In case I didn’t mention it, Winston has stepped down from his portfolios.
But he’s getting a pretty sweet deal. Reminds me of the millionaires who commit a crime and get home detention.
As I understand it, Helen Clark has suspended Winston Peters only from his portfolios, but not as a Minister. In other words he still gets his normal pay, his housing and transport allowances, his office, his ministerial funding and most importantly of all his staff, except the portfolio specific ones.
This means he gets to run his election campaign with full Ministerial resources, and they don’t even have any Ministerial duties to attend to.
David also points out that Winston and his lawyer have stated that this whole thing
can be cleared up “in 5 minutes” by looking through the statements for the Spencer Trust.
That sounds good, but the point here is not one link in a chain of transactions, but that the entire chain was below the public radar. Establishing that the trust was run honestly simply moves the dishonesty charges into why the money paid to the party from the trust was never declared, and if the trust was paying so many expenses why Winston could claim complete ignorance of it’s existence.
Quite a lot to get through in 5 minutes methinks.
Something should go here, maybe later. 