Kiwiblog

Rob Hosking at NBR reported:

At a North Shore candidates’ meeting on Tuesday, one punter asked a question from the floor about general health, gambling, alcoholism and the like. New Zealand First MP Dail Jones stood up and said it was a question of looking after yourself, eating well, and getting some exercise. “An excellent example of this would be Winston Peters,” said Jones. “His health was terrible until he changed his lifestyle and began eating mainly fish …” That was as far as he got before the audience collapsed in laughter and Wayne Mapp cried “scampi.”

Oh if only someone could have captured that on video. Classic.

Dail Jones was elected President of NZ First on several occassions – he even won on a contested ballot, so obviously has some popular support in NZ First.

But he did a terrible thing this year. He told the truth, and by telling the truth exposed how NZ First had been breaking the electoral laws of this country. This of course means he got demoted by Winston on the party list.

Seven new candidates have all been ranked higher than Jones at No 14.

What is especially shameful, if that they did not even tell Jones to his face – he found out from the party’s website.

It is ironic that WInston pressured other candidates to stand aside to let Dail Jones back into Parliament in 2007.

Jones makes the point:

“If they had followed what I had said in February and disclosed the donation, there would never have been a problem.”

Exactly.

Mr Peters said the demotion was a party decision, and he did not have a vote or any involvement in the low placing.

Of course, and you never knew about the Owen Glenn donation also.

The last pieces of the New Zealand First funding mystery were solved today, as the Herald reveals that the “close to $100,000 than $10,000″ mystery amount referred to by Dail Jones in December 2007 was a $80,000 donation from the Spencer Trust.

No wonder Peters was furious with Jones. He had accidentially revealed the existence of the Spencer Trust. As Party President Jones wasn’t even aware of the Trust – it was all Peters.

And what did Peters say at the time:

Asked if that meant “there was no big anonymous donation”, Mr Peters said “precisely”.

$80,000 is not big of course.

And in that infamous press conference:

“We have a treasurer in the party and he says it’s a consolidation of amounts around the party. He should know. One can get confused when you look at documentation and perhaps he [Mr Jones] should have spoken to the treasurer.”

Now this is fascinating. Peters refers to ti being a consolidation of amounts “around the party”. This is implying that the Spencer Trust is part of the party.

Where the $158,000 came from to “repay” NZ First’s unlawful spend at the last election:
“We’ve had anonymous donations at $10, and $20, and $50 for a long, long time because some people used to think – and it’s an attitude that still permeates New Zealand as a democracy – that one day the communists might take over and they will be all in the firing line.”

Yep all those small donations of $10, $20, $50 and oh yeah $10,000 and $25,000.

Incidentally we still don’t know where the $158,000 that should have been paid to the taxpayer went.

Now there is an interesting scenario. What if the $80,000 was made up of seperate donations each under $10,00.01? Would that have to be disclosed?

Unless the Spencer Trust is literally part of NZ First – as in an additional suffix to their main bank account – I believe the answer is yes. And it seems its money was kept in a solictor’s trust fund so the answer is they are separate. The donation is from the Spencer Trust or even the solictor’s trust fund, and was $80,000 so should have been declared.

The NZ Herald has a story which reminds me of the Three Stooges, as NZ First officials have given four different reasons for their “administrative error” of not reporting a $50,000 donation in 2005:

1. Auditor Nick Kosoof issued a letter saying “the office of New Zealand First made an administrative error
2. MP Dail Jones, president when the return was filed in April 2006, yesterday said it was Mr Kosoof who “saw it [the donation] and forgot about it”
3. NZ First’s treasurer at that time, accountant Brent Catchpole, pointed the problem back to the party, saying he could not give Mr Kosoof the full records as “a lot of the information wasn’t handed over to me as it should have been”
4. Kaye Urlich, the treasurer when it was banked, denied Mr Catchpole’s claims that records were missing, saying “he got everything he needed”.

So what excuses will be made for the false 2006 and 2007 returns?

Also Peter Williams continues to show his ignorance of electoral law:

Meanwhile, Mr Peters’ lawyer friend Peter Williams, QC, yesterday revealed that the Spencer Trust had received $80,000 from the Vela family and that New Zealand First had handed over records to the SFO.

Mr Williams told Radio New Zealand he “presumed” the Vela money had gone to New Zealand First in amounts under $10,000.

The Spencer Trust was formed only in 2005 so the Vela family’s $80,000 is different from the reported $150,000 given to the party between 1999 and 2003.

That will be fascinating if the Velas have given $230,000 in total with no disclosure. Someone joked to me that if one of their horses wins the Auckland Cup, does that mean they have got their donations back!

But Williams is wrong in saying that if the money was paid over by the Spencer Trust in amounts under $10,000 it would not have to be legally disclosed (he said yesterday there had been only one accidential law break). The law requires donations from the same source to be totalled up over the calendar year, and if the Spencer Trust is a separate entity to NZ First then money from the Spencer Trust has to be added together over the year (even if the individual donors to the Spencer Trust were under $10k).

Dail Jones is getting a reputation as an MP who teels the truth as he sees it, even when he shouldn’t.

There was a stunned silence last night at the filming of Back Benches during the discussion on polls. Jones said that he thought most people had made their mind on Helen Clark and Labour.

Host Wallace Chapman then asked him directly if he thought it was all over, or did Helen still have a chance of remaining PM after the election. Jones’ reply was along the lines of “No, no chance at all”.

Now bear in mind that NZ First is a Government party, and their Leader is a Minister in the Government – that is an extraordinary statement for a NZ First MP to make.

I didn’t write his exact words down at the time, but they were definitely unequivocal about Helen losing. I am in Auckland for most of today but someone helpful might like to download the show and stick that segment on You Tube!

NZ First has now filed its 2007 donation return, and have declared no donations over $10,000.

1. Why did it take four and a half months to file a zero return?
2. Why did NZ First break the law and refuse to file on time, saying the Leader had to be in the country before they filed, when it is a zero return?
3. As Party President Dail Jones claimed they received a close to $100,000 donation in December 2007, what is the explanation? Did Jones imagine the bank statement showing the deposit or did he confuse it with something else?
4. Could the mysterious amount received in December 2007 now be classified as an interest free loan, not a donation?
5. Who is the Party Official and the Auditor that signed off the donation return?
6. As Owen Glenn has refused to deny he has assisted NZ First, should one assume he has not assisted NZ First, or that any donation was under $10,000 or that it was an interest free loan?
7. Is the reason NZ First has not paid back the $158,000 it owes because they had to refund a large donation?
8. How did they raise $158,000 without any large donations? Lots of bingo evenings?
9. When will NZ First reveal the charities they claim to be donating the $158,000 to or are we expected to just take their word for it?
10. Again, why did it take four and a half months to file a nil donation return?

Okay the Herald do seem to be trying to get some further info out of Winston before Wednesday – well done. Claire Trevett writes:

Yesterday Mr Peters refused to say where the money was from and appeared to deny its existence.

When asked, Mr Peters said: “There’s no question ever that any such a thing ever did happen.”

Asked if that meant “there was no big anonymous donation”, Mr Peters said “precisely”. When further pressed he said: “I have no idea what is being spoken of because no such thing ever happened.”

So there was no donation at all. Dail Jones was totally mistaken it seems. How could this happen? Here’s the reasons I can think of:

1. Dail Jones confused his personal bank account with NZ First’s, when he claimed he had found a close to $100,000 mystery deposit
2. It wasn’t a donation, it was an interest free loan!
3. The donation was actually the term deposit maturing, and Jones got them confused (but it was maturing in December we were told)
4. The money is actually aid money for North Korea from Condi, which Winston is meant to pass on.

Perhaps Dail Jones could release a copy of the bank statement to clear things up.

I am somewhat amazed that the press gallery have deemed it acceptable to allow Winston Peters to not provide any more details of his denial of what his own party president has claimed, until Wednesday.  This gives him six days to shall we say align what everyone says.

What other politician would be let off so lightly?  He in in Seoul tomorrow for the swearing in of the new President.  I hope one of the media outlets at least has a reporter there to ask him to explain exactly how Dail Jones is wrong, and who the money actually came from.