Minister Clare Curran's forgotten meeting to cost her $46,000 a year in lost salary

The bungling over a meeting will cost former cabinet minister Clare Curran nearly as much as the median Kiwi income.

The cumulative effect of her failings over her February meeting with entrepreneur Derek Handley about the new, $500,000-a-year role of chief technology officer will push her salary down by $46,168 a year.

By being kicked out of cabinet, by Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, Curran's annual salary drops from $296,007, to $249,839, the salary of ministers outside cabinet.

The median New Zealand weekly income is $997 - $51,844 a year - according to Statistics NZ.

Derek has passed on that he has no comment and nothing to add to the story.

Derek Handley's PR representative

As well as being removed from cabinet, Curran resigned from her government digital services portfolio and her open government responsibilities. She remains Minister of Broadcasting, Communications and Digital Media, and Associate Minister of ACC.

Ardern sacked Curran because of a second failure to properly declare a meeting, the meeting with Handley over his interest in the tech job, which the Government has been struggling to fill.

The 8pm meeting in Curran's Beehive office wasn't recorded in her official diary, officials weren't told of it and it was later mistakenly omitted from a written answer to a parliamentary question from the National Party.

It was Curran's second strike, after a similar omission in relation to a meeting with former Radio NZ head of content, Carol Hirschfeld, earlier this year.

Curran said she simply forgot about the Handley meeting - which had been set up directly between she and Handley - when National's question was answered.

Handley, who is in New York, has not replied directly to Herald inquiries. His public relations representative told the Herald, "Derek has passed on that he has no comment and nothing to add to the story."

Illustration / Rod Emmerson