Dirty Politics
Dirty Politics, subtitled "How attack politics is poisoning New Zealand’s political environment", is a book by Nicky Hager published in August 2014.
The book is based on emails hacked from Cameron Slater's Gmail account and Facebook chats. This occurred around the same time that his website the right-wing blog Whale Oil Beef Hooked was taken down by a denial-of-service DOS attack and features hundreds of items of correspondence in which prominent New Zealanders are criticised and vilified. It describes a lengthy history of correspondence between Slater and Justice Minister Judith Collins that eventually contributed to her resignation as a Minister. In response to the allegations in the book, Prime Minister John Key said that he talked to Slater on a regular basis. Hager claimed that using bloggers rather than journalists allowed Key to maintain a friendly public persona, while using right wing blogs as a vehicle to attack opponents. Other bloggers mentioned in the book include Matthew Hooten, Cathy Odgers, who goes by the name of Cactus Kate, and David Farrar. However, Hager reserves his strongest criticism for Cameron Slater, who he says was paid to write attack articles on public figures who opposed or criticised National Party policy, and 'Dirty Politics' identifies those who paid him.
The book is based on emails hacked from Cameron Slater's Gmail account and Facebook chats. This occurred around the same time that his website the right-wing blog Whale Oil Beef Hooked was taken down by a denial-of-service DOS attack and features hundreds of items of correspondence in which prominent New Zealanders are criticised and vilified. It describes a lengthy history of correspondence between Slater and Justice Minister Judith Collins that eventually contributed to her resignation as a Minister. In response to the allegations in the book, Prime Minister John Key said that he talked to Slater on a regular basis. Hager claimed that using bloggers rather than journalists allowed Key to maintain a friendly public persona, while using right wing blogs as a vehicle to attack opponents. Other bloggers mentioned in the book include Matthew Hooten, Cathy Odgers, who goes by the name of Cactus Kate, and David Farrar. However, Hager reserves his strongest criticism for Cameron Slater, who he says was paid to write attack articles on public figures who opposed or criticised National Party policy, and 'Dirty Politics' identifies those who paid him.
In order to gain power, Anokhi Devi blackmails and sleeps with a politician.
Initial release: March 5, 2015
Director: K. C. Bokadia
Running time: 2h 10m
Producer: Nihal farhat
Genres: Bollywood, Drama film, Political thriller, Crime film.
Release:
Dirty Politics was released at Unity Books in Wellington on 13 August 2014, with a crowd of approximately 150. Prior to the release of the book, details of what it would be about were the subject of substantial speculation, as the topic of the book was kept secret in order to avoid it being blocked from release by a court injunction.
Four days after release, it had sold about 10,000 copies, in addition to 1,000 e-book sales. Robbie Burton, executive director of Craig Potton Publishing, said: "I've never seen anything like this before, in terms of the speed at which it's happening. A week after release, sales had reached approximately 15,000, and by mid September, sales were at almost 20,000. The first two chapters are available free on-line.
Two weeks after the release of the book, Hager spoke at the four-day biennial Writers & Readers Festival in Christchurch. About 5000 people attended 57 events, one of which was a public discussion called Secrets, Spies and Free Speech featuring Dirty Politics author Nicky Hager, Guardian journalist Luke Harding and Australian journalist Richard King. The discussion was mainly about the freedom of speech in Western democracies.
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