PM John Key accepted that Paula Bennett had not sought to mislead him. Photo / Supplied
PM John Key accepted that Paula Bennett had not sought to mislead him. Photo / Supplied
KEY POINTS:
Prime Minister John Key said he would have sacked Social Development Minister Paula Bennett if he believed she had deliberately misled him over the letters she wrote to a court and the Parole Board in support of her daughter's offender partner.
In both letters, Paula Bennett mentions thefact she is a Member of Parliament.
Mr Key revealed yesterday that he believed he had received an assurance from her the week before that there had been no such correspondence.
"I asked her pretty directly the week earlier and the answer I got [was] that there hadn't been any correspondence," he said on Newstalk ZB.
Paula Bennett released the two letters on Saturday and Mr Key issued a public reprimand saying he was disappointed he had not been told about the letters when he had asked her about issues relating to the man in question, Viliami Halaholo, the week before.
The Herald on Sunday revealed the previous week that Halaholo, a violent young gang member, had been bailed to her care between September 2006 and July 2007 and is now serving a prison sentence.
That was news to Mr Key - though he said it was a private family issue.
He said at his post-Cabinet press conference yesterday he had asked her a general question about whether in her capacity as a minister there had been any engagement or involvement with this young man.
"And she said to me 'No' nor had there been in her capacity as a Member of Parliament.
"I took that to mean that it would include correspondence."
But he accepted her argument that her mention of herself as a Member of Parliament was in a largely "perfunctory way which is just stating her occupation".
It had not been written on MPs' parliamentary letterhead.
He had accepted that she had not sought to mislead him and that she genuinely believed she had written the letters as a private citizen. "If she had, and I believed that she deliberately tried to mislead me, I would have sacked her."
