Supporters of Hubbard want action

Exposing Unacceptable Financial Activities group member Gray Eatwell (right) speaks at a meeting...
Exposing Unacceptable Financial Activities group member Gray Eatwell (right) speaks at a meeting of Allan Hubbard investors and supporters in Timaru yesterday. Listening are fellow group members Paul Carruthers and Suzanne Edmonds. Photo by Guy Williams.
A meeting yesterday of about 250 investors and supporters of Allan Hubbard demanded the Government immediately produce evidence of fraud or halt action against the Timaru businessman.

The call was one of several motions passed in a sometimes disorganised two and a-half-hour meeting at the Theatre Royal, Timaru, organised by the Tauranga-based Exposing Unacceptable Financial Activities (EUFA) group.

On July 20, the Government placed Aorangi Securities (a private investment company owned by the Hubbards), seven charitable trusts and the couple's personal assets and bank accounts into statutory management, while the Serious Fraud Office launched an investigation.

Mr Hubbard's flagship company, South Canterbury Finance, is unaffected by the investigation.

Mr Hubbard stood down as chairman of the company in May, but remains its major shareholder.

Yesterday's meeting also approved motions calling for the resignations of Securities Commission chairwoman Jane Diplock and commission member Simon Botherway; the unfreezing of investors' money in Aorangi Securities, and a call for the Government to pay the costs of statutory management and the SFO investigation.

EUFA member Paul Carruthers said there had been "an enormous lack of transparency" in the actions against Mr Hubbard and his wife, Jean, with no evidence provided to justify them.

Mr Carruthers said Mr Hubbard had been "hung out to dry in public" and had been the victim of a "fundamental travesty of justice".

"I'm determined that we are going to hold [the Government] accountable for it."

In the past fortnight, EUFA had lodged two submissions with the Office of the Ombudsmen, Mr Carruthers said.

The first submission highlighted that Mr Botherway was part of the committee that recommended statutory management to the Government, but did not declare that his brother had been placed in receivership by South Canterbury Finance until after the link was raised in the media, he said.

The second submission, lodged on Thursday, included a demand Commerce Minister Simon Power dismiss Mr Botherway and Securities Commission chairwoman Jane Diplock, a halt to all further action by statutory managers, an apology to the Hubbards, and a commission of inquiry into the whole affair.

For the first hour of the meeting, EUFA member Gray Eatwell spoke about his dispute with the Bank of New Zealand dating back to 1998, and his motivation for campaigning for the rights of investors after "12 years of mismanagement by the authorities".

 

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