Scampi probe MP quits over affair with lawyer

By AUDREY YOUNG political reporter

A Green MP who quit a probe into corruption in the scampi industry after starting a relationship with one of the inquiry lawyers denies the affair has compromised the investigation.

Ian Ewen-Street yesterday withdrew from the parliamentary select committee inquiry, citing a "perceived conflict of interest".

He began a relationship shortly before Easter with Nelson-based lawyer Susan Grey, who acts for Barine Development.

This company is owned by fisherman Neil Penwarden, one of the chief protagonists against the Ministry of Fisheries and Simunovich Fisheries in the $100 million scampi allocation saga.

Sue Grey will no longer be appearing before the hearing, having attended most since they began in February.

In Parliament yesterday Act leader Richard Prebble described the affair as a "sex for questions" case and said later it was like discovering that a juror sitting on a court case had been sleeping with one of the lawyers.

"It has made a mockery of the inquiry. We have to seriously look at whether this inquiry should be abandoned. If it were court, it would be abandoned."

But Mr Ewen-Street says he has simply tried to do the honourable thing by stepping down from the inquiry.

He said he did not attend any hearings after the relationship with Ms Grey began. The first one was yesterday.

"Both of us have some regrets in the sense that we have both put a huge amount of work into it.

"But that's the price you pay and it's a small price compared to if we had taken another route."

Mr Prebble said he believed Mr Ewen-Street had been receiving Ms Grey's help in drafting questions to ask witnesses.

Mr Ewen-Street said claims that she supplied him with precise questions to ask at the committee were crazy.

"I think he is going to have to come up with some evidence of that. It is just rubbish.

"My understanding is that Sue offered to brief everybody and she spent time with me, with Phil Heatley, David Carter [National MPs], Damien O'Connor [Labour MP], the majority of people, just in a lobbying sense."

If she supplied everyone in the committee with information to use "that's our choice".

But she did not tell him to ask specific questions.

Asked if he thought he had compromised the inquiry, he said: "No, I don't. I think what I have done is disappointing in that I put an awful lot of work into it and I probably have as good a handle on the issue as anybody there.

"If I had become friendly with Sue and tried to hide it, then that would have compromised the inquiry.

"My profound belief is that what I have done is preserving the integrity of the process."

Ms Grey said she did not believe the relationship, which started "very recently", had jeopardised the inquiry.

"I struggle with that suggestion. I can't see how that possibly could be so.

"There are a number of people who would probably quite like the inquiry to not proceed for various different reasons.

"But I can't see that the events that have been publicised to date affect that in any way."

Mr Ewen-Street said Mr Prebble's suggestion of abandoning the inquiry might have been valid had the relationship been hidden or had there been some undue influence.

"That simply isn't the case."

Simunovich Fisheries managing director Peter Simunovich, who appeared before the committee yesterday, did not want to comment on Mr Ewen-Street's decision.

But in its submission it raises "a question of apparent bias" in Mr Ewen-Street if certain allegations about the company had been made by him - and that is unclear.

Mr Ewen-Street said he had never made any allegations about Simunovich Fisheries.

He had just asked some hard questions.

He said MPs on the committee from other parties had been "absolutely fantastic".

"They have been really understanding."

Mr Ewen-Street, an organic farmer, said he was separated from his wife, Margaret, when his relationship with Ms Grey began.

Ms Grey is a partner in MS Sullivan and Associates. She enjoys tramping and running marathons.

- Additional reporting: NZPA