0 "A bad but wealthy man"

There's yet another revelation about Kim Dotcom in the Herald this morning. And former Immigration Minister Jonathon Coleman must be wishing he'd never heard of the Large German Gentleman.

With the benefit of 20/20 hindsight (what a wonderful gift that would be for politicians!), we reckon Dr Coleman now wishes that he had instructed his Immigration New Zealand officials to treat Dotcom's residence application strictly according to Hoyle. But he cannot turn back the clock, and New Zealand is stuck with Dotcom until the US application to extradite him is heard.

Probably the most interesting aspect of the Herald story however is Laila Harre's reaction to her boss. The Herald reports:

Last night the leader of the Dotcom-funded Internet Party, Laila Harre, said she "wouldn't have been comfortable" granting the tycoon residency if she had been the Minister of Immigration.

We wonder if Ms Harre is also uncomfortable receiving her weekly pay-cheque from Dotcom, now that she has been made aware of all the background information. Will she reconsider leading the Internet Party, given what she now knows about her boss?

Neither National nor Labour has a good record with regard to rich immigrants. Labour is dogged by two men named Liu, and National has Dotcom to not boast about. Whilst the investment that wealthy immigrants bring is welcome, perhaps it's time for cross-party consensus that it is not so welcome that essential elements of immigration policy can be waived.

0 MegaMana steals more Green policy

Yesterday the clean rivers policy Laila Harre had written for the Greens became Internet Party policy. And today, Ms Harre is sounding like Gareth Hughes; the Herald reports:

The Internet Party wants a moratorium on what it calls "risky energy and mining industry practices" such as fracking, dumping of oil wastes and deep-sea and undersea extraction.
In its final environment policy released today the internet Party also sought to restore the "absolute right" of New Zealanders to protest at sea against deep-sea oil exploration.
"National has been pushing New Zealand towards a greater dependence on the extractive industries at a time when climate change and land and water protection demand the opposite," said internet Party leader Laila Harre.
"We will place moratoria on the hydraulic fracturing of oil and gas wells, and deep-sea drilling. The direct safety risks of these industries have not been adequately investigated or managed.
"Their impact on climate change would also have to be countered before any resumption of these activities would be considered. In the case of deep sea drilling we do not see any likelihood that benefits to New Zealand will be shown to outweigh the risks."

The cost of an accident to New Zealand's marine and coastal environment would be simply too high, she said.

We wonder if Ms Harre has ever discussed these policies with her paymaster, the Large German Gentleman. After all, all those computers that Herr Dotcom has must have consumed a good slice of mineral resources in their construction.

And just think of Dotcom's transport habits. He's definitely more fond of helicopters and Hummers than he is of hybrids, so how is mimicking Green Party policy on fracking, even if it was drafted by Laila Harre consistent with Dotcom's fossil fuel excesses?

Quite why MegaMana is targetting Green voters with its policies is anyone's bet. The Green vote is not a huge slice of the market, and two into one doesn't go, so someone is going to be disappointed.

It's little wonder that Danyl from the Dim-Post described Ms Harre's provocative actions as "Political biohazard watch". We don't think it's going to be long before Gareth Hughes is going to be calling for a moratorium on MegaMana!

0 Trouble at t'mill

Danyl from the Dim-Post blogs on tensions on the Left of the political spectrum:

In the hypothetical Labour/Green/New Zealand First/Mana/Internet Party coalition that voters are being asked to put in charge of the country this election year, its hard to figure out which inter-party relationship is the most poisonous, or who would like to destroy whom the most. But now that Laila Harre’s gone and started pre-releasing Green Party policy on the same day as the Greens and justified it on the basis that she worked for the Green Party for fifteen months, and therefore owns all their intellectual property, somehow, I’m gonna nominate the Green/Internet Mana relationship as, from here on in, probably the most toxic.
What’s the strategy here? The original vision for the Internet Party was that it would be a, y’know, Internet Party, focused on digital issues and changing the government by turning out young non-voters. My guess is that Dotcom’s money has paid for some market research which has found that the number of non-voters passionate about copyright restrictions is close to zero, and that the demographic most sympathetic towards the Internet Party are current Green voters. Harre doesn’t share Dotcom’s interest in digital rights, or his legal problems, so her focus – like any other political leader – is purely on maximising her party vote. Which explains why the Internet Party is now a tiny cannibalistic version of the Green Party.

This of course illustrates the dilemma that the Internet Party, or any other single-issue party for that matter faces. That's one of the reasons why we would never support a Christian political party; political parties need to represent a wide sphere of policy positions. 

And it is indeed bad form for Laila Harre to have flogged policies she developed for the Green Party, then pass them off as her own. That of course is the danger when people flit around between parties like a moth flitting between lightbulbs. Loyalty now seems to be a romantic notion from days gone by.

Readers will remember that some months ago, Russel Norman jetted to Auckland, then took a taxi all the way to Coatesville to urge Herr Dotcom not to start a political party lest he leech votes from the Greens. It would seem that Dr Norman's fears may have been well founded as that's exactly what is happening now as the Greens and MegaMana fight for the same constituency.

Danyl calls it "political biohazard watch". We must all be alert less the toxicity between the Greens and MegaMana leaks out.

0 Tweet of the Day - 30 June 2014

You'd think that the Internet Party, its founder Kim Dotcom and its leader Laila Harre would stand for openness and free speech on the internet. But despite their name, it seems they don't:

Free speech and all that nice sounding stuff is apparently for other people. But not for the Internet Party, it's founder and visionary, and its leader. They are far too important to worry about that kind of thing!

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 Eat your Greens Kim!

Rod Emmerson's been reading the Herald. In particular, he's read the bit in the Herald-DigiPoll about MegaMana eating into the Green Party vote:

This is great stuff from our favourite cartoonist. But before eating too many Greens, Dotcom ought to make sure that there's no organic "residue" on the leaves.

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 What the 2014 General Election is all about...

Mike Treen is the national director of the Unite union. In 2011, he was one of the organisers of a group of unionists supporting the Mana Party. It's safe to say that he is one the far Left of New Zealand politics.

Mr Treen also blogs at Martyn Bradbury's union-funded Daily Blog. And our attention has been drawn by a reader to this paragraph in a lengthy blog-post written by Mike Treen and published yesterday. In one paragraph, he tells readers what the 2014 General Election is all about:

That's right Dear Readers. This election isn't about the economy, about health, education, crime or poverty. It's not even about the trade unions' hoary chestnut of a living wage. Mike Treen has declared that this year's General Election is about Kim Dotcom getting his revenge on the Government.

So forget all the bullshit and rhetoric about the digital economy, and about better access to the internet for everyone; that's just a front. MegaMana is all about a rich convicted criminal, wanted in the USA trying to escape justice, and trying to get his pound of flesh from the Government who allowed US authorities to try and extradite Dotcom.

We suppose we should be grateful to Mike Treen; at least he has called it as it actually is, rather than feeding us sugar-coated bullshit as Dotcom, Hone Harawira and Laila Harre have done. But as the countdown to the election continues, let's not lose sight of the fact that Dotcom is trying to subvert New Zealand's electoral system for his own ends. 

There's a word for that.

Kim Dotcom wants to take his revenge on this government. This is perfectly understandable. He has every reason to do so. In fact, given his treatment, he has more reasons than most. The most effective way for that to happen is for this government to be defeated in the coming election. The Mana-Internet party alliance is the best way to make that happen. He was smart enough to see that. - See more at: http://thedailyblog.co.nz/2014/06/12/why-the-mana-internet-alliance-is-a-potential-game-breaker/#sthash.hjSfLLzz.dpuf

Kim Dotcom wants to take his revenge on this government. This is perfectly understandable. He has every reason to do so. In fact, given his treatment, he has more reasons than most. The most effective way for that to happen is for this government to be defeated in the coming election. The Mana-Internet party alliance is the best way to make that happen. He was smart enough to see that. - See more at: http://thedailyblog.co.nz/2014/06/12/why-the-mana-internet-alliance-is-a-potential-game-breaker/#sthash.hjSfLLzz.dpuf

Kim Dotcom wants to take his revenge on this government. This is perfectly understandable. He has every reason to do so. In fact, given his treatment, he has more reasons than most. The most effective way for that to happen is for this government to be defeated in the coming election. The Mana-Internet party alliance is the best way to make that happen. He was smart enough to see that. - See more at: http://thedailyblog.co.nz/2014/06/12/why-the-mana-internet-alliance-is-a-potential-game-breaker/#sthash.hjSfLLzz.dpuf

Kim Dotcom wants to take his revenge on this government. This is perfectly understandable. He has every reason to do so. In fact, given his treatment, he has more reasons than most. The most effective way for that to happen is for this government to be defeated in the coming election. The Mana-Internet party alliance is the best way to make that happen. He was smart enough to see that. - See more at: http://thedailyblog.co.nz/2014/06/12/why-the-mana-internet-alliance-is-a-potential-game-breaker/#sthash.hjSfLLzz.dpuf

0 Photo of the Day - 11 June 2014

This arrived unsolicited in our inbox a short while ago:

They say that many a true word is spoken in jest. This is living proof of that saying, even if Hone Harawira hasn't yet cottoned on to the fact that he is now Dotcom's puppet.

0 Idiot/Savant on Labour's Electoral Act flip-flop

Idiot/Savant from No Right Turn has ripped into the Labour Party over its plans to outlaw coat-tailing:

On Firstline this morning, Labour's David Cunliffe promised to introduce legislation to scrap the "electorate lifeboat" provision of MMP within his first hundred days in office:

“The incoming Labour-led government under my leadership would, within our first 100 days in office, initiate moves to repeal this part of the Electoral Act.
“National has supported a widely discredited electoral rule which skews the democratic process to its own political ends. The New Zealand public can see through that,’’ said David Cunliffe.

I think this is a terrible change. The one MP rule is a vital safeguard which ensures representation of smaller parties. Without it, our Parliament would be much less representative than it is at present (unless it was balanced by a removal of the 5% threshold) - and therefore much less democratic.
It doesn't help that there's the usual enormous helping of hypocrisy from Labour on this.Despite their claims to have been "principled and consistent" on the issue, they quietly gifted Coromandel to the Greens in 1999; their opposition is more recent, and based entirely on a desire to rob National of potential coalition partners. And in order to do that, they're willing to make our Parliament less representative and rob their fellow citizens of a democratic voice. It is immoral and undemocratic - but its what happens when you get professional politicians who view the electoral system as a game to be rigged to their advantage, rather than a framework to maximise democratic representation and responsiveness.

I/S is dead right about Labour's hypocrisy on this issue, even though he downplays it by only mentioning Coromandel. Labour of course gave Jim Anderton a leg-up in Wigram election after election after election by standing a series of Neville Nobodies against the former Labour Party president. Here's a potted summary of how that dirty deal worked:

By the late 1990s, Labour under Helen Clark had largely purged itself of the influence of Roger Douglas. Realising that the cost of a split in the left-wing vote was a continued National government, the two parties agreed to form a coalition for the 1999 elections. Anderton became Deputy Prime Minister after National lost the election. He was also given the newly created post of Minister of Economic Development, which had an emphasis on job creation and regional development initiatives.
Towards the end of the parliamentary term Anderton came into conflict with the Alliance's administrative wing. Party president Matt McCarten and his allies claimed that the Alliance had become too close to Labour, and that it should take a less moderate path; Anderton replied that some moderation was required for the Alliance to accomplish any of its goals. There were complaints that Anderton was too dominant in the party's decision-making and over the fact that he supported the government's stance on the bombing of Afghanistan, while the executive and wider membership opposed it. Eventually, Anderton and three other MPs left the Alliance, establishing the Progressive Coalition, later renamed the Progressive Party. In order to get around the Electoral Integrity Act, which had been passed largely because of Anderton's complaints about waka jumping, Anderton technically remained the Alliance's parliamentary leader until the writ was dropped for the 2002 election.
In the election, Anderton was returned to Parliament, and the Progressives took the Alliance's place as Labour's coalition partner. Although Anderton won his electorate, the small amount of support the Progressives received (1.4% of the party vote) was enough for only one other Progressive – deputy leader Matt Robson – to enter Parliament. Anderton gave up the deputy prime minister's post to Minister of Finance and Labour deputy leader Michael Cullen. He remained Minister of Economic Development, and also held other ministerial portfolios. He ranked third in Cabinet, behind Clark and Cullen.
In the runup to the 2005 election Anderton renamed his party "Jim Anderton's Progressive Party". However, he was the only Progressive returned to Parliament by a narrow margin after many left-wing voters voted for Labour to prevent a National government from being elected due to a split on the left. He became Minister of Agriculture, Minister for Biosecurity, Minister of Fisheries, Minister of Forestry, Minister Responsible for the Public Trust, Associate Minister of Health, and Associate Minister for Tertiary Education.
The 2008 election saw a swing to the right, with National winning approximately 45% of the party vote to Labour's 34%. Anderton retained his seat but the Progressives' share of the party vote remained low, at less than one percent.^[3] In a move described as "unorthodox" by the New Zealand Herald, Anderton announced that he would remain in coalition with Labour in opposition. He said that a priority for the Progressives would be to support better access to dental care.^[4]

Yes; even in Opposition, Labour and Anderton were joined at the hip and were one in everything but name. We remember well the farce in 2002 when the Alliance split (to be led by none other than Laila Harre), and Helen Clark used every excuse in the book plus a few more to justify Anderton's position, and to avoid an early election. It was a farcical time.

But wait; there's more. There was also a time when Peter Dunne was useful to Labour, so Labour's candidates in Ohariu didn't try too hard. Dunne was rewarded with Ministerial roles when he supported Helen Clark and Labour in the post-election wranglings after the 2005 General Election, even though his supporters were expecting him to support National, and have nothing to do with Winston First.

So Labour has been more than happy to deal with coat-tailing MP's in the past, and based on present polling, it will need coat-tailing MP's this year if David Cunliffe is going to form a government. Then, of course, he's going to use the majority accorded to him by the dirty deal with coat-tailing MP's to change the Electoral Act to outlaw coat-tailing.

Idiot/Savant is dead right. This is indeed an "enormous helping of hypocrisy" from Labour and its leader. But why would we expect anything else?

0 Laila the waka-jumper

We came across this interesting gem hidden away on Stuff; check this out:

Laila Harre is on the spot changing trail
Meanwhile, Norman revealed that new Internet Party leader Laila Harre had wanted to be a Green Party MP before she quit her adviser role in December.
A spokesman confirmed s he was also on the campaign committee until a fortnight ago.
Kim Dotcom’s $3.25m donation to the Internet-Mana alliance was registered with the Electoral Commission at the weekend.
Harre will draw a $148,000 salary. Records show Colin Craig also injected another $55,000 into his Conservative Party.  

This is fascinating. Right up to two weeks ago, one week before she became the leader of the Internet Party, Laila Harre was actively working on the Greens' election campaign, albeit in a voluntary capacity.

What changed? How can someone go from actively campaigning for one party to being the leader of a completely different party in just seven days?

As we see it, there are two possible explanations, and neither of them is especially palatable. The first is that Laila Harre has sold the Green Party down the river by jumping (politically, of course) into bed with Dotcom, and taking his tainted money. Given that Laila Harre has previously been involved with Labour, New Labour, the Alliance and most recently the Greens, she has certainly been politically flexible!

But here's the other possible explanation. Is it possible that the Greens have been in cahoots all along, despite Russel Norman's statement earlier in the year that he was trying to talk Dotcom out of launching a party?

It makes sense. Both parties claim to appeal to younger, tech-savvy voters. The Greens certainly have a high digital/social media presence. Both parties are anti-GCSB/SIS/USA. Neither party thinks Kim Dotcom should be extradited to the USA, and both see him as more saint than sinner.

So has the Green Party actually done a dirty, back-room deal with Dotcom? It's time for an absolute denial that Laila Harre has not jumped into the German waka with the Greens' blessing, and a similarly categorical denial that no money has changed hands.

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 Bromhead on the MegaMana Marriage

Herald cartoonist Peter Bromhead calls the MegaMana marriage for what it is:

This is a marriage which already has an end date set; so much for "'til death do us part". We still reckon though that it will end in tears.

0 Is this a political first?

Laila Harre has confirmed suspicions that she is being paid a salary to lead the Internet Party; the NBR reports:

Internet Party leader Laila Harre reveals has revealed she is being a paid back-bench MP salary as leader of the Internet Party
A backbench MP is paid $147,800.
"I have just agreed to a contract which is in line with the already public intention of the party to pay candidates the same as a backbench MP. But I have to say that there simply wasn’t any discussion at all about personal remuneration for me at any stage during this decision and it just was not a factor in me making up my mind," she told Lisa Owen on TV3's The Nation this morning.
Kim Dotcom, who made his fortune from Megaupload (for which he faces piracy, money laundering and racketeering charges), and sister sites including Megaporn and Megaerotic, has revealed he is bankrolling Internet Mana to the tune of $3 million.
Earlier, Internet Party CEO Vikram Kumar told NBR that other sources of funding paled next to the money being tipped into the campaign by one of Mr Dotcom's family trusts.

This seems to be a most unusual arrangement. Is this the first time in New Zealand political history that a party "founder" has paid salaries to the party leader, and to aspiring candidates, as Dotcom has already promised to do?

Despite Ms Harre's protestations that money was not a factor in her becoming the Free Kim Dotcom Party leader, we have our doubts. Laila Harre certainly wouldn't have been earning close to $150k per annum working for the CTU would she?  Or if she was, what do the CTU affiliates rank and file think about their hard-earned dosh paid out as union fees being paid out with such gay abandon?

And has anyone yet asked Laila Harre how she feels about being the employee of a former pornographer? Or do scruples disappear when the chequebook is waved around?

0 First Gower, now Garner

We blogged last night about Patrick Gower's rant about the MegaMana rort.

If you think that was bad, wait until you see what Duncan Garner thinks; Gower's piece was but an entree. In his op-ed this afternoon he has absolutely ripped in to Dotcom, Harawira et al. Under the headline Party for sale - Internet-Mana is a sham and a rort Garner opines:

This Internet-Mana party alliance is a sham and a rort, but MMP allows for it - which is the worst bit. 
I’ve seen nothing like it in the history of NZ politics. It is far less transparent than the dodgy electorate seat deals National has done over the years. New Zealanders have every right to be outraged.

This is about an already convicted criminal - a rich internet tycoon wanted on piracy charges, no less – on the run from the United States and sheltering in New Zealand. He’s a had a run in with the NZ Government and the US authorities, so he’s doing all he can to buy his way out of trouble.
It now includes pulling out his cheque-book and paying for a political party and buying people off – so he can keep his sorry backside out of the clink.
It’s as simple as that: he’s paying big money so he doesn’t turn into some sort of dribbling mess behind bars – some reports suggest he’s pumped $4m into setting up this party. So how much is he paying his people?
I asked new leader Laila Harré yesterday, she said she wasn’t sure yet. But money between the two will change hands at some stands, she’s clear on that.
She will be paid for this role. Is this the New Zealand way? I would argue no way. It’s grubby isn’t it? You only get paid once you get elected don’t you?
I have had a bit to do with Harré over the years. She has been a tireless and effective campaigner for those on the left. However, her former allies think she has sold out; Jim Anderton is far from impressed.
Harré is ambitious. Before all this she had integrity and credibility, but many of us are questioning that now. What does she really have in common with Kim Dotcom? Bugger all. He’s found she has a price after all.

Duncan Garner absolutely nails all the key issues in this sordid rort. Kim Dotcom clearly thinks he can buy people off. New Zealand needs to send him a clear message that that's not how we do things here.

Every man, they say, has his price. We know now that Hone Harawira will dispense with democracy for half a million big ones. We don't know what Laila Harre's price is, but we're guessing it's a darned sight more than the base salary for a back-bench MP.

Garner closes, and rolls out the dreaded "C" word:

Most of all this deal lacks transparency; she will, and should be, hounded by the press about how much she is personally being paid by Kim Dotcom to be the leader. Plus, what sort of deal has been done on Kim Dotcom’s possible extradition?
If there is a change of Government, and a future Minister overturns any extradition, isn’t that corruption? Wouldn’t he have bought his way out of an American jail?
New Zealanders have every right to feel dirty over this deal. It brings our political process into disrepute. Dotcom has contempt for our system, our democracy and our country. To him, everything is for sale and everyone has their price.
I don’t see it lasting. This will, and should, end in tears.

Garner is right; this stinks, far worse than the snapper that got David Shearer's number. The stench of corruption hovers over this dirty, dirty deal. 

And it is especially ironic to consider Hone Harawira's contribution to the Third Reading debate on the Electoral Finance Bill in December 2007, when speaking as a Maori Party MP he said:

HONE HARAWIRA: I want to make the point that if I wish to speak in Māori at any time, I will do so.

We are the Māori Party, with not a bean to our name, but we still turned down $250,000 rather than compromise our independence, and for the same reasons we are opposed to this bill. We are the Māori Party, and we were angry with both the divisive “Iwi/Kiwi” campaign run by National and the nasty “a vote for the Māori Party is a vote for National” campaign run by Labour, because we did not have the wherewithal to counteract either. Yet still we are opposed to this bill. We are the Māori Party, with not a bean to our name, but we stand free in this House, answerable to no one but our own people, uncompromised by shady deals with either of the major parties, and we are proud to say that we are opposed to this electoral finance legislation.

We know Harawira's price now; a price Kim Dotcom willingly paid, with his tainted money. We hope he can live with himself.

0 Tweet of the Day - 30 May 2014

Do we have psychic powers? Do we what! Check this out:

It was just this morning that we predicted a return to politics for Pam Corkery. Within eight hours, it has happened!

Now we wait with bated breath for the triumphal entry into the Promised Land of Dotcom Dollars for Jim Anderton; surely it's only a matter of time. That'll really bring the yoof voters flocking to MegaMana!

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 Emmerson on hood ornaments

Herald cartoonist Rod Emmerson sees through the charade of Labour Party member, former Alliance MP, former Green Party staffer and trade unionist as leader of the wealthy Kim Dotcom's Internet Party:

This is a cartoon that is brilliant in its simplicity, and in its very pointed message. Well done Rod Emmerson.