Radio NZ chair rejects request for voicemail

Radio NZ board chairman Richard Griffin says he is ‘‘not interested’’ in releasing a voicemail Broadcasting Minister Clare Curran left on his phone, despite MPs formally requesting it.

The voicemail was the latest piece of evidence in the evolving saga which has seen Carol Hirschfeld resign as the broadcaster’s head of content and Curran apologise to the prime minister.

It was formally requested by a select committee which could ask the Speaker to legally demand it, if they were refused.

The exact nature of the voicemail was disputed by Curran and Griffin.

Griffin had said the message implied Curran wanted him to write to the committee to correct an earlier incorrect submission, rather than show up to be questioned. Curran said she was just telling him that if he couldn’t show up, a written submission would suffice.

Griffin said on Friday morning he was ‘‘sticking to his guns’’ and was not keen to release the voicemail. ‘‘I think the issue has come to an end as far as I’m concerned,’’ he said.

‘‘It’s my recording and I’m not too interested in handing it over. I’m not too interested in this continuing and it’s become a farce.’’

A spokesman for Radio NZ said the state broadcaster was ‘‘doing what is needed to comply with the formal select committee requirements’’. Griffin would not comment on whether the message was deleted. It is understood the message was deleted and there was now work under way to recover it.

The matter all stemmed from the fact that Griffin and Radio NZ chief executive Paul Thompson inadvertently misled the economic development science and innovation committee on March 1 by saying a meeting between thenemployee Hirschfeld and Curran had been coincidental and not planned. It later emerged that Hirschfeld had been misleading her bosses and thus Griffin had inadvertently misled the committee – a serious charge.

Griffin and Thompson said they would seek to correct the record but in the end did not come to the select committee immediately after Hirschfeld resigned, instead attending on Thursday.

Griffin told the committee the voicemail implied he should write to the select committee to correct the record instead of showing up, saying Curran was under the impression he couldn’t make it.

‘‘The implication was, as far as I was concerned, that it would be far more satisfactory to all concerned to just put the letter 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.

She said she was acting on advice from Leader of the House Chris Hipkins.

‘‘I thought it was really important that given the state of affairs around this particular issue that the record be corrected as soon as possible,’’ Curran said.

‘‘If he was unable to attend in person last week, then a letter could have been sent to the select committee and that was what my advice was.’’