Cameron Slater

Cameron Slater
Nationality	New Zealander
Occupation	Blogger
Website
www.whaleoil.co.nz

Cameron Slater is a controversial, right wing New Zealand-based blogger who is best known for publishing the most widely read blog in New Zealand, theWhale Oil Beef Hooked blog.^[1] He was the editor of tabloid newspaper The New Zealand Truth from November 2012^[2] until it ceased publication in in July 2013. Slater is the son of former National Party President John Slater.^[1]

Slater believes that the name suppression laws in New Zealand need to be reformed.^[3] In late 2009, he gained notoriety for naming two high profile sex offenders and consequently became the first blogger in New Zealand to be charged with breaching a name suppression order. In January 2010 he named a third person accused of sex offences, and in February 2010 named another person convicted on child pornography charges. In 2014 Nicky Hager's book Dirty Politics demonstrated his close ties to Justice Minister Judith Collins and Prime Minister John Key and speculated that he had been paid to write attack articles on public figures who were opposed to the National party.

Blogging career

Awards

• NetGuide Best Blog Award 2013^[4]
• Canon Media Awards Blog of the Year 2014^[5]
• NetGuide Best Blog Award 2014^[6]

Challenges to name suppression laws

On 23 December 2009, Slater was charged with five counts of breaching name suppression orders. The charges relate 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.^[3]

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.^[7]

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.^[8] In August 2010 he went on trial, now facing ten charges of breaching suppression orders.^[9] 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.^[10]

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."^[11]

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.^[12]

The post led to objections from the general public and suspected hacking attempts on his blog site.^[13] Some people called on Slater for an apology to the young man's family at least.^[14] Slater moved his family in response to the threats, but refused to apologise.^[15] 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?”^[16]

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.^[17]

Matthew Blomfield complaint and defamation case

A criminal complaint against Cameron Slater was made by Hell's Pizza chain franchisee, Matt Blomfield.^[18] Blomfield also took a defamation case against Slater for comments Slater made about him on his blog.^[19]

Dirty Politics controversy

In August 2014 a book by Nicky Hager called Dirty Politics was published based on correspondence hacked from Cameron Slater's computer. 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.

Links to the New Zealand National Party

The book revealed Slater's close friendship with Justice Minister Judith Collins. Amongst other discussions of New Zealand politics, Hager claimed that Slater had received a database of Labour Party information, and that with the help of Jason Ede – one of the press secretaries of the Prime Minister, John Key – Slater used the information to attack the Labour Party during the 2011 election campaign.^[20]

Resignation of Judith Collins

On Saturday 30 August 2014 Judith Collins, a senior Cabinet Minister in the John Key-led National Party government, 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 blogger Cameron Slater.^[21]

The New Zealand Truth

At the end of October 2012, Slater was announced as the editor for tabloid newspaper the New Zealand Truth. He said in his new role he would be "kicking arse and sticking up for the little guy". His first issue was published in November 2012.^[2] The Truth ceased production in July 2013.^[22]

Personal life

On the weekend of 29–30 May 2010, Slater and his wife lost their home after their income insurance provider, Fidelity Insurance, stopped payments for depression. His wife said that Slater has been living with clinical depression following the failure of a business he part-owned,^[23][24] and has "...no thought of the consequences for himself or others or indeed his family".^[25]

Slater is a Seventh-day Adventist Christian.^[26]

References

External links

• Whale Oil Beef Hooked
• Cameron Slater interviewed by Michele Hewitson
• Cameron Slater and wife Juana Atkins accepting the 2014 Canon media award