The Empire Strikes Back

NZPA has a good story on the statement by Peters that he is suing TVNZ for $7 million.

I did laugh at Bill Ralston’s statement that so far he has only received press releases, not legal papers, despite threats since January – but most of all him pointing out that Peters needs to go back to law school as under the law you can not specify the amount of damages sought in your filing.

Peters is also saying he may sue any other media which has carried the story. Hopefully there will be no need for a blog defence fund!

I could almost feel sorry for Peters in this, as it is entirely possible that Meurant has landed his boss in a pile of crap, without Peters knowing. However as Peters hold the all time record for making baseless defamatory accusations under parliamentary privilege, my sympathy is very limited.

A story on the TVNZ website refers to phone records showing a quick succession of phone calls from Meurant to Simunovich and Peters, which may not help the claim that Peters did not know Meurant was working for both him and Simunovich.