KEY POINTS:
Where's the audit trail? Precisely into which account went this cheque?"
"On whose behalf was the cheque to be held and what happened to this money? Is there any significance that ... was in serious financial trouble?"
"Why is the Serious Fraud Office taking so long to find the answers to these questions?"
"I say the whole thing stinks."
This is not a fly-on-the-wall report of Sir Robert Jones railing over the fate of his $25,000 donation to New Zealand First during his legendary Friday night drinks. (Jones is more garrulous than that even without the easy sociability his personal networks provide.)
Nor even Act leader Rodney Hide making an occasional visit to Parliament to leap on to the NZ First donations affair and receive a bucket of the proverbial in return, raising legitimate questions about his own party's practices.
No, this was the old maestro himself in full flight back in 2002 using Parliament to pressure the SFO to get to the bottom of an investigation into National Party donations sourced from his nemesis Fay Richwhite.
Six years on, the boot is clearly on the other foot. But despite media revelations which raise pertinent questions over whether donations made by Sir Robert and the wealthy Owen Glenn were used for NZ First's purposes in the manner the donors intended, Winston Peters does not hold himself or his party to the public standards he previously demanded.
This was in relation to the Fay Richwhite donations which were funnelled through former National Party president Geoff Thompson's trust accounts to his party in 1996.
This is the real reason why Peters should be judged guilty by his political peers of the "H" word - hypocrisy.
By failing to publish a clear audit trail showing just how Sir Robert's $25,000 donation found its way from the Spencer Trust into NZ First's coffers, or the way in which the amount was disbursed on NZ First's behalf, Peters invites a tsunami of disbelief which might easily be turned back by a simple disclosure.
Jones - like Peters - is a mercurial beast.
On past performance, he is as likely to end up settling personally with Peters during another legendary late night as he is to lay a police complaint on the matter.
The Glenn donation is simply "an embarrassment" as Prime Minister Helen Clark has declared.
Not only to Peters, because the Chinese Wall between him and barrister Brian Henry to protect the NZ First leader from claims of undue influence has backfired against him.
But also to Glenn himself, who all along had wanted disclosure of what he believed to be a NZ First donation and now stands no chance of becoming honorary consul to Monaco.
The Vela donations are another matter. They seem to have been provided by the Vela camp itself which issued cheques from various Vela-related accounts making sure that any donations came neatly under legal disclosure thresholds. There was nothing illegal about this under the then-electoral rules.
Questions have been raised in Parliament as to whether policy decisions in Peters' foreign affairs and racing portfolios may have been in favour of NZ First's major donors.
There is, of course, a flipside to such speculation. If donors gave funds to the party in anticipation of major benefits they could arguably be accused of bribery.
The SFO, which is now deciding whether it should formally investigate Hide's complaint, will tread carefully.
But it must be consistent.
It launched a formal investigation into National Party donations in 2002 after a former official - assured of anonymity - revealed the party still had unanswered questions over discrepancies between the amount its fundraiser had expected from Fay Richwhite interests and what arrived in the party's accounts in 1996.
After I revealed that Thompson came under strong pressure from party Treasurer Michael Cox to pay the money across into party coffers promptly, Peters was quick to pounce, asking in Parliament whether the party president had used the funds to get his ailing company Waipuna International out of financial trouble.
The SFO ultimately cleared the National Party of any wrongdoing.
If Peters, his party and his lawyers have nothing to hide they should produce answers to the questions.
Otherwise they lay themselves open to new claims that "the whole thing stinks".
