John Key – Called to Account on H-Fee Scam.

NZ Election 2008 – In the Public Interest

The Registrar – Wednesday 29 October 2008

Off the Press …

John Key in the hot seat – his past revisited.

Eugene Bingham – Herald – Wednesday 29 October 2008 – John Key faces accusations of misleading the public about his knowledge of one of New Zealand’s most notorious white collar crimes.

The allegations center around the two payments totalling A$66.5 million to Equiticorp funnelled via sham foreign exchange transactions in 1988 – the so-called H-Fee scam.  At an interview in August last year, Mr Key gave the confirmed to the Herald that he worked as a foreign exchange dealer at Elders Merchant Finance, part of Elders IXL which made the payments to the Allan Hawkins-controlled Equiticorp. But he [Key] maintains he had left Elders in 1987, before the transactions were processed. … I was never involved in them.

“I guess I’m telling you because I’d rather be on the front foot. I don’t really care. There’s absolutely nothing I’ve got to hide. Everything is totally correct and honest and transparent.” Key said.

The Herald have raised questions about several aspects of the version Key told, including his memory of when he left the company. He resigned from Elders in June 1988, six months after the first payment.  to Melbourne last week to search documents relating to a court case over the H-Fee.

The 13,000 page court file, which the Herald searched in Melbourne this week, contains a statement Mr Key made to an investigator with the Australian National Crime Authority in May 1991.  For more … click here.

This breaking story will be updated on the relevant page as appropriate.

John Key – The man behind the smiley face.

NZ Election 2008 – In the Public Interest

Posted by The Registrar – Sunday 26 October 2008

Off the Press …

Counting down to election day – Saturday, November 08.

The following Links to articles relevant to Election08 debates are posted for discussion on the Court of Public Opinion.  Please comment.

Carroll du Chateau’s backgrounder John Key – the man who would be PM – NZ Herald, Saturday, 26 July 2008 – makes interesting reading. From her interviews with John Key, we learn much about man who wants the top job. Now three months on and two weeks to the day, we can begin to see two sides of John Key.

The Gillian Tett and Ruth Laugesen article Who is John Key? – Sunday Star-Times, Friday, 08 February 2008 – backgrounds Key’s life before the Merrill Lunch years – 20 years ago, John Key worked closely with a famed currency trader who mounted a brutal speculative attack on our New Zealand currency, the ‘kiwi’ dollar.  This attack has become a foreign exchange legend for its scale, audacity and profitability. John Key, the futures trader now with an eye to become PM, provoked a Reserve Bank alarm that the New Zealand currency would collapse.

Gillian Tett and Ruth Laugesen expose the John Key / Andy Krieger Connection and reveal both faces …

Click on the link above to read the full article, published in the NZ Sunday Star-Times, Friday, 08 February 2008.

The whistle has blown …

The men behind the man with the smiley face…

John Key has an important secret about his leadership.  The infamous Crosby/Textor Australian political strategists employed to manage Key’s public image and political strategy.

Nicky Hager revealed all in the Sunday Star-Times, Monday, 30 June 2008 – Each step of Key’s election08 campaign to become New Zealand’s PM has been overseen and directed by the same professional manipulators used (and also kept secret) by Key’s predecessor Don Brash.  The Crosby/Textor role, advising Key, is known to National party staffers, including some who are uneasy about Crosby/Textor’s involvement in the ‘dirty tricks’ kept secret from the public. That there is a whistle blower – is not surprising.

To read the article – click on the Nicky Hager link above.  Please return to the Court of Public Opinion and post your comments to share in the public interest.