KEY POINTS:
New Zealand First leader Winston Peters is one of the great survivors of our political history. But the possibility that he might survive the storm now battering him does not alter the fact that he should not.
It is possible that the Serious Fraud Office investigation into political donations made to the party will conclude there is no evidence of wrongdoing. His counsel, Peter Williams QC, says that the documentation that he and his client presented to the SFO yesterday, showing that donations from Sir Robert Jones and the Vela family had been "appropriately disbursed", would clear the matter up, and he is not a man given to idle claims.
But, if Peters can satisfy the SFO's concerns, he will be not one millimetre closer to satisfying the concerns that have been raised.
If there is a plain paper trail, why did Peters - or someone authorised by him - not present it the first time Jones raised his concerns? For a man who has made his political name truculently demanding transparency from his political rivals, such opacity is, on the most charitable reading, breathtakingly hypocritical.
Peter Williams' reported statement that a "communication breakdown" was the reason the paper trail had not been revealed sooner is no doubt the expression of instructions from his client. But it is preposterous. What was the nature of this breakdown? Between whom did it occur? Why? And, most importantly, why did it continue for weeks?
On the face of it, Peters' pugnacious and evasive bluster has been his undoing, creating the impression that he has something to hide when - so he claims - he has not. But as we have remarked before, appearances deceive. The polls - in Tauranga, where he does not have a prayer and nationwide - make it plain that he is fighting for his political life. Wily campaigner that he is, he will know that there is more electoral capital to be made from depicting himself, to the few people whose votes hold the key to his political survival, as a beleaguered hero, the victim of a vast media and corporate conspiracy. Ignoring his responsibility to explain himself, castigating questioners and maintaining the mystery may have served Peters' political purposes but that approach has not served the ideals of the open democracy that he claims to prize so highly.
Regardless of the outcome of the SFO investigation, Peters will remain a man in a political mire of his own creation. The allegations in Parliament by Act leader Rodney Hide that NZ First was paid by Simunovich Fisheries in return for Peters' backing off claims that the allocation of scampi quota was corrupt have been around for so long that a high-level independent inquiry is called for. But on the matter of the donation by expatriate billionaire Owen Glenn, which is still being investigated by Parliament's Privileges Committee, Peters continues to be evasive and pedantic. Glenn may have shown himself to be unreliable as to the details of times and places but he did give $100,000 and described it in an email as given "to NZ First". If Peters did not know that on the day that the email first surfaced, he should have taken steps to discover and divulge all the facts immediately. Instead, he said everyone else was mistaken or a liar.
National leader John Key, plainly sensing that public patience is exhausted, made a bold move this week in saying that Peters would not be a cabinet minister in a National-led Government - by extension ruling out NZ First as a coalition partner.
This is less a challenge to Peters than it is to Prime Minister Helen Clark who, whatever she might say about the need to be fair, has known about the Glenn allegation for six months. In giving Peters enough rope to hang himself, she may have put herself in the noose as well.
This week, the suggestion emerged that Ron Mark may stand as NZ First's candidate in Rimutaka. A victory there could get the party two, or even three MPs - one of them the leader. Were Labour to connive at that, urging tactical voting to allow a NZ First victory in the hope of getting the numbers to form a coalition, Clark would confirm the suspicion she is now quite properly under: that she will turn a blind eye to Peters' shenanigans to hold on to power.
She must match Key's boldness by cutting Peters adrift and naming the election day. A campaign that consigns NZ First and its leader to the pages of history will allow the country to focus on important issues.
More importantly, it will treat Peters' childish attention-seeking with the derision it deserves.
