The controversy surrounding Winston Peters over donations to New Zealand First is still swirling around in Parliament and now the role of his lawyer, Brian Henry, is being raised.
Mr Peters, the leader of NZ First and Foreign Minister, is facing the possibility of an inquiry into the $100,000 he received from Monaco-based expatriate billionaire Owen Glenn.
And The Dominion Post reported this week the party received multiple donations from the Vela family's fishing and thoroughbred companies between 1999 and 2003 -- all made out for amounts under $10,000 to avoid declaration rules.
Prime Minister Helen Clark, who is being forced to defend Mr Peters against National Party attacks, said yesterday he would not have to pay back the $100,000.
Under Cabinet rules it is up to the prime minister whether ministers can keep gifts of more than $500.
Miss Clark said even if the money was declared as a gift, the Cabinet Office believed he could keep it because it had been used to finance the Tauranga electoral petition in 2006.
The money from Mr Glenn went into a fund run by Mr Henry, and Mr Peters said the lawyer did not tell him about it until last Friday night.
Mr Peters has told NZPA the fund, as it has often been referred to in Parliament, was a solicitors account controlled by the Law Society.
"It is not a trust fund in that respect. It is purely used to pay legal costs," he said.
In Parliament yesterday National MP Judith Collins, a lawyer, said Mr Henry could not run a trust account.
"He is a barrister sole, and one of the things about barristers is they don't have trust accounts," she said during the general debate.
"They are not audited. They are not subject to Law Society rules about trust accounts and the reason is they don't hold other people's money. They simply render an account and it gets paid."
Ms Collins said she had been a lawyer for more than 20 years and had been a member of the Auckland District Law Society and the New Zealand Law Society.
"I have never once come across a situation where a barrister's job is to ring up people in Monaco and ask them to pay $100,000 into a fees account," she said.
"I have never once heard of it and I sat for years on the complaints committee of the Auckland District Law Society ... not once did we ever hear anything about barristers ringing up trying to solicit money for their clients' fees."
Mr Henry has described himself as an experienced fundraiser for politicians involved in litigation.
It has been reported that he was told Mr Glenn would be "receptive" to a phone call.
TV3 News has reported Mr Henry at first said he could not remember who told him that, and then said he had remembered but would not reveal the person's identity.










