We can't help but wonder...

Early in July, Cameron Slater broke the story of Labour's Man-Ban. On this occasion, the NZ Herald was sufficiently gracious to give him credit for a significant political scoop; check this out:

The Labour Party is set to introduce a new rule under which electorates will be able to prevent men from seeking selection as a candidate by restricting it to women only.
A copy of the draft rules were leaked to blogger Whaleoil and include a provision: "An LEC [Labour Electorate Committee] may request that NZ Council determine that only women may nominate for the position of Labour candidate for their electorate."
Labour's secretary Tim Barnett confirmed the rule change was included in the changes the NZ Council hoped to get approved at the party's annual conference in November. The proposal was from a working party set up after last year's conference, at which the party had set a target of 50 per cent female representation.

Labour copped an absolute shellacking in the media, on social media and in the blogosphere, and rightly so. And because it took David Shearer five days before he flip-flopped and declared the Man-Ban to be off the agenda, the party was damaged in the polls. It is ultimately poor poll ratings that has cost David Shearer his job.

Someone else will be the Labour Party leader come the party's annual conference in November. So we can't help but wonder; given the roles of Maryan Street and Ruth Dyson in harnessing caucus discontent with Mr Shearer, might the Man-Ban be back on the agenda now?

Whatever would Waitakere Man make of that? We guess now that all those who stick their hands up for Mr Shearer's job are going to face significant scrutiny on issues such as the Man-Ban

The GoogleDirectory scam

As business owners, we are constantly on alert for scams, and we've seen a few. We've received invoices for advertising that we never orders (which we haven't paid), we've had faxes offering us cheap listings in publications that probably don't exist (those go straight in the bin), and we check that every advertisement that we place actually appears.

We haven't yet had an approach from GoogleDirectory, but they will get the same treatment if they do call. The Herald has gone big on this scam in the last couple of days; check this out:

A former staffer of a New Zealand company allegedly claiming false links to internet giant Google says she was forced to make at least 100 cold calls a day to sell advertising to unsuspecting businesses.
Solly Mamea also claims she was never paid for her stint at GoogleDirectory, and became suspicious of her employer when she was told to change the name of the company when speaking to potential customers.
Both police and Google are investigating Auckland-based company GoogleDirectory, which launched last month and lists more than 100,000 businesses and state agencies across New Zealand.
The company is in no way connected to Google.
The company promotes itself as a new online marketing tool and offers special internet advertisement packages which cost between $200 and $15,000. It promises to advertise customer's businesses on the GoogleDirectory website, as well as other international sites.
The Herald has been contacted by a number of business owners who paid money to GoogleDirectory for advertising, believing they were dealing with Google. They say that aside from being listed on the directory's website, they have had no other advertising from the company.

Company director Simon McLeod went to ground after the Herald approached him. He initially said he would answer questions about GoogleDirectory by email, but has not responded, answered his phone or returned calls since.

Now it's great that the Herald is on to this pack of scammers and its dodgy boss. But there's just one problem; they are about three weeks too slow.

Whatever you might say about Cameron Slater at Whaleoil, he breaks some interesting stories. And yesterday, under the heading Front page of the Herald, 3 weeks behind WOBH he blogged:

I see the Herald has run a front-page story about the dodgy ratbags passing themselves off as Google, a story we covered 3 weeks ago on July 26.

Slater then outlines the series of posts he ran about GoogleDirectory, Simon McLeod, and a series of shell companies providing a trail that leads to a former Auckland solicitor. We say "former" because the man was struck off by the Law Society after being convicted for his role in a property scam. All the details are in the links that follow:

I wonder if people realised they’d been tucked after a series of posts we ran on July 26.
Anyone from Google NZ want to look into this scam?
The Disinfenctant of daylight (GoogleDirectories Part II)
The Shell Company Game (GoogleDirectories Part III)
Simon McLeod didn’t take kindly to those articles, he phoned at the time and abused and threatened me…I know, hilarious really…I’m still waiting for the lawyers letters he threatened.

This was an excellent expose from Cameron Slater. It's pleasing that the Herald has taken it to a mainstream audience, but it is disappointing although unsurprising that the Herald hasn't given Slater any kudos.

But Slater's piece clearly resonated with someone, because this was tucked at the foot of yesterday's Herald story that "broke" this scam. The emphasis below is ours:

Trade Me - which listed jobs for GoogleDirectory under an agency called You'll Love This - has removed several job listings for the company.
Trade Me's head of trust and safety, Jon Duffy, said the listings were removed about three weeks ago following investigations to determine whether You'll Love This was linked to another membership that had been banned from the site.
"If we have concerns around the integrity of advertisers, we retain the discretion to remove them," he said.

Goodness; we wonder what prompted TradeMe to act. It's odd that none of the Herald's "decent journalists, trained and skilled" asked TradeMe that question. 

Or maybe they did, and just couldn't bear to publish the response. Smarten up Granny Herald.

Tweet of the Day - 9 August 2013

He takes aim; he shoots; he scores!

It's a classic SMOG (Social Media Own Goal) from Trevor Mallard as he tells New Zealand exactly what electing a Labour government would mean, and gets pwned for his efforts by Cameron Slater:

Give it up Trevor; you're the gift that just keeps on giving!

We can't help but wonder...

Cameron Slater has blogged on a subject that we've been pondering over the last week or so; check this out:

via the tipline
How come Winston Peters is sitting on the Privileges Committee investigation regarding Andrea Vance and the idiot Peter Dunne when he has claimed all along, in parliament, that he has known the content of the emails since the get go?
Why isn’t he giving evidence instead of sitting in judgment?
Surely this is closer to Zimbabwe than his fanciful claims?

Whaleoil's tipline correspondent makes a very good point. All along, Winston Peters has dropped all sorts of "hints" that he had all the good oil on Peter Dunne. Here's just one example, courtesy of the NBR:

United Future leader Peter Dunne exchanged personally embarrassing emails with Fairfax journalist Andrea Vance, NZ First leader Winston Peters claims. Mr Peters told TV3's The Nation he had seen the email exchange that Mr Dunne refused to hand over in the inquiry into the GCSB report leak.

So we can't help but wonder; given that Mr Peters has shown a significant amount of personal antipathy towards Mr Dunne, and given that he has told the media that he had either seen or had in his possession information germane to the Privileges Committee, does he not have a pretty significant conflict of interest here. After all, how can Winston Peters objectively judge an issue over the release of personal information when he has claimed to have that very information, and has used it to make political attacks on Peter Dunne.

Winston Peters is, of course, no stranger to the inner workings of the Privileges Committee. But on this matter, he should and must recuse himself from the hearing. Perhaps he could ask his deputy leader to deputise for him; oh, wait...

Labour leaking like a sieve

Cameron Slater is the beneficiary of another leak from within the Labour Party. And this one should be of interest to ALL taxpayers, because it's OUR money that Labour is planning to spend; Slater blogs:

The Labour party continues to leak and this morning I have received documents outlining just exactly how the Labour party plans to echo their $800,000 rort with the pledge card and fund the promotion of their NZ Power policy from taxpayers pockets.
The documents are very clear. They state:

The Leader’s [Office] will provide a targeted mail drop to support upcoming public meetings on NZ Power. We’ll provide the target list, the letter, the collateral, printing and deliver the target mail to electorate offices.

In other words the costs associated with the promotion of a Labour party policy is to be billed to parliamentary services. They go further:

Note: Larger print runs are much more cost effective. So we’ll be looking to combine the print run of as many meetings as possible. 

Nice that they are trying to get as much as possible for the taxpayers dollar. 
On top of that they are looking to utilise the resources of MPs and their offices.

MPs will organise and facilitate the public meetings. This includes building the crowd. The Leader’s Office will be able to assist with collateral and a targeted mail drop. For larger meetings we’ll get the Leader involved.

Such nice words…”assist with collateral”…that means preparation, printing and delivery all paid for with public money. Plus they are planning on using taxpayer funded electorate offices as distribution points.
Labour are broke, we know that from other leaks. Like the last time they ran out of money Labour are shamelessly planning on raiding the taxpayer’s pockets to fund their election campaigns and policy launches.
Full documents below.

LEAKED: NZ Power Public Meetings Project Plan

It shouldn't come as any surprise that the Labour Party is dipping into the public purse again to promote its discredited NZ Power policy. But David Shearer and Fran Mold should be very worried that these leaks from Labour's inner sanctum just keep coming.

Someone is trying to pull the rug out from underneath the feet of Labour leader David Shearer. Who could it be?

 

Getting the 3rd Degree

TV3's current affairs show 3rd Degree went large on the David Bain case last night with apparent "slam-dunk" evidence. The intent was to "prove" that Robin Bain was the killer, and to pressure Cabinet into giving David Bain compensation.

Less than 24 hours on, it is all unravelling. The NZ Police have put out this media release:

Police response to latest Bain theory (plus image)

June 27, 2013, 5:30 pm
The latest story advanced through the media by representatives of David Bain is an interesting theory but is not new evidence says Assistant Commissioner Malcolm Burgess.
"It is an interesting idea when taken in isolation, but is no more than a theory when taken out of context of all the other evidence which has been presented to several courts.
"Marks on a photograph can always be open to several interpretations by experts, and the significance or relevance of these marks have not been tested in court.
"Examination of the original photograph does not give any definitive indication of what the marks could be. There are other possibilities, including that they are minor cuts.
"We know for example that Robin Bain was doing work to the roof and spouting of his Every Street home in the days leading up to the killings - any Kiwi handyman knows the sort of damage this can do to the hands. Post mortem examination of Robin Bain's hands shows a number of minor abrasions and marks you would expect to find with someone familiar with manual work.
"Indeed, police have today conducted a preliminary examination of fingerprints taken from Robin Bain after his death. These prints show an absence of fingerprint markings in the same place on his right thumb as the dark marks appearing in the photograph. Our fingerprint experts advise that this is consistent with someone sustaining cuts or damage to the fingers prior to prints being taken, which would then affect the print image.
Had these been powder marks or smudges as claimed, we would expect to see a complete fingerprint image.
"I also reiterate the evidence put forward in court that the only identifiable fingerprints found on the firearm belonged to David and Stephen Bain.
"Police will continue to look at this issue to gain a better understanding of what this photograph may show. 

But wait, as they say in the advertorials; there's more. He comes the bit that really hits at the 3rd Degree team's motives (the emphasis is ours):

"However, I am mindful that this theory has been put forward through a programme whose makers chose not to seek comment from police prior to broadcast, and who also refused to provide details about their story when approached by police on Tuesday.
"Had they done so then we would have pointed out that fingerprints had been presented in evidence and have always been available through the court to help them decide if their story stacked up."
END

Oh dear. The Police asked 3rd Degree for a right of reply, and were refused. What possible motive could there be for that, other than to present a completely one-sided theory. Where is the balance, fairness and objectivity in that?

But wait; there's STILL more! Cameron Slater picked up the time stamp of  Herald story on the 3rd Degree "revelation"; check this out:

Is is REALLY feasible that David Fisher watched the whole programme, wrote a story, submitted it to the Herald webmasters and had it published at EXACTLY the time that the 3rd Degree documentary ended? No; we don't think so either. A PR machine was clearly driving this whole issue

Robin Bain is an easy target, because he is dead, and he can't defend himself. But with what has emerged over the last 21 hours, David Bain's case for compensation may have actually been done more harm than good.


FOOTNOTE: It's not just us unconvinced by last night's 3rd Degree "slam dunk"; check out this post from photographer and blogger Rob Suisted.