Michael Wood to apologise to Parliament, but not found in contempt

Former Transport Minister Michael Wood did not disclose airport shares he held in a trust. Photo / Mark Mitchell

Former Minister Michael Wood should apologise to Parliament after failing to disclose his significant shareholdings, Parliament’s Privileges Committee has recommended in a report.

The Privileges Committee looked into the affair after the Herald revealed Wood had not declared minor shareholdings in Auckland Airport and Contact Energy, despite being obliged to declare them to Parliament as an MP and the Cabinet Office as a minister. He only declared them last year, despite being an MP since 2016.

Despite a strongly worded review by Parliament’s registrar of pecuniary interests, Sir Maarten Wevers, Wood has not been found in contempt of Parliament.

In fact, the committee has recommended that Parliament’s Standing Orders Committee look at clarifying the rules around how shares held in trusts - as most of Woods’ were - should be declared.

The committee stopped short of finding Wood in contempt of Parliament because it believed that Wood had not made the inaccurate declaration knowingly.

The committee’s report found “it more likely than not that Mr Wood was genuinely unaware when making his returns for the years 2017–2021 of his personal shareholdings in AIA [Auckland International Airport] and Contact”.

“To make out a finding of contempt, the committee would need to be satisfied that Mr Wood failed to declare these interests ‘knowingly’. The facts in this case suggest the opposite—that Mr Wood was unaware of his own interests over this period, due to a combination of taking insufficient care to examine his own affairs, and a miscommunication with his investment adviser about his interests,” it said.

Wood told the Herald that he report confirmed he “should have declared the shares I personally owned in the 2017-21 period, and that I should have corrected the record after I declared them in 2022 and 2023″.

He said he had acknowledged this already and confirmed he would apologise to the House.

“I have learned a clear lesson. In an intense and all-consuming job I lost sight of the importance of these matters, and I will strongly prioritise complete compliance in this area as I continue to my work in Parliament” Wood said.

The committee disagreed with Wevers’ report into Wood, particularly the finding that “members must, under certain circumstances, declare shareholdings held in trust”.

The committee said that it did not think that Wood broke the rules in failing to declare the shares he held in the trust.

This is a significant finding because it was the shares held in the trust that saw Wood ultimately leave Cabinet.

The committee said that Wevers’ finding that trust holdings needed to be declared relied on guidance from 2008, which found that “all distinct interests must be declared, regardless of whether they are channelled through a trust or third party”.

However the committee said Appendix B of the rules “does not itself require this” and another clause “clearly states that annual returns must include the interests specified in the Appendix”.

The Standing Orders Committee will now consider clarifying what should and should not be declared. It will need to hurry. The committee is due to report back its recommendations for changes to the Standing Orders, Parliament’s in-house rules, soon so that they can be adopted by the next Parliament.