Alarmed left guns for Peters

By VERNON SMALL deputy political editor

Labour and its allies are gunning for Winston Peters in a bid to eliminate him as a possible coalition powerbroker after the election.

They want to avoid a repeat of 1996, when the election result meant Mr Peter's decision on who to ally his party with decided whether Labour or National led the government.

And Jim Anderton - Helen Clark's coalition partner - has sent the Greens a conciliatory signal by offering to appease their fears on GM.

The jockeying follows a new poll showing Labour and Mr Anderton would not gain an absolute majority in the July 27 election.

In an attempt to frighten voters back to Labour, Helen Clark said Mr Peters could not be trusted when it came to coalition building.

"I remember 1996, when NZ First consistently said they wouldn't put National back into Government and after nine weeks of negotiations the country got another National Government that it didn't want. Once bitten, twice shy."

As Helen Clark was issuing her warning, the Council of Trade Unions told its members and Labour that it did not want Mr Peters' party in power.

President Ross Wilson told the Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union that when the CTU talked of support for a Labour-led government, "we are not talking about Labour leading NZ First".

Greens co-leader Rod Donald spoke at the conference and Green MP Keith Locke was a guest, suggesting that unionists would be more comfortable with a Labour-Green coalition than one with Mr Peters.

Mr Peters said "an unscrupulous Labour Party" was using the CTU.



Helen Clark's veiled threats were an unprincipled grab for power, he said, and he called on her to say if she was ruling out his party as a coalition partner.

Helen Clark has repeatedly said she wants either a majority government with Mr Anderton or a minority government.

She has refused to discuss other possibilities.

Campaigning in Mr Peters' Tauranga seat yesterday, the Prime Minister attacked the Greens and NZ First, saying she rejected "the politics of the fringe".

But she reserved her strongest attacks for Mr Peters, saying she "deplored the politics of division".

Mr Anderton joined in, saying it would be extremely difficult to believe that he or Labour would ever trust Mr Peters.

He also questioned whether the Greens could be trusted.

But yesterday he wrote in conciliatory tones to Greens co-leader Jeanette Fitzsimons asking her to seriously reconsider a threat to bring down a Labour-led government if the moratorium on the commercial release of genetically modified organisms was lifted in October next year.

He pledged to introduce legislation to ensure no release "until the technology is proven safe".

But he did not commit himself to extending the moratorium.

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