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Winston Peters
Winston Peters
Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters has dropped his legal action against two journalists in pursuit of the person who passed on details of his overpayment of superannuation to others.

But he is stepping up his action against four National Party MPs and two former staffers.

In November, Peters applied for discovery of material relevant to the leak from them plus on Newsroom.co.nz editor Tim Murphy, Newshub political reporter Lloyd Burr and the chief executive of the Ministry of Social Development, Brendan Boyle.

Peters issued a statement this afternoon saying action against the journalists had been amicably resolved "having provided the information required by Mr Peters' legal team."

The discovery application was heavily criticised as an attempt to bully journalists to reveal their sources.

It is understood that while Newsroom and Newshub received the a leak about the overpayments, they were not aware of the source – so there is no suggestion that either organisation has revealed a source.

Murphy tweeted a short time ago that Peters "got nothing he asked for and walked away tail between legs."

Comments

Is this running a country. no its his private thing. what ever happened to his words on what he and his party would do. if in power. well hes second in command.

The National Camp got a bit arrogant at the campaign. It'll do them good to be reminded there are consequences.