Moira Coatsworth

It looks like the Nasty faction inside Labour has taken a beating today. Their skulduggery in attempting to parachute in Shane Taurima has failed.

The women’s caucus will not be at all happy that Shane Taurima got rinsed. Neither will Paul Tolich who was probably looking forward to a new coffee machine. Expect a bit of a backlash from the EPMU as well.

Meanwhile the party announced the selection a short time ago.

The New Zealand Labour Party has selected Meka Whaitiri as the party’s candidate for the Ikaroa-Rawhiti by-election at a hui in Taradale today.

The selection meeting saw six high quality candidates present to more than 700 Labour Party members at Kokiri Marae in Lower Hutt, Hauiti Marae in Tolaga Bay and St Joseph’s Maori Girls’ College in Taradale.

Meka Whaitiri grew up in Whakatu, Hastings. She started work at the local freezing works, went on to complete a Masters degree in Education from Victoria University and is currently Chief Executive of Ngāti Kahungunu. Meka is affiliated to Ngati Kahungunu and Rongowhakaata.  Read more »

Matthew Hooton has agreed with myself and decided that the leaks to Duncan Garner about how unpopular David Cunliffe is in caucus are really for the benefit of Grant Robertson. He enjoys a chat with Mike Williams on Nine to Noon, the highlights are:

• Matthew Hooton names Trevor Mallard as the Labour Senior insider leaking to Duncan Garner. ”Iron” Mike Williams does not challenge this, even chuckles along and does the big “if I was” speech.  To Williams’ credit he did have more control over a rampant shit-stirring Mallard than the dippy mumsy child psychologist Moira Coatsworth ever has.
• Hooton on Cunliffe  - describes how his five weeks overseas was “one last family holiday” before he makes the move to challenge for Leader of Labour before November.
• Hooton describes Mallard’s work as a “beautifully strategic leak” if wanting to promote someone other than David Shearer or David Cunliffe then talks up Grant Robertson.

The Labour Party really does have more factions than a third world country fighting for its rice.

ᔥ Stuff.co.nz

Labour have appointed Tim Barnett as their General Secretary. That makes three if not four of the most powerful positions in the Labour party all part of the Rainbow faction.

Grant Robertson as Deputy Leader, Alistair Cameron as Chief of Staff, now Tim Barnett as General Secretary and of course Jordan Carter, a key policy influencer. Of course there is also Charles Chauvel, Louisa Wall, and Maryan Street.

Labour certainly looks decidedly top heavy in the Rainbow stakes, not that it should affect the votes of Waitakere Man in the slightest. Perhaps now Labour will have the courage to actually use the words same-sex marriage in their policy rather than skirting around the issue.

Little wonder (if you will excuse the pun), that Shearer has bought off the union faction by ceding control of the party to them with their constitution changes.

The Labour Party has appointed former Christchurch Central MP Tim Barnett as its new general secretary.

He takes up the position on July 26 replacing Chris Flatt who has been appointed secretary of the Dairy Workers’ Union.

For the past year Barnett has been a consultant in Southern Africa “developing political leadership to address the HIV epidemic”, Labour said in a statement.

Labour president Moira Coatsworth said Flatt had been a very strong leader during challenging times, and left the party in a stronger financial position and in good health.

“Tim comes to this role with considerable experience as a political representative and manager of organisations, at a fascinating and exciting time in our history. He will be driving implementation of our Organisational Review, forging a campaign-ready Labour machine nationwide and spearheading our fundraising. All key tasks towards achieving Labour-led government from 2014,” she said.

ᔥ NZ Herald

Claire Trevett explains how the beginning of the end of David Shearer will come about. Even the hard left blogs are now talking about this as the way to get the one true leader, David Cunliffe, elected to the leadership, even if Shearer muzzles him for the foreseeable future:

The Labour Party is considering a major change in the way it elects its leader to allow party members to force a handover of power through a no-confidence vote, or to block an attempt by caucus to roll the leader.

The group set up to review the Labour Party after its poor election result has recommended party members vote on the leader. At present only MPs elect the leader.

Party president Moira Coatsworth said it was “a significant shift” for the party.

“At the moment, because it is a caucus decision, caucus at any time can walk in and have a vote. So this would decide on mechanisms for triggering [a leadership vote.]”

New Zealand and Australia were the only Westminster countries in which the equivalent of the Labour Party did not allow members to vote on the leader. The Irish Labour Party required support from two-thirds of caucus and a proportion of the membership to force a leadership vote. In Canada, members could seek a vote on the leadership on a regular basis at policy conferences.

Labour is looking to the past in their review for the future:

The Labour Party has called on several friendly external advisers to help with a major review of its organisation, including US-based academic Rob Salmond and technology businessman Selwyn Pellett.

Labour leader David Shearer and President Moira Coatsworth set out the scope of a review of the party organisation and its processes yesterday – including its membership structure, list ranking process and party involvement in policy formulation.

Mr Salmond and Mr Pellett are both on an advisory group, called “critical friends,” which Ms Coatsworth said would provide critical advice and input to the review.

Mr Pellett, chief executive of Imarda and co-founder of Endace, has spoken at Labour conferences about economic reform and supported the party. However, he was critical of Labour before the 2008 election, saying then leader Phil Goff should step down.

Other “critical friends” included current MP Parekura Horomia, former MPs Margaret Wilson and Tim Barnett and former British Labour MP Bryan Gould.

Ahhh a corporate beneficiary, failed MPs, two academics, a pie eater….the prospects of any dynamic suggestions seems dim.

Ms Coatsworth said Labour’s membership was currently in the mid 50,000s but much of that was made up of affiliated union membership.

The review will be led by another team, who will consult and meet with members. That group includes current MP Nanaia Mahuta, former MP Rick Barker, Ruth Chapman and Mark Hutchinson.

Mr Horomia and Ms Mahuta are the only current caucus members with formal roles in the review.

Labour has nowhere near 50,000 members. I’d like to see the membership forms from them. This is nothing less than a fraud by counting affiliate memberships. Labour should move to get rid of affiliates, if they don;t then the government should as part of the electoral law review that always follows elections look at restricting donations and membership of politicals parties to natural persons only.

I just hope that Labour has put aside plenty of funds to fund Parekura Horomia and Nanaia Mahuta’s penchant for pies.

Lesson 1: Parties without good infrastructure do poorly on election day.

Labour had their worst result since they were a third party in the 1920’s, mainly because of Andrew Little and Phil Goff neglecting the party. Little raised not a cent from non union sources, and is probably Labour’s worst president ever. He left Moira Coatsworth with an impossible task. Goff needed to show leadership and build a strong, well funded party, but he never even tried. The height of Labour’s stupidity was winning almost 150,000 candidate votes than party votes.

ACT was a disaster from the moment Don Brash didn’t clean out all the troublemakers that were undermining him. He needed to build a strong infrastructure around him, even if it meant a bit more blood letting. He didn’t and as I said for many months before the election, ACT is doomed. Paying a $3000 a day Australian consultant plus a staffer to baby sit you in the green room after an election loss probably isn’t good use of ACT fundraisers money either.

Tracy Watkins has followed up the story about the NZEI emails.

Labour insiders confirmed they were aware of an email from NZEI to those who signed the petition, sent on Friday, explaining that some of their names had ended up on Labour’s database.

The email addresses were obtained from tens of thousands of postcards calling on the Government to reverse cuts to early childhood funding. People who signed the postcards were told they were destined for Prime Minister John Key, but they were presented to Labour MP Sue Moroney instead.

Labour then uploaded the email addresses on its database, supposedly so it could contact people who protested to tell them that Mr Key had refused to receive the postcards.

But, according to the NZEI email, only some people appear to have received such an email.

There are two files on Labour’s servers, I have copies of them, that contain thousands of email addresses.

Labour Party president Moira Coatsworth and secretary Chris Flatt did not return calls yesterday.

But party insiders rejected suggestions there was a breach of privacy because details of those who took part in the postcard campaign would have been available under the Official Information Act had they gone to Mr Key’s office.

There is a very large problem with Labour’s insiders whispers to Tracy Watkins. For a start even if the details were able to be obtained under the Official InformationAct, and that is suspect right from the get go, it would be illegal for those people to then be contacted about something else by an organisation that they did not give permission to for them to use their personal details.This lie is easily disproved, all the media have to do is ask under the OIA for details of petitioners on any petition they choose that has already been presented to the PM.

Can you imagine the howls of outrage now that people who signed a petition can now have their personal details released to anyone who cares to OIA the petition. And according to Labour they are then free to use those details to their own ends.

As we have seen from the NZ Post case this is a serious breach and one which Sue Moroney at the least and Labour have appeared to have breached.

Labour’s weasel excuse doesn’t hold water and now additional questions need to be asked. Since Chris Flatt and moira Coatsworth appear to be in hiding then it really rest on Phil Goff’s shoulders to answer some of these questions at this stand up today.

The huge irony of this situation is that labour now stand accused of the very thing they were accusing me of.

Goff’s performance on Morning Report over his mishandling of the Darren Hughes affair was utterly awful.

Labour’s Phil Goff breaks silence on Darren Hughes.

He has now admitted on the record, that he won’t be telling the public about any police complaint against any Labour MP until after the media finds out.

If the cops are investigating Labour – he won’t be telling us. Which surprise, surprise is exactly what has happened again. The Police have charged a labour staffer and Labour must have known about this for weeks.

The claims of a media ‘frenzy’ are ludicrous and show that Labour’s at least and certainly Phil Goff are still in denial over all this.

Phil Goff himself made the ‘frenzy’ far worse for Darren Hughes by covering it up for more than two weeks, and then changing his position at least three times when the media started asking questions.

Hell, when his office was first approached about it his staff lied denied it and then, of course, came the forced apology for hypocrisy over the Labour-led attack job on Richard Worth. All vestiges of natural justice didn’t exist for Richard Worth when Phil Goff was leading the charge for the sacking of Richard Worth.

Quite why he was so reluctant to agree that Darren Hughes displayed ‘poor judgment’ this morning is curious.  He certainly wasn’t afraid to say that after Hughes resigned as an MP, he’s on record repeating it often.

I seriously thought that by the time Goff returned from his Greek wedding (those Leaders funds are useful for all those overseas trips in recess) he would know how he would answer the tough questions.

Clearly the first round of the Darren Hughes saga has taught him precisely nothing. Let’s see him start to front up over their appalling information and data security. Chris Flatt and Moira Coatsworth certainly haven’t.

Is it any wonder that I am demanding the installation of Fred Dagg at the top of Labour’s list?

Apparently Labour is appealing to the Privacy Commissioner….not sure that is the right term, imploring? begging? perhaps.

Labour is appealing to the privacy commissioner about lists of supporters and donors falling into the hands of a right-wing blogger.

Details of 18,000 people were on the databases downloaded by blogger Cameron Slater, severely embarrassing Labour, which had to email donors and people who had contacted it through its website to apologise for the breach.

Slater has revealed on his blog how he obtained the databases, which appear to have been publicly available and easy to download without needing to hack into the site.

He has threatened to reveal any conflicts of interest, potentially compromising Labour supporters in sensitive positions who have contacted it in support of its Stop Asset Sales campaign and others.

Some of the information downloaded includes lists on which there had been communication on other issues – for example, the increasing cost of early childhood education.

I sincerely hope that Labour is doing more than appealing. They should be laying a complaint against me. So far I have released only one name, but I can release more than 18,000 anytime I please. The more they keep lying and spinning the more inclined I am to prove them wrong.

They continue to put out their ridiculous spin about National helping me, or abetting me, or just plain talking to me. It is ridiculous, even Trevor Mallard thinks I work for ACT and Don Brash and I certainly wouldn’t have trusted any of this information with the muppets at National’s head office.

It matters not who accessed Labour’s data. That is missing the point. The important point here, which I am sure the Privacy Commissioner will go to great lengths to point out is that Labour is the one who is in the gun here, it is them that broke the law and it is them that needs to start being honest with the members and donors about their poor security.

Labour mentions that they fixed the problem when they found it on Saturday. This is untrue as well. They were alerted to the problem by David Fisher asking questions on Saturday night. The site was still open at 0900 on Sunday morning. I know because I have screenshots of it. So far all Labour has done is lie. Time and again I have proved their lies.

Labour needs to own their problem and not go blaming other people for their screw ups. This is a systemic failure on their part, they know it, we know it and they should just own it. To use silly descriptors like “politically motivated” shows just how pathetic they are. Of course my actions were politically motivated. It involved a political party, all their members and some of their donors, why wouldn’t it be politically motivated.

The last word about my alleged involvement with National or that they are my pay-masters (how can that reconcile with Labours attacks about me being a beneficiary?) or controllers really rests with Peter Goodfellow:

National had no interest in Labour’s information of that kind and was not looking for it.

“We don’t condone that sort of behaviour at all.”

He declined to comment on Slater or his actions.

“I don’t have any control over him. If you see what he has written about me you would probably say I probably don’t have any control over him. I mean you are talking to the wrong guy there,” he said.

Damn right they have no control over me, no one does, not even me.

Labour and their proxy bloggers have been telling a great many lies about how I got access to their website, to their credit card donations and to their membership lists.

They have lied from beginning to end about the situation that exposes their members and donors to public scrutiny.

They even enlisted John Pagani to continue the smears by asserting that the National party gave me the information about the exposure to ensure their hands were clean. I absolutely refute those allegations. They have produced a few ip addresses to somehow prove that it was National that told me. This is fanciful.

On the server that I obtained the information there were 4 websites, they were labour.org.nz, accworks.org.nz, healthyhomeshealthykiwis.org.nz and lets-not.co.nz. Anyone going to Labour’s online campaign lets-not site would ahve had their ip address captured. Grant Robertson mentions the huge response and Trevor Mallard boasts about the amount of traffic my site directed to Labour’s site and unsurprisingly I bet more than a few MPs and other party staff visited. I have the full logs of these sites, perhaps they would like me to publish them to prove that it is me telling the truth and them that is spinning.

National has not been involved in this release, like I would trust them to keep this information quiet for as long as I have been in Labour’s backend. John Pagani simply lies to suggest otherwise, as does Moira Coatsworth and Chris Flatt.

TV3 were going to run a video that I made showing how I accessed the details. They have pulled their clip because of the Christchurch earthquake. I knew that Labour would go personal, I knew they would fling mud and I knew that they would call me a hacker. So before I pulled the trigger on this series of leaks I made a video to prove how I accessed their data.

The video is damning. People should be sacked. The story is not about who accessed their site when, it is about the fact that ANYONE could and did.

Labour has failed in their duty to care to members and donors to keep their details private. They published those details in the public domain, open to anyone who cared to look. The information is still available in the Google cache proving it was open to the world and now cached forever by Google.

Labour has been caught red-handed using parliamentary services funding to host websites, collect donations and membership fees and staff working in parliamentary services to process this information. The reason I leaked the minutes on Sunday was to show that Labour has a policy of using parliamentary services to benefit the Labour party. I have the electronic evidence to prove it and they can spin all they like about staffers wearing different hats and being part time but the fact remains is that these transactions occurred from PS computers, on PS funded servers for the benefit of the Labour Party and that is against the law and against the rules.

At the very least Chris Flatt should be sacked or resign, Moira Coatsworth should go too along with any Parliamentary Services staffer caught doing Labour party work on the payroll of the public.

Meanwhile I still have the data in a safe place. I will continue to analyse it and identify conflicts and publish them at my leisure.