Caught out

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

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. Justice Wilson is accused of acting inappropriately in hearing a case where the lawyer for one side was his business partner, Alan Galbraith, whom he owes quarter of a million dollars.

Now questions are being asked about why it took Finlayson so long to excuse himself from the process. He ought to have recognised his conflict of interest back in December and handed the responsibility over to another minister. But he didn’t do so until after the media spotlight was shone on him.

It says a lot about National’s standards. They’ll do the right thing, if they’re caught out.

11 comments on “Caught out ”

  • Comments are now closed

  1. Jim Nald 1
    25 May 2010 at 1:21 pm

    National’s rotten standards!

  2. Tigger 2
    25 May 2010 at 1:30 pm

    I’m waiting for the press (especially the right wing pundits) to do to Finlayson what they’ve done to every gay male Labour politician since Carter came out… Where’s the homophobia guys? It has been blissfully absent from all your critiques of Finlayson.

    I think this is a great thing – finally a gay male politician can actually do the job, free from this vile type of insidious abuse.

    Of course press and pundits, this means that you need to leave the sexuality out of any discussion of gay male Labour politicians too…but what’s the bet you don’t do that.

  3. vto 3
    25 May 2010 at 1:45 pm

    These nats are extremely loose when it comes to proper conduct and the law. Examples include David Carter telling other regional councils to ‘watch out’ if they don’t give farmers what they want. David Carter again suggesting that Crafar farms wouldn’t go to the Chinese. Smith and the Ecan ugliness. Key dismissing Tuhoe’s claim to Ureweras.

    Mind you most all govts do similar in NZ. Too much power in the hands of really quite average people.

  4. sean14 4
    25 May 2010 at 2:51 pm

    Yup, let’s hang the man on hearsay.

  5. Graeme Edgeler 5
    25 May 2010 at 4:28 pm

    I imagine the response would/should be: “Finlayson recused himself at the very beginning of his involvement.”

    Until the report of the Judicial Conduct Commissioner, the Attorney-General had no role to play in the matter. This would be like expecting the Chief Justic to recuse herself from a Fletcher appeal that has yet to be filed in the Supreme Court.

  6. Adrian 6
    25 May 2010 at 4:52 pm

    Chris Finlayson is a nice bloke but pretty bloody dim particulary around his current job. I’ve only met him once and I’m just a rural shit-kicker but in a private historical legal matter last year I tried to tell him he couldn’t carry on with ( unpaid ) representation as he was A-G. After a months pissing about we were told ” Oh, I can’t do that because I’m the A-G”. Bugger me! Captcha.. intelligent… Yeah right.

    • the pinkpostman 6.1
      27 May 2010 at 2:40 pm

      There are no “nice” Tory’s .they are all a bunch of grabbers,
      As the late Norman Kirk said at the 1972 conference .”They are all a lot of Bastard’s.They are not known in the UK as the nasty party for nothing.
      Never trust them ,ever!!

  7. ianmac 7
    25 May 2010 at 5:03 pm

    I wonder if Chris is secretly miffed at the anti Tuhoe decision which it was said he was not consulted. In fact he would be very miffed if it was a Sunday Key/Joyce decision.
    In this case he should have declared conflict very early, unless he was going to and Key told him to not bother as Key was very relaxed about such details.

  8. tc 8
    25 May 2010 at 6:33 pm

    Spot on Adrian….lets wade ankle deep across the NACT think tank because it doesn’t get any deeper.

  9. Dan 9
    25 May 2010 at 6:46 pm

    I commiserate with Finlayson. There is an element of Doug Graham about him in his ability to relate to history and Maori.
    Question: can I buy one of those Tuhoe signature pens put out by the crown? They have to be collector’s items, and a signature for duplicity and double dealing that our maori bros have put up with for too long.

  10. gingercrush 10
    25 May 2010 at 7:00 pm

    I’m sorry but the idea that Finlayson is somehow dim is just not credible. No matter what you think of him. His legal credentials are impressive.

The server will be getting hardware changes this evening starting at 10pm NZDT.
The site will be off line for some hours.