Bill’s pants are on fire

Written By: - Date published: 11:45 am, October 30th, 2009 - 9 comments
Categories: bill english - Tags:

Bill English claims (echoes of another Bill!) that he did not have pecuniary relations with his family trust:

“I didn’t have a pecuniary interest in the trust, I never have had, I don’t now and I don’t have any other interests in it.”

According to both common sense and the Auditor General he was wrong about that. Bill English also said that the changes made to the trust were made for personal reasons (the fact that he then got an increased Wellington allowance was just a “coincidence”):

He says he made the change “for personal and family reasons” unrelated to parliamentary allowances. Asked yesterday what those reasons were, he said: “I’m not sharing them with you.”

John Key backed up this story:

In March this year the title was transferred to Mrs English. The home, now worth an estimated $1.2 million, is owned by a family trust.
Question to Mr Key: “When you said he changed the trust arrangement after the election, and that was the thing that qualified him for the Ministerial Services allowance, and yet he didn’t do it to qualify for the allowance, it was just a coincidence?”
Mr Key: “That’s my understanding.”

What a lucky coincidence for Bill eh! Changed his trust for personal reasons and just happened to be able to shake a few thousand more out of the taxpayer. Do you believe him? I don’t. And now we know for sure he was lying. According to the Auditor General’s report:

The result was that the Crown was renting a property for Mr English from a trust in which he had an interest, and the arrangement was explicitly based on a view that he did not have an interest. Clearly, this was unfortunate. We emphasise that the Minister’s declaration was based on advice. However, in our view, the advice was not directly relevant to this situation. We consider that Ministerial Services should have raised this with the Minister.

English sought “advice” (read support from a mate?) to the effect that the change to his trust “qualified” him for an extra allowance. (It didn’t, but he nearly got away with it.) You don’t seek advice on how changes influence your allowances unless you are making plans regarding your allowances. You don’t seek advice by coincidence! Nor do rules get changed for you by coincidence (who changed them and why?).

Bill English knew he was lying when he made that patently ludicrous claim. John Key knew he was lying (or if not he’s away with the pixies) when he supported Bill’s lie. Bill sold out his integrity and his credibility as Finance Minister, and dragged Key into his lies to boot, all for few thousand bucks. Was it worth it Bill?

9 comments on “Bill’s pants are on fire ”

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  1. ConorJoe 1
    30 October 2009 at 12:54 pm

    Worth it? Worth it?
    Its been priceless so far, keep it coming.

  2. Craig Glen Eden 2
    30 October 2009 at 12:54 pm

    I’m currently having a hard job keeping the family together so I was wondering if Blinglish would like to flick me $20.00 a week for a cleaner.As for the mortgage I was wondering about a little weekly payment for that say $900.00 would help Donkey put it down as a ministerial cost and I will pay for the misses travel costs my self.

    Petrols going up so thought Rodger (I’m entitled to it)) might share his gold travel card with me on alternate weeks and on the second week Rodders( Im full of shit) could put it down as a ministerial cost.

    Business is a bit slow so a Mellisa Lee( I’m a self made immigrant business woman you can do it to) subsidy would work for that.

    Times they are tough for us tax payers no bloody wonder!

  3. George D 3
    30 October 2009 at 12:56 pm

    I did not have pecuniary interests with that trust.

  4. Nick 4
    30 October 2009 at 1:35 pm

    Belt.

    Way.

    [lprent: Don’t dup messages between posts. It marks you down as a particularly thick troll. ]

  5. Zorr 5
    30 October 2009 at 1:58 pm

    The one thing that strikes me as funny here is that Bill English is the Finance Minister of NZ. Why should he be able to get away with the defense of “bad advice” when he is meant to be one of the guys that knows the most about this kind of stuff.

    Just saying.

    • Craig Glen Eden 5.1
      30 October 2009 at 2:46 pm

      Its all do as I say not as I do with this lot.

      On top of this spending we have day after day of parliament sitting under urgency only to finish early. More needless expense for sloppy political management, because the crap they are passing is not urgent eg. the Super City legislation. But Teachers should consider giving their previously negotiated increases to the support staff according to Key because if you didn’t know times are tough. That would explain the 30 million to private schools then aye, then we have millions for a party, then there’s the cycle tract 50 million.

      What a disgrace. This is all from the guy who is a financial Whiz??????

      The truth is he probably has not generated a true dollar in his working life, just sucked off others.

  6. ConorJoe 6
    30 October 2009 at 2:42 pm

    Seems to me that Lord Blinglish of DoubleDipton on Te Whanganui-ā-Tara seeks and receives ‘guidance’ rather than advice.
    Like Nancy Reagan. With ‘guidance’ you get to hear what you want and not much else.
    Now I’ve got images of the trampy old seer from the West Coast that his Grace keeps @ Treasury for those vital moments.
    Perhaps trampy old sorcerer could do a spot of cleaning for some sherry money.