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A quick response to Matthew Hooton
By Steven | May 30, 2019
I see Matthew Hooton has noted that I have acted for Nicky Hager and accused me of hypocrisy for suggesting that National broke the law with its budget leaks.
He seems to think his logic is obvious. I guess it’s that Hager published confidential material leaked from the government (see especially: Other People’s Wars and The Hollow Men) and I didn’t accuse them of breach of confidence.
That can only be explained by the fact that I am a lefty, Labour-apologist lickspittle.
I thought my argument was clear from my blog post yesterday, but let me spell it out anyway:
Hager made unauthorised use of leaked confidential government material, and he had a defence of public interest.
National made unauthorised use of leaked confidential government material, and they didn’t have a defence of public interest because that same material was going to be made public two days later.
I explained why I thought there was no public interest, and even tried to spell out some arguments for National that I might be wrong.
Call that hypocrisy if you like, I suppose.
Topics: Breach of confidence | Comments Off on A quick response to Matthew Hooton