corruption

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Private Welfare to Work – how well does that work?

Written By: - Date published: 8:15 am, March 24th, 2012 - 42 comments

The government has introduced their welfare changes to parliament. In addition to making mums of 1 year-olds seek paid work in addition to raising children, it introduces private companies profiting from unemployment misery with welfare to work schemes. The UK has been trying this for a couple of years – let’s look at how that’s going…

ImperatorFish: The ACC Scandal Live Updates

Written By: - Date published: 3:54 pm, March 22nd, 2012 - 4 comments

Scott at Imperator Fish has kindly given us permission to syndicate posts from his blog – the original of this post is here.

The demise of Nick Smith has been spectacular, but it is not an end to the ACC privacy story, and the story continues to develop by the hour.

Smith to go

Written By: - Date published: 7:45 am, March 21st, 2012 - 218 comments

Even 1 year ago, there would be no doubt what would happen next. He would have sacked Smith without hesitation. Has Key lost those instincts already?
Updates: won’t comment now but will this afternoon. Needs time to make some backroom deals so that skeletons stay in closets? Smith was been summoned to Wellington. Press conference at 1.45. And  He’s gone. They’re trying to downplay the reasons. What a disgrace. Full video of Key offloading Nick Smith

ImperatorFish: Nick Smith Must Go

Written By: - Date published: 11:52 am, March 20th, 2012 - 56 comments

Scott at Imperator Fish has kindly given us permission to syndicate posts from his blog – the original of this post is here.

Bye Dr Nick!

Joyce’s dirty deals: international convention centre

Written By: - Date published: 8:35 am, February 23rd, 2012 - 57 comments

Steven ‘White Elephant’ Joyce isn’t content with building highways to nowhere with costs that exceed the benefits. Now he wants an international convention centre in Auckland that’s just as pointless. But he doesn’t want the government to pay. So, he’s cutting a dirty deal with more law for sale and more pokie machines blighting our communities.

Resignation-watch: Tariana Turia

Written By: - Date published: 8:17 pm, February 7th, 2012 - 129 comments

Tariana Turia is making hollow threats to leave the government but she might be pushed first. Winston Peters has wasted no time showing how opposition politics is done, using his first question time back to skewer Turia, exposing the massive rorting her Whanau Ora programme. Turia made a slush fund for her mates with our money. She has to go.

John Key’s mirror trust

Written By: - Date published: 8:19 am, November 9th, 2011 - 76 comments

All these things operate underground. There are two near identical pairs. But only one of these things is really not like the other. Let’s not forget John Key’s mirror trust that let’s him keep an eye on the investments that are supposed to be held in a blind trust while he’s PM.

Resignation watch

Written By: - Date published: 11:43 am, September 12th, 2011 - 39 comments

Which minister(s) will John Key fire this week? Bill ‘Double Dipton’ English, is embroiled in yet another personal corruption scandal involving a job for his brother. Gerry ‘The VIIIth’ Brownlee’s Christchurch fiefdom is seeing a peasants’ revolt among redzoners. Murray ‘drowned rat’ McCully delivered Key a huge embarrassment on Friday at the RWC opening.

Another Wong whitewash

Written By: - Date published: 9:36 am, September 6th, 2011 - 30 comments

The Auditor-General has released her investigation into Pansy and Sammy Wong’s use of the publicly funded parliamentary travel budget. She finds there was “no pattern of wrong doing”. Looking at the report you’ll see why – and you’ll be left with more questions than answers…

Brownlee’s dirty little deal

Written By: - Date published: 11:30 am, July 20th, 2011 - 12 comments

I/S has revealed how Gerry Brownlee handpicked the “independent” body that is meant to monitor the use of his CERA powers. He appointed Jenny Shipley to the panel and got her $1000 a day, three times the usual pay. Brownlee said the extra was needed to get the people he wanted. But the chair says money didn’t enter into it for him.

Govt bans perks, but not for themselves

Written By: - Date published: 12:59 pm, June 3rd, 2011 - 28 comments

Just after we discover that National ministers and staffers have been accepting gifts from a bank wanting the government’s business and John Key says ministers shouldn’t take ‘too many’ Rugby World Cup freebies, we learn that civil servants are sternly banned from accepting any gifts. Do as I say, not as I do, eh?

How close is too close?

Written By: - Date published: 7:20 am, June 3rd, 2011 - 54 comments

How close should corporate interests be allowed to cuddle up to the government?  When is a gift not a gift?  If it isn’t influence what is it?
The Greens have raised important questions surrounding Westpac and the Nats.

More budget backhanders

Written By: - Date published: 1:00 pm, May 27th, 2011 - 5 comments

PEDA last year. Parents Inc this year. Ministers giving backhanders to their mates is a growing trend. $1.5m is being cut from the Community Organisation Grants Scheme that funds things like Rape Crisis. Instead of this democratic, accountable process, the money will go to four groups hand-picked by Turia. Dodgy as hell.

All quiet at the Commerce Commission

Written By: - Date published: 10:30 am, May 5th, 2011 - 23 comments

Since Paula Redstock was pushed out of the Commerce Commission with a lot of the other brilliant staff, there has not been one cartel or monopoly abuse case prosecuted by the Commerce Commission. This is the very same Commission that was previously saving us millions of dollars each year and paying for itself with its court settlements.

Wong corruption to be investigated

Written By: - Date published: 11:45 am, April 14th, 2011 - 12 comments

We might be about to find out why Pansy Wong suddenly announced she would resign from Parliament late last year, after John Key had previously expressed full confidence in her. The Auditor-General will investigate those mysterious flights that she and husband Sammy took to China while she was a minister and he was working for Kiwirail.

Is Joyce too big to fail?

Written By: - Date published: 9:00 am, April 11th, 2011 - 18 comments

In 2009, Bill ‘Double Dipton’ English survived a corruption scandal that would have sunk a less important minister. Key couldn’t afford to lose him. Now, evidence continues to emerge of how Steven Joyce gave his old company a sweetheart loan against the official advise. Do you think John Key will act or is Joyce too big to fail?

Key caught in MediaWorks lie

Written By: - Date published: 9:18 am, April 9th, 2011 - 85 comments

Following the release of OIA documentation and questioning in the House, John Key has recanted his earlier statement that he hadn’t met with MediaWork’s Brent Impey to discuss a $43 million Government loan. The PM has now admitted that he did indeed meet with the head of Steven Joyce’s former company MediaWorks, which owns TV3, TV4, […]

More Wong lies uncovered

Written By: - Date published: 12:30 pm, February 17th, 2011 - 10 comments

Remember all those unanswered questions over the abuse of public money by Pansy Wong and her husband? So does Campbell Live, which has uncovered the story of Sammy’s former business partner Steven Priest, who claims that Sammy ripped him off with Pansy’s help. It was Pansy’s signature on Priest’s contract that first got her in trouble.

Ministers put public land in private hands

Written By: - Date published: 9:28 am, January 24th, 2011 - 28 comments

You’ll remember the disgraceful Schmuck scandal when Minister John Carter had clauses inserted into legislation specifically to legalise Doug Schmuck’s annexation of a public reserve. John Key took no action. Now, Kate Wilkinson and David Carter got in on the act – forcing DoC to sign over more public land for private use.

Brethren taking subsidies for illegal discrimination

Written By: - Date published: 10:16 pm, January 13th, 2011 - 65 comments

Another great piece of work from I/S at No Right Turn: “the Exclusive Brethren have set up their own KiwiSaver scheme… The scheme will only be offered to members of the cult. This is, of course, illegal.” They’re trying to take taxpayer money for a business that illegally discriminates on the grounds of religion. It must be stopped.

English’s days numbered

Written By: - Date published: 10:26 am, January 6th, 2011 - 54 comments

What’s to stop a government minister taking taxpayer money and giving it to, say, a family friend or a political slush fund? In theory, lots. There’s a formal budget-formation process through the ministeries and Cabinet, the Budget then has to be approved by Parliament, and the PM would sack any minister who tried such blatant corruption. Wouldn’t he?

Inquiry needed into English-Peda scandal

Written By: - Date published: 9:54 am, December 24th, 2010 - 32 comments

The day before Christmas, in what will surely be a forlorn attempt to bury the story, Bill English’s office has finally relented after months of resistance and released under the OIA papers on how the unknown Pacific Economic Development Agency was awarded a $4.8 million blank cheque in the Budget. This looks serious.

Key, Brownlee & McCully have questions to answer

Written By: - Date published: 10:10 am, December 22nd, 2010 - 45 comments

It seems we don’t have a government at the moment. John Key is incommunicado in Hawaii. The Acting PM, Bill English, and Key’s press people refuse to speak for him. Someone needs to front up because serious questions are emerging about the honesty of statements Gerry Brownlee and Murray McCully made in Parliament and to the New Zealand people.

Nats & Jackson played us for fools

Written By: - Date published: 8:09 am, December 21st, 2010 - 130 comments

The Herald has used the OIA to get hold of emails Peter Jackson sent Gerry Brownlee during the Hobbit shakedown. They show that the Actors’ Equity blacklisting was not a threat to the film staying here – yet Jackson and Brownlee told us it was to justify handing Warners $34 million and rushing through an anti-worker law.

Rortbuster not finished with Wong

Written By: - Date published: 10:21 am, December 15th, 2010 - 35 comments

Rortbuster Pete Hodgson unveiled yet more information about Pansy and Sammy Wong’s business activities in China on the taxpayer dime in Parliament yesterday. It’s damning material. The Auditor-General had decided not to investigate but there’s every chance she will now or that the Police will.

Desperate hypocritical muckraking

Written By: - Date published: 10:31 am, December 14th, 2010 - 16 comments

Key has been very busy defending sacked Minister Pansy Wong.  He has been desperately ignoring the calls for an Auditor General’s investigation as the cracks in the whitewash report on her illegal spending continue to grow.  But Key is very quick to call for the Auditor General to investigate a single solitary billboard.

A-G sure to launch Wong probe

Written By: - Date published: 10:30 am, December 10th, 2010 - 12 comments

The Auditor-General seems certain to launch an  investigation into the Wongs’ taxpayer-funded travel as even more  evidence shows the Parliamentary report isn’t worth the paper it’s  written on. A majority of Kiwis want her to resign. Why John Key hasn’t already called on the A-G to investigate, as he did  with Phil Heatley, is beyond me.

Auditor-General must investigate Wongs

Written By: - Date published: 11:57 pm, December 8th, 2010 - 59 comments

Fresh evidence was presented in the House yesterday by rortbuster Pete Hodgson that makes a lie of testimony Sammy Wong gave to the investigation into his and his wife’s travel on taxpayer money. A proper inquiry by the Auditor-General must now be undertaken. There are also questions over John Key’s involvement.

In search of Pansy’s legacy

Written By: - Date published: 1:30 pm, December 8th, 2010 - 29 comments

In the Herald yesterday, there was a half-page ad thanking Pansy Wong for her “significant contribution” to National’s coffers the country. John Campbell went in hunt of that contribution. Worth watching all the way through for Duncan Garner’s assessment. As a bonus, Kanwaljit Singh Bakshi gets his first media mention that isn’t about corruption.

Another whitewash

Written By: - Date published: 11:48 pm, December 3rd, 2010 - 37 comments

Once again the play is performed. A minister is caught rorting, admits wrong-doing, an investigation is launched, the investigation doesn’t ask crucial questions, it finds no fault just confusion on the part of the poor old minister, the rules are changed. English, Worth, Heatley, Wong… all the same. These farces need a new script.

Wong & Carter: Key’s corrupt little piggies

Written By: - Date published: 11:17 pm, November 28th, 2010 - 12 comments

Wong briefly came out of hiding to answer questions from Parliamentary Services on her abuse of flight perks. Back in hiding now. Key’s still telling her not to talk. But surely she can tell journos what she told the invesigators. Will the report on her corruption be the worst problem for the Nats this week? Or will corrupt David Carter overshadow it?