By AUDREY YOUNG
New Zealand First leader Winston Peters is out on his own for incidents of grossly disorderly conduct in Parliament that resulted in his being "named."
Mr Peters was named by the Speaker on Wednesday for the fourth time since 1986.
That puts him ahead of Act MP Richard Prebble, with whom he shared the record of three namings since 1986.
Naming is a formal process by which the Speaker seeks the House's agreement to suspend a member from Parliament, initially for 24 hours, then for a week for the second offence during a session and 28 days for the third.
Since the session that began after the 2002 election, Mr Peters has been named twice, meaning his current suspension is for a week. It expires at midnight on Wednesday.
Last Wednesday, Mr Peters defied Speaker Jonathan Hunt's warning to stay quiet or be named, saying: "If I hear that threat one more time, it is my intention to leave this House and come back with a motion of no confidence, which I am entitled to put."
Mr Peters is in notable company, including Sir Robert Muldoon, Sir William Birch, and even Deputy Prime Minister Michael Cullen, who was named for refusing to apologise for referring to "Tory lies."
"I regret that my honour and my duty to my leader do not enable me to do so," Dr Cullen told the Speaker at the time, Doug Kidd.
MPs who are suspended do not lose their pay, but they can take no part in parliamentary debates or select committee work.
Wednesday's suspension denied Mr Peters the chance to speak to his own private member's bill seeking to liberalise Sunday trading, or to put Television NZ executives - his targets in defamation proceedings over matters scampi - on the rack over credit-card spending.
Mr Peters' naming came as no surprise to anyone observing the House in the past couple of weeks.
It was a consequence of his frequent challenges to Mr Hunt to make Police Minister George Hawkins answer questions.
Mr Peters and NZ First colleague Ron Mark have been pursuing the issue of the police decision not to prosecute Phillip Layton Edwards for a violent attack on a judge's husband, Peter Shaw.
In answer to some questions, Mr Hawkins said he did not look at police files and did not want to.
For other questions on the same issue, he has received information about matters in the file and relayed that to the House.
Dr Cullen, who is also Leader of the House, has his own theory about Mr Peters' recent behaviour.
He said yesterday that Mr Peters might be reacting against political commentary which suggests he is getting matey with Labour. "I think maybe he wanted to prove it wasn't true in his own inimitable style."
Mr Peters said there was a series of inconsistencies day after day.
"And just because the heat is on this minister [Mr Hawkins], they decide to stone-wall, cover up, and that will be the end of it.
"Well it's not going to work, of that you can be certain."
He said he would be back on the case when his suspension ended.
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