Kiwiblog

A superb post by Whale exposing lies by Phil Goff about the DPS.

Goff claims that it is unprecedented to have the DPS actually within Parliament.

Whale has blogged half a dozen photos of Helen Clark in Parliament with the DPS next to her – including in the Cabinet Room – the most secure level and room in the complex.

So Whale has shown that Labour are not just lying, but they are so shoddy they don’t even spend five minutes on Google to check how easy it is to disprove their lies.

Whale Oil blogs on the McCully air force plane to Vanuatu:

I thought I was defi­nately onto a bash­ing of immense pro­por­tions here. But as I learned from a cou­ple of screw up over the past few years, fact check­ing is paramount.

I checked inter­na­tional flights into and out of Van­u­atu. This is where the story started to come un-raveled. The tim­ing of the meet­ing meant that inter­na­tional flights didn’t pro­vide use­ful con­nec­tions. I think from mem­ory that if they had used com­mer­cial flights then all the Pacific diplo­mats in atten­dence would ahve had to have stayed over 3 more days before the next com­mer­cial flight out from Vanuatu.

Although the RNZAF Boe­ing may have gone over next to empty and con­fig­ured for VIP travel at short notice, how­ever it returned with a greater num­ber of pax on the return leg to New Zealand (I didn’t receive any pas­sen­ger details, but I’m sure it wouldn’t be too hard to find out who has used the ser­vice after the fact if one was that inquis­i­tive), one can only spec­u­late at to who they may be, but as even politi­cians don’t repli­cate that fast it seems log­i­cal that for­eign dig­ni­taries were using the ser­vice and New Zealand as a trans­port hub, which is hardly unheard of, and hardly the travel rort which the first leg made it appear.

Whale has shown no hestitation putting the boot into National MPs over perks, when he thinks it is justified. In fact i doubt any blogger has been as consistent as he has, in attacking MP spending. So when he says this is no big issue, I tend to believe him.

I had a similiar issue to McCully when I was in Noumea. The lack of commercial flights meant I had to stay for six days, for a two day conference. I’m pretty sure Murray would have been happy to holiday in Vanuatu for a few days, but instead he did some diplomacy by transoporting a few of his pacific peers back with him.

I recall Helen Clark got an air force flight back from Australia when there was a problem with Ansett, so this faux outrage at use of air force is fairly tiresome.

An interesting interview with Chris Trotter by Whale Oil.

His thoughts on Labour are especially insightful:

On Labours “Get John Key” campaign:

“Com­pletely mis­taken, did not read the man at all well”

“One sus­pects that they despair of find­ing some other way through.”

On how mod­ern Labour can become more appealing:

“It does very well when it plays to the best, in New Zealan­ders, when it booths artic­u­lates and asks peo­ple to respond to the bright side rather than the dark side of the NZ way of doing things.”

“When they find some­one who can artic­u­late them, as they did with Michael Joseph Sav­age  as they did with Nor­man Kirk, as they cer­tainly did with David Lange, then they are very hard to beat, but if those two things are lack­ing, if they lack some­one who is able to artic­u­late that appeal to New Zealand’s bet­ter angels, to bor­row Abra­ham Lincoln’s famous phrase and if they aren’t dri­ven in a sense by adverse eco­nomic winds then Labour does find it dif­fi­cult his­tor­i­cally to win.”

On Phil Goff:

“He hasn’t demon­strated to date, either the rhetor­i­cal skills nec­es­sary to make that appeal, and cer­tainly to date he hasn’t been able to emote in a way that New Zealan­ders can believe.”

On Labour entic­ing bet­ter candidates:

[They need] “life expe­ri­ence which you cer­tainly don’t get in any great breadth on the ninth floor of the beehive”

Whale reviews his 2010.

If anyone thinks blogs do not have influence, then go ask Andrew Williams.

Whale has blogged about the Get Frank site, and use of bloggers material.

A number of bloggers back in 2007 gave permission for Get Frank to to use some of their posts on their site. At least one blogger was told:

as our adver­tis­ing grows we will be offer­ing all con­trib­u­tors the chance to take 50% of all adver­tis­ing rev­enue from their page(s) on a CPM basis.

I was one of those bloggers who gave permission. I can’t recall whether or not my e-mail made any mention of revenue sharing. I suspect I said yes on the grounds of liking to help a new site.

But Get Frank has gone on to be commercially successful, and the Bloggers Union (which is compulsory – like student associations) has been saying that those who provide the content should be getting a share of the revenue, which has been declined. So Whale has gone to war in his normal subtle way.

By coincidence, I had noticed around six months ago that Get Frank were still using my content and I made a mental note to myself to email them at some stage and say I think it is time to stop using my content, especially as I do get advertising revenue on my own site. But it was not a priority so I had not got around to it.

This flare up has been the catalyst for me to do so, and hence the permission has been terminated.

Cactus Kate has blogged on this also.

I blog primarily because I enjoy having a say. I do make some “pocket money” from advertising but on an hourly rate it would come to less than the minimum wage. So my motivation is not commercial. But I’d rather increase the money I made from my content, than have others do so, and receive nothing at all myself.

If Get Frank (or anyone) are interested in a commercial relationship in the future, my door is open.

Whale Oil blogs:

Some time ago I sent an OIA request to the Auditor-General for all of their credit card expenses. They ini­tially refused because the Auditor-General is not sub­ject to the OIA.

They have now recon­sid­ered and accord­ingly pro­vided the infor­ma­tion that I requested.

Voluntary compliance with a request, when there is no statutory obligation to do so is great leadership.

Every instance of expense is detailed with who was there and what it was about. Even park­ing dock­ets are fully explained. Com­pare that to Len Brown’s still secret Volare dinner.

Talking of which, has the Ombudsman made a decision yet?

Lyn Provost is the epit­ome of fis­cal rec­ti­tude. She flew Pacific Blue to Port Moresby which is pig of a flight at the best of times and one that no one would be-grudge a busi­ness class fare and/or a Groser/McCully style truck load of piss to soothe the nerves for that flight. But our cheap and fru­gal Auditor-General flew Pacific Blue and bought two sets of sand­wiches, cook­ies and an iced tea for a total of $28.20. That’s a bar­gain no mat­ter how much they charge for an iced tea on Pacific Blue. She even stayed in a dive of a hotel. That’s tak­ing one for the team in any­ones book. …

On the 26^th of March 2010 there is an amount of $3 for short term park­ing, this was when her fam­ily came to pick her up at the air­port instead of billing it to Cor­po­rate Cabs for a hundy. She fre­quently gets peo­ple to pick her up from air­ports instead of bill the tax­payer for cab fares.

She is tighter than a fish’s arse and that’s water­proof. Lyn Provost, civil ser­vant, I dub thee The Queen of Mean.

Most recipients of a nickname from Whale Oil are not that happy about it, but in this case I think the Auditor-General will be happy with it.

More seriously, it is great to see the AG aware of the moral leadership role of her office. It is a million years removed from the days of Jeff Chapman, who was actually convicted for fraud.

Overheard at lunch  a comment along the lines of:

“According to Kiwiblog and Whale Oil, the guy leading the charge is a Labour Party candidate”

It was a group having lunch. I resisted the urge to introduce me, and just kept the quiet satisfaction to myself.

I have a policy that I will not fly Jetstar in NZ, based on reports of their delays and service. In fact my policy now even applies to when someone else is paying for the travel – if they really want me to attend their conference etc, then a non Jetstar airline mist be found.

Incidentially I have used them in Australia, where they have been good, It is just their NZ operations which seems to be so bad.

Whale blogs his experience at giving them a try. He has learnt the hard way.

Len Brown must have a lot of money to spend, as his TV ads have even been appearing in Wellington. Its his money, so he can spend it how he likes – but TV seems a costly medium for a local campaign.

Whale Oil points out in this edited video, that Len’s rhetoric and actions are somewhat inconsistent.

Have now had some time to go through the 70 page decision, which I blogged previously. There’s a lot of interesting issues there – some of which may affect other bloggers – and even the media.

This case is about whether or not a person behaved in a manner that breached the law and in doing so utilised some of the communications technologies associated with the Internet. It is not a case about whether or not the law should allow nonpublication orders. That debate must take place in another forum.

Such as blogs! The furore over Garrett is another example of the fading power to keep names suppressed. It seems that just because he admitted it in Parliament, doesn’t mean one can repeat what he said with immunity. But myself, along with every media outlet in NZ, decided the risk of prosecution was nil as it was the defendant himself who revealed what he had been charged with and got name suppression for.

And even if he had not, it was inevitable it would have ended up in the public domain, We saw this also in another recent case regard issues around a failed marriage of a political figure – the media never stated who it was, but made it very clear from heir reporting.

It is also to be noted that postings on a blog may come from a number of sources and usually include the administrator or supervisor of the blog site. However most administrators or supervisors of blog sites must hold some responsibility for the comments that are posted.

This is a warning that a blog owner can be held responsible for comments made on their blog. Unlikely to be held responsible if you are unaware of them, but if a comment is pointed out to a blog owner – and you refuse to edit or delete it – then you may face some liability.

This poses some dangers to blog owners. Let us say it is announced a politician got name suppression for urinating in public. Someone in General Debate might say “I reckon that is the sort of thing Simon Bridges would do”. Now as blog owner I have no idea who the politician is. If it turns out to be Simon Bridges, then I may be liable for the comment. If Crown Law contacts me and says you should take it down as it is Simon Bridges, then I’d take it down, but readers might then take that as proof it was him. And it means Crown Law have also spread the identity of the person with name suppression.

SO there may need to be some way blog owners can check out details of suppression orders, if they are to be liable for comments made on their sites. But do you allow all 200,000 blog owners to access some register of suppression orders? That may be self-defeating!

However the “conversation” differs from that which may take place over a cup of coffee or across a dinner table. The first difference is that the material that is posted upon the blog is posted primarily in the form of text.

Thus, unlike a conversation, the blog becomes a record which is preserved and available on the blog site until such time as it is removed by the person responsible for administering it.

And presumably this applies to Twitter and Facebook also.

Even if the blog were to be accessible by means of subscription
with a login and a password it could well in my view be subject to the same constraints.

At first I thought this was over-reach, but I then compared it to the Trans-Tasman newsletter which you need a login and password to access. If they broke a name suppression order, they would certainly be deemed a publication.

The Court has jurisdiction notwithstanding the fact that the server hosting Mr. Slater’s website is located in San Antonio Texas in the United States of America. This is because publication of information takes place where the material is downloaded and comprehended.

I don’t like this interpretation, as it effectively implies that if you publish material on the Internet, you are a publisher in every country on earth. This means I may have broken the laws of dozens of countries with my blog.

I believe that it should only be deemed to be published in the country in which the person responsible resides and or where the servers used reside. Otherwise you risk an Internet which ends up governed by the most repressive country.

Of course I can avoid travelling to certain countries, but I don’t want to travel to (for example) Indonesia and find myself arrested for something I said on my blog about Islam (for example).

In addition the evidence is that Mr Slater posted material to the Whaleoil site from New Zealand thus performing an act necessary for the commission of an offence pursuant to s. 7 of the Crimes Act 1961.

Cameron did not deny he uploaded the material. If the site was registered to someone not in NZ, and the uploading was done by someone not in NZ, then there would be little the legal system could do. Lance Wiggs blogs on ths point:

What if the author of the overseas site is unknown? What if the site is hosted in multiple places around the world? What if the site that received emails and published names was Wikileaks.org? What if there was a global site called NameSuppression.org, with a nz.NameSupression.Org sub-domain? The owners could be shadowy, the location ever in doubt and the publisher untouchable.

It can’t be long before this occurs, and then what shall we do in New Zealand? Block the site as the Australians tried to do with Wikileaks? Go after anyone that links to the site?

The issue of links is also interesting. Back to that later.

Constable Traviss also gave evidence of a “posting” on Mr Slater’s blog which is known by his “nom d’internet” of Whaleoil.

Heh I think we have a new legal term!

The internet allows everyone to be a publisher.

I do wish people would capitalise Internet.

Many bloggers prefer to differentiate themselves from mainstream media and rather than post what may be described as “hard news” prefer to post comment or articles that put a “spin” upon a particular story or alternatively offer an opinion (which may be of considerable strength and sometimes of pungent articulation).

Did Judge Harvey just call bloggers hot and spicy?

One feature however that differentiates a blog from say, a newspaper, is that a blog occupies a continuum of comment where a particular posting or item may start on one day but may continue and develop over a period of time. In many respects this continuum may have an impact upon the context of the publication or posting.

This is an interesting observation, as it meshes with something I had been reflecting on. Newspapers tend to always write stories to be read “stand alone”. So they will mention background context in every story. So even after their 20th story on David Garrett, they will re-state how he is an ACT MP elected in 2008 etc.

Blogs tends to assume that readers have read what they have said previously, and/or that they follow current affairs closely enough, that they don’t bother to supply all the background detail. This may be one reason why blogs are popular – you get to the meat of the issue.

But it does mean, as Judge Harvey stated, that blogs are more a continuum of comment, and posts can’t be treated as stand alone.

That comment seems to suggest that the effectiveness of an order made pursuant to s 140 is limited to publication in New Zealand. That is perfectly correct.

To suggest that a non-publication order pursuant to s 140 would have extra territorial effect is nonsense.

Of course such orders can not have extra-territorial effect, but in terms of futility, a publication on an overseas blog (or even newspaper) is just as capable of undermining the suppression order.

In the present case the availability of the material from a server located in San Antonio, Texas in the United States has little relevance. The evidence before me is that the material was able to be read and comprehended in New Zealand (thus constituting a publication) and the material was uploaded on the Whaleoil blog by Mr Slater present in New Zealand at the time.

What would be interesting is if Slater had a co-blogger who was based overseas. Would Slater as administrator be liable for what the co-blogger writes on a server is Texas? What if the co-blogger was the domain name registrant?

Judge Harvey himself gets into this:

But what of the person (A) who makes a suppressed name available to a person (B) beyond the jurisdiction, and B posts the name on a his or her blog or website in a country other than New Zealand? Without specifically deciding the point, according to the decision of Hammond J in Re X the communication between A in New Zealand and B overseas could fall within the concept of a private conversation between individuals and may therefore would not fall within the scope of s. 140(1).

This is not a definite ruling, but an interesting indication that merely telling someone overseas details of a suppression order might not be an offence. Even if it was, it would be incredibly hard to prove of course.

The fact that the information is available on the internet and accessible to people in New Zealand who may subscribe to the blog or know of the webpage does not present any element of novelty. In 2000 the day after the non-publication order was made in the Lewis Case, Mr. Lewis’ name was published in the Australian newspaper which, a couple of days later, was available in newspaper rooms in New Zealand and probably on the Australian website of the day.

A case Judge Harvey is well acquainted with.

While not relevant to the finding of fact in a particular case, it is relevant to our law makers when reviewing the law.

Following from that is the New Zealand based blogger who may embed a link to the off-shore blogsite which contains the suppressed name. One should be cautious in such circumstances that one does not become involved in “publishing” by way of hypertext link. In the case of Universal City Studios v Reimerdes and Corley, a Court made an order that the defendant’s website was prohibited from directly providing files which contained the DeCSS code which enabled the circumvention of copy protection algorithms on DVDs. When the defendants posted links on their websites to other sites that provided DeCSS either by way of direct download via the link or by means of an extra few websites, the Court held that utilising this device was a “distinction without a difference” to offering a direct download. I have no doubt this point or something like it will fall to be decided in this country in some future case.

This is the aspect that may have implications for bloggers and media. I raised this issue last year also at the R v Internet seminar. Consider a case where say Whale Oil again breaches a suppression order, and this is reported on by media and/or other blogs. In order of decreasing risk, you have possibilities:

1. You mention Whale has (allegedly) broken another suppression order provide a link through to the actual post which allegedly breaches a suppression order.
2. You mention Whale has (allegedly) broken another suppression order and provide a link through his blog, but not the actual post which allegedly breaches a suppression order.
3. You mention Whale has (allegedly) broken another suppression order and on your blogroll you have a link through to his blog.
4. You mention Whale has (allegedly) broken another suppression order and have no links to his site anywhere at all.
5. You mention a “notorious blogger” has (allegedly) broken another suppression order.

All of the above actions could lead to a large number of people finding out the name of a suppressed person.

(1) is something which to my mind does cross the line, and would be unwise to do. But how different is that to (2). If you provide a link to his blog, it will probably be on the front page and discoverable within seconds. So (2) may get you in trouble with the law also.

Then how about (3). The only difference between (2) and (3) is someone has to go from looking at the main body of your blog, to the sidebar with a blogroll, and click through to follow the link. (3) is not far from (2) and (2) is not far from (1).

So how about (4) and you provide no links at all, anywhere on your site. Well, 95% of people who do not know the URL of Whale Oil will go to Google, and his blog comes up first. Same thing if you search on his name only. So I am not sure (4) is very far removed from (3). This would mean that every media outlet that named Cameron or his blog, could be at some risk – especially if they have any links at all in their archives to his site.

But what if they don’t even mention his name, or his site’s name at all. Well even scenario (5) can lead to lots of people who will find out the identity of a suppressed name. You see in this example Whale Oil is so well know as the site which has breached previous orders, that there are probably 100,000+ people who upon reading in the newspaper “A controversial blogger has revealed the name of the /musician/politician/sportsman who did ….” that they will know exactly which site to go to to find out, and then of course tell all their friends.

So maybe the only way to stop it, is to have a law where it is illegal to even mentioned that a suppression order exists, let alone it has been breached. But that is draconian, and would not be accepted. So where do you draw the line?

Some of the charges have a name published under the heading “Interesting Name.” Mr Thwaite argues that this means nothing. Mr Burns responds by arguing that one must look at the context of that particular publication taking into account that further information is available on the blog site relating to the case involving the particular name which has been displayed in another place on the blog site.

Mr Burns argues that because the blog is in the nature of a continuum that it is clear to the reader that the name relates to another article on the site and it is merely a matter of marrying the two.

This brings up an interesting possibility. What if you never ever posted on the actual substantive story relating to a suppressed name, and just posted the name by itself?

Or you can find some other way to refer to the person with name suppression. The mainstream media do this quite often. In one story they report an entertainer has been granted name suppression, and in another they report that so and so has been dropped from TV. Will they get treated as a continuum  or only blogs?

Similarly with the pictogram. The information can be decoded in the same way that an aggregation of information may lead to the identification of a person by way of a process of elimination – another form of interpreting a particular code or solving a puzzle. The use of phonetically coded information (which is how the pictogram resolves the name) is not unknown to Mr. Slater. I venture to suggest that the words “Whaleoil Beef Hooked” on the “masthead” of his homepage provides an example.

Ha. I wonder how many times the Judge had to try it out loud with an Irish accent before he worked it out – it took me a few goes

Mr. Slater also maintains a certain amount of control over the content that is published. He was asked “You’ll just publish it anyway?” He replied “If I agree with it. I won’t publish something I don’t agree with” – an ironic answer in light of the freedom of expression argument which his counsel has advanced.

Not really ironic in my opinion. In the comments section, Cameron does allow contrary views to be posted all the time – in fact I’ve never known him to censor a comment. His comments were, I suspect, referring to what appears on the front page or main posts of Gotcha.

The evidence is also clear from some of the posts by Mr. Slater that his campaign was going to go beyond legitimate protest and criticism and was going to enter the realm of “electronic civil disobedience” by the publication of certain names that were the subject of non-publication orders.

I quite like that term “electronic civil disobedience”!

The judgement answers a number of questions about our name suppression laws and will I imagine be cited often in the future.

It does however leave unresolved potentially larger questions for the future – such as liability for linking, and whether communicating suppressed details to an overseas blogger would be an offence. Of course that is because those questions did not have to be answered in this particular case.

I look forward to seeing what changes to name suppression laws are proposed by the Government, in response to the Law Commission’s report.

Judge Harvey has found Cameron Slater guilty on nine of the ten charges relating to name supression. The judgement is here – Police v Slater. I’ll do a fuller post tonight or tomorrow analysing it n depth, and especially any implications for the wider blogosphere and media. It is pretty long for a district course case – 70 pages.

The fine is $750 per charge plus $130 costs, so total cost is $7,920.

There are some proposals from the Law Commission that are with the Government, which are worth implementing. One of them makes it harder for people to get name suppression, and the other will make it easier for media (and bloggers I hope) to access details of suppression orders so that you are less likely to accidentally breach a suppression order (as has happened to me on occassion).

I hope we do see some law changes in the near future. While I don’t endorse deliberately breaking the law, I do endorse the intent of the campaign – which is to to have a more open justice system.

UPDATE: Have also placed the pdf on Scribd, below:

Police v Slater

Cactus Kate has a brilliant idea:

I have previously endorsed Cameron Brewer as a candidate for the Auckland Supercity. I now add two more endorsements but only if you vote for them together. What the Supercity needs is checks and balances. There can be no greater check and balance for the incumbent candidate “Mayor” Andrew Williams than to elect in Albany, Cameron Slater aka Whaleoil.

What genius. Can you imagine it – Williams and the Whale having to sit around the same table for three years. Either they’ll become good mates (unlikely) or the Auckland Council will resemble live episodes of the Jerry Springer show. One could televise Council meetings on a pay per view channel.

Cactus also compares their vital stats:

Age: 51 v 41
Born: Hawkes Bay v Fiji
Weight: 110kgs with body paint, 95 without v fighting weight of 100kgs
Height: Scarcely taller than a parking meter v 5 foot 11
Drugs of choice: Alcohol and various prescription drugs v Melatonin and off depression meds
Mental State: Allegedly mad v certifiably mad
Education: Advanced Marketing Management Diploma from the International Marketing Institute of New Zealand v Whaleoil who hasn’t bothered making one up
Religion: Worships at the Gods of Caroma v Christian
Credit Card: Now only a personal one v no credit
Looks: Chubby preppy cheek v Angry Chopper Read
Spouse: Angry Jane v Angrier Spanish Bride
Work history: Diplomat to country where English is not a first language v IT and security
Drives: Black Nissan Maxima v Whaleoil Truck
Children: 24, 21 and 17 vs 14 and 12
Internet Presence: Hasn’t quite got used to it after 6 days blogging v Dominant
Supercity concept: Hates it v Loves it
Walking Style: wobbly lines utilising entire ratepayer resource of pavement v straight line won’t move for anyone
Favourite Attire: Custom fitted short man’s suit v Whaleoil t-shirt
Current employment: Bludging off the ratepayer v Campaigning to bludge off the ratepayer
Favourite Tipple: Anything on stock at GPK v Only when Cactus is in town
Favourite Hobbie: Gardening with his mate Little Andrew v Gardening on Spanish Bride’s orders with a chainsaw and round-up
Favourite MP: Winston Peters v Crusher Collins
Favourite restaurant: GPK v Daikoku looking down on GPK
Pet Hates: Cameron Slater v Winston Peters and Andrew Williams (those two really should have a drink together at GPK sometimes)
Nicknames: Clown/Cock of Campbells Bay, Mad Mayor v Whaleoil
Pets: Cute dog named Rimu v the Black Dog and David Farrar
Favourite Journalist: Late night calls with Jonathan Marshall v Jonathan Marshall……..Finally some common ground
PR/Media handling style: Combative v Combative
Weasel words: “Reducing rates – In the first year as Mayor we reduced the rates increase to 5.9%” v no weasel words
Pressure release: Late night abusive emails v All day abusive internet posts

Whether you’re from the right, the left or the centre – doesn’t the thought of Andrew Williams and Cameron Slater as fellow Albany Councillors for three years tempt you as proof there is karma?

The TV3 blog has the most details of the day’s proceedings. The Herald also carries an NZPA story.

But neither detail in full, what was probably the funniest exchange. The Police played their DVD of the interview with Whale, and it contained discussion of Whale’s depression, and medications.

Judge Harvey asked the defence lawyer whether he would like those parts of the DVD evidence suppressed. Mr Thwaite replied instantly that normally he would check with his client as to their wishes, but in this case he feels confident that he can answer forcefully that his client will not be seeking a suppression order

For those who are wondering, what happens next:

Judge Harvey says he does not intend to present a decision now. He proposes to remand Slater at large until 10am on September 14 when he will have his decision. Judge says he can make a finding on the no case issue and he can find there is no case to answer and the whole thing evaporates. Or he finds there is a case to answer, he can articulate that and he can give Mr Thwaite an opportunity to address the judge on liability. Or he can proceed to determine the no case argument, if there is a case to answer he can consider the elements have been proven beyond reasonable doubt.

So tune back on the 14th.

Tv3 have a live blog of proceedings at Whale Oil’s trial. Well not quite live, as Judge Harvey has placed a ten minute delay on tweeting and reporting, in case evidence has to be suppressed.

Judge Harvey is probably the Judge who is the most knowledgeable on Internet issues. I’m not sure if he volunteered for the trial, or was given it as punishment

Some extracts:

Judge Harvey describes Whale Oil’s blogs as like a shotgun blast, it hits the person and then other people he doesn’t want to hit.

Heh, not a bad analogy.

Mr Slater is sitting at the back of the courtroom; wearing his usual white long-sleeve shirt with dark blue sleeves. He is bearded, arms folded and watching the trial unfold with apparent nonchalance. He writes the occasional note on his hands but remains impassive.

Heh. I look forward to seeing the TV.

Ms Murray asks him about articles he posted about the Olympian. He says he wrote an article about celebrity name suppression and said he published some pictures to go with the article for ‘interests sake’. He says they were ‘interesting pictures’ and says people have had guesses at what they meant. He says ‘they could mean anything’. It was one image that contained four images. He says he doesn’t believe the Olympian should have name suppression because he is a ‘violent criminal’. He says he understood that no one was able to publish his name, age or occupation. He says he did not mention his occupation nor his age nor his name. He says he quoted from the NZ Herald and put up a random image – ‘you can take it anyway you want’.

The court judgement will be very interesting.

Oh this should be very amusing. Whale Oil has announced he is standing for the Auckland Council in the same ward as Andrew Williams. Whale’s eight pledges are:

Mr Slater’s pledges are that he will NOT:

1. Piss on any trees
2. Sign paint­ings I have not painted
3. Send drunken texts after 11pm
4. Send drunken press releases after 11pm
5. Hold impor­tant meet­ings in bars
6. Vote to fund Brian Rudman’s theatre
7. Put booz­ing with my mates on my coun­cil credit card8. Stop putting piggy noses on trough­ing politicians
8. Punch ambu­lance officers

Can’t wait for the public meetings.

Go to Whale Oil, and read his revelations about who has been leaking stuff to him, and e-mailing him incredibly defamatory stuff about MPs and staff in ACT.

Maybe the media will reconsider their editorial stance of blaming Rodney.

Whale Oil blogs:

Ok it is time for all those out there who sup­port my stance on name sup­pres­sion to assist with the legal bills. I appre­ci­ate the months of loyal sup­port as I await the slow wheels of our Jus­tice sys­tem to turn. Now I need your cash sup­port, no mat­ter the size, every bit helps, to help with the fight.

It is time to ban the Burqa of our Legal Sys­tem – Stop Pedos and Sex Offend­ers from hid­ing under the burqa.

In just 8 days (25 August) I appear in the Auck­land Dis­trict Court to defend these charges.

I need help to pay the legal bills. The next few days are hec­tic as I pre­pare my defence with my lawyer Gre­gory Thwaite.

My Kiwibank account num­ber, opened this morn­ing for dona­tions is 38–9010-0764240–01, you can also use the online Chipin wid­get below or on the side bar.

Any sur­plus funds raised will be donated equally between the RSA Wel­fare Fund and the Ex-Vietnam Ser­vices Asso­ci­a­tion, in hon­our of those who fought for our rights to free­dom of speech.

I thank you all in advance for your sup­port. Hope­fully I will see you in court as well.

It would be great if someone in the media applied to live webcast the court proceedings. I think a lot of people will be interested in the case.

Stuff reports:

North Shore mayor Andrew Williams has threatened legal action against right-wing blogger WhaleOil. …

Williams said he was undergoing “harassment” from WhaleOil which was “entirely politically motivated” and no other local body politician had been subjected to such “dirty politics”.

Williams told Fairfax he had already spoken to the police about possible criminal harassment charges and was seriously considering pursuing such an action.

“I spoke to my wife about it today and think I will,” Williams said.

When I read the headline that Williams was threatening legal action, I assumed he was considering defamation. He has every right to take civil action if he believes Whale Oil has defamed him.

But to try and get the Police to charge a blogger with criminal harassment, just because he says mean things about an elected official on his blog is ridicolous and offensive. It is also arguably defamatory itself. The definition of criminal harassment is:

Every person commits an offence who harasses another person in any case where the first-mentioned person intends that harassment to cause that other person to fear for that other person’s safety; or the safety of any person with whom that other person is in a family relationship.

Andrew Williams will be a good fit for NZ First. He is like Winston, in that he can not tolerate criticism.

Andrew Williams never learns. By attacking Whale Oil, he gets their feud into the pages of the Herald. Cameron gets to have reported his lines:

“I am not stalking the Mad Mayor, the Whale spies informed me of the antics of the Mad Mayor.”

I can’t wait for Williams to stand for NZ First.

Whale’s site is down, but the Herald reports:

WhaleOil blogger Cameron Slater has quit the National Party after his campaign to remove incumbent party president Peter Goodfellow failed.

Mr Slater wrote yesterday, after the party’s annual conference concluded, that he was no longer affiliated to the National Party.

“After a day of insults, threats, opprobrium and malice, and after a vote which saw dullness, mediocrity and sloth rewarded, the National Party can no longer enjoy my full support,” Mr Slater said. “Make no mistake, I no longer belong to any party. I will never again be banned for speaking the truth. I will stand up for honesty and truth in politics and I will tell the story, not some spin-muppet.”

I’m not sure this will necessarily mean a big change in Whale’s style.  Even as a member, Whale happily harpooned Ministers and MPs when he thought they were wrong. His attacks on Nick Smith and the ETS were not exactly restrained, shall we say, by his party membership.

I don’t always agree with what Whale says, but I know he has always said what he believes in, and this is why he is such an effective blogger – he doesn’t hold back.

Sunday News reports:

RICH-lister Terry Serepisos is to seek legal advice over claims by controversial blogger Cameron “Whale Oil” Slater. Serepisos – owner of the Phoenix soccer franchise and host of The Apprentice NZ – was angered by claims made about his financial status on a Whale Oil blog posted earlier this week.

The Wellington-based businessman was in Hamilton yesterday watching his Phoenix in their pre-season game against the Brisbane Roar and wouldn’t comment.

But when asked what action Serepisos would take over the posting, the property developer’s spokesman John Mitchell said: “He [Serepisos] will take a look at things on Monday. He will talk to someone if he feels that [sueing] is the appropriate course of action.

“It [seeking action] has got to that point over a number of things. Terry does have a lawyer who looks at these sorts of things and if any action is to be taken.”

Mitchell said Serepisos had already put one media organisation “on notice” about its coverage of his financial affairs.

He said of Slater’s latest posting: “It is just a nasty, silly and spurious rumour.

“Terry is the sort of person who polarises people. There are some people who do not necessarily have it in for him but are very keen to spread these spurious rumours. It is just ridiculous.”

Mitchell said the claims made by Slater “weren’t worth responding to”.

For legal reasons, Sunday News cannot repeat the detail of Slater’s posting.

For the same reasons, please don’t repeat them here.

If Serepisos does sue for defamation, it would be a very high profile court case.

The NZ Herald reports:

Manukau Mayor and Super City mayoral front-runner Len Brown broke nearly every rule in the book when he put $810 on his council credit card for a dinner at a Manurewa restaurant last September.

The council credit card policy bars card-holders from submitting only an eftpos receipt to verify spending, but that is all Mr Brown provided after the dinner at Volare Restaurant.

He also breached rules requiring him to explain the purpose of the dinner, list who was present, provide an itemised breakdown of the dinner, a GST receipt and a tax invoice.

It was approved merely on the basis of an EFTPOS receipt. This is hugely sloppy.

Mr Brown’s credit card problems will come under the microscope today when documents detailing $16,977.22 of his credit card expenditure since 2007 will be discussed by the council’s policy and activities committee.

Whale Oil has details of some of these. I’ll return to that.

Mr Brown cut up his credit card on Campbell Live last week and told the Herald that if he became the first mayor of the Super City, he would use a purchase account and regularly publish details of his spending.

He said he accepted the public scrutiny, but believed it was part of a smear campaign by his opponents because of his poll lead over Mr Banks.

This is just hysterical nonsense. Sure opponents jump on the stories, but one has to be demented to think that the Sunday Star-Times is working for John Banks. They are the most left wing newspaper in New Zealand. They have actually scrutinised the expenses of all four major Auckland mayors, after Andrew Williams came to attention. Bob Harvey was covered also (and he is not standing for anything) but his affairs were not too out or order. The problem for Len Brown is his use of it on repeated occasions for personal purchases, and also nickel and diming it for every conceivable expense, despite a household income of probably well over $300,000 a year.

Whale Oil has details of some of the spending, They include:

• $280 to attend Labour Party conference (later refunded)
• $2,800 to Dress for Suc­cess Celebrity Wait­ers
• $768 at the Viaduct Restaurant and Bar. Now one might assume this is in Auckland, but in fact it is in Christchurch – rather distant from Manukau.
• $316 for food after the santa parade

He has also put up a 74 page pdf of all the spending – from kids ice creams to bottles of wine.

The Herald on Sunday had a story on Whale Oil today, and his wife was on TV3 news tonight. It’s difficult to see someone’s personal life and challenges laid so bare.

Cactus Kate has done a post on this, which says things so well, I’m going to do something I almost never ever do, and quote it in its entirety.

HoS appears to have been reading the sad plight of my mate and the mate of many bloggers, Whaleoil aka Cameron Slater.

Today is probably the most truthful article yet on Whaleoil because it was written with cut and pasted words from his wife and best mate aka Spanish Bride from his blog.

I’ve only known Cameron for a few years and all the time I have known him has been under the mantra of Whaleoil. Unlike SB, I have not known him as Cameron, before his spiral into depression.

I don’t know all the background of his fight with Fidelity and what led up to his depressive state, because I wasn’t there. SB was. She remarks that he was a different man before the events leading to his illness. I believe that now totally.

There is no one else I have ever met quite like Cameron as Whaleoil. His behaviour is outrageous. Friends compared notes and said that this is just him. It is not. What makes me astonished though with Fidelity’s conduct is that they do not seem to have at any stage lead him to get help. That is medical help and counselling for rehabilitation. It used to be humourous watching Whaleoil be outrageous. It is now not so fun anymore once everyone has worked out he has a genuine problem.

The answer with Doctors has always been to prescribe more bloody pills. Whaleoil is on more pills than patients at mental homes. I know this because unknown to him I checked his dosage on his pillpackets and asked someone I know who works at an actual mental hospital. He is sedated by a cocktail of these pills which leave him tired, moody and disconnected with the world. When I realised his dosage, I knew the seriousness of the black hole he had fallen into. He’s tried to come off the pills, that too has had bad consequences.

I hate pills as a solution for depression. They are not and they are over-prescribed. I hate watching all too many friends zombie around on them. They are not real people while sedated under the latest and greatest profit minded cure to make everyone “happy”. The underlying problem still remains and I can’t see any joy on being reliant on a pill to be happy, or even stable enough to get out of bed. It takes away the human nature of being happy and sad and managing both states.

Whaleoil does not think consequences, SB has highlighted that all too clearly. He will be fine sitting with you in a bar watching you drink (contrary to popular opinion he does not drink regularly and I’ve only seen him drunk once) then the slightest irritant across the bar and he will be talking about smacking another person’s head in. Change the topic and his attention away and he’s forgotten five minutes later of even being angry.

While medicated and unassisted emotionally with any form of therapy, he simply cannot work. The easiest question for doubters that he can be integrated into the workforce for a 40 hour week is this: would you want Whaleoil working in your office? Five minutes with him and any HR representative would instantly dismiss his job application. Fidelity’s treatment has turned an otherwise creative, intelligent mind into a zombie who now firmly believes he cannot work. At the moment I am on the side of stating that he cannot.

Whaleoil is a great friend because he cares about his friends, but an unreliable one. That is, even the slightest task you know he may not do it on time. As the reliable party in the relationship you have to organise everything around Whaleoil not being able to perform his part. This frustrates him when he realises what has happened.

Insurance companies are not paid to care. I feel however they are paid to follow contracts and assist their clients back into the workforce so they are not made to rely on payouts. There’s no doubt in my mind that Cameron Slater as Whaleoil is one of the most clinically depressed people I have ever met. While the original event leading to this depression may have been minor in the scheme of things Fidelity and the medical professionals who treated him from that point in time have failed miserably and created Whaleoil as we all read him today on his blog.

Fidelity created the monster that is Whaleoil. There is no doubt about that after watching him the past few months. Even when Fidelity were still paying him, the posts were written when he wasn’t actually getting better. On a few good days, a Whaleoil post can be brilliantly coherent, well-reasoned and rational. On a bad day a Whaleoil post can be the most offensive thing on the internet.

There is only so much that friends and family can do for Whaleoil. The frustrating thing is that no one can wave a magic wand and make him better. It has gone past that and I’ve seen everyone try. His close family we can see have tried everything. His wife and kids are amazing in the circumstance, their love is unconditional.

Whaleoil needs serious medical attention from medics without a conflict of interest from working for an insurance company or more medics who border on being criminals in my view – the depression script writers. They should be given Oscars for their script writing abilities. He needs a time out, away from the stresses of modern life getting back to basics of routine and normality. But most of all he needs help and therapy to re-connect with himself, his old self. The one that his wife speaks of but most bloggers would never have seen.

Cameron Slater.

Heard that he is a fucking great bloke.

If Fidelity Insurance found that bloke, I’m sure they would have a case closed and not look like the bunch of cunts they will be made to look like when it is disclosed they haven’t done a single thing, other than medication, to try and find him.

Cactus has said it all.

Whale Oil blogs:

The unthink­able has hap­pened, I have made a mis­take. Being a firm believer in own­ing your own shit I have apol­o­gised to Chris Carter and to his sis­ter. A short time after I sent my apol­ogy email (below) Chris rang me and we had a pleas­ant chat about the whole inci­dent. I thank Chris for tak­ing the time to ring me, he cer­tainly didn’t have to, the fact that he did and con­ducted him­self in such a polite man­ner shows the mea­sure of him.

And part of the e-mailed apology is:

Chris,

I would like to unre­servedly apol­o­gise to you for the last cou­ple of days. I was mis­led about the exact details of the sit­u­a­tion and have now clar­i­fied that the Mrs Carter in ques­tion is not in any­way related to you.

Fur­ther the whole issue was a hor­ri­ble mis­take from begin­ning to end start­ing with the Telco and the CEO of that telco con­cerned and end­ing with me. The phone issue is in fact legit­i­mate use of par­lia­men­tary resources.

Once again I sin­cerely apol­o­gise and will remove the posts about your­self and your sis­ter. I will also post this apol­ogy on my blog.

Please also pass on my sin­cere apolo­gies to your sister.

Sincere kudos to Chris, and his sister, for accepting the apology and in fact thanking Cameron for it – very classy. And also to Cam for such a unreserved apology.

I’m not a fan of posting details of Judges who issue suppression orders, as Cameron has threatened to do. Likewise I would not personally breach suppression orders as I am more an advocate of lobbying against stupid laws, rather than breaking them.

I do strongly support the Law Commission’s recommendation to make suppression orders much more difficult to achieve for those convicted of a crime.

But hell when I read about the recent case in Palmerston North, my blood boils and I am half tempted to join Whale in direct action. If you don’t know the case I am talking about, this is the Manawatu Standard on it:

If there were any lingering doubts that the guidelines for suppressing names in this country needed strengthening, the case detailed in today’s Manawatu Standard should shatter them.

The creeping secrecy pervading our justice system has long since passed what the public should accept as a reasonable restriction on their freedom of expression in order to safeguard the administration of justice.

The decision to suppress the name of a prominent Manawatu man convicted of downloading pornographic images of children is a salient example of how the principle of open justice has been reduced to little more than a passing mention before a judge abdicates his or her duty to ensure our public court system belongs to the people.

What if this man does not just download child pornography, but seeks to create some of his own? Parents are blocked from being able to protect their kids..

For Judge Fraser to say publication of the man’s identity was not required because none of the thousands of children pictured were New Zealanders is logically outrageous. Such an argument requires one to believe this man investigated the background of each of his young victims to determine they were not from this country. Does Judge Fraser believe that had the man known the children were New Zealanders he would have not downloaded the images?

An appalling lack of logic.

The Maori Party have attacked the decision:

Maori Party MPs have joined the chorus of condemnation at the permanent name suppression given to a prominent Manawatu man who downloaded more than 300,000 pornographic images, many of them picturing children.

“The decision to permanently suppress this man’s name is outrageous as is the decision to give him a few months home detention,” Maori Party justice spokeswoman Rahui Katene said.

“We urge the prosecution to appeal the sentence so this man can never ever again be allowed to continue his sick actions in a veil of secrecy.”

I hope it is appealed. But I also hope the Government puts a law change on the fast track.