BREAKING: Maurice Williamson has resigned – not every rainbow over Pakuranga has a pot of foreign investor gold in it after all

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And he is gone…

Maurice Williamson resigns as a minister

Maurice Williamson has resigned as a Minister.

It follows Herald revelations he contacted a top ranking police officer after a wealthy businessman with close ties to him was arrested on domestic violence charges.

…brilliant scoop by the NZ Herald and it has cost the head of a Minister. The dirty cronyism of National are on display now and this case comes on the heels of the long list of other grubby deals.

Now the questions. When did Key know? Is Williamson only resigning because it became public? How far did Williamson push the Police? Did Donghua Liu’s donations to the National Party have anything to do with the protections offered?

How corrupt is this and how deep does it go?

26 COMMENTS

    • There’s at least a dozen overdue for the boot – Collins may have to get in line:
      * Bill English and Hekia Parata for sustained gross incompetence.
      * John Key and Judith Collins for misleading the house and Oravida
      corruption.
      * Simon Bridges for brain explosions over mining consents.
      * Gerry Brownlee for failing to rebuild Christchurch
      * Key (medical) for the memory loss characteristic of early onset of
      Alzheimers.
      * Bennett for gratuitous and dysfunctional cruelty.
      * Tolley for corruptly benefiting from introducing non-compliant
      irrigation schemes

      Banks is gone already and one hopes that the litigous Mr McCready will find time for Dunne’s conflict of interest on ‘legal’ highs.

      • @ Stuart Munro:

        * and Murray McCully, for corruption over the job-for-Jones proposition….but that would have to include Key as well, I guess.

  1. This is best news of the week! Swift, decisive action by Key, and National get’s to refresh from one of it’s tired old guard. Good news for the CR all round.

    • “Swift, decisive action by Key”

      considering key has known of this for months i would hate to see your definition of slow

    • @ Intrinsicvalue: “This is best news of the week! Swift, decisive action by Key, and National get’s to refresh from one of it’s tired old guard.”

      That’s the spirit! Making the best of a bad situation…..

  2. Strange… I take no joy from his sacking/resignation… Maybe ‘cos of his brilliant speech on marriage equality still resonating in my mind…

    And I could think of worse ministers who deserve the royal heave-ho and kick up the back-side as they’re thrown out the door…

    • The rainbow speech hero is currently pushing a bill through parliament that will remove the need for buildings to be compliant for disabled accessibility.

      So much for all his supposed compassion.

      He is just another self-serving Nat.

  3. Compared with other similar situations where they’ve stonewalled and “ascertained proof”, not acted hastily on baseless allegations etc etc this seems amazingly quick.

  4. Not surprising really is it? Williamson abusing his MP status in an attempt to influence police in a National benefactor’s assault case, obviously keeping in line with National’s modus operandi!

    Attempting to pervert the course of justice is a criminal offence. I hope Williamson has the book thrown at him. But I won’t be holding my breath here!

    Seems ministerial and parliamentary influence and corruption is roaring through this government! I bet Key had knowledge of this ages ago and went along with it, hoping Williamson wouldn’t be caught out.

    National, corrupt from the top down! All scum. Get out Williamson and take Key with you!

    Kiwis have had enough of political bribery and corruption, with our elected officials thinking they are above the law. We deserve much better.

    • We appear to be bending over backwards for these wealthy Chinese do we really know the source of their money and their true identities.

  5. When the National party want a desired result their first move in order to turn events to their favour is to contact the police. Let us not forget our dear John and the tea tape scandal. His first reaction as prime minister of this country was to contact the police.

    http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10767545

    Also don’t you think it is incredibly suspicious that Liu (code name IOU)
    didn’t immediately plead guilty to the domestic violence charge? Was he waiting for his political ally Maurice Williamson (no relation by the way) to make his phone call. When it didn’t have the desired effect, surprise surprise he later pleaded guilty to the charge.

  6. To revisit:

    Oravida donated more than $55,000 to the National party in 2011

    One of Mr Liu’s companies made a $22,000 donation to the National party in 2012

    Obviously to get governmental priority status you must be a Platinum level donor. To reach this exalted status you must at least donate more than $20,000 to the National party. Is this a corruption free government or some kind of twisted crowd-sourcing style campaign except for corporates only!

  7. I’m with Frank on this one. I’m really pissed off with Maurice Willuamson for making a recklessly stupid mistake and enabling Key to hmake him walk the plank, because he’s one of the only Tory MPs I have any time for.

    He has been National’s maverick for some time, someone who wasn’t afraid to go against the flow if he didnt agree with the party line. When I worked at Microsoft, one of my colleagues and best mates (another leftie) had a lot to do with MW when he was ICT minister, and always spoke really highly of him.

    He has been a hardworking MP and is very popular in his electorate. His “rainbow speech” surprised many, but not those who knew him well. We were given a glimpse if what he is really like, I think.

    Yes, he’s still a “Dirty Tory”, on the wrong side of the fence but I can’t help thinking that he’s not a really nasty bastard like Bridges, Bennett and Collins and so many others who I just want to punch when I see them (I must add that I would never ever hit a woman!).

    He fucked up big time, there’s no argument there, but I feel more disappointed for him than joy for National’s embarassment. I certainly won’t feel that way if and when Crusher gets what she deserves !

    • @ Tim O’Shea: “I’m really pissed off with Maurice Willuamson for making a recklessly stupid mistake”

      He’s known in the electorate as an advocate for constituents who’ve got issues of one sort or another. I suspect that he really didn’t see anything wrong with doing this for Donghua Liu. Which makes it worse, of course: that someone as experienced as he is can’t see the line that he shouldn’t cross.

      Come September, off with their heads, the lot of them!

  8. We just need to hurryup and get to September, then we can all kick them all out!

    That will feel good.

  9. Why does anyone think he’s “resigned” as in the true sense of that’s it folks, the end? This is a John Key National government resignation and just like Phil Heatley, Nick Smith and Peter Dunne, his ministers make more comebacks than Frank Sinatra.

    Williamson will be back after the heat has died down, because this is the whole point of the façade, so in reality its not a resignation at all, rather leave from his role as a minister, without ministerial pay.

  10. “Another one down, another one down, another one bites the dust, yeeehaah!”

    If we keep it up at this rate, there won’t be any front benchers and even second row benchers left standing in the National caucus!

    Let us keep the fingers crossed, that something else comes to the surface, to finally blow Collins off her chair!

    I am starting to see a tiny bit of light at the end of the tunnel again!

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