Fran O'Sullivan: 'Big lie' strategy shows up Labour

I'm willing to wager that American hedge fund billionaire Julian Robertson will not be the sole victim of Labour's "big lie" strategy before the election campaign is over.

The "big lie" - the only description for Cabinet Minister Trevor Mallard's claim that Robertson is jerking National's strings in return for a campaign funds - is proving a ready winner. All that is missing is the sex and the videotape.

Labour's strategy team - in which Prime Minister Helen Clark is an integral player - took a calculated risk when they sent Mallard out as the party's attack dog to score a major hit on National at a time when several news outlets were polling.

Well before Mallard was sent over the barricades, colleagues such as Finance Minister Michael Cullen were priming the media with dark hints about National's offshore funding. Even the bloggers were foreshadowing a major drop.

But they hit pay-dirt big time when credulous television networks gave top billing to Mallard's claim that the "lead bag man" for National leader Don Brash - whom he refused to name - was American, that Americans were writing Dr Brash's campaign lines and National's policies were being written in Washington.

The journalists took Mallard's bait by filling in the gaps with Robertson's name. Though it's a fair bet that either Mallard, or some other Labour strategist, had previously provided it.

But, incredibly, they did not put pressure on Mallard to back his claims with hard evidence before they put Brash in their spotlights.

A smidgen of investigation - or even a Google search - would have shown that Robertson had opened doors for Clark's Government to influential White House advisers, and that he had been part of an influential group of predominantly New Zealand businessmen who had helped fund a Washington lobbyist to work alongside ambassador John Wood on this country's behalf for a bilateral free-trade deal.

But Robertson's role as a rainmaker for Labour did not make the screens. Nor did the PM face much pressure to face up once Mallard's assertions backfired after a Herald story revealing Robertson had also donated to Labour MP Dover Samuels' campaign.

She was reportedly "furious" and "displeased" with Mallard. But her fury did not extend to publicly castigating her attack dog. Nor to apologising to the American businessman who has contributed to the success of one of her Government's major foreign policy initiatives - a push for a free-trade deal. Nor to apologising to Washington.

Her silence speaks volumes. So too, does journalists' failure to submit her to a sustained grilling on this issue at her post-Cabinet press conference on Monday.

Clark's calculation worked. The upshot is that Labour achieved three days' exposure for its unsustainable accusations.

Mallard's backdown was quickly buried by Clark's announcement that September 17 would be the election date - proof positive that the big lie works.

In reality, Clark controls Labour's game and it is clear she will trade off any short-term damage to this country's relationship with the US to stay in power.

Hedge-fund operators such as Robertson did not come down in the last shower. He may be prepared to put to one side Labour's accusations as mere election politicking.

The American businessman - known as "Never been wrong Robertson" - began his love affair with New Zealand many decades ago and now owns some prestigious properties, such as Kauri Cliffs golf course.

Along the way he made a vast pile through a "cattery" of hedge funds - Tiger, Jaguar, Puma I and Puma II - and ploughs substantial amounts into philanthropic endeavours.

Robertson's Republican credentials have bought Clark cover with some Beltway players who still nurture grievances over the Lange Labour government's legislation, which effectively bans visits by US nuclear warships.

But his readiness to open US doors if Labour is returned may be less enthusiastic.

However, the big lie has helped Clark reinvent herself as the poster-girl against US bullying.

It has also strengthened her ability to paint Brash as an American lapdog following his evasive responses to questions over the readiness of a National government to commit troops to Iraq.

The results of Labour's political polling and internal focus groups will have told its strategists that this is an area of vulnerability for National.

To be fair to the Prime Minister, former US Ambassador Charles Swindells had already put the bilateral relationship centre-stage by firing a few departing shots of his own on July 4.

Swindell's handwringing over the failure of the two countries to "have a conversation" (without directly mentioning the nuclear issue) was a red rag to Clark, who has committed SAS troops to Afghanistan and military support to rebuilding Iraq.

The ambassador protested his speech was a private initiative. But it was inevitably read politically, as interference on Washington's part.

On Monday, Clark said the election was about "who can be trusted to stand up for New Zealand" and for the values and principles that New Zealanders hold dear at home and abroad.

The US is a major trading partner and important to this country's security.

Next month, Clark's Government hosts US Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns. Johanns is the first Cabinet-ranked member of the Bush Administration to visit New Zealand.

Clark needs to show she can put New Zealand's wider interests above her own.