Desperate hypocritical muckraking

Written By: - Date published: 10:31 am, December 14th, 2010 - 16 comments
Categories: accountability, corruption, john key, len brown - Tags:

Unbelievable. 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. Because it happens to be a billboard used by a prominent political opponent:

Prime Minister John Key says he supports a proposed inquiry into a donation by a Manukau trust to Auckland Mayor Len Brown’s election campaign.

Mr Key yesterday said he supported the view of Local Government Minister Rodney Hide “that it may be appropriate for the Auditor-General to look at the nature of whether the entity that actually gave [Mr Brown] a donation is capable of doing so or whether it’s within their rules to do so”.

He was referring to a donation of billboard space worth $3375 from the Counties Manukau Pacific Trust, which runs the TelstraClear Pacific Events Centre.

Mr Hide, who intends writing to Auditor-General Lyn Provost today to ask her office to investigate the donation, regards the trust as a “council-controlled entity” drawing on ratepayer funding. …

Trust chief executive Richard Jeffery last night denied that the trust was a council-controlled entity.

“We are a community charitable trust,” he said. Trust chairman Sir Noel Robinson said no costs were incurred or revenue lost by providing Mr Brown’s campaign with billboard space, which his board had made a decision to provide free to any mayoral candidate who approached it.

“As a trust we support the democratic process and are more than happy for candidates to use the billboard as long as it doesn’t interfere with our business and that we incur no cost,” Sir Noel said.

“A legal opinion said we are well within our right to do so.” …

Hey Johnnie – the board was acting under legal advice and supporting the democratic process. Call for the AG to investigate if you like, but such muckraking only highlights the desperate hypocrisy of your refusal to investigate Pansy Wong, or Rodney Hide, or Richard Worth, or Kanwaljit Singh Bakshi, or David Carter, or Paula Bennet, or etc etc etc.

If you’re going to attack Brown, why not do so on his use of a blind trust to cover political donations? We need to get that practice out of our political system. So why not have a go at that John? Oh – wait…

16 comments on “Desperate hypocritical muckraking ”

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  1. Carol 1
    14 December 2010 at 10:39 am

    And it seems Key wants to avoid an A-G investigation into Pansy Wong’s travel perks. She’s gone as of about 5-10 minutes ago:

    http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/4455775/Wong-quits-Parliament

  2. Tigger 2
    14 December 2010 at 11:07 am

    If I was Key I’d really stop prodding around this issue – diversion is fine but you can’t poke at the issue of election funding with a sharp stick and expect it not to bite you on the bum.

  3. r0b 3
    14 December 2010 at 11:13 am

    Anne – moved your comment to the new post on Wong’s resignation.

  4. Irascible 4
    14 December 2010 at 3:25 pm

    The billboard scandal, of Lee-Ross & Hide’s manufacture, is the level of understanding Key has grasp of. Corruption on the Wong scale is not understood by a graduate from the money speculation trading floor as Nick Baring once said.

    • Colonial Viper 4.1
      15 December 2010 at 11:32 am

      Corruption on the Wong scale is not understood by a graduate from the money speculation trading floor as Nick Baring once said.

      Yeah on the Wong scale its seen by guys like Key as ‘best practice’.

  5. John Dalley 5
    14 December 2010 at 7:17 pm

    I wonder what skeletons Lee-Ross has in his closet?
    He should know by now the people who live in glass houses should be careful with the stone throwing.
    As for Rodney Hide, what a F***ing hypocrite.

  6. bbfloyd 6
    15 December 2010 at 11:19 am

    and , of course, the herald publishes the story on cue. making sure it’s written to seem like there is an actual issue.. good little poodle, come here and i’ll give you a pat on the head…do it again and i might scratch you behind your ears.. you like that, don’t you…

  7. tc 7
    15 December 2010 at 11:24 am

    good points R0B but when your mates in the msm will happily sling mud on your behalf rather than think and act themselves…..heel msm, good boy now rollover again.

    This is as much a prompt for them to take up the issue on the gov’ts behalf as Sideshow will shuffle off to hawaii/Omaha wherever soon and put all this behind him like any good trader does.

    Forget that bad deal and go and make a new one…..never look back and don’t bother learning from history. looking at granny lately Young and Armstrong appear to be making up for some critical pieces on the NACT (shock horror) with some diligent arse licking pieces following their masters lead.

    • bbfloyd 7.1
      15 December 2010 at 11:32 am

      armstrong is starting to exhibit symptoms of bi-polar syndrome.

      • Colonial Viper 7.1.1
        15 December 2010 at 11:33 am

        We need guys like Armstrong who can look at a situation from both sides of the fence. Even if that look is sometimes a bit random in nature.

  8. randal 8
    16 December 2010 at 12:37 pm

    hot news.
    john key declared inane.

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