Sheepgate - Corruption in the NZ government

Docs 'prove' Saudi payment was compensation

Radio NZ,

13 August, 2015

The Labour Party says official documents contradict the Prime Minister and prove the Government paid millions in compensation to a Saudi businessman.

The government paid $11 million to Hamood Al-Ali Al-Khalaf, in cash, sheep and equipment, saying he had threatened legal action over New Zealand's ban on live sheep exports and could have sued for up to $30 million.

Prime Minister John Key has told Radio New Zealand the deal was never about compensation.

But Labour's trade spokesperson, David Parker, said official documents revealed the Government established a working group specifically to find a way to meet Mr Al-Khalaf's "concern for compensation". The working group came up with the idea of a $4 million cash payment, he said.

Mr Parker told Morning Report the documents were clear about the nature of the deal as compensation for the continued ban on sheep exports by both National and Labour.

"Now when you strip it all back, they've actually paid off Mr Al-Khalaf - and then you say, what for? What was he owed?

"And the answer is he wasn't owed anything because the New Zealand government did not break the law banning the ... export of live sheep for slaughter.

"And the National government who renewed that ban twice didn't to anything illegal either. So it is a facilitation payment, which is effectively a bribe to get this disaffected businesman out of the way of the Saudi free trade agreeement."

Mr Parker said that would be a breach of the law on public spending.

Listen to David Parker on Morning Report ( 5 min 26 sec )

Mr Key faced questioning in Parliament yesterday over his insistence the deal was never about compensation and maintained the government's cash payment of $4 million to Mr Al-Khalaf was for a range of reasons.

"Some of them were the FTA (Free Trade Agreement), some of them were our relationship with Saudi Arabia and some of them were to showcase New Zealand products," he told MPs.

"What is more terrifying, that the PM can lie straight to the media and then simply change his story once the lie is caught out or that NZers will still flock to him and vote for him?"

John Key u-turns on Saudi s

heep bribe story

Martyn Bradbury

the Daily Blog,

12 August, 2015

The justification for this bribe to a Saudi Businessman has always been…

1 – It’s Labour’s fault

2 – We paid him the money to stop him from suing us.

After the Government were forced to release these papers on the deal…

…it turns out it had nothing to do with Labour and there was no threat to sue the Government.

So what does Key have to say now?

Why, it had nothing to do with compensation at all…

PM’s new explanation for Saudi deal

After months of claiming the Government did a deal with a Saudi businessman to avoid the possibility of being sued, the Prime Minister now says it was never about compensation.

…that’s right, after months of telling everyone we paid this money to avoid getting sued, the PM now says it had nothing to do with compensation.

This is John Key before he was forced to release the papers proving everything he said wasn’t true…

“He [Mr Al-Khalaf] certainly argued very vigorously that the actions of the previous government misled him. You know whether that would have legally succeeded in court it’s not for me to determine because I’m not a lawyer. I can just tell you what he was claiming and I think overall we found a way through all of that and I think that’s broadly the right step,”

…and after the papers are released showing everything he has said simply isn’t true, the PMs position now is…

“What Mr McCully was saying though was he didn’t want lawyers brought in to be talking about compensation because the deal was never about compensation.”

…what is more terrifying, that the PM can lie straight to the media and then simply change his story once the lie is caught out or that NZers will still flock to him and vote for him?