Auditor General

The Shane Jones/Bill Liu saga just will not die. Now there are suggestions that the file note written by Shane Jones may well have been fabricated.

National MPs have attempted to cast doubt on the validity of a key note used in Shane Jones’ decision to grant citizenship to Yang Liu when Jones was a Associate Immigration Minister.

This morning Deputy Auditor General Phillippa Smith appeared before the finance and expenditure select committee, taking questions over her report into Jones’ controversial 2008 decision.

His decision to grant citizenship to Liu, a Chinese national who was under the scrutiny of Interpol, was made despite an active police investigation being underway and the Department of Internal Affairs telling him not to.

It was Jones’ first and only decision to grant an individual citizenship, and was made in less than a month because he wanted to complete the matter before a trip to Australia.  Read more »

I will now turn briefly to the Auditor General’s ramblings.  Which did not cover the privacy issues. I use the term ramblings as this report is about as nonsensical as the 100 page KPMG report in buzz words and drama.  It does though report on Bronwyn Pullar’s nagging to death of Board Member John McCliskie in September 2011.

Hear the poor man’s pain getting an ear bashing as you read the report.

McCliskie does not remember much about Pullar such as being on the verge of employing her in a contract role.  He even tries to fob her off to a claims person.

Pullar, just as she was with Nick Smith was having none of it. I respect you, I would like to meet you, ignoring that she doesn’t respect his position at all.  Just like Nick Smith’s or she never would have asked.

McCliskie then fobbed Pullar off on to John Judge who disapproved of meeting Pullar in the first place.

Pullar didn’t let them get off without yet another ear-bashing, sending an email to McCliskie advising ACC that they could obviously could do with her advice, you know, despite being unfit to work full-time and having had a payout from one insurance policy for what, almost a decade?

Really? A total piece of work.

Also this report brings out that Pullar tried to get Nick Smith to intervene in her case with action.

Despite Andrew Little’s poisonous assertions the Auditor General found NO influence that Pullar was after from the Board was actually applied in her favour.

So despite Pullar’s name-dropping, exercising her mouth and muscle and using the National Party extensively the Auditor General’s report has actually CLEARED the Board and the Nick Smith of influencing her claim.

Andrew Little’s year will only get worse from here.

ᔥ NZ Herald

For once Cathy Casey is right. I hope the Auditor-General finds out who ordered the murky cover-up around the V8 Super Car decisions. This has all the hallmarks of the Volare dinner scandal that Len Brown tried long and hard to hide:

The Auditor-General is investigating Auckland councillor Cathy Casey’s complaint that a secret report on the V8 supercars was hidden from the council by its standalone events body.

Councillors approved $10.6 million on Thursday to ensure the return of the supercars to Pukekohe after Auckland Tourism, Events and Economic Development (Ateed) refused to show them a report on the financial position of parties involved in the event.

Councillors and the public have also been unable to see a “detailed risk review” referred to by Ateed because Auckland Council chief executive Doug McKay said it did not exist as a single document, but as a “multi-faceted” review of the risks.

“I am dumbfounded that a council-controlled organisation can refuse to disclose to councillors a ratepayer-funded due diligence report ahead of a major decision involving $10.6 million of ratepayers’ money,” Dr Casey said in a letter to Auditor-General Lyn Provost.

“This rushed decision … was made in the absence of crucial risk and due diligence information.”

ᔥ NZ Herald

David Shearer has literally thrown Shane Jones under the bus with his statements to the media about SkyCity:

But Mr Shearer said Mr Joyce was being “extraordinarily arrogant in continuing to run this process while an inquiry is going on”.

“To me it beggars belief that he can continue to do this while an inquiry is going on.”

Not only should negotiations be put on hold until the inquiry was complete, but the tender should be reopened begun again from scratch.

He said there was “obviously something dodgy” around the deal “otherwise the Auditor General wouldn’t take a look”.

Quite right Mr Shearer, the Bill Liu affair involving Shane Jones was “obviously something dodgy otherwise the Auditor General wouldn’t take a look”.

Check out this substantial communication sent from the Office of the Auditor General to the Commerce Commission.

Auditor General Submission Draft ID Determination 13 March 2012

It gives the ComCom a big slap for the way they are attacking the electricity lines companies.

By way of background, the Office of the Auditor General is the most respected, and indeed the highest independent authority in NZ. We remember well the actions of Kevin Brady investigating Labour’s dishonest actions in the 2005 elections as a high water mark for the NZ Civil Service.

So this criticism from the Office of the Auditor-General is a substantial criticism of the Commission’s Mad Dog attacks, noting their misunderstanding of their role, engaging in “duty creep”, and in need of restraint.

To quote from the letter about the Commission’s overall approach:

“At this point, we have some difficulty in understanding the expectations of the Commission because of what appears to be contradictory statements in the 2012 Draft Determination and the accompanying Draft Reasons Paper.”

The OAG accuses the ComCom of imposing unreasonable costs on Electricity distributors, that may not even make sense. See here on page 2 of the letter

“Viewed one way, these expectations could result in a much more exacting audit, with consequent cost implications. Viewed another way, such an audit may be scoped at such a high level that may not meet the Commission’s expectations.”

Check out what the OAG says about the Commerce Commission’s attempts to define extra power for itself on page 3.

“We also question if the Commissioner has the statutory authority to require auditors to state if they have a duty of care to the Commissioner in the audit report.”

The ComCom is due for a mucking out at the top, we’ve pointed out a Commissioner who needed ten months of timeout to recover from self-inflicted alcohol abuse. (Which other government roles do people get 10 months of golf and book reading to recover from their addictions?)

But clearly there is a need for political intervention to ensure the culture of the Commerce Commission is also changed.

We need an authority that promotes competition and ends anti-competitive behaviour, such as price fixing by petrol companies or supermarkets.

We need an authority that stops the shady practices by financial corporates that hurt consumers, like Credit Agricole and the failed Credit Sails financial product.

We don’t need a Commerce Commission that uses anti-commercial approaches to impose extra costs on businesses for no good reason at all.

We don’t need a Commission that is confused and contradictory in its approach to New Zealand infrastructure and public policy.

We don’t need a Commission that is power hungry and seeking to expand its role.

The Office of the Auditor General is now ringing the alarm bells – and for good reason. This should be the signal that National needs to reform the Commission and bring them back into line.

With a multiple investigations currently underway with regard to the ACC in the wake of Michelle Boag’s and Bronwyn Pullar’s shameless standover attempts surely it is time to look once again at having an Independent Commission Against Corruption.

They could easily take on an investigation such as this and more to the point impartially look into a plethora of other such allegations of impropriety amongst our elected officials, civil servants, and local body affairs.

The Independent Commission Against Corruption could also take over the enforcement aspects of the Electoral Act given the police seem so unwilling or unable to deal with breaches against the laws that are supposed to protect our democracy.

With powers similar to the SFO and FMA, they could look into the financial affairs of political parties, unions, and public relations and lobbying firms.

There must be many PR practitioners that have looked at the antics that have been revealed of Michelle Boag’s shameless standover of an Insurance company, Vodafone and now ACC and start wondering precisely what they have committed in writing as they lobbied government departments and organisations.

The ICAC could easily sit under the auspices of the Auditor-General and provide real investigative and prosecutorial teeth.

I believe that the political will exists for such a body now. Labour can hardly oppose it after screaming loudly about cronyism, corruption and favouritism, never mind their own shameful record in such regard. NZ First can;t oppose it because it is one of their founding principles to establish such a body. The Greens can’t oppose it either because they have expressed a willingness to control, register and monitor lobbying firms….leaving just the Maori party, ACT and Peter Dunne. I hardly think ACT would oppose it either.

For the first time I believe there is near unanimous consensus that could allow the formation of an Independent Commission Against Corruption. Does the the government have the courage to establish it? That remains to be seen.

Len Brown was elected promising to open the books, but he has kept his own books on campaign donations firmly shut. The Herald headline is “Mayor relies on secret war chest” and the Dominion Post headline is “Auckland Mayor hides names of campaign donors”

Auckland’s first Super City mayor was elected using largely anonymous donations, despite promising to lead an administration of openness and accountability to the public.

Of Len Brown’s total campaign war chest of $581,900 in donations, $499,000 was folded into a single trust to protect the identity of those who gave money to help elect him but wished to remain nameless.

Only 15 donors were named in his returns yesterday to Auckland electoral officer Dale Ofsoske, the largest of $17,708 attributed to an entity called Fuqing, with $15,000 from casino operator SkyCity.

The Maritime Union gave $2000 each to Mr Brown and Auckland Council transport committee chairman Mike Lee, who listed no other donations in his election returns.

Mr Brown’s campaign also received $3375 from the Counties Manukau Pacific Trust, whose chief executive, Richard Jeffery, was appointed this week as a director of the Auckland Tourism, Events and Economic Development council-controlled organisation.

Now I guess we know why the Chow brothers building was pulled down with alarming alacrity. We also know now how John Robertson and Richard Jeffrey scored their CCO jobs. John Robertson is a trustee if the Counties Manukau Pacific Trust and Richard Jeffrey is the CEO, but more on this in a moment.

Len Brown campaigned on openness, he even gets his lickspittle, tame repeater Bernard Orsman to print stories about how open Len Brown is. Yet when it comes to openness with his own election finance and donation we find that like almost everything else about Len Brown it is a stonking great secret. The hypocrisy of the man is astounding.

The secret trust, strangely called “The New Auckland Council Trust”, is an enigma. Questions need to be asked about this secret trust. When was it formed? Who are the trustees? Where is the trust deed?

It’s all very murky from “Labour’s Mayor“. Phil Goff and Phil Twyford really need to answer some questions about their Mayor’s use of big money secret trsuts to fund his campaign. They are on record being against such secret trusts and even passed a law to prevent such things happening.

“What I would like to see is a system where democracy works but doesn’t rely simply on the power of the dollar and you don’t have some clandestine funding which was the real concern that lay behind the Electoral Finance Act,”

Let’s see if Phil Goff and Phil Twyford have anything other than weasel words about Len Brown’s secret trust. Phil Twyford was especially concerned about the influence of big money in elections earlier in the year.

Since then, there has been the rather unhappy progress of the Electoral Finance Act, and to my mind the really unfortunate failure of this House to build a lasting consensus about the need to limit the influence of big money in our political system.

Quite apart from Len’s secret trust account used to hide his big money corporate backers there is a real problem surrounding the donation from Counties Manukau Pacific Trust.

Fors a start the trust is essentially part of the new city structure, and previously was, by definition a part of Manukau City Council (pdf pg 11.). The same trust now owes the new Auckland Council (previously Manukau City Council $7.5 million (pg 29).

Worse the Trust’s audited statements show an annual operations grant of $385,000 and the $7.5million loan from Manukau City Council: (pg 10)

But the real problem is that Richard Jeffrey is the CEO and John Robertson is a trustee. They are in control of what can only be described as ratepayer funds and they have donated some of those ratepayer funds to Len Brown’s campaign. The same person who pushed through council the funding in the first place and also the same person who secretly appointed the two of them to CCO board positions.

On the surface it would appear that Richard Jeffrey and John Robertson used ratepayers funds to donate to Len Brown’s campaign in order buy themselves cushy jobs on CCO boards. The only thing that could make this story worse would be if Richard Jeffrey also attended the still secret Volare dinner.

No wonder Len Brown was being very furtive and secretive over his board appointments and no wonder he wanted to rush them through in secret before the election donations were revealed. I seriously doubt whether even his supporters on the secret council committee would have countenanced the appearance of bribery in their decisions.

Certainly I think there is enough here for the Auditor-General to have a look see, especially around that massive secret trust of big money, but more importantly around the apparent buying of CCO board positions with ratepayer funds. Len Brown campaigned on opening the books, he campaigned on honesty (but with limits) and he campaigned on being straight with us.

So far he has shown that those were just tawdry lies designed to hoodwink voters into thinking he was honest.

Lyn Provost - The Queen of Mean

Some time ago I sent an OIA request to the Auditor-General for all of their credit card expenses. They initially refused because the Auditor-General is not subject to the OIA.

They have now reconsidered and accordingly provided the information that I requested. It is actually a brilliant example of someone impeccable with their expenses. Every MP and a certain city mayor can learn from this.

Every instance of expense is detailed with who was there and what it was about. Even parking dockets are fully explained. Compare that to Len Brown’s still secret Volare dinner.

Lyn Provost is the epitome of fiscal rectitude. She flew Pacific Blue to Port Moresby which is pig of a flight at the best of times and one that no one would be-grudge a business class fare and/or a Groser/McCully style truck load of piss to soothe the nerves for that flight. But our cheap and frugal Auditor-General flew Pacific Blue and bought two sets of sandwiches, cookies and an iced tea for a total of $28.20. That’s a bargain no matter how much they charge for an iced tea on Pacific Blue. She even stayed in a dive of a hotel. That’s taking one for the team in anyones book.

In fact a look through the expenses shows precious little alcohol if any, and if there is it is for other people. She certainly isn’t buying icecream and fish and chips for the kids.

On the 26th of March 2010 there is an amount of $3 for short term parking, this was when her family came to pick her up at the airport instead of billing it to Corporate Cabs for a hundy. She frequently gets people to pick her up from airports instead of bill the taxpayer for cab fares.

She is tighter than a fish’s arse and that’s waterproof. Lyn Provost, civil servant, I dub thee The Queen of Mean.

Now compare and contrast the behaviour of our Auditor-General with the attitude of Len Brown and worse the attitude of Lockwood Smith. The OIA doesn’t apply to the Auditor-General yet she supplied the information in order to show that they are accountable for public monies. Little wonder she wanted her tightness displayed when you compare her fiscal rectitude with the profligate and reckless waste of taxpayers money by troughing MPs living it up on the large care of the taxpayer.

She didn’t have to release these detail, but she did, to the enormous shame of Lockwood Smith who is still trying desperately to keep MPs expenses and other troughing out of the disinfectant of bright clear sunlight.

Lyn Provost was previously appointed by Labour and one could very easily dismiss her just for being a pinko appointment, but these expenses show just how seriously she takes her role and her responsibilities as a guardian of the New Zealand tax payer.

I suggest Parliamentary Services be outsourced and put under the the control of Lyn Provost, so the Queen of Mean can spring clean MPs spending. With the continued expenses debacle currently besetting parliament it is time for some independent control to be exerted over their expenses. I can think of no-one more qualified than Lyn Provost for this job.

OIA for Credit Card Expenses – Office of Auditor-General

Len Brown is on record as saying he will front up.

“I will always front up. I will give you the straight answers, always with a limit.”

Unfortunately he added that rider, always with a limit. He is also on record with his beliefs about transparency.

“I clearly don’t give a damn about this stuff.”

“It’s critical for me as a point of basic principle as a leader and mayor of the city.

“I sit in this room. I don’t tell anybody I am having an interview with you today. It is between you and me. It is totally confidential.”

He said there was no requirement for him to disclose who he spent council money on.

“Transparency is not a perfect thing,”

Actually he is dead wrong on that point, he does have to disclose who he spent money on, so that also makes him a liar. The fact that he hasn’t makes him a liar who hides things. Transparency is not a perfect thing, indeed.

So, bearing those quotes in mind, one has to wonder now just exactly what the position is with the golden hand-shake of his lickspittle CEO, the guy who ran interference for Len over his expenses.

The Auditor-General has been called in to investigate lucrative golden handshakes being awarded to the chief executives of seven Auckland councils which are expected to cost ratepayers millions of dollars.

The Herald on Sunday has been told council bosses from Rodney to Franklin will receive redundancy packages with a combined cost of about $2.5 million.

The Auditor-General still hasn’t ruled on whether or not Len Brown has to tell the truth about his dinner at Volare. So I won;t be expecting any information to be forthcoming any time soon.

We do know that one council is squeaky clean though. Auckland City. We know this because Mayor John Banks does believe in transparency and transparency without limits.

Auckland City mayor John Banks has released the severance package of his chief executive David Rankin, and said there were no golden handshakes given to him by Auckland City Council. He called on other councils to do the same.

“Rankin will be paid an additional $30,000 because he has stayed on past his contractual arrangement. We didn’t want him to leave halfway through the year.

“Whereas the CEO of Manukau City has received a huge exit package, which has been kept secret as we can clearly understand it would.

“Ask Len Brown to tell you how much some of the poorest people in New Zealand have had to pay the CEO in golden handshake and golden exit packages.”

I’m pleased to see that Phil Twyford has been attempting to hold the councils to account.

Twyford had sent requests to all councils in Auckland under the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act asking for the redundancy packages of executives.

Good on Phil Twyford, I suppose not having a seat to campaign for helps hugely time-wise. Though he seems a little confused as to who is responsible for holding the information, trying to pin the blame on Rodney Hide. Perhaps he should look a little closer to home politically, and ask Len Brown why he keeps secrets so much. Perhaps while he is at it he could also ask Len Brown just exactly who he was at dinner with at Volare. I mean he has been asked by LGOIMA and he refused, he is required by council rules to disclose and he refused.

I still can’t believe that Len Brown is running ads about opening the books when the books of his own council remain firmly shut to public scrutiny.

It seems we are seeing those limits that Len Brown talks about when he talks about transparency.

Andrew Williams has been constantly bombarding people with his inane press releases. He’s stepped up the barrage since announcing he wants to come third in the mayoralty race and it has become annoying. So, I’ve done a bit of research, and accordingly I have emailed the following letter of complaint to the Chief Executive of North Shore City Council.

_________________________________

John Brockies
Chief Executive – North Shore City Council

Dear Mr Brockies,

It has come to my attention that the Mayor, Andrew Williams, has been repeatedly emailing electioneering statements using his council resources.

These emails contain attacks against opponents, and statements that can only be construed as electioneering. They have also been posted on various websites under the guise of “press releases”.

In particular I note from the NSCC’s own guidelines issued in July (copy attached);

For the North Shore City the following guidelines will apply:

1. Council resources (staff or other) are not to be used for personal election purposes
2. No new photographs of current elected members shall be used in Council media (i.e. the website or printed media)
3. No new video film of current elected members who are standing for any office in Auckland shall be used in Council media (i.e. the website or printed media)
4. No personal column or opinion media releases shall be used in Council media (i.e. the website or printed media)
5. The Chief Executive or appropriate General Manager (or other approved staff media spokesperson) will, where relevant, act as Council spokesperson on significant issues during the period 9 July to 9 October 2010 (a situation will be relevant where it is deemed best for an Officer to comment rather than an elected member)
6. There will not be any Communications assistance (from the Marketing and Communications Department) to individuals standing for local government office

It is clear from those guidelines that the Mayor is neither complying with them in spirit or in fact.

Here is a list, by no means complete, of communication that breach some if not most of those guidelines.

2 September – Press release entitled MAYORAL NEWS RELEASE JOHN BANKS WILL NOT FRONT FOR TWO TV DEBATES
3 September – Press Release sent from mayor@northshorecity.govt.nz entitled  ”Mayoral News Release – Mayor will hold Councillors, Local Boards and CCO Directors to account”
6 September – Press release sent from mayor@northshorecity.govt.nz entitled “Mayoral Media Release - WILLIAMS MARKED TOP IN FAMILY FIRST SURVEY”
6 September - Hooton Reserve’s Lucas Creek Restoration Project Stage 1 Complete

Simply put the Mayor Andrew Williams is using council resources and his incumbency to campaign, against his own council’s guidelines issued just a month ago.

I have forwarded this complaint to the Office of the Auditor-General, and await your response to this serious issue urgently.

I note too that the Auditor General’s guidelines for behaviour of incumbent politicians during an election campaign period say essentially the incumbents cannot use the resources of council in any way to further their campaign. A Wellington Mayoral Candidate got into trouble just for sending email messages to staff. The Dominion Post reported:

Auditor-general guidelines for managing public communications before elections say local authorities must not promote, nor be perceived to promote, the re-election prospects of a sitting member.
Members should not be permitted to use council communications facilities such as email for political or re-election purposes, as this was “unacceptable and possibly unlawful”.

Section 4.49 of the Auditor-General’s Good Practice for Managing Public Communications by Local Authorities says:

4.49 Promoting the re-election prospects of a sitting Member could also raise issues under the Local Electoral Act 2001. For example:

• Local elections must be conducted in accordance with the principles set out in section 4 of the Local Electoral Act – see Appendix 1 on page 27. The principles apply to any decision made by a Council under that Act or any other Act, subject only to the limits of practicality. A breach of the principles can give rise to an “irregularity” which could result in an election result being overturned. (See Aukuso v Hutt City Council (District Court, Lower Hutt, MA 88/03, 17 December 2003)
• The publication, issue, or distribution of information, and the use of electronic communications (including web site and e-mail communication), by a candidate are “electoral activities” to which the rules concerning disclosure of electoral expenses apply.

I await your response.

Kind Regards

Cam Slater
Candidate – Albany Ward – Auckland
m: 021 535724
w: www.whaleoil.co.nz

_________________________________

Andrew Williams can’t even follow the rules of North Shore City, how on earth can we expect him follow the rules of a city setup that he so vehemently opposed. In fact he was so implacably opposed to the Supercity that it astounding he even stands for a position on the council.

It is time for the voters of Albany to boot Andrew Williams to touch and Vote Slater, so that they can get some honesty into politics.

I have had a response from Mr Brockies and from the City Secretary Mr. Peter McArthur, who tell me that they are treating this complaint seriously and may well have already referred it to the Returning Officer.

I am looking forward to the outcome of their investigations.

Vote Slater - Albany - Auckland - Keeping the Buggers Honest