The Tory blogworld went apoplectic over Tane’s comment that it was no surprise Bell Gully lawyers opposed the Electoral Finance Bill because the National Party got $62,000 from the Bell Gully Trust Account in 2005. National Party insider David Farrar gave us a down-the-nose lecture on his kiwiblog on how trust accounts work, saying that it was like accusing the BNZ when someone donated with one of their bank cheques.
Not quite David – Tane’s onto something I think. The Bell Gully partner who wrote the attack on the Electoral Finance Bill that Farrar enthused over, Roger Partridge, was the lawyer who represented David Richwhite when he settled out of court earlier this year to the tune of $20 million in the insider trading case brought by the Securities Commission over the sale of New Zealand Rail shares. David’s done nothing wrong said Roger – yeah right, nothing to the tune of $20 million!
David Richwhite is listed by Nicky Hager’s sources in “The Hollow Men” as one of the major donors to the National Party in 2005. What would be really interesting to know, and David Farrar probably would as he has been on the National Party Head Office staff, is whether the $62,000 listed as coming from the Bell Gully Trust account is treated as a named donation? If it is, then the National Party could lawfully know who the real donor was. It could be David, it could be Rodger – that $20 million settlement would have generated a handsome fee.
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