So says Judge Fran - good judgement
But instead of examining whether New Zealand's incumbent Prime Minister also employs such tactics, Hager trots out the line that National's continued employment of Australian political strategy firm Crosby/Textor (just one of the consultants the party has hired) is proof positive that aspiring PM John Key is little more than a political puppet for "foreign" ventriloquists who feed him all his lines.
On Planet Nicky, NZ political journalists are nothing more than ready dupes who unknowingly parrot the lines conjured up by the real power brokers who, ipso facto, must be irredeemably evil.
This is patronising nonsense. In Australia it's long been recognised that political parties of both Labor and Liberal hue resort to what used to be called "machine men" politics.
