John Armstrong: Koha coffin taking shape for Tamihere

COMMENT


If any confirmation was needed that John Tamihere is now dead meat, you had only to listen to Parliament yesterday.

Any slim hope the MP might have entertained of being reinstated as a Cabinet minister would have evaporated after hearing what the Prime Minister had to say about him in response to Opposition questioning.

Mr Tamihere should be worried. Very worried.

Since his suspension from the Cabinet three weeks ago, the Labour leadership has gone from standing four-square behind the MP to distancing itself from him as the Government seeks to quarantine the "golden koha" affair, not least by keeping him away from Parliament.

It seems the Prime Minister is now preparing the ground for the inevitable statement that Mr Tamihere will not be reinstated regardless of what turns out to be in QC Douglas White's report on the MP's $195,000 golden handshake from the Waipareira Trust.

The Prime Minister's official line, repeated ad nauseum, goes like this: an inquiry is under way; judgment will be suspended in the meantime; a decision will be made on Mr Tamihere's future when the inquiry has reported.

In the end that decision will be a political decision - and the Prime Minister has been dropping sufficient hints that, as far as the politics are concerned, Mr Tamihere is in serious deficit whatever Mr White's findings.

On Monday, she revealed she had been warned earlier this year of potential tax problems at the Waipareira Trust, but Mr Tamihere had given her the same response he always did - that he had done nothing to embarrass the Labour Party. In other words, by not being fulsome in his explanation at that time, he had embarrassed her and the party.

She then effectively signed his death warrant by saying she would not wait for the lengthy Serious Fraud Office probe into the trust before determining his future.

The unstated implication of that statement was that she could hardly reinstate him when investigations by the SFO into trust documents carrying his signature would still be hanging over him.

Making her first appearance in Parliament since the affair broke, she did not let up yesterday.

In an environment where defence of one's colleagues is de rigueur, the Prime Minister was quick to acknowledge she shared Opposition members' concerns there was a prima facie case that Mr Tamihere had misled the public in accepting the golden handshake after saying he would not.

To a question from Winston Peters, she said she was gathering all relevant information before coming to a final judgment. The word "final" had an ominous ring.

Under further questioning from Don Brash, she said the National leader should not assume she accepted Mr Tamihere's explanation that the golden handshake was koha.

Then came the killer question from Act's Rodney Hide. Would she not have expected Mr Tamihere to have disclosed the existence of his golden handshake to her?

For the fourth time, the Prime Minister talked of "prima facie concerns".

It was like the rat-a-tat sound of nails being hammered into a political coffin.