KEY POINTS:
Winston Peters' donations controversy spread yesterday after claims that large donations to New Zealand First from the wealthy Vela family had not all reached the party coffers.
Questions were also raised in Parliament as to whether Mr Peters declared that his party had received substantial donations from the racing industry, where the Vela brothers are big players, before negotiating the post of Racing Minister with the Prime Minister.
Helen Clark is resisting a single inquiry and suggested relevant authorities, including Inland Revenue, the police and the Auditor-General - could make their own inquiries on Mr Peters' donations if they wanted.
The Dominion Post reported yesterday that the Vela family donated $150,000 from six different accounts over four years up to 2003 but the donations were not declared by New Zealand First because they were under $10,000 and did not have to be.
Such donations are perfectly lawful - both before and after the Electoral Finance Act was passed - but Mr Peters has long campaigned on transparency of political funding.
The Vela brothers are in Europe and could not be contacted about whether they had concerns about any donation.
Asked on Close Up last night if the party had received more than the $9995 in the single cheque, Mr Peters referred to the party's formal disclosure statements required under law.
"Have a look there but you are not going to get beyond the veil and find every grandmother that sent $50 to New Zealand First and have her name all over the paper," he said from Singapore, where he is at the Asean Regional Forum meeting.
He said the Dominion Post's allegations were wrong.
"It's a lie and we'll prove it."
Mr Peters said he had a busy life and was not aware who donated to his party.
The fresh claims follow the embarrassing backdown by Mr Peters on Friday night when he said his lawyer, Brian Henry, had just told him that billionaire businessman Owen Glenn had paid his legal fees to the tune of $100,000 for the Tauranga electoral petition.
Mr Peters said he had not broken the law and was confident he had not breached Parliament's rules - which require MPs to declare when someone else has paid a debt. But he would talk to Speaker Margaret Wilson on his return.
New Zealand First did not dispute reports that Mr Henry had been paid an amount from the Parliamentary Service last year but that is understood to have been for contracted work on the Electoral Finance Bill, not for litigation.
In the House yesterday, National Party leader John Key mounted a relatively mild attack on Helen Clark over the possibility of Mr Peters' having broken parliamentary rules.
He said Mr Peters' credibility had been dented but he did not question his integrity.
Helen Clark noted that Mr Key had not ruled out working with Mr Peters.
But she appeared to be thrown by a question from Green Party co-leader Russel Norman on non-declaration of possible conflicts of interest.
He asked: "Can the Prime Minister tell us whether the Minister of Foreign Affairs was involved in negotiating the very substantial tax breaks that this Government has delivered to the racing industry; if so, in those negotiations, did he declare the very substantial donations that New Zealand First had received from the racing industry?"
Helen Clark's response pointed to similarities with the National Party: "On racing matters, the National Party in its 2005 election policy announced very big tax breaks for the racing industry, and I challenge the National Party, and Mr Key as its chief fundraiser, to say how much they received from racing interests."
Mr Peters' New Zealand First colleagues all took turns to ask questions focused on an aspect of his achievements as Foreign Minister.
Meanwhile, Mr Peters, when contacted in Singapore yesterday, angrily disputed a report in yesterday's Herald that a mystery donor had paid his $125,000 bill from the 1996 defamation suit against him by Selwyn Cushing.
Mr Peters said he had paid the entire bill himself.
GIFTS TO POLITICAL PARTIES
Previous law (until January 2008):
* Donations totalling more than $10,000 over a year from any one source must be included in annual party returns.
* No limits on anonymous donations, and individual donations can also be hidden by the use of trust accounts.
* Donations to individual candidate campaigns are not included in party returns, but must be in candidate returns of election expenses.
Electoral Finance Act:
* All donations over $10,000 must be included in party annual returns with the name and address of the donor. (Candidates must include donations over $1000).
* Donations of more than $20,000 in one year must be declared to the Electoral Commission within 10 working days of receipt.
* Anonymous donations made directly to parties have a limit of $1000. Any sum in excess of this must be given to the Crown.
* Trusts must disclose who donors are.
* Overseas donors can only donate a maximum of $1000 to parties.
* Any donors wanting to give more than $1000 anonymously can only do so via the Electoral Commission, which records donor details but does not reveal them. There is a cap on the total value of donations each party can receive in this way (about $240,000 in an electoral cycle.)
- Claire Trevett
