Tangled in Winston's web 

Question Time in Parliament today promises to be one of the most explosive all year as John Key goes head to head with Helen Clark, following her admission last week that she had known for six months that ex-pat billionaire Owen Glenn had donated to Winston Peters, but kept quiet about it.

It could also be one of the last Question Times of the year before Parliament rises for the election. That's because today Parliament goes into "urgency".

Urgency is a word which has an entirely different meaning in Parliament than it does in the real word, where it conveys a sense of priority, action and purpose. Urgency in Parliament involves suspending the normal rules of business, extending the sitting hours and usually pushing through a series of bills most people will never hear of, know about or be affected by. 

The big impact of urgency is that Question Time is cancelled, robbing the Opposition of its chief forum to expose the government and stifling the oxygen which gives life to those issues in the media. 

So why the urgency?

Well, there is the Emissions Trading Scheme, designed to combat climate change. But then that won't be debated under urgency because the Greens, critical to its passage, think it is unethical to push that through with great haste. 

Could it be that the government is deeply uncomfortable about facing a week's worth of questions over Winston Peters and Owen Glenn? This is just one of the ulterior motives at play in the secret donations saga, a story with many strands, readymade to weave into a web of conspiracy.

First up, the Serious Fraud Office.

The SFO was going to be abolished by the Labour government and folded into the police force. The legislation enacting that has been put on hold while it investigates Winston Peters' funding arrangements. If the investigation is still running by the time of the election, and National wins, then the Serious Fraud Office remains intact.

Is the SFO in cahoots with the National Party? None other than the Prime Minister suggested that on Monday, when claiming the SFO leaked the launch of their investigation to National, allowing John Key to grab a strategic advantage and rule Peters out of a future National-led coalition.

It is difficult to believe the Prime Minister really thinks that the SFO - one of our pre-eminent law enforcement agencies - is sacrificing its integrity in a political game. More likely she is subtly undermining the SFO's inquiry and casting doubt on its findings. She did the same with the Privileges Committee inquiry, suggesting that because National had cut Peters loose, its MPs on the committee had pre-judged the outcome and compromised its ultimate findings.

Clark is now doing the same with Owen Glenn, bringing up examples of his past confusion to throw doubt on his current claims.

She is attacking the SFO, the Privileges Committee and her chief donor all in defence of Winston Peters.

It is indeed an unusual sight watching left-leaning liberals like Clark and Jim Anderton bending over backwards to defend a man many of their supporters view as xenophobic, populist and opportunist.

Some New Zealand First voters may be happy to believe in a vast conspiracy where the foreign owned media got together with the Serious Fraud Office and faceless big business types (the ones who weren't donating to New Zealand First) and decided it was time to get rid of Winston Peters so they could pursue their secret agenda.

But then according to a story in the Sunday Star-Times , 35% of New Zealand First voters believe world governments are involved in a conspiracy to cover up visits by aliens.

Middle ground Labour voters may be less convinced at the wisdom of Helen Clark getting herself all tangled up in the strands of Winston's web.

About Guyon
Guyon Espiner is TVNZ's political editor. He has covered politics from the press gallery in parliament since 1998 and took over as political editor from Mark Sainsbury in January 2006 ... more

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Geoff Keey ; 2009-08-14 @ 01:47 NZDT  

Guyon, I was surprised to see you citing the Government's climate change cost estimates so uncritically given the extent to which they have been discredited.

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stephen6565 ; 2009-08-13 @ 22:15 NZDT  

Another very poor article. You are part of the fourth estate and should be asking the hard questions of the govt. Making the govt accountable is not just the oppositions job. This whole article is just rubbish 'feelings' centred around your personal political views. Stick to policy and 'news' items.

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geekypolitics ; 2009-08-11 @ 19:34 NZDT  

Mr. Espiner has some good advice for Labour especially on the environment, but the idea that Goff should "cuddle" up to Key is appalling. It is always difficult for the opposition to take a stance on matters that are of an international nature, as the reputation of the country as a united entity is at stake. Democrats in the U.S. had the same problem with regards to the Iraq War. I'd hate to see Labour make the same mistake in the name of "solidarity behind the troops."

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Andrew Nichols ; 2009-08-11 @ 14:17 NZDT  

"Polls in Britain showed, counter-intuitively, that support for their troop deployment increased even as casualties mounted. " You're flat wrong! Current polling in the UKs major dailies actually shows majority and growing option to Britains involvement in Obams purposeless war. Not that that's ever bothered the govt there, who in time honoured fashion enjoy perpetuating "Britains post WW2 role as the Greeks to the US Empire" (Harold McMillan 1943)

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Kereama ; 2009-08-11 @ 13:39 NZDT  

Of course Labour need to find their direction! They lost the election and they lost touch with grassroots NZ - National did too once, and it took them years to get back on track - but they did. The point is, the "road to nowhere" isn't permanent (unless you're Winston Peters... let's hope anyway). While it may be the opposition's role to critique the Government, the media has an obligation to do so also. Let the opposition "find" themselves and focus instead on the ones that count.

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