By FRANCESCA MOLD political reporter
Prime Minister Helen Clark has called for a truce over MPs' families being dragged into political muck-raking, only to be rebuffed by other parties who claim she is just as guilty of slinging mud.
A fired-up Helen Clark yesterday accused National's Wyatt Creech of using "scumbag tactics" to question a $750,000 taxpayer-funded grant given to her husband, Peter Davis, a professor of public health, and a team of researchers investigating the effects of health reforms.
Helen Clark said there had been a coordinated attack on her husband, who was also scrutinised last week for sending an e-mail to his wife's office putting forward a friend as a health reviewer.
She defended her husband, saying he had an impeccable 31-year career as a researcher.
"I am privileged to be married to someone who is internationally respected in his field," she said. "I just regret that the petty, filthy nature of politics in this country subjects someone to this sort of scurrilous attack, which is designed to impugn that professional reputation simply because they have the fortune or misfortune to be married to a woman who is the Prime Minister."
But other party leaders described her comments as a "bit rich," pointing out that Labour Minister Trevor Mallard had raised questions about the spouses of three National MPs in retaliation for the attack on Professor Davis.
Mr Creech said his was not a personal attack on Professor Davis. He was simply questioning a possible conflict of interest.
"Helen Clark should be addressing the issue I have raised - instead of calling me 'screech,' 'scumbag' and a 'sleazeball' ...
"Her attempt to brand herself as the peacemaker over this issue is laughable when you consider her party has been the main aggressor," he said.
NZ First leader Winston Peters said he believed politicians were fair game, but their spouses and family were "taboo," although Labour was getting a taste of its own medicine.
"What I've been seeing in Parliament lately is cheap, nasty and largely irrelevant to what New Zealand needs.
"The Labour Party wrote this script themselves. I can recall between 1996 and 1998 when they let the dogs off the leash, went out without any facts behind them ... started shouting sleaze and everything else without a shred of evidence and now it has come back to haunt them," he said. "The plain fact is that both sides are slinging crap at the moment."
Act leader Richard Prebble said there was a tradition of leaving MPs' spouses and families alone. But genuine questions had been raised and Helen Clark had responded with a vicious personal attack.
"Frankly, the person who is throwing the mud is Helen Clark," said Mr Prebble. "I find her willingness to play the person rather than the issue quite unfortunate."
United Future's Peter Dunne said legitimate questions should be asked but families should not be used to "fire around a bit of muck."
There was an invisible line in terms of spouses retaining their own identity and not using the political positions of their partners to advance issues, he said.
Greens co-leader Rod Donald said spouses and families should not be shielded if they were beneficiaries of cronyism. But making tenuous links between families and a politician was anathema to him and he thought the public shared that view.
Alliance leader Jim Anderton said he had never been comfortable drawing families into political debate.
"Families sometimes pay a very high price for the political career of a parent or spouse. MPs are a legitimate target. Their families are not."
PM's flag of truce red rag to a bull
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