Remember all those unanswered questions over the abuse of public money by Pansy Wong and her husband? So does Campbell Live, which has uncovered the story of Sammy’s former business partner Steven Priest, who claims that Sammy ripped him off with Pansy’s help. It was Pansy’s signature on Priest’s contract that first got her in trouble.
Strangely the video of this piece is the only one not online but you can watch it in the On Demand video of the whole show. It starts at about 14 minutes.
You’ll remember that Sammy’s companies were registered to the address of Wong’s electorate office. Using that taxpayer-funded space for private business is illegal. The defence at the time is it was just a mailing address. Well, that was a lie. Priest confirms that he did business deals with Sammy there.
We learn, too, of another business trip by Sammy that was paid for with Pansy’s MP travel perk. This indicates a pattern of abuse, rather than the one-off mistake that Pansy and Key claimed. You’ll remember the whitewash McPhail report looked into this trip and others but relied on the Wongs’ word for what happened on the trips. The purpose of the June 2008 trip, according to that complete disgrace of a report, was “Sammy Wong visited friends in China”. So, Sammy lied to Hugh McPhail too because now know it was a business trip.
Why McPhail didn’t get this evidence from Priest, I don’t know. If McPhail has any honour, he’ll refund his fee and admit his report is hopelessly flawed. If Key has any honour, he will admit he helped Wong cover-up and ask the Auditor-General to launch an investigation with which he will cooperate fully.
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