Ministry of Pacific Peoples says staff were abused, lodges police report

The ministry's Secretary for Pacific Peoples, Gerardine Clifford-Lidstone.

By RNZ

The Ministry of Pacific Peoples says its staff were abused at their Wellington office yesterday morning, prompting it to contact the police.

In a statement, the ministry said two people tried to enter the office to film and get comment from staff in relation to sensitive expenditure.

The Public Service Commission last week criticised the ministry over spending nearly $40,000 on a farewell for its departing chief executive in October 2022.

Yesterday afternoon, after the office altercation, Act leader David Seymour joked he would like to blow up the ministry in an interview with Newstalk ZB.

He said: “In my fantasy we’d send a guy called Guy Fawkes in there and it’d be all over but we’ll probably have to have a more formal approach than that.”

Seymour later dismissed it as a joke, though Deputy Prime Minister Carmel Sepuloni said the comments were unnecessary and he should apologise.