"You will be voted out"

So said Rodney from the public gallery.

Boiled down, it ran like this. Henry rang Glenn and asked for the donation to meet the costs of Peters' legal bid to overturn the result in Tauranga in the 2005 election. Peters was not told. It was Henry's practice not to bill Peters for his work. In fact, since becoming Peters' lawyer in 1991, Henry had never billed Peters for his work. Because he did not bill Peters, there was no debt that Peters ought to have declared.

As it looks like that Winston will escape any real punishment from the committee that is "flying without feathers", the weird arrangement between himself and his lawyer Henry opens up more questions.

looked utterly relaxed, quietly chuckling to himself during Henry's testimony.

"The position is I have not rendered a fee note to the solicitor for the work done and that solicitor has not rendered a bill to Winston.

"Until my instructing solicitor renders a bill to Winston, there is no debt owed by Winston."

As predicted, the 'blood brothers' have not shed any of their blood and will be lucky to get a written censure on a wet bus bus ticket.

"I thought I had paid it myself," Mr Peters said, explaining that he paid amounts of money into a solicitor's fund to take care of such expenses.

Now that is interesting. A 'solicitor's fund funded by Winston' acknowledging that there are or will be debts. Debts never declared? And if Mr Henry paid all bills from his bottomless pockets, such a fund would still have all monies deposited into it with interest accrued and declared as a pecuniary interest?

And a fully 'feathered' IRD auditor might see the shady legal dealings in a totally different light.

As is often said 'perception is everything'.

Rodney may well be correct.