sign up log in
Want to go ad-free? Find out how, here.

PM John Key describes David Cunliffe's Labour leadership as a "shipwreck and a trainwreck" after Cunliffe admits should have disclosed donations

PM John Key describes David Cunliffe's Labour leadership as a "shipwreck and a trainwreck" after Cunliffe admits should have disclosed donations

By Bernard Hickey

Prime Minister John Key has described David Cunliffe's leadership of the Labour Party as a "trainwreck and a shipwreck" after Cunliffe was forced to admit he should not have set up a trust last year to keep the identities of the funders of his leadership bid secret.

Earlier Cunliffe said he would apologise to his caucus and he identified three of the five donors.

Key taunted Cunliffe throughout Parliamentary question time about Cunliffe's initial decision to set up the trust and the subsequent criticism over the Labour MP's transparency.

"I'm interested that the leader of the Opposition is talking about shipwrecks at the moment because I wouldn't have thought he'd be worried about the Rena. It's his own leadership that's a shipwreck at the moment!" Key said. Cunliffe had asked about the fate of the Rena shipwreck near Mount Maunganui.

He taunted Cunliffe about being upfront and transparent about who had donated to Cunliffe's Labour leadership bid fund.

"Mr Speaker, it's about trust, or trusts as the case may be David," Key said to Cunliffe, who was relatively subdued through question time.

"I'm interested to see that the leader of the Opposition thinks that the biggest issue facing New Zealand at the moment is whether there's a shipwreck at the bottom of the ocean, rather than a shipwreck going on in the Labour Party caucus!"

Later in question time after a question about asbestos being found on KiwiRail engines

"It is absolutely fascinating that the leader of the Opposition has focused on trainwrecks and shipwrecks. Doesn't that sum up his week so far."

'Lapse of judgement'

Earlier Cunliffe had admitted to reporters before a parliamentary caucus meeting that he made a "lapse of judgement" by setting up the blind trust to accept donations.

He read a prepared statement saying a trust set up last year to fund his Labour leadership campaign complied with party rules and the parliamentary pecuniary interest register, but "did not fully represent" the values he would like to bring to the leadership."

He denied that the trust was set up to avoid disclosing donations to the Register of Pecuniary Interests, saying "it was to give donors a higher level of confidentiality and also to keep me removed from the detail (of who had donated)."

Cunliffe has gone back to the five anonymous donors who contributed to the fund, asking them to waive confidentiality in the interests of transparency.

Two donors, who contributed NZ$8,300 between them, wanted to remain anonymous, he said. Their donations would be returned and, if this left the trust in deficit, Cunliffe said he would make up any shortfall from his own pocket.

"We have all learned from this experience," said Cunliffe.

"For a start the Labour party's internal rules do not align well with the pecuniary interest rules and I think there is a general sense that the use of trusts is now not meeting the requirements of transparency," he said.

He said spending on his leadership campaign "would have been in the order of $20,000 odd.

"If we are rescinding donations the trust may be in deficit and I will be making that good because the buck stops with me."

Three donors, businessman Selwyn Pellett, longtime friend Perry Keenan and Labour party supporter Tony Gibbs, contributed NZ$9,500 between them and were prepared to be identified.

Family trust details

Questioned about his connection to other trusts, Cunliffe said he was beneficiary of the Bozzie Family Trust "and a bare trust called ICSL which does savings and investments." The Bozzie Family Trust (which he said was named after a family pet), owned his family home and had been declared to the pecuniary interests register. "It's standard," he said.

"My wife is a lawyer and most lawyers have their houses in trust as a matter of protection from liability."

Key questioned Cunliffe's decision not to reveal the names of the two anonymous donors when speaking to reporters before question time.

“Why is he going to such lengths to protect two people, claiming he doesn’t know who they are, but at the same time claiming he’s going to repay money to people that he says he doesn’t know who they are?," Key said.

Key told reporters before National's caucus meeting that despite recent strong poll showings National was unlikely to be able to govern alone and would have to find coalition partners. See Lynn Grieveson's article here.

Meanwhile, Labour's Associate ICT (Information Communication and Technology) spokeswoman Clare Curran was forced to release a document publicly that was titled 'ICT Policy Framework for 2014' after it was accidentally sent to the National Government's Communications and Information Technology Minister Amy Adams.

Labour's ICT Spokesman is David Cunliffe.

The Clark Labour Government changed electoral laws in 2007 to restrict political donations from third parties such as trusts. The law was repealed in 2009.

(Updated with details of Curran email snafu, Labour's history on electoral donations)

We welcome your comments below. If you are not already registered, please register to comment.

Remember we welcome robust, respectful and insightful debate. We don't welcome abusive or defamatory comments and will de-register those repeatedly making such comments. Our current comment policy is here.

16 Comments

.... I guess if you combine " ship wreck " and " train wreck " , you could call David Cunliffe's leadership the " roll-on-roll-off ferry wreck " ....

 

But there's more than a few rainbow members of the Labour Party who'd love nothing more than to spend an idle afternoon doing something which sounds very much like " roll-on-roll-off ferry " ....

 

.... so we won't go there ....

Up
0

Cunliffe stated he had a lapse in judgement.......yes well a lapse in judgement seems to go with Red.........

Up
0

Why don't these wealthy men use their own money to buy their way into these jobs?  

Up
0

.... there is a massive hypocrisy here , isn't there , for years Labour has been belting the Gnats black & blue over trusts and hidden donations  ..... Helen Clark rightfully had good sport at the Gnats expense ( excuse the pun ! ) ...

 

And now Cunny , a rich fellow with a trust hiding his family's fortune , stoops to this level himself ...

 

.... let's not forget , only a third of his fellow Labour MP's voted for him to be leader ! ... the ABC club know something ....

Up
0

Ho, Ho ,Ho

However notice how the very neutral(?) Patrick Gower on  TV3 helped with the headline news on Cunliffe ......

...while very quietly a few minutes later Judith Collins seemed unperturbed that she had wittingly or unwittingly been hosted in China (while on a freebie cabinet trip) by her husband's business mates. Unfortunately she has not obeyed cabinet rules by declaring same as the rules state.

To my mind these two items should have been linked but Patrick was nowhere to be seen.

 

Your reaction,GBH?

Up
0

... didn't Pansy Wrong do something similarly wong ?

 

You wonder if Gummy is actually right about summit ( ha ha .... yes , I know it's not a leap year ! ) and that Labour should've made Mad Dog Shane Jones their leader ....

 

... he's having a far more effective 2014 , promoting Labour's cause , than Cunny is ...

Up
0

I thought they should've gone for Jones and Little - they are, after all, called Labour!!!!! Time they understood that.

Up
0

I am sure that will happen after they loose this year's elections!

Up
0

I suppose you don't get wealthy by spending your own money...

Up
0

Key's leadership in Christchurch is both a "ship wreck and train wreck" so I would suggest people in glasshouses should keep their stones firmly in their pockets...

Up
0

Every time you get another storm blowing thru there .. I think of the thousands still living in cracked, damaged, non-weathertight homes. The government isn't in charge of Chch - the insurance conglomerates with a complicit EQC are.

Up
0

Well said, indeed!

But surely that sort of problem would be shifted downstairs or at least swept under the table.

Up
0

What would be really funny would be if one of the other two unnamed was Kim Dotcom.

that would probably see  Dave looking for a new job.

Up
0

Hardly. The total of the two donations was $8300.

It would not be worth Kim putting his mitt into his pocket for less than the $25000 that fell in front of Banksy to pick up.

Up
0

Perhaps the other 2 donors were senior members of the National Party?  Supporting who they believe to be the most unelectable...

 

But then for $8300, who really cares?  Compared to the billions thoroughly wasted in Chch on stealing land and evicting people from their undamaged homes so that the Government demolition machine can crunch them and turn 'em to pulp...

Up
0

.....when one considers the shambles labour are in, the economic fortunes this Nats have had with the likes of high commodity prices - and the love fest with John Keys smile - the Nats really should be poleing a lot better than they are.  Still reluctant to tick their box, there approach to most issues remains anchored in the past.

Up
0