Appointment process ‘fishy’
Fresh light has been shed on the appointment of the former NZTA board, with documents showing the appointment of one member went all the way to Cabinet before being shot down.
Another member was appointed when it was clear the Ministry of Transport didn’t think he was a suitable candidate.
The board appointments have become controversial after a series of leaks to Stuff showed the previous board dramatically fell out with Transport Minister Phil Twyford.
National transport spokesperson Chris Bishop believed the documents made parts of the appointment process look ‘‘fishy’’.
The documents shed fresh light on several controversies that have erupted over those board appointments. The appointment of transport blogger and architecture photographer Patrick Reynolds to the board was controversial. He had been mocked for his lack of governance experience at the time he was appointed.
The documents reveal that Reynolds self-nominated as a potential board candidate on February 11 of last year. His nomination was picked up by ministers who appear to have championed it despite the Ministry of Transport repeatedly leaving him off lists of preferred candidates. In the middle of the process of Reynolds being appointed to the board, around the time interviews were being conducted, he went out to dinner with Twyford and Associate Minister Julie Anne Genter at Wellington’s Ortega Fish Shack.
In replies to written questions, Twyford has said that the NZTA board was not discussed at dinner.
Bishop, who received the documents under the Official Information Act said it stretched ‘‘beggars belief’’ that Twyford and Genter did not discuss the board appointment process at dinner with Reynolds.
‘‘You’ve got a situation where they’re right in the middle of appointing him, they go out for dinner with no officials present and no notes taken and they have a fish dinner at Ortega – it’s very fishy business going on here,’’ Bishop said.
A spokesman for Twyford said ‘‘Patrick Reynolds brings much needed expertise in urban and public transport to the NZTA Board’’.
Another appointment that caused controversy was that of Mark Darrow, who was in the process of being reappointed to the board.
Twyford was also forced to correct the Parliamentary record after he was found to have made an incorrect statement regarding whether the previous board had wanted to be reappointed for additional terms. He had previously said several times that noone on the NZTA board wanted to stay on to serve additional terms.
Ahead of correcting that remark, a spokeswoman for Twyford told Stuff that his recollection at the time of being asked the question was that no one had in fact been asked to stay on. But this changed when Twyford was pressed by Stuff last month. ‘‘He [Twyford] remembered that he had asked Mark Darrow [a former board member] to stay on the board temporarily in the interests of continuity’’ the spokeswoman said.
Twyford later remembered that Mark Darrow had asked to be put on the board for a further term.
It appears Darrow’s appointment made it all the way to Cabinet on September 16, just three days before Twyford was first asked about the appointments and forgot that Darrow had in fact been asked to be reappointed.