KEY POINTS:
The odour around Winston Peters' mysterious "Spencer Trust" grew worse yesterday when the Prime Minister met him and appears not to have pressed him for an explanation of the trust and its purpose. She was unable to give Parliament anything more than the word of her Foreign Minister that he has done nothing illegal. Either she did not ask for an explanation or, if she got one, it was not an explanation she wanted to relay to the country.
Either way, it leaves this affair more deeply disturbing. If Helen Clark does not want to inquire into her governing partner's financial arrangements it can only suggest she has no confidence that she might hear an explanation she could defend in public.
It is bad enough that her governing partner is treating the public with such contempt - Mr Peters has offered to brief the Opposition leader, too, but only in private - now the Prime Minister is playing the same silly evasive politics that are the Peters trademark. Yesterday she was reduced to echoing his attempt to deflect attention on to National's anonymous fund-raising trusts.
There is a big difference between the problem of anonymous political contributions and the concern surrounding Mr Peters right now. The donor is known in this instance; it is the purpose to which his donation was put that is cause for concern. Donations made through National's trusts appear on the party's books.
The Spencer Trust is said not to appear on New Zealand First's declarations. The party's president has never heard of it.
Every day that Mr Peters fails to take an opportunity to clarify these matters, concern deepens.
If the Prime Minister still does not know the nature and purpose of this trust run by Mr Peters' brother, she must find out. If she is left in any doubt of its propriety she should suspend him from her ministry, as she has with several ministers of her own party during her years in office.
He could respond, of course, by withdrawing his party's support for the Government and forcing an election. But considering his party's position in the polls, he is unlikely to risk an early departure and he might not relish a campaign triggered by this issue. He would be facing the formidable testimony of his erstwhile donor, Sir Robert Jones.
Sir Robert Jones is adamant a donation was solicited by Mr Peters, which Mr Peters denies. Sir Robert's account was corroborated on Monday by a former employee, Malcolm Wright, now a professor at the University of South Australia, who says he was present. A former member of Mr Peters staff, Rex Widerstrom, recalls discussion in 1995 of a $50,000 donation from Sir Robert.
Mr Widerstrom has heard of the Spencer Trust. It is "like a code word", he said, for Mr Peters' litigation fund. If that is what it is, Mr Peters could simply say so, just as he finally admitted that his 2005 litigation costs had benefited from a $100,000 donation from expatriate billionaire Owen Glenn.
It would be comforting to believe Mr Peters' reluctance to admit to these contributions can be explained by the fact that he has campaigned as a lonely crusader against politicians and parties that he claims are in the pockets of big business. But his supporters would understand he needs wealthy donors as much as the next party and they would see a moral difference between his benefactors and others'.
His reluctance to explain this trust must have another explanation and it behoved the Prime Minister to find it. She is responsible for the probity of all her ministers. If the standards she has enforced so far have a purpose higher than her political interests she will not limit them to her own party, she will confront Mr Peters properly and tell the country the truth.
