http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/opinion/79229008/ross-henderson-governments-niue-dealings-look-dodgy

Ross Henderson: Government's Niue dealings look dodgy
Earl Hagaman was the single biggest living donor to the National
campaign in 2014.

Michael Bradley

OPINION: Here is a fact for you. An influential New Zealand
businessman made a donation of $101,000 to the National Party in 2014,
and one month later his company got a lucrative contract to manage a
resort in Niue. A year later, the resort received $7.5million in aid
funding.

How should we deal with this fact? This week we've seen a range of
approaches. But I think there's an obvious place to start – you must
be naturally suspicious.

The government have tried to say this week that there is no link
between the donation and the tender. But the link is clear: Earl
Hagaman, the founder of the company Scenic Hotel Group that won the
contract, made the biggest donation National received from a living
individual in 2014. There is your link.

When we discover something like this we need to check it out
thoroughly. If there was any favouritism, that would be corruption.
It's not just our right, it's our responsibility in a healthy
democracy to look closely at this sort of thing.

I've done a bit of investigating of my own. This Earl Hagaman fellow
is a hotel tycoon that moved here from the United States - We know
the role big money plays in that country's politics. An article in the
NBR says he has about $190 million dollars. Forget the 1% - he is
comfortably in the top 0.01%.

With the Panama Papers still fresh, I found it a bit provoking the
same NBR article reports that "[The Hagaman's] wealth is tied up in
trusts, with Mr Hagaman believing if you own it personally, somebody
will try to take it away." I wonder, how much of the fortune that
Hagaman has made in New Zealand has been taxed?

On the government side, we have Murray McCully. Well, that name is
enough to cause suspicion on its own. This is a man that sent 900
pregnant sheep on a plane to the desert in Saudi Arabia, where most of
the lambs died, all according to him to mitigate the threat of Saudi
Arabia suing us (even though evidence clearly shows there was no legal
threat).

Even plenty of right wingers think he's no good, with hard right
commentator Matthew Hooton saying this week that "if McCully organised
a sausage sizzle for local hospice, he'd find a way to do it
corruptly."

It's not as simple as Hagaman slipping McCully a cheque and McCully
rubber stamping an application in return. There are plenty of other
people involved, and Both Hagaman and McCully are downplaying any
personal involvement in the deal.

But it doesn't have to be a black and white, explicit transaction. The
way the powerful influence politics can be a bit more subtle than
that. We've seen it before with how the government unfairly awarded
the convention centre contract to Sky City, giving them special
treatment in the tender process and then accepting a lesser convention
centre from them.

Andrew Little has asked the Auditor-General to investigate. It's one
of the only things we can do from outside government when something
looks as shady as this. McCully's antics sure do keep her busy.

Little's call created a nice little sideshow distraction, as well. As
Labour MP Jacinda Ardern's father was one of the trustees appointed by
McCully to oversee the deal, some have suggested Little's comments are
a smear on Mr Ardern.

In reality, it would be highly inappropriate for Little to consider
the involvement of Mr Ardern whatsoever when deciding how to approach
this issue. It doesn't matter whose relatives is on which board – when
there are questions, they must be asked.

And Little has not smeared Mr Ardern. He has not suggested that the
trustees are all in on some elaborate plot. He has seen big money get
mixed up with politics and asked for an explanation. It's as simple as
that. As the Leader of the Opposition, that's his job!

The Auditor-General may not find any solid evidence of corruption, but
it's still early days in this story. When we hear about this
government's crony capitalism, it can take weeks and months for the
full story to come out.

But whatever happens from this point, this has been another reminder
that when big money and politics mix, it stinks of unfairness. There's
no one donating hundreds of thousands of dollars to the National Party
to advance the interests of poor people.

Whether there was a conflict of interest in this case or not, there is certainly a perception of one. It's vital that a government maintains
the trust of the people, and it's equally vital that we make them work
hard to earn that trust.

When we keep letting McCully, John Key, and the rest of them bluff
their way through this kind of thing, their cronyism will get worse
and worse, and we'll only have ourselves to blame. A government should
not be able to laugh off a perception of a conflict of interest. We
must not let them. Not again.

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