Minister apologises to PM

Broadcasting, Communications and Digital Media Minister Clare Curran has apologised to the prime minister over not declaring a meeting with broadcaster Carol Hirschfeld.

The Cafe Astoria coffee catchup has since led to the resignation of Hirschfeld from Radio New Zealand, after it emerged she misled her bosses for months by telling them the meeting was not planned.

Text messages released by Curran’s office yesterday make clear the meeting had been in the works for over a month.

Curran did not declare this in an answer to a written question in the House from National’s Melissa Lee, later amending the record.

‘‘The minister has apologised to me for the lack of transparency from the very beginning around the fact the meeting occurred, and that it was not included in that original written question,’’ Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said. ‘‘It should have been, there is no question of that.’’

Ardern said Curran had not broken Cabinet’s manual by meeting with Hirschfeld but should have declared the meeting when asked.

She was confident everything Curran and Hirschfeld had discussed was above board.

Curran said she and Hirschfeld did not discuss a formal meeting with RNZ planned for just two days after their catch up.

An RNZ source told Stuff there was a suspicion within the state broadcaster that Curran was using the meeting to get information on potential roadblocks to Labour’s multimillion-dollar plan to start a Radio New Zealand TV channel.

Hirschfeld was thought to support the plan, while board chairman Richard Griffin and chief executive Paul Thompson do not.

Curran flatly denied the claim.