Earlier in the month, a panel of "independent" experts in Wellington produced recommendations for the future of housing in the city, and they were a bit shit, opposing intensification and protecting the property values of existing homeowners. Its since emerged that they engaged in some pretty motivated reasoning on the latter issue, but why? BusinessDesk has the scoop: they had huge undeclared conflicts of interest:
Members of a controversial panel setting the agenda for Wellington’s housing own more than $7 million worth of property in the capital city, with five of the six properties not declared in the independent hearings panel's published conflicts-of-interest register. The properties include homes in Mt Victoria and Te Aro, suburbs in which the eight-member panel (IHP) recommended expansions to character precinct designations, which would hinder the construction of new housing.I don't know about you, but making a decision which you will profit from while hiding that fact seems pretty fucking corrupt to me. And it should be enough to have their recommendations tossed for apparent bias.
But not just that. We've prosecuted, convicted, and even jailed people in the past for lying on their CVs in order to obtain a position. Lying on a conflict on interest statement seems to be no different. So, will these people be prosecuted? Or is fraud OK when it is done by rich people?
