Prime Minister John Key has hinted his tip-off about NZ First leader Winston Peter's visits to the Dotcom mansion came from blogger Cameron Slater and said if a spy agency was found to be involved, as Peters has claimed, it would mean the end of his political career.
Mr Peters and Kim Dotcom have both alleged they were spied on after Mr Key spoke about Mr Peters' three visits to the mansion.
Mr Key has earlier denied it was a spy agency, but would not say who told him, although he said it was not someone in the National Party. He said somebody had contacted him about it, and there were reports of the visits in the Herald by Rachel Glucina and on Cameron Slater's Whaleoil blog a week ago.
"Contrary to what [Peters] might want to believe, I can read. A member of the public, for want of a better term rang me up and said what was the case. I assumed it was right. I said it, it turned out to be right. I didn't think it was that controversial, to be honest."
He would not confirm it was Mr Slater, but said he did speak to Mr Slater "every so often," and had called him earlier this week during which they briefly discussed Kim Dotcom. He said that did not mean he agreed with everything Mr Slater wrote on his blog. "I speak to lots of blogsters [sic]."
