Responding to Winston

Winston has said:

Rt Hon Winston Peters says the National Party’s paid blogger David Farrar is spreading confusion about New Zealand First on the last day of the election campaign at the behest of politicians who should know better.

Winston normally starts with a lie, and he rarely disappoints. I’m not paid by anyone to blog. The blog does gain some revenue though through advertising, and the major advertisers this election have been Labour, Greens and Forest & Bird.

And the blog post was not at the behest of any politician. Not a single person knew I was going to blog on this, until it appeared. The issue only came to my attention this morning.

Farrar has written a blog about New Zealand First claiming it is an incorporated society when in fact it is a registered political party. An incorporated society simply holds and protects the name “New Zealand First”, which has been the case since 1993.

Winston is claiming there are really two New Zealand Firsts. I quote in rebuttal from an article by David Fisher, then of the Listener on 16 August 2008:

Contacted by the Listener, Catchpole, treasurer from 2005 until the party’s convention earlier this month, says: “They are one and the same really, the incorporated society and the party, because the party constitution and rules are all registered with the incorporated society. That basically makes it one entity.”

Winston is again relying on deception. If they were different entities, why would other rules changes been filed with the Registrar.

I also quote his party president:

Asked about the incorporated society, Groombridge says: “That’s the party itself.”

No one but Winston thinks they are separate entities. remember this is the man who said on dozens of occasions that he knew nothing of the $100,000 donation from Owen Glenn.