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Posted at 10:27AM on 10 Sep 08. Permalink.

Owen Glenn on 9-to-Noon this morning said something to the effect that he had never met anyone from the Maori party, never talked to anyone from the Maori party, and most certainly never offered money to said party. He was unequivocal.

But then, Winston Peters has been too.

Meh.

Posted at 10:32AM on 10 Sep 08. Permalink.

3 years ago, didn't everyone know that Helen and Winston just sholdn't get together? We knew he'd be trouble, but this much trouble? Predictable only in his unpredictability.

Posted at 10:38AM on 10 Sep 08. Permalink.

I have been out of N.Z. for the last two and a half weeks - all I can say is there isn't a lot of news in this country.

Posted at 10:40AM on 10 Sep 08. Permalink.

On your last point (the Maori Party issue) Kathryn Ryan asked the question at the end of her interview with Mr Glenn this morning. He categorically refuted it and said it was a lie.

Posted at 10:41AM on 10 Sep 08. Permalink.

Labour have managed to squander a large part of their most precious assett, their reputation. Technically they haven't breached laws, but it doesn't look good at all.

This is what pisses me off - I really can't see them behaving this ineptly in their first or second terms. It's as though they have completely lost their political management skills.

Posted at 10:41AM on 10 Sep 08. Permalink.

Tom, the tourism adverts are true - no people to spoil the scenery, bar a few bungy operators. Hence no news. :)

Posted at 10:43AM on 10 Sep 08. Permalink.

Pet hate - can we please stop using the word "refute" when we mean "deny". Refute implies proof. Nothing personal.

Posted at 10:43AM on 10 Sep 08. Permalink.

They have been in an unenviable position. But it would be sadly ironic if they prove to have sacrificed their electoral fortunes for the sake of Winston Bloody Peters.

Well, perhaps both National and Labour have had to learn the hard way that when you lie down with that dog, you don't get up with fleas. You crawl off with a particularly nasty infestation of cattle ticks. Not necessarily fatal, but certainly does nothing for your value at market.

Posted at 10:44AM on 10 Sep 08. Permalink.

Sounds like Glenn is taking a parting shot at the PM and Williams in his Press conference this morning,

http://www.stuff.co.nz/4687159a6160.html

Posted at 10:45AM on 10 Sep 08. Permalink.

I have been out of N.Z. for the last two and a half weeks - all I can say is there isn't a lot of news in this country.

Must admit to being a little bit sick of it, myself--most particularly with the Herald headlines and 'digitally enhanced' images.

If I was of a conspiratorial bent, it could be that this could be seen as a very convoluted strategy by Glenn to bring down the coalition government. Has there been any explanation as to his *motives* for giving money to political parties?

Posted at 10:48AM on 10 Sep 08. Permalink.

Sounds like Glenn is taking a parting shot at the PM and Williams in his Press conference this morning,

""Mr Williams is wrestling with the truth"... Don't we all?

Posted at 10:51AM on 10 Sep 08. Permalink.

Does anyone else have a sneaking suspicion that Ron Mark will be the leader of NZF by the end of the week?

Posted at 10:51AM on 10 Sep 08. Permalink.

Must admit to being a little bit sick of it.

Ditto.

I too wonder who is orchestrating all of this.The NZFirst parliamentary members must be feeling kinda sick and be updating their c.v's...

Posted at 10:52AM on 10 Sep 08. Permalink.

Where did the $250k to the Maori Party story come from anyway? It just suddenly seemed to be widely held as the truth?

I'm still not convinced about Labour's massive flaws in this Glenn business - the fact that the party president was asked by someone if they had objection to a possible donation to an unrelated party is not something that needs to be declared/aired etc.
When Peters started denying any such loan in the media then I would certainly have expected questions to be asked of him, but I kinda feel like it wasn't Labour's business to be involved in the media scrum on it. If someone mentioned in passing to the PM "oh yeah, I donated heaps to National last election" (which I imagine happens a bit) do we expect her to investigate-via-media their donations structure?

I guess I can see the "he was her minister and she should have been completely happy about any funding irregularities" bit, but the fact that it had nothing to do with his role as minister and was party related means I'm not sure Labour had a part to play.

Dunno, maybe over-playing devils advocate here.

Posted at 10:56AM on 10 Sep 08. Permalink.

I will add that Labour's actions since it has come to light in trying to shield Peters and deny it all look incredibly dodge. Once these things come up they should have been entirely upfront about any peripheral knowledge they did have...

Posted at 11:00AM on 10 Sep 08. Permalink.

There is no evidence, from Glenn or anyone else, to support Bill English's claim that Labour helped "jack up" Glenn's donation to Peters' legal fund: indeed, the evidence plainly says it didn't. There was no real incentive for it do do so anyway: the coalition deal was struck; all that was at stake in Tauranga was Winston Peters' pride. You might say that Winston Peters' pride has been a significant factor in this whole, sorry business.

I don't think this is true: if Winston won the Tauranga seat then Labour's nemesis - the Nats - would have lost a seat in Parliament. Given how incredibly tight the numbers in the house were for the last three years, Winston winning his seat through the courts would have been a massive coup for the Labour government.

I have been out of N.Z. for the last two and a half weeks - all I can say is there isn't a lot of news in this country.

Did you know no one has ever actually seen an ostrich stick its head in the sand?

Posted at 11:00AM on 10 Sep 08. Permalink.

On your last point (the Maori Party issue) Kathryn Ryan asked the question at the end of her interview with Mr Glenn this morning. He categorically refuted it and said it was a lie.

What Sacha said, Jordan. To my mind, Glenn pretty convincingly refuted allegations made in the House by Dail Jones that his initial evidence was a lie by producing documentary evidence to the contrary.

Glenn denied offering money to the Maori Party with (as I understand it) seriously illegal strings attached. And like Russell, I think it's time for Tariana Turia to front up and put some names to an incredibly serious allegations.

If I was of a conspiratorial bent, it could be that this could be seen as a very convoluted strategy by Glenn to bring down the coalition government.

And if I was of a similar frame of mind, G. Gordon Liddy was one hell of a Democratic sleeper agent -- and has kept his Oscar-worthy cover up to this day.

Posted at 11:04AM on 10 Sep 08. Permalink.

I don't think this is true: if Winston won the Tauranga seat then Labour's nemesis - the Nats - would have lost a seat in Parliament.

Under MMP?

No. It would've been their next list candidate in, rather than Bob Clarkson.

Posted at 11:04AM on 10 Sep 08. Permalink.

I will add that Labour's actions since it has come to light in trying to shield Peters and deny it all look incredibly dodge. Once these things come up they should have been entirely upfront about any peripheral knowledge they did have...

But to be fair (you in the back, stop laughing! Don't make me come back there), 20/20 hindsight is a bloody beautiful thing, isn't it? Somehow, I don't think Jenny Shipley ever pictured spending as much as she did trying to disentangle her government from Tuku Morgan's designer undies. But there you go, and here we are.

Posted at 11:04AM on 10 Sep 08. Permalink.

I don't think this is true: if Winston won the Tauranga seat then Labour's nemesis - the Nats - would have lost a seat in Parliament. Given how incredibly tight the numbers in the house were for the last three years, Winston winning his seat through the courts would have been a massive coup for the Labour government.

Trivial point, but if Winston had won his case, wouldn't there have been a by-election in Tauranga rather than Winston being awarded the seat?

Posted at 11:06AM on 10 Sep 08. Permalink.

Under MMP?

Trivial point, but if Winston had won his case, wouldn't there have been a by-election in Tauranga rather than Winston being awarded the seat?

Graeme?!

Posted at 11:07AM on 10 Sep 08. Permalink.

Sacha: I am not saying this Peter's business isn't a story but, well, it isn't a very big story. Yet it seems from about ten minutes after I stepped on the plane until the moment I returned home (and ongoing) it is the dominant political issue of the chattering classes in this country. Sometimes it is good to get away and get some perspective, and the biggest story to me observing from (thankfully) afar was the size of all the ego's involved. There is no doubt to this observer from Mars that a large part of this story is a large segment of the media and the elites are out to get Peters. Lets face it - none of the money donated was spent improperly, it wasn't in brown paper bags in return for shady arms contracts, and at the end of the day it seems that it boils down to a politician being a shade to economical with the truth. Given how out there in talkback land all politicians are assumed to be compulsive liars, what is all this fuss all about? Like I said. We must not have much real news in this country if this is what dominates domestic news for.a.whole.month.

Posted at 11:11AM on 10 Sep 08. Permalink.

Given how out there in talkback land all politicians are assumed to be compulsive liars, what is all this fuss all about?

Well, TomS, call me a cock-eyed optimist but is it possible that we're not all as glibly cynical as Michael Laws and his drooling fanboys? And with good cause?

Posted at 11:11AM on 10 Sep 08. Permalink.

Given how incredibly tight the numbers in the house were for the last three years, Winston winning his seat through the courts would have been a massive coup for the Labour government.

This might be true but - and this was Russell's initial point as I understood it - the sequencing of events suggests it's highly unlikely. As Labour already had an agreement with NZF giving them a workable majority, they'd no need to assist him further. For your alternative explanation to make sense, wouldn't Labour needed an additional benefit (particularly since in '96 Peters reneged on his public statements about Labour)?

A more likely scenario, IMO, is that Peters leveraged his position to access Glenn's generosity. We've all been in this sort of situation, when an embarrassing friend takes advantage our better connections; most people learn how inappropriate this is during primary school however.

Posted at 11:15AM on 10 Sep 08. Permalink.

Sacha: I am not saying this Peter's business isn't a story but, well, it isn't a very big story.

I don't agree Tom. It mightn't compare with the Large Hadron Collider in terms of enduring significance or even with the risk that a McCain/Palin administration could overturn Roe v Wade, but given that the NZ electorate will soon go to the polls, the duplicitous (and potentially illegal) behaviour of the Foreign Minister is important.

Posted at 11:17AM on 10 Sep 08. Permalink.

Tom, I agree that there's intensely motivated interest by media and elites. I'd have thought that any politician playing the crusading holier-than-thou angles Winnie has specialised in would want to be squeaky clean for exactly that reason.

Instead he has been sloppy and arrogant, and his hypocrisy is charmlessly revealed. It's that which I believe is driving the coverage you noticed on your return. He's pissed so many people off that I don't see the need for a conspiracy to explain what's going on.

Posted at 11:20AM on 10 Sep 08. Permalink.

Paul I'll never read the phrase Large Hadron the same way again, thanks to Craig.

Posted at 11:22AM on 10 Sep 08. Permalink.

Speaking of the LHC - here is a technical site that is monitoring the powerup of the LHC and will indicate problems as they develop

Posted at 11:28AM on 10 Sep 08. Permalink.

Paul Henry pulled out a nice little news segway this morning suggesting Winston's last hope was that his "perfectly documented evidence" gets stucked into a black hole of LHC's making. Might be a douche but can be pretty funny at times...

I reckon Labour's best play on this now will be to turf Peters, give it a week or two to calm down, then use the whole affair to support the "urgent need for changes to electoral financing that we had to make" - highlighting Nationals trust use as part of it.

Posted at 11:29AM on 10 Sep 08. Permalink.

Paul I'll never read the phrase Large Hadron the same way again, thanks to Craig.

For a modest fee, I'll lower the tone of absolutely anything -- Weddings. Funerals. Select Committee Hearings. :)