Bill English MP
National Party Deputy Leader Spokesman

21 February 2008

Why didn't Clark correct Mike?

National Party Deputy Leader Bill English says the public deserve to know why Helen Clark did not correct Labour Party president Mike Williams when he wrongly claimed Labour had received no donations from Owen Glenn since 2005.

"For Helen Clark to claim she learned about Mr Williams' statement only in the past few days defies belief.

"The Prime Minister would have expected Mr Glenn to draw attention in the New Year honours list, but now Helen Clark is trying to pretend no one in her Government monitored the media coverage and no one told her what had been said.

"That is simply not credible. Helen Clark has staff, she has duty ministers and she has a president who is known to text message her whereever she goes in the world. Now she claims that she never even bothered to read the newspapers after giving an award to Labour's largest donor.

"This is simply bizarre. It lends weight to the suggestion that Helen Clark let Mr Williams' untruth stand in public because it suited her political agenda.

"It took until yesterday for Labour's HQ to admit Mr Williams got it wrong and now say donations will be recorded properly. Of course the statement was authored by the same party official who told the Electoral Commission that Labour would include the taxpayer-funded pledge card in their 2005 election expenses, which turned out to be untrue as well.

"Helen Clark should explain why she let Mike Williams' untruth go uncorrected."

ENDS

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