Gerry Brownlee MP
National Party State Services Spokesman

6 December 2007

MfE didn’t use slur publicly – Mallard did

National Party State Services spokesman Gerry Brownlee says Trevor Mallard must apologise immediately, after confirmation today that he misinterpreted a report on MfE whistleblower Erin Leigh’s work.

“The Ministry for the Environment didn’t use the information publicly, Trevor Mallard did. His refusal to apologise is an outrage.”

Mr Brownlee is referring to a statement issued by MfE boss Hugh Logan where he apologises for the information given to the Minister being ‘interpreted in this adverse way’.

“After the botched handling of the inquiry which followed the politically motivated sacking of Madeleine Setchell, the Ministry appears to have learned nothing about the passing on of ‘inaccurate’ information.

“But that provides no relief for Mr Mallard, who chose to ‘interpret’ the Environment Ministry’s briefing in the way he did. Surely, if he was in doubt he would have checked?

“Mr Mallard can’t now pretend it didn’t happen. The potentially career-wrecking words came from his mouth. He would have known soon after he uttered them that he was wrong, and there has been significant public comment on it since then.”

Mr Brownlee is also calling on the State Services Minister to release the advice she received from State Services Commissioner Mark Prebble which she referred to in Parliament today.

“Clearly, Annette King has received some sort of advance briefing on Mr Prebble’s investigation. She should make those details public.”

ENDS

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