Senior cabinet minister Judith Collins is under pressure from the Opposition after suggestions in the book Dirty Politics that she may have misused her ministerial power.
The book by Nicky Hager quotes several emails between right-wing blogger Cameron Slater and Ms Collins, and a whole chapter is dedicated to what are represented as frequent discussions between the two.
One exchange Mr Slater had with a friend suggests Cameron Slater asked Ms Collins to help get a prisoner moved.
Prime Minister John Key said he hadn't seen that information and would need to get some advice on that.
“Let's wait and see,” he said. “I haven't read the book and I'd want to see the context of all of those things, and all I know is Nicky Hager's a left-wing conspiracy theorist who makes stuff up.”
“Nicky Hager makes lots of assumptions which are conspiratorial and left-wing. You'd have to see everything that's done. That's one side, of one bit. Go and ask yourself the question - if the book was so sturdy and stacked up so well, would you release it at five oc'lock before the six o'clock news?”
Labour leader David Cunliffe said Judith Collins has been on her final warning from the Prime Minister for some time now.
“I would have thought that the evidence that is presented in that chapter of the book would more than constitute material that would take it past that stage. If a quarter of what's in that chapter is true, and I expect that it is, then I would think that any reasonable Prime Minister would certainly have to review and rescind the Minister's warrant. The behaviour is scurrilous”.