PM stands by Curran after select committee
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has reiterated her support for Broadcasting Minister Clare Curran in the wake of a cafe meeting that resulted in an RNZ senior employee leaving her job.
Ardern made the comments during a rural tour of Otago yesterday, saying “no new information” had come out of yesterday’s select committee meeting attended by RNZ chairman Richard Griffin and chief executive Paul Thompson.
Carol Hirschfeld resigned as RNZ’s head of news last week after repeatedly lying to her bosses about the meeting at Astoria cafe in central Wellington in December last year.
Hirschfeld said it was a chance encounter, but it was found four months later that the breakfast meeting was instigated by Curran and arranged via text.
Yesterday, Griffin and Thompson had to reappear before the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Select Committee at Parliament to correct the record over their earlier comments about the meeting.
Their appearance was preempted by reports the Broadcasting Minister had phoned Griffin to suggest it would be better he write a letter than appear in person at Parliament.
Curran and Ardern earlier denied that, saying Curran left a phone message to pass on advice from the Office of the Leader of the House that a letter would be faster to correct the record if he was unable to be at the select committee in person.
After opening a science block at Waitaki Boys’ High School, Ardern yesterday stated eight times there was no new information involving Curran, or the phone call she made to Griffin.
“The minister has clearly made mistakes, she has apologised for them.
“I certainly advised her that the call to Richard Griffin should not have been made, but as I say there’s nothing new that we have learned from today that we didn’t already know.”
“I have reprimanded the minister for making that call she shouldn’t have.”
Meanwhile, Griffin refused to play Curran’s voice message to the select committee.
He said he had interpreted the message left on March 29 as a “strong suggestion that I immediately send a letter to the select committee chair . . . to be on his desk before 1 o’clock that day which would then ensure that there wasn’t a public hearing involving either of us.”
Curran left New Zealand yesterday to attend the Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast in Australia.