KEY POINTS:
New Zealand First leader Winston Peters today called a press conference at Parliament to deny that freight magnate Owen Glenn had given his party any money - a donation or a loan.
But he could give no explanation as to why Glenn has repeatedly equivocated on whether he has given the party money - in stark contrast to his open disclosure with the Labour Party and his outright denial that he has given money to the Maori Party.
Peters brought along his own prop - a "No" sign to reinforce his message which was peppered with verbal and personal abuse to many of the journalists present.
When Guyon Espiner from TVNZ said: "Can I just clarify with you. Are you saying you have never received one dollar from Owen Glenn or any associate of Owen Glenn" Peters held up his "No" sign.
"Got that? N - o to every one of the allegations you have made."
Peters, the Foreign Minister, has just returned from a week abroad to South Africa, Zambia and South Korea where he dined with United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice (if she could see him now!).
While he was away, his party president and new MP Dail Jones caused a storm over the donation issue by telling the Herald and TVNZ that he had discovered a large sum in the party's bank balance last December and the bank couldn't help him to find where it came from.
Peters says that the party's treasurer, former MP Brent Catchpole, said it was a consolidation of a series of payments made to the party.
However he chose to blame the news media that carried the stories.
"I want to know this media mountain has been built from a factually incorrect molehill."
He agreed that the sum would be disclosed in the party's return to the Electoral Commission in April.
To recap, this is what Jones told me when I asked him on Wednesday last week if Owen Glenn had given the party money: " I do know that we received a donation at the end of last year which will be returned in our donations in the normal way. It's anonymous. I have no idea where it came from. I went to the bank. The thing was there. I said 'where did this come from?' and they pushed all the buttons and they said 'no we can't tell you.' So I don't know."
I asked him how much. He said between $10,000 and $100,000 and when pressed said it was "probably closer to $100,000." It was a substantial sum for New Zealand First.
Peters said the reports since those comments were "a wanton mischief and a wanton lie."
Peters said his party had assiduously complied with the electoral laws of the country.
He said his party had underspent its parliamentary entitlements by $3 million.
"This this is the party of course that spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on great cases to do with tax evasion in this country."
Peters said no decision had been made on whether Glenn would be made honorary consul in Monaco, where the ex-pat Kiwi officially lives for tax purposes.
Asked if he would rule out appointing Glenn as honorary consul, he said: "No look we are not going to be climbing on the horse before we've got it saddled up. Only a fool tests the water with both feet."
The first thing he was going to do was to decide whether New Zealand needed a consul in Monaco or not.
Peters said he first met Glenn because he owned a famous racehorse, Railings, and that he attended the Karaka horse sales every year.
