By EUGENE BINGHAM political reporter
Prime Minister Helen Clark went on the attack over parliamentary sleaze last night, blaming Act for an anonymous fax revealing Labour MP John Tamihere's drink-driving convictions.
Standing firmly behind her controversial backbencher, Helen Clark outraged Act by claiming the party was spreading innuendo.
With feelings running high over how public the private lives of MPs should be, Mr Tamihere responded to the handwritten fax sent to the press gallery by laying bare his various brushes with the law.
He admitted drink-drive convictions from 1979, 1984 and 1993, and set out the circumstances surrounding his discharge without conviction in a forgery case.
Outside the House, Mr Tamihere called for an end to any campaign against him and challenged other MPs to open up their lives.
"Let's just have a look at what all the other MPs have got in their records. Let's just disclose the lot - I am."
Helen Clark, meanwhile, went into battle mode in support of her Hauraki MP, despite his outspokenness in support of Dover Samuels last week.
The Samuels saga has left MPs nervous about a possible sleaze war.
"She congratulates John on having the initiative to take the step of fronting up in the House with his explanation and putting a halt to the stream of allegations and innuendo emanating from the Act party and its associates,"a Labour spokesman said.
Act leader Richard Prebble said he was outraged that the Prime Minister could link his party to the fax - "It's her again trying to smear the Act party."
Mr Prebble said he had been aware of the circumstances of Mr Tamihere's forgery case all year but had chosen not to make them public.
"I could have raised the matter in Parliament at any time this year, and I have to say when [Mr Tamihere] has been making fairly strong personal attacks on me, claiming he had dirt, I have had to bite my tongue."
The nine-line fax arrived in the Radio New Zealand press gallery office on Wednesday from a Grey Lynn pharmacy that runs a fax service. Owner Sunil Kumar said he was not aware who sent it.
Of its contents, Mr Tamihere admitted to the drink-drive convictions, but denied other allegations.
Instead, he told Parliament he had become embroiled in a dispute while acting as secretary for a marae trust seeking Housing Corporation finance. At the time he was a lawyer.
After allegations that signatures on some documents had been forged, he was brought before the Auckland District Law Society in 1993.
"While it determined that some of my actions were inappropriate, it did not determine that I be struck off.
"In 1995, the police took a prosecution in regard to these allegations.
"The outcome of this case was that I was discharged without conviction, and the court ordered that all aspects of the case be suppressed on the basis of the range of people of high standing who gave evidence.
"Running the gauntlet of these audits, investigations, inquiries and prosecutions, I am the only member in this House to have undergone that scrutiny to this extent."
Mr Tamihere said later that he was censured by the law society over the matter and he had surrendered his practising certificate because of it.
The party was aware of all of his background before he entered Parliament - "The PM was aware, absolutely, of my background."
While declining to comment on whether he thought Act was involved, Mr Tamihere acknowledged that he had enemies, including some within Maoridom.
"Some of the new brown aristocracy have some problems with some of us that might want to throw a laxative their way. Maori play the politics of poverty. Poor people savage one another, and I understand them."
In another development last night, Mr Tamihere claimed authorities had tried to persuade him they would drop the forgery case if he obtained a statement from his convicted murderer brother.
David Tamihere maintains his innocence of the 1989 killings of two Swedish tourists.
Mr Tamihere claimed on the Holmes show that he had refused a request to speak to his brother on behalf of the police in exchange for favourable treatment himself. Police did not respond to the allegation last night.
PM slams Act for sleaze on Tamihere
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