Yesterday Michelle Boag accused Slater of what sounded like receiving hush money (see Boag on paying not to be mentioned on a blog ):
Boag: I know people who pay money through an intermediary to a particular blogger so that he won’t mention their name.
That was followed by Slater responds to pay for silence accusation:
Slater: Absolutely it’s a no. You can’t pay me to shut up.
Later in the day also on RadioLive Mark Sainsbury repeated some of Boag’s comments and interviewed Cameron Slater:
Sainsbury: Well pretty strong claims there because effectively what Michelle Boag is saying or inferring is that Camerosn Slater can be bought. That you can pay him not to say nasty things about you and if you want something nice said you pay three hundred bucks through an intermediary. So what does Cameron Slater make of it all. Good afternoon Cam.
Slater: Hey Sainso.
Sainsbury: Has she got you dead to rights?
Slater: No she’s making shit up as usual.
Sainsbury: So what you’re saying is that’s she’s lying.
Slater: Yeah she’s lying. There’s not a single person who has never paid me not to write anything about them, and if she knows of somebody like that then I want their name so I can invoice them.
Sainsbury: Because she appears to be saying that this is done through an intermediary, so supposedly meaning Cameron that you could then stand back and say”I’ve never done this”.
Slater: No well that’s not true. Ah you know I don’t take money to not talk about people. I mean for goodness sake I used to get calls from the ninth floor ah in the Beehive where they’d say “please Cam don’t say that about that Cabinet Minister” or “please Cam don’t say that” and I’d just say to them ah you know GFY basically, um listeners can work that out, I’m not going to say those words on radio.
That in itself is an interesting comment. Did people from the ninth floor of the Beehive ask Slater to pull posts that were already on Whale Oil? Or did he tell them in advance what he was goint to post and they asked him not to post them?
Sainsbury: Do you or have you ever offered good coverage to anyone in return for money?
Slater: No.
Chapter 7 of Nicky Hager’s book ‘Dirty Politics goes into detail that suggests otherwise. Hager claims that payments from lobbiest and friend Carrick Graham were a substantial part of Slater’s income. Rawshark revealed invoices.
And Slater’s response to Plunket in his earlier interview was wuite different, appearing to admit that he did (and didn’t deny it), saying “it’s a little bit sanctimonious of all these media organisations to point their fingers at me when they’re running native advertising, charging PR companies for putting product placement and all those sorts of things”.
Slater:I write what I want to write about ah anything that takes my fancy and if something’s ah poos then I’ll say it’s poos. You can’t pay me to say something’s nice if it’s not. And ah you know I’m certainly never going to say anything nice about Michelle Boag.
Sainsbury: Well certainly not now but ok you’re saying, because she was pretty clear what she was saying this morning and Shaun gave her the chance to, you know gave her the chance to be very clear about it, so what is it? You’re saying that she is lying.
Slater: Yes.
Sainsbury: And what motivated by what?
Slater: That’s not new from Michelle Boag though.
Sainsbury: What, you’re saying she’s a serial liar?
Slater: Well I’ve said that on RadioLive before, she had a complete meltdown once and screamed down the airwaves ah while Mike Williams sat there chuckling ’cause she was upset because I’d um called her a poisonous lying scumbag. Um I didn’t disagree with her.
Sainsbury: Look people listening I mean to be honest people listening to this Cameron probably think this doesn’t reflect well probably on either of you.
Slater: Oh well I don’t really care. Um look Michelle has got um delusions of grandeur, she thinks she’s still relevant in New Zealand politics, but the reality is she’s a really old snarly ah hunk of rancid mutton dressed as rancid mutton.
Sainsbury: Ooh jeepers, Cameron…
Slater: She might think that I might hate her…
Sainsbury: But Cameron isn’t, look, look, I can understand people having a crack at people who are their political enemies if you like, but what it sounds like there, that sounds deeply personal and offensive doesn’t it?
Slater: Ah look, you know the history of our family and Michelle Boag goes back quite some way. Ah she keeps having a crack and ah I keep defending our family.
Sounds like more attack than defence. Sounds very personal and bitter.
Slater: She she might actually think that i hate her but look I don’t hate Michelle Boag, but I tell you what, I would unplug her life support to charge my phone.
Sainsbury: If what she says is so wrong Cameron Slater, if she’s effectively defaming you, why don’t you sue her?
Slater: Well look, you know that’s for cowards running off to court. It’s for gutless wonders um who want to make attention for themselves.
Slater didn’t call Jordan Williams in this post: Colin Craig Demation Filed
Slater: Ah I’ve got big broad shoulders, she can say whatever she likes, it doesn’t it doesn’t ah matter to me, ah, what does matter to me is that she spends every waking moment thinking about Cameron Slater.
Now I don’t spend any moments thinking about Michelle Boag.
He’s spent quite a few moments not just thinking but speaking about Boag, turning her accusation against him into an extended attack on her over two interviews.
And he posted this about it yesterday: Michelle Boag is a bitter old bag and wrong as usual – and also took the time to comment in the thread, as did his wife ‘Spanish Bride’ a number of times.
And Whale Oil started today with this attack on her: Face of the day (posted under ‘SB’ – Spanish Bride).
Sainsbury: She has been a past president of ther National Party. She has been involved with major corporations in this country. She’s been involved in all sorts of stuff. It is, you can’t just write her off as a nobody surely?
Slater: Well I can, I can write off on the basis of what I know about her past. Ah you know she was the first visitor when my father became the National Party President. She was his first visitor on the first day he was the president. She rocked up with three foolscap pages of names of people she demanded board positions for.
John Slater was National party president from 1998 to 2001. Michele Boag defeated him and was president 2001-2002.
Slater: Ah, you know this is these are facts. They’re indisputable. Um she, the cheek of the woman to actually do that when she’d been running the campaign of the person standing against my father just the the utter ah capacity of duplicity for her.
And then ah you know there’s just been a long standing campaign. She doesn’t matter very much. She might have been the past president of the ah of the National Party but her and Bill English have got the record for the lowest ever polling of the ational party so you know I’m happy to stand on my record, she can stand on her’s but she won’t be very tall.
Sainsbury: All right so what you’re saying is there’l be no lawsuit from you. You’re saying she’s wrong but obviously what we do take out of this is there is a lot of bad blood between Cameron Slater and Michelle Boag.
Very obviously,
He says he doesn’t “spend any moments thinking about Michelle Boag” but feelings seem to run deep on this.
You can see this in action by doing a search on Michellle Boag at Whale Oil.
But Slater’s outpourig of angst took over from the original question.
I’d be surprised if Slater threatens people with publication unless they pay him.
But if as it appears he has had a substantial income from PR and political posts there can be some fuzziness about what that money might be paying for.
And as far as Slater versus Boag goes, animosity appears to run very deep.
UPDATE: Slater has posted again on Boag: NO ONE LIKES A BOAG-UN
Mark Sainsbury wanted to get to the bottom of her allegations and I had 6 or so minutes to have a crack back at her outrageous lies.
He had a crack at Boag for sure but the allegations/lies didn’t get much attention. He seems to be promoting the interview as if it’s something to be proud of: