Row flares over MP's thwarted ambitions

Michael Cullen

One of National's new MPs, Chris Finlayson, got into a spat with Acting Prime Minister and former Attorney-General Michael Cullen in Parliament yesterday over Dr Cullen declining Mr Finlayson's application this year to become a Queen's Counsel.

Dr Cullen accused Mr Finlayson of sending Solicitor-General Terence Arnold "an abusive letter" after not being made a QC.

Mr Finlayson accused Dr Cullen of having refused his application because he was a member of the National Party.

Both MPs denied the claims.

Mr Finlayson said he had received a phone call this year from Mr Arnold inviting him to "take silk" (become a Queen's Counsel) so he had put his name forward.

He said the rejection was because he was "a National Party person".

The MP denied sending Mr Arnold an abusive letter: "What I did do was return the Solicitor-General's letter to him, and that was the letter in which he declined my application formally."

Dr Cullen told Parliament: "Get over it, Chris. I know I didn't make you a QC but you shouldn't have written that abusive letter to the Solicitor-General because he had nothing to do with the decision and deserved better than that display of bad judgment and bad manners on your part."

After Mr Finlayson's intervention, Dr Cullen said he did not decline Mr Finlayson because he was a National Party member.

"I declined him because he was on a party list just before an election and I determined that nobody should be appointed on any party list because if we had appointed a Labour Party person they [National] would have been the first to object and call it cronyism."

Mr Finlayson later told the Herald that Mr Arnold had assured him political considerations played no part in the decisions.

"So I made the application and got kicked in the guts ... so I got the letter [of rejection] back and sent it back to Terence and said 'Thanks for suggesting I apply and putting me through this humiliating process' or something like that."

The row erupted during a speech of Dr Cullen's in the address-in-reply debate. Dr Cullen breached convention by criticising some of the maiden speeches of new members - though his decision was likely based on the fact that many of the new MPs themselves had breached convention and criticised Labour.

Mr Finlayson, in his maiden speech last week, took three digs at Dr Cullen: implying that he got personal in his debates; on the fact that as Attorney-General he was a history teacher and not a lawyer; and over the Foreshore and Seabed Act, which Mr Finlayson sarcastically described as "another masterpiece by the Deputy Prime Minister".

Mr Finlayson is National's shadow Attorney-General.