A beat up

Michael Field in the SST reports:

National party president Peter Goodfellow denies there is a conflict of interest between his investment in the fishing industry and the ministerial inquiry into allegations of slavery at sea.

The University of Auckland Business School and the Sunday Star-Times have both uncovered stories of around 2000 Asian men working in slave-like conditions on foreign charter vessels (FCV)s.

The revelations have prompted the inquiry into the pay and conditions on board these boats.

It can now be revealed that Goodfellow has a substantial interest in the fishing company Sanford, which last year held 23.54% of the allowable catch under the Quota Management System. The company uses four Korean FCVs and five of its own boats.

In its latest report Sanford said it would “work with officials to counter the ill-informed and politically motivated demonising” of FCVs.

Goodfellow and his brother William are on the Sanford board, each receiving an annual fee of $47,500, and 37% of Sanford stock is held by Amalgamated Dairies Ltd, a Goodfellow family-controlled company.

Goodfellow, in his own name, owns Sanford stock worth, on Friday values, $623,000.

The latest issue of Professional Skipper magazine said the ministerial inquiry should not amount to a “quick sweep under the table” and the magazine called for Goodfellow to “now step aside [as National Party president] and distance himself because of a potential conflict of interest”.

What nonsense. We have so many idiots who do not know what is and is not a conflict of interest. If Peter had been lobbying Ministers not to undertake an inquiry then you might have a conflict. If Peter had been appointed the the inquiry board, then there might be a conflict.

But being a director of a firm, which might be impacted by a ministerial inquiry is not a conflict.

One former party president was a lawyer. Does that mean the Government couldn’t make any changes in the justice sector?