KEY POINTS:
Winston Peters is teetering on the brink. His three long decades in politics are just one short meeting of Parliament's privileges committee away from ending in abject disgrace and utter humiliation.
That may sound extreme, but things are that serious. Quite simply, Owen Glenn has blasted Peters' version
of events right out of the water. What remained of Peters' credibility and reputation looks to have evaporated with it.
Everything now hangs on Peters' response to the business tycoon's latest and most damaging evidence when Peters makes his second appearance in front of the privileges committee tonight.
However, so compelling and convincing was Glenn's testimony to yesterday's hearing that it is hard to see where Peters can go by way of rebuttal. It begins to look very much like Peters has been caught out.
But judgment must await tonight's hearing. As the Prime Minister has repeatedly said, there has been a "conflict of evidence" between Peters' and Glenn's accounts of when Peters knew about Glenn's $100,000 donation towards the MP's legal bill for the Taruranga electoral petition.
Those accounts will still be in conflict after tonight's hearing. However, Glenn has stuck to his story throughout. He has now backed it up with copies of relevant emails and phone logs. He has been up front. He has volunteered information. To put no finer point on it, his account rings true.
In contrast, Mr Peters has offered denials which have been found wanting. Accepting his story has required suspending disbelief. His story has kept changing. He has sought to undermine the committee's standing by calling it a kangaroo court.
That Glenn's version of what happened is convincing could be ascertained by the rather desultory efforts by Labour MPs on the committee to help Peters by trying to pick holes in it.
That reached a low when Russell Fairbrother, a vastly experienced barrister prior to becoming an MP, suggested to Glenn that he could have been talking to Wayne Peters, the NZ First leader's brother, when he rang Peters' cellphone.
It was a moment of farce during testimony which has pushed Peters deeper into political strife - if that is possible. It is no longer a question of whether he gets his ministerial portfolios back. There must be questionmarks about him remaining an MP.
Again, judgment must await tonight's hearing. Peters might pull a rabbit out of what has so far been a tatty looking hat. But his previous scrapes look minor stuff compared to the quicksand in which he is sinking.
If he cannot provide believable explanations to counter what seems to be irrefutable evidence that he in fact solicited the donation from Glenn, then he should resign his current status as a minister without portfolio and his party should think seriously about whether he is fit to stand for Parliament again.
It won't. There is no NZ First without Peters.
As for remaining a minister, however, Labour may do the job for him. The Prime Minister's remark that Glenn's evidence was "disturbing" shows which way the wind is blowing in the Beehive.
With landmark emissions trading legislation at its final stage in Parliament before becoming law, Labour is close to being able to cut Peters adrift. And not a moment too soon.
