John Banks

I’m was on Larry William’s Huddle at 1740 on NewstalkZB with the lovely Josie Pagani.

Our topic was:

• John Banks/Dotcom donation

I’m on Larry William’s Huddle at 1740 on NewstalkZB with the lovely Josie Pagani.

Our topics so far are:

• John Banks/Dotcom donation
• Darien Fenton hating on importing high skilled workers

As usual I will post the audio tomorrow. Meanwhile you can listen on the wireless or online.

ᔥ NZ Herald

In the Herald today it is reported that Kim Dotcom is going to release his bank transactions regarding the donations to John Banks.

I wonder if he will also release any other donation details to other political parties and/or candidates.

There was a recent general election, it is well known that he is not enamoured with the current government or parties, so I wonder if  perhaps he made donations to other politicians or political parties.

If Tracy Watkins was any good, she would be ringing Kim Dotcom and asking that, just in case she gets scooped by a well informed blogger.

I wonder too why on really rather loud but diminutive opposition politician has been very, very quiet over the Banks donations, when normally in such a muck racking story he would be rent a quote?

ᔥ NZ Herald

David Shearer has called for John Banks to be stood down:

Yesterday, Labour leader David Shearer called for Prime Minister John Key to stand Banks down from his ministerial portfolios.

Interesting, how come Charles Chauvel isn’t stood down, he is still under investigation by the Police for Electoral Act breaches…or perhaps Megan Woods, as she is under investigation too. Brendan Horan has also been referred to the Police, perhaps he should stand down from parliament.

Labour really don’t have a leg to stand on when it comes to election rule breaches.

While there is salivation and clamouring for a by-election in Epsom the Labour party and their fan club should bear in mind that Daljit Singh is yet to appear in court over his corruption charges from 2010….nearly two years later.

On top of that the Police haven’t even progressed the 20 odd referrals to them from the Electoral Commission some 6 months after the election. Given that yard stick of the importance that the Police place on electoral breaches I hardly think this will even get looked at until at least December and certainly won;t see a court room until after the 2014 election.

Trevor Mallard’s and Andrew Little’s defamation case has more chance of getting heard before the election.

It might be worth pointing out that Len Brown’s donations regime was laundered through a trust , given two levels of anonymity’ certainly not in keeping with the spirit of the law.

This is why donors like Stevensons and Noel Robinson gave happily to Brown’s campaign, because they gave to a trust that then made one lump sum donation of $499k to browns campaign.

I know of two donors who gave to Len Brown, and subsequently received jobs in the appointments process.

While it doesn’t look tidy from John Banks, and why would it be tidy, Michelle Boag was his campaign fundraiser, so no surprises there where Mallard is getting all his dirt.

I suspect though that John Banks will join the long list of people who regret ever involving Michelle Boag in their affairs.

The Herald ran today an article about Mallard lodging a complaint with the Auckland Electoral Officer about the $15,000 donation by Sky City to John Banks’ mayoral campaign. I have been mulling it over and something just doesn’t seem right here.

You see, in my investigations into James Bews-Hair and Conor Roberts I’ve found some interesting dots that need to be joined.

There are some interesting Labour Party dynamics at play. It is clearer by the day that the Auckland wing of the Party are done with all the beltway politics that is being played by Shearer and his team (of almost resigned staffers).

We all know that in Auckland there is one person who knows more about the Auckland Mayoral campaign than anyone.

We also know that there’s another person rather close to the current Mayor who wrote Sky City’s donation policy (refer to previous post about chequebook lobbying)

It does raise questions why the two gentlemen above would feed the information about the dual Sky City donations (ie: one to Brown, one to Banks) to the serially disloyal Mallard and not to their own man Shearer (has everyone forgotten that Roberts ran Shearer’s campaign for the by-election while Bews-Hair worked with and was Shearer’s boss in Goff’s ministerial office).

Clearly from Auckland they can sense the tide going out on Shearer’s leadership. They’ve given up on their own man, their own mate, the guy they helped install.

The real question is why are they feeding Mallard? Roberts is determined to complete the hatchet job he’s done on Banks’ political career. Bews-Hair is always a more difficult one to work out. May be he has got bored or may be he is backing the other team and wants his old mate (and former employee) Goldsmith to be MP of
Epsom?

As for the complaint. It will come down to what Sky City says they told Banks (about the donation).

Hmmm… and will Banks vote against the Sky City pokies/centre deal? Bloody unlikely.

ᔥ NZ Herald

Trevor Mallard is at it again, hurling around spurious allegations in a bid to cover up for Labour’s nasty little civil war which he is donkey deep involved in:

Labour MP Trevor Mallard has lodged an official complaint about Act leader John Banks failing to disclose a $15,000 donation was from SkyCity during his 2010 Auckland mayoralty campaign.

Mr Mallard lodged the complaint with the Auckland Council electoral officer this week. He also asked the electoral officer to scrutinise “anonymous” donations of radio advertising Mr Banks had included in his return.

SkyCity gave $15,000 each to Len Brown, now mayor, and Mr Banks, his rival, during that campaign.

Although Mr Brown’s donation return listed SkyCity as a donor, Mr Banks’ listed an anonymous donation of $15,000. It did not mention SkyCity.

It seems that David Shearer’s rulings about no gotcha politics don;t apply to Trevor Mallard, but then again Trevor is the one really in charge of the party, pulling the strings from the back rooms.

ᔥ NZ Herald

John Banks has been quiet since the election, but on the weekend at the ACT conference he started to speak up…the first pronouncement, put interest back on student loans and fight middle class welfare:

Act leader John Banks has made an attack on “middle-class welfare”, urging National to bite the bullet and restore interest rates to student loans.

In a hard-hitting speech to Act’s annual conference on Saturday – his first as both party member and leader – Mr Banks reconfirmed Act’s policy to incrementally raise the age of entitlement for state-funded superannuation from 65 to 67.

He told the 80 or so party members present that Act’s role was to provide some “reinforcing steel” to persuade National to make the unpopular decisions needed to restore the vital connection between “effort and reward” which had been undermined by Labour administrations.

“We stand against middle-class welfare … We stand against everybody else being taxed for tertiary graduates to have a free ride.”

Mr Banks also had harsh words for “tin god council bureaucrats” whose “out-of-control” spending and town planning restrictions had put home ownership out of reach of a whole generation of New Zealanders.

He said Act had an “awesome responsibility” in ensuring it returned MPs in numbers at the 2014 election to ensure the centre-right stayed in power.

ᔥ Stuff.co.nz

Oh the tired old phrase has been wheeled out again…it seems that is “not in the public interest to pursue a prosecution”:

Police will not lay charges over the “teapot tape” saga and say freelance cameraman Bradley Ambrose has received a warning.

Assistant Police Commissioner Malcolm Burgess held a press conference this afternoon and said police had resolved the case.

The announcement follows a long-running investigation after Prime Minister John Key complained about Ambrose recording a conversation between him and ACT MP John Banks on the campaign trail in 2011.

A letter of regret had been forwarded to Prime Minister John Key and John Banks.

Key said he welcomed Ambrose’s letter and believed there was now no need for the prosecution to continue.

While he only received a warning, Ambrose’s actions were illegal, Burgess said.

Future occurrences were likely to be prosecuted.

“We were satisfied on this occasion that there was [prima facie evidence].

But police decided there was not sufficient public interest in the matter going to court, he said.

“I reached the view that a prosecution was not required in this instance.”

In the view of police investigators, the recording was “most likely” on purpose, but at the least “reckless”.

The letter to Key and Banks from Ambrose was “one of the factors that we took into account” and his lack of a criminal record was another.

At least Bradley Ambrose now admits he was wrong and his apology letter sees the end of his spurious defamation case too.

Now the Police have finished up with that investigation perhaps they might like to advise progress on the more than a dozen cases referred by the Electoral Commission for breaches of the Electoral Act….surely breaking the laws protecting our democracy ARE in the public interest to prosecute.

Bravo John Banks for his comments on NZ on Air funding nasty reality tv shows:

ACT leader John Banks thinks a commercial sponsor should be paying for a ‘New Zealand’s Got Talent’ show – and not taxpayers.

1.6 million dollars of public arts and culture funding is going into the production.

He says it shows spending needs to be managed better, given the Government is borrowing millions every week.

“So many get so much enjoyment from watching this kind of drivel, then let it be funded by a commercial sponsor that can make some money out of this,” says Mr Banks.

John Banks says he can’t think of anything less likely to achieve a high wage economy than spending taxes on reality TV.