Entry 68, on 2004-10-15 at 17:07:25 (Rating 3, Politics)
The ACT party must be getting desperate. Their new leader, Rodney Hide, has been doing what he said he wouldn't do - getting back to his old dirty activities again by picking on government minister, John Tamihere.
In some ways its good that we have people prepared to watch out for suspect activity by other politicians, public servants, etc; but the problem is they so often get it wrong. When they do get it wrong they don't have to be accountable because they use parliamentary privilege.
In the current case John Tamihere is being accused of both accepting a "golden handshake" from his previous job of chief executive of the Waipareira Trust and then not paying tax on it. Initially this looked pretty dodgy but it now turns out that the payment was for work done, not a severance payment. Also, it seems that, although he didn't pay the tax it was probably a simple error because documentation from the trust mentioned the payment being a "net" amount indicating that the tax had already been paid.
Anyway, he has stood down from his position as cabinet minister while an investigation is under way. Maybe we will get the truth in the end. Maybe some dirt will stick and ACT will achieve their initial aim. Maybe people will see that ACT have nothing positive to offer and vote accordingly!
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