Dirty Politics: Who are the key players?

From left: Cameron Slater, Simon Lusk, Jordan Williams, Carrick Graham and Cathy Odgers.

Cam Slater: author of Whaleoil blog which broke stories such as Auckland Mayor Len Brown's affair with Bevan Chuang for which he won the Canon Media Award for best blog. Often aggressive tone, long seen as an attack blog for National. Son of former National Party President John Slater.

Jason Ede: communications adviser for Prime Minister John Key. Largely works behind the scenes. The Prime Minister's office has previously described his role as including "getting out National's message to a range of bloggers and other social media sites." A former journalist,who was former leader Don Brash's press secretary.

Justice Minister Judith Collins: friends with Slater. Emails show Collins was the source of several Whaleoil posts, mostly relating to Labour MPs.

David Farrar: National's pollster and Kiwiblog author. Well regarded and trusted by Prime Minister John Key. Former National Party staffer from 1996 to 2004. Poll company is Curia Market Research. Founded the Taxpayers' Union with Jordan Williams.

Simon Lusk: has acted as strategist for several National MPs, friend of Cam Slater's. Former advisor to Don Brash, worked with Slater to discredit candidates they did not like, and to engineer Brash's takeover of Act Party. National now discourages MPs from using him.

Jordan Williams: lawyer, friend of Lusk. Told Lusk Rodney Hide had send texts to a woman, which Whaleoil later hinted at in a blog post. Hager says it was an attempt to blackmail Hide into stepping down. Headed the Vote for Change anti-MMP campaign in 2011, is now head of the Taxpayers' Union which highlights bad public spending.

Carrick Graham: lobbyist in tobacco industry. Hager claims Graham paid Whaleoil to run material Graham had prepared on his blog.

Cathy Odgers: Hong Kong based lawyer, wrote the now defunct Cactus Kate blog. Close to Slater, supported Act.