Posted by Blogger Name. Category:
Anonymous donations
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Conflict of interest
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Darien Fenton
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David Cunliffe
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Huka Lodge
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Judith Collins
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Oravida
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Question Time
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Secret trusts
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Sir Peter Leitch
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Winston Peters
Judith Collins is not taking the latest allegations against her lying down; Stuff reports:
Justice Minister Judith Collins has hit out against the latest conflict of interest allegations levelled against her by Opposition MPs.
Collins has been under fire over allegations she used her ministerial position to benefit her husband's business interests.
She was also refusing to name the Chinese border official who she, Oravida managing director Julia Xu and chairman Stone Shi, who were close personal friends, shared a private dinner with while on an official trip to China.
The latest allegations levelled by NZ First leader Winston Peters under parliamentary privilege were that Collins went to the rescue of Oravida after it wrote to the Government seeking assistance after the Fonterra botulism scare last year.
The letter said Oravida had been "profoundly negatively" affected by the disaster and urged "ministers and the New Zealand Government to help us to navigate through this difficult time".
Collins has avoided the media, but told RadioLive today the allegations made by Peters were "utterly untrue".
"Worse than that, TV3 and Winston Peters have made utterly false comments and stated as fact things that are not fact," Collins said.
"Pretty much everything" about the allegations was false "and I'm not going to to dignify them with a response", she said.
"I'm not responsible for the company, I'm not responsible for actions that they take and I'm absolutely disgusted at the way in which my family has been dragged through this by some elements of the media."
She denied it was a bad look for her to meet with Oravida after the company wrote to Trade Minister Tim Groser and Primary Industries Minister Nathan Guy seeking government help.
"It does not look wrong. It looks no more wrong than the fact that 41 companies wrote or received some funding from the Government because of the issue," Collins said.
David Cunliffe made a rare appearance in Parliament yesterday to lead the attack on Judith Collins. But given that he still refuses to name those who donated anonymously to his leadership campaign, and given those donations were hidden away in a secret trust which Mr Cunliffe hoped would remain secret, he is the last person who should be calling for transparency.
Opposition MP's used three of their eight allocated questions yesterday during Question Time to attack Ms Collins, but made little progress. There's a good reason for that; it's a beat-up, and no amount of hysterical shrieking, mud-slinging and innuendo can change that.
Winston Peters promised to release damning evidence against Ms Collins to Parliament yesterday, but once again he came up short. His allegations against Judith Collins are as strong as his allegation earlier this year that Huka Lodge had been sold to Chinese buyers.
And the Minister of Justice knows who her real friends are:
Any ties that Sir Peter Leitch may have still had to Labour from the Clark years were severed when Darien Fenton attacked his character in 2011 for daring to say something nice about John Key; the ultimate act of class treason in Ms Fenton's eyes. We applaud him for sticking up for his friend; that's the mark of the man.
We will predict that Judith Collins will survive this because, apart from having fallen foul of the Prime Minister's "no surprises" policy, there is no evidence that she has done anything wrong.
There is plenty of innuendo, there is no shortage of mud being flung, but there is no evidence of wrong-doing. Sure, she is suffering some reputational damage, but in the absence of any evidence that Ms Collins directly or indirectly intervened on Oravida's behalf, the Opposition has nothing.
