0 Where's this one going?

UPDATE: Goodness; look who Brendon Horan is gunning for. It's the Rt Hon Winston Peters, who, it is alleged, is not the nicest person in the world to work for. Ought we be surprised by this revelation?

And still, Peters' fellow MP's try to stop Mr Horan. Where is the transparency?

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Brendan Horan gets to ask a question this afternoon during Question Time; check this out:

The sting of course is never in the primary question, but in the supplementary questions that follow. So we wonder where Mr Horan might be going with this question, and whether he has any particular workplace bullies in mind.

Stay tuned for more on this as Brendan Horan continues his quest for utu.

0 Is Winston Peters past it?

Winston Peters got turfed out of Parliament again this afternoon. He claimed to have found the smoking gun that was going to end Judith Collins' political career. Make yourself a cuppa, sit down somewhere comfortable, and watch the fun:

The actual ejection doesn't take place until around the 17:30 mark. But it was a long and tortuous build-up as Peters rambled on and on in an often barely-coherent manner. He did not look well, and more than one of the Press Gallery journalists who gathered in the foyer as Peters tried to plead his case noticed that he was sweating profusely. We were wondering if he has had a small stroke, whilst other, less charitable explanations were offered which we will not repeat here.

Winston Peters not only didn't have a smoking gun, but whatever he had wasn't loaded, and probably wasn't even a gun. But more than that; we wonder if he has another election campaign in him. He is a shadow of the cheeky, grinning Winston Peters of days gone by. Father Time, fags and late nights seem to have caught up with him.

Is Winston Peters past it? Based on today's effort, after John Key called his bluff yesterday, you'd have to seriously wonder if this is the beginning of the end of NZ First and its charismatic leader.

0 We can't help but wonder...

We avoid David Cunliffe on Breakfast TV whenever possible. But we heard him this morning pontificating on Judith Collins. He was wondering why, if she was being sent off on stress leave, it wasn't happening immediately.

So we can't help but wonder; what sort of righteous indignation would we have heard from David Cunliffe this morning had the Prime Minister indeed sent Judith Collins home for a few days yesterday? 

You can just imagine it, can't you; David Cunliffe, on his high horse, complaining that Judith Collins was being hidden away by John Key, and that the Government was trying to dodge the issue.

But no; that's not the case at all. Judith Collins will front up in Parliament this afternoon and again tomorrow, and take whatever muck is thrown at her by Mr Cunliffe, Grant Robertson and Winston Peters. She will also be subject to the normal hectoring interjections from the likes of Clayton Cosgrove, Trevor Mallard and Annette King. And we reckon she will give as good as she gets.

There's one aspect though we will place money on. Today's Question Time will be robust, and David Carter's patience will be tested. We would be surprised if there are not ejections from the House today, given how high feelings are running.

And as for Mr Cunliffe; is he ever going to disclose the identity of those who donated anonymously to his leadership campaign via a secret trust, and if not, as they say at Question Time, why not?

0 Collins fights back

Judith Collins is not taking the latest allegations against her lying down; Stuff reports:

Justice Minister Judith Collins has hit out against the latest conflict of interest allegations levelled against her by Opposition MPs.
Collins has been under fire over allegations she used her ministerial position to benefit her husband's business interests.
She was also refusing to name the Chinese border official who she, Oravida managing director Julia Xu and chairman Stone Shi, who were close personal friends, shared a private dinner with while on an official trip to China.
The latest allegations levelled by NZ First leader Winston Peters under parliamentary privilege were that Collins went to the rescue of Oravida after it wrote to the Government seeking assistance after the Fonterra botulism scare last year.
The letter said Oravida had been "profoundly negatively" affected by the disaster and urged "ministers and the New Zealand Government to help us to navigate through this difficult time".
Collins has avoided the media, but told RadioLive today the allegations made by Peters were "utterly untrue".
"Worse than that, TV3 and Winston Peters have made utterly false comments and stated as fact things that are not fact," Collins said.
"Pretty much everything" about the allegations was false "and I'm not going to to dignify them with a response", she said.
"I'm not responsible for the company, I'm not responsible for actions that they take and I'm absolutely disgusted at the way in which my family has been dragged through this by some elements of the media."
She denied it was a bad look for her to meet with Oravida after the company wrote to Trade Minister Tim Groser and Primary Industries Minister Nathan Guy seeking government help.
"It does not look wrong. It looks no more wrong than the fact that 41 companies wrote or received some funding from the Government because of the issue," Collins said. 

David Cunliffe made a rare appearance in Parliament yesterday to lead the attack on Judith Collins. But given that he still refuses to name those who donated anonymously to his leadership campaign, and given those donations were hidden away in a secret trust which Mr Cunliffe hoped would remain secret, he is the last person who should be calling for transparency.

Opposition MP's used three of their eight allocated questions yesterday during Question Time to attack Ms Collins, but made little progress. There's a good reason for that; it's a beat-up, and no amount of hysterical shrieking, mud-slinging and innuendo can change that. 

Winston Peters promised to release damning evidence against Ms Collins to Parliament yesterday, but once again he came up short. His allegations against Judith Collins are as strong as his allegation earlier this year that Huka Lodge had been sold to Chinese buyers.

And the Minister of Justice knows who her real friends are:

Any ties that Sir Peter Leitch may have still had to Labour from the Clark years were severed when Darien Fenton attacked his character in 2011 for daring to say something nice about John Key; the ultimate act of class treason in Ms Fenton's eyes. We applaud him for sticking up for his friend; that's the mark of the man.

We will predict that Judith Collins will survive this because, apart from having fallen foul of the Prime Minister's "no surprises" policy, there is no evidence that she has done anything wrong. 

There is plenty of innuendo, there is no shortage of mud being flung, but there is no evidence of wrong-doing. Sure, she is suffering some reputational damage, but in the absence of any evidence that Ms Collins directly or indirectly intervened on Oravida's behalf, the Opposition has nothing.