McClay in Court
The Herald reports:
Former Government minister Roger McClay appeared in court today to face charges of obtaining or using a document to obtain a pecuniary advantage.
The 56 charges relate to alleged offending involving $26,000 between November 2005 and December 2008. An additional charge was today withdrawn.
At Auckland District Court today, Defence lawyer Guyon Foley did not enter a formal plea but said that his client denied the allegations against him.
The former National Party politician was bailed to reappear in court on April 23.
It will be interesting to see the formal plea. I have no knowledge of the charges beyond what I read in the media. However based on those reports, the case seems to be one that is easily proven or disproven.
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Tags: Roger McClay
March 12th, 2010 at 5:31 pm
I think an end to travel perks for ex-MP’s should be implemented. I am sure if the Auditor-General widened her current enquiry to included ex-MP’s, that further abuses of the Parliamentary travel system would be uncovered.
The fact is, we the taxpayer simply cannot rely on MP’s (either current or past) to manage this type of perk, without them rorting the system.
We pay our politicians handsomely, yet a Cabinet Minister on almost $1/4 million salary charges up a $9.50 hamburger on his Government-issued credit card. Then we have an MP convicted of abusing taxi-chit vouchers, and now we have a former Minister ripping off a Children’s charity and World Vision, through double-dipping by charging them mileage for his travel, but in fact using his ex-MP’s Parliamentary travel perk. What would scrutiny of his time as Childrens Commissioner uncover???
In his long career as a Politician and Government bureaucrat we the taxpayer would have probably paid out a couple of million dollars in salary to McClay, and what does he do? He defrauds us of $25,000.
These travel perks for ex-MP’s must be brought to an end, now. We simply can not trust them not to abuse the privilege.
March 12th, 2010 at 5:49 pm
I think it is a bit more than an open and shut case.
Starting with the 90% air travel subsidy for 12 flights a year:
a. OK for private travel even on a whim or visiting a prostitute (example only, I am not implying Roger did the latter).
b. Morally not OK for travel related to MP’s business interests including directorships or employment (may even be against the rules).
c. Probably OK for travel where the ex MP is furthering charitable works as a voluntary gesture. Can be hard to distinguish from a. (DPF could clarify this)
Roger McClay’s travel would appear to fall within c. and may not breach subsidy rules. A charity which he chairs may reimburse some of his air travel but subject to a tight budget. I suspect what Roger has done is to seek reimbursement of his 10% from the charities plus ground transport (shuttles etc) at mileage reimbursement rates.
If such reimbursement left him net ‘in pocket’ I would agree he has a case to answer, but surely he is not that daft.
If he broke even or was slightly out of pocket, he could argue that there was no criminal intent, and if the judge accepts this, he would be acquitted. Arguably, claiming mileage in such cases could be considered misleading, but who was disadvantaged? I do hope that Crown Law or the police prosecutor has done an objective appraisal of the law on this point.
March 12th, 2010 at 6:03 pm
The Hon Roger McClay is not the first ex MP to face trial on the use of the holiday airfare entitlement for business purposes; Hon David Butcher was successfully prosecuted for using the holiday airfare entitlement to attend a work related conference in Washington (I think). From memory David Butcher didn’t not claim the travel as an expense elsewhere, he simply traveled for business purposes not strictly and solely holidaying.
For the record David Butcher is one of the good guys (I don’t know Roger McClay).
Its probably time the scheme was closed down or set to expire when the number of years under the entitlement equals the number of years in Parliament. That would fix the complaint of ex MP’s that the holiday entitlement was in lieu of salary when in Parliament (only arguable since it wasn’t formally included in MPs salary calculations until 2003. Thus 15yrs in Parliament and they get 15yrs of entitlement – us it then lose it. Seems fair.
March 12th, 2010 at 6:24 pm
So did McClay say he might stand as an independent or are we past that ugly ugly chapter of politicians being above the law when there are tight elections to be won?
March 12th, 2010 at 8:37 pm
“stand as an independent ”
All MPs should be independents..not sycophant with no election expenses. but then we would need a whole new electoral system. I here the Jury team in England is pushing for mass independent MPs to be elected on a foundation of referendums.
Their motto “Step Forward or Stop Complaining”…
Their Proposals:
Staying in or leaving the European Union
Setting up an English Parliament for English matters
Reducing the number of MPs by a third (from 650 to 433)
Changing Commons elections to proportional representation
Requiring referendums on petition by 5% of the electorate
Limiting government borrowing to 10% of expenditure
Protecting bank customer deposits from casino banking
Limiting benefits to 80% of the after tax minimum wage
Sentencing violent criminals to ‘army style’ punishment
Limiting UK troops in Afghanistan to the NATO average
March 12th, 2010 at 8:38 pm
Chris – A completely defensible way would be to assess the average annual cost of the perk and divvy that up among the eligible MP’s as a pension supplement, or even as a lump sum proportioned on life expectancies. End of problem.
March 12th, 2010 at 8:45 pm
There should be no perks at all once they leave office. It is outrageous that after nine years as an MP they get a travel perk for the rest of their lives. No other employer offers this type of life-long reward, because they could not justify it.
What makes it worse is that there is no shortage of people wanting to be MP’s, so with such an overseas-supply of job applicants there is no reason at all to keep rewarding them after they have left office.
March 12th, 2010 at 10:44 pm
My understanding is that the problem isn’t with using the travel perk.
The problem is that having used the perk, he then lodged an expense claim with the charity to be reimbursed for driving the trip that he actually flew.
It is quite right that he be charged with using a document (the expense claim) for pecuniary advantage.
March 13th, 2010 at 12:06 am
from the herald article DPF links to;
Only 12, hell who wouldn’t rip off a charity when the tax payer only picks up 90% of 12 return flights a year. It’s not like he’s the only one who’s ever done it, the rules are confusing so I think we should caution his administrator against such bungling in the future. Lets move on.
March 13th, 2010 at 3:39 am
I’ve been following all this with interest, as I know someone on one of the charity boards involved in this case. I also know someone from Parliamentary Services that has been interviewed by Police about this case.
In response to Peterwn “c. Probably OK for travel where the ex MP is furthering charitable works as a voluntary gesture.” I know for certain that McClay was being paid a monthly fee, over and above his expenses – so there was no voluntary gesture involved – he was employed by a charity to do a job, and he was not a director or board member! It was also in question what exactly he was doing in his “paid role” – and there was some suggestion that McClay had got his job because the Chief exec of the charity had offered him an Old Boys job through National Party links.
I think if you look into the common denominator in all the charities, it is likely that there is some kind of National Party link, and that there may not have been too many questions asked of Mr McClay by the charities involved, because of this relationship.
March 13th, 2010 at 11:09 am
Kabroad … didn’t McClay sever his links with the National Party (or had them severed for him) when he jumped ship and went to work for NZ First and Winston Peters and ended up one of the trustees of the super sensitive and infamous Spencer Trust?