Nicky Hager looks like nothing more than a partisan Labour hack with his attack on National, rather than a dispassionate review of the EFB. And his opinion piece is full of lies and half truths. Scrubone provides an excellent fisking, so I'll just say at this point: What he said.
Hagar reveals himself as nothing more than a partisan Labour hack: To explain a little further:
ReplyDelete(But please read Scrubone's post first)
Firstly, the whole anonymous campaign issue was NOT addressed in Labour's new legislation.
Secondly, the EB (as rumour has it) had up to 1.2 million dollars to spend, but only spent enough to send out a one page brochure on the Greens to most letterboxes in NZ and a one page Labour brochure got limited coverage. Estimate - $400K.
On the other hand, if one wants to argue that two one page brochures costs $1.5 million to print and send around NZ, then the threshold of 60K is extremely low.
And what exactly does he say we need to fear from reading a one page brochure from the EB? Is democracy so dangerous that he doesn't trust people to make up their minds properly having read a one page brochure? Given he gets free reign to promote his left wing opinions in the newspapers (and paid money to do it) it's a bit rich criticizing the right of others to spend money to get their opinion in the newspaper.
Thirdly, to try and pass off legislation that changes the electioneering process as a "wee mistake" rather than the flawed piece of rubbish it was, that should ALWAYS go out for comprehensive public debate given the nature of the legislation, then I just stand flabergasted that he is so consumed with making this issue about the National Party rather than the danger we voters face with incompetent or scheming politicians (take your pick Hagar, its one or the other) that he can't even see his own bias. It wasn't National that put this issue in the spotlight, it was the blogosphere, and in particular DPF gave it prominence (although there were several other bloggers that also picked up on this issue at the same time, so credit to them also)