corruption

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Carter must go

Written By: - Date published: 9:43 am, November 28th, 2010 - 86 comments

Agriculture Minister David Carter has been exposed abusing his ministerial powers to protect the trade interests of his private investments. Earlier this year, Carter banned Jewish religious slaughtering practices because of perceived risks to the meat trade with Muslim nations after being briefed by companies he owns that take part in the trade.

Wong: frequent flyer

Written By: - Date published: 10:00 am, November 25th, 2010 - 34 comments

Labour revealed yesterday that Pansy Wong traveled abroad an astonishing eleven times as Minister for Women’s Affairs and Ethnic Affairs, spending $147,000 in two years making her one of the highest spending ministers. Six of those trips were to China. What was she doing? Why did Key sign off on these trips?

Where in the world is Wong?

Written By: - Date published: 7:13 am, November 24th, 2010 - 61 comments

Two Friday’s ago, corrupt Nat Pansy Wong resigns as minister. Key tells her not to talk to media. As if she can’t remember her own overseas trips. Gives her a week’s leave. Wong disappears. Week’s up – no Wong. Where is she? Mallard’s heard she’s overseas. Fundraising for the Nats. Is she using her travel perk?

Waiting on Wong to do right

Written By: - Date published: 6:12 am, November 23rd, 2010 - 67 comments

Why are we waiting for Pansy Wong to resign from Parliament for her corrupt use of her MP’s perks or, failing that, for the Nats to evict her? The theory is the Nats want to avoid a by-election over summer. As Trevor Mallard puts it – Key wants to have his Hawaii holiday in peace. But the NBR’s Matt Nippert has other reasons for Wong’s soft treatment.

Key: up to Labour to stop us rorting

Written By: - Date published: 12:33 pm, November 17th, 2010 - 25 comments

With Pansy Wong in hiding on John Key’s orders, rort-buster Pete Hodgson laid the blame her corruption and all the other rorts squarely on Key yesterday. In question after question, Key couldn’t make a serious defence of his record. Then, he made an extraordinary admission: his ministers will keep on rorting – it’s up to Labour to catch them.

$1mil Whanau Ora funding for Parata supporters

Written By: - Date published: 10:04 am, November 17th, 2010 - 33 comments

What little we know of Whanau Ora is that it is essentially the privatisation of government delivery of social services to private groups. Rather than deliver services themselves, government departments entrust taxpayer funds to small groups that often have little or no track record to do the job instead. It’s an invitation for corruption.

If Wong stays an MP will she be welcome in National?

Written By: - Date published: 8:40 am, November 17th, 2010 - 79 comments

The latest revelation in the Pansy Wong saga is a Chinese newspaper article where she, as Minister, endorses her husband’s company’s product. John Key says that it would be a sacking offence were she a minister but its up to her if she resigns from Parliament. Here’s a question then: is he going to let this corrupt MP remain in his party’s caucus?

Worse than I imagined

Written By: - Date published: 8:31 pm, November 15th, 2010 - 98 comments

We learn from rort-buster Pete Hodgson that Pansy Wong and her husband have been running private companies out of her taxpayer-funded electorate office. I don’t see how she can remain in Parliament now. Who set and enforced the standards that have seen so many ministers involved in rorts? There’s only one person to point the finger at: Key

Pansy’s future wilting

Written By: - Date published: 6:30 am, November 15th, 2010 - 40 comments

Will Pansy Wong face criminal charges for fraudulently abusing her MP’s travel perk? Will she be forced to leave Parliament triggering a(nother) by-election and possibly even an extra early election? What will Lockwood Smith’s investigation turn up? Whatever comes, at least she isn’t a minister anymore but who will replace her?

Now who’s the f*ckwit?

Written By: - Date published: 1:31 pm, November 12th, 2010 - 86 comments

Pansy Wong has been stood down resigned over her abuse of her ministerial status and perks for her husband’s private business dealings. I expected that Key act ‘relaxed’ and hope for this blow over. That he hasn’t indicates they’ve uncovered something more. Will we find out what it is, or will Key pull another Richard Worth on us? Updates coming.

Wong done wrong, Key cringing

Written By: - Date published: 9:15 am, November 12th, 2010 - 29 comments

We’re getting to the meat of the Pansy Wong affair. Stating her occupation when witnessing a form for her husband’s business deal was no major problem. But Wong’s flights were paid with her MP’s travel perk. That is a serious problem. The rules “expressly forbid MPs from using their private travel perk to pursue their own or their spouse’s private business interests”.

SAS inspires money-making scheme

Written By: - Date published: 9:30 am, November 9th, 2010 - 23 comments

I’m a nurse at a public hospital. Our social fund is looking a bit thin this year so we thought would invite school groups to come along to the hospital, charge $25 a head, and let them play around with the equipment like X-ray machines and bandages to get a sense of how we work as a team. I’m sure Mr Key will say it’s a “good idea“.

Ministers’ housing claims up 17% as rorts continue

Written By: - Date published: 12:22 am, November 4th, 2010 - 48 comments

Weren’t Bill ‘Double Dipton’ English and other  ministers caught rorting the housing allowance system last year? Didn’t the Government revamp the system by giving ministers capped allowances, supposedly to save money and stop rorts? Why then are we, as I predicted, paying more than ever while ministers blatantly rip us off?

Going backwards with National

Written By: - Date published: 11:59 am, October 29th, 2010 - 34 comments

It takes a lot to screw up a great country like New Zealand. It can’t be done overnight. But if you’re really negligent, anti-worker, and focused on hand outs to the rich, you can start to make things worse pretty quickly. Let’s look at the key measures of National’s performance, according to their own criteria:

Nats’ golden handshake to disgraced judge

Written By: - Date published: 11:30 am, October 22nd, 2010 - 32 comments

When Justice Bill Wilson was accused of serious misconduct, Attorney-General Chris Finlayson didn’t want to investigate telling fellow National MP Colin King “Justice Wilson is a mate of mine and there’s no way I am pursuing this any further”. Now, Wilson’s got a $885,000 golden handshake from the government to make the issue go away.

Vote fraud fallout

Written By: - Date published: 3:00 pm, September 26th, 2010 - 35 comments

It looks like a Labour candidate may be involved in electoral fraud.

If this is the case the party says it will come down on them hard.

But it may also have to take a look at how local body candidates get on the Labour ticket.

Iraq war profiteers

Written By: - Date published: 11:40 am, August 9th, 2010 - 15 comments

I regard the invasion of Iraq as one of the most shameful events in America’s history. The made up cover story about “weapons of mass destruction” was quickly shown to be a lie. It was always about the oil. And for too many of those on the ground it was always about lining their pockets with billions of dollars worth of slush money.

Accountability then and now…

Written By: - Date published: 3:13 pm, June 14th, 2010 - 22 comments

Labour holds it’s MPs to higher standards than National. This post from the archives looks at some examples. If Key doesn’t act on his profligate MPs it will be time to add another chapter.

Govt’s instances of abuse

Written By: - Date published: 11:53 pm, June 8th, 2010 - 26 comments

Over the weekend, I read the right wing blogs with interest and their frequent references to left-wing politicians troughing at the taxpayers expense and other such instances of abuse. I then lent my mind to the National-led Government and how they have fared in this regard over the last 18 months.

This is what I came up with:

One of these things is not like the other X

Written By: - Date published: 2:45 pm, May 31st, 2010 - 18 comments

One of these things is not like the other, One of these things is not quite the same Can you guess which one is not like the other, Can you tell me before I finish the game?

Caught out

Written By: - Date published: 1:02 pm, May 25th, 2010 - 11 comments

Last month Colin King revealed that his National Party colleague Chris Finlayson had said he would block an investigation into the behaviour of his old mate Supreme Court Judge Bill Wilson. Finlayson should have recognised his conflict of interest and stood aside months ago but only did so once the media got the story. It says something about National’s standards.

On GEO group, conservative politicians, lobbyist groups, and prisons

Written By: - Date published: 11:06 am, May 2nd, 2010 - 9 comments

In Florida, a legislative plan to close as many as five state prisons and ship inmates to a private prison run by GEO Group was scaled back last month.

The feds may be searching to see if former state House Speaker Sansom received any kickbacks from the company. The GEO group are also contenders for running private prisons here.

John, it’s time for Paula to go

Written By: - Date published: 1:02 pm, April 30th, 2010 - 230 comments

[Update: TV3 now admits its ’emails’ were a Facebook exchange between Fuller and a friend and Fuller says she made up the money offer. For fuck’s sake, TV3, you can’t run a story based on someone’s Facebook comments. Still, Bennett should not have been meeting with a complainant just before the report is due out. It’s clear she is looking to avoid an embarrassment]

Help a brother out

Written By: - Date published: 1:21 pm, April 20th, 2010 - 19 comments

Nick Smith’s brother, Tim Smith, was up on 21 charges from Environment Canterbury at the same time as Smith was ramming through the abolishment of the democratically-elected council. Smith should have told us of this apparent conflict of interest. I guess when you’re part of a government that’s hiding the fact its 3 strikes law will encourage murders, this seemed like a small thing.

Finlayson covering for corrupt judge?

Written By: - Date published: 9:34 am, April 12th, 2010 - 23 comments

A senior judge is under investigation for sitting on a case in which his business partner, whom he owed $240,000, was a lawyer. The investigation could result in a recommendation to the Attorney-General that the judge be sacked. But Attorney-General Chris Finlayson has trampled over the process and has said he will not act against Justice Wilson, who is a mate of his from their days at Bell Gully.

Lies strengthen case against David Carter

Written By: - Date published: 9:15 am, April 8th, 2010 - 6 comments

It’s the lies that get you. That’s what Agriculture Minister David Carter and John Key are learning as more details of Carter’s conflict of interest over the legislation that removed the Environment Canterbury councilare emerging. Carter and Key now have to explain why they have lied and misled, which will be tricky to explain if they continue to insist there’s no ministerial misbehaviour to cover up.

Don Brash, Rogernomics, and Huljich

Written By: - Date published: 8:24 am, March 16th, 2010 - 20 comments

The New Zealand economic reforms of the 1980s and 1990s were largely a failure.  This can be seen from the large negative divergence post 1984 in New Zealand’s real output per capita in comparison to Australia, our usual benchmark. New Zealand’s comparative position vis-à-vis unemployment also worsened. Poverty and social inequality increased. Australia undertook various […]

Camels, Eyes, Needles

Written By: - Date published: 11:38 am, March 3rd, 2010 - 24 comments

If you agree that money is power, and that power corrupts, then it follows having a lot of money may be a corrupting influence. So imagine the compounding effects of having a lot of money and being like, a Bishop, or a PM. Self-proclaimed Bishop Brian Tamaki is having a few problems at the moment […]

Heatley on spending others’ money

Written By: - Date published: 10:00 am, February 26th, 2010 - 1 comment

Russel Norman has an ironic adjunct to the ‘storm in a wine glass’ (as one wit on RNZ called Phil Heatley’s resignation)…

On the news value of questioning Ministers’ shares

Written By: - Date published: 2:58 pm, February 24th, 2010 - 39 comments

A certain National Party pollster is having a cry over the story I ran yesterday on Murray McCully’s shares in Widespread Portfolios.

The story got widespread media coverage because it raised legitimate questions that needed to be answered.

Nats’ sense of entitlement behind credit card abuse

Written By: - Date published: 6:42 am, February 24th, 2010 - 40 comments

Yesterday the Dominion Post caught out National Party Ministers using their taxpayer funded credit cards for personal use. This was a gross betrayal of public trust. Housing Minister Phil Heatley knew what he was doing, but did it anyway. John Key should sack Heatley for turning his nose up at the Kiwi taxpayer.