NEW Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark has lashed out at an investigative journalist who unveiled damaging scandals against her ministers, calling him a "creep".
Mrs Clark's attorney-general David Parker resigned from all his portfolios this week after journalist Ian Wishart revealed Mr Parker had filed false declarations to the Companies Office.
Wishart's Investigate Magazine also published fresh allegations last month of minister David Benson-Pope being abusive to students when he was a teacher.
An Investigate interview with Labour MP John Tamihere in 2005 heaping scorn on Mrs Clark and Cabinet colleagues again put the Government under pressure in an election year.
The Prime Minister said Wishart was a scandalmonger.
"He'll carry on trying to pry into every little nook and cranny of people's lives," Mrs Clark told radio station Newstalk ZB.
"Mr Wishart is the sort of creep who really delights in picking out any little thing that people might have in their background.
"And what it says if you want to meet the Wishart test of public life, you'd better be one of the Vestal Virgins."
Wishart said he was astonished by Mrs Clark's attack.
"Helen is probably under a bit of personal stress ... she's lashing out," he told The New Zealand Herald.
"I don't take it personally, I find the comments saddening more than anything else," he said.
It is not the first time MrsClark has used such language to describe a journalist.
In 2002 she called television presenter and journalist John Campbell a "little creep".
