Kiwiblog

So many comments today. First Cactus Kate comments on Phil Goff’s description of Complainant A is “strikingly beautiful”:

Imagine a man from the centre-right of politics objectifying a woman as “strikingly beautiful”. The left would be outraged.

Is it appropriate for a Party leader to be commenting on the physical appearance of one of his members? A member you are meant to be protecting the identity of? At what point did Goff feel the need to comment at all on her appearance? What possible context would it have been necessary to utter this stupid answer?

Kate mischievously suggests the feminist wing will be so outraged it may be BBQ at Maryan’s place!

The Sunday News reports that Richard’s daughter is standing by him:

THE only child of under-fire former minister Richard Worth claims the businesswoman who filed a complaint with police against her dad “has problems and needs help”.

“He is the best man in the world and I love him so much,” Worth’s 28-year-old daughter Virginia told Sunday News. …

“I am standing by my dad and that is all there is to it,” said Virginia Worth, a Newmarket, Auckland, rental car company manager.

“I am 100 percent confident and sure that everything is going to work out perfectly. I’m very proud of my father and he has been the most amazing and devoted parent anyone could wish for.”

There is enormous sympathy for Lynne and Virgina Worth, having to deal with all this.

John Tamihere writes:

The real target is not Dr Richard Worth or the complainant.

They are but a means to an end in the final game. In fact, they are merely unsuspecting pawns.

The head Labour wants is that of prime minister John Key.

He is new to the rough and tumble of bloodthirsty politics, of being in the gutter and having to slug it out.

While he is undoubtedly an outstanding corporate leader, and as such has had to deal with significant issues in regard to huge volumes of money and large numbers of staff and clients, the real dirty side of politics is now in play.

The question is, can he handle the constant and continual harassment and pressure the opposition will bring to bear? …

We see this by Goff insisting that the Prime Minister of New Zealand has to meet this “strikingly attractive” complainant despite the refusal to supply the text messages in advance.

Kerre Woodham writes:

What on earth would possess a man to think he could engage in this sort of behaviour and get away with it? Especially when one of the women was a Labour Party member.

He should be dismissed for that sort of poor judgment alone. There may well be no law against being a randy old goat but some of the allegations make for very uncomfortable reading.

Bill Ralston pronounces on the handling:

At 9.21 am on June 3, like the rest of the media, I received a short email statement from Richard Worth stating he was resigning his ministerial portfolio and would be making no further comment. Seven minutes later another arrived from Prime Minister John Key’s office saying he had accepted the resignation and would be making no further comment.

Hello? What were they thinking? A minister of the Crown resigns and the Government has nothing to say? Did anyone in the Administration seriously think journalists in newsrooms across the country would simply say, “Hey Richard Worth’s resigned but no one’s talking. Pity, well, where shall we go for lunch today?”

I think most people accept now the original press release was inadequate.

The problem with the Goff allegations is that he told Key only some considerable time, perhaps months, after first receiving the information that an Indian woman alleged Worth repeatedly made sexually inappropriate texts and phone calls to her.

He produced no affidavit from her and no texts were given to support the claim. Key instructed one of his senior staffers to investigate. Worth reportedly denied all, and threatened libel action against the woman. In a case where it was Worth’s word against an anonymous woman, Key was forced to accept his minister’s assurance.

And they still are refusing to provide the texts!

And finally the HoS editorial has some advice:

It is probably telling that, when asked on radio what he would do if criminal charges were laid, Key said that he could not sack Worth twice. It plainly implied that he did sack the minister and allowed the public announcement of a resignation as a face-saving gesture. If so, it is plainly the only slack the PM is cutting him. Helen Clark left a back door ajar or or at least unlocked for errant ministers to return; Key makes it plain that it will be a very cold day in hell before Richard Worth holds a ministerial warrant in one of his Cabinets. …

As to Worth himself, it may be beyond his capability to feel any shame. A man who exudes a sense of entitlement disproportionate to his status, he seems incapable of showing remorse about actions that plainly warrant remorse. After a private trip to India in which he spoke in his capacity as a minister while promoting an aviation company in which he had an interest, he was carpeted by his boss but would only allow, with a pained smile, that there had been a “perception” of a conflict of interest.

Well, the crystal-clear perception in that case was everybody’s but his – and this case is beginning to look remarkably similar. Rather than hide behind the niceties of legal procedure, Worth might like to act like a man: tell the public what he said and wrote, and when and to whom. And then he could explain why he considers it acceptable behaviour for an MP, never mind a minister.

This is Richard’s problem. He has the legal issue and the political issue. The best response to the legal issue is to say nothing, but that is the worst response to the political issue.

National had it’s Northern Regional Conference at the weekend. The Northern Region is the current powerhouse of the National Party. A few years ago there was only a handful of Auckland MPs, and few were seen as heavyweights.

Today no less than 12 Ministers come from the Northern Region, plus the Speaker (who had people non stop congratulating him on having made Question Time more meaningful – which is interesting as it is National Ministers he is forcing to answer questions). It has probably been a long time since Auckland was so forcefully represented in a National Government

As expected people were in good spirits, being the first conference in Government since 1999. The Richard Worth scandal wasn’t distracting people from the business, even though it was a source of considerable black humour from some people.

The main speech was of course from John Key. No big revelations in it, but there were two things I found significant. He talked about hard drugs, and especially P, quite passionately and said that it was arguably the most corrosive thing in NZ. I think there is going to be a very significant all of Government focus on P, led by him.

The other item of significance was he basically said that community bards in the Super City will be bulk funded and have their own budgets to spend. Also John Carter said that their powers will not be left to the new Auckland Council but be defined in statute, so it sounds like they are going to be quite souped up.

John got a lot of laughs when he revealed he had paid $20 for a raffle ticket with the prize being lunch with Bill English. He said that if he won, he would give Bill a season pass for the new cycleway.

John and Bill have a very effective double act, where rather than pretend there has not been a disagreement between them at some stage, they openly acknowledge they were saying different things, and then joke about it at every opportunity. It is a very very effective way of taking the sting out of it, and also sending a strong message that while they may disagree at times, they have a strong personal rapport and are comfortable hassling each other in a very Kiwi sense of humour way.

Normally I would say the Government has no business getting involved with stopping dancing, but maybe in Jamacia there is a public health reason:

An erotic dance craze is thought to be the cause of a recent spate of broken penises in Jamaica, and now faces a government crackdown.

Must be some dance!

The UK Labour Party has lost control of the four remaining local Councils they had a majority on. This means there is not a single Council in England that has a Labour majority on it.

At this stage it looks like Labour got just 23% – 5% behind the Lib Dems on 28%. Labour lost 272 seats of the 445 it had left.

What this means is that there are 1,476 Conservative Councillors and only 159 Labour Councillors left in England. The Lib Dems have 473.

And to make it even worse for the near fatally wounded Gordon Brown, another Minister has resigned, and her resignation letter is pointed:

Several of the women attending Cabinet – myself included – have been treated by you as little more than female window dressing.

I am not willing to attend Cabinet in a peripheral capacity any longer.

In my current role, you advised that I would attend Cabinet when Europe was on the agenda. I have only been invited once since October and not to a single political Cabinet – not even the one held a few weeks before the European elections.

Ouch.

Having worked hard during this campaign, I would not have been party to any plan to undermine you or the Labour Party in the run up to 4 June.

So I was extremely angry and disappointed to see newspapers briefed with invented stories of my involvement in a “Pugin Room plot”.

Time and time again I have stepped before the cameras to sincerely defend your reputation in the interests of the Labour Party and the Government as a whole. I am a natural party loyalist. Yet you have strained every sinew of that loyalty.

Strained every sinew of loyalty. And this is what your colleagues say!

The Herald reports:

Mr Goff said yesterday that the woman was strikingly beautiful.

How helpful of Mr Goff. That will help protect her anonymity and not create more speculation.

Is he now trying to make this sound even more lurid?

Anyone got any idea why Goff thought it was a good idea to share his opinion of her attractiveness with the media?

Whale Oil received this mystery fax. The sender though forgot the fax would identify it as coming from the North Shore City Council.

John Armstrong writes:

Where to now for Richard Worth? The MP may yet face criminal charges in a court of law. He will as likely not.

There may be more information to come out, but I tend to agree with John that what is known at this stage does not indicate a criminal offence.

Regardless, there can now be little question about the verdict of the court of public opinion. And that verdict is driving the politics towards one inevitable conclusion – that Worth at least be suspended, if not expelled from the National caucus in reasonably short order.

The publicising of separate and detailed accounts from two women of alleged sexual misconduct on his part have tipped the political scales to the point where National MPs have little option but to eject him.

If he does not resign, it seems inevitable – unless Worth can make a case that he has behaved appropriately.

Putting as much distance between National and Worth is now the Beehive’s priority. However, the two weeks’ grace offered to Worth also gives Key some breathing space – as does the fact that Parliament is not sitting next week. That means no question time for Labour to try and score points over Key’s handling of the whole sorry episode.

It needs to be resolved by Caucus next Tuesday.

The Dom Post reports:

A worker in an MP’s office has been banned from Wikipedia the volunteer web encyclopedia for trying to censor information about his boss.

The website’s entry for Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga, National MP for Maungakiekie, was repeatedly tampered with on Thursday morning.

Wikipedia users identified the computer as being from Parliament by its IP address and banned the user for a week for the “conflict of interest” and lack of explanation for the changes.

Mr Lotu-Iiga yesterday denied editing the entry himself, saying a member of his staff had done it. But he defended the changes, which related to his dual role as an MP and Auckland city councillor. …

Mr Lotu-Iiga said he had not read the page until contacted by The Dominion Post yesterday, but downplayed it as “not a biggie for me”.

“I have guys in my office who look after PR and where I am in the media, and one of them noticed that someone was tampering with it.”

After reading the piece, he said some of it was inaccurate because he regularly attended council meetings. “I’m happy to take some criticism, but I think the wording is a bit strong. Somebody from my office thought it was appropriate to take it down.”

Okay it looks like some staffers need a tutorial on how to edit Wikipedia. Here are my guidelines for editing a political page:

1. Use the discuss page for that page you wish to edit. State why you want to make the change.
2. So for example in this instance, the staffer should have said “I propose to delete the sentence that criticises the Council attendance record as the Herald has reported it is 86%, and higher than many others”
3. Then if after a couple of days if no one has objected,make the edit, and refer to the discussion page in your one line summary of the edit
4. If people do object to deleting the reference, then negotiate on the discuss page a compromise that people can live with – such as maintain the criticism, but also include the rebuttal.
5. You don’t have to, but personally I would always identify yourself making the edit,so no-one can suggest you are being underhand
6. If you make an edit, and someone reverses it, don’t just make it again. Find out why someone is reversing it, and discuss it with them. Do not get into an edit war.
7. Always remember Wikipedia is meant to be a neutral point of view.

If you follow the above advice, you will avoid getting banned, and avoid embarrassing your boss.

The Herald reports:

A prominent member of the Korean community says he was once wrongly accused of inappropriate behaviour by the Korean complainant in the Richard Worth police investigation.

The man told the Weekend Herald the woman’s accusations, made in a Korean newspaper several years ago, were unfounded.

The man, who cannot be named because it would identify the complainant, said he was accused of having an inappropriate or dishonest relationship with the woman.

He said the article distressed his wife and children and he considered legal action but it was too expensive. “If it [the accusation] was true, why did she not go to police and court – why a newspaper?”

I’m not sure this affects the political problems for Worth, but it may well be a factor in whether the Police believe there was criminal offending.

Fran O’Sullivan makes this point:

But even if the police do not lay criminal charges – an outcome Key was hinting at – the allegations that Worth has been leveraging his official position to extract favours cannot simply be swept under the carpet.

This is not a matter of morality. Many marriages break up in Parliament and MPs stray from their partners and find new spouses.

But what doesn’t go with the territory are the allegations – made under Parliamentary privilege – that Worth also tried to extract sexual favours from an Indian woman for government-appointed positions.

The similiarity in both cases is that the role as an MP and Minister has been used to gain a conquest. Now again these are just allegations – and we are yet to hear from Dr Worth.

The Herald reveals evidence that was supressed. Would it have made a difference if made known to the jury? Who knows?

David Bain told a school friend that he could rape a woman and use his paper round as a false alibi, according to secret evidence that was suppressed during his murder trial.

The jury in the 12-week trial never heard the witness statements of the former Bayfield High School students, as the Court of Appeal ruled that the Crown evidence was too prejudicial against Mr Bain.

Now that Mr Bain has been found not guilty of murder, the Herald can reveal the evidence of Mark Buckley and Gareth Taylor, who say Mr Bain planned a rape of a female jogger while at high school. …

The pair told police Mr Bain had a sexual interest in the young woman and told Mr Buckley in 1990 that he could use his paper round to “get away” with the proposed crime. …

“Mr Buckley’s evidence is that the appellant proposed to free up time for this offending by arriving at the usual times at houses where he would normally see the residents (thus suggesting a normal delivery round) but delivering papers at other houses much earlier than usual,” said the Court of Appeal judgment.

Another Herald story covers the reasons for the acquital.

Chris Trotter pulls no punches, but people may be surprised at his targets:

WHAT IS IT with left-wing women? Why does it take a Cactus Kate to spell out the bleeding-bloody-obvious about Phil Goff’s damsel-in-distress? And, where’s the advantage, when it comes to living a fulfilling, exciting and, yes, occasionally risky life, of behaving like a permanently helpless victim?

So Dr Richard Worth hits on women. So what? It’s a thing men do. Some with genuine style and panache, others with all the finesse of a slobbering dog. Women worthy of the name take the stylish ones to bed, and tell the slobberers to take themselves somewhere else.

And, if the silly sods refuse to take the hint? Well, that’s what, workmates/bosses/girlfriends/boyfriends/husbands and, if worse comes to worst, police officers are for.

By the sounds of things, Dr Worth is a slobberer. A slobberer, moreover, who seems to have real difficulties taking the hint. Presumably, that’s why he’s become the subject of a serious allegation of wrong-doing, and why his political career lies in ruins.

If you behave like a slobbering prat, entirely unmindful of your responsibilities as a husband, a father, a minister of the Crown, a member of Parliament, a member of the National Party caucus (not to mention a member of the human race) then you deserve nothing better. …

Sex is a thing that grown-ups do. Learning to negotiate one’s way through the reefs of lust and longing is, therefore, an important and inescapable part of becoming a mature human-being. In an culture (one of the very few cultures, in fact) which proclaims and enforces the principle of sexual equality, it looks really bad when left-wing “feminists” start behaving like a bunch of Victorian maidens confronted with a naked table-leg.

If “girls can do anything”, then surely they can tell some randy old bugger to fuck-off and leave them alone?

And now the complainant is refusing to provide the text messages in advance of a meeting. This doesn’t seem a reasonable request to deny.

In fact considering the allegations have been promoted and publicised, it would be very useful for the public to be able to read both the texts received and sent to be able to form an opinion.

I’m no defender of Richard Worth. In fact my language about him has been very harsh. But having the full text conversations released does not seem inapproprate – especially as the identity of the complainant remains private.

The jury has found David Bain not guilty.

Regardless of my personal views on who did it, he has won his day in court and the jury’s verdict stands. Joe Karam will feel a strong sense of vindication.

Ironically I believe Bain should thank the Police. If they had not stuffed up aspects of the original investigation, a different verdict might have occurred – but they did, and there was reasonable doubt

It will be interesting if he applies for compensation, as that required convincing a QC on the balance of probabilities you were innocent.

Finally as this saga comes to an end, let us remember the dead – brave Stephen, Laniet, Arawa, Margaret and Robin.

And again regardless of my personal views on who did it, let us hope David has a quiet future, where he can finally move on.

I wonder how many pages the newspapes tomorrow will devote to the story? Half a dozen?

UPDATE: You can vote in the blog poll in the side bar on whether or not you agree with the verdict.

Matthew Hooton hits the mark in NBR today. Go buy a copy for the full column, but here are some extracts:

It’s embarrassing to even chronicle Labour’s descent into economic lunacy this week but it now seriously proposes that borrowing to invest in global sharemarkets is not only a good idea but a one-way bet.

Borrow no matter how gaping our fiscal hole, nor how long the books will remain in the red, Labour insists.

This and only this, it claims, will stop superannuation entitlements to those aged 44 or younger being butchered.
It’s sad seeing Phil Goff reduced to such nonsense. Clearly, he now has no expectation of ever becoming prime minister.

Basically Goff has said that no matter how fire the deficit or debt is, he supports borrowing to save.

Dr Cullen launched his fund when permanent surpluses were forecast. With zero gross debt being on the medium-term horizon, it made sense to establish a sovereign wealth fund.

Connecting it with superannuation, though, was entirely political. Even Dr Cullen made clear there was no link to future entitlements and future taxpayers were always going to have to meet 89% of costs.

Bill English’s decision not to borrow for the fund will increase that by just 3%.

Moreover, in national-income terms, Mr English’s decision relates to just 0.2% of GDP from 2030.

It is ridiculous to worry about such a number. The smallest economic shock over the next two decades – positive or negative – could double or eliminate it, as could small productivity changes.

The media hysteria over the suspension has been put into context by Matthew. 0.2% of GDP.

Failing that, maintaining current entitlements would simply require reducing our surplus or increasing our deficit by 0.2% of GDP, 20 years hence. That hardly justifies the preposterous notion that we should borrow more now to invest in stocks.

Yet that is what Labour is demanding we do.

In reply, Mr Goff says governments can’t lose. He bases this on the banal observation in a Treasury paper that long-term returns from a diversified portfolio are likely to match the market average which, most probably, will exceed the risk-free rate over time.

Armed with these Corporate Finance 101 assumptions – and apparently with certain knowledge that sharemarkets are about to bounce back – Mr Goff demands that Mr English borrow another $20 billion over the next decade, and calculates it will deliver a net return of $8 billion sometime in the future.

No other politician in the developed world would contemplate such lunacy. Take Mr Goff’s argument to its logical conclusion and why stop at $20 billion?

Why not $200 billion to get $80 billion profit, dead cert?

Make it $2 trillion or more and perhaps tax could be abolished altogether with all government services being funded through the sharemarket.

This isn’t Goffonomics. It’s Goofynomics.

A name is born.

Mr Goff should ask why no other political leader in the history of the world has proposed this before.

Perhaps it’s because they understand it’s not government’s role to borrow from taxpayers yet to be born to risk on Wall Street with the promise of free money in the future.

What amuses me most of all is how Phil Goff treats a 50 year Treasury prediction of returns on managed funds as the holy writ, when Treasury can’t even predict from month to month what the deficit will be.

I’m sad that Manners Mall is going to be butchered by having buses run through it.

I can just remembers the days before it went pedesterian only.

The only upside is the possibility that a bus may run over one of the street kids who loiter in the Mall.

I speculated this morning that Goff may have known about the earlier complaint for as long as 75 days. I was wrong. It seems he said on Morning Report that he was alerted way back in November 2008 – within days of the alleged harrassment beginning.

So in fact Goff knew about this for six months – including most of the period where the alleged 100 phone calls and texts occured. And then three months after they stopped, then raised it with the PM.

Cactus Kate also raises issues around why was Worth not told to stop early on.

I don’t think any of this excuses the alleged behaviour though.

The hypocrisy from Labour on this issue is quite stark. They are saying Key should not have taken Worth’s word for it, and investigated further.

Now Worth not only denied the allegation, he wrote that he was prepared to sign a statutory declaration that they are false. This is a sworn oath on penalty of perjury – Jeffery Archer got a long jail sentence for making such a false oath. So you had a barriaster and solicitor of the High Court, an MP, and the Associate Minister of Justice saying he will sign a sworn statutory declaration, against a second hand complaint with no supporting documentation.

Sure with benefit of hindsight you can argue one should have asked for the text messages – but the complainant herself has said the text messages by themselves prove nothing without the phone calls.

Now for the hypocrisy compare Labour’s position on Owen Glenn’s donation to Winston Peters legal fees.

Helen Clark admitted that she had known for over six months that Glenn said he donated to Peters. She phoned Peters who denied it, and she left it there – saying it was not up to her to investigate – depute this being a breach of the Cabinet Manual.

Now Peters did not, as Worth did, offer to sign a statutory declaration. He did not state in writing they were false. He did not say he was so convinced they were false he would sue anyone repeating them.

So the double standard from Labour is immense. In Helen’s case she had direct first hand testimony from Owen Glenn, on a mater of absolute fact (did he donate to Winston’s legal fees or not – can be proven within minutes), and a mere verbal denial from Winston. And Labour says Helen was right to take Winston at his word, even though this was a simple factual matter that could have been proven by a request to Glenn for a copy of the bank transfer.

And here we have a PM who has an anonymous allegation from a Labour Party activist, who will not be named, who has not supplied any documentary evidence – against a Minister who denies it in writing, and says he will sign a statutory declaration at risk of perjury if false.

Now sure a reasonable person can say both Clark and Key should have inquired further. And a reasonable person could say neither Clark nor Key should have inquired further – you trust a Minister unless there is direct written proof. Also one can very reasonably say Key pushed as far as he could (given the offer of a statutory declaration) but Clark did not (as it was a simple factual matter which could have been proven in minutes)

But how can anyone reasonably claim Clark was right not to inquire further, while Key was wrong not to do so?

I’m sure some of the commenters will give it a good go though.

The election results are not even through yet, and Brown already has a crisis.

A third Cabinet Minister has resigned this week, and told Brown he should resign as PM. His letter says:

“We both love the Labour Party. I have worked for it for 20 years and you for far longer.

‘‘We know we owe it everything and it owes us nothing. I owe it to our party to say what I believe no matter how hard that may be. I now believe your continued leadership makes a Conservative victory more not less likely.

‘‘That would be disastrous for our country. This moment calls for stronger regulation, an active state, better public services, an open democracy. It calls for a Government that measures itself by how it treats the poorest in society. Those are our values, not David Cameron’s.

‘‘We therefore owe it to our country to give it a real choice. We need to show that we are prepared to fight to be a credible Government and have the courage to offer an alternative future.

‘‘I am therefore calling on you to stand aside to give our Party a fighting chance of winning. As such I am resigning from Government.

Brown is gone – either this year, or at next year’s elections. What I am interested in is who will be the next Leader of the Labour Party?

And I wonder how happy Tony Blair is today?

The Press editorial:

During his six months in the job he had distinguished himself by quickly becoming the weakest link in the administration of Prime Minister John Key. The final straw was the police investigation into serious sexual accusations against Worth which made it untenable for him to continue to hold a ministerial warrant. Key, quite correctly, demanded his resignation and has made it clear that if this had not been given he would have sacked Worth.

Labour leader Phil Goff now has the gall to claim that Key has displayed a lack of leadership, as the Prime Minister had known of the issue for a week before acting. Yet Key actually showed a sense of natural justice in making his own inquiries into the accusations before casting Worth adrift.

And never mind Goff sitting on another allegation for up to 75 days before acting.

Effectively sacking Worth was also a stark contrast to Labour’s refusal to sack New Zealand First leader Winston Peters before the last election when accusations of funding irregularities were swirling around him. Admittedly it is easier for a prime minister to punish a member of his own party, but Labour’s refusal to act decisively over Peters for political reasons was a real failure of leadership.

And Goff voted against the Privileges Committee report. He voted to say that Winston did nothing wrong.

Where Key may be faulted is in his initial statement about Worth on Wednesday morning. In it, Key repeated Worth’s own line about “private” matters prompting the resignation.

Although Key would not have wanted to prejudice the police investigation, he still should have indicated that the reason for the resignation was the inquiry into Worth’s conduct and not ill health or a family bereavement.

Which is the point I originally made.

Even if the police inquiry clears Worth, he will clearly not regain a Beehive post, as several of the former government’s suspended ministers did, which reflects a tough streak in Key.

Unlike the previous Government that put fallen Ministers back into the Ministry on numerous occasions.

Key cannot sack Worth from Parliament, although the MP could be expelled from the National caucus. But even if Worth stays on as a lonely National backbencher, his chances of receiving a safe list position for the next election are nil.

Less than nil.

Well that is quick work. NZPA reports:

Just hours after Green Party members of Parliament released details of their travel and accommodation expenses, Speaker Lockwood Smith announced that a disclosure regime for all MPs’ expenses will be developed.

The Greens’ release yesterday followed a pledge by new co-leader Metiria Turei to disclose the information as pressure continues for MPs to be more transparent in how they spend taxpayers’ money.

Dr Smith said a cross-party meeting was held yesterday afternoon to discuss the extent to which expenses should be disclosed.

“A regime for public disclosure of expenses by MPs will be developed as quickly as possible,” he said.

“The committee was conscious of the public interest in this issue and agreed to develop a disclosure regime … Members of the cross-party committee will take the ideas discussed back to their respective parties.”

Kudos to the Greens for their voluntary disclosure. The NZPA story has one aspect wrong though:

The seven MPs not based in Wellington claimed between $1386 and $2000 for accommodation when in the capital.

This is not their claim for the four months in total, but the amounts they claim every month. And it is this area that I have some questions. Let us look at the Greens statement.

I’m not too interested in the level of airfares, or taxis as that is simply the cost of doing the job. There is no self gain from these expenses. And in fact it can often be the harder working the MP, the more their expenses will be. An MP who doesn’t attend any community events will have far less travel expenses than an MP who is doing 80 hour weeks covering the electorate.

What I am interested in is how much each MP claims for their Wellington accommodation expenses. And for the Greens they are:

1. Jeanette Fitzsimons $2,000/mth = $24,000/year
2. Catherine Delahunty $2,000/mth = $24,000/year
3. Kevin Hague $1,950/mth = $23,400/year
4. Sue Bradford $1,560/mth = $18,720/year
5. Kennedy Graham $1,560/mth = $18,720/year
6. Metiria Turei $1,467/mth = $17,604/year
7. Keith Locke $1,386/mth = $16,636/year

Now the question for the Green Party, is who is that expense paid to? In the past the Greens have avoided the ban on paying yourself rent, by having their Superannuation Fund buy the houses they stay in, and have the taxpayer pay rent to their Super Fund.

If their Super Fund is receiving the rent from all seven MPs, that is $143,080/year or $429,240 over the parliamentary term of rent.

Could someone from the Green Party confirm how many of the seven MPs are havung the taxpayer pay rent to their superannuation fund, and which ones?

Note that Fitzsimons and Delahunty have maxed out their expenses to the maximum $24,000 a year.

The NZ Herald has talked to the complainant.

With a police investigation underway, I’m not going to speculate too much on what happened. However what I will say is that it is clear that it was appropriate for Worth to be sacked as a Minister, regardless of whether there is a criminal element.

Phil Goff has been complaining about how long it took for John Key to investigate Richard Worth over the complaint that led to his suspension – he said a week was too long.

But it appears that he spent months sitting on an earlier complaint, before talking to the PM about it.

The Dom Post has a pdf of the statement from the married Labour Party activist. I should make clear that there is no criticism of her. In fact I think it is regrettable that she has been forced into making the statement. But the statement raises some questions of timing. It says there were 40 texts and 60 phone calls from 26 November 2008 to 23 February 2009.

These dates are very specific, and it is not clear if the communications stopped on 23 February 2009. If they did stop, then why was the matter referred to Phil Goff in May?

But you keep reading the statement, and it mentions going to Phil Goff earlier in the year. Now Goff did not approach John Key until 9 May 2009, yet he may have had the complaint as far back as 23 February – 75 days before the 9th of May.

The Herald has also worked out there was a delay:

But Mr Goff was questioned yesterday about his handling of the matter. He did not approach Mr Key until early May, some time after he had found out about the matter.

Asked why he waited so long to raise it, Mr Goff said he had several conversations with the woman and her husband and the matter had been embarrassing for them.

“It took the woman and her family some time to determine how best to deal with the matter that was obviously troubling to them.”

His main concern had been to protect the privacy of the woman and that was why he took the matter to Mr Key privately.

It took 75 days?

Also Goff got details wrong:

Mr Goff had said there was email evidence of Dr Worth’s communications, but yesterday said he was wrong and there were only texts.

As I have said previously, I thought Goff acted appropriately in raising the matter privately. And he kept the matter private when he got a response. Presumably the texts/calls had stopped – and that was the desired outcome.

But since then he has tried to be holier than thou, and if you try to do that, then his own actions come under scrutiny. People ask how long did he sit on the complaint for? Why did he not gather up evidence and pass it onto the PM’s Office. Why did he not respond with said evidence when Key came back to him?

The fall and fall of Richard Worth is the title of my latest Dispatch from St Johnnysburg at NBR. Sort of speaks for itself.

Comments can be made at NBR.