Under cross examination by defence lawyer Rod Gillis, city solicitor John Nugent called the minister's comments badly misinformed. Nugent said the investment strategies under his watch were always responsible. One of John Ferguson's allegedly defamatory comments was that the board acted like desperate gamblers.
Nugent became a pension board trustee in 2003. Gillis made much of Nugent's declared conflict of interest, because he calculated Nugent's pension at $1.7 million dollars. Nugent said he had no idea whether that was true because he hadn't calculated it.
