BILL WILSON MILLION DOLLAR GONEBURGER

Wow! who would have thought.... Well we did- we always felt that Bill Wilson's position was untenable. This was not tidy and all credit to NBR and Phil Kitchin at the Dom and even the Herald for keeping up the pressure on this one.

here's some more stories on the saga

and there's more here

and here's some as well

All we can say is that we hope that a good woman - Sue Grey - opens a bottle of bubbles tonight.

She was the David who took a swing at the legal fraternity's Goliath.

It took a long time but in the end Justice, as they say has been seen to be done - even if it comes with a $1million price tag.

Cheers to you Sue.

FAUX MANA

The apparent troughing by some brown fellas in the name of Maori development has the whanui choking on their kumara.

Phil Kitchin from the Dominion Post has been lifting the potae on the rather overblown ambition and under delivery of the Tekau Plus programme that is aimed at positioning ten Maori businesses to become ten big exporters in ten years. It was big and bodacious - a good vision - but not a bloody goal.
It was overseen by a Government department - never a good start for any business.

$2m of $3m has been spent and so far all that has happened is that there have been no positive outcomes and a handful of big brown swinging dicks have done very well thank you. They have the odd hui here and there, travelled quite a bit , talked shit and written even more shit.

At the centre of the story is a outfit called Fomana Capital It is now known round the traps as Faux Mana.... how funny is that!


We are delighted that there will be an inquiry. However it would behove those who are conducting the inquiry to ensure that there is a ceiling on the fees of those who are investigating the scheme.

We continually see the same bumpf repeated over and over again by these sorts of organisations. Full of a strange language that real businessmen dont use - like this claptrap

ACCORD

The FOMANA Capital Accord is neither a legal commitment nor a prescriptive framework. It is equally about innovation, co-networking, market positioning for the future and working collaboratively.

The bond between FOMANA and reputable organisations is people. People that foster strategic relationships and that are aware of the big picture game-plan.

POLICY FRAMEWORK

Foremost the policy is premised on a strategic relationship. This requires FOMANA Capital and the Accord parties to agree to building relationships based on understanding, accepting and acknowledging each others’ values, principles and strategic intent. The aim is to have congruence or alignment of values/principles and strategic intent.

The Accord relationship can be visualised similar to an iceberg. That is the base and foundations (Values, Principles & Strategic Intent) may not be seen or overtly known. However the base/foundations are what provide the strategic scale and bulk.

POLICY FRAMEWORK

There are four levels associated with the policy of entering an Accord.

Level 1: Is the foundation, an alignment and/or agreement on the principles and values.

Level 2: Is the structural alignment, an agreement on the strategic intent and big picture.

Level 3: Is the form of an agreed business programme – goals, objectives to be worked towards, which illustrate a pattern, theme of results.

Level 4: Is the individual project or events, where the system of agreed programmes (patterns/themes), which is part of structural/strategic intent programme, which is based on the Accord foundations, principles and values.

We work and have worked with CE's from listed companies, exporters, consultants and entrepreneurs.

They dont talk like that - They say things like

• We need to get shit done now
• We cannot lose our competitive edge.
  
• We need to be number one.
  
• We need a game plan.
  
• Whats on the agenda?
  
• What do we need to fix?
  
• Wheres the payback?
• Whats the cost benefit?
• Whats the NPV net present value ?
  
• Fuck thats a bloody good opportunity.
• We need to win.
• We need to work on our relationships
• The customer is king.
• Hire that woman - shes got great tits
• No risk - no reward.
  
• We need to beat the bastards
• We need to work out what the market wants
• get them to sign on the dotted line
• Dont blow the budget
• We only hire the best because we want to be the best.
  
• There has got to be something in it for our partners.
• Wheres the profit?
  
• Wheres lunch?
  

COMING SOON.... EXCLUSIVE - THE MEURANT CHRONICLES

We have had a pretty laid back weekend. Our knee is buggered. So we have been resting up - hoping that it might get a bit better but an operation is looking increasingly likely.

However we have been busy. We have been reading the Meurant Chronicles.

Late last week - in time honoured form we received a parcel of documents.

Euminedes perhaps?

Essentially they are the reports and emails of Ross Meurant while he was employed by Vela fishing at the same time he was employed by Winston Peters.

They are illuminating , sometimes funny, occasionally revealing and often outrageous.

They also mark what we believe were the last days of the worst years of the seafood industry.

They are the documents that Phil Kitchin used as the basis of his expose on Winston Peters a story that broke in the Dominion a couple of days before the election in 2008 on November 1.

Anyway in the next few weeks we are going to release them. As we should - in the name of transparency and openness and history - they relate to the late 1990's and the 2000's.

So everyone can read them and draw their own conclusions.

They will keep political junkies happy for days.

And don't worry - the documents are safe.. very safe.

QANTAS - PICKINS FOR ALL

We are delighted to see some mates and some people we genuinely admire get a Qantas, Like Phil Kitchin, Fran O'Sullivan and Audrey Young.

But shit with the depleting ranks of dead tree scribes, isn't it time the awards just centred on a few big awards instead a catagory for everything from the best story on pimple popping to how to wash your undies?

Disclaimer - and no we never won a Qantas and yes we did enter from time to time. But we have won other stuff.

And we agree with Cactus - its time for some blogging awards.

COME BACK NICK

Phil Kitchin remains the undisputed king of investigative journalism in this country but it appears there is a former NZ journalist who has made an international name for himself for unrelenting truth seeking.

The Herald reports this morning that one of their former reporters, Nick Perry, has won the coveted George Polk award for sports reporting - uncovering a dark and sinister side to American Pro football.

The George Polk Awards have in the past been scooped up by such literary luminaries as Norman Mailer and Christine Amanpour.

He and his co writer Ken Armstrong were also finalists for the Medill Medil of Courage Journalism Award

And they also won the Micheal Kelly Award for Journalism.

Story can be found at the end of this story here

KITCHIN ROGERS MARITIME SAFETY

About a month ago at a lunch for a few old scribes we were musing on what Phil Kitchin was up too. We wondered if he had retired full time to be a tractor driver( everytime we rang him or he rang us he was on a bloody tractor) on his farm up north from Wellington aways.

Anyway , lo and behold a few days later he started on a series about Maritime Safety. It has been a bloody good read. This morning he has a story which had us rolling around in the train aisle ( yeah okay so that put you off your weetbix) . Its about how Maritime Safety allowed a very odd very false bow on a ship to essentially allow it to operate with less crew. Now there was no issue of safety with the old bow so it begs the question why MSA would sanction the fitting of a false bow.
One Martime expert reckons it makes us look like a laughing stock internationally. He may well be right.

On the face of it, it definitely looks like the MSA has bent the very robust rules at a ninety degree angle.

Anyway we are glad to see that Kitchin has spent some time away from the luxury of his air conditioned tractor and dusted down his key board and written some good yarns. He is the best investigative journalist in this country by, well, a country mile.

FRAN O'SULLIVAN IS ON THE BUTTON - AN INQUIRY INTO CORRUPTION IS A MUST

We agree with Fran, we have brought this issue of an inquiry up in the past - there is a stench about the fish scandals ( there is more than one of them) and we have one political party, NZ First who is linked to policy for pay and another, Labour who has turned a blind eye to the mounting evidence of corruption. Rodney Hide has told Roarprawn that he wont rest until he gets to the bottom of the scandal. Good. It should be one of the things he requires of any deals he does with National.

Read Frans column here

OO ARRGH !

Well we said this story in the Herald was coming, at midnite last night. The interesting thing is that NZ First MP's are not used to speaking out ( nor are they allowed to) so the fact that they are saying anything at all means that these MP's are thinking about their own integrity and futures in light of the latest revelations.

FARRAR ASKS SOME VERY IMPORTANT QUESTIONS ABOUT WINSTON

Busted blonde et al have places to go today - gardens to dig, documents to read.
So , if you want to know how serious the latest Winston - policy for donation scandal is - Read Kiwiblog here

And the Hive here

PRAWNS SWIM IN CHAMAPGNE.

Today is the day Roarprawn and Bustedblonde hoped would come. We got word late last night that Phil Kitchin was to break the Winston - Vela donation scandal wide open. We posted the picture of Euminedes at midnight.

There is nothing in the stories that surprises us. We knew all along what had happened, we just never had enough documentation.

Years ago, one of the Prawns had a conversation with Philip Vela about working with politicians and making sure that they did their best for the Seafood industry.
Velas comments were chilling.
He said simply - "Dont worry about Winston - I own him."

We never forgot it and, as the years past , like so many others, we saw Winston for what he was - corrupt.

Congratulations to Phil Kitchin .

Now I just hope that every branch of Grey Power get out there and says to its members to think very carefully before they vote.
Our country is largely corruption free and if Winston is not returned to parliament it will remain so.

Read the the full stories here

BRAT PO KRVI

We knew that the Dominion Post was to break another story on Winston this week and this morning we get the full run down from NZ's best investigative reporter Phil Kitchin.

We posted on what a creep Winston was for stooping to such venal tactics . And this morning everyone in NZ who reads a paper or hears the TVNZ news will see that the money has been given to a trust associated with Brian Henry..

That is simply appalling - if Brian Henry is to retain any professional integrity he should say he wants nothing to do with any of the taxpayers cash.

We would willingly set up a separate fund for Susan couch for all New Zealanders to willingly donate to , money that she would get directly without her having to rely on Peters tainted cash.
In fact we see someone who commented on last nights post about this issue has already sent a cheque to Susan Couch.

But as we said last night we thing this is a bridge to far for most Kiwis and this most cynical of ploys by Winston will not be condoned by voters.

GOOD TELLY - RALSTON ET AL ON WINSTON ON CHANNEL 90 SKY AT 8.30.

This should be an interesting programme - Phil Kitchin is also expected to make an appearance.





Photo from scoop.