So English lied to Parliament too

Written By: - Date published: 6:40 am, June 23rd, 2017 - 23 comments
Categories: Abuse of power, accountability, bill english, Dirty Politics, national - Tags: , , , , ,

Bill’s lies are unraveling all over the place – Bill English accused of misleading Parliament

Today the Prime Minister admitted he used what he calls “imprecise language” – and it was the police who came to him about the Todd Barclay recording.

Mr English was emphatic in Parliament yesterday that he’d “reported it to the police”. But today came an admission – “they approached me”.

And what’s more, he lawyered up before the interview. “I did get legal advice, yes,” he said today.

The Prime Minister hasn’t properly corrected the record himself, and now Labour have complained to the speaker.

“The Prime Minister was clearly using his time in Parliament yesterday to make out that he had done something that he hadn’t,” Mr Roberston told Newshub.

“That is a very severe breach of Parliament’s rules.”

New Zealand First leader Winston Peters said Mr English needs to stand down, “just like Barclay”.

“He misled the media, he misled the House.”

Winston Peters is running hard on this – Peters lays complaints over Barclay saga

New Zealand First leader Winston Peters said he had filed two privileges complaints against Prime Minister Bill English, claiming he has misled Parliament with his answers to questions about National MP Todd Barclay.

Mr Peters said Mr English had been making statements which were untrue and he should be held accountable.

“He was involved, as was the board of the National Party – and no doubt the ninth floor of the Beehive – in the cover up because there was Parliamentary, tax-payer’s money used to get a confidentiality agreement with the person who had the information, who was the complainant.

Mr Peters said that confidentiality agreement was an illegal contract, because it sought to cover-up a crime.

Very hard – ‘He’s got to go’: Winston Peters calls for Prime Minister to resign

New Zealand First leader Winston Peters has ramped up criticism of Prime Minister Bill English over the Todd Barclay affair – saying English should resign.

“He’s got to go, Mr English. He’s got to stand down, just like Barclay. He misled the media, he misled the House in every respect he is in serious breach of his responsibilities and duties,” Peters said to media before entering question time that saw further questions about English’s actions.

You might think that rules a post-election NZF/Nat coalition, but you would be wrong –

Asked if English had lied, Peters said there was no other possible conclusion. Despite calling for English’s resignation, Peters did not rule out going into Coalition with National after the September 23 election.

The only way to square that circle is if Peters insists that English steps down as the price of propping up National. Judith Collins is probably on the phone to Peters right now.

23 comments on “So English lied to Parliament too ”

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  1. Psycho Milt 1
    23 June 2017 at 9:11 am

    National’s spin doctors must have been spitting tacks last night. They put out a lovely distraction (Labour using “slave labour” foreign interns!) to take the heat off the PM and then it turns out he lied to Parliament yesterday – which meant their Labour “scandal” got less air-time than opposition MPs berating the PM for lying to the House. Them’s the breaks, kid.

    • Wayne 1.1
      23 June 2017 at 10:10 am

      PM,

      More accurately Richard Harman raised the issue on Politik, but it was around the media, pretty darn quick for pretty obvious reasons, hypocrisy being one of them.

      The Labour Director, Mr Kiton did not help his case on Morning Report this morning.
      It was clear this was always a Labour led initiative, not an independent means of getting people signed up on the roll, as Matt McCarten has previously stated.
      So it is not just a little thing. It really is as big as National’s issues with Mr Barclay.

      And in any event who on earth could have thought it was a good idea to bring in 100 overseas people to run Labour’s election campaign. I know it was McCarten, but lots of senior people in the party, including the Leader and other senior people must have agreed. Surely major political parties should understand that NZers would expect volunteers on the street to be essentially local activists in the party.

      One can understand 5 or so people from overseas to help. That is part of the general ethos of sharing ideas and action between like minded parties. But 100 overseas political activists on the street doing general campaigning. Just a crazy idea.

      • Bearded Git 1.1.1
        23 June 2017 at 10:37 am

        @ wayne “It really is as big as National’s issues with Mr Barclay”

        A minor mismanagement of the accommodation of 80 interns, many of whom it transpires are happy with their treatment, is the same as the PM covering up a crime and lying to the House?

        I’ve copied this from Carolyn’s post today in Open Mike. Here are the views of one of the interns:

        “She believed the complaints and leaks to the media were driven by one or two interns who had a beef with the programme. She claimed one was dropped from a leadership position on the programme after allegedly taking bottles of wine from Labour MP Jenny Salesa’s house after Salesa hosted a meal for them.”

        You are talking complete bollocks Wayne.

      • Andre 1.1.2
        23 June 2017 at 10:39 am

        “One can understand 5 or so people from overseas to help.”

        You mean like Lynton Crosby, Mark Textor, “Palantir” Thiel, Marshall Mathers and …?

        • Wayne 1.1.2.1
          23 June 2017 at 10:44 am

          Peter Thiel has never had anything to do with National Party campaigning.

          Crosby Textor, yes, as is well known as a right leaning political campaign firm. No secret there.

          Never heard of Marshall Mathers.

      • marty mars 1.1.3
        23 June 2017 at 11:31 am

        what do you think about bill english and his lies wayne – you must be disappointed to have english make 101 mistakes like that surely? and then continue to make them??? Is that just the pressure or are there other issues going on.

        • bwaghorn 1.1.3.1
          23 June 2017 at 12:08 pm

          wayne won’t mind that english lied , what will bug him and his scum mates is he got caught

          • Brendon Harre 1.1.3.1.1
            23 June 2017 at 12:28 pm

            That’s seem to be the guts of it. Is the lesson from Bill English’s behaviour Wayne -that it is ok to condone wrongdoing as long as you can get away with it?

      • Brendon Harre 1.1.4
        23 June 2017 at 12:07 pm

        The Barclay ‘thing’ is much worse for Bill English because it goes to his moral authority.

        Labour’s difficulties with foreign student volunteers -is more about mismanagement from Matt McCarten -something he will be held account for. Much like McCulley’s Saudi Sheep deal, or Collins -Oravida. These were bad for them personally -but not so much the party brand or leadership.

        Back to the Barclay ‘thing’ Bill English is our chief lawmaker and he is auditioning to continue in that role. Yet when he was in a situation involving his old job representing Southland and his old staffers, Bill chose not to uphold the law.

        Wyne doesn’t that mean Bill has undermined his moral authority?

        For instance if my son comes to me and says a friend of his has confessed to wrongdoing/breaking the law and my son asks me what should he do? I am not going to say- well you could follow the example of our PM -Bill English, who had a similar problem with a friend.

        Bill’s example is to get someone else to make some payoffs to stop people talking, the wrongdoer then pretended that no wrongdoing occurred……. the problem with this example is eventually the truth does come out……… everyone eventually does get punish….. the wrongdoer does lose their job…… And now lots of people think the PM is a liar, who covers up wrongdoing ……

        So my advice to my son would be not to follow the example of Bill English -he needs to tell the truth and when he or his friends have done wrong that he needs to front up to it honestly.

      • Psycho Milt 1.1.5
        23 June 2017 at 12:40 pm

        More accurately Richard Harman raised the issue on Politik…

        It is of course entirely possible that Mr Harman coincidentally happened to come across this embarrassing-for-Labour story the day after National got into some seriously deep shit, rather than having it passed to him by spin doctors who’d been waiting for the most valuable time to release it. Not a big believer in such coincidences, myself…

        And in any event who on earth could have thought it was a good idea to bring in 100 overseas people to run Labour’s election campaign. I know it was McCarten, but lots of senior people in the party, including the Leader and other senior people must have agreed.

        It sounds like McCarten sold it to the Party as 15 interns, then wildly over-sold it to the potential candidates and accepted 115 applications despite not having the infrastructure in place to support such an influx (much like the current government’s approach to immigration). Doesn’t seem like the party leadership knew what they were getting themselves into.

  2. Stuart Munro 2
    23 June 2017 at 9:15 am

    I doubt Peters would answer Judith – except to get her solicitation on tape.

    But he has a point. Our parliamentary system requires honourable behavior to function. Ministers must answer questions, and lying is a career-ending offence. The fact that we’ve had a miserably corrupt speaker goes a long way to explaining how the Key government was able to make such a mess for so long.

    Winston will let the cards fall as they may, and it’s a long way to the election.

    As a revisionist party the failures of other parties are his meat and drink. Something those blamable for the intern project might want to remember.

    • Draco T Bastard 2.1
      23 June 2017 at 11:34 am

      Our parliamentary system requires honourable behavior to function.

      True. The problem is that the rules requiring them to be are ‘traditional’ rather than actual law and the politicians answer to themselves which means that any breach of those rules will be handled along party lines. National won’t vote to remove Blinglish and I doubt if Act or Dunne would either. The Māori Party might.

      We need to be able to take politicians to court and have them removed when their actions are this atrocious.

      • McFlock 2.1.1
        23 June 2017 at 2:18 pm

        Yep. We have a supreme court, might as well make it supreme.

        Better still, put a parliamentary commissioner in charge of the Cabinet Manual rules as well. Referral to SC from Speaker, cabinet manual commissioner, or mp appealing speaker’s or privileges committee ruling.

  3. Pete 3
    23 June 2017 at 10:23 am

    Your first three lines paint a nice pen picture.

    Line 1: Judith
    2 : Our parliamentary system requires honourable behaviour
    3: Lying is a career-ending offence

    An article has imputations of Judith Collins as leader of National/Prime Minister.

    The requirements of the behaviour of someone for the job, for any job in those precincts, would normally be understood, accepted and be taken as base-line.

    Judith Collins, as Minister of Justice, and her multi-faceted behaviour around the Oravida affair.

    Winston? Failures of other parties? “Miserably corrupt speaker”? The Collins bit shows the system is fucked even without the entry of Sir David Carter.

    • Stuart Munro 3.1
      23 June 2017 at 11:35 am

      The miserably corrupt speaker is in fact the biggest deal of all.

      Shambling ministerial failures like Nick Smith are supposed to be compelled to resign.

      Suppurating masses of corruption that prove the fish rots from the gut like Gerry Brownlee are supposed to be accountable for failure to rebuild, never mind the rorts.

      Carter is as much to blame as Key.

  4. Thinkerr 4
    23 June 2017 at 7:35 pm

    Even today, I think it was stuff.co.nz (if not, then Herald) said Blinglish has explained that, until the police became involved, no-one thought something wrong had been done.

    Surely, anyone fit to run the country would have drawn a connection between what Barclay did and the teapot tape scandal?

    • Stuart Munro 4.1
      23 June 2017 at 8:21 pm

      In a profession as saturated with lawyers as politics the line (that never works with the police) “We didn’t know it was illegal” is even less persuasive than usual.

      • North 4.1.1
        24 June 2017 at 9:39 am

        “Ignorance of the law” a defence ? No !

        http://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1961/0043/latest/DLM328230.html

        There was a police investigation going on for God’s sake. It commenced last year. No one had a thought to enquire as to what/whose conduct that was all about ? It wasn’t a police training day damn it.

        English’s pose is bullshit, A lie. Conceived for use when the dogs’ balls are sticking out so far they’re vulnerable to a kicking. That’s the ethos of the National Party. Say ‘something’…….no matter how implausible. ‘Anything’ will do. Just ‘say’.