Former Transport Minister Michael Wood on his way to the Labour caucus, Parliament, Wellington. Photo / Mark Mitchell
Michael Wood has been referred to the privileges committee.
The referral follows reporting in the Herald that showed Wood had not declared his shares in Auckland Airport and other companies.
Registrar of Pecuniary and Other Specified Interests Maarten Wevers investigated the fact Wood had not properly declared his shares and returned his investigation to the Speaker.
The Speaker has referred the report to the Privileges Committee, which will investigate whether Wood has breached privilege by failing to properly disclose the shares.
The Wevers report determined that Wood’s inaccurate declarations involved “a question of privilege”.
He said the inquiry revealed “that Mr Wood did not turn his mind to his interests as he should have. In so doing, he has damaged his own standing as a member and has also cast a shadow over the entire Register, and the trust and confidence that the public are entitled to expect they can have in their elected representatives”.
The report also said Wood had made an inaccurate statement to the media when he said he had followed up with Wevers to correct the record back to 2017.
Wevers said this was not correct. Wevers reported Wood saying he “must have misspoken in the heat of the press scrum”.
Today was the first time Wood and Kiri Allan, two embattled Labour MPs, have returned to Parliament today acknowledging their mistakes and vowing to “crack on” in their roles and the election campaign head.
Allan, who has retained her ministerial portfolios after historic allegations of misbehaviour in her office surfaced, and Wood, who lost his after the Auckland Airport shares debacle, have proved headaches for Hipkins in recent weeks and likely played their role in successive negative polls for the party.
Wood returns to Parliament after resigning as a minister in June when it was revealed he held shares in Auckland Airport - while he was Transport Minister - despite being told multiple times by the Prime Minister’s office he needed to get rid of them.
He confirmed he would stay on and run again for Mt Roskill at the election.
He said the public could trust him.
“I‘ve spent all of my adult life working to try and make life better for New Zealanders.
“Like a lot of people, I do sometimes make mistakes. I have in this case, I’ve apologised for those. And I’ve spent the last few weeks putting those right.”
Wood was flanked in support by colleague and senior minister Kieran McAnulty.
Wood said they were “genuine errors” with “ignorance at times and a lack of focus on making sure that these things were done well”.
He said over the past few weeks at home in his electorate of Mt Roskill he had received a “really good response”.
“A lot of people sort of say, look, you’re a silly, goose, you’ve got this wrong, you need to sort these things out and get back and get focused on the issues. So that’s what I’m doing.”
Wood said he would work hard to become a minister again.
“It’s not a great feeling. I loved my job as a minister. I was able to make a real difference in some of those portfolios delivering things like Fair Pay Agreements, the Clean Car Discount ... many of us come to this place to do those sorts of things.
“But when I first came here, seven years ago, it was the privilege of my life to be the MP for Mt Roskill.
“And I’ll be getting back to work serving the people in my community and helping to win this election.”
McAnulty said he believed Hipkins had handled misbehaving ministers well.
“He’s done a good job. I like the way he works. He talks to people, he treats them with respect, he hears them out, considers the issues and makes a call. That’s what you expect from a leader.”
Allan took some leave recently to take care of her mental health and wellbeing, confirming her relationship had also recently ended.
At about the same time, some allegations were made about her behaviour towards staff over a year ago while she was Minister of Conservation.
She denied the allegations at the time but on Friday, after a meeting with Hipkins, accepted the concerns and apologised to anyone who found her behaviour towards them unacceptable.
“I think what you saw there, mate, was somebody that was going through a bit of a rough time,” Allan said of her recent mental health struggles and leave from work.
“I’ve sort of been pretty open about that. I’ve struggled with my mental health for a good part of my adult life. That’s something I try not to shy away from.”
She said she wanted to thank those who had supported her and would continue to work on it.
Allan was accompanied by Māori Development Minister Willie Jackson for support.
On the allegations around her workplace environment, Allan said she had reflected on them over Matariki.
“You want to create an environment where people will love strapping their boots on to come to work.
“My job I’ve been put in this role to do is to crack on in and deliver outcomes for the East Coast, but also in a range of portfolio areas ... to do that, you know, working with people is incredibly critical to that.
“Anybody who hasn’t felt like, you know, it’s been good to chuck the boots on and come to work ...
“Well, that’s something I want to take responsibility for and keep that door open.”