MMP means that New Zealand’s most popular PM ever has an one seat majority. So if National lose an electorate MP and then lose a by-election there could be a fresh election that would be very hard for National to win.
This means they can’t push Nick Smith too hard, as Nick 4 Nelson holds a seat that if Labour and the Greens were to collude on Labour could easily win a by-election. MMP doesn’t replace an electorate seat lost in a by election with a scum List MP.
It is not just Nelson that could cause a problem. If an MP dies, or commits a crime or just decides they are sick of being passed over for promotion they could leave, force a by-election and then an election. Those in safe blue seats don’t really have much power because National would win a by-election.
Those in marginal seats like Nick Smith do have a lot of power, as if they leave they could bring down the government.
Judith Collins isn’t going to take Mallard’s lies lying down. Hse has announced that she is looking at suing him plus another MP as well as a media outlet. I think she should also look at suing Eddie at The Standard for the defamatory post they put up yesterday to sync with Mallard’s, Robertson’s and Little’s attack again me, Simon Lusk and Judith Collins in the house.
ACC Minister Judith Collins is planning legal action against two Labour Party politicians and a media outlet for alleged defamation.
It follows confirmation the Privacy Commission will investigate the email Ms Collins received from former National Party president Michelle Boag which helped end her colleague Nick Smith’s ministerial career.
Ms Collins told Radio Live this morning she was to see a lawyer this morning, regarding legal action for allegedly defamatory comments made outside the House by two Labour Party politicians, and also one media outlet.
She would not name who the MPs or the media outlet are.
Ms Collins denied the move was a ploy to close down debate on the issue, rather she takes her reputation “seriously” and would not allow herself to be defamed.
Confirmation that Privacy Commissioner Marie Shroff will investigate the email’s trail from Ms Boag to an eventual report in the Herald on Sundaycame as Labour claimed Ms Collins, National Party operative Simon Lusk and right-wing blogger Cameron Slater all played a part in the leak.
The Standard’s post is defamatory against me, and also Simon Lusk. I am considering my options. Trevor Mallard has a history of lying and making shit up, this time I feel he is going to regret it. He should just leave parliament. There will be no mercy from me.
The left wing are in a frenzy thinking they are going to get a scalp. They are miffed that they couldn’t claim Nick Smith’s after he shot his own feet off. But they are baying for the blood of Judith Collins.
After yesterday’s Labour caucus they came out resolved to smear Collins and immediately started working over the gallery. They even got their lap-bloggers to try and attack me about it all.
There seems to be a great deal of focus on who sent what to whom. However in the house yesterday Judith Collins said in the house that she didn’t leak the email, nor did anyone in her office, and further she said that the Chair of ACC and the CEO have likewise said the same.
Former National Party president Michelle Boag has angrily dismissed suggestions she leaked the email she sent to ACC Minister Judith Collins about her friend Bronwyn Pullar’s controversial meeting with ACC managers.
She goes on:
She said the email was sent to Ms Collins in the expectation it would not be sent to anyone else.
“When you can’t send a communication to a Government minister without fearing that the privacy of that communication is going to be breached, that’s very, very dangerous.”
Actually Michelle Boag should know better. She should know that any communication with a ministers office in their ministerial capacity is searchable under the OIA. The email as reported by David Fisher was sent tot he ACC minister about an AC claimant, regarding matters pertaining the operations of ACC. Michelle Boag actually used the words “for the sake of your ministry, your board, your CEO“. That absolutely falls under the category of the OIA as she was discussing ACC matters with a minister. Furthermore Michelle Boag appears to have been economical with the truth…again. She says it was sent to Judith Collins only. Judith Collins says otherwise:
Ms Collins said Ms Boag’s email was sent to herself and one staff member.
“I did not send it to anyone else. My staff member sent it to the chief executive of ACC and the chairman of the board, as I requested her to. It was not sent anywhere else.”
Michelle Boag has been around government for long enough to know that such correspondence, to a minister and to a, presumably, ministerial services staff member is searchable under the OIA. There cannot remotely be a privacy issue here as the email is clearly subject to the OIA.
Irrespective of that someone leaked the email to David Fisher before it could be discovered under the OIA. Irrespective of that too is the fact that as David Fisher reported there was the suggestion, confirmed by Boag in the email to the Minister that a deal had been sought to return the confidential data in return for cash and both Bronwyn Pullar and Michelle Boag were upset that the deal wasn’t being adhered to and as a result things were going to be messy for “for the sake of your ministry, your board, your CEO“. Those few words contain a clear threat…a threat that was delivered upon, but which actually managed to cost their friend his job.
What we have here is a apparent attempt to blackmail a department, and when that didn’t work an attempt to threaten a minister into action, like they did with Nick Smith. Sensibly Judith Collins sent the email straight to the ACC.
Ms Boag said she was not responsible for the leak. However, she would not lay a complaint.
“I’m a busy girl. I’ve been in Wellington working all day for a living. I don’t have time to dwell all day on these things.
“The ball now is in ACC’s court. I will see what they will do,” Ms Boag said.
I’ll just be she doesn’t want to go down that rabbit hole. SHe is more worried about getting caught up in a blackmail charge or worse following a Police investigation. Little wonder she is working day and night in Wellington to shore up her shrinking business. I’m not sure i’d want someone not very well versed on the OIA to be representing my interests in government relations. I certainly wouldn’t want anyone who has the reverse Midas touch as bad as Michelle Boag to ever come near any business or organisation I had anything to do with.
How would Bronwyn Pullar feel if she was dumped by a sponsored child? It cost Nick Smith his job, imagine if he had been a sponsored child:
Is being dumped by your World Vision kid the ultimate rejection? If so, I can now add that notch to my belt. The announcement that my monthly $43 donation – to a 17-year-old Chilean boy named Jordan whom I’d taken on six years ago – was no longer needed came via a clinical form letter. Immediately my friends piped up like a chorus from an ancient Greek play, taking turns at being flabbergasted and accusatory. “Are you serious?” said one. “I didn’t think that was possible!”
“Was it because you were cheap?” queried another, wondering if I had been thrown over for someone offering a greater monthly stipend. And even more pointed: “What did you do to that kid?”
Pathetically little, actually. Aside from my monthly donation, our relationship was – I thought – tissue-thin, consisting of a few Christmas cards and perfunctory missives about what life is like in Australia scribbled hastily on notepad paper. So why was I so outraged when I got ditched? My brain churned with the sort of bilious thoughts that our minds must surely work overtime to keep tucked away. He was dumping me? Wasn’t I the one with the power? Shouldn’t he be grateful?
Deborah Coddington lets fly about Bronwyn Pullar and Michelle Boag:
The legs-eleven story this week has been ACC’s carelessness in emailing 6752 clients’ private details to National Party stalwart (some might say nightmare) Bronwyn Pullar. More than 200 of these cases are what is known as sensitive claims, meaning they concern people who have been sexually abused.
Pullar had a history with ACC. Things had reached a point, apparently, where she needed a meeting with senior managers, so former National Party president and friend Michelle Boag sat in as Pullar’s “support person”. We still don’t know for sure who said what to whom, but apparently at that meeting ACC was told about this security breach, alleged threats were made of making that breach public, the words “going forward” were mentioned, and a two-year benefit was discussed.
Now the matter is in the hands of the police, and Privacy Commissioner Marie Schroff has launched an inquiry into the leak.
Furthermore, two dyed-in-the-wool National Party women, not the Opposition, have forced Nick Smith to resign from Cabinet.
With friends like Bronwyn Pullar and Michelle Boag few people actually need enemies.
But back up the truck. What business was it of Pullar’s when she first received files which didn’t concern her? She obviously read them, because we were told she recognised a few of the sexual abuse victims as well-known New Zealanders.
At worst, this is a sorry saga of people who have possibly crossed the line of the law, or the principles of the Privacy Act, because they couldn’t mind their own business. Why didn’t Pullar just give the files back to ACC?
And if, as Boag now claims, the meeting was to assist ACC with security problems, why not go to the Privacy Commissioner, who is empowered to do just that, without taking action against ACC, without going public, without upsetting 6752 ACC clients? Somehow, this excuse from the PR maven doesn’t wash.
Exactly what I have been saying. Michelle Boag didn’t attend that meeting with Bronwyn Pullar as a support person…if she truly wanted a support person why not her fiancé and now husband…no…instead she took Michelle Boag, to put the frighteners on ACC, just like they did to Pullar’s insurance company.
Mary Wilson on Checkpoint interviewed an ACC specialist claimant barrister, unsurprised by the leak, who said he’s been receiving wrong files “regularly” for six years, and immediately sends them back.
The Privacy Act was put in place for good reason – to protect us from Big Brother sharing information. To make ACC claims, under the Privacy Act clients almost have to sign their lives away, allowing the agency to collect personal information from their family doctor and other sources. So this careless leak was a massive breach of trust by ACC.
But in my opinion, Pullar and, by association, Michelle Boag, have compounded that breach by their actions.
Precisely. Coddington has nailed it. Reasonable people hand back information. Unreasonable people keep it for whatever purpose suits their nefarious purposes.
Fran O’Sullivan lays a lot of the blame for Bronwyn Pullar’s current predicament fairly and squarely at the feet of Michelle Boag:
Thousands of ACC claimants have good reason to be incensed at the way former National Party insider Bronwyn Pullar and her “support friend” Michelle Boag allowed them to be used as leverage in a failed power play.
It is crystal clear that Pullar – with Boag’s implicit agreement – retained the confidential ACC records file she was accidentally sent last August. This file is said to have contained details of claims filed by 6700 individuals among them 250 claims from injuries resulting from sexual abuse or sexual assault.
Many claimants will be incandescent with rage at the obvious – even if accidental – breach of privacy.
But even though Pullar maintains she has been fighting a decade-long battle to screw a better deal out of ACC and has alleged her own privacy was breached by officials on 45 separate occasions, she did not immediately alert the corporation that the file had turned up in her inbox.
Nor did she return the file or delete it from her own email cache. (It became public when the file turned up in an investigative reporter’s hands six months later).
Boag knew this when she agreed to go with Pullar as her “support friend” to an ACC meeting last December. The file quickly became a point of contention.
I pointed this out yesterday…that as a support person for a person with a head injury it was incumbent on her to act in the claimant’s best interests, not actually egg her on toward destruction.
It was alleged that ACC offered Pullar two years’ payments so she could re-establish her business on the condition the file was returned. ACC denies this.
But in an email to ACC Minister Judith Collins last week, Boag maintained a verbal agreement was discussed after she and Pullar urged an investigation of the privacy breach “for the sake of your ministry, your board, your CEO”.
The Boag email is reported to have said it was “verbally agreed” the information would be returned “on agreement on the way forward”.
Boag went on to say ACC should deal with the privacy breach internally – “I am a supporter of this Government and I also call [former ACC minister] Nick Smith a friend. I don’t want him embarrassed. I have friends on the ACC.”
Anyone who can’t see the implicit threats delivered up toward Judith Collins and to the ACC board in Boag’s comments is out of their head. What we have seen this week probably wasn’t what Michelle Boag was thinking would happen when she made those threats.
Any Cabinet minister sitting in “The Crusher’s” shoes – particularly a politician with as strong an instinct for self-preservation as Collins has – would quickly have worked out the impact of Boag’s email was they were also likely to be dragged into the same mud-pool which subsequently swallowed Nick Smith.
The ACC Minister would quickly have reached the conclusion that all Boag’s email did was to compromise her.
Hence she sent it to the ACC .
Collins’ fingerprints will not be directly attached to the copy of the Boag email that was later leaked to the Herald on Sunday.
Michelle Boag threatened the wrong person, a lawyer and all round tough nut. She brooks none of the stand over tactics that Boag is so accomplished at.
Pullar is currently in the public spotlight. But a great deal of the blame for this fiasco has to be put at Boag’s door.
A political “hard ass” of the first order, her style is to get extremely aggressive when cornered. Hence her fury at finding out from the Herald on Sunday that her email had been leaked. What did she expect?
A more skilful operator would have insisted that Pullar return the file before the December meeting so there could never be any suggestion that the pair were trying to blackmail ACC into dishing out more benefits.
But Boag’s approach is clumsy.
Most bullies are clumsy, they prefer aggression to nuance. It eventually comes unstuck when just one person isn’t prepared to put up with their antics any longer.
Fran O’Sullivan then lay out the reverse midas, everything Boag touches turns to crap, touch of Michelle Boag:
I challenge anyone to find for me a single good headline for National to have ever some from the actions, machinations and intimidation of Michelle Boag.
In an otherwise good article explaining why Nick Smith won more Politician of the Week awards than anyone else based on his principles and willingness to have a dust up with anyone over ideology, Matthew Hooton has a shocker when describing potential replacements.
The tragedy of his departure is that, like too many of the appointments after the 2011 election, he is likely to be replaced with a below-average-intelligence, grey, provincial yes-man, unwilling to challenge the status quo and valued simply as a safe pair of hands.
Hooton seems to think that the provinces are inhabited with troglodytes who haven’t succeeded in the real world based on intellectual rigor and their own hard work.
In Tauranga Simon Bridges is Oxford Educated, which not many westies are, and he is far to refined to have leopard skin on his car. In Rotorua Todd McClay build a substantial lobbying business in Brussels, which is arguably not the real world but it was bloody successful, created links with many New Zealand businesses and did a lot of diplomatic work for Pacific nations. And succeeding in lobbying at one of the biggest parliaments in the world may not be my idea of success but it is better than being a successful unionist in a backwater like the New Zealand union movement.
Louise Upston’s mastery of policy details and background in leadership training means she is a safe pair of hands and has the potential to lead, not to just to administer.
From Hawkes Bay Chris Tremain turned a moderately successful family business in to a highly successful one, at the same time as making huge contributions to sports in HB. He is not in parliament “safe pair of hands”, going on record to upset the small minded in Napier, challenging the status quo on amalgamation. Craig Foss may have a gay ute but he was as successful in banking on an international scale as John Key before entering parliament.
Chester Borrows is a bit too wet on law and order, when he could man up and back the prevailing wisdom which is working world wide. His willingness to take a stand that is unpopular in National show he is not “unwilling to challenge the status quo”.
In the Wairarapa highly intelligent former diplomat John Hayes has well over 40 years of standing up for what he believes in, and not being afraid of a turn up for a good cause. At Lincoln he tried to remove the students association from the New Zealand students association, allegedly because they were a pack of communists, radicals, pooftas and other misfits. John can rest easy at night knowing he fights the good fight and is not one of Hooton’s “below average intelligence”.
Further South Amy Adams has shown herself to be willing to take on difficult issues, and no one has ever accused her of being a “yes-man”. Jo Goodhew is hugely popular in her electorate, and it is a travesty for Hooton to describe her as grey.
Michael Woodhouse may not be favored by the voters in Dunedin but he came to parliament with a track record of success in a difficult industry, where challenging the the status quo is an important part of success. Anyone that knows Michael knows he has a fine intellect, and is definitely not “below-average-intelligence”.
Jane Clifton explains more fully those who should be avoided in official communications:
In the normal course of events, there are people and situations that politicians very quickly learn to avoid. These include anything to do with Scientology, fluoridation, abortion, the gun lobby and, broadly speaking, anybody who fixes them with a glittering eye à laThe Ancient Mariner. The latter is the trickiest category to steer clear of, because MPs’ electorate clinics are full of them. They are the walking wounded, typically having come out the wrong end of dealings with the Family Court, an insurance company, an ex-partner, Immigration New Zealand or – as is currently the hot button – the ACC.
We all know someone like this, because they “holdeth one of three” to tell their tale of woe. And we sympathise. We really do. But at some point in such people’s terrible journey, their world has become so small that their albatross has become everything to them. At this point, the only sensible, humane advice anyone can give them is to rule a line under the atrocity, pick up what’s left of their psyches and, as Helen Clark would say, Move On.
Which is only one of the reasons Nick Smith made a dopey, career-blighting mistake in respect of his friend Bronwyn Pullar – a woman who by her own admission in emails had become quite consumed by her albatross. When she badgered him for support in her battle to get accident compensation, he should have kept saying no. And not just for the reasons most of us would have had to say no: that her fight was narrowing her life-focus, that state agencies have disproportionate power over the individual and will always win, that possibly she wasn’t entitled to compo. He had this reason: he was the Minister in Charge of ACC at the time.
Nick Smith left two important portfolios. Environment and Local Government. Also Climate Change.
Local Government
Local Government is not that difficult as just about everyone hates councils, and Nick was going to rinse them in a highly popular move that stopped them wasting money on dumb stuff and reigned in their borrowing. The problem is not many in cabinet are interested in Local Government as it is the minor leagues.
Nathan Guy has a background in Local Government, but there is concerns he is an administrator not a leader, and a combination of patch protecting local body representatives and Sir Humphrey’s might slow down reform under Nathan’s watch.
Gerry Brownlee currently has the portfolio on a temporary basis but is known for dodging work as much as salads, so can be expected to pass it on to someone else asap, Unless someone can make Local Government look like a nice meat pie then he will pounce on it with vigour.
From outside of cabinet Chris Tremain comes with a good reputation for getting things done and taking people with him at the same time. Has a good strategic brain and is willing to front foot issues, as well as being in the thick of amalgamation in Hawkes Bay, where small minded halfwits on councils don’t want to lose their income stream. Could sell the policy well.
Environment
This is a much more nuanced portfolio that requires someone with detailed knowledge built up over many years, as well as the relationships with lots of angry greenies who have given up hugging trees to bash politicians. The nuance factor also causes problems, as a number of ministers, especially those from the South Island, wouldn’t know a nuance until it snuck up behind them and whacked them with a baseball bat.
Disrupting the current cabinet would not be ideal, so those outside cabinet might be a better bet.
Chris Finlayson is currently the placeholder minister, and will likely be adept in most areas except stakeholder management. Known for his understandable dislike of morons, in an area heavily populated by stakeholder morons Chris might be better taking on another portfolio.
Chris Tremain doesn’t have a background in the Environment but is known to be concerned about water quality and is exceptionally good with stakeholders so is worth a look.
Chester Borrows doesn’t really fit this portfolio, nor does Maurice Williamson. Williamson has an abiding belief that greenies are judder bars in the road toward progress.
Those not currently ministers who have green credentials include Nikki Kaye, Louise Upston and Nicky Wagner. Nikki Kaye is probably too much of a light weight to take on a portfolio where attention to detail and mastery of information is important or you will get stitched up by your department. There is of course the slight stench of Boag around Nikki Kaye.
Louise would have no trouble dealing with the detail and work load, and has been adept in negotiating difficult environmental issues in her electorate. May not have the depth of stakeholder relationships required, but would build them quickly.
Nicky Wagner has the relationships with the tree huggers, NGOs and other groups and the years of detailed learning required to be able to talk to them. Not in favour with the McCully clique which is ten points in her favour in my eyes, but this may count against perhaps the best placed MP to deal with the portfolio.
Climate Change
I have well known views on manbearpig and thinks it is a portfolio that should be abolished, or if not abolished given to a man with a gay ute.
After a good start on the Pullar fiasco Adam Bennett is now having a shocker:
In an emotional letter, she said ACC was “rotten to the core” and said she had numerous examples of ACC claimants’ rights being trampled on that would “seriously embarrass you”.
The letter was sent in October 2010 as part of Ms Pullar’s battle to get funding for treatment for her injuries. She also sent it to the Herald which was investigating the high number of injury claims turned down by ACC on the basis of a pre-existing degenerative condition.
“This is NOT a mistake as you are making out Nick,” Ms Pullar wrote. “You are just covering up corruption that is alive and well within ACC. ACC is rotten to the core and I have numerous examples that could seriously embarrass you, over and above this.”
She wrote that the “abusive processes” had to stop. “Good luck fighting it Nick in the media. You are going to need big PR help on this one. It is everywhere!”
The letter emerged yesterday as Labour continued to demand an independent inquiry into the scandal that brought down Dr Smith.
The reason I published it was to show that Bronwyn Pullar, despite now crying crocodile tears, had threatened Nick Smith and ACC before. I quess we know what she meant by this “could seriously embarrass you”.
One thing we know now, when Bronwyn Pullar says she will unleash a PR disaster on ACC and Nick Smith she is telling the truth about that at least.
