So Bill English has offerred to pay back about half of the money he has rorted from the taxpayer for living in his own home in Wellington.
John A at The Standard did a company search on his company that owns his Dipton farm. It revealed his registered address as in Wellington, not Dipton.
But what John A missed is that it actually reveals two different addresses for English in Wellington – one as a Director of the company and another as a shareholder of it:
Company Number 1879429 View Certificate Of Incorporation
Company RESOLUTION FARMS LIMITED
Incorporated 30-OCT-2006
Current Status REGISTERED
Entity Type Company
Constitution Filed No
Annual Return Filing Month June
Previous Names
No Previous Names on record
Address Details
Registered Office
[*** – Deleted for privacy reasons] Messines Rd
Karori
WellingtonAddress for Service
[*** – Deleted for privacy reasons] Messines Road
Karori
WellingtonDirectors
Name Date Appointed:ENGLISH, Mary Agnes 30-OCT-2006
[*** – Deleted for privacy reasons] Messines Road, Karori, Wellington
ENGLISH, Simon William 30-OCT-2006
[*** – Deleted for privacy reasons] Messines Road, Karori, WellingtonShare Parcels
Total Number of shares 100
Number of Shares 50
Shareholder(s) ENGLISH, Mary Agnes [*** – Deleted for privacy reasons] Monaghan Ave, Karori, WellingtonNumber of Shares 50
Shareholder(s) ENGLISH, Simon William [*** – Deleted for privacy reasons] Monaghan Ave, Karori, Wellington
So which address does he actually live at? And what is the status of the other one? Does he own it? Does he rent it out, and if so, is it to another National Party MP? Or has he just been sloppy with the paperwork, and failed to keep up?
It seems particularly curious that he could have a different address as a Director of a company to that he has as a shareholder of it. Wasn’t it sloppiness with the paperwork of this sort that saw David Parker stood down as a Minister for a period until it was sorted out?
John Key, take note.
g.blog 
Any reason you need to actually print his childrens’ address rather than making the point but obscuring the detail?
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Anita, this is public information that you or I or anyone could have posted.
Bill English chose to post it on a public information register (that of the Companies Office).
I have no idea whether he actually lives at either of the Wellington addresses registered. For his Parliamentary expenses purposes, he apparently still lives in Dipton.
I’m not breaching anyone’s privacy (unlike Paula Bennett with the beneficiaries whose benefit details she revealed).
I’m just copying what Bill English has already made public. If he didn’t want his home address (whichever, if either of them it is) in the public domain, he could have used his solicitor’s address.
That is common practice for those who want to keep their personal addresses private. But English didn’t do it, so we have to assume he is happy for what he has agreed to being published on a public information register being republished by those like me and John A at The Standard who access it.
toad,
There is a difference between it being publicly available on a small number of registers and you taking a conscious act to publish it more widely.
Also, IMO, whether or not you are really confident that Bill English is ok with you republishing it (are you?) you have absolutely no basis to believe his kids are ok with it, or to make their lives as a politician’s children any more difficult.
[I think we’re copying our responses to each on both blogs right now btw :]
I guess that may be where we differ Anita (actually, I usually agree with you on most things).
But my position is that if someone puts personal information in the public domain, then it is totally legitimate for someone else to republish it.
And it is morally imperative on someone else to republish it if it is relevant to allegations of corruption.
[and copied back again :]
An analogy (inspired by QoT – thanks) a few years ago one of the more extremist anti-abortion groups published the street address of a Wellington doctor who supports abortion because she was involved in setting up a company specifically to import RU486. They put in a newsletter and sent it to everyone on their anti-abortion mailing list along with all the abortion related things she’d been involved with. Like John A and Toad they got the address from public register.
What do you think?
Toad,
But back to your substantive point.
a) I don’t believe it is always legitimate to republish it. I believe one needs to think through what the information was originally made available for, and what the effect on that person and any other people would be. All actions have consequences and the morality of any action has to include a consideration of those consequences.
b) The actual street addresses are not relevant to allegations of corruption.
Anita:
a) I do. There, we differ, If it is public information, it is always legitimate to republsih it,
b) No, they are not. And if I ahd thught about it I may not have, But I post occasionally when I am inspired to and my work commitments allow me the time to. In retrospect, maybe would have omitted the actual street addreses. But then I would have had to link to the actual companies register verification to avoid being challenged by righties regarding the evidence.
And that would have had the same outcome.
Toad,
By “legitimate” do you mean “right”? or “ethical”? or “legal”?
Anita, I meant “legal”.
This is too important an issue to stray into tangential arguments, so I have edited the post to meet your concerns – as I suggested above that I would have originally done if I had thought of the issues you raise before posting.
toad,
Ah, I agree that it’s legal (well except for the funny public registers with the funny and often badly publicised restrictions). I just don’t believe it’s the right thing to do, but too often my right-thing-to-do brain works slower than my fingers 🙂
One of the many things that makes my head hurt about this all is that I don’t know what the actual rules are any more. What is the definition of a non-Wellington Minister than would count English as non-Wellington resident but had problems with Bunkle and Hobbs? Or have the rules changed?
P.S. I think you missed one.
Hmmm. Dunno either, Anita.
Maybe we should ask the Auditor-General, in the context of English and those Ministers who own residential property in Wellington but are renting it out and living somewhere else at the taxpayer’s expense.
I’m with Anita on this Toad- MPs and other high-profile individuals in politics get enough flack without further publicizing their personal addresses for people to harass them at. We (rightly, I feel) criticise National when they release private details of members of the public in a way that exposes them to hate speech, so we should at least have a care to live up to our own standards, even if MPs are decidedly in the public square. Posting a home address is very different to organising a mail campaign to an official address, for instance.
Yeah, Ari, Anita persuaded me yesterday evening.
I was really just a bit tired, and copied and pasted from the Companies Register, thinking it was a public register and already in the public domain.
The issues Anita raised never occurred to me.
I was intending to target only Bill English – of whom there is mounting evidence supporting allegations of his corruption as a Member of Parliament.
I don’t accuse his family of anything, and as sorry if they felt I did.
Bill English is the only one who needs to explain his financial actions re Parliamentary expenses- not his family.