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Political Report: April 20

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By: Barry Soper | Friday, April 20, 2012 6:06 AM

John Key's been caught in a web of inaccuracies as he scrambles to cover his back over the shonky Sky City deal.

That from the master of conspiracy theories himself, Luigi Peters, the man who didn't know how a hundred grand ended up in his party's bank account and adopted a three monkeys approach to a billionaire businessman claiming to have done a deal with the then Foreign Minister to become our honorary consul in the ritzy Monaco.

But the political Godfather's never let his own failings stand in the way of scoring a political point. And there are lots of points to score on the pokies for convention centre deal.

State Homie John Key's made no secret of the fact that wearing his tourism hat he told Sky City to throw their hat in the ring to build a convention centre in the City of Fails.

Leaving Singapore last night he wasn't telling pesky reporters whose idea it was to trade off our gambling laws to let Sky City put more one arm bandits into their casino if they build the convention centre.

But a dump of papers under the Official Information Act shows he was a hands on minister when it came to the deal. He ordered his bureaucrats to stop developing the business case for the centre involving others keen on building it until they'd received a proposal from the gambling giant. And then a few months later he had dinner with the casino bosses where the pokie hand was played.

All of this is fodder for the opposition parties but unfortunately for them the Parliamentary bear pit's in hibernation at the moment. They say The Homie's selling the law to allow more pokies and increase the misery of those who pump money into them that they can ill afford.

But dicing with the law should come as little surprise to them. The Homie likes doing deals, trading an industrial law just over a year ago and doling out 34 million bucks worth of tax cuts to allow Warner Brothers to make the Hobbit movies here.

So where's the tax cuts for Sky City, you're probably asking?

Well with many more one arm bandits on their gambling floor it'll be a coin in with little cash out affair.

And Luigi tells us Sky City has to pay just two and a half percent of its takings in community grants, while gaming trusts cough up 37 percent.

Now that's not a bad deal!

 

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