Posts
National
– Party 4 Sale?
Frank
McSkasy
22
April, 2016
.
Niue
Recent
revelations that the National Party may have benefitted from a deal
involving a resort hotel in Niue, by receiving a $101,000 donation
has been in the headlines since 18 April, when Radio
NZ’s political reporter, Benedict Collins, broke the story;
.
.
In October 2014, New Zealand’s Scenic Hotel Group announced it had “secured” the Matavai Resort in Niue.
The Niue Tourism Property Trust, whose trustees are appointed by Mr McCully, carried out what the minister said was a fully commercial process to find a company to run the resort.
The month before, Mr Hagaman, Scenic Hotel Group’s founder, had donated $101,000 to the National Party, making him National’s biggest living financial donor in 2014. Only a man who had died and left his estate to National gave more.
Foreign
Affairs Minister Murray McCully Photo: RNZ
But Mr McCully said there was no link between the contract and the donation.
Radio
NZ further
reported;
Scenic Hotel managing director Brendan Taylor said Mr Hagaman didn’t know the company was in the running for the Matavai Resort contract.
“Earl wasn’t actually even aware that we were negotiating in Niue, because basically that was me and I had it all in-house until such time that we knew we had been awarded the contract.
I did get [Earl’s wife] Lani Hagaman to sign the contract because I wasn’t actually available to do it, but apart from that Earl really had no involvement in Niue whatsoever.
His donation is something he did purely from a personal situation, and basically the hotel company and what Earl does from a personal point of view we kind of keep separate.”
It
simply defies credulity that the two events are not somehow connected
– especially when, as Radio NZ discovered that “RNZ
News could find no record of Mr Hagaman having ever made a large
donation to the National Party before“.
It
also beggars belief that Scenic Hotel managing director, Brendan
Taylor, is asserting that “Earl
wasn’t actually even aware that we were negotiating in Niue” when
Brendan Taylor got “Lani
Hagaman [Earl’s wife] to sign the contract”?!
As
the story began to gain traction elsewhere in the msm,
National Party president, Peter Goodfellow, said he
“ would
be making no further comment about the donation“.
Three
days later, on 21 April, our esteemed Dear Leader, John Key,
attempted to close
down the growing scandal;
Mr Key, speaking in China, said today that, while he hasn’t followed the issue closely, he’s not at all concerned.
“People make political donations and that’s well and truly disclosed.
“But actually Scenic Hotels have been operators for a very long period of time, that’s a management contract from what I can see in Niue – there’s nothing untoward there.”
It
is intriguing that even though Key says “he
hasn’t followed the issue closely, he’s not at all concerned“.
How
can he be “not
at all concerned”
if “he
hasn’t followed the issue closely“?
This
is not the first time that National has been revealed to have
benefitted from donations made by businessmen who have been
closely involved in commercial activites with this government.
BMWs
In
early 2011, National was roundly criticised for spending millions on
thirtyfour new BMW limousines at a time when the country was
experiencing recession after the Global Financial Crisis.
At
first, Key denied all knowledge of the purchase, claiming
he had been “kept in the dark” over the multi-million
dollar upgrade;
.
.
But
our esteemed Dear Leader, John Key, did
know,
as was revealed four
days later in late February, 2011;
.
.
However,
the BMW scandal becomes more serious than Key merely ducking
responsibility and patently lying when he denied all prior knowledge
of the limousine upgrade.
In
May 2011, it was revealed that the suppliers of the BMWs had made a
$50,000 donation to National prior to the vehicle-purchase. As
reported in the NZ
Herald at the time;
A private BMW dealer has rubbished the suggestion that a $50,000 donation from his company to the National Party had anything to do with the Government’s new fleet of BMW cars.
[…]
Labour’s internal affairs spokesman, Chris Hipkins, revealed that the BMW dealer’s donation came two days after a July 2010 meeting between Mr Key’s chief-of-staff, Wayne Eagleson, and the Department of Internal Affairs, which approved the BMW upgrade.
It was a month after a function that Mr Key attended at Auckland BMW dealership Team McMillan.
Radio
NZ reported;
Prime Minister John Key says he has no responsibility for a $50,000 donation made to the National Party by a BMW dealership the day after the Government renewed its VIP transport contract.
[…]
Bob McMillan, the owner of BMW Team McMillan, says the claim he donated money to National the day after the party agreed to a contract for ministerial cars is ridiculous.
As
senior Labour MP, Trevor Mallard said at
the time;
“They sat down with Ministerial Services and agreed to a renewal of [the BMW] contract, and two days later $50,000 went to the National Party. If that was overseas, we would say it was corruption…”
Mr
McMillan’s denial of any link between his donation of $50,000 to
National, in return for the contract for the limousine up-grade
sounds remarkably similar to Scenic Hotels managing director, Brendan
Taylor, denying any link between Earl Hagaman’s $101,000
donation to the National Party and his company securing the
contract with Matavai Resort.
To
compound matters, the BMW dealership at the center of the donations
scandal then expressed
an interest in acquiring the soon-to-be-replaced government
limousines (to re-sell, at a profit);
.
.
Whether
or not the purchase went ahead is unclear.
Farms
In
2010 and late 2011, another apparent conflict of interest was
reported when Shanghai Pengxin put in a bid for the Crafar dairy
farms. Shanghai Pengxin, under various guises, gave hundreds of
thousands of dollars to the National Party;
.
.
.
A
full analysis of the links between Oravida, Crafar Farm purchase, and
the National Party was reported in a previous blogpost here; Doing
‘the business’ with John Key – Here’s How (Part # Rua).
Conclusion
Whilst
details are hard to confirm by the very nature of these highly
secretive deals – many
made informally – the questions arising from these (and
other) murky ‘arrangements’ is sufficient to underscore a recent
downgrading of our Transparency
International Corruption Perception Index;
.
.
We
have had sufficient number of glimpses into dubious activities that
hint at corrupt practices. Even fourth place on the Transparency
International Corruption Perception Index may be wildly optimistic.
As
the Saudi
farm-bribe and use of GCSB
to spy on behalf of Tim Groser has shown, National is not
averse to employing dodgy practices and dirty deals to enrich itself
or what it perceives may “benefit” the country (and consequently
it’s re-election chances).
There
are simply too many coincidences to ignore the inescapable
conclusion: it is my considered opinion that National has benefitted
financially from several commercial/government transactions.
Our
political system has been tainted with corruption..
.
Addendum1
As
at 21 April, the so-called “Taxpayers Union” – a
self-appointed group of “watchdogs” to protect public interest
from political corruption and waste of taxpayers’ money, had made
no comment on the Niue Scandal;
.
.
The
“Taxpayers Union” had condemned the Universal Basic Income; had a
‘go’ at Maori Iwi; lambasted Labour; criticised MoBIE; and
several other attacks on perceived “wrong-doing”.
But
not a peep on the Niue scandal.
But
considering that the “Taxpayers Union” is made up of National
Party apparatchiks and supporters, that is hardly surprising.
.
.
References
Radio
NZ: PM
not worried about Niue resort deal
Fairfax
media: Ministers
knew of BMW buy-up last year
Fairfax
media: PM
signed papers relating to BMWs
NZ
Herald: Dealer
denies donation link
Transparency
International (NZ): Corruption
Free? NZ drops again
Fairfax
media: Auditor-General
had doubts Saudi sheep deal was legal
Additional
Scoop
media: BSA
decision – One News on Sale of BMWs
Previous
related blogposts
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.
Well done, excellent research showing clearly what most of us suspect.
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