Key links tip-off to Whale Oil blogger

Prime Minister John Key has given his ‘‘100 per cent’’ assurance that intelligence agencies were not spying on Winston Peters, indicating his source was controversial blogger Cameron Slater.

Mr Key revealed yesterday that he speaks regularly with Slater.

The blogger runs the Right-wing attack blog Whale Oil and was recently under fire for branding a West Coast man who died in a car accident a ‘‘feral’’.

Mr Key was responding to NZ First leader Mr Peters who had said the only way Mr Key could have known Mr Peters had visited Kim Dotcom three times was if Mr Peters was being spied on.

Mr Key rejected accusation yesterday.

‘‘I can absolutely swear my life on it, that there’s been no public agency [involved],’’ he said.

Such a move would spell

the ‘‘the end’’ of his time as prime minister and of his government.

Mr Peters was ‘‘out to lunch and in La La land,’’ Mr Key said.

‘‘Contrary to what you might want to believe I can read, it happened to be in the New Zealand Herald, it happened to be on the Whale Oil website, and a member of the public, basically for want of a better term, rang me up and said what was the case,’’ Mr Key said.

‘‘I assumed it was right, I said it and it turned out to be right.’’

He confirmed he and Slater spoke regularly, including this week when they discussed Mr Dotcom, but Mr Key hedged when asked if Slater was his source.

‘‘I wouldn’t say that . . . I wouldn’t say either way, I’m just telling you it’s not GCSB or SIS.’’

Mr Key said he regularly called Slater, who broke the story of the Len Brown affair, ‘‘to see what he’s got on his site and mind’’.

Mr Key’s office has long been rumoured to be linked to the blog.

One senior staff member was caught last year sending photos of the aftermath of the press gallery Christmas Party, but Mr Key has never confirmed the relationship.

Mr Key said he was not deterred by the controversy around Slater, who last month received death threats for calling a man who died in a car accident a ‘‘feral’’.

Mr Key said Slater was a blogger who wrote on a variety of topics, which he did not always agree with.

Slater confirmed he was the source.

‘‘If the prime minister said that’s the case, that’s the case,’’ Slater said.

Controversies surrounding Slater should not preclude the pair from having a professional relationship, Slater said.

‘‘I’ve got a wide network that’s got across the party spectrum.’’