July 29, 2008 8:00am by David Farrar

Will Peters attack?

Rather than answer questions about the Spencer Trust however, Peters is expected to highlight large corporate and personal donations to the National Party’s Waitemata Trust and to “name names” under Parliamentary privilege.

This is to be expected. I doubt Peters has any knowledge of donors to the Waitemata Trust, and suspect he will just name all the businesses and businesspeople he doesn’t like.

Peters fails to understand there is a difference between him making an allegation under parliamentary privilege, and the media reporting on documents which prove donations (such as the Glenn e-mail and the Vela cheque) and of course direct testimony from donors such as Sir Robert Jones.

The other issue of course is that the Waitemata Trust’s donations to National have been declared every year on their donations return.

Now don’t get me wrong. I am a supporter of closing down trusts as a way to hide identity of donors. My submission on the EFA said as much. I think anyone who gives over $10,000 a year should be disclosed (note the EFA allows up to $46,000 in one year without disclosing identity).

But if Winston thinks his issues will go away, by making some allegations under parliamentary privilege, he may be surprised.