Help a brother out

Written By: - Date published: 1:21 pm, April 20th, 2010 - 19 comments
Categories: Conservation, corruption, local government - Tags: ,

So, Nick Smith’s brother, Tim Smith, was up on 21 charges from Environment Canterbury for unconsented discharges and buildings at the very same time as Smith was vilifying ECan in the House, then ramming through legislation abolishing the democratically-elected council and replacing it with the government’s unaccountable mates.

Ministers are meant to be above suspicion of corruption. At the very least, Smith should have notified the public of this apparent conflict of interest. Instead, he kept it quiet.

I guess sitting around a cabinet table where half of the members have rorted their expenses in one way or another, lying is routine, and there is concerted campaign to suppress the fact that the 3 strikes bill will encourage more murders, Nick Smith just felt his behaviour was par for the course.

19 comments on “Help a brother out ”

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  1. Ianmac 1
    20 April 2010 at 1:48 pm

    Can you imagine the conversation that may have followed from Nick to his brother? “Listen old chap. That was not very helpful to bring that up just now. Supposed to be a secret you know. So if you promise to be a good boy I will make all those nasty unfair charges go away. OK bro’?

  2. toad 2
    20 April 2010 at 1:48 pm

    This is the most interesting bit. Tim Smith:

    “I told them their organisation was bloody hopeless and they were all useless bastards who should be sacked,” he said.

    “I also told them that with some luck my brother and Rodney Hide would do something about it.

    And Nick and Rodney duly oblige.

  3. mickysavage 3
    20 April 2010 at 2:22 pm

    Tim shows the same amount of sophistication as Nick. I mean it is one thing to think that his brother should “take out” a public authority tasked with upholding some of our laws but to say it to a national Newspaper?

  4. Olwyn 4
    20 April 2010 at 2:25 pm

    Imagine the size of the headlines if the politician in question here was Helen Clark!

  5. Rob M 5
    20 April 2010 at 2:26 pm

    Part of National’s new targeted welfare scheme: Legislating for Families

  6. Bill 6
    20 April 2010 at 2:38 pm

    “Nick Smith said he was not aware of his brother’s specific issues until well after he had ordered a review of ECan. He heard of the charges second-hand from a family member at a wedding in late November. “I have been scrupulous throughout my political career in keeping separate my public responsibilities from the fact that I have seven siblings, of whom five are involved in the construction business.”

    Wonder which one is the snow white to the seven poison dwarfs? Oh, that would be Nick.

    question. Since when did the fact of having several siblings pose a conflict of interest to a minister? I think snow white is talking much evasive shite.

  7. tc 7
    20 April 2010 at 4:06 pm

    “Ministers are meant to be above suspicion of corruption” yes they are as the nat definition of above suspicion of corruption is ‘what do you think sideshow?’

  8. RobertM 8
    20 April 2010 at 7:05 pm

    Their hardline fundamentalists the smiths. No sleeping around for the disabled. How on earth did |Nick become the president of the Uni of Canterbury student executive. Shows its a repository of hopeless conservatism- even from the likes of Newbold and the sociologists. And Nick didn’t even go to Nelson College. Neither did Roger Kerr. Both recalcitrant proles, really. Leave Tim Smith to play with his crane.

  9. Murray 9
    20 April 2010 at 7:53 pm

    I guess this is the sort of smokescreen your Labour guys and gals need at the moment,
    Isn’t it called “Damage Control”

    • mickysavage 9.1
      20 April 2010 at 9:12 pm

      WTF??

      If this occurred in Zimbabwe (Minister sacking authority prosecuting Minister’s brother) there would be UN observers sent in for the next election. Should we expect the same?

      • toad 9.1.1
        21 April 2010 at 7:15 am

        Problem is, micky, that unlike Zimbabwe there is no next election scheduled for ECan. It’s more like Fiji in that regard.

  10. Rharn 10
    20 April 2010 at 8:12 pm

    Smith certainly kept this one secret. Didn’t Jimy Carter have brother with a fisherman’s mouth. Making gaffes in his spare time. Think Smith might have one too

    It’s times like this I miss Winstone.

    • toad 10.1
      20 April 2010 at 8:53 pm

      Yep, maybe “Tim” Smith will become “Billy” Carter.

      The analogy is not that good though. Nick Smith is not President – at least yet!

      But he does seem to have a lot of influence over the PM, which I guess is the reason such an accident-prone Minister remains in Cabinet. FFS – Smith introduced the ACC-gutting Bill without having the numbers, and then had to go grovelling to ACT to do a deal about privatisation, which had previously been ruled by him as off the agenda, to get the Bill through its First Reading. Normally a Minister would be goneburger for such ineptitude.

  11. illuminatedtiger 11
    20 April 2010 at 8:54 pm

    Isn’t this normally referred to as corruption?

  12. Red Rosa 12
    21 April 2010 at 6:42 am

    The Smith family have the virtue of occasional flashes of candour. Nick S admitted he dumped ECan as a pre-emptive strike, before the local body elections in October. His brother admits stirring him up to get the bureaucracy off his back. Action!

    On the ECan sacking, here is Rodney Hide opposing the Waikato river legislation –

    ACT leader Rodney Hide, who is also Local Government Minister, says his party has always had “grave concerns over it”.

    “We believe that when you are essentially regulating and controlling natural resources such as water and land, the people responsible should be subject to democratic control. That means if the community does not like it, the community can sack them. The trouble with co-governance arrangements is that half of the decision makers aren’t elected representatives.”

    Well, well well.

  13. bruce mcfarlane 13
    26 April 2010 at 7:25 pm

    wonder how many smiths in corrections were or are related

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