Former Ministers Doug Graham and Bill Jeffries, and two other board members of Lombard Finance, have been convicted of deceiving their investors. They face up to five years imprisonment, or a fine of up to $300,000. Good riddance. We don't get many victories against corporate malfeasance in New Zealand, so its something to be celebrated.
Also to be celebrated: neither of these two will be leaching free travel off the taxpayer any more. As a five-term MP, he was entitled (as a consequence of MP's self-interested feather-bedding) to a 90% rebate on private domestic and international travel. Jeffries was entitled to 60%. But thanks to amendments passed to the Speaker's Directions [PDF] two years ago, those entitlements are automatically stripped on conviction for serious crime. Its one way of cleaning up the tail of undeserving former Parliamentary parasites, I suppose.
As for the question of Graham's knighthood, of course it should be stripped - not for criminality, but simply as a matter of course. Feudal titles have no place in modern, democratic New Zealand, and they should all be revoked.
