Ralston now blogging

Fairfax have out together a good mixture of bloggers at their Business Day site. They have Nick Stride and Nick Smith from the Independent. Shareholder activist Bruce Shepherd, professional protester John Minto, Vernon Small from the Dom Post and the pugnacious Bill Ralston. Most of these blogs are now added to the blogroll.

Bill blogged yesterday on Winston’s latest allegations:

He claims he is being persecuted by a media conspiracy. In the House, referring to the time when I headed news and current affairs, he alleged: “TVNZ have had two private investigators, detectives, sniffing around since they were sued for defamation some years ago, an action which is still alive today.”

This is completely untrue. In my time at TVNZ we never hired any private detectives to investigate him. Winston is fond of calling people ‘liars”. I will simply call him “mistaken”.

Winston has repeated this ridicolous claim several times now. Journalists should call him on it, and to use his own language ask for substantiation? Apart from his fevered imagination, does he had a shred of proof that TVNZ has hired private investigators against him?

If Helen Clark or John Key made an allegation like that, and could not back it up, they would be hounded out of their jobs.

Ralston then turns if TVNZ hiring of Phil Kitchin a few years back:

Winston might want to pause here and think hard about the multiple Qantas Award winning Kitchin’s track record. I hired Phil after a story he wrote broke open the Pipi Trust and exposed then MP Donna Awatere Huata’s fraudulent activity. Donna and her husband went to jail as a result.

Kitchin came to work at TVNZ and broke the Louise Nicholas story (simultaneously published in the Dom Post).  A couple of former police officers and other sexual offenders are still doing time as a result of that investigation.

In fact Kitchin’s investigations in various TV and print stories have put several people behind bars, including the murderer of a small baby, and sparked those things Winston once loved – police investigations and Commissions of Inquiry.

Yes Winston has called for such things in the past. And there is one thing Winston has called for which I think is a good idea. Winston would agree it is also, as it is one of NZ First’s 15 fundamental principles:

An independent anti-corruption commission will be established to enable New Zealanders to have confidence that their institutions are working properly.

I think that is one NZ First policy which is well overdue for implementation!