Hooton vs Peters

The Herald on Sunday reports:

A television stoush between First leader Winston Peters and a National Party insider got so heated filming was stopped and the show's lawyer called in.

Matthew blogs he does have some regrets:

He kept calling me a liar.  I kept calling him a liar.  Willie stood up and said “cut” (or words to that effect).  In the discussion about how to proceed after we were no longer recording, I told Winston he was a “fucking cunt” – in retrospect, I accept that I left out the important adjectives “lying” and “corrupt” between the other two appropriate but more Anglo-Saxon words.

Matthew is correct that Winston is a liar. We have a report from the Parliamentary Privileges Committee which says he is. The corruption tag is debatable – certainly knowingly filing false election expenses and donations return (as NZ First appears to have done in 2005 and 2007) is a corrupt practice. But the party secretary, not the party leader, is held liable under the law.  But if the party secretary says they were never made aware of secret monies controlled by the party leader – well you see how it is certainly debatable.

And Matthew feels a bit guilty:

Finally, I am very proud that I have looked Peters in the eye and called him a liar, a crook and a fucking cunt.  He has been a most evil influence on New Zealand politics since he first began telling lies, scaremongering and attacking minorities in the 1980s.  And I also feel a little guilty that I have been able to look him in the eye and tell him the truth when so many other New Zealanders don't get the same opportunity.

I can't see much chance of a reconciliation!

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