BUCKLE UP!
Election roller-coaster already a rocky ride — who will fall off next?
• Fifty-eight days out from the election, political casualties are piling up after a Covid-19 patient leak, a sex-text scandal, a leadership resignation and an ‘inappropriate relationship’.
• The Prime Minister sacked Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Iain Lees-Galloway from Cabinet yesterday after it was revealed he had an affair with a former staffer.
• It’s shaping up to be tit-for-tat, with the departure hot on the heels of National MP Andrew Falloon’s resignation after it emerged he sent porn to a young woman.
• NZ First leader Winston Peters unleashed allegations at people in National and Act, who he claimed were behind the leak of his superannuation details. Act’s David Seymour claimed he was trying to distract from headlines about Peters sending two friends on a taxpayerfunded trip to Antarctica.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has booted Iain Lees-Galloway out of Cabinet and stripped him of his ministerial portfolios after he admitted to an extramarital affair.
The 12-month relationship was with a staff member in one of the departments he headed and Galloway — who is married with three children — admitted he acted “completely inappropriately”.
Ardern agreed, telling media in a press conference yesterday morning that his position as a minister was now “untenable” and the relationship was “entirely inappropriate”.
That staff member in question used to work in Galloway’s office, Ardern confirmed.
As well as being stripped of his ACC, Immigration and Workplace Relations and Safety portfolios, Lees-Galloway will not be contesting September’s election.
Ardern was clear yesterday that the affair was not necessarily the sole reason she kicked him out of Cabinet — ending his political career.
Rather, Lees-Galloway’s position was untenable because he was the Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety, and he had opened himself up to accusations of improperly using his power.
“He has not modelled the behaviour I expect as a minister in charge of setting a standard and culture in workplaces,” Ardern said.
In a separate statement, Lees-Galloway apologised to his family for “letting them down”.
“I accept the Prime Minister’s decision and apologise absolutely.”
Ardern said Lees-Galloway had shown a “lack of judgment” in undertaking the relationship — a relationship which opened him up to “accusations of improperly using his office”. “His actions have led me to lose my confidence in him as a minister,” she said, adding that he had “paid the ultimate price” for his indiscretions. Ardern said she believes Lees-Galloway’s relationship with the staff member ended several months ago. The next step, Ardern said, is for Ministerial Services to investigate whether any public funds may have been used to sustain the relationship. “If there is anything that has financial implications then I would have no hesitation asking for that to be dealt with,” she said. Ardern’s emergency unscheduled press conference yesterday came just hours after National Party leader Judith Collins told media she had made the PM aware of a “tip-off” from a third party about a Labour minister.
Collins was asked by a Media-Works host if she had “received anything about Labour ministers or Labour MPs”.
Collins said: “I have actually,” before saying she had passed the information on to Ardern.
Ardern said this was the first time she had heard the allegations.
Later in the day — after Ardern’s press conference — Collins elaborated on her involvement in the saga.
She said she deliberately refused to receive details, after she received a tip-off on Tuesday.
Instead, Collins said she took the information directly to Ardern, who thanked her for passing it on.
“I alerted the Prime Minister to the information an hour after I received it,” she told media before going into the House yesterday afternoon.
“I refused to receive any details from the informant, and I asked the information [to be] sent directly to the Prime Minister’s chief of staff.”
Collins said she spoke to Ardern after question time on Tuesday.
Lees-Galloway’s dramatic sacking came just a day after disgraced former National MP Andrew Falloon was forced to resign — by Collins — after inappropriate behaviour.
Falloon sent pornographic material to four young women.
He had announced his resignation on Monday, citing mental health issues — but news of the first inappropriate message made news later that day and on Tuesday he said he was quitting immediately.
Collins said Falloon had told her there were no other instances of similar behaviour but that, she said, turned out to be “an enormous lie” and he had demonstrated a “pattern of behaviour”.
The police are now investigating. Collins said yesterday that things need to change when it comes to the culture of Parliament. And she said she has written to Ardern to say so.
She said Parliament is not always a safe working place — “that is not okay and I believe that she and I have an opportunity to fix it”.