Transtasman on Winston

Transtasman notes in their latest newsletter:

NZ First leader Winston Peters is known for his expensive suits but he triggered a Savile row of a different nature when he turned on ex-NZ First MP Brendan Horan this week. To say there is bad blood between the two is an insult to leukemia. The loathing runs deeper than the Marianas Trench, as wide as the mouth of the Amazon.

But to do as Peters did, and to describe Horan as “the Jimmy Savile of NZ politics” – and to do so not once but twice in what was clearly a calculated insult – takes it to a whole new level. Savile, the deceased British “celebrity” who sexually preyed on young, often handicapped, girls, is the nuclear option of insults. It all looked a bit desperate. You cannot make such a comment without backing it up with some evidence.

I really hope the media don’t let this drop and they ask Peters when is next turns up to Parliament what he meant by his comments. Was he alleging Horan is a paedophile, and if so what is his proof. If he wasn’t implying that about Horan, then why did he twice refer to him as a Jimmy Saville.

Yet Peters not only failed to front in Parliament the following day, when Horan signalled he would reveal his own deep scandal about NZ First.

It left the rest of the NZ First MPs – who tend to resemble a bunch of ageing Social Creditors with anger management issues at the best of times – making a shambles of trying to use Parliament’s standing orders to block their former colleague.

That bit in bold is gold.

In the end Horan’s revelations Peters was using the leader’s budget for electioneering and campaigning expenses, namely software and staff, proved something of a damp squib. It is still far from clear NZ First is doing anything wrong with its parliamentary funding, although no doubt the party does – like all the others – push it right up to the edge of the rules.

I have to say I don’t see any proof of wrongdoing either, at this stage.