"As Crooked As a Dog's Hind Leg"

Shane Jones and Corrupt Mates

When we read the following, we find ourselves developing a long, slow burn.  There are people and political parties active in New Zealand who are self-revealing as crooks.  

New information released to RNZ reveals that Shane Jones' office was sent documents about a forestry company's bid for $15 million from the Provincial Growth Fund multiple times and many months before he declared a conflict of interest because of links between the company and the New Zealand First Party.

As Guyon Espiner explains, it has now emerged that Mr Jones only declared a conflict of interest over the NZ Future Forest Products bid on the day RNZ lodged an Official Information Act request asking for details of his involvement.  [Checkpoint, RadioNZ]

David Farrar writes: 

In any Government of good standing, this would be a sackable offence.  The company’s directors were his party’s legal advisor, his son, and later the leader’s partner. The ultimate beneficiaries are hidden foreign investors.

Jones should have declared an interest the first time he was informed of the bid. You declare a conflict at the start of the process, not the end. And it seems he never even intended to declare a conflict – it was only media inquiries that led to it.

UPDATE: Hilariously Jones is claiming it was pure coincidence that he declared the conflict of interest on the same day that Radio NZ lodged an OIA about it.

We Have Been Here Before

Pay To Play

Other people's money and Winston Peters seem to be joined at the hip.  Once again, it appears that Peters has being playing a shady game when it comes to donations made to his political party.  The basic theme is reported to be large donations given to a trust, which then parcels out money to fund the Peters political party.  Only a select few know where the money has come from.

Is this a serious problem?  Yes, particularly if the large secret donations are coming from people and organizations with an interest in certain law changes or policies which the donor will benefit from.  It could well turn out to be a massive "Pay to Play" rort.


Danyl Mclauchlan  writing in The Spinoff  explains how the scheme appears to work and what are its likely political consequences.

The NZ First Donations Scandal is Very Serious

It won't Let Jacinda Ardern Hide

Danyl Mclauchlan | Contributing writer


It’s happening.

During its time in government New Zealand First has fundraised aggressively. They’ve also taken very strong policy stands on behalf of specific industries and companies. But no specific donations have been declared; instead the party has been funded by loans from the New Zealand First Foundation, a mysterious entity run by two of Winston Peters’ most trusted advisers.

Those advisers are his lawyer Brian Henry, and Doug Woolerton, a former New Zealand First MP who now runs a Hamilton based lobbying company called “The Lobbyist”, which advertises the provision of “all ancillary services such as media strategies, speeches, drafting changes for legislation, submissions to select committees and personal introductions when appropriate”.

And now Waikato Times reporter Matt Shand has what almost every investigative journalist in the country has been sniffing around for: leaked records from the New Zealand First Foundation. His story on Stuff reports that the foundation has been accepting party political donations and paying for electoral expenses in a way that appears designed to avoid transparency or oversight.