Nicky Hager’s new book alleges the Taxpayers’ Union pivoted to Māori and co-governance politics after its Three Waters campaign delivered a surge in supporters and donations, writes Henry Oliver in today’s excerpt from The Bulletin.
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Nicky Hager’s new book, Dirty Work, released last night but not hitting bookstores until tomorrow, is the third instalment of what his publisher is calling the “Dirty Politics trilogy,” following The Hollow Men in 2006 and Dirty Politics in 2014. The book focuses on the Taxpayers’ Union, which Hager describes, as reported by RNZ’s Lillian Hanly, as “the latest front for New Zealand’s radical right.”
In the book, Hager argues the organisation weaponised anti-Māori rhetoric, especially during its Stop Three Waters campaign, and shifted the 2023 election to the right, particularly through its influence on David Seymour and Christopher Luxon.
The core allegation as reported by the Herald’s David Fisher, is that the Three Waters campaign’s success drove the organisation’s change in direction. (Three Waters, if you need a refresher, was Labour’s plan to move water services from 67 councils to four regional bodies.) The Taxpayers’ Union’s opposition focused on iwi representation, leading to increasingly personalised attacks on Nanaia Mahuta, then local government minister.
In the book, as reported by the Herald, former staff quoted by Hager describe Jordan Williams watching the campaign’s growth and asking: “How can we make money from this?” Donations were later described as “pouring in like a pokie machine.”
Mahuta told Fisher: “Follow the money, in terms of the Taxpayers’ Union, and you find a rotten stench.” She said she was aware of a social media ecosystem around the campaign in which her picture was prominently shown. She said she felt personally targeted by the campaign, which was “insidious, dishonest and denigrated a lot of years of hard work building inclusiveness and togetherness.”
A union divided (allegedly)
Hager claims the shift triggered a dispute inside the organisation, with one staff member saying: “We’re here to fight about tax rates and economics.” The disagreement went to the board, which changed the slogan from “Lower taxes, less waste and more transparency” to “More accountability.” One former staffer told Hager the change “legitimised a move towards race.” According to Fisher, the book says chairman Ashley Church resigned over the shift, replaced by Laurence Kubiak, who is quoted as writing: “Co-governance has been huge for us.”
Kubiak told the Herald the claim the organisation moved because of donations “is quite an assertion.” Co-founder David Farrar told the Herald that what Hager attributes to him is “categorically wrong in relation to me.”
The Taxpayers’ Union responds
According to RNZ, Williams sent supporters an email calling the book a “full frontal attack” on the organisation, himself and Farrar. He said Hager ignored “the most basic principles of fair journalism” by not putting allegations to those accused or giving them a chance to respond before publication. (Which is a consistent criticism of/defence against Hager’s books, which he justifies as necessary to avoid the prevention of publication through injunctions.)
“Instead, he released his accusations at a carefully choreographed media event, in the middle of an election campaign, knowing that the headlines would be written before we could even obtain a copy of the book,” Williams said. The organisation has rejected claims of race baiting and of being a fake organisation, saying it used Mahuta’s photo because she was the lead minister on Three Waters, and that just 3% of its funding comes from corporates.
A different kind of Hager book?
In The Post this morning, Henry Cooke notes this instalment lacks the kind of document treasure trove that have typically been the core of Hager’s books. There are no leaked emails or texts – the book rests on sources Hager says come from the Taxpayers’ Union and the wider political right.
At the launch, Hager’s lawyers clarified there were no allegations of a criminal nature. Pressed on his central thesis, Hager could not claim the organisation operated in secret, nor that it hid its right-wing leanings. His argument was that the Taxpayers’ Union and associated groups were a “spider’s web” that looks large but isn’t widely representative, and that it used racism to advance its aims. Cooke notes much of the evidence was already public, most notably the Mahuta billboards.
Cooke asks whether this sequel will have the same impact of the first two instalments. “Don Brash resigned the day after The Hollow Men came out,” he writes. Judith Collins’ career took years to fully recover from Dirty Politics. Will anyone take quite as high a fall this time?”
At the launch
The Spinoff’s Lyric Waiwiri-Smith was there early to get a front row spot amongst the journalists, activists, operatives, tote-bag carriers and “sad political tragics”. Taxpayers’ Union and Act Party figures were also present, though a lot less frendly than usual, she reports. The book sold out within 20 minutes, leaving journalists to share a single saved box.
“Take it as a testament to how Hager can set the city and the political rumour mill alight,” she writes, “some poor junior producer has just spent their night photocopying every page so Heather du Plessis-Allan can talk about it on her radio show in Auckland today.”
