Kiwiblog

The Herald reports:

Former Telecom head Theresa Gattung has attacked the company for paying its executives much bigger salaries than when she was in charge.

In her book Bird on a Wire, which goes on sale next week, Ms Gattung – who received a leaving payment of $3.9 million in June 2007 on top of a base salary of $1.25m – questions whether the current staff deserve such generous pay.

“Now that I’m long gone I, with the rest of the country, wonder about the propriety of a company making half the annual profits it did a few years ago but paying its executives considerably higher salaries.”

It’s a fair question, but there may also be a fair answer. One reason profits have dropped is because the Government has operationally separated Telecom to stamp out business practices which were anti-competitive. The reason the Government did this is because it got so frustrated with the behaviour of Telecom under Theresa’s regime.

Ms Gattung told the Herald politicians deserved much of the blame for Telecom’s latest woes.

She said she predicted in 2007 that the Labour Government’s decision to give competitors access to Telecom’s exchanges, and to split the company into three divisions, would result in a “train wreck”.

Telecom may be struggling (for a number of reasons), but the sector as a whole is actually doing very well. The train wreck for me was the previous status quo.

In her book, Ms Gattung also reveals that former Labour Party president Mike Williams approached her shortly before she left Telecom to stand for Labour.

She says she was “flabbergasted”.

Now that would have been interesting.

I’m amazed no one in the media, or even the Greens, have picked up on this revelation in a story on Tony Gibbs.

And then, on behalf of GPG shareholders, there was 2006’s epic joust with the Labour government over its plan to change tax rules on foreign investments. …

Mr Gibbs launched a vigorous and ultimately successful campaign to get the government to back down. …

Former Labour Party president Mike Williams has dealt with Mr Gibbs for several years, including when Mr Gibbs was attempting to defeat the tax legislation being promoted by the Labour-led government. “He put up a hell of a fight and he won. He convinced me that it was unfair and, to be honest with you, I lobbied for him – it was unfair.”

Now just think about this. The Labour Party President, their chief fund-raiser, was lobbying his own Government Ministers on behalf of Mr Gibbs and GPG to secure the defeat of tax legislation.

Party Presidents should not be lobbyists for corporate interests. It is a fundamental conflict of interest to collect the money from corporates, and then lobby on their behalf to the Government.

This just reminds me how hollow Labour’s claim of concern about transparency in electoral financing is.

The Sunday News reports:

SECRET documents suggest that former Labour Party president Mike Williams got the $100,000-plus a year job heading the anti-P Stellar Trust mainly because he is mates with Paul Holmes.

“Clearly there are some risks with the Williams appointment,” reads a confidential paper from the Trust’s board.

“There may well be other candidates in the marketplace who may be capable of doing a better job as CEO and chief fundraiser, however if we go that route we will very likely not have Holmes’ involvement,” it continues.

It is no secret that Holmes and Williams are close mates, so this is little surprise.

The document, dated August 2, adds: “Our recommendation therefore is to offer the CEO role to Mike Williams, but to give ourselves the ability to review the situation after say six months, subject to the constraints of current employment law.

“If he has not succeeded in raising significant sums in that time, there will not be enough funding for his continuing salary, so he does have an incentive to succeed.”

I am no fan of Williams, but to be fair to him he seemed to be reasonably proficient in fundraising for Labour.

But Williams’s appointment has led to high profile, anti-P crusader Mike Sabin and his group MethCon withdrawing their support for the Stellar Trust.

He sent an email to the board on August 10 which read: “It is with some regret I wish to advise that I am unable to reconcile my concerns about the appointment of Mike Williams to the position of CEO to the trust. I believe this is a high risk appointment that will be very polarising given the political overtones.”

It is understood that Sabin, a former drug squad detective, believed Labour approached the P epidemic with a polarising “harm minimisation” approach, treating it as a public health and welfare issue rather than a public order problem.

Sabin may well be right, but really I wouldn’t hld the former party president responsible for what the parliamentary wing or Ministers decided.

The Stellar Trust board’s confidential August 2 paper also revealed there was a concern about how Williams’ appointment would be accepted by the National Government.

After last year’s election, Williams left Labour’s engine-room following a series of controversial media reports, including how he flew to Australia seeking dirt on John Key.

The Trust’s reservations were passed on to Holmes, regarded as the public face of Stellar.

The broadcaster sought the Prime Minister’s views.

Key last night confirmed a call between himself and Holmes on July 26.

“I’ve moved on and I’m not a person who holds grudges.

“If Mike is prepared to spend his time trying to combat P, given the devastation that drug is causing, then I’m happy to work with him,” he told Sunday News.

Could you imagine Helen Clark saying the same thing about someone who had flown to another country in a (failed) attempt to smear her as a criminal fraudster?

On Agenda this morning John Key was asked whether he thought Mike WIlliams should go off all his Government boards, and Key said yes.

To give credit to Williams, he has taken the hint and resigned, according to Radio NZ:

Mr Williams says he was advised by the agency that oversees Crown owned companies, the Crown Company Monitoring Advisory Unit or CCMAU, that his resignation was expected by ministers in the new government.

Mr Williams says he has now resigned from Genesis Energy, the New Zealand Transport Agency and GNS Science.

He says the only complication is that he needs to have his name removed from an upcoming $150 million bond issue by Genesis.

Mr Williams says otherwise he would have liability, without accountability, for the bond issue.

I don’t think being Labour Party President per se meant he had to resign. People such as former Labour Deputy Leader David Caygill give very good service. It was Williams involvement in trying to smear John Key with the H-Fee that made his continued service impossible – in my opinion.

The SST reports that Mike Williams will resign as Labour Party President this week. Sadly there is no word on whether he has resigned off all the Government boards Labour appointed him to.

He still claims no regrets over his attempted smear job of John Key:

Williams, who drew much criticism for his dash to Melbourne late in the election campaign to examine papers about National leader John Key, said he had no regrets about doing so.

The 13,000 pages of court documents turned out to contain nothing incriminating of Key.

“To use a metaphor, if you’re pinned down, somebody has to crawl out under the barbed wire,” Williams told the Sunday Star-Times. “I drew the short straw on that one and the chance of getting my arse shot off, and I did.” The allegations had to be checked out, he said.

It’s sad he still doesn’t realise his mistake. As Party President he never ever should have been flying to Melbourne and taking back 20 kgs of papers. There were scores of other people who could have been dispatched.

Merely being a party president for the party no longer in power, doesn’t mean one should have to immediately resign all your Government appointments. Normally they would be allowed to see their terms out.

But WIlliams tried to prove that the Prime Minister was NZ’s biggest fraudster. He personally drove and managed an attempted smear campaign. He even blogged about it as Batman. He sent copies of documents to journalists at their home addresses. Having done all that, how ca he expect to be trusted to govern any crown entity on behalf of the new Government?

If Williams will not proactively resign, the Government shoudl show some balls and write to him asking him to resign off all the Boards he is on.

The Dom Post reports:

Ms King, 61, was first elected in 1984 and is two years younger than Dr Cullen.

She has been tipped as a contender for Wellington’s mayoralty, which could open her Rongotai seat for Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union secretary Andrew Little.

However, party president Mike Williams told the Labour caucus yesterday that he intended to serve till November and then step down, prompting Mr Little to confirm that he was interested in the job. “I would be a contender,” he said.

I can’t imagine Andrew will face any opposition to his ascension. And he should prove more of an asset than the incumbent.

The Herald writes:

On October 13, an anonymous blogger posted to Labour Party-affiliated website The Standard. The blogger, calling himself Batman, is believed to be a senior official, most likely party president Mike Williams, although he has denied it was him.

Of course he has.

Oh today’s Dom Post editorial is wonderful:

First they take the piss out of Williams and compare it all to a John le Carre novel.

At the Victorian Office of Public Prosecutions a swarthy, middle-aged man is hunched over a desk working his way through an enormous stack of documents, The Dominion Post writes

In Wellington a pile of documents is dropped in a Dominion Post reporter’s letterbox wrapped in a copy of the Otago Daily Times. Further documents follow, delivered by someone who calls himself Batman.

The script for an antipodean John le Carre-style thriller? Sadly no.

Le Carre would have approved of “Batman”. It’s a nice touch, hinting at a sense of self-deprecation on the part of the document dropper, but if Le Carre had been writing the script, the man poring over court records in Melbourne would have been a Russian emigre with a limp, not Labour Party president Mike Williams, and the drop would have been wrapped in the Times Literary Supplement, not the ODT.

But then they really put the acid on:

However, two critical facts have been uncovered by document searches in Melbourne. In an interview last year, Mr Key wrongly stated that he left Elders Merchant Finance a year earlier than he did in 1988 and he wrongly stated that he paid for a 1988 lunch that Australian court documents show was actually paid for by a colleague.

These are matters of grave import that go to the heart of Mr Key’s credibility as a prime ministerial aspirant.

If he cannot be relied upon to remember who paid for the champers with which he and his colleagues toasted his departure 20 years ago, how can he be trusted to run the country? Next thing he’ll be claiming he was unaware the crown limo in which he was being ferried from one place to another was travelling at twice the speed limit, signing his name to artworks he did not produce, rewriting electoral laws to suit his party or pretending not to notice that a political ally has been misleading the public.

Ouch, ouch and ouch again.

Some useful comments from John Armstrong and especially Fran O’Sullivan on Labour’s attempted H-Fee smear. It is worth remembering that this was a smear thay had been pushing for over a year, with Ministers in the House going on about it.

Armstrong writes:

Labour did trip itself up this week, the cynicism and arrogance of power coming back to bite it with a vengeance. That was most obvious in Labour’s latest attempt to dredge up something, anything, in John Key’s foreign exchange dealing past which might make voters question whether National’s leader has the integrity worthy of a prime minister.

Labour believes it is perfectly within its rights to probe Key’s character. That may be so. But New Zealand voters have huge difficulty with investigations into MPs’ pasts and private lives. Some discretion is required on Labour’s part. Yet, it clumsily seems to think it can fool the public that it is performing a public service that gives it the latitude to parade the flimsiest material as proof of Key’s unfitness to govern.

When it turns up nothing – and no less a figure than the party’s president is doing the digging for dirt – Labour looks as if it is driven by a fatal mix of arrogance and desperation. Hardly a good look in the penultimate week of an election campaign.

Labour (and many others including myself) were appalled when the Exclusive Brethren hired a private detective to investigate the Prime Minister. Labour are acting no better than the Exclusive Brethren when they have their party president flying to Australia and hawling back 20 kgs of papers in an attempt to smear Key.

O’Sullivan points out how truly desperate Labour must have been to try this:

Labour Party president Mike Williams must have been tired and emotional or greatly deluded to believe he was finally on the track of a “neutron bomb” which would blast National leader John Key’s election campaign into smithereens.

The upshot of Williams’ lunatic attempt to try and link Key with the notorious 1988 H-fee scam – when no such evidence has been uncovered – is that Labour is now (rightfully) scrambling to fight off accusations that it is more interested in launching smears against its opponents than fighting a fair election at a time of extreme international financial turbulence.

The Prime Minister’s pathetic attempt to distance herself from Williams’ ham-fisted behaviour lasted a mere 24 hours before she was forced to confirm the Labour Party paid for what she initially described as his “private mission”.

Have no doubt if the smear had worked Clark would have fronted it.

It is unfathomable that Williams and Labour’s taxpayer-funded “researchers” thought they would drive home a connection putting Key at the centre of this white-collar crime by uncovering evidence that had eluded the Australian National Crimes Authority’s forensic investigators.

If evidence existed linking Key to the transaction he would either have faced charges, or been subpoenaed to give evidence in the subsequent court cases against Jarrett and Hawkins. He wasn’t.

This is the part that made me realise how desperate Williams was with his Keystone Cops routine. Williams thought his collection of amateur detectives would find evidence that had been overlooked by the Serious Fraud Office and the Australian National Crime Authority’s foresnic investigators.

Duncan Garner blogs:

The H-fee fiasco hasn’t blown up. Well it has – but it’s a minor smoke bomb and it’s exploded in Labour’s face.

Labour had hoped that Key signed off on the $66m Elders – Equiticorp foreign exchange scam in 1988. It would ha ve been gold wouldn’t it?

The signature looks the same – but it’s not Key.

Labour’s President Mike Williams spent a few days in Melbourne last week pouring over the 24 kilograms of papers. But he couldn’t access to the court documents easily.

He had to use the Australian Labour Party’s top lawyer to get a court order – through a judge – to get to the documents.

So who paid for the top lawyer and who paid the court filing fees? Was it the Labour Party?

Did Helen not notice her party president – the Labour Party Campaign Chair and Manager, was out of the country trying to dig up dirt on John Key from 20 years ago?

Yes – she has confirmed she knew what Williams was up to.

Did no one notice he was absent from the daily campaign meetings he normally chairs?

Possibly not, since Helen appointed herself chief political strategist instead of Mike.

Why were taxpayer funded members of Labour’s Parliamentary Research Unit also in Australia with Mike Williams trying to smear John Key?

Helen says none of them flew over, but they were assisting Williams.

Who paid for all their travel?

Well either Helen or Williams are lying here. Helen says WIlliams paid himself. Williams says the Labour Party paid.

Does the head of the research unit still report unofficially to Heather Simpson?

Yes. And there is no way they would have been authorised to work on the smear campaign without Heather’s sign off.

Is the Batman who posted documents anonymously to Dominion Post reporters the same Batman who is an author on The Standard and posted on the H-Fee earlier this month?

Yes.

Why did The Standard delete the previous post from Batman?

They did not delete it, but changed it from being an author to being a guest post and put up a disclaimer that they do not know who Batman is.

Does this not link The Standard to Mike Williams and the Labour Parliamentary Research Unit?

They claim they do not know who Batman is (despite giving him or her posting rights temporarily).

Is it not time that Labour fronted up and revealed how many of the 15 Standard authors are parliamentary and ministerial staffers?

And is Batman one of them?

Who from Labour told Winston about the smear so he could refer to it on Alt TV?

My guess is Pete Hodgson

Doesn’t it undermine Helen’s claim she had nothing to do with it, when her parliamentary strategist Pete Hodgson is trying to beat it up?

And continues to try and beat it up.

Is Helen just pretending she knew nothing about the attempted smear, or has she lost control of her party, her party president and her own research unit?

I don’t think she has lost control. She is in contact six times a day with Mike Williams. If it had not blown up in their face, she would be fronting the issue.

1. Did Helen not notice her party president – the Labour Party Campaign Chair and Manager, was out of the country trying to dig up dirt on John Key from 20 years ago?
2. Did no one notice he was absent from the daily campaign meetings he normally chairs?
3. Why were taxpayer funded members of Labour’s Parliamentary Research Unit also in Australia with Mike Williams trying to smear John Key?
4. Who paid for all their travel?
5. Does the head of the research unit still report unofficially to Heather Simpson?
6. Is the Batman who posted documents anonymously to Dominion Post reporters the same Batman who is an author on The Standard and posted on the H-Fee earlier this month?
7. Why did The Standard delete the previous post from Batman?
8. Does this not link The Standard to Mike Williams and the Labour Parliamentary Research Unit?
9. Is it not time that Labour fronted up and revealed how many of the 15 Standard authors are parliamentary and ministerial staffers?
10. Who from Labour told Winston about the smear so he could refer to it on Alt TV?
11. Doesn’t it undermine Helen’s claim she had nothing to do with it, when her parliamentary strategist Pete Hodgson is trying to beat it up?
12. Is Helen just pretending she knew nothing about the attempted smear, or has she lost control of her party, her party president and her own research unit?

Let me see if I have this right.

Helen Clark claims she can’t remember when she was first briefed on Owen Glenn’s wishes to be made Consul – a relatively recent event, and a pretty significant issue.

While Helen is also claiming there is something sinister about the fact that John Key may have got wrong who paid for a meal 20 years ago when he was 26, and the date he left a job.

Let’s first deal with what is an undisputed fact – John Key had nothing to do with the H-Fee. Here is what the then SFO Director said:

‘Mr Key was simply one in a “vast array of innocent people, potential witnesses, in a massive fact-gathering exercise. I feel compelled to fully support the reported comments of John Key in relation to the H-Fee transaction. It should not need to be said that John Key was completely innocent of any wrongdoing whatsoever. For any politician to hint or suggest otherwise would be absolutely rubbish and pure mischief-making’

Also from the same story last August:

Yesterday Labour Ministers were denying any knowledge of the H-Fee rumours and Labour Party president Mike Williams said the news was “a bolt from the blue” for him.

This is the same Mike WIlliams who is reported today:

In a drive to pin down Mr Key’s involvement in the case, Labour Party president Mike Williams took time out from the heat of the election to fly to Melbourne last week to search documents relating to a court case over the H-Fee.

So get this. The Labour Party President – a man paid almost $200,000 a year by the taxpayer for his multiple board appointments actually flew to another country to search through 20 year old court documents in a desperate attempt to smear John Key. This is Labour’s plan for the future.

And the best he could find was inconsistency over who paid for dinner.

Also worth remembering the SST last year:

Former Equiticorp boss Allan Hawkins and Australian-based expat and former Elders Merchant Finance executive Ken Jarrett have both confirmed Key’s claims he had nothing to do with H-Fee.

So there is no proof at all that Key was in any way involved. It is an attempted guilt by association smear.

So what is this so called neutron bomb. At best it is three minor inconsistencies. Let’s take them one at a time:

Date of Departure

Yes John Key originally said he left in 1987,and in fact it was 24 June 1988. But the Herald themselves had the correct date in their 15 page profile on him in July 2008. So the correct date was already out there.

Before or after the H-Fee

Key said he left before the NZ H-Fee, which was on 7 Sep 1988. This is correct regardless of whether he left in 1987 or June 1988.

There was an earlier H-Fee in Jan 1988 for A$40m. Yes Key still worked for Elders then – but that earlier fee took place in Australia and Key was working in New Zealand. In his own words:

Mr Key says the Labour Party’s desperate attempt to link him with this issue again now appears to revolve around an earlier H-Fee transaction which took place in Australia while he was working for Elders in New Zealand.

“I was not involved in, or even aware of, that earlier transaction. Labour is clearly scraping the bottom of the barrel and will stop at no lie or innuendo.”

And remember that *everyone* says Key was not involved – the SFO, the then head of Equiticorp and the then finance head for Elders where the 26 year old Key was working.

This is again an attempt at guilt by association.

Who paid for the meal?

Mr Key told the Herald last year that Mr Jarrett had denied being in the country when that meeting took place. He said in the interview last year he was able to back-up Mr Richards’ story that Mr Jarrett was in the country because he – Mr Key – had paid for the lunch and had the credit card bill to prove it.

In fact, the court records show that Mr Richards paid for the lunch, not Mr Key.

Oh my God a dispute over who paid for lunch 20 years ago.

Mr Key said today that he always held the belief that the credit card used was his, but conceded it could well have been Mr Richards’.

Oh God Key may have been wrong on some details of a meal 20 years ago when he was 26. This is far far more serious than Helen Clark claiming amnesia over when she was first lobbied to make Owen Glenn Consul.

Finally for those who are going to try and make a capital case out of the fact there were some inconsistencies between people at the lunch, I quote from this e-mail sent to me by a lawyer a few minutes ago, quoting a standard summing up from the crown:

Reminds me of crown summing ups – “now the defence will no doubt point out to you that there are inconsistencies in the stories told by the crown witnesses.  We accept that, of course there are inconsistencies.  It’s human nature.  People can only give their memories, their recollection and such things are never perfect.  Indeed, if the stories were exactly the same there would be cause for concern.  That would suggest collusion.  No, what you have heard is unvarnished recollections.  What is important is that there is clear agreement on…”

I really hope someone asks Mike Williams who paid for his dirt digging trip to Melbourne.

Both Audrey Young and Colin Espiner blogged yesterday on Winston Peters. I’ll start with Audrey:

It has become a lot clearer now as to why the Labour spin machine has been in overdrive for months over Owen Glenn’s character – and it has been awful.

Note how Audrey says Labour has been denigrating Glenn, their largest donor, for months.

They were worried about what he would say about them, not just Winston Peters.

And he has said it – that he consulted Mike Williams before ringing Peters on December 14 to agree to give him $100,000 for the Tauranga electoral petition.

And more importantly that he told Helen Clark back in February that he had given Peters $100,000 for Peters’ legal fees. He reiterated that point at a press conference this morning at the Hilton Hotel in Auckland.

And the records back Glenn. He had brunch with Mike Williams and phoned Winston at 11.30 am Sydney time. It would have been mere minutes after Williams had left, if he had left. Glenn says there is no way he would have donated without Labour’s okay, which he got from Mike Williams.

Williams’ reputation has already suffered badly from the Labour Party conference episode – he denied having endorsed the distribution of Government literature when a tape recording proved he had actually said it was “a damned good idea”.

He lied about something he said in front of 500 people, so indeed his denials in this case have to be judged in that context.

Labour has been saying for ages it would be terrific if Owen Glenn appeared in person before the privileges committee because people could assess for themselves his credibility – or lack of it; how easily confused he gets.

Having heard him at privileges, seen him on Campbell Live, heard him being interview by Kathryn Ryan on Nine to Noon and heard parts of the press conference at the Hilton today, it is hard to fault his credibility.

Michael Cullen tripped him up over one of the paragraphs of his testimony – the matter of whether he had called Winston or Winston had called him in early December.

But Glenn has been cogent, coherent, sane, sharp, in command of his senses and memory and very colourful.

Indeed. And he has factual evidence that supports his version of events – a version that has never significantly altered.

It is hard to imagine how Peters and Brian Henry can counter the damning phone records and email testimony.

And they failed to do so yesterday.

If Glenn is telling the truth, then how can Peters and Henry account for the “third person” – the alleged client they told the privileges committee existed.

I would bet money that the alleged third person is Roger McClay, whose taxpayer funded job appeared to be raising money for NZ First and Winston.

And how they account for the press statement issued on July 18 a few hours after Peters’ mother died saying Henry had just told him about the Glenn donation.

I feel sickened at the thought of it.

That’s an honest raw emotion. And it is sickening when you think of it. Owen Glenn has proven beyond reasonable doubt Peters solicited the money and knew of it. So if you believe Owen Glenn (and Peters has failed to cast serious doubt on it), then Peters knew all along, and hence the announcement of his “having just found out from Brian Henry” on 18 July was a deliberate decision to release the information a few hours after the news of his mother’s death filtered out.

I also feel sick even typing the above, but that is the only conclusion one can draw, if you accept Owen Glenn’s version of events. I know that is ultra harsh, but again unless Owen Glenn is a pathological liar, then the decision to release the truth about the donation was deliberately timed.

Colin Espiner looks at Labour’s role:

I thought Clark suffered a rare pasting in Parliament this afternoon, with National leader John Key finally getting on a roll and managing to land a few punches on the Prime Minister: “The reason she has never sacked Winston Peters is  because she is up to her eyeballs in this and what happened yesterday was that the truth jetted into town.”

It was a great line – so good he repeated it at least three more times. It’s a pity National didn’t follow this up with a more sustained assault rather than reverting to business-as-usual questions. But Key was right, however; Clark is up to her neck in this fiasco and it’s plain she’s had enough.

At a minimum Helen Clark knew the truth in February 2008. However she may have known as far back as December 2005. She was never asked in the House yesterday whether or not she had any discussions at all, of any sort, with Mike Williams over Owen Glenn helping out with the Tauranga electoral petition. She was asked some questions on her knowledge, but said (off memory) that she had not had a conversation of that nature – it was a denial of a specific allegation, not a denial of any conversations at all with Williams in 2005 over Glenn.

I reckon if she does sack Peters she will call the election date as well. It would be a good way of brushing the ongoing fiasco off the front pages and cutting Peters and his party loose. Not that she’ll need to do that – NZ First will be furious if she sacks Peters before the privileges committee reports back and its agreement with Labour will be toast.

That won’t bother Clark – the last time she needs NZ First’s votes is later today, when the Emissions Trading Scheme has its third and final reading.

But NZ First will have a point. Clark has long championed Peters’ right to due process and natural justice. Sacking him half-way through the hearing would be a bit like the judge at a murder trial telling the defence that she’s heard enough – just take him out the back and hang him.

But politics doesn’t really operate like a court – even at the privileges committee, supposedly one of the highest courts in the land. Politics is neither as orderly as a court nor as fair.  And it’s becoming obvious that Peters’ right to natural justice exists only as long as it is politically expedient for Clark to allow it.

There’s no question she is running out of time. Peters is an albatross around her neck and if she doesn’t cut the strings soon she will sink along with him.

I hope she delays the decision as long as possible then!

As I blogged yesterday, the key issue is not so much whether Clark sacks Peters, but whether she rules out a post-election deal with NZ First.

John Key has said he will not strike a deal with NZ First, even if it means staying in Opposition rather than becoming Prime Minister. Will Clark rule out a deal if she sacks Peters, but somehow NZ First gets back in?

UPDATE: My wish is granted. Clark is delaying a decision until next week, after Brian Henry’s next appearance.

Some good analysis from Gordon Campbell at Scoop:

With hindsight – or even you’d think, with foresight – it was not a great idea for Michael Cullen to be leading the Labour bloc’s attempt to dent Owen Glenn’s testimony to the privileges committee. It only made Cullen, Russell Fairbrother, and Paul Swain look like they were doing legal work for Winston Peters pro bono, by challenging Glenn’s powers of recall. That is not the position the Clark government should be taking, right now.

Yes the pro bono legal team for Peters, I like it.

Wheeling up Cullen, Labour’s big gun and deputy chair of the privileges committee for the task of trying to trip up Glenn’s recall and command of detail only had a vague chance of triggering a meltdown – or boilover – from the billionaire witness. Tackling Glenn about who phoned who and spoke to whom back in 2005 also never looked like overturning the basic issue of whether Peters had gone out actively soliciting the money. The Labour effort just looked like nitpicking, or worse.

Cullen spent minutes obsessed over whether Glenn called Peters back or Peters called again in relation to an earlier phone call (not the one that triggered the donation).

Being faithful to the laws of natural justice and due process is all very well. Yet the government’s fidelity to Peters is starting to look suicidal and willful. Leave it too late – and we have probably gone past that point already – and sacking Peters will just look like rats leaving a sinking ship.

The Government could have established the truth about this issue many months ago. They have no one to blame for dragging it out, but themselves.

That was why the Glenn appearance in person, was so crucial. Before then, there was still an outside chance that the committee could be plausibly uncertain on the issue of credibility between Peters and Glenn. If so, the committee’s findings would have split along party lines – thus leaving Peters an escape route with the voters. Not any more. The balance of credibility has tilted decisively, in Glenn’s favour.

Yep. Even Helen is backing away her preposterous “innocent explanation” stance.

Barring miracles from Peters in his rebuttal testimony tonight, this episode is all but over. What Glenn produced was a timeline fleshed out by email and telephone records. While those records were incomplete on certain fine points – as in, was it Peters ‘or someone from New Zealand First’ who contacted Glenn in late November 2005 ? But from then on through the crucial period in December 2005, Glenn’s oral evidence and supportive email/telephone records were credible, and utterly damning to Peters.

Yep.

By way of collateral damage, the Glenn testimony has heightened the prospect of Clark being asked to appear before the privileges committee.

She should be asked to appear, so she can testify whether or not Mike Williams had any discussions with her at all in 2005 over the desirability of Owen Glenn helping out NZ First and/or Winston Peters.

The Glenn testimony also achieved what the partisan politicking by National could not do. It has linked the Peters affair to Labour in detail and in spirit, and has made the government’s behaviour towards one of its main party donors look desperately shabby. As Glenn told John Campbell on TV3, these are not the sort of people you’d want alongside you in the trenches. Because they would push you out.

And probably gnaw on your bones afterwards!

In December 2005, Williams may have given a green light for the donation only in general terms, and was almost certainly not privy to the subsequent transaction – but this happened in circumstances where he would have been fairly sure the transaction would proceed The nature of the nine floor gossip mill also makes it inconceivable that the upper echelons of the government’s parliamentary wing would not have subsequently known informally about the Glenn donation to Peters …

Of course. Williams hold back on details of donors to Labour, but something affecting a parliamentary partner would be notified to the leadership.

… the subsequent tactical choice by Labour to try and denigrate Glenn is unfortunately, all too typical. Someone, someday may make a list of the people the Labour government has abandoned over the course of this decade in the name of expediency, and its own survival. Karmically, one of those people who was being fitted for the dud parachute has now struck back. Winston, barring miracles, will be the next to be jettisoned.

That would be a long list.

There are multiple stories from the Press Conference. First on Stuff re Helen Clark:

“She’s very self serving … I am expendable. I wouldn’t want them in the trenches next to me. It’s not the money, its the way you are treated, then you turn the dogs on me … toothless dogs.”

The last straw would have been Mallard and Cullen casting doubts on his mental fitness.

He said Mr Williams visited him on his luxury yacht off the French coast in mid-year.

Mr Williams asked him for a job as an “administrator”, he said.

Mr Williams told him that he was a good administrator and he was “articulate”.

Mr Glenn turned him down.

But Mike is earning almost $200,000 a year from his board appointments. Why would he need a job?

And who paid for his trip to Europe to target donors? Did taxpayer money fund it through one of his boards?

Glenn described Labour Party chairman Mike Williams as a liar and a bagman for the party.

“Mr Williams is wrestling with the truth,” he has told a press conference.

It is harsh to call someone a liar, but Mike Williams has a track record. He told nine lies on Agenda about what he said at the Labour Party Conference. If you are willing to lie about what you said in front of 500 people, why wouldnt you lie about what was said at a private lunch?

In another story, Williams says:

Mr Williams said he did not discuss the donation with Prime Minister Helen Clark.

“There is never any discussion between me and Helen Clark about any political donations except those that are public.”

Now I could accept this is true for donations to your own party. The two big parties do try and shelter the leaders from this. But it would be quite another matter concerning a donation to an allied party. You see the question being asked isn’t one of money as much as one of relationships. What Glenn wanted to know is does helping Winston help Labour. Now that is very much a question for the political wing, and the Leader. And Glenn has testified that Williams and Clark speak several times a day.

How credible is it that Williams would not have mentioned to Clark in 2005, that Glenn was interested in donating to Winston?

Last night he disputed Mr Glenn’s version of events. “Mr Glenn asked me [in December 2005] whether I thought Mr Peters had any chance of winning the Tauranga petition and I said that I thought he did.

“I have no recollection of being asked or offering any comment on whether or not Mr Glenn should provide financial assistance to Mr Peters, and I certainly did not discuss that possibility with anyone else.”

Well the meal with Williams took place immediately before Glenn phoned Peters to say okay. Regardless of what Williams claims (and he is a proven liar) Glenn obviously placed huge significance on checking with Williams, and was crystal clear that he only donated because Williams said it would be helpful.

The Herald has a collection of quotes from Glenn:

“I don’t think people with forgetful memories should be Minister of Foreign Affairs.”

To be fair to Winston, I don’t think his memory is in any way flawed.

“I think people in elected positions and privileged positions need to act ethically and be trusted and I doubt he can be.”

Except with Helen, still hanging on waiting for the innocent explanation. Never mind she has known the truth for six months and could have had the facts established back in February with a phone call.

On Deputy Prime Minister Michael Cullen

“He’s a bully. I don’t have a warm and fuzzy feeling about him. He’s not the sort of guy I’d want to spend a weekend with on an island but he’s just following orders.”

What can one say.

And then the main Herald story:

Mr Glenn said by February this year the Prime Minister was fully aware of his donation to Winston Peters.

When asked if Helen Clark knew what the money was used for Mr Glenn said “she already knew that, Mike Williams would have told her”.

Asked what he thought of the Prime Minister, he described her as “very self-serving”, while Mike Williams, he said, “wrestles with the truth” .

And it is a myth that the PM had no choice but to accept Winston’s word. Says who? She could have asked Glenn to substantiate his claim he donated to Peters. He could have done so within hours. The fact is she chose deliberately not to inquire further, because she knew what the answer would be.

Basically Clark’s position is that she does not mind having a Minister who she is almost certain has lied to her, she just doesn’t want to have it proven he lied to her. So she just sat on it and said and did nothing.

Mr Glenn said he decided to fight back after a New Zealand First MP called him a liar in Parliament.

He said prior to being attacked, he would have “slid away quietly”

This morning he told Radio New Zealand that Labour might not have been in government without his $500,000 donation to it; “and here they are attacking me, and frankly attacking my credibility and my integrity.”

Mr Glenn said the Prime Minister had behaved out of self interest and wanted to keep Mr Peters on-side to get legislation through “and I was expendable”.

They have done more than attack his integrity and credibility. They attacked his mental sanity through backroom whispers to journalists.

And finally we have Monaco:

Earlier today, Owen Glenn told Radio New Zealand he was vetted for the position of honorary consul to Monaco and that Winston Peters supported his bid.

Mr Glenn said he had met New Zealand’s ambassador to France Sarah Dennis in Paris at her invitation where she had told him she was vetting him for the position.

“I said OK what’s your decision, she said `you seem to be alright”‘, Mr Glenn said.

In February Mr Peters rang him the day he was leaving for a trip to South Africa, Mr Glenn said. Mr Glenn was in Raglan at the time and says he has a witness to the call.

“He (Mr Peters) said; `I’m still supporting this, I want to push it through, I need a letter from you confirming that you are going to live in Monaco…”

And this is where Clark and Peters have both made huge errors of judgement. Helen Clark knew that Owen Glenn had donated to Winston Peters – he had told her. Winston was pushing for his appointment within Government. MFAT staff were vetting Glenn. And Clark did not disclose the donation to anyone – to MFAT. to the Cabinet Secretary, to the Electoral Commission, to her own colleagues who sign off on appointments, to the Registrar of the Register of Pecuniaryinary Interests. That was a huge conflict of interest. Clark as PM is meant to uphold the integrity of Government, and instead she stayed silent and set a new low.

Matthew Hooton has taken to blogging like Madonna to sex. Lots of goodies today.

First Matthew highlights the item in Sideswipe about how a candidate’ financial agent had a brick thrown through a window at their home. The Electoral Finance Act has forced residential addresses to be used on all advertising, which is ridicolous overkill for registered political parties and their candidate.

Then Matthew calls on National to fillibuster the ETS third reading today. He think Clark will sack Peters tonight so if it is delayed until tomorrow, then there will not be the numbers for it.

He also speculated on what role Mike Williams may have played in the $250,000 offer to the Maori Party to support Labour, and calls on Tariana Turia to reveal all.

Reading the NZ Herald this morning, it strikes me how ludicrous Labour’s attempted defence of Winston was:

Yesterday Labour MP Russell Fairbrother, a member of the committee, suggested Mr Glenn may have confused Winston Peters’ with his youngest brother Wayne in a vital phone call about the donation.

Wayne Peters laughed out loud when told of the suggestion.

Wayne Peters had the right reaction. Poor Owen – first Labour MPs suggest he can’t tell Winston apart from Sir Howard Morrison, and then they suggest he can’t tell Winston apart from Wayne Peters on the phone.

Mr Fairbrother said he had no evidence to believe it was Wayne Peters, but had asked Mr Glenn “to test his evidence”.

Of course he had no evidence. It was a desperate attempt to find a way to clear Peters. This was not an off the cuff comment made once. Glenn was asked at length by Fairbrother and Cullen about whether Peters identified himself, what did Glenn mean by a first person conversation etc etc.

After the breakfast he called Mr Peters on his cellphone – he produced the phone record yesterday – to say yes to the donation and spoke to him for more than six minutes. The call finished about 1.32 NZ time.

About eight minutes later, Mr Glenn received an email from Mr Henry saying “further to your discussion with my client at 1.30 NZ time I provide my bank details … “

Tonight Winston will explain how one of his staff members answered his mobile phone for him, impersonated Winston, negotiated the donation upwards from $70,000 to $100,000, immediately phoned or e-mailed Brian Henry to tell him about the donation, and then totally forgot to mention it to Winston.

Mr Glenn’s evidence about consulting Mr Williams contradicts Mr Williams’ claim that the first he knew of a donation was on July 12 – when the Herald published emails from Mr Glenn to PR man Steve Fisher confirming he had given a donation.

It is now apparent that Mike WIlliams, and in all probability Helen Clark, not just knew about the donation in 2005, but actually approved it. Owen Glenn was adamant on this point that he would not have donated without Labour’s okay.

This makes you wonder about who in Labour authorised the $250,000 offer to the Maori Party, in exchange for them agreeing to support Labour?

Mr Williams said last night his recollection was that they had discussed the likely outcome of Mr Peters’ electoral petition.

“I have no recollection of being asked or offering any comment on whether or not Mr Glenn should provide financial assistance to Mr Peters and I certainly did not discuss that possibility with anyone else.”

If people are having trouble working out who to believe, I suggest they re-read this post and this post regarding his performance on Agenda this year. Nine lies confusions in one interview. Plus the confusion he had over whether Owen Glenn had donated to the party since 2005. And the confusion last election over the pledge card when they told the Chief Electoral Office they would include it as an election expense and then recanted.

We are all queued outside waiting to be allowed in. Huge amount of media here. No sign of Glenn yet.

Glenn has arrived and we are now in the room.

Glenn has just named Williams as having agreed helping Peters would help Labour.

Also tabled an affidavit from a witness to Peters thanking Glenn.

Glenn has confirmed again he would not have donated without having the ok from Mike Williams.

There is also a phone record showing a call to or from peters office phone around the time of the donation.

My God how desperate. Russell Fairbrother is suggesting he was accidentally talking to Wayne Peters who had borrowed Winston’s cellphone and sounds like him!!

Glenn says that Mike Williams was going to clear his donation with colleagues. It is unthinkable that would not include Helen. So she may have known since 2005.

Glenn says he likes Winston who is a great character. This is about telling truth.

Cullen also pushing the notion that someone else answered Winston’s cellphone and pretended to be him.

Has just said Peters is very skilled at asking for donations. Remember Peters says he nevers solicits donations.

Just had confirmed from a second source indirectly that Mike Williams was on Owen Glenn’s boat – not months ago but only a few weeks ago. Williams has confirmed this it seems.

The story is he was visiting donors in London (imagine the fuss if National’s President flew overseas to solicit funds) and decided to pop on over to see Owen.

I wonder what interesting topics they may have talked about!

Two interesting stories in the SST on Owen Glenn, but first a little mystery.

A reliable source tells me that  that a crew member on Glenn’s boat, Ubiquitous, told a family member that a recent guest on the boat, when in the Mediterranean, was Labour Party president Mike Williams. Mr Williams it is reported spent several days on board.

It is also reported that Mr Williams left the boat hastily, after receiving a phone call from the Prime Minister who was not amused he was there.

Maybe someone could ask Mr Williams if he was on the boat as reported, and why he left.

Anyway first we have Matthew Hooton:

Owen Glenn is flying back to New Zealand to sink Helen Clark, Winston Peters and the corrupt government they lead.

I love Matthew’s subtle style.

Clark may soon have reason to regret the disgusting way she treated Glenn when he was here for the opening of the University of Auckland’s new Owen G Glenn Business School, to which Glenn donated more than $7.5 million. For Glenn, the immigrant schoolboy from Mt Roskill, who never had an opportunity to attend university himself, this was the culmination of his more than 40 years of success in business.

Clark ruined his day. Her almost unbelievable rudeness to the biggest benefactor of her own party and the country’s largest university shocked all decent New Zealanders. In public, she uttered not one word to Glenn, nor would she look him in the eye, and she sent her prize thug Trevor Mallard to keep him away.

Worse, Clark is believed to have turned on Glenn in private with angry words being heard through the walls by those in the next room.

It was meant to be a day of glory for Glenn, and he was treated as a leper.

Glenn will also have been fully briefed about the vicious smear campaign launched against him by Labour ministers and Beehive apparachiks. As usual, it was Mallard who sank furthest into the slime, reportedly advising people privately to check for scars on Glenn’s forehead, implying Glenn has received some type of brain surgery or electroconvulsive shock therapy. These are not nice people who surround Clark.

People may think Matthew is making this up. But not only did I hear the same thing at the Senate party in Wellington, the SST itself reports the smears in its main article on Glenn:

It can hardly have helped when Labour’s deputy, Michael Cullen, started describing Glenn as “confused”, and when rumours began to circulate in political circles that perhaps Glenn’s memory wasn’t quite what it was since his surgery last year to treat a life-threatening subdural haematoma (bleeding on the brain), something Glenn had openly discussed with the Herald in February.

The article quotes Cactus Kate on Glenn:

More recently, the acerbic blogger “Cactus Kate” (the nom de plume of a Hong Kong-based New Zealand lawyer) took Glenn’s political temperature during a long conversation with him in Auckland’s Soul Bar in 2002, and came away convinced there had been a meeting of right-wing minds. Writing earlier this year, she recalled that, “I didn’t hold back on the government of the day and Mr Glenn was extremely supportive of the idea that they were all things evil … He did not seem to like the `sisterhood’, unless they were hot and invited him to watch. He bemoaned the lefties in New Zealand and their sexual habits … “

I suspect Mr Glenn donated to Labour because they were the Government, rather than any firm ideological commitment to centre left causes.

Anyway Tuesday will be a fascinating day.

The SST reveals that as recently as May or June, Labour were asking Owen Glenn for more money.

Considering the smear campaign they now have againgst him, he will be very glad he did not donate!

Very interesting to look closely at the words in the media from Brian Henry and Mike Williams this morning. In the Herald:

Winston Peters’ lawyer says a tip-off led him to approach billionaire Owen Glenn for a large donation to the NZ First leader’s legal bills.

Now this tip-off could have been from Winston or from Mike Williams. Also of note if Henry says he solicted the donation while Winston Peters in his February perss conference said that they never approached or asked anyone for money. Of course what Winston meant was they never solicit donations to NZ First but they go hell for leather for personal donations to his legal fund.

Brian Henry said last night he asked the Monaco-based businessman for help after another donor did not deliver.

How many secret donors have there been?

“We made it well known around friendly political circles – or I did – that I was looking for a donor.”

Doesn’t that sounds like a perfect description of Mike Williams?

Mr Henry said he could not recall who had advised him to contact Mr Glenn when the original funder of the legal action fell through, but it was not Mr Peters.

Nor was it Mike Williams, the president of the Labour Party which has also received Glenn donations.

“I can’t off the top of my head remember who it was who told me to call him.”

Oh of course. You can not remember who told you to go hit Owen Glenn up for $100,000 but you can recall it wasn’t Winston or Mike Williams.

Mr Henry said no fund or account for Mr Peters’ legal bills existed.

“The position is that the money is used to pay an existing bill, full-stop.

There is no fund. There is no cash sitting in a balance anywhere. There are bills to be paid.”

Now this is fascinating. Because paying off a bill on behalf of Winston Peters is effectively a donation to him, and there are definite tax implications for that. More on that later.

But let us turn back to the requirements of the Register of Pecuniary Interests:

a description of all debts of more than $500 that were owing by the member that were discharged or paid (in whole or in part) by any other person and the names of each of those persons,

So Brian Henry has just confirmed the Register is incorrect for Winston Peters. And Winston would have been well aware that his legal bills had just dropped by $100,000. Plus it is possible he gets Brian Henry to file his annual return, so any excuses for an incorrect return are shot.

Mr Henry would not discuss why he had not alerted Mr Peters about the donation in February, when Mr Peters denied Mr Glenn had made a donation.

It was of course logical and sensible to let your close friend and client remain in the dark.

Asked about pecuniary gain, Mr Peters told NZPA he did not believe he had benefited personally from the arrangement whereby his legal bills were paid by anonymous donors and he paid the shortfall.

Mr Henry concurred last night.

“There is nothing I am aware of where someone contributing towards a bill you have incurred needs to be declared.”

These men are lawyers? They have to be kidding. They think paying a bill on behalf of someone is not beneficial. Hey let’s pay off Winston’s mortgage for him – that doesn’t count also.

What they say also is directly contradicted by Standing Orders and the Register of Pecuniary Interests.

Henry’s insistence that paying off Winston’s bill isn’t a donation to Winston strongly suggests he did not pay tax on that donation. I suggest a question the nice Peter Dunne, Minister of Revenue would be in order:

“To the Minister of Revenue: What is the position of the Inland Revenue Department as to liable tax if an individual has another individual pay $100,000 debt on their behalf”

Also yet to be resolved is if that $100,000 donation was in any way linked to the large closer to $100,000 than $10,000 sum which appeared in the NZ First bank account in December 2007?

Some related facts about Owen Glenn:

1. He was not born in New Zealand.
2. He has not lived in New Zealand for over 40 years.
3. He is not eligible to vote in New Zealand.
4. He is estimated to have a fortune of around NZ$1.1 billion.
5. He donated $500,000 to Labour for the 2005 election.
6. This is the largest known donor ever in New Zealand politics.
7. The Labour Party amended the Electoral Finance Bill to specifically allow him to keep donating money, while restricting other foreign donations to $1,000 (by defining a foreign donation as being okay from overseas residents who are NZ citizens even though they are ineligible to enrol or vote)
8. He gave Labour a further $100,000 interest free loan in 2007.
9. Labour gave him a gong – Officer of the NZ Order of Merit in 2007.
10. Labour President Mike Williams lied when he said they had not received a donation from Owen Glenn since the 2005 election, as the interest free loan counts as a donation.
11. Mike Williams has said he will be asking Owen Glenn for money for the 2008 election.
12. Owen Glenn says Bill Lloyd of Sovereign Yachts had been “badly dealt by” over getting cheap Government land for his business “…but it’s all been resolved through the good services of Mike Williams, the President of the Labour Party, who’s done a mammoth job.”
13. Owen Glenn wants to be Honorary Consul for NZ to Monaco.
14. Before Owen wanted this post, the Government had repeatedly ruled out having a Consul in Monaco.
15. Mike Williams lobbied Helen Clark on behalf of Owen Glenn to get him made Consul.
16. Owen Glenn lobbed Winston Peters to be made Consul and said he will be confirmed as Consul “when Peters gets off his arse”.
17. Owen Glenn was never given any negative signals about being made Consul even though a previous expression of interest by an individual was comprehensively ruled out by the Government.
18. Owen Glenn says he has donated money to NZ First.
19. The then NZ First President says a five figure donation closer to $100,000 than $10,000 appeared anonymously in their bank account in December 2007.
20. Winston Peters says NZ First has never received any money from Owen Glenn or his associates.
21. NZ First filed a donations return claiming no-one gave then more than $10,000 in 2007.
22. Owen Glenn’s PR firm advised Owen Glenn not to contradict Winston’s denials even though he did make a donation.
23. The Maori Party say someone offered them $250,000 as a campaign donation before the 2005 election if it agreed to support Labour. The offer was made twice.
24. The Maori Party say it was made on behalf of someone who “lived outside New Zealand, and had donated money to the Labour Party” and the intermediary met with him on a yacht or a boat.
25. Owen Glenn’s PR firm says he was right to deny he made the offer.
26. Labour and NZ First forced through the Electoral Finance Act whose purpose is “to strengthen the law governing electoral financing and broadcasting, in order to … prevent the undue influence of wealth on electoral outcomes and … provide greater transparency and accountability on the part of candidates, parties, and other persons engaged in election activities in order to minimise the perception of corruption”

One of the problem of getting most of your news online, is that you sometimes miss out on additional info in the print edition. Having now read the print edition of the Herald, it is apparent the scandal is far more serious than I thought for NZ First – and the Government. The print edition includes extracts from the e-mails dated 21 February, namely:

Steve Fisher: Our plan worked well. There is nothing new about you in here Owen. Note that Winston says you have never made a donation to NZ First, so at all costs you must stick to that line. It was definitely the right thing to do to deny the Maori Party offer as well.

Owen Glenn: Steve – are you saying I should deny giving a donation to NZ First? When I did?

Steve Fisher: No, just stick to the line of referring stuff to NZ First. What I’m saying is we don’t want to contradict Winston.

It is harder to get more clearcut than that. Owen Glenn saying beyond any doubt he did give a donation to NZ First.

Helen Clark sacked Liaznne Dalziel for lying. Is she going to have a different standard for Ministers not from her party?

But this scandal goes beyond Winston. Owen Glenn is Labour’s major donor. He has donated $500,000 to them and lent $100,000 interest free. Mike Williams says he will be asking for more money this year.

Note the reference above to the Maori Party. While not as clearcut as the donation to NZ First, it is highly likely that Owen Glenn was the person who offered the Maori Party a six figure sum if they will support Labour.

Throw into the mix the ONZM that Helen Clark gave him and the Honorary Consulship he kept pressuring Winston and Helen for (with support from Mike Williams) and you have a very messy set of circumstances.

The focus for now is on the contradiction between what Winston Peters has said, and Owen Glenn’s e-mails. But the story doesn’t stop there.