DISAPPEARING EVIDENCE - SEAFOOD INDUSTRY QUOTA ALLOCATION BASED ON SAND?

We have been fascinated with the May 2003 Submission that Ross Meurant prepared for Winston Peters on the Hoki allocation scandal that we have been reading over the last few days. He presented it with vim and vigour to the Primary production select committee looking into the scampi scandal. Then he backed off pursuing it after he got some dodgy advice and some sort of incentive to change his mind. The submission states that the relevant papers relating to the alleged offer and tender rounds of Hoki had disappeared.

On 14 May 2003 Tim Donoghue reported that scampi audit files from 1994 were also missing.

Today we discovered that relevant documents for the squid allocation round are also missing from the Ministry's files. This, may seem like ancient history - but we think that means that this story cannot be forgotten.

Lives were changed, businesses grew and went bust over these allocations.

We believe that a full inquiry of the quota allocation process needs to be carried out. If Winston had done his job and continued to pursue the Hoki issue the NZ Seafood Industry may have looked very different that it does today.

So the question that must be asked - for a few pieces of silver, and probably a helicopter ride, did Winston Peters turn his back on good men?

WELL THIS IS AN INTERESTING STORY

We here at Roarprawn had as nice lunch down by the sea today and on our way home we were given this story that appeared in May of this year in the Dominion.
and this one here
and this one here

For a start, we didn't quite get the significance - we are blonde - other than being a really intriguing story about someone who was accused of being naughty overseas , who got whisked back here so he didn't get hurt and that MFAT was a bit surprised he got a security clearance again. He ended up back in government service working of all things for Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries.Then the penny dropped - he was there at about the time the Hoki allocation was decided .Wow, we bet he knows lots about lots of people and stuff.

HOKI AGAIN

This week - we will be revisiting hoki - remember this in Roarprawn ? The submission which was presented during the scampi trial is known as the Exocet.

And we can see by the website statistics for Roarprawn, that for some reason, there are lots of visits to anything to do with Hoki from a few people in the South Island.

We wonder why?