 Koro Wētere the Minister of Māori Affairs "appeared to give the go-ahead" to the Secretary (Reedy) as Māori Trustee to negotiate with an "American (sic) financier"; and although Wētere claimed that the loan had been cleared with the Minister of Finance Roger Douglas, Douglas had no recollection of any agreement.Wētere "denied all knowledge of the plan" to Palmer according to Lange and to Pope, but Geoffrey Palmer wrote that the Minister "did not consent to the raising of any loan" and "knocked the idea on the head when he learned the full import of what was going on".There were suggestions that Wētere had known of the proposal as long ago as 21 October 1986, and that a trip he was to make to Hawaii in December was to discuss the proposal as well as to attend the new Hawaiian Governor's inauguration.