In parliament yesterday Winston Peters fired up, naming people he alleges are connected to his superannuation leak:
New Zealand First leader Winston Peters has used Parliamentary privilege to name those he believes leaked his superannuation details, but has refused to repeat his claims outside the debating chamber.
During the general debate in Parliament this afternoon, Peters listed a raft of people he claimed were involved in an “ACT-inspired hit-job”.
The accusations have been been met with blanket denials from those named and variously described as “delusional”, “sleazy” and “insane”.
Peters claimed in the House that he had been told former National Party press secretary Rachel Morton was the original source of the leak.
Morton has denied Peters’ claim and said it is “categorically not true” on Twitter.
He alleged Morton heard about his superannuation details because she was present when former National minister Anne Tolley told her colleague Paula Bennett about it.
“Ms Morton then, thinking it would be kept in confidence, told ACT Party leader David Seymour,” Peters said in Parliament.
He then alleged Seymour shared the information with Jordan Williams from the Taxpayers’ Union.
“Williams, who is no stranger to dirty politics, told John Bishop – father of National MP Chris Bishop – and the details were then leaked to Newsroom’s Tim Murphy.
“Williams also told another dirty politics practitioner, National Party polster David Farrar,” Peters told the House.
Peters said Farrar tried to “shut it down” because of the risk to National.
Peters then claimed his source had informed him National Party members had “joked among themselves about the leak but realised they couldn’t do anything with the ‘no surprises disclosure’ their risk was too high”.
“That of course didn’t prevent Ms [Anne] Tolley from telling her sister, nor did it prevent 42 people being made aware of my super case.
Unfortunately, I think Winston has got some of the details dead wrong, especially about David Farrar. But I do believe that David would have tried to shut it down if he knew, having himself had his privacy breached by Nicky Hager several times.
Winston clearly has a snitch, the information is too detailed, and some journalists, especially Tim Murphy, might be feeling the heat.
This release of details in parliament is somewhat of a distraction. The true attack will come shortly with new papers being filed in the High Court, and some of the information he holds assisting the appeal on the basis of new information coming to light.
If I were Anne Tolley and Paula Bennett I’d be thinking very hard about what I’d said on oath about what happened.
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