Lets get it all out in the open, publish the mails!

“The National Party is looking for a mole within its own ranks as it tries to dampen speculation about its ties with the Exclusive Brethren and leader Don Brash’s private life.”

For someone who is always complaining about people “shooting the messenger” he sure has some cheak blaming other people for his own party’s fuck up.

Oh no, lack of a conspiracy. That itself must be a conspiracy to throw everyone off the trail of the conspiracy.

As insightful as ever IP.

It’s not public knowledge, but if we must guess, I’d guess towards the simple carelessness, or the unknown insider forwarding stuff. And IP trails are very hard to fake, so I can understand Brash’s nervousness – people are notoriously indiscreet in emails to people they trust, never really considering the security is roughly the same as if they were sending postcards.

I think it’s an underhanded tactic to flout his emails. But it’s all part of the playing the man and not the ball tactics which National have pretty much pursued for the last couple of years. I think both sides will end up looking pretty bad if these emails come out. It saddens me that NZ politics is coming to this.

“Dr Brash’s meetings with key Brethren members in the lead-up to last year’s election were revealed after the church distributed anti-Government pamphlets. His involvement with the Christian sect caused disquiet even within National’s ranks.

Signs of that disquiet surfaced yesterday when deputy leader Gerry Brownlee reportedly suggested that the Brethren – which spent more than $500,000 on its campaign to help National into office – were “a thorn in our side”.

Dr Brash said he did not take Mr Brownlee’s comment as a criticism.

“I think what (Gerry) meant by that is the ability of the Government to divert attention from their own misdeeds has been a bit of a nuisance from our point of view . . . and in that sense, any distraction is a thorn in our side.”

Come on Donny, surely you don’t expect National voters want their party associated with an extremist cult?

That would be the Destiny Church, surely?

I would say that if Labour and Winston’s claims are correct–that there are phone books of email correspondence–then that would require much more than a casual and mundane slip-up on behalf of the leak. If we are talking phone books of correspondence, as has been claimed by Labour, then the only possibility is a systematic acquisition of emails. Either Labour is lying about the quantity of correspondence, or they are telling the truth, in which a systematic theft of large quantities of data by an unauthorised person must have occurred.

One of those possibilities is that the emails were contained on a laptop, rather than in hard copy form, and the laptop was lost either temporarily or permanently. That would explain the quantity of emails involved, without requiring a systematic intrusion of parliamentary security. However, for somebody to be in possession of a lost laptop, and to systematically pass on emails they were not authorised to read, probably involves criminal activity.

We are talking about a couple of occasional emails, that may have been lying around, picked up by a messenger, or on-sent casually. That option doesn’t preclude criminal activity on behalf of the person who passed that information on, or the recipient of that information. Either way, there does need to be a police investigation.

Doesn’t take much dot connecting now does it?

Storm in a teacup surely? BRT supports National? SHOCK/HORROR!

Am I being naive? What’s wrong with Brash talking with Kerr? As for being a member – when did the BRT become a secret society? Look, they’re both Freemasons too (I bet) who cares?

‘In an email from BRT executive director Roger Kerr titled “Tool of the Business Roundtable” Kerr offered advice such as: “you’ve been handling the criticisms of your alleged ‘extreme’ right wing views very well” and “next there will be talk about ‘having views like the Business Roundtable’. Someone may even discover you were a member. I won’t be helping them – we’ve been lying low as you may have noticed’

Brash speech to caucus: “As you and I both know, the Party is currently very short of money, with no obvious willingness on the part of those who could do so to write out big cheques… I believe that attracting that money would be substantially easier with me as leader.”‘

WTF who even listens to the BRT let alone accepts thier emails. If i was brash i’d set up a rule that any email with Kerr’s name in it went straight to the junk folder where it belongs.

Though if thats the content of one of the published emails no wonder National is going into crisis mode to stop the rest being published!

I think this hinges on the definition of ‘leaked”, yes, if only two people had legitimate access to brash’s inbox, then it is highly unlikely that one of those two leaked the emails.

However, if we’re talking about some disgruntled National staffer, who may not have had legitimate access, but somehow was able to get copies… then I’d consider that leaking too.

really though, I’m arguing that it is unlikely the emails were hacked in some sinsiter high tech manner – they were acquired some other, more mundane way.

Labour did indeed steal the emails. Planning for a contingency like this current has been underway for a good while, and Helen Clark sent Parekura Horomia over to England last year – a matter of public record.

What was NOT known at that time is that he was being covertly trained by sections of M16 in data retrieval. Last year, around November, the black-lycra-clad MP silently abseiled down the side of the Beehive, diamond-cutting through a glazing panel and nimbly vaulting into the building. After security was subdued with chloroform, Horomia put his new-found technical prowess to work, quickly downloading Brash’s hard-drive on to a device given to him by Clark expressly for the purpose.

Pocketing a half-eaten Moro bar on the way out, he exited just as covertly, and that is how Labour came into possession of said emails, and why Horomia often looks so smug in the house.

Or thereabouts.

DenMT

So what you’re saying is that a National Party staffer, who doesn’t like Don Brash, but likes Bill English, has taken it upon themselves to leak the emails, in the process sabotaging his own party?

What kind of realistic career prospects do you think that staffer would think they might have? Do you think they would be rewarded for leaking the emails?

But I know you’re very good at coming up with evidence. Do some detective work. Name the staffer who did the leak. Prove your theory correct.

It would also be great to see the e-mails from labour over the election spending – especially the ones around the time that Mike Smith said that the Pledge Cards would be included in the election spending cap. And the ones around Phillip Field could be amusing as well.

If I had to put odds on them being leaked by someone who had legitimate access vs someone breaking the law to access them, it would be 5%:95%.

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Yes, are we allowed to be on this one david?