Ian Wishart Absolute POWER What you are about to read will go further than anyone has gone The compelling unauthorised before – digging up a Prime Minister you didn’t even know existed. biography of a political machine... The Helen Clark we see today is a carefully manufactured, airbrushed political brand. She’s also New Zealand’s most powerful politician, ever. Absolute Power strips away the façade to find what makes the real Helen Clark tick, and explores the track record of a government that boasted it would bring a new age of “frugality and integrity”, and an end to “cronyism, sleaze and dishonesty”. Absolute Power is not just about what happened publicly and what played out on the news each night. It is much more about what was going on behind the scenes – the power plays, the dirty tricks, the Machiavellian maneuvers. The bits the daily media missed. Absolute POWER Lord Acton once wrote that absolute power corrupts absolutely, and that the great “are almost always bad”. Is Ian Wishart Helen Clark the exception to that rule? Judge for yourself #1 bestselling author in this decade’s most controversial political book… A Critically-Acclaimed Writer: Named as one of the country’s most influential journalists, Ian Wishart is an award-winning reporter and author of three #1 bestselling books: “The closest thing to a John Grisham novel, but it is the real thing” – Waikato Times Absolute “A writer who is prepared to tackle the difficult subjects... well researched and very compelling” – The Advocate “Wishart..is exceptionally thorough...skillfully blends [an] informative picture” – Evening Standard “His research is deep and thorough” HATM – Wairarapa Times Age Publishing POWERThe Helen Clark Years Ian Wishart Absolute POWER What you are about to read will go further than anyone has gone The compelling unauthorised before – digging up a Prime Minister you didn’t even know existed. biography of a political machine... The Helen Clark we see today is a carefully manufactured, airbrushed political brand. She’s also New Zealand’s most powerful politician, ever. Absolute Power strips away the façade to find what makes the real Helen Clark tick, and explores the track record of a government that boasted it would bring a new age of “frugality and integrity”, and an end to “cronyism, sleaze and dishonesty”. Absolute Power is not just about what happened publicly and what played out on the news each night. It is much more about what was going on behind the scenes – the power plays, the dirty tricks, the Machiavellian maneuvers. The bits the daily media missed. Absolute POWER Lord Acton once wrote that absolute power corrupts absolutely, and that the great “are almost always bad”. Is Ian Wishart Helen Clark the exception to that rule? Judge for yourself #1 bestselling author in this decade’s most controversial political book… A Critically-Acclaimed Writer: Named as one of the country’s most influential journalists, Ian Wishart is an award-winning reporter and author of three #1 bestselling books: “The closest thing to a John Grisham novel, but it is the real thing” – Waikato Times Absolute “A writer who is prepared to tackle the difficult subjects... well researched and very compelling” – The Advocate “Wishart..is exceptionally thorough...skillfully blends [an] informative picture” – Evening Standard “His research is deep and thorough” HATM – Wairarapa Times Age Publishing POWERThe Helen Clark Years About The Author Ian Wishart is an award-winning journalist and author, with a 26 year career in radio, television and magazines, a #1 talk radio show and three #1 bestselling books to his credit. Together with his wife Heidi, they edit and publish the news magazine Investigate. This book is dedicated to the people who have the courage to speak out. Journalists may write about it, but you live it. Ian Wishart #1 bestselling author Absolute POWERThe Helen Clark Years Howling At The Moon Publishing Ltd First edition published 2008 Howling At The Moon Publishing Ltd PO Box 302-188 North Harbour North Shore 0751 NEW ZEALAND www.howlingatthemoon.com email: [email protected] Copyright © Ian Wishart 2008 Copyright © Howling At The Moon Publishing Ltd, 2008 The moral rights of the author have been asserted. Absolute Power is copyright. Except for the purpose of fair reviewing, no part of the publication may be copied, reproduced or transmitted in any form, or by any means, including via technology either already in existence or developed subsequent to publication, without the express written permission of the publisher and copyright holders. All Rights Reserved. ISBN 978-0-9582401-3-0 Typeset in Adobe Garamond Pro Cover concept: Ian Wishart, Heidi Wishart, Bozidar Jokanovic Book Design: Bozidar Jokanovic Cover photo: Jane Ussher/Presspix To get another copy of this book airmailed to you anywhere in the world, or to purchase a fully text-searchable digital edition, visit our website: www.HOwLINGATTHEMOON.COM Contents 6 “The Prime Minister Has No Recollection Of The Pot” 10 Finding The Rough In The Diamonds 17 Helen’s Journey To The Dark Side 32 The Rise And Fall Of Howard Broad 68 Parkergate: The Untold Story 94 The Artful Dodger 123 Hoist On Your Own Petard 146 Labour’s Mafia Connections 170 The Whipping-boy 179 Crossfire: The Political Assassination Of Madeleine Setchell 186 Purple Heather 203 “A Determined Little Devil Of A Child” 208 The Elephant In The Room 237 Crocodile Tears: Playing The Victim Card 248 The Peter Davis Incident 268 The Velvet Revolution 276 The Bold And The Dutiful: Clark’s Powerbase 296 The Power Of One 307 The Rise Of Queen Helen 326 Index Introduction “The Prime Minister Has No Recollection Of The Pot” “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.” – Lord Acton, English jurist AS BOOK TITLES GO, ABSOLUTE POWER tells the story of the Helen Clark years pretty well, but I did briefly flirt with an alternative title, High Crimes and Misdemeanors. Unfortunately, US columnist Ann Coulter had already turned a book of that name into a bestseller on the Clinton presidency, but no one in New Zealand can deny that Labour’s reign has been dogged by more immoral and illegal behavior than any other administration in a century. Yet despite its crimes, no one within the Government has ever been prosecuted. What you are about to read, however, will go further than anyone has gone before – digging up a Prime Minister you didn’t even know existed, and exposing genuine, Queensland-style corruption in the country that keeps priding itself on being corruption-free. Frankly, if I’m not up against a wall in handcuffs being read my rights by the end of the first week of this book’s release, I’ll be pleasantly surprised. If Police Commissioner Howard Broad thought he had problems with a chicken sex movie last year, he’s in for a surprise in these pages but it won’t be so pleasant. Deputy Police Commissioner Rob Pope will have some fresh questions to answer as well, and they won’t be pleasant either, and Police Minister Annette King and Prime Minister Helen Clark will face equally sticky questions over what they knew and when, and what they did when they found out. Education Minister Chris Carter will face questions over whether he deliberately misled a police investigation, Heather Simpson is caught dead to rights interfering in the independence of a government department in breach of the rules, and you’ll find out why one of the Prime Minister’s media team 8 ABSOLUTE POWER was forced to utter this classic line, “The Prime Minister has no recollection of the pot.” And that’s just a snippet, a trifle, of the revelations in this book. Then there’s Labour’s connections to a Caribbean tax haven tycoon with alleged links to the New York mafia, described as “a sugar-daddy to a coked-up black hostess”; a tycoon whose right hand man got pinged in a massive fraud case involving a murderer and a bank robber. Let’s not forget Helen Clark herself – the child who suffered social phobias and panic attacks yet grew up to be Prime Minister. That in itself is an amazing story, but trying to tell it is like scaling the walls of Camelot, only to find the whole thing’s made of cardboard. The Helen Clark we see today is a carefully manufactured, airbrushed brand. She is a woman who makes all the right noises at all the right times, and delivers her lines seamlessly. She has an intellect like a bear-trap – sharp and lethal. But she is also a chameleon, an actress or, as even her first biographer put it, a “control freak”. Many see Clark as a leader with a dangerous agenda. “She wants to busy herself with what goes on in the homes of the nation in areas which families regard as their own responsibility, and I think she’s going over a very dangerous line.” There are also many other views of what Clark has done. The Helen Clark who emerges from these pages is a Helen Clark measured against her own words from years ago. While her actions suggest she has remained true to her core principles and has carefully introduced policies to reflect those, the news transcripts show Clark has been prepared to say anything to anyone if she thinks it will advance her agenda. Case in point? That quote above about interfering “in the homes of the nation” was not someone talking about Clark. It was Clark! She was trying to paint her opponent Jenny Shipley as the devil incarnate of the “Nanny State”.