Hide says he owes Tamihere no apology

The MP who made public John Tamihere's $195,000 payout from the Waipareira Trust says he owes the former minister no apology.

Mr Tamihere said yesterday he had been cleared by the Serious Fraud Office after it decided not to charge him over a series of allegations made about events that took place while he was chief executive of the West Auckland trust.

SFO director David Bradshaw said he was charging two people with a number of offences as a result of his investigation, but not Mr Tamihere.

He said the charges related to false invoices and irregularities in the handling of gaming monies.

Mr Bradshaw said the evidence did not support laying any charges against Mr Tamihere.

Mr Tamihere said the SFO's decision cleared his name and he wanted to return to Cabinet.

Prime Minister Helen Clark said she was very pleased for Mr Tamihere, who had always asserted his innocence and had been vindicated.

She said she had always had great hope in Mr Tamihere and his potential "and I want to see him back working at the highest levels of the Labour Party".

"It may well be now that that's after the election, given that that's reasonably close..." she said.

It was ACT leader Rodney Hide who sparked investigations into Mr Tamihere and the trust.

Mr Tamihere said Mr Hide "doesn't care about who he hurts. He just likes some newspaper copy".

But Mr Hide said he had been vindicated in raising concerns about taxpayer money.

Mr Tamihere had said he would not take a golden handshake but had, and no tax was paid on that money, Mr Hide said.

Now it turned out that when Mr Tamihere was chief executive, the Waipareira Trust was paying out on bogus invoices that he said he knew nothing about until Mr Hide raised them.

"I have got nothing to apologise to Mr Tamihere about. Mr John Tamihere should be apologising to voters at large for telling them one thing and doing the opposite. He should also be apologising to taxpayers about where this money has gone in the Waipareira Trust for which he was CEO."

National deputy leader Gerry Brownlee said Miss Clark should leave Mr Tamihere on the backbenches as he had deceived the public and the prime minister by saying he would not take a golden handshake but then doing so.

Mr Brownlee said the statement from Mr Bradshaw had been "carefully worded" to say the evidence did not support the laying of any charges against Mr Tamihere and Miss Clark could take little comfort from the SFO verdict.

Maori Party Leader Tariana Turia said she had no comment to make aside from saying Mr Tamihere should be back in Cabinet.

Mr Tamihere's supporters say Labour needs Mr Tamihere as a minister as the party will face a hard campaign in the Maori seats.

Mr Tamihere has decided not to seek a spot on the Labour party list, campaigning only to again win in his Tamaki Makaurau electorate.

Mr Tamihere stood down from his ministerial positions last year after weeks of allegations about him taking the $195,000 tax-free payout from the trust and financial mismanagement.

These allegations included claims false invoices had been issued.

Mr Tamihere ran the trust before becoming an MP.

He built it up into a multi-million dollar organisation involved in a number of businesses and other work assisting Maori in west Auckland.

- NZPA