Curran’s RNZ voicemail sought
In an extraordinary move, MPs are demanding a voicemail Broadcasting Minister Clare Curran left on RNZ chairman Richard Griffin’s phone.
This news comes as stark differences have emerged between Curran and Griffin’s versions of the events that led to the resignation of Carol Hirschfeld, and its aftermath.
Griffin was in a select committee yesterday morning attempting to clear up the ongoing saga concerning a meeting between Curran and Hirschfeld.
Griffin told the committee that Curran left a voicemail on his phone last week that implied he should write to the select committee to correct the record instead of showing up - saying she was under the impression he couldn’t make it last Thursday. He confirmed he still held the voicemail but refused to play it.
‘‘The implication was as far as I was concerned that it would be far more satisfactory to all concerned to just put the let- ter on the table and leave it at that,’’ Griffin said.
Curran said she left the voicemail to say he should write to the committee only if he could not make it, in order to correct the record as soon as possible - not that he shouldn’t show up at all.
The select committee is now writing to RNZ to request the voicemail under powers conferred by standing orders. If it is refused, it can ask the Speaker to legally require the voicemail be handed over.
There are serious differences between Curran’s account of the events that led to Hirschfeld’s resignation and Griffin’s.
Griffin appeared before the same committee on March 1 and inadvertently misled them, telling them the December 5 meeting between Curran and the RNZ content manager Hirschfeld had been coincidental and not planned.
It has emerged that it was not - Curran had in fact planned the meeting with Hirschfeld the month before.
Curran herself has never said the meeting was coincidental but Hirschfeld repeatedly told her bosses it was. Hirschfeld has now resigned over misleading them.
Curran’s office contended last week that they had contacted RNZ’s office twice during March to set the record straight, and that this had been done through the proper processes.
‘‘On two occasions on the first of March and the 22nd of March my office contacted RNZ to raise the issue of the inconsistency between Ms Hirschfeld’s account and my own,’’ Curran said last week.
But yesterday Griffin released a timeline to the select committee which describes the March 22 contact as not in fact a correction.
The March 1 call was between someone in the minister’s office and a staffer at RNZ - later revealed to be in the comms team. That was not escalated to Griffin but did make it to chief executive Paul Thompson.
Thompson told the committee this was ‘‘secondhand information’’ and after questioning Hirschfeld again he continued to trust her version of events.
‘‘This was not the proper process,’’ Thompson said, saying Curran should have approached Griffin directly.
Three weeks later, on March 21, Griffin told the committee that he heard a suggestion that the integrity of himself and Thompson as at ‘‘serious risk’’ thanks to what they had said on March 1. He did not say who he heard this from.
On March 22, Griffin said he received a telephone call just before Question Time from a staffer in the Minister’s office advising him the meeting was likely to come up in question time and that Minister was going to say more about it.
Griffin said the staffer was clear the minister expected RNZ would have ‘‘no comment’’ on the matter.
According to the timeline, he then asked if that meant the meeting had been planned, which the staffer confirmed. He then asked if any consideration had been given to the fact that meant he had misled a select committee. The staffer ‘‘agreed that was the case but this had not been addressed.’’
The next day, Griffin said that he called the minister directly.
‘‘She responded defensively and said she could talk to anyone she wants,’’ Griffin wrote.
‘‘When pressed, she acknowledged the information was correct and she had initiated the meeting. The minister then asked ‘What is your source?’ I asked her why she hadn’t informed me sooner. In response, she said I should have asked her.’’
Griffin brought QC lawyer Hugh Rennie to the very tense committee meeting.
Labour’s Paul Eagle asked why Griffin had given National’s Melissa Lee a heads up call three minutes before announcing Hirschfeld’s resignation.
Griffin said this was simply ‘‘courtesy’’ - a subject he suspected was quite foreign to politicians. Curran stood by her version of events. ‘‘My primary concern, and that of my staff, was that RNZ had misled the select committee by repeating claims from Carol Hirschfeld that it was a chance meeting,’’ Curran said.
‘‘I am assured that my staff did not say, on either of those dates, that ‘they expected there would be no comment from RNZ’.’’
‘‘I’m also assured the office never said to Mr Griffin that ‘ we would like RNZ to stay out of it’.’’
‘‘My office told RNZ and Mr Griffin that it was a pre-arranged meeting and that if asked I would confirm that because that was the truth.’’
Curran is currently in Australia attending the Commonwealth Games and will return today.