Rodney Hide

July 2011 – 309 posts

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.

August 2011 – 449 posts

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.

Stuart Nash provides a SMOG.

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 shortcode

The 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.

September 2011 – 530 posts

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.

I see that the usual stooges and shills for Labour are already preparing the ground for David Shearer’s shellacking at Question Time by suggesting that it is not that important to perform well in the house. But if question time doesn’t matter – why did Labour make such a song and dance about it when Brash was the National Leader? This is one of many examples.

from Lianne Dalziel:

The bottom line is that Dr Brash does not like asking questions in Parliament, because he finds it demeaning. He thinks it is a bit beneath him to come to Parliament and ask questions. Here he was today in Parliament, large as life, and there was not one single question on the Order Paper from the Leader of the Opposition.

I think there is a reason for that, too. When he gets up to ask a question, he is not very good at it. Own goals are his particular forte.

They even lined up former Clark staffers to write opinion pieces in the Herald:

Dr Brash, it seemed, had everything on his side – a rallying cry over racial issues that resonated with voters, the promise of more barn-burning speeches to come, and a Government threatening to haemorrhage over the foreshore and seabed issue.

Yet in the most public face of our democracy, he was conspicuously absent.

In March, Parliament held 10 question times. During that month, and at the height of his post-Orewa prominence, Dr Brash contributed less to question time than Winston Peters, Peter Dunne, Rodney Hide or Jeanette Fitzsimmons.

He spoke less than his deputy, Gerry Brownlee, his predecessor, Bill English, or the person many pick as his successor, Simon Power.

March was a tumultuous time for the Government, but Dr Brash asked the Prime Minister only two primary questions and five supplementary questions. In total, she answered 75.

Further, since the Budget speech in May, Dr Brash has been responsible for only four of the 156 primary questions to be asked and a mere 14 of about 780 supplementary questions.

Nobody could accuse him of hogging the limelight, though some would wonder why he hasn’t.

Dr Brash’s “where’s Waldo” act is certainly not typical of other Opposition leaders in New Zealand – remember the commanding performances of Jim Bolger, David Lange and Mike Moore – or overseas.

…Dr Brash can reduce (though not eliminate) the risk of looking bad in next year’s leaders’ debates. Practice makes perfect, and he has a ready-made practice ground waiting for him in Wellington most Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays.

He may have to swallow some pride and take some hits from the Prime Minister, but that is the price of taking responsibility for his party’s fortunes, especially in the rough and tumble world of New Zealand’s increasingly presidential election campaigns.

If Don Brash doesn’t get used to the cut and thrust of Parliament’s question hour now, he runs a significant risk of consigning his party to three more years in opposition during the next election campaign.

And Peters used to rib Don Brash for his house performances describing him as ‘fearless’ and ‘the great debater’.

Cactus Kate has written an article for NBR on her view of the demise of ACT and where to now:

You could reach several times around the world with nonsensical column inches written over the years about the impending demise of ACT.

Many supposed political “experts” had numerous self-absorbed reasons for planting the spin.

Dr Brash went one step further than just talking about it and led ACT to a record thumping. A 1% list vote and barely scraping through in Epsom in a tactically contrived win where Don and John managed to almost grab defeat from the jaws of victory.

Her comments about what is an ACToid are fascinating in their simplicity:

ACT has ground itself down with obsessive branding labels such as libertarian, classical liberal and conservatives.

The over-indulgence has caused me confusion such that right now even I have no idea what faction I belong to.

I think she misses out the key feature of ACT supporters. To a person they have always been part of a cult of personality. Firstly it was to Roger Douglas, then to Richard Prebble and finally to Rodney Hide. Their fascination with labels like classic liberal etc shows a deep misunderstanding that the New Zealand electorate hasn’t a clue what that even means.

It is the same mistake that Labour makes when they label National as Tories. It is from the politics of elsewhere that these label come from. ACT was spawned from Labour, they even call National supporters Tories like their parent party does. The people who originally came to ACT were the right of Labour spurned by a resurgent union wing. Along the way they picked up the young who had never known compulsory unionism and the liberal economic believers. But they all still have an inherited an abiding loathing for the National party and so never comfortably could work with them.

I asked a long term ACT supporter what they would do if the party ceased to exist and they told me that they would get an interest in something else. They had no interest in joining any other party than the ACT party. That told me right there that ACT supporters didn’t really understand or grasp that politics is a long game. Their ideas are still valid but because of a tribal adherence to some amorphous “core values” they can’t and won’t engage in any other party. Cactus KAte explains the despondence:

I realised I wasn’t really quite that interested in politics. I perhaps had grown up to see just how horrible it is and politics was sitting in priority in my life by Sunday evening with watching lawn bowls.

The ironic thing is the ones who show their loyalty the loudest and proudest to the ACT party have all shown their belief in the market and liberalism by fucking off overseas and them telling everyone else what the party should be and act like.

They are remembering a party that no longer exists, the party they left behind when they went overseas failed to change with the times and the electorate voted accordingly. ACT supporters talk of core values but I doubt any of them could even tell me what they are.

Just as pinkos like David Farrar can exist inside the National party then so too can classic liberals and libertarians. Better in a tent than outside wondering where to pitch their pup tent.

Back in 2005 TVNZ had this to say about a poll they conducted in Epsom:

A One News Colmar Brunton poll shows Act leader Rodney Hide trailing in the critical Auckland electorate of Epsom and unless he wins the seat, the party faces oblivion.

In Epsom 44% back National’s Richard Worth while Hide is on 30% followed by Stuart Nash – the great-grandson of former Prime Minister Walter Nash – on 20%.

On these figures Hide won’t win Epsom and with Act polling around 2%, neither he nor his eight MPs will be back in parliament.

Last night TVNZ had this to say:

National leader John Key’s ‘cup of tea’ meeting with Act candidate John Banks may have been in vain according to the results of a ONE News Colmar Brunton poll.

The now infamous meeting was supposed to boost support for Banks in the Epsom electorate, sending a signal to National supporters that they should vote for Banks so Act could return to Parliament as National’s coalition partner.

However, a poll of 517 Epsom voters has National’s own candidate Paul Goldsmith out in front with 41%, while Banks has 30% support.

So instead of a headline saying that the cup of tea had fail to sway voters they could have said in fact that Act was in a better position than they were in 2005. In 2005 Act and Rodney Hide went on to win by 3000 votes in Epsom.

But hey the media have been trying to get rid of Act like forever.

Tracy Watkins seems to have her head screwed on right, rather than sensationalising a silly 8 minute chat that was illegally recorded she questions those who are ramping up the issue:

It is time for Key to seek the release of the tape, or a transcript, and, if the conversation was as bland as he says, the public will form their own views about the motivation of those who hyped it up.

From what we know so far the conversation was titillating, rather than scandalous.

Key appears to have made a comment about NZ First having no future because its supporters were slowly dying off.

It’s the sort of comment a political commentator might make without raising an eyebrow – though injudicious coming from a prime minister.

There also appears to have been discussion about the future of Don Brash.

The two men probably went over the same ground that has been widely canvassed in the media in the last few months: the ACT party is in disarray, Brash barely has the confidence of the party any more, that if there could have been a move against Brash before the election there would have been, and that the party is pinning its hopes on the likes of star candidate Catherine Isaacs to carry the torch in the future.

She is dead right about Don Brash, he promised so much and had he continued with the fight and vigour that he had when he rolled Rodney Hide then he wouldn;t be int he position of being talked about like a silly old grand-dad who has lost his marbles. The simple fact is that John Key doesn’t particularly like Don Brash, he knifed him for the leadership after all and John BAnks is such a natural politician who still has energy and fight that discussing a doddery old tool who can’t stay on message is hardly a “game-changer”.

As for suggesting Winstn’s bewildered and deluded fan base are dying off,  well that’s true.

The funny thing with this whole attack that Winston and Phil goff have joined in on is that they are vilifying John Key for telling the truth when they have based their campaign around John Key telling lies.

I predict that within 24 hours Duncan Garner, Patrick Gower, and Bryce johns along with Phil Goff, Trevor Mallard and Winston peters are all going to look like tools, and will stand accused of aiding and abeting illegal behaviour and sensationalising the banal.

Of course while they have been sensationalising the banal they have let the Greens get away with their illegal campaign activity and blindly accepted the Sgt. Shultz excuses of Russel Norman. Contrast the light touch the media have handed out to the Greens with the vilification of the Exclusive Brethren in 2005. The Greens have demonstrably broken the law the Exclusive Brethren broke no laws.

There is a word for the actions of someone who asks for money for access to or action from a minister:

A key aide to a Government minister asked for money in an email that also discussed putting “political pressure” on an issue.

Maori Affairs Minister Pita Sharples’ electorate manager Martin Cooper wrote to a local property owner that he wanted money, then spoke of contacting a Government minister.

It led to a call for police to become involved after details were passed to Local Government Minister Rodney Hide.

Cooper named Hide as one of the people he planned to write to as part of a campaign of “political pressure”.

“I’ve never seen a more serious situation with anyone employed by Parliamentary Service,” Hide said.

Cooper could not be reached for comment but last night had full support from Sharples.

The MP was approached with the emails but refused to read them. “I support Martin 100 per cent. He’s a leader among his people,” he said.

Emails obtained by the Herald on Sunday showed Cooper was hired to help with the sale of the former headquarters of the Auckland chapter of the Black Power gang.

That word is corruption. It is especially approriate considering it involved one of New Zealand’s largest gangs.

Pita Sharples should be distancing himself from this not supporting him. Philip Field went to jail for accepting tiling and other “gifts”.

This is why I keep calling for an Independent Commission Against Corruption.

The more insane members of Labour caucus and the left wing blogsphere are outraged, firstly that John Key even went on Radio Live for an hour and secondly when he was on the show he talked about cats and Coronations Street.

Even journalists who should know better climbed into the debate.

Once again it has been left up to the blogosphere to teach the trained journalists things that they get paid for, that is research. Graeme Edgeler explains the law in terms that even John Hartevelt should be able to undertand.

No broadcaster is allowed to give time to someone to run an election programme. Broadcasters can’t give one party or another a better deal on ad space. And no-one is permitted to broadcast an election programme before “writ day”. Which is pretty much why John Key had to talk about his cat and Coronation Street, when he was given an hour today on Radio Live.

In 2008, Newstalk ZB gave slots to Rodney Hide, Tau Henare, Winston Peters and Shane Jones. Shane Jones went so far his time was an election advertisement (as defined under the Electoral Finance Act). Winston Peters didn’t go as far but his show (along with Shane Jones’) was found by the Electoral Commission to be an election programme. The incidents were referred to police.

So Radio Live, either better advised, or just sensibly cautious, told the Prime Minister today that he had to stay out of politics.

And the last paragraph is a real slap to the journalists.

There’s an exception later in the Broadcasting Act about how the prohibition on broadcasting election programmes doesn’t restrict “in relation to an election, of news or of comments or of current affairs programmes,” but giving over the airwaves for politics is over the line. But if the result is going to be like this, you’ve got to wonder why they bothered. And a note to Stuff: this isn’t prohibited by ”Electoral Commission rules”, they’re a offence created by Parliament.

Rodney Hide comments on Simon Power’s attempts to remove the right to silence:

“I regard the right to silence as a fundamental right, as well as freedom of speech, and I’m shocked that a centre-right Government is proposing to remove it.”

Even by Labour’s low standards standards Phil Twyford is a loser. Around Auckland at candidate selection time the strategy at electorate after electorate was “anyone but Twyford”.

It’s not hard to see why.

Yesterday Twyford posted on Red Alert 5 written Parliamentary Questions to the Prime Minister and 6 to Rodney Hide.

These are the winning questions from Labour designed to unsettle National and dislodge them from Government come November. These are clearly part of the Stealing Underpants election campaign strategy brilliantly thought up by Trevor Mallard.

Clearly Phil Twyford is wondering what on earth was Rodney Hide doing skulking over in Te Atatu taking pictures of Twyford’s and Henare’s offices that are dead opposite each other in Te Atatu Road and using VIP Services. I mean the cheek of it travelling down a main road in a Labour…oops…I mean Chris Carter’s electorate.

To save taxpayer money on the Parliamentary Questions I risked life and limb and rang Hide.  He abused me some more for being a dirty coup plotter.  And when he had calmed down said he had been with Labour’s Kelvin Davis and Carmel Sepuloni opening the new Arohanui Satellite Class at Edmonton School plum in the middle of the Te Atatu electorate.  Tau Henare couldn’t make it but sent along his electorate agent Alex Sie who was duly acknowledged.

Hide was there as the Minister Responsible for Special Needs.

But where was Twyford?  And how come he didn’t know about the big occasion in a school in his own wanna-be electorate?  And how come Kelvin and Carmel didn’t tell Phil?  And how come Phil is drafting Parliamentary Questions to government ministers to find out what is happening in what he thinks is his own electorate?

I asked Hide why he stopped to take the picture? He said it was because he had never seen anything as absurd as two List MPs’ offices dead opposite each other, and in an electorate of a another MP as well.

From where I am sitting this certainly looks like a Stealing Underpants campaign strategy to me.

The strategy is really working too from the latest polls and some of the tactics are becoming apparent. We’ve had David Shearer endorsing a government policy, Trevor Mallard trying to beat me in an asymmetrical war that he can’t possibly win, Labour trying to hack my website in retaliation for outing their silly information security, and now we have Phil twyford drafting umpteen written questions in order to get an answer that if he had attended a local electorate school opening he would have known the answers to.

Yep the Underpants Stealing plan is working. They must be winning votes with those cunning stunts.

Phil Twyford is getting his knickers in a twist because Rodney stopped a car for a photo.

Since he went on and on about it, and distracted himself writing hundreds of questions to ministers here is that photo. I rang Rodney Hide and after he swore at me and called me a dirty rotten coup plotter, I asked him about Phil’s post and the alleged photo he took.

He said he did take a photo because he noticed when he was driving to a function that there were two List MPs office across the road from each other and both in an electorate they aren’t the MP for. I asked him for the photo and he sent it it. Here it is.

So here we have an electorate with perhaps the most parliamentary representation of any electorate in New Zealand. Te Atatu is blessed with not one, not two, but three MPs. Two of the finest List MPs that parliamentary services money can buy and Chris Carter.

Rabid mouth foamer Labour lickspittle “Anne” says:

As usual trying to justify and weasel out of everything. Slagging off Chris Carter as NOT a Labour MP. Just like 1984-1990 has been erased from Labour’s history books so too has Chris Carter, a man the local elected to represent Labour in Te Atatu.

She notes that ALL List MP s have offices in their respective electorates. There is a massive flaw in her argument. List MPs are the creatures of the party and do not have electorates. Though following her line of argument that they ALL have offices you do have to wonder how many Phil Twyford has? After all he was the man for Mt Albert until Phil’s mate needed a job, then he was the man for Auckland Central until David’s girlfriend wanted to stand there, and then he was the man for Waitakere until the unions spiked him and now it appears he is the man for Te Atatu after Judith said she didn’t come back.

Perhaps an easier question to ask, one with a shorter answer would be, Which electorates in Auckland hasn’t Phil Twyford had an office in?