Sunday 30 September, 2012
 
Q+A: Greg Boyed interviews Winston Peters
 
New Zealand First leader says John Key is lying about Dotcom case
 
“It’s incredible to believe” John Key met with Warner Bros executives in L.A and the Megaupload founder wasn’t mentioned.
 
Peters says meeting was seven months after Dotcom gained residency – and prior to the raid – which is when Key says he first heard of Dotcom
 
He doesn’t believe the PM didn’t know about Dotcom spying and first learnt of it on September 17 – “I don’t believe that”
 
“Offshore we’re regarded as a Mickey Mouse joke”, especially by allies Australia and the US (See later interview from New York: McCully says no mention of Dotcom during his time in US)
 
Larger countries we’ve previously stood up to will now think they’re able to “heavy” New Zealand into doing their bidding – “we’ve lost influence”
 
Like Palmer, Peters predicts New Zealand faces a major lawsuit: Dotcom “is lining up the New Zealand taxpayer for a lot of money”
 
Says the job of John Key and Bill English was to “read the file and ask questions about it”
 
Proper oversight “requires the minister to read the files” and he doesn’t believe that wasn’t done
 
Public is being asked to believe an “exceptional set of circumstances”. 
 
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Q+A
 
GREG BOYED INTERVIEWS WINSTON PETERS, NZ First Leader
 
GREG BOYED
NZ First Leader Winston Peters is accusing Prime Minister John Key of flip-flopping like a pair of wet jandals over the Dotcom investigation, and he wants a commission of inquiry. Good morning, Mr Peters. Don’t we already know what’s happened? Don’t we have enough information?
 
WINSTON PETERS - NZ First Leader
                        Of course you don’t know what’s happened, and the public is being asked to belief an incredible set of circumstances. 15 meetings with GCSB. Every minister seemed to have known. Five departmental heads seem to have known. Everybody seems to have known but the Prime Minister. Let me tell you this - offshore we’re regarded as a Mickey Mouse joke now by the United States, and I believe Australia as well, and the other fallout from that is that those countries to whom we used to say ‘Look, we can’t be heavied,’ and I won’t name those countries, who want us to do things, will now say ‘yes, you can’. So we’ve lost influence there. But my real point is this. The Prime Minister pretends not to have known this person, excepting he- a full seven months after Kim Dotcom got his residency and was starting in to his business, stopped off deliberately in LA for a dinner with the senior executives of Warner Brothers, an interest which, like others in Hollywood, we’re standing to lose hundreds of millions and possibly billions of dollars. Don’t tell me they never raised Kim Dotcom and the threat to them at those meetings. It’s incredible to believe. So we don’t know that. I’m not arguing necessarily for a commission of inquiry but an inquiry that is sensitive to our security needs, because the world’s a very evil place, but someone who has got the trust of the public to get to the truth.
 
GREG            So do you have evidence that there’s been a cover-up?
 
WINSTON     Well, look, the other conclusion is massive incompetence. You cannot have a Detective Inspector like Wormald go there in a trial and apparently commit perjury and have the police cover it up. He has to explain, why did you commit perjury? Is there a reason that you could be accused of committing perjury? Did you make a mistake? This cannot be-
 
GREG            Nothing on that side has been proven, though. Should Bill English have asked more questions here though-
 
WINSTON     Sorry, no, he said there was no other surveillance going on, and what’s proven was that the Government Communications Security Bureau was conducting surveillance.
 
GREG            Bill English - should he have asked more questions?
 
WINSTON     Look, these people come up to you from the GCSB. They have a file on each case. That file lays out the case. Your job is to read that file, and it’s top secret, and to ask questions about it. I do not believe they could not have known what- the Prime Minister, who’s signing out these bugging warrants, could not possibly have known. No former prime minister would believe that. The current Foreign Affairs Minister and the Prime Minister are the people most likely to do that. Probably more from the Foreign Ministry sometimes. But you could not possibly not know that a file came over your desk, and given it’s very serious - you’re bugging someone - that would usually send a Western politician into the realms of concern, because it’s a serious matter of privacy. That’s why you take the job seriously.
 
GREG            Do there need to be more safeguards, more oversights on the likes of the SIS, the GCSB? Is there just not enough at the moment?
 
WINSTON     Well, there is since 2003, as Sir Geoffrey Palmer just pointed out. But it requires the minister to read the files, and I don’t believe that you could not have read those files. I mean, who would receive a serious officer from the Government Communications Security service and not take it seriously? What they’re after is a massive breach of the privacy, which is not lawful in this country.
 
GREG            John Key says that he wasn’t told until September 17th.
 
WINSTON     I don’t believe that. Unless he said, ‘Look, my deal with you, Mr English, is better you don’t tell me.’ Now, with respect to Sir Geoffrey, there are coded ways you can get your information across back to the Prime Minister. I used to get it offshore. One guy will be charged with that code and get top security clearance. So things have moved on from Sir Geoffrey’s day.
 
GREG            You were saying, though, that that type of thing was in place when you were deputy prime minister, when you were foreign minister?
 
WINSTON     No doubt. Yes.
 
GREG            Very finally, very quickly - is this going to head to court? And if it does, how much could it end up costing?
 
WINSTON     Well, I said so a long time ago, I’m not being wise after the event, but there was a serious case in Australia that found in very similar, like almost on all fours of this case, that it’s not the provider that’s guilty of the crime, it’s the person who uses the information provided. Now, Kim Dotcom, I think, is going to be lining up the New Zealand taxpayer for a lot of money, and we’re all gonna pay to someone who should never have been allowed to get into this country in the first place, who bought his way in, who didn’t survive, for example, the body-mass fat index. All that was ignored just because he was someone with money. It’s revolting. And it’s made us look like a joke. I know a lot of people out there think that he’s a hero. But here’s another bit. If you were a writer or a song-writer and he stole your property, would you think him such a Robin Hood now?
 
GREG            NZ First leader Winston Peters, thank you for your time.
 
ENDS