More Curran emails to be released under OIA

The Government will release more of former minister Clare Curran’s private Gmail correspondence with job applicant Derek Handley through the Official Information Act.

Questions over that correspondence eventually led to Curran’s resignation as a minister, after she had already been sacked from Cabinet over hiding a meeting with Handley to discuss a highlypaid government IT job.

Handley was told he had the role, but the snowballing mess over the appointment eventually led to the Government rescinding that offer and paying him out.

Finance Minister Grant Robertson, acting for State Services Minister Chris Hipkins, refused to table the emails directly in Parliament yesterday, saying because of commercial considerations they would have to go through the Official Information Act (OIA) process.

The Government had been told by the Speaker, Trevor Mallard, on Tuesday to release the emails within 24 hours. But Robertson yesterday said the OIA process was the proper way to release the emails, as there were commercial conflict-of-interest issues, which the OIA is well suited to dealing with through clearly signposted redactions.

The OIA process typically takes 20 working days at the least.

But instead of releasing them in full, Robertson did detail the email exchanges in the House, revealing that there were clearly more emails between Handley and Curran than the ones she proactively released when she was sacked from Cabinet.

Curran has handed over any work-related emails on her private account to the chief archivist.