For some reason, Ian Wishart has had it in for police commissioner Howard Broad for a long time. Broad has weathered the Wishart campaign against him in silence. Now the Independent Police Conduct Authority has investigated and comprehensively dismissed Wishart’s claim that Broad was stopped at a Christchurch checkpoint in 1992, refused to be breath-tested, abused the officer and drove off. It should be the end of the matter, but Mr Wishart is like a dog who won’t let go of a bone. He is now claiming the authority’s report is a whitewash that followed witnesses being browbeaten. Oh dear.
Wishart claimed, in a written complaint to the authority, and in his recent book Absolute Power, that then-Detective Inspector Broad was stopped at a checkpoint in Christchurch in 1992, that he was drunk, that he swore at the officer who stopped him, that he refused a breath test and drove away, and that he attempted to intimidate other officers not to report the incident. Wishart even named the officer he claimed was involved, Wayne Stevenson, who, it turns out was at the time a Ministry of Transport traffic officer (this was just before the merger with the police) and is still a police constable today.
There was an event that gave rise to these allegations, but the allegations do not stand up.
According to the authority’s report, Broad had been out for a meal with two other officers, and had consumed alcohol. He was driving the others back to Christchurch police station when he was pulled over (not stopped at a checkpoint) by Wayne Stevenson.
“Those present confirm that Mr Broad co-operated with the traffic officer,” the report says. “He was given a breath screening test which indicated the presence of alcohol on his breath. The traffic officer did not believe any further breath testing was necessary. He told Mr Broad to leave his car and walk, which was common traffic enforcement practice at the time. The following morning, Mr Broad told his supervisor about the incident.”
The report says further: “Mr Stevenson said that Mr Broad ‘agreed to park his car up on the roadside for the night… I do recall that the driver was co-operative and compliant. I can confirm that he did not attempt to use his position to intimidate or influence me at all. I can further confirm that I have not been put under any pressure by any person in relation to this inquiry.’ The authority sought further information from Mr Stevenson about the allegation that Mr Broad had refused a breath test. Mr Stevenson stated: ‘I did breath test the driver’.”
The authority interviewed numerous other officers in an attempt to discover if Howard Broad was stopped at an actual checkpoint anywhere at any time and behaved the way Wishart claimed.
“The authority is satisfied that this incident was dealt with appropriately at the time, according to the laws and policies of the day. The authority is also satisfied that this is the incident referred to in Mr Wishart’s complaint, and that there is no evidence of any other similar incident involving Mr Broad. The authority finds that there is no evidence of misconduct by Mr Broad in relation to this complaint.”
Ian Wishart, however, is having none of it. On his blog today, he has unleashed a torrent of further allegations, claiming the authority’s report is a whitewash, that the authority’s investigator tried to “browbeat” a former officer into “recanting his evidence,” and that Broad was in a car crash in 2006.
According to Ian, the authority, which is chaired by High Court judge Justice Lowell Goddard, “may be coming under political pressure to whitewash allegations of misconduct and corruption.”
Why does he say this? Because the authority has not backed up his allegations, that’s why. If these claims had substance, the authority would have said so (and remember, the State Services Commission looked at the same allegations and found them equally baseless). Justice Goddard is not there to do snow jobs for the police. Nor is she there to say that something must be true because Ian Wishart claims it is. The authority’s report states at length and clearly what it found.
Says Justice Goddard of Broad, whom she personally interviewed for the report: “He said he was embarrassed by the incident and no doubt he still is. Everyone at some time in their life has done something foolish. He had some beers and drove, that was clearly foolish, but there is no evidence that he attempted to overbear the will of the enforcement officer or conceal the incident in any way.”
While I fully accept that the police (and judges) get things very seriously wrong from time to time (look at the Thomas, Haig, Dougherty and Ellis cases), and that some individual police at times act illegally (for which they are charged and brought to trial), I do not accept we have a corrupt police force or corrupt judiciary. Far from it. We have one of the least corrupt police, judiciary and public service in the entire world. Just go to any Transparency International report.
To accept that Justice Goddard is part of some conspiracy is beyond belief. She stated, categorically, on Checkpoint tonight that she is an independent High Court judge and is not subject to pressure from anyone. While sometimes our judges might get something wrong (which is why their decisions are subject to appeal), no serious commentator would doubt their total independence.
Ian’s vanity and obsession with conspiracies knows few bounds and is exemplified with his claim that: “As a journalist, I have done more to identify and expose police corruption in New Zealand than the IPCA has…. Investigate has files thick with testimony from serving and former police who would tell a Royal Commission of corrupt practices involving senior police. This whitewash report from the IPCA reveals just how urgent that now is.”
Oh dear. Oh dear, oh dear oh dear. Now from whom, where and when have we heard virtually similar lines before, over and over ad infinitum? Ah yes. It was something to do with a winebox, and how if only a royal commission could be set up, then it would be presented with files thick with evidence that the Commissioner of Inland Revenue and the head of the Serious Fraud Office were corrupt criminals up to their eyeballs in conspiracies to cover up corporate fraud. And when the inquiry was finally established, not one scintilla of such evidence was produced, because there was no such conspiracy by those senior civil servants.
Come to think of it, I even recall Ian Wishart sitting next to me on the press bench through all that inquiry. His twittering about files thick with testimony about police corruption makes me wonder if subliminally he was recalling those days. Just publish them, Ian.
31 Comments
July 4, 2008 at 10:24 pm
Killer post, I just knew it would come. I can’t wait for the comments.
July 4, 2008 at 10:45 pm
Poneke, I reckon Ian Wishart is to be pitied rather than despised. I mean, the poor fellow can’t get his mind around evolution, so we really shouldn’t expect much in the way of quality thinking.
July 4, 2008 at 11:52 pm
So let me get this straight.
A senior cop was drink driving. He got pulled over.
The very existence of this incident was denied for 16 years, and only once it was published in a best selling book was it investigated. The investigation found that it did happen, but that it was ok that he was let off (without even an evidential breath test) when no one else would be.
What did I miss?
You mention the State Services Commission inquiry – only that inquiry’s every existence was unknown until they found Broad innocent. Yet up to the moment that inquiry’s findings were published, we were told this never happened.
Maybe there’s a good explanation, but this whole thing stinks.
Reading Ian’s book, he actually proves most of his points very well. I heard live on the radio one of the people involved in the “chicken film” incident, and you’d have to be nuts to believe the guy wasn’t lying through is teeth – he couldn’t even give the most basic information outside his prepared story. Yet this was the guy who “cleared” Broad.
July 5, 2008 at 12:58 am
This wouldn’t be the first time you’ve accused me of conspiracy theories, old chap, only to be forced to resile when the evidence emerged.
Poneke…instead of playing the role of eternal skeptic, consider the facts. Leaving aside the disputed elements and concentrating only on the agreed set of circumstances, I was right about Howard Broad being picked up driving drunk.
As the IPCA was quoted on 3 News tonight, Broad “failed” the breath screening test.
Go away and read the old Transport Act 1962 that applied to this incident. Show me where it permits an officer to exercise a discretion NOT to require an EVIDENTIAL breath test, once the officer is faced with a “fail” on the screening test.
We know Broad failed, not just because the IPCA admits it, but because the officer was able to invoke s63 of the old Act and forbid Broad to drive for 12 hours. That power was only available if the driver failed the test.
The old Act says drivers who failed the roadside test were required to accompany Mr Plod to the station for either an evidential test or a blood test.
Whilst the junior officer indeed had a discretion not to breath test at all (compulsory breath testing was introduced a year later), I can find nothing in the Act which gave him any discretion once a blow in the bag sequence had been initiated.
Maybe I missed it, but before you rant like a prissy old woman perhaps you should take a look for yourself.
Back to the agreed facts then: It is also agreed that the officer who pulled Broad over was very much a junior. We know from the IPCA report that both Broad and an even more senior Christchurch cop, of D Supt ranking, had words with the junior before he decided to exercise this mythical “discretion”.
We know from the IPCA report that the top ranking cop actually began telling junior exactly who Broad was…senior detective inspector…working on major homicide…we were carrying out a briefing over dinner…this was work…etc etc.
When you look at it, you can see how this isn’t exactly light years from, “don’t you know who I am?”
The entire IPCA report hinges on whether the junior officer actually had any discretion not to require an evidential breath test, after seeing Broad fail the roadside test.
Goddard, possibly relying on hearsay advice, suggests he did. Like I said, I couldn’t find such a power.
If the discretion did not exist, then the claim that there was no misconduct crumbles.
Also, how is it that a large number of Stevenson’s colleagues recall anger at Broad’s actions, if Stevenson was supposedly happy with the outcome on the night? Got an explanation for that?
Your dismissal of problems with the integrity of the IPCA investigation with a mere wave of your hand and no substance, does not dig you or Broad out of the hole.
Cunneen was a mate of Broad’s. Cunneen tried to browbeat a witness into retracting his version of events. Fact. On what planet is that the role of an “independent” investigator?
Cunneen interviewed 16 people, some of whom didn’t even work in traffic. Yet the IPCA ignored a list of 25 traffic police provided to them by former Senior Sergeant Colin Campbell.
Lowell Goddard called her inquiry “thorough”.
Yeah. right.
Where were you and the rest of the sorry motley bunch that pass for the media these days, when I published those stories on Dunedin police corruption last year?
National Radio, the Dom Post, TV3 et al were all very happy to run with Broad’s close friend bagging the Investigate story. You were all happy to run Police Minister Annette King relying on the same source to bag the magazine.
Yet when we published official documents revealing Broad’s mate had committed perjury in court, was prepared to lie to formal inquiries, and was corruptly using information from within police to further his own private investigation business, where were you then?
I don’t recall seeing your byline on a story calling for further investigation.
So with respect, don’t lecture me on what you think I have done wrong, when I have proven my case chapter and verse. There is massive police corruption in this country, but journalistic Pollyannas who maintain that all is sweetness and light are fooling only themselves.
July 5, 2008 at 8:24 am
> For some reason, Ian Wishart has had it in for police commissioner Howard Broad for a long time.
And for some reason, you’ve had it in for Ian Wishart for a long time. If you want to appear neutral, any that is your decision, you’re going to have to do a helluva lot better, Poneke.
Let me see if I have this correct: you believe it’s OK for the Police to be investigating the Police? I suspect you’re in a small minority.
I note that the District Court recently awarded Simon Oosterman, who was pepper sprayed by Police, $5000 plus costs. The Judge said that the Police’s action was “unreasonable”. This came after the IPCA had cleared the cops involved. Hmmm. Could it be, Poneke, that the IPCA got it wrong?
July 5, 2008 at 8:29 am
Let me see if I have this correct: you believe it’s OK for the Police to be investigating the Police?
The Independent Police Conduct Authority is not “the police investigating the police.” This inquiry was conducted by the High Court judge who chairs this independent body, and by the authority’s own staff investigators.
That is completely different from the way the old Police Complaints Authority worked. Maybe you haven’t caught up with the change.
Additionally, while I fully accept that the police (and judges) get things wrong from time to time, and that some individual police at times act illegally (for which they are charged and brought to trial), I do not accept we have a corrupt police force or corrupt judiciary. Far from it. We have probably the least corrupt police, judiciary and public service in the entire world. Just go to any Transparency International report.
And for some reason, you’ve had it in for Ian Wishart for a long time.
Au contraire. I’ve known Ian for a long time and worked with him at TVNZ in the mid-1990s. I like him and admire him for his publishing and business acumen. He is a genuinely nice guy. It doesn’t mean I accept everything he writes or publishes and some of what he publishes is utterly over the top in my opinion. He is essentially a conspiracy theorist, whereas I favour the cock-up theory. Conspiracies do happen, but often there is a simpler explanation.
July 5, 2008 at 8:44 am
With respect, Pon, the transition to IPCA was more evolutionary than revolutionary. Initial investigations in many cases are still handled by police in the first instance.
Regardless, the report released yesterday was deeply flawed. The criticisms on my blog were not theories, they were factual. Cunneen tried to pressure a witness to recant. I’m sorry, if the IPCA wanted a new image they blew it with that stunt alone.
July 5, 2008 at 8:47 am
> Maybe you haven’t caught up with the change.
Oh, but I have. The Police Complaints Authority has become the Independent Police Complaints Authority. The addition of one word might convince you that everything is rosy, but then you’re not as sceptical as you claim to be. I mean, why even add the word “independent”? Wasn’t the old PCA meant to be independent?
As for Lowell Goddard, she is a former Deputy Solicitor-General, who thus was responsible for prosecuting crimes. She obviously has worked, as part of her former job, very closely with Police. I would want anyone investigating any complaint about the Police to be seen to be independent. With all due respect to Mrs Goddard, she fails that test.
[Poneke: Hey, nothing would pass your test, on any subject, and that is your right. However I am not going to let you get away with claiming there was a one-word change in the authority's name. There were two. The word "complaints" was also changed to "conduct."]
July 5, 2008 at 12:08 pm
> nothing would pass your test, on any subject.
What a strange thing to say. Having someone in charge of the IPCA who has not worked closely with the Police would definitely pass the test. As for other subjects – I seldom post here, so you must be psychic!
July 5, 2008 at 12:51 pm
Ian, you say “This wouldn’t be the first time you’ve accused me of conspiracy theories, old chap, only to be forced to resile when the evidence emerged.” To my reading the conspiracy Poneke refers to is stated by yourself at the very top of the article Poneke linked: “Investigate magazine editor Ian Wishart suspects the “Independent” Police Conduct Authority may be coming under political pressure to whitewash allegations of misconduct and corruption within the police ahead of the election.”
(I have to admit I find the choice of writing about yourself in the third person is curious, especially when the post is clearly marked as being authored by ‘iwishart’.)
No-one doubts he was drink driving, he was asked to walk after all. And so on. Its the way you extend this to a larger set of events.
Not saying that this is Ian, but it does remind me of “discussions” I’ve had with certain types of personalities: who when faced with a simply-delivered, unavoidable truth contradicting their statements, evoke a conspiracy as the only way to continue to present their (unrealistic) viewpoint. Most often I’ve seen this from fundamentalist Christians as they seem to “have” to stick to their argument regardless of contrary evidence. This is, of course, part and parcel of the nature of ideologues! It differs from the situation being discussed here, in that the discussions I am thinking of are usually on a subject contradicting their ideology. While not making their approach to contrary evidence better, it at least makes it more understandable. But it makes me wonder if the “if its wrong, it must be a conspiracy” stance/approach taken from ideological arguments spreads to other issues—? Saturday afternoon philosophy…
(I didn’t choose a philosopher for an alias for nothing!)
July 5, 2008 at 1:06 pm
I just quickly glanced at Mr. Wishart’s press state on his website. It appears Mr. Wishart has taken to referring to himself in the third person. “Nuff said, I think.
July 5, 2008 at 1:54 pm
toms
It’s a news release, fruitbat. Of course I am referred to in the third person outside of the quote marks.
Pon, Transparency International’s reports are, with respect, pretty meaningless. Last time I looked they relied on government information on corruption charges etc as their test. It goes without saying (or should) that if you have a corrupt government system protecting its backside then you won’t be getting the criminal stats on corruption, and NZ would seem corruption free.
It isn’t. I have information on cops running drug rings, extortion, etc, blah blah. Affidavits, documentation.
It needs a Royal Commission because the police clearly can’t be trusted with it, and the IPCA have so far failed to show they can do the job, which is exactly the issue I raised a year ago.
I have no problem with Lowell Goddard…I have friends who speak very highly of her. But Cunneen has blown the credibility of her office.
You challenged me to “publish” what I have.
Well, like I said earlier, I did. And you were nowhere to be seen. There’s a 10mb file of documents on our website relating to police corruption in Dunedin engineered by Howard Broad’s mate and Annette King’s source. The documents are a slam-dunk, and they form the basis of a still-to-be-released IPCA report.
Contrary to your assertion that I had it in for Broad, I didn’t. The media coverage on the chicken video last year was because the media focused on one paragraph (yes, one paragraph) in a 17 page article. They ignored the far more serious allegations.
However, when Broad started running interference with his corrupt friend to prevent a wider investigation of the issues and sway public opinion against Investigate and its sources, it became pretty obvious that Broad was a player, rather than a disinterested observer, in the corruption issues dogging police.
Broad’s mate was the man bringing porn and other nasties to police functions. Broad’s mate was drug trafficking and taking a cut from drug seizures whilst he was a senior Dunedin cop. Broad’s mate and his friends will soon be facing their own little day of reckoning.
You may like to believe you live in a country free of this kind of corruption. I promise you, you don’t.
Nothing theoretical about it.
I have held off releasing anything further on police corruption for the past year, save for the book, because I was waiting to see whether the IPCA could be trusted. Personally, I think 12 months is enough leeway.
If the IPCA had made a genuine attempt to investigate the Broad drink driving incident properly, and come up with the conclusion it did, I would accept it. But it didn’t. It interviewed only half the potential witnesses, tried to intimidate one major witness into recanting (he incidentally has suffered police harrassment in the past couple of weeks as a direct result of his stand).
Be objective, and tell me is this really the standard of investigation you wish to see from the IPCA. Or was this post really just a cheap crack at me?
July 5, 2008 at 2:19 pm
Heraclides
One of the failings of the previous PCA is the widely held view, particularly under one of its previous incumbents, that it was whitewashing police misconduct for political (in the widest sense) reasons.
The IPCA report on Broad’s mate was due for release at the end of January this year. It was then postponed to March. It was then postponed to May. It was then supposed to have been released towards the end of June.
On the other hand, the IPCA whistles out a once over lightly and misleading report on Broad in just nine weeks.
Forgive me for being cynical.
As for your comments on the Broad drink driving incident Heraclides, you appear to miss the biggest point of all: he was not made to take an evidential breath test despite FAILING a breath screening test.
Find me ONE precedent for this, ever. Show me one driver who blew in the bag at the roadside in 1992, failed the test, and was not given a further evidential test.
The IPCA glibly suggests the traffic officer had this discretion in 1992. I challenged Poneke to check the legislation. I can’t find such a discretion.
Did the IPCA simply make a (crucial) mistake in its analysis (Poneke’s ‘cock-up’ theory), or did Cunneen apply the same bias to writing the report that he did to conducting interviews with witnesses?
Additionally, you place a lot of reliance on the word of Howard Broad and two of his mates. If Broad indeed told his supervisor, where is the record of this? If Broad told his supervisor he was “not under the influence”, how does that reconcile with the IPCA confirming at yesterday’s news conference that Broad failed the roadside breath test?
Cunneen told one of the witnesses he interviewed that Wayne Stevenson wasn’t talking to the IPCA and had obtained legal representation. There’s a hint of this problem in the official report, which says the IPCA “sought” further information from Stevenson.
The IPCA investigators got to Stevenson one year too late. Broad, and/or the PM’s office, should have called the IPCA in at the time the allegations were first raised. After all, Broad did exactly that with the Investigate article that first came out at that time. But it didn’t happen here. Instead, Stevenson may well have been got at by Police National HQ and forced to sing the song that’s been officially reported.
Stevenson doesn’t want to compound the lie, knowing that the IPCA has different powers to a State Services Commission Yes Minister inquiry, so he speaks through clenched teeth and/or a lawyer (according to Cunneen).
Are you all really so obsessed with trying to score a point that you can’t see the inconsistencies in this IPCA report?
July 5, 2008 at 2:30 pm
And for the sake of educating you Poneke…here’s the link to the slam-dunk on Broad’s mate we published last June:
http://www.thebriefingroom.com/archives/2007/12/police_minister.html#comments
I would be interested to see whether you accept my allegation of “conspiracy” is more likely in this case than “cock-up”.
I find it hard to believe that cops dealing drugs or stealing jewellery from the scene of a robbery or asking criminals for substantial cash payments is an accidental “cock-up”.
July 5, 2008 at 2:48 pm
@Ian:
I’m still finding it hard to believe that its proper that to present this material in third person.
Surely you should be clearly identified as the author somewhere. I realise its on the magazine website and your name is gievn as the posting author, but its not clear at all in the article itself that you are the author referring to yourself.
Wrong with identifying yourself, e.g. “In my position as editor of Investigate magazine, I wish it to be known that…”? (Lousy wording, but you get the idea.)
Likewise you give yourself a credibility bite in the second sentence: “The award-winning journalist and author has turned up the heat on Police Conduct Authority head Lowell Goddard today [...]“. Surely that’s for others to do, or not?
And my definite your opinion, e.g. “[...] says Wishart, who laid out bullet point failings in the IPCA report.” (More correctly, these are points that you, as the author of the release, are of the opinion are “failings”.) And so on.
These surely are for other people to write, not for you to grant to yourself?
July 5, 2008 at 3:08 pm
My post immediately prior crossed with your reply. Your reply refers to events in a way I wasn’t. It appears you haven’t got what was meant by “a larger set of events”.
You’ve skewed off what I was actually referring to, to what I guess is your own private “battle”, which doesn’t interest me. I’m not interest in playing “winners” or “losers” as your retort implies, or even really interested in what happened of didn’t: my main point was that to my reading you yourself said it was a conspiracy, not something that Poneke planted on you.
And I still find the third-person thing weird!
July 5, 2008 at 3:24 pm
Heraclides…
I understand the points you are making, but we are essentially verging into a debate on the editorial style of a news release.
It doesn’t matter whether the bullet points are opinion or fact. What matters is they are objections I was raising that needed to be bulleted so journalists could more quickly get their heads around the issue and frame potential questions for the IPCA if necessary.
As yesterday’s news conference shows, some of my bullet points were indeed raised with the IPCA.
And no, I am entirely within my rights to label aspects of the report as ‘failings’. I am intimate with the subject matter at hand, and also well aware of what constitutes a proper investigation following correct process.
The IPCA investigation did not meet the standard.
As for the “award-winning journalist” bit, I chuck that in very occasionally as a counterbalance to the snide insubstantive PR hits like that of toms above, which can colour newsroom perceptions by a process of osmosis into their consciousness.
Poneke, who I respect as a journalist, was always the yin to my yang, and is so anti-conspiracy theories that he sometimes ignores the obvious staring him in the face.
I once wrote that Fay Richwhite had hired people to steal a manuscript copy of The Paradise Conspiracy before it was published.
Poneke scoffed loudly to all who would listen, only to discover after making some more checks that indeed my conspiracy allegation was true.
He was shocked, but he had the good grace to admit it, even though the idea of business icons stooping so low was a foreign idea to him. He was also a witness to those same icons applying pressure to TVNZ to get me taken off a documentary project.
The “conspiracy theorist” epithet is easy and cute to roll off the tongue, but my track record on these things is actually quite strong. Humans, by nature, are tribal. Members of the tribe scratch each others’ backs. “Conspiracies” are nothing more than a group of like minds or mates getting together and hatching a scheme to their mutual benefit. Poneke might be surprised to find out how many conspiracies actually exist.
Not everything happens by accident. Read the link in the story above, and tell me what part of that conspiracy I got wrong.
July 5, 2008 at 3:53 pm
I once wrote that Fay Richwhite had hired people to steal a manuscript copy of The Paradise Conspiracy before it was published.Poneke scoffed loudly to all who would listen, only to discover after making some more checks that indeed my conspiracy allegation was true.
Ian that is unfair. I never scoffed at that. I believed you, and checked it out, and had it confirmed by a very senior lawyer who was present when the manuscript was handed over, and I put it to Michelle Boag, who was unable to deny what was true, and published it.
This doesn’t make every conspiracy true. Some conspiracies are. Most are not and have simple explanations.
And you didn’t write it anywhere, you told me, and I checked it out, and I wrote it.
I have used this incident ever since to tell people they should not write off everything you say as a fantasy, but that you have increasingly descended into conspiracy theories that are beyond reason.
Your work on the Paradise Conspiracy was journalism at its very best. Your pusuit of Howard Broad and your use of any scuttlebutt and innuendo to try to bring him down is not journalism at its best.
July 5, 2008 at 4:13 pm
Pon, Transparency International’s reports are, with respect, pretty meaningless. Last time I looked they relied on government information on corruption charges etc as their test. It goes without saying (or should) that if you have a corrupt government system protecting its backside then you won’t be getting the criminal stats on corruption, and NZ would seem corruption free.
Our self-styled expert on corruption doesn’t appear to know much about the most reputable international measure of corruption: Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index. A quick check via google shows that it’s not based on government information or crime statistics. It’s based on national surveys of business people and independent country experts. (Presumably, that’s why it’s called a “perceptions” index.)
From the FAQs:
“The Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index ranks countries in terms of the degree to which corruption is perceived to exist among public officials and politicians. It is a composite index, a poll of polls, drawing on corruption-related data from expert and business surveys carried out by a variety of independent and reputable institutions….”
In the 2007 Corruption Perceptions Index, the data for New Zealand came from six surveys, according to this table: http://www.transparency.org/news_room/in_focus/2007/cpi2007/cpi_2007_table
The TI site includes a link to Transparency International New Zealand, where a list of current board members and disclosures of any conflicts of interest they may have can be found:
http://www.transparencynz.org.nz/board.htm
July 5, 2008 at 4:28 pm
Poneke, you’ll find the incident covered in Lawyers, Guns & Money, published July 97. You wrote about it in a North & South piece at the end of that year.
“Conspiracy theories beyond reason”. Which? I set out a link to Dunedin police corruption. Read it. Tell the victims of police corruption that they’re imagining it. Tell the families of people who spoke to Investigate last year that the dead pets they found in their cars a few mornings after the stories were published were imagining it.
I was prepared to give Howard Broad the benefit of the doubt, until I discovered him and his top echelon trying to cover up the corruption allegations.
Broad was a drink driver. Whilst police commissioner he pranged his car in such a manner that police were forced to attend and render assistance, yet it appears he was not breath tested as the law requires.
He has allowed corruption to continue under his watch.
That is why I am targeting Broad. He is part of the problem, not the solution.
July 5, 2008 at 5:35 pm
Silvereye…TI is not an investigative body conducting its own grassroots inquiries. It relies on the information it is fed. Its reports are only as good as what goes in.
To rely on TI as an assessment of corruption beyond a mere generalisation is like relying on Wikipedia for anything more than general information.
And again, TI is a side issue. Read my story link, and tell me why it is not corruption…
July 5, 2008 at 5:58 pm
Ian,
In the event of a change of administration – to one that more closely aligns with your values – are you likely to continue your enthusiastic pursuit of corruption?
July 5, 2008 at 7:17 pm
I wrote earlier: “I’m not interest in playing “winners” or “losers””. Perhaps in future you could take other’s hints —? (Not that I’ll hold my breath over that one.)
Instead you reply with a bunch of excuses… (Excuses which side-step or carefully “re-work” the actual points I made into something else. But I couldn’t care less, you’re only showing yourself up.)
Pffffth.
July 5, 2008 at 7:29 pm
Carol
You have a short memory. National hated me throughout the 90s because of the Winebox…
Just before the 2002 election, Investigate published a story embarrassing to National.
http://www.thebriefingroom.com/archives/2008/03/deborah_codding.html
You appear to have fallen victim to the problem I remarked on earlier…that it has become far too easy for unsubtantiated cheap shots (”Wishart isn’t objective, he’s only anti-Labour”) to become regarded as the truth.
If National abuse their power, we’ll cover them.
July 5, 2008 at 8:00 pm
Spirited stuff Heradcles. Yes claiming corruption when you don’t get your way IS a trait of most fundamentalist Christians such as Ian.
And here is Ian’s best statement of the year:
“It doesn’t matter whether the bullet points are opinion or fact. What matters is they are objections I was raising that needed to be bulleted so journalists could more quickly get their heads around the issue and frame potential questions for the IPCA if necessary.”
Yes the difference between opinions and facts are of constant confusion to Christian fundamentalists – opinions become facts if you are always right (bible or not bible)!!
Ian’s reference to himself in the 3rd person is this thing where someone perceives themselves to be a celebrity and they need someone else to admire them! In certain cases, very hard to find someone willing to be quoted and associated.
July 5, 2008 at 8:21 pm
Heraclides
Because Poneke is holding some of my comments for moderation, they can be substantially delayed before they appear. My last comment to you actually preceded the comment you presumed I ignored…but didn’t appear until after it.
Regardless, you apparently missed my point. I am raising the question that IPCA may still be vulnerable to outside political pressure. I have set out my reasons for this.
Here’s another from an email sent to me 10 minutes ago:
“I have never been in trouble with the police however I have recently laid minor complaint with the IPCA and without going into detail it was a complete white wash. I have a friend who also recently laid a very serious complaint with the IPCA. He had 3 witnesses, none were spoken to by the IPCA, yet the IPCA’s found there was no case to answer.
“If you require evidence to demonstrate a pattern of IPCA covering up poor Policing I’m sure he would be happy to supply a copy of his complaint and the subsequent report.”
I get emails and letters like this all the time.
The key point in this one is the guy whose three key witnesses were not even spoken to by IPCA, but Goddard’s group still managed to issue a “no misconduct found” ruling. I don’t need to know the substance of his “serious complaint”, all I need to know as a journalist is that important witnesses were not spoken to.
I’m starting to see a pattern. I’ll look into it further, I think.
This is not about “winners and losers”. It is simply about getting to the truth.
July 5, 2008 at 11:48 pm
Ian, in that case, why haven’t you pursued the matter of National’s secret agendas more? (I’m referring to privatisations in particular). These surely have far more moment and significance than a prurient fascination with Helen Clark’s personal life. [and no, I'm really not wanting to re-open that particular can of worms as it was discussed at length on a previous thread on this website].
July 6, 2008 at 1:28 am
Ian:
I have tried (repeatedly) to gently tell you that I’m not “even really interested in what happened o[r] didn’t”. Lets repeat myself seeing you are either avoiding this or its too subtle for you: Broad did this, the IPCA did that is “your own private “battle”, which doesn’t interest me”. Got that?
I’m not interested in it, was not writing about it, and never made out that I wanted to “discuss” it with you. At best you’re like a party bore who insists on foisting their hobby horse on me after I have tried to politely make it clear that I’m not interested. At worst you’re being deliberately being obtuse.
“Regardless, you apparently missed my point.”—no, I just didn’t write about it. Nothing odd or untoward about that (hint: read above).
Re: “you presumed I ignored”—I have no idea what this is about: I didn’t presume you ignored any of my posts and I’m the one that would know!
For everyone else: excuse the tiff. Its late, I’m tired and Ian is, well, Ian.
July 6, 2008 at 6:59 pm
It will be interesting to read the upcoming outcomes of two further complaints; one by Chris Watson to police (completed but embargoed)and another by journalist Keith Hunter to the IPCA. Both allege that deputy police commissioner Rob Pope lied under oath in affidavits to the court during the Marlborough Sounds murder inquiry. It seems, at least from the evidence presented in Hunter’s book “Trial By Trickery”, that the charge will be hard to deny.
Has Ian Wishart his eye on that one?
July 9, 2008 at 5:10 pm
Fascinating. I for one want a police force that is above reproach. Ours isn’t. Anyone who thinks it is is deluding themselves. You only have to look at the recent fiascos – failed prosecutions, botched investigations, failure to prosecute, sexual misconduct, perversion of the course of justice, etc, etc. These are not minor matters, and in my view they are not isolated occurences. The lose of public confidence in the police force is catastrophic and it surely goes straight to national police leadership.
This blight needs to be addressed as a priority. The old PCA was widely regarded as being ineffective and worse. The performance of the new body in light of the all the issues besetting the police force is a matter of some significance and it is imperative that the public has confidence in it. Personally, I don’t care if Ian Wishart is a ‘wowser’ (likewise who cares if Helen Clarke is gay). This is completely beside the point. I love the debate and think it is very important, but I am really tired of the continual ‘ad hominems’ produced by some who seem incapable of rational thought.
Ian Wishart is doing what investigative journalists should do. He is shaking the tree. It is a pity we don’t have more journalists with the same sort of integrity.
Who cares about the ‘third person presentation’ argument? What extraordinary piffle. Can’t you focus on the issues? After all they are pretty important. I say get a life. If you don’t understand why he did it (and it is obvious to, and accepted practice for anyone who has produces press statements) then check it out before you parade your ignorance for everyone to see. In the meantime can we please just stick to debating issues and not attack the person or is this just too idealistic?
July 12, 2008 at 6:16 pm
@ “Pete”
re “continual ‘ad hominems’”: defending someone by reframing others’ actions is poor taste in my opinion
People here are referring to what Ian did, not calling him names or the like.
Repeating what I wrote earlier, the third person aspect of the release struck me because the piece can be read quite differently once you realise that Ian is the author writing about himself, but the piece itself doesn’t make this clear. (Only material outside of the piece discloses this.) It particularly struck me as I was mislead by that aspect of it on my initial reading of it. Its an observation: it stands regardless of what others make of it.
Writing “parading [their] ignorance” reads as placing people on pedestals to knock them down, its contrived. (In any event, “standard practice”, doesn’t alter the observation, nor make it right: accepted practices can have known flaws, after all.)
I did muse about my previous experiences with conservative Christians, as the parallels struck me at the time. It’d be fair enough to point at that, but I took care not to plant it on Ian to make clear that my subject there was a style of “debate”, not specific individuals per se.
Only as food for thought, and somewhat tongue-in-cheek: you may be on thin ice asking others to “not attack the person” as an approach to defending Ian, as he’s treading rather close to that himself, if not actively doing it, in his own words: “That is why I am targeting Broad.”