Political commentator and out gay man Lindsay Perigo admits he was the conduit into New Zealand for allegations about the background of GayNZ.com contributor Jim Peron, although he did not start the rumours. "That's how it got into New Zealand," Perigo told GayNZ.com. "But I put it to you it was bound to get into New Zealand anyway given that it was out there on the internet, albeit by a group that anyone can join, and once you've joined you can read the stuff. And in this day and age, if those sorts of allegations are being made about someone with whom a lot of New Zealanders are friendly, then mutual friends are going to pass that on and say ‘what the hell is going on here?'" The rumours reached the office of NZ First leader Winston Peters just before Christmas, who used them as a basis for an attack on Peron under Parliamentary privilege a few weeks ago, where he described Peron as a paedophile. GayNZ.com can also reveal that Dunedin-based fundamentalist Christian activists Madeleine and Matthew Flannagan have been investigating Peron's background, they say, after receiving a request from a friend close to the ACT party. "I have very little time for Winston Peters, but at the same time, I don't think a politician should be castigated for something if in fact they were correct on that issue," says Mr Flannagan. "So for us it's an issue of public interest. People's lives have been affected by it, so we felt compelled to at least close what we were doing and find out whether what we knew was true or false." The Flannagans have given themselves a deadline of 7pm today, Tuesday, and are already in negotiations with one of the prime time current affairs TV shows to go public with their investigations. "We've put some feelers out to confirm things, and we're going to wait till Tuesday to see if we get anything back on that. If we don't, we'll have to say that all we've got is just one person's word against another, so on this issue we can't say anything."