Curran’s RNZ voicemail sought
MPs are demanding a voicemail that Broadcasting Minister Clare Curran left on Radio New Zealand chairman Richard Griffin’s phone.
The call came yesterday as stark differences emerged between Curran and Griffin’s versions of the events that led to the resignation of Carol Hirschfeld.
Griffin was at select committee meeting yesterday morning, attempting to clear up the ongoing saga concerning a meeting between Curran and Hirschfeld.
Griffin told the committee that Curran left a voicemail on his phone last week which implied he should write to the select committee to correct the record instead of showing up. He confirmed he still held the voicemail but refused to play 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.
The select committee is now writing to the state broadcaster to request the voicemail. If the request is refused, the Speaker can legally order that it be handed over.
There are serious differences between Curran’s account of the events that led to Hirschfeld’s resignation and Griffin’s.
Griffin appeared before the same committee on March 1 and inadvertently misled its members, telling them the December 5 meeting between Curran and RNZ’s content manager, Carol Hirschfeld, had been coincidental and not planned.
Curran had, in fact, planned the meeting with Hirschfeld a month before.
Curran herself has never said the meeting was coincidental but Hirschfeld repeatedly told her bosses it was. She has now resigned over misleading them.
Curran’s office contended last week that its staff had contacted RNZ’s office twice during March to set the record straight, and that this had been done through the proper processes.
‘‘On two occasions on the first of March and the 22nd of March, my office contacted RNZ to raise the issue of the inconsistency between Ms Hirschfeld’s account and my own,’’ Curran said last week.
But yesterday Griffin released a timeline to the select committee which describes the March 22 contact as not in fact a correction.
The March 1 call was between someone in the minister’s office and a staffer at RNZ – later revealed to be in the communications team. That was not escalated to Griffin but did make it to chief executive Paul Thompson.
Thompson told the committee this was ‘‘secondhand information’’ and after questioning Hirschfeld again, he continued to trust her version of events.
On March 22 Griffin said he received a telephone call just before Parliament’s Question Time from a staffer in the minister’s office advising him the meeting was likely to come up during questions and that the minister was going to say more about it.
Griffin said the staffer was clear Curran expected RNZ would have ‘‘no comment’’ on the matter.
According to the timeline, he then asked if that meant the meeting had been planned, which the staffer confirmed. He then asked if any consideration had been given to the fact that meant he had misled a select committee. The staffer ‘‘agreed that was the case but this had not been addressed’’.
The next day, Griffin said he called the minister directly. ‘‘She responded defensively and said she could talk to anyone she wants,’’ he wrote.
‘‘When pressed, she acknowledged the information was correct and she had initiated the meeting. The minister then asked ‘What is your source?’ I asked her why she hadn’t informed me sooner. In response, she said I should have asked her.’’
Curran stood by her version of events.
‘‘My primary concern, and that of my staff, was that RNZ had misled the select committee by repeating claims from Carol Hirschfeld that it was a chance meeting.
‘‘I am assured that my staff did not say, on either of those dates, that ‘they expected there would be no comment from RNZ’.’’