Friday, September 12, 2014

Dirty Politics - Chapter 12 - The Smiling Assassin

The final chapter of Nicky Hager's latest offering, Dirty Politics continues talking about Prime Minister John Key.

This focuses more on the recent Donghau Liu and Labour Party donation/meeting "scandal" which saw Morris Williamson resign from his relatively safe seat of Pakuranga at the end of the existing term. 

Hager starts the chapter by implying that this may not have been one of Slater's stings, and that it may have been Jason Ede who worked very closely with the Prime Minister.  The real point he tries to make is that dirty tactics and stories can be manufactured by anyone and it's hard to know what is real and want isn't.  Of course, because the NZ media is notoriously bad for investigating, they tend to take what's said and believe it, which is incredibly naive.

The disturbing fact, and all of it is disturbing, is, as Hager points out, revelations such as these, instead of motivating people to get involved in politics, they actually do the opposite and discourage people, but the only way to stop tactics and vindictive people like Slater is to stop treating them with credibility because they have none, in all honesty, yet, presumably because he's worried about his reputation, John Key relies on him more closely now.

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