Jones’ slip on 61 meetings ‘extraordinary’ — National

The Opposition says it is “extraordinary” that Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones failed to disclose 61 meetings, forcing him to correct 20 written answers.

But Jones called it a “clerical mismatch in the office” and said there was “nothing to see here”.

As part of its role in Opposition, National puts written questions to ministers for them to answer in due course.

National economic development spokesman Paul Goldsmith asked numerous questions between March and September, many regarding what meetings and events Jones had attended.

On 20 occasions, Jones’ answers had to be amended to include meetings that were previously not disclosed.

“It is completely implausible that the minister did not notice when signing off on his answers to written questions that there were significant volumes of meetings missing,” Goldsmith said. “How can we have any confidence in what the minister says when so many statements are proven to be inaccurate?”

The meetings were always in the diary, Jones said, but in “the transmission from one system to another something just got slipped out”.