This cannot continue. Parliament is now a farce. Helen Clark has sacked ministers from her own party for less than we now see facing Mr Peters. Benson-Pope was sacked for lying, Dalziel for lying… Lets not forget Dover Samuels.

We now have two very successful business men making very public statements, on record, that completely contradict Mr Peters’ on statements. More over, those two businessmen are not known for being dishonest. They may not be well liked, but you don’t get to the position they’re in, and stay there, if you’re dishonest in business.

The letter from Owen Glenn so completely contradicts Winston Peters and his lawyer. I believe that when combined with Sir Robert Jones statements, there is sufficient doubt about the conduct of Winston Peters to require he do the honourable thing and step down from his ministerial position. Alternatively the Prime Minister must suspend him pending a full financial audit of Mr Peters and the NZ First Party and the completion of all current and pending inquiries. This includes the Parliamentary Privileges Committee and the Serious Fraud Office investigations as well as any other legal investigations that may come in the future as a result of this situation.

Failure to remove Mr Peters from cabinet and strip him of his ministerial title as the Minister of Foreign Affairs does nothing but damage the country’s international reputation. Especially when previous ministers of this Government have been removed for far less in the last 8 years.

So lets investigate exactly what Own Glenn had to say, and for fairness we’ll include Mr Peters rebuttal.

I’m going to split it up a little. I’ll try to make it obvious which belongs to whom. Shall we say Red for Owen Glenn (he is a Labour supporter) and … Grey for Winston? (Grey Power is all the support he has left)

Dear Mr Power,

I refer to your letter of 19 August 2008 concerning what I understand originated as a complaint made by Mr Rodney Hide MP. I do not know Mr Hide. I have not had any communication with him.

I am happy to cooperate with you about the $100,000 payment that I instructed to be made on or about 20 December 2005, which I believe was to the practice account of Mr BP Henry, an Auckland barrister, detailed below.

I wish to make no comment on any of the seven matters listed in the bullet points in your letter. I can provide a statement of the facts concerning the payment. I do not wish this letter to be treated as being private or secret. The facts of the matter are simple. I am happy for them to be public information.

Pretty straight to the point. “I’m not going to answer your questions, but I am going to tell you the pertinent facts as I see them.” He admits immediately that he did make a payment to Mr Henry (Mr Peters’ lawyer) of $100,000.

Mr Peters says, “Yeah, that parts about right, except the money was sent on the 22nd of December. Not ‘on or about’ the 20th. Sheesh, get your facts straight.”

Dear Mr Power.

I refer to Mr Owen Glenn’s letter 19 August 2008.

I have not spoken to Mr Glenn since the New Zealand Herald article of 12 July earlier this year.

Addressing Mr Glenn’s letter and in the less than 24 hours I and my staff have had to check the facts I can advise as follows:

Paras 1-3 require no response save the date 20 December 2005 in para 2 should, from Mr Henry’s evidence, read 22 December.

Hang on a minute! I thought Mr Peters had no idea where the money came from or knew anything about it in general. If thats the case, how does he know to correct the date of the transaction? Surely that would be something Mr Henry would correct in his statement?

But you see, thats not even the good stuff yet. Let us continue shall we?

The payment was made by me to assist funding the legal costs incurred personally by Rt Hon Winston Peters MP concerning his election petition dispute, at his request. Mr Peters sought help from me for this purpose in a personal conversation, some time after I had first met him in Sydney. I agreed to help in the belief that this step would also assist the Labour Party, in its relationship with Mr Peters. I supported the Labour Party.

I have never made any donation to the New Zealand First Party. I declined an earlier request to do so.

So Mr Peters personally asked Owen Glenn for money to help him win the dispute he had against Bob the Builder over the Tauranga electorate. Owen Glenn was apparently lead to believe that Mr Peters winning this seat through the courts rather than being elected by the people would be beneficial for Labour and so decided to help him out with this issue. So he helped the Labour Party by giving Mr Peters, not NZ First, the $100,000. That it went to Mr Peters legal fund is a very important distinction to make.

Mr Peters sees things differently of course.

Para 4, line 2 “at his request” is not factual and does not coincide with my recollections. I believe that I met Mr Glenn many years ago and on the weekend of 13 August, well before the 2005 election, in Sydney, Bledisloe Cup weekend which is the only time I met him in Australia. The “personal conversation” I believe relates to his conversation with Mr Henry, and the “Labour Party, in relationship with Mr Peters”, seems odd now because months before December 2005 New Zealand First had entered a confidence and supply agreement with Labour on 17 October 2005.

Para 5, I have no knowledge of where and by whom any donation to New Zealand First was requested. I note Mr Glenn does not say I made it, or any donation was made, which is the substance of the New Zealand Herald 12 July allegation. Reported email in the New Zealand Herald, in fact contradicts his comment in his letter before you about donating to New Zealand First.

So here we see Mr Peters in all his glory and using his now familiar Modus Operandi of attacking and calling into disrepute the person who has a recollection different to his own. You notice that rather than address the issue of whether he asked for the money, he instead refutes the date of their meeting. Rather, it was not Mr Peters he met in 2005, it was Mr Henry whom Mr Glenn says he’s never met nor spoken with.

“Oh, and I don’t know who in NZ First would ask for money. I’m only the leader. How should I know about any of the decisions made regarding funding within my own party?”

Mr Peters is quick to point out that a deal had already been made between NZ First and the Labour Party regarding their support of a Labour led government in October of 2005. This is a red herring. (Actually, pink would describe it better.) The case before the court was ongoing at the time and Mr Peters desperately wanted to be able to claim the seat of Tauranga. Doing so would allow him more NZ First MPs into Parliament which would directly benefit Labour’s government by offering them more votes in the House to pass bills. It doesn’t matter that a confidence and supply was finalised in October. Mr Peters getting that seat would’ve strengthened the value of that deal and thus directly improved both Labour’s and NZ First’s ability to pass law.

The issue of whether someone in NZ First had asked Mr Glenn for money previously is irrelevant. Almost. Timing is what defines whether it is or isn’t relevant. If it was before the election then it is not of much consequence to my mind. I do not believe it would have made a difference in Tauranga. However, if it were after the election but before the Confidence and Supply agreement had been finalised, then we do have something to consider.

Firstly, was it used as a bargaining tactic? “We’ll give you Confidence and Supply if you give us the funding to kick Bob Clarkson out of Tauranga.” Or did Labour use it as a carrot?

Secondly, in light of the Simunovich allegations, is there possibly something more sinister here that goes deeper to the core of the NZ First Party? I won’t elaborate beyond that because I cannot back up anything. I only throw it out there as something that springs to my mind when considering all the various aspects I can see from my spectator seat.

I understand that Mr Henry is Mr Peters’ lawyer. I do not know Mr Henry. I do not believe that we have met. I do not recall that I, or my assistants, had any discussion or communication with Mr Henry other than to receive remittance details. I expected to receive those details, following my agreement to assist Mr Peters meet his legal costs. My office was given bank account details for payment ASB #123030 Acc# 0678019-50 BP Henry Practice Account, Remuera Branch. The payment instruction on my Westpac account was given accordingly, on my authority.

Mr Peters subsequently met me socially at the Karaka yearling sales, I believe in early 2006. He thanked me for my assistance.

Here Mr Glenn says very clearly that he believes he nor anyone in his employ has had absolutely no personal interaction with Mr Henry of any kind, except a slip of paper with numbers on it. He paid the money into Mr Henry’s Practice’s bank account and that was that. Then, a few months later, Mr Peters was at a show looking at horses (as one does when he’s just been newly made the Minister for Racing) when he spotted Mr Glenn and came up to thank him for his kind donation and the good it did.

Its pretty obvious that Mr Glenn saw it as nothing more than a business transaction. There was no emotion involved in it at all. He agreed to pay the money Mr Peters had asked for, and then a few months later Mr Peters thanked him for it when their paths crossed.

Of course, Mr Peters sees things very differently. Again we have to throw confusion on the timing of events.

Para 7 relating to the Karaka Sales 2006 appears to be a year out. I recall that in 2007 (and my diary confirms this) Mr Glenn and two others joined the table in which I and a friend shared a sit down lunch with about 8 leading names in the horse racing fraternity.

So it was not Mr Peters who met Mr Glenn, it was the other way around, a year later.

Personally, I think both events happened. Although, I have to admit I was surprised to learn that Mr Peters wrote in his diary that Mr Glenn and two others joined him at his table for lunch. Then again, I guess I write a diary of sorts with this blog plus Twitter. And Mr Peters does now have a blog of his own too. So its not that unlikely he kept a diary. :-) Do you think his had a key clasp, or one of those little combination padlocks? Given his recent ministerial appointment to Minister for Racing, did his have My Little Pony on it? :-D (Cheap joke I know, but it made me laugh, and I like laughing at my own jokes.)

Ironically, if you look on Winston Peters’ blog, there is absolutely nothing at all about this issue there. However, there is a press release from NZFirst where they’re proud to announce they break their 2003 promise to not support any legislation like the Emissions Trading Scam err Scheme.

The point is, we now come down to a contention of credibility. Who is the more credible and, more importantly, who has more to lose if they lie?

Now, before you immediately say that its obvious Mr Peters has more to lose, consider which party Mr Glenn is now, and has been for a long time, a support of. Thats right, at this very moment, Helen Clark and the Labour Party have just as much to lose, if not more, than Mr Peters. Especially this close to an election. Right now, the government is in full damage control and the only way they can do that is to hope they can stall long enough for it to not be on everyones minds come the election.

Why? Because the brush that tars Mr Peters is going to cause a fair amount of splatter. And when you’re as close to it as the Labour Party has found themselves to be, theres going to be a lot of that splatter on them too. Especially if Helen Clark keeps defending him, or trying to divert the question of confidence.

The question must continue to be asked every day Parliament sits till they break for the election. Does the Prime Minister have confidence in her Minister of Foreign Affairs, and if so, why?

The longer he remains a minister, the more damage is done. His credibility is completely shot through now. The opposition needs to keep riding this issue for as long as it can towards the election and the media needs to stay on top of it. The outcome could be something as significant in New Zealand politics as the impeachment of President Richard Nixon in 1973/1974. We are talking significant corruption by a very high ranking minister of the Government.

Right now there is significant circumstantial evidence to go with allegations of bribery and fraud hovering around Mr Peters. If he were truly an honourable man, he would take a leave of absence until the issue is cleared up one way or the other. At the very least, the Prime Minister *MUST* suspend him from his position within the Government until such time as the allegations have been proven one way or the other.

Anything less can only be taken as condoning his actions. And if these allegations prove to be true, how will it look for the Prime Minister of New Zealand to have not taken action when action is required? The question must be asked whether they might also be complicit given the timing of Mr Glenn’s “donation” and his very public Party allegiance.

Winston Peters cannot be allowed to finish this term as a Minister of the Government or with any influence over decisions made by the Government.