Jonathan Milne: Prime Minister has a case to answer

Time and again during the 2002 election campaign, Labour candidates introduced the Prime Minister to public meetings with virtually the same line.

"This election is about integrity and honesty, and that's why we are so pleased to have Helen Clark as our leader."

Stung by revelations she had signed a painting she did not paint, and unsubstantiated allegations she had covered up the release of genetically-modified corn, Clark was fighting a rearguard action.

She was forced to defend her integrity - and nothing made her angrier. Now the Opposition is preparing to again place a question mark over her integrity as this year's election approaches.

Last week the lawyer for Australian-owned publishing company Fairfax said she had confirmed details of a story about then police commissioner Peter Doone for a Sunday Star-Times journalist and its editor.

Relying on Clark's confirmation, the paper printed what it believed were more details of the verbal exchange between Doone and a junior constable on the night Doone and his partner Robyn Johnstone were pulled over on a Wellington street.

"That won't be necessary," he was reported to have told the constable, who was approaching the car with an alcohol sniffer. The words, it later transpired, were never spoken and the newspaper apologised later in the year.

The following week, with Doone threatening defamation action, Clark allegedly again insisted to the worried editor that the information was correct, and encouraged her to continue the paper's investigation as the matter was reaching its critical stages. She allegedly said to the reporter to hang tough.

Reassured, the paper's editorial writer that week repeated the information and raged that Doone "must pay the price". Trouble is, the information was wrong. Nowhere in the formal inquiries into Doone's actions was it alleged he said "that won't be necessary".

And Clark, who had a copy of the inquiry report, had allegedly insisted to the reporter and the editor that they were not wrong, that the words were there. So not only did Clark use backdoor methods to undermine her "independent" police commissioner, but she somehow managed to misrepresent the contents of deputy police commissioner Rob Robinson's report into his boss's actions.

It is reminiscent of her defamation of Aucklander John Yelash, who she recklessly described as a convicted murderer when he had been convicted only of manslaughter.

But this time, it cannot be blamed on a slip of the tongue: the paper claims to have checked no fewer than five times.

By turning their guns on Clark, the Doones have bought themselves a fight that even the best defamation lawyers would struggle to win, but Clark's treatment of Doone leaves her with a case to answer. Not in the courts, but in Parliament on Tuesday.


- HERALD ON SUNDAY