So, it turns out that David Cunliffe laundered his party leadership donations through a trust to hide them both from the Labour Party and from Parliament's Register of Pecuniary Interests:
Labour leader David Cunliffe used an "agent arrangement" to take donations to his leadership campaign last November and is refusing to say whether he has disclosed individual donors in the MPs' register of financial interests or whether they were disclosed as being from a trust.
The returns for the Register of Pecuniary Interests were due last Friday, and Mr Cunliffe said his return met both the rules of the register, which requires disclosure of donations of more than $500, and those of the Labour Party, which said all donations would be confidential.
He refused to say how he had met both rules, or whether he had declared donations as being from a trust rather than the original donors.
But he confirmed his campaign was run through an "agent arrangement" rather than taking donations directly. He sought a legal opinion before filing his return and defended the use of trusts.
So, as usual, he's claiming that it was All Within The Rules. But that's not enough - his behaviour needs to be ethical as well. And by failing to tell us who he owes political debts to for financing his leadership ambitions, David Cunliffe has clearly failed that test and is unfit to be in Parliament, let alone a party leader.
