Peters has a very good point but his attempt to claim money is tacky.
The pressure is on Winston Peters to drop his case against a couple of journos over the leak around his super.
There appear two areas of concern. Firstly, he's trying to find out what information they have and where they got it from, and secondly he's after them for money.I didn't know we had this, but the "media freedom committee" says all of this is unfair. In fact, they go further and say all of this is alarming. Which it isn't really: this sadly is another example of journalists taking themselves far too seriously. Peters has a very good point. I don't know if he has a case, that will be sorted by a judge, but he has a point.
The information that got leaked was private. It was his and no one else's, and the fact it got leaked was wrong. The fact it found its way to a journalist was wrong. The fact it got published was wrong. He wasn't a crook, this wasn't a smoking gun, we weren't busting the mafia. It was an administration error from a government department that, when brought to the attention of the appropriate parties, was sorted.
It should never have turned into what it did, and Peters has every right to be aggrieved.
However, he's going too far on the money front. Chasing money has always struck me as tacky, unless of course you were defrauded and you want your money back. In this case, money wasn't the issue. In chasing these people for some sort of monetary retribution he overplays his hand. He looks needlessly vitriolic. He's owed an apology and details on how it happened and who was responsible, but he's not owed cash.
Complicating this further, and where he needs to tread more carefully than most of the rest of us, is the indisputable truth that he is the Deputy Prime Minister and, as such, is different to the rest of us.
There are some things in life as a public figure that you simply have to suck up. The image of his party and the government are in play here, and as technically right as he might feel he is, the overarching feature that weighs heavily on proceedings is having a leading figure of any government immersed in court battles doesn't look good or play well.
Other people's interests simply have to be taken into account.
