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@canefan said in NZ Politics:
Rachel Smalley tries to compare an inquiry about the death of that customs dog to the death of the afghan villagers, using the emotive example of a toddler. I've lost more respect for her
You had respect for Heifer Smalley?
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@jegga said in NZ Politics:
@canefan said in NZ Politics:
Rachel Smalley tries to compare an inquiry about the death of that customs dog to the death of the afghan villagers, using the emotive example of a toddler. I've lost more respect for her
You had respect for Heifer Smalley?
Yeah not really
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It's not surprising that someone in labour got pinged for libel , I am surprised it was Little though if I had to bet on one of them it would have been Carmel Sepuloni given her asinine behaviour in the past.
If you ever visit the standard the comments are full of stuff worse than Little said , every time a National mp retires it's because of some scandal according to them and every govt decision is based around National looking after their rich mates apparently. -
Can anyone help me understand what's going on with the libel case? So I understand Little pointed out that the Hagamans made a big donation to National and were awarded a contract at some point after.
Can I assume, seeings as the Hagamans are taking him to court, that this didn't happen? Or they've been able to prove the donation and contract are unrelated?
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@Milk said in NZ Politics:
Can anyone help me understand what's going on with the libel case? So I understand Little pointed out that the Hagamans made a big donation to National and were awarded a contract at some point after.
Can I assume, seeings as the Hagamans are taking him to court, that this didn't happen? Or they've been able to prove the donation and contract are unrelated?
The Hagamans made a donation to national, one month later they were awarded the contract along with some other business partners hilariously one of which is Jacinda Ardens father .
Little said in public the deal stunk to high heaven and the auditor general should investigate.
Turns out they started the tendering process back in 2009 and the donation was in 2014. The auditor general investigated and cleared the Hagamans of any wrongdoing .
They offered to settle out of court but Little offered them a fraction of their court costs .
Hagaman has leukaemia and has weeks to live and his wife wants to clear his name before he dies.
He also donated money to the labour party .
Little is a dickhead. -
Little was giving evidence yesterday and described the Hagamans negotiating the "wording" of an apology as "bizarre". Little seemed to claim he kept trying to offer wording and a $26,000 sum but they refused and wouldn't talk to him or "negotiate" with him.
In cross examination, it was shown that Little in fact was presented with apology wording and a sum for settlement acceptable to the Hagamans. Little would or could not meet those demands. To me Little thought he could negotiate his way out of saying the exact wording and / or paying the exact sum suggested. He later offered $100k (I'm not sure what the wording or the form of the apology was). The Hagamans got sick of his prevaricating and rejected the $100k offer. They have incurred in excess of $200k legal costs.
As a witness Little's arrogance has been astounding. He has used the platform as a chance to attack the National government rather. The only good thing he's done is publicly pledged to meet the costs himself even if that means remortgaging his family home aka The House That Union Agitation Bought. But you can be sure that the donation hat will be passed around at upcoming Labour party meetings. It will make Destiny Church tithing attempts look tame.
Little's lawyer is John Tizard. I haven't researched his familial relationships, but of course Tizard is a name donkey deep in the Labour Party.
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@Tregaskis said in NZ Politics:
They have incurred in excess of $200k legal costs.A disturbing feature of the case.
Justice is a luxury item beyond the reach of most New Zealanders.
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@Chris-B. said in NZ Politics:
@Tregaskis said in NZ Politics:
They have incurred in excess of $200k legal costs.A disturbing feature of the case.
Justice is a luxury item beyond the reach of most New Zealanders.
And that, IMO, is why the Hagamans bringing this case is so important. When the cost of bringing to heel someone who defames you is beyond most citizens' means, it encourages some people to believe they can do so without consequences, especially people like politicians who think they have to be provocative in order to command headlines. Every so often it doesn't hurt for one of them to be pulled up short so they remember where the line is.
Andrew Little has been playing the "angry man" role as his point of difference from the likes of Cunliffe, and it was a matter of time until he overreached. For all his claims that his comments were aimed at the government, as a guy with a law degree he knows that a contract that "stinks to high heaven" must have another party and by accusing the government of corruption he was explicitly accusing the other party at the same time. That was a mistake. It suggests that they were collateral damage and he was OK with that; just the price we have to pay for democracy.
He could have easily restricted his attacks to inside parliament and he would have been protected, but he repeated the claims outside and I can't understand why unless it was bravado, which is another mistake.
His statement in court that he thought their claim was inflated because it included costs for engaging a PR firm make no sense. If he went out of his way to damage some people's reputations he can't say that their spending money to try and repair the damage is a frivolous action - it's directly attributable to what they consider to be defamation. Bonkers.
Actually I've known him for many years and he's a nice guy in person. But I think that although he loves politics he's not naturally very good at it so he adopts a persona that he can't play very well and that causes him to misjudge. I suspect it's because he has to think everything through and when he flies by the seat of his pants he comes unstuck in a way that an instinctive poli like Winston Peters doesn't.
I like Andy, but if I was on a jury I'd be finding against him.
Edit: inserted an apostrophe so that the grammar nazis can sleep.
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@JC that's interesting, I thought it was a very smart move on his part to hire Stiassny to audit Air NZs books to find a way to keep the engineers jobs in NZ when he was a union leader. Everything I've seen from him as leader has been very disappointing in comparison and he looks clueless in the role .
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@jegga and @JC kind of reminds me of Shearer, who is absolutely outstanding imo, but just couldn't cut it as leader. Then again that's probably more of a indictment of the Labour party, especially when Cunliffe got so much support. Reckon we miss out on so many good folks who just can't stomach the shitty mess that is politics.
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@JC To be honest, I'd be applauding a lot more if it was someone taking a corporation to task. Large businesses can largely run roughshod over individuals, because most people can't afford the risk and stress of losing their life's savings.
If Little ever gets to be Prime Minister maybe this will motivate him to put a strict cap on donations to political parties - $500 would be plenty to show your support without running the risk of having people wonder quite what your motivation is for donating more.
And frankly, more than any of the parties really deserve.
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@Paekakboyz Shearer never got much support from his party, you'd think they would have invested in some media training for him for a start . The main labour blog which is run by one of Cunliffes mates portrayed him as too right wing and undermined him that perception wasn't helped by the likes of Farrer and Hooten creating a bit of mischief by talking about him nicely in their blogs.
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@Chris-B. Oh, believe me I'm not applauding. I think it's sad that intelligent people have to be reminded to have some manners and that people's eruptions matter to them. I'm sure that Andrew Little didn't do this to be malicious, he just never considered that the Hagamans might be ordinary people like himself with genuine and innocent (or at least legal) motivations.
And I agree with what you're saying about corporations.
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@Chris-B. said in NZ Politics:
@JC To be honest, I'd be applauding a lot more if it was someone taking a corporation to task. Large businesses can largely run roughshod over individuals, because most people can't afford the risk and stress of losing their life's savings.
If Little ever gets to be Prime Minister maybe this will motivate him to put a strict cap on donations to political parties - $500 would be plenty to show your support without running the risk of having people wonder quite what your motivation is for donating more.
And frankly, more than any of the parties really deserve.
Labour can't raise money anymore apart from the unions who are opposed to the spending cap they somehow convinced the greens to agree to.
They funded their last successful election campaign with $800000 of taxpayers funds the auditor general said they effectively stole and had to pay back . They retrospectively made it legal , something to remember when Little bleats about things stinking to high heaven .It's no surprise big business doesn't want to support them when you see the way they treated Owen Glenn.
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