{"id":528776,"date":"2026-07-16T10:01:14","date_gmt":"2026-07-16T10:01:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/528776\/"},"modified":"2026-07-16T10:01:14","modified_gmt":"2026-07-16T10:01:14","slug":"act-rubbishes-paul-henry-internet-conspiracy-amplified-by-winston-peters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/528776\/","title":{"rendered":"Act rubbishes Paul Henry \u2018internet conspiracy\u2019 amplified by Winston Peters"},"content":{"rendered":"

Peters responded by claiming Act had learned of Jago\u2019s court appearance at 7pm on Monday and alleged that was why the party announced Henry\u2019s candidacy the following day. <\/p>\n

\"NZNZ First leader Winston Peters went on The Country radio show on Thursday. Photo \/ Mark Mitchell <\/p>\n

\u201cThe coincidence is echoing around the country, for goodness\u2019 sake,\u201d Peters said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no surprises here but as Paul Henry\u2019s going to find out, this is a difficult job, politics, and he\u2019s going to have to learn.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Herald has seen emails between Act and the venue where Henry held a press conference at 11am to make his announcement. Dated between July 2 and 3, the emails show Act booking the venue for a press conference between 10am and noon on Tuesday this week. <\/p>\n

The Herald\u2019s article on Tuesday<\/a>, published after Henry\u2019s announcement, was the first public confirmation of Jago\u2019s plea and upcoming court appearance, which was finalised last week. The article was informed by sources unrelated to the Act Party on Tuesday afternoon. <\/p>\n

The Herald requested NZ First provide any evidence Peters had to prove his claim and any response to Act\u2019s comments. A spokesman declined to comment further. <\/p>\n

In a statement, an Act Party spokesman described Peters\u2019 claim as \u201creally unusual\u201d and \u201ctotally made up\u201d. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe can only guess that the awesome response to Paul Henry standing for Act has got him rattled and he\u2019s started telling tattles. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe coalition needs to work together and win for New Zealand, this kind of behaviour is just giving a gift to Labour.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"ActAct leader David Seymour joined Paul Henry for this week’s press conference announcing the latter’s candidacy. Photo \/ Sylvie Whinray<\/p>\n

Before Peters made his comments, Act leader David Seymour was asked this morning by Canterbury ZB host John MacDonald whether the timing was a coincidence. <\/p>\n

Seymour said it was \u201cobvious\u201d the timing was a coincidence, saying he had \u201cno idea what\u2019s going on with [Jago]\u201d. <\/p>\n

Seymour also said MacDonald\u2019s question represented a \u201csad day for radio\u201d as it was \u201cgiving light to an internet conspiracy theory\u201d. <\/p>\n

\u201cYou are here trying to give light to basically online conspiracy theories, I think is deeply troubling, but hey, it\u2019s your show so good on you.\u201d<\/p>\n

The comments follow Henry being the latest in a string of high-profile candidate announcements, which have largely been made by NZ First. <\/p>\n

The party, which holds its annual convention in Auckland this weekend, has recently announced well-known candidates including former Labour Cabinet minister Stuart Nash, former All Blacks captain Taine Randell, former National Cabinet minister Alfred Ngaro, and former National MPs Michael Laws and Harete Hipango. <\/p>\n

Earlier this week, NZ First and Act locked horns<\/a> over NZ First minister Mark Patterson travelling to India to promote wool exports but not mentioning in his press statement the beneficial impact of the India free trade deal, which his party opposes. <\/p>\n

Act MP Parmjeet Parmar said there would be \u201cno doubt\u201d Patterson would be highlighting the benefits of the deal while in India. NZ First later responded, noting there were aspects in the Act-supported deal that the party had traditionally opposed. <\/p>\n

Adam Pearse is the Deputy Political Editor and part of the NZ Herald\u2019s Press Gallery team based at Parliament in Wellington. He has worked for NZME since 2018, reporting for the Northern Advocate in Whang\u0101rei and the Herald in Auckland.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Peters responded by claiming Act had learned of Jago\u2019s court appearance at 7pm on Monday and alleged that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":528777,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[4619,231348,9344,29385,3595,155811,31578,2562,238807,5782,177347,42,6209,176829,14046,359,1362,43,4762,17357,6729,56639,51721,182532,312,87277,40,38,41,39,56706,1533,6728],"class_list":["post-528776","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-act","tag-amplified","tag-announcement","tag-believes","tag-by","tag-candidacy","tag-chances","tag-claims","tag-coalitions","tag-comments","tag-conspiracy","tag-headlines","tag-henry","tag-henrys","tag-hurt","tag-internet","tag-made","tag-news","tag-party","tag-paul","tag-peters","tag-reelection","tag-regarding","tag-rubbishes","tag-says","tag-timing","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-totally","tag-will","tag-winston"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/528776","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=528776"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/528776\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/528777"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=528776"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=528776"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=528776"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}