The Standard Controversy
Well the controversy over The Standard being hosted on a Labour Party server made One News tonight. It is probably worth revisiting this issue from the beginning.
Firstly, despite many people crediting me, it was actually Paul M, a commenter (and one who as far as I know is not a member of any political party, but is very computer literate) in this thread who investigated the hosting of The Standard, and published the link to a Labour Party server.
This was obviously reasonably significant, and all I did was highlight Paul’s comment in a new blog post, and commented that this probably raises some issues for Labour under the E;ectoral Finance Act. The Labour Party President seemingly agrees with me as he said on TV that any expenses attributed to after 1 January would be included in Labour’s election return.
The blog post led to a fairly furious debate with 476 comments. I actually only commented a couple of times on the primary issue – mainly to suggest that it would have been wise to disclose the hosting arrangements at the time they were made. Tane (a Standard author) actually agreed with me on that.
Russell Brown blogged on the issue and describes it as messy, but not a scandal. Later in comments, says “I agree, it’s hypocritical, and that’s precisely their problem.”
Whale Oil has a go at estimating the costs of the commercial hosting of a “brand spanking new server cluster“.
On Wednesday Bill English puts out a press release on the issue asking for Labour to confirm the extent of its involvement.
Then on One News last night, Mike Williams said that Labour would include any costs post 1 January associated with The Standard and that “Labour Party activists” were probably behind it.
I imagine The Standard authors will be delighted with the extra traffic their site has got from the media attention. On the other hand Labour itself may be less than happy that the way the issue is playing itself out in the media is that Labour looks hypocritical and undermining their own law where they insist on transparency. That is certainly the way the discussion went on Breakfast TV this morning. Darren Hughes deserves credit though for carefully pronouncing the term “internet protocol address” 
As I said at the very beginning of this issue, it could have all been avoided with a disclosure statement at the time of the server change which said “We are temporarily being hosted for free on a server farm which also operates some Labour Party websites, and is in an IP range allocated to Labour”.
January 24th, 2008 at 8:11 am
The pricks have been caught with their pants down – more proof Labour are corrupt and desperate. One law for them and another law for everyone else.
Labour and their supporters are a fraud. I am pleased this is a terible start to the year where Klark wants to be “positive” – Ha – the fumbles and mismanagement that plagued them in 2007 are going to continue into 2008.
January 24th, 2008 at 8:15 am
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUP4JIfkias
January 24th, 2008 at 8:16 am
The lyrics are Double Standard by Face to Face
So what if I’m just a little apprehensive
So what if I’m not exactly what I’ve led you to believe
It doesn’t mean a thing
It’s a total lie that we’re expected to believe
There’s no such thing as a level playing field
And I’ve never been one much for dependency
It’s a fraud, your view of equality
So what if you don’t believe the double standard
So what about everybody who comes after, are they the same?
Do they deserve a thing?
It doesn’t matter how hard I have tried
Still I’ve given everything away
With nothing in return
I waited as I watched the world go by
Still I’ve given everything away with no return
January 24th, 2008 at 8:17 am
Thestandard is now on 60.234.145.212 which is:
inetnum: 60.234.128.0 – 60.234.159.255
netname: ORCONRES-DSL
descr: Orcon Internet Ltd Support
descr: P.O Box 302362
descr: North Harbour
descr: Auckland
country: NZ
admin-c: OS24-AP
tech-c: OA7-AP
status: ASSIGNED NON-PORTABLE
mnt-by: MAINT-NZ-ORCON
changed: tsalmen@orcon.net.nz 20050712
source: APNIC
Haha, they appear to be running it off their own DSL connection,no wonder it loads so slowly!
January 24th, 2008 at 8:18 am
Hah booted and disowned by Labour….sad, hollow little band of losers
January 24th, 2008 at 8:23 am
What a ramshackle PR fiasco, getting booted from their lovely “brand spanking new cluster”
January 24th, 2008 at 8:29 am
so what’s Lynn’s relationship to Labour? a contractor?
January 24th, 2008 at 8:31 am
Does a blog really constitute advertising? Political blogs tend to be closed shops of like-minded individuals ranting with (and sometimes against) each other. It’s more preaching to the converted than advertising I, would have thought?
I enjoy reading Kiwiblog, (and the comments!!) but nothing I’ve read here so far has really done anything but reaffirm my own voting intentions.
January 24th, 2008 at 8:36 am
Mud sticks, and perception is a bitch in politics. They may change the hosting now, but the damage has started and it just makes them look like they are trying to hide now – the old keep quiet and hope it goes away trick doesnt work anymore.
They would have been better off being up front about who they are and what links they have to any political party, as well as the hosting arrangement with Labour. This whole fiasco reminds me so much about the Exclusive Brethren episode from the last election.
I suspect the people behind the Standard are neck deep in the Labour party and when it is found out who they really are, it will do more damage to the Labour Party, I just hope that happens closer to the election.
January 24th, 2008 at 8:42 am
RRM:
A blog is defined in the electoral finance act as: “the publication by an individual, on a non-commercial basis, on the Internet of his or her personal political views (being the kind of publication commonly known as a blog).”
That means it is the publication by one person, who is not paid to blog, of that person’s own political views. Kiwiblog is the publication of DPF’s own political views.
Parliament created the individual blogger exemption for a purpose: they didn’t want to catch out an individual, part-time blogger merely writing a piece on the Internet. It is clear that Parliament did want to include group blogs, and active campaign sites advocating for or against parties or candidates.
Clearly, Parliament’s intention was to ensure that campaigning on the internet, via email communications and the websites of both political parties, and third parties, were covered by the Act.
As I read it, NoMinister, Public Address, NZConservative, NewzBlog, Kiwiblogblog, and The Standard are all excluded from the definition of “blog” under the Electoral Finance Act. Any posts that encourage or persuade a person to vote, or not to vote, for one or more political party, or candidate, or a combination of political parties, or candidates, on these websites will constitute election advertisements under the EFA.
Any group blog that encourages or persuades voters to vote for or against a political party, or candidate, must set out the name and address of the official promoter of the blog. The Standard doesn’t have this. I wouldn’t be surprised if somebody lays a complaint with the Electoral Commission soon.
January 24th, 2008 at 8:44 am
This has really shown up the hollow men and their below standard blog.
January 24th, 2008 at 8:49 am
It is a delicious irony that the first political party to get itself in trouble under the Electoral Finance Act is the very party that created it. Reminds me of Dr Frankenstein and the monster. Of course Dr Frankenstein in the original tale ended up dieing with the monster he created…..
January 24th, 2008 at 8:52 am
Just tried logging onto the standard – it is taking so much time – they have this wonderful opportunity to spread the socialist word and no one can get through. Typical socialist losers – I wonder if they could even organise a piss up in a brewery?
January 24th, 2008 at 8:54 am
Some blogs are more equal than others.
January 24th, 2008 at 8:55 am
The Electoral Comminssion believed Mike Williams when he said befoe the last election that the Pledge Card Costs would be included in Labour’s return. And then they weren’t.
Why should anyone believe him this time round?
Has Mike found that he has a non-duplicitous bone in his body after all?
“Man fools me once ……. shame on him
Man fools me twice …….. shame on me”
Possibly Confucious
January 24th, 2008 at 8:56 am
I wrote to the Electoral Comission about this will post with any responses, or lack of them.
http://monkeyswithtypewriter.blogspot.com/
January 24th, 2008 at 8:58 am
Monty,
Yup the below standard blog is taking a long time to load
January 24th, 2008 at 9:02 am
Honestly, when you think about the ‘holier-than-thou’ stance the VDS took over the ‘Key/Coldplay’ thing, I really think that this should not be allowed to be overlooked.
Now they have altered the system – does it mean we all lose interest, and the issue will go away? Certainly should not, in an election year. AAFter all they were at the top of the heap clamouing for transparency during the ‘election year’ only a month ago were they not? Let’s see if they meant it, or they only meant it for anyone who might be threat to the Labour Government – ie them.
SO to the boys and girls at THe Standard – Come on boys and girls walk the talk! Remember you are fighting the good fight against the ‘Tyranny of the Majority!’
January 24th, 2008 at 9:03 am
sorry ‘ie not them’
January 24th, 2008 at 9:06 am
I for one want to know who the hollow people are that are now paying for the new hosting, in the interests of transparency of course.
The Standard have been proven to be Hollow. Nothing they say can ever be trusted. They must come clean and tell us who is paying for the new hosting.
January 24th, 2008 at 9:07 am
Insolent Prick: The Standard doesn’t have this. I wouldn’t be surprised if somebody lays a complaint with the Electoral Commission soon
I believe Lee C has already initiated this process.
January 24th, 2008 at 9:08 am
Why didn’t they just tell the truth in the first place and just avoid all this? Mike Williams clearly not advising on strategy
January 24th, 2008 at 9:10 am
Brownie: Why didn’t they just tell the truth in the first place and just avoid all this?
My guess would be that it is not in their nature. They are so blinded by ideology that they honestly believe they are doing the right thing. One rule for them. One rule for the rest of us. The EFA should have shown us that.
January 24th, 2008 at 9:11 am
We don’t know what relationship the Standard has with the EPMU, because the Standard is deliberately obfuscating on that point. Some of the Standard’s talking points directly mirror the talking points made by the EPMU.
Is the Standard operating as a front for the EPMU’s secretive, undeclared, third-party election campaign, in contravention of the EFA?
January 24th, 2008 at 9:16 am
Gotta say though, couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch of blokes. HAHAHAHAHA
January 24th, 2008 at 9:17 am
Insolent Prick, the thing with most of the blogs you mention though is that they are hosted on general servers like blogger.com or WordPress.
If NZ Conservative, for instance, wanted more server space and we asked the Labour Party, do you think they would let us? I would say they wouldn’t.
But the Labour Party had given space to the Standard as well as a gay site and several others (according to the News last night).
To me, this shows intentional support for said sites.
Of course, the site is no longer posted on the Labour website as was pointed out above, but it’s good that eagle-eyed bloggers are keeping an eye on things.
January 24th, 2008 at 9:22 am
It will be interesting to see what has happened here:
1. The server cluster that Lynne was putting together has moved to a new IP and connection, and therefore also probably out of the data centre they were in. This would indicate that Labour were previously paying for the hosting and the connection as well as the IP addresses. I would suggest that it means that some at the Standard also either lied or very very carefully obfuscated, because they clearly tried to give the impression that only the IP range came from Labour
2. The Standard moved off the server cluster to some other boxes, the cluster remains where it was. This would most likely mean that Labour was actually paying for/controlling the servers, the hosting, the connection, and the installation/configuration of the cluster itself. Again, this suggests lying or very cunning obfuscation.
3. The Standard is still on the cluster it was on and in the location it was, but for some reason the connection started going slowly – maybe lots of people visiting?
The truth could probably be found out by a tracert as per last time.
January 24th, 2008 at 9:28 am
Westmere was giving me crap yesterday saying (http://www.thestandard.org.nz/?p=979#comment-14590) that if Bill English links to a site (i.e. Kiwiblog) therefore he endorses that site.
So using that reasoning and given that the Labour Party are hosting the site, does that make the Standard a Labour Party-endorsed website?
January 24th, 2008 at 9:39 am
The more traffic The Standard gets the better. People will very quickly see how bitter & twisted the Standard correspondents are, especially if they pay attention to anything written by Robinsod. Now that the Standard has been inextricably linked with Labour, the Standard’s vitriol will be regarded as the party line.
January 24th, 2008 at 9:39 am
Fletch:
There are several issues.
1. Whether the Standard constitutes an election advertisement as defined by the Electoral Finance Act. In my view, it clearly is an advertisement. It encourages voters to vote for the Labour and Green parties, and discourages voters from voting for National, Act, and NZFirst.
2. Whether the Standard is covered by the blog exemption. My view is that it isn’t. The Standard is published by a group of people. The EFA definition of a blog clearly is aimed at exempting a single individual from expressing a personal opinion.
3. Whether the Standard lists the promoter’s name and address on the website. It clearly doesn’t.
4. Whether the Standard, as a promoter of election advertisements, intends to spend more than $12,000 in election year. If the Standard’s hosting arrangements do cost over $12,000, the Standard is required to register as a third party. On the whole, I doubt that the Standard is likely to spend anything like this on its hosting arrangements.
5. Whether the Standard can be construed as an election advertisement on behalf of either the Labour Party, or the EPMU. Notably, the EFA specifies that any election advertisement encouraging voters to support a political party must be attributed to that party’s expenses. Mike Williams appears to saying that the Standard’s does actively encourage people to vote Labour. That means the Standard must include an authorisation statement by the Labour Party.
If the EPMU does register as a third party, then it would be difficult for the Standard’s expenses not to be included as expenditure by the EPMU. If the EPMU does register, then the Standard should include an authorisation statement by the EPMU.
January 24th, 2008 at 9:40 am
Did anyone hear that the Standard fella’s are taking up cycling?
Apparently they’ve entered a team in the Tour de France but have been excluded since they intend to back peddle the entire way.
January 24th, 2008 at 9:48 am
Brownie – LMAO!
January 24th, 2008 at 10:29 am
I agree with Inventory2…perhaps future comments on contentious issues should include a link to the standard with the rider “for the Labour Pary perspective visit…
January 24th, 2008 at 10:44 am
site is dead
January 24th, 2008 at 10:45 am
Non-authoritative answer:
thestandard.org.nz
primary name server = godknows.lynn.gen.nz
responsible mail addr = lprent.primary.geek.nz
serial = 40
refresh = 900 (15 mins)
retry = 600 (10 mins)
expire = 3600 (1 hour)
default TTL = 3600 (1 hour)
thestandard.org.nz canonical name = server4.thestandard.org.nz
thestandard.org.nz nameserver = wn1.left.org.nz
thestandard.org.nz nameserver = godknows.lynn.gen.nz
thestandard.org.nz nameserver = godknows.lynn.gen.nz
thestandard.org.nz nameserver = wn1.left.org.nz
wn1.left.org.nz internet address = 60.234.142.16
January 24th, 2008 at 10:49 am
IP, am I right in assuming these definitions also include Frogblog? If so, talk about hoist with your own petard!
January 24th, 2008 at 10:54 am
Off topic I know but Whale Oil your blog is doing that Internet Explorer thing again.
January 24th, 2008 at 10:59 am
To all the authors and supporters of the standard;
I appreciate that as your own site has been moved to a new hosting arrangement that it may take some time to rearrange your hosting so that you can achieve the same standard of service as you experienced when you were piggy backing on the tax payers resources. However the first thing that you should do is update you’re ‘about’ page to comply with the EFB.
Since I have been repeatedly denigrated for suggesting that the EFB will effect the standard I expect a full apology as I’m sure “IP” expects for being denigrated as a liar when he questioned the hosting arrangements and political affiliations of the anonymous standard authors.
Just out of interest: WTF did you think you were doing blatantly breaking the disclosure laws that you so staunchly defended as being required for transparency?
Finally, as has been said about many things the Labour party get bagged for – it’s not the deed that causes the problems, it’s the handling (denials, delays & denigration of the accusers) that blows the issue out of proportion and undermines your credibility.
Oh, I would have posted this on your site but since you stop being funded by the tax payer I don’t have half an hour to wait for the site to load. Spend some of your own money promoting your opinions, try it – you can stand on your own two feet without resources from the tax payers – others do it.
January 24th, 2008 at 11:03 am
Domain Name lynn.gen.nz
Status Active
Date Registered 00:00, 15/3/2000
Date Billed Until 00:00, 15/3/2008
Date Last Modified 10:08, 10/2/2006
Include in DNS? yes
Registrar Name Domainz Limited
Registrar Address1 Private Bag 1810
Registrar City Wellington
Registrar Country NZ (NEW ZEALAND)
Registrar Phone +64 4 473 4567
Registrar Fax +64 4 473 4569
Registrar Email 4service@domainz.net.nz
Registrant Contact Name Lynn Prentice
So Lynn is now hosting The Standard off her own Orcon DSL connection…
[DPF: Lynn is a he]
January 24th, 2008 at 11:10 am
the ttl’s are very low which indicates s/he is moving the site from place to place at the moment. So where ever it is now is very temporary.
January 24th, 2008 at 11:49 am
Don’t most ISP’s have rules about hosting servers behind standard ADSL connections? I guess that rule isn’t one that applies to left wing bloggers – they are above the law…..
January 24th, 2008 at 12:05 pm
While I’m a leftie I find this whole thing quite hilarious- did no-one even think that it might be just a bit daft to pull something like this especially after the new laws were passed?!
I hope the standard just bites the bullet and gets on with full transparency; it’s only when people look like they’re trying to hide something that it becomes interesting or book-worthy…
January 24th, 2008 at 12:06 pm
burt: that is a bit petty really isn’t it? There is no evidence that Lynne has a standard ADSL v’s some other sort of connection, and every man and his dog runs small web sites off ADSL connections. I agree with Lynn that the total bandwidth consumed by the site is probably quite small, it isn’t like they are hosting streaming media or something. I suspect that the flurry of publicity won’t have helped things, and having moved to a slow connection won’t encourage all those new visitors to bother staying.
If they have done the right thing and moved from Labour to somewhere else, then I think we should offer support for that, belated though that move might be. To piss and moan about where they have gone to feels a bit small minded – a bit like kicking a man when he’s down really. I suspect that this issue (of their own making) is causing them a fair bit of pain at the moment in trying to keep the thing running.
[DPF: I feel very sorry for Lynn. Lynn is donating his time and resources to help out (and he is not one of the authors - just the tech guy], and having to move suddenly must be a pain in the arse. As I said at the beginning, a statement about the nature of the temporary hosting would have meant there was no big fuss.]
January 24th, 2008 at 12:15 pm
I think we’ve just lowered the standard!
January 24th, 2008 at 12:16 pm
(sorry, had to really, surprised no-one’s done it already!)
January 24th, 2008 at 12:41 pm
The denials and odfusicating seem remarkably similar to the pledge card fiasco with probably the exact same people agreeing to acknowledge or deny as needed.
January 24th, 2008 at 12:45 pm
More of the same ,the classic response from the Heather Simpson spin shop.
January 24th, 2008 at 12:59 pm
PaulL
Oh well that makes it OK then – they are not the only ones doing it – a bit like Labour were not the only ones who stole tax payers money to buy an election – validate it and move on.
I constantly remind my children that pointing at eachother saying “he/she did it too” is no defense. My kids understand it – what went wrong with that lesson for the “adults” tahat make up the Labour supports?
January 24th, 2008 at 1:09 pm
PaulL
I also acknowledge that Lynn may not be using a standard (non business) ADSL connection – However how can we believe anything Lynn tells us after the last round of “It’s just an IP address that Labour had registered and it’s got nothing to do with Labour…”
He’s a twit if he thinks that people will take anything he says at face value from here on. Good luck to the standard, if they are prepared to pay for their own hosting then good on them. It’s just not like socialists to pay for the things they need when there is a big trough of other peoples money to stick their snouts into. The issue over the “brand spanking new server cluster” has proven this.
January 24th, 2008 at 2:03 pm
Burt: someone else did it too isn’t a defence, I agree. How about instead I suggest that it is something between Lynn and his ISP, and not really for us to comment on.
You could go off surfing the web for ip addresses, and check whether those sites look like they are on an ADSL plan, and complain about them. You don’t, cause who cares. You’re only looking at this because of the recent history. That is fine, but I personally feel that is taking it a bit far – I’d leave them alone to lick their wounds rather than continuing to pursue what I think is a minor issue.
January 24th, 2008 at 2:06 pm
Wow never in my wildess dreams did I think the Socialists would only take 23 days to breach their own law.
And as for Mikey W. This man has been found to be not trust worthy in the past. He must be carefully watched and monitored.
January 24th, 2008 at 2:23 pm
gd – I hate to be anal, but they actually got outed on the 19th!
January 24th, 2008 at 2:27 pm
burt: however, I think my other questions above are interesting and (IMO) not quite so petty. The Standard appears to be on a new network link. Did they move the boxes or just the site? If they moved the boxes, is that because Labour was previously funding the hosting? If they moved just the site, does that mean Labour was providing the boxes, the hosting and the link? Either way, I think those would show lies. Lies are things I care about.
January 24th, 2008 at 2:43 pm
PaulL
I agree, they have changed something after having claimed for days on end that there wa nothing wrong with the set-up they had.
Anonymous hollow men is what the standard will be remembered for.
January 24th, 2008 at 4:01 pm
IV2 I was refering to the date the MSM finally managed to catch up with we of the blog world.
It must be soooooo frustrating for the MSM to have become chip paper reporters.
January 24th, 2008 at 6:03 pm
Oh hoooooray, the MSM creaks and groans into aaaaaction at laaaaast. But what are the chances of Tim “Emily” Pankhurst’s loyal Dom Post giving this a mention?
January 24th, 2008 at 7:31 pm
Insolent, oh I must read your first post again. I agree with everything u said in your reply, so I must have got the wrong idea from the first..
January 24th, 2008 at 10:34 pm
Sooooo, lynn’s a he and Rotorua MP steve chadwick’s a chick… and we wonder why Labour heads the cause of the gender confused ?!?!?!?!?
January 24th, 2008 at 11:19 pm
This “hollow men” line has a great ring to it, though I cant help but feel like I’ve heard it before? oh wait thats right, its what we call the liars and thieves from the other party!