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/afternoons/audio/2018697299/matt-blomfield-seven-years-of-hell-at-the-hands-of-whale-oil

    Slater is such a stupid, twisted bastard that he may actually be mentally deficient and/or insane.

    • Sacha 5.1

      Insane being only a legal term these days, the slimy oik has been found able to understand his own lack of character or some court cases would have been stopped. Most mentally ill people do not make it their life mission to harm others. He's just a nasty person.

    • Morrissey 5.2

      Until he banned me for the third and final time a few years ago, I was a fairly regular contributor to Slater's disgusting site. I never felt that I was welcome there. In fact, the very first time he addressed this writer, i.e. moi, he told me to “fuck off.” I stayed there, for a good few years before flaming out with this post…..

      Morrissey to Molon Labe 4 years ago
      Don’t want to pay your taxes and don’t believe in government? Go to Somalia, halfwit.
      [MOD this person is now blocked for trolling and personal insults. CAUTION: Do not reply. REMINDER: Anyone who responds to trolls is likely to be blocked as well as the response generally inflames the situation. Be glad all I did was delete your comment. Now, move on. ]

      (Pete) to Morrissey • 5 years ago
      [MOD] Oh, and now you are trolling and attacking someone personally.

      Thanks for playing. Goodbye.
      12
      •Share ›

      https://disqus.com/home/discussion/wobh/whaleoil_general_debate_10/#comment-1491927869

      https://www.whaleoil.co.nz/2012/12/saturday-general-debate-21/

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