Peter Williams: My “Dirty Work” Mention

Hager’s book has it all wrong

Although it’s been the most talked about book of the year, in some circles anyway, finding a copy of Dirty Work by Nicky Hager has proved to be a difficult assignment in my neighbourhood.

In the last week I’ve tried Paper Plus in Cromwell, Wanaka and Queenstown Airport and drawn a blank. There was no copy at the Auckland Domestic terminal’s so called bookshop either, nor at an independent bookseller in Wanaka.

Peter Williams: What’s so wrong with Taxpayers Union?

The Taxpayers Union (TPU) always struck me as very good idea. After all, what’s not to like about a lobby group that calls out wasteful government spending and develops policy ideas about how to more efficiently allocate the money a government receives from taxpayers.

Calling itself a “union” was deliberately provocative, a piss-take if you like of the political left’s love affairs with trade unions. To this day there still some disaffected types who say that the TPU is not a real union because it’s not a trade union - as if trade unions were only types of unions.

As any half literate person will understand, a union is merely a grouping of two or more individuals for a common purpose. The etymology says it all. Many into one. A marriage is a union. Sports clubs are sometimes called unions. The lefty argument can easily be debunked.

David Farrar: Hager’s work of fiction

Nicky’s Hager’s last book had an enquiry led by a former Supreme Court Judge, and a former Attorney General and Prime Minister. They concluded that the “principal allegations” in Hager’s book “are not accurate”.

This book is even worse. I could spend most of the week detailing the untruths in it, but frankly there is no need. Just take a few.