KEY POINTS:
New Zealand First has divided between nine charities the $158,000 the Auditor-General found it had wrongfully spent at the last election, but leader Winston Peters is refusing to name them.
Mr Peters said the Speaker was given details of the donations but he refused to name the charities, saying he did not want them to be "victims of snooping, prying media interest".
On TV One's Agenda yesterday, he said, "If the Speaker wants you to find out, that's fine," but otherwise the charities could identify themselves.
Mr Peters initially sought to donate the money to the Starship Foundation, but its board chairman, Brian Mogridge, returned it, saying it was not given in the true spirit of philanthropy.
A spokesman for Speaker Margaret Wilson confirmed she had received the names but said it was up to NZ First or the charities to release details.
The information had been referred on to the Parliamentary Service, which is not subject to the Official Information Act.
Yesterday, Surf Life Saving NZ's chief executive Geoff Barry said his group was not among the nine, despite being one of the few openly happy to accept the money.
Garth McVicar, of the Sensible Sentencing Trust, said he had not been approached and would not have accepted such a donation anyway.
"A lot of our members would see that as aligning ourselves with a political party and we wouldn't do that."
Mr Peters also indicated on Agenda he would be open to going into coalition with National again, despite his frequent attacks on it and its policies of the 1990s.
He said his public criticism of National was directed at its past actions and "does not mean that you are necessarily not going to go into some sort of governing arrangement with people".
Mr Peters also said he was not "totally happy" with the current arrangement of supporting the Labour Government from outside the Cabinet, but in 2005 he had not wanted to be part of a Government whose economic and social policy he could not support.
He said the question of John Key becoming Prime Minister was not the issue, but rather his caucus colleagues. "It's whether that 1990s bunch he has of neo-liberals have got over their ideological baggage."
Mr Key said he believed Mr Peters was indicating he would enter negotiations in "good faith" if he was in a position to do so. He was not concerned about Mr Peters' criticism of his MPs.
However, National does not intend to smooth Mr Peters' path. The NZ First leader is widely expected to try to regain the Tauranga seat he lost to National's Bob Clarkson in 2005.
Today, Mr Key hits the campaign trail in the electorate to promote newly selected candidate Simon Bridges.
