Kiwiblog

John Drinnan writes:

Cartoonist Bill Leak both delighted and caused offence last week with an Oped piece in “The Australian”  He complained eloquently about “authoritarian barbarians of the New Left” and increasing damage wrought by political correctness.

His comments were:

“Progressive fundamentalists now are trying to dictate what’s permissible when it comes to cracking jokes, just like the barbarians of fundamentalist Islam, cartoonists have found themselves on the frontline. We used to be instinctively anti-authoritarian and cynical, which made it almost impossible to offend us, and was the reason Australia became a breeding ground for great cartoonists. But it’s not any more because, instead of manning the barricades against this plague, our cartoonists, with a few honourable exceptions, rushed to embrace it. As ­George Orwell said: “You cannot be really funny if your main aim is to flatter the comfortable classes.” But they do. They want to be cool, they want to be popular; liked on Facebook, followed on Twitter. So at a time when their duty to ­offend has never been more pressing, they go out of their way to ­appease the offendirati by making their cartoons as inoffensive, as ­insipid, as possible.”

Sadly very true.

Jacinda Ardern writes:

We have long advocated for the introduction of an independent criminal case review commission – a place where cases like this can be reviewed independently and sent back to the Appeal Court. A similar commission operates in England and Wales and, in the last 15 years, 320 of the 480 convictions they referred to the Appeal Court were overturned. We need the same here.

I agree. The fact that two thirds of the cases the UK bodies refer to the courts are successful show that.

David Seymour replied:

Ensuring we have a strong criminal justice system won’t be achieved by establishing yet another government commission. Ultimately, that replicates the royal prerogative of mercy (appeals considered by the Governor General) and undermines the role of the appeal courts.

I don’t agree. The prerogative of mercy is effectively run by the Ministry of Justice and has been shown to be ineffective in cases such as Peter Ellis. And a commission would refer cases to the appeal courts, not decide for them.

Stuff reports:

The smartphone footage shows them puffing up their chests and barging into each other. One of them shapes up to a woman in black shorts. He flattens her off her high-heels and she lands heavily head-first on the concrete.

In another video caught on CCTV a man falls over as he attempts a roundhouse kick. Another pummels his fists into him as he lies on the ground.

The two videos, taken two months apart, at roughly the same spot on Auckland city’s Fort St, show the moment tensions spill over into late-night brawls that end with multiple people in hospital, or facing criminal charges – or both.

For police, the videos give them two new pieces of evidence in their argument for tougher restrictions on when people should be able to drink in the city.

They are mounting a case for a six-year ban on all new bars and bottle shops in Auckland’s CBD, as well as a 1am one-way door policy and a 3am close.

This is just unbelievable. The Police in Auckland advocate a six year ban on new bars or bottle shops, and their “rationale” is a video of a couple of fights.

The Police are losing all perspective on alcohol. Why don’t they go the whole hog and demand 6 pm closing comes back?

Inspector Gary Davey says it boils down to a “moth to the flame” argument. The more bars, the more violence. The longer bars are open, the greater the chance of ugly episodes flaring up.

The more sporting fixtures a city has, the more violence. Let’s ban rugby matches. Also the more men that go out at night, the more rapes occur. Let’s have a curfew of 8 pm for men.

The Herald reports:

Labour leader Andrew Little has today backed down from comments that the man charged with investigating New Zealand’s offshore trusts industry had advised the Bahamas Government on protecting its financial sector from tax changes. …

On April 13, Mr Little alleged that Mr Shewan and Dr Brash had effectively advised the Bahamas – a country known for tax haven activity – on how to protect its offshore financial services industry and maintain its haven status.

Appointing him to lead an inquiry on New Zealand’s offshore trusts industry showed a lack of judgment, he said.

But today, in a short statement, Mr Little admitted that he was wrong.

“In April, I made statements concerning advice provided to the Bahamas government by John Shewan, the person appointed to review the disclosure rule concerning foreign trusts in New Zealand. Those statements were based on a report in a Bahamas newspaper,” he said.

“After meeting with Mr Shewan, I accept his explanation that while he advised the Bahamas government on tax matters he did not advise them on how to maintain their tax haven status.”

So two months later he announces on a weekend he was wrong and that he effectively incorrectly smeared Shewan.

I hope media give as much attention to his retraction as they did to his original comments.

Donald Trump has hit a new low in polling, with 70% of Americans having an unfavourable view of him, including a massive 56% who say their view is strongly unfavourable.

Here’s his unfavourables by demographics:

• All 70%
• Republicans 34%
• Independents 68%
• Conservatives 52%
• Moderates 73%
• Women 77%
• Men 62%
• Whites 59%
• Non-whites 88%

Clinton is now at 75% probability to win in the prediction markets. I’d be tempted to buy some Clinton stock as it is hard to see Trump having a path to victory now. If 56% of the electorate strongly dislike you, that is hard to change.  Even in demographics that should be supportive of him, he has over 50% unfavourables – conservatives at 52%, men 62% and whites 59%.

The Herald reports:

When Islamic State took credit for the Orlando shooting tragedy, a hactivist from Anonymous felt he had to do something.

The hacker, @WauchulaGhost, broke into hundreds of IS supporters’ Twitter accounts and posted rainbow flags and pro-gay content from them.

He posted tweets from their accounts like “I’m gay and proud!!”, “Out and Proud!” and “#OrlandoWillNotBeForgotten”, including links to gay porn sites.

There was even a touch of softcore gay porn thrown in for good measure. Just a bit of shirtless kissing, smiling and rollin’ ’round the bedroom.

Y’know, the sort of thing that makes the terror group’s blood boil. …

The accounts have experienced a total revamp. One avatar reads ‘I’M GAY AND I’M PROUD’. Another says ‘I HEART PORN’. Another simply reads ‘LOVE NOT WAR’.

Speaking to Newsweek, the hacker, choosing to remain anonymous, said: “I did it for the lives lost in Orlando.

“Daesh (IS) have been spreading and praising the attack, so I thought I would defend those that were lost. The taking of innocent lives will not be tolerated.”

That’s a great response. Normally I’m against hacking, but I think most will agree it was well done in this case.

The Herald reports:

Russia’s track and field team cannot compete at the Rio Olympics because the country has not given up its doping culture but exceptions will be considered for clean athletes, world athletics body IAAF says.

IAAF president Sebastian Coe said after a governing council meeting in Vienna on Friday “although good progress has been made, the IAAF Council was unanimous that RusAF had not met the reinstatement conditions”.

The council found “Russian athletes could not credibly return to international competition without undermining the confidence of their competitors and the public”, Coe added.

The IAAF had met to consider whether Russia had set up a functioning anti-doping structure in response to a report by world anti-doping agency WADA that detailed systematic cheating in Russian athletics.

“The deep-seated culture of tolerance or worse for doping that got RusAF suspended in the first place seems not to have changed materially,” said Rune Andersen, head of the IAAF’s Russia task force.

There were still no strong anti-doping infrastructure in Russia and doping tests were still being hampered, Anderson added.

This is a good decision. All countries probably have some athletes who have cheated with drugs. But in Russia the cheating is state sponsored and sanctioned. Unless Russia remains suspended, there is no incentive for them to genuinely clean up – and other countries would seek to emulate them.

Now the IAAF is acting with some integrity, the question is whether other bodies will do similar.

Stuff reports:

A police officer who left a loaded gun in a bathroom at Parliament will doing “a lot of soul-searching” and could face up to three investigations, a security specialist once responsible for guarding prime ministers says.

Police are investigating how a loaded Glock pistol was left behind in a Parliament bathroom on Thursday.

The gun was recovered by police after they became aware it was there.

In a statement, police said: “As soon as police were made aware that the firearm had been left in the bathroom, staff attended and recovered it from the occupant, and we would like to thank them for their assistance.

“This was a regrettable incident that we are taking seriously, and we acknowledge the potential risk that this could have posed.”

The statement says police have started an investigation into the incident, and would not comment further while they were looking into the matter.

Police have not confirmed who owned the firearm, but police staff most commonly seen around Parliament are members of the Prime Minister’s diplomatic protection service, who are routinely armed.

This is a huge fail by the officer concerned. Everyone makes mistakes and can leave something behind – but a loaded gun in a toilet is another matter.

A huge amount of money is spent on keeping Parliament secure with x-ray machines etc, and to just have a loaded gun sitting in a bathroom is negligent. A small redeeming factor is that the bathroom was probably not one accessible by the public.

Security specialist Lance Burdett, who used to run an Auckland-based VIP protection squad responsible for looking after prime ministers, said the breach was “the worst thing you can do, absolutely”.

“He or she is highly trained, and that’s the first thing you train is never let it [your gun] out of your sight.

“Out on the course, you wear it the whole time… it is never to leave your side so you get used to not leaving it behind and always having it with you.”

Burdett said firearm holsters were often worn on the hip, and it had likely been taken off to use the toilet, then left behind out of “absent-mindedness”.

My guess also.

If the staff member was part of the DPS, they would almost certainly lose their job, while they could face dismissal from the police force entirely.

They would be doing “a lot of soul-searching” while the investigations were underway, Burdett said.

“Whatever repercussions are for the person that’s left it there, they themselves will be putting themselves through more hoops than anyone else ever could.”

SACKING NOT NEEDED – LABOUR

Labour’s police spokesman Stuart Nash didn’t want to see the person responsible fired, instead a written warning should be issued.

“It’s a serious breach but this person is never going to leave their firearm alone again and nothing bad has come from it.”

On this, I agree with Stuart Nash. A decision for Police of course, but from what I know of DPS officers, he or she will be absolutely aghast at their mistake. Also they will probably be “hassled” about it for some years by their colleagues. A severe bollocking should occur, but not a firing.

The Herald reports:

Kiwi Regional Airlines has this afternoon announced that the operation will be wound up.

Air Chathams will purchase Kiwi Regional Airlines’ Saab 340A aircraft and will absorb the aircraft and offer employment to the majority of Kiwi Regional Airlines’ full-time staff and absorb them into its operations from the beginning of August.

Not the most surprising news of the year.

CNN reports:

Despite mounting pledges of allegiance to ISIS, some say they believe Mateen was actually fueled by struggles with his sexuality — and may have latched on to ISIS as a vehicle for his anger.

Several regulars at the gay nightclub said the gunman visited frequently over the past few years. Cord Cedeno said Mateen saw him at Pulse and messaged him on Grindr, a gay dating app.

Cedeno said he wasn’t interested in Mateen, but his friend was.

Treasury has published a paper (by two MOTU economists) looking at the impact of 90 day trials periods. The findings are:

We find no evidence that the policy affected the number of hires by firms on average, either overall or into employment that lasted beyond the trial period. We also do not find an effect on hiring of disadvantaged jobseekers. However, our results suggest that the policy increased hiring in industries with high use of trial periods by 10.3 percent.

So the impact was in industries that were using the trial periods. Makes sense. Many industries won’t want to use trial periods, but those that do did see an increase in hiring.

Specifically they found:

we estimate the policy effect to be a statistically and economically insignificant 0.8 percent increase in hiring on average across all industries. However, within the construction and wholesale trade industries, which report high use of trial periods, we estimate a weakly significant 10.3 percent increase in hiring as a result of the policy.

The 2016 Global Peace Index ranks countries by safety. The top 10:

1. Iceland
2. Denmark
3. Austria
4. New Zealand
5. Portugal
6. Czech Republic
7. Switzerland
8. Canada
9. Japan
10. Slovenia

We were one of only 69 countries not to have a terrorist incident. Deaths from terrorism in 2015 were up 80% from the year before.

Rabbi Shmuel Herzfeld writes in the Washington Post:

When our synagogue heard about the horrific tragedy that took place at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, it was at the same time that we were celebrating our festival of Shavuot, which celebrates God’s giving of the Torah.

As Orthodox Jews, we don’t travel or use the Internet on the Sabbath or on holidays, such as Shavuot. But on Sunday night, as we heard the news, I announced from the pulpit that as soon as the holiday ended at 9:17 p.m. Monday, we would travel from our synagogue in Northwest Washington to a gay bar as an act of solidarity. …

Approximately a dozen of us, wearing our kippot, or yarmulkes, went down as soon as the holiday ended. Some of the members of our group are gay, but most are not. We did not know what to expect. As we gathered outside, we saw one large, drunk man talking loudly and wildly. I wondered whether we were in the right place. Then my mother, who was with me, went up to a man who was standing on the side of the building. She told him why we were there. He broke down in tears and told us his cousin was killed at Pulse. He embraced us and invited us into the Fireplace.

We didn’t know what to expect, but it turned out that we had so much in common. We met everyone in the bar. One of the patrons told me that his stepchildren were actually bar-mitzvahed in our congregation. Another one asked for my card so that his church could come and visit. The bartender shut off all of the music in the room, and the crowd became silent as we offered words of prayer and healing. My co-clergy Maharat Ruth Friedman shared a blessing related to the holiday of Shavuot, and she lit memorial candles on the bar ledge. Then everyone in the bar put their hands around each other’s shoulders, and we sang soulful tunes. After that, one of our congregants bought a round of beer for the whole bar.

Everyone in the bar embraced each other. It was powerful and moving and real and raw.

Some us faith for bad ends, other use faith for very good ends – such as this.

Stuff reports:

Richmond’s Salisbury School could close in January in a move its board says is “unbelievably short-sighted”.

Education Minister Hekia Parata on Thursday announced she had initiated consultation with the school’s board over its future.

“The … boarding school has a long history of educating girls with high and complex needs but the successful implementation of the Intensive Wraparound Service [IWS] has reduced the demand for residential schooling,” Parata said.

Salisbury School caters to girls from years 3 to 11 who have high, complex needs.

The school’s board of trustee’s chairman, John Kane, said the announcement was not surprising, but was devastating and “unbelievably short-sighted.”

Schools exist if students wish to go to them. Their roll has dropped from 72 to nine.

Parata said since 2011, the roll at Salisbury had fallen from 72 to nine, pushing the per-student cost of educating girls at the school up to $214,909. In comparison, the average cost of providing support through the Intensive Wraparound Service was $27,000.

“The high cost of continuing to fund Salisbury School for a very small number of students versus the significantly lower cost and higher demand for IWS raises questions about the most effective use of resources for students with high and complex needs,” she said.

At $215,000 per student you could hire each of them two dedicated teachers at home!

Nelson MP Nick Smith said he accepted the school could not go on in its current form.

“You cannot justify $2 million a year, 42 fulltime and part-time staff and the use of a prime eight-hectare site for nine pupils,” Smith said.

“The situation next year becomes even more untenable, with seven of the nine pupils completing their programme under the usual practice for residential schooling.”

Smith said the decline in the roll at Salisbury to “unsustainable levels” was because most families were choosing intensive, localised support.

So next year the school may only have two pupils, yet they still demand to remain open.

And if parent choose intensive localised support over sending their kids to Salisbury – that’s their decision.

The Herald reports:

The Government has vetoed a Labour Party bill which would have extended paid parental leave from 18 weeks to 26 weeks.

Finance Minister Bill English confirmed this afternoon that he had exercised the financial veto – the first time he has used it to sink an entire piece of legislation.

Labour MP Sue Moroney’s bill had broad support in Parliament and was expected to pass into law this month.

But Mr English said it was unaffordable.

“Treasury estimates the cost of this legislation amounts to $278 million over the next four years, a significant extra – unbudgeted – cost,” he said.

“That’s on top of the $251 million a year (net of tax) taxpayers are expected to spend by 2020 under the existing paid parental leave framework.” …

United Future leader Peter Dunne, who wants an eventual increase in paid leave to 52 weeks, said there was a “delicious irony” in the Government’s veto.

“Yesterday Government was saying that putting children at the centre of policy was priority. Today they ban a bill on paid parental leave.”

Why stop at 52 weeks? Why not 156 weeks?

Dunne’s proposal would cost $391 million a year more. That’s around 30% of the total budget every year for new spending.

The Herald reports:

Labour leader Andrew Little has now been served with defamation proceedings by National Party donors and hoteliers Earl and Lani Hagaman.

The Hagamans confirmed in a statement they had now commenced defamation proceedings against Mr Little in the High Court and they had been served on Mr Little.

The defamation suit relates to comments Mr Little made about a management contract Mr Hagaman’s company, Scenic Hotel, was awarded to manage the Matavai Resort on Niue. That was awarded a few weeks after Mr Hagaman donated $101,000 to the National Party during the 2014 campaign.

The Hagamans gave Mr Little a deadline to retract his comments and apologise last month, but Mr Little refused.

“As we said earlier, the reasons we’re taking defamation action have been widely reported in the media and I won’t be repeating his allegations that Earl and I find hurtful, highly offensive and totally false.

We will now clear our names in court”, Lani Hagaman said.

I presume it will go to trial, if not settled, around the middle of next year.

Stuff reports:

British Labour MP Jo Cox has died after being shot and stabbed in her constituency in northern England on Thursday afternoon (Friday morning, NZ Time).

Cox was attacked on Market Street in Birstall, near Leeds, about 12.50pm as she prepared to hold a meeting with constituents.

A 77-year-old man was also attacked, but his injuries were not life-threatening.

Cox, a 41-year-old mother of two, was rushed to hospital in a critical condition, but was pronounced dead at 1.48pm, police said.

Police arrested a 52-year-old man nearby, and recovered weapons, including a firearm.

British media have named the man arrested in connection with the attack as Thomas Mair.

The Telegraph reported Mair lived on a council estate in Bridsall.

A neighbour told the UK paper Mair was a “quiet bloke who keeps to himself”.

Her family, friends and colleagues will be devastated.

The motive for the attack was not yet known.

A large number of police remained near the scene of the attack, and were speaking to many witnesses, Temporary Chief Constable of West Yorkshire Police Dee Collins said.

At least one witness heard the suspect shout “Britain First” – the name of a right-wing, anti-immigrant group – before the shooting and during the arrest, Sky News and the Guardian reported.

Cox had been campaigning for Britain to remain in the European Union, but it was not immediately clear whether the attack was related.

Britain First denied any link to the shooting on their website, saying “Britain First obviously is NOT involved and would never encourage behaviour of this sort”.

Too early to know whether the attack was politically motivated, or the assailant was just mad – or both.  But for now, a husband has lost his wife, and two children their mother.

The Herald reports:

A disturbing picture is emerging of Orlando nightclub shooter’s troubled childhood, as former teachers and classmates share confronting memories of him from his primary school days.

Their stories reveal Omar Mateen, then known as Omar Seddique, was having homicidal and misogynistic fantasies as early as age 10.

Leslie Hall, who was Mateen’s classmate at Mariposa Elementary School in Florida and target of his bullying, remembers him getting suspended in the fifth grade for threatening to shoot up the school.

Other classmates and a former teacher have similarly unpleasant recollections of Mateen, describing a boy who was driven to school in a limo, often taunted less affluent kids and even stole toys.

They remember how “all the girls were scared of him”, even his mother and sister.

According to staff members, numerous attempts by the school to intervene failed because of the “enabling” nature of Mateen’s father, Seddique Mateen, who was considered to be the source of his attitude towards women and girls.

I guess when your father is pro-Taliban, then you grow up with a very negative view of women.

Katherine Zurich, 62, who taught Mateen in the fourth and fifth grade, said she tried to reach out to him but found his attitudes too deeply entrenched to penetrate.

“He felt that women were beneath him,” Ms Zurich said.

“He was taught to disrespect them. His mum, his sisters were afraid of him. They had to be subservient to him because he was the son. They treated him like the father, with respect.”

The teacher alleged Omar claimed his father often told him he did not have to listen to women, which was a problem at Mariposa, where most of the faculty at the time was female.

“He seemed to be so disturbed and violent, it was hard to make him change,” the teacher said. “Hard to look back and say what we thought would come true did.”

Ms Hall, who was bullied by Mateen, said he would also take out his aggression on teachers, throwing chairs in class and worse.

“He was very disrespectful,” she said. “He was spitting in teachers’ faces.”

And his father still says he was a good boy who did nothing wrong!

The Herald reports:

Donald Trump greeted Twitter on Flag Day with two words in all caps: “AMERICA FIRST!”

He has made this slogan a theme for his campaign, and he has begun using it to contrast himself with President Obama, whose criticism of Trump’s rhetoric on Tuesday was answered with a Trump statement promising: “When I am president, it will always be America first.”

He wasn’t quite promising “America über alles,” but it comes close. “America First” was the motto of Nazi-friendly Americans in the 1930s, and Trump has more than just a catchphrase in common with them.

During the early 1930s, as the Nazis consolidated control over Germany, the US media baron William Randolph Hearst began touting the slogan “America First” against President Franklin Roosevelt, whom he saw as dangerously likely to “allow the international bankers and the other big influences that have gambled with your prosperity to gamble with your politics”. Hearst regarded Roosevelt’s New Deal as “un-American to the core” and “more communistic than the communists” – unlike Nazism, which he believed had won a great victory for “liberty-loving people” everywhere in defeating communism.

With the beginning of World War II in Europe and the Germans’ swift conquest of the continent, Roosevelt began to commit his administration more firmly to the aid of the those fighting Nazism. He incurred the ire of various anti-intervention constituencies, ranging from committed religious or principled pacifists to American communists, who supported the Nazi-Soviet pact and therefore the notion that the United States should stay out of the European war.

But the most prominent of his opponents were the founders of the America First Committee, formed in September 1940. The committee opposed fighting Nazism and proposed a well-armed America confined largely to the Western Hemisphere. It soon afterwards adopted the noted aviator and enthusiast of fascism, Charles Lindbergh, as their favoured speaker. Lindbergh accepted a medal from Hermann Goering “in the name of the Fuhrer” during a visit to Germany in 1938, and “proudly wore the decoration”, the New York Times reported. He thought democracy was finished in Europe, that the western powers could not effectively resist the Nazi war machine and that the United States had better make terms with Adolf Hitler.

I think Trump stole the slogan off Winston, not Lindbergh!

Stats NZ reported:

Gross domestic product (GDP) increased 0.7 percent in the March 2016 quarter, following an increase of 0.9 percent in the December 2015 quarter, Statistics New Zealand said today. The latest growth was driven by the construction and health industries, but partly offset by decreases in the primary industries and manufacturing.  

“The main driver behind the GDP growth was construction, which rose 4.9 percent. This was the strongest quarterly growth for the industry since March 2014,” national accounts senior manager Gary Dunnet said.

The increase in construction also reflected higher construction-related investment. Investment in other construction (infrastructure such as roading and telecommunications) was up 12 percent – the highest quarterly growth since June 2014. Investment in residential building rose 4.2 percent, driven by strong increases in Auckland and Waikato, but eased in Canterbury.

Rising demand saw service industries grow 0.8 percent this quarter. The health and retail trade industries led the overall increase.

“We saw a larger population reflected in the rise in health care and consumer spending. When the rising population is taken into account, our GDP per capita rose 0.1 percent on the previous quarter,” Mr Dunnet said.

Strong tourist arrivals also supported the growth in service industries, reflecting a 4.9 percent rise in tourist spending.

That’s reasonable growth.  Bill English pointed out:

New Zealand’s annual growth rate of 2.8 per cent was in the top 10 of the OECD. It compares to 2.0 per cent in the United Kingdom and United States, 3.1 per cent in Australia, 1.1 per cent in Canada and 1.8 per cent across the OECD.

And we’re one of the very few countries with the books in surplus!

The Herald editorial:

One of those basic Western, liberal values is a tolerance of diverse views and open debate. Muslims who come here may arrive with distinctly non-Western values on the status of women and decency in dress and relationships. They justify their restrictive codes of dress and conduct on a sense of respect and self-respect that they find deficient in Western liberal values. Westerners find that sort of respect oppressive but it is good to have our attitudes challenged. To bar people because they do not share them would be the antithesis of basic Western, liberal values.

Not at all. Does the Herald editorial writer think for example we should welcome in members of the KKK because it is good to have our values challenged? How about neo-nazis from Europe? Would having more neo-nazis in NZ be good for our NZ as they will challenge our values? By the same basis, I don’t want people immigrating here who think gays should be stoned to death, that execution is the appropriate punishment for apostasy or that women are second class citizens.

The Herald reports:

The TVNZ journalist Paula Bennett’s press secretary leaked to was Rebecca Wright – a journalist with whom the Social Housing Minister has crossed swords in the past, including taking an unsuccessful complaint to the Broadcasting Standards Authority.

The minister’s press secretary told Ms Wright about a police investigation into the handling of a case by Te Puea Marae chairman Hurimoana Dennis, after Mr Dennis informed the minister about the matter in a private meeting last week.

The police investigation is not a criminal investigation into Mr Dennis personally, who could not be immediately reached for comment today.

Opposition MPs have claimed that the press secretary, Lucy Bennett, must have passed on the information with the minister’s permission. Paula Bennett has denied this, saying the first she knew about the leak was when a Radio NZ reporter asked her about it on Tuesday.

She has described the leak as inappropriate and has apologised to Mr Dennis, who is on leave from his role as police inspector and iwi liaison officer while the investigation is underway.

RNZ was the first to ask the minister about the leak. It is not known how RNZ found out about it.

Ms Wright has not responded to requests for comment. Lucy Bennett, who is not related to the minister, declined to comment or confirm Ms Wright was the journalist she spoke to.

My understanding is that what happened was gossip, not a deliberate leak. Press secretaries and reporters exchange gossip all the time. In this particular case, many in the media were already aware of the investigation into Mr Dennis, and an assumption was made Rebecca Wright already knew.

It was an error of judgement on Lucy Bennett’s part, but not any sort of deliberate act.

For those convinced it was some sort of deliberate strategy signed off by the Minister, well if so the last person they would choose to deliberately leak to is Rebecca Wright! As in even if every other journalist in NZ had Ebola, Paula would still not choose to deal with Rebecca Wright, let alone leak to her.

If TVNZ and Radio NZ had revealed immediately that the journalist talked to was Rebecca, then I doubt any one else in the media would have taken seriously the accusation that this was a deliberate leak. The ill will between the Minister and Rebecca is well known. You wonder if it was a deliberate decision not to reveal this, so the story would be more potent.