He cannot come back from this, his time as Transport Minister has got to be over.
We've just learned in the last two hours that the Cabinet Office didn’t ask Michael Wood half a dozen times whether he’d sold his shares yet.
It was a dozen times. That’s right, 12 times.
19 November 2020, 9 December 2020, 14 December 2020, 24 March 2021, 13 June 2021, 17 December 2021, 1 March 2022, 28 March 2022, 4 May 2022, 16 January 2023, 6 March 2023, and 27 March 2023.
You'll have spotted it. The most recent correspondence was only 10 weeks ago. And still, despite 12 phone calls or emails, he didn’t sell the shares.
Now Michael Wood is not stupid. He makes bad transport decisions because his priorities are bicycles not potholes, but he’s not stupid. He's one of Labour’s most able ministers, so you can rule out incompetence.
So if this isn’t incompetence, what is it?
Well, I don’t think it’s malicious, because $13K isn’t worth risking a $300K salary for. So the only conclusion I can come to is- it’s arrogance.
Michael Wood knew the rules. Cabinet Office reminded him of the rules- 12 times.
But he didn’t deal with it. Either because he was arrogant enough to think he knew better, or arrogant enough to think the rules weren’t meant for him.
Yesterday, I thought he could come back from this, but not anymore.
Not now that we know that his wife did the same thing with Auckland Council. Didn’t declare the shares or the trust, even ahead of a vote tomorrow on selling the shares.
And not now that we know he was reminded 12 times,
Michael Wood is gone. It’s just a matter of waiting for Chris Hipkins to realise this.
Heather du Plessis-Allan is a journalist and commentator who hosts Newstalk ZB's Drive show.
5 comments:
Don't our 'Public Servants' make you proud. A corrupt system attracts and breeds corruption. But here's the rub, sucker taxpayer pays for it. Same ole same ole eh.
For flagrantly flouting rules and regulations he must be out of Parliament. Another example of contempt for all things democratic.
Wood is more than arrogant.
He, like Ardern are cut from the same cloth.
They do not see themselves like most people calculate their worth.
These type of people see themselves as way higher up the food chain by right, not by anything earned.
This is the problem at the core of Labour they are filled with these types throughout.
These people also take with them those that serve and those servants then also start to believe they have greater rights than the people that voted for them have.
We have a disfunctional political party that is corrupting democracy to bend it to suit their needs rather than the needs of New Zealanders.
They do this not from arrogance but from a sociopathic belief that they and only they can be right and good.
I had a relative like that . It was terrifying to go in a car with him because he didn't follow road rules like stopping at stop signs.
He was a control freak and superior to everyone else he thought.Above the law. You couldn't tell him anything. He would not be corrected.
Such personalities need to be be reprimanded severely and punished like the brats they are.
I agree with Anna Mouse. When you have children raised with privileged experiences (and private schools) in their everyday lives they naturally become entitled and have no understanding of hardship. If they also have had a cultural or religious background where they are taught that what they believe is the only way to think they are out on an elite tree limb looking down on inferiors. There are now many people in this situation and because they work with like-minded people they live in an echo chamber and have no idea that they come across as totally detached from reality.
MC
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