A row has erupted over calls made to phone-sex lines during the Christian Heritage Party's election campaign last year.
Campaign leader Graham Capill and party president Bob Pierson say former party candidate Merepeka Raukawa-Tait's Australian campaign manager, Adam Owens, made the calls.
Some of the calls were to Niueand were lodged during stays at two hotels, one in Hamilton and one in Auckland.
They were billed to Mr Owens' rooms, some were charged to Mr Capill's credit card and they added up to hundreds of dollars.
One call lasted more than an hour.
Mr Owens denies anything to do with them, even though they were billed to his room numbers, but says another Christian Heritage Party worker he suspects has a vendetta against him may have made them.
"I think I know who is responsible for one lot of them but I don't know for certain.
"It's someone I don't particularly like but don't want to hurt ... It's the work of a devious little man."
Mr Owens is the author of a scathing report on Mr Capill's leadership during the campaign.
Mr Capill says he believes the report was written as revenge after he confronted Mr Owens about the phone-sex bills.
He claims Mr Owens threatened to "bring him down" if he did not pay the bill.
Mr Owens says this is rubbish. The report was written because of Mr Capill's leadership.
Mr Capill now believes Mr Owens is trying to attack Mrs Raukawa-Tait after a bust-up with her during her campaign to win a seat on the Masterton District Council.
Mr Owens issued a pamphlet advising voters not to vote for Mrs Raukawa-Tait and was quoted in the Wairarapa Times-Age yesterday as saying: "I will never ever stop until she is removed from public office."
Mrs Raukawa-Tait says there was some substance to the report written by Mr Owens, but he was the one who made the phone-sex calls and that there was "no way" the man Mr Owens was accusing would have made them.
