Darnton vs Clark

It’s hard to believe it’s been five years. It’s also odd to think that five years after Pearl Harbour, both the Japanese Empire and Nazi Germany were just acrid memories. Such is the power of correctly identifying your enemy and then being prepared to win.

On the morning of September 11th, 2001 I visited the frighteningly gaudy Cao Dai church in Southern Vietnam. Caodaism is a synthesis of Buddhism, Hinduism, and Catholicism with a bit of Victor Hugo thrown in for a reason I didn’t quite follow. In the afternoon I crawled through the Cu Chi tunnels and was given a tour through an old minefield by an ex-North Vietnamese Army officer-turned-comedian. So the day was quite freaky enough long before any nutters with Stanley knives got involved.

I watched the whole thing unfold live on TV in a bar in Saigon. It was something like ten o’clock at night local time and the bar was thumping to ‘Paint It Black’ and other Tour of Duty favourites. Western TV stations, music and news, were playing silently around the room until one of us realised that something odd was going on on the news channel. Music down, TV up - all in French, but the burning building was unmistakable. There was a lot of chatter about what was going on, no one having paid attention in French classes, and wondering how you get a bomb big enough to make that hole half way up a skyscraper.

The second plane answered that question. I have never, before or since, felt what I felt in that fraction of a second when the whole awful thing became apparent. With one pulse of my heart my blood turned to ice.

Then came the Pentagon and the collapse of the towers and the rush of confused Americans with relatives in Washington and New York running in and out of various bars asking if anyone knew anything, making ruinously expensive phone calls. There were 20,000 dead. A dozen highjacked planes. The pickpockets, hookers, and tat-selling urchins that usually ply the seemingly-rich, well-lubricated crowd did not have a good evening.

The Sunday Star Times has a story this morning (”Top QC Takes PM to Court“) about this case, featuring Tony Molloy. (As usual this was blogged on Kiwiblog first. DPF must get up earlier in the morning (7am on a Sunday!) than I do.)

The emergence of Molloy - known as a tenacious battler - as senior counsel in the Darnton claim could cause further trouble for the MPs as they struggle to dampen public disquiet over the pledge card spending.

Let’s hope so.

Audrey Young, the NZ Herald’s political editor has a good piece out this morning, One One Exit For Labour. She notes that Labour’s fightback against National can only last so long because, even trying to bully National as much as they like, ultimately they have to contend with the Auditor-General’s findings. And even then they can’t do the only sensible thing and look humbled a) because they don’t know how to, always being right and all, and b)

Contrition will be out of the question if it implies in any way that Labour knowingly bent, stretched or flouted funding rules before the close election, because that meets the legal definition of a corrupt practice.

Bugger.

Young suggests that the only way to calm the waters will be to get out the chequebook. I, along with others, have said that paying it back isn’t enough. Labour knowingly stole public money to fund their election campaign, breaking the fundamental rules that separate liberal democracy from dictatorship, they refuse to admit fault even with overwhelming evidence against them, they have obfuscated and shamelessly tried to get their arms further into the till, they regard “honesty” as a political slogan with no real meaning, and they have issued threats against media outlets and opposition members who point out their misdeeds.

The only acceptable conclusion is that Helen Clark and her cronies go. She is not fit to govern. I don’t care if they resign or if more honest Labour members launch a coup against the cabal that is destroying their party. The Clark regime’s time is up.

Entirely peripheral to this case, but relevant to the mud-slinging that hs grown up around it, is this piece from Good magazine.

In the 2006 midterms, Senators Hillary Clinton (D-NY) and Rick Santorum (R-PA), both running for re-election, have raised the most money of any candidate in their respective parties. Here are the NASCAR-style uniforms they would wear if companies were proud of their political donations, and if running for senate required a flame-retardant suit.

A project for the team at Gen X-Y perhaps?

Or maybe the Prime Minister wearing the shirt off the taxpayer’s back.

Illinois’ biggest political corruption trial in years has just concluded.

Former Governor George Ryan […] was sentenced today to six years in federal prison for […] using taxpayer dollars for his campaign and other offenses.

Just saying.

Anyone with half a brain must know by now that there is something rotten in the state of New Zealand politics and the odour of dishonesty emanating from Parliament must have citizens of the capital walking the streets with pegs on their noses.

So says Garth George in a NZ Herald opinion piece commenting on the pledge card rort, Phillip Field, and the koha/lafo brouhaha.

He blames MMP, saying

That half the people in Parliament are there thanks to political party patronage and, for all their protestations to the contrary, owe the electorate no allegiance or even service leaves us powerless.

And concludes

I’m glad I like bananas.

In other news, Trevor Mallard has promised to go nuclear and start spreading tabloid gossip on opposition MPs who insist on calling the government corrupt just because they stole public money to buy an election. Presumably National will follow suit and one can only dream that Mutual Assured Destruction ensues.

The Kiwi Herald reports that Don Brash has declared a National ‘people’s government’ in exile.

We are starting at the famous Kaiaua Fish and Chip shop and then on Thursday we will head off to the Happy Wok in Botany Downs where we will probably introduce a flat tax rate.

In response to my post about GMan’s audio recording of the Prime Minister contradicting her defence to this case, Phil from Pacific Empire has found similar material in the Prime Minister’s offical hagiography, Portrait of a Prime Minister.

The idea was simple - a card, just like a credit card, with a photograph of the Party’s leader, and a series of election promises …

So in addition to the Auditor-General, the then Solicitor-General, and the Chief Electoral Officer, the list of people who thought the pledge card was electioneering also includes the Prime Minister and the Prime Minister’s official biographer.

The New Zealand Herald editorial this morning covers Labour’s problems with paying back the pledge card money stolen from the public purse and has some not very nice things to say.

One of the plans that has been floated is to pay it back (but not really) by underspending next year’s parliamentary budget. This proves that Labour just doesn’t get it. The problem is that they stole public money to pay for their electioneering. Paying it back with another set of public money is not a solution. It is, however, a perfect illustration of Labour guile.

The Herald concludes:

There is no way around Labour’s liability for its errors at the last election. It must pay the bill and call it a salutary lesson in the limits to which the public will pay for political puff.

But it must do more. In comments at Not PC, Julian makes the very good point that “paying it back” isn’t enough.

Paying it back does not impose a sanction for breaking the law and acting immorally. The amount of money is nominal. It is the fact that the government (who sets the laws of this country) believes that it can break the law with impunity.

If Labour pays the money back, or devises some scheme to pay it back, then the “pay it back” brigade will presumably be happy. Well I will not be.

And neither will I. They need to admit their wrongdoing and assure us that they will not steal public funds again. Right at the very start of this case I pointed out that Crown spending of public money not appropriated by Parliament is a violation of one of the laws that separates a liberal democracy from a dictatorship. Labour needs to decide which side of that fence they’re on.

Remember that Labour’s only possible defence against the claim that they misappropriated the money for the pledge cards is that the cards were parliamentary business and not election advertising.

GMan notes:

[T]hose things that are on TV every 10 minutes … are, in fact, 30-second mini-TV programmes altruistically designed to educate you on what it might be like if you coincidentally just happened to buy the things featured on them.

Further down in this post he reveals that he’s made a discovery in the last few days. He has a tape of Helen Clark recorded at a public meeting just before the last election.

She starts:

When I called the election I said that it was going to be about leadership and credibility and values.

Well, it’s kind of turned out that way hasn’t it?

Last election we issued another pledge card. We ticked those off as well. And this time it’s a third pledge card, and it’s going to take the form you can see there. And over the past two and a half weeks or so I’ve been announcing one-by-one the pledges which are going to go on the card, and I’ll talk about those today, and I have more to announce in the period now, leading up to the launch of the Labour Party election campaign.

Followed by half an hour of explaining how the pledge card is the centrepiece of their election campaign.

Thanks, Helen. If you could just explain that to the judge we should be able to wrap this up pretty quickly.

If “Pay It Back” is a bumper sticker slogan it might as well be on a bumper sticker, thought Duncan Bayne. You can get yours at his online store.

The target market for this product is 81% of the voting population.

Well it’s hardly a Labour Party slogan is it?

Hat Tip: Not PC.

The recent poll result that had 81% of the public demanding that Labour pay back the stolen pledge card money has the Prime Minister in a spin. PC caught her on Newstalk ZB this morning interpreting this as “81% of New Zealanders support National Party sloganeering”.

So there you have it. According to Helen Clark, honesty is nothing more than a political slogan. As I’ve said before - not fit to govern.

I’m back from a week away in Marlborough and Nelson, enjoying lots of wineries and the sunshine that’s been so lacking in Wellington recently.

A story in this morning’s Herald (Labour gives opponents more ammo with pledge card explanation) reveals that election campaign volunteers assembled the pledge card packs.

Labour Party president Mike Williams says that volunteers assembled the card packs, that the cards were an integrated part of the election campaign, and that at no time was there any request for the party to pay for the card.

My case is very simple: When spending public money, “Parliamentary business” = legal, “electioneering” = illegal. Now remind me again how the card wasn’t electioneering…

One for the “unlikely” file. David Farrar at Kiwiblog has set up a betting pool on this court case. So far, no one has placed any money at all on a Clark victory despite the ever-extending odds.

The letter from the Acting Solicitor-General that caused last Friday’s Herald headline has been removed from this site.

A story in today’s NZ Herald (MPs Knew Rules on Spending Says Watchdog) has Auditor-General Kevin Brady calling Clark’s bluff.

He says the rules were explained last year, well prior to the election, contra to Labour’s claim that the rules are being changed after the event.

He says that his report only covers expenditure in the three months prior to the last election, contra to Labour’s claim that it covers $350 million in spending back into prehistoric times and Ending The World As We Know It.

So, Labour, you are guilty as sin, you knew about it before the fact, your excuse for retrospective legislation has disappeared so lets just get on with the confession and the apology shall we?

That’s former Labour PM, Mike Moore in today’s Herald - MPs Forgiven Too Readily.

Highlights:

• New Zealand is “beginning to adopt third world standards in some areas.”
• “MPs and ministers in many countries have resigned through pure shame for less.”
• “Proportional representation has acted as a muzzle on free speech and the logic of serious debate.”
• “Sleaze seems too easily forgiven.”

Moore concludes that politicians, like babies’ nappies, need changing often, and for the same reasons.

If I think it’s time for regime change, that’s one thing. When a former Labour Prime Minister is saying, “you’re sleazy and corrupt - it’s time to go,” they have a far more serious problem.

Thanks to everyone who’s been donating to the legal fund. Your help is much appreciated.

The best letter I’ve had from a donor to date contained this gem:

I just wanted you to know that the donation money is from the interest I’ve earned off having Labour’s interest-free student loan money in my bank account this month. Thought it may as well go to a good cause.

Gosh, the ingratitude of young people these days. That election bribe was to buy your deference to The Party. How dare you?

Front page on the NZ Herald this morning is the story Official Contradicts MPs on Election Costs.

A legal letter from the Acting Solicitor-General contradicts political parties’ claims that they had approval for taxpayer-funded election spending.

…Labour leader and Prime Minister Helen Clark says the issue is essentially a dispute between the Parliamentary Service and the Auditor General.

The letter basically says two things. Firstly, that the Attorney-General should not be being sued in respect of the Parliamentary Service. This is immaterial - it all comes back to Crown Law anyway. Secondly, that the Parliamentary Service simply adminsiters payments and has no power to vet what it’s paying for.

Great to see the defendants squabbling amongst themselves.

[UPDATE 22/08: Link to the letter removed.]

Presumably, if the Parliamentary Service just rubber stamps any cheques they get, you could bill them for anything at all - like tiling your house, thus avoiding the temptation to do it under the table.

Labour has filed its Statement of Defence and it’s here for everyone to see.

My Statement of Claim (earlier post)
Labour’s Statement of Defence (pdf, 375 kB)

The main defence is, as you’d expect, that the spending was on the conduct of parliamentary business (and by implication not electioneering). This is, of course, bollocks. I’ll trust the professionals to come up with a different word. “Baloney” if you’re in the National Party.

There’s a lot of technical mumbo-jumbo throughout, which will no doubt keep a few lawyers off the streets for a while, along with a few interesting bits.

One of the highlights has to be paragraph 25a. To paraphrase “Even if we did do it (which we didn’t) everyone else was doing it too.” Last time I heard that used as a defence for anything was in fourth form.

A special comic moment comes in paragraph 28, where they claim that they were just exercising their right of free speech under the NZ Bill of Rights Act. A hint, folks: “free” speech doesn’t mean speech that someone else pays for.