The messages from Handley show three text from her to him and six texts from him to her. As stated, Ardern does not engage with him on the issue of the CTO job but she gives him her private Gmail address after he texts her saying: "A number of people have urged me to seriously consider this CTO thing ….I think that role is more about society than technology so I'm not sure the average CIO [chief information officer] or CTO is the answer," and the following day he asks for the best email address to send some "starter thoughts."
He emails her with a longer message including some ideas to help her, which he said he wanted to do whether or not he got the job of CTO. In one of his texts he asks: "PS how's mumhood?"
Bridges told reporters at Parliament today that Ardern had "misled the Parliament and she has misled the public."
"She has presented a picture of one text of a very cursory sort of a thing when actually it is much more than that.
"It is clearly to her as Prime Minister and they are clearly discussing what could be for Derek Handley should he or when he comes back. It is a very misleading picture she has presented in Parliament vs the facts.
"I say to the Prime Minister, you should correct Prime Minister. That is the right thing to do. That is what parliamentarians have always done on issues like this."
Bridges said it was important to see everything, including the correspondence between Ardern and Curran.
"It seems clear to me there are more texts, emails, correspondence to work out what has happened for a Government claiming to be open and transparent but sadly is looking anything but."
Bridges said he imagined Handley would be feeling "pretty rotten" about the matter for him to release his correspondence.
"He is obviously at some level a mate with the Prime Minister and that is there but the truth is he has been treated shabbily."
"He has had a series of texts and communications with the Prime Minister and the minister. He has been offered the job, he has packed up his family, he has come back to New Zealand and then he has been unceremoniously dumped. And he has had no explanation for that.
Bridges said there was nothing to suggest that Handley got the job because he was friendly with the Prime Minister.
"But it did give him the in. It did mean he did have the cellphone number of the Prime Minister. It did mean that she gave him her private Gmail…It did mean they were going to catch up in Titirangi down the track. The truth is, I suspect, we will never know in fact what the Prime Minister to Clare Curran about this, whether she said 'look this is my mate, this is a great person, he should be in the role, he is the guy for the job.'"
He said the Government was shoddy at declaring mateships and friendships and such relationships should be declared.
He disputed whether Ardern had declared her knowledge of Handley but in fact Hansard shows she told Parliament last Tuesday she had done so at cabinet's appointments and honours committee where he had been appointed.
Ardern said in New York this morning that she nothing to correct in Parliament, a view backed up by Acting Prime Minister Winston Peters, Finance Minister Grants Robertson and deputy Labour leader Kelvin Davis.
Last Tuesday she said: "I can rule out any direct verbal communication. I haven't spoken with Mr Handley in at least a year, maybe two. As I say my best recollection is I received a text message that I didn't directly engage in. For all other platforms, I would want to go back and check, but I don't recall directly communicating in regards to that role."
