Michael Wood on his final straw with the Prime Minister, it’s D-day for Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown and Prince Harry leaves nothing off limits in his second day in court in the latest New Zealand Herald headlines. Video / NZ Herald
Senior Labour Minister Michael Wood was fighting for his political life on Wednesday after revelations he was reminded 12 times by the Cabinet Office to sell his Auckland Airport shares.
Prime Minister Chris Hipkins said on Tuesday that Wood had only been told to sell the shares about“half a dozen” times.
The revelation the number was double this stunned the House yesterday with Hipkins forced to read an excruciatingly long list of the 12 dates on which Wood was told to sell the shares, beginning in November 2020, shortly after Wood became a minister.
This appears to be the very last straw for Hipkins and Wood - the straw before the straw that breaks the camel’s back.
National’s deputy leader Nicola Willis said Wood needed to lose all of his remaining portfolios and be dropped from Cabinet.
After earlier offering some support for Wood, mainly because the value of the shares - $13,000 - was so low, Seymour said the revelation Wood had decided on the North Shore Airport’s application for “airport authority” status while he held the shares, changed matters.
Michael Wood during Question Time in the House, Parliament. Photo / Mark Mitchell
“Sloppy and incompetent, but where’s the harm? Today, that question is answered. Nobody can trust a Government where the Minister making decisions for your business might be secretly investing in your competitor,” he said.
When asked why he needed to be reminded to sell the shares 12 times, Wood conceded he should have responded faster.
“I should have responded to it with more urgency. I didn’t,” he said.
“That’s an error that I made. That’s what I’m fixing now,” he said.
Wood looks like he will survive the scandal, but is clearly on his final warning. The fact that he is a senior minister and therefore too great a “scalp” for National in an election year, and the fact he is good at his job means he will survive to fight another day - but only if no further revelations emerge.
A solemn Hipkins was briefly lost for words when asked to confirm whether he would be reinstated to the transport portfolio for the election, eventually managing to say only that he had “trust and confidence in Michael”.
That means Wood may have to go to the election with acting Transport Minister Kieran McAnulty - Labour’s third transport minister and spokesperson since taking office in 2017.
Three transport ministers is not a great look for a party that promised to deliver light rail to Mt Roskill by 2021 but has yet to deliver a single inch of track.
Hipkins also gave a less than convincing answer to Willis in Question Time when asked whether it was “honest” for Wood to say he was selling his shares, but fail to do so after each of those reminders.
Hipkins did not directly answer that question, responding only, “as I indicated yesterday, I think he should have divested the shares when he first said he was going to”.
The fact Wood repeatedly told the Cabinet Office he would sell the shares but never did potentially gives Hipkins the pretext to fire Wood completely should his position become untenable if the saga drags on with future revelations, or if his position becomes a drag on the Government.
Labour is already having to wear the opposition’s needling over the farcical revelation Wood was reminded 12 times to sell the shares.
Willis compared him unfavourably with a 13 year-old child.
“Sometimes I have to ask him five or six times to pick his towel up off the floor but a dozen times, that is next level,” she said.
“This saga went on for two and a half years - it is unfathomable to me,” she said.
Hipkins’ ministerial dramas are likely to get worse on Thursday with Education Minister Jan Tinetti being hauled before the privileges committee facing a charge of contempt of Parliament for taking weeks to correct an answer she made in the House.
She’ll face a grilling from eight of Parliament’s most senior MPs, which could eventually end in a recommendation she be censured by the House.
Meanwhile, the Cabinet Secretary’s inquiry into former minister Stuart Nash’s emails ticks closer to completion.
