rnz CHAIRMAN 'gobsmacked'
WELLINGTON: Further details have emerged about the interaction between the office of the Broadcasting Minister and Radio New Zealand board chairman Richard Griffin, who told MPs it left him ‘‘gobsmacked’’.
That relates to a phone call he said he received from a staff member in Clare Curran’s office during which it was confirmed he and chief executive Paul Thompson had misled a parliamentary committee.
RNZ’s top management apologised to MPs yesterday morning for inadvertently misleading the committee over a meeting that cost former head of news Carol Hirschfeld her job.
Early last month, chief executive Paul Thompson and Mr Griffin told the committee a meeting between Ms Hirschfeld and Ms Curran was a chance encounter, but it later emerged Ms Hirschfeld had lied to her boss and the meeting had been planned.
Mr Thompson and Mr Griffin returned to the economic development, science and innovation select committee yesterday, saying they were deeply embarrassed to have found themselves in this position and apologising to committee members.
Mr Griffin also went into more detail about how he found out he and Mr Thompson has misled the committee.
He said he had been contacted on March 21 and told ‘‘the integrity of the CEO and the chair was at serious risk’’ due to the assurances they had given to MPs about the nature of the meeting between Ms Hirschfeld and the minister.
The following day, according to a timeline submitted to the committee, he received a phone call from the ‘‘minister’s office’’ just before question time, and was told there were questions up that afternoon to the minister and the meeting could be raised in those questions.
‘‘I was told that if the matter was raised, the minister and her staff would be responding as they felt appropriate and that they expected there would be ‘no comment’ from RNZ.
‘‘I asked if that meant the meeting was in fact arranged prior to December 5th and I was told that was the case,’’ Mr Griffin said in his statement.
Yesterday, Mr Griffin told MPs ‘‘the staffer’s attitude was we will handle this appropriately but we’d like you basically to stay out of it’’.
‘‘I was gobsmacked, given the information I’d received the day before, that I was taking with a grain of salt,’’ he said.
The minister has responded to those claims in a statement.
‘‘My staff contacted RNZ on March 1 and on March 22,’’ she 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’.
The minister’s primary concern, and that of her staff, was that ‘‘RNZ had misled the select committee by repeating claims from Carol Hirschfeld that it was a chance meeting’’.
‘‘My office told RNZ and Mr Griffin that it was a prearranged meeting and that, as asked, I would confirm that because that was the truth.’’
Mr Griffin was also asked about a voice mail message left on his phone by the minister on March 22.
In his timeline, Mr Griffin said the minister ‘‘put a letter in front of the select committee . . . correcting the original statements and thus avoiding an appearance in front of the committee’’.
Ms Curran has denied any suggestion she tried to prevent RNZ reappearing yesterday.
As the hearing wrapped up, National MP Melissa Lee asked that Mr Griffin be made to hand over to the committee that voice mail and all communications between Ms Hirschfeld and the minister.
RNZ later said that if it could recover the voice mail message, it would release it.
There were also strong questions from Labour MPs about the phone call Mr Griffin made to Ms Lee minutes before RNZ went public with Ms Hirschfeld’s resignation last week.
Mr Griffin said he made the call as a matter of courtesy because she had been the MP asking the questions about the meeting.
He bridled at the remark from Labour’s Paul Eagle ‘‘there’s courtesy and there’s collusion’’.
‘‘That’s a ridiculous question,’’ Mr Griffin shot back.
Another Labour MP, Deborah Russell, put it to the RNZ chairman ‘‘there would be a lot of concern around the fact that someone who is appointed to this role, a former National Party press secretary has then contacted . . .’’
Mr Griffin interrupted, saying he was not a National Party press secretary but a ‘‘press secretary to the prime minister of New Zealand’’.
‘‘He happened to be a member of the National government. To suggest I’m a member of the National Party is just nonsense.’’
Mr Thompson said he was misled by his executive on four occasions.
‘‘She gave me repeated assurances that the meeting was coincidental . . . I questioned her on that intently.
‘‘I also asked her questions about the discussion, which was a broad discussion about the media sector and the RNZ policy. Those were the assurances Carol gave me, and I trusted her word,’’ said Mr Thompson. — RNZ