Wednesday, August 27, 2008



Peters must be sacked

In the wake of yesterday's accusations of outright corruption, it looked like it couldn't get any worse for Winston Peters, but it has. Today, Owen Glenn revealed that Peters asked him for a donation, thanked him for the $100,000, and that he had never heard of Brian Henry. This flatly contradicts Peters' assurances to the Prime Minister that everything was above board, which leaves her with just one option: sack him. You can't have a Minister who outright lies to the PM over such an issue.

Unfortunately, Peters has a gun to Clark's head: if she sacks him, he could topple her government. I hope the other minor parties in Parliament will do their bit to defuse this gun, offering the government confidence in order to give them the security to enforce our constitutional norms. But if they don't, she should do it anyway. Some things just cannot be tolerated, and a lying, corrupt Minister is one of them. This man has abused our democracy long enough. He has to be dumped, even if it means an early election.

I expect fireworks in parliament today. Unfortunately, it will all be going down while I'm on a bus. Bloody Murphy's law...