Isn’t the most dirty trick exposed in Nicky Hager’s book, the revelation that Hager reveals that he received six years of stolen e-mails, hacked from Cameron Slater’s Gmail and Facebook accounts?

Is it not ironic that so many on the left have marched and protested against the right of the GCSB to assist the SIS or the Police to intercept communications, if a Judge or retried Judge agrees that there is enough evidence of criminal or national security issues to give out an interception warrant. They protested for weeks and months.

Yet when we get evidence of a massive criminal hacking of six years of personal communications, then they do not see that as dirty politics. They celebrate it, because it occurred against someone they do not like. Does this not suggest a large degree of hypocrisy and faux outrage over the GCSB changes last year? Are any of those anti-GCSB protesters going to condemn Nicky Hager and his unknown associate/s for the hack and publication  of Cameron Slater’s Gmail and Facebook?

Do all those journalists who wrote dozens and dozens of stories about the GCSB Bill, have a view on whether it is okay to criminally hack someone’s private communications, because you don’t like what they write? Is this where we want politics in New Zealand to go – partisans from the left and right trying to hack each other’s communications?

The book does expose dirty politics in New Zealand, the dirty politics of those who criminally hack private communications, and publish them. They’ve just had journalists in the UK go to jail for publishing stories that they knew were based on hacked voicemails. Here though, you get to make royalties out of them.

UPDATE:John Armstrong has got very excited and said:

Hager’s allegations are many and varied. They are extremely serious. But one stands out. The allegation that one of John Key’s minions hacked into the Labour Party’s database is – to put it bluntly – the modern-day equivalent of the 1972 burglary of the Democratic Party’s national committee headquarters in the Watergate complex in Washington.

This is factually wrong, and somewhat hysterical. There was absolutely no hacking of the Labour Party. The only person who has been hacked is Cameron Slater.

The Labour Party had the technical competence of a five year old and had their credit card database lying openly on their webserver for the world to see. No hacking needed, no passwords needed. They placed the data openly on the world wide web. 

Someone noticed this and e-mailed Cameron Slater. He of course delighted in their incompetence and prepared to blog on it. He mentioned it to a few people, who had a look around, including Jason. That’s not hacking, that is not burglary. It is curiosity. Again – this was information they had accidentally made publicly available.

The question arises of course as to how Cameron’s communications were hacked. The suggestion that it was related to the DOS attack on his site is a red herring I believe. His Facebook messages are not linked to his site, and I doubt his Gmail is either. Someone must have hacked both his Gmail and his Facebook. So who could have done this? Can we think of anyone who is a known successful hacker who hates Cameron? Someone who had a lackey blogging before the book came out, that he knew what was in it? Not hard to connect the dots is it.

UPDATE: Cameron Slate has alleged Kim Dotcom was responsible, but Dotcom and Hager deny this strongly. I have no direct knowledge of who is responsible, and as usual take people at their word until there is proof to the contrary.

Rather bemused to find an entire chapter of Nicky Hager’s book is on me, and also how banal it is. Almost everything in there is in the public domain, as I live a pretty open life. But what Hager has done is wave his normal conspiracy theory through everything and make the fact that bloggers and other talk to each other, some sort of sinister thing.

Basically the chapter is a revelation that I am a member of the National Party! I didn’t realise this was a big secret.

He seems to have no curiousity at all over all the bloggers on the left who don’t blog under their real names, and are rumoured to actually work in Parliament. He also doesn’t worry about one blogger who has been on multiple party payrolls and never declared it, until outed.

What is very interesting is that his source is once again stolen e-mails. In The Hollow Men, he claimed they were leaked to him by an insider. In this book they are obviously hacked from Cameron Slater, which to my mind raises huge disbelief over his claims that the previous set of e-mails were leaked.

I’ve had a quick read through the chapter on me, and a few things I’ll point out.

• Hager thinks my setting Kiwiblog up was due to my involvement in the IDU. That’s nuts. I’ve been debating politics online since 1996, originally through Usenet. I set Kiwiblog up because I like debate. It was not encouraged by anyone, and I was surprised it has turned out influential. In fact in the early days quite a few in National put pressure on for me not to blog.
• I get e-mails from numerous people, including Jason Ede, pointing stories out to me, or suggesting things I may want to blog on. I get them from lots of ordinary blog readers, from friends, from some staff, and sometmes even an MP. But I decide what I blog, and they always accord with my political views.
• A tiny proportion of what I blog comes from National sources. Way under 5%. I write Kiwiblog, and people send me ideas – and this is somehow a conspiracy. Very very very occasionally I might proactively ask for some info – maybe every couple of months, if that.
• Most of what I blog is pro-National, as you would expect. But most weeks there is an issue I disagree with them on. I did multiple posts attacking the Government on the proposed copper tax, and even had Kiwiblog join an aggressive campaign against National on this. I have several times lobbied minor party MPs not to support National on bills or amendments. I recently said I think John Key should have accepted Gerry Brownlee’s resignation.
• When Curia first set up, it of course had only one client. Since then it has grown nicely. At last count around 60+. The initial staff were mainly people I knew through National, as I took over what had been some internal polling, but today we have well over 100 staff and I don’t think any of them are Young Nats. The 2ic for Curia is a Labour supporter who told me the first time we socialised together that for a right wing bastard, I’m not totally bad. We poll for many clients, whose politics I do not share. I’ve polled for former Labour and Alliance MPs. I’ve polled for Family First, and disagree with them on 90% of their issues.
• Nicky seems to think it is a secret I am National’s pollster. A bloody badly kept secret. It’s on my website. It is referred to often.
• He is also excited that my staff do some canvassing work for National candidates or MPs. Yep. It creates extra work for my staff which is great. But we don’t just do it for them. While most of our work is polling, if people want to utilise our call centre, and pay for it, they can. Just last week I had one client contract our call centre to make 18,000 phone calls on their behalf – this is a totally non-political client. I’ll work for pretty much anyone who pays (so long as not a conflict of interest)

Most of the book is on Cam. Cam does some great stuff and he sometimes does some appalling stuff. Cam does not work for anyone, or even take guidance from anyone. He is his own force of nature.

Hager basically doesn’t like the fact the right now have voices. He basically says no media should ever use me as a commentator. He is threatened by the fact we finally have one organisation (Taxpayers Union) arguing for less government spending, to counter the 2,000 or so that argue for more.

My final comment is to note that people thought his book may be on the NSA and GCSB intercepting electronic communications. It would seem the person who is the biggest recipient and publisher of intercepted electronic communications is in fact Nicky Hager. If someone published a book of e-mails between a group of left-wingers, he’d probably call it a police state, and demand an inquiry,

The Social Progressive Imperative publishes an annual Social Progress Index.

Labour and the Greens would have you believe that NZ is appalling on social issues. Their rhetroic for years has been doom and gloom. So where was NZ placed on this index? 100th? 50th? 25th? 10th? 5th?

Nope, 1st.

The top 10 are:

1. New Zealand
2. Switzerland
3. Iceland
4. Netherlands
5. Norway
6. Sweden
7. Canada
8. Finland
9. Denmark
10. Australia

On some of ths sub-indices, our rankings include:

• Water & Sanitation 1st
• Access to Basic Knowledge 2nd
• Access to Information and Comms 7th
• Personal Rights 1st
• Personal Freedom & Choice 1st
• Tolerance and Inclusion 4th
• Access to Advanced Education 4th
• Opportunity 1st
• Undernourishment 1st
• Deaths from infectious diseases 3rd
• Access to piped water 1st
• Homicide rate 1st
• Indoor air pollution (lack of deaths) 1st
• Gender parity in education 1st
• Press freedom 1st
• Greenhouse gas emissions 2nd (best)
• Private property rights 1st
• Freedom of religion 1st
• Corruption (lack of) 1st
• Religious tolerance 1st
• Community safety net 2nd
• Tolerance for immigrants 2nd

We are far from perfect, but New Zealand overall is ranked higher than every other country. Think about that, as you consider the Green billboards of gloom and doom.

The Herald reports:

National will build nine new schools in Auckland if re-elected, associate Education Minister Nikki Kaye announced today.

The schools would be built as part of a $350 million investment into Auckland education infrastructure over the next four years, Ms Kaye said.

The announcement was made during a visit to Ponsonby Primary School with Prime Minister John Key this afternoon.

“We have recently invested in new schools in areas like Hamilton and Queenstown, and Auckland is an obvious candidate for significant new investment,” she said.

The new schools would be spread across the Auckland region, with four likely in the northern region, three in South Auckland, and two in West Auckland.

An additional 130 classrooms would also be built at existing school sites across the Auckland region to deal with forecast roll growth, Ms Kaye said.

A further eight schools would be renovated.

“We will deal with major redevelopments at Western Springs College in Western Springs, Southern Cross Campus (second stage) in Mangere East, and Sherwood Primary in Browns Bay as first cabs off the rank if we are returned to Government at the election.

That’s a significant amount of money for Auckland schools.

Funding would come from a mixture of the Future Investment Fund — which contains the proceeds from asset sales, and existing baselines including possible public/private partnerships, Ms Kaye said.

Those awful partial asset sales, helping fund new schools. How terrible.

Stuff reports:

Labour would make the same investments if elected, as it was “business-as-usual, baseline capital investment for any government,” he said.

How? Will they add this to their $17 billion? These are capital works being brought forward many years, which are not currently funded.

Cunliffe said public-private partnerships were the “trick” of the announcement.

“Now this is creeping privatisation of the education system – there is no economic case for it, there is not enough risk to be managed in a school to justify the higher private cost of capital,” he said.

A PPP is not privatisation. In the last Labour Government David Cunliffe was a huge proponents of PPPs. But if Labour is ruling out PPPs, where are they going to find the money? It doesn’t grow on trees.

The Herald reports:

New Zealander of the Year Dr Lance O’Sullivan has endorsed the Maori Party, saying it’s hard to be popular and still do the right thing.

And the Northland doctor, who said he had turned down several offers to stand in this election, was not ruling out a future in politics.

O’Sullivan has thrown his celebrity behind the Maori Party saying he believed compromise was the best way to advance Maori interests, and the Maori Party was best placed to do that. …

O’Sullivan, who also spoke at the party’s campaign launch, cited its willingness to straddle the political divide and its focus on issues such as rheumatic fever and healthy homes as being behind his decision.

“I don’t think a party that’s on the extreme edges one way or another is going to be beneficial for Maori,” he said.

A useful endorsement for them, from someone who does a lot for the community.

The Guardian reports:

Many popular cheeses on sale in UK supermarkets contain high levels of salt, despite meeting government reduction targets as part of the drive to improve public health, campaigners have warned. …

Cash called on the government to introduce much more challenging targets on salt reduction in cheese as a “cost-effective” way to improve public health and to follow the much tougher lead set by the US. …

Professor Graham MacGregor, chairman of Cash, said: “Reducing salt is one of the most cost-effective measures to reduce the number of people suffering and dying from strokes, heart attacks and heart failure. Cheese is a big contributor of salt to the UK diet and it’s vital the Department of Health forces the cheese industry to implement the new targets immediately – and to set more challenging targets for the future.”

I’ve got a better idea. How about people be left for themselves to decide if they want to buy cheese with a lot of salt in it, or cheese with not much salt.

The Herald reports:

“Obviously wanting to be fit and relatively less portly than most members of Parliament become, ‘she said diplomatically’.”

Will she name names? “I think their breasts speak for themselves.”

That comment has not impressed a few.

The news has been really bleak lately, today is no exception: Massey Uni is victim blaming and Laila Harré is fat shaming.

— Chelsea (@tripthestation) August 12, 2014

Let me rephrase: eesh @lailaharre, any jibe at about an MPs weight is irrelevant and hateful. You’re better than this pic.twitter.com/ve2jsBkUeL

— Di W (@di_f_w) August 12, 2014

I’ll resist the temptation to point out the size of Laila’s funder.

Chris Cillizza at the Washington Post writes:

The decision by Sen. John Walsh (D-Mont.) not to seek election in November in the wake of a plagiarism scandal is the latest piece of good news for Republicans as they strive to take control of the Senate in less than three months.

Walsh’s departure from the race came in the same week that two Republican senators — Pat Roberts in Kansas and Lamar Alexander in Tennessee — defeated tea party challengers in primary fights, ensuring that every GOP senator seeking reelection would be the party’s nominee.

These past seven days typified the fates of the two parties this election cycle. Democrats have been hit by retirements in tough states — Montana, West Virginia, South Dakota and, to a lesser extent, Iowa — and Republicans haven’t nominated the sort of extreme candidates who lack broader appeal in a general election.

Those realities — along with a national playing field in which a handful of incumbent Democrats are defending Republican-leaning seats in places where President Obama is deeply unpopular — have made a GOP takeovera better-than-50/50 proposition.

Nate Silver agrees:

The problem for Democrats is that this year’s Senate races aren’t being fought in neutral territory. Instead, the Class II senators on the ballot this year come from states that gave Obama an average of just 46 percent of the vote in 2012.¹

Democrats hold the majority of Class II seats now, but that’s because they were last contested in 2008, one of the best Democratic years of the past half-century. That year, Democrats won the popular vote for the U.S. House by almost 11 percentage points. Imagine if 2008 had been a neutral partisan environment instead. We can approximate this by applying a uniform swingof 11 percentage points toward Republicans in each Senate race. In that case, Democrats would have lost the races in Alaska, Colorado, Louisiana, Minnesota, New Hampshire, North Carolina and Oregon — and Republicans would already hold a 52-48 majority in the Senate.

It therefore shouldn’t be surprising that we continue to see Republicans as slightly more likely than not to win a net of six seats this November and control of the Senate. 

Harry Reid may come to regret effectively abolishing the filbuster. If the Democrats go into the minority, they will have sacrificed the tool that could require the majority to work with them.

NewstalkZB reports:

Good news for fake news, with a satirical political party successfully registering just in time for the election.

The Electoral Commission has announced the Civilian Party has got enough members on board to contest the election.

The party was born out of parody news website The Civilian, and promises free ice cream for everyone, and making the rest of New Zealand independent from Hamilton.

I’m glad they made it. Of all the joke parties standing for Parliament, they’re the only funny one!

The Herald reports:

Soul and blues star Darren Watson’s satirical song Planet Key appears to have been banned from being broadcast.

Guitarist singer and songwriter Mr Watson’s song and its animated video by Jeremy Jones released last week pokes fun at the Prime Minister and his Government.

It features Mr Key playing a stinging blues guitar solo on an endangered Maui’s dolphin while an oil rig explodes in the background. It also depicts Finance Minister Bill English carrying Mr Key’s golf clubs and the Prime Minister plays golf with Barack Obama.

But Mr Watson posted on Facebook this afternoon that he had just had a “super interesting chat with The Electoral Commission just now”.

“It appears we may be gagged.”

He later posted that “the story is the Electoral Commission have advised a Access Radio station not to play Planet Key as it may be a contravention of the act.”

Hamilton’s Free FM station manager Phil Grey told the Herald the station had played Mr Watson’s music before but when it recently received a copy of the song, because of its content, the station’s programme director asked for the Electoral Commission’s opinion on whether it breached electoral rules.

“She got a communication back saying that outside of a topical news item about the song, airplay of that song would be considered to cross the threshold to be considered an electoral programme.”

The Electoral Commission is correct, in my opinion, in terms of the law.

However that is why I think the law should be changed.

We have archaic electoral laws that treat the broadcast medium as different to other mediums. All political advertising is banned on broadcast media, except those ads funded by the taxpayer through the broadcasting allocation, Effectively this means the state has a monopoly over broadcast advertising.

We should change the law to allow anyone to run advertisements on radio or television, so long as they identify themselves.

Of course the John key parody video can be viewed online. I blogged it here myself a few days ago.

Denise Roche blogs:

 In Australia political advocacy is recognised as a charitable purpose in its own right”.

It is time we modernised our system and included advocacy in the Charities Act. I have a members bill in my name that would do just that

I’m absolutely opposed to this. You should not get a tax deduction because you donate to do political advocacy. Should Kim Dotcom get a $1.3 million tax deduction because he gave $4 million to the Internet Party?

This law change would allow every lobby group in New Zealand to claim they are a charity.

Steven Joyce points out:

Updated figures today show that Labour’s election-year spending spree is now up to almost $17.9 billion over four years – and counting, Associate Finance Minister Steven Joyce says.

“Labour’s own numbers show spending promises to date of $16.4 billion over four years,” Mr Joyce says.

“However, they have woefully underestimated the costs of introducing compulsory KiwiSaver, dismantling the electricity sector and paying a 12.5 per cent R&D tax credit.

“For example, Labour claims to be bringing 500,000 extra people into KiwiSaver from 1 October 2015, and would be paying them a tax credit that averages around $370 a year plus a $200 a year kick-start for the first five years. A simple calculation shows that the cost of this must be approaching $250 million in the first year, rather than $141 million as Labour is claiming.

“It’s interesting that Labour’s costing of exactly the same policy in 2011 was more than two-and-a-half times higher than it is now in 2014, so it  looks like they’ve cut a few corners this time around.”

Mr Joyce says when you put more realistic costs on these policies it takes Labour’s numbers to $17.9 billion over four years.

“More will be added to this bill as Labour makes more desperate promises – and that’s not counting the big spending of their prospective coalition partners the Greens,” Mr Joyce says.

Bye bye surplus, hello deficit it will be. Which means that Labour will have to keep increasing taxes.

A Guest Post by Peter McCaffrey:

Whatever your personal views on MMP, the referendum result in 2011 made it clear that our electoral system is here to stay for the foreseeable future.

MMP is exceedingly complicated.

I spent a large chunk of time during my political science degree at Victoria University learning it intimately, and still have to look things up occasionally to make sure I’ve got them correct.

While many people now understand that the Party Vote is the most important vote in deciding the makeup of the legislature, the intricacies of overhangs, top-up seats and the Saint-Lague formula are lost on most people.

It’s common to see mistaken or just plain wrong comments on news media websites and blogs and that’s fair enough really.

No one actually needs to understand the Saint-Lague formula in their daily lives, and putting in the required effort to properly comprehend it would be a complete waste of your time.

Unless, that is, you want to take on the responsibility of explaining the system to others, whether in day-to-day conversations, as a commentator in the media, or as an academic in the classroom.

Which brings us to Q&A on Sunday, and the comments of one of their guests, which provide an excellent opportunity for a refresher course for anyone interested.

Raymond Miller has a doctorate in political science, has written a book about our political party system, served as the head of the Political Science department at Auckland University, teaches courses on elections and is conducting research in to electoral systems.

And yet, he seems to have absolutely no clue about how MMP works, and why the Epsom electorate is so important in this and previous elections.

On the show, Dr Miller claimed that if David Seymour won Epsom but ACT didn’t win enough party votes to bring in extra MPs, then National would have been just as well off with Paul Goldsmith winning the seat.

But this is just completely, objectively, factually wrong.

I hope with this post, I can clear up some of the confusion.

By now, no-one out there should be in any doubt that if ACT receive enough votes to elect extra MPs with David Seymour, then that is extra MPs for the centre-right, obviously.

But what about the scenario that Raymond Miller suggests of ACT not getting anyone other than David Seymour elected?

There are two possible ways this could happen:

Scenario 1) If David Seymour wins Epsom, but ACT receive between 0.0% and ~0.4% of the vote.

In this situation, David Seymour would be what is referred to as an “overhang” MP.

This means that ACT won more electorates than their party vote entitles them to.

This also happened to the Maori Party in 2011.

The Maori Party won 3 electorates, but only received enough party votes to be eligible for 2 seats in parliament.

In these kinds of situations, rather than saying that someone who won an electorate may not sit in Parliament, sensibly, the overhang MP is still elected to parliament.

The size of parliament is actually temporarily increased to 121 MPs, meaning the Maori Party received their 2 seats according to their party vote, and then one extra seat for their third electorate MP.

So even if ACT receives so few votes that David Seymour is an overhang MP, the centre-right still receive a whole extra 1 seat.

[Note: If there are two overhangs in a parliament, meaning there are 122 MPs, then 62 votes would be needed to form a government instead of 61 votes, but even under this unlikely scenario, David Seymour would still effectively count as an extra 1/2 seat for the centre-right.]

Scenario 2) If David Seymour wins Epsom, and ACT receives more than ~0.4% but less than ~1.2%.

In this situation, ACT receive enough votes that David Seymour won’t be an “overhang” MP, but not enough to elect a second MP.

This is where MMP starts to get really complicated.

To explain, let’s start with a background on how seats are allocated under MMP.

The number of seats a party receives in parliament is determined almost entirely by the party vote they receive, according to the Saint-Lague formula. 

Typically, parties win a large enough party vote to entitle them to more seats in parliament than the number of electorates they win.

For example, in 2011, National received 47.31% of the vote, entitling them to 59 seats in Parliament.

National candidates won 42 electorates, which was then topped up with 17 list MPs to ensure National had the 59 MPs they deserved.

Had Paul Goldsmith won Epsom in 2011, National would still only be entitled to 59 seats in total, as their party vote hasn’t changed, but would now hold 43 electorates, meaning the number of top-up electorate seats they would receive would simply be reduced to 16.

So, Paul Goldsmith winning Epsom would have cost ACT a seat, but not gained National any extra MPs – result: one fewer MP for the centre-right.

But where did that ‘spare’ seat go?

As ACT wouldn’t have won an electorate seat, ACT’s votes would now be wasted votes, and this would change the Saint-Lague calculation.

It is technically possible that the election’s party vote result could fall in such a way that during the calculation, the Saint-Lague formula determines that National receives this ‘spare’ seat.

But it’s much more likely that the ‘spare’ seat is awarded to Labour, or the Greens, or New Zealand First, leaving the centre-right with one fewer seat, and the centre-left with one more.

This is exactly what would have happened had Paul Goldsmith won Epsom in 2011, as the Saint-Lague formula would have awarded the ‘spare’ seat to Labour.

You can see for yourself using the Election Commission website’s Saint-Lague calculator:

http://www.elections.org.nz/voting-system/mmp-voting-system/mmp-seat-allocation-calculator

Just load in the 2011 election results, but change ACT to have won 0 electorate seats, and National to 43.

ACT drops from 1 to 0 seats, National stays on 59 seats, and Labour increases from 34 to 35.

On that result, the Labour, Greens, NZF, Mana and Maori Parties would have had enough seats to form a government.

It’s possible the Maori Party might have chosen to continue working with National.

But then, rather than John Key being able to pass legislation with UF and ACT or with the Maori Party, National would have needed both United Future AND the Maori Party’s votes on every single bill in parliament.

The Maori Party would have held the balance of power on every single vote.

It’s not merely an exaggeration that ACT winning Epsom in 2011 decided the entire election.

If you know any Epsom voters, show them this article, and make sure they understand they might also decide the 2014 election.

Matthew Beveridge blogs:

Steve Gibson also claims that he was not aware of the meaning of the term. However, Greg Presland, whose post the comment was made on, is a lawyer. He is claiming on Radio New Zealand that he was just repeating comments that he has heard elsewhere. However Greg Presland should also be being questioned about his knowledge of the term. Does he claim that he was not aware of the meaning of the term?

Greg Presland is a close advisor and friend of David Cunliffe and was one of the lawyers involved in the setting up of the secret trusts used to fund David Cunliffe’s leadership challenge. He has held office in the Labour Party, including being electorate chair for David Cunliffe’s New Lynn electorate, he is a member of the Waitakere Ranges Local Board, and is descirbed by The Daily Blog as a “labour activist“. It is not like this post was made on the profile of Steve Gibson’s friend Joe Bloggs. Considering the profile and position of Greg Presland his actions, or lack thereof, in relation to this post should also be raising questions.

I don’t think you hold authors responsible for comments made on their site, unless they have previously seen the comment. for example I do not see 90% of the comments on Kiwiblog. I only read General Debate when someone complains about something. But from what I can see there were only two comments on Presland’s post, so I would be surprised if he had not seen the Shylock comment.

He notes that David Shearer said on Facebook:

I’ve been shocked and disappointed at the anti-Semitic comment and defacing of billboards over the past few days, including in my electorate of Mt Albert. I don’t want John Key to win the election because I believe NZ can do much better with a different, fairer government, not because of whether he’s Jewish or not. 

NZ is a tolerant society. We pride ourselves on it. Most of what I’ve seen shows the utter ignorance of the writers. I’ve taken the worst off my page here when it crops up. I don’t want to see it. 

Perhaps Mr Presland could emulate what David Shearer does. Beveridge points out:

There appears to have been no comment, from anyone, about the nature of Steve Gibson’s post on Greg’s wall, until it became public, two weeks after it was posted. If Greg had replied to Steve, pointing out the offensive and anit-Semitic nature of this post, or if he had deleted it before it became public, then it would have been a clear sign those involved in the high levels of the Labour Party take seriously the issue of anti-Semitism and their pledge Vote Positive. However neither Greg Presland nor any of his friends, appear to have made any comments, or taken any action to counter these comments.  Does this lack of action, or comment, from a senior figure in the Labour Party, and his friends, suggest an acceptance of the comments and their nature?

The fact is the comment was only removed after we highlighted it.

UPDATE: Patrick Gower writes:

If Labour’s campaign really was about “vote positive”, then leader David Cunliffe would have axed candidate Steven Gibson for the John Key “Shylock” call.

Mr Cunliffe has instead put him on a “final warning”, missing a golden opportunity to look decisive and find some moral high ground in what is already a dirty election campaign. But he should have just got rid of Mr Gibson.

Mr Gibson is responsible for calling Mr Key “Shylock” – a reference to the Jewish money lender in Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice.

The Shylock comment is off-colour and has anti-Semitic overtones. It is also rude, nasty and incredibly politically naive. It is the worst kind of negative politics.

He went even further on the Facebook post, calling Mr Key a “nasty little creep … with a nasty, evil, vindictive sneer”.

This is not the standard of discourse worthy of someone who wants to be an MP and it is certainly not “vote positive”.

Gower concludes:

I cannot come up with a single valid reason why Mr Cunliffe should have kept Mr Gibson as a candidate. He probably didn’t axe him because he and his strategist didn’t think of it and “kicked for touch”.

But Mr Cunliffe needs to take risks. He should have got rid of Mr Gibson.

Yes, he should have.

The Herald reports:

National’s election war-chest has been given a half-million dollar boost by the estate of a wealthy Christchurch businessman.

Electoral Commission records show the party has received a $517,790 donation from the estate of Cyril Smith earlier this month.

Dead people make the best donors. Their motives are beyond doubt, as there can be no suggestion of self-gain from the donation.

3 News reports:

How very very sad. I’m stunned.

It is a reminder that even the apparently happiest and funniest people can struggle with their mental health.

I loves so many of his shows and movies. Mork & Mindy was great, and Good Morning Vietnam and Dead Poets Society are my favourite of his movies.

It was during one of his appearances on David Letterman that it struck me what a comic genius he was. Normally Letterman is the one doing most of the talking, but Williams came on and just took over and engaged with the crowd for probably five minutes or more without a pause, before Letterman got to say anything. His stand up skills are almost unsurpassed.

A huge loss to his family, but also to the entire world of comedy. A very sad day.

Have published the monthly newsletter summarising the public polls. Labour’s trend continues. The executive summary is:

There were six political polls in July – two Roy Morgans, a One News Colmar Brunton, a 3 News Reid Research, a Herald DigiPoll and a Fairfax Ipsos.

The average of the public polls has National 25% ahead of Labour in July, up 2% from June and up 11% from April. The current seat projection is centre-right 68 seats, centre-left 52 which would see a centre-right Government.

In Australia Tony Abbott’s net approval rating has risen 14% in the wake of the shooting down of MH370.

In the United States the country direction falls to a massive net -40%. 

In the UK David Cameron’s ratings are improving, as is the contry direction. Scottish independence polls show the no vote ahead by 5% to 14% with an average 9% gap.

In Canada the Liberals have opened up a large lead over the Conservatives, and would be able to form a minority government on current polls.

The normal two tables are provided comparing the country direction sentiment, head of government and opposition leader approval sentiment for the five countries. 

We also carry details of polls in New Zealand on fat tax, health food ratings, school policies, the man apology, the Mana/Internet party plus the normal business and consumer confidence polls.

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The Herald reports:

There were tough questions, soft questions, and sometimes no questions at all as Labour leader David Cunliffe took to the Auckland suburbs of Glen Innes, Onehunga and Tamaki yesterday to sell the party’s policies.

Fresh off his announcement that all over-65s, pregnant women and children under 13 would get free GP visits and prescriptions, Mr Cunliffe visited Onehunga Mall.

But it was a shaky start, as a gentleman threw up his hands in a flutter in an attempt to avoid shaking Mr Cunliffe’s hand.

And Colleen Whitehouse, 77, said she didn’t want Labour’s healthcare policy. “I think it would cost the country too much money.”

It wold, and far more than they say. Labour constantly make the mistake of never allowing for the fact that if you don’t charge for something, then far more people will use it.  Student associations used to give away free “hardship” money and every year they would report how surprised they were that more and more students would turn up wanting free money.

This graph is from the Dim Post, where Danyl points out:

Labour’s policy is a generous subsidy to the least needy group in the country. It’s also a very large group of people with high health-care needs and giving them ‘free’ access to healthcare is going to cause a huge increase in demand for primary health services.

Labour is promoting higher taxes on families and businesses of up to $5 billion a year, so they can increase subsidies to the “least needy”. Our aging population already poses massive fiscal challenges to us in terms of affordable healthcare and superannuation. Labour’s policy will make future healthcare even more unaffordable.

Stuff reports:

You know we may be in for the ugliest election campaign ever when it starts with an effigy of the prime minister being burnt, claims of racism and nasty name-Mr Gibson says calling.

We had all three in less than 24 hours after the first big campaign launches at the weekend.

Winston Peters’ “two wongs don’t make a white” statement takes him back to familiar territory – he has banged the anti-Asian drum at more than one election.

But this had a nastier edge.

Recent displays of crowds chanting “f… John Key” and his effigy being burnt could either be put down to youthful hijinks or something more sinister. The prime minister is in no doubt which interpretation he puts on it.

But the ugly rant by Labour candidate Steve Gibson was the worst possible side of politics and took the debate to a fresh low.

Among other things he called Key a “shonky jonkey Shylock”, an anti-semitic term.

Gibson apologised yesterday but the damage had been done.

I can’t recall another election which has been so nasty and personal.

Mr Gibson says he was unaware of the racial overtones of the term “Shylock”.  I find that very very difficult to believe.

The Herald reports:

Mr Gibson’s move comes as some of National’s campaign billboards have been defaced with anti-Semitic graffiti.

Mr Key said he was open about his Jewish heritage but his bigger concern was for the Jewish community.

“They’re a good hard-working group of New Zealanders and I don’t think people should be attacked on religious belief, whether they’re Islamic, Christian or Jewish.”

As for Mr Gibson’s comments, “it’s hardly ‘Vote Positive’, but again, we’ll be letting that go through to the keeper as well”.

Vote Positive – Yeah Right.

Phil Kitchin at Stuff reports:

KGB files smuggled out of Russia reveal a former Labour MP was an informant for the feared Soviet spy agency and was given the codename “Gerd”.

The files say the MP was in contact with Yuri Drozhzhin, the KGB agent who handled former top government official Bill Sutch for several years. …

The Mitrokhin files say an unnamed Labour MP, born in England in 1926, was in contact with Drozhzhin during the KGB agent’s Wellington posting.

He was given the codename “Gerd”, and information passed to the KGB said he was also a member of Labour’s executive committee.

There can’t be that many former Labour MPs born in 1926 in England. A chocolate fish to anyone who can name one or more.

The Dom Post editorial also looks at whether the evidence stacks up to conclude Sutch was a spy. They note:

What are we to make of this? Like all historical documents, this one must be interpreted carefully. The reports of spies to their superiors are like all other bureaucratic reports: they aim partly to impress the boss, to put the best spin on things, to prove the efficiency and value of the underling’s work.

Helen Sutch, the economist’s daughter, dismisses the KGB file for this reason. It was “well-known that KGB agents in general were desperate to talk up any contacts they had because they were under pressure from their superiors”.

Certainly this kind of thing could have happened. Do we know that it happened with Sutch? It needs to be said that the Mitrokhin Files, which are the source of the Sutch entry, have proved reliable in many other cases.

When these reports were written, the authors never imagined the mighty USSR would fall, and these reports would become public one day.

And then there is the circumstantial evidence that brought suspicion on Sutch’s head. His stated reason for meeting a Russian agent on a dark and rainy night in a Wellington suburb was farcical. He wanted to discuss Zionism, he said.

Put all of this together – the entry in the Russian archive, the general reliability of the Mitrokhin material, and Sutch’s extremely dodgy dealings with a KGB agent – and the conclusion seems reasonably clear. Sutch was indeed a Russian spy.

I think that is the most reasonable conclusion.

Some have pointed out the files do not include details of any actual spying activity, which is true. The argument is that he supported the Soviet Union (which is a horrific lapse of judgment in its own right) but never gave them actual classified material that was detrimental to NZ security. It’s unlikely we’ll ever know for sure what sort of information he did give them, but regardless my view is that passing any information at all to what was then a totalitarian oppressive state showed he was a man whose ideology got ahead of everything else.

UPDATE: A reader suggests to me that the codename “Gerd” gives a clue to the former Labour MP, even though the exact details of DOB and place of birth do not fit.

Stuff reports:

Organisers of a political event in rural Auckland tonight have relented and agreed to let veteran political activist Penny Bright speak after she threatened legal action if she was refused. …

Tonight the prime minister is due to stand alongside the likes of Laila Harre and Hone Harawira in the Kumeu Baptist Church for a chance for locals to meet candidates in the Helensville and Te Tai Tokerau electorates.

I’m wondering if there is another country around where the PM agrees to do a public meeting with the leaders of two parties on 2% between them and someone who got around 0.1% last time they stood?  I’m trying to imagine Tony Blair doing a public meeting with Nick Griffin as the equivalent.

He’s basically appearing with bad, mad and sad. You can assign each as you see fit 🙂

An excellent parody of House of Cards by the Auckland Law Revue. Sean Topham makes a very convincing Frank Underwood. If I was Maggie Barry, I’d be very worried when Sean decides he wants to be MP for the North Shore 🙂