Curran’s office ‘said stay out of it’
RLucy Bennett
NZ chairman Richard Griffin says he was told by Clare Curran’s office not to comment on her meeting with Carol Hirschfeld less than an hour before the Broadcasting Minister was to be grilled in Parliament over it.
National says that would amount to political interference if true.
Griffin and RNZ chief executive Paul Thompson reappeared at a parliamentary select committee yesterday to correct the record over comments they made earlier about the nature of the Wellington cafe´ meeting between the Broadcasting Minister and Hirschfeld, RNZ’s former head of content.
Hirschfeld’s misleading of her bosses over how the encounter transpired led to her resignation.
Griffin told the committee that on March 22, just before Curran was due in Parliament , he received a call from her office.
Griffin said he was “gobsmacked” to receive the call to say the December 5 meeting could come up in the questions.
“The staffer’s attitude was ‘We will handle this appropriately but we’d like you basically to stay out of it’. I was gobsmacked, quite honestly.”
In a timeline for the committee, Griffin said: “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”.
Last night Curran disputed this, saying she was assured her staff did not say that “they expected there would be no comment from RNZ.” Further, her office never said to Griffin that “we would like RNZ to stay out of it.” that we were on a very rocky road to damnation because essentially we had been victims of political theatre.”
He and Thompson spoke of being deceived — not just once but four times — by Hirschfeld about that meeting. At one stage, both sat with their hands together as if praying.
“We both feel very foolish,” Griffin said.
They had been recalled to set the record straight.
The misleading evidence given at a previous select committee was that a fateful meeting between Curran and Hirschfeld had been a pure coincidence. It had been in Curran’s diary all along, right after an appointment with a man named Clint.
Curran had sought to correct matters but Thompson chose to believe Hirschfeld’s version of events: “I trusted her word.”
Politicians tried to find the villain that best suited their side.
For National that was Curran. For Labour the villain was Griffin. .
Insinuations were made about his past as a press secretary for former Prime Minister Jim Bolger.
Griffin was not ready to become the punching bag. He was simply being courteous when he gave National MP Melissa Lee a heads-up, and when the word “collusion” was used he defended himself at length before stopping lest “my blood pressure gets out of control”.
Neither Griffin nor Thompson could explain why Hirschfeld stuck to her story.
Nor could either say what was discussed at that meeting — only what others had told them. That meant their initial contention the meeting was not inappropriate remained in question.
The only two people who could answer those questions were not there at all.