Mike Sabin, smoke, mirrors and the tarring of an internationally renowned Kiwi born author, what was really behind it all?

Reading through the crap that comes out of New Zealand, as at least one of us does almost every day, LF struck upon a little column, posted today (2 February 2015). We located it on a small Kiwi blog that seems to be focused on issues in and around Mike Sabin’s old electorate. We could not really make head nor tail of whether or not the authors were for or against Mike Sabin, not that the political position was particularly relevant. We thought however that we would post the details and let our readers decide for themselves on that score. What we did however find was an interesting link in the post which we will canvass a little later:

MIKE SABIN QUITS  01.02.15
Local MP Mike Sabin has finally succumbed to pressure and announced that he is quitting Parliament for personal and family reasons.  It is believed that he is under investigation by the police but no details have been revealed.  See the report in the Northern Advocate here.

Prime Minister John Key has come under intense criticism for his handling of the matter.  See the article on Whale Oil with the comment about his dodging the issue:

It is this action by Key that’s the most concerning. It shows a dreadful lack of judgement. Sadly, you’re not allowed to know why. Another dirty job under the carpet. Nothing to see here, moving on.

The blanket of silence cast over the issue has created speculation as to what offence has been committed.  Some of that speculation is extreme, which is regrettable if it is not true and could have been avoided if the truth had been told.

But that its the way that it is in local and cental government – all smoke and mirrors and the truth an absent friend.

Mike Sabin will be remembered by most people in Kaipara as the man who supported the Commissioners by promoting the Validation Act which validated 6 years of the KDC’s illegal rates. 

Sadly, he also supported the drive by the Key government and the DIA to impose vindictive penalties on the ratepayer whistelblowers whose efforts brought to light the illegalities and incompetence of the Kaipara Council when the regulatory authorities and the auditor failed to do their duty..

Many believe that the spiteful penalties were promoted by the DIA and the government as a salutory lesson to other ratepayers in the country that whistleblowing and withholding rates would be dealt with sternly by the authorities.

Mike Sabin was also well known for his resolve to “leave no stone unturned” to obtain compensation from the Office of the Auditor General for that Office’s responsibiity fo the Kaipara fiasco.  That is a matter that is now before the court but there is little doubt that John Key’s government will have reached some arrangement in respect of agreed compensation with the OAG’s insurers and the KDC.  Like all things in local government, it will be a jack-up.

Source: http://www.kaiparaconcerns.co.nz/

Whilst the article above listed many of Sabin’s sins, the cue that actually peaked our interest was just one word, that word disguised a url link to an LF article,

The blanket of silence cast over the issue has created speculation as to what offence has been committed. Some of that speculation is extreme, which is regrettable if it is not true and could have been avoided if the truth had been told.

Of course absolutely everything that’s in the body of the text posted on the Kiapara based blog seems an accurate enough assessment, except of course the bit about our “speculation” being “EXTREME”. Nevertheless we agree whole heartedly with the argument that much of the “speculation” of other blogs could have been avoided had John Key, the National party and or Sabin himself told the truth – given the public what they were legitimately entitled to.

After all every one of these people and institutions exist to serve the publics best interests, they are the people’s elected representatives and as such are completely accountable to the voting public for their actions. There are no concealed mandates that let those in authority behave in skullduggerous corrupt ways. There are no laws that enable them to hide serious wrong doing or criminality from the people – the citizenry who have placed their trust in these elected representatives to execute their sworn duties in an open, honest and transparent way.

Despite this however, that’s exactly what they haven’t done, instead they have lied to the people, they have seriously breached that trust, but perhaps worst of all they are now obviously again conspiring with the New Zealand Police and local Kiwi media in furtherance of a conspiracy to conceal the serious criminal offending of one of their own, save it damages irreparably the governments standing and the well manicured garden image of New Zealand, its political elite, aka the current crop holding power, and the powerful political entity known as the National party.

The information that LF brings to the publics attention, often mistaken for being views or opinion, is quite often seen as extreme, but only ever so by the more naive amongst the population – Those realists amongst our readers, or perhaps better still, the readers who have personal experience of New Zealand and it’s governments many wily ways will know that what we present, whilst seeming extreme, is little more than the truth.

Our own article on Mike Sabin, the conclusions we had drawn from what appeared to be the available information, might for example have seemed extreme, but our regular readers will have known to read between the lines – and that there was likely more to come, that LF, as is our habit on occasion, were simply biding time. Those readers who did join those dots were indeed wise.

New Zealand’s elected officials, it’s police force and on this occasion it’s low rent jurists should also have realised that they too were being put on notice that LF held more information than we had been letting on. Often we here at LF employ this technique as a strategy for various reasons that we won’t go into now. On this occasion however the stakes were far too important, especially for justice and the public good. We were simply waiting to see just how New Zealand’s political elite, and of course their media spin doctors, would react. Whether they had in fact realised that they were in checkmate and needed to start being honest, or whether despite LF’s warning they would revert to form and yet again attempt to cheat New Zealanders of their democratic birthrights.

Over the past decade the issue of child abuse, sexual, emotional and physical, has been at the forefront of news bulletins around the globe. In particular media organisations in Commonwealth nations including the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia have lead the charge. European Union Member States too, Ireland, Germany and many others, have all had significant cause for concern with the tide of public opinion shifting, now backing the victims of child sexual abuse in particular, especially in the area of historic Institutionalised abuse.

In Australia it is an issue the was beginning to gain momentum from the beginning of the new millennium and eventually resulted in the labour lead Government making a long overdue public apology to the many thousands of children who had suffered differing forms of abuse at the hands of their guardians, those in power, the many churches, the Commonwealth and State government bureaucrats and to a lesser extent the justice system itself, starting with many failed police investigations.

Each of these countries entered the process of investigation, recognition and reconciliation at different times throughout the last decade, all eventually reaching their point of no return, brought about by culturally unique triggers.

As a country Australia’s journey began on the 8th June 1999 with an ABC 7.30 report. The programs frontman at the time, Kerry O’Brien, reporting on the first Queensland Inquiry of significance:

KERRY O’BRIEN: A former State governor handed out a message of shame for all Australians today when she detailed a litany of horror — many decades of institutionalised child abuse involving both church and State.

A horror that spans most of this century, right through to the ’80s.

Former Queensland governor Leneen Forde was commissioned by her State to inquire into claims of horrific child abuse in orphanages and institutions for State wards.

The results of that inquiry revealed significant numbers of children suffered significant physical, sexual or emotional abuse.

Police will be asked to investigate 14 allegations of possible criminal conduct.

Although the inquiry was confined to Queensland, Leneen Forde says the horror story must also apply everywhere else in Australia.

The complete transcript of the program is still available at – http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/stories/s28363.htm

As a result of the report and the publicity garnered in the media the Queensland Government, with representatives of religious authorities, including the Catholic and Anglican churches and the Salvation Army, issued a formal apology for instances of past abuse and neglect in Queensland institutions. For a while the issue then had little further public scrutiny, doing little more than simmer away in the background, despite the laborious efforts of many organisations and advocates.

Then in 2012, the issue was again brought to the Australian publics attention by another of the ABC’s 7:30 reports. This time it was an interview with a high-ranking New South Wales police officer who had turned whistleblower. That interview, and the shocking revelations of Detective chief Inspector Peter Fox swept the issue from the back burner and onto the front pages of almost every major daily, creating a firestorm, a controversy with unavoidable political dimensions, that quickly engulfed the political incumbents in all States and ultimately the Commonwealth government forcing then Labour party Prime Minister Julia Gillard to act quickly and decisively. Thus the Royal Commission into the Institutional Response to Child Sexual abuse came into being.

The issue of child sexual abuse has again raised its ugly head in the United Kingdom with the very recent publicity and inquiry into extremely old accusations of organised paedophile rings, in particular the alleged involvement of politicians and various other high-ranking government officials, allegations which have for decades apparently been concealed by the Government, the justice system and that country’s police.

Westminster child abuse scandal: KGB and CIA kept secret dossiers on Britain’s VIP paedophiles

Despite the massive international shift in public awareness surrounding these historic allegations, in particular within Commonwealth jurisdictions, New Zealand, also a member State, has done absolutely nothing. As a Commonwealth member nation, successive Kiwi governments have completely disowned the idea that such criminal behaviour could ever have occurred in New Zealand to the degree that had been the experience elsewhere. In fact anyone who dared raise the prospect of institutionalised child sexual abuse or exploitation, or that there was or is a very real problem, was likely to be howled down, treated with complete contempt and wholesale derision by both the government, a highly vocal right-wing minority and of course the country’s politically sycophantic media.

When the Australian Royal Commission had already commenced hearings an Australian journalist with inside information thought to put a few questions to the New Zealand Minister responsible for child welfare, National party attack dog Paula Bennett. Bennett however treated the issue with an almost glib disdain, advising the Australian journo that New Zealand had no real need for such an inquiry, this view apparently being held by the New Zealand Government despite the obvious fact that many of the institutions named in the Australian inquiry had an active presence in New Zealand and had a substantial role in child welfare in New Zealand for almost a century, all of which had been endorsed by the various Kiwi governments of the day:

Paula Bennett: NZ govt sees no need for sex abuse inquiry.

NOVEMBER 14, 2012

…..However, the New Zealand government has no plans to follow suit, with Social Development Minister Paula Bennett saying enough is already being done.

“I think the fact that we have been addressing historical abuse cases in this country, we have been doing it faster than it’s ever been done, we’ve been fronting up to some of the liability around that and settling a number of cases,” Ms Bennett said.

That includes the confidential listening and assistance service, through which people can raise allegations of abuse or neglect, or who have concerns relating to their time in state care before 1992.
“I think we’ve got other things in place that are addressing what, without a doubt, is cases of historical abuse.”

Source: http://laudafinem.com/2012/11/14/paula-bennett-nz-govt-sees-no-need-for-sex-abuse-inquiry/

Of course Paula Bennett’s avoidance of the issue went largely unreported in New Zealand, more often seen by Australian news consumers, and like most National party politicians both John Key and Paula Bennett continued to side step the subject of historic child abuse as if it was the fucking plague.

It is worthwhile pointing out that the so-called “addressing of historic cases” had involved little more than a self reporting telephone number that was not widely published and remained active for a very short period. There was also a website which advised of the many limitations, among others, victims who did think to contact this service would be entitled to a support person, providing they were not legally qaulified – yes you read right, victims who used this so-called government service dedicated to the “addressing of historic cases” were not entitled to legal representation. If interested, LF readers can find out more on the various other Kiwi blogs set up to deal with this issue specifically (See; http://newzealandchildabuse.com/new-zealand-rejects-calls-for-royal-commission-into-historic-abuse/)

The governments endeavour’s, backed by both Key and Bennett, were in short an approach that flew in the face of the most recent empirical evidence and internationally recommended best practice in cases of delayed disclosure. It was a process that likely revictimized anyone who thought they might get the qualified help they had desperately sought, sometimes for decades. The policy was in effect a complete and utter waste of time and taxpayers money, it may however have been designed to save the New Zealand government, the offending institutions and churches millions in compensation claims, the failure to allow legal representation is certainly indicative of such an agenda.

In fact here at LF we suspect that “historically” this issue may well have been a plague in every sense of the word in New Zealand and that successive Kiwi governments of both left and right political persuasions have very carefully sidestepped the issue, repeatedly sweeping often very serious offending under their infamous dusty Beehive carpets. The fact that New Zealand had likely been affected to a far greater extent than Bennett or any other Kiwi politician were willing to admit was soon enough evidenced when the Australian Royal Commission and the police officers supporting the commissioner started looking more closely at New Zealand, in particular for what police in Australia commonly refer to as “persons of interest”;

Australian police may interview NZ clergy

11:57 AM Wednesday Nov 14, 2012

New Zealand clergy face being interviewed by Australian police as part of a Royal Commission investigating how institutions – including churches – allegedly covered up claims of child sex abuse, a victims right advocate says.

Radio New Zealand reported today that a group that investigates church-related sexual abuse says clergy in New Zealand are among those Australian police want to interview.

The Australian Government announced this week it would set up a Royal Commission to investigate how institutions including schools, foster homes and churches have handled accusations of abuse.

The Catholic church in New Zealand had said its officials would investigate the handling of a paedophile priest who came to Hamilton from Australia 30 years ago, Radio New Zealand reported.

John McNally of Australian support group Broken Rites, told the radio station that the case being reviewed by the church was only “the tip of the iceberg”.

He said police wanted to talk to members of the Catholic order St John of God.

Source: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10847324

Bennett then of course, undoubtedly as a distraction, threw her political weight behind a few more contemporary child abuse cases where she and her political companions could be certain of controlling the media, cases where the government held absolutely no culpability whatsoever – that the accused could be vilified satisfactorily without it appearing too much like a politically expedient witch hunt – little more than a “we are doing something” political show-pony .

What Paula Bennett had not told her adoring public however was the fact that among the suite of government responses, one of the men responsible for what we’ll euphemistically term the “Kiwi solution” was a retired police commissioner with a seriously long history of police corruption and coverup. That man was of course ex Christchurch District Commander and Police Commissioner John Jamieson.

Following his seriously dubious stella career as a police officer John Jamison also went on to hold a seat in Parliament, under the guise of the conservative Christian Democrats Party, then followed by a brief stint running New Zealand’s North Island jails.  Jamieson was then later engaged by the New Zealand Catholic Church to bury their institutional child abuse problems. Of course this agenda was kept well away from the public, but it was nevertheless the reality. Whilst we are on the subject of New Zealand’s so-called Christian based political parties we should also perhaps mention the now notorious Christian Heritage party, purportedly founded to rid New Zealand of child abuse, and who’s leader Graham Capill went on to be convicted of child sex offences in 2005, finally sentenced to eight years, Capill too was initially granted name suppression.

Kiwi journo, Ian Wishart touched on one scandal in particular, an investigative piece published in 2007. That story involved perverse police activities, including alleged organised paedophile groups with links to police, the offending which had been buried back in the early 1990’s, had John Jamieson’s style stamped all over it whilst he was commissioner of police.

The same affair had also entangled then police Commissioner Howard Broad, who also, following his departure from the New Zealand police’s top job, was somewhat strangely later appointed to head up another matter involving child abuse, an enquiry into Child Youth and family services. The decision to appoint Broad was made by?  You guessed it, Paula Bennett;

Ex police commissioner Howard Broad to head CYF inquiry

OCTOBER 12, 2012

Former Police Commissioner Howard Broad has been chosen to lead a new independent inquiry into Child, Youth and Family’s complaints process.

Social Development Minister Paula Bennett made the announcement at Rotorua today, in the first of a series of talks on the newly-released White Paper to address child abuse and neglect.

Source: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10840116

LF at the time posted an article pointing out the seriously flawed judgement behind Bennett’s choice, that as a result of Broads past the so-called inquiry was likely to be just another political whitewash, which was as it turned out exactly what transpired.

The fact is that the New Zealand police, despite all the self-aggrandizing celebratory political back slapping that followed the “we’ve fixed everything” Dame Margaret Bazley’s Commission of Inquiry into Police Conduct, are still not to be trusted. The New Zealand police’s history when dealing with children, the country’s youth and their welfare is appalling. Amongst police ranks, at the highest levels, there have been serious sex offenders, some have been caught, but not before the New Zealand police as an institution had done their damnedest to hide their own crimes.

The allegations surrounding the Mount Maunganui sexual assaults and rapes, which culminated in the Louise Nicholas case, also had disturbing elements, some in fact bordering on organised police paedophile activity, that were completely ignored by the police, Crown law and country’s mainstream media both during the last investigation into the offending, the cover ups and later prosecutions.

Now it’s in the face of this historic behaviour by the New Zealand authorities, in particular its police force, criminal justice system and its many governments that we now return to the present day.

As regular readers will know, LF have published a number of stories that have exposed the identities of sexual predators over the past six or so months. Almost all of them having been willfully concealed by the Kiwi political class, the police and the courts, using super injunctions or name suppression orders – these cases are of course just the tip of a very large iceberg that the New Zealand government has been hell bent on concealing from the voting public. All of which has occurred in the face of a seismic shift in awareness internationally. The current New Zealand National party majority Government, headed up by their best used car salesman, the retired merchant banker Prime Minister John Key, has again decided to resort to the tried and proven techniques of lying, obfuscation and media spin in order to save their own sorry fucking political arses.

It’s yet another case of the political class fucking with the victims of crime, denying them the justice that they are entitled to. Of course the courts are attempting to pass the behind the scenes political interference off as non-existent, instead hiding behind the pretense that the victims need protecting, their names and far more importantly the names of the offenders expunged from the public record. Our experience is however the opposite, that the best protection money can buy is in fact complete and utter public exposure, as the well-known quote from U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis goes “sunlight is the best disinfectant”, Brandeis was of course refering to the benefits of openness and transparency.

Now MP Mike Sabin himself caught LF’s attention a while back for two distinct reasons. First he was an ex-cop, and like all ex-cops who enter the civil service, in areas other than the police, and or who decide to run for elected public office, they need to be closely watched. The second issue raised itself when Sabin was eventually elected and had started making rumbling sounds around the removal of the right to silence. This move, particularly coming from Sabin, an ex-cop, was of serious concern and pointed to the likelihood that Sabin’s chains were in fact likely being rattled by the New Zealand police hierarchy – That Sabin was in fact little more than a proxy for the police, a glove puppet who was not really in parliament to represent his electorates constituents.

As with all cops turned politician, like John Jamieson, they almost always have an agenda, especially if there has been a history of questionable behaviour during or after their police career and needless to say when their political agenda’s are likely to be discreetly endorsed by police, whether that endorsement is publicly acknowledged or not.

There is absolutely no doubt that the New Zealand police had long been manoeuvring to have the right to silence removed from New Zealand law, they had clearly liked what they had seen transpire within the New South Wales legislature (Evidence Amendment (Evidence of Silence) Act 2013) and had sought to follow suit. Incidentally the New South Wales amendment of 2013 continues to come under mounting criticism from civil rights advocates and the legal fraternity, including some amongst the States jurists and those changes may ultimately be repealed.

It was Sabin’s appointment by the Key Government to the Chair of law and order committee that really started the alarm bells sounding. Sabin had not spent any time in Parliament, his appointment in fact overlooked far more suitable and better qualified parliamentarians, who would have been a little more circumspect and likely seen the dangers in such a move and acted accordingly.

Sabin on the other hand did not give a flying Rats arse about the constitutional issues, not that he was even capable of comprehending them. For more than obvious reasons Sabin completely ignored the history of corruption and the long shadow of prosecutorial abuse committed by the New Zealand Police force. There were already huge hurdles for an accused person ever receiving a fair trial in New Zealand and Sabin’s pet private members bill, calling for the removal of a 450 year old cornerstone of legal rights and protections in criminal procedure, would have done little but exacerbate those risks had it ever become law, particularly in the land of the long white shroud.

All of these  facts makes the probable conspiracy that is now unfolding one of the most unpalatable in New Zealand legal history. But it’s not just about the history of serious injustice in that country, this case is also about a huge abuse of power, authority that has been wielded by a thoroughly sick police force for decades without ever having faced a genuine or credible challenge, even when cases of that perverse abuse have historically surfaced and been exposed, but there’s never been the imposition of anything close resembling an appropriate punishment or deterrent.

This behaviour is no longer tenable now that, the Government, Crown law and the police have inveigled the courts. Needless to say when that occurs, history has taught us that huge cracks have already begun to appear in the rule of law and that democracy, as it should be, is beginning to seriously falter.

Whats more when the country’s parliament, in particular the political opposition, then fails to ask pertinent questions or force the issue then democracy is in very real and serious trouble.

In the case of Mike Sabin every one of these box’s has now been ticked. The Prime Minister is foolishly continuing to lie about what he knew and when, we know this given the nature of the truth surrounding what Sabin was being investigated for and the later charge’s, when the complaint was first made, the refusal of the police to even acknowledge that there was an ongoing investigation and the courts subsequent granting of a super injunction on anything to do with the so-called “prominent New Zealander”.

Team LF have known all along the seriousness of the offences that Sabin had been accused of, at first, last December it was just an educated guess, based on sound research and then soon enough, just prior to Christmas 2014 break, we received more information confirming our worst suspicions.

It was only last week that the media covered what were for all intense in purposes designed to look like two quite separate issues, Sabin’s sudden resignation and a same day court appearance of a faceless person, known only as the “prominent New Zealander.

Of course the Court collusion enabling others to pull this stunt has been little more than an exercise in farting against thunder, this time the police game plan was botched, the timing all wrong, especially given that the cat was already out of the bag. They however ploughed on with the government’s strategy to spin their way out of what will undoubtedly become a public relations nightmare.

New Zealand Prime minister John Key was only this morning forced to again front media questions on the Sabin matter, just what were the allegations and exactly when did he know that there was a problem. John Key did little more that continue the spin doctor prescribed mantra of I KNEW NOTHING, at least until December 2014. Key knows that so long as the facts remain concealed behind a court super injunction then his lies cannot be easily challenged. John Key was in fact banking on walking away unscathed, once the police and governments plan had been set in quick dry cement, the strategy hinging on the matter being dealt with swiftly and the relatively minor detail of permanent name suppression being put in place within a matter of weeks. Now when you compare that time frame with the two years it has taken the Jesse Ryder assault case to work its way through the courts then something begins to look seriously amiss.

This is in fact a time-honoured strategy, especially within the New Zealand police force, who as we have said many times before, have used it to bury the offending of their own police officers. This time however the stakes are far greater, both for the police, the Crown prosecutor and politicians who signed off on the deal and a police wary public who are yet again being duped.

The facts that form the Sabin allegations are most certainly in the public interest, of that we here at LF are in absolutely no doubt. The degree of interest is extreme, the anger is building, and justice is being treated as the National party’s own bitch, to arse fuck as they please. It’s all rather reminiscent of what went on in the New Zealand police force when the hierarchy attempted to conceal the Mt Maunganui rapes, but on a size that is frankly unthinkable in this day and age.

Sabin resigned last Friday, but before he did so he had already appeared at an undisclosed District court where he faced four charges of sexual assault on children, the youngest being just eight years old.

The Fairfax article which reported on the “prominent New Zealanders” appearance, whilst designed to conceal Sabin’s identity and any facts surrounding the matter, nevertheless likely gave away, no doubt unwittingly, some very important additional information.

Prominent New Zealander in court
11:26 am, January 30 2015
A prominent New Zealander has appeared in court facing multiple charges, but all details of the case have been made secret. The man appeared this morning in a district court and was granted name suppression, along with sweeping other suppressions covering details and facts of the case. He was remanded at large to reappear in court for a disputed-facts hearing next month.
Source: http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/65584228/prominent-new-zealander-in-court

Such a remand whether at large, on bail or in custody is normally only ever granted following a guilty plea but where some of the information contained in the Police Summary of Facts / Caption Sheet (an alternative name) is disputed by the defendant.

A conviction would almost certainly have been entered except in the case of a discharge without conviction being sought, in which cases disputed fact hearings are very rare.

Note also that all offences of a genuinely sexual nature in New Zealand carry maximum sentences of imprisonment and very few sexual offences carry maximum sentences of less than 2 years imprisonment.

For example, the offence of indecent exposure, which only attracts a maximum prison term of three months comes to mind (s27 New Zealand Summary Offences Act, 1981).

Prime Minister John Key was also widely reported as claiming that the decision to resign was made by Sabin himself (See [ad nauseam]; Stuffed.co, NZ Herald, Media Works / TV3).

Key’s repeated claims however cannot be sustained in light of the evidence, for if Sabin had pleaded guilty to, and therefore been convicted of, a sexual offence he almost certainly would have been liable to, or at least in jeopardy of, receiving a sentence of imprisonment (See; New Zealand Crimes Act, Sexual Crimes, s127 -144).

The New Zealand Electoral Act 1993 is clear in this area. The Act would have proscribed Sabin from remaining a Member of Parliament in the situation we have just described. Therefore, if, as we suspect, the above has indeed occurred then the decision to resign was not Sabin’s at all, rather a fait accompli.

New Zealand Prime Minister John Key has once again, and continues to be less than truthful with the New Zealand public – in short the bastard has again employed trickstering, huckstering, spin, weasel words and lies to mislead the public for the benefit of the National party and its desperate attempts to cling to power.

Whats more, given the nature and seriousness of Sabin’s alleged offending, also being mindful of PM John Key’s infamous “no surprises policy”, there would be absolutely no doubt in the minds of any well-adjusted, rational thinking person that John Key would undoubtedly have been among the very first advised of both the allegations and the police investigation, whether it was by Sabin himself, the commissioner of police or the Minister responsible, the minute the allegations surfaced and LF has also been advised that was much earlier than either John Key or Peter Good Fellow are willing to admit.

It seems that New Zealand publication, the National Business Review have been handed pretty much the same information;

NBR understands the PM was first made aware of the assault complaint in April last year, months before the September 20 ballot – and that the National Party knew before the 2011 election.

Source: http://thedailyblog.co.nz/2015/02/03/the-incredible-disappearing-news-story-of-john-key-caught-lying-over-mike-sabin

So then, with that we now come to the National party spin doctors and their rabid use of smoke screens, mirrors and of course their habit of wheeling out the shit-slings whenever they need to muddy up the creek.

Was it not indeed fortunate for the Government that the New Zealand media and the country’s exceptionally gullible public just happened to be handed a convenient diversion in the form of Eleanor Catton’s now seemingly ever so divisive comments, misquoted, out of context and allegedly made at some obscure Indian writers festival, Jaipur no less?

After all John Key is still out there today manning that particular turd lobbing trebuchet;

Eleanor Catton has ‘no particular great insights into politics’, says John Key

11:30 AM Monday Feb 2, 2015

Prime Minister John Key has dismissed Eleanor Catton’s criticisms of his government, saying they should not be given any more credence than those of the Mad Butcher or Richie McCaw.

The Luminaries author and Man Booker Prize winner attracted controversy last week after comments she made at the Jaipur Literary Festival in India were published on the Live Mint news website.

She said she was angry with the Government’s treatment of the arts and the country’s “neoliberal, profit-obsessed, very shallow, very money-hungry politicians”.

“I feel uncomfortable being an ambassador for my country when my country is not doing as much as it could, especially for the intellectual world,” she said.

Appearing on TVNZ’s Breakfast show this morning, Mr Key said Catton’s views on politics shouldn’t be taken any differently than those of any other New Zealander.

“She has no particular great insights into politics, she is a fictional writer. I have great respect for her as a fictional writer [sic].”

Mr Key conceded he had read some, but not all of the Luminaries.

“Obviously it’s done phenomenally well and I’m really proud of her, but it would be no different from Richie McCaw or the Mad Butcher or anybody else having a view on politics.

“They’re absolutely entitled to do that, but her views on politics are no more authoritative than anybody else’s.

“I mean, if it’s Corin Dann, and he’s the chief political reporter, then his comments carry more weight because that’s what he does for a job.”

Mr Key previously dismissed Catton’s views on the Government as being those of the Greens.

Her comments have attracted the ire of the right, with Radio Live presenter Sean Plunket calling a “traitor” and an “ungrateful hua”, a Maori slang word that was widely mistaken for “whore” by listeners.

The Taxpayers’ Union meanwhile revealed she had received upwards of $50,000 of public funding in the past few years.

Catton responded to the accusations with a statement on her blog. In it she accused New Zealand’s mainstream media of publishing “inflammatory, vicious and patronising” things about her.

In an interview with the Guardian at the weekend, she criticised “the scale and shabbiness of this jingoistic national tantrum”, which she said “shames me deeply as a New Zealander”.

“I believe it can be countered only with eloquence, imagination, and reasoned debate – qualities that might seem to have disappeared from our national conversation, but that persist, and will continue to persist, despite efforts to humiliate and silence those who speak out.”

Source: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11395177

All just a little too fucking convenient really, don’t you think? Anyway, just how was it that radio shock jock Sean Plunket, again so conveniently, came by his misinformation on Catton and then thought it a good idea to start a very public shit fight? And to think it all came about just before Mike Sabin’s rapid departure and an out of left field appearance of a never before heard of case involving yet another of those “Prominent New Zealanders”?

Perhaps that’s a question that should now be on the lips of every New Zealander, was it more a question of political convenience perhaps, throw the dog something that looks like a bone whilst you bury the real thing?

As for New Zealand’s Courts, and at least one nameless District Court judge, well we suspect that they too have now just unwittingly joined a very exclusive club, the same club in which New Zealand’s police force were inaugeral members – New Zealand’s most despised!

Ms Eleanor Catton may have ‘no particular great insights into politics’, but scumbags like John Key really ought to be very wary, for there are thousands out there in the real world that certainly do, and Team LF are among them!

In 2004 the New Zealand government claimed the high moral ground and interferred in the prosecution of Pitcairn Islanders for exactley this sort of child abuse, the truth is however that New Zealand appears everybit as bad, if not worse; “Evil under the long white cloud” perhaps?.

Evil under the sun: The dark side of the Pitcairn Island

And as for the New Zealand police and their corrupt commissioner Mike Bush? Well what can we say that has not already been said before, other than perhaps adding that we sincerely hope that prize cunts like Detective Detective Sergeant Peter Litherland choke on this post!