Secret slush funds: What Winston might mean by "Owen Glenn had donated in 2006 a sum in the order of $100,000"
Oooooooohhhhh, thaaaat hundred grand. Right, yeeaaah. Mmmmmmm.
Slush funds. That is what we are talking about here. Secretive slush funds from billionaire ex-pats.
Bad headlines for Winston:
Tonight he said he had been told by his lawyer Brian Henry that Mr Glenn donated $100,000 towards the cost of the litigation that followed an election petition he launched after the 2005 election.
Mr Peters lost the Tauranga seat to National's Bob Clarkson, and he claimed in the petition that during the campaign Mr Clarkson exceeded election spending limits.
He lost, and in March 2006 the High Court ruled he had to pay $40,000 in costs.
Mr Peters said Mr Henry came to see him at 5pm today and told him Mr Glenn had donated "a sum in the order of $100,000" towards the legal costs of the petition.
He said that since 1991 he had been involved in 14 legal actions which had been partly funded through donations, and Mr Henry had "a firm policy" of not disclosing the source of donations.
"I have never been told the source of these donations but have personally met the shortfall which has amounted to many hundred thousands of dollars," Mr Peters said in a statement.
"Mr Henry decided, due to the publicity over the past weekend in respect to Mr Owen Glenn, that he should break this policy and inform me that Mr Owen Glenn had donated in 2006 a sum in the order of $100,000 towards the legal costs of the Tauranga electoral petition."
Mr Peters said that until today he had been unaware of the source of any of the donations for legal expenses "and I have cause to be very grateful to Mr Glenn for his very generous contribution".
Mr Glenn did not make the donation to the NZ First Party, he said.
This week Mr Peters gave Prime Minister Helen Clark an assurance Mr Glenn did not donate any money to the party.
"I told the prime minister what I then knew, and today I have told her what I have learnt," he said.
"I have cause to be very grateful to Mr Glenn" - and because he has plausible deniability, Winston also has ensured by this disclosure that he may publicly wash his hands of any Glenn influence, ie. the tactless Glenn insistance on his bauble from the bauble-miester. Peters must absent himself from anything involving Glenn now as far as foreign sinecures for the ex-pat slush-funder go. He'll want some distance before the election.
There's the matter of this sequence too with family circumstances and the eve of a party conference culminating in a Friday night shit drop. Classic Peters - timing is everything.
posted by Tim Selwyn @ 10:37 pm
9 comments
9 Comments:
Perception is everything, and I suspect this will have finished Peters in New Zeland politics, because the electorate will perceive him as corrupt, sleazy and dishonest - whatever wriggling he engages in to get himself out. In which case, Mr Glenn has done us all a huge favour.
Agree lurgee.
The Herald are smart enough not to publish what they have right now.
Late next week could well be a different story.
If Helen doesn't fire him from his ministerial bauble this story will be used extensively by the opposition right up to the election.
Helen's dammed either way.
Ahh sweet irony.
Yes You'd have to guess that the Herald was about to run a story with another piece of evidence and Winston thought he could front run that with his 5pm admission. Normally I'd think Winston would get away with this but his grave error was attacking Audrey Young like he did - this will galvanise the entire Journalist community with one goal. The tone of Audrey's piece today would suggest she has more to publish. Nice and easy, leave the personality attacks to Winston.
I never thought this day would come, but we may be seeing the end of this alcoholic, racist, populist, arrogant f***wit we've had to put up with for years! Perhaps a commemorative holiday is in order!
All fine sentiments.. However. He only needs one vote more than 5%. Have a look at your grandparents and their mates. Then tell me there are not enough bladder enfeebled wrinklies to give him one last go. His story last night defies belief if you have half a brain. Unfortunately history has shown us that a large portion of our elderly shit half their brains out years ago.
Doesn't this make him look like the right plonker that he is. The other day when questioned in Fiji he said " Put up or Shut up ". He will probably sleaze his way out of this with some great spin because he is the only person I know that could crawl underneath a worm with a top hat on.
but Winnie is a good man!!!
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Winston is a charlatan and a snake oil seller whose only loyalty is to himself. This is how it has always been and how it will always be. Shame on the NZ First supporters/voters/etc who have kept this dishonest charade going for so long.
Perhaps this will be the end of that sad and over-tired joke in NZ political history.
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