Most of the smears come from his main opponent, John Banks, or from Banks' supporters. Banks last week released a pamphlet that contained a number of misleading items about Brown. Banks is desperate to have the supercity job, and will happily play the man rather than the ball.
His allies in the Manukau City Council are helping out, and he also has friends in the blogosphere to dig the dirt and spread innuendo. The latest claim is that Brown's staff tried to get a restaurant to "make up" a new receipt. The story, written by the same journalist who "broke" the Andrew Williams going-for-a-wee story, suggests council staff have engaged in falsifying receipts for Brown.
As with the Andrew Williams story, it appears there's nothing in this one too. It appears staff asked for the new receipt because the old one didn't have a GST receipt on it.
Meanwhile, in the blogosphere David Farrar has merrily continued the smear. He is a master of the underhand attack. Farrar is smarter than his comrade Cameron Slater, because he doesn't actually allege fraud. But anyone who reads his post will be left with a clear impression there has been wrongdoing.
I suspect Banks may end up regretting this ongoing smear campaign, because it has his fingerprints all over it. It will confirm the view of many that Banks will do anything for power, and for that reason should not be given the job of Supercity mayor under any circumstances. It will unite people behind anyone who puts up a good show against him. The "anyone but Banks" campaign just got a whole lot more supporters.
Why anyone gets into Politics either Local or central Gov't is almost beyond me.
ReplyDeleteParticularly when you have creatures like Banks and co. to deal with...