List of 28 'a safeguard for Bronwyn' says Boag
Calling the list a support team was "vastly overstating the situation," Ms Boag tells NBR.
Calling the list a support team was "vastly overstating the situation," Ms Boag tells NBR.
Former National Party president Michelle Boag explains away Bronwyn Pullar's List of 28 as a "safeguard for Bronwyn."
A letter sent from Sovereign Insurance to Ms Boag in 2007 - regarding an attempt to persuade the insurance company it should pay up an alleged sum of $14 million for Ms Pullar's injuries from a 2002 cycling accident - was leaked to current affairs show Close Up, which last night divulged some of its contents.
Prime Minister John Key was forced to issue a statement last night saying it "is wrong" to suggest, as it did in the letter, that he was part of Ms Pullar's support team.
The letter, which Ms Boag says was written by Sovereign's marketing manager, refers to a list of 28 people described as a "claims support/advisory team", including leading National Party figures including Mr Key, and former prime minister Dame Jenny Shipley.
However, Ms Boag told NBR Online the list of names was drawn up by her friend Ms Pullar on advice from an unnamed legal adviser "as a safeguard for Bronwyn.'
Calling the list a support team was "vastly overstating the situation," according to Ms Boag.
"It was simply a list of people who Bronwyn had at some stage talked to and who therefore were aware of her issues with the company."
"The reason why she was advised to put that list together was if there was to be a confidential settlement, and there wasn't a list, then she could have been accused of talking to people [about the settlement]."
Ms Boag says Sovereign's marketing manager had not had any dealings with the case when he wrote the 2007 letter and she says he had been "cobbling information together from people involved."
The issue of the list of 28 people - including business people, media and politicians - being supporters, was "cleared up at a subsequent meeting", Ms Boag says.
"A number of statements [the Sovereign manager] made in that letter I refuted in our discussions."
Ms Boag says the letter was five years old and after the agreement was signed she got rid of all the correspondence. Ms Boag says Ms Pullar had to remind her of its contents this morning.
She says she did not leak the letter and she doesn't know who did. The only other organisation who had it was the insurance company, she says.
She describes as "incidental" Ms Pullar's conversation with Key, at a National Party Christmas function in Auckland, when he was the Helensville MP and before he became Prime Minister.
Asked why Mr Key was included in the list of high-profile people, if it was not an attempt to influence Sovereign into paying out, Ms Boag says she didn't draw up the list.
"Bronwyn received advice and acted on it."
According to TVNZ's website, part of the Sovereign letter states: "For nearly 18 months Bronwyn and her advisers, including yourself personally, have been saying to us that if we did not settle Bronwyn's claims against us in a way acceptable to Bronwyn that she would 'go to the media'. The inference we drew from this was that you would seek to obtain media coverage that would be detrimental to Sovereign."
Ms Pullar was earlier this month named as the woman at the centre of an ACC privacy row, after she was inadvertently sent details of 6500 claims. The Privacy Commissioner is now investigating how Ms Pullar's name was leaked to the media.
Ms Pullar has now become the victim of a series of privacy breaches.
Ms Boag says it is appalling how Ms Pullar's original concerns over the leaked claim details were not taken seriously until the story hit the front pages earlier this year.
Asked if the National Party's reputation is being tarnished by the growing scandal, she says she has always put the party before herself, including when she resigned as party president in 2002.
"I'm not going to say anything that's not in their interests."
The Pullar scandal has sparked the resignation of then ACC Minister Nick Smith, over an inappropriate endorsement letter, while current ACC Minister Judith Collins, who has been under siege in Parliament over the affair, says she has started defamation proceedings against Labour MPs Trevor Mallard and Andrew Little.