Posts by Robert McLachlan

  • Hard News: A thundering clash of,

    Simon Wilson's version of Turei/English/Key: https://thespinoff.co.nz/politics/09-08-2017/the-sins-of-metiria-bill-and-john-sense-checking-the-fact-checkers/:

    1. Bill English must have known that he and his family did not live in Southland. But the system allowed him to pretend that they did, and he took advantage of that.
    2. He got away with it by arguing that his lawyers had told him it was OK.
    3. When he was found out, the system continued to protect him.

    Since Aug 2017 • 2 posts Report Reply

  • Hard News: A thundering clash of,

    The Bill English housing allowance thing has been raised (constantly) at https://thestandard.org.nz/no-way-back/; the surprise is that this time co-accused Wayne Mapp (MP 1996-2011) actually wrote a detailed explanation and rebuttal. It included the following lines: "Since he was the MP for Clutha Southland he has a house there (and presumably still does) and as a young MP he and his wife and young children lived there. But it became more convenient for them to shift to Wellington. He was advised that he could still claim the AS available to all MP who did not represent Wellington electorates."

    But Mapp's version of events is denied by another commentator, who wrote: "Before he was selected as the national candidate Bill lived in Wellington with his large family as he was a treasury bureaucrat and the chair of the Hataitai branch of the national party to boot. I understand he left Dipton to go to boarding school in Wellington at around 13 yrs old. Followed by University at Otago and Victoria. Lets not play the game it was ‘more convienent’ to move from Dipton to Wellington- they never left Wellington in the first place. His kids had the schools in the capital and his wife had her GP practice there... The house in Dipton was his parents family home, while his brother Hamish took over the running of the family farm and had his own house. Once the parents died the the family homestead was cut out from the farm and passed to Bill English. But he essentially never made it his family residence".

    Since Aug 2017 • 2 posts Report Reply