Friend,

The Taxpayers’ Union is under attack.

This evening, Nicky Hager released his new book, Dirty Work. As we feared, it is an attack on the Taxpayers’ Union, me personally, and my co-founder David Farrar.

Hager calls himself a journalist. But yet again he has ignored the most basic principles of fair journalism: put serious allegations to the people accused and give them a reasonable opportunity to respond.

He did not put the allegations in this book to us. He did not seek an interview. He did not give us the opportunity to correct errors or provide missing context before publication.

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 – let alone check its claims.

The smears travel around the country before the truth has even had time to put its boots on.

That is not an unfortunate oversight. It is the playbook we are seeing tonight: besmirch people publicly, generate sensational headlines, and force the accused to disprove allegations constructed without ever seeking their response.

We will not let Hager shut us down. But we need your help to fight back.

We need your backing now, more than ever before.

We are being attacked because we have been successful

Let’s be clear about why the Taxpayers’ Union is in Hager’s sights.

It is because we are successful.

We have built the largest taxpayer movement in the English-speaking world. We successfully use people power to fight for lower taxes, less waste and more accountability.

Our supporters fund investigations into government waste. They send thousands of submissions to Parliament. They sign petitions, contact politicians, turn up at public meetings and make sure taxpayers cannot simply be ignored.

Together, we have defeated new taxes, exposed outrageous spending and forced politicians of every party to answer for how they use taxpayers’ money.

Left-wing activists like Nicky Hager hate that.

They cannot out-organise us. They cannot out-campaign us. And too often, they cannot convince the public of their arguments.

So instead, we see smears, innuendo and private material—obtained through leaks, breaches of confidence or, in previous cases, illegal hacking—woven into a story designed to make ordinary political campaigning appear sinister.

It is an attempt to do through character assassination what they have failed to do through democratic debate.

We 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.

We have seen Hager’s methods before

Hager has a well-established formula: weave events from different periods, remove crucial context, and weave them together into the most sinister interpretation available.

Those interpretations do not always survive scrutiny.

His 2017 book Hit & Run alleged that New Zealand soldiers had conducted an “ill-conceived” revenge raid against innocent civilians in Afghanistan.

An exhaustive Government Inquiry led by former Supreme Court judge Sir Terence Arnold and former Prime Minister Sir Geoffrey Palmer reached a very different conclusion:

“The principal allegations in Hit & Run ... are not accurate.”

The book even wrongly identified one person as having been killed during the operation when he had died in an entirely separate incident seven months earlier. The photograph used to identify him was of somebody else.

That does not mean every fact in Hager’s books is wrong. It does mean that his claims should never be treated as established fact merely because they are packaged as “investigative journalism”.

They must be checked against the evidence. That is what we are doing tonight.

The book is a full frontal attack on the Taxpayers' Union

Naturally, we will work through the book carefully. 

Where Hager has identified something that genuinely requires an answer, we will answer it. Where he has omitted important context, conflated unrelated events or simply got something wrong, we will put the evidence before the public.

But responding properly will require researchers, legal advice, and staff time. We have to both act rapidly while the story is dominating the news but also not let it derail our entire pre-election campaign (which is exactly what Hager wants to do!).

That is why I’m asking you to chip in tonight. To show Mr Hager that he will not win.

Who funds the Taxpayers’ Union?

YOU FUND THE TAXPAYERS' UNION.

Hager tries to make our funding sound mysterious or sinister. It is neither.

Around two thirds of our donations are small-dollar contributions from grassroots supporters. Less than 3% comes from industry memberships and donations (including alcohol and nictonie).

He's using that as a smear to try and discredit all of our work.

The remainder 30% comes from members of our Taxpayer Caucus — supporters who contribute $1,500 or more each year. 

We protect the privacy of individual donors, just as organisations across the political spectrum do. New Zealanders should be free to support lawful causes without fearing that their names will be dragged into a political attack book.

But there is no mystery about what your donations fund.

• You fund the researchers who dig through council and government accounts.

• You fund the billboards you see beside the road.

• You fund campaigns against higher taxes and wasteful spending.

• You fund the technology that allows tens of thousands of New Zealanders to make their voices heard.

• And tonight, I'm asking you to fund our ability to defend this organisation against a calculated political attack.

Hager had every opportunity to approach us

Three years ago, when we first became aware of Hager’s interest in the Taxpayers’ Union, we publicly addressed the subjects we expected him to raise.

We specifically invited him to approach us, put his allegations to us and interview us.

Tonight, Mr Hagar suggested that it was this invitation that led him to start his work. But we know that's not true. We know from former staff that he's been approaching them trying to get dirt for years! 

Hager has previously defended his failure to seek responses by claiming that doing so might give the subjects of his books an opportunity to seek an injunction.

We removed that excuse. We publicly promised that we would not try to prevent publication.

Still, he did not put these allegations to us before tonight’s launch.

That speaks volumes about the whole exercise.

If Hager genuinely wanted to establish the truth, he knew where to find us. If he wanted accuracy and context, he could have asked. If he wanted our response, he could have picked up the phone.

Instead, he wanted the headlines first and our answers later.

We will not be bullied into silence

We have nothing to hide.

But we will not stand by while selective material, missing context and one-sided allegations are used to smear the people who built and supported this organisation.

We will not respond to allegations with allegations of our own. We will respond with facts.

We will check every significant claim. We will publish the relevant evidence. We will demand corrections where they are warranted. And we will ensure that New Zealanders hear both sides of the story.

That work begins tonight—and I need your help to fund it.

Will you chip in $50 or $100 to help us scrutinise Hager’s claims, correct the public record and defend New Zealand’s taxpayer movement?

Friend, the next few days are going to be hard. I'm not going to pretend otherwise. 

But we can't let him win.

Thank you for standing with us.

Jordan Williams
Executive Director
New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union

P.S. Hager will receive an enormous amount of free publicity over the coming days. We cannot allow sensational allegations to become accepted as fact simply because we lack the resources to answer them. Please chip in now and help us fight back with the facts.