Christchurch Cronyism Centre?
Yesterday the government announced that the preferred contractors for the $284 million Christchurch Convention Centre were Plenary Conventions, Ngai Tahu Property and the Carter Group.
The Carter Group, it turns out, belongs to Philip Carter. Philip Carter is the brother of Parliament’s Speaker and National Party MP, David Carter. The NBR estimates he is worth $120 million.
This outcome – giant government contract goes to the Speaker’s brother – has the potential to be pretty murky. So why are we hearing about this project for the first time now?
Brownlee acknowledged that the process had been lengthy “with only minimal information publicly available”.
“There is a very good reason for this,” he said. “We needed to ensure we followed a thorough, fair and considered approach to find the best possible development consortium and operator.”
Given this government’s track record on cronyism, I hope Mr Brownlee will forgive me for not taking this entirely at face value. I will be lodging OIA requests for the associated documentation, and I sure hope that – in the interests of democratic transparency – the government sees fit to release the documents well before the election.
My questions include:
How many competitors did the Carter Group face in this tender process?
Was the Carter Group’s bid the lowest?
Did officials independently recommend the contract should go to the Carter Group?
Did Ministers who know Philip Carter personally, or who consider David Carter a friend, recuse themselves from the decision making?
How much money has Philip Carter, the Carter Group, or other associated people or entities given to the National Party or its candidates since the last election>?
If the answers to these kinds of questions come up clean, my suspicions will be assuaged. But I’m not willing to simply accept Gerry Brownlee – king of the roading pork-barrel – telling us “move along, nothing to see here.”