By AUDREY YOUNG political reporter
John Tamihere has considered resigning his Hauraki seat and facing a byelection to win a fresh mandate.
"I've really had a gutsful of this harassment," the controversial Labour MP told the Weekend Herald in the face of evidence of more drink-driving convictions than he had previously declared.
But he discussed resignation with a senior colleague - not the Prime Minister, he says - and he is taking advice to "breathe deeply for a while."
He said that when he acknowledged his drink-driving convictions on July 6, he did not know he had four instead of three.
"If there is a fourth one, I accept that. If I had known there were four, I would have said four, because what's the difference between three and four?
"I could have cleared it all up in one hit by saying four. I wasn't aware of the fourth."
Helen Clark says there is no point in a byelection.
The Prime Minister is standing by Mr Tamihere after disclosures in the National Business Review that he has five drink-driving convictions, not three as previously stated.
One of the two extra drink-driving convictions is thought to have been wrongly counted twice because two are listed on the same day, which still makes four convictions.
The drink-drive convictions were listed as follows:
April 21, 1978, two convictions, Auckland District Court; May 17, 1982, Waihi District Court; July 14, 1988, Auckland District Court; April 26, 1995, Waitakere District Court.
He also has a conviction for speeding in 1987 and for careless use of a motor vehicle in 1991.
Asked what explanation Mr Tamihere had given to her, Helen Clark said: "He wondered whether one of them was a confusion with a brother.
"There is no particular explanation except that he was in a fluster and it was to the best of his recollection," she said, referring to his statements on July 6.
"He's well aware he had them. It just didn't come out right on the day. I honestly don't feel that he set out to mislead anybody."
She said she regarded one drink-driving conviction as one too many.
Mr Tamihere made a personal statement to Parliament on July 6 after an anonymous fax was distributed alleging three drink-driving convictions and forgery charges.
On the latter he was discharged without conviction in 1995 after pleading guilty, and the case was the subject of a suppression order.
In Parliament on July 6, Mr Tamihere was not specific about the number of drink-driving convictions, which suggests that any complaint of deliberately misleading the House would fail to make it past the Speaker.
"In terms of the anonymous allegations about [drink driving] made, I accept those," he said at the time.
"I don't have a problem. I'm just trying to fess up here, sir."
But outside the House he cited 1979, 1984 and 1993 - none of which matches the actual convictions.
Mr Tamihere's explanation for the mismatch is that he did not have the exact details when he cited those dates and that his key concern was the forgery issue.
The next day he categorically told the Herald that he had no other convictions.
PM backs Tamihere over convictions
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