I don't know what's the most embarrassing thing about the whole John Banks scandal, that apparently our politicians can be bought off for such a relatively paltry sum (Sarkozy was allegedly offered $50 million Euro's from Gaddafi, now that's helicopter money) or that Banks has been reduced to a doddery old man, remembering nada, screaching out "I know nothing" to the media in true Sargent Schultz style, nervously eyeing the exit door as the Government dangles the fear of imaginary boat people above the public in order to try and distract them.
No reasonable person could think anything other than Banks has been purposefully hiding the identity of his donors. Kim Dotcom, Skycity...it begs the question of who else contributed to the almost a million dollars raised for his failed Mayoral campaign. Are we talking cigarette companies, oil, a baby killing factory for petfood? If Banks was happy to pocket $50k from Dotcom (sorry, my bad, 2 x $25k, lest we forget), to then go on to lobby on his behalf to Williamson (whom he is both, according to Dotcom, very, very close to, while concurrently, according to Williamson after the scandal broke, nothing more than a co-worker), who else has he been lobbying for?
It would be very interesting to see whether names crop up that are tied in any way to potentially profiting from the legislation that ACT has been putting forward to as part of their confidence and supply agreement with National.
Talking about National: Key has shown himself to be a politicians politician. Congratulations to the man for showing that nothing can get in the way of keeping hold of power, and that includes ethics which is an area that is so wide in it's meaning to be absolutely meaningless. These are the people that are in control of our legislature, and these are the same people that have been misusing it by pushing through an unsurpassed amount of legislation through urgency which means pesky things like the democratic process in the form of select committees and public submissions can be skipped over.
Our parliament is vested with a ridiculous amount of power, more so than any other democratic first world country. This means we have to be very, very careful about the people we elect and the standards that they hold. People who don't know what ethics are, people who are more interested in pursuing the interests of political donors...as a country we should be extremely concerned right now. If ever we needed the Fourth Estate to stand up and do their job it's now.
Let's hope to god Kim Kardashian doesn't get married again and sidetrack the lot of them.
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