Peters' Savile jibe riles Horan

Brendan Horan

Bad blood between Winston Peters and Brendan Horan reached a new low yesterday as the New Zealand First Leader referred to his estranged former political protégé as "the Jimmy Savile of New Zealand politics".

Mr Horan was ejected from NZ First late in 2012 amid claims he had misappropriated money from his dying mother.

While he and Mr Peters have sniped at each other since, the conflict has been particularly bitter in the past week or so with Mr Horan, under cover of parliamentary privilege, claiming misuse of parliamentary funding by Mr Peters and also saying he failed to disclose his interest in a racehorse in Parliament's Register of Pecuniary Interests.

Yesterday, as Mr Horan tried to raise a point order at the start of Question Time, Mr Peters called him the "Jimmy Savile of New Zealand politics".

Later, after Mr Horan raised a point of order seeking leave to table a document from the NZ Racing Conference regarding the ownership of the horse at the centre of his recent claims, Mr Peters chided him for not explaining the document better.

"He referred to the word ownership and Jimmy Savile ought to know better than that."

UK broadcaster Sir Jimmy's name has been blackened by hundreds of allegations of child-sex offences that emerged after he died three years ago.

Mr Horan raised his own point of order, saying he took offence to Mr Peters' "disgusting comments".

Mr Horan found an ally in Police Minister Anne Tolley who told Speaker David Carter that Mr Peters' comment was "a really offensive remark" for which he should withdraw and apologise. Mr Peters did so when asked by Mr Carter.

Mr Peters later refused to comment but Mr Horan said: "Here we are in Parliament and Winston's reduced it to name-calling and he's putting out a massive distractor because he's been found out.

"He's back to his old bullying ways and he's hoping to distract from the very serious information that's going to be released tomorrow."

Mr Horan said the information involved Mr Peters' use of parliamentary leaders' funding.