Rt Hon Winston Peters
New Zealand First Leader
17 FEBRUARY 2015

Peters to Ask FMA to Look into Skycity Share Trading

Fallout from the abortive attempt to get taxpayers to underwrite the SkyCity Convention Centre will see New Zealand First Leader Rt Hon Winston Peters ask the Financial Markets Authority to examine the trading of SkyCity shares.

“This fiasco smells to high heaven,” the Rt Hon Winston Peters said.

“Last December SkyCity put out its corporate begging bowl but the Prime Minister waited until one day before SkyCity’s half-year profit announcement to mention taxpayer support.

“Mr Key has either a very good forgettery over the market influencing power of what he says as Prime Minister, or there’s a darker motive the FMA is best placed to discover.

“This isn’t ‘show me the money’ but it is follow the money.

“Under questioning the Prime Minister told Parliament a ‘deal was agreed with SkyCity on Friday [13 February] confirmed by their board over the weekend’.

“The problem is over 3.4 million shares traded hands that day. That’s some two million more shares than what traded the day before or the trading day after and you know what? There’s no market announcement on Friday relating to ‘a deal’ the Prime Minister told us about.

“There’s a name for this sort of behaviour because inside information, tête-à-tête’s and functions with SkyCity’s General Counsel sum up how this government rolls,” Mr Peters said.

ENDS

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