But wait there is more

Westpac and other banks may not be Rupert Murdoch [pictured] but they act like dear Rupert. Instead of phone tapping and paying off the UK police / Government illegally as Murdoch did, Westpac and other banks pile free-bees on key players in our Treasury. They shout them to Rugby matches, wine festivals, pop concerts and heaps of other activities. Now Westpac has the contract for handling all government banking business and this it’s worth millions and millions. And it continues to get the governments business. But wait there is more:

One Treasury staffer, portfolio manager Matthew Collin, took 36 gifts in 46 weeks, including rugby and racing tickets, a movie premiere, golf, rugby league, Toast Martinborough tickets and several meals. DMO head Phil Combes took 29 gifts, including dinners and lunches on big banks as far a field as London and Tokyo, and he even went to a pantomime courtesy of the BNZ late last year. But wait there is more.

The PM John Key wines and dines film mogul Warner Brothers, and Warners later host the PM in fun loving LA, outcome one movie costing the government and the country close to $100 million in tax rebates and marketing credits. Plus he changes law to keep wages low under urgency. And Key tells us that Labour is the big spender…yeah right. But wait there is more:

While all this was taking place the government instructed KiwiRail to buy Chinese built wagons and not build them in NZ, which led directly to the layoff of NZ workers at the Hillside workshop in Dunedin and else where. This had added to NZ highest rate of unemployment for many years. But wait there is still more!

    

The National government has been exposed for various deals that could be considered Murdoch in nature. 42 million loan to Mediaworks by Steven Joyce, The South Canterbury finance bail out and Gerry Brownlee’s [pictured] hiring of ex PM Jenny Shipley at a thousand dollars a day and Murray McCully’s latest appointment of disgraced ex-Nat MP Richard Worth as an ambassador, this after the various jobs for his mates were exposed as cash handouts and had to be reversed..

This kind of behaviour has become epidemic within this government and it must lead to the public having serious doubts about the ability of the government sell off plans, for it would seem that the retiring minister of justice / State owned enterprises [Simon Power] hopes to play a part in that sell off as a private individual. And if true, this has a nasty taste, since sale bonuses may well be involved. The courts may need to consider the legality of this possible behaviour.  

Now the best way to counter this trend is to ensure the National party doesn’t get the chance to sell off the family silver and it would seem that the latest poll makes that possible.  

The latest Roy Morgan poll shows a closer race. National drops 5 points, Labour is up 3 and Greens are up 2.

The results are:

·         National 49.0% (-5.0%)

·         Labour 33.5% (+3.0%)

·         Green 7.5% (+2.0%)

·         ACT 3.0% (+0.5%)

·         Maori 2.5% (-0.5%)

·         United Future 0.5% (nc)

·         NZ First 3.0% (-0.5%)

In a 122-seat parliament, you need 62 seats to govern. So National with ACT and United Future would be only four seats above that level. If over the next 19 weeks they lost more than four seats, then the Maori Party would hold the balance of power. With the Mana Party possibly winning up to four Maori seats and Labour the rest it is possible, even probable, that a victory for a Labour Greens Mana combination could stand a good chance of forming a government.

For John Key to pass laws he would need both Don Brash and the Maori Party to agree it is a good law. This may be the direct reason why the Nats have rushed into doing deals with the Act Party [National Branch] and Peter Dunne [National in drag]. The poll was taken from June 27 to July 10.

An even later poll show 49.5% support the Capital Gains Tax while 15% don’t and the rest don’t know.