David Lewis

With the news that John Key supports the action of his Loal Government Minister in getting the Audtor-General to look into the murky dealings at the Counties Manukau Pacific Trust, which runs the TelstraClear Pacific Events Centre, we now have another Brown campaign person sticking his oar in and raising his head above the parapet.

The spin and lies that are pouring out of the Brown camp just raise more questions than they are supposed to be hosing down.

Trust chief executive Richard Jeffery last night denied that the trust was a council-controlled entity.

“We are a community charitable trust,” he said.

Yeah, well the facts say otherwise Richard, and anyway you owe Lenny big time for that cushy job you landed. Good journalists would ask Richard Jeffery to produce evidence to counter the evidence I published as to the legal status of the Trust.

Trust chairman Sir Noel Robinson said no costs were incurred or revenue lost by providing Mr Brown’s campaign with billboard space, which his board had made a decision to provide free to any mayoral candidate who approached it.

“As a trust we support the democratic process and are more than happy for candidates to use the billboard as long as it doesn’t interfere with our business and that we incur no cost,” Sir Noel said.

“A legal opinion said we are well within our right to do so.”

Oh! Lookie, another Brown supporter sticking up for their shonky process and dodgy practices. I wonder if Sir Noel Robinson told the reporter that the Woolf Fisher Trust of which Sir Noel Robinson is chairman of also donated to Len Brown’s 2007 campaign. I bet he didn’t. The number of people associated with or involved Len Brown’s campaign team that were either employed or controlling the Counties Manukau Pacific Trust is astounding.

I also bet that that some hasty retrospective minutes are being drafted right now to support the lie that they were happy for other candidates to use the billboard. I wonder too if they will produce the letters communicating their decision to other mayoral candidates to use the billboard or was this another secret decision that was only passed onto Len Brown so he could take advantage of it.

I note that they have rapidly obtained a legal opinion. I wonder perhaps if that was from the pallid, little man masquerading as Mayor, or perhaps his missus.

The Night-Mayor, Len Brown, says he is unconcerned by the investigation. I’ll bet he is. He has the Chairman of the trust deep in his anonymous pockets, he has the CEO of the Trust paid off and he has David Lewis bullying editors and spinning out-right lies just like he did for Helen Clark.

The only problem with the Night-Mayor’s unconcern is that I’m all over him and his dodgy dealings and I’ll tell the truth about Len Borwn even if he won’t. In fact I think I might ask for some billboard space at Manukau to do just that.

Once again Labour is embroiled in an immigration related voter fraud scam. This time however it has come out before the election rather than after like with the Onehunga electoral petition.

One thing is interesting though and that is Len Brown’s involvement in all this. Here he is, in all his glory kitted out, with none other than Daljit Singh, the guy who is the Labour flunky involved in the Herald article this morning with then also is Labour MP Ross Robertson and Labour councillor and candidate for Efu Koka.

What we have here now is 3 out of four in the picture hard core senior Labour figures and Daljit Singh. That make Len Brown and Daljit Singh joined at the hip.

Len Brown and Daljit Singh

Seems Daljit Singh is also a fan of Helen Clark.

Daljit Singh and Helen Clark

Given that Labour is deeply embedded in the Brown campaign, all staffers are either former Clark employees or Labour candidates, Conor Roberts, Kate Sutton and David Lewis, and Daljit Singh has very close labour connections to Helen Clark, to Ross Robertson and to Efu Koka it stands to reason that he also has close affliliations to Len Brown.

It is said that you are who you hang out with. Len Brown hangs out with Labour people and with people who seek to justify electoral fraud, what does that make Len Brown?

Len Brown, in the Campbell Live debate last night, said that this election was about trust.

I’m not surprised. First he was channeling Obama with “Auckland, It’s our time” and now with ex-Clarkista David Lewis desperately trying to spin things for Brown, its no surprise that he would re-fry up a slogan from the losing Helen Clark campaign of two years ago.

It’s laughable for Len Brown to invoke trust when he’s the guy who promised truth “with limits.”

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

He also said that transparency is not a perfect thing.

“Transparency is not a perfect thing,” he added.

“Transparency doesn’t just happen in a perfect world.

Brown simply can’t offer trust when he won’t even tell us who he wasted $810 of ratepayer money on at the Volare restaurant, probably entertaining his political cronies or thanking his donors with a knees up.

It’s hard to trust the rapper cum face-slapper who charged up hams, groceries and several hundred morning coffees to his ratepayer funded purchasing card. He couldn’t trust himself in the end, cutting up the credit card on TV!

Truth with limits…… The only thing you can trust Len to do is slap himself silly.

Len Brown promised to resign if his ratepayers ever asked him to reveal who he had dinner with at Volare. This ratepayer did, and did it under the LGOIMA.

On Thursday I receieved my response from his lickspittle CEO, Leigh Auton. So too did the Sunday Star Times, and they are not happy, having laid a complaint with the Chief Ombudsmen about Len Brown’s secrecy.

HE CHIEF ombudsman is investigating Manukau City Council’s refusal to name those whom mayor Len Brown wined and dined at an $810 dinner paid for by ratepayers.

Brown has said he will never name those at the September 27, 2009, dinner – held at Italian restaurant Volare just days before his birthday and paid for on his mayoral credit card.

“Will I give you the names? Never,” Brown told a council committee meeting when asked to justify the dinner, insisting it was business-related.

Unfortunately under Council guidelines for use of the Purchasing Card he cannot do this. This is what the SST and I am trying to enforce. What I can’t fathom though is why Len Brown is prepared to die in the ditch over $810.00. He has made this relatively small dinner a do or die principle to keep quiet, and for why? If he simply had complied with council policy and provided the details people wouldn’t be wanting to know why the secrecy. It would have died as an issue from day one.

Now it is extremely interesting to for us to see who he is wanting to die in the ditch for. Why the secrecy?

As you could see from my LGOIMA request, I was very, very specific as to the questions I asked. they could be answered with a simple yes or no answer and thereby wouldn’t breach anyone’s privacy. Very simple isn’t what the Mayor and his Chief Executive want though, they want complicated and therefore they want this story to be big.

I responded to Leigh Auton’s letter:

With all due respect Mr Auton this response fails to meet the requirements of the council’s own policy and the requirements of the LGOIMA

Your reliance upon the Privacy Act to answer yes or no questions as outlined again for your benefit is stretching the intent of the council’s policy and the LGOIMA Act.

I ask again

6. Was Conor Roberts in attendance at the “fundraiser? YES or NO
7. Were any members of the Mayor’s family in attendance? YES or NO
8. Was David Lewis in attendance at the “fundraiser”? YES or NO
9. Was Noel Robinson in attendance at the “fundraiser”? YES or NO
10. Was Richard Jeffrey in attendance at the “fundraiser”? YES or NO
11. Was Mike Hutcheson in attendance at the “fundraiser”? YES or NO

If these people weren’t in attendance then there can be no breach of policy by answering NO. If they were in attendance then again there is no breach of privacy. In fact it could be argued that the there was no privacy as this “meeting” or “fundraiser” as you and the Mayor euphemistically call this ostensibly private function because we as ratepayers paid for it.

The Mayor’s diary also points to the fact that this wasn’t a fundraiser at all, simply an Opera Night at Volare, a night of entertainment rather than business.

Please reconsider your response. I will also be asking the Ombudsmen to consider your response as well.

In a separate request I had asked for the Mayor’s diary for that night, I also asked for Leigh Auton’s and the Deputy Mayor’s but he hasn’t sent those through. As you can see from the diary there is no fundraiser, it is simply a Opera Night, exactly as advertised by Volare. the only people to claim that this night was a fundraiser were Len Brown and his spin doctors, and even then their story didn’t hold water. Just to remind readers of the spin, lies and obfuscations surround this dinner, it was explained that the night was a fundraiser for a local, up and coming Opera singer, this blog proved that it wasn’t a fundraiser, and the dinner to ‘support a local emerging artist’ turned out to be for a Gold Coast based professional singer whose manager and fundraiser also happens to be one of the guys in charge of the Telstra Clear events centre, the very same organisation that is supposedly paying for one of Borwn’s spin doctors and campaign managers, Conor Roberts.

There is a reason why Len brown is dying in the ditch for this, and since they refuse to say who we must then take it as read that the refusal to even say who wasn’t there as tantamount to an admission that they were. Until Len Brown is forced to keep the council’s own policy we can only but speculate as to who was there, one thing is for sure, it certainly wasn’t a fundraiser, and it sure as hell wasn’t council business.

My letter to the Ombudsmen was sent Friday.

I can’t but then I’m mentally ill and i’m certainly not trying to stand for Mayor. Word has it that Looney Len took last week off for stress leave….oh those yappy girls on the phone, David Lewis probably should have covered that off a bit more properly with the help.

Some Churnalists play the game and others don’t, it is the ones that don’t give me the running shits.

On October 1 – Mr Brown’s birthday – the three shared a $178.50 lunch in 2008 and a combined birthday celebration costing $65.50 last year.

Yes Bernard, and where did you get that information from, well my blog of course, because you never obtained a copy of the receipts under the LGOIMA, I did.

And who made the connection between the dates and published three days ago, me of course. Sure Bernard lifted himself from leave to get some quotes from Leigh Auton and Len Brown’s paid repeater, David Lewis, but the news was here first.

You might think I am whining, but when bloggers use news articles as their source for comment we link to the article. Bernard Orsman NEVER links, even when he bloody quotes straight from the blog.

That makes two news articles, both by Bernard Orsman, where he wrote them as if he was first with the news but I demonstrably beat him to it both times, once by days and the other by half a day, and he is a paid repeater!

via email from “In tray”, the humour column in yesterday’s NBR.

The book of Len

1. And so it came to pass in the days of economic tribulation that the children of Auckland cried out for a new leader who would bring them to the promised land.

2. And there came from Taumaranui, which was on the main trunk line, one whose name was Len, who as a child in swaddling cloth first journeyed to Auckland.

3. And thus did the wise men marvel as they beheld his entrance to the ancient city, prophesysing that he would worketh many miracles and wonders.

4. And the one called Len girded up his loins and went unto the children of Auckland and promised to lead them out of the wilderness, saying unto them “Its our time” which soundeth a little too much like the slogan of the one named Barack Obama.

5. Yea, and the one named Len vowed to deliver the children of Auckland from the Evil One whose name is Banks.

6. And so it came to pass. And Len spoke to the multitudes, vowing he would make the crooked paths straight and fashion a wondrous tunnel through which the travelers might pass unto the other side and behold the light of the new supercity.

7. Yea, even as he had once built his own business in the land of East Tamaki.

8. Thus did he also promise the housewives of Auckland that their experience buying all manner of goods would no longer be likened unto that of the housewives of Apia, and thus did he later apologise for this unfortunate remark.

9. And yea, his procession was accompanied by many other signs and wonders and thus did the pundits rejoice, even the one whose name was Rudman, as they beheld him walking on water

10. And those on the left proclaimed him the Chosen One, for they saw him as the one who might yet drive the moneychangers from the temple, and they waited on a miracle.

11. And verily, the miracle occurred, and even the doubters marveled after he arose from the dead after a heart attack.

12. And so it came to pass. But sadly the rulers of the old city took counsel among themselves, asking “Who among us with cast the first stone”

13. And then they cried out with one voice “We all will!”

14. And so it came to pass that the one whose name is Len was asked about his credit card.

15. And when he faced his accusers, Len waxed terrible in his wroth, and smote himself many times, crying “Woe unto those who would seek to crucify me”

16. Thus did he tear his credit card asunder, crying if any man think that I trespass he is submitting his accounts to the Auditor General, let him see the fate that has befallen this tablet

17. And among his disciples was one whose name is David Lewis, who said unto the newspaper scribes that this was no lunatic behaviour but an ancient act known as the kanohi-te-kanohi, or the smiting of the chest.

18. And the newspaper scribes laughed at the one called David Lewis and told him not to be such a prat.

19. And so it came to pass that another prophet was born into the land of Israel, one whose name was Jesus, and much was expected of him. And Jesus told the multitudes that no one would be scrutinized as much as him except for the one whose name is Len Brown.

20. And thus it was, even as the prophets had foretold, that it was back to the square called one.

Helen Clark said

“the only thing he [Taito Philip Field] is guilty of is helping his constituents”

“the fundamental fault Mr Field committed was to work too hard on behalf of the many, many hundreds of people who come to his electorate office on immigration matters.” …

“He works harder on those matters than I suspect the entire National Party caucus does on constituency cases. If that is what he is guilty of, then I am sure he is happy to plead guilty to working hard on behalf of his constituents.“

and Len Brown said

“The only thing I’m guilty of is spending too much time out there, and not enough time in my office doing administration”

What’s the link between Helen Clark’s infamous clanger about convicted crook Philip Field and the curiously similar comment from  credit card cheapskate Len Brown?

Labour spin doctor – David Lewis.

Make no mistake – the Labour playbook is now in effect to try and save Captain Entitlement from the wolves of the media. Though I’m not sure Brown really wants to use too many of Taito’s defense lines.

Why hasn’t he come clean on theinfamous Volare night and why is he so insistent on dying in the ditch for $810.00?

Of course the other matter is why is a Brown campaign spokesman speaking now for the mayor on council related matters?

I am gob-smacked that the Labour-backed and staffed Len Brown campaign team seems to have committed a prima-facie case of fraud, or uttering, or using a document or some such similar crime in order to try and hide the details of Len Brown’s  $810 meal at Volare restaurant. Another interesting ti-bit is that as the crow flies Volare is less than 2kms from Len Brown’s  house and is perhaps the closest restaurant to him. Does he usually have council business dinners at a restaurant around the corner from his house on Sunday evenings?

On Friday, a bundle of receipts was sent by the council’s chief executive, Leigh Auton. The majority of receipts were eftpos ones rather than tax invoices showing exactly what was purchased.

Council regulations require a tax invoice to be submitted for every transaction, especially for spends of more than $50.

One of the tax invoices provided to the Star-Times was for an $810 dinner at Manurewa’s Volare Restaurant on a Sunday evening in September 2009. The only details of the visit on the invoice are “dinner for mayor Len Brown, includes food and beverage”.

The tax invoice is different from the usual invoices given to diners at the South Auckland eatery.

The Star-Times has learned that council officials contacted the restaurant last week – 36 weeks after the visit – and asked them to produce a new receipt and fax it to council headquarters. Volare owner Daniel Nakhle yesterday confirmed “a new receipt was requested” just a few days ago.

Someone from the Brown’s Labour staffed team went into the Volare restaurant where Brown had a $810 meal on the ratepayer tab, and had a new receipt issued to remove all references to alcohol. At the very least the IRD will be crawling all over Volare unless they can produce the original. If they can produce the original then the question needs to be asked of the Labour staffed Brown team or of the Mayor himself just why did they seek to hide the details by seeking a manufactured invoice for the dinner.

Council CEO and Brown toady Leigh Auton at the very least could be in the gun for a police investigation.

This is not just about bad quality spending – it’s now about dishonest behaviour and coverups. It shows the Auckland Labour party are utterly corrupt. So, time for some questions:

1. Was this employee someone on Len Brown’s campaign team or inner circle?
2. On whose orders did the employee of Manukau do this?
3. Who attended this expensive meal at suburban Volare Restaurant?
4. What other council paid dinners have been had at Volare?
5. Are they always on a Sunday evening?

We need to now see EVERY receipt, and cross reference at the source to see what Len Brown is also covering up from ratepayers?

Len Brown is not just a big bad spender, it appears he’s a fraudster and a liar too! The thing is, the buck stops at the top and as a lawyer Len Brown must know that this breaches every ethical guideline, the LGOIMA, and probably the Crimes Act. He can’t shift the blame. The buck stops at the top. He is responsible for he council staff, he is responsible for David lewis and Conor Roberts and he is responsible for himself.

If he can’t control his credit card or follow the law how can we expect him to be able to manage the complex finances of the new Supercity?

Len Brown should really consider his future as Manukau’s Mayor and fold his campaign tent for the Supercity. He has shown himself to be as venal as the rest of the Labour Party, and as corruptible, by having David Lewis and Conor Roberts lead his spin team. Next thing we will hear is that the invoice has been burned by David Lewis.

Through the wonders of Google Alerts this story about Len Brown has come to the attention of The Whale. I have also had some tips on the tipline but initially discounted them as being fanciful. Surely no mayoral hopeful would malign a city in the way Len Brown has.

Len Brown has compared shopping in Auckland City with that of Apia. At the very least he thought the differences were marginal

Auckland Super City Mayoral candidate, Len Brown, has upset the Newmarket Business Association with his claim that Auckland’s shopping experience is akin to Apia, the capital of Samoa.

The self appointed Mayor of Newmarket and Media Whore extraordinaire, Cameron Brewer, is understandingly very upset.

“Auckland retailers have had a tough couple of years. They’re feeling bruised and battered enough. The last thing they want to hear is someone who wants to be mayor putting down the region’s retail sector. It’s a cheap shot and completely unnecessary,” Brewer said.

What on earth possessed Len Brown to make such a silly statement, did he not think that people wouldn’t let the Whale know?

Brown’s comments were made at The University of Auckland Business School. He is believed to have said that when comparing Auckland as a retail Mecca to Apia, the difference is “marginal”.

This is a derisory comment, and as I mentioned before I have now heard the story from three different sources. Len Brown is now furiously back-pedaling and running interference through his Labour Party apparatchik David Lewis who is Brown’s communications strategist.

David Lewis has been ringing Sydney based Inside Retailing bullying trying to get the initial story dropped from their site. He has now issued a response saying that Len Brown never said his derogatory statement about the difference between shopping in Apia and Auckland as being marginal.

A spokesperson for Brown contacted Inside Retailing saying the claim was “completely untrue”.

Cameron Brewer, CEO of the Newmarket Business Association, maintains that Brown had made the claim and said the accusation was a low blow for the tens of thousands of people directly involved in retail.

For those who can’t remember, lawyer David Lewis is a former staffer of Helen Clark and was involved in the cover-0up of Paintergate by initially purchasing and then burning the evidence. He also was the one who stood in the dock for Helen Clark over Speedgate. This appears on the surface to be a classic case of he said/she said but with David Lewis’ form I’ll be erring on the side of Cameron Brewer on this one.

The problem for David Lewis, Len Brown’s Labour Party appointed communications expert is that this non-story is now very much a story because of his attempts at hushing it up. Well done that man, keep him on the team Len.