More on Clark knifing Doone
April 28th, 2005 at 7:20 am by David FarrarAll the newspapers have the story of how Helen Clark knifed the former Police Commissioner as their lead story.
It really is incredibly bad judgement to talk off the record to a newspaper, about your own Commissioner of Police, when he is the subject of a formal investigation. If the PM had evidence of wrong doing, then she should have been quoted on the record or released the official report, but to confirm off the record a rumour or allegation is just incredibly unprofessional and disloyal.
Clark would have known that the newspaper wanted confirmation so they could publish the allegation. And this was an untested alleagtion that had not been verified by either of the two parties involved. So by confirming the information, she knew it would undermine the Commissioner of Police, regardless of its truth.
No tag for this post.
April 28th, 2005 at 7:37 am
Or – more Farrar knifing Clark?
Vote:April 28th, 2005 at 7:45 am
Publicly criticising an MP is not knifing them. Fairly lame even for Johnie.
Also it is generally considered desirable for voters to be able to criticise MPs. Very different to a PM knifing the Commissioner of Police through off the record confirmations to a newspaper.
Vote:April 28th, 2005 at 8:22 am
I think johnie fancies our, soon to be, erstwhile leader in some sort of necrophilac fashion
Vote:April 28th, 2005 at 8:34 am
Poor little johnie come lately. He couldn’t even get voluntary euthanasia to work.
Vote:April 28th, 2005 at 8:36 am
Johnnie -
At least when Thatcher wanted to cluster fuck someone she did it with a little finesse
Vote:April 28th, 2005 at 8:46 am
What seems suprising to me is that no one has rebuked Fairfax for it’s breach of journalistic ethics. If a source gives you information off the record you’re supposed to go to prison rather than give them up. It sounds like it was the Editor who revealed the PMs involvement, and not Oskar Alley (who is now at the Dom) – but this won’t be good for the SSTs future dealings with confidential sources.
It also seems strange to me that the Doones dropped their case against Fairfax to go after the PM. They still have a perfectly sound defamation case against the newspaper. (Maybe there’s some legal issue here I’m failing to understand?)
Vote:April 28th, 2005 at 8:48 am
Does anyone remember the “SIS investigation” of the maori party last year? How could the Sunday Star be credible in a court of law after that?
Vote:BTW, Johnie, you should just fuck off unless you have something intelligent to say. And call Sir David by his proper title, not his surname.
April 28th, 2005 at 9:07 am
I cannot believe she would be this stupid to involve herself in the problems of a civil servant with no political upside for her. Policicians always stay out of this sort of thing and focus their venality on their fellow political travellers. I really would prefer to get better information before rushing to judgment on her actions or non-actions.
Vote:April 28th, 2005 at 9:10 am
I can.
Vote:April 28th, 2005 at 10:03 am
David’s a bit excited, perhaps understandably. But what strikes me is that Doone will have a hard time showing that it was the SST’s retracted story that damaged his career.
He was pushed out as a result of the official Police Complaints Authority report on his “undesirable” conduct, rather than the SST story. I’ve dug out a few stories from the time in this morning’s post:
http://publicaddress.net/default,2061.sm
Cheers,
Vote:RB
April 28th, 2005 at 10:17 am
Dim – I don’t think a journo or editor is obliged to protect a source if they have been mislead by that same source. That’s pretty understood by politicians and journalists alike.
And besides, if the story is THAT good, there is no such thing as “off the record”.
Vote:April 28th, 2005 at 10:32 am
Dim – I understand the SST did not out Clark, but she did so herself in her statement to the court. I would be guessing as to why she did, but guess she was worried it might come out anyway and look even worse.
Vote:April 28th, 2005 at 10:50 am
Clark provided a statement to the court because the SST subpenoed her – which is essentially outing her.
Aaron – good point.
Some of RBs points in his article are fair – but it’s a little far-fetched to pretend the PM was just a bit player in this.You’d think the Police Minister or head of the State Services Commission would be the natural port of call for wandering journos searching for a confirmation – which leads me to suspect that she volunteered to confirm the allegation.
Vote:April 28th, 2005 at 11:06 am
I think it’s quite apparent what happened here. Doone knew he would not win his case against the SST or if he did, that he would not get a substantial payout because they retracted and apologised very early in the piece. The Court would be obliged to take that in to account in any damages award. So, he kept pushing anyway knowing there were documents damaging the PM somewhere there, and the only way to see them was either through her giving evidence as to what she said, or through the discovery process. Eventually, the former prevailed.
I bet he is still furious as to the treatment he got from the PM and knew this was a legal ‘payback’. He has got what he wanted.
I also believe that if the PM made those comments from legal advice she received, and claimed privilege so as to not to disclose it, that her/the government’s privilege could now be waived. You can’t claim legal privilege and then leak information from that privileged material. If you do you can be deemed to have waived your privilege.
Vote:April 28th, 2005 at 11:19 am
the PM ( sorry us taxpayers) has deeper pockets that the SST and is a sweeter taget for Doone Its a done and dusted deal The PM has admitted she confirmed the reporters statement to her in a brief of evidence The SST says it published on those grounds and thats a reasonable assumption.Unless she gets a corrupt Judge its all over for the PM Guilty of defamation case number three.Just the sort of person to govern this fair land NOT
Vote:April 28th, 2005 at 11:26 am
DPF – you posted yesterday about two previous defamation suits against Clark that she lost. Have damages been awarded in either of the other two cases? Who paid, Cark or the taxpayer?
Vote:April 28th, 2005 at 11:33 am
gd – the taxpayers will not be paying for either Clarks defense or settlements for any findings against her. Fairfax is exponentially wealthier than the Prime Minister. Idiot.
Vote:April 28th, 2005 at 11:33 am
Charles – the first was when she was Opposition Leader so she paid. The second was as PM, and I beleive the taxpayer paid all costs. I expect that this will be the case with this this one also.
Vote:April 28th, 2005 at 11:55 am
Dim, I wasn’t saying she was a bit player – I have no idea about that. But the SST does say she wasn’t the source. She accumulated a lot of capital with journalists in that first year by being available and forthcoming (this was in sharp contrast to Shipley towards the end). That may prove to have been not such a good idea.
She may yet be able to show she believed what she said to be true at the time. I still think Doone’s problem is going to be demonstrating that the damage to his career was sustained as a result of the SST story, rather than the official report.
Cheers,
Vote:RB
April 28th, 2005 at 12:01 pm
The next song: “Weary of Johnie”.
And Brown, sycophantic dork as usual, Clark was subpoenaed for her comments. When a boss lies in a legal brief about her employee’s character (which was the effect of her statement) then we can assume defamation has occurred.
Vote:April 28th, 2005 at 12:11 pm
I haven’t read today’s papers, but I already think this is all a bit overdone.
If the Prime Minister confirmed the story, she did so on the basis of reports she had recieved from her staff and from Police staff. Nobody is suggesting she was sitting on the side of the road and saw the incident first hand.
The newspaper knew this.
Given the original leak is said to have come from a highly-placed individual in the police force, it seems likely that person (or someone in a similar position with the same information) also reported what (they thought had) happened to the Prime Minister, and which she appears to have passed along believing it to be true.
My point is that the newspaper is being disingenuous. They could not reasonably expect Clark to confirm what had happened that night; they could only expect her to confirm what she had been told by people closer to the affair.
I’m sute the SST can hardly believe their luck. Here’s a story where they got things badly wrong, they published a poorly checked story, they retracted the story, they got sued for defamation five years, and then they broke all sorts of jpurnalistic rules by outing their sources…
…and not ony do they not get blamed, they get to recover costs, and get a scoop on a whole new story about the lawsuit. Unbelievable.
Gordon
(And as for Clark: I don’t see how a defamation suit can procede if she believed the comments.)
Vote:April 28th, 2005 at 12:19 pm
Anyone any idea what RB is talking about?? As usual he twists the story into something quite different. The story is that journo’s just call Helen to confirm a story that is seriously damaging for her top cop. She doesn’t defend him. She didn’t ask both sides.
Possibly journo’s like RB can get Helen on the line all time to conform whatever is most damaging to people she wants to terminate, but that doesn’t make it an acceptible practice to the rest of NZ.
Vote:April 28th, 2005 at 12:21 pm
“And Brown, sycophantic dork as usual, Clark was subpoenaed for her comments. When a boss lies in a legal brief about her employee’s character (which was the effect of her statement) then we can assume defamation has occurred.”
Sigh … whatever. You’re certain she knew she was lying (which would have been spectacularly unwise), I don’t know either way because I don’t have any evidence either way. The Herald story makes exactly the same point this morning: “A key issue for the Prime Minister will be whether she believed what she said to be true.”
Cheers,
Vote:RB
April 28th, 2005 at 12:31 pm
Russell – a key issue for whether the lawsuit suceeds will depend on what she believed – yes. But in terms of the political judgement exercised in confirming a story to a newspaper so they pillory your Commissione rof Police, the belief it was true is not the issue. The issue is whether she was trying to force him out of office through the media.
Vote:April 28th, 2005 at 12:42 pm
That’s fair enough David. But is there actually a copy of the report available anywhere? The Herald story I linked to:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/index.cfm?ObjectID=113778
was based on what would seem a more obvious channelling of information to journalists by “government sources”, more than a week before the report’s release. But it’s the only reference I can find to evidence from the off-duty policeman who supposedly contradicted Doone’s account of events. Can anyone confirm whether that evidence did actually feature in the final report?
And here’s Mai Chen at the time:
http://www.chenpalmer.com/article_394.asp
Cheers,
Vote:RB
April 28th, 2005 at 12:46 pm
Dear old DIM trying to defend The Beloved Heavenly Leader.She wasnt present when Doone was stopped so she should have shut up and said nothing.She didnt She confirmed a defamatory statement.She has no defence to the charge.Saying dolly told me so I thought it must be true aint a defence DIM.But of course the sad socialists are blinded by love of their Leader
Vote:April 28th, 2005 at 12:58 pm
David:
If she believed it was true, why not confirm it?
Note: by “believed it was true” I “believed it was true”. I do not mean “had no idea whether it was true and decided that it was a good opportunity to put the boot into Doone”, which appears to be the way some people here are interpreting that phrase (and which would be defamitory).
We wouldn’t want an environment where if the Prime Minister finds out about incompetence or corruption in the state sector, she or he decides they should stonewall and deny all knowledge, just in case it turns out later that they were mis-informed by their staff?
It seems like bad political judgement because the SST screwed up, then dobbed her in to save itself.
Gordon
Vote:April 28th, 2005 at 1:02 pm
I find it unlikely that Clark would conspire to get rid of Doone in such a manner. More likely it was a bad judgement call to agree to confirm details of an event she knew of only through someone else. And bad judgement, yet again, on the part of SST.
But does anyone know the exact wording of Clark’s confirmation of events?
Vote:April 28th, 2005 at 1:03 pm
Thanks for the link Russell. I laughed loudly at the point wher Mai Chen says “the Prime Minister has acted absolutely correctly. She has been very circumspect about her comments and the reason is because she doesn
Vote:April 28th, 2005 at 1:22 pm
Hi gd,
You must have me confused with someone else. And you must have confused my previous posts with some that, uh, don’t appear anywhere on this website.
RB and DPF – the off-duty officer is a mysterious character in all of this. From what I’ve heard, the conversation with the on-duty officer took place outside and out of ear-shot of the occupants of both cars.
Now, all this is information I’ve heard anecdotally from people involved in the case (but if you can’t trust some anonymous guy on the internet who can you trust?) – and there does seem to be a dearth of public information about the details.
RB is correct in pointing out that the appropriate action for Doone to have taken was to insist on a breath test – but since he’d spent all day at a party on a luxury yacht and wasn’t driving the car himself I think we can assume that his reasoning was somewhat impaired.
As far as Clarks legal costs go, the taxpayer only pays when a Minister is sued for actions taken relevent to their portfolio (which is why John Tamihere had to cough up his own legal fees over his golden handshake). It’s not going to be easy for Clark to argue that anonymously kneecapping senior public servants is part of her Prime Ministerial duties (true though that might be).
Doone was sacked for his role in INCIS – although subsequent events in the technology industry have proved he was dead right to demand it be migrated from IBMs dead-duck OS/2 platform to Microsoft Windows. Can you imagine where the police would be today trying to hire OS/2 developers and RexX programmers to service the damn thing?
Vote:April 28th, 2005 at 1:26 pm
Russell –
I think it was quite wise to load your Hard News post on this topic with qualifiers, because defamation is the legal equivalent of a tangled ball of string.
I plan to be extremely careful in any comments I make about this.
First, I think it is exceedingly unwise of any PM to comment at all on serious allegation against a senior civil servant – especially when they’re under an investigation that could have ended in Doone being charged with obstructing a police officer. There’s a big difference between being “open” and showing very poor judgement.
One interesting comment in Helen Tunnah
Vote:April 28th, 2005 at 2:28 pm
This all happened five years ago and it is pretty clear the PM made several mistakes. She should immediately apologise to Doone and be done with it. There should now be an inquiry into the mystery off duty Police officers report. I would like to know exactly what was reported and the path the report took to get to the PM.
Vote:April 28th, 2005 at 2:54 pm
The all day party on a luxury yatch is the hidden factor in all this.
Vote:It was reported that the function was hosted by EDS.
EDS were the operators of the Wanganui computer centre as the major police system then was known.
(one of Muldoons little bribes, another was the Post Bank bonus bonds computer centre was in Dunedin).
Im fascinated how the decision makers get won over without them meeting the supplicants in a hotel room or their own office at 10pm at night. Right ,you run a fake charity event where you can just happen to meet your target by accident ( same happened with paul Holmes who was “”accidentally”‘ met up with Prime CEO on a holiday in Fiji)
April 28th, 2005 at 3:00 pm
Isn’t it a bit late for apologies? I know it is “The Pacific Way” to beat in some poor bastard’s head and then publicly apologise profusely and be forgiven until you beat in the next head but has not some turkey from Turkey already announced that the Bilious Bitch is going to “defend the case vigorously?” My oh my, with so many court appearances when will we ever have tiome for an election?
Vote:April 28th, 2005 at 3:06 pm
” … but since he’d spent all day at a party on a luxury yacht …”
“The all day party on a luxury yatch is the hidden factor in all this.”
Jeez … I think everyone needs to be mindful of defamation laws in this forum. FWIW, the owner of the yacht said that no alcohol was served, in accordance with the rules of the corporate yacht race they were involved in.
Cheers,
Vote:RB
April 28th, 2005 at 3:25 pm
The potential defamation suits are whistling around this site like Exocets.All we know for sure is the Court report of the Fairfax action in which a High Court Judge has made certain statements re the PM and her brief of evidence and the Doones reported statement that they intend to sue the PM for defamation.The PM has admitted she confirmed the statement made to her which the Robinson Report has concluded was not made.The alledged Doone statement confirmed by the PM would be hard pressed to be denied as not defamatory.(Have you stopped beating your wife)
Vote:The prosecution rests it case Mi Lud
April 28th, 2005 at 3:49 pm
Part of Clark’s problem is that she thinks she knows more than she actually does, which leads her to providing bad opinions on areas in which she has no expertise.
There was no need for her to provide an opinion to SST on the Doone case… other people who knew what they were doing were handling it.
Similarly when she provided her opinion on the progress of the Iraqi liberation… that it wasn’t going according to plan. Then Baghdad was occupied just a few days later. She had no more information about the situation than what she saw on TV and has a demonstrated lack of expertise on military matters, so why didn’t she keep her mouth shut? There was no need for the PM, and by extension the Government of NZ, to issue an opinion.
Vote:April 28th, 2005 at 3:52 pm
One can’t help but note that the actions of this Prime Minister closely resemble those of Joh Belje Petersen if his biography according to Russell Brown is to be believed (and it isn’t). If it was maybe he was her secret mentor{not Edwards}, and now spirtitual guide(momentarily forgot she is an atheist.
Vote:April 28th, 2005 at 4:58 pm
David You are so right Pollies cant help themselves Poor old Terence Arnold will be working overtime trying to figure how to extract her from this one He will need to find a tame High Court Judge who can bend the defamation laws to allow her to slide out under them It can be done and it will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven(Sorry all this new Pope business Got carried away)
Vote:April 28th, 2005 at 5:02 pm
David You are so right Pollies cant help themselves Poor old Terence Arnold will be working overtime trying to figure how to extract her from this one He will need to find a tame High Court Judge who can bend the defamation laws to allow her to slide out under them It can be done and it will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven(Sorry all this new Pope business Got carried away)
Vote:April 28th, 2005 at 5:03 pm
David You are so right Pollies cant help themselves Poor old Terence Arnold will be working overtime trying to figure how to extract her from this one He will need to find a tame High Court Judge who can bend the defamation laws to allow her to slide out under them It can be done and it will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven(Sorry all this new Pope business Got carried away)
Vote:April 28th, 2005 at 5:12 pm
Totally agree with David. Clark likes to comment/rule on everything. There was no need for her to get involved. Loose lips sink ships.
Vote:April 28th, 2005 at 6:36 pm
I do not think Terrance Arniold should be involved in this. It is a private matter for the PM to sort out. If Doone goes after her based on the brief of evidence she supplied the court then he must be gunning big time for her. Good luck I say. Helen Clark should not be involving herself in this way against a Senior Civil servant if that is what she did. The “no comment” thing clearly indicates there is a problem. Cannot wait for parliament but I guess her stock answer will be that the matter is before the Courts and she will not comment further. kick for touch and hope the thing drags on past the elction. the tactic then is to make the most extravigant allegations in Parliament and dare her to reply. Bring in madam speaker the rule the debate sub judice. Not sure whether Doons has got much of a case frankly but it does reveal some unauthordox behavior on the part of the PM.
Vote:April 28th, 2005 at 7:22 pm
“A tame High Court judge…”
Vote:Where do these creatures live?
Are they as tame as the Supreme Court judges?
April 28th, 2005 at 7:33 pm
ok, i can understand why you are all crowing about this, hell a poltical point is a poltical point.
But let pretend it’s not helen clark for a moment and look at this on it’s merits
it seems to me to be a very slim case indeed (I am no expert)
lets pretend this happened…
A reporter asks the PM if she knows what doone said… she says ” I heard he said, that wont be neccesary”
now first of all she belives the statment to be true, a partial defence.
second that statment doesn’t appear to be defamatory, it appears to be hear say.
and really if this case was to be proven you would have a hard time getting a politician to say anything out side the house again. I think it is a very dangrous thing to sue MP’s for defermation at the best of time and i just dont think the threashold is high enough here. I would say the same thing if Don brash had said that.
I mean based on this threshold wouldnt don brash be at risk for “defaming maori” inadvertanly he may his comments may have defamed some indivduals because people now thing they are in “greviance mode”
i just think this is a very risky game that all people should be weary of because at the end of the day we want out politicians to talk more not less
Vote:April 28th, 2005 at 8:44 pm
Let’s assume that the P.M. did want to get rid of Peter Doone.
Vote:What was her reason? If it is a good one, was this really the best way for to go about getting rid of him?
Sorry if I’m missing the obvious. I’m not as clever as the rest of you.
April 28th, 2005 at 9:13 pm
High court judges will be keen for revenge against a Prime Minister who has trampled on judicial independence. If I were the Clark bitch, I would be very worried about appearing before the judiciary.
Vote:April 29th, 2005 at 10:49 am
A third Labour term is looking even more unlikely.
Vote:April 29th, 2005 at 11:08 am
Tristan, you cannot defame a group. Eastwood v Holmes (1858) 175 ER 758.
Vote: