The stench of rotting fish

Scoopit!

Fran O’Sullivan calls today for a Commission of Inquiry into Ross Meurant’s allegations. She laments the lack of an Independent Commission Against Corruption. Further, she writes that business has had a ‘gutsful’ of Peters and his posturing.

There is clearly enough worrying murk in the public domain to warrant a full-scale inquiry into exactly what happened during the fag-end of the 1990s through to 2003 when Meurant disappeared off the local political scene.

The disclosures are not a good look. Particularly as they come on top of the earlier revelations that Peters strenuously promoted billionaire Owen Glenn for the job of consul to Monaco following a time when we now know the expat had doled out $100,000 donation to the MP’s legal cause and a similar sized loan to help Labour fund-raise after the 2005 election.

She points out that these allegations are far more substantive than the innuendo peddled by Nicky Hager in his polemic – The Hollow Men.

On business attitudes:-

Nearly 20 per cent of CEOs responding to the Herald’s Mood of the Boardroom survey believed Peters’ antics this year have brought New Zealand’s reputation as a corruption-free country into question.

It is the lack of transparency, coupled with the allegations he has slung against political opponents, that anger them.

All the chief executives I subsequently canvassed in a mini-survey last week told me they didn’t want either Clark or Key to have Peters in their governments.

In conclusion she writes:-

The allegations also need to be probed for reasons of fairness.

Consider this: the Prime Minister sanctioned an inquiry into the assistance former Labour Cabinet minister Taito Phillip Field proffered on immigration issues to Thai nationals who went on to work on his properties for little pay.

Field is now facing bribery and corruption charges and is standing on Saturday under the Pacific Party’s banner.

Key and Act leader Rodney Hide have benefited politically from the long campaign to unmask Peters’ secret donations from big business. Clark did nothing so as to keep her Government intact.

There is enough on the table to justify all three leaders calling for a proper inquiry. The cards should then lie where they fall.

Adam agrees there should be a proper inquiry and an Independent Commission Against Corruption should be established.

There is a rotten smell of stinking fish in the body politic at present.

The media should be looking at these allegations and not some non-event of a tape recording. Yet TV3 and TVNZ have made little if any mention of these allegations.