Editorial: Support of Hubbard misguided loyalty

Allan Hubbard. Photo / Supplied

Opinion

Loyalty can be a fine trait. Not, however, when it is unreasoning. That, regrettably, is the lot of those who have begun campaigns in support of Allan Hubbard, the 82-year-old South Island financier.

Newspaper advertising asking people who have been helped by Mr Hubbard to send protest emails to the Prime Minister or the Commerce Minister has begun, and yesterday hundreds rallied in support of him in Timaru.

Many of those supporters were investors and people who had benefited from the millions that Mr Hubbard has contributed to charity over the past 60 years.

That is enough for them to berate the Government and the authorities responsible for the investigation into his financial affairs. One close friend of Mr Hubbard said the action made him ashamed to be a New Zealander.

Yet he and others of like mind know nothing about what prompted it or what the outcome will be. They are, effectively, in the dark.

All that is known is that the Commerce Minister placed the interests of Mr Hubbard and his wife, their Aorangi Securities and seven charitable trusts in statutory management after receiving a recommendation from the Securities Commission.

Aorangi Securities had been investigated by the market watchdog and the Registrar of Companies after a complaint was received from an investor.

We also know that the Registrar of Companies referred matters relating to Aorangi Securities to the Serious Fraud Office for investigation of "potential breaches of the Crimes Act".

In an ideal world, the Serious Fraud Office would complete its work quickly and make public what, if any, action was to be taken against Mr Hubbard.

But the web woven by financiers is often complex and sometimes labyrinthine. Typically, SFO investigations take months or years, not days. The public can only patiently await the outcome. That, not barracking by the blind, is what should be occurring now.