Tamihere says 'I needed the money'

By AUDREY YOUNG


Labour MP John Tamihere said last night that he took the Waipareira Trust severance package he had previously turned down because he "needed the money".

And his partner, former accountant Awerangi Durie, said she told him his family had to come first.

"We had just come together and brought together two households, a lot of children, and we had just had our first child together and I had just left work," Awerangi Durie said on TV One's Close-Up, the replacement for Holmes, appearing with Mr Tamihere.

"From a family point of view, I had just seen John and I go through a lot in terms of giving up things in his career, and didn't even think of what would be 10 years down the track with his career, and I said, 'John, sometimes family has to come first'. We needed the money."

The pair were living in Pt Chevalier, Auckland, and later bought a home in West Auckland.

Mr Tamihere initially stood aside from the Cabinet while an inquiry was held into whether tax was paid on the $195,000 golden handshake and other matters to do with the trust, where he was chief executive for 10 years.

But on Wednesday, acknowledging the hypocrisy of having accepted a payment he campaigned against, he resigned his portfolios completely as the political pressure shifted to Prime Minister Helen Clark. She said she would keep his vacancy in the Cabinet in the hope that he would clear his name.

Mr Tamihere said the pair were living in a three-bedroom townhouse "where you couldn't swing a cat, and five kids to cater for.

"I needed the money. It was offered and I said yes."

There had been nothing illegal about that. It was a moral issue.

Mr Tamihere's salary will drop from $202,800 as a minister to the basic backbencher's pay of $113,300.

Meanwhile, Act leader Rodney Hide wants the inquiry into Mr Tamihere's affairs to cover the housing loan he received from the trust in 1991.

Mr Tamihere has never denied receiving the loan and it was first raised in Parliament by New Zealand First leader Winston Peters in November 1999.

But Mr Hide yesterday tabled a letter sent to Act four years ago by Waipareira trustee Denis Hansen saying that the loan was written off in 1993.

Deputy Prime Minister Michael Cullen produced a letter yesterday from the same author written to Mr Hide this week saying the previous letter had been written at a stressful time and "I was wrong".

Dr Cullen said if Mr Hide forwarded the details to the lawyer conducting the inquiry, Douglas White, QC, the matter would be considered.

But if the notion of an employing body issuing a loan to an employee was wrong, "then a lot of people in this country will be in trouble".

Mr Hide said later he would give "all relevant" papers to Mr White.