PM silent on Peters over covert photos

The prime minister is refusing to comment on her deputy’s involvement with covertly taken photographs of journalists investigating his party, despite promising a positive election campaign.

Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters told Magic Talk on Tuesday that NZ First was involved in the surveillance-style photos of Stuff journalist Matt Shand and Radio NZ reporter Guyon Espiner meeting former NZ First president Lester Gray in Tauranga.

These photos ended up on Rightwing

political blog The BFD, which has close links to the now defunct blog Whaleoil which was at the centre of the so-called ‘‘dirty politics’’ furore in 2014.

‘‘We took the photographs just to prove that is the behaviour going on,’’ Peters said.

He later contradicted himself somewhat, telling media in a statement the photo had not been planned.

‘‘A supporter did think it odd when they saw ex-president Lester Gray with Mr Espiner so took a photo. Simple as that.’’

Labour was deeply critical of links between Whaleoil and the National Party in 2014 but Prime

Minister Jacinda Ardern is now refusing to comment on the matter.

A spokesman said it was a matter for NZ First on Thursday night and again yesterday morning.

The prime minister refused to answer direct questions put to her at an event in Hamilton.

Ardern committed Labour to a ‘‘positive factual robust campaign’’ last month at her caucus retreat.

National Party deputy leader Paula Bennett condemned Ardern’s silence, saying she needed to front up with Peters and explain what had happened.

Bennett said it needed to be established who took the photos and what their connection was to Peters.

She also queried how they had known to take a photo of Shand, who was not photographed alongside Gray and is not as publicly recognisable as Espiner.

Paul Tolich of the E tu¯ union, which represents journalists, slammed Peters over the matter.

‘‘Mr Peters needs to apologise to the journalists and give a categorical assurance nothing like this will happen again.

‘‘The sort of tactics undertaken by NZ First in photographing the journalists and then having the photograph posted on a Right-wing political blog is chillingly similar to other examples of attacks on journalists as they go about their work in countries where the freedom of journalists is suppressed.’’

Tolich is also a member of the Labour Party council, its top extraparliamentary grouping.

Journalist Nicky Hager, who wrote the book Dirty Politics about Whaleoil in 2014, said Peters should know better as he had been a target of such blogs himself.

‘‘It seems a really bad idea for NZ First to use an attack blog involving Cameron Slater as the way that they try to communicate through the media,’’ Hager told Stuff.

‘‘They should know better because they have been the target of the same people many times in unscrupulous ways.’’