$500,000 in political donations associated with fast track projects
Companies and shareholders associated with 12 fast-track projects gave more than $500,000 in political donations to National, Act and New Zealand First and their candidates, RNZ analysis shows.
The projects include a quarry extension into conservation land and a development whose owner was publicly supported by National MPs during a legal battle with Kāinga Ora.
Infrastructure Minister Chris Bishop and Regional Development Minister Shane Jones have both told RNZ that perceived or actual conflicts of interest were managed during the selection process for projects to be included in the proposed Fast-track Approvals Bill.
“We followed the Cabinet process, and people can go and search themselves as to what donations have been made either to myself or to the party,” Jones told Morning Report.
An RNZ analysis of donations shows entities and individuals associated with 12 of the 149 projects that will be written into the Bill donated to National or its candidates in 2022 or 2023. These projects will be assessed by expert panels as to whether they proceed through the fast-track process.
Two also donated to NZ First or Shane Jones, and two donated a total of $150,000 to Act within the same period.
The venal corruption of this Government is now nakedly apparent to even the most devoted Right Wing voter.
As TDB has been pointing out since this Government founded, their donor class are the ones directing policy, and that policy is all focused on reducing regulation and limiting obligations to engage with local Māori.
The attack on Māori rights is really a Trojan Horse for a privatisation agenda pushed by far right International Think Tanks like the Atlas Network, the very same Atlas Network that recently threatened The Daily Blog.
We are seeing a blitzkrieg of hard right culture war revenge fantasies masquerading as social policy to distract from the real agenda of removing regulation for the Rights Donor class.
The Right have Super Political Lobbyists like Costello, Jones, Mckee, Todd Stephenson, even Winston, who were former consultants and now in power are ramming through their agenda with as little scrutiny as possible.
They are making it a culture war when it’s actually a class war.
This Government are hiding the ecological damage for their mining industry donor class behind Fast Track projects of genuine worth and hoping Kiwis are too fatigued to respond.
This is environmental vandalism masquerading as infrastructure at a time when the South Island is drenched in extreme rain fall.
On the one hand we have a climate that is burning, on the other hand we have a Government enabling the polluters who are causing the planet to burn.
This Government took $500 000 and then change the rules for those who donated.
How easily played are you New Zealand?
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It’s open season for coruption and investagative journalists have gone on holiday.
How come no one has bothered to get on record if Knuckles, mayors and other council/government officials have used decrypted apps, message boards or other non official channels to discuss the shit they’ve collaborated on?
The 4C’s – climate change collaborating cunts
Agreed ,the media are just pathetic pansies now .For 6 years they hounded every government minister demanding they resign or be sacked for no real reason .Now there is deadly silence while the country is getting flushed down the toilet by self interested lobby groups .
Then the media companies expect us to pay for their no news offering .Daily we are fed a diet of kindergarten news .Where is the mass attack on the incompetent Willis and her 3 billion blow out of the deficit and increased borrowing .One news site even tried to make out that the blow out from 9 billion to 12 billion was in fact only 1 billion ,that is how biased they are .
Where is labour greens tpm on this corruption? Can they not say anything headliney enough to force their way into the narrative. Why are there actual lobbyists in the parliament with scalps still attached to skulls?
Exactly
..Willis and Luxon’s handling of the economy has been abysmal!!
They clearly never did any basic physics …” Every action has an equal and opposite reaction” …can be applied to all aspects of life.
Thinking that they could just fire an educated workforce of 10,000, have a net loss off 55,000 workers to Australia and beyond, and have unemployment soaring, all directly caused by their ill thought through stupidity has now placed N.Z in a terrible position…a death spiral of which there is no escape.
They talked up a big game but l
It seems risky for the government to guarantee to purchase houses from developers that may not sell in the private market so that banks will fund the projects.
The right normally try not to intervene and leave it to the market. This is a similar mechanism used by the failed Kiwibuild initiative.
The safest way forward would be to get the developers to commit making the houses , (in the guarantee) suitable for social housing should the government be forced to buy them.
Ireland did a similar ting and the property market collapsed.They also reduced regulation and had to demolish new homes because of the dodgy standard of the builds .
NZ is a small country so friendships and business relationships are bound to cross over
.Given the track record of the last Labour government you should not be surprised at businesses donating to Coalition partners.
The same small size makes it easy to spot blatant corruption and or 3 year election gap means any cases would be fresh memory when choosing our next government.
There is a difference between making the hard unpopular calls and corruption. One of the many faults of Labour’s time was they failed to make hard calls .
As each of the 149 fast track ideas are discussed I am sure this site will be waiting with batted Breath to expose any corruption.
Trevor, Labours track record pales into insignificance compared to the carnage and destruction of Nationals track recordin just 6 months. Your supposed very own food banks are having to close up, retail stores by the hundreds closing.
Oh, and it’s not just this site, specialists in the field of health have exposed the appalling governance of health and in particular the “hard call” National made to reverse the smoking cessation legislation! Thanks to National people are living out on the streets and in a recession. And all you can come up with is Nationals making the hard calls and Labour’s track record was bad.
Fuck you are pathetic. You mention nothing of Willis’s overspend and we still have no ferries, no Dunedin hospital and record numbers now leaving for Australia.
“NZ is a small country so friendships and business relationships are bound to cross over”
In that case make the donations rule incredibly transparent and corruption-limiting. No organisation donations. No trusts. No companies. No unions. No Iwis. No political charities. Donations only from a real person with ID and a receipt issued. Make the maximum limit $100. Then the rich and the poor can fund political parties equally. Political parties would have to really structure their offering and the education around their offering and subsequent implementation to serve a broad consensus of the people.
Trev,If Labour did fuck all and so called failed to deliver why did Luxon spend the first 6 months repealing everything that labour delivered or had in the process of delivery .aND IN THAT SAME TIME WHAT HAVE NATIONAL DELIVERED EXCEPT MORE DEBT and rising unemployment and people leaving in the thousands each week .Also the people that national bleated about NZ needing to bring in are now getting shafted because where are those jobs that we needed to import people to fill ?
Very poignant gordon, Trevor misses the point of Luxon and his government cancelling all Labours hard calls, unless Trevor means taxing the wealthy appropriately, keeping the smokefree policy Reti axed, putiing in a CGT and gifting landlords tax exemptions.
Trevor seems to think smoking and death is a good call, foodbanks and business across the country going to the wall and underfunding health as “popular”.
What rubbish Trevor. All this “hard call” crap is a smoke screen. The ferry decision is stupid not hard. Jones taking money from mining interests and fishing interests is not a f’ing hard call at all. Giving tax breaks to landlords is not a hard call. Costellos bullshit hard? Nicole McKee’s lying hard?
Killer white T-Cell – get a life! The anger and envy are destroying you!
Ask Trevor, Jonzie, and I’m Right how easily tricked kiwis are. You won’t see them comment on this article because their tribal nature can’t allow them to admit these guys are bought and paid for
I notice the massive sea bed mine is full of bull shit about how much it will earn .They said 1 billion on monday now it is 500k .The so called rare vanadium is only worth $50 a ton and they will only recover 11000 tons per year so that gives an income of half a billion before expenses .Those expenses will eat up half of that and then they wont pay any tax and the remaining 250k will be sent off shore so no benefit to NZ INC,.
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