The S-Files

Corrosive and Cancerous

Contra Celsum feels compelled to nominate Winston Peters for a second S-Award

Winston Peters is leader of the political party, New Zealand First and currently serves as New Zealand's Foreign Minister.

Citation:

During the last general election (2004) Prime Minister, Helen Clark character assassinated the person of her opponent, Dr Don Brash by accusing him of having a corrosive and cancerous effect on the body politic.

We believe this indictment reflected a punchy line supplied to her from her PR political minders and push pollsters. However, it begs the question as to what behaviour or actions or policies would actually make such an extreme allegation fair and reasonable. What would one have to do to corrode the body politic or to become its carcinogen?

Contra Celsum believes that the actions and career of Winston Peters are so offensive and amoral that “corrosive and cancerous” has now come close to being a reasonable indictment. Surely, this is what Dr Michael Cullen, Finance Minister was alluding to, when he characterised Mr Peters as the “blowfly of New Zealand politics”.

For most of his populist political career, Mr Peters has attacked and slandered “big business” under the cloak of parliamentary privilege. In earlier years his target was Sir Ron Brierley and his colleagues. In later years, it was Sir Michael Fay and David Richwhite. Mr Peters painted a dark and foreboding vista where monied forces conspired to line their own pockets at the expense of the little guy, the ordinary Kiwi battler.

When it was deemed appropriate, Mr Peters went on to the issues of race and immigration. He played on the fears of the xenophobic, telling them that our way of life was being threatened by the Asian hordes. Such outbursts generally occurred every three years, co-inciding with the electoral cycle.

His worst venom has been reserved for political opponents—usually the National and Act parties—whom he regularly lambastes as venal creatures who are little more than willing tools of “big business”.

Now some e-mails have come to light (ironic that emails would the the medium of exposure, given his claim that he was in possession of confidential emails stolen from Don Brash, which he used to taunt his opponents) which appear to substantiate that Mr Peters was the recipient of what amounts to a political bribe.

This bribe was no ordinary bribe such as “vote for me and I will ensure that you get an upgraded hospital”, but a bribe from an offshore plutocrat, someone who has all the hallmarks of a latter day robber baron, the very kind of person Peters has spent his whole career vilifying. It appears as though, despite Peters's energetic and emphatic denials, one Owen Glenn has confirmed that he donated a large sum of money to Mr Peters, at the very time he was lobbying Mr Peters to appoint him as an honorary consul to Monaco.

Mr Glenn appears to be an honest broker. There is no subterfuge in his actions. He is an archetypical robber baron capitalist who openly and overtly seeks to use money to buy his preferred outcome. He has been the Labour Party's largest donor. That corrupt Party deliberately created a loophole in the current Electoral Finance Act which would have allowed it to continue to receive undeclared donations from Mr Glenn, while forcing everyone else to disclose and declare. (Oh, yes, the same Labour Party that accused its opponents of having wealthy American bagmen funding the Party from offshore—yet, when challenged, could not deliver a scintilla of confirmation. Yes, the same Party which admitted Mr Glenn to the New Zealand Order of Merit for his donation to Auckland University.)

We are sure that Mr Glenn would not care two hoots whether the thing was disclosed or not. It appears he also tried to bribe the Maori Party with a large sum of money if they would join Labour in coalition after the 2004 election. To their credit, the Maori Party showed great integrity, and declined. Consequently, the donation never materialised.

Now Mr Peters appears to have accepted a bribe, even while strenuously denying that it was proffered or accepted. Mr Glenn appears to have been the leaker of the emails which confirm his involvement. Presumably, he has grown tired of having paid over “good money” only to have Peters fail to deliver the sought after honorary consulship to Monaco. Mr Peters has so far declined to deliver the sought-after bauble to Mr Glenn, but the public outcry at the time would have made such an appointment odious indeed.

Mr Peters continues his strenuous denials of receiving money from Mr Glenn, but his list of allies is now growing short. Plausible deniability is what is required now; it appears to be in short supply.

Such actions and behaviour would indeed be corrosive and cancerous upon the body politic. Receiving secret donations which intend to manipulate the decisions and actions of politicians (that is, bribery) is a manifestation of terrible corruption. Mr Peters would have been right to spend a good deal of his career attacking such behaviour, assuming he could back it up with verification. Unfortunately, this was rarely the case. So, it was largely hollow and false.

False accusations made for pure political advantage have a corroding influence on the body politic. But accepting bribes for favours in kind would be truly cancerous. Mr Peters has now been exposed prima facie to have lied over the receiving of money from a foreign plutocrat, even while that same plutocrat was lobbying Mr Peters for a favour. As long as Peters continues to deny, without offering sufficient proof and evidence that his denials are plausible, the damage he is doing to the body politic is considerable.

Winston Peters, NZ Foreign Minister: S-Award, Class II, for actions that are Stupid, Short Sighted and Stupefied