OURNZ party co-leader Kelvyn Alp calls for inquiry into the receivership of South Canterbury Finance:
"There is no justification to refuse to allow any kind of proper transparency into the South Canterbury Finance asset sales program by way of a full inquiry - because taxpayer money is being used to subsidise the losses.
It is simply unacceptable to quote "commercial sensitivity" as a justification for refusing transparency when taxpayer money is at stake.
Evidence is now appearing that indicates South Canterbury Finance's assets have been sold considerably below fair market values, under a cloak of secrecy provided by John Key and Bill English.
Given that no court order has ever been issued to warrant the actions that ultimately led to the South Canterbury Finance receivership, the refusal to allow any kind of transparency is utterly unacceptable.
The refusal to allow any inquiry without question effectively places the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance above the law.
It requires us to take their word for it, that wrongdoing has occurred without any lawfully acceptable or recognisable proof.
Given that most of the assets have already been sold without any form of trial having taken place, this is unacceptable.
I repeat: "NO COURT ORDER CURRENTLY EXISTS TO WARRANT THE SALE OF SOUTH CANTERBURY FINANCE ASSETS"
THIS WAS AN EXECUTIVE DECISION ONLY AND AS SUCH SHOULD AUTOMATICALLY RESULT IN COMPLETELY VOLUNTARY TRANSPARENCY FOR TAXPAYERS.
Their refusal to allow any inquiry to take place into the asset sales process under these circumstances is completely unacceptable.
There needs to be a public inquiry into the entire asset sales process, with the following terms of reference:
1: Who were the assets sold to and what is/was their relationship (if any) to the decision makers involved?
2: What was the fair market value of each asset when it was sold?
3: Were independent valuations done for each asset prior to sale, and if so, who completed the valuations, and what (if any) relationship do the valuers have to the decision makers involved?
4: If independent valuations did not take place in any instance, why not? What is the justification for overlooking this requirement given the use of taxpayer money to subsidise losses?
5: Why did Treasury allow private sector business interests, which benefited materially from the DGS pay-out triggered by the receivership, to influence Treasury decisions prior to the receivership?
6: To what degree did those private sector business interests benefit from the pay-out, and by what means? Given the Crown oversight automatically occurring due to the renewal of the DGS by the Minister of Finance, who authorised it or had prior knowledge of it?
7: What offers to recapitalise SCF were received prior to the decision to place SCF into receivership? Why are the details of those offers being withheld from NZ taxpayers, given that taxpayer funds are now being used to subsidise the losses?
There are simply too many questions that need to be answered to satisfy NZ taxpayers that this process has been fair and properly handled.
Kelvyn Alp
Party Co-Leader
OURNZ Party"
Second press release regarding Alan Hubbard and South Canterbury Finance:
OURNZ Party demands a real and independent investigation into South Canterbury Finance (SCF) and the death of Allan Hubbard.
In a previous release I provided the details of what needed to be investigated in terms of SCF - and to date the silence has been deafening. I now add the details that need to be investigated in regards to the death of Allan Hubbard.
Facts about Allan Hubbard's death:
1: Jean Hubbard had already stopped when the other driver hit them at high speed.
2: The only skid-marks were the other driver's.
3: The other driver's skid marks were on the wrong side of the road for the direction he was travelling in - directly into the oncoming Hubbard's car.
4: The other driver claims he was driving from Dunedin to Nelson to visit his children for father's day - towing a cement mixer.
5: The Police did not appear to investigate the accident in a normal fashion - no spray paint, no signs of any forensic investigation, no markers, nothing.
6: The Police have allowed the other driver to keep deferring his court case (3 times now) and have reduced the charges from dangerous driving to careless use.
7: Jean Hubbard has been invited by the Police to appear as a witness against the other driver when his case goes to court on December 3rd. She is upset about this and does not understand why he is defending the charges when he was clearly on the wrong side of the road.
8: It is alleged that the other driver now lives on a farm in Southland, specifically in Bill English's electorate. If this is true, and the farm has any historical tie with South Canterbury Finance, the matter should be thoroughly investigated, and the other driver's bank account and phone records should be seized and investigated.
9: Allan Hubbard's doctor says the autopsy report raises more questions than it answers. He says the report indicates that "the type of tests they ran on him are completely inconsistent with the tests they would normally run on a road accident victim. He says "the family are not qualified enough to understand the implications of the autopsy report". It is possible that Allan was given the wrong blood or injected with something that killed him.
10: Allan survived the "golden hour" at Oamaru ED. He had a fractured pelvis, a broken femur, and a dislocated hip. He was laughing with nurses and was stabilised before being put in the helicopter for the 20 minute ride to Dunedin Hospital.
11: Allan died during the helicopter ride, of causes that have never been publicised. The media keeps reporting that he died in a car accident. He did not. He survived the car accident and died in the back of a helicopter, nearly two hours after the accident occurred, having survived the 'golden hour'.
12: Allan died 3 days before he was due to start a court case against the government, challenging the statutory management and fraud investigation they imposed upon him. This was only a few weeks before the 2011 election.
13: His lawyers were due to submit evidence in the court case which would have caused extreme embarrassment to the following people:
a) The Governor General - for signing the executive order which led to the seizure and sale of Allan's assets without a court order, while he was still 'under investigation'.
b) The Prime Minister - for influencing public opinion against Allan on national television while the matter was still under investigation, more than once - effectively interfering in the course of justice.
c) Simon Power - same as Governor General (see point a) as well as sending an email which was going to be used as evidence against him. The email was timed less than an hour before Simon Power announced to media that he was placing Allan into statutory management and investigating him for fraud. The email asked someone from Treasury to contact Simon Power urgently to explain what statutory management means (despite telling the public that he gave the matter "careful consideration").
d) Bill English - same reasons as the PM (see point b).
e) Adam Feeley - never met Allan Hubbard, never interviewed him, and never got any other SFO staff to interview him either - but still charged him with 50 counts of fraud. Also gave Allan's biography away at an SFO office party, as "booby prizes, while Allan was still "under investigation".
f) Neville Harris - for deceiving Hubbard investors and the government (Google "Kerry Grass Hubbard Regulatory Review).
g) Grant Thornton - for deceiving Hubbard investors and the government (Google "Kerry Grass Hubbard Regulatory Review).
14: The SFO and MED (Feeley and Harris) paid Grant Thornton (a private sector insolvency firm) to write the report accusing Allan of reckless management and fraud, which resulted in their own appointment to the role of statutory managers, from which they have earned more than $51,000 per week in fees since June 2010.
15: Their (Grant Thornton's) report resulted in the seizure and sale of Allan's assets WITHOUT A COURT ORDER TO THIS DAY as well as the 'fraud investigation' which led to the charges laid against him.
16: Grant Thornton carried out the entire investigation for the SFO and the "evidence" they produced resulted in Allan being charged with fraud. Allan was effectively stripped of all legal rights and protection by this process and was found "guilty" by evidence that was produced by Thornton's, who were NOT independent, and who clearly had a major conflict of interest.
17: In summary, the evidence due to be put before the courts, starting three days after Allan's death, would have placed John Key in almost PRECISELY the same situation he is now facing with Kim Dotcom. Effectively caught with his pants down, having broken the law in a number of places, as well as having waded into the middle of it on national television to influence public opinion directly himself, while the whole matter was still 'under investigation'.
18: Allan's court case would have proven EXTREMELY embarrassing for the government, weeks before the 2011 election.
It is important to add that John Key allegedly had Dunedin Hospital placed under "lockdown", according to DHB staff, the night Allan died.
It is certainly not hard to see why Allan Hubbard is dead.
Kelvyn Alp
Party Leader
OURNZ Party
That's the Grass report, here is another, by Tur Borren of Demi Holdings - Allan Hubbard expressed considerable confidence in Tur Borren, who has extensive experience in financial restructuring in the NZ business sector, and was involved in negotiating an alternative plan to avoid the imposition of statutory management at the time of Allan Hubbard's death:
