Peters Winston: General Debate 
Peters Winston: General Debate 
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Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) 
: 
 This afternoon I would like to start with a quote from  
Alice in Wonderland 
: “Alice laughed. ‘There’s no use trying’ she said; ‘one can’t believe impossible things.’ ‘I daresay you haven’t had much practice’ said the Queen. ‘When I was younger I always did it for half an hour a day. Why sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.’ ” 
That is how I describe the media hysteria of the past few weeks about New Zealand First. Each day New Zealanders were being asked to swallow six impossible things before breakfast. For the past 2 weeks we have been assailed by innuendo and wild allegations. We have been expecting it. We are not surprised. And it will continue. The media will make frenzied allegations and we will bat them away with the truth. 
What the media do not know is that in May 2005 3 years ago we informed the Speaker of documentation the day we got it of allegations that are now appearing in the  
Dominion Post 
—3 years ago. Let me give some background. Some of the dirt came from Television New Zealand (TVNZ) via the  
Dominion Post 
. The rest comes from vested interests that have been offering big money for any dirt on Winston Peters. They do not want us around at the next election. TVNZ has had two private investigators detectives sniffing around since it was sued for defamation some years ago—an action that is alive today. Members will recall that the then chief executive officer Ian Fraser threatened me at a select committee meeting. He claimed to have more information. A reporter called Philip Kitchin from the  
Dominion Post  
was hired by Fraser’s then news chief Bill Ralston. Kitchin went back to the  
Dominion Post  
with documents and emails given to him by TVNZ. These documents were taken when a former part-time New Zealand First adviser went through an acrimonious split with his partner. She is also part of the defamation case. 
In this latest saga Kitchin went to Bob Jones and deliberately misled him about a donation—just to get a story. So far there have been at least six impossibly different versions of this story in different media outlets. To get some more dirt some branches of the media have been interviewing an individual whom I sacked in 1996. He is now being held up as an expert about something that was supposed to have been happening in New Zealand First. He must have been clairvoyant because what he has said now never existed back then. This is the same man who used to talk to young teenage girls on Internet chatrooms—like he has got some credibility? 
Over the past few months we have been warned about attacks coming our way. The last was given to me at my mother’s funeral. We were told that there is a pot of money for more dirt on Peters and New Zealand First. What we have seen in recent weeks is New Zealand’s neutron news—destroy the facts but keep the egos of the media intact. Some deeply sensitive journalists and talkback hosts were even ringing me during my mother’s funeral service. To be fair some journalists have tried to be objective but most have run round in circles like brainless meerkats. The result of this has been a flood of misinformation. One most disturbing situation arising from this is the constant reporting that I have denied something when I have simply refused to answer a stupid question. There is a serious difference. I totally accept being reported as refusing to answer stupid questions but I do not accept that means refusal or denial. But then perhaps some words in the English language have changed while I was not looking. 
We have seen journalists interviewing each other their computers my political foes and anybody who walks past. If we remember  
Alice in Wonderland 
 we will remember the Mad Hatter’s tea party. The Mad Hatter’s tea party was sane compared with what we have experienced during the past few weeks. So to end I would like to go back to  
Alice in Wonderland 
: “ ‘Really now you ask me’ said Alice very much confused ‘I don’t think.’ ‘Then you shouldn’t talk’ said the Hatter.” That is good advice. If one does not think if one does not know the facts even though they have been with the Speaker for over 3 years and worse still if one does not know the law applying to the facts then one should not talk.