KEY POINTS:
David Benson-Pope's ministerial career will be hanging by a thread right now after today's Question Time.
The Environment Minister's answer to National's Gerry Brownlee in question six confirmed what many suspected - that Benson-Pope put pressure on the Environment Ministry chief executive to remove Madeleine Setchell from her job as the ministry's communications manager because her partner was John Key's press secretary.
This is the smoking gun, albeit sitting in his own hand.
This is what he told Parliament this afternoon he had told Hugh Logan about working with Setchell: "From the point of view of my office, I will likely be less free and frank in meetings with such a person."
The crime is not so much the political interference; it is that all along he has been misleading about whether he gave an opinion to Hugh Logan about whether Setchell should keep her job.
The line he has been peddling all week is that all he had conveyed to Logan was that it was an employment issue that was his, Logan's, alone.
He misled me as well.
When my colleague John Armstrong and myself went to Benson-Pope's office on Monday, my very first question was: "I was wondering if you can explain a little bit of what Hugh Logan knew of your views when he made that decision [to remove Setchell]."
His reply was as follows: "In respect [pause], nothing. Hugh knew my view was matters of employment were matters for the chief executive."
Accepting that he had not conveyed a view, I later asked Benson-Pope if the ministry in getting rid of Setchell had been trying to "second-guess how you would feel about working with her".
"No. I think the responsibility and I know the legal responsibility is entirely with the chief executive. He could not have done better than to take advice from his employer and ... Mr Rennie makes it clear that the separations that are required were followed."
Based on my interview of Acting State Services Commissioner Iain Rennie last Friday, after the State Services briefing on the matter was released, Rennie had been misled as well.
I asked Rennie whether Logan had sought Mr Benson-Pope's opinion before sacking Madeleine Setchell, Rennie said:
"My understanding is that he did not seek the minister's opinion."
Benson-Pope misled Sean Plunket on Radio New Zealand's Morning Report on Tuesday as well. Asked if he would have had a problem working with Ms Setchell he said: "That is not an issue for me."
Helen Clark will have no need to pore over the exact words of what Benson-Pope said in the past week.
She need only ask herself what impression he left her with. If the answer, like the rest of us, was she believed he had not expressed resistance to working with her, he will be gone.
