The Prime Minister says he has confidence in Education Minister Jan Tinetti, but won't be commenting further while her case is before the Privileges Committee.
Video / Mark Mitchell
Education Minister Jan Tinetti was given a formal warning by police for apparent breaches of electoral advertising rules during the 2022 Tauranga byelection.
A Facebook page for the Labour candidate made a post on the final day of voting saying, “hashtag vote, hashtag Tinetti for Tauranga”, and reminding people today was their last chance to vote.
Under electoral law, candidates and parties are forbidden from campaigning on polling day. This includes social media posts.
The post, which was up for less than an hour before it was taken down, prompted the Electoral Commission to contact the Labour Party.
Now, a police spokesperson has confirmed police received a referral from the Electoral Commission regarding “apparent breaches of electoral advertising” by Tinetti.
While it did not meet the threshold for prosecution, a formal warning was issued.
Education Minister Jan Tinetti was formally warned by police for a breach of the Electoral Act. Photo / Mark Mitchell
Tinetti told the Herald she was “made aware of the Facebook post within an hour of it being made on my Facebook page and I removed it as soon as I saw it”.
“I apologised at the time and have taken steps to prevent it happening again.”
National leader Christopher Luxon said people deserved to know why the warning wasn’t made public.
“We need to know why she didn’t tell the public, whether she told the Prime Minister and whether Chris Hipkins knew about it when he promoted her.”
It comes as the minister has been referred to Parliament’s Privileges Committee by the Speaker of the House and could be found in contempt of Parliament after she failed to correct a false statement she made in the House quickly enough.
Tinetti would be the first MP in 15 years to be found in contempt of Parliament. The most recent was Winston Peters.
National leader Christopher Luxon wants answers regarding a police warning given to Jan Tinetti. Photo / Alex Cairns
The issue at the heart of the matter is that Tinetti told the House in February that she had no responsibility for the release of school attendance data.
She was told later that day by staff that this was an error, but only corrected the record on May 2-14 sitting days later. Parliament sat on February 23, when Tinetti could have corrected the answer.
Speaker Adrian Rurawhe told Parliament today he had referred the question to the Privileges Committee.
He said that a complaint had alleged that Tinetti had “deliberately misled the House by failing to correct a misleading statement at the earliest opportunity”.
“It is an important principle that the House can trust the accuracy of ministerial replies to Parliamentary questions,” Rurawhe said.
When correcting the answer earlier this month, Tinetti said she “subsequently became aware that my office did have input into the timing of the release of the data”, but did not say that this had been brought to her attention the very same day she made the incorrect statement.
“While mistakes are sometimes made which can result in the House receiving a misleading statement, it is vitally important that as soon as this is discovered, the minister returns to the House to correct their answer at their earliest opportunity,” Rurawhe said.
He said Tinetti did not think she needed to correct the answer in the House until she received a letter from Rurawhe on May 1 telling her that she did.
