0 We can't help but wonder...

We were sent a link earlier this morning by an alert reader. It was to a story in the NZ Herald in May 2005, and concerned former Labour list contender Steven Ching, about whom we blogged yesterday.

And this bit stuck out:

So we can't help but wonder; is the Raymond Huo referred to in this story as Steven Ching's lawyer the same Raymond Huo who became a Labour List MP at the 2008 General Election?

Then we saw DPF's post from  last night:

A statement from Steven Ching:

1. Today (June 26,2014) the NZ Herald’s report regarding me was incorrect. The Journalist Jared Savage didn’t consult with me before making the story. I don’t know who had made Mr.Liu to buy the wine and book for Labour Party. I reserve my right to sue the NZ Herald.
2. To my best knowledge I didn’t took Mr.Liu to Labour New Lynn Office seeking  support for his immigration case. It’s better to ask Mr.Henry Mao of MMW Consulting (group) who was his agent in NZ to clarify this matter. He may know who had helped Mr.Liu to donate funds to Labour Party.
3. After 2005  I was no longer a candidate for Labour, So It’s better to ask Mr.Raymond Huo or Ms.Susan Zhu to understand any details of Chinese community fundraising function.
4. In April,2007 I was invited to attend a fundraising party as a guest only. I was no longer an organizer for Labour to raise any funds after 2005 election.

This is interesting. Ching says Susan Zhu is the one to ask about fundraising from the Chinese community. Ms Zhu is a lawyer working for Presland & Co. Yes that Presland – the one who set up David Cunliffe’s secret trust for him.

That Raymond Huo and Susan Zhu have been publicly identified by Steven Ching as being fundraisers for Labour from the Chinese community is indeed interesting. That Ms Zhu works for Greg Presland, who set up David Cunliffe's secret trust to which anonymous donations were made begs the obvious question. Has today brought us a step closer to finding the source of David Cunliffe's anonymous donations?

People will continue to speculate about who Mr Cunliffe's anonymous backers were until the cows come home. Of course, David Cunliffe could end the speculation by telling the country who wanted him to be leader so much that they dug into their hip pockets.

Will he do that? Probably not. Will we continue to ask questions? What do you think? The ball is in Mr Cunliffe's court.

0 Tweet of the Day - 21 June 2014

David Cunliffe's legal adviser and friend Greg Presland got into something of a verbal joust on Twitter last night. That sort of thing is never going to end well, and this spat was no exception; the conversation died when this was posted:

David Cunliffe opened himself up to accusations of hypocrisy when he allowed a secret trust to be established so that he could receive anonymous donations to his Labour's Got Talent campaign. 

Having spent years helping fuel Labour's attacks on John Key and his "rich mates", Cunliffe's error of judgment showed that he was either just as dodgy as he has accused the PM of being, stupid enough to believe he wouldn't get caught out, or venal enough to not care.

Take your pick as to which.

0 UPDATED: Labour's Liu hypocrisy

The Labour Party has been busted for hypocrisy. After several months of beating up on National over businessman Donghua Liu, look what the Herald reports this morning:

A wealthy Auckland businessman, whose links to the National Party led to a minister's resignation, also made a secret $15,000 donation to the Labour Party - and hosted a Cabinet minister at a lavish dinner in China.
The Labour Party has previously accused the Government of "cash for access" deals with Donghua Liu, who received citizenship after lobbying from National minister Maurice Williamson and whose hotel was later opened by Prime Minister John Key.
But the Herald can reveal Liu, 53, also paid $15,000 at a Labour Party auction in 2007 for a book signed by Helen Clark, the Prime Minister at the time, according to a party source.
The source said Liu also hosted Rick Barker, the then Internal Affairs Minister, at a dinner in his hometown of Chongqing.
Mr Barker, who is now a regional councillor in Hawkes Bay, confirmed he was a guest at the dinner and also visited Liu's cement company while on holiday in China.
But he said he was not aware Liu was a Labour donor and he was not in China on official business as a minister.
"I went to China to catch up with some friends of mine, see some sights ... and I made a side trip to Chongqing - I had not been to the city before.
"I was in the city a short time. Mr Liu showed me his business and that night, I attended a dinner which seemed to be a dinner he had put on for all his staff."
However, Mr Barker could not remember how he came to be invited to visit Liu in Chongqing.
He said it was "probable" he also had dinner with Liu in New Zealand.
"I am trying to recall events of over seven years ago, so it's a little challenging. But it can't have been a regular event, because if it was I would recall that. In fact my contact with Liu fell away quite quickly."
Political donations made at fundraising auctions or dinners are not recorded individually, but the total amount raised is declared.

Rick Barker was also at the centre of allegations of impropriety over the other Liu, Bill Liu. But this revelation is far more damaging.

Trevor Mallard got ejected from Parliament on 8th May for suggesting that Immigration Minister Michael Woodhouse was offered cash by Liu at a meeting on immigration policy. Labour's deputy leader Grant Robertson has accused the Government of cronyism over Donghua Liu. And David Cunliffe himself has accused the Government of a conflict of interest over Liu. 

Now it emerges that Donghua Liu also made a substantial donation to the Labour Party, and befriended the then Internal Affairs Minister. Any moral high ground that Labour had on this issue has just subsided.

There's one more question that must be asked; was Donghua Liu one of the anonymous donors to David Cunliffe's secret trust? Until Mr Cunliffe comes clean and identifies his donors, questions like this are legitimate, and will continue to be asked.

Once again, the Labour Party has been exposed as hypocritical on political donations. Who would have ever thunk it?


UPDATE: Whaleoil comes up with a headline we wish we'd thought of at 5.30am this morning - Labour's credibility "down the Liu"

And DPF notes that Labour appears to have breached the Electoral Act as it stood in 2007 by not having declared this donation. Will Graham McCready prosecute Labour? 

0 Sledge of the Day - 7 June 2014

With the General Election now little more than three months away, there's plenty of banter going on around the traps.

Unsurprisingly, David Cunliffe is copping his share of ribbing, given his constantly changing policies (immigration, to name just one), more policy launch glitches, and his general yeah-nah style.

Botany MP Jami-Lee Ross has sledged Mr Cunliffe on Facebook:

David Cunliffe has only himself to blame for these kinds of comments. Surely, as a politician of 14 years' experience, he must have seen the potential danger in setting up a secret trust to receive anonymous donations.

Kudos to Ross for pointing out this apparent hypocrisy on the part of the Labour leader. We have already reflected this week in the naked self-interest in Mr Cunliffe's Road to Damascus conversion with regard to coat-tailing, and we once again thank him for being such an easy target!

0 Hoist by his own petard

The decision in R v John Archibald Banks is now available online. In between tasks at work, we are slowly reading through it.

But we've just come across this paragraph:

You can't escape the irony here. In his desire to be transparent, and to comply with the "spirit of the law", John Banks chose not to hide his donations behind a secret trust. On the other hand, Len Brown hid almost $500,000 worth of donations behind the secret and previously unknown New Auckland Council Trust.

Len Brown wasn't worried about the "spirit of the law", and hid his donations in a manner that no one will ever know who his backers were. John Banks has clearly erred in not declaring the Dotcom donation, and will pay a high price. His desire for transparency was commendable, even though some of his decisions were poor ones.

Mr Banks is hoist by his own petard.

0 Quote of the Day - 12 May 2014

Rodney Hides summarises the current political distractions, and mentions the elephant in the war room:

John Key, Bill English and Steven Joyce must now steady the ship. That they will do. Governments are good at it. And it's Budget time. That provides a platform for them to step up a gear and talk about the the things that matter to Kiwis.
Meanwhile, if you think you may ever need some help from your local MP, don't donate to the National Party. Nothing is now more likely to see that door slammed shut than your name appearing on the donor list.
But Labour, too, has its problems. In chasing down Collins it has failed to confront the elephant in its caucus. We know who donated to National. We can spot the possible conflict. We can't say the same about Labour. That's because its leader resolutely refuses to name the donors to his leadership campaign. He has kept his donors secret.
What has Cunliffe got to hide? What favours has he promised? Labour keeps insisting that money taints politics. Well, who has tainted Cunliffe? Will he ever tell us?

Transparency over donations is a wonderful thing. But it must apply equally across the board, to every party inside and outside Parliament. 

Every time that David Cunliffe or one of his MP's shrieks about "cash for access", the question must be asked of Mr Cunliffe; who are the anonymous donors to the secret trust, and what access did THEY get?

0 We can't help but wonder...

We avoid David Cunliffe on Breakfast TV whenever possible. But we heard him this morning pontificating on Judith Collins. He was wondering why, if she was being sent off on stress leave, it wasn't happening immediately.

So we can't help but wonder; what sort of righteous indignation would we have heard from David Cunliffe this morning had the Prime Minister indeed sent Judith Collins home for a few days yesterday? 

You can just imagine it, can't you; David Cunliffe, on his high horse, complaining that Judith Collins was being hidden away by John Key, and that the Government was trying to dodge the issue.

But no; that's not the case at all. Judith Collins will front up in Parliament this afternoon and again tomorrow, and take whatever muck is thrown at her by Mr Cunliffe, Grant Robertson and Winston Peters. She will also be subject to the normal hectoring interjections from the likes of Clayton Cosgrove, Trevor Mallard and Annette King. And we reckon she will give as good as she gets.

There's one aspect though we will place money on. Today's Question Time will be robust, and David Carter's patience will be tested. We would be surprised if there are not ejections from the House today, given how high feelings are running.

And as for Mr Cunliffe; is he ever going to disclose the identity of those who donated anonymously to his leadership campaign via a secret trust, and if not, as they say at Question Time, why not?

0 Where's the smoking gun?

Left-leaning bloggers and a few journalists were cock-a-hoop yesterday. Judith Collins' office released documents under the OIA which, they claimed, Proved beyond doubt that Mrs Collins' dinner in China was an official one, not a private one. Except the documents didn't prove that at all; if anything, they added weight to Collins' denials

Vernon Small reports on Stuff:

Justice Minister Judith Collins' office initially asked for a foreign affairs briefing before a controversial dinner in China with Oravida representatives and an unnamed border official.
Collins has insisted the dinner was a private affair with no official business discussed.
However, documents released to Fairfax Media under the Official Information Act show that five days before the dinner her office sought the briefing from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (Mfat).
An October 15 email from her office noted:
"On Sunday, October 20, the minister will be having a dinner that will include (redacted name). He has agreed to meet with the minister arranged by Mr Stone Shi, Oravida. The minister would like ambassador Carl Worker and his wife to attend this dinner. A briefing from Mfat will be required."
Worker did not attend and the dinner went ahead with Collins, her official, Oravida executives Shi and Julia Xu and the Chinese official present.
But later emails show that Collins' office declined Mfat assistance and said no briefing would be required.
The New Zealand embassy in Beijing asked about the dinner and said it assumed the booking would be made by Shi. It also asked if transport was required.
Collins' office replied nothing was required from Mfat.
"The minister is having a private dinner on the Sunday evening."
Mfat's China unit policy officer, Nicholas Clutterbuck, advised that "while the dinner can be regarded as private, the minister cannot make unplanned/uncommunicated travel movements around Beijing during her stay".
Asked today why there was an initial request for a briefing before the dinner, and then it changed, Collins said:
"My office naturally asks for briefings for everything but it was a private dinner so it wasn't needed." 

If Winston Peters and Grant Robertson were hoping to find a smoking gun yesterday in Ms Collins' OIA dump, they will have been somewhat disappointed. Judith Collins' handling of this issue may have been haphazard, but there is no evidence that she gave Oravida any favourable treatment as a result of the private dinner.

Labour now has a choice to make. Grant Robertson has pursued this matter now for two months. He has wasted a number of oral questions from Labour's daily allocation which could be used to hold the Government to account on other matters. When the House resumes on Tuesday, Judith Collins will still be on National's front bench.

There were signs when Parliament went into recess that the public was tiring of Labour's attack on Ms Collins, and reigniting the attack next week will be a risky strategy for Labour. It will be interesting to see how Labour handles this going forward, because it could all end very badly for them unless they find the smoking gun.

It was disclosed yesterday by the Electoral Commission that Oravida donated $30,000 to National just prior to Christmas. Labour of course sees this as further evidence of cronyism. But Oravida has a legal right to donate to any political party, and National has correctly declared the donation. Contrast that with David Cunliffe's lack of transparency over his anonymous donations to a secret trust last year. We suspect that Labour's angst is more because no one will give them the time of day, let alone any donations to be declared.

Winston Peters will continue to pursue this, because unsubstantiated allegations, threats of release of non-existant documents and innuendo are his stock-in-trade. Labour might be better advised to leave the mud-slinging to the master mud-slinger and look for more fertile ground.

0 Collins fights back

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.