"New Zealand politics needs to be more corrupt"

Simon Lusk, is a strange sort of ultra rightwing paid political campaign manager, who will manage your campaign to enter Parliament for the right amount of cash, but he only deals with Right or far Right candidates. He is known to have very close connections to Cameron Slater a far right blogger and son of a past president of the National Party and now editor of that well know right wing low selling Truth Weekly rag.

When interviewed [TV3], John Key admitted meeting with Simon Lusk http://simonlusk.co.nz/  a half a dozen times over last seven years. Now we all know that if John K says 6 it was most likely 25 or more based on his past performances.

Earlier Key stated publicly [TV3], ‘that if he was to rate Simon Lusk as a important political factor, on a 1 to 10 scale [one being tops] he’d rate him an eleven minus’, that means we can safely consider him a good friend of John’s…I think the PM was really worried about the backroom  far right take-over of the National Party inner sanctum which is made up of many list MP’s. Finlayson, Goldsmith, Groser, Joyce and Parata, and if these non electorate MP’s use Lusk’s services a split could occur. It is also suggested that Collins, Judith sees herself as a far right future leader and if any Minister was far right it is Judith [crusher] Collins

It has been reported [RNZ] that Lusk organised the election campaign for a smiling, Upston, Louise, [pictured] Lotu-Iiga, Peseta Sam and Ross, Jami-Lee for around ten thousand dollars each it was also reported that he will offer ongoing advice for individuals at around one thousand dollars per month and that some National MP's have picked up this deal..

On Face Television the host of Citizen-A [Martyn Bradbury] asked Matthew Hooton about Aaron Gilmore’s demise and eventual resignation from Parliament. Hooton revealed some disturbing information. Here is a transcript of that section of the programme:

MB: “Matthew – Was political mercenary Simon Lusk involved in talking Aaron down and did Cameron Slater [truth editor] help that along with the leaks?”

HOOTON: “Yes and the other player in it was a guy called Jordan Williams who works with Stephen Franks”.

The above was quickly followed up by the following from No Right Turn, one of the top political bloggers in NZ and I quote:

Shorter Simon Lusk

"New Zealand politics needs to be more corrupt"

That's the message of a leaked strategy paper [PDF] from National Party advisor Simon Lusk. The core of his strategy is to triple the amount of money National spends each electoral cycle, in an effort to nakedly buy elections. In order to get that money he suggests National "provid[e] or obtai[n] board appointments to a small number of individuals" - essentially selling public office and/or using corrupt influence networks for financial gain. Finally, he suggests that National "not offer former Ministers jobs" and "Blackball Current MPs" to stop them from "trading on their time as MPs to build a lucrative business career" in order to ensure compliance with donors (in other words, to offer such a post-political career as a direct inducement for actions taken as an MP - something which skirts very close to outright bribery).

This is an explicitly American model of politics, designed to entrench the power of a plutocracy. And it is inherently corrupt. Fortunately, it does not sit well with New Zealand ideals of how our political system is supposed to work - and now it has been exposed, National's actions are going to face a lot more scrutiny.

(Meanwhile, Lusk also proposes "Taking over the Public Service" by "Work[ing] with public servants to create a pool of fiscal conservative bureaucrats who will work with politicians to implement policy". Jokes about Treasury aside, this would overturn a century of public service neutrality and professionalism. But given his expressed contempt for democracy and integrity, is it any surprise Lusk has contempt for that as well?)

Is Simon Lusk trying to start up a New Zealand copy of the Ultra right wing Tea Party bunch of nutters run by Sarah Palin and a half dozen US billionaires who believe that the rich should pay no tax and making war is a legal business and should be run at a profit and that death doesn’t matter so long as it happens to some one else. Come to think of it, sounds a bit like Steven Joyce…or Steven Franks…or John Banks…  

Since the ACT party broke ranks with National and grabbed rejected far right Labour Party drop outs like Prebble and Douglas who joined with dumped National Party leader Brash and law breaking John Banks plus other strange bed-fellows like Franks the National Party led by multi millionaire Key seem bound for an early grave. They seem to have lost their direction. Maybe Key buying the leadership wasn't the way to go: Bill English must be smiling all the way to the bank.