Roy back in Parliament, stays loyal to Hide

Heather Roy was dumped as deputy leader of act at a cuacus meeting On August 17. Photo / Mark Mitchell

Act MP Heather Roy made an unexpected return to Parliament today, pledging her loyalty to party leader Rodney Hide and defending her track record as a minister.

Flanked by her husband and Sir Roger Douglas, Mrs Roy attended question time in the House today, even though she was expected to take two weeks off to think about her future.

Mr Hide was not with her, nor had they spoken today.

He indicated yesterday that there were hard questions to be asked before Mrs Roy could return to the caucus.

"I'm really appreciative of Rodney's concern," Mrs Roy said.

"He is worried that I'm going to come under pressure. I'm here and answering questions and I'm confident about being back."

Mrs Roy defended her time as Associate Defence Minister.

"Defence minister Wayne Mapp sent me a very nice note ... that we were a very effective team and that I could pride myself on the lasting legacy of the defence review for the very good work I've done with defence."

When asked why she had made an early return, she said: "I'd had enough of gardening. I want to be back here ... and there are projects that I want to get on with now and do.

"Because 86,000 New Zealanders voted for a list that I was high up on, and I have a duty to come back here and do my job and I'm looking forward to it, so I'm back."

She said the party had been damaged by last week, when Mrs Roy was voted out as deputy leader and replaced by John Boscawen, and that everybody had to take responsibility for that.

"Rodney and I can both lift ourselves above the fracas of last week.

"2005 to 2008 was pretty tricky when it was just Rodney and myself in very trying circumstances because it was just the two of us dealing with a lot of issues.

"We worked well together and I believe we can do again."

Mrs Roy said she was completely loyal to Mr Hide and Mr Boscawen.

She dodged questions about the leak of her dossier, in which she described Mr Hide as a bully who had been trying to intimidate and discredit her, but she eventually said: "There's nothing in there [the document] that I understand to be untrue."

She defended her relationship to her ministerial advisor Simon Ewing-Jarvie, who Mr Hide had described as as undue influence.

"Anybody who knows me that I'm pretty single-minded. I can make up my own mind about things. I was a competent minister and I really regret that the really good projects that I've started, I'm not going to be able to help complete.

"We've been family friends for many years, our boys went to school together, we campaigned for Act together, we've worked on defence issue together.

"He always acted professionally and he was a valued member of my staff."

Rumours about them having an affair are "absolutely wrong".

She said she felt fragile last week.

"I was bruised, I had just been dumped. I think that anybody would have felt that way and that shows the human side of politicians, and we do have one."

Dr Wayne Mapp responds

Dr Mapp said he had concerns about the inappropriate language in two defence papers, but he had no issues with Mrs Roy as his Associate Defence Minister, nor her advisor Dr Ewing-Jarvie.

"That was largely generated by Mrs Roy's advisor."

He said one of the documents has been written by Mrs Roy's office.

"The language was inappropriate and I asked for the document to be withdrawn."

He said about a month ago he was told about rumours of drug use from Dr Ewing-Jarvie and he passed those concerns on to Ministerial Services.

"It was hearsay but once I had heard it I had to pass that to Ministerial Services."

He said the fact that Dr Ewing-Jarvie had failed to pass a security clearance did not mean he had been accessing sensitive defence documents.

"I did not have concerns about the inappropriate treatment of classified documents."