Labour’s H-Fee smear
November 1st, 2008 at 6:23 am by David FarrarSome useful comments from John Armstrong and especially Fran O’Sullivan on Labour’s attempted H-Fee smear. It is worth remembering that this was a smear thay had been pushing for over a year, with Ministers in the House going on about it.
Labour did trip itself up this week, the cynicism and arrogance of power coming back to bite it with a vengeance. That was most obvious in Labour’s latest attempt to dredge up something, anything, in John Key’s foreign exchange dealing past which might make voters question whether National’s leader has the integrity worthy of a prime minister.
Labour believes it is perfectly within its rights to probe Key’s character. That may be so. But New Zealand voters have huge difficulty with investigations into MPs’ pasts and private lives. Some discretion is required on Labour’s part. Yet, it clumsily seems to think it can fool the public that it is performing a public service that gives it the latitude to parade the flimsiest material as proof of Key’s unfitness to govern.
When it turns up nothing – and no less a figure than the party’s president is doing the digging for dirt – Labour looks as if it is driven by a fatal mix of arrogance and desperation. Hardly a good look in the penultimate week of an election campaign.
Labour (and many others including myself) were appalled when the Exclusive Brethren hired a private detective to investigate the Prime Minister. Labour are acting no better than the Exclusive Brethren when they have their party president flying to Australia and hawling back 20 kgs of papers in an attempt to smear Key.
O’Sullivan points out how truly desperate Labour must have been to try this:
Labour Party president Mike Williams must have been tired and emotional or greatly deluded to believe he was finally on the track of a “neutron bomb” which would blast National leader John Key’s election campaign into smithereens.
The upshot of Williams’ lunatic attempt to try and link Key with the notorious 1988 H-fee scam – when no such evidence has been uncovered – is that Labour is now (rightfully) scrambling to fight off accusations that it is more interested in launching smears against its opponents than fighting a fair election at a time of extreme international financial turbulence.
The Prime Minister’s pathetic attempt to distance herself from Williams’ ham-fisted behaviour lasted a mere 24 hours before she was forced to confirm the Labour Party paid for what she initially described as his “private mission”.
Have no doubt if the smear had worked Clark would have fronted it.
It is unfathomable that Williams and Labour’s taxpayer-funded “researchers” thought they would drive home a connection putting Key at the centre of this white-collar crime by uncovering evidence that had eluded the Australian National Crimes Authority’s forensic investigators.
If evidence existed linking Key to the transaction he would either have faced charges, or been subpoenaed to give evidence in the subsequent court cases against Jarrett and Hawkins. He wasn’t.
This is the part that made me realise how desperate Williams was with his Keystone Cops routine. Williams thought his collection of amateur detectives would find evidence that had been overlooked by the Serious Fraud Office and the Australian National Crime Authority’s foresnic investigators.
Related posts:
- Dom Post on H-Fee Smear
- Another failed smear
- Williams to resign this week
- Some answers to the 12 questions
November 1st, 2008 at 7:05 am
Everyday now Helen Clark’s moral credibility is questioned, but what’s unusual about that, as anything is possible in New Zealand politics, just read the book Absolute Power. Liarbour have a mandate of deception and dishonesty. One wonders what it cost the taxpayer for liarbour to play Sherlock Holmes? They must rule and control at all cost, to hell with the expense. You would have to be mentally disturbed to vote for them. The billion dollar question is, are there that many insane kiwi’s? The liarbour smear test found the absence of truth and integrity.
Vote:November 1st, 2008 at 7:09 am
DPF: ‘…Australia and hawling…’ Sorry DPF I knew he wen to Australia but who paid for him to go to Hawling and what was he trying to uncover there?
Vote:November 1st, 2008 at 7:40 am
Is Labor’s leadership really scum? Or do they have to resort to these tactics because 9 years tax and spend is a complete failure.
Hospital, courts, education, welfare all out of control and Clark’s reelection platform of Trust really means having her boy Batman/Williams sniffing through 20 yr old court documents in an attempt to slime Key.
Vote:November 1st, 2008 at 7:46 am
The clumsy attempt included an allegation that John Key’s signature was on key documents – Authenticity of the signature -Proven untrue – Time to move on
The signature on the painting was Helen Clarks – However the painting was not by her – Authenticity of the signature -Proven True – Not yet time to move on.
Who can you trust?
Vote:November 1st, 2008 at 7:48 am
To me it is a real positive that Key actually has a past in the private sector rather than being a career politician, school teacher or unionist that make up most of the Labour caucus.
Career politicians seem to live in their own dream world.
Vote:November 1st, 2008 at 8:00 am
Stupid Pathetic Labour – Panic is setting in – the gravy Train is about to derail and crash killing or injuring the careers of Labour MPs and their parasitic lice.
Vote:November 1st, 2008 at 8:01 am
A suitable act of contrition by Armstrong, backed up by Fran, on behalf of the NZH.
If Labour have burnt bridges with Armstrong its good nite nurse for Liaboring
Vote:November 1st, 2008 at 8:14 am
Is my imagination or are the MSM starting to show signs of getting rather hostile towards Helen’s Hydra?
Vote:November 1st, 2008 at 8:14 am
“Williams thought his collection of amateur detectives would find evidence that had been overlooked by the Serious Fraud Office and the Australian National Crime Authority’s foresnic investigators.”
This merely indicates the supposed higher intellectual and moral plane that Labour under the H1 H2 and Williams regime, thinks it is working. They are simply too arrogant to accept that any view other than their own, could possibly be true. That’s why the Standard and its readership is so gullible – it is populated by a similar mindset.
Good on John Hamstrung – after his humiatiion of late, he just woke up and smelled the coffee…
Lee – http://monkeyswithtypewriter.blogspot.com/ – ‘Pick up your bed, and walk, John Hamstrung’…
Vote:with thanks
November 1st, 2008 at 8:26 am
Who’s going to give Mike Williams a job now post 8 November 2008?
Vote:November 1st, 2008 at 8:47 am
Mike Williams will still be the Labour stooge on various govt appointed Boards for months if not years. It will take a full term to clean up the public sector with the corruption infestation.
Vote:November 1st, 2008 at 9:14 am
Dilbertian – I dont think it will take that long, with the amount of corruption that is being uncovered, the new National Government will have the perfect excuse to have a massive tidy up. At this point John Key have a mandate to act to clean up the parlous state of our laws and public sector, and the measure of this man will be how quickly he acts on this mandate. He simply cannot afford to leave it more than a week prior to announcing some step forward in investigating and cleaning up. Oh happy day – the crap shoot will continue past the election – probably in court.
Vote:November 1st, 2008 at 9:18 am
Ah, the petulance!
If you get into a farting contest, eventually you will sh!t your pants!
JK, steer a steady course. The prize is in sight.
Vote:November 1st, 2008 at 9:38 am
Remember: Helen still says that “there are questions to answer”.
Vote:November 1st, 2008 at 9:50 am
I think the National Party should hold a national raffle, with the proceeds going to all the charities that honorably turned down Winston’s stolen taxpayers’ money from the last election. The winner of the raffle gets to go on public television and tell Mike Williams that he’s FIRED from each of the public boards Labour’s appointed him to!
Batman must have cleared over a million dollars from his government appointments over the years.
Vote:November 1st, 2008 at 10:16 am
I don’t like any of it.
The idea of digging through politicians past in the hope of finding some dirt, it is appalling.
It is a practice that should stop and I hope the electorate punishes any politicians or parties that engage in such muckraking.
Vote:November 1st, 2008 at 4:28 pm
Job Wanted: Preferably in a sunny European location.
Skills include good adminstration, expense claiming and bungling smear campaigns.
Vote: