KEY POINTS:
Just as the Moon is made of cheese and fairies live at the bottom of the garden, Winston Peters' lawyer, Brian Henry, wants to believe that the now notorious phone call from Owen Glenn to Peters never discussed a donation from the business tycoon to pay the legal
bills of Henry's client.
However, the rest of us don't live on Planet Winston where black is white, white is what you want it to be and the story changes as fast as the shop-until-you-drop former Philippines first lady Imelda Marcos changed her shoes.
To say Henry's testimony to yesterday's meeting of Parliament's privileges committee was unconvincing is to be generous to a fault to the Auckland-based lawyer who was beamed into the hearing from Sydney by video conference.
Henry's difficulty was that Glenn's evidence to the committee on Tuesday last week was consistent and compelling, while Peters' riposte the following night was the opposite.
Henry never had a hope. Observing him trying to back up Peters' version of events was like watching someone trying to plug gaps in a New Orleans levee with only a toy bucket and spade as implements.
The holes just got bigger. The water rushed in. Henry's arguments were swamped by contradiction and confusion.
Just as Peters' version of events has adjusted to Glenn's revelations through the course of the privileges committee's hearings, so has his lawyer's.
The latter's most astonishing about face yesterday was that the mystery client mentioned in a Henry email to Glenn was in fact Peters when Henry had earlier insisted it was not.
Some pre-meeting spin from NZ First quarters had suggested Henry's testimony would back up Peters. It may instead turn out to have destroyed the NZ First leader.
Henry's performance went down like a lead balloon in Labour Party circles. The Prime Minister was last night waiting to be briefed by Labour's most senior member on the committee, Michael Cullen.
Helen Clark stepped back from sacking Peters outright from her ministry last week. The pressure for him to be removed has eased somewhat since then. She may now wait to see the tone of the privileges committee's report - it will be tabled in Parliament next week - before acting.
Rodney Hide was hardly an uninterested observer. But he was by no means the only person in the select committee meeting room yesterday shaking his or her head.
Henry's repetition of phrases like "don't remember", "can't recall", "no recollection" and "I do not have a memory" saw some direct questioning of the witness by United Future's Peter Dunne.
He asked what Henry, as an experienced legal counsel, would make of someone who, when confronted with the facts, kept replying that he could not remember.
Dunne then put the proposition to Henry that he was not recalling things because to do so would create further embarrassment for Peters.
Dunne has no axe to grind with Peters but his line of questioning indicated frustration with Henry. That could be ominous for Peters because whichever side of the fence Dunne and the Greens' Russel Norman come down on could be influential in determining the committee's recommendation to the House.
Henry wound up his submission by telling the committee it was dealing with serious allegations. The more serious the allegations, he warned, the higher the burden of proof. It sounded like a lecture. It may yet prove to have been a plea for mercy.
