By Simon Wong and Dan Satherley
Scoop news outlet co-founder Alastair Thompson has resigned from his job after claims he is to become the party secretary for Kim Dotcom's new Internet Party.
A post on Cameron Slater's blog, WhaleOil, today linked Mr Thompson, a journalist and member of the parliamentary press gallery, to the party, saying he registered the domain names under the Scoop Media banner. It was among other details leaked and published on the site about the party's strategy.
Mr Dotcom has so far released few details about the new Internet Party, but it seems he doesn't have to, following the leak.
In the party's strategy white paper, blogger Martyn "Bomber" Bradbury recommends the party pay him $8000 a month to run a campaign in the Auckland Central electorate. Mr Bradbury also asks for a one-off payment of $5000 to upgrade his computer, cellphone and tablet devices.
Mr Bradbury wrote on his blog yesterday that "urban professional male Gen X National Party voters who don’t derive an income from the Dairy Industry will find Kim Dotcom’s economic vision a genuine way forward and they will find it difficult not to vote for him".
In response to the leak, Mr Bradbury says the document is an "early draft" of a proposal tabled at a meeting late last year.
"The idea of me as a candidate was more to kick around ideas."
He maintains he is a political consultant and the white paper was something he was asked to submit. However, he would be "shouting from the rooftops" if he did start working for the Internet Party.
"I think the ideas of an Internet Party focused on civil rights in the online 21st Century and the economic prosperity that could generate for New Zealand is the future, and anything that moves us away from a dairy dependent, drill-and-mine economy is a good thing."
The WhaleOil blog also says Wellington barrister Graeme Edgeler was brought in as a consultant and charged $3000 for a report into two electorates – the newly created Upper Harbour and Auckland Central.
In the leaked white paper, it says the Internet Party will need between 15,000 and 17,000 votes in the new Auckland electorate and 50,000 party votes to get three MPs into Parliament.
The document appears to be from before November last year, because under a timeline it has "register party" on a to-do list for that month.
A number of other ideas are also floated, including:
- A plan to launch free Wi-Fi across entire Auckland electorate from February 1, but only until August 31, or possibly only for a month, depending on cost
- A focus on winning Auckland Central
- A six-week campaign to "turn the Dotcom mansion into a tent city for 300 volunteers to live at", which would include providing food, campaign t-shirts, showers, free Wi-Fi. "The idea is to overwhelm the electorate with our foot soldiers for the six weeks of the campaign."
- The party won't announce candidates until April, once the electorate boundaries are set
3 News
source: newshub archive
