Act calls for inquiry into Zespri operations
The Act Party is calling for an urgent inquiry into Zespri’s international operations.
It comes after ONE News last night revealed a Chinese man sentenced to 13 years in prison last year for smuggling kiwifruit is appealing his conviction, claiming New Zealand company Zespri is to blame.
Liu Xiongjie pleaded guilty to criminal smuggling in China last year and was ordered to repay an estimated $7 million in unpaid customs duties.
Court documents state: “Among the smuggling accomplices, the New Zealand supplier Zespri was obviously the primary offender.”
Liu’s nephew, Jhun Si, said his uncle only pleaded guilty to get out of jail.
Act’s primary industries spokesman Don Nicolson said: “These are serious allegations and kiwifruit growers have the right to know the truth since they are being forced by the government to sell their products through this company.
ACT are a bankrupt political brand. After Rodney’s hypocrisy, after David Garret’s hypocrisy, the sexist internal bullying, the Don Brash fiasco and John Bank’s memory failure on the helicopter ride to a mansion, Dotcom’s donations and Sky City donations there is zero credit in the bank of public opinion.
In short they are a complete joke.
This doesn’t please National. They have opened the door for ACT to be relevant again by maintaining the coat tailing element of MMP to keep Epsom in play and National are going to at payment for their gerrymander.
ACT have to rebuild their political brand so enter right – the Zespri Allegations. ACT are jumping up and down about what amounts to bribes to get around Government regulation. Seeing as ACT are so libertarian in their world view that they consider tax theft and Government regulation akin to satan blocking the beauty of the free market, for them to jump up and down about the market finding ways to work around regulation seems convenient.
ACT seem to want to suddenly become champions for corporate purity as their latest attempt to rehabilitate their political brand.
Good luck with that, it will be as credible as the Aaron Gilmore charm school.
ACT? Really? They are basically United Future – a one man, one issue power-grab devoid of principle, ethics or any ideology above knee-jerk, loud-hailer popularism.
The thing is, I was never an ACT supporter in the day, but I can understand why they appealed to a certain type of person. I can’t see how that type of person would still be interested in them.
i always saw them as the activist wing of the national party (in so far as where the cash comes from)
ACT are best thought of as a think tank from which National and Labour get their ideas. They are nothing like an actual political party any more, despite the best efforts of ACT on Campus.
Follow the money. Turners and Growers have been trying for ages to get a slice of Zespri’s market. Who owns T & G? Who is a big funder of Act?
[…] we have a Chinese spy ship in our Port while it’s spying capacity is quietly avoided and a Zespri scandal that highlights the difficulty of doing business in an authoritarian culture built upon […]
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