Drury vs Greens

Adam Bennett at NZ Herald reports:

Green Party co-leader Russel Norman has accused Prime Minister John Key of conspiring to establish a surveillance state in New Zealand by encouraging American data-mining company Palantir to set up shop here.

Well that is an 11 on a 0 to 10 hysteria scale.

The comments prompted a savage response from Rod Drury, a business associate of Palantir co-founder Peter Thiel, with Mr Drury labelling the attack another example of economic vandalism.

The Greens – working to destroy jobs since 1999. Now actively campaigning against high tech companies being in New Zealand.

Dr Norman later tweeted: “When crony govt meets surveillance state – John Key appoints Peter Thiel’s Palantir to spy on NZers”.

That drew an angry response from Mr Drury who tweeted: “Don’t be w***ers”, and followed that up with “Hey Greens. Cheating NZ out of $200m on Mighty River Power now spinning this rubbish. Please put NZ ahead of yourselves.”

He said the Greens were “ruining relationships and/by insinuating cronyism is vandalism. Politics in NZ is getting nasty. Lift the game.”

Basically just another Muldoonist attack from Nasty Norman.

Suggesting Peter Thiel has ill-will against NZ, and is part of an operation to spy on us is churlish to say the least. He personally donated $1 million to the Christchurch earthquake appeal fund and has a long history of philanthropy – including the Committee to Protect Journalists which promotes the right of journalists to report news without fear of reprisal.