Key backtracks over texts with Slater

LATEST I misheard, mispoke, but did not lie – Key

Prime Minister John Key has released a series of text messages last night between himself and Cameron Slater.

The release, which was made with Mr Slater's permission, followed opposition attacks centering on whether the PM is still in close communication with the Whaleoil blogger, or not.

On Tuesday, Mr Key said he could not  remember the last time he sent text messages to Mr Slater. On Wednesday afternoon in Parliament, the PM said he had messaged the blogger in Parliament on Wednesday afternoon. However, in the evening Mr Key returned to chamber to make a new statement correcting his words earlier in the day.

Labour leader Andrew Little says it appears to him as though Mr Key lied. He has called on the prime minister to be drawn into an inquiry by the Inspector General of Intelligence and Security (IGIS) over the leaking of her report on SIS information.

On Tuesday, Key was asked by reporters when he had last spoke to Slater.

"I don't know, I can't recall," he said.

"I haven't spoken to him on the phone for months and months and months on end. He sent me a text once, but I can't recall when that was."

Today Key was asked by Labour MP Megan Woods whether he had been in contact with Slater about the reports into then-Justice Minister Judith Collins' supposed attempts to undermine former Serious Fraud Office boss Adam Feeley, or the report of the IGIS into information from the SIS.

At the time, Key said no.

This evening, during the second reading of the Parole Amendment Bill, Key returned to the House to make a personal statement acknowledging his answers were wrong.

He said he believed Woods was only talking about one of the reports, when in fact she had asked about both.

"On Monday the 24th of November I received an unsolicited text message from Mr Slater with a reference to the IGIS report. There was a very short exchange where I briefly acknowledged that text message," the PM told Parliament.

The text exchange itself, which appears to have been re-typed into a document, is pretty routine. It covers the familiar Slater accusation that Labour's Phil Goff is a seriel report leaker, plus a bit of Whale hyperbole ("they even tried to kill me"). Mr Key weighs in with a couple of replies that are broadly suppotive without directly addressing Mr Slater's allegations. The key issue is whether the PM was embarrassed to be caught in a close exchange with the blogger after saying the hadn't been in communication for months, so lied to cover his tracks.

Since the publication of Dirty Politics, the PM has put distance between himself and Mr Slater, at least in his public statements. The pair have also had the odd apparent tif, most recently on Sunday when Mr Slater accused the PM of "re-writing history" in his apology letter over the publication of the "Gunning for Feeley" email.

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