Tova O’Brian has broken a story about National’s “Cabinet Club” fundraising programme. The concept is straight forward: pay a fee and get face time with Ministers.
Except Ministers aren’t supposed to use their position to promote fundraising. It’s a breach of the Cabinet Manual. National’s response is to claim that these Ministers weren’t doing this in a ministerial capacity.
But it’s called “Cabinet Club”. Presumably because the selling point is that you get to time with Cabinet Ministers. Who have all sorts of power. Which makes it worth spending money for lobbying access.
I can’t really see how you can call a fundraising vehicle “Cabinet Club” and then claim it has nothing to do with ministerial capacity.
Cute name though. Sounds very cosy.
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