John Key and his colleagues are going to send the Special Air Service to Afghanistan. The current talk about whether National should do so is, unfortunately, academic. The decision is already made.

Leaked Cabinet plans list the government’s infrastructure projects and show that even facing the worst economic crisis in half a century, the government intends to restrain its spending….

Police teams set up to identify terrorism threats and risks to national security are spying on protest and community groups, including Greenpeace, animal rights and climate change campaigners, and Iraq war protesters.

Investigative journalist Nicky Hager says National’s health policies have gone publicly unnoticed, but involve a shift back to 1990s free-market reforms….

Nicky Hager was invited by the Pundit website to reply to a column by Matthew Hooton.

Nicky Hager is interviewed about lessons for the public from his book and the film The Hollow Men

National Party leader John Key appears to be using taxpayers’ money to pay for his controversial Australian strategy advisers, Crosby/Textor. Inside information strongly points to the firm being paid through Key’s parliamentary office rather than by the National Party, even though the Australians are primarily assisting the party’s election campaign strategy….

National leader John Key’s campaign is being overseen by the same highly controversial manipulators who directed Don Brash’s ill-fated tilt at power….

National Party leader John Key is talking about changing New Zealand’s electoral system. Nicky Hager writes about Key’s plans and the lobby groups that are pushing for the change.

The Solicitor-General will shortly make a decision whether to approve terrorism charges against the Maori, peace and environmental activists arrested last month. Nicky Hager describes how the decision will be made and the factors the Solicitor-General needs to take into account….

The great weakness of much journalism is a process-worker approach to assembling quotation-based stories….

MPs have stepped back from proposals that would have lifted secrecy
surrounding party donations….

I will be talking tonight about the history and characteristics of propaganda, starting with the WWII versions as seen in the “Towards the Precipice” poster exhibition here at the museum and moving on to contemporary examples that together help us to understand the world we live in.

The Baubles of Office, The New Zealand General Election of 2005, edited by Stephen Levine and Nigel S. Roberts, Victoria University Press, March 2007, 600pp, $49.95.

reviewed by Nicky Hager

I would like to propose a New Year’s resolution for news organisations: sorting out the difference between genuine media commentators and giving regular media space to political party spin doctors….

Helen Clark has tried again to present herself as the victim in the contaminated corn crop issue. But, this time, she is partly correct….

It is not surprising if you haven’t heard of Project Aqua. It is the largest power scheme planned in New Zealand since the Clyde Dam 20 years ago and already it is controversial in the local area around Oamaru. But a lot of state resources are going into trying to silence the opponents and avoid the inconvenience of genuine public debate….

Now that three years of Labour Government have passed, it is becoming clear what we can expect during the next three or six years of this government….

Frantic Government damage control followed the release last week of my book Seeds of Distrust. We were told the book was completely untrue and that I was a conspiracy theorist taking part in a Green Party dirty trick.

Seeds of Distrust, the story of a GE cover-up
Foreword
In 1999 I co-authored a book about the relationship between government, business and public relations companies. Our conclusion was that secrecy allowed the then National Government to abuse power as it allowed state agencies to mislead the public and play politics in pursuit of their preferred policies. [...]

The conflict between Helen Clark and officials over the future shape of the defence forces has heated up again….