Wednesday, November 6, 2013

Banks busted!

Metiria Turei has John Banks' pungent scent in her nostrils and is hunting him down inside and outside of the House. She skewered him when he was showing up there and she skewered Key for the love-embrace he's maintained with the under-a-big-cloud Mr Banks throughout this affair.
Here's the latest and best bit from Metiria:

“I have asked Speaker David Carter to rule on whether Mr Banks’ failure to declare this conflict of interest is a matter of Privilege."

And there's more:

The Green Party has today laid a privileges complaint against ACT Party leader Hon John Banks, following his decision not to declare his conflict of interest in relation to SkyCity Casino before voting on the New Zealand International Convention Centre (NZICC) Bill last night.
 “Mr Banks has a clear and present conflict of interest in relation to the NZICC Bill that should have been declared in the House,” Green Party Co-leader Metiria Turei said today.
 “Mr Banks’ political career hangs on the outcome of the upcoming criminal case against him, which centres on donations given to his 2010 Mayoral campaign including a $15,000 donation from SkyCity Casino Ltd. 
“Voting for this bill, while at the same time facing criminal charges directly linked to SkyCity, is a clear conflict of interest. Mr Banks should have abstained from this vote, or at the very least, declared his interest in the House before voting. 
“I have asked Speaker David Carter to rule on whether Mr Banks’ failure to declare this conflict of interest is a matter of Privilege. 
“Mr Banks needs to do the right thing and abstain from voting on the remaining stages of this Bill. MPs have previously abstained from voting for much less serious conflicts of interest.”

2 comments:

Paranormal said...

Whilst Banks is a ratbag, I don't think this will work. The legislation was drafted by Liarbour, supported by the Greens, to help hide anonymous donations. Len Brown received the same donations and successfully channeled them through a trust.

For this privileges claim to work, the court will have to prove, for example, that Banks knew Dotcom's man flew to Queenstown and deposited cheques into the bank account.

Banks has, under the law, plausible deniability.

Tamsin said...

But in reality, guilt written all over him.