Springing a leak
It’s the nightmare of anyone who works for a political party at Parliament. You write an email for party consumption, you idly choose the wrong recipient from the Parliamentary Complex address book and, fatefully, you push send. E-mail makes inadvertent leaking a million times more likely.
It’s unclear how the NZ Herald got hold of a National campaign memo that it reports on this morning. Certainly, that party’s media unit has mistakenly sent out draft, annotated copies of policy announcements in the past, much to the glee of the media. I guess it’s possible that this was similarly a mistake. More likely, someone in the party decided to leak it.
Whatever the reason, the contents of the memo are potentially damaging. The memo reveals the party was concerned about Don Brash being portrayed as a flip-flopper, which of course he has on a great number of issues, including the Cullen Super Fund and Iraq. However, while parties would never want this information released publicly, all of them think about what attacks might be made on them and how to best counter those attacks.
Leaks are lapped up enthusiastically by the media. People who work for political parties are probably less keen. It’ll be interesting to see if National’s confidential campaign minutes keep turning up in the Herald. My guess, though, is that the powers-that-be will be rushing to find and stop the leak.
July 27th, 2005 at 9:42 am
Wow, not being a Herald reader I did not know. “What a mistaka to maka”. Joy
July 27th, 2005 at 10:07 am
Maybe Mallard’s outburst about policy being written in Washington was not so far off the mark.
Instead it was being vetted by an Aussie firm which has links to the 2 Howards (AU & UK).
Either way, it shows the style-over-substance approach of the current National campaign.
July 27th, 2005 at 3:03 pm
Frog - it wasn’t a memo from what I can see but a copy of the board minutes. They are not circulated electronically AFAIK. Very very very few people have access to board minutes - a deliberate leak is near unthinkable. Leaving a copy somewhere by accident is all I can imagine.
Fastbike - the xenophobia is a bad look. The Greens often get help from the Australian Greens. Political expertise exists outside one’s country and all parties use it.
July 28th, 2005 at 8:23 am
fatbike, you gets exhausts in the brain, this vet is a pragmatic analysis of policy outcome, not a review of policy, big breath and say after me bike,
ROD SO LOVED THE WORLD THAT HE COMMANDED ‘.. GIVE UNTO THE RICH YO TAXES’ even as you are being poison by the v8 fume fat gas,
see fast gas, even arrier says you catch xeno phall over youself
July 28th, 2005 at 9:34 pm
Wow, what a bombshell. Not. Try Tamihere and half a glass of red wine.
I’d put up H1 and co as “front-bums”, Chris Carter as “Tosser”, Cullen as the Mean Green dupester, Smarmy Maharey and co
versus
They need to counter Labour’s portayal of Brash as a flip-flop better
anyday.
July 29th, 2005 at 3:20 pm
Who said xenophobic?
Just pointing out the links between the policy advisors for various Tory parties.
The Greens are proud if their international co-operation and make no secret of it.
It’s interesting you made no comment on the matter of style-over-substance either.