Peters Winston: Privilege — Consideration of Report of Privileges Committee Members’ Pecuniary Interests—Gifts and Donations 
Peters Winston: Privilege — Consideration of Report of Privileges Committee Members’ Pecuniary Interests—Gifts and Donations 
[Volume:650;Page:18906] 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) 
: 
 Over 29 finance houses have collapsed owing $3 billion to mainly older New Zealanders. Hundreds of thousands of people face home affordability problems— 
Rodney Hide 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. We were pulled up vigorously by the Speaker even when discussing aspects of the Spencer Trust. If that is the rule then it is impossible for the Rt Hon Winston Peters to get up and talk about elderly people and finance houses. The rule that was applied to me by the person who was in the Chair was that I could not even discuss what I knew about the Spencer Trust. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Thank you Mr Hide. I say that Mr Peters had only just stood up and he had been speaking for about 8 or 9 seconds. The Speaker ruled that the debate must stick to discussing the report. The member must discuss the report. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I am just trying to start my speech and provide the environment for it and this is a deliberate attempt to interrupt a member’s speech. I have spoken for only 9 seconds. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: That is right. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: Can I start again? 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Yes you can. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: Thank you. Over 29 finance houses have collapsed owing $3 billion to mainly older New Zealanders and hundreds of thousands of people face home affordability problems and the ship  
“New Zealand” 
 is sailing in troubled international waters. Against this backdrop there has been an attack on an MP and his party premeditated orchestrated and relentless in the hope of bringing him his party and the Government down. New Zealanders have become heartily sick of it. Every minute and every page that is wasted on that obsessive character assassination is another minute of another hour or day or another page of a newspaper that is diverted from the real issues that face all of us. 
This is a road seriously walked along before. Whether it be the Maori loans affair the BNZ bail-out the BNZ sale or the wine-box inquiry the constant hymn of hate has been consistent in the allegations made of my being a liar deceiver manipulator or populist demagogue or of cultism. The allegations have failed of course but what is common in those events is that there never was an admission of who was right and who deserved an apology. That is not important nor is personal vindication in the pursuit of worthy causes when one seeks to march to a different drum. 
The issue here is that if an MP did not know about a donation how could he declare it if a declaration was back then in law in fact required? My gratitude goes to those members of Parliament on the Privileges Committee who approached the inquiry with an open mind and resolved on “a high standard of proof”. That standard cannot descend to a judgment based on what most probably occurred. Those MPs left their politics at the door. They did not try the case through the media like my political foes. 
There are no clear guidelines in any of the Standing Orders and no precedent or reference to any past case. It has been fundamental to our law for centuries that one cannot be convicted of an offence that is not in the law. Further there cannot be a case retrospective legislation or retrospective rules and then justice. In our system an offence is applicable only when the law or rules have been put in place. What is contemplated here is a new standard being applied that did not exist in 2005 or 2006. Members are being asked to accept that under this new moral requirement a declaration should have been made to the Registrar of Pecuniary Interests of Members of Parliament. If there are new moral obligations it is clear that every MP should be very careful about that because for some MPs their lives will become dynamite and I promise members that will occur very soon. 
The committee had set out to prove pecuniary benefit to an MP on the basis of a second draft report. On page 13 it said “an election petition which if it had been successful would have been of benefit to Mr Peters in terms of both political capital and a higher level of funding available to an electorate MP.” The committee or some members of it persisted in that view of the law. I wrote at 4.30 yesterday afternoon to say that that advice was wrong. Again it was brought to the committee’s attention that overexpenditure means a disqualified MP which means a vacant seat which means a by-election. The committee was advised that the argument that Peters would have got political capital and extra resources at the return of him as the Tauranga MP was utterly fallacious. In the final report the committee on page 14 acknowledges that. It dropped out all those words and says it would have been of “political benefit to Mr Peters.” We can see how the committee predicated pecuniary interest. It was on the basis of a false belief in the law even though there are seven lawyers in the National Party. That in a nutshell is it—the receptacle one needs to contain specious argument. 
We have today a rule made retrospectively applied retrospectively and placed before a Parliament that has hitherto prided itself on its opposition to retrospective legislation. To single out an MP whilst ignoring that many other MPs face legal costs that others have contributed to in whole or in part is demonstrably and palpably unfair. One rule must apply to all MPs and not to just one MP. To do otherwise simply violates natural justice. It censures an MP when others in the same circumstances where others help with their legal costs receive no such censure. Why is there one rule for Winston Peters and another rule for Nick Smith MP? The registrar of pecuniary interests said there was no clarity on the matter and she would have advised an MP back then to seek legal advice. Had I done that back then no declaration would have been required. Mr Hide’s allegation of a debt failed. Mr Copeland’s allegation of a gift should have failed likewise. The inquiry was about politics. 
I give personal thanks to the thousands of people who contacted my office with their support for me and their concern about the conduct of the committee’s business by some committee members. Those people know the judgment is wrong and the democratic foundations upon which this country is built have been weakened in the name of political bias and interest. 
Here is a record of comments made by some members of the committee before and during the hearing. We heard Russel Norman from the Green Party time after time. Then Wayne Mapp on 21 August went on there before he had even heard the first day of the hearing—he is a law lecturer and thinks that that is respectable. We had Gerry Brownlee with page after page of his comments; and then the website of one Heather Roy from the ACT party had page after page of prejudgment and predetermination. Those members should have disqualified themselves. They failed in their duty. They tainted the hearings and rendered a serious matter into a banal useless charade a farce with some members being obsessed with acting as a kangaroo court. To use the words of Bernard Shaw: “We’ll hang him in the morning but first we’ll give him a trial.” 
I tabled 27 contradictory statements by the committee’s chief witness against me. There is a 28th one; it is that he gave $250000 to the Maori Party. The Maori Party members deny that. So now with 28 misrepresentations and falsehoods why does the Maori Party believe him and not Winston Peters? Why do its members believe him after 28 falsehoods and not Winston Peters? And why would they tell Maoridom on the marae and over the airwaves they supported me when at the committee they did the reverse of that? They tried to ride the waves of sentiment then lined up with John Key and Rodney Hide to sell me out and soon before their people they will find out the consequences of doing that. The Greens fronted to the committee with their least experienced MP one with absolutely no understanding of the law or the judicial process. Mr Norman commented in the media over and over again throughout the sittings of the committee. And as for those journalists who naively suggest that the Greens have no axe to grind with Winston Peters and New Zealand First I ask them who consigned the Greens to a position outside of Government for the past 3 years. How naive can they be? 
Mr Key condemned me before he had heard any evidence. I tell Mr Key that being ruled against in a majority decision by a body split down party lines on an issue where one has gained nothing personally—not a cent—is one thing but that being found to have misled the public and to have used one’s position to gain personally to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars is what we call in this business a knock-out. His explanation was that he did not release details of those shareholdings at that time but in hindsight he realises he should have done so and he is doing that now. So there is one rule for Mr Key and another one for Winston Peters. 
Sitting on that committee was a man called Murray McCully. He got $3.5 million in a taxpayer bail-out did not declare it hid all the details—and members will hear more about that later—and was then made a Cabinet Minister! That man who sat in judgment on me spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in the public interest and I have never enriched myself by one damn cent. Those members had the effrontery to line me up in their bias and they thought they would get away with it. I say this: the court that I will stand before is on Saturday 8 November and I will place my faith in the people of New Zealand to decide the outcome of this case. I rest my case in the judgment of the people of New Zealand and the only people who are owed an apology are the people of New Zealand who have sat through months of political posturing grandstanding bias and prejudice. 
I put on record also my gratitude to those members of the committee who tried to uphold the standards of a neutral independent body as a tribunal and as a court of law. Those who did not do so shamed themselves. They shamed their practice they shamed their profession and they shamed Parliament. I asked for fairness. I got a farce. There is no morality or ethics in this motion today.