Some answers to the 12 questions
Did Helen not notice her party president – the Labour Party Campaign Chair and Manager, was out of the country trying to dig up dirt on John Key from 20 years ago?
Yes – she has confirmed she knew what Williams was up to.
Did no one notice he was absent from the daily campaign meetings he normally chairs?
Possibly not, since Helen appointed herself chief political strategist instead of Mike.
Why were taxpayer funded members of Labour’s Parliamentary Research Unit also in Australia with Mike Williams trying to smear John Key?
Helen says none of them flew over, but they were assisting Williams.
Who paid for all their travel?
Well either Helen or Williams are lying here. Helen says WIlliams paid himself. Williams says the Labour Party paid.
Does the head of the research unit still report unofficially to Heather Simpson?
Yes. And there is no way they would have been authorised to work on the smear campaign without Heather’s sign off.
Is the Batman who posted documents anonymously to Dominion Post reporters the same Batman who is an author on The Standard and posted on the H-Fee earlier this month?
Yes.
Why did The Standard delete the previous post from Batman?
They did not delete it, but changed it from being an author to being a guest post and put up a disclaimer that they do not know who Batman is.
Does this not link The Standard to Mike Williams and the Labour Parliamentary Research Unit?
They claim they do not know who Batman is (despite giving him or her posting rights temporarily).
Is it not time that Labour fronted up and revealed how many of the 15 Standard authors are parliamentary and ministerial staffers?
And is Batman one of them?
Who from Labour told Winston about the smear so he could refer to it on Alt TV?
My guess is Pete Hodgson
Doesn’t it undermine Helen’s claim she had nothing to do with it, when her parliamentary strategist Pete Hodgson is trying to beat it up?
And continues to try and beat it up.
Is Helen just pretending she knew nothing about the attempted smear, or has she lost control of her party, her party president and her own research unit?
I don’t think she has lost control. She is in contact six times a day with Mike Williams. If it had not blown up in their face, she would be fronting the issue.
October 31st, 2008 at 6:45 am
Maybe Philu knows more? Hello Philu, this Robin calling….are you out there???
Philu responds: Come on, Robin, to the Bat Cave! There’s not a moment to lose!
October 31st, 2008 at 6:48 am
Holy strawberries Batman! We’re in a jam!
October 31st, 2008 at 7:00 am
This Batman is not playing by Bat rules contained in the superhero manual. I will ask the incredible hulk to find and destroy this devious creep.
October 31st, 2008 at 7:01 am
Scurry, scurry little moles
Go back down your deep dark holes
scratching, sniffing in the dirt
peeking coyly from under her skirt
Oppenheimer you thought you were
but in the end it was just another slur
Now you’re just fools in a bind
because everyone know that moles are blind
October 31st, 2008 at 7:09 am
In short they’re pack of unadulterated liars!
October 31st, 2008 at 7:11 am
Hels is doing a damn fine impression of losing control then.
Too bad her little fall in Christchurch isn’t up on You Tube. I’ll have to be content with Hels concession speech on 8 November. There will be sour grapes!!
October 31st, 2008 at 7:12 am
Why does Aunty Hell seem very nervous when she is in Christchurch dear Peter?
October 31st, 2008 at 7:13 am
Re the anonymous source who supposedly tipped Labour off. Whose side was this person really on?
October 31st, 2008 at 7:16 am
Perhaps Batman was Owen Glenn, just rewarding Mike & Helen for their previous efforts.
October 31st, 2008 at 7:16 am
OECD – for your viewing pleasure: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sL7o8p8eLGw
October 31st, 2008 at 7:17 am
OECD – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sL7o8p8eLGw
October 31st, 2008 at 7:27 am
I have it on good authority that the ‘Batman’ involved in this scurilous slander, is in fact an IMPOSTER!!!
Riddle me this…he’s really the J_K_R!
October 31st, 2008 at 7:28 am
So, in the last few weeks the lefty trolls, such as Sonic and Nome, have been absent, have recently come back, and are now quiet again.
Were they in Melbourne perhaps?
October 31st, 2008 at 7:31 am
Save that YouTube clip and then put it on auto-repeat…man it’s so damned funny.
Lucky that the guy whose arm she grabbed wasn’t still facing her, otherwise she might have gotten a handfull of DICK! First time for everything I guess…
Just a thought…was she PISSED??? Might be knocking a few back with everything turning to shit around her
October 31st, 2008 at 7:35 am
If Sonik and Knome are in fact commie research/spin eejitss then they have royally fucked up and must be on the faaaast track to redundancy. No $2000 for them, unless they are life partners!
LOL.
October 31st, 2008 at 7:36 am
Maybe she didn’t fall but was looking for her poll rating. More likely as she went down in a hurry, she heard there was dirt on John Key on the floor and she couldn’t deploy Mike Williams as he was too busy looking elsewhere (at her request)
October 31st, 2008 at 7:42 am
I could watch that clip all day long!
Remember how often the MSM ran the clip of Don Brash getting into a stock car or going on the gangplank to get onto the Earthrace boat?
October 31st, 2008 at 7:42 am
Why don’t the MSM get off their arses and find H2 and start asking her some questions?
She’ll know the answers.
October 31st, 2008 at 7:45 am
She is trying the ‘smear without smearing’ line: “I think there are still questions to answer”. She claims that she has nothing to do with it, yet is fully supportive of it.
So why is she doing this? She doesn’t want to say that she endorses it, because then it looks like she is the Prime Muckraker. Yet she is certainly not condeming it, because she thinks there are “still questions to answer”.
Strong leadership, Helen?
Trust, Helen?
October 31st, 2008 at 7:49 am
Hey slightlyrighty, I bet the MSM don’t do to our clumsy, soon to be gone leader what they did to Brash and play that clip over and over.
October 31st, 2008 at 7:50 am
Two final questions
Question: If National was aware that a senior Labour MP had involvement in past criminal activities would they make further inquiries into it?
Answer: Of course they would
Question: Have they made a song and dance about historical activity by a Labour MP?
Answer: Just ask Benson-Pope.
This is not a scandal. It is a beat up so that people will feel sorry for Key and not think that it may actually not be a good idea to put an ex money trader, whose type has brought the world’s economy to its knees, in charge of their country.
[DPF: You are so wrong. Take Benson-Pope. No Nat MP did digging on this, let alone fly to another country and bring back 20 kgs of documents. Former pupils of DBP who were bullied by him approached National MPs as they were aghast he was promoting an anti-bullying campaign.]
October 31st, 2008 at 7:59 am
mickysavage,
To be dead serious about this nonsense for a moment.
It’s about political management. Labour have blown it not because they were looking for something on Key it’s because they didn’t keep the lid on the whole thing before they were certain they had their facts straight. It was also silly of Peters to go around blabbering about this days ago. The whole thing is just plain dumb politicking a week out from election day.
That is messy politics and bear in mind that the NZ voter doesn’t normally like smear politics.
To answer your question, yes if National had something juicy on Labour yes they would research it. But they’d hope they could manage it better than Labour has handled this nonsense.
October 31st, 2008 at 8:00 am
Well mickeysavage. If Mikhail Kullen and Heilen Klark had learnt how to money trade, maybe the coutry wouldn’t be in the shit is is now.
The best market conditions in history over the past nine years – huge surplusses – and they still fucked up.
Give us a break and crawl back under your rock.
October 31st, 2008 at 8:06 am
Don the Kiwi
Lowest unemployment rate in the western world, significant repayment of debt, 25% increase in the real value of wages, $14b in the Cullen super fund.
Sounds to me like they have actually done quite well.
October 31st, 2008 at 8:06 am
Mickysavage
It was the US Govt meddling in the private sector that caused all the problems we face now.
October 31st, 2008 at 8:10 am
That You Tube video hits the sweet spot alright. Thanks getstaffed.
October 31st, 2008 at 8:13 am
>It is a beat up so that people will feel sorry for Key
Why would Williams, Clark, Hodgson, Peters, and The Standard want people to feel sorry for Key? Are they all sleeper agents of the VRWC? If so, couldn’t the VRWC hire sleeper agents who made more sense, and who don’t want to deport all asian people?
I contrast this badly sourced smear with the West Coast Labour MP thing that Whaleoil was trying to develop a month ago. That didn’t make it further than a few blogs hinting that there might be a story needing followup. No traditional media carried the story. National didn’t run with the story. And Poneke condemned Whaleoil. Whereas this smear, despite being supported by no evidence, was picked up by the media. Who come out of it looking like gullible fools, to an extent softened by the slight change of tone of their later stories. And the people behind the smear aren’t a blogger, but the MP, her foreign affairs minister, and a large chunk of the Labour Party. So Clark and Williams are sort of left wing Whaleoils, but probably less reliable when it comes to evaluating scandal.
October 31st, 2008 at 8:14 am
Mickey,
Again, the socialist Clinton administration started the credit boom in the western world, Mikhael propogated it here via the reserve bank.
Money traders are elevated barrow boys, they buy and sell what people want. Simple.
You are obviously very removed from tthe coal face, perhaps ensconced in an airconditioned office creating media concepts to entice more poor people to stump up union ‘dues’ so your type can remain soft handed and un-tanned.
October 31st, 2008 at 8:15 am
“They did not delete it, but changed it from being an author to being a guest post and put up a disclaimer that they do not know who Batman is”
So let me get this right. The Standard is a blogging system where people who are not already known to the blog writers AND administrators can add a post?
Does this not suggest there is an even higher authority? If I run and/or admin a blog, and someone unknown registers into the blog and posts, does this not mean I am not really the blog owner?
This is very, very odd, and continues to suggest that the Standard is not actually controlled by the people who appear to do so in public.
Which, once again, begs the question: who is behind that blog, who pays for it, who owns it, who selects the contributors?
October 31st, 2008 at 8:16 am
please, please can we bring back the professional liar rogernome and the sonic, I mean mickeysavage is good for a laugh but the real comedy has gone out of the efforts of troll central. A man need a good belly laugh with his first coffee. It set up the day.
October 31st, 2008 at 8:17 am
mickeysavage.
Unemployed transferred to sickness benefits to deflect the reality,massive increase in bureaucracy and welfare dependants so that govt. paid people now outnumber working people, huge losses of population to Australia and replaced by refugees and unskilled workers all on the benefit………….
Yeah, they’ve done pretty well alright
October 31st, 2008 at 8:21 am
I agrree with BOK.
Where are the Professional losers?
Ah, thats rght – getting their arses kicked down lamton quay by H2.
LOL
October 31st, 2008 at 8:27 am
Yes, can someone please re-mix that video, play the fall over & over again and do it to say “Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm” – Crash Test Dummies.
Once there was this kid who
Got into a fiscal accident and couldn’t come to work
But when he finally came back
His hair had turned from black into bright white [Is this verse about Mihail Kullen ?]
He said that it was from when
The economy had smashed so hard
Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm
Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm
Once there was this girl who
Wouldn’t go and change with the girls in the change room [when will she take the hint and take a prolonged OE]
But when they finally made her
They saw teethmarks all over her body [does that lap dog Mallard pack a bite ?]
She couldn’t quite explain it [As always, deny deny deny ]
They’d always just been there [A verse about Hellun, obviously pre-Photo Shop release]
Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm
Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm
But both girl and boy were glad
‘Cause one kid had it worse than that [Winston ?]
‘Cause then there was this boy whose
Parents made him come directly home right after school
And when they went to their church
They shook and lurched all over the church floor [Nope not Winston, sounds like Pope Tamaki]
He couldn’t quite explain it
They’d always just gone there
Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm
Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm
October 31st, 2008 at 8:30 am
On Holmes this morning she was talking the smear up as if it was all initiated by NZ Herald
http://adamsmith.wordpress.com/2008/10/31/9122/
October 31st, 2008 at 8:30 am
Mickey,
If the Nats did want to get info on criminal activities by Labour, they could easily find it and not have to go back 20 years!
Pledge card?
Painter gate?
October 31st, 2008 at 8:30 am
that wasnt hulun though, quite obviously too young. if h1 had crash landed like that she would have done a hip.
October 31st, 2008 at 8:31 am
Oh my o my – have labour really burnt aall bridges with the press now.
LOL
fucktards
October 31st, 2008 at 8:47 am
getstaffed
Thanks so much for the link to the clip re Helen’s tumble
I looked for it last night in the MSM but it was mysteriously unavailable.
Was that wrong of me do you think?
I told my husband Helen had taken a fall
His first response:
That woman will do anything to gain a bit of sympathy
His second response:
He had wondered if per chance a large train had been following her at the time
Personally I will tuck this one away and watch on election night over and over
if the unthinkable happens.
October 31st, 2008 at 8:53 am
was that really hulun? oh my god!
I honestly thought it was a piss take!
H1 tries to mix it with the workers at a cafe a la photo shoot and face plants.
October 31st, 2008 at 8:54 am
It is pleasant, when the sea is high and the winds are dashing the waves about, to watch from the shores the struggles of another – Lucretius
October 31st, 2008 at 9:12 am
“Who paid for all their travel?
Well either Helen or Williams are lying here. Helen says WIlliams paid himself. Williams says the Labour Party paid.”
Clark on Holmes this morning said that Williams told her yesterday thaft the Labour Party reimbursed his costs
October 31st, 2008 at 9:18 am
Helens tumble appeareed a number of times on the TV1 breakfast show this morning. For some reason Paul Henry thought it was quite amusing.
So did I.
October 31st, 2008 at 9:25 am
That “Helen Clark Takes a Tumble” video really is must see TV.
October 31st, 2008 at 9:33 am
>Clark on Holmes this morning said that Williams told her yesterday thaft the Labour Party reimbursed his costs
So it’ll be included in their electoral spending limits?
October 31st, 2008 at 9:45 am
One would hope so davidp
October 31st, 2008 at 9:47 am
That Paul Henry has got a really sick sense of humour…my kind of guy
October 31st, 2008 at 9:49 am
does it make me a bad person to LOL at the video.
And why did the entire office crowd around my desk and actually clap the video ……
And why did that nice man in flouorescent jacket not even offer a helping hand
And why does no-one ever ask hels hard questions?
October 31st, 2008 at 10:09 am
Unemployment was already tracking down and wages up prior to the election. This just continued a trend began in the early 90s. It was aided by a rather benign economic environment. When an economy grows, employment and wages go up.
In terms of debt, the hard yards on this had been done by Birch. The reduction in public sector debt however, has not been mirrored by the private sector. This is symptomatic of the worst current account deficits since the early 80s. Running an over-heated doemstic economy has caused the export sector to suffer- Labour has managed the unqiue feat of achieving net deforestation. A housing bubble abetted by the Government led to expanded consumption on credit against property values, widening the import-export gap.
Productivity growth rates have slowed, leading to the inevitable consequence of widening wage gaps with other OECD countries and slippage in our position. This is despite the policies launched in 2000 to increase this rate. These plans were quickly abandoned after contact with the real economy, and we now have less ability to cope with recession.
The Cullen super plan deserves some qualified support, but it is largely a bandaid for trying to deal with exploding private sector debt and an economic environment that punished savers and rewarded property speculators.
Inflation has rarely been within the original 0-2% band advocated for stable prices. We have had the highest interest rates in the OECD, contributing to the lack of investment, poor capital accumulation, low productivity growth and finally, a widening wage gap with Australia. Power prices have also leaped damatically, hindering many other exporters.
The tragedy is that Cullen and Co weren’t good economic managers. Rather they just strategically made as many segments of society as they could bribe, clients of the Government. They had the best economic conditions any Government has enjoyed in the post-war period, and managed to blow their chance to do use that for permanent gain.
October 31st, 2008 at 10:19 am
> Question: Have they made a song and dance about historical activity by a Labour MP? Answer: Just ask Benson-Pope.
Don’t you mean, just ask the police? They did, after all, find evidence that Benson-Pope had abused kids. I guess abusing kids pales into comparison when winning an election is at stake.
October 31st, 2008 at 10:37 am
Double d, a similar crowd in my office watching this morning – one of which called out “where’s a cliff when you want one”
October 31st, 2008 at 10:42 am
Yeh!!
Two died in the wool Labour supporters have rung NewstalkZb this morning to say
purely because of Helen’s muck raking they are now voting two ticks National
Way to go guys!
How many others will do the same?
October 31st, 2008 at 10:47 am
Landslide on its way!
October 31st, 2008 at 10:47 am
double d
“A man may fall many times, but he won’t be a failure until he says that someone pushed him.”
How long will it before Helen tells everyone that that unhelpful man in the flouorescent jacket really pushed her?
October 31st, 2008 at 11:09 am
I can’t help but feel that all this muck raking is having an effect also. I just did a quick review of the character polls that have been running on the Herald site and the results are below.
Poll:
Teach your children: Key 53% – Clark 12%
Should Helen work with Peters: Yes 24% – NO 76%
Who would help an old lady across the road: Key 34% – Clark 12%
Stranded on a desert island with: Key 40% – Clark 15%
Most likely to change a nappy: Key 36% – Clark 6%
Most likely to shout at home: Key 10% – Clark 42%
Most likely to call noise control on you: Key 8% – Clark 36%
Yes, I know they aren’t scientific and there could be a number of reasons for such a slant, but if they are even a rough reflection of people’s feelings then Labour could really be in for a bloodbath on Saturday.
Especially when you take into account the Tauranga Boys High vote (so prominantly talked up by the media- until the result came out) of a 70+% to about 16% in favour of National.
I don’t know how this squares with the preffered Prime Minister stakes at present as it seems a real anomoly to that poll. Maybe these polls are a reflection of peoples feelings about Clark but that doesn’t impact on how they perceive she can the job, which is reflected in the more scientific polls?
Maybe Labour supporters either don’t read the Herald online or don’t participate in these polls but that would seem too weird an explanation.
Perhaps the anonymity of the Herald polls is a factor and they are quite accurate?
The only real conclusion that can be drawn is that the vaste majority of Herald poll takers do not like Helen Clark as a person.
October 31st, 2008 at 11:22 am
“Mickey Savage” is a prize dickhead. Not only would the MSM be condemning the Nats for dirty behaviour if they were digging dirt on Helen’s pre-parliamentary background, the MSM would be condemning, and has in the past condemned, ANYONE who dares to dig dirt on Helen and her colleagues. And HE KNOWS IT.
October 31st, 2008 at 12:29 pm
UPDATE on video….
This link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2mQv8NBCI8 has longer footage, including slow motion replay!!! Also doesn’t have talking over the top so you can hear the slap on the ground.
October 31st, 2008 at 12:59 pm
The bar was crowded with Liabour academics
October 31st, 2008 at 8:47 pm
“Why were taxpayer funded members of Labour’s Parliamentary Research Unit also in Australia with Mike Williams trying to smear John Key?
Helen says none of them flew over, but they were assisting Williams.”
did they swim?