More National sleeze

• Eddie
• 15 years ago
• Categories: corruption, crime, im/migration, national
• Tags: kanwaljit singh bakshi, peter goodfellow

There’s been an attempt to force Peter Goodfellow, the brand new President of the National Party, to step down. The move came from the party’s board, worried that negative news around Goodfellow would damage the party if he hangs around. However, it looks like John Key has decided to back Goodfellow and that’s put the kibosh on attempts to roll him, for now.

For legal reasons, we can’t tell you what has sparked this (but you’ve all worked it out) and we can’t let you join the dots in the comments thread either. Once the full story can be told, this is going to hurt National seriously, especially now Key has thrown his lot in with him.

Meanwhile, more sleaziness from National’s MPs continues to come to light. Immigration officials have been investigating an alleged scam involving Kanwaljit Singh Bakshi and have decided there’s enough to the case to pass it on to Police. The Herald has a helpful timeline:

• September: Indian couple complain that then-National Party candidate Kanwaljit Singh Bakshi made them a false job offer as part of immigration scam.
• March: Immigration NZ closes investigation. Mr Bakshi says he is cleared.
• May: Investigation report obtained by the Herald reveals the case was closed because of insufficient evidence, and an Immigration NZ staffer suspected the complainants may have been paid off.
• July: Immigration NZ restarts investigations, refers new information to police.

The way I hear it, Bakshi is up to his eyeballs in all kinds of dodginess but the Nats overlooked that in favour of tokenism.