0 Quote of the Day - 28 June 2014

OK; it's a fair cop. This is yesterday's post. But we were so wrapped up in the Hurricanes' gutsy win over the Crusaders last night that we clean forgot to post it.

But Steven Joyce takes the coveted Quote of the Day for this effort:

Campaign chairman Steven Joyce warned delegates that the campaign was "still a little puppy" and that anything at all could happen in the next 84 days before the election - the wackiest thing imaginable, he said.
"A retired Maori activist who has become an MP working with a hard left unionist and let's just throw in a wealthy German millionaire right-winger, they could form a political party," said.

"That's the sort of wacky thing that could happen between now and September 20.
"If Laila Harre, Hone Harawira, Pam Corkery, Kim Dotcom, Russel Norman, Metiria Turei, David Cunliffe, Matt McCarten, and John Minto are the answer, can we please have another look at the question?"

It's an oldie, but in 2014, it's a goodie, and a very relevant goodie at that. 

0 Jones on Dotcom's "pretend party"

Bob Jones is in fine form this morning in his weekly NZ Herald column. Under the headline Dotcom, your no-hopers won't save you Jones opines:

My urging John Minto to shut up and acquire a hobby induced his response claiming he once thrashed me in a Victoria University debate (I've never debated him or indeed anyone at Vic) and challenging me to debate with him publicly on any of a wide range of subjects.
As I, like everyone else, want him to shut up, I'd hardly provide him more oxygen by doing that. Minto repeated this in a letter to me. I replied by helpfully suggesting he could satisfy his pathetic craving for attention by putting on a one-man black and white minstrel show and suggested he start practising singing Swanee River.
And given his life-long socialist belief in spending others' money, I offered to buy him his banjo and face-paint. He would have gone down a treat in old folk's homes, but acting altruistically in a meaningful way is alien to him, aside from which there's the awkward need to smile, so instead he's shamelessly joined Dotcom's pretend party.

Dangle money before hardened lefties and they'll sit up and purr every time.

Bob Jones hits the nail on the head here (sorry Rex). The political Left loves money, especially when it belongs to the long-suffering Someone Else. That is the only reason why the Mana Party has agreed to the MegaMana rort deal; Dotcom's money.

Of course, it matters not to Hone, Laila, Annette and John where the money came from; Jones continues:

Kim Dotcom was granted residency in November 2010 under the "investor plus" category, despite his past offending in Germany, his persona-non-grata status in Thailand and his minor securities conviction in Hong Kong, the Immigration Service making a marginal judgment call given his expressed investing commitment.
This decision was thereafter supported by his generosity to a range of causes, and he quickly became a larger-than-life, jolly-jumbo figure who brightened our lives. But today, three years later, his world has collapsed and, flailing in desperation, he's become politically involved, something I'm sure he never anticipated given his background of frivolous excess. He's now best described as the Milan Brych of New Zealand politics.
So what went wrong? That's simple: specifically the revelation of his wealth source, namely the large-scale copyright theft of Hollywood movies, which has led to the extradition order by the FBI. Due to preposterously idiotic behaviour of the police, who, instead of knocking on his door and handing Dotcom a summons, mounted a scandalously infantile raid by 76 armed police and two helicopters, then wrongly threw him into prison, the public reaction became hugely sympathetic, more so when it was revealed he had been illegally spied on by the GCSB clowns.
Dotcom's loveable maverick reputation collapsed, despite his vigorous legal efforts to prevent it, once details of the FBI's claim became public. Hitherto he had presented his business as that of an innocent bystander, akin to a taxi driver delivering a passenger to a bank, then subsequently being charged with aiding and abetting a crime after it was found his fare had robbed the bank.
But the FBI claims he had the means to control his Megaupload site's content, but far from doing so, actively incentivised the placement of movies on his site.
In rebuttal, Dotcom points to the terms service users were obliged to agree to, which included an undertaking not to post copyrighted material. He further argues that the sheer volume of material was such as to prevent practical policing.
The user copyright undertaking won't wash in any court and he knows it. It was his primary income source, arising from many tens of thousands of downloading users exploiting his site's stolen movies, but Dotcom, the site owner, implausibly claims this was all unknown to him.
Anyone wrongly charged with a serious crime should be ultra-eager to get into a court and argue their innocence. Instead, Dotcom has wasted millions trying to avoid doing so.
So he has resorted to a final desperation measure, namely to spend millions attempting to buy a change of government, which he hopes will override a court-backed extradition order, an inevitable outcome once he's used up all of his legal ploys.

Dotcom's money is not "clean" money, despite one of the serious criminal charges he is facing in the USA being Conspiracy to commit money laundering. But that won't stop Hone Harawira and his whanau. Their loathing of "rich prick" John Key means that the end justifies the means in getting rid of him, in their eyes. 

Of course that ignores the obvious hypocrisy of taking money from another rich prick, but Dotcom gets a free pass because he despises John Key too. Principles disappear out the window when the cheque book comes out.

Jones closes, with final digs at Dotcom, Harre and Minto:

He's wasting his money as no government will do that, regardless of any undertakings from the soul-selling abysmal no-hopers he has garnered together to fund as a political party. If anything, his efforts will hugely harm the Opposition cause in Balkanising and confusing its message, thus presenting an electoral option with, on one side, a rabble of dissimilar, mutually antagonistic parties, all with unpopular leaders and wildly different messages, set against a stable governing party with the most popular leader in our history.
This is the fifth party Dotcom's new leader, Laila Harre, has belonged to, which speaks volumes. Laila will always be remembered for the funniest political gaffe in our history when she explained her 2002 defeat by lamenting on television that voters had voted with their heads rather than their hearts.
If she wants hearts, then far better she assists Minto with a one-man black and white minstrel act which will pull the punters in droves, but when it comes to heads, like Dotcom, she's history.

Jones is once again quite right. The Herald-DiigiPoll released this morning shows a small rise in support for MegaMana at the Green Party's expense. A congested hard-Left is hardly going to filch votes from the centre, or the centre-right. All that will happen is that the same volume of votes on the Left will be distributed among more parties.

Of course, we're not going to complain about that outcome. It'll be a nice farewell gift to New Zealand from Dotcom as he is jetted off the the USA to face the trial he has tried so hard to avoid. 

0 Hide on MegaMana

Our favourite commenter Rex made this observation earlier this morning:

Next job, cut and paste Rodney Hide's rant!

At that point, we hadn't made it as far as the Herald on Sunday's website yet; we were still working through e-mails sent to us overnight bringing things to our attention. And the frequency of that has increased in recent weeks.

But naturally, we went straight off in search of Hide's latest opinion-piece. And we found that he does indeed rip in to all those involved in MegaMana; under the headline Hilarious Dotcom drama is riveting Hide opines:

I used to think politics was all about achieving good government. That proved invariably disappointing. These days, politics is no longer my responsibility. I'm happy if it just proves interesting.
That's why I am for the Internet-Mana Party. They're the best entertainment in years. If they were a parody they would be too improbable to be believed.
Maori nationalist Hone Harawira calls Pakeha the rudest of names and the wrong colour to date his daughter. But he's jumped into bed with whiter-than-white Kim Dotcom.
Harawira trumpets Mana and His People but that's not stopping him using his electorate to coat-tail Dotcom's party into Parliament. His price? $3 million.
It's easy to accuse Harawira of hypocrisy but he has a ready reply: it's a lot of money. At $3m his double standard is good and high.
Laila Harre wasn't elected leader of the Internet Party. She was hired. She's been selected and paid for by Dotcom. The former coffee picker for the Sandinistas is New Zealand's first corporate-hire political leader.
A mate rang after Harre's appointment splitting his sides, "All they need now is Pam Corkery". Corkery was appointed press secretary that day.
Willie Jackson considered standing but wanted $250,000. That's his price for standing up for his principles.

We're grateful to Judge Holden, Edward the Confessor, Rex or whatever else he calls himself for pointing us in the direction of Hide's column, although we would have found it at some point in any event. And we make no apologies for copying and pasting a story that tells the truth of the MegaMana rort in the manner that Hide does.

That's because the rort would be funny, almost beyond belief in fact, if it wasn't such an affront to democracy. 

Hide continues, making a mockery of the notion that MegaMana is going to be some kind of new, visionary force:

The recycled 1990s Alliance Party is promising a digital future. But they're technophobes and Luddites. Harre declares herself well-qualified because her children are the internet generation and her husband uses a computer at work.
She also believes Dotcom is funding her to help the poor and downtrodden with 1970s socialism. It's nothing to do with his extradition to face criminal charges. The left don't talk about truth. Rather, it's the narrative. Harre is the only person buying her narrative.
Next up, Annette Sykes. Her driving force? The Treaty and economic equality. Nothing about Dotcom's over-the-top lifestyle and opulence suggests Treaty concerns or a share-the-wealth mentality.
Someone isn't being upfront about their political aims and aspirations. The gulf between Dotcom and his politicians is altogether too yawning.
Then we have veteran campaigner John Minto. His promise? That Mana is coming after the rich. Capital gains taxes, financial transaction taxes, inheritance taxes and a more progressive tax system are all part of his campaign.
He's targeting the "parasites" and their "unearned income". In the meantime, he's more than happy taking the fat cat's money. That's the money the FBI are accusing Dotcom of not earning.

The Occupy movement in 2011 protested about the "1%"; the parasites and fat cats referred to by Hide. If his repeated boasts about his personal wealth are to be believed, Dotcom is not only part of the 1%, but quite likely in the top 0.25%. 

He is the very kind of person that the likes of Laila Harre, Annette Sykes, Hone Harawira and John Minto have spent their lives condemning, yet when the cheque book comes out, they gladly take his money, and climb into bed with him. Their hypocrisy is breathtaking.

Rodney Hide isn't done yet; he has one final go at Dotcom:

 

Dotcom set out to destroy Banks for not rushing to rescue him from Mt Eden Prison. He expected a minister to jump for a $50,000 political donation. That's his character. Imagine what he expects for $3m.
And imagine how he will perform when he doesn't get it. Pure entertainment.

The day is fast approaching when the REAL Kim Dotcom is going to be unmasked. When that happens, watch for those who have taken his filthy lucre to be unmasked with him for selling their principles for the promise of big bucks.

Hide's final two words are right on the money; it will indeed be "pure entertainment". There are going to be some extremely red faces on the left-hand side of the political divide and we can't wait to see the squirming!

0 Espiner (C) on MegaMana

There has been a lot written in the last week about MegaMana, Kim Dotcom, Hone Harawira, Laila Harre et al. 

MegaMana Fatigue Syndrome is fast approaching, and a Dotcom-free day beckons, but it's not here just yet; not whilst people like Colin Espiner are making their voices heard. Under the headline What's behind Dotcom's civil union? Espiner (C) opines:

Say what you like about the sacrifice of conscience for cash - a great big German spanner has just been flung into the machinery of this year's election campaign.
I wasn't going to write about Kim Dotcom's vanity party again this week. It has had far more publicity in its short life than it deserves.
Plus, it seems that everywhere you look Dotcom is there. Giving evidence in the John Banks trial. Breaking up with his wife, Mona (on Twitter, of course). Fighting Hollywood over access to his millions. Calling on Prime Minister John Key to resign (again).
Shortly, it will be Dotcom in the dock as he fights extradition to the United States on fraud and racketeering charges. Forget Banks and buckets of mud - that hearing is going to be the trial of the year. So a bit of Dot-gone seemed like no bad thing.
And then suddenly, there he was in a civil union with the beneficent ghost from socialist Christmases past: Laila Harre.
The media was expecting Dotcom's Internet Party would announce a flake as its new leader. Or a complete moron. Either would have done just fine. We could have ridiculed them, and moved on to more important matters.
But Harre isn't a flake. And she's certainly no moron. She's one of the most driven, persuasive and intelligent politicians I've met. I don't know how Dotcom managed to put a ring on the darling of the Left but on the face of it, it's a major coup.
The question, though, is for who?
Harre is an old-school socialist. She's from a trades union background. She's a former member of the Labour Party, of New Labour, and of the Alliance Party. She's most recently worked for the Green Party.
She's mates with most of New Zealand's remaining old hard Lefties, including Matt McCarten (now Labour leader David Cunliffe's chief of staff), rent-a-protester John Minto (also in the Internet Party tent), ex Green MP and now ex Mana candidate Sue Bradford, broadcaster and former Alliance MP Willie Jackson (who's flying a kite about standing for the Internet Party himself) and radical Maori separatist Annette Sykes (president of Mana and number two on its list).
Harre was one of Jim Anderton's stars when the Alliance Party won 10 per cent of the vote and entered government with Labour in 1999. She quickly rose to Cabinet rank, and was a capable minister.
But when the Alliance imploded three years later, Anderton and Harre fell out. He went on to form the Progressive Party, returning to Parliament on the back of his safe Wigram seat. Harre took over as leader of the Alliance, and lost, badly, in the 2002 election.
On the face of it, then, Harre is likely to appeal to older Lefties who admire her feminist principles and strong trade union credentials. 

And therein lies the problem for Dotcom's "Internet" party; older Lefties are already voting for the parties of the Left, so all that is likely to happen is that the votes of the parties of the Left will get further diluted. MegaMana may get a bigger share of the vote, but it will be at Labour and the Greens' expense, and a few conspiracy theorists may be lured away from Winston First. Will that change the Government? Probably not.

Espiner (C) continues:

It's hard to see her appeal to young, internet-savvy geeks though. Last time Harre was in Parliament the internet was barely out of short pants. And the people she's trying to persuade to vote for her weren't born and certainly wouldn't know her from a 33K dial-up modem.
But does it matter? Probably not. As long as Harre gets votes, neither the Internet Party nor Mana will care where they come from. And she's got $3 million of Dotcom's money to spend - that's more than any other party contesting the election, including Colin Craig's Conservatives. 

It's going to be fun over the next few weeks going through speeches made during the Electoral Finance Bill debate. We've already made reference to Hone Harawira's remarkable transformation from one who hated the influence of money in elections to one who has $500,000 to spend this time around. 

And the Hansard extracts we've saved so far have some really doozies in them that we'll share a little closer to the election as the political landscape takes shape.

Here's the remainder of Espiner's piece, where he gets right to the heart of the issue, and what this obscene display of money-flashing is all about:

On the face of it, the Left has engineered a spectacular reverse takeover of Dotcom's party. It's like a reunion of every failed candidate from every disappeared political party of the past 20 years, funded by an avowed capitalist whose fundamental philosophy - the freedom of movement of capital and people - runs counter to everything his candidates stand for.
But remember, Dotcom doesn't really care. His political aims are pragmatic, not philosophical.
In my opinion, there are two reasons why Dotcom is manipulating the political process. First, he wants rid of Prime Minister John Key. Second, he doesn't want to spend the rest of his life in a United States penitentiary. If the Internet-Mana party is elected with more than a couple of MPs, then Dotcom is likely to achieve the first objective.
There is no possibility the party could side with National. So a vote for Internet-Mana is a vote for a Labour-Green-Internet-Mana-and-possibly-New Zealand First-Government.
On the second objective, it's possible Dotcom could delay any extradition ruling against him long enough for a change of government to take place. The new multi-tentacled administration could overturn a court ruling. It would be foolish and contrary to the rule of law, but it could.
The Internet-Mana party may also either confuse or scare the bejesus out voters and strengthen National's hand. Blue-collar, socially conservative, Labour-leaning voters - who'd only just got their heads around the idea of dealing with the Greens - may not countenance their vote ushering in a potential coalition led by far-Left feminist and Maori radicals.
In her acceptance speech of the Internet Party leadership last week, Harre admitted her party was gaming the MMP system in a bid to get into Parliament. But she said it was "time for New Zealanders to take back MMP".
It was a nice line, with a ring of socialist rhetoric to it. But nothing could be farther from the truth. The Internet-Mana party may be successful or it may fall flat on its face.
But it is Dotcom who is attempting to take over MMP. And it is for no-one but himself. 

Kudos to Colin Espiner for calling the MegaMana marriage for what it is; a cynical piece of manipulation by Dotcom, to his own benefit. And shame on all the supposedly principled Left-wing politicians like Harawira. Laila Harre and John Minto who are standing by and letting it happen.

In this case, the end does NOT justify the means. The largest attempted rort of our political democracy in this country's history is underway, and it needs to be strongly condemned. Roll on July 7th.

 

0 We can't help but wonder...

It's been an interesting week in left-wing politics. The Internet and Mana Parties have merged to become MegaMana. Laila Harra, former Labour Party member, New Labour and Alliance MP, Green Party staffer and trade unionist has been appointed leader of the Internet Party, and will be at #3 on the MegaMana list.

Take a look at MegaMana's Top Four; Hone Harawira, Laila Harre, Annette Sykes and John Minto; they're all not just from the political Left, but the extreme Left. Quite how they fit alongside their moneybags "founder" and "visionary" and his four million bucks (more on that later in the day) is anyone's guess. It would seen that even hard-core left wingers have their price, and Dotcom is paying it.

And then we hear that Willie Jackson has categorically ruled out standing for Labour in Tamaki Makaurau, but has NOT ruled out standing in the same electorate for MegaMana. It's a veritable Alliance Party reunion!

So we can't help but wonder; who's next? Is the door of the political crypt about to be rolled open, and Jim Anderton dusted off and wheeled out? Alamein Kopu is no longer with us, but there are still the likes of Frank Grover, Pam Corkery, Sandra Lee and Phillida Bunkle (to name but four) who could be recruited to fatten the ranks. After all, Dotcom has promised to pay their salaries, and the Left loves Other People's Money!

The Internet Party is supposed to be forward-looking and visionary, but Laila Harre's speech yesterday took us back to the past. If that's where MegaMana wants to mire itself, then dredging up recycled politicians from a generation ago is the perfect starting point.

0 Paddy Gower gets angry

3 News political editor Patrick Gower is angry, and he's telling the word about it. It's not John Key who has made him angry. Nor is it David Cunliffe, or the Greens, or even John Archibald Banks.

No; it's none of the above. So we'll let Gower himself tell you who he's angry with, and why:

The Hone-Dotcom-Laila political triangle is one of the dirtiest deals in New Zealand political history.

It is as dirty as National-Act in Epsom.

It is as dirty as the Key-Dunne deal in Ohariu.

Frankly, Lalia Harré made me feel sick today when she said "it's time for New Zealanders to take back MMP".

That's because Laila Harré is wrecking MMP.

Hone Harawira is wrecking MMP.

And Kim Dotcom is wrecking MMP.

They are using Harawira's seat and MMP's "coat-tail" rule to get a back-door entry into Parliament.

It is a rort.

It is a grubby deal, made all the worse by the fact Harawira holds the Te Tai Tokerau seat - a Maori seat.

The Maori seats are special. They have a unique constitutional role which is to give the Tangata Whenua a place of their own in the New Zealand Parliament.

The Maori seats have been hard fought for.

Never, ever was it envisaged they would be used as a back-door entry for a German millionaire to get his proxy into Parliament.

This will give those opposed to Maori seats ammunition to get rid of them.

Patrick Gower is dead right. Whether you support the Maori seats or not, they are special. They recognition that Maori are tangata whenua, although with the number of Maori now being elected either in General seats or via party lists, their days may well be numbered. As Gower notes, Harawira is making bullets for opponents of the Maori seats to fire at him.

Gower isn't done yet though; he continues, by following the money trail:

Sadly, the Internet Mana deal has diminished the mana of the Maori seats.

And even sadder too, this deal involves money.

Harawira wants Dotcom's money.

Annette Sykes wants Dotcom's money.

John Minto wants Dotcom's money.

They are all willing to pervert the MMP system for the sake of money and it is a venal deal.

Don't try and tell me Laila Harré cares deeply about the internet. She cares about getting into Parliament.

I have a lot of respect for Harawira, Sykes and Minto. They have spent their lives fighting for what they believe in - for points of principle.

But that respect has been tarnished.

They are obsessed by power, obsessed by money and will trample over the rights of New Zealand voters to get it.

This Internet Mana deal is so wrong.

We urge readers to check out Paddy Gower's whole piece. We haven't even mentioned the bit about Dotcom's motive for this whole messy sham; that would be a story on its own.

But we've saved the best quote until last:

So the list of MMP wreckers just gets longer - Key and his right-wing crew are joined by the Left.

Labour and the Greens are wreckers too. Both prepared to work with the Internet Mana Party lot because "it's within the rules".

The Labour-Greens criticism of Epsom etc was a lie - they only did it because they didn't have a deal of their own. Now they do and deals are okay.

David Cunliffe, Russel Norman and Metiria Turei are now as low as Key and Steven Joyce.

Labour and the Greens are now hypocrites.

No wonder people don't go and vote.

No wonder people get turned off politics.

Across the House, New Zealand's politicians of all colours should hang their heads in shame for sanctioning these grubby deals.

We don't necessarily blame the politicians. MMP has permitted this farce. We didn't vote for MMP in the referendum in the early 1990's, nor did we vote for its retention in 2011. MMP is a far-from-perfect system of democracy, and you can't really blame parties for exploiting the loopholes, given that we are stuck with MMP for the foreseeable future.

But let's not hear any whingeing from the Left about dirty deals from here on out. The Mana Party has sold its principles for a fistful of dollars, and Labour and the Greens have stood by and let it happened. Of course all those parties strongly supported MMP, so it can be argued they're getting hoist by their own petard.

The next round of polls will be interesting. We suspect this is going to end very badly for the political Left.

0 MegaMana's first casualty

The Internet-Mana Party has been officially formed, but within 45 minutes it has had its first defection. Sue Bradford has just told Sean Plunket on RadioLive that "Sucking up to German millionaires is not my vision of the future" and has resigned from Mana. 

There's no word yet as to whether John Minto will have a similar attack of principles and bail out. We've said in the past that Sue Bradford's politics are completely opposite to ours, but she has risen in our esteem for not being blinded by Dotcom's bluster and bank balance.

Attention turns now to who will lead the Internet Party. Could it be Kim Dotcom's candlelit friend Martyn Bradbury? Please let that be so!