Conflicting reports this morning on whether Winston Peters has dropped legal action against the National Party and National MPs.
NZ Herald: Winston Peters hasn’t dropped legal action against National Party
NZ First leader Winston Peters has agreed to drop his legal action and pay costs to former National Party leader Bill English and other former ministers over the leak of his superannuation overpayments.
Peters was taking legal action against English, Paula Bennett, Steven Joyce and Anne Tolley as well as two staff members while trying to uncover who leaked details of his superannuation overpayments to the media before last year’s election.
It is understood Peters has now agreed to withdraw the legal action and pay some of the legal costs for the National Party MPs and staff – believed to be about $10,000.
The National side had said they would take further action on costs if a settlement was not reached.
But Peters’ lawyer Brian Henry has just been on RNZ and has stated that this is incorrect.
He said that the first legal action was over – on behalf of Peters he had sought documents, and as is normal when that happens, costs needed to be paid. he wouldn’t confirm or deny the amount of costs.
The defendants will be identified when the next legal claim is lodged. Bill English, Paula Bennett, Anne Tolley, former ministerial staff Wayne Eagleson and Clark Hennessy, and journalists Lloyd Burr and Tim Murphy were included in the first action.
Henry would only say that action has been dropped against the two journalists. He says that they were never intended to be a part of the eventual legal action.
But he refused to say which of the MPs and staff might be still subject to future legal action.
Henry said no statement of claim has been lodged, and would not say when that was likely to happen – he said that these things take time.
lurcher1948
/ 1st March 2018Nationals dirty little smear dept needs to be taken to task,YOU GO WINNIE,sue the losers and now wait for the attack post from nationals attack poodle,kiwiblog
robertguyton
/ 1st March 2018Take it all the way, Winnie!
PDB
/ 1st March 2018You’re confused as usual Robert – Winnie said that to the Green party.
Kitty Catkin
/ 1st March 2018And he said that he would drop the action and doesn’t seem to have.
There would have been no story if Mr P hadn’t been so sloppy about reading and signing things.
Kitty Catkin
/ 1st March 2018It was hardly a smear campaign. If it was, it was a feeble one, and as he had done the thing, he can’t pretend that he hadn’t.
robertguyton
/ 1st March 2018They shouldna tried to shaft him – stupids! Now, he’s on their tails. Good luck, Winnie!
Kitty Catkin
/ 1st March 2018He was not shafted by anyone except himself. Doesn’t he bother to read things before he signs them ?
You are assuming that the MPs were the ones who leaked the story, no evidence needed, just an allegation.
robertguyton
/ 1st March 2018Oh, Kitty! It’s as plain as the nose on your face – Winnie was stitched-up by the usual suspects, all of whom have form for this kind of filthy politics. Stop defending the indefensible. Give Winnie his due and cheer him on, to victory, over the hollow men (and women) who tried to destroy him! Go Win, win!
Kitty Catkin
/ 1st March 2018If you are determined to think that, there’s no more to be be said.
lurcher1948
/ 1st March 2018Alll time record of down ticks, the rightwing hatred of Winne DP of NZ emboldens me to fly the flag of freedom in New Zealnd
Kitty Catkin
/ 1st March 2018I don’t hate him, I despise him. I am also alarmed that he would sign something without checking it and reading it first. How on earth can a lawyer have done this ? And done it over and over ? What else is he signing without reading it first ?
Kitty Catkin
/ 1st March 2018Three or four people don’t worry about the deputy PM signing documents without reading them properly. This is bizarre. Don’t they care tha he is so careless that he would sign an unread document ? If he’d read these ones, he’d have seen that he was signing his name to a legal document and that he was declaring that he had read it and that it was accurate.
PDB
/ 1st March 2018Fishing is something Winston is good at but here he won’t catch anything – could end up with a hole in his pocket though.
Kitty Catkin
/ 1st March 2018His Deputy PM job can’t be taking up too much of his time.
Ray
/ 1st March 2018It was hard to know which one taught the other, listening to Winston’s lawyer not answer questions and pontificate.
Even the option of not doing anything was left open.
Gezza
/ 1st March 2018Zzzz. Wake me up when something concrete actually happens
Kitty Catkin
/ 1st March 2018Like a 10 ton chunk of it falling on WP’s head, like the 10 ton weights that did this in Monty Python ?
David
/ 1st March 2018I call bollocks Winnie. He lost bigly and looks like the utter whatever he has always been but he can now retreat to his usual bluster of “legal action pending so I cant comment”.
Arguably the most consistently negative influence on our body politic in 200 years, quite poisonous and always personal..the man of a long gone and not lamented era.
Kitty Catkin
/ 1st March 2018200 YEARS ? Has he really been in that long, or does it just seem like it ? I must say that he looks it.
George Black
/ 1st March 2018You don’t reimburse costs to those you sue unless you have no leg to stand on and want it all to go away before the real costs of an unsuccessful court case arrive.
Kitty Catkin
/ 1st March 2018Old Man speaks with forked tongue.
Alan Wilkinson
/ 1st March 2018Just as well he’s got a real job and can afford to pay the costs of his grandstanding. Oh, no. Poor old taxpayers like Lurch are paying it.