Peachey accused of intimidating college

Allan Peachey

National MP Allan Peachey is being accused of running a vindictive campaign to intimidate Selwyn College just three months after his "knife in your back" email to the co-principal.

Education Minister Steve Maharey said Mr Peachey had been asking numerous Parliamentary questions about Selwyn College, had put in Official Information Act requests to get data on the school, and had sent a staff member to the school's board of trustees' meeting.

Mr Maharey said the school's board was "uncomfortable and intimidated" by the process.

Mr Peachey, National's associate education spokesman, told the Herald he did not think he was being intimidatory and was merely trying to find out information about the school, which appeared to be under-performing.

The Tamaki MP's inquiries come just three months after he formally apologised in Parliament for an email he sent to Selwyn College's co-principal, Carol White, in which he said: "P.S. Yes, I do have a knife in your back, so be careful!".

Mr Maharey said Mr Peachey's tactics were unusual and inappropriate.

"What we have had is clearly a MP who dislikes Selwyn College and has threatened them," Mr Maharey said.

"He apologises in Parliament and then immediately starts it up again. It doesn't seem like he has backed off from his threats to Selwyn College."

Mr Peachey said the quality of the school was a major topic of conversation in the electorate.

"Everywhere I go in the electorate people are raising concerns with me and telling me things, so I'm trying to get the physical data to sort it out for myself."

Mr Peachey said he believed 60 to 70 per cent of parents in the area were refusing to send their children to Selwyn College because they were concerned about its standards.

He said his electorate agent had attended a board meeting and would continue to do so because the quality of the school was a major community issue.

Selwyn College board of trustees chairman John Hinchcliff, a former vice-chancellor at Auckland University of Technology, said he would discuss the matter with Ms White and said he hoped to have a meeting with Mr Peachey.

It is understood there has been a history of tension between Mr Peachey and Ms White and that Mr Peachey has made disparaging remarks about Selwyn College to a parents' meeting at a local primary school.

Mr Maharey said that local MPs who were concerned about a school would usually approach the Ministry of Education and the school's board to see what could be done to help.

"It is inappropriate for an MP, let alone for an associate education spokesman, to be making it clear that the kind of behaviour he will adopt if he doesn't like the way you run your school is a vindictive approach to that school."