Obviously Hager cannot be blamed for anything that results from him telling the truth. In fact it's the conduct of those named in the book that has caused people's anger, not the book itself. The contrast between simply telling the truth and inciting somebody to do violence is clearly highlighted by this article published in the NZ Herald today:
Cactus Kate predicted ‘chop chop for Nicky’ if rich Chinese knew his details
Hager had, in 2013, helped research a Fairfax media article about the use of tax havens.
Odgers, a Hong Kong-based tax consultant, said in the email the material Hager was dealing with involved tens of thousands of rich Chinese.
"It would be a disaster if they all knew where he [Hager] lived. He may even need police protection", she wrote. "Those Chinese can be very vicious when they lose face ... Chop chop for Nicky."
Slater responded, Hager claims in his book, and the latter's addresses were subsequently published in a post on Whale Oil under Slater's name but which Odgers yesterday confirmed she wrote.
How despicable! Slater and Odgers clearly conspired to publish Hager's address because they wanted him to be killed. Not only does this display their racism towards Chinese people, it also shows that they will use any means to try and close down anybody they don't like. This includes publishing personal information in the hope that somebody would be murdered.
This is something the Jackal has had personal experience with. Back in March 2012, Cameron Slater published the address of somebody he thought was the author of this blog site. He was wrong! Slater's disgusting post included a number of threats to that person, his wife and their business interests.
The response from the Prime Minister hasn't been much better. Earlier this week, John Key was contradicting himself by saying that he didn't know what was in the book and it didn't bother him anyway. However, judging by his reaction on Tuesday, he clearly is terribly bothered by the revelations the book contains:
The Prime Minister tonight issued a response to the book, saying, "This is a cynically timed attack book from a well-known left-wing conspiracy theorist. It makes all sorts of unfounded allegations and voters will see it for what it is."
[...]
"Most people know that Nicky Hager is a screaming left-wing conspiracy theorist," he said on Tuesday.
In my opinion, John Key is looking rather desperate by claiming that Hager is simply a conspiracy theorist. Strangely enough, after there was some bad press concerning the entirely unfounded statement, National then tried to say that it wasn't really John Key's statement at all. Woops!
What makes Key's disrespectful accusation patently false is that Dirty Politics has been written using the actual emails between those named in the book. There is nothing theoretical about the disgusting things they write about, such as destroying other people's careers, secretly leaking private information and even conspiring to have people killed.
It seems that death threats go hand in hand with the dirty politics of the right wing.
