Harete Hipango said she regrets instructing a staffer to edit her Wikipedia page by removing controversies from her biography.
"Earlier this week I asked a staff member to edit my Wikipedia page," Hipango said.
"I recognise that this was an unwise decision and I regret that it may be distracting from what we should be focused on, which is holding the Government to account."
Earlier in the day, Hipango appeared unaware she had done this, telling media she would inquire into what went wrong, and thanking the media for alerting her to the situation.
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Advertise with NZME.The allegations emerged overnight after Wikipedia editors spotted that the "controversies" section of Hipango's Wikipedia page had been edited.
The gaffe-prone MP has an extensive selection of prior controversies - including repeatedly being found near anti-vaccination protests and allegations of misspending Parliamentary funds - detailed on her Wikipedia page.
Wikipedia moderators traced the person making the edits to a Parliamentary Services IP address, meaning the person making the edits likely worked on the Parliament precinct - and probably for Parliament itself. This would include staffers.
The person making the edits identified themselves as a staffer of Hipango.
"I am Harete Hipango's staff member and am editing her page on her behalf. She's stated that much of the information in the "Controveries" [sic] section is false, and is causing a lot of distress to her family," the editor said.
Other Wikipedia editors judged this meant the editor had a likely conflict of interest so undid the changes.
Hipango would not confirm this morning whether or not the editor was a staffer of hers.
She appeared not to know about the editing allegations. She thanked the Herald for making her aware of the changes, and then hung up the phone.
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Advertise with NZME."At the moment, I don't have any comment," Hipango said.
When pressed as to what she knew about the allegations, Hipango said she'd "make some inquiries".
National leader Chris Luxon was asked this morning what he thought about Hipango's antics but he did not immediately respond.
This afternoon, he called her actions "silly and unwise".
"I've made that pretty crystal clear in my expectations for them and that's what I expect going forward."
Luxon said his deputy Nicola Willis had spoken to Hipango.
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Advertise with NZME."What I'd say though is that people actually aren't interested in the story. They're much more interested in inflation and they're much more interested in rapid antigen tests," Luxon said.
