Minister's Imagination Working Overtime

Royal Forest and Bird Protection Society

PRESS STATEMENT

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

FRIDAY 10 SEPTEMBER

Forest and Bird field officer, Eugenie Sage has rejected as nonsense, SOE Minister, Tony Ryall's claims of her influencing Labour leader, Helen Clark in relation to Labour's West Coast forests policy.

"Cronyism is not how I or Forest and Bird do business."

"I last worked for Helen Clark in 1989. Since then I have deliberately had no direct contact with Helen Clark on the West Coast forests issue nor any other issue that I can recall. In the last ten years I have been in contact with her staff less than half a dozen times.

"Labour is more likely to have been influenced by the facts and the widespread public support for protection of New Zealand's remaining native forests than any of the actors and conspiracies in Mr Ryall's imagination."

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