MP alleges Act link with TV3 reporter

John Tamihere has attacked the credibility of TV3 political reporter Duncan Garner, who last October broke stories that sparked probes into the Labour MP's time running West Auckland's Waipareira Trust.

In Parliament yesterday, Mr Tamihere also asked if Garner had an independent media consultancy business and if so, whether its clients were associated with Act leader Rodney Hide who led the attack on Mr Tamihere when the allegations broke on TV3.

Mr Tamihere was this month cleared of financial impropriety over the allegations. Another report cleared him of wrongdoing over paying tax on a $195,000 golden handshake he got when he left the trust.

Mr Tamihere told Parliament yesterday Garner and Mr Hide were "soul mates" and had worked with Garner's de facto wife's uncle - trust chief financial adviser Bruce Silver Bryant - to "shape and frame and put together the architecture of a hatchet job".

Garner denied last night he ran an independent media company or that Mr Bryant was his or his partner Mihingarangi Forbes' uncle.

TV3 news chief Mark Jennings said Forbes' aunt had "some sort of relationship or knew this guy in the 1970s but you should not take from that that Bruce Bryant is Duncan's source on that story".

Mr Jennings said it was rubbish to say Garner had a special relationship with Act.

Mr Tamihere's colleague MP Clayton Cosgrove said three senior trust members spent around $420,000 to "fit up" Mr Tamihere.

He said the men were motivated by a desire to silence Mr Tamihere's questions of their financial mismanagement at the trust.