Peters should be sacked for contempt - Key

Leader knowingly misled Parliament

The Dominion Post

NZ First leader Winston Peters should resign or Prime Minister Helen Clark should sack him, National leader John Key says.

Parliament's privileges committee found Mr Peters knowingly misled Parliament by failing to declare $100,000 that billionaire Owen Glenn paid toward his legal bills.

It found Mr Peters in contempt for not disclosing the 2005 gift and recommended that Parliament censure him.

Mr Key commented prior to entering his party's weekly caucus meeting this morning.

"Winston Peters should resign or Helen Clark should sack him," he said.

He said the reason Miss Clark would not sack him was because she was up to her eyeballs in the whole affair.

"She has been for the last six months and potentially for the last two or three years. His version of events does not tally with the version presented by Owen Glenn."

He said Mr Peters had received a fair hearing from the committee, chaired by National MP Simon Power.

"He got an absolutely fair hearing. I don’t think there was any political interference. That was simply a smokescreen put up by Winston Peters and Helen Clark."

Mr Peters will attack his accusers in Parliament today but he isn't likely to stave off a vote that will censure him for misleading the privileges committee.

The committee also recommended that Mr Peters be ordered to make new declarations of interest for 2006, 2007 and this year within seven days, registering any gifts, debts or payments in kind not previously disclosed.

Throughout the hearings, Mr Peters denied knowing anything about the December 2005 donation and said he was only told about it in July this year.

This morning NZ First MP Dail Jones said the committee had used a corrupt system, was inquisitorial and had accepted inferences and circumstantial evidence.

He said it had developed an interpretation of Parliament's rules (Standing Orders) and then applied it.

"In other words in 2006 you had to know what a committee would decide would be the interpretation of this form in 2008 which is impossible," he said on Radio New Zealand.

Mr Jones and Mr Peters said the committee's actions reflected what happened in Zimbabwe.

"Majorities impose their will on minorities."

Deputy Prime Minister Michael Cullen said the issue of retrospectivity was a concern. He also said Mr Peters would have followed advice about what he had to declare or not.

Labour and NZ First opposed the committee's recommendation Mr Peters be censured.

They said there was insufficient evidence to conclude Mr Peters had any knowledge of the donation.

But National, the Greens, the Maori Party, ACT and United Future believed he did,  and between them those parties have the numbers to endorse the report through a vote in Parliament.

The finding by eight of the 13 MPs on the committee effectively means they did not believe Mr Peters' evidence that he knew nothing of Mr Glenn's contribution toward the cost of his Tauranga electoral petition till this year.

But his ministerial job is safe for now, Prime Minister Helen Clark having indicated before the report that she would delay a decision on his future till the outcome of a Serious Fraud Office investigation into NZ First donations paid through the Spencer Trust.

The committee declined to rule on SFO evidence that the $40,000 for the costs Mr Peters was ordered to pay National MP Bob Clarkson after the Tauranga electoral petition was paid to Mr Peters' lawyer, Brian Henry, by the trust.

Mr Peters and Mr Henry told the committee that he could not have declared the money from Mr Glenn as the pair operated a complex system where Mr Henry raised money for his legal fees without Mr Peters knowing.

Mr Henry said he approached Mr Glenn for money and did not tell Mr Peters till July this year. But Mr Glenn said the approach was from Mr Peters, and produced phone records to show a call he made to Mr Peters on December 14, 2005.

He said that was to tell Mr Peters he would make a contribution, and was followed minutes later by an e-mail from Mr Henry with bank account details.

Phone records showed Mr Peters called Mr Henry between the call from Mr Glenn and the e-mail being sent.

"The majority of us believe it is extremely unlikely that Mr Peters and Mr Glenn could have had a conversation on that date without the issue of a donation being raised ... The sequence of telephone calls followed immediately by an e-mail containing bank account details indicates that the topic must have arisen during one or both of those conversations. Given the evidence before us, the majority of us concluded that Mr Peters had some knowledge of Mr Glenn's intention to make a donation."

The majority report says Mr Peters had an obligation to make an "honest attempt" to find out who was paying his legal bill to ensure it was declared in the MPs' register of interests.

In a minority finding, the four Labour and one NZ First MP on the committee said they could not rule that Mr Peters had knowledge of the gift from Mr Glenn.

They also said it was not fair to institute an "honest attempt" provision retrospectively.

Mr Peters accused the majority of MPs who found against him of predetermining the inquiry.

"... a majority lined up along political party lines and insisted that I was guilty before and during the hearings. It had echoes of Zimbabwe." 

- with NZPA