Witnesses ‘covering their butts’

Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters has insisted his partner was with him when he applied for the pension, saying three witnesses who claim otherwise are ‘‘covering their butts’’.

In the High Court at Auckland, Peters is suing former National Party ministers Anne Tolley and Paula Bennett, the AttorneyGeneral on behalf of the Ministry of Social Development (MSD), the ministry’s chief executive and the State Services Commissioner.

His case alleges a breach of his privacy in the leaking in 2017 of his seven-year national superannuation overpayment weeks out from the election.

Yesterday, under cross-examination by the Crown’s Victoria Casey, QC, Peters took exception to questions about whether his longtime partner Jan Trotman accompanied him to an MSD office when he applied for superannuation.

Peters’ evidence is that when he applied for super in 2010, he brought Trotman to the meeting with an MSD case officer and introduced her as his partner.

On an application form, he declared that he was living separately from his wife, but was not living alone. Another section which asked ‘‘Do you have a partner?’’ was left blank.

The MSD processed the incomplete form and he was paid the single person’s pension for the next seven years, worth about $18,000 more than he was entitled to. Peters’ case is the overpayment was the result of a ‘‘clerical error’’ that MSD failed to correct.

Casey put it to Peters yesterday that three frontline staff at the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) office in Auckland had all given evidence that Peters visited the office alone. But Peters said the staff members’ memories were failing them.

Trotman gave evidence that she did accompany Peters to the MSD office, and on arrival, ‘‘Winston went to the reception desk alone while I waited off to the side’’.