Prime Minister Helen Clark says Labour isn't running a dirty campaign and National's leader John Key has to accept that scrutiny comes with the territory.
"I've been under the blowtorch of public scrutiny as an MP for 27 years, Mr Key has been in Parliament barely six and
he's starting to find out what it's like when you go for the big job," Helen Clark said today on TV One's Breakfast show.
Asked about attacks on Mr Key over the Tranz Rail shares his family trust held while he was asking questions about the railways in Parliament, Helen Clark said that was part of the scrutiny.
"Of course we research peoples' records, so do they. You often find them digging back 15 or 20 years to try to find something I've said," Helen Clark said.
"We have to accept that as going with the territory. I've accepted for a long time that people will look into every nook and cranny."
She did not believe Mr Key made a simple mistake by at first saying he had held 50,000 Tranz Rail shares and then admitting there had been twice as many.
He has said he sold the shares as soon as he realised there was a political issue with Tranz Rail.
"He was actively trading, buying and selling, in the middle of asking a lot of questions through the parliamentary process," Helen Clark said.
"I know he was trading in shares while he was carrying out his duties as associate transport spokesperson and he never declared that interest."
- NZPA
