Former property developer Basil Walker, who was granted a discharge without conviction by Judge Catriona Doyle in Queenstown’s court this week, says his opinion of the Crown agency, which runs the country’s elections, is unchanged.
"They’re a gutless, mean-spirited pack of bureaucrats."
The 73-year-old was charged last year under the Electoral Act for signing a false declaration that he was eligible to vote in the 2023 general election.
He claims he only did so because he was unaware his name was on the commission’s Corrupt Practices List at the time, which made him ineligible to vote.
Walker was put on the list in 2021 after he was convicted and fined for failing to file an election expenses return after the 2020 election — he’d stood as an independent candidate for the Invercargill electorate on a plank of saving the Tiwai aluminium smelter.
His lawyer later described his delay in filing the return as a "peaceable protest".
Speaking to Mountain Scene after his court hearing this week, Walker says he’d been "completely unaware" his 2021 conviction had meant his name had gone on the Corrupt Practices List for three years.
He’d never heard of the list, because no one told him about it.
"It wasn’t in the judicial notes, it wasn’t in the statement of charges, the police didn’t know, the prosecution didn’t know and the court didn’t know."
He agreed to a plea deal — admitting the false declaration charge in exchange for the police supporting his discharge application — because he’s a "very pragmatic person".
Although he’d been prepared to defend himself at a judge-alone trial this week, he knew that if he’d lost and been convicted, he would’ve gone back on the Corrupt Practices List for another three years.
The idea of his name being associated with corruption is upsetting, and he values his right to vote in next year’s general election, he says.
"Corruption is not something any New Zealander likes, is it?"
However, both the prosecutions against him have been "convoluted, messed up and poorly administrated" by the Electoral Commission, he says.
All he’d done was file a late expenses return, and make a declaration contrary to a list he’d never heard of.
