Judith Collins resigns

Oravida and the mysterious Chinese border control official, the Simon Pleasants leak, Bronwyn Pullar’s Privacy Commission complaint, plotting to roll John Key after the election – the allegations just kept coming.

Now there’s the allegation that she conspired with Cameron Slater and others to discredit former Serious Fraud Office director Adam Feeley. This while she was Minister of Justice – the Minister in charge of the SFO.

She’s resigned as a Minister, and John Key has accepted that resignation. As with the Oravida saga, she believes that she’s the victim here (the vast left wing smear campaign continues…), and she’s resigning to focus on clearing her name. She’ll be staying on as MP for Papakura though, although John Key, in his press conference at the Beehive, made it clear that she could not expect a Ministerial role if National is re-elected (not at least until her name is cleared).

A 2011 email from Slater to Carrick Graham and others was sent anonymously to John Key’s office last night.

The Cameron Slater email that has resulted in Judith Collins’ resignation

The email includes the following paragraphs (some grammar/spelling fixed):

I am maintaining daily communications with Jared Savage at the Herald and he is passing information directly to me that the Herald can’t run and so are feeding me to run on the blog. In the meantime I also have additional information flowing in via my tipline. That information will be drip fed into the media or via my blog.

and

I also spoke at length with the Minister responsible today (Judith Collins). She is gunning for Feeley. Any information that we can provide her on his background is appreciated. I have outlined for her a coming blog post about the massive staff turnover and she has added that to the review of the State Services Commissioner. She is using his review of these events to go on a trawl looking for anything else. It is my opinion that Feeley’s position is untenable.

Given the allegations in Dirty Politics that Judith Collins was responsible for so many of the leaks that poured through the Whaleoil “tipline”, it’s hard to escape the possibility that Collins was both sending and receiving information regarding Feeley. Even if nothing flowed from her to Slater on the subject, the fact that she was at least briefed by Slater on a smear campaign against the head of the SFO is more than grounds for her resignation. That would be unacceptable from any Government Minister, let alone the Minister in charge of the SFO.

Of interest is where the email came from. It wasn’t released by Whaledump, and one would assume that if Nicky Hager had had it in his possession, it would have featured prominently in Dirty Politics. Was Slater hacked twice, or has someone in Slater’s inner circle turned against him?

Regardless of the provinence of the email, Judith Collins’ career is now officially in tatters. Since the Oravida story broke, the likelihood of her ever becoming leader of the National Party and Prime Minister was ever-decreasing. Now, the odds have to be as close to zero as they come.

Last Chance Saloon – John Key’s paper-thin defence of Judith Collins

When Judith Collins was initially confronted by media about the accusation in Dirty Politics that she had leaked former Labour staffer, Simon Pleasants’, name to Cameron Slater, she refused to answer questions. It was all lies, just a smear campaign.

Then she admitted that the allegation was indeed true – she’d provided Slater with Pleasants’ name and job title, as described in the book.

That changed over the weekend. Apparently Cameron Slater already had Pleasants’ name; Collins was merely providing his job title.

Now, with the gradual dumping of the original emails on Twitter by Nicky Hager’s source, we know that Collins also provided Mr Pleasants’ phone and fax numbers, including his cell phones numbers. As with the Oravida scandal-saga, it appears to be a case of waiting to see how the story changes when new information is revealed.

Nonetheless, John Key has announced this morning that he stands by Ms Collins, although her actions were “unwise”. She’s on her Last Chance, but it’s the same Last Chance as she was previously on, not a New Last Chance:

“What she’s on is on her last chance after what happened last time. But at the end of the day she’s also subjected to a left-wing smear campaign. And people will actually see that as well for what it is.”

Matthew Hooton, yesterday on Radio NZ’s Nine to Noon programme, opined that Mr Key needed to fire someone, but that Jason Ede was too far down the food chain. Given her previous behaviour over Oravida, and the final warning that flowed from that, one would have thought she’d be the ideal candidate.

Nonetheless, the script for National still seems to be one of absolute denial wherever possible. Offering up National Party scalps provides Nicky Hager and his allegations with legitimacy. Key seems intent on brazening it out till election day.

To see just how thin Key’s defence of Collins really is, you only have to listen to his Morning Report interview with Guyon Espiner, which Hooton described as Key’s worst in six years. Here’s the Judith Collins segment, with thanks to Karol at The Standard:

ESPINER:  OK. Well what about the behaviour of your minister Judith Collins?  Is it acceptable for her to divulge the name of a public servant, because he may have leaked details ?

KEY: Well I don’t have the details on that one

ESPINER: she suspected he did.

KEY: I just don’t

ESPINER: Well, why don’t you ask her?

KEY: Well because I. A: it’s very. Sorry it’s.  Look to be

ESPINER: In fact, in fact, with respect, Mr Key, she has admitted that. She conceded she did pass on that name.

KEY: Yeah, but I don’t know the details under, of all of that scenario.

ESPINER: So why don’t you ask her?

KEY: Because, at the end of the day, we’re five weeks out from an election, people can see that Nicky Hager’s made a whole lot of things up in his book. He can see that he can’t back a lot of them up.

ESPINER: Well, I’m talking about one that can be backed up. You’re not going to get away with that.

KEY: See he

ESPINER: Because, because, this is one that can be backed up, because the Justice Minister of New Zealand has conceded publicly, that she did pass on the name of a public servant.  That resulted in him getting some pretty severe death threats. And you think that’s, OK?

KEY: And people can see that

ESPINER: It’s OK?

KEY: And people can see

ESPINER: Yes or no? Is it OK?

KEY:  And people can see that this

ESPINER: Is it OK?

KEY: People can see

ESPINER: Is it OK that Judith Collins did that, yes or no?

KEY: And people can see that this is a smear campaign by Nicky Hager and

ESPINER: I’m not asking you for a critique about Nicky Hager’s motivation

Key: Well I

ESPINER: I’m asking you about something that is publicly in the arena. Judith Collins has said, “I passed on the name of this public servant.” And we know what happened after that.

KEY: But the

ESPINER: I’m asking you a simple question. Was that appropriate, Yes or No?

KEY: context  is totally relevant, because at the end of the day, I don’t know all the context of what happened here and in all those situations

ESPINER: You know the context here, Prime Minster. Please answer the question.

KEY: We don’t know

ESPINER: Was it appropriate for your Justice Minister to pass on the name of a public servant doing his job, who was then severely sanctioned on a website?

KEY: So, I don’t know all the details behind all of that. But what I do know, is that this is a series of selected pieces of information. Many of which can’t be backed up. I know that this was

ESPINER: I’m asking you about one of them.

KEY: Yeah, well, I’m not going to go into your individual ones, because in the end, this is a smear campaign, about which, I gotta say, started the week with with people, you know, out there

ESPINER: No, I’m not, you’re not going to talk about burning effigies, etc, because it has nothing to do with this.

KEY: Well, it does [voice hits a squeaky note]

ESPINER: I’m talking No

KEY: to do with this, because, at the end of the day,

ESPINER: No. this is about the behaviour of your Justice Minister. Do you stand by her today?

KEY: Yeah [slightly squeaky voice] I stand by her. And in the end, it does have a lot to with it, because we started the week with burning effigies. Then we went into, into, sorry, FU videos. Then we went into into burning effigies, then we went into Bill

ESPINER: OK, we’re not going to traverse the whole history.  Here’s a final question for you.

Key’s farcical “Don’t ask, don’t tell” routine

John Key is sticking to his defensive strategy: deny everything, label Hager’s book a smear campaign, and – when pressed on specific allegations – say he doesn’t know the details. There is of course a very easy way for Mr Key to become acquainted with the details, which he doesn’t seem keen to do, and that’s to simply ask the right people.

For instance, there’s the issue of how classified SIS documents were suddenly declassified and released at break-neck speed to Cameron Slater, following his OIA request. Now, according to John Key this morning on Radio NZ’s Morning Report, Key had no knowledge that the SIS had released the documents. That’s despite Key being the Minister responsible for the SIS. And that’s despite there being some considerable political interest in the contents of the documents – after all, they made Phil Goff look like a fool, a liar or a lying fool, depending on your political allegiance.

Matthew Hooton, on Nine to Noon this morning, made the point that it is “preposterous” that Warren Tucker, as director of the SIS, would release such politically sensitive documents without first alerting the Minister, John Key. Under the ‘no surprises’ rule, I’d count releasing documents showing the leader of the opposition misled the public (whether accidentally or otherwise) as a bit of a surprise.

Nonetheless, John Key says he didn’t know, which means (taking him at his word) that either Mr Tucker made this unilateral decision or that Mr Tucker received a thumbs up from someone in Mr Key’s office who then didn’t pass that information on to Key.

So surely, all Mr Key needs to do, to clear everything up, is to ask Mr Tucker what precisely happened. Was the decision to declassify and release purely that of Mr Tucker’s? If so, why? And if Mr Tucker said he had in fact briefed someone in the Prime Minister’s office, who was that person?

Then there’s the issue of Judith Collins, and what she may or may not have leaked to Cameron Slater. Mr Key says he can’t really comment on any of that as he hasn’t asked Ms Collins about it. Nonetheless, there’s a serious allegation that Mr Hager has made. Hager alleges Collins leaked the Bronwyn Pullar letter to Slater. Collins is on record, both inside and out of the House, completely denying that she or her office had anything to do with the leak. If Hager is correct, Collins lied to Parliament and the New Zealand public. Surely that’s something Mr Key would at least want to ask Ms Collins personally?

Or the five word email by Ms Collins to Cameron Slater, in which she provides the name and title of Simon Pleasants, a former Labour staffer, who is promptly, viciously and wrongly smeared by Slater. Collins refuses to say what her email was in response to, and John Key says he has no idea either. Well, all he has to do is ask Collins what question from Cameron Slater she was replying to.

And then there’s the issue of the National Party staff member who downloaded the Labour Party’s database. John Key has confirmed that Jason Ede definitely accessed the database. He’s said, “Jason became aware of that [that Labour’s database was open to the public], and he did go and have a look”. But there’s no confirmation that Ede downloaded the database. Given that Ede still works for the National Party, one would think it should be a relatively simple matter for Key’s office to ask Ede exactly what he did or didn’t do.

Or the other National Party IP address that accessed the database? Peter Goodfellow, the Party President, has confirmed that another staff member rummaged around – just to check that National’s security wasn’t that bad, don’t you know? Who was that staff member and what, if anything, did they download? Mr Goodfellow already seems to know a great deal on the subject, so it shouldn’t be a great inconvenience to Key to call up the President and swap notes…

Those are just a selection of the questions to which Mr Key could presumably get quite easy answers, should he so desire. I could keep going, but you surely get the point.

This is cynical politics from Mr Key, and it’s an utter farce. He and National want the story to die down, so Key is steering well clear of specifics. If he doesn’t ask, he doesn’t know. And if he doesn’t know, he can’t answer the media’s questions. Everything peters out, and the media finally get around to reporting on policy.

However, Mr Key has, I believe, miscalculated badly. The media aren’t going to simply give up on this. The number of very specific questions that need answering are too many. The number of grubby little dots that need joining won’t suddenly disappear. And with Mr Hager’s alleged source beginning a piece by piece dump of the original emails via the @whaledump Twitter address, the journalistic interest will definitely not die.

Whether the wider public gives a damn is of course a different story. The four people with whom I raised it at Court this morning simply rolled their eyes and muttered derogatory comments about Nicky Hager. And these are intelligent, well-read people who I would generally respect.

John Key is perhaps hoping that the public don’t care now, and as long as nothing definitive comes out to link Key directly to the scandal, the public will continue to not care. Time will tell whether he’s right…