Cam Slater: The Bus Ticket Was Pre-soaked

Predictably the Labour-stacked Privileges Committee has only made Jan Tinetti apologise for her dodgy behaviour in handling Official Information Act requests, instead of censuring her or holding her in contempt of Parliament.

Education Minister Jan Tinetti has escaped being held in contempt of Parliament – but has now apologised for her “high degree of negligence” in misleading the House.

Parliament’s privileges committee has released its report into the matter today, which Tinetti has accepted. After being ordered to, she apologised to the House just before Question Time today.

Tinetti was referred to the committee at the end of last month for not correcting a false statement quickly enough.

Tinetti had told Parliament in February that she had no responsibility for the release of school attendance data. She was told later that day by staff she did, in fact, have input into the timing of the release.

The committee’s report notes that Tinetti had a five-minute “maximum” conversation with her staff about emails detailing her office’s involvement with the release of the data, and it was “not definite” about whether her statement in Parliament needed correcting.

Tinetti decided that it didn’t and, after a complaint to Speaker Adrian Rurawhe by National MP Erica Stanford, Tinetti stood by her February comments as late as April 29.

Tinetti corrected the record on May 2, a day after Rurawhe told her that she did, in fact, appear to have misled the House.

NZ Herald

I’m sure the committee asked the clerk to pre-soak the bus ticket for a good long time before it was slapped across her knuckles.

This result was expected with Labour controlling the Privileges Committee. It shows yet again, though, the arrogance of this Government and their failure to adhere to the law and/or ministerial responsibilities.

Their understanding of the law, conflicts of interest and basic governance are at pre-school levels of ignorance.

Time to clean them out.

Cam Slater is a New Zealand-based blogger, best known for his role in Dirty Politics and publishing the Whale Oil Beef Hooked blog, which operated from 2005 until it closed in 2019. This article was first published HERE