Labour were a walking PR disaster area in 2011. In compiling my Redux series for 2011 I am gob-smacked by how many cock-ups they managed and a great many of them by their strategist Trevor Mallard.
Today a list of the Top 30 PR disasters in New Zealand has been released and when you look at it you can see why Labour lost in 2011.
4. Darren Hughes. In early March the police receive a complaint from an 18-year-old male. The incident is reported to be of a sexual nature and alleged to have occurred at Labour Party deputy leader Annette King’s home, where Hughes lived. Witnesses report seeing the complainant outside and naked that morning. Although Labour Leader Phil Goff knows about the police complaint for two weeks he takes no action and his office tells the media that no Labour MP is involved in any such complaint to Police. During this time both Darren Hughes and Annette King participate in a debate performed in front of the entire press gallery with the moot “Politics is a grubby business.” After being grilled by the media Phil Goff then admits Darren Hughes is at the centre of the Police investigation but defends Hughes stating it is a matter for the Police. He then refuses to accept Darren Hugh’s resignation (but changes his mind later on). Labour Party President Andrew Little only finds out about the matter when it hits the news headlines.
8. Phil Goff and the numbers. During The Press debate and in interviews on both Q&A and The Nation Labour Party Leader Phil Goff bumbles the numbers and fails to respond to questions with accurate figures that are the very basis of his party’s policy proposals.
13. Darien Fenton. Labour MP Darien Fenton launches a personal attack on Mad Butcher founder and philanthropist Sir Peter Leitch because he said something positive about Prime Minister John Key. She says that because he is “sucking up to John Key” and is a “sycophant” she is never going near him again and will be boycotting Mad Butcher stores. She then goes on to say she won’t buy anything from people who support Tories. After Darien Fenton apologies for her public outburst, Labour MP Louisa Wall quickly negates the apology by justifying her colleague’s attack on Sir Peter Leitch by stating:”We would have assumed Sir Peter was a working-class champion…if you look at what the National Government has done, it has taken workers’ rights backwards.”
25. Ruth Dyson. Labour MP Ruth Dyson uses tax payer’s money for a private trip for her and her husband to Ethiopia. She then agrees to refund the $16,000 once the media question her about it – stating she planned to refund the money all along.
26. Trevor Mallard. Labour MP and Election Campaign Manager Trevor Mallard accuses political strategist Matthew Hooton, Kiwiblog owner David Farrar, Minister of Finance Bill English and the PSA of apparently paying for Otago University political analyst Dr Bryce Edwards to make attacks against the Labour Party. The attack is launched after some political data showed Labour was down in the polls. Labour MP Clare Curran then joins the conspiracy theory adding that the young Nats and ‘non-Labour left’ are suspiciously ‘cosy’ with the academic Dr Bryce Edwards.
27. Carmel Sepuloni. Labour MP Carmel Sepuloni insults National MP Paula Bennett after she thinks she has won the Waitakere seat off National. However, five days later once the special votes are counted Paula Bennett wins back the seat for National leaving Carmel with egg on her face.
Heh, I caused a fair few of those.
The Bangkok Post tell things like they are:
Funeral for a despot?
I dont think Thailand and North Korea get along.
Phil Twyford started stealing underpants, I had to ring Rodney Hide for confirmation and after he got done with abusing me sorted out Phil Twyford’s strategy for him.
I busted Marlene Campbell for comparing Anne Tolley to Goebbels.
Trevor Mallard again makes defamatory and racist remarks on Red Alert. Not only that he is actively repeating gossip supplied to him by the same board member who actively manipulated events in Rodney and Coromandel. National will at some stage have to deal with this board member and his pals in Auckland. It is unconscionable that people in that position leak to Labour MPs so they can help their mates get selected.
I blog about the origins of the Asymmetrical War.
In July Labour released their capital gains tax and I took great delight in quoting their luminaries previous opposition to the tax.
Phil Goff’s and the NZEI’s contention that they don’t work together is well and truly busted.
Labour were referred to the Police after a complaint by me to the Electoral Commission. The Police have yet to announce any details. Labour have actually got away with repeated breaches of the Electoral Act. I point out why Trevor Mallard couldn’t front for Labour, because he had been warned before. To have him front meant they couldn’t use their lie about not knowing the rules. Their continued ignoring of the rules amounts to willful disobedience.
Labour bombs another campaign launch. Plus they steal the intellectual property of a photographer.
Their website woes continue.
Trevor Mallard sends an email to supporters imploring them not to panic, that their campaign is going brilliantly and to use patsy lines in Twitter. Unfortunately the intellectually infirm Labour supporters use the lines word for word and Twitter looks like a redux of Mallard’s email.
Labour didn’t want to get into details about their Capital Gains Tax plans. They didn’t want that because they simply hadn’t done the work. Almost every question was met with a response that the “Expert panel” would be looking at that. Unfortunately for Labour the public very definitely wanted details.
Mallard’s email was picked up by the media.
Labour start bombarding the public with taxpayer funded electioneering. I start writing letters. Still more letters.
Labour meanwhile, after insisting that they would start following the rules breaks them yet again with another mail out. I complain to the Electoral Commission who subsequently refer labour, again, to the Police. The Police still haven’t done anything. Labour calculates that the Police won;t do anything and continues to break the law knowing that there are no consequences for them ever.
Trevor Mallard says “Labour can steal the election and they will”.
I bust the Kindergarten Associations and their millions of dollars of retained funds, at the same time they are crying poor.
Phil Goff says that he wasn’t briefed by the SIS about some Israeli tourists in the aftermath of the Christchurch earthquake. Things are about to get interesting which I will detail in a separate post. This becomes my second big story of the year.
I write yet another letter to Lockwood Smith about Labour’s spending rorts. And another one.
I start my countdown to the last possible day that Labour can roll Phil Goff before the election. I make a video a day highlighting the terrible inconsistencies of Phil Goff.
My son is assaulted at Rainbows End. The offenders have never been caught.
The SMOGs start to flow from Trevor Mallard. I still don’t know why politicians use Twitter.
Annette King goes nasty on Ali Ikram, Deborah Coddington and Patrick Gower on Twitter.
I announce NZ First’s North Shore candidate before NZ First does.
Sue Moroney provides yet another SMOG.
Winston Peters blames the media for Andrew Williams bad press. Of course it was actually me that caused all his bad press.
I publish my letter to Dr Tucker, the head of the SIS, this signals the opening of the SIS story I am about to unleash on Phil Goff. This will be covered in a separate post.
I explain what Colin Craig needs to do to win. He ignores every single part of my advice. He is now over a million dollars poorer and still not in parliament.
On 7 August I quit Citizen A and blogged about why. I have never once regretted quitting and resisted the constant begging to return.
I capture the Minister of Twitter in mid tweet at the National party conference.
The Electoral Commission refers the Labour party brochure to Police for breaching the Electoral Act. The Police still have not done anything.
I highlight a NZEI and Labour party nasty, their Whangarei candidate Pat Newman. Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.
Darien Fenton embarks on her campaign of nasty by calling for a boycott of the band that played at National’s campaign dinner. She will do much worse in coming months.
Malcolm Harbrow tells Trevor Mallard what he thinks:
There was a problem with the blakbirdpie shortcodeThe Electoral Commission refers Charles Chauvel to the Police on the basis of my complaint. The Police are yet to do anything.
Trevor Mallard won the bike race. Meanwhile I won the war, having Labour campaign strategist focused entirely on beating me in a bike race for 6 weeks. I managed to come second in a 60km race against a professional cyclist and part time politician.
Clare Curran attacks the Greens for stealing Labour’s votes. Labour are in meltdown as they start to realise that their social media campaign is failing.
Just after Phil Goff declares that Labour will focus on the things that matter Sue Moroney lets rip on Twitter.
I blog about anti-depressants and how ineffective they were for me.
Trevor Mallard continues to show the nasty and delivers up another SMOG.
Clare Curran continued to show that Labour was focussed on important matters….like volume on adverts.
Trevor Mallard compares John Key to mass murdering dictators, proving that Twitter and politicians are the gift that keeps on giving.
I blog about Jim Anderton and his illegal letter to constituents. I complain to the Electoral Commission and they later refer the letter and Jim Anderton to Police.
Clare Curran continued to focus on the things that matter…like teletubbies.
Trevor Mallard and Clare Curran had a twitter fight about Cheese Rolls.
Jacinda Ardern complained about the congestion around the toaster at the airport lounge. Letting all us peasants know how important she is that she is in the lounge and troughing it up at the same time.
Labour’s new election posters were begging for a photoshop.
I blog about hugs being banned at my daughter’s school.
I introduce the concept of the Blink Test. Which politicians pass the Blink Test?
I suggest that Labour is waiting for the Langoliers.
I bust Greens candidate Max Coyle for the sad little story in the Waikato Times that he fed to them. The Greens withdraw Max from their candidate list. Tim McIndoe didn’t need a Greens candidate to win handsomely, he was benefiting from The Moroney Effect.
I wonder whether John Minto will get a 1000 votes. It turns out he couldn’t, getting just 461 people to vote for him.
Trevor Mallrd starts a smear campaign against Bryce Edwards. It ends up being called #bryceedwardsconspiracy on Twitter and shows Labour and Mallard are all at sea with their election strategy.
Chris Trotter asks why Trevor Mallard is Labour’s campaign strategist. The question remains unanswered.
Dimpost provides the comments of the week:
Oh the hours of endless speculation? Personally, I reckon Labour’s campaign strategy is being run by a crew of demented P-addict gerbils with a KFC fetish, whilst playing Elton John and Queen simultaneously. Of course, the gerbils could be running ACT’s campaign; Labour may be guided by a crack team of lemmings…
Darien Fenton launches her now infamous attack against The Mad Butcher.
Trevor Mallard continued to prove that his personal demeanour was more suited to drunken pub brawls than to Twitter. Yet he was trotting along to caucus and telling everyone that Labour would win using Social media.
On September 28 I relaunched the site with the help of Cre8D Design.
Sir Peter Leitch calls me to talk about Darien Fenton’s scurrilous attack on him. He says he was “gutted” by her comments.
The NZ Herald has the full list. The top honours are:
Some arty farty type was elecvated to the Order of New Zealand – Ralph Hotere, Artist
The following have been knighted:
I always wonder about the whole “services to business” bullshit.
In June I released the details of several months of investigation into the Labour party website which was left wide open with no security.
I started by releasing the minutes of a meeting of Labour North. In those minutes it revealed that Labour planned to use the resources of parliamentary services to campaign, and the attendence of an ALP strategist to assist.
Then I released an email that Labour party General Secretary Chris Flatt sent to members once they realised what was about to happen to them. They were in full damage control mode. They spun and lied from the get go. I already had and still have all their data. There was no system vulnerability and no hacking. It had taken me several months of analysis to be ready for this week and I was going to make them lie and prove they lied.
I posted several videos during this story, usually to lead into the next stage.
But I was under attack from the leftwing, sho started the smears almost immediately. I reminded them of their own words about Wikileaks, not that they cared. It seems that it was more important to smear the messenger rather than wonder at the parlous state of Labour’s information security.
Then it got serious. The Labour party threatened me. It is ironic now given the amount of posts they have written about John Key and Bradley Ambrose. Even more ironic as I did nothing illegal.
I responded to Chris Flatt in typical Whale fashion:
Dear Chris
In response to your letter of 12 June 2011, I will show the same compassion to private individuals as Labour showed when using The Hollowmen.
The exception will be that I will do it in full public view not hiding behind the privilege of parliament.
Then I started to drip feed information about Labour’s credit card donations. This information was in the clear for anyone with mild interest to gather up. I was pretty interested and so I did. Initially I was sceptical that these were production system transaction but then as I scanned through them I found the proof I needed.
Cactus Kate had donated to the Labour party as a result of a sledge on Trevor Mallard. But the real result was that I now had all of Labour’s credit cards transactions taken from their website.
Just to mix it up I released the information I had gathered about ALP consultant Sandy Rippingale. Trevor Mallard had run a massive, defamatory attack on political consultants int eh preceding week and yet we now had evidence that Labour too used consultants. The leaks form the website were proving what many already knew, that Labour lies, cheats and does everything that they accuse others of doing.
Labour and their proxies try to blame me for the information being made public. I tell people to complain to the Privacy Commissioner. Labour said they were going to yet for some reason I haven’t heard a squeak out of them in more than 6 months.
Donors to the Labour Party have every right to be angry, but not with me. The Labour Party failed in their duty of care to protect your information, not me. If anything I have done a great service to highlight the Labour Party’s inadequacies in their security of information.
I would advise all Labour Party members to complain to the Privacy Commissioner Marie Shroff for a full investigation, and to ensure the Labour Party has appropriate systems in place to protect any information you provide in the future.
I am now openly mocking Labour. It is hard not to when they blatantly lie about simple details.
What I can tell you is that Labour continues to tell lies. They claim they are contacting more than 18,000 donors. There aren’t that many, there are only 452. Labour can’t be trusted to keep your data secure and they certainly can’t be trusted to tell the truth.
One thing Labour have failed to understand is that I have known about and planned this story fro a couple of months. I float teasers to see how they react. They have choices, they can tell the truth or they can lie. I predict to my friends and confidants who have helped me with this information (none are in political parties) that they will lie. I have war-gamed each possibly issue. So far Labour is proving me right, they are liying and I am showing them they have.
I have to admit this now but I was having fun, but mostly that was because of the way the Labour party were reacting.
Suddenly though Labour and their proxies, including John Pagani start getting into the media accusing me of hacking and other illegal behaviour. I let it run for a couple of days then I post the video of how I did it. Again their lies are exposed for all to see. Every step of the way Labour has lied about salient details and every step of the way I have proved their lies. As I said I war-gamed every aspect of this story so that I could predict how they would react and so I could be prepared for their attacks. They wrongly thought I couldn’t prove how I did it because they took down the sites. I had kept telling people from the get go that I had been in there for months. That I had prepared and one of my preparations was a video to show how I did it:
Labour says they are appealing to the Privacy Commissioner. Funny thing is I haven’t heard a word from them. Is this another Labour lie?
Malcolm Harbrow has a go at The Standard and he isn’t happy about it either.
Then Greg Presland, the third rate flea lawyer from West Auckland, craps his pants and emails me. I publish his email as it is my policy to publish all correspondence of this type. He stupidly insists that I publish his email in it’s entirety including his email address, phone numbers and website.
Then I show how labour had left passwords in the clear in the code of their website. Passwords to their credit card processing provider. Once again Labour has lied to people, once again I knew they would and prove it.
Labour again writes to me, this time they are begging. They make demands of me and I respond with my own set of demands.
It all started with the “Let’s Not” campaign website, now I am using that site to openly mock Labour:
One of the things that has never adequately been answered nor investigated is the use of parliamentary staffers to process financial transactions. We already had seen that labour planned to use Parliamentary Services resources in campaigning and the leaks from their website showed that parliamentary staffers were active in processing financial transactions. This is one of the reasons why I constantly call for the opening up of parliamentary services to the Official Information Act.
The story is by now not only mainstream in New Zealand but it has also gone global. Labour have had two weeks of embarrassment, lies and subterfuge as they try to weasel out the predicament they are in. So far none of their attacks on me have any merit or substance. But I am not finished yet with them.
The information contained on their site showed collusion with the NZEI, Sue Moroney and the Labour party. Labour had harvested more than 18,000 email addresses and personal details from an NZEI petition to the government. They kept those details and stored them on an unsecure server.
I published an email from the NZEI to those 18,000 where they lie about the connection between Labour and the NZEI. Unfortunately for Paul Goulter I also have an email from Chris Flatt to those same people outlining a slightly different story.
LAbour and the NZEI then concoct a story for the media but again instead of telling the truth they lie. Again I prove the lie. They are all slow learners. The damage is now running into its second week.
The supporter database software, logs and email trails show that Labour is tracking where its emails end up. They have spent nearly two weeks moaning about privacy and yet they track emails just like Blue State Digital do.
Labour are now starting to feel heat from mainstream media sick of their lies. They are now full out lying about where they got the NZEI mails from. Labour now stand accused of the very thing they were pointing the finger at me for.
Then Phil Goff lied. Not a subtle lie, an outright full blown false-hood. Again I prove he has lied. Labour keeps giving the story legs by lying. Each time they do I produce documents to prove it. I am now simply reacting to each of their lies, drip feeding the truth.
Phil Goff has decided then to continue to lie, to tell even bigger whoppers, but then I guess at this stage he was being closely managed by parliaments biggest liar of all, Trevor Mallard.
All along I have followed my own rules. I never ask a question unless I already know the answer. Labour still haven’t worked that out. I continue to be gob-smacked that they haven’t conducted an audit of just exactly what I have.
The NZEI claimed that they were non-political but on their website they have documents that outline attacks against National MPs. It makes their excuses for the harvested emails rather hollow.
The final chapter in the whole Labour website saga was when a couple of hackers around the country contacted me to tell me that Labour affiliates were recruiting someone to have a go at my website. It never happened.
With this story I outlined fully exactly how I obtained the data, at every step I published documents or proof to show how labour, Phil Goff and the NZEI lied about various aspects of the scandal. At the very least though I showed that Labour were lackadaisical about internet security, treated the privacy of their donors, members and contacts with the flimsiest of security and that if they couldn’t run a website then they surely couldn’t be trusted to run the country. I ahd also proved that when in a corner Phil Goff will lie. This would come back to haunt him in coming months.
10 Who can find a virtuous and capable wife?
She is more precious than rubies.
11 Her husband can trust her,
and she will greatly enrich his life.
12 She brings him good, not harm,
all the days of her life.
April Fools day posts – English calls for new economic indicators based on scrotums , Michael Wood was appointed to Labour’s election strategy team, Andrew Williams appointed as spokesman for Alcoholics Anonymous, Terry Serepisos appoints new management team.
Phil Goff and Andrew Little had crisis talks:
The new Rodney selection process got underway again and Scott Simpson bailed to stand in Coromandel. Strangely the nasty muck-racking departed with him and turned up in Coromandel instead. The formerly active board member was nowhere to be seen and the delegates were now all from the electorate. BRetn Robinson was still in the race but his rort had been cleaned up.
The Whale Army tore apart the PSA’s social media campaign. They were forced to take it down and abandon the campaign. Labour didn’t pay attention.
The PSA then complained that they had been hacked.
The Whale Army hijacked a NZPF survey. They disabled it a short time later.
Name Suppression reached an all time low in New Zealand with it now including the names of dogs.
I busted Heather Roy astroturfing and playing sockpuppets.
Labour’s stop asset sales campaign hits a snag…their signs are illegal as are their campaign activities. Then their signs are parodied. Labour eventually conceded defeat and started removing their signs.
The PSA relaunched their online campaign and the Army took it down the same day, in a matter of hours.
I started following the Brash coup. The tipline starts humming with insider information from both sides of the coup. It is clear that there is a massive war on.
Mark Mitchell won the Rodney selection despite the duplicity of the local Electorate Chair and interference and skulduggery by a board member.
David Garrett wrote a guest post about the leadership battle in ACT.
I won a shotgun from Beretta and Hamills Manukau at their Duck night.
Labour started an online billboard campaign. It was called “Let’s Not”. The Army quickly hijacked it.
Trevor Mallard mentions me in the house. (2:36)
Len Brown lost a whole lot of Auckland’a clocks.
I start sledging Trevor Mallard after he smashed himself up. This was the start of my Asymmetrical War.
David Cunliffe posts an online poll on his website, the Army attacks, the poll is removed and Cunliffe blames a computer glitch. These guys are slow learners.
Clare Curran wrote a guest post. It was quite good. I wonder if she will do another one?
Labour attempts another social media survey, the Whale Army are unleashed.
Trevor Mallard , sick of my sledging him for being a cripple challenges me to bike race. I accept.
Labour’s online survey is discontinued. Another victory for the Army.
A cunning rooster got turned into a feather cloud.
Some Mallards dropped from the sky.
I bust Labour and more illegal mailers.
Trevor Mallard proves why Twitter and Facebook are great election resources….for bloggers.
I preview my scoop of the year:
Labour’s website disaster begins to unfold. I will blog this in a separate post.
Labour’s General Secretary issued a threatening letter. I responded. The debacle escalates. The mainstream media picked this up and it was all on.
Farrar is booted from the VRWC for driving a Prius.
Simon Bridges uses my lines from this morning about Trevor Mallard.
Duck really needs some anger management courses so he can concentrate on the campaign rather than fighting an asymmetrical war with a right wing blogger he can’t win.
Labour’s creepy and illegal ads from university are busted.
I finally work out Trevor Mallards cunning election strategy. It is loosely based on the Gnomes Stealing Underpants strategy:
So here is Duck’s cunning campaign plan:
- Steal underpants
- ?
- Win votes
I have been sent a suggested list of possible methods of creating KPIs for politicians by a National party insider. Labour would do well to look at some of these suggestions.
There clearly needs to be a mix of indicators. An overemphasis of one at the expense of others means you get an MP who will coast.
1. Party votes – the ultimate indicator of worth. Obviously this needs to be subjective since every electorate is different in terms of worth to the party, but there can be some kind of assessment whether the MP did a great job of winning the PV in their seat. Did they beat the previous election result, did they over or under perform against the average result, is the result reflecting the kind of PV needed in a “blue” or “red” seat. Deb Mahuta-Coyle is probably regarded as next to useless because of her appalling result in Tauranga for Labour. She may never get a decent Parliamentary opportunity again because her colleagues know she can’t win votes.
2. Electorate vote – Obviously, people who win seats are better MPs. Sadly, list MPs who only go for PV are not quite as recognised for effectiveness, since they don’t bring in extra resources that come with a seat, not have the ability to keep an organisation going. MPs who win marginals and hold them should be highly regarded. The obvious KPI is “Did they win?”, followed by “Did they over or underpeform against the swing”. Louisa Wall will be regarded well in Labour for winning Manurewa well.
3. Membership - MPs who support organisations that grow membership have power that grows with it. A good MP is one who finds good people to help run their seat and grow membership, hold functions, engage in report backs and fundraise. John Carter would have to be regarded as a superior MP in recent years on this KPI, whereas Paula Bennett and Murray McCully would score dismally in this regard.
4. Media coverage – obviously positive news rubs off on the character of the MP. For a backbencher, that means getting into the local suburban paper for useful things showing community benefit. This doesn’t mean posing at ribbon cuttings for a community hall that was commissioned by the council, but rather posing with community constables recently coming into service due to boosted police numbers.
5. Name recognition – closely linked to media coverage. Lots of people know the names of Simon Bridges, because he is successful for Tauranga and gets good media. However, other politicians get name recognition because they get drunk and piss on trees, or maybe they they want to compulsorily arm Muslim taxi drivers. Everyone knows who those idiots are. The KPI in this category would need to carry plus scores and minus scores.
6. Parliamentary business – again subjective. Large numbers of PQs might only suggest they have a staff member who can ask loads of questions. But unless you ask questions, you don’t get answers that help drive stories of public concern to win votes.
7. Fundraising – an MP who can bring in money for their party is valuable. Someone who has good connections to fundraising sources is indispensable. Someone who is too frightened to ring around the Rotary Club asking for $100 from each member is probably not going to hack it as a successful MP. Even a good left-wing electorate MP should be able to raise a bit of money from small business people if they are personally liked.
8. Campaign skills – Does this MP run a decent campaign – not just an election, but an issues campaign that crops up during the course of the term. Do they take the lazy way of campaigning and wave signs around or bother shoppers at their local supermarket or pub? Do they aggravate people on social media? Or do they take a professional approach, using skilled volunteers to identify pockets of potential support and then work them over with doorknocking, phone calls, written material and more? Do they work over the media about their campaign, and can they find decent photo opportunities to make their point. For example, Nikki Kaye had a technically competent campaign that helped withstand the tactical voting tricks of the Greens and Labour.
9. X-Factor – Either you have it or you don’t. Amy Adams and Simon Bridges have X-Factor. David Shearer and Mark Mitchell do too. Richard Prosser doesn’t. Neither does Colin King. While those MP don;t have X-Factor, Darien Fenton has the exact opposite of X-Factor turning away more voters than than she wins, if any.
10. Mark on Parliament – What laws have they passed, and what have they done for us lately? What initiatives have they started that improved the lives of people? Brian Neeson weakly raised the fact he helped microchip dogs when he was challenged by John Key. People didn’t care. He hadn’t made a mark on Parliament in the years he was there. Jackie Blue did well with herceptin for women, but seems to have gone invisible since then. Are they an attack dog, perhaps an effective debater who makes logical useful points that other MPs want to listen to? Or are they just a drone who can’t string two sentences together even when some hard working researcher gives them everything they need to say?
