Tea tape scandal

John Key	John Banks

The tea tape scandal was an incident involving the New Zealand Prime Minister and National Party leader John Key and ACT Party candidate John Banks during the New Zealand general election campaign in 2011. Their meeting in an Auckland café on 11 November 2011, two weeks before election day, was seen as a symbolic endorsement of Banks as the National Party's favoured candidate for the Epsom electorate. After they had sat together publicly for some time, news media personnel were asked to leave. A journalist, Bradley Ambrose, left his recording device behind, and subsequently gave the recording of the politicians' conversation to the Herald on Sunday newspaper, which declined to publish it. The recording allegedly contained comments about the leadership of ACT and disparaging remarks about elderly New Zealand First supporters.

Key and Banks considered that their private conversation had been recorded illegally. Key and the National Party said that it appeared that the Herald had deliberately recorded the conversation, and described it as "News of the World-style tactics", however journalists argued that the recording was in the public interest and should therefore be released.^[1] Following a police complaint laid by Key, search warrants were issued by police to media outlets to obtain all unreleased media involving the taping.

In March 2012 Ambrose wrote a letter to Key and Banks expressing regret that he had released the recording to the newspaper, and the police decided to issue a warning rather than prosecute.

The recording was leaked online on 26 January 2012.^[2]