Boag on way, Farrar to follow?

the sprout
14 years ago
Categories: auckland supercity, community democracy, corruption, democratic participation, national, rodney hide
Tags: david farrar, Michelle Boag, Momentum, phil twyford

Former National Party President Michelle Boag has been told to remove herself from the consultancy charged with selecting executive staff for the Auckland Supershity, despite reassurances from Boag, her close friend John Banks (for whom she is a campaign advisor), the ATA and the Minister of Local Government Rodney Hide that there was no conflict of interest.

What did it take to rectify this blatant instance of cronyism?

Not much: a few stupid words of encouragement from one of our dimmer trolls, a correction of the troll’s stupidity, and a bit of a spotlight and amplification from Opposition MP Phil Twyford. Oh, and Hide’s dare to Twyford that if he thought he had a case he should take it to the AG, which Twyford cheerfully did. Next morning, hey presto ding dong, The Boag is gone. Hide is left looking like the abject fool he is, one more crony is banished to the shadows and National is left looking just that little bit shadier.

What are we to take from this? Well, there are rich pickings out there when it comes to the actually and apparently dodgy dealings of the Key administration. It just takes a bit of scratching, backed up with the possibility of formal investigation, and it’s not hard to get them running. Unfortunately the really momentous injustices this Government are, for now at least, too awful for many voters to allow themselves to believe, particularly when corporate media like the Herald are doing such a good job at covering up so many of the Government’s mistakes and intentions (the Boag story was carefully obscured in the middle pages despite having front page significance for Auckland voters). But peripheral targets like Boag, Lee, and Worth are easy meat. While their neutralization may not do much to Key yet, they do contribute to the dawning popular awareness of this Government’s incompetence and untrustworthiness. Every small cut helps to drain them.

So then there’s National’s Cheif of Propaganda David Farrar. There certainly seems to be some shonkey deals going on in terms of the Government money his company’s getting. As a taxpayer concerned with State accountability and transparency, I welcome a thorough investigation into the propriety of these arrangements. The spectre of Farrar’s conflict of interest has already been raised and considering the brazen arrogance of this Government and its track record, it wouldn’t take much more digging to compile a very compelling prima facie case. Then it would just need some formal power to investigate. Perhaps the AG?