Mr Muldoon tired of allegations

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33941, 6 September 1975, Page 1

Mr Muldoon tired of allegations

(New Zealand Press Association) WELLINGTON, September 5. The Leader of the Opposition (Mr Muldoon) today denied reports that the National Party had hired private detectives to investigate the Minister of Tourism (Mrs Tirikatene-Sullivan), and said he was “sick and tired” of allegations made by a Labour Party backbencher, Dr M. E. R. Bassett (Waitemata).

Dr Bassett alleged in Parliament yesterday that National Party members had hired private detectives to follow Mrs Tirikatene-Sullivan.

In a statement, Mr Muldoon said he had made extensive inquiries throughout the National Party organisation and found the allegations to be untrue, with no foundation whatsoever.

“I am getting sick and tired of the actions of this particular member of Parliament, who is constantly abusing his Parliamentary privilege to make unjustified allegations which if made outside the House would be immediately subject to the appropriate legal action,” Mr Muldoon said. “This member is not only demean ihg Parliament but indulging in a standard of conduct which is unprecedented in piy Parliamentary “xoerience. I have never before seen one member who consistently makes unjustified allegations under the protection of Parliamentary privilege while failing to submit the evidence to justify his allegations. “I have no doubt that the electors of Waitemata will take due note of the activities of their member during his three years in the House,” Mr Muldoon said. Mrs Tirikatene-Sullivan said today it had been rumoured for some time that since March a group of National Party enthusiasts in the Wellington area had been engaged in the surveillance

I, of Ministers and members, > with the assistance of an • agency. ’ “I was merely the first to i come under scrutiny,” she I said. “The results of these efs torts, abortive as they turned I out to be, showed up during ! the ‘kerfuffle’ (over the Tourr ist Hotel Corporation) in Parliament last May.” f Mrs Tirikatene-Sullivan t said that she was inclined f to dismiss the suggestions at ■ the time, as bordering on the ’ “Gilbertian.” “However, subsequent • events involving other mem- ■ bers have led me to res appraise my earlier view,” she said. The Tourist Hotel Corpor-| ation row arose when Opno-1 sition members alleged that: 1 Mrs Tirikatene-Sullivan had 1 business connections with Mrj S. B. Blackbum, a Wanganui i accountant appointed chair- j 1 man of the corporation. It also involved the corporation’s dismissal of its public 1 relations advisers and hiring • Inter-Mark International, an agency employing Mrs Faye Chapman, formerly press 1 secretary to the former De- • puty Prime Minister, Mr Hugh Watt, now High Commissioner in London. The Inter-Mark-T.H.C. relationship has since been terminated.