Written By: - Date published: 6:11 am, September 23rd, 2008 - 38 comments
Categories: election funding, nz first -
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The Privileges Committee has reported back. Peters is censured for not declaring that he had made a pecuniary gain from his lawyer taking donations for Peters’ legal fund. A minority of the Committee, the Labour and NZF MPs, disagreed with this censure pointing out that the evidence given to the Committee was that, had Peters sought official advice on whether to he needed to declare the donation to the fund, he would have been told he did not. The report also recommended that Parliament force Peters to re-submit his declarations of pecuniary interest for the last three years. The majority report finds Peters committed a contempt of Parliament. The House will consider the report today.
So, the committee found what everyone knew: Peters story doesn’t add up. But it also shows that this story isn’t really about anything significant. Oh, no, a politician didn’t make the efforts he should have to find out what benefit he may have gained from a legal donation, his form was wrong as a result, and he made up a story to try to cover himself. Shoddy behaviour to be sure but nothing that actually impacts on the substance of government.
Can we get on to discussing how to raise wages, whether we should break up ACC, and how to protect our environment now? Hide will miss the attention, but I suspect Kiwis will welcome coverage of issues that affect their lives instead of the latest gossip about who knew what when regarding some legal donations.
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Scoopit!
It might have paid to have cc’ed your fellow authors Steve. It looks a tad silly when seven out of the following ten posts are not about any of those things but are in fact about John Key’s share holdings.
In fact cc yourself while you’re at it, since you wrote two of them.
I happen to think there’s nothing more significant than when a politican lies, whether his name is John or Winston. Because it goes to the absolute necessity that we must have trust in our government, whether or not we agree with it, otherwise it loses its legitimacy.
If those lies concern enriching oneself with one’s own money while using one’s position as an MP to do so, it’s appalling. But if those lies concern accepting other people’s money to purchase your integrity, and by extension government policy, it’s even worse.
I wouldn’t trust a government led by a liar or one propped up by a liar and which resolutely buries its head in the sand and pretends it doesnt have clear evidence of those lies. I want our representatives to live up to commonly accepted standards of honesty, integrity and fairness.
You, on the other hand, seem not to mind the actual lies, rather you just see them as yet another politicised weapon with which to attack your “enemies”.
Let me see, one comment on the Privileges Committee Report and no fewer than seven on one story about John Key.
The report does impact on the substance of government because Helen Clark’s government is in a coalition with NZ First, and because he has been suspended as a Minister from his portfolios. Furthermore Cullen has announced he will not be reinstated to those portfolios.
The fact of it is that most political commentators, the ones that really are independent, have with considerable justification roasted Peters over this matter. Is there anyone in the mainstream media prepared to defend him?
So er SP, if you agreed Winston had his usefulness of helping Labour get back into power after the last election, then isn’t it now the perfect opportunity for Helen now she has announced the election to ditch him?
I may be a true blue voter but what most people cannot fathom is that now that the election has been announced and that Parliament has only a few days to run and that Winston has lost any ability to bring down the government, why it is that Labour continues to flog a dead horse by siding with him at every turn.