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Prime Minister Chris Hipkins says claims of Kiri Allan treating staff poorly, including that she “yelled and screamed” at a senior official, are from “some time ago” and none constitute “formal complaints”.
Hipkins was once again confronted with questions about alleged issues in minister Kiri Allan’s office raised on Friday, as he ended a week-long trade trip in China.
Allan has strongly rejected the allegations, raised by Stuff reporting.
Hipkins said issues with Allan had not been “raised formally through the system, so there haven’t been formal complaints, they relate to some time ago”.
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“I wasn’t the prime minister at that time,” he said.
On Friday, Stuff’s reporting referenced a Kānoa meeting which Allan attended. Kānoa is the regional economic development unit within the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment.
This took place during Hipkins’ time as Prime Minister. A senior public servant told Stuff the following in regard to a Kānoa meeting: “She wouldn’t let me speak in a meeting that I had set up with her to give her a briefing that she’d been asking for…
Nathan McKinnon/Stuff
Prime Minister Chris Hipkins visits Shanghai.
“The poor staff are sitting there, with other people around the table…like a deer in headlights. She spoke as badly to the Kānoa staff as she did to her own.”
Kānoa is the regional economic development unit within the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment.
In a statement responding to this, Allan said: “The minister strongly refutes these allegations. No complaints have ever been taken up with MBIE or myself and certainly nothing that resembles these allegations.”
On Friday, Hipkins said it was “very difficult to form judgements on anonymous complaints because there’s no ability to investigate them or to look at the facts behind them”.
“So, therefore, I have to work on the feedback that I’ve had from the chief executive level, which is that they are satisfied that any issues were resolved at the time that were raised.”
ROBERT KITCHIN/Stuff
Kiritapu Allan holds a press conference in Parliament.
Hipkins said there had not been any further complaints or any formal complaints “that anyone has raised with me”.
“So I accept them at their word on that.”
Hipkins said he made his expectations clear that “all staff working in ministers offices will be retreated with respect, with dignity”.
“These are historic allegations. Very hard to investigate historic accusations when they’re anonymous.”
It comes just over a week after Hipkins announced the resignation of Michael Wood as a minister after new shareholdings were revealed.
Wood, already being scrutinised for his handling of Auckland Airport shares, resigned from Cabinet outright on Wednesday after disclosing to Hipkins further shareholdings he had not declared that conflicted with decisions he made or was involved in.
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