Responding to this section, Farrar said: \u201cI can\u2019t speak to anything other than what is attributed to me, but I can say it is categorically wrong in relation to me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hager says then-chairman Ashley Church resigned because he opposed the organisation\u2019s direction. Executive director Jordan Williams\u2019 own 10th-anniversary history confirms Church resigned over the otherwise unanimous decision to take on Three Waters and \u201cthe way it was done\u201d.<\/p>\n
Church has been contacted for comment.<\/p>\n
\u2018We will not be bullied\u2019<\/p>\n
In an email to members following the release of Hager\u2019s book, the Taxpayers\u2019 Union wrote that it was \u201cunder attack\u201d.<\/p>\n
The release, attributed to Williams, said Hager\u2019s book directly targeted him and the organisation\u2019s other co-founder David Farrar.<\/p>\n
Williams alleged Hager failed to put the book\u2019s allegations to them, seek an interview, or give them a chance to respond before publication.<\/p>\n
Williams said Hager\u2019s book had used \u201csmears, innuendo and private material\u201d to vilify the Taxpayers\u2019 Union for what was ordinary political campaigning.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is an attempt to do through character assassination what they have failed to do through democratic debate.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will not be bullied. We will not be silenced. And we will not let them cheat New Zealanders out of hearing our side of the story.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tobacco campaign<\/p>\n
In Dirty Work, Hager claims British American Tobacco external affairs managers Elliot Steel and later Stu Mullin met Taxpayers\u2019 Union (TPU) staff privately, gave instructions and discussed campaign plans.<\/p>\n
Those involved included Williams and successive TPU campaign managers Louis Houlbrooke, Connor Molloy and, Hager claims, probably Callum Purves. Hager says BAT paid the TPU, which in turn paid Williams\u2019 Campaign Company to produce campaign messages, petitions, advertisements and websites.<\/p>\n
Molloy later travelled to Panama for the WHO\u2019s 2024 tobacco-control conference, where he promoted lighter regulation of alternative nicotine products and joined the US Taxpayers Protection Alliance at its GoodCOP counter-event.<\/p>\n
Taxpayers’ Union executive director Jordan Williams. \/ Andrew Warner<\/p>\n
Houlbrooke later became an Act senior press secretary, Purves is Act\u2019s general manager and party secretary, and Molloy is now Act\u2019s deputy campaign director.<\/p>\n
Hager told those at the launch event at Unity Books in Wellington that Dirty Work was largely based on insiders; former TPU staffers and National Party members who were \u201cunhappy about the state of New Zealand politics\u201d.<\/p>\n
Hager pointed to some stories in the book, which included recounting Act leader David Seymour\u2019s becoming what Hager described as \u201cMr anti-Treaty\u201d and on what he said was a \u201chit-job\u201d on former 1News political editor Maiki Sherman, who resigned earlier this year.<\/p>\n
One of the key allegations of Hager\u2019s comments was that the TPU public statements opposing government waste did not reveal the group\u2019s main purpose.<\/p>\n
He challenged claims that the group had a wide-ranging supporter base, which he alleged were \u201cangry old men in their 70s and 80s and sometimes their late 60s who have bought into their idea and believed their untruths\u201d about the threat of evolving M\u0101ori rights.<\/p>\n
Asking himself why publish a book before the election, Hager said there were two reasons; the first being elections were the time we should be thinking about politics: \u201cWhat better time?\u201d<\/p>\n
He then claimed coalition ministers had benefited from the work of groups like the TPU.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey should be held accountable by the public.\u201d<\/p>\n
Asked during a media stand-up how the book showed links between political parties and lobby groups, Hager claimed there are politicians in all the main right-wing parties that tolerate or collaborate with the TPU.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think they even realise what a terrible decision they\u2019re making.\u201d<\/p>\n
Asked what made the TPU\u2019s relationship with parties distinct from other lobby groups\u2019 relationships with parties, Hager claimed there was a \u201cphony, fake, misleading network, a spider\u2019s web\u201d of groups that were \u201cfilling up the political space\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think that if the Taxpayers\u2019 Union and its key members were looked at critically a lot of their power would disappear.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hager said he didn\u2019t find explicit instruction from the National Party to TPU over any matters but then claimed it wasn\u2019t necessary because they were aligned.<\/p>\n
Williams, who also featured in Hager\u2019s 2014 work, Dirty Politics, said the organisation had been targeted specifically because of its success, noting they have built \u201cthe largest taxpayer movement in the English-speaking world\u201d.<\/p>\n
He said in his email to members about two-thirds of donations come from grassroots donors, while less than 3% came from \u201cindustry memberships and donations (including alcohol and nictonie) [sic]\u201d.<\/p>\n
The email repeatedly asked supporters to donate.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe next few days are going to be hard. I\u2019m not going to pretend otherwise. But we can\u2019t let him win,\u201d the email ends.<\/p>\n
Crowds gather at a Wellington book store ahead of the release of investigative journalist Nicky Hager’s new book Dirty Work. Photo \/ Marty Melville<\/p>\n
Speaking on Newstalk ZB\u2019s Heather du Plessis-Allan Drive before the book\u2019s launch, Williams said it\u2019s anyone\u2019s guess as to what Hager\u2019s new book will be about.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis has just snowballed,\u201d Williams said.<\/p>\n
Conceding that while \u201cit could be\u201d about him or the Taxpayers\u2019 Union, Williams said Hager \u201chas a fixation on anyone who\u2019s successful on the centre-right\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cWho knows? I mean, to be frank, there must be bigger fish to fry, surely.\u201d<\/p>\n
Crowds gather at Unity Books in Wellington ahead of the release of Nicky Hager’s new book.<\/p>\n
Hacking & Hollow Men<\/p>\n
In 2018, the police apologised and paid \u201csubstantial damages\u201d to Hager after unlawfully searching his home during the investigation into the hacking that led to the Dirty Politics book.<\/p>\n