Dodgy as hell

Written By: - Date published: 9:27 am, August 7th, 2013 - 25 comments
Categories: corruption - Tags:

The government selling off prime real estate to the governing party. It sounds like something out of a banana republic. But it’s here.

The National Party (via several fronts) has bought the former Prime Ministerial/ministerial residence at 41 Pipitea St from the Crown.

Peters says there should have been an auction. Not far enough.

National should never have put up itself on both sides of a property deal. It’s dodgy as hell.

There are plenty of other properties out there. If National wanted a new HQ, it should have bought one of them not made itself the buyer and the seller of public property.

25 comments on “Dodgy as hell ”

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  1. tc 1
    7 August 2013 at 9:34 am

    How about all that state housing land in GI up in akl, and all the land the holiday highways open up for developers.

    Did they run one of those tender process like the one Joyce got his radio frequency from.

  2. Colonial Viper 2
    7 August 2013 at 9:38 am

    Don’t worry the Opposition will be all over this, this morning.

      • Lightly 2.1.1
        7 August 2013 at 10:19 am

        a bit of an odd angle, that

        • Colonial Viper 2.1.1.1
          7 August 2013 at 10:35 am

          It doesn’t address the point that its a shady off-market Government property deal…

          • alwyn 2.1.1.1.1
            7 August 2013 at 12:00 pm

            Perhaps you could explain how you come to the conclusion that this is “a shady off-market property deal”.
            The place has been advertised for sale for at least 6 months. There were regular ads in the Dom/Post for the place. Like perhaps 90% of New Zealand property sales it was sold by someone, the purchaser, offering a price and someone else, the seller , accepting the offer.
            Are you really so foolish as to think that politicians were involved in the deal, rather than it being sold by Government Services, or whatever the organisation is called?
            There are plenty of deals carried out by this, and every other Government. Why not concentrate on something real rather than try and invent ridiculous sideshows.
            Incidentally if you ant to start another fairytale you could complain about the fact that a house that once belonged to the state and was home to Savage, the real one, and Fraser is on the market and the Government hasn’t bought it back and given it to the Historic Places Trust.

            • BLiP 2.1.1.1.1.1
              7 August 2013 at 1:26 pm

              ‘

              Yes, perfectly normal residential house sale . . .

              . . . Property records show that 41 Pipitea St, nestled in Wellington’s diplomatic quarter, was sold by the Crown on June 21 to an entity controlled by Geoffrey Thompson, a former president of the National Party.

              The same day, ownership was transferred to Pipitea St Ltd, whose shareholders include Goodfellow, National Party board member Roger Bridge, former deputy Prime Minister Sir Don McKinnon and Peter Kiely, a lawyer with links to the National Party . . .

              . . . when John Key is running the show.

              • alwyn …
                7 August 2013 at 7:02 pm

                You may not live in Wellington. If not you should know that it is certainly not a property that anyone would buy as a residential property.
                When it was being advertised it was done on the basis that it would be suitable for a law firm or an embassy as office space. That was the description given by the land agent back in Febrary. It may have been perfectly suitable as a residence 50 years ago but I cannot imagine anyone buying it for that now.
                I was amazed to discover that it was still being used for ministerial housing. It would be a terribly depressing place these days with no other residences anywhere near it. I suspect it was put on the market because no minister wanted to live in it.

                Your comment of it being”a perfectly normal residential house sale” is meaningless. It wasn’t a residential sale and was never going to be.

  3. Tom Gould 3
    7 August 2013 at 9:54 am

    This sort of behaviour is simply the natural hubris of absolute power. If we had a functioning MSM it might be different. But most of them are bought and paid for. So it’s only those who haven’t yet worked out how to ‘clip the ticket’ who get annoyed with such things. Besides, look over there.

  4. mickysavage 4
    7 August 2013 at 10:04 am

    The owner is 41 Pipitea Street Limited and it is a company associated with Duncan Cotterill Lawyers in Wellington. Obviously there is some sort of trust structure there and I would be interested to see how the links were established by Fairfax.

    Interestingly the transfer of June 21 from the Crown was first to Ratadale Nominees Limited, which is a company controlled by former National Chair Geoff Thompson who is a consultant at Duncan Cotterill and the property was then immediately transferred on.

    Could this be the start of Fairfax’s attack on National because of the Government’s treatment of Andrea Vance?

    And you have to wonder why they did not put the property up for auction.

    • Craig Glen viper 4.1
      7 August 2013 at 10:24 am

      National hate competition, its the medicine thats good for everyone else though.

  5. TheContrarian 5
    7 August 2013 at 10:34 am

    I would have loved to have seen it as a political museum of sorts.

    • Lanthanide 5.1
      7 August 2013 at 11:53 am

      I’m sure there’s a joke in there about National party right-wing ideologues being dinosaurs…

  6. aerobubble 6
    7 August 2013 at 11:35 am

    So let’s get this, the National party headquarters was home to Labour PMs, how do they hope to deal with the chorus of counter spin, everything form the ghost of past PMs, to how former residents called to nationalize….etc.etc.

    But what were they thinking, the opposition just repurchases the property for its historic value, and I can’t fathom how the National party is going to get ‘funding’ to preserve the building from a future govt….

  7. Adrian 7
    7 August 2013 at 11:36 am

    It going to be, it’s for the National Party so there will be lots of dinosaurs and deadwood there.

  8. Sanctuary 8
    7 August 2013 at 11:49 am

    It is made out of solid brick. Who knows, come the next big earthquake…

  9. Plan B 9
    7 August 2013 at 11:53 am

    I think Winston got this info out – if so It shows once again he has got plenty of inside info coming his way – I wonder from inside Parliment

  10. insider 10
    7 August 2013 at 12:17 pm

    National will soon have almost as many houses as speculating Dave shearer

  11. captain hook 11
    7 August 2013 at 12:32 pm

    this government is rapidly gaining a reputation for gimcrackery and shifty dealing.
    call a spade a spade please.

  12. Nick 12
    7 August 2013 at 1:10 pm

    1) Not only would the selling of a state house be a matter that Ministers would not have any involvement with (if you can show Ministerial involvement in the sale that’s another story, anything like that would probably be OIAable) but here the sale was handled by an independent Real Estate agent, Tommys.
    2) There is no evidence of ‘mates rates’ here. The house was sold well above rateable value. Non-auctions sales are hardly evidence of corruption, they are in fact very common in the real estate market.

    • insider 12.1
      7 August 2013 at 2:32 pm

      You’re new here aren’t you Nick? You should know that facts are unimportant. Stick to the general line ‘ it’s all John key’s fault / corrupt national ‘ and you’ll be fine.

    • Craig Glen viper 12.2
      7 August 2013 at 5:08 pm

      Actually well above was only $256.000 above wasnt it? Why was it bought and then on sold on the same day I wonder? Nah all above board ……….what ever!

    • Macro 12.3
      7 August 2013 at 6:20 pm

      Nick! I’ve got a lovely old bridge you can buy – quite unique and its going cheap!

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