Tag Archives: Dirty Politics

Hara Kiri.

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I do not usually write about NZ domestic politics, much less the personal dramas of those involved in them. But here I will make an exception because I am unhappy about recent events.

To be clear, the downward mental health spiral that ended Kiri Allan’s political career has produced some good commentary on the pressures in NZ politics and the toll that they take on politician’s mental health and family life. It was just a few years ago that Todd Muller had to step down from the National Party Leadership due to the stresses of the job, and to the credit of most he was allowed to do so in some measure of peace and dignity. 

However, while there has been empathetic commentary about former minister Kiri Allan, the sad fact is that many in the National-Act coalition—particularly their two leaders– and a swathe of media acolytes have used the personal tragedy to attack Ms. Allan and the government that she served in what can only be seen as venal, nasty political opportunism coupled with media complicity. Like a pack of baying hyenas with a scent for blood, they have continued to hector the former minister in stand-ups and interviews, write irrelevant stories about people who lived in the area of an accident that was the last act in a prolonged process of psychological deterioration, talked with the owner of the parked vehicle that was involved in the accident (who was not present when it happened) and to cap it off, demanded and received permission from the Speaker of the House to engage in an emergency debate on Ms. Allan’s resignation and her mental “well-being” that quickly proved to be nothing more than an excuse to launch spurious attacks on the government. Shame on the Speaker for caving to the demands of the frothing Opposition mob, shame on the ACT Party Alfred E Newman look-alike who used someone’s personal tragedy for opportunistic political gain and shame on the unethical shills who pass as conservative media for cheerleading the whole thing and for continuing the ad hominem persecution well after Ms. Allan departed her portfolios.

Psychologically damaged by a dark combination of personal and professional pressures and therefore fragile in spite of her outwards appearance, Ms. Allan committed an act of political suicide last week. Like Mr. Muller, she should be allowed to find her peace.

Moreover, when one looks at the media treatment of this story and others involving Wahine Maori in politics, one cannot but suspect that there is some misogynistic racism behind the slant in the coverage to say nothing of the crude hypocrisy of not focusing balanced attention on the less than salubrious behaviours of some in the NACT coalition (who tend to be Pakeha and generally male). The “people living in glass houses throwing stones” adage would seem appropriate here, but the Opposition leadership and NZ corporate media seem keen to keep the focus on those being pelted rather than those doing the throwing.

Anyway, in the days after the news broke and seeing how it was covered and commented upon, I wrote a few Social Media posts reflecting on the affair. Here they are in annotated form.

“Voters may want to consider the responses of some Opposition politicians and Rightwing media figures to the personal tragedy of a Government Minister in order to assess their character and fitness for governing. Some might be found wanting (both as politicians and as commentators) if empathy and restraint are required.

Some have claimed that empathy caused the “mess.” Sorry, wrong. The former minister was a competent cabinet member and not an “empathy” hire (whatever that is, but presumably in reference to her Maori ethnicity). Political leadership is measured in various ways and seen on various dimensions, and empathy encompasses both.

Others claim that this is just an attempt to “deflect” from the former minister’s responsibility in causing a non-injury accident. There is no deflection. The drink driving/resisting arrest (which are more likely “failure to accompany”) charges will be handled by the courts under penalty of law. She will face justice and be held responsible for her actions. That is a personal matter, and should not be cause for politically opportunistic attacks. I should also note the the drink driving charge was on the lowest range of the scale so she will at worst receive a fine and possible disqualification from driving. Likewise, the resisting arrest/failure to accompany charge appears to be a case of lack of cooperation rather than physical resistance, so that too will unlikely result in a jail term. It is by no means a trivial matter, but in the scheme of things Ms. Allan’s alleged offending is not going to bring about Armageddon.

Still others claim that this shows Labour government incompetence because Ms. Allan was allowed to return to her job after a previous mental health breakdown. To which I responded: Please stay on topic. This is about a personal mental health problem that destroyed a political career, not about competence (which has never been disputed in this particular case). Other recent ministerial resignations are fair partisan game given the circumstances of their exit, but this one is not.”

It also must be understood that it is hard to ascertain when a person can return to work after a mental health crisis and what might trigger another one. That is at best a matter to be discussed between the person involved and their psychological counselors, not by medically unqualified political party leaders (who should reply on expert advice as well as personal assurances when making calls about reinstatement). Everything indicates that professional criteria, not political expediency, was the main determinant of Ms. Allan’s return to work.

Nearly a week after the accident, today’s news story is that police dogs were used to track Ms. Allan after the crash and she was found 500 meters away from the scene. So the dogs did their job and it is certainly not a good look to have left the scene. But what relevance does this have to politics? Why is it still a major news story? Ms. Allan was in crisis and made bad decisions on that night. The matter is now between Ms. Allan and the justice system, and the evidentiary how’s and why’s of the accident will be presented in court. So what is the point in salaciously belaboring and speculating about the circumstances? She has resigned and will not run for re-election in October, in a district where she is widely respected and admired. Politically speaking, the story has run its course so everything at this point is a partisan beat-up (and bullying).

Meanwhile, the human offal that passes for the National and ACT Party leaders continue to lie and dog-whistle using US-style politics of racial and class division as a wedge on the electorate while capitalizing on personal failures in the government ranks to score cheap political points rather than concentrate on delivering realistic and collectively beneficial policy alternatives oriented toward pursuing the common good. Truth be told, the NACTs have nothing other than the tired old “hard on crime, lower taxes, cut public spending and roll back regulations while privatizing public services” rubbish that has proven detrimental to the welfare of most people in contemporary market democracies. Vague and discredited trickle down economic policies do not work and are no substitute for creative approaches to the collective interest. Since the NACTs have nothing on that score, they just whine, lie and engage in personal attacks as per the Dirty Politics playbook.

Whatever the failures of the current government and some of its ministers, one thing appears certain at this point: having a NACT coalition in power will be a disaster for most of us even while it benefits a very distinct few and the corporate media uncritically applauds—some would say encourages–their self-serving nation-busting antics. Now is the time to open our eyes and see what choice is before us in October: the politics of cruelty, division and avarice, or the politics of moderation and continuity. If the choice turns out in favour of the latter, even as a “lesser evil” option, it offers a basis to repudiate nastiness, greed and sectarianism as well as foreign ideological influences in NZ. If the choice is for the former, it means that a majority chooses to embrace the darker side of our national psyche.

That will be a collective tragedy, not a personal one.

The Impunity Files, Police Edition: Trolling for Rawshark.

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By now it is well known that in their effort to find the source of the information upon which Nicky Hager’s book Dirty Politics was based, the NZ Police searched and seized computers, phones and personal records from Mr. Hager’s home. They also intimidated Mr. Hager’s daughter (who was home at the time) by forcing her to dress in front of an officer and relinquish her personal computer. In addition, they asked a number of service providers to give them access to Mr. Hager’s personal details without a warrant or production order. Most of the service providers refused or asked for a warrant but at least one, the financial corporation Westpac, gave up eight month’s worth of Mr. Hager’s transaction records without asking the Police for a legal instrument compelling them to do so.

News of this caused a brief furore amongst civil libertarians, privacy advocates, some journalists and a few business people. But as with much that the Police does that is borderline in terms of legality, the issue soon dropped from the public eye. Few if any follow ups have been published and for all intents and purposes the Police have emerged unscathed from yet another episode of operating with impunity and contempt for the law.

I have had opportunity to review Police documentation regarding the case released under Discovery (79 pages in total). Readers are invited to read the full dossier released by the High Court over at Scoop, which also has an interesting newspaper story detailing the genesis of the investigation into Mr. Hager.

Much in the Police documents is redacted but there is plenty to consider nevertheless. In the spirit of public interest journalism (although I am not a journalist by training, inclination or employment), I have decided to add a bit more to the public domain on this case. As it turns out, the Police did more than ask various service providers to give them access to Mr. Hager’s private information, and they got things rolling just before and then accelerated  the investigation very quickly after a complaint was laid about the source of the material from which Dirty Politics was constructed (the infamous or heroic hacker known as Rawshark, depending on how you view things).

On August 22, 2014, amid the sequels to the publication of Dirty Politics and the speculation as to the identity of the hacker who accessed the information from a notorious right-wing blogger that detailed his unsavoury connections to government officials and corporate interests, Rawshark tweeted what most observers saw as a satirical or diversionary tweet saying that s/he was on vacation in Vanuatu. Rather than take it with a grain of salt, and after the blogger formally complained on August 25, 2014, the NZ Police fired up their investigative resources and on September 18, 2014 a detective constable by the name of Rachelle (I shall leave her last name out), who was assigned to the case by a superior named Simon (again, I shall leave his surname out for the moment), telephoned Immigration New Zealand (INZ) for information on all NZ residents and citizens who had traveled to Vanuatu around that time.

I should note that this very same detective Simon was the police officer who made the “enquiry” of Westpac about Mr. Hager’s financial details on September 24, 2014. In the days that followed the Police were able to obtain detailed information on Mr. Hager’s property holdings from Wellington City Council as well as full details of his Westpac bank accounts and credit cards. Although some of this information was available through the Council web site, on at least one occasion detective constable Rachelle was able to obtain information directly from the Council without a warrant or production order (this information is available on pages 25-26  of the Discovery documents that I have read. (KEB Vol 4 Part 1C file pages 1468-69).

One has to wonder what relevance Mr. Hager’s property valuations and rate payments have with regard to the search for Rawshark. If the figures were obtained for a future asset seizure in the event Mr. Hager is found guilty of a crime, we have to remember that he has not been charged, much less convicted of any such thing. A search for aspects of his worth with an eye to future seizure implies a presumption of guilt on the  part of the Police before any charges have been laid against Mr. Hager. To say the least, that is a perversion of natural justice.

During the September 18, 2014 conversation with detective constable Rachelle, a female senior INZ officer replied that it would be difficult to compile a list of all New Zealanders who traveled to Vanuatu during the referenced time period because INZ only had data on those who traveled directly to Vanuatu from NZ and did not hold information on those who may have stopped off elsewhere (such as Fiji) on their way to the holiday destination. She sent the Police an OIA form to fill out (which was completed and returned that day) in order to assist the INZ side of the investigation. A day later, on September 19, 2014, she emailed detective constable Rachelle and wrote that there was nothing more that INZ could do “on their end” and suggested that the Police “might want to try Customs.”

That was a good tip.  Detective constable Rachelle noted then that she would speak to someone at Customs who was working on organised crime to find out the best source for that information. On September 23, 2014, after approaching NZ Customs, the NZ Police received from them spreadsheets containing the names of 2500 NZ citizens or residents who travelled directly from NZ to Vanuatu in the two weeks prior and after August 22, 2014. The spreadsheets were then sent to an officer Nichola (again, no last name needs to be published at this time) “at intel to see what plan we can come with in relation to analysing this information.”

The passenger information was presumably sourced from Air Vanuatu and/or Air New Zealand, who code share the three weekly flights between Auckland and Port Villa. No warrant or production order was issued for the release of this information, and it is unclear as to who and how Air Vanuatu and/or Air New Zealand were approached, or whether they were approached directly at all. This information is detailed on pages 70-71 (KEB Vol 4 Part 1C file pages 1525-26) of the Police documents released under Discovery in the case Mr. Hager has brought against them.

It is unclear whether the Police ever came up with a plan to analyse the personal information of the 2500 NZ citizens and residents that flew to Vanuatu from NZ in the two weeks before and after August 22, 2014. What is clear is that it was done, at a minimum, in violation of the Privacy Act because the data was obtained without a warrant or production order. Moreover, it is not clear what was ultimately done with the information about the 2500 people whose details were obtained by the Police. Was it analysed? Did any of it lead to further inquiries or action? Was it stored? Was it destroyed? Was some records kept and others not? The bottom line is that this information was obtained based upon a “courtesy” request, not a lawful order, and was part of a trolling exercise that began before a complaint was laid and not as a result of specific or precise information related to the Hager investigation. Both procedurally and substantively, obtaining this travel-related data of 2500 NZ citizens and residents was unlawful.

Given that Rawshark appears to be a pretty savvy hacker who knows how to cover his/her tracks, it is arguable that any of the 2500 people whose privacy was violated by Customs and the Police (and perhaps Air Vanuatu and/or Air New Zealand) had anything to do with obtaining the material for Dirty Politics. Beyond the issue of what was done with their personal information, the question is whether they have been told by any of these agencies about their records being accessed. After all, they have nothing to fear if they have nothing to hide, so it would seem natural that the Police and/or the other entities involved in the privacy breach would let the 2500 travellers know that their private records are safe. That is important because these records could well be more than passport details and could include ticket purchase location details, credit card information etc. At this point we do not know the full extent of the Police handling of this private information, but the privacy breach is a pretty big one in any event so the duty to inform those affected is great.

Published information is that the senior officer in charge of the investigation into Rawshark is Assistant Commissioner Malcolm Burgess. It appears that Mr. Burgess was contacted by email by the rightwing blogger on August 19, 2014 and immediately assigned the matter to the National Criminal Investigation Group (see the NZ Herald article on November 14, 2015 by David Fisher). That is odd because at the time no formal complaint had been made–that did not happen until August 25, 2014. In fact, it appears that an investigative plan of action was drawn up before the blogger made his formal complaint, then quickly put into action once he did.

In any case, perhaps Mr. Burgess is a “hand’s off” manager who did not know what those under him were doing, particularly detective Simon. But it would be interesting to see how he feels about the way the information on Vanuatu travellers was accessed given that it appears to have shed no light on Rawshark’s identity and seems to have violated the Privacy Act. In other words, it looks like it was a useless and illegal fishing expedition, which should be a concern for him as the senior office in charge.

I understand the importance of chasing all leads and avenues of inquiry in criminal investigations. I understand the notion of professional courtesy amongst security agencies. I understand the utility of informal agreements between government offices. I understand that institutional cultures may see legal requirement more as a challenge rather than as an obligation. I understand that sometimes investigatory overkill in one case is needed to serve as a deterrent to others who might seek to pursue similar courses of action.

But I also know, from both my academic writing on democratic governance and my professional experience while working in security branches of the US government, that at its institutional core democracy is about self-limitation and the universal rule of law, to which can be added the bureaucratic axion “CYA.” Yet when it comes to the NZ Police in this case and others, it seems that an institutional culture of impunity far outweighs respect for the self-limitations imposed by law when it comes to decision-making on matters of policy and operations.

Perhaps the Privacy Commissioner and other civil rights groups might want to take another look into this case because it is not just Mr. Hager who has had his rights violated by the Police investigation into Rawshark’s identity (in what to my mind is more a case of journalistic intimidation rather than a legitimate investigation into criminal wrong-doing). As much as I would like to believe that the Independent Police Conduct Authority (IPCA) would seize the opportunity to examine the particulars that I have outlined, its track record suggests otherwise.

One thing is certain: there are 2500 people in NZ who got a lot more than they bargained for when they booked direct flights to Vanuatu in the middle of last year.

Media Link: The Slater/SIS/PM’s Office OIA debacle.

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Sometimes one has to speak bluntly but honestly about unethical behaviour within the NZ intelligence community. The revelations about the way in which an OIA request from a notorious right wing blogger was handled by the then Director of Security and Intelligence and the office of the Prime Minister in 2011 affords one such opportunity to do so.

Short of taking monetary or personal favours, this is official malfeasance of the first order and is corrosive of the professional integrity of the intelligence community. Shame on all involved.

Reality-adjacent

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John Key and David Cunliffe both spent much of the election campaign talking about the dreaded “things that New Zealanders really care about”. But Key, under direct attack, was much more disciplined about sticking to those things. The metacampaign, Dirty Politics, and the Dotcom Bomb were worth nothing more than haughty dismissal. At the time this seemed arrogant and ill-advised — how could he just shrug off such scandal? But he did. The National party ran an orthodox, modern campaign. They stuck to their guns amid all the madness, and the result was triumphant.

The poster child for this campaign was candidate Chris Bishop, who ran an old-fashioned shoe-leather campaign in the Labour stronghold of Hutt South and pushed the party’s strategic genius Trevor Mallard to within a few hundred votes of losing the seat he has held for 20 years. No stunts, no social media hype, no concern for the wittering about his being a former tobacco lobbyist, he just talked to the people and listened to the answers that came back.

But how did they know?
A few days before the election, Russell Brown was polled by Curia, and posted the questions. Russell noted that “these questions aren’t really geared towards firmly decided voters” — and this is key. They don’t presuppose a strong position, they’re simple and to the point, and they lead respondents through a narrative about what leadership is about and what government is for. And they seem as if they would yield an enormous amount of actionable data, not only about what voters value, but about why they value it. On election night, Key singled out Curia pollster David Farrar for particular praise:

“To the best pollster in New Zealand — and don’t charge us more for it — David Farrar, who got his numbers right! And who I rang night after night, even though I was told not to, just to check.”

John Key could afford to dismiss the metapolitics because he had plenty of good data telling him that people didn’t care about it, and to the extent that they did care about it, it favoured him. The single most evident difference between the campaigns is that When John Key said “the things New Zealanders really care about” he actually knew that these were the things that New Zealanders actually care about. The National party ran a reality-based campaign, not a hype-based, or a hope-based, or a faith-based campaign. In this they mirrored the most famous hope-based campaign of all time — Barack Obama’s — where the breezy, idealistic messaging was built on a rock-solid data foundation.

Key seems to have been the only party leader who was really secure in this knowledge. The Greens and Labour did seem to want to stick to their guns, but their data was evidently not as good, and they bought at least some of the hype that Dirty Politics and the Dotcom Bomb would bring Key low. So did I. But nothing much is riding on my out-of touch delusions. But opposition has a responsibility to be, if not reality-based, then at the very least reality-adjacent.

Play, or get off the field
I am a terrible bore on this topic. I have been criticising Labour, in particular, since at least 2007 on their unwillingness or inability to bring modern data-driven campaign and media strategy to bear in their campaigns — effectively, to embrace The Game and play it to win, rather than regarding it as a regrettable impediment to some pure and glorious ideological victory. Mostly the responses I get from the faithful fall under one or more of the following:

  • National has inherent advantages because the evil old MSM is biased
  • the polls are biased because landlines or something
  • the inherent nature of modern neoliberal society is biased
  • people have a cognitive bias towards the right’s messaging because Maslow
  • it inevitably leads to populist pandering and the death of principle
  • The Game itself devours the immortal soul of anyone who plays ( which forms a handy way to demonise anyone who does play)

But data is not a Ring of Power that puts its users in thrall to the Dark Lord. And, unlike the One Ring, it can’t be thrown into a volcano and the world saved from its pernicious influence. Evidence and strategy are here to stay. Use them, or you’re going to get used. The techniques available to David Farrar and the National party are not magic. They are available to anyone. Whether Labour has poor data or whether they use it poorly I do not know. It looks similar from the outside, and I have heard both from people who ought to know. But it doesn’t really matter. Data is only as good as what you do with it. Whatever they’re doing with it isn’t good enough.

The best example from this campaign isn’t Labour, however — it’s Kim Dotcom. He said on election night that it was only in the past two weeks that he realised how tainted his brand was. He threw $4.5 million at the Internet MANA campaign and it polled less than the Māori Party, who had the same number of incumbent candidates and a tiny fraction of the money and expertise. Had he thought to spend $30,000 on market research* asking questions like those asked by Curia about what New Zealanders think of Kim Dotcom, he could have saved himself the rest of the money, and saved Hone Harawira his seat, Laila Harré her political credibility, and the wider left a severe beating.

That is effective use of data: not asking questions to tell you what you want to hear, but to tell you what you need to know. This electoral bloodletting is an opportunity for the NZ political left to become reality-adjacent, and we can only hope they take it. Because if they don’t, reality is just going to keep winning.

L

* In response to this figure, UMR pollster Stephen Mills tweeted “$1000 would have been enough”.

Culture, strategy and an end to the phony war

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It is a truth universally acknowledged that, in business and elsewhere, culture eats strategy for lunch.

Nicky Hager’s latest book Dirty Politics (which I haven’t read, but here’s Danyl’s summary) seems certain to cause a strategic shift in the electoral landscape. It should give credence to some of the left’s claims about the National party, and turn public and élite scrutiny on the character and activities of the Prime Minister and his closest aides, including his apparently-extensive irregular corps of bin men, turd-mongers and panty-sniffers. To do so is probably its primary purpose, and the timing and cleverly-built hype around the book reflects this.

But what I hope is that it also produces a cultural shift in New Zealand politics — weakening, or at least rendering more transparent, the intrigue and back-room, or back-door, dealing that characterises this sort of politics.

The book apparently alleges that the Prime Minister’s office is at the heart of a broad network of nefarious intelligence and blackmail, where they collect and hold a lien over the career or private life of everyone close to power. Nobody is their own person; everyone is owned, to some extent, by the machine. Patrick Gower wrote before the 2011 election that John Key owns the ACT party, and Hager’s book seems to substantiate this, detailing how they forced Hide’s resignation, in favour of Don Brash.

That is culture, not strategy, and it exerts considerable influence on those over whom the lien is held.

Immediately upon the book’s release, Cameron Slater noted that some journalists, and some Labour and Green MPs, would be getting nervous. Well, good. If there has emerged some sort of mutual-assured destruction pact to manage this culture, ending it could be Nicky Hager’s lasting contribution to New Zealand. Let the comfortable and the cozy live in fear for a bit. This includes Kim Dotcom, who claims to hold such intrigue against the Prime Minister, and is the target of a similar campaign, though it remains in abeyance.

This is a phony war about preserving the position of political élites on both sides of the ideological divide, to the general detriment of the sort of politics we actually need as a nation. Unlike the original MAD pact, we don’t risk the end of the world if this all blows up — we just might get our political and media systems cleaned out.

At least that’s the theory. I’m not very optimistic — cultural systems are sticky and resilient, and clearly many people have much invested in them. As we have seen with bank bailouts and phone hacking, the system can’t be destroyed from outside, and the influence wielded applies also to anyone who might be called upon to investigate.

The final point is about intelligence and security. The book alleges that the Prime Minister’s office released information from the Security Intelligence Service to these people, and that National staffers illicitly accessed Labour’s computers. The documents that form Hager’s source material also were apparently illicitly obtained from Cameron Slater’s website during an outage. That’s probably the most serious cultural indicator: sometimes you have to fight fire with fire. We are well beyond due for a serious discussion about the acceptable bounds of espionage, leakage and spying, and if Nicky Hager’s book generates this debate, he will have done Aotearoa a great service.

L