Treasury? Leaks? Casino?

Written By: - Date published: 7:00 am, September 10th, 2010 - 15 comments
Categories: Economy - Tags: ,

I don’t always agree with Fran O’Sullivan. But she is a real journalist – one of the few.

Consider this from her piece in Wednesday’s Herald:

It will become clear in due time that the Government’s receivership option didn’t just appear out of thin air while Maier negotiated into the night to try to reach an accommodation with the preferred buyer.

And that the Treasury officials had been working on this for some time. And that word had obviously leaked into the market that the Government might entertain a so-called commercial solution aka receivership which arguably sparked a flurry of speculation before the trading halt was called on the Friday immediately preceding the $1.77 billion investor bailout.

As Maier said on Tuesday last week: “A lot of bets in the casino paid off big time today.”

and this:

What we have ended up with is very untidy: the Government has paid out “in the know” bond investors and foreign preferential shareholders who did not qualify for the guarantee.

It reminds me of those “in the know” who made huge amounts of money out of the 1984 devaluation. That was another badly kept secret, also worked on by Treasury; the details were in their briefing document “Economic Management”.

Now that Treasury is in charge of the receivership, let’s hope that it is not another casino for insiders. Please stay on this issue Fran; I think there is a lot more that we all need to know about what has gone on and what might go on in this sorry saga.

15 comments on “Treasury? Leaks? Casino? ”

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  1. IrishBill 1
    10 September 2010 at 8:18 am

    Yeah, I was struck by the similarities to some of the dodgy ’80s practices too: http://thestandard.org.nz/cutting-through-the-bullshit/

    It would be good if Labour and the Greens could announce a fully inquiry as a joint election promise.

  2. mickysavage 2
    10 September 2010 at 8:32 am

    Blinglish said this in the house yesterday:

    [T]he Government will be shortly releasing proactively all the relevant papers that can be released, subject to commercial confidentiality, which will allow the member to scrutinise in detail all judgments and processes followed by the Government.

    No doubt “commercial confidentiality” will be used to hide the identity of those who traded in bonds in the last few weeks.

    And it increasingly grates that the Government would spend $2.4m to pay for counsellors for all of Christchurch but pay many many times that amount to those who do not deserve it and who gambled on the largesse and stupidity of this current administration.

  3. Roger 3
    10 September 2010 at 9:30 am

    While the government attacks beneficiaries it has become apparent who the real bludgers in society are.

  4. Salsy 4
    10 September 2010 at 10:35 am

    This is not to be tolerated, NZers voted in a man who led butal attacks on the NZD virtually collapsing the currancy to line the pockets of the rich. He is now seated deep within the govt, using the borrowing power of a nation to line the pockets of the rich. He has no interest in the New Zealand economy, or the future of those south island farmers SCF has been keeping afloat. John Key is programmed to profit financiers.

  5. randal 5
    10 September 2010 at 12:54 pm

    This country has been owned by the banks since day one.
    nothing has changed.
    and it never will.
    all we can do is shrug them off every now and again.

    • Draco T Bastard 5.1
      10 September 2010 at 1:20 pm

      It can change but everyone needs to know what’s actually happening in society through the auspices of capitalism. Once that’s known then we should be able to throw them off permanently.

    • Loota 5.2
      10 September 2010 at 2:26 pm

      This country has been owned by the banks since day one.

      Maybe its time this country started truly owning some big banks then.

    • ghostwhowalksnz 5.3
      10 September 2010 at 2:27 pm

      Banks maybe , but it seems to have moved down the food chain to now include financial parasites.
      Then again makes a change from the farmers who had a veto over economic policy.
      It seems that the Timaru MP is in the thrall of SCF blocking the tabling of documents in parliament. I wonder why that is. We know Blue Chip had some national Mps on its payroll so maybe those interest free loans from SCF went to politically connected borrowers.
      Alister Bell , national regional chair in Auckland, is from the South Canterbury Bell dynasty. The Bell family Trust owned helicopter is available for National party politicians

  6. tc 6
    10 September 2010 at 2:44 pm

    Methinks this is a huge political mistake from Blinglish and Sideshow, I’m not surprised about taxpayers bailing out their rich mates or the attempts to cover up, blaming the scheme that labour put in etc etc….stock in trade for the Nats really.

    However in doing this they’ve angered all the other investors in Hanover/Bluechip etc who’ve got zip. They will see this for what it is not what the spin doctors want and as such pissing off a fair few traditional nat voters who don’t happen to be wealthy influential sth island blue blooders.

    That greed just blinds the senses….what little senses there are that is.

  7. BLiP 7
    10 September 2010 at 4:37 pm

    I’m always prepared to listen to a good conspiracy theory but I can’t really see one here. Any money changer worth his salt would have smelled the blood in the water once the SCF audited accounts were finally presented to Treasury. Then it was just a matter of taking the gift presented by John Key via the government guarantee by:

    diverting attention and energy by dangling a tasty capital injection,

    apply delay tactic after delay tactic while the money changers load up SCF with some but not sufficient funds via discounted bonds

    manufacture a “serious fraud” allegation to scare off any remaining confidence in SCF,

    pull the plug on the distraction game as per step one,

    National Ltd™ comes riding to the rescue,

    profit.

    Quick hundy mill in the bank, thanks National Ltd™ – I’m lovin’ it.

  8. john 8
    10 September 2010 at 5:45 pm

    I vote a peoples take over. All personnel of Act and the top dirty cream of National, including John Key to be deported to their ideological homeland the US never to return! John has a house in Hawaii he can put them all up there!

  9. peterlepaysan 9
    10 September 2010 at 9:15 pm

    No conspiracy. Simply a Govt/Treasury cock up.
    They both walked into that one.
    English is an ex treasury policy wonk and probably could not see the bleeding obvious either.
    Sigh

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