The Donghua Liu saga has just got even more dangerous for the John "drop the insinuation then duck" Key as The Herald is forced to publish an altered statement from Mr Liu that changes much of his original statement.
It now appears that Mr Liu is claiming to have donated $2000.00 to the Hawkes Bay Rowing Club Branch of the NZ Labour Party and $60,000+ to The Yangzte Concrete Factory Branch of the NZ Labour Party to give the "honorable members a luxury cruise as a reward for their hard work making concrete for honorable building projects."
The claim that he purchased a bottle or bottles of wine at a Labour Party Auction on June 3 2007 has also been shot down in flames as searchers have now identified the auction being one run by The Midland's Hawkes Bay Wine Charity at which no wine was sold at the inflated price Mr Liu claims to have bid. The Herald's new story now has Rick Barker receiving the bottle of wine from Mrs Liu rather than, as was originally alleged "giving it to her." The Herald is certainly back tracking all over the place on this story.
I look forward to the front Page apology to David Cunliffe, the NZ Labour Party and the long suffering NZ public who have had to put up with irresponsible reporting from the paper for far too long.
Left, Rick Barker receiving a bottle of wine from Donghua Liu's (top right) partner Juan Zhang. Photo / Supplied, NZ Herald
The questions need to be asked loudly, clearly and many, many times to John "Scuttle and Run" Key, Cameron Slater, Jami-Lee Ross and others close to Maurice Williamson and Donghua Liu "Who wrote the original statement for Mr Liu and who fed it to Key and Jared Savage?" and "Did Mr Liu really understand what he was signing because, as Mr Williamson claims Mr Liu speaks and reads minimal English?"
POST SCRIPT: 1) The Fairfax stable is now asking questions about the Herald's reporting and the Key involvement in the Donghua Liu situation. About time the blow torch was applied to the links between The Herald and the Ninth Floor of the Beehive.
2) Radio New Zealand Morning Report Political journalist declares that the Liu story doesn't stack up (27.6.14).
3) NZ Herald attempts to back off from its inept reporting by lampooning itself in an editorial claiming to be a crusading, reputable news-sheet and reducing the alleged "donations" from Liu to $38,000 in a series of anonymous donations over several years to different un-named MPs.
The latest "revelation" dropped from the PR machine employed by the National Government is classic Bellmanism.
For those unaware of the Bellman's persuasive technique it can be summed up as: "I've told you three times so it must be true." And so it is with the National Party-Liu connections and the allegations that Liu was "generous" to the Labour Party one Sunday evening (3 June 2007). (Addendum: The Herald is now claiming the escape clause of an American date writing (appropriate since Key sold the country to the USA over the past week) so the fund raiser could have been held on Tuesday the 6th of March 2007. A date that would be as highly unlikely as the Sunday event as, in my experience, the major fund raisers are invariably Friday or Saturday events in order to maximise attendance. - Yet another example of slack investigation by the Herald hacks.)
The question that should be raised is: "What is the difference between a bid at an auction for an item and a donation / gift of money to the National Party?
The answer is that a bid at an auction is not a donation even though the bid price accepted may result in an artifically high price. A donation / gifting of cash is a transaction in which one party accepts a sum of money from another without ostensibly purchasing anything tangible. On this basis a journalist would recognise the difference and realise that they're being spun a line and not reporting accurately.
But, No, the journalists accepted the story that, according to Mr Liu there was a large fundraising wine auction that Sunday at which he bid crazy money for a signed bottle of wine and a signed biography of Helen Clark. Apart from the unlikelihood of a fund raising event being held on a Sunday the claims of crazy money bidding for a bottle of wine and a biography have a distinctly invented look to them.
Despite all enquiries and dredging the memories of any body involved with fund raising in 2007 no one has identified a fund raiser held in June 2007 that resulted in such a large sum of money. As Martyn Bradbury says if such an event with single bids like those alleged by Mr Liu then the story would have been member talk almost immediately and been common talk for months and months but he had never heard any amazed talk in all his involvement within the Party.
An alert reporter / editor would ask the question: "If Mr Liu claims he paid $100,000 for a bottle of wine at a Labour Fund Raiser in 2007 surely we would have heard about such ridiculous money being bid for abottle of wine because such a sum would have been buzzing around the newsrooms at the time. Didn't we write up a sensational headline back then about the Labour Party having money being rained upon it? We'd better search the morgue to find the story all the better to substantiate Mr Liu's allegation." Obviously there was no report or rumour on record within the Herald's story morgue or else they would have republished their sensational rumour of 2007.
Again, an alert Editor would have noted that Mr Liu also claimed that the staff function he invited Rick Barker to on his visit to China was to be seen as a "donation" to the Labour Party. Again, an alert and responsible editor would've recognised such a claim as being (a) an invention in order to create the illusion of an $150,000 "donation" and (b) a deliberate attempt to confuse a previously arranged staff function to which he invited Mr Barker into a luxury cruise perk to give the PR company a further spin point for the lazy MSM to fasten their word processors to.
There are so many inconsistencies in Mr Liu's statement that any reporter / journalist worth his or her salt would have checked, checked and checked again before accepting the rumours dropped from the lips of John Key while he was muppeteering in America as being gospel.
The whole story stinks of Crosby-Textor dark ops aimed at distracting from an election fought on policies to one fought on innuendo.
The comment on The Standard tonight about the continuing connections between Donghua Lui are interesting especially the note that perhaps the journalists might like to chase the invisible Botany MP - Jami-Lee Ross who is only known to emerge from perpetual hibernation once every three years in order to play pass the microphone at hastily arranged public meetings designed to give the impression that he is doing something while leaving the attending public in a haze of wondering what it was Jami was offering as a solution to the mess that is East Auckland public transport.
From The Standard: " First things first, this Donghua Liu thing is a set-piece smear from the National party, it could be nothing else. The classic signs of National’s comms stick out like dogs balls….
timed the breaking of the story for when John Key is out of the country, keeps him clear of the dirt.
info was leaked to the tentacles of National’s comms (whaleoil,
farrar) as was clearly hinted by barnsley bill (Cameron Slater’s
right-hand man) who couldn’t keep his mouth shut on dimpost a couple of days ago.
the perfectly timed OIA release.
and the fact that Donghua Liu is still tight with National.
Reliable sources have also told me that Donghua is still donating
cash to National too. (Any journos reading might like to ask Jamie-Lee
Ross about this) It’s no accident that this was released a couple of days before the 3
month interval that Claire Trevett covered in the herald. Interestingly
Farrar made a big deal about this the other day."
Given that the sources noted in The Standard are reliable then questions should be asked:
"What are the connections between the East Auckland National Party and the disgraced Chinese businessman Donghua Liu?"
"How much money has flowed into electorate coffers from Mr Liu to support his campaign to gain citizenship and access to the Key led Cabinet members?"
Following on from the Standard sourced story one could be driven to ask: "has Mr Ross ever been involved in joining Maurice Williamson in lobbying for Mr Liu?" Botany electors would certainly like to know.
The suspicion of murky and suspect dealings by the National Party in Botany haven't disappeared with the departure of Pansy Wong, whose use of the tax-payers' money to boost her husnband's business interests in China led to her resignation and the by-election that put the Slater supported Jami-Lee into Parliament.
