KEY POINTS:
The National Party is reviewing security footage of its cocktail party in a bid to identify the person behind secret recordings of private conversations with its MPs.
National leader John Key today accused Labour of being behind secretly taped conversations of MPs at the Friday night cocktail party which kicked off National's annual conference at the weekend.
Prime Minister Helen Clark and Young Labour president Eric Goddard have this morning denied any involvement in the tapes.
Mr Key said the party was now looking at security footage from the Friday night cocktail party in a bid to identify the person.
"The good news is, we think we've got security footage so let's see if we will work our way through it."
He said the party was also seeking legal advice on whether any laws had been broken.
He called on Prime Minister Helen Clark to condemn the tactic of secret taping.
A spokesman for Helen Clark said: "We don't know where these recordings came from. They're lashing out and trying to divert people from the focus that senior National MPs have been caught out telling the truth."
Young Labour president Eric Goddard has denied Mr Key's allegations and told nzherald.co.nz his organisation would never do such a thing.
"We didn't have anything to do with it. I'd be surprised if we were able to get in at all," Mr Goddard said.
"It wasn't us. I don't think we'd go out of our way to get something like that, certainly not by sneaking around inside their conferences or anything like that".
Last night TV3 broadcast comments National MP Lockwood Smith made on Friday at the party's conference which Labour says show National has a secret agenda.
"Once we've gained the confidence of the people, we've got more chance of doing more things," Mr Smith said.
"There's some bloody dead fish you have to swallow ... to get into government to do the kinds of things you want to do."
On Sunday night comments deputy leader Bill English made about selling Kiwibank, which he retracted yesterday, were also broadcast by TV3 News.
Speaking on TV One's Breakfast this morning, Mr Key lashed out at Labour and Prime Minister Helen Clark.
"Is this what she meant when she said hard hats on? Is this the new dirty tactics, low level, that we can expect?"
Mr Key said Miss Clark could "go for it" but National would be running a positive campaign.
"If she's going to do everything from rort the electoral law, to get (journalist and author) Nicky Hager to listen into our emails, to go out there and get young Labour affiliates to be bugging our personal conversations, well that's her style of politics."
Mr Key said he had doubts about the accuracy of the tapes: "Who knows whether these tapes are actually sort of completely real they could well have been doctored. No one really knows this stuff."
Mr Goddard of Young Labour said members had protested outside but Mr Key's allegations are baseless and a diversion from what the MPs have revealed on tape.
When asked who he thought had made the recordings, Mr Goddard said: "I don't even want to get into it, I don't think it matters where it came from".
Mr Key said he had talked to MPs to be careful about what they say.
"We don't speak in sound bites, we don't speak in press releases but effectively if every single word you say is going to be recorded then that's the way you have to speak."
Deputy Prime Minister Michael Cullen told Radio New Zealand he had no idea who was behind the tapes.
"I have absolutely no idea who the person is that was speaking to Mr English and Dr Smith when they were caught telling the truth."
He said Labour could as easily accuse National of bugging its conference in April when party president Mike Williams was recorded telling delegates at a closed session it was a good idea to use ministry publications during an election campaign.
"The National Party was very happy to use that particular recording at the time."
Dr Cullen said National was "caught out obviously planning not to tell the people about their true intentions".
Mr Key said National had no secret agenda and he thought Dr Smith's comments had been beaten up.
Politics were dynamic and parties had to change.
"That's what you sort of do when you have been in opposition for a long time because government programmes get rolled out and get entrenched and people rely on them."
Mr Key said he could give the public "total assurances" they could trust his party.
"Look we've been very upfront with our agenda. We've been talking at the weekend a lot about how to get New Zealand moving again, how to deliver infrastructure - there's no hiddenness about the fact we wanted to use some debt to finance that ... There's no secret agenda. We have an agenda that says we are going to do the right thing by New Zealand," Mr Key said.
He said Labour was the one with a secret agenda and it had not campaigned on electoral finance and child discipline law changes.
- NZPA, NZ HERALD STAFF
