Almost had me

Well, I have to admit that when I heard about the Police spy supplying information on the Green Party, I was wondering.

Of course there is the angle that that party is the most radical left in parliament, and as such may attract those with unsavory agendas who actually want to get stuff done.

However, Whale Oil has found another angle, which I find resonates much better.

Of course while there is always the faux indignation card to play the Greens can continue to be “furious” and “outraged”. Pity they weren’t so outraged when a parliamentary office really was infiltrated and reports of communications were passed onto persons known and unknown.

In fact Green MP’s have gone out of their way to quote “Hollow Men” in numerous press releases. It is a bit rich of them to use information gained by real infiltration and spying for their own political gain yet moan like a whore who didn’t get paid when they are the victim.

Sue Bradford – “This Bill presents an opportunity for the National Party to distance itself from the hard-right policies and the Hollow Men of the Brash years.”

Russel Norman – “According to Nicky Hager’s book The Hollow Men, leading members of the Business Roundtable were secret donors to the National Party in the last election campaign.

Hager identifies Business Roundtable members Alan Gibbs, David Richwhite, Doug Myers, Peter Shirtcliffe as amongst the secret donors.

National hid the true identity of their funders behind secretive trusts like the Waitemata Trust. National knows who gave them money but the public does not.

It is no surprise that Business Roundtable members are attacking campaign finance reform when it was Business Roundtable members who gave secret donations to National”

Russel Norman – “This is especially important in light of the revelations in Nicky Hager’s book, The Hollow Men, that the National Party Board and leadership were aware of the identity of the key big donors to the party even though they never appear in their Donations’ Return to the Electoral Commission, and the revelations of their close links to the Exclusive Brethren.”

Russel Norman – The Green Party has written to the Police and the Electoral Commission asking them to investigate whether charges should be laid against the National Party regarding their donations’ return for 2005, in light of Nicky Hager’s book The Hollow Men.

“The book presents considerable evidence that the political and organisational leadership of the National Party were aware of the identity of major party donors yet in their donations return to the Electoral Commission these names were not mentioned,”

As you can see The Greens were quite happy to quote chapter and verse from the Hollow Men.

In fact, they appear for all intents and purposes to base their view of New Zealand’s largest party on the distorted selected quotes of stolen emails.

The Police should not be spying on any parliamentary party.

But it’s nice to see what comes around goes around.

Hey, and wasn’t this spying initiated by Labour, their preferred coallition partner? Come to think of it, it’s it funny how MPs from parties that Helen didn’t like tended to end up in the dock while Labour ministers did not?

Now, that thought opens up a whole new world of possibilities.