OPINION
Revelations today that Cabinet Minister Kiri Allan might have yelled at a senior public servant are not necessarily damning, although they show how Allan has boxed herself into a corner.
Asked specifically yesterday whether she was a tough boss, or whether she’d ever shouted at staff, Allan replied “no” on both counts.
She repeatedly said there were no formal complaints or allegations against her, even when she wasn’t asked about those but about lower-level concerns with her behaviour.
Allan seemed so sure of her squeaky cleanliness that she lashed out at the National Party for attempting to cast a shroud of bullying over her on the flimsiest of evidence. Good on her, you’d think, so long as she has nothing to hide.
Then came the accusation, in a Stuff report this morning, of Allan shouting at staff, which she had no option but to refute.
So far there are four matters about Allan’s behaviour that have arisen.
1: More than a year ago, when Allan was Conservation Minister, concerns about the working relationship were enough to see a private secretary end their secondment early. The head of the Conservation Department, Penny Nelson, discussed the issue with Ministerial Services, and nothing further was brought to her attention.
2 and 3: Two items were found to be relevant to National MP Simeon Brown’s Official Information Act request seeking material referencing Allan’s “behaviour or conduct”.
One was a text message - between head of MBIE Carolyn Tremain and head of Kānoa Robert Pigou - in March this year. The content of the message was withheld, which Brown has appealed to the Ombudmsan.
Piguo told Stuff the text “does not express concerns about staff working in the office and therefore no follow-up action was needed”. He added if any staff raised concerns about how they were being treated, he would take appropriate action.
The other item involved the National Emergency Management Agency, but its nature and date and content were withheld. NEMA chief executive Dave Gawn, in the OIA response, added: “I was aware that there were concerns with regard to relationships in the Minister’s office and I further understand that action was taken to address these concerns.”
4: The anonymous senior public official who says, according to the Stuff report, that Allan shouted at them during a phone call.
Allan has said National’s ”fishing exercise” has come up empty, and refuted the shouting allegations that emerged today. She has framed the “challenges” in her office as her having the gumption to ask for help when she needs it, and working with heads of departments, including having robust discussions, to get better outcomes.
None of these, so far, are smoking guns. But they’re not necessarily nothing, either.
A lot remains unknown. What specifically triggered the DoC concerns, and the Nema ones, if they are different from each other? What did a senior MBIE official say about his minister in the text message, and how bad can it be if it had nothing to do with concerns about staff working in Allan’s office? What was said between Allan and the anonymous official on the phone call?
And then there are the different sides of every story, as some of Allan’s ex-staffers share their own perspectives on Twitter.
“She held high standards for herself and her mahi. She expected the same from those around her,” tweeted Alice Soper. “I can’t say I saw any examples of the accusations currently being thrown around.”
The Government is so far hanging its hat on the fact no formal complaints have been raised.
Acting Prime Minister Carmel Sepuloni distinguished between such complaints, which would require a formal process to investigate the accusations, and “hearsay or rumour, or even just a few issues between individuals and the minister [that are] not necessarily an elevated level of issues”.
These register at the low end of the seriousness scale. They fall short of the kind of persistent pattern of unreasonable and harmful behaviour that amounts to bullying or harassment.
Sepuloni added that a private secretary finishing a secondment early happened “quite often”, while a department chief saying discussions with the minister were not always enjoyable was “quite normal for a minister’s office”. (Asked about his relationship with Allan, Justice Ministry boss Andrew Kibblewhite said, without any ill-will: “I’ve had some very robust engagements with the minister, and I haven’t enjoyed all of them.”)
All of which poses the question: if things were so bad, why didn’t anyone make a formal complaint?
The Francis review into bullying and harassment in Parliament heard a number of possible reasons: a lack of faith and trust in the matter being sorted out or kept confidential, powerlessness in affecting a resolution if the accused is a senior MP, possible bias towards ministers over complainants, a perceived high-risk of being fired before an investigation even took place.
In the online survey results for the report, nearly half - 48 per cent - of current or former staff said they would not make a formal complaint. If they experienced bullying and harassment, three out of four said they would consider leaving the workplace.
Almost four out of five - 78 per cent - said they had observed or experienced “unreasonable or aggressive behaviour that intimidates or threatens”. One respondent said it was no longer okay to use “robustness as an excuse for bad behaviour”.
None of this means there are staffers in or seconded to Allan’s office who want to speak out but feel that they can’t, or who have experienced anything that might qualify as bullying or harassment.
Given what we know, or rather what remains unknown, there is hardly enough evidence of anything to warrant an investigation, or for Allan to be stood down or sacked. Not even National is calling for that.
But Allan is hardly covering herself in glory by saying, repeatedly, that she doesn’t know anything beyond what’s in the media, that she has nothing to answer for. There is no conciliation in her tone, no room for allowing for the possibility that something hurtful might have happened.
Concerns have been raised about working relationships in Allan’s office that have been confirmed by DoC and Nema.
If she hasn’t already, she should at least talk to the heads of those departments, as well as her own staff, to find out what, if anything, might require her to bust out of the corner she’s boxed herself into - and front.
Derek Cheng is a senior journalist for the Herald and a former Deputy Political Editor, whose stints in the Press Gallery in Parliament covered parts of the Helen Clark, John Key, and Jacinda Ardern governments.
It follows concerns about use-of-force powers being given to staff.