NBR readers don't believe Banks

ACT leader John Banks' credibility with his conservative base appears well and truly shot.

Results from the NBR ONLINE Business Pulse Poll of paid subscribers shows the Epsom MP’s story about the Kim Dotcom donations is not believed.

Readers were asked: “John Banks denies asking Kim Dotcom to split a $50,000 donation so it could remain anonymous. Do you believe him?”

Only 16% say yes. A whopping 75% do not. The remaining 9% are undecided.

Several hundred NBR ONLINE paid subscribers voted in the poll.

The poll is particularly damning because NBR ONLINE subscribers are a significant business audience and comprise a disproportionate number of people who would be at least supportive of the ACT Party's general principles. 

It is doubly damning because it shows that in a choice between Mr Banks and an internet tycoon with prior convictions for dishonesty, readers preferred to believe the latter. 

The beleaguered ACT Party leader and Epsom MP is under fire for having received two lots of $25,000 donations from the internet tycoon Kim Dotcom for his Auckland mayoralty campaign in 2010.

In the House today Prime Minister John Key – under attack for not sacking or at least standing Mr Banks down from his ministerial portfolios while the matter is being investigated – used the fact the donations were for a mayoral campaign to dodge the issue.

The rules in the Cabinet manual about ministerial conduct do not apply to what someone might have done before they became a minister, the Prime Minister told the House.

According to Mr Dotcom – who has previous convictions for dishonesty and is also under effective house arrest for breaches of international intellectual property laws – Mr Banks asked for a $50,000 donation to be split into two and to be made anonymously.

Mr Banks went on television on the weekend and declared he welcomed a police inquiry into the donations but also refused to answer any questions on the issue.

Today Mr Banks said he had been told by lawyers the donations were legal but also that he should not comment publicly on them.

He also said he had forgotten whether he took a helicopter ride to Kim Dotcom’s north Auckland mansion.

The memory lapses by Mr Banks also brought him under opposition ridicule today.

“A member who can’t remember where he was and can’t recall what a helicopter is should not have a ministerial warrant,” Labour MP Clayton Cosgrove told the House.

MORE: Banks and Williamson to be stood down in next fortnight - iPredict