GUEST BLOG: Te Reo Putake – How Odd of Todd, how Ill of Bill

 

Three quick questions over the Barclay/English affair.

First up; who else knew?

Was the then PM, John Key aware? The money paid to the abused worker came from a budget under his control. In March last year, Key said:

“From time to time, when you get a change of MP, you will get changes to staff, because the style’s a bit different, so I don’t have any other details other than that.”

This statement was made a month after Bill English texted a National Party electorate worker saying he knew Barclay had made the recordings. If Key genuinely did not know the details, why did English hide them from him?

Secondly; what is this crap about Todd Barclay being bound by confidentiality?

The ending of the employment relationship is a matter between an employer and an employee. Barclay is neither. He simply should not have been involved in the resolution of the employment dispute, which ended in a larger than usual payment to the abused worker.

The termination agreement and final settlement, a copy of which is presumably lodged with the Mediation Service, is between Parliamentary Services and their former worker, electorate agent Glenys Dickson. It should not and probably cannot bind a third party, even one directly involved in the dispute.

If he’s not a party to the settlement, and it does contain a confidentiality clause, how does he even know what things he cannot talk about? Who broke confidentiality to tell him?

Frankly, the settlement has nothing to do with Todd Barclay in a legal sense and he is simply hiding from the truth yet again.

But then, this is a man who took money from the tobacco industry. His lack of a moral compass is what made him an ideal candidate to be a National Party MP in the first place.

The real surprise is that Bill English would try and cover up for him. Sure, he watched John Key bullshit for 8 years, but English must have known that he doesn’t have Keys evasive skills.

The third question is relatively simple; will Bill English lead National into this year’s election or will the prospect of him snatching defeat from the jaws of victory scare his caucus into getting the knives out?

 

Te Reo Putake – Socialist, vegetarian, contrarian and footballer, Te Reo Putake was until recently the wittiest, most engaging and most infuriating writer at The Standard Blog where he was banned during their latest identity politics purge. TRP intends to continue battling for the battlers and kicking against the pricks in real life and here at the Daily Blog.