NZPA on Winston’s contradictions
September 11th, 2008 at 3:00 pm by David FarrarNZPA have done an excellent job detailing how Winston couldn’t even keep to the one line, last night. Very good research on their part to go through the transcripts and recordings. They say:
New Zealand First leader Winston Peters last night gave several different positions on the crucial phone call and email at the centre of the conflict between he and billionaire Owen Glenn’s testimony….
Mr Peters’ responses
1. He said money was not discussed in the call and he did not recollect Mr Glenn asking for Mr Henry’s bank details, but conceded the latter was possible.
“That’s the only logical conclusion that one can come to. That he (Glenn) asked for the details and that’s why it is mentioned in the email.”
He said it was “fair” to presume Mr Henry was talking about him when he referred to “my client” in his email.
2. At another point he said he believed Mr Henry’s reference may have related to another client who had solicited the donation in an earlier call.
“Mr Henry … in his last evidence to you points out that the person involved in the set up of Mr Glenn making this donation was not Winston Peters. That’s the light in which you should see that email. That’s the only conclusion I can come to.”
But he appeared to contradict that by arguing it was Mr Henry who initially solicited the donation from Mr Glenn.
“I believe now that Mr Henry had called him on 5th of December to solicit the funds.”
Mr Henry himself has in letters to the committee — most recently three days ago, before the full email was revealed — asserted the client referred to in the email is not Mr Peters.
3. Mr Peters also said the email did not refer to his conversation with Mr Glenn as it referred to a call made at 1.30, whereas Mr Glenn’s six-minute call to him started at 1.26.
This is why people who were there labeled it pathetic. It was grasping for straws.
Mind you looking at Labour in the House today attacking Owen Glenn and agreeing with Winston, I have to say I think Helen may be now moving to keep Peters on.
Related posts:
- Henry changes story
- What you have to believe in to believe Peters did not know
- The short version
- Unanswered Questions
September 11th, 2008 at 3:51 pm
I expect the decision to be made on the basis of the next round of Polls measured against the latest Roy Morgan Poll.
Labour up = Winston, stays
Labour down = Winston goes.
Bugger the evidence. It’s as simple and self-serving as that
Vote:September 11th, 2008 at 3:55 pm
“3. Mr Peters also said the email did not refer to his conversation with Mr Glenn as it referred to a call made at 1.30, whereas Mr Glenn’s six-minute call to him started at 1.26.”
While I can understand Mr Glenn wishing he was talking to someone else halfway through a conversation with Winnie, Winnie surely doesn’t really think that Mr Glenn made a separate call to Mr Henry to discuss another client whilst still on the phone to Winnie. FFS what a plonker.
Vote:September 11th, 2008 at 3:58 pm
Like Ive said before Luigi has the wood on Clark big time She cant afford to cut him lose and risk him leaking the info he has that would destroy her and the socialists.
Mind you When she appointed him Minister of Foreign Affairs she had no way of telling that the (cough) incident would occur that would require him to do her the biggest favour of all time and forever leave her at his mercy.
Ahhhh As the old saying goes When you lie down with dogs you get fleas.
Vote:September 11th, 2008 at 4:05 pm
wasn’t english pathetic in questiontime..?
both cullen and peters totally monstered him..
http://whoar.co.nz/2008/questiontime11808/
and i agree about the ‘hardening’ against glenn..
(i guess that’s what you get for calling press conferences specifically to pour abuse on clark/williams etc..eh..?.)
phil(whoar.co.nz)
Vote:September 11th, 2008 at 4:07 pm
gd … Have I missed something – what (cough) incident?
Vote:September 11th, 2008 at 4:11 pm
We are at the point now where Clark’s behaviour has become totally irrational other than the only rational explanation of what Peter’s has on her?
Vote:September 11th, 2008 at 4:17 pm
so..i guess national/key will/must be hanging on the serious fraud coppers coming up trumps for them..
..eh..?
..if they don’t..
it’ll be iced-water in the veins time..?
..eh..?
..(regrets..?..key’ll have a few..
..eh..?)
phil(whoar.co.nz)
Vote:September 11th, 2008 at 4:20 pm
One can now only be left with the assumption, that HC is beholding to Peter’s. The plot seriously thickens.
Vote:September 11th, 2008 at 4:25 pm
no..
..one is left with the ‘assumption’ that the quality of the evidence/memory from glenn..
..leaves much to be desired..
..and the inability to ‘convict’ on it..
..without such a conviction being a total travesty of justice..
..that’s not only the assumption..
..it’s also becoming the (seemingly) inevitable conclusion..
phil(whoar.co.nz)
Vote:September 11th, 2008 at 4:27 pm
Ross Miller the (cough) incident when Hon Winston Peters mMnister of Foreign Affairs was asked to arrange a diplomatic passport at very short notice and in most usual circumstances in order to expedite what might have otherwise been a most unfortunate occurrence on foreign soils.
Vote:September 11th, 2008 at 4:32 pm
Ross please dont ask me to reveal any more as the Bishop said to the actress as I dont want to incur penalties from DPF .
Believe you me this aint conspiracy stuff this is the real deal altough more the scrip of a TV programme or a movie. Others may wish to fill in the gaps until if or when the truth is outted and in more ways than one
Vote:September 11th, 2008 at 4:37 pm
Surely after the last week, there can’t be any dirt left on Winnie. I think we need to know about the ‘cough’ incident? Is this about Peter Davis? Is that why Helen is protecting Winston. It’s really reached the point where all the facts need to be layed bare (no pun intended).
Vote:September 11th, 2008 at 4:38 pm
freedom101 as David Hartnell says ‘My lips are sealed”
Vote:September 11th, 2008 at 4:40 pm
emmess – yes!
Vote:September 11th, 2008 at 4:42 pm
freedom101
I’m not going to correct your assumption either.
Vote:September 11th, 2008 at 4:47 pm
The trouble for Helen is that Winston can only be leased, not bought. With what he has on Helen it’s the gift that keeps on giving!
Vote:September 11th, 2008 at 5:00 pm
Abraham Lincoln once accused his opponent, Stephen Douglas, of attempting by some fantastical rearrangement of words, to fool people that a horse-chestnut was the same thing as a chestnut horse.
So it is with the attempt by Winston Peters to turn the Privileges Committee and other enquiries into his non-disclosure of secret corporate backing, into semantic sideshows which shift public focus from the real issue.
To the extent that he succeeds in turning the spotlight only onto whether or not he knew about the donations received, instead of the fact of his failure to comply with the law in disclosing them, he masks the real truth.
This is classic Peters. Do anything but answer a question directly. Do anything: turn the question back on the questioner, question their intelligence or their motives, weave them into a massive conspiracy, refuse to answer on the basis that they haven’t done their “research”, hold up a sign, anything at all to avoid dealing in truth.
Above all, evade the very accountability you demand of everyone else.
By allowing the obfuscation Peters and his lawyers seek to create to cloud the issue, Helen Clark can seek to delay for a bit longer chopping off one of the gangrenous limbs propping up her government.
The core issue before the Privileges Committee is quite simple.
Owen Glenn, regardless of who asked him (which is not an issue with which the disclosure laws are concerned) gave $100,000 to either Winston Peters or to NZ First.
Either way, the law required disclosure. But the gift was disclosed neither in the party’s return under the Electoral Act, nor in Peters’ own returns as an MP or as a Minister.
The extent to which Peters and Henry have got away with the fantastic canard, repeated by Helen Clark in Parliament a few weeks ago, that the money was given to neither Peters himself nor NZ First, but instead was a contribution to the legal costs of the Tauranga Electoral Petition, as though that was a disembodied entity in itself, is stunning.
This is a total red herring, and as proven in their choice of corporate donors, Peters and Clark will take money from donors of any stripe at all, even from people they privately and publicly seek to undermine.
As Owen Glenn has made clear, the $100,000 was certainly not given for the benefit of Brian Henry, it was given to cover the costs of the Electoral Petition.
The Electoral Petition was in the name of either Winston Peters, or of NZ First. There is no mythical 3rd party outside of these two possibilities. Therefore any money given to cover the costs of the Petition, was given for the benefit of one of those two parties.
Peters and Henry are both lawyers. Both, as they will quickly tell you, are experts in electoral law and in the laws of disclosure as applying to parliamentarians. Both have made their names for many years in calling for greater such disclosure. They could not have done this without thorough knowledge of the existing disclosure requirements.
Peters, with the assistance of Henry, the bill for which was sent to Peters for payment by the taxpayer, introduced a Bill to Parliament for this purpose in 1995.
His vehement support for the Electoral Finance Act late last year is just the most recent example.
Furthermore, Brian Henry is not just an occasional legal consultant or barrister to Peters. He, by his own evidence before the Privileges Committee, has had a close relationship with Peters, his “blood-brother”, since at least 1991.
Henry was instrumental in the very foundation of NZ First as a party in 1993. NZ First’s so-called “Fifteen Fundamental Principles” were written up in his office on the morning of 18th July that year, the day the party was launched at, ironically, a racetrack, a venue of the kind that has figured so much in the party’s recent history.
Brian Henry has been from the beginning, NZ First’s “Judicial Officer”, and thus part of its administration.
Both in this capacity, and in that of Peters’ own lawyer, he, far from being an independent conduit of funds, has been in the positions of both personal legal adviser to Peters, and adviser to NZ First as a party.
In either capacity, and as an officer of the court, it has been his responsibility to help ensure that both Peters and the party comply with their legal obligations as regards disclosure of funds received.
As such, and as a barrister who, as has previously been canvassed, does not operate a trust fund as other lawyers might, it has been his duty not to shield his client from knowledge of monies received, but to advise him of it, and the requirement to disclose their receipt to the proper authorities.
Had the money been given to such as the Spencer Trust, or any other hitherto unknown such bodies, the identity of the original contributor could have remained unknown. But this method was not chosen. Thus the claim by Peters that he had not known of the Glenn donation until Henry told him in July this year, should be seen for what it is.
The simple fact is that regardless of whether Peters himself asked Glenn for the money for his own costs or those of NZ First, or Henry as his or NZ First’s lawyer did the asking, the $100,000 was given and received for a client with a legal duty of disclosure.
To the extent to which the Privileges Committee, the media, and the public, believe it is not this simple, is the extent to which Peters’ long practised tactics of leading us all down a cul de sac of legal and obfuscatory semantics, has succeeded.
The aim is to make us lose sight of the real issue, get bored with it and move on. Helen Clark hopes it will succeed.
Vote:September 11th, 2008 at 5:03 pm
Turlough – you may not post often, but when you do, it is worth reading! Excellent contribution!
Vote:September 11th, 2008 at 5:05 pm
As I pointed out yesterday any conspiracy theories involving the covering up of illegal activity on foreign soil would rely upon every police and judicial officer involved in the incident (along with any NZ officials) not leaking the cover-up to the media.
This is not to say the alleged incident did not occur – I have of course no way of knowing whether or not it did. What I am saying is – that like any conspiracy – the involvement of elected officials in covering it up would almost inevitably leak. Watergate ring any bells?
I make this point only because I suspect other commenters may be correct in their assumption that there are reasons well beyond supposed “respect for due process” keeping Ms Clark from sacking Winston. However if we convince ourselves that the above scenario is correct, we fail to look for (perhaps more plausible) alternatives.
Vote:September 11th, 2008 at 5:11 pm
The great thing about telling the truth is that you do not need a good memory.
Vote:September 11th, 2008 at 5:25 pm
The thing is, Helen has said that it is the word of Winston against the word of Glenn.
If Helen backs Glenn, she also tacitly agrees with what Glenn had to say about her and Labour.
Ain’t gonna happen.
Watch for Helen to call the election and say that the public can decide whose version they believe, as “there wasn’t concrete evidence either way”.
Vote:September 11th, 2008 at 5:52 pm
Just a parallel thought – is OGG firmly linked in the public’s mind with the Labour party? Does this now play as Labour in-fighting (and we all know where party in-fighting leads on election day)?
I just think that Clark knows she’s doomed anyway, so she’s hanging on for grim death hoping like hell something turns up.
Vote:September 11th, 2008 at 6:35 pm
Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way
Vote:The time is gone, the song is over,
Thought I’d something more to say.
September 11th, 2008 at 7:38 pm
If Helen really want’s to see something concrete, she should just keep on with this brilliant head in the sand attitude. Then, at the next opinion poll, (yes, they actually called me for the next one, oh happy day!!) she can look at her feet.
The shoes should be concrete!
Vote:September 11th, 2008 at 8:12 pm
The time issue between the call and the email is easily explained, the time was probably a couple of minutes out on the computer it was sent from.
Vote:September 11th, 2008 at 8:17 pm
I stole this from Whale but it just proves how low our corrupt govt had gone.
“Australian minister resigns over semi-naked dance – SYDNEY – An Australian state government minister was forced to quit following reports that he danced in his underwear at a parliamentary office party, the state premier said. Matt Brown resigned late yesterday, only three days… [NZ Herald Politics]
In Australia a minister dances in his budgie smugglers while under the influence and gets sacked. End of Story.
Meanwhile in new Zealand Winston Raymond Peters, 63, steals $158,000, refuses to pay it back, says he has donated the money he nicked but not one single charity will admit to receiving it, votes for retrospective legislation to make legal his illegal spending, gets caught taking bribes, has hundreds of thousands of dollars of illegal undeclared donations, breaks electoral law repeatedly, lies to the country, lies to parliament, lies to the Privileges Committee, falsifies evidence to the Privileges Committee and supports the disbanding of the Serious Fraud Office which coincidentally just so happens to be investigating him for “complex and serious fraud”. Does he get sacked?
No way, the Prime Minister calls all of that “some discrepancies” between protangonists and stands him down from doing the work required of a minister but lets him retain all the baubles and privileges of a minister.
Helen Clark now stands accused of the same corruption that has infected New Zealand First and WRP, 63, LMPONFA. By prevaricating over this errant and corrupt minister she displays that she is no longer fit for office.”
Vote:September 11th, 2008 at 8:20 pm
Rex I respect your view but point to a long time attempt at covering up a situation known to not all the citizens and the levels to which it has been taken to not allow the actual reality to be revealed.
People with a flawed personality will go to extraordinary lengths to preseve a veneer rather than allow the veneer to be removed and the unvarnished truth revealed.
Often a matter than may be seen as so catastrophic to a wider audience will in the minds of the person seeking to conceal it be such that they will undertake quite irrational behaviour to protect disclosure.
the medical experts will know more but suffice to say the signs are all there in this case
Vote:September 11th, 2008 at 9:44 pm
I want to know when the IRD are to get involved?
Vote:September 11th, 2008 at 10:01 pm
GMM, your quick soundbite from ‘Dark Side’ made me do this:
Full lyrics of Time, from the aptly named DARK SIDE OF THE MOON
Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day
You fritter and waste the hours in an off hand way
Kicking around on a piece of ground in your home town
Waiting for someone or something to show you the way
Tired of lying in the sunshine staying home to watch the rain
You are young and life is long and there is time to kill today
And then one day you find ten years have got behind you
No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun
And you run and you run to catch up with the sun, but its sinking
And racing around to come up behind you again
The sun is the same in the relative way, but youre older
Shorter of breath and one day closer to death
Every year is getting shorter, never seem to find the time
Plans that either come to naught or half a page of scribbled lines
Hanging on in quiet desperation is the english way
The time is gone, the song is over, thought Id something more to say
Home, home again
I like to be here when I can
And when I come home cold and tired
Its good to warm my bones beside the fire
Far away across the field
The tolling of the iron bell
Calls the faithful to their knees
To hear the softly spoken magic spells.
Think everyone knows the melody. The shy can humm along.
To me it says just get on and do it! Time is of the esscensce, and we have to work hard to rid ourselves of this manipulative, untrustworthy, and ultimately despotic Government.
Vote: