The Recruiter's Blog
by Alan Charman
Special Report - Corruption and the National Government
3 June 2009
Coming hard on the back of National's hot month of May, today we have the Minister of Internal Affairs resigning before he was sacked.
What went wrong with John Key's screening?
Was he lax in the process? If not, how is it possible that so many corruption charges have been made against his team in so short a time?
The party has been governing for a bare six months and already the list of shame looks like Helen Clark's after nearly a decade:
Richard Worth. Charges of inappropriate attitudes to women and inappropriate use of his cabinet status in promoting the aviation company he was involved in weren't enough to get Worth out, despite an investigation by the Serious Fraud Office into a company he had been associated with. Finally, there seems to have been one allegation of sexual misconduct too far and Key has stated that he would have sacked Worth if he hadn't fallen on his sword, so the offences must be very nasty.
The Westie slag, Paula Bennett and her shameful use of her ministerial position regarding her common-law son-in-law, a jailed, violent criminal, not to mention her flagrant disregard for everyone in the country by appointing Christine Rankin as a Family Commissioner. At least Worth will have taken that heat off Key!
Still no follow up on Mr Baksheesh and his very dodgy rental and immigration businesses.
Key is obviously intending to be a one-term premier, because his forward planning looks highly suspect at this stage.
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