Horomia sticks to prepared answers

By AUDREY YOUNG political editor

Maori Affairs Minister Parekura Horomia stuck closely to his script in Parliament yesterday after his nonsensical answers the day before in the fallout from the Te Mangai Paho inquiry.

National MP Murray McCully and Act MP Rodney Hide again set their sights on Mr Horomia, one of the Government's most vulnerable ministers in the House.

But the Government's seasoned attackers, Deputy Prime Minister Michael Cullen and Education Minister Trevor Mallard, had coached Mr Horomia before question time.

And colleagues filled some of the vacant seats around him for moral support.

So little did Mr Horomia waiver from his prepared answers that he repeatedly failed to answer the question.

Had he actually read the report on the broadcasting funding agency and its dealings with Maori Sports Casting International?

"When I received the external report on May 28, I asked my department to review all the [parliamentary] questions and my responses relating to Te Mangai Paho, to check their accuracy," he said repeatedly.

"My officials provided me with a report on June 9."

Eventually he said he had read the report "several times".

But he appeared unwilling to acknowledge that he might have become aware of inaccuracies by any means other than by being officially informed in writing on June 9 - 12 days after he had received and presumably read the report.

Though he did say: "It is important to understand that accuracy is accurate."

Act's Ken Shirley was surprised Mr Horomia could not have been aware that he had previously told Parliament a particular Te Mangai employee had not received cash for some of his sportscasting when the report said he had.

Mr Shirley: "Did the minister read the newspapers, listen to the radio, or watch television news about the Treasury-led review team's report that Mr Tame Te Rangi had received cash?

"If so, was he totally unconscious of the fact he had told Parliament that Mr Te Rangi had not received cash?"

Mr Horomia: "Sometimes I watch the television and listen to the radio, and sometimes when one is under siege, one does not."

By the end of question time, the Opposition had turned its attention to Leith Comer, the chief executive of the Maori development ministry Te Puni Kokiri, over an apology he gave to Mr Horomia in April.

Mr Hide and Mr McCully yesterday sent a joint letter to State Services Commissioner Michael Wintringham accusing Mr Comer of serious misconduct.

They say that Mr Comer created a false impression at a press briefing held two days after the release of a report on Te Mangai Paho's funding of Maori Sports Casting International.

Information in the report, released on May 28, made it clear that previous information Mr Horomia had supplied to Parliament had been wrong.

At the press briefing two days later, Mr Comer was asked if he had apologised for the incorrect answers and said yes.

Mr McCully says that gave the impression that Mr Comer was referring to those evident from the report.

But Mr Horomia told Parliament it related to a single question that predated the report.

Mr Comer had given him a written apology on April 10.

Mr McCully said in Parliament that Mr Comer had held the briefing "in an attempt to get the heat off from the public and the media off his minister".

"Such a public servant is engaging in a rather large enterprise in deceit and I question whether such a person, if those facts are true, can hold office in this country.



"You can't call together the nation's media in this country and tell them one thing, knowing that it can be totally untrue, and then expect to live to tell the tale."