Written By: - Date published: 5:39 pm, November 4th, 2008 - 33 comments
New Zealand First has now been cleared by the Police or any illegal behaviour. That’s three from three but too late. I’ve never had a lot of love for Peters. Yes, economically NZF is left-wing and they were an important bulwark against the neoliberal revolution. Yes, he’s a cheeky bugger and often hilarious, and its …
Written By: - Date published: 9:30 am, November 1st, 2008 - 82 comments
The Dominion Post has published some pretty damning evidence indicating Winston Peters’ connections with the Vela family. According to the Dom Winston’s right-hand man, Ross Meurant, was telling the Vela’s that their donations to New Zealand First would give them “input” into the party’s policies. Like many others I’m always hesitant to predict the end …
Written By: - Date published: 12:30 pm, October 7th, 2008 - 45 comments
The unions want the minimum wage lifted to $15 an hour, two thirds of the average hourly rate, restoring the historic ratio. The Greens, New Zealand First, The Progressives (I think), the Maori Party* and, oddly, the Kiwi Party are also calling for $15 an hour. Will Labour join them? Labour has an excellent record on the …
Written By: - Date published: 6:11 am, September 23rd, 2008 - 38 comments
The Privileges Committee has reported back. Peters is censured for not declaring that he had made a pecuniary gain from his lawyer taking donations for Peters’ legal fund. A minority of the Committee, the Labour and NZF MPs, disagreed with this censure pointing out that the evidence given to the Committee was that, had Peters …
Written By: - Date published: 12:52 pm, September 19th, 2008 - 92 comments
If the latest Roy Morgan poll is to be believed, John Key’s big gamble of ruling Winston Peters out of any future coalition may well turn out to be one of the stupidest plays in New Zealand’s political history. According to the poll, NZ First has increased its hypothetical share of the vote to 5%, …
Written By: - Date published: 9:48 am, September 10th, 2008 - 151 comments
Winston Peters will be wondering why he has let his political legacy be destroyed by not simply declaring donations that came from legal sources and being open in his role in soliciting them. All those MPs and other hangers-on who have ridden on the coat-tails of one of New Zealand’s most successful politicians* must be …
Written By: - Date published: 2:22 pm, September 4th, 2008 - 55 comments
This business with donations from the Spencer Trust going to New Zealand First but not being declared. I find it hard to credit that this was an accident. It seems beyond belief that no-one in the party would have seen the donation declaration at some point and said ‘hey, what about that $50K from the …
Written By: - Date published: 7:05 am, September 2nd, 2008 - 25 comments
As we’ve discussed earlier, it would be highly surprising if the investigations into NZF’s finances find any serious illegality. At worst, a failure to declare donations might be found, an offence for which charges cannot be laid more than 6 months after an alleged offence. Now, TV3 was shown accounts by the Spencer Trust which show that …
Written By: - Date published: 5:49 pm, August 29th, 2008 - 145 comments
Peters has stood down. Clark has taken over his portfolios. It’s good that Peters appears to have accepted that this is a necessity and hasn’t turned on the Government. Clever of Clark to take the portfolios herself too. [we nearly had the scoop on this too but it took too long for me to get …
Written By: - Date published: 10:42 am, August 29th, 2008 - 62 comments
I’m not going to spend a lot of time on Peters because its not the kind of issue that affects Kiwis lives (its messy but its not like secretly planning to sell public assets). I’d rather use my post-writing time taking a deeper look at the findings of the Social Report. But… It seems likely, one …
Written By: - Date published: 1:43 pm, August 28th, 2008 - 190 comments
Winston Peters’ stories around the Owen Glenn donation to his legal fund are dangerously convoluted and have stretched everyone’s credulity but without real evidence either way it has been impossible to fairly condemn him. Glenn’s letter yesterday provided strong evidence and left Peters ’hanging by a thread’, as every hack in the country wrote. Now, Helen Clark …
Written By: - Date published: 10:50 am, August 28th, 2008 - 36 comments
Today’s Herald-Digi poll is the first to be released that was taken after the secret agenda tape scandal had fully emerged and had some time to sit in voters’ minds. Which makes it worrying reading for National. They have lost 5.4% support (54.4% to 50%) and Labour has benefited from that loss picking up 5.5% (30.8% …
Written By: - Date published: 12:26 pm, August 27th, 2008 - 63 comments
Owen Glenn’s letter to the Privileges Committee contradicts Winston Peters’ previous statements to the media, the Privileges Committee, and, presumably, the PM. Glenn says that Peters did personally approach him for a donation, contrary to what Peters has said. It’s important to remember that there’s nothing illegal or even unusual about what Glenn claims Peters did. …
Written By: - Date published: 10:26 am, July 31st, 2008 - 47 comments
Today’s front-page story in the DominionPost on New Zealand First is a complete beat-up. It starts off: More questions have been raised about donations to NZ First over a $20,000 deposit to the party’s bank account that does not appear on its register of declared donations. Really? The story goes on: The Dominion Post has …
Written By: - Date published: 8:50 am, July 24th, 2008 - 53 comments
Bob Jones confirmed on Morning Report that he gave $25,000 in 2005 to New Zealand First. The money was to be funnelled to NZF through the Spencer Trust but, according to the party’s declaration of donations the money was not passed on (parties’ declarations of donations are supposed to include any donations from a legal …
Written By: - Date published: 7:56 am, July 23rd, 2008 - 35 comments
1 – In 2005, Owen Glenn paid $100,000 towards a legal defence fund for a case in Peters’ name. 2 – Peters was not told that Glenn had been a donor to that fund until last week according to both Peters and the lawyer Brian Henry. There is no evidence to the contrary. Neither Clark …
Written By: - Date published: 10:22 am, July 22nd, 2008 - 96 comments
For my part, I don’t see the big deal in all this Peters donation stuff. Transparency in election funding is important (and it’s something that National and ACT have constantly opposed) but there is no evidence of Peters has been purposely secretive. A legal defence fund set up for a court case involving Peters received …
Written By: - Date published: 8:59 am, July 17th, 2008 - 52 comments
National is calling on Helen Clark to investigate alleged donations by Owen Glenn to New Zealand First (which, if they happened, were perfectly legal). Consider what that means: National is advocating for the leader of a political party to be able to delve into the internal finances of another political party. That would be a …
Written By: - Date published: 3:05 pm, July 12th, 2008 - 74 comments
It appears, as everyone suspected, that Owen Glenn did give a donation to New Zealand First. There is nothing illegal or immoral in that. Under the law at the time anonymous donations of any sum were legal and National was the biggest exploiter of that fact, receiving over $2 million in secret donations in 2005 …
Written By: - Date published: 1:44 pm, June 24th, 2008 - 102 comments
Labour, with the support of New Zealand First, has developed a bill based on Darien Fenton’s private members’ bill that will ensure tens of thousands of workers are no longer ripped off by ‘triangular employment’ situations, whereby their effective employer contracts out the actual employment of staff to a labour hire company. It works like …
Written By: - Date published: 12:59 pm, June 6th, 2008 - 37 comments
In the final of our ‘Interview the Leaders’ series, we asked Winston Peters three questions submitted by readers. Damian Edwards from his office promptly replied that Peters would be answering no questions from political blogs. So instead we’ve provided answers to your questions in the form of some great political songs. Q. Of which of …
Written By: - Date published: 12:02 pm, June 3rd, 2008 - 61 comments
Another pair of TV polls, another embarrassment for Colmar Brunton as their poll goes widely out of line with the others even as TNS/TV3 is confirming the established trend. Still, neither of the polls looks great for the Left. National would govern alone under either result. That said, given the trend of 35% for Labour, …
Written By: - Date published: 8:44 pm, May 27th, 2008 - 1 comment
We’ve chosen the questions for Winston Peters in the final installment of our ‘Interview the Leaders’ series. The first question remains the same, as for all leaders: Of which of your achievements in politics are you most proud? For the others we’ve gone with Robinsod’s question: Last election you stated you would go with the …
Written By: - Date published: 2:05 pm, May 23rd, 2008 - 68 comments
Here’s a good ten minutes from the middle of Winston’s post budget address yesterday. The highlight is around four minutes in, on National’s burgeoning bureaucracy: Did you know that John Key himself in his Wellington parliamentary office employs has 36 people?… they cost the taxpayer, every year… over seven million dollars… Teams of PR people and spin doctors …
Written By: - Date published: 1:37 pm, May 16th, 2008 - 10 comments
We’ll be selecting the questions for Winston as the final interview in the ‘Interview the Leaders’ series on Sunday. So, get them in while you can here. It’s been enjoyable having this series and great to give readers the chance to question leaders in a public forum. If you’ve got any ideas for future series …
Written By: - Date published: 10:08 am, May 13th, 2008 - 8 comments
We’ve chosen the questions for John Key in the seventh installment of our “Interview the Leaders” series. The first question remains the same, as for all leaders: Of which of your achievements in politics are you most proud? For the others we’ve gone with Darryl’s question: Under the last National government most people’s wages fell …
Written By: - Date published: 12:39 pm, May 7th, 2008 - 42 comments
In some ways, there’s little to tell New Zealand First, other than let Winston Peters be himself. Peters has been (along with Helen Clark), New Zealand’s most successful MMP politician he has survived and run good campaigns every time except in 2005. He needs to remember to play the charming rogue a little more often, …
Written By: - Date published: 12:33 pm, April 16th, 2008 - 10 comments
Yesterday, Winston Peters said that in any deal with National he would require all National MPs to personally sign the agreement and that he wouldn’t require the same conditions of Labour. That is an unprecedented demand and one that no leader could agree to without losing face. The deeper message here from Peters is ‘look …
Written By: - Date published: 11:04 am, April 9th, 2008 - 27 comments
New Zealand First’s opposition to the China FTA is no surprise but it is interesting to reflect on the grounds for it that Winston Peters has laid out: a) the deal is not good enough. A pretty weak argument when the other option is no deal. b) the immigration provisions are bad and shouldn’t be …
Written By: - Date published: 12:22 pm, April 3rd, 2008 - 60 comments
Now this is what Campbell needs to do more of. Last night the man ripped poor old Peter Brown to shreds over his racist comments about Asian immigrants, and it was brutal. You almost had to feel sorry for the guy:
Written By: - Date published: 11:13 am, February 29th, 2008 - 30 comments
I’m as sick of the Owen Glenn saga as the next guy, but Winston Peters’ tussle with failed National Party candidate and Close Up presenter Paul Henry last night was highly entertaining. There’s been a bit of comment about the interview around the blogs, so here it is for those who missed it:
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