Jack Tame: It speaks volumes that Winston refused to remove his demonstrably false statement

I want to start off by reading some Winston Peters quotes, straight from the source.

"We waited until today to find out for the first time that the Prime Minister's office received information about the March 15 terrorist attack before the massacre took place."

"Jacinda Ardern should be called to the hearing and asked to explain this appalling lack of transparency to the New Zealand public, let alone to the deputy Prime Minister and Government coalition partner."

Those are the words of the former deputy Prime Minister, Winston Peters. And while they whipped up an intense response among an Ardern-hating, conspiracy-nurturing social media crowd- the words are demonstrably wrong.

They're not just wrong, that's not just an opinion, they are demonstrably wrong.

We did not wait until now to find out about the Prime Minister's office receiving information concerning the attacks shortly before they began.

We, the New Zealand public, to whom Winston Peters refers, were told the next day. It was widely publicised at the time- the manifesto was sent to a range of recipients, including media and politicians, nine minutes before the attack began.

Someone in Parliament called the police as soon as they saw it.

Winston Peters has since published a second post on social media channels clarifying that his complaint was referring to the fact that he wasn't personally informed about these events prior to the public press conference.

And maybe that complaint has more legitimacy. Maybe that is actually a fair point.

But if that's the case, isn't it weird that he didn't raise it at the time of press conference?

Isn't it weird that he or his staff didn't immediately call the Prime Minister's office right after that press conference on March 16 to question why he hadn't been informed first?

I can only see two possible scenarios here.

Either Winston Peters and his advisors somehow completely missed the detail about the manifesto email at the time of massacre, despite him being deputy Prime Minister - it was referenced in the colonial inquiry, he thought he saw an opportunity and he immediately swung for it.

That's one possibility, the other is perhaps something more cynical.

He knew full well the manifesto was released a few minutes in advance, but he chose to deliberately spread a falsehood intimating that we, the New Zealand public, had been misled.

Either way, I think it speaks volumes that Winston Peters has so far refused to delete a demonstrably false statement.

I don't care about him being forced to apologise or anything like that. To post it in the first place is one thing, to leave it up on those social media platforms with a conspiratorial tone to fester away- I think that speaks to character.

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