Whale Oil
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From 2005 to 2019, Slater ran the blog Whale Oil Beef Hooked,[5] commonly known simply as WhaleOil.[6] WhaleOil has been described by The Spinoff as "the most notorious publication of the digital media era in New Zealand".[7]
Challenges to name suppression laws
On 23 December 2009, Slater was charged with five counts of breaching name suppression orders. The charges related to two blog posts that contained pictures which revealed the identities of a prominent New Zealand entertainer and a former New Zealand Olympian who were each charged with sexual offences.[4]
On 11 January 2010, Slater published a blog post that used binary and hexadecimal code to allege the identity of a former Member of Parliament charged with indecent assault on a 13-year-old girl. The Nelson Bays police announced that they would investigate this further breach of New Zealand's name suppression laws.[8]
He pleaded not guilty to the five name suppression charges on 9 February 2010, and the same day revealed the identity of a prominent Palmerston North resident whose name was suppressed after being found guilty of possessing thousands of pornographic images of children.[9] In August 2010 he went on trial, now facing ten charges of breaching suppression orders.[10] In September he was convicted of nine of the charges, eight of breaching suppression orders for offenders and one of naming a victim in a sexual abuse case. He was fined $750 and ordered to pay court costs of $130 for each of the nine cases.[11]
In May 2010, Slater published the name of a public servant who had permanent name suppression, after a Wellington District Court jury found him not guilty of assaulting his teenage son. The matter reignited the national debate over the internet and name suppression and the public servant's lawyer Mike Antunovic publicly labelled Slater a "renegade."[12]
"Feral" controversy
On 27 January 2014, Slater published a brief post with the headline, "Feral dies in Greymouth, did world a favour". At the time of the headline, all that the media had reported was that one person had been killed when a car crashed at high speed into the bedroom of a house in Greymouth after ignoring Police. The article Slater wrote was about how the media had handled the coverage and had blamed the Police. The identity of the dead man was not known at that time.[13]
The post led to objections from the general public and suspected hacking attempts on his blog site.[14] Some people called on Slater for an apology to the young man's family at least.[15] Slater moved his family in response to the threats, but refused to apologise.[16] In lieu of an apology, Slater offered the following: "[W]here is it written in the rule books that you have to take into account people’s feelings?”[17]
Visits to Kim Dotcom mansion controversy
In February 2014, Prime Minister John Key said in the media that Winston Peters had visited the Kim Dotcom mansion three times. This information turned out to be correct, and Peters publicly challenged Key to release the source of the information, suggesting that the Prime Minister had used spying agencies to track his movements. Key denied that spy agencies had been involved, and hinted that the source of the information was Cameron Slater. Key said that while he did not agree with everything Slater posted, he talked to the blogger "every so often" and had talked to him about Kim Dotcom and other things that week.[18]
Matthew Blomfield complaint and defamation case
Matt Blomfield, a Hell's Pizza chain franchisee, made a criminal complaint against Cameron Slater.[19] Blomfield also took a defamation case against Slater for comments Slater made about him on his blog.[20] Slater was found in contempt of court in September 2015 and fined $1500 by Justice Raynor Asher.[21]
Cameron Slater on 25 February 2019 announced via his blog he would be declaring bankruptcy due to the defamation claims against him that he has lost. [1]
On 12 March 2019 the Director of Human Rights Proceedings ordered an award of $70000 against Cameron Slater as well as a declaration of interference with privacy, a takedown order and restraining order.[22]
Dirty Politics controversy
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Main article: Dirty Politics |
The book Dirty Politics, written by Nicky Hager and based on correspondence hacked from Cameron Slater's computer, was published in August 2014. Two months later, the police raided Hager's house, seizing computers and other equipment looking for information to assist them find out who hacked the emails from Slater's computer.
The book discussed Slater's close friendship with Judith Collins, a senior Cabinet Minister in the National Party government led by Prime Minister John Key. Amongst other discussions of New Zealand politics, Hager wrote that Slater had found a database of Labour Party information on a public Labour Party website, and that with the help of Jason Ede – one of Key's press secretaries – Slater used the information to attack the Labour Party during the 2011 election campaign.[23] On 30 August 2014, Collins resigned as a minister in the wake of an email suggesting that she had sought to undermine former Serious Fraud Office (SFO) Chief Executive Adam Feeley in league with Slater.[24]
Legal troubles with Colin Craig, 2015–2018
In June 2015, Cameron Slater published a love poem by the Conservative Party leader Colin Craig entitled "Two of Me" on his blog Whale Oil.[25] This poem was linked to sexual harassment allegations involving Craig and the Conservative Party's former press secretary Rachel MacGregor. Due to the negative publicity and internal tensions within the Conservatives, Craig resigned as Party leader on 19 June 2015.[26] Craig's resignation preceded an internal rift within the Conservatives between supporters and opponents of the former leader; which led to the aggrieved parties taking each other to court.[27][28][29]
In response to Slater's actions, Craig filed a defamation suit against Slater and two other opponents, New Zealand Taxpayers' Union chairman Jordan Williams and former Conservative party board member John Stringer for NZ$650,000, NZ$300,000 and NZ$350,000 respectively.[30] In addition, Craig also circulated a booklet, entitled "Dirty Politics and Hidden Agendas", which attacked Slater, Williams and Stringer and labelled them as part of the "Dirty Politics Brigade"; a reference to Nicky Hager's Dirty Politics book.[31] Slater responded by slamming the mass circulation of the "Dirty Politics" booklet as a violating of postal rules around unsolicited mail.[32]
On 24 November 2015, Colin Craig issued an email ultimatum to Slater; claiming copyright ownership over the poem "Two of Me" and demanding that the latter issue a retraction, written apology, and pay NZ$3,000 per month for displaying the poem on Whale Oil. The invoice amounted to a total of NZ$15,000. Slater responded by rejecting Craig's ultimatum and indicating that he was prepared to clash with Craig in court.[33] On 3 April 2016, Craig tabled legal papers seeking more than NZ$13,000 in damages from Slater for publishing the poem on his blog.[34]
In early May 2017, Slater counter-sued Craig, seeking more than NZ$16 million in damages. That same month, the Auckland High Court heard Craig's lawsuit against Slater.[35] The judge reserved his decision on 1 June 2017.[36][37] On 25 October 2018, Justice Kit Toogood ruled that Slater had defamed Craig by making untrue statements about him. However, he declined to award damages to Craig, stating that any reputational damage that Craig had suffered was the result of his own actions.[38][39][40][41]
Awards
- NetGuide Best Blog Award 2013[42]
- Canon Media Awards Blog of the Year 2014[43]
- NetGuide Best Blog Award 2014[44]