The Ten Ds: how the Taxpayers’ Union will answer Dirty Work

Grant McLachlan

Sep 24

13 min read

Nicky Hager’s book has been out for two days and the response is already following a script. I know the script. It was run against me. Here it is in advance, so readers can tick it off as it happens.

Every political operator has a playbook for bad news. Most never write it down. They don’t need to. They learn it by watching, and they teach it the same way.

In Unleashed I called it the Ten Ds of Opposition Tactics: Deflect, Delay, Deny, Discount, Deceive, Divide, Dulcify, Discredit, Destroy, and Deal. I wrote that Beth Houlbrooke, then ACT’s deputy leader and a Rodney Local Board member, deployed the full repertoire against her opponents, pretty much in that order. I was one of those opponents.

(Houlbrooke's son, Louis, at the time was the campaign manager for the Taxpayers' Union. Now, he is Act's Communications Manager. Louis' replacement at the Taxpayers' Union, Callum Purves, is now Act's Party Secretary.)

Nicky has been through it too. In 2013, in 2014, and again this week.

This is a forecast. Keep it. Check it against what happens between now and the election.

The man in the book will play the victim. Watch who does the work.

The victim and the crew

The apprentice and his connections

The victim and the crew

The first rule of the playbook is that the principal keeps his hands clean.

Jordan Williams has cast himself as the injured party. His email to supporters on launch night said the Union was under attack, and so was he personally. His statement called the book character assassination and promised that he would not be bullied or silenced. The next morning he told Ryan Bridge the book’s “primary objective is to derail me”.

Then the sulk. When David Fisher put Hager’s latest challenge to Williams and chair Ruth Richardson, neither responded.

Now the family man. Williams is protecting his wife, the nurse the book mentions, from the journalist who wrote about her. The message writes itself: look what Hager has done to my family.

That is the stage. The work happens off it.

I have seen this production before. In Warkworth, Houlbrooke’s lines never changed. She was bullied. She was the target of sexism and misogyny. When a confrontation she was part of went wrong in a bar, she shouted that I started it. Meanwhile, as I set out in Unleashed and in How a right wing racket unleashed on me, other people did the work. A dossier prepared by ACT’s campaign manager went to the local police. Complaints went to council officials and, twice, to the Law Society. A network of neighbourhood vigilantes followed me on my daily walk. Her hands stayed clean.

Nobody needs to issue a directive for this to happen. The Taxpayers’ Union has a large, angry supporter base and a stable of aligned groups, bloggers and commentators. Some of them will do what they think Williams wants. He can then say, truthfully, that he asked for nothing.

The victim sulks in public. The crew works in private.

The apprentice and his connections

Williams did not invent the method. He was taught it.

Hager’s 2014 preface to Dirty Politics introduced him as “Slater and Lusk’s apprentice”. Three years later Hager described him as an enthusiastic helper, ready to dig dirt on the latest target. After the book came out, Williams said he and Slater still spoke every day. Dirty Work opens with the apprenticeship. In one exchange summarised by the Democracy Project, Williams urged Slater to think about which sacrificial lambs could be slaughtered.

What Slater taught was not just nastiness. It was the use of connections. The Prime Minister’s press office worked with him. A Cabinet minister passed him the details of a public servant. The Inspector-General of Intelligence confirmed that the Prime Minister’s staff handed him SIS material. And when Dirty Politics came out, Slater complained to police about the hack. The IRD audited Hager's finances. The police raided Hager’s house instead of investigating what the book said.

On the way to that raid, police told Westpac they were investigating Hager for fraud. The bank handed over ten months of his transactions without a court order. The Privacy Commissioner censured the bank. Westpac apologised and settled. Police admitted they had no basis for the fraud allegation, apologised and paid substantial damages. That took four years.

Houlbrooke’s connections were smaller. They were the same idea. Council officials who received her emails calling me a hacker, a liar and a bully. A community police station run by volunteers drawn from her network. A local MP who called my work weird and ridiculous. The day after one of my complaints was fobbed off, she refilled the glasses of local police at a function held in their honour.

Williams learned the trade in the room where the technique was refined. Expect him to use the connections he has.

Slater’s network reached into the Beehive and the police. Houlbrooke’s reached into the council and the local station. The principle is the same: get an institution to do what you cannot be seen doing yourself.

Deflect

Make it about the messenger.

The first move is to change the subject from what the book says to who wrote it, when, and why.

In 2014 John Key called Dirty Politics a cynically timed attack book by a well-known left-wing conspiracy theorist. He said it was the end of an orchestrated campaign by left-wing activists. Very little air was left for what Slater and Jason Ede had done.

In 2026 the lines were written years ago. In July 2023 the Union issued a statement about a book Hager said he had not started. It said Hager was coming for them because they were successful, and that successful centre-right groups get hacked by his friends. This week’s version: an election-year hit, a hard-left author, no right of reply. Hager has accused Williams of using the harassment denial to divert attention from the rest of the book. Judge for yourself.

Houlbrooke’s deflection was smaller and quicker. When I used official information to show what a local lobby had asked of the council, the story became me. She told council officials I was using the documents to bully someone.

If the conversation is about Hager, it is not about the book.

Delay

Run down the clock.

Williams has already announced the delay. Suing is very tempting, he told Ryan Bridge, but there is important work to do over the next five or six weeks. That is the rest of the campaign.

Expect every hard question to be parked until after the vote. Legal action under consideration. Answers at the appropriate time. By then the news cycle will have moved on, and so will the electorate.

In 2014 the delay worked. The raid on Hager came in October, after the election. Judith Collins resigned over a different email. The apology and damages came four years later.

Councils delay with paperwork. My request for Houlbrooke’s correspondence was lodged in May 2021. The response came in July, after the statutory timeframe was extended to consult the people named, most of whom were then redacted. My Code of Conduct complaint about her took two and a half months to be dismissed. When I was charged, the police pushed for a trial date that fell after the 2023 election.

A question answered after the election costs nothing.

Deny

Deny fast, deny loud, and choose the words carefully.

The denial came within hours. Ruth Richardson said the board “categorically denies” that the organisation has ever made a payment to settle a sexual harassment claim against Williams. Williams told Ryan Bridge the suggestion of a settlement was totally false. David Farrar wrote on Kiwiblog that a secret payment was impossible because two directors must sign off.

Read denials the way a lawyer drafts them. Note what is denied: a payment, by the board, to settle, a claim, of that label. Then note what is not addressed. Hager’s answer was to invite Williams and Farrar to waive confidentiality over any documents. The Union called that a “fishing expedition”.

The denials also came before the book. The Union’s 2023 statement rebutted allegations that had not yet been made.

Houlbrooke’s denials were procedural. When her hand in a proposal was exposed, she explained that workshops are not decision-making forums, so no decision had been made.

A denial is only as good as its wording. Read the wording.

Discount

If you can’t deny it, shrink it.

Williams started before the launch. Told the Union might feature, he said he was flattered to have finally made the cut. Farrar set the tone on day one: a couple of disgruntled ex-staffers, every organisation has them, and the polling chapter is hilarious. Williams said industry money is less than 3% of revenue.

Expect more of it. The tobacco material is old news. The money is a matter of public record. The former staff are bitter. Nothing to see.

Houlbrooke’s word for my research was fanciful. She told a council officer that I spin some fanciful yarns. It was written to make sure officials didn’t take a member of the public seriously.

Discounting dismisses a claim without the bother of disproving it.

Deceive

Say something true that leaves a false impression.

This is the D readers will miss, because it doesn’t look like anything.

Watch for statements that are accurate in their words and misleading in their effect. Williams says the Union has been open for more than a decade about its funding. Dirty Work reports that in late 2025 the Union converted from an incorporated society into a company with no obligation to publish accounts. Both are true. Only one tells you where the money trail now ends.

Watch also for the small error used to sink the whole book. Dirty Work has errors. I pointed one out in my launch feature. Expect a corrected date or title to be presented as proof that nothing in the book can be trusted. Farrar’s 1000% wrong is the template.

Houlbrooke’s version was a photograph. During the 2020 lockdown she posted pictures of herself at home in Warkworth. Residents saw her at the family’s holiday home twenty kilometres away. I set it out in Unleashed. The photos were real. The impression was not.

The most effective deceptions are built entirely from true statements.

Divide

Split the people who might stand together.

Hager’s sources are former staff. The obvious play is to turn them into the story. The Union said in 2023 that Hager was asking former staff to breach confidences. Expect the rumour mill to work out names, and expect those names to reach people who can make their working lives difficult.

Expect division among allies too. Other journalists will be invited to distance themselves from Hager’s methods. The Greens will be tied to him. The launch room already showed how easily people separate into cliques.

In 2014 the hunt for Hager’s source ran through his house and his bank. In Warkworth the method was cheaper. I was blocked from the community Facebook groups Houlbrooke and her deputy administered. Comment threads closed when I posted the correct answer. The community was sorted into her people and everyone else. My friends, routine, and even my dog were targeted.

A source who is afraid stops talking. That is the point.

Dulcify

Sweeten the public face.

Dulcify means to soothe. It is the charm offensive that runs alongside everything else.

Expect Williams to look reasonable. Measured interviews. Concern for fairness. Support for sensible reform. It started at once: on launch day the Union welcomed the Greens’ proposal for a two-year stand-down before ministers become lobbyists. The Union has said since 2023 that it is happy to be interviewed by Hager. Watch for that offer to be repeated now, on terms.

Houlbrooke’s version was compassion. When a resident asked about campers breaching lockdown rules, she urged readers to consider why they might be in that position. The same fortnight, as I set out in Unleashed, she was fielding complaints about me and blocking me from the groups.

Watch the smile. Then watch the hands.

Discredit

Damage the reputation so nobody believes the evidence.

Hager has been here before. In 2013 Cathy Odgers suggested to Slater that publishing Hager’s address could get him hurt. His address then appeared on Whale Oil. In 2014 Slater called him a sanctimonious hypocrite. This week the Union’s email to supporters questioned whether he was a journalist at all.

Expect it to widen. His lawyers. His publisher. His sources. His earlier books. Hit and Run will be relitigated.

In Warkworth, the discrediting ran through official channels. Houlbrooke used council email to describe me to officials as a hacker, a liar and a bully. By July 2024 Auckland Council’s systems held 11,558 hits mentioning me. Someone told the Law Society I was holding myself out as a lawyer. The Society ignored it, then acted when the same complainant tried again two days after Houlbrooke was served with a restraining order application.

Williams knows the technique. In 2015 he told the Herald that when officials made comments he objected to, he went to their managers. He insisted the Union plays the ball, not the man.

Discrediting is not a defence. It is a warning to the next person thinking of talking.

Destroy

If you can’t win the argument, remove the person.

In 2014 the answer to Dirty Politics was a ten-hour police raid on Hager’s home, triggered by Slater’s complaint. Police took his computers and papers. Four years later they apologised and paid substantial damages. The damage had been done in the first week.

In 2026 it was a pirated PDF, circulating before the rest of the country could buy the book. I described it on Wednesday. It hits an independent publisher and an author who spent three years on the work.

Destroy does not have to mean a raid. It can be a complaint to a regulator, litigation designed to drain rather than win, or a quiet word with a source’s employer.

Williams knows litigation from the receiving end. His case against Colin Craig ran for more than four years, through the Supreme Court, against a man wealthy enough to post a pamphlet to 1.6 million homes. He knows exactly what it costs, in money and in time. He also has an idea of what it does to the other side.

Now the money is on his side. Dirty Work puts the Union’s takings at $7.27 million over three years and names the people behind it. The money chapter has Jim Grenon pitching a media company and asking for a board seat.

Grenon has already tried lawfare. He funded Julian Batchelor’s defamation case against TVNZ and a researcher, an arrangement that only surfaced under cross-examination. The case was “wholly unsuccessful”. In July, Grenon was ordered to pay TVNZ’s costs jointly and severally. Before the costs hearing, his lawyer tried to stop the media reporting his involvement. That failed too.

Expect the same shape. A plaintiff who is not Williams. A funder who is not named. A defendant chosen because they cannot afford to fight. Then watch the costs order.

In Warkworth, I described in Unleashed two nights in a bar where I believe Houlbrooke and her associates tried to provoke a confrontation so I would spend the weekend in the cells. Her parting line was that the police would believe her. When that failed, her supporters ran a three-strikes plan around my dog. I was charged with assault and robbery, spent two and a half years on bail, and was acquitted when my photographs of being attacked unravelled the story.

The three-strikes technique has a longer history. Slater and Lusk used it in 2011. It was used against a political editor this year.

When the playbook reaches Destroy, the principal is nowhere near the scene.

Deal

Make it go away quietly.

The last D is the one nobody sees. A settlement. A non-disclosure agreement. An apology in exchange for dropping a threat.

Williams has made deals before. After the Supreme Court ordered a retrial in his case against Craig, he admitted making false allegations, apologised and made an undisclosed payment. A High Court judge later recorded that Williams had passed Rachel MacGregor’s confidences to Slater in breach of an undertaking to her. That is what the apprentice learned about confidentiality.

The Deal is also at the heart of the book’s most disputed claim. Hager says the settlement exists. The Union says it does not, and will not waive confidentiality over documents it says do not exist.

Expect deals elsewhere. An outlet offered an exclusive for softer coverage. A former staffer reminded of what they signed. A quiet correction in return for silence.

Houlbrooke’s version was blunt. When a local man posted about her lockdown travel, she sent him a letter, copied to council governance staff, the police and her solicitor, saying she would consider defamation action unless he deleted the post and published an apology. He deleted it. That’s a deal.

The last D ends the conversation. That is its purpose.

Keep score

This is not a prediction that every D will happen. It is a list to check against.

Over the coming weeks, write down each response to Dirty Work. Who said it. Where. Then match it to a letter.

Pay attention to who does the talking. If Williams stays wounded and dignified while bloggers, commentators, anonymous accounts and aligned groups do the work, you have seen the pattern.

Pay attention to institutions. Slater’s advantage was never his blog. It was the police, the bank and the Beehive doing what he asked. Houlbrooke’s advantage was never her argument. It was the council and the local station. Watch for a complaint, an inquiry or a request for information that arrives from somewhere official.

And Nicky, if you are reading: you know most of this. The part to watch is your sources. They don’t have a legal team, a publisher and a public profile. They are the easiest targets on the list.

The playbook only works when nobody is watching. Now you are.

Publishing • Production • Communications

The Ten Ds: how the Taxpayers’ Union will answer Dirty Work

Contents

The victim and the crew

The apprentice and his connections

Deflect

Delay

Deny

Discount

Deceive

Divide

Dulcify

Discredit

Destroy

Deal

Keep score

Further reading

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