Cameron Slater's Selective Outrage Over Benjamin Doyle

Cameron Slater, the once-feared Whale Oil blogger now pathetic bedroom hack, is back at it again, flogging a dead horse while the rest of the right-wing propaganda circus has packed up and left town. His latest fixation? Green MP Benjamin Doyle, whose private social media account sparked a brief, baseless frenzy among the right wing conspiracy crowd. But while even the most rabid propagandists have moved on, Slater’s still out there, ranting like a man unhinged, desperate to keep the Doyle story alive. It’s not just pathetic…it’s peak hypocrisy from a man who’s made a career out of selective outrage.

Doyle’s private account raised a few eyebrows until the MP delivered a clear, forthright explanation that shut down the speculation. No scandal, no conspiracy—just a personal account blown out of proportion by the tinfoil-hat brigade. The evidence was flimsier than a paper tissue, and most of Slater’s allies, sensing a dud, quietly dropped it. Even the frothiest commentators, such as Sean Plunket (who had previously defamed Doyle), realised there was no story here. But not Cam. He’s still spinning wild yarns about Doyle’s supposed depravity and claiming there’s a conspiracy within mainstream media not to report, with zero substance to back it up, as if the world didn’t get the memo that this homophobic tale’s deader than dial-up internet.

Now, let’s highlight Slater’s incoherent hypocrisy. One minute he’s slamming the media for ignoring his Doyle hit job, whining that they’re shirking their duty. Yet when it comes to actual scandals involving actual predators, Slater’s as silent as the once vociferous but now discredited right wing propagandist, Michelle Boag. Does anybody even remember her?

Take the Tim Jago convictions and cover up for instance, the former ACT Party president and convicted pedophile, who abused teenage boys in the 1990s through his role at a sports club, was a major scandal that should have sunk David Seymours' career. The ACT Party helped the pedophile to hide and downplay his crimes. Did Slater dedicate a single blog post to exposing Jago’s pedophilia? Not a peep. And what about the Two By Twos cult, a secretive sect with a chilling number of pedophilia cases, including allegations of systemic abuse swept under the rug? National politician Hamish Campbel was caught blatantly lying about his links to the cult. But did Slater make any mention of this? No! Once again it was absolute crickets from Cam. For a self-styled crusader, his blind spots are glaringly politically biased.

This is Slater’s playbook: scream about imagined conspiracies on the left while dodging real horrors on the right that don’t fit his pathetic and childish narrative. He’ll smear a Green MP with baseless gossip but won’t touch stories that might upset his right-wing mates. It’s not just lazy…it’s spineless disinformation from a has-been blogger. The man who is cozying up to other reprobates like Winston Peters is now a complete caricature, a hypocritical fool chasing phantoms while real predators like Jago and cults like the Two By Twos completely escape his radar.

Slater’s Doyle obsession isn’t just a waste of pixels; it’s a sign of his irrelevance…irrelevance Slater amusingly accuses other bloggers of. The mainstream media and right-wing noise machine has moved on, and even his old cronies aren’t buying Slater’s homophobic rubbish! Yet here he is, alone in his echo chamber, recycling tired old tropes about a non-issue. Cam, just take the hint. New Zealand has moved on. Maybe it’s time you did too.

Erica Stanford Put New Zealand’s Security At Risk

Education and Immigration Minister Erica Stanford must resign for using her personal Gmail account to handle sensitive government business...think pre-Budget announcements, visa changes, and chats with conservative think-tank mates. This isn’t just a whoopsie; it’s a screaming neon sign flashing “hack me” to every cyber-criminal from Beijing to Moscow. And National’s excuse? Brace yourselves: printer issues and email error messages. Are we in 2025 or 1995?

Stanford’s private Gmail account, hosted on servers in the United States, is about as secure as a paper bag in a rainstorm. Unlike government systems, personal email accounts are prime targets for hackers....remember the DNC hack in 2016, where sensitive emails were splashed across the internet? Stanford’s been emailing herself Budget details and visa policy drafts, potentially exposing taxpayer-funded plans to foreign actors or corporate spies. The Cabinet Manual, updated in 2023, explicitly warns ministers against this, stating personal emails should be avoided for ministerial work. Yet, Stanford’s been at it for over a year, flouting rules meant to protect New Zealand’s security.


Today, 1 News reported:

 

Erica Stanford sent pre-Budget documents to her personal email

Parliament's server repeatedly identifies her as a "suspect sender" in the subject line of emails as a result of security filtering.

Her use of personal email appears to be a potential breach of the Cabinet manual that all ministers are obliged to follow, and opens the door to a risk of confidential government information getting into the wrong hands.

…

Emails show that the day before, at just after 10am, Stanford forwarded to her personal email all the documents for the announcement, including the draft press release, the draft fact sheet, speaking notes - some of which have been redacted - and a note from her private secretary team.

…

Dr Michael Johnston was named the chair and is a senior fellow at the New Zealand iInitiative, a conservative think tank.

Emails between Stanford and Johnston, revealed in a separate OIA request in released in May 2024, show repeated communication with him - directly emailing Stanford's personal email on three occasions discussing Ministry of Education business.

National’s defence is laughably thin. They claim Stanford needed to forward sensitive documents to her Gmail to print them because her electorate office printer wasn’t hooked up to the Parliamentary server until last month. Printer issues? Really? In an era where Parliament’s tech lets you print from anywhere, this smells like a flimsy cover story. And email error messages? If Stanford’s team couldn’t sort basic IT glitches, how are they handling multi-million-dollar portfolios? This isn’t just incompetence; it’s a national security risk that must ensure Erica Standford’s resignation.

Now, cast your mind back to 2018. National hounded Labour’s Clare Curran, demanding her resignation for using a Gmail account for minor government business. No classified info, no Budget leaks...just a meeting arranged via personal email. National and their attack bloggers screamed about transparency and record-keeping, painting Curran as a reckless loose cannon. Their unwarranted attacks went on for months. Fast forward to 2025, and our weak Prime Minister Christopher Luxon is apparently “super relaxed” about Stanford’s far graver breach. Hundreds of emails, sensitive documents, potential OIA dodging and crony deals…yet National shrugs. The hypocrisy here is astounding!

And then there’s Stanford’s cosy chats with Dr Michael Johnston of the New Zealand Initiative, a conservative think tank. Emails show her discussing replacing tertiary academics and hand-picking reviewers to steer curriculum changes…without due process. Why? To get the results National wants, of course. This isn’t governance; it’s a stitch-up, bypassing expertise for ideology. Stanford’s not just risking our security; she’s undermining our education system’s integrity.

New Zealand deserves far better. Stanford’s Gmail security breach and National’s pathetic excuses expose a government that’s cavalier with our safety and selective with its outrage. If printer problems and email errors are enough to justify this mess, what’s next? Faxing Budget secrets because the Wi-Fi’s down? Time for Stanford to face the music…no excuses, no double standards. Erica Stanford must resign.

Nobody Should Be Praising Bob Jones

The recent passing of "Sir" Bob Jones, the property tycoon and political meddler, has sparked an unsettling wave of accolades from across the political spectrum, including from some on the left. And although I don’t like to speak ill of the dead, ignoring what this evil man did to this great country would be a betrayal of my principles. Jones didn’t just profit from New Zealand’s economic upheaval; he orchestrated it, leaving a legacy of inequality and cultural insensitivity that we’re still grappling with today.


On Friday, RNZ reported:

 

Businessman and politician Sir Bob Jones dead at 85

Jones imposed himself on the New Zealand consciousness like few other businesspeople of his time.

He amassed a multi-billion portfolio of commercial buildings in Auckland, Wellington, and Glasgow, Scotland, as well as forming a political party to challenge Robert Muldoon's National Party.

Born in Lower Hutt into a poor but talented family, he won a boxing blue at Victoria University but dropped out to work in advertising and publishing.

What most of the MSM articles aren't telling you is that Jones' political interference has substantially degraded New Zealand. In 1983 he founded the New Zealand Party, not out of some noble vision for the public good as the right wing propagandists wish you to believe, but to dismantle the National Party’s grip on power under Robert Muldoon, who Jone's viewed as being too liberal.

Bob's political party was a calculated manipulation, siphoning votes off National to deliver the 1984 election to Labour, who then unleashed the terribly damaging Rogernomics, which sold off state assets, undermined unions and decimated numerous essential industries. Similar to Thatcherism and Reaganomics, Finance Minister Roger Douglas’s neoliberal blitz in the short term lowered wages and increased unemployment...but in the long term it killed off industries and pushed investment into non-productive sectors, putting the dream of owning a house forever out of reach for many Kiwi families.

Jones himself admitted his party was redundant once Labour adopted his free-market dogma, disbanding it post-election. This wasn’t democracy; it was a rich man buying an election. His wealth and media clout turned the New Zealand Party into a battering ram for Labour's deregulation, privatisation, and tax cuts that favoured the elite, including Bob Jones, and disenfranchised everyone else.

And boy, did Jones profit. His property empire, Robt. Jones Holdings, ballooned as Rogernomics slashed regulations and opened up markets. Commercial real estate, his bread and butter, thrived in the new laissez-faire landscape, making him one of New Zealand’s richest men. The government he helped install didn’t just align with his ideology; it padded his wallet, while ordinary Kiwis faced job losses, wage stagnation, increased taxes, and soaring inequality. Markets crashed and the social fabric of New Zealand frayed, and Jones, perched in his skyscrapers, couldn’t have cared less.

Then there’s Jones' racism, which cannot simply be brushed off as “satire” or “wit.” His 2018 National Business Review column suggesting Waitangi Day be replaced with a “Māori Gratitude Day” was a grotesque insult to Māori culture, sparking a petition with over 90,000 signatures to strip his knighthood. He doubled down in court, suing filmmaker Renae Maihi for defamation, only to slink away after five days, later paying her legal fees. His dismissal of Māori language as “bullshit” and the haka as “infantile” revealed an unrepentant racist steeped in colonial arrogance, not intellectual rigour or someone who should have held a knighthood.

Jones’s other antics (punching a journalist, deriding women and Jews, and flouting Air New Zealand’s rules until he bought his own jet) paint a picture of entitlement, not heroism. Yet some people are fawning, perhaps seduced by his anti-establishment rhetoric or nostalgic for his Muldoon-baiting days. This is a mistake. Jones didn’t fight for workers or the marginalised; he fought for his own wealth and ugly worldview. Rogernomics gutted communities, and his bigotry alienated Māori and encouraged politicians to implement institutionally racist policies. The left should be clear: Bob Jones largely wrecked New Zealand for profit, not progress. Let’s stop the eulogies and start trying to fix the damage Bob Jones has caused.

The Great Aussie Reckoning

The 2025 federal election wasn’t just a contest of political ideas; it was a bloody massacre, with Peter Dutton’s Liberal-National Coalition copping a hiding so severe it’s left them scrambling for the smelling salts. The opposition leader’s loss of his own seat of Dickson (held for 24 years) to Labor’s Ali France, is the kind of political gut-punch that’ll echo for decades. This wasn’t just a defeat; it was a repudiation of everything the right wing and Dutton stood for.

Today, RNZ reported:

 

Australian election: Voters reject Peter Dutton's vision, giving Labor a remarkable victory and Liberals a difficult future

Australia has fired Peter Dutton into the sun, taking much of the Liberal Party and its future with him.

Standing in the vapour wake stood a euphoric and unimpeded Anthony Albanese, whose campaign was as devastating, driven and determined as Dutton's was dreadful, deluded and doomed.

Albanese stands atop a dominant and remarkable victory that will surely change the country as profoundly as Bob Hawke and John Howard did in their time.

The main driver of this electoral apocalypse for Dutton and his Liberal-National Coalition was the cost-of-living crisis, which hung over voters like a dark cloud. Dutton’s mob tried to exploit it, but their campaign was an incoherent mess. They didn’t have a plan. Just a grab-bag of half-baked ideas and Trumpian bluster. His nuclear energy push, for one, landed like a lead balloon. Aussies, it turns out, aren’t keen on glowing promises when the science and economics don’t stack up. Meanwhile, Labor hammered home a steady-hand message, promising tax cuts and healthcare boosts that resonated with voters, who backed Labor for better schools and hospitals.

Then there’s the “Trump effect.” Dutton’s flirtation with right-wing populism…cosying up to Pauline Hanson's racist One Nation party and parroting “Make Australia Great Again” vibes…was a fatal misstep. Dutton’s gaffes didn’t help: underestimating egg prices in a cost-of-living debate and accidentally clobbering a cameraman with a footy made him look more clown than contender. His embrace of One Nation alienated moderates, and the shadow of Trump’s tariffs and global chaos sent voters scurrying to the devil they knew: Anthony Albanese’s Labor.

The result? A Labor landslide, with projections of 85 seats and a thumping majority, making Albo the first PM since John Howard to win consecutive terms. Ali France, a para-athlete and disability advocate, unseating Dutton was the cherry on top. History has been made, as she became the first to topple a federal opposition leader at the polls. The Greens, despite losing two Queensland seats, still celebrated their highest-ever vote share.

So, hats off to Labor, Ali France, and the teals for reading the room and delivering. This election wasn’t just a win; it was a statement. Aussies rejected fearmongering and division, choosing optimism and pragmatism. Dutton’s out, the Coalition’s in tatters, and Labor’s got a mandate to tackle the big issues. Good on ya, Australia. Now, let’s see Albo make it count.

Simeon Brown's Dunedin Hospital Dishonesty

Simeon Brown’s latest sleight of hand over Dunedin Hospital’s ICU beds isn’t fooling anyone who values the truth. The government’s plan to slash the number of ICU beds from 30 to 20 has been exposed, yet Brown insists there’s no real reduction. His reasoning? Both plans allow for a potential expansion to 40 beds in some vague, distant future. This isn't just disingenuous...it’s a calculated distortion of the truth that insults the intelligence of all logical thinking New Zealanders.

Brown’s claim hinges on a semantic trick, pretending that a theoretical future capacity erases a real-world cut. I mean just how stupid does Brown think Kiwi voters are?

The Otago Daily Times revealed that Health New Zealand’s updated modelling, conveniently undisclosed, deems the 10-bed reduction “unnecessary” for now. Without transparency, this smells like a cost-cutting dodge dressed up as pragmatism. Former health chief Dr John Chambers warns that fewer ICU beds risk surgery delays and strain on emergency departments, yet Brown has the gall to accuse his critics of misunderstanding his "grand" vision.

On Wednesday, The Otago Daily Times reported:

ICU beds: Minister ‘disingenuous’

Health Minister Simeon Brown has been accused of being "disingenuous" and "doubling down" after claiming the new Dunedin hospital was not losing intensive care unit (ICU) beds.

It comes after the Otago Daily Times revealed the government was pushing ahead with a plan to cut the number of ICU and high-dependency unit beds on opening of the new Dunedin hospital from 30 to 20.

Before the election, the National Party promised a “full-scale” rebuild, but post-victory, Brown unveiled a scaled-back version with 59 fewer beds than initially planned. Labour leader Chris Hipkins called it a broken promise, and Brown’s response was to deflect, blaming Labour’s delays while sidestepping his own cost-cutting and backtracking.

Brown’s approach to striking doctors further underscores his slippery record. When senior hospital doctors walked out over stalled pay talks, he lambasted their union for not putting Health NZ’s offer to a vote, framing it as unreasonable. He then again lied about how a vote went, claiming that only a minority number of doctors wanted to strike, which was completely untrue. Yet he continues to gloss over the inadequacy of National's 1% offer, which failed to address chronic understaffing and pay disparities driving doctors abroad. His call for them to “return to negotiations” ignored the government’s role in stonewalling fair terms.

My question to Simeon Brown after his press conference just now about the Senior Doctors strike claiming a minority of Drs voted for the strike ; how does he know how many voted for strike action ? Is he spying on internal union democracy? Nothing would surprise me.

— Darien Fenton - Elizabeth is my middle name (@DarienFenton) May 1, 2025

The Dunedin ICU bed fiasco is more than a local issue...it’s a symptom of a minister who prioritises narrative over reality. Brown’s rhetoric may soothe his base, but it erodes trust in a health system already under strain. New Zealanders deserve a Health Minister who speaks plainly, not one who hides behind fuzzy projections and blames others for his shortcomings. If Brown wants to rebuild confidence, he’d start by owning his missteps instead of spinning them into fiction. Until then, his legacy will be one of artful dodges and broken promises.

Stephen Rainbow - Arsehole of the Week

It’s not every day you see a so-called “human rights” figure spew racist rhetoric so toxic it could curdle milk, but Stephen Rainbow, New Zealand’s Chief Human Rights Commissioner, has outdone himself. This week, he’s earned the coveted Arsehole of the Week Award for his rancid claim that Muslim immigration poses a greater threat to Jewish communities than white supremacists. Yes, you read that right. In a country still recovering from the 2019 Christchurch mosque shootings, where 51 innocent Muslim worshippers were gunned down by a white supremacist, Rainbow’s got the gall to point the finger at Muslims.


Yesterday, 1 News reported:

 

Chief Human Rights Commissioner: Muslim immigration a threat to Jewish communities

Documents obtained by 1News show the Chief Human Rights Commissioner Dr Stephen Rainbow raised concerns that rising Muslim immigration to New Zealand poses a threat to our Jewish communities.

…

But Rainbow also rejected several claims made by Yasbek — denying that he described Muslims as the biggest threat to the Jewish community and that he had called the Afghan community in West Auckland anti-Semitic.

But since then, 1News has obtained notes that officials took during the meeting.

They show that "Stephen [Rainbow] raised increase in Muslim immigration as threat to Jewish community".

…

Rainbow refused to be interviewed by 1News about his views on Muslim immigration but, in a statement, the Human Rights Commission said "he has apologised for statements made during the meeting in question. He stands by the apology and regrets the harm caused."

Rainbow’s untruthful and bigoted comments aren’t just ignorant…they’re dangerous. Painting an entire religious group in New Zealand as a threat isn’t just lazy stereotyping; it’s a dog whistle for inciting hatred. History shows us where this leads: division, fear, and violence. The Christchurch massacre wasn’t a random act...it was fuelled by the kind of dangerous rhetoric Rainbow, who was unduly appointed by non-other than National MP Paul Goldsmith, has sunk his career with. His words give tacit permission to those itching to demonise Muslims, emboldening them with hatred to do unspeakable acts of violence. When a figure of his stature normalises Islamophobia and incorrectly uses NZSIS data, it’s not just a slip of the tongue; it’s a spark in a tinderbox.

And let’s not forget the context. New Zealand’s Muslim community is still trying to heal itself from the trauma of 2019, where families were torn apart in a place of worship. To have a Human Rights Commissioner…someone meant to protect the vulnerable…throw salt in those wounds is beyond disgraceful. It’s a betrayal of everything his role stands for. Clearly we need better decision makers in public office to ensure racists like Rainbow don’t attain positions of power.

And where is the condemnation from our so-called leaders. Of course you’d expect people like David Seymour to agree with Rainbows Islamophobia. The ACT Party leader is no stranger to reckless rhetoric himself. Back in 2023, he “joked” about blowing up the Ministry of Pacific Peoples, doubling down even after it incited real-world harassment. Seymour’s cavalier attitude toward inflammatory speech mirrors Rainbow’s. Both treat words like they’re harmless, ignoring how they can ignite hatred and cause people to die.

Rainbow’s racism isn’t just a personal failing; it’s a symptom of a broader malaise. His comments risk normalising hate at a time when we can least afford it. The mosque shootings taught us that words have consequences. Lives were lost because of unchecked bigotry that was allowed to run rampant. The type of poison Rainbow expresses and believes in threatens to undo years of work to rebuild trust and unity within our communities. He must go, and we must demand better from our public officials.