The Press is calling for Helen Clark and Winston Peters to live up to the principle of electoral finance transparancy which they espouse. In an editorial on the issue of whether or not Owen Glen donated to New Zealand First, the paper says:
A “furious” Peters denounced the reports as “malicious lies”, attacked the newspaper and one of the reporters who first made them, and generally sought belligerently to dismiss them.
They are not so easily dismissed, however, and Peters still has some work to do. The matter also poses a problem for the Prime Minister, Helen Clark. She claims that it is not her concern and she is studiously declining all substantive comment. But as Foreign Minister, Peters has one of the gaudiest baubles in her Cabinet, and a problem for him is inescapably a problem for her. In this case, of course, it also involves a donor who has been a big contributor to the Labour Party and who may be again in the future.
If I’d been ignored by Clark as Glen was at the opening of the University of Auckland business school to which he donated so generously I might not be quite so keen to contribute to Labour now.
If an Opposition party were involved in this sort of scenario offshore billionaire, large political donations, leaked emails and so on one can imagine Peters’ response. With the shoe on the other foot, though, Peters has reacted badly. Rather than addressing the issue coolly and straightforwardly, as might be expected of a senior minister, and leaving it at that, he has allowed himself, yet again, to lose his temper with the media.
Under the law on electoral finance as it stood at the time, it would have been possible for Glenn to have made his political donations in complete anonymity. If any went to New Zealand First, it is possible that Peters was unaware of them. Whatever the case, it should not be too difficult now to work out what happened and to resolve the confusions and contradictions raised by the issue once and for all. Rather than pointlessly getting angry with journalists, Peters should do that.
If he will not do so of his own accord, the Prime Minister should quietly persuade him of the benefits of doing so. Peters is the man she chose to be her foreign minister. Any questions concerning him inevitably reflect on her and her Government. More particularly, after the last election, both she and Peters made a great to-do about greater transparency in electoral finance and passed a greatly criticised law designed to bring it about. They should live up to all the fine principles they claimed to be espousing when they promoted that law.
That’s the trouble with principles, you have to abide by them yourself or you look, well, unprincipled.
Homepaddock 