Scampi

I wasn't in the country when the scampi inquiry was under way, but the "secret" documentary on the inquiry that Rodney Hide claimed had been destroyed has in fact not been destroyed, but is alive and well and featuring on Whale Oil's blog.

Perhaps someone could summarise the main points for me, and tell me why it matters.

UPDATE: Looks like Rodney only claimed that TVNZ destroyed the doco, not that all copies had been destroyed in toto. My mistake.

And it seems, according to you, the readers, the'scampi tape' matters because it allegedly provides incontrovertible evidence that Winston Peters and the highest levels of the Labour Party corruptly collapsed a select committee inquiry - after they and NZF received hundreds of thousands of dollars from participants in the scampi industry who were trying to get around the quota system -- this being being yet another example of what occurs when a group of professional politicians attains power over other people, which is what the quota system represents.

As LGM says, "In such situations there is always the likelyhood of cronyism and fraud and theft. Even if it doesn't actually occur, the taint exists."

In such situations by the way, the "taint," if it exists, is not a product of businessmen who are just trying to get rich by producing more of what customers want, but of the politicians who try to put an oar in the way of that benevolent process.