Clark blames National for 'smear' leaflets

Prime Minister Helen Clark said today she did not believe that National had nothing to do with the "smear leaflets" coming from "front organisations".

The Green Party has lodged a complaint with the Chief Electoral Officer over a pamphlet, titled "The Green Delusion", which they claim is part of a right-wing "smear campaign" against the party.

There is another pamphlet circulating about healthcare which lists what it calls "Labour's uncaring legacy" of people dying while waiting for surgery and lingering on waiting lists.

Helen Clark said the material in the leaflets was "absolutely consistent" with what the National Party was saying, with the same sort of graphics and type face used.

"I believe they're behind it, funding it and they're doing it in an underhand way so they don't have to declare the expenditure."

She told National Radio she could not prove it because the leaflets were being produced by a "front" organisation.

But National leader Don Brash said the pamphlet had nothing to do with his party.

"We haven't written that thing at all, we haven't sponsored it, we haven't financed it, we totally had nothing to do with it."

A spokeswoman for Dr Brash told NZPA that Dr Brash did not know anything about the leaflet campaign.

He did not know, and as far as he was aware had never met, Mr Win.

Greens co-leader Jeanette Fitzsimons yesterday said the pamphlet about the Greens, which had been circulated in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch, contained "50 per cent outright lies and 50 per cent gross exaggerations" and the party believed it breached several sections of the Electoral Act.

"This kind of campaign smacks of the tactics used against political parties by their opponents in Australia and the United States. It is underhanded and needs to be stopped," she said.

Ms Fitzsimons said yesterday it appeared the author, a Stephen Win of Mangere, had a right-wing agenda.

When Ms Fitzsimons tried to visit Mr Win's Mangere property yesterday she was stopped from entering by a security guard.

She suggested National might have been behind the campaign, which were reminiscent of similar attacks by the National Party in the battle for the Coromandel seat in the 1999 election.

In recent weeks National has attacked the prospect of a Labour-Green coalition, saying it would force Labour to adopt anti-roading and Maori separatist policies.

It has been estimated the pamphlets would have cost about $100,000 to produce.

The healthcare pamphlet says it is being distributed by New Zealand Advocates for Timely Healthcare and authorised by a J Hawkins of Christchurch.

- NZPA