Kiwiblog

As I am travelling, I have not yet had time to read through the detailed documents on the ETS changes, and agreement with the Maori Party, or the stolen/hacked e-mails from climate change scientists. So I am not yet in a position to give my take on both of them.

Ian Wishart has a detailed post on the stolen e-mails. Again I have not had time to read them myself, and check for context – but there are links to the originals, so people can do so.

The Beehive announcement on the ETS agreement is here. I imagine it will be passed into law by the time I am home. If the changes are not passed, then the status quo of Labour’s ETS will come into force next year.

NBR has a story on the ongoing saga of Tasman Capital and Progressive Deputy Leader Matt Robson:

Former MP Matt Robson and Tasman Capital are forging ahead with plans to list WSD Global Markets on the NZX, despite a Serious Fraud Office investigation into alleged money laundering operations by WSD’s related company in the Cook Islands.

SFO director Grant Liddell last night confirmed to NBR that the Cook Islands-based WSBC and “associated entities” were under investigation. WSBC out-sources its margin trading operations to WSD Global Markets. …

Accusations of connections between WSD director Riaz Patel and illegal activity around the globe have been made public this week, with journalist Ian Wishart also linking the alleged laundered money with international terrorism.

It is all rather murky. NBR reports Robson is suing Wishart:

Mr Robson says defamation proceedings against Mr Wishart have now been launched and he rubbishes the connection Mr Wishart had made between Mr Patel’s businesses and international terrorism.

The original article from TGIF is here. And Wishart also blogs that Robson tried and failed to get an ex parte injunction against the story.

I would suggest people be cautious with any comments they make, noting this appears to be heading to the courts.  All I’ll comment is to say it seems unwise to try and get listed on the NZX while the SFO is investigating you.

God I am getting sick of almost 24/7 coverage of everything Obama does. Don’t get me wrong – I have no criticism of the job he is doing to date. But the media fixation is just so over the top.

Ian Wishart reminds us that Reagan’s inauguration in 1981 got a 37% TV share compared to 29% for Obama. But Reagan didn’t have the media report on his first ten days with near hourly updates.

As one example, the NZ Herald has done 103 stories mentioning Barack Obama from Inauguration Day last Wednesday to today. 103 stories in nine days.

Ian Wishart has more damning documents in tonight’s TGIF. It’s proving very good value for $3 a month.

His documents include the clear advice from Internal Affairs that Shane Jones decline the application and that Liu was under active criminal investigation within New Zealand. There is also a revelation of a Cabinet Minister who received a donation from Liu, lobbying his Cabinet Colleague Jones on Liu’s behalf.

I advocated that Labour, when in power, should have established a full independent inquiry into the granting of citizenship. They failed to do so, once again trying to hide beind a Departmental Inquiry knowing such an inquiry can not question Ministers over their actions.

Now it is slightly more difficult for John Key to launch a public inquiry, as it is into a former Minister and could be seen as partisan. But what he should do is approach Phil Goff and get Goff’s agreement to a terms of reference into the granting of citizenship to Liu. Key and Goff would both be praised for ding the right thing, and a break from the past practice of trying to over these things up.

The NZ Herald reports:

A Chinese man granted citizenship against the advice of officials and wanted in his homeland for “large-scale misappropriation and embezzlement” was given a VIP citizenship ceremony at Parliament.

Yang Liu, also known as Bill Liu, was granted his citizenship in August by ministerial prerogative.

He became a New Zealander at a private citizenship ceremony in the Maori Affairs select committee room, officiated over by Labour MP and former Cabinet minister Dover Samuels.

And who is Yang Liu?. The latest TGIF from Ian Wishart reveals:

His real name, confirmed for the first time in this country by TGIF Edition, is indeed Yongming Yan

Even worse, an informant resource report to the Immigration Service last year, but apparently ignored by Associate Immigration Minister Shane Jones, provides detailed information on Yan’s involvement at the head of an Asian organised crime syndicate, which “paid large cash sums to various ministers and delegates indirectly through secret anonymous accounts

Now whether this is correct or not is one issue. But what is not in dispute (it seems) is that Shane Jones knew of these allegations, as the were part of the file officials had who fought against citizenship. So why did Jones ignore this?

Tonight, TGIF Edition can also reveal that one of Yongming’s former associates in this country – Shane Phillips – was a Labour Party campaign manager, and his brother Daniel Phillips works in the office of Associate Immigration Minister Shane Jones – the man who gave ‘Bill Liu’ citizenship against the recommendations of officials who’d investigated his background.

Shane Phillips is also known as Shane Te Pou, and in 2000 Helen Clark vetoed his appointment to a ministerial job. Also:

There are fresh allegations this week, including that ‘Liu’ (in reality, Yan Yongming) may have donated cash to the campaigns of Rick Barker and Dover Samuels.

And Wishart has unearthed some interesting aspects of donations to Dover Samuels:

A further $5,000 was given to Dover Samuels by the oddly-named ‘Tamaki ki te Paki Wu’, apparently residing at a house in Derrimore Heights in Manukau City.

So, according to the official documents, two separate Wu’s slipped a total of eight grand between them into the Dover Samuels campaign fund. But who was this mysterious Mr Tamaki Wu? A check of the Manukau address Dover had given for him provides an added twist to this story: it was registered not to Mr Wu but to Daniel Phillips – Dover’s former private secretary now working for Associate Immigration Minister Shane Jones. So $5,000 had come to Dover from the address of a man whose brother was involved with Chinese
businessman ‘Yang Liu’ (real name Yan Yongming), yet the money was not in Daniel Phillips’ name, but a person or entity named Tamaki Wu.

There is also a suggestion that an anonymous $5,000 donation to Rick Barker was from Yan.

The issues raised here can not be dealt with by a departmental inquiry. Departments can not investigate their own Ministers. A fully empowered commission of inquiry should be set up to investigate this. The key tasks should be

1. To verify the real identity of the man granted citizenship by Labour Ministers over the protests of officials
2. Does he have a criminal record, and what is the nature of that
3. Determine the full extent of his donations to all parties and candidates
4. Why Ministers both refused to revoke his residency and further granted him citizenship against the strong advice of officials

Just listened to Ian Wishart on Newstalk ZB with Larry Williams. The story seems to be:

1. A Chinese gentleman has had problems with Australian immigration as he travels under different names, different passports with different dates of births.
2. This was known to NZ authorities
3. He applied to be a NZ Citizen
4. DIA recommended he be turned down due to the multiple aliases
5. The Minister approved it, despite the dodgy aliases and the recommendation
6. The gentleman’s application was supported by a Labour MP and is known to a couple of Ministers
7. He attended a fundraising function for Labour and probably donated to them, but impossible to know for sure as they do not record who donated what – people just throw cash into a hat or something.

This is all off listening to Ian on the radio.

Just received this e-mal from Ian Wishart:

TGIF EDITION this weekend will be breaking a massive story, implicating two current cabinet ministers and a former Labour cabinet minister, in an unprecedented political scandal.

We have the documents and the bodies. Read the burial notice on the front page of TGIF EDITION, out this weekend, and exclusively available to subscribers via http://www.tgifedition.com

Sounds interesting, to say the least!

Ian Wishart has released the first edition of his new weekly e-newspaper – TGIF. The first edition is available for free. As web designer Dennis Smith has noted, it is quite large (8.5 MB), but probably hard to have it much smaller and retain the quality.

The lead story focuses on this quote from Ruth Dyson:

“Shifting the focus from social welfare to social development is about considering the wellbeing of the whole population, and communities within that population, rather than solely focusing on the traditional family group. We must cater for the diversity, we know exists. By this I mean the range of relationships from single, couples, triples, blended, de facto, and so on. That’s where we’re going with social policy.”

Now this is not just something Dyson blurted out, or was secretly taped saying in a sting operation. This was in her speech notes on the Beehive website. They have since taken it down, which suggests the Government knows it is embarrassing. That is in itself worthy of questions as the Beehive website is meant to be a record of all Ministerial speeches, and not just selected ones.

Now I’m a fan of the TV series Big Love, but really I don’t think the Government needs to be catering for the polygamists. In fact in most countries they actually tend to discourage polygamy, while Ruth seems to want the NZ Government to cater for it.

Poneke has blogged a review of Absolute Power, and there is a vigorous debate in the comments section, including author Ian Wishart, Keri Hulme, Russell Brown and even Kay Goodger who is featured in the book. My favourite point is when Ian Wishart labels Danyl M as “slippery”. The tag is catching on!

Incidentally I suspect the book is selling well. Both times I have been in book stories in the last week, and people ahead of me in the queue were buying a copy.

Ian Llewellyn of NZPA has done a review of the Helen Clark biography “Absolute Power” by Ian Wishart. It’s a fair and balanced review in my opinion. I am not sure which papers will carry the review, but here are some extracts:

The book, released last week, is a collection of articles which attempt to prove Wishart’s thesis that the current Government is corrupt and Prime Minister Helen Clark entered Parliament under false pretences to push a hidden agenda.

The book is similar in many ways to Nicky Hager’s book The Hollow Men, and they share many of the same strengths as well as flaws.

They also both reveal as much as about the author’s world view as they do about their subjects.

Both gathered exhaustive (and in places exhausting) material and did meticulous research, but the impression is the evidence has been gathered and presented to reach a pre-determined position.

I think that is a very fair call. Ian Wishart didn’t just form a view as he started to put his book together that Helen Clark was no good – he has been of that view for some time.

In Hager’s case it was that National was controlled and driven by dark forces ranging from big business, the religious right and foreign interests.

Wishart aims at the other end of the political spectrum and sees Miss Clark as someone who would do anything to get into power and do anything to hold on to it, all in order to push a hidden feminist, socialist agenda on an unsuspecting New Zealand.

It is unclear whether political blindness or naivety colours both authors’ views as they often see quite ordinary political processes as something far more sinister.

In Hager’s case, the lobbying of big business and internal caucus power struggles were proof of conspiracy. …

The fact that people join or lobby political parties to push a view that they believe is a better way for the world seems to be lost upon both authors.

I can’t agree too strongly here. Hager would have you believe that every business donor and supporter is motivated by self interest and greed, rather than a genuine belief in their views and policies being best for NZ. Likewise Wishart does fall down when he reads too much into fairly predictable stuff such as the PMs Office not being very helpful too him.

This is not to say that Wishart’s compilation of all the scandals under Clark is not valuable. People have become so used to them, they hardly register now, and the one thing they all have in common is that in almost every case Clark or her coterie lied and covered up – from paintergate to corngate to speedgate (yes I know all those gates sound lame but they make for easy reference) to doongate.

Much of the book is spent on Wishart’s arguments over whether it is ethical to get into the personal lives of politicians.

He concludes that it is necessary to expose hypocrisy.

Some of the material is an interesting take on political events, such as the downfall of former police commissioner Peter Doone and similar events.

It also documents the habit of many politicians to say one thing in opposition and another in government.

Wishart believes his book portrays a pattern of behaviour that makes Labour and Miss Clark unfit to hold office.

For his followers and those who dislike the current administration, the book will be a gospel.

Miss Clark’s supporters will dismiss it as the ravings of an obsessed individual.

The vast majority of the population will simply not care either way as they accept things are not black and white; instead there are many shades of grey.

Most people accept that others are prone to make mistakes and get things wrong, as much as they get things right.

In the end Absolute Power is not Absolute Gospel, but neither is it entirely Absolute Nonsense.

NZPA should be congratulated for doing a review of the book, rather than just ignore it. I suspect those on the left will not like the comparisons to Hager’s book (which is treated like the Koran by some Labour Ministers as they refer to it daily), but likewise some on the right will not like the dismissal of much of the book as reading too much into everyday politics.

When you have upset people equally on both sides, then you are often spot on

I have not yet read the whole book, but on Friday I got hold of an electronic version of Absolute Power by Ian Wishart and have read a couple of hundred pages.

He tells the story of Helen Clark’s use and abuse of power, starting with her first weeks in office when she undermined then Police Commissioner Doone by not just leaking confidential information to the Sunday Star-Times, but by leaking false fabricated information and claiming it was in official reports, when it wasn’t. Some of this info has been covered previously but Wishart has done a service by putting it all together.

He contrasts the hounding from office of Peter Doone, with the treatment of allegations against Howard Broad for a similar but allegedly far more serious offence. The Dom Post reports:

The police watchdog has been asked to intervene after the State Services Commission cleared Police Commissioner Howard Broad of any wrongdoing in a 1992 drink-driving incident.

Journalist Ian Wishart claims Mr Broad “pulled rank” to get out of a breath test in Christchurch, saying something like “Don’t you know who I am” to a junior officer.

Mr Broad admitted he had been drinking, and a SSC investigation found he was told to park his car and refrain from driving for several hours.

Wishart has complained to the Independent Police Conduct Authority.

“The SSC claims the junior cop had a discretion not to breath-test despite seeing Mr Broad swerve across a lane, and despite an admission of drinking.

Now on the face of it, there is a gross double standard here. Doone was investigated by both the PCA and the Deputy Commissioner for merely getting out of his car when his partner was pulled over for no headlights on.

Broad allegedly had himself been drinking and driving, was swerving across the road, pulled rank on the officer (using swear words allegedly) and was told to stop driving and park his car. And somehow this is merely an issue for the State Services Commission!!!

Now Broad was not Commissioner when this incident happened, but anyone can see the double standard involved.