John McLean: Verrall in peril?

Labour Party Member of Parliament Ayesha Verrall has accused Health Commissioner Lester Levy of corruptly inflating the size of Health New Zealand’s financial deficit, and of having a “reputation for cooking the books”. Essentially, she’s falsely accusing Levy of being a crook.

Verrall made her accusations at a Parliamentary Health Select Committee hearing on 3 December 2024, as Labour’s shadow Health Cabinet Minister.

In response to Verrall’s accusations, Levy has uncharacteristically made two mistakes. First, he asked Verrall to apologise, which was a misguided thing to do because any apology from Verrall would be completely insincere. (Verrall has in any case refused to apologise, saying she makes “no apology for holding the government to account”).

Levy’s second mistake was to promise to produce evidence refuting Verrall’s accusations. In this regard, the bright man made a logical error. In the words of Christopher Hitchens, “that which can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence”. In other words, the onus is on Verrall to produce evidence to support her extraordinary accusations, not on Levy to provide evidence refuting Verrall’s claims. Leviathan Levy shouldn’t dignify Verrall’s nonsense with any more of his attention or precious time.

More of the same & par for the course

Verrall’s accusations continue a spate of false name-calling in New Zealand’s increasingly fractious public forums. The mudslinging includes the following:

* On 14 November 2024, Labour MP Willie Jackson called David Seymour a “liar” in connection with Seymour’s Treaty Principles Bill. It’s not clear what lie Jackson was accusing Seymour of, and Seymour made the same mistake as Levy; he asked Jackson to apologise.

* In 2024, the Herald published a series of articles drawing exaggerated associations between Destiny Church Leader Brian Tamaki and a man guilty of child sex offending. The author of each article was Lane Nichols, the Herald’s “Reporter & Deputy Head of News”.

 

* In April 2023, the Herald published assertions by Kate Hannah of the publicly-funded, now-disbanded Disinformation Project that citizen-journalist Chantelle Baker is part of a “NZ Disinformation Dozen” and a “useful idiot”.

* In September 2024, Matthew Hooton claimed in a video podcast that Don Brash is “profoundly dishonesty, lacks integrity, and is corrupt”, and that Brash advocates his views on the Treaty of Waitangi solely to drive racial division in New Zealand. Hooton is basically accusing Brash of being a disingenuous racist. They were big and potentially foolhardy calls from Hooton, who describes himself on his personal website as “the country’s leading centre-right political commentator…since 2004”.

Underlying these kinds of allegations are layers of cryptic psychology and cognitive dissonance, intimately tied to central tenets of Identity Politics. At some level, the Witch/Warlock-Smellers recognise that Seymour is sincere and not lying, that Brian Tamaki is not deliberately harboring pedophiles in his Destiny Church, that (unlike the Disinformation Project itself) Chantelle Baker is not spreading mis/disinformation and that Don Brash is not a corrupt racist.

But the try-hard ideological crusaders also believe that the strength of their hatred for the people they target transforms their bullshit barbs - by some magical alchemy - into legitimate and heroic character assassinations. Thankfully, some of the sanctimonious chicken shit is coming home to roost.

Privileged Willie

Willie Jackson can call Seymour a “liar” in Parliament with impunity, because his madcap ranting in The House is protected by parliamentary privilege, under New Zealand’s Parliamentary Privilege Act 2014. (Jackson calling Seymour a liar is a classic Woke tactic; falsely accusing others of doing precisely what you’re doing yourself.)

Tamati pulls the trigger

On the other hand, the Herald’s slander of Brian Tamaki enjoys no legal immunity, and the self-styled Pastor has had enough and announced that he will sue the Herald for defamation - because New Zealand is blessed with laws against libel and slander - or, in the modern legal vernacular, “defamation”.

Click to view

New Zealand’s laws against defamation are codified in the Defamation Act 1992. Tamaki claims he’ll sue even if the Herald belatedly apologizes, correctly appreciating that any apology would be totally insincere.

Barring any statutory defences, it was certainly defamatory for the Herald to suggest that Pastor Brian relished kicking around with a person he knew to be kiddie fiddler and closeting the perpetrator in his church. In November 2023, Tamaki had reported the child sex offender, Kiwa Hemi Tamati Edward Hamiora-Te Hira, to the Police.

In any defamation action by Tamaki, the Defamation Act defences which the Herald would have to try and rely on are either of the following:

* Truth: The Herald would have to prove that the article taken as a whole was in substance true or not materially different from the truth. Taken as a whole, the substance of the Herald’s articles on Tamaki is that the pedophile was a member of Destiny Church, and that Tamaki knowingly associated with him and sheltered him in the Church. If, as it appears, that substance is untrue, then the Herald will have no defence of truth.

* Honest opinion: The Herald would have to prove Lane Nichols’ articles – to the effect that Tamaki knowingly associated with the pedophile, as fellow members of the Destiny Church – were both:

* Genuine; and

* In their context and the circumstances of the publication of the articles, not purporting to be the Herald’s opinions, and the Herald believed that articles were Nichols’ genuine opinions

While successful defamation actions are tricky to make stick, the Herald will struggle to defend defamation proceedings by Tamaki.

Baker bakes the Herald & Hate Canner (Kate Hannah)

Feisty citizen journalist Chantelle Baker wasn’t going to turn the other cheek after the Herald published Kate Hannah’s baseless labelling of Chantelle as a purveyor of “disinformation” and “useful idiot”. She sued the Herald and Hannah, forcing the Herald to apologize and pay Chantelle substantial compensation.

And Chantelle’s not stopping there. She’s suing Stuff for its portrayal of her in Paula Penfold’s absurd, paranoid State-funded documentary about the Parliamentary Protest, Fire and Fury. Good for you, Chantelle.

Brash to lash Hooton trash talk

Don Brash is suing Matthew Hooton over Hooton’s repeated loopy claims that Brash is a disingenuous racist. Mad Matt has tried to avoid the consequences of his nasty remarks, by issuing a mealy mouthed partial apology, but Brash is having none of Matthew’s glib sophistry.

Verrall Sterile

Lester Levy cannot bug Dr Verrall for calling him a crook. This is because, under the Parliamentary Privilege Act, Members of Parliament are given immunity from civil or criminal liability for what they communicate at Parliamentary Select Committees. The immunity wouldn’t apply if Verrall is found to have abused the occasion or acted in bad faith or with a predominant motive of ill-will. But in any case, Lester Levy is a busy man and has bigger fish to fry than Verrall.

Which is not to say Verrall doesn’t have plenty to answer for. In her zealous zeal to stop New Zealanders smoking tobacco by 2025, Verrall unleashed the current epidemic of youth vaping.

In December 2023, Ayesha Verrall retained the title "The Honourable" in recognition of her supposed service as former Minister of Health and COVID-19 Response under the ousted Labour Government. But there’s nothing very honourable about her. She’s a doctor of medicine who has never much practiced as a doctor (much as ex-Police Commissioner Andrew Coster has never much worked as a frontline Policeman).

Ayesha the Activist came into Parliament on the Labour Party list in 2020, and was re-elected to Parliament in the 2023 election, again on the Labour Party list. As acting Minister of Conservation, she supported reviewing whether the Conservation Act adequately enables the Department of Conservation to fulfil its obligations under the Treaty of Waitangi. Like all extreme Lefties, Ayesha loves free stuff. As President of the Otago University in 2001, she lobbied for interest-free student loans.

New Zealand’s leading health risk factor is obesity. Nicotine suppresses appetite and is linked to weight reduction. If Vapid Verrall isn’t already a Vaper, she could contemplate a new habit.

Chippy chips in

Yesterday (10 December 2024), Labour leader and political Dead-Man-Walking Chis Hipkins said of Levy, "I think the colloquial phrase of cooking the books applies".

Chippy’s defamatory remark was unprotected by Parliamentary privilege. But it’s doubtful Lester Levy will sue Chippy for defamation, because Levy’s the bigger man (literally and figuratively) and will rise above Hipkins’ politically nihilistic nonsense.

Political name calling is childish and unconstructive, and the Left’s lying labelling must stop. If defamation Court actions are needed to achieve that, then so be it.

John McLean is a citizen typist and enthusiastic amateur who blogs at John's Substack where this article was sourced.